488 research outputs found

    The inherent liminality of lesbian detectives: Shifting spaces and lesbian crime fiction 1984-2022

    Get PDF
    This thesis studies lesbian detective fiction and specifically considers this genre in its early decades (1980s-1990s) from the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand. This thesis postulates that out of a sample pool of a hundred novels, there are recurring patterns of behaviours and attitudes among the protagonists of this genre within certain physical and metaphorical spaces. These patterns demonstrate a destabilised identity, as the lesbian sleuth never ceases to explore and test the boundaries of her authority as an enforcer of law and order and of her suppressed spatiality as a member of a sexual minority. This causes her to live in a perpetual state of Insider/Outsider liminality and it causes queer trauma to be a fundamental aspect of her character. This thesis considers this concept as the result of long-standing, systemic homophobia and heterosexist normativity, and utilises the notion of queer trauma to interpret the way the lesbian sleuth is inescapably stuck between a sense of duty and justice and a yearning for belonging and self-affirmation. The interpretive process is supported by an extensive and in-depth theoretical research into the fields of history, culture, geography, feminist criticism, gender, and sexuality studies for the selected subject matter. The spaces selected and analysed in this thesis are the queer closet, the medical establishment, domestic settings, and the gay bar. These spaces have been chosen for the significant, emblematic ways in which the lesbian detectives interact with them and have been analysed in order of their importance for the protagonists’ characterisation. The introduction includes introductory statements and the theoretical framework, the first chapter overviews major detectives in the history of crime literature from a spatial perspective; the second chapter discusses the queer closet; the third chapter considers the space of the clinic and the topics of queer trauma and of the pathologisation of homosexuality; the fourth chapter analyses the domestic settings of the protagonists; the fifth chapter examines the context of the gay bar and its history; finally, the conclusion offers closing statements about the focus and originality of this thesis. The originality of this thesis lies in its focus on spaces and on the relationship between the protagonist and society, law and order, and Self and Other. This thesis contributes to the knowledge of queer literature by specifically considering the unescapable liminality of the lesbian/Outsider detective/Insider

    Did you just make that up? An auto-ethnographic investigation into the emergence of images in painting, as situated within the framework of C20th and C21st British Art

    Get PDF
    I am a painter. My paintings depict figures in groups or alone, enacting narrative in illusionistic space. The paintings are produced without much explicit preparation in terms of their content, relying on improvisation in the studio for their realisation. I do not have a clear idea of when they are finished, either, and I often alter paintings long after their first conclusion. I set out to examine where the images and spaces I depict come from, how their form develops and how they might continue to emerge; how I make things up, in other words. In doing this, I hope to make the paintings better by increasing the complexity of my understanding of them, to shed light on creative practice in general, and to offer insight to other painters like me, and to researchers into creative practice. I have subjected the emergent and shifting nature of my paintings to academic study by combining a close attention to the work and its processes with a self-reflective journal of the activity and ongoing theoretical writing. This process generates a virtuous spiral of activity in the studio, as writing about the painting produces insight, which is fed into the painting, making it better, and producing more insight, which is fed into the painting and so on. In subjecting my studio practice to study, I hope to open it up in a way that might be useful to others. The analysis of reflections on my own painting - developing the concept of the intersubjective object - is an attempt to make sense of interrelationships between the material, social and theoretical territories of painting. This is where the originality of my study lies. In presenting it, I offer insights into my creative practice that will be useful for other creative practitioners, and for academic study of creative practice. I address questions about improvisation and narrative development in my paintings. First, I introduce the thesis and lay out its terms. In chapter 1 I set out the literature which informs the thesis, and in chapter 2 I set out the methodologies I have approached in working out my own method. In chapter 3 self-reflection and reflexivity are discussed in relation to improvisation and narrative, in chapter 4 which I examine how meaning is realised in relation to the surface of the painting, in chapter 5 which the positioning of my studio practice in terms of its wider contexts is examined in relation to painting as an intersubjective object and in chapter 6 which I look at continuity in my studio practice. I propose cloth as a metaphor for the work, as an articulation of development within individual paintings and within the practice. In chapter 7 I discuss the problem of finishing paintings. This research has brought my painting into sharper focus, examining the relationship of painting to the improvisation of content. It has allowed me to re-examine elements of my practice that I have either taken for granted or overlooked, revealing historical parallels that would have remained invisible otherwise. It develops an understanding of the significance of narrative and improvisation in any creative practice, elucidating ideas about the self in creativity. In differentiating painting from other fine art practices and creative forms it produces a powerful sense of the significance of the painting in making meaning. The research leads me to the identification of a painting as an intersubjective object, in that my own subjectivity and those of others meet and operate there to generate and develop meaning. This theoretical construction can be employed in discussion of other art works, as well as my own

    Why are all the Black kids tweeting together? : exploring the impact of Black social media spaces on Black college students at historically White institutions.

