Matching Items (3)
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- All Subjects: Commercial products in literature
- All Subjects: pregnancy test
- Creators: Looser, Devoney
- Creators: Wernimont, Jacqueline
- Status: Published
Description
The purpose of this project is to analyze Jane Austen's unfinished novel Sanditon (1817) and its inclusion of a character of color. This thesis discusses Austen's mixed-race heiress, Miss Lambe, in the context of two other pieces of fiction that feature mixed-race heroines--the anonymously published The Woman of Colour (1808) and Mary Ann Sullivan's Owen Castle (1816). Scholarship on Austen's awareness of the Abolitionist movement and her sympathy for its politics has previously been published. I advance our conversations on the subject by discussing Austen's Miss Lambe as a mixed-race heiress in the context of gender, race, and ethnicity in late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century novels. My thesis considers literary and historical treatments of people of color and provides a trans-Atlantic approach to female characters identified as mixed race.
Juxtaposing Sanditon, The Woman of Colour, and Owen Castle provides insight into how Austen was working within a set of established literary traditions, while creating ways to disrupt some of its problematic elements. This project looks at conventions of the mixed-race female characters in five ways. To begin, I discuss the mixed-race heroine and the compulsion to define her place of origin. Second, I consider the convention of describing mixed-race heiresses' rights to their inheritance. An analysis of the significance of naming mixed-race heiresses follows. I discuss literary conventions of the betrayal of mixed-race females. Lastly, I explore the common use of black maid figures in novels of this era to advance social critique against prejudice. Comparative analysis of Austen with other novels featuring mixed-race heroines in this era allows us to reach new understandings of Sanditon. Austen's unfinished last novel is shown to question the power of fortune, to undermine the orthodoxy of categorizing race and ethnicity, and to unsettle the hierarchy among characters of different races and ethnicities.
Juxtaposing Sanditon, The Woman of Colour, and Owen Castle provides insight into how Austen was working within a set of established literary traditions, while creating ways to disrupt some of its problematic elements. This project looks at conventions of the mixed-race female characters in five ways. To begin, I discuss the mixed-race heroine and the compulsion to define her place of origin. Second, I consider the convention of describing mixed-race heiresses' rights to their inheritance. An analysis of the significance of naming mixed-race heiresses follows. I discuss literary conventions of the betrayal of mixed-race females. Lastly, I explore the common use of black maid figures in novels of this era to advance social critique against prejudice. Comparative analysis of Austen with other novels featuring mixed-race heroines in this era allows us to reach new understandings of Sanditon. Austen's unfinished last novel is shown to question the power of fortune, to undermine the orthodoxy of categorizing race and ethnicity, and to unsettle the hierarchy among characters of different races and ethnicities.
ContributorsBaugh, Victoria (Author) / Looser, Devoney (Thesis advisor) / Justice, George (Committee member) / Wernimont, Jacqueline (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2017
Description
Increasing numbers of biomedical products have become eligible for over-the-counter sale in contemporary American consumer culture. What was once the realm of the clinical has moved into the realm of the domestic, with the consumer as the interpreter of health issues and communication. This dissertation examines the user experience with the marketing and design of packaging of home pregnancy tests. Studies indicate that more than one-third of women of reproductive age in the U.S. have used a home pregnancy test, yet the test is marketed to a specific demographic of user: one who is white, affluent, and married. How are users’ experiences affected, and how do different methodological frameworks yield results for the study of these user experiences?
In this project, I conduct a series of methodological case studies to show how each reveal various aspects of the user experience of home pregnancy testing. I begin with a case study of three brands of home pregnancy tests, using visual-material rhetorical analysis to uncover the cultural values implicit in packaging. I then move to two case studies involving the results of a National Institutes of Health survey of pregnancy test users. I employ a thematic analysis framework to analyze demographic information about users and to contextualize their narratives. I also conduct corpus linguistics and semantic network analysis with the same data set to model patterns in language. From these varying approaches, each with different underlying assumptions, nuanced aspects of the user experience with the product and its communication emerge. For example, the user’s life circumstances change from initial to subsequent pregnancy test purchase and use so as to suggest more desire for a positive result with subsequent testing, yet many users across these categories express some degree of discomfort when purchasing this product.
I conclude with suggestions based on this research for more ethically informed pregnancy test marketing, and outline avenues for future research for evaluation of home pregnancy test user experience. I finally discuss the implications of multiple methodological approaches for transdisciplinary humanities project design, implementation, and evaluation, with emphasis on the digital and medical humanities.
