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- All Subjects: Gender Studies
- Creators: Himberg, Julia
- Creators: Foster, David W
- Status: Published
Description
ABSTRACT This thesis aims to demonstrate the validity of political violence in contemporary Chicano and Peruvian American narratives as a reflection of the sociopolitical situation of immigrants and their descendants in the United States (U.S.). The thesis explores the various ways in which contemporary Chicano and Peruvian American narratives present the political violence in the U.S. towards Mexican and Peruvian immigrants and Chicanos and Peruvian Americans examining the intersections that exist between the resistance and violence discourses and its sociopolitical consequences. Although the topic of political violence has been previously studied in U.S. and Latin American narratives throughout its history, its analysis has been insufficiently explored as far as contemporary narratives of the XXI century are concerned. With this in mind, two texts will be used to study this discourse of violence in Chicano and Peruvian American literature: Alejandro Morales' "Pequeña nación" (2005) and Daniel Alarcón's "Guerra en la penumbra" (2005). The thesis examines the immigrant as a center of discourse exploring the conflict between them and the institutions or groups in power that instigate this political violence. The first chapter covers the socio historical background regarding Mexican and Peruvian migration flows to the United States in the nineteenth, twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The second chapter introduces "The Triangle of Violence" proposed by Norwegian mathematician and sociologist Johan Galtung as the basis for the theoretical framework and approach of this analysis. Chapter three analyzes the Chicano short story "Pequeña nación" by Alejandro Morales. The analysis of the Peruvian American short story "Guerra en la penumbra" by Daniel Alarcón follows in chapter four. The conclusion emphasizes the problem of political violence experienced by immigrants in the U.S. in contemporary Chicano and Peruvian American narratives and possible solutions contained therein, protesting a problem that can hinder immigration policy reforms and the defense of human rights.
ContributorsSifuentes, Ana (Author) / Rosales, Jesus (Thesis advisor) / García-Fernández, Carlos J. (Thesis advisor) / Alarcon, Justo (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
The nature of the link between a literary text and its film adaptation has been a point of contention within academic thought since the inception of cinema due to the fact that film adaptation forms part of film history since the early 20th century. For most of the past century, the main concern of critics has been the level of fidelity that adaptations exhibit in terms of their relationship with the text, which was viewed as "the original" that directors needed to use as a model. In the last 25 years, however, the discourse of fidelity has been challenged by a number of intellectuals as a result of poststructuralist thought, which rejects the notion of an "original" text and proclaims the existence of infinite meanings within each text that are constructed by the reader, not the writer. The present investigation will take into account this type of epistemology as its starting point in order to review and defy a number of theoretical approximations from the last several decades that deal with the relationship between literature and cinema towards its main goal of overcoming the limitations of fidelity discourse. This will be carried out through an in-depth analysis of Latin American texts that have been adapted to film. Thematically both the literary texts and the films contain elements that portray the reality of marginalized groups that build their existence in opposition to the model of patriarchal heteronormativity. In current epistemological thought such a modus vivendi falls within the realm of queer theory. Another common thread that unites all the cultural productions is the presence of violence that showcases the high level of intolerance towards any subject who somehow seems to be different, hence threatening the dominant configuration of patriarchy. Furthermore, the different texts and films expose a general fragmentation within Latin American society, a result of the constant struggles among its diverse social groups, between the ones who occupy the position of socioeconomic power and those who are left outside of it; such a fragmentation also stems from the multiple clashes that occur within the marginalized groups themselves.
ContributorsKokalov, Assen (Author) / Foster, David W (Thesis advisor) / Mcelroy, Isis (Committee member) / Urioste-Azcorra, Carmen (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
In response to the growing visibility of trans communities, some countries, suchas Spain, have implemented policies designed to benefit trans individuals and grant them
rights and access to medical and legal services. As such, my dissertation research
centered on trans communities residing in Valencia, Spain, with a comparative focus on
migrant and non-migrant trans individuals to understand how policy changes and their
implementations impacted these communities’ lives. I especially looked at the effects it
was having on migrant trans individuals’ experiences, as their stories are typically
overlooked and under-researched. My research explored the experiences and identities of
33 trans individuals who live in Valencia, Spain, and some surrounding areas. I used a
multi-method and comparative approach and analysis to understand the lives of 19 trans
individuals born in Spain and 14 individuals who migrated from Latin America, Russia,
Ukraine, and Belgium. Relying on intersectional qualitative methodologies, semi-
structured interviews, a photovoice project, archival research, and over 100 hours of
participant observation, my research documents a critical historical moment for trans
communities. Situated in a historical period between 2000 till today, I show how various
trans communities have endured the Franco dictatorship and the various sociopolitical
challenges, including the most recent regional and national election in Spain. This
research focuses on non-migrant and migrant trans individuals’ sense of belonging and
incorporation into Spain’s public and private spheres. The dissertation sheds light on the
immigration experience of trans individuals fleeing their countries of origin, mostly from
Latin America, to escape gender discrimination in hopes of finding a safe place to live in
Spain. It also shows the critical role that social relations and support systems play in their
ii
overall well-being. Finally, this work focuses on how trans individuals describe their
gender identity, why they have embraced their identity(ies), and how they assert and
display them in different spaces.