    Get PDF
    Why are all the Black Kids Tweeting Together? is a mixed methods study that applies critical race theory (CRT) and the campus racial climate framework to explore the role same-race peer groups created on social media platforms play in the experiences of Black students at Historically White Institutions (HWIs). Building on the research that examines how peer groups influence student experiences, this study gauges why Black students choose to create and participate in Black social media spaces and the influence of the campus climate on their decisions to do so. Using data collected from virtual focus group interview sessions, photo-elicitation, and a survey, this study seeks to uplift the voices of Black college students and encourage them to use their voice to share their stories individually and collectively. Evidence from this study suggests that Black social media spaces operate as a source of joy, self-preservation, and resistance to assimilation. Study findings also indicate that Black students at HWIs use Black social media spaces to expand their sense of community, thrive in spite of being minoritized, and engage in spaces that support racial identity expression and affirmation. As colleges and universities continue to search for and develop ways to support students from underrepresented groups, they must acknowledge how these groups use agency to develop their own strategies to be successful as valid and sources of knowledge that can inform the decisions of campus administrators. This study offers up a new lens through which the experiences of Black students at HWIs can be understood, with a specific focus on how same-race peer groups on social media provide supportive, safe, and affirming spaces that aid in their persistence and success in environments that can be racially challenging

    Dressing like Laura: Reconstructing women's dress on the Great Plains frontier through the national Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum's dress 2829

    Get PDF
    This project explores why women on the 19th century Northern Great Plains frontier continued to follow Euro-American modesty and fashion conventions and purposefully sought out fashionable clothing. In the popular imagination, the frontier was an egalitarian space with minimal cultural constraints; theoretically, it was a place where women could wear clothing that did not align with overall Victorian norms. Yet women from Dakota Territory, North Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, and Montana from 1875 to 1885 continued to wear corsets, wrist length sleeves, and ankle-length skirts and even spend their families’ hard-earned money on decorative clothing.In the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum there is a silk dress which this project recreates. The most recent historiography of experimental archeology defines the practice as “the reconstruction of past buildings, technologies, things, and environmental contexts, based on archaeological evidence, and their use, testing, recording, and experience. Through these we are better able to understand the character and role of materiality and material culture in peoples’ lives.” This project continues the field’s turn towards phenomenology and embodied history.Practicality would dictate that settlers eschew fashion norms and dress conventions, but fashion is far more than practicality. Clothing is a physical manifestation of culture and a symbol of the wearer’s morality, class, gender, race, and respectability. This reality was no different on the frontier. Women expressed a desire to return to the lifestyle they had before arriving there. By wearing normative Euro-American clothing, a woman signaled to herself and others that she was still respectable and adhering to societal norms; she had not become uncivilized in the West, and the realities of frontier had not overcome her. Through continuing to follow Euro-American modesty conventions in their everyday clothing and wearing fashionable clothing that served no practical purpose, women were signaling a desire for Euro-American culture to continue and thrive in a frontier space. Clothing was an expression of the hope that one’s burdens were temporary, and a declaration that the supposed wildness of frontier had not consumed the women

    The Palgrave handbook of global slavery throughout history

    Get PDF
    This open access handbook takes a comparative and global approach to analyse the practice of slavery throughout history. To understand slavery - why it developed, and how it functioned in various societies – is to understand an important and widespread practice in world civilisations. With research traditionally being dominated by the Atlantic world, this collection aims to illuminate slavery that existed in not only the Americas but also ancient, medieval, North and sub-Saharan African, Near Eastern, and Asian societies. Connecting civilisations through migration, warfare, trade routes and economic expansion, the practice of slavery integrated countries and regions through power-based relationships, whilst simultaneously dividing societies by class, race, ethnicity and cultural group. Uncovering slavery as a globalising phenomenon, the authors highlight the slave-trading routes that crisscrossed Africa, helped integrate the Mediterranean world, connected Indian Ocean societies and fused the Atlantic world. Split into five parts, the handbook portrays the evolution of slavery from antiquity to the contemporary era and encourages readers to realise similarities and differences between various manifestations of slavery throughout history. Providing a truly global coverage of slavery, and including thematic injections within each chronological part, this handbook is a comprehensive and transnational resource for all researchers interested in slavery, the history of labour, and anthropology.Cities, Migration and Global Interdependence 1350-200

