Black Americans and Black folks across the globe continue to proclaim variousunfreedoms we experience specifically due to our Blackness. As we struggle against and survive through the unfair structures, ways of being, and conditions that are killing us, we have been creating new survival strategies for living. One of our primary arguments is that state entities and the anti-Black carcerality embedded in them (e.g., policing, prisons, hospitals, welfare systems, military, the foster care system educational institutions etc.) are the primary arbitrators weaponizing violence, injustice, and unfreedom in our lives. Since the Black Lives Matter uprising in 2013 due to the murder of Trayvon Martin, leading up to the largest global uprising in 2020 due to the murder of George Floyd, and the ongoing activism around anti-Black police violence, we who are organizers and activists have found ourselves seeking out alternative ways to be principled in our struggles for abolition, transformative justice, and Black liberation. A part of being in principled struggle is building a praxis (when theory meets practice) of how to conduct oneself in community with others, and with the state in a way that is aligned with stated values and beliefs. Much of the organizing work geared towards eradicating anti-Black violence pulls from the theoretical and practiced interventions of the Black radical tradition, Black feminist thought, and abolitionism(s) to inform their praxis. This dissertation will seek out a Black radical queer feminist praxis by conducting an auto- ethnography using critical art-based Black feminist-womanist storytelling to measure data collected from my lived experiences as an organizer and activist to uplift the liberation strategies of an era.

Historical trends of artificial intelligence have, as shown by recent quantitative and qualitative studies, shown that the reported threats (as understood by the general public) are vastly different from the tech industry’s most pressing and vital concerns. The modern AI that most people interact with on a daily basis are mostly helpful commercialized products or generative AI, leading to a cultural mindset where AI is an assistant capable of autonomous tasks. Popular fictional depictions of artificial intelligence clearly demonstrate that those perceptions of threats fall closely in line with the sorts of actions portrayed by AI characters, suggesting that pop media has a significant influence over its audience’s understanding of AI technology and its potential ramifications. To mitigate harm that AI tools can inflict upon the general public, there is an immediate need for technology-specific legislation, incentives and deterrents, and oversight so that artificial intelligence can be regulated and controlled.

This thesis expands the scope of literature surrounding the work of Juno Calypso, Christina Quarles, and Lisa Yuskavage by increasing the scope of their theoretical interpretations. Juno Calypso’s case requires establishing a critical foundation for her interrogations of domestic space, her subversions of feminine performance—particularly through accusatory address of the gaze—and her demonstrations of the new-hysterical process that I argue for via her alter-ego, “Joyce.” Similarly, I emphasize Christina Quarles’ subversions of art historical traditions, such as the gaze, meta-framing, and figural language, instead of her explorations into race and linguistic titular play. Finally, Lisa Yuskavage’s inclusion will bring discussions of her contemporary artworks fully into the present, leaving behind the scandalous-or-not questions plaguing her oeuvre in favor of contemporary figural reinterpretation. Through comparisons of each one’s approach to contemporary, artistic feminist theories and dilemmas, the artists convey informative insights into today’s visual culture. The thesis brings these ruminations to light through study of Calypso’s, Quarles’, and Yuskavage’s shared themes and characteristics, including subconsciously-influenced practices, multiplicity, and uncanny space. I account for one of Calypso’s most crucial yet divergent strategies of spatial uncanniness—gendered space. Calypso, Quarles, and Yuskavage are also linked by their ostensibly domestic spaces and featuring feminized figures. Yuskavage uses hyperfeminine performance as means of questioning the conventional and the pleasure one expected to receive from it; Quarles instead uses ambiguity to challenge the traditional white femininity assigned to subjecthood in order to reinforce her dissolution of race and gender. Unanswered performance and gaze questions of femininity, feminine performance and feminine rituals drive Calypso’s photographs, in which an onlooker’s voyeurism is highlighted by their mid-procedure state. Yuskavage uses the home as extension of cheesy self, a site of performance, but Quarles uses domestic spaces as sites or causes of internal struggle. Calypso is closer aligned to Yuskavage’s intersectional-feminist anxieties than Quarles’ post-pandemic ones. The temporal span of the artworks’ creation (2015-2022) is reflective of the dramatic social paradigm shifts experienced by Western societies post-BLM and other social movements, and post-COVID pandemic; the arguments made by this essay will contribute to the understanding of ongoing change experienced by women.