ContributorsGarcia Reyes, Mirtha (Author) / Estrada, Emir (Thesis advisor) / Tsuda, Takeyuki (Thesis advisor) / Danielson, Marivel (Committee member) / Otero-Hermida, Paula (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2024
Description
As a result of social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and blogs, works can be distributed and viewed at a global scale with the simple click of the mouse. One can even visit entire museums and virtually walk through their collections without having to leave one’s own seat. Furthermore, new software, programs, and digital tools facilitate and make possible the ability to experiment and create one’s art in ways that were previously unimaginable or even unheard of. This is also true with the dissemination of one’s art and the visibility of contemporary artists who create works pertaining to the digital realm. However, the availability, usage, and training associated with such technologies do not come without its own implications and drawbacks. Unfortunately, there exists a great disparity not only with access and availability of the Internet at a global level, but also a digital divide, which indicates that the technologies and sciences are “gendered”—for instance, the male majority in STEM professions and fields of study. When considering the Humanities, specifically the genre of contemporary art and literature, women’s marginalization is witnessed there too, as distinguished canonical works belong to predominantly Caucasian, Anglo-Saxon men. In the digital age then, Iberian and Latin American women writers and artists face the challenge of visibility and recognition in two territories—technology and contemporary artistic creation—dominated by men. This study gathers contemporary female artists of digital works originating from North America, the Caribbean, South America, and Spain who utilize a wide variety of tools to conduct and create their artwork. The artists and authors analyzed in this project include: Teresa Serrano (México, D.F. 1936-), Adriana Calatayud (México, D.F. 1967-), Ana Mendieta (Havana, 1948-1985), Maritza Molina (Havana), Yasmín S. Portales Machado (Havana, 1980-), María María Acha-Kutscher (Lima, 1968-), Praba Pilar (Colombia), María Cañas (Seville, 1972-), and Pilar Albarracín (Arcena, Huelva 1968-), with the objective of investigating the manner in which digital tools are being used by these women artists and writers for the purpose visibility, identity (de)construction, as spaces of resistance, and to explore how those messages are transmitted and transformed through digital mediums.
ContributorsByron, Jennifer Elaine (Author) / Urioste-Azcorra, Carmen (Thesis advisor) / Tompkins, Cynthia (Committee member) / Foster, David W (Committee member) / Gilfillan, Daniel (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2019
Description
There is currently a proliferation of images of transgender youth in popular discourse, many of which reflect the threat to capitalist heteronormativity that transgender young people pose to contemporary U.S. society. This veritable explosion in media visibility of transgender youth must be critically examined. This dissertation explores media economies of transgender youth visibility by examining media and self-represented narratives by and about transgender young people in contemporary U.S. popular discourse to uncover where, and how, certain young transgender bodies become endowed with value in the service of the neoliberal multicultural U.S. nation-state. As normative transgender youth become increasingly visible as signifiers of the progress of the tolerant U.S. nation, transgender youth who are positioned further from the intelligible field of U.S. citizenship are erased.
Utilizing frameworks from critical transgender studies, youth studies, and media studies, this project illustrates how value is distributed, and at the expense of whom this process of assigning value occurs, in media economies of transgender youth visibility. Discursive analyses of online self-representations, as well as of online representations of media narratives, facilitate this investigation into how transgender youth negotiate the terms of those narratives circulating about them in U.S. contemporary media. This project demonstrates that increases in visibility do not always translate into political power; at best, they distract from the need for political interventions for marginalized groups, and at worst, they erase those stories already far from view in popular discourse: of non-normative transgender youth who are already positioned outside the realm of intelligibility to a national body structured by a heteronormative binary gender system.