In this project, I conduct a series of methodological case studies to show how each reveal various aspects of the user experience of home pregnancy testing. I begin with a case study of three brands of home pregnancy tests, using visual-material rhetorical analysis to uncover the cultural values implicit in packaging. I then move to two case studies involving the results of a National Institutes of Health survey of pregnancy test users. I employ a thematic analysis framework to analyze demographic information about users and to contextualize their narratives. I also conduct corpus linguistics and semantic network analysis with the same data set to model patterns in language. From these varying approaches, each with different underlying assumptions, nuanced aspects of the user experience with the product and its communication emerge. For example, the user’s life circumstances change from initial to subsequent pregnancy test purchase and use so as to suggest more desire for a positive result with subsequent testing, yet many users across these categories express some degree of discomfort when purchasing this product.
I conclude with suggestions based on this research for more ethically informed pregnancy test marketing, and outline avenues for future research for evaluation of home pregnancy test user experience. I finally discuss the implications of multiple methodological approaches for transdisciplinary humanities project design, implementation, and evaluation, with emphasis on the digital and medical humanities.
ContributorsOpel, Dawn S (Author) / Goggin, Maureen Daly (Thesis advisor) / Daer, Alice R (Committee member) / Wernimont, Jacqueline (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015
Description
Early modern theater was a major site of cultural exploration into Britain’s imperial ambitions. The frequency with which drama depicted exotic locations and foreign peoples has prompted a wealth of excellent scholarship investigating how London theater portrayed Asia and the New World. With so much attention paid to the places and people of the world, however, dramatic scholarship has yet to take note of the way in which the commodities of empire, the actual driving force behind expansion of British trade routes and colonial holdings, featured in long eighteenth-century drama. "Affecting Objects; or, the Drama of Imperial Commodities in English Performance, 1660-1800" investigates how imperial commodities—goods made available by Britain’s rapidly expanding trans-Atlantic trade routes— were used as stage props in long eighteenth-century comedy as a means to explore domestic ramifications of Britain’s developing empire. "Affecting Objects" recovers the presence of exotic commodities in the theater by bringing together branches of object theory, material culture studies, performance scholarship, and theater history.
Drawing attention to imperial commodities used as theatrical props on the Restoration and eighteenth-century stage, I reassess commonly studied plays as well as critically overlooked works. Foreign “things” in performance, such as spices and produce in seventeenth-century Lord Mayor’s Shows, china in William Wycherley’s _The Country Wife_ (1675), jewels from the East in Oliver Goldsmith’s _She Stoops to Conquer_ (1773), and the Indian shawl in Elizabeth Inchbald’s _Appearance is Against Them_ (1785), informed reception of the works they appeared in while also influencing how the people of London understood the role of those commodities in their everyday lives. As the commercialism of British society increased, imperial commodities became necessary “actors” in British social relations; the British stage responded in kind by showcasing how such goods dictated and mediated communal relations and constructions of the self. I argue that the way in which exotic goods were utilized in performance served to create, investigate, underwrite, and/or critique a British national and personal identity constructed upon access to and control over imperial commodities.
Drawing attention to imperial commodities used as theatrical props on the Restoration and eighteenth-century stage, I reassess commonly studied plays as well as critically overlooked works. Foreign “things” in performance, such as spices and produce in seventeenth-century Lord Mayor’s Shows, china in William Wycherley’s _The Country Wife_ (1675), jewels from the East in Oliver Goldsmith’s _She Stoops to Conquer_ (1773), and the Indian shawl in Elizabeth Inchbald’s _Appearance is Against Them_ (1785), informed reception of the works they appeared in while also influencing how the people of London understood the role of those commodities in their everyday lives. As the commercialism of British society increased, imperial commodities became necessary “actors” in British social relations; the British stage responded in kind by showcasing how such goods dictated and mediated communal relations and constructions of the self. I argue that the way in which exotic goods were utilized in performance served to create, investigate, underwrite, and/or critique a British national and personal identity constructed upon access to and control over imperial commodities.
ContributorsHendrickson, Kalissa (Author) / Looser, Devoney (Thesis advisor) / Thompson, Ayanna (Thesis advisor) / Lussier, Mark (Committee member) / Ryner, Bradley (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015