Interventions in woman as spectacle: the political economy of desire in late capitalist societies

How do we discuss female sexual empowerment as feminists in this third wave political moment given the multiplicity of female sexual desires and the multiplicity of women's identities? To what degree can women make spectacles out of themselves and such a project be read as transgressive? This thesis examines debates surrounding feminist visions of female sexualities. The project questions the concept of desire as a self producing entity resistant to social critique in late capitalist contexts and examines how desire has replaced labor as commodity in late capitalist societies. It shifts the discussion on desire away from conceptions of it as autonomous performance and towards materialist feminist understandings of desire as materially produced. Must desire be historicized in the third wave political moment? Besides addressing these questions, this thesis attempts to radically divorce desire, lust, and pleasure from biological, ahistorical, free-standing conceptualizations and view them as historically and culturally constructed rather than as natural, trans-cultural phenomena. This thesis is a nexus of conversations between materialist feminists and poststructuralist feminists to better understand critiques of western sex radical movements as well as the tension regarding where the economic and the discursive belong in politics of revolt. This thesis attempts to reclaim a radical sense of sexual ethics in feminism. To this end, this project engages feminist discussions concerning sexual freedom and sexual justice. (Published By University of Alabama Libraries

Creole bodies and intersecting lives and oppressions: an intertextual dialogue between Kate Chopin and Alice Dunbar-Nelson

Differing and contentious definitions of the term "Creole" have tried to produce rigid boundaries defining who to include and who to exclude within a "highly-contested identity space" (Stouck 272) by historians, writers, scholars, and even within Creole communities based on hegemonic dichotomous "either/or" structures. Moreover, these differing attempts at forming exclusive definitions have only revealed Creole to be a category that resists and complicates dichotomous structures. This project compares the nineteenth century Creole short stories of Kate Chopin and Alice Dunbar-Nelson to show how these boundaries are complicated and fissured by the ambiguities of race, gender roles, and female sexuality embodied by the colorful characters portrayed in their fiction. Through their stories, both writers interrogate the social inequalities of gender, race, class, and feminine sexuality, as it existed in the South, specifically in Louisiana. Their stories are more than social commentaries; by centering Creole subjects, they also challenge and disrupt normative standards of proper roles and markings of gender, race, and class. Chopin and Dunbar-Nelson are both identified as "women" who lived in the same region, but this shared identity does not mean shared lived experiences: the constructed categories of race, class, and sexuality greatly affect and cause individuals to experience oppression in different ways. An intertextual dialogue between these two writers illustrates how they each create different texts of race and human experiences within a common Creole community. Because of such hegemonic control of what is published, read, and studied, only certain voices are heard, while others are silenced, therefore, forming a narrow, one-sided commentary of lived experiences--an incomplete picture. To study Chopin while ignoring the work of Dunbar-Nelson only offers one side to a subject whose multiplicity of meanings foster considerable academic debate. Only by placing the stories of these two different authors, one widely anthologized and one not, side by side to see how they interact or contrast with each other, can we then attempt to formulate answers and thus gain a clearer, more whole, picture of the oppression and privilege structures of domination have on women's lives. (Published By University of Alabama Libraries

Integration and transformation: an examination of the role of sexuality in formulating a queer/crip subjectivity for people with disabilities

This thesis investigates the current cultural discourses surrounding sexuality in persons with disabilities and argues that in order to move away from existing conceptions of personhood and citizenship that are rooted in ableism and are thus possibilities only for nondisabled persons, persons with disabilities and their nondisabled allies must embrace the queer potential advocated by crip theorists, who have so usefully applied the insights of queer theorists to the field of disability studies. I will begin by interrogating the relationship of disability studies and feminist theory by examining the societal/cultural construction of normative bodies. Next, I will focus on how notions of citizenship and who constitutes "proper" or "acceptable" political actors are rooted in ideologies of ability, ideologies which are themselves often predicated on the assumption of "normal" sexual functioning, among other normative assumptions. Then I will explore the historical policing of the sexuality of disabled persons and argue that access to sexual knowledge and expression is crucial to helping disabled persons create positive self-identities and a sense of themselves as subjects. Finally, I will conduct a critical reading of these issues on the television show Glee, which exemplifies the failings of the existing cultural models of disability and sexuality but also provides examples of the power and promise of a queer crip subjectivity, and briefly compare Glee to other televisual representations of disabled sexuality. (Published By University of Alabama Libraries

Motherhood on the inside: exploring the challenges facing incarcerated women at Julia Tutwiler Prison for Women

In this thesis, I argue that the criminal justice system is deeply entrenched in racist and classist perceptions that make incarcerated women especially vulnerable to policies and ideologies that regularly involve the denial of their reproductive and parental rights. With shifting public policies and sentencing reform in reaction to the "war on drugs," women, the poor, and people of color have disproportionately become caught in the net of the criminal justice system. The subtle fusion of the war on drugs with the fetal protection movement has furthermore positioned pregnant women and mothers quite precariously within the criminal justice system, and Alabama's own chemical endangerment law provides a useful case study for exploring this topic. This thesis highlights the unique challenges facing women in correctional institutions, focusing on women's reproductive rights and claims to motherhood in particular. An elaboration of the history of Alabama's Julia Tutwiler Prison for Women helps to reveal these broader issues. In this thesis, I argue that motherhood can provide a means for incarcerated women to strategize resistance and claim agency from the space of the prison, suggesting that programs such as the Montgomery-based organization Aid to Inmate Mothers help meet the specific needs of incarcerated women that are otherwise neglected by the prison system. I use data that I collected from fifteen interviews conducted with inmate mothers at Tutwiler Prison, drawing on the experiences of these women to make an argument about the nature of incarceration for women and the potential for motherhood to be an empowering identity. (Published By University of Alabama Libraries