Utilizing frameworks from critical transgender studies, youth studies, and media studies, this project illustrates how value is distributed, and at the expense of whom this process of assigning value occurs, in media economies of transgender youth visibility. Discursive analyses of online self-representations, as well as of online representations of media narratives, facilitate this investigation into how transgender youth negotiate the terms of those narratives circulating about them in U.S. contemporary media. This project demonstrates that increases in visibility do not always translate into political power; at best, they distract from the need for political interventions for marginalized groups, and at worst, they erase those stories already far from view in popular discourse: of non-normative transgender youth who are already positioned outside the realm of intelligibility to a national body structured by a heteronormative binary gender system.
ContributorsReinke, Rachel Anne (Author) / Switzer, Heather D. (Thesis advisor) / Aizura, Aren (Committee member) / Anderson, Lisa (Committee member) / Himberg, Julia (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016
Description
ABSTRACT Mexican Golden Age Cinema materialized the narratives of identity, unity and morality that became the obligated point of reference to understand social stability and mexicaness during the post-revolutionary period. Hence, film stars evolved into cultural icons that embodied the representation of patriarchal order as a synonym for nationalism. However, dissident depictions that challenged carefully tailored heteronormative roles were as much a part of the post-revolutionary reality as was the attempt to manufacture a utopic heterosexual family on screen, that functioned as a metaphor for national reunification under the law of the father/president of the Mexican Republic. Nonetheless, even when an distinguished member of the Mexican star system, Sara García´s queer performativity of her quintessential sainted mother and even more revered grandmother characters highlights fissures in the effort to naturalize sexual passivity and heterosexual motherhood as the core of Mexican women identity. Furthermore, García took advantage of her romanticized butch characters in order to revert lesbian invisibility in movies where she portrait roles that exemplified sapphic households. In most of García's films masculine presence became redundant, hence challenging male privilege. Not very far from her own reality, García's queer women of a certain age, involved in female marriages, contested the post-revolutionary discourse of stability and mexicaness even in the heteronormative realm of Golden Age Filmmaking. Regardless of her queerness, unlike any other transgressive figure, Sara García became a national icon in her time and her image continues to hold relevance in current Mexican popular culture. More than five decades after her death young generations are still familiar with her legacy and her image has evolved into the representation of the nostalgia for tradition and alleged "more simple" times.
ContributorsBaeza Lope, Ileana (Author) / Foster, David W (Thesis advisor) / De Urioste, Carmen (Committee member) / Rosales, Jesus (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
This dissertation examines the ways ABC/Disney's Ugly Betty (ABC 2006-2010) manufactures diversity to create an illusion of the U.S. as a site of multiple pluralisms and equality by re-scripting the ugly duckling parable as a Latino de-racialization project and assimilation narrative. The success of the show's original version, Colombian telenovela, Yo Soy Betty, La Fea (RCN 1999-2001), escalated into an international franchise, licensed by and culturally adapted for television markets around the globe. The image the United States promotes of itself, as seen through its media products (especially Disney products) valorize and export discourses of The American Dream around the globe. In order to maintain this carefully crafted self-image, one that masks the ongoing racial oppression and colonial holdings, depictions of diversity are manufactured.
This study examines the Disney affiliated series Ugly Betty to assess how the culture and identity of Betty Suarez, its titular character, as a Mexican-American woman is manufactured. Of particular interest is how she is coded as a diverse member of U.S. workforce, and how her transformative makeover from ugly duckling can be read as an assimilation narrative from racialized ethnic invader to white American professional. Using criteria extracted from scholarship and cultural production regarding Latina identity formation, I locate Betty within what I call the spectrum of assimilation among U.S. Latinas. Because there are various ways in which one negotiates, expresses and balances the multiple cultural, racial and classed components of their self-identity, I tease out markers from existing theories to locate Betty's self-projected cultural identity within the series narrative.
Building on the evidence gathered regarding Betty's rejection of a politicized Latina identity, this project analyzes the implications of the choice of New York City as site of Betty's transformation and how the use of queer visibility and American Dream discourse inform a reading of Betty as assimilation narrative. This dissertation concludes with a brief analysis of two shows featuring Latina titular characters. Both Cristela (ABC 2014-) and Jane the Virgin (CW 2014-) are successors of Ugly Betty yet diverge in the way their portrayals of Latinidades include more nuanced and pluralistic representations.
