writing

on

panel 1: gender: construction and constraint

Sarah Simmons "Masculinity in America"

In our society, what does it mean to be masculine?  For the majority of our population, there are five guidelines which define masculinity; do not be feminine, be successful, be sexual, be self reliant, and be aggressive.  If a man does not fit the "masculine" stereotype, he is often seen as weak, and not a "real man."  This paper discusses men's fear of being dominated and their rejection of femininity in order to feel whole and masculine. It describes how the traditional roles of the "masculine" male are changing as men are often required to stay at home with their children and must take on more of the household duties as women have entered the workforce. It also examines different cultures of men in America such as Asian-American men, who do not have the stereotypical "hairy chest and big strong physique" that define the stereotypical masculine man, therefore, they are placed in the category of the "other," as abnormal.  In this essay I will examine the many views of masculinity through a variety of scholarly essays, books, and personal interviews. I am using an essay titled, "Toward A History of Manhood in America," written by M. Kimmel, an essay by Cooper Thomson, titled "A New Vision in Masculinity," an essay by a Professor of Education at Sydney University, Bob Connell, titled "Politics of Changing Men," and a book titled Gendered Lives; Communication, Gender, and Culture, by Julia T. Wood.  I have also interviewed a few people for their personal comments and definitions of masculinity.

Meredith McCann "The Changing Roles of Women and Cultural Construction of Anorexia Nervosa: A Conflicted Female Identity"

As the women’s movement has evolved, so has the role of women, but with huge expectations and demands on them, and the definition of this role is far from clear. And as a woman’s role in society changes and becomes more demanding to be all they can be with expectations for achievement and performance, more than ever there is also a cultural pressure to be traditionally female: attractive, pleasing, and unassertive. With that, women find they are losing a grip on exactly what their identity is and should be as dictated by society. Richard Gordon and Catherine Steiner-Adair’s research reveals this identity conflict for women today and those who suffer from it with the propensity to suffer from Anorexia Nervosa in an attempt to gain control and better identify themselves in a society where the role of women is so ambiguous.

panel : fat in american culture

Teresa McNulty (untitled)

The American culture strives to be beautiful. Magazine ads, commercials, all try to show us how to look like the most beautiful person. The American culture is also an obesity-fostering environment. Magazine ads, commercials all show us how to ingest large amounts of calories quickly. For the individuals suffering from morbid obesity, their lives and emotions are viciously played with. For some individuals trying to cope in this environment can lead one to depression or even suicide. For those individuals suffering from morbid obesity, a life of fear and despair and moving to health and hope takes tremendous amounts of courage.

Allie Smith "Sexuality and the Obese Body in American Culture"

Contemporary American culture demands conformity to specific standards of beauty, but differing standards for males and females. With reference to Mary Russo’s "Female Grotesques," the author explores the social unacceptability of female obesity as demonstrated linguistically. This paper examines the social meanings of the deviant obese body as constructed through media portrayals, (such as What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, The Nutty Professor and excerpted lyrics from Sir Mix-a-Lot’s "Baby Got Back") and how these portrays reflect the overall society’s obsession with perfection and the grotesque.

Mona Flick "Obesity as the Other"

While obesity is a health problem that is shared by over 95,000,000 Americans, it continues daily to put people into a category of second-class citizenship. According to findings published on the website of Xenical, makers of a medication which helps control obesity, people with the condition not only suffer health consequences such as high blood pressure and heart disease, they also suffer from low self-esteem, loneliness and depression. Discrimination against overweight people can be seen in all realms of life from employment to housing to retail to medical. Sondra Solovay, author of Tipping the Scales of Justice: Fighting Weight-Based Discrimination, claims that overweight people are constantly judged for their appearance and people automatically assume it is their own fault and they can control it simply by eating less and exercising more. Overweight people are made to believe that they are not worthy of the same social elements of their thin counterparts. Terry Poulton, author of No Fat Chicks, asks "How does it feel to belong to the only group in contemporary society that is still considered fair game for prejudice, exploitation and outright cruelty?" Until society becomes more educated on the effects of obesity, the overweight will continue to feel as though they are seen as different - as the 'other' - by the people in the world who judge them and discriminate against them.