Gender, sex, and race in the gamespace of live action role play

This thesis explores identity, gender, sexuality, and race within live action role play, a game format designed in an impromptu theatre style. My goal was to assess the ways in which sexism, racism, and hypersexuality pervade contemporary forms of entertainment, and to imagine ways in which gamespaces can be re-imagined to be more inclusive. Using participant observation, I investigated the experience of live action role play and documented my followings in field notes. I discussed my observations in relation to experts on the subjects of identity, play, gamer theory, feminist theory, and critical race theory. I contend in this thesis that games, including live action role play games, are not free from societal oppression, but that interactive games such as live action role play can offer creative ways in which to negotiate and navigate social oppression. (Published By University of Alabama Libraries

Can't take my soul: exploring and illuminating the spirituality and spiritual activism within British hip-hop

Hip-hop is a transnational musical genre that has historically affected the lives of marginalized youth in powerful ways across the "Black Atlantic." By using a womanist framework of analysis, this thesis illuminates the ways in which three British hip-hop MC's-Akala, Logic, and Lowkey-employ their music to enact spiritual activism. I explore how their music explicitly and implicitly centers on spirituality and seeks to break down the barriers necessary for spiritual awareness and growth through the awakening and/or transformation of consciousness. (Published By University of Alabama Libraries

Living incubators: arguing for pregnant women's autonomy and bodily integrity in an age of ever-increasing reproductive technology

In this thesis I evaluate the medicalization of birthing bodies through the use of reproductive technologies. This thesis argues that the best solution for ensuring the bodily integrity and autonomy of pregnant and birthing people is through midwife-assisted births. Midwifery provides a compelling opportunity to subvert and challenge the medical-industrial complex and its invasive reproductive technologies, which extend beyond the hospital to promote socio-political and cultural ideologies surrounding the bodies of pregnant women and other pregnant subjects. I argue that elements of a do-it-yourself (DIY) feminist consciousness present in the practice of midwifery makes midwives uniquely positioned to encourage and sustain ethical embodied communities. Within these communities pregnant and birthing people are provided opportunities for autonomy, and, thus, midwives and the choice to employ them play a vital role in the establishment of reproductive justice for all. (Published By University of Alabama Libraries

Cultural coverture: an examination of the impact of early American marriage laws on contemporary American women

Under the system of coverture a married woman's civil identity was covered by her husband's civil identity and she was viewed to be civilly dead. The system of coverture originated in Europe and was part of the English Common Law system. When settlers first colonized what would eventually become the United States, they adopted English Common Law and with it the system of coverture. Through the system of coverture, married women in the United States had no independent civil identity and they were excluded from the rights and obligations of citizenship. For over two hundred years, activists worked to challenge and change the system of coverture and the cultural attitudes and assumptions that were reflected through coverture. Though legal coverture ended in the closing decades of the twentieth century, the cultural attitudes and assumptions on which coverture was based are still impacting women and limiting their full freedom and agency. This thesis examines the historical foundations of marriage laws/coverture in Colonial America and traces their progression from laws to the cultural practices that women in contemporary America must navigate and negotiate in their lives. (Published By University of Alabama Libraries

Ashri and i: exploring "knowledge" through creative writing

A female protagonist simply identified as "She" remembers and relives acts of violence over a span of years and attempts to cope through poetry and an attachment to an imaginary `other.' Through poetry She imagines Ashri and her kidnap, abused, and descent into madness at the hands of Fin, connecting the pain of her own life with that of Ashri's. This combination of poetry and creative non-fiction is not only about the relation between men and women but also about sharing truths through the retelling of real events. This thesis focuses on the issue of how "knowledge" is created and sanctified by social and academic structures. The story shares the knowledge and the theory explains why it is important. (Published By University of Alabama Libraries

The other collectives of the left: reading Black left feminisms in sites of transatlantic cultural praxis

Paul Gilroy writes, "It would appear that there are large questions raised about the direction and character of Black culture and art if we take the powerful effects of even temporary experiences of exile, relocation, and displacement into account" (Paul Gilroy, The Black Atlantic, 18). Transnationality and citizenship are tangled discourses, acted out in real time, on real people, effecting not only the exiled, relocated, and displaced as individuals, but the communal relations they leave, enter, and/or produce. In this research, grounded in issues of collective cultural praxis, I examine the relationship between lived experience, mechanizations of power, and how collectivity -in the formation of community action groups and artists collectives. I argue that in this way cultural production is instrumental in the transgressing of the real and imaged borders of race, nation, gender, and class. I look at the cultural work of Afro-Caribbean, and American exile, Claudia Jones, American Lorraine Hansberry, and Black artist collectives working in and between the U.S. and U.K. My central argument is that by looking at the work of Black radicals, specifically Black left feminists and their strategic use of collaborative cultural practice, we can deepen our understanding of the strategic use of cultural in bringing about social change. I also argue for a rethinking of the histories and representations of Black radicalism, and the re-imagining of the Black radical subject. This new historicization of the Black radicalism - which is inclusive of leftist feminisms, transnational subjectivity, cultural workers and artists - pushes us toward a radical revision of cultural and identity politics. (Published By University of Alabama Libraries