This study examines the Disney affiliated series Ugly Betty to assess how the culture and identity of Betty Suarez, its titular character, as a Mexican-American woman is manufactured. Of particular interest is how she is coded as a diverse member of U.S. workforce, and how her transformative makeover from ugly duckling can be read as an assimilation narrative from racialized ethnic invader to white American professional. Using criteria extracted from scholarship and cultural production regarding Latina identity formation, I locate Betty within what I call the spectrum of assimilation among U.S. Latinas. Because there are various ways in which one negotiates, expresses and balances the multiple cultural, racial and classed components of their self-identity, I tease out markers from existing theories to locate Betty's self-projected cultural identity within the series narrative.
Building on the evidence gathered regarding Betty's rejection of a politicized Latina identity, this project analyzes the implications of the choice of New York City as site of Betty's transformation and how the use of queer visibility and American Dream discourse inform a reading of Betty as assimilation narrative. This dissertation concludes with a brief analysis of two shows featuring Latina titular characters. Both Cristela (ABC 2014-) and Jane the Virgin (CW 2014-) are successors of Ugly Betty yet diverge in the way their portrayals of Latinidades include more nuanced and pluralistic representations.
ContributorsMartinez, Michelle (Author) / Haggins, Bambi (Thesis advisor) / Danielson, Marivel (Committee member) / Himberg, Julia (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015
Description
This study explored the perspectives and experiences of eight women active within a particular location of the collective social media landscape. One aspect of the research centered around critiquing mainstream media diets for encouraging fat stigma and deepening the negative effects of stereotyping larger bodies. The research questions centered around transgressive media diets, specifically those that were body positive, and focused on if they could help to eradicate fat stigma and educate the masses on false stereotypes. To examine this, eight plus-size fashion bloggers and/or plus-size models were interviewed following a semi-structured format. These women, as bloggers and Instagrammers with a strong presence in the plus-size fashion industry, were both content producers as well as consumers, and their personal narratives enabled the study to better understand the complex interconnections between production and consumption, self-expression and the politics of self-representation, the cooptation of these self-representations by profit-oriented media interest, and how commodification shapes the transgressive potential of these representations. The research also found that many content creators came to transgressive media diets because they saw a lack of representation and decided that they must make that representation for themselves. The study also examined what community building meant within the porous landscape of social media platforms and the relationship between identity building and community building as social processes. Many of the participants brought up examples of fat discrimination yet many defined themselves as "confident" or "badass", thus finding ways to empower themselves despite the pressure of societal norms. Some of this empowerment came from finding a community online. Finally, these plus-size models and fashion bloggers moved through a thin ideal industry by demanding and being examples of diversity.
ContributorsValentine, Erin (Author) / Katsulis, Yasmina (Thesis advisor) / Himberg, Julia (Committee member) / McGibbney, Michelle (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018
Description
This dissertation project examines the cultural labor of the drag queen in the United States (US). I explore how the drag queen can be understood as a heuristic to understand the stakes and limits of belonging and exceptionalism. Inclusion in our social and national belonging in the US allows for legibility and safety, however, when exceptional or token figures become the path towards achieving belonging, it can leave out those who are unable to conform, which are often the most vulnerable folks. I argue that attending to the drag queen’s trajectory, we can trace the ways that multiply-marginalized bodies navigate attempts to include, subsume, and erase their existence by the nation-state while simultaneously celebrating and consuming them in the realm of media and consumer culture. In the first chapter I introduce the project, the context and the stakes involved. Chapter two examines representations of drag queens in films to unpack how these representations have layered over time for American audiences, and positions these films as necessary building blocks for queer semiosis for viewers to return to and engage with. Chapter three analyzes RuPaul and RuPaul’s Drag Race to outline RuPaul labor as an exceptional subject, focusing on his investment in homonormative politics and labor supporting homonationalist projects. Chapter four centers questions of trans* identity and race, specifically Blackness to analyze how Drag Race renders certain bodies and performances legitimate and legible, constructing proper drag citizens. Chapter five utilizes ethnographic methods to center local drag communities, focusing on The Rock and drag performers in Phoenix, Arizona to analyze how performers navigate shifting media discourses of drag and construct a queer performance space all their own.