The process of pathologizing grief and othering grievers is historically situated in white supremacist, capitalist patriarchy and is reproduced socially. ‘Grief norms, gender norms’ explores and complicates the ways that grief and gender are co-constitutive; mediated by social norms; and reinforced through institutions like psychiatry and medicine, workplace policies, and public discourses around grief which all work together to create ‘acceptable’ structures of feeling. This dissertation uses a combination of in-depth, semi-structured interviews and digital grief content across two social media sites: Instagram and TikTok in order to explore various sites of this affective social reproduction and the multi-directional impact of gender and grief when studied side by side. This project is made up of three distinct, but thematically related sections: feminine embodied grief and masking; how the Widow is socially reproduced as ‘Other’; and the intimate publics of female grief influencers on Instagram. Each of these chapters explores a different aspect of the shaping of 'acceptable' grief through valences of gendered norms - which are already raced and classed - and explores the ways that those norms socializes individuals of all genders towards expectations about how grief 'should' be experienced and expressed. Feminine embodied grief is experienced beyond linear temporality, and felt sensationally and relationally. This means that grievers experiencing this kind of feminine embodied grief more readily rely on grief masking to 'pass' in non-grieving society. In the third chapter, the experience of the Widow is the primary focus. This chapter examines the social processes that render the Widow as 'Other', socially, and polices the active grief of the Widow through processes of isolation and exclusion. Each widow in this study experienced such othering, including John, whose partner died of AIDS in the 1990s. The end of this chapter explores his experience of ambiguous widowhood. The final chapter takes a wider view and focuses on the intimate publics formed by female grief influencers on Instagram. This chapter highlights two such influencers and the ways that the discourses about grief that they employ both disrupts and reinforces traditional, Western logics about 'acceptable' grief.

This thesis closely reads black gay pornography and NeoSoul music from the 1990s to theorize the digital transformations of the adult entertainment and music industries during the commercialization and boom of the Internet. Acknowledging black sex workers and musical artists as knowers and agitators whose labor and artistry teased and troubled these transformations, I employ an American Studies analytic to archives and genres that highlights the economic and historical undergirding of black sexual economies in the United States. I argue that black musical artists and sex workers facilitate a mapping of black sexual economies and an ecosystem of labor and pleasure upended by the commercialization of the Internet that pronounces a dialogic relationship between the adult entertainment and music industries, black musical artists and sex workers, and black musical and pornographic genres. Through close reading and nut chasing methods, I intimately describe the musical and sexual performances of sex workers and musical artists in three pornographic films and one music video to analyze the complexities of instrumentation and cinematography during this technological era, how they narrativize sound and place, and the sensorial and physiological effects of witnessing and listening to these performances. In this project, I ask: how does porn and music remember sound and place, how does black music and black gay pornography narrate black sexual economies and geographies, and how did the commercialization of the Internet in the 1980 and 90s change black musical genres and (black) gay pornography?

This project is a critical intersectional analysis of the representation of women in movies. I use thirteen movies to showcase how feminism is still needed in the US in order to move closer to a state of equity for everyone. I utilized film as a medium through which to represent this idea because film is intimately linked to societal values, beliefs, and norms, and therefore reflects what can be changed or improved in the US.

In this study, I sought to learn how members of college women’s choirs feel about

their choir and women’s choirs in general. Singers from 19 institutions in the American

Choral Directors Association Southern division participated. From the potential survey

population (n=986), 302 respondents participated (response rate = 28%).

These research questions guided this study:

1. How do current members of college women’s choirs feel their choir is

perceived compared to other types of choirs at their college or university and

in their community?

2. How do current members of college women’s choirs feel about singing in this

group? About women’s choirs in general?