    Elite perceptions of the Victorian and Edwardian past in inter-war England

    Get PDF
    It is often argued by historians that members of the cultivated Elite after 1918 rejected the pre-war past. or at least subjected it to severe denigration. This thesis sets out to challenge such a view. Above all, it argues that inter-war critics of the Victorian and Edwardian past were unable to reject it even if that was what they felt inclined to do. This was because they were tied to those periods by the affective links of memory, family, and the continually unfolding consequences of the past in the present. Even the severest critics of the pre-war world, such as Lytton Strachey, were less frequently dismissive of history than ambivalent towards it. This ambivalence, it is argued, helped to keep the past alive and often to humanise it. The thesis also explores more positive estimation of Victorian and Edwardian history between the wars. It examines nostalgia for the past, as well as instances of continuity of practice and attitude. It explores the way in which inter-war society drew upon aspects of Victorian and Edwardian history both as illuminating parallels to contemporary affairs and to understand directly why the present was shaped as it was. Again, this testifies to the enduring power of the past after 1918. There are three parts to this thesis. Part One outlines the cultural context in which writers contemplated the Victorian and Edwardian past. Part Two explores some of the ways in which history was written about and used by inter-war society. Part Three examines the ways in which biographical depictions of eminent Victorians after 1918 encouraged emotional negotiation with the pas

    Staged Otherness

    Get PDF
    The cultural phenomenon of exhibiting non-European people in front of the European audiences in the 19th and 20th century was concentrated in the metropolises in the western part of the continent. Nevertheless, traveling ethnic troupes and temporary exhibitions of non-European humans took place also in territories located to the east of the Oder river and Austria. The contributors to this edited volume present practices of ethnographic shows in Russia, Poland, Czechia, Slovenia, Hungary, Germany, Romania, and Austria and discuss the reactions of local audiences. The essays offer critical arguments to rethink narratives of cultural encounters in the context of ethnic shows. By demonstrating the many ways in which the western models and customs were reshaped, developed, and contested in Central and Eastern European contexts, the authors argue that the dominant way of characterizing these performances as “human zoos” is too narrow. The contributors had to tackle the difficult task of finding traces other than faint copies of official press releases by the tour organizers. The original source material was drawn from local archives, museums, and newspapers of the discussed period. A unique feature of the volume is the rich amount of images that complement every single case study of ethnic shows

    Epistolary Larkin : life, letters and the literary biography

    Get PDF
    ‘Epistolary Larkin’ is the first comprehensive study to focus primarily on Philip Larkin’s letters as literary constructs. The publication of Anthony Thwaite’s Philip Larkin: Selected Letters 1940-1985 (1992) caused widespread division across the critical landscape of Larkin studies. On one side, the letters are the key to reveal attitudes and motivations from Larkin’s life and unlock the literary texts. On the other are critics who draw on contradictions in Larkin’s letters to reveal their unreliability for approaching the work. Recently, critics have attempted to find a middle ground between reading the letters as biographical lens, or an unreliable witness to the life. However, within these studies there is still an attempt to disentangle the ‘real’ Larkin from the literary constructs. The originality of this thesis is that it does not search for the ‘real’ Larkin in the letters but instead presents the letters as constructions of Larkin’s epistolary worlds. For Larkin, the letter allowed him to step out of his reality and enter an imaginative world with his reader.This thesis is the first study to bring the three editions of Larkin’s letters – Selected Letters (1992), Letters to Monica (2010), Letters Home (2018) – to centre stage of Larkin scholarship. Conventionally, Larkin’s letters have always maintained a secondary position to the poetry, prose and short stories. However, here the letters take precedence. Through detailed examination of these editions and unpublished letters, this thesis offers fresh perspectives on Larkin’s epistolary worlds, which are no longer presented as windows onto the life but as literary texts themselves. In doing so, ‘Epistolary Larkin’ not only makes a significant contribution to our understanding of Larkin as a writer but also intervenes in recent debates about the more unpalatable views – on racism, women, and children – that successive editions of Larkin’s letters have been shown to reveal

    Layers of meaning: Vietnamese lacquer painting as palimpsest

    Get PDF
    This thesis elucidates Vietnamese lacquer painting, a unique art form, which came into being due to French and Vietnamese artists meeting in the 1920s, continuing to flourish throughout the ensuing periods of war and independence. The use of layering, combining mixed media and sanding processes differed from lacquer arts in other Asian countries at the time, and also provides a metaphor for this discussion: palimpsest. An analysis of Asian lacquer lays a foundation to examine the inception of Vietnamese lacquer during the colonial era. The following chapters build on the discussions around the practice in relation to art historiography. The final chapter critically assesses significant works of contemporary practitioners. Applying a methodological prism that syntheses ethnography, postcolonial theory and craft studies, Vietnamese lacquer painting as a practice will be analysed in relation to modernist discourse that continues to dominate readings of artefacts categorised as art. This thesis interrogates the specific consequences of international politics on the artistic practice and trade, focusing on the production and reception of Vietnamese lacquer to offer new insights into an under-theorised field
    corecore