women: older and "other"

Jensea Storie "On Becoming an Older Woman"

In my research paper, I intent to examine ways in which women in the later years of the aging process become the other.   Marginalized in our modern culture due to what we both consciously and unconsciously designate as a loss of beauty, the woman becomes subjected—being isolated and disempowered—and of being subjected—imagined by our culture to bequeath qualities of meaning and purpose. I begin my exploration by examining Sergei Lobanov-Rostovsky’s essay Taming the Basilisk" whereby he asserts that the task of the eye functions as both the creator and the target of the masculine gaze.  Though in a traditional sense, the eye’s conception assumes a penetrative stance, it also functions as a passive receptacle.  Lobanov-Rostovsky posits further that the perspective of the eye postulates a compensatory and a retaliatory role of the other. The remainder of my research paper focuses on the power of somatic articulation.  Carla Mazzio’s essay "Sins of the Tongue" considers the power of verbal supremacy unfurling a reallocation of the relations between speech and text.  Concentrating my focus on her religious and philosophical examples, I intend to emphasize the potency of localized speech as a means to control by vocalization of fears of self-alienation brought about aging associated with death. Finally, my research paper will turn to Julia Kristeva’s book Revolution in Poetic Language, specifically her chapter entitled "Poetry That Is Not a Form of Murder." Borrowing from Mazzio’s essay the perspective of the manipulative powers of the tongue, I further examine what Kristeva terms as the thetic phase, or simply put, the act of regulation by the way of socio-symbolic text that inhibits jouissance.  Fortunately, Kristeva contrasts this thetic phase with the jouissance found in the somatic qualities of the language of poetry.  According to Kristeva, "By reproducing the signifiers [of poetic language]—vocal, gestural, verbal—the subject crosses the border of the symbolic…and poetic language is the ultimate means of transformation" (81). Using Kristeva’s perception of poetic language as a means for transformation, I intent to illustrate, through examples of contemporary poetry, the transcendence of the perspective of the woman aging as the other to a positive perception of the aging woman in our culture.

Tracy M. Fuller "The New Female Identity: The Childless Woman"

In the 21st Century, the desire to bear children appears to be an American pastime. The media expounds almost daily stories of new infertility treatments and insemination procedures. Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) is a buzzword for infertility support groups, seeming to imply that conceiving and bearing children is no longer an impossibility for the infertile woman, but simply a technology for a woman and her mate, if any, of which to avail themselves. The complexity, duration and enormous costs of reproductive procedures begs the question: Is a woman less of a woman if she is unable to conceive children, either naturally or with ART? The issue of female identity certainly plays a huge part in the popularity and increasing demand for ART procedures. But what about women who choose to remain childless? There is a growing body of literature regarding childless women, both voluntary and involuntary, which focuses on the issue of female identity of the childless woman. Of the sources cited in this article, three authors are outstanding in their attempts to redefine the social and gender role expectations and construct of women who remain childless. Mardy S. Ireland, author of Reconceiving Women: Separating Motherhood From Female Identity, classifies childless women into three distinct categories in order to examine how social constructs forces each type to identify themselves. Rochelle Ratner compiled an amazing array of writings and poetry from a broad spectrum of women whose only shared quality is childlessness. Each woman’s contribution to Ratner’s book, Bearing Life: Women’s Writings on Childlessness, expands an ever-growing dialogue by and for childless women. The Baby Boon by Elinor Burkett explores the politics of being childless in America. To be a parent in America, Burkett asserts, is to be privileged. The childless woman remains a mystery that is just now being explored. Whether a woman remains childless by choice or not, certain social constructs exist in American society which deem such women suspect and unnatural. The popularity of reproductive science and the privileging of women with children enforces this construct. In order to create a new female identity, women need to engage in dialogue with other women, with their partners/companions, and with themselves so that traditional gender and societal role expectations expand to encompass the childless woman as a "whole" woman and not as a failure.