A researcher-developed survey instrument was used to gather demographic

information and other data related to the research questions. After a pilot study, the

survey was edited for clarity. The director of choral activities and the director of the

women’s choir at each institution was contacted via email. The schools that agreed to

participate received the link to the survey and an email script to send to students. Two

weeks later, a follow-up email was sent with the same materials. Two weeks after that,

the survey window closed. The data were collected and analyzed for frequency and

percentage. While analysis of variance (ANOVA) tests found no significant differences,

the analysis of some of the independent variables, especially those having to do with the

age and experience of the singers, were highly suggestive.

In this study, women’s choir members responded positively to statements about

the value of their choir within their institutions and communities. While respondents

often indicate that women’s choirs are seen as inferior to mixed choirs, they nevertheless

enjoy the repertoire they sing and like being challenged. Respondents answered

affirmatively in Likert-scale questions about their women’s choirs and women’s choirs in

general, but answered more critically in open-ended response questions about the same

topics. The survey results echo the findings of earlier studies, amplified by the choir

members’ own opinions. The data in this study offer clear means to ensure that all

students in all choirs are proud of their work and feel equally valued.

The secret Facebook group ////sads only/// was formed in October 2015 to provide a safe space for women and trans and nonbinary people to express their emotions, a sort of digital support group. Members can post individually about things happening in their lives, comment on other members’ posts with advice or support, and contribute to discussion threads. Common subject matters include mental health, relationships, sexuality, gender identity, friendships, careers, family, art, education, and body image. The group’s location on Facebook adds to its utility – it can be an alternative site of community-making and communication, away from the often toxic, triggering, or just plain negative posts that clog up social media news feeds and the unsolicited comments that get appended. The group is informed by principles of affect theory, and in particular, sad girl theory, which was developed by the artist Audrey Wollen. She suggests that femme sadness is a site of power and not just vulnerability. In her view, sadness isn’t passive existence, but instead, an act of resistance. Specifically, it uses the body in a way that is crucial to many definitions of activism, incorporating the violence of revolution, protest, and struggle that has historically been gendered as male. This thesis examines the history and future directions of the ///sads only/// group as well as its theoretical underpinnings and the implications of its intervention, considering such perspectives as cultural studies, gender performance, identity formation, digital citizenship, mental health, and feminist activism.

The horror genre contains a broad spectrum of tropes and archetypes surrounding gender. There is an increasing body of films involving the adolescent girl who embodies the monstrous-feminine, and whose will is tied to supernatural and often destructive powers, which has not been thoroughly explored by feminist film theory. Enough recurring themes exist to merit the definition of a trope, the Willful Girl. Framed using the Brothers Grimm fairytale “The Willful Child,” this trope can be seen in films such as Carrie (1976) and The Witch (2015), among others. Through a close reading of both films, similarities are uncovered. These similarities not only support the trope’s themes, but also provide insight to persistent ideologies, struggles, and prejudices against the adolescent girl throughout the decades. Acknowledging these ongoing issues, and their representation in horror films over the years, challenges the “waves” or “progress” model of feminism and begs the question of how “feminist” films should be defined.

This thesis will examine the implications behind a higher than average hysterectomy rate in the United States, particularly for women of color and women with lower incomes. It also examines barriers placed on persons trying to obtain a hysterectomy, such as those who are younger and therefore, considered be within the "ideal" demographic for reproduction. This is viewed through both a Critical Race Theory and Reproductive Justice framework. The goal of this research is to determine possible reasons behind disparities in hysterectomy demographics and evaluate how these reasons are influenced by the ideologies of white supremacy, pronatalism, population control, and the medicalization of female bodies integrated into the United States medical system. Understanding the reasons behind these disparities is the first step in deconstructing embedded racism and eliminating unconscious healthcare provider bias in order to provide true equitable care. Exploring the historical context of these embedded values is also essential to understand how they are placed into effect today. This thesis takes into account and evaluates both statistical and phenomenological data in order to understand the full scope of the lived impact. It also provides possible solutions and methods for combating the issues outlined for patients, healthcare professionals and healthcare institutions as well as suggestions on how to take this research further.