ContributorsCollier, Cassandra M (Author) / Anderson, Lisa M. (Thesis advisor) / Bailey, Marlon M (Committee member) / Himberg, Julia (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2020
Description
La autobiografía, como medio de expresión y reivindicación del yo, ofrece a las autoras/artistas femeninas la oportunidad de definirse a sí mismas. El género autobiográfico tiene orígenes muy antiguos y resulta fundamental en el proceso de construcción de la identidad por parte de mujeres pertenecientes a grupos étnicos minoritarios. El discurso autobiográfico permite a la mujer ser al mismo tiempo escultura y escultor, creador y creación. El objetivo de este trabajo es ofrecer una nueva aproximación al universo femenino de la autorepresentación visual. La autonarración debería estar en el centro de la atención feminista, siendo uno de los métodos más efectivos que las mujeres pueden aplicar para hablar sobre sus experiencias y condiciones. Esta investigación intenta reunir voces multiétnicas y promueve un recurso interdisciplinario que interesa no solo a la literatura y la cultural, sino también a otros campos de las humanidades, como la historia, la sociología y los estudios de género y de la discapacidad. Una de las principales intenciones es desmantelar las formas tradicionales de identidad y destruir las fronteras sociales, adoptando la diferencia y la alteridad como un componente único de cada individuo.
Mi proyecto de disertación analiza textos autobiográficos femeninos en sus diferentes formas visuales poniendo especial énfasis en los países de Argentina, México y Estados Unidos. A través de narrativas personales, fotografías, películas, pinturas, murales y producciones digitales, estas obras femeninas examinan temas como la homofobia, la identidad política, la soberanía nativa, la maternidad, la identidad lesbiana y diferentes identidades culturales minoritarias. Algunas de las autoras seleccionadas viven al margen de la supremacía blanca por el hecho de pertenecer a grupos étnicos y sociales minoritarios. Otras voces viven al margen del sistema heteronormativo dominante para reconocerse a sí mismas como lesbianas o bisexuales. Más allá de estos contextos, todas las autoras se encuentran discriminadas por ser mujeres en un contexto patriarcal. Los marcos teóricos que se emplean incluyen en sí definiciones autobiográficas interdisciplinarias teorizadas exclusivamente por mujeres. Podrían mencionarse, por ejemplo, los conceptos de HERstory (Ashby y Gore 1995), Autohistoria (Anzaldúa 1999) Pathography (Hawkins 1999), Feminography (Abrams 2017) y Autobiografilm (Paola Lagos Labbé 2011). Las diferentes historias visuales exploran los diferentes matices de la identidad racial y/o lesbiana de las mujeres que a menudo se perciben como forasteras dentro de su propio país. Todas las artistas objetos de mi análisis se enfrentan a diferentes formas de represiones y están motivadas por un deseo de reconocimiento social. Estos grupos marginados invitan a los lectores a desarrollar nuevas formas de diálogos, prácticas y alianzas transculturales.
Mi proyecto de disertación analiza textos autobiográficos femeninos en sus diferentes formas visuales poniendo especial énfasis en los países de Argentina, México y Estados Unidos. A través de narrativas personales, fotografías, películas, pinturas, murales y producciones digitales, estas obras femeninas examinan temas como la homofobia, la identidad política, la soberanía nativa, la maternidad, la identidad lesbiana y diferentes identidades culturales minoritarias. Algunas de las autoras seleccionadas viven al margen de la supremacía blanca por el hecho de pertenecer a grupos étnicos y sociales minoritarios. Otras voces viven al margen del sistema heteronormativo dominante para reconocerse a sí mismas como lesbianas o bisexuales. Más allá de estos contextos, todas las autoras se encuentran discriminadas por ser mujeres en un contexto patriarcal. Los marcos teóricos que se emplean incluyen en sí definiciones autobiográficas interdisciplinarias teorizadas exclusivamente por mujeres. Podrían mencionarse, por ejemplo, los conceptos de HERstory (Ashby y Gore 1995), Autohistoria (Anzaldúa 1999) Pathography (Hawkins 1999), Feminography (Abrams 2017) y Autobiografilm (Paola Lagos Labbé 2011). Las diferentes historias visuales exploran los diferentes matices de la identidad racial y/o lesbiana de las mujeres que a menudo se perciben como forasteras dentro de su propio país. Todas las artistas objetos de mi análisis se enfrentan a diferentes formas de represiones y están motivadas por un deseo de reconocimiento social. Estos grupos marginados invitan a los lectores a desarrollar nuevas formas de diálogos, prácticas y alianzas transculturales.
ContributorsScerbo, Rosita (Author) / Foster, David W (Thesis advisor) / Rosales, Jesus (Committee member) / García-Fernández, Carlos Javier (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2020