Giovanni Ferrer "Female Athletics in the New Millenium."

The gradual increase in female athletic participation and the advent of women’s professional sports (soccer, basketball) is relative in American culture of today. Public and societal attitudes of female athletes have over the years changed, but how quickly is the process moving? What are perceptions of women in sports today? These are a couple of the many questions I will look to explore in the cultural study paper on women in sports. I will focus on three major aspects to female athletics: gender role subjects/issues, media focus, and public perception/awareness. Although, periodicals and online material make good sources for actual accounts, the grunt of information I will use comes from Women in Sport: Issues and Controversies, by Greta L. Cohen, Raising Our Athletic Daughters, by Jean Zimmerman and Gil Reavill. David F. Salter’s Crashing The Old Boys’ Network is a study into the discriminatory female athletic system of our society. The purpose of this study is to raise the consciousness over the subject because in the words of David Salter "Enlightenment is not universal."

Annie Robertson – The Evolution of Women Politicians."

This article examines the challenges women candidates face when entering the political arena.  Often times, their political agenda doesn't receive the attention it deserves.  As shown in Jane Swift's run for lieutenant governor in Massachusetts, Anita Hill's public trial, and Hillary Clinton's controversial persona, the media often attacks women in politics at a personal level.   It has not been easy for women to break free from the traditional female role, especially when they are in a position of leadership.  The women's movement sparked from Betty Friedan's book The Feminine Mystique will be explored.  Specifically the struggles and success' of women political figures.   This article uses Harriet Wood's book Stepping Up to Power as a primary source. 

beauty: insides, outsides, and the social body

Jacob Strona "Exploring the Quasimodo Complex"

Although modern science has a well established set of classifications used in identifying and determining external and physical malformations, deformations, and disruptions, according to Jonathan Sinclair Carey, clinical science does not pay much, if any, attention to the internal conflict individuals with these physical afflictions suffer.  Carey’s Quasimodo Complex, the internal or psychological trauma an individual with concealed or unconcealed deformities suffers from due to interactions with "normal" people, is the focus of this research paper. This paper will present a summary and analysis of the main ideas of the Quasimodo Complex.  In addition, this paper will draw insight from experts of various fields, such as Robert Goldwyn, Ronald Strauss, Francis Cooke Macgregor among others, in order to represent the multivalent reaction to the Carey’s Quasimodo Complex. The main aim of this paper is to illustrate the internal struggle those with deformities suffer, both directly and indirectly, in social interactions. These social interactions greatly affect self-perception and development through out an individual’s life.  Carey’s Quasimodo Complex attempts to reconcile the large gap between the external and internal in the medical community.

Brenton Montgomery (untitled)

During the semester we have examined the body.  We have seen how physical beauty has played a major role in some people's lives.  The prettiest tend to be society's most desirable while people with defects suffer ridicule.  Others resort to obsessive behavior to achieve a certain physical appearance.  Sometimes, they don't even realize that they are hurting themselves.  Through all of the discussion about our bodies, we have learned

that the body is not significant after all. Our emotions can be found inside each and every one of us and that is what unites us.  The body is just an exterior, blocking the way to our true selves.  Inner strength is able to transcend race, gender, or disability.  Basically, humans have a need to be loved and recognized for our inner beauty instead of our bodies. This paper will examine texts by Hooks, Walker, Anzaldua, and Robert Hass, the films Waterdance and Freaks, and perhaps others.

Cheryl Ledbetter    "Shallow Hal Delivers Wrong Message"

The recent release of Shallow Hal has caused controversy among some of its viewers. The latest comedy directed by the Farrelly brothers attempts to provide a moralistic tale about how we should get past the physical beauty and fall in love with the inner beauty of others. The film, however, ridicules individuals who are overweight and fails to deliver this message successfully to its audience. Although the theme of inner beauty is present, the film does not get past its shallowness. Instead, it still emphasizes the importance of outer beauty. It is difficult to get past the physical beauty when those who are overweight in the film are made fun of and a tall beautiful blonde who wears a size 4 represents the inner self. Actress Gwyneth Paltrow represents the inner beauty in the film and the "ideal" woman in our society. The seminar paper will discuss how Shallow Hal delivers mixed messages to its audience about what beauty really is and how body image really is more important in our society than the actual notion of inner beauty.

panel : reproducing beauty, or, the market in children

Tasha Ruiz "Judging Beauty or Who wears the Crown"

Judging the Miss America Pageant is widely considered by both contestants and pageant producers to be simultaneously an arbitrary and a clearly calculated process. The judging is determined based on an "objective" numeric scale, in which each contestant is judged in different categories. In looking at two judges comments: William Goldman’s Hype and Glory (a personal account of his experience as a Miss America Judge in 1989), and Marcia Bullards (CEO, President and Editor of USA Weekend), and actual judging criteria, one may find the process of judging extremely difficult. To pinpoint the most talented, the most beautiful, the best personality is just another way of scoring femininity. Considering Goldman’s take on an instructional video given to the judges as mandatory viewing by the Pageant CEO attempts to "train" the vision of the appropriate markers of femininity. In renaming the categories of swimsuit competition to "Olympic Ability" and evening gown competition to "Poise and Grace" where being pretty is termed as having "Energy" categories of judging are trying to move away from focusing on the Body, and claiming to be a Talent Show. The rhetorics of the categorization in the Miss America Pageant Judging system attempt to legitimize that the Miss America Pageant as no longer a "Beauty Contest" but "The greatest promotional scholarship program for women in the world." The language is used to defend its legitimacy as a highly respected event, yet, the numbers do not lie; seventy percent physical and thirty percent mental. Although the language may confuse and obscure, numbers do not lie. Again, women are rewarded for their physical beauty.

Mary Jane Commodore "Damaging Representation of Beauty in Children’s Beauty Pageants"

The explosion of children’s beauty pageants across the nation rings a cautionary alarm as to whether it truly does promote positive self-image and enhance self-esteem as so many pageant coordinators and participants claim, or does it simply perpetuate our society’s belief that beauty is everything that must be perfected even at a cost of physical dissatisfaction that could eventually lead to eating disorders. Beauty in children’s pageantry’s eyes must mimic adult women’s behaviors and looks through caked-on make-up, sprayed-stiff hair, elaborate, often times tight-fitting, gowns, and displayed facial/physical appearance in a catwalk manner. This essay takes a closer look behind the scene of children’s beauty pageant to reveal its damaging representation of what beauty must be equally referencing a study "Not Just a Pretty Face: Physical Attractiveness and Perfectionism in the Risk for Eating Disorders" conducted by Caroline Davis, Gordon Claridge, and John Fox and Kathrin Perutz’ Beyond The Looking Glass.

Janelle Leavitt "Advertising, the Child, and Sex"

In 1980, Calvin Klein released a new form of advertising campaign. A fifteen-year old Brooke Shields seductively stares at the viewer as she unbuttons her shirt. The premise of this ad was to sell jeans, but Klein was selling more than denim. The use of children in advertising has reached an all time low as more and more companies choose to portray the innocence of the child as ideal. All too often, the young teen becomes a symbol of sexuality as their purity is exploited in the name of commercialism. This desensitization of the public to the pornographic nature of the child as goddess is further proof that society has become all too consumed with beauty. The freakish imaginations of those corporations and consumers who buy into the fantasy of youth and sexuality are only serving to flush the child from reality and create in its place, a new sexual frontier. It is no wonder that childhood sexual experience is increasing and the horror of pedophilia is becoming increasingly common. As a society it is immoral for us to support the use of children as commodities of sex in the advertising industry. The fine line between beauty and the freak has definitely been crossed when children become symbolic as sexual beings.

Steve Compian "No Laughing Matter: How Women are Portrayed in Comics"

Distortion of the female body and language occurs in almost every communication medium, but the least likely place anyone should expect to see sexism is in the comic strips. Comics, and more recently animations, perpetuate oppression in our society by portraying the female subject as either an object of desire or as an individual to be pitied. The most disturbing aspect of this type of misrepresentation concerns its effect on a section of its intended audience: children. This paper explores the manner in which seemingly innocent cartoons portray females and how that portrayal influences our society. I referenced selected pieces from Conboy’s Writing on the Body, and other cultural texts in examining how characters like Blondie, Popeye's Olive Oil, Jessica Rabbit, and Betty Boop paint less than flattering pictures of women.

Brandi Wharton "Barbie: The Plastic Icon"

Barbie has become a cultural icon in the United States. My paper explores the ramifications of girls’ play with Barbie. The two major arguments against Barbie are her unrealistic body image and her promotion of materialism. Mattel’s marketing encourages girls to "be all they can be." It insinuates that to accomplish this, one needs to be tall, thin, beautiful, and obtain the accessories of success. Despite this, some mothers still regard Barbie as an important tool for fostering imagination in their children. They believe Barbie serves as an introduction to the adult world, that she teaches important lessons about becoming a woman. My question is, what type of world these mothers are preparing their daughters for? I have explored Barbie’s history and the societal changes that have manifested themselves in her marketing. For example, Mattel has attempted to diversify its customer base by manufacturing ethnic Barbies. Rather than include cultures such as African American, Asian, and Hispanic, Mattel further marginalizes these ethnicities by marketing the dolls as "special" and "limited edition." The question this paper address is whether Barbie manipulates society or whether she is merely a reflection of societal ideals.

Susie Shattuck "Seventeen Ways to Diminish Self-esteem: What Advertisements in Seventeen Magazine Tell Teen Readers About Their Bodies."

"Advertising works within a cultural context, selectively reinforcing styles, roles, and values of the culture. [T]he idealized images portrayed in advertising help shape a person’s self-image [. . .]" This view of advertising, noted by Michael Maynard and Charles Taylor in a 1999 article in the Journal of Advertising, sets the framework for "Seventeen ways to diminish self-esteem: what advertisements in Seventeen magazine tell teen readers about their bodies." This paper compares advertisements in three issues of Seventeen magazine, one each from 1958, 1978, and 1998. The author focuses on display ads for personal products, cataloging the ads and analyzing the statements they make about the bodies of teenage girls. The body image constructed by advertisers is compared to the ideal images pictured in the ads. The analysis reveals that, over the decades, advertisers have targeted an ever-expanding list of "problem areas" and potential "zones of enhancement" on teenage girls’ bodies in order to make markets for their growing line of personal care and image-enhancement products. The author suggests that advertisements in Seventeen represent the young female body as essentially flawed in an increasing number of ways. The widening gap between what teens believe about their own bodies and what they see as the ideal contributes to low self-esteem in contemporary American teenage girls.

dysmorphias and re/constructions

Andrew Girard "Apotemnophilia:  Where Should Society Stand?"

The syndrome of self-amputation of a healthy limb or digit, known as apotemnophilia, is a little known one, yet deserves attention from the medical world.  For what may seem surreal to most, there is a segment of society that does suffer from this, and to them, this "philia" is very real.  Through vast medical journals, personal testimonies, etc., one can begin to understand that whether it is born from a psychological or cultural occurrence, how these people do feel about their bodies is genuine. Once apotemnophilia is understood, the question arises, is our technological world helping or hindering these people?  We, as humans, have reached an era where   information can be passed anywhere in the world by a touch of a button.  Thus brings us to the idea of semantic contagion, and the effects it has on this disorder.   Does the accessibility of the internet help to convince people to engage in activities that they may not have thirty years ago?  Or does it provide a "healthy" forum for these "sick" people to discuss their problems? When more is known about disorders, more can be done to relieve them.  Little is known about Apotemnophiliacs, for it both afflicts a miniscule sect of society, and the conversation surrounding it becomes taboo.  Using such sources as Greg Furth's book Apotemnophilia, Information, Q & A and Recommendations about Self-demand Amputation, and the OverGround website, the paper shall concern who the "affected" are, discusses the heredity vs. environment issue, and whether the AMA should recognize this as a valid physical or mental disorder, thus treating it as such.

Katja Tonsky "Diseases of the Mind that Affect the Body: Body Dysmorphic Disorder and Others."

Recently, there has been an increase in mental disorders that may require body modifications in order to alleviate the mental pain and suffering of the patient. These disorders range from face picking, to anorexia nervosa to the relatively "new" disorder called apotemnophilia (the desire to amputate healthy limbs). Although it is indisputable that the reporting of the incidence of these disorders has increased over the past 25 years, the question as to why has yet to be answered. Are these actual psychological disorders, or manifestations of societal pressures and drastic changes in familial life as well as an explosion of the information highway, or have we simply discovered the language that describes disorders that have been around for centuries? These disorders may stem from chemical imbalances or they may be subconscious calls for attention. These disorders may stem from feelings of inadequacy and the need to be loved. As demonstrated in the novel Geek Love, numerous case studies, as well as psychological texts, some forms of body dysmorphic disorder may affect "normal" people who are just looking for love, attention or looking to be accepted in some form of society, even if it is the fringe of society.

Sue Sorenson "Finding Gender Identity Through Surgery"

The search for individual identity is an integral part of American culture, and the way we construct our identities is forever attached to our perception of gender and the physical body. For some of us, gender itself is in question, for there are many who do not fit, or feel as though they fit, into the rigid category of male or female. This essay explores the relationship between gender identity and sexual reassignment (or assignment, in the case of intersexuality) surgery. Through examples of how transsexuals are represented in selected films of Pedro Almodovar (The Law of Desire), as well as how they represent themselves in texts such as Aleshia Brevard’s autobiographical The Woman I Was Not Born to Be and Sandy Stone’s "The Empire Strikes Back: A Posttranssexual Manifesto," the problematic paradigm of gender staticity is questioned. This essay also studies the medical ethics of intersexuality and the construction of gender through surgery, through the Nova documentary Sex: Unknown as well as readings from Alice Dormurat Dreger’s "’Ambiguous Sex’ or Ambivalent Medicine? Ethical Issues in the Treatment of Intersexuality" and Marjorie Garber’s "Spare Parts: The Surgical Construction of Gender."

Shanna Zablotny "Bod Mod Squad Therapy"

This paper explores how the "squad," also known as the cosmetic surgery industry, utilizes language and images to present body modification as therapy. The language and images used by the industry construct an idealized female body that is presented as a "cure". Through this rhetoric, the female mind is influenced with the desire to be "fixed". This paper analyzes advertisements from The Reader, the Internet, media images and cosmetic surgeon narratives with reference to Naomi Wolf’s The Beauty Myth and recent magazine articles on how the cosmetic surgery industry presents body modification as a solution. Specific reference is given to how language is used to diminish the concept of pain and mutilation. It also explores the connections between cultural influences and the pursuit of beauty through body modification.

writing/painting gender, dis/ability and the body

Grace Kessler "The Disabled Mestiza en la Frontera"

An encounter with the art of Frida Kahlo presents the opportunity to experience pain expressed through an artistic medium.  It is impossible to examine Kahlo’s work without understanding the experiences that define her paintings.  A litany of injuries impaired her experience with pain, immobility, and identity as she struggled for social agency. Kahlo’s self effacing art teaches much about the nature of pain and suffering, especially in self-portraits, exploring life experiences of pain, suffering, loneliness, and vulnerability, within a crumbling body.  Kahlo said the reasons behind so many self-portraits came from internal and external realities promoting on canvass the person she knew best – herself!  The paintings used will represent and analyze the material reality of a disabled body.  Disability presents the material reality of a body that is unprotected, penetrable, and exposed.  Whether collapsed, distorted, or fragmented, there is always a full body image. The confused, blurred boundaries of femalism survives and negotiates a reality of disability without shocking or seeking sympathy.  Disability codified this artist’s statement but what she lived through gave it a multi-leveled meaning.  By not centralizing pain and disability, the body never becomes overly subjectified but centers on a lifetime of living, internally and externally, with disability.

Leighann Timbs "Transcending Gender and Sexuality: Textual Exploration of Corporeality in Jeanette Winterson’s Written on the Body"

This paper examines the construction of the body and, more specifically, its gender and sexuality in Jeanette Winterson’s Written on the Body. In her novel, Winterson uses metaphor to reveal the body as an undiscovered continent whose gender and sexuality are not inscribed, but rather written on the body through the accumulation of that body’s autonomous experiences. Through the strategic use of language in presenting an un-gendered narrator, she creates a subversive literary world void of gender and sexual dichotomies—a world that transcends these binary distinctions. Winterson redefines love by stripping it of clichés and categories—by presenting love as a phenomenon as visceral as the flesh and blood of the bodies that inhabit it. In order to investigate this subversive text, I refer the theoretical frameworks of Foucault, Cixous, and Butler regarding the shifting boundaries of gender and sexuality.

Caroline Best Writing the Unspeakable: Corporeal Subjectivity and Disease in Bram Stoker’s Dracula

This paper explores the representation of corporeal subjectivity in Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Specifically, Stoker’s narrative evinces corporeality by placing writing, sexuality, and disease onto a continuum. Within this equation, he designates the vampire as a signifier of subjectivities that his Victorian context considers deviant or unspeakable: female (sexual) agency and same sex eroticism. While Stoker permits these culturally deviant bodies to write their subjectivity into the narrative, he punishes the fruition of these subjectivities with disease, or the vampire. In other words, by writing their corporeal subjectivity, Stoker’s characters inseminate the vampire who at once suggests the unnaturalness of their desire and, through his or her kiss, the disease (or social dis-ease) resulting from the embodiment of these desires. Before analyzing the assertion and subsequent degeneration of "deviant" subjectivities in Dracula, this paper explores the connection between writing, sexuality, and disease in the Victorian era. Victorian social and medical discourses maintain that writing manifests a male practice. Within these discourses, authorship not just signifies a threat of woman’s health, but, because the Victorian perception of same sex eroticism presumes the hidden presence of femininity in the homosexual male, also evinces a risk to homosexuals. Considering this observation in the context of Dracula, it insinuates that as much as Stoker’s decision to permit "deviant" bodies to write their subjectivity into the narrative transcends these discourses, his determination to sanction this process with disease pays tribute to their pandects.

inside/outside institutions

Benjamin Wayne "House on a Hill"

This article examines the institutional web of power as it is exerted by T.J.S.M. & C. Inc., a residential care facility in Vista, California for children and adults, both male and female, living with developmental disabilities. It argues that, through policy, procedure and practice, T.J.S.M. & C. Inc. has created a discourse or technology of power capable of socially constructing and objectivizing its residents. In an institution founded on principals of inalienable human rights, respect and compassion, this paper asks, specifically, what policies, procedures and practices give T.J.S.M. & C. the agency to construct and objectives its clientele. This article also argues that, through participation in culture; through exercise of normative behavior, the clientele of T.J.S.M. & C. are able to develop technologies of self. These technologies, although part of the larger sphere of all technology, enable the clientele to navigate the institutional structure of T.J.S.M. & C., using its power matrix at times, for their own benefit. In conducting my primary research I spent two weekends with the owners, employees and client of T.J.S.M. & C. asking them questions about employee pay scale, attrition rate; hospitalization policies for clients, frequency of violence in the homes, clients overall health, daily routine and dietary plan. I supplemented my research with readings of Michel Foucault’s Madness and Civilization, The Archaeology of Knowledge, The Order of Things and Technologies of the Self. Don’t miss the chance to let this article take you into the subliminal mechanics of the modern institution.

Lisa Lipsey "Quality of Life for Persons with AIDS"

Five years ago, people were relieved to end the days of constant hospice. Individuals with AIDS stopped dying in the numbers that they were during the 1980’s and early 90’s. Now, with new drug therapies and added life expectancy, the focus has changed to quality of life. Many doctors, caregivers and case managers have struggled to answer the questions: What factors contribute to satisfactory or increased quality of life (physical, mental, emotional and social)? How do we define quality of life for a person that is terminally ill? This paper will examine Fraternity House, Inc., a Residential Care Facility for the Chronically Ill (RCF-CI) disabled by AIDS, to see how the organization measures quality of life for the residents in their care. The RCF-CI licensing designation allows the organization to provide transitional, chronic and hospice care, all in one location. Since 1988, Fraternity House, Inc. has "provide[d] warm and caring homes where men and women disabled by HIV/AIDS can receive comprehensive care and services in order to rebuild their health and return to independent living, or where they can spend their last days in comfort and dignity." The main question I have addressed is: How can a grantwriter convince funders that this organization helped a resident maintain and improve his quality of life even though the resident died? (70% of our residents have made Fraternity House, Inc. their final home.)

Kathrina Richert"Flipping the Turtle: Integration of Handicapped Persons into Larger Society"

Crippled or Handicapped people who spend extended periods of time in hospitals or institutions develop a culture of their own inside that sphere. Within that culture they are accepted and have a way of life that is comfortable for them. When this culture collides with the rest of the world, an uncomfortable meshing of worldviews occurs, changing the outlook of all involved. Both parties realize they are not the only type of people in the world and must construct an altered definition of who and what they are in this society. This paper examines the perceptions of the world of the institution and how it tries to rejoin the outside world, the difficulties experienced in this movement, and the new definitions of "crippled" and "whole" bodies as formed by the intertwining of the two cultures. Primarily through the eyes of the characters in Rudolfo A. Anaya’s novel Tortuga, and also examination of Susan Sontag’s Illness as Metaphor, Mary Klages’ Woeful Afflictions: Disability & Sentimentality in Victorian America and the Rehabilitation International website, we discover these definitions and perceptions.

Sean Kennedy (untitled)

My seminar paper will argue that the flagging of o-standard college admissions testing constructs a discriminatory difference within the culture of college admissions and the mind of the test-taker. From my own experience and my research, I will evaluate the pros and cons of this hotly debated issue. I will also analyze the significance of what the flag represents to all parties involved. Also significant in the debate is the effect the language "non-standard" has on the participants. Support for this issue comes from the test-makers and admissions officials who feel that testing taken with any accommodation due to a documented disability should be flagged because the test format has been changed. Criticism for this issue comes, primarily from disability interest groups and individual test-takers that feel the practice of flagging discriminates against the test-taker who possesses a documented disability that requires an altered test. The movement against flagging scored a coup recently when the Educational Testing Service agreed to cease flagging scores on its graduate admission tests. The hurdle that critics have yet to surmount is eradicating flagging from all testing. Many anti-flagging pundits and I feel flagging limits equal opportunity and access to university study.

the tyranny of the visual: film and tv representations

Leila Granahan "Engendering Film History: Performativity, Transgression, and Discourses of Power in Cultural Representations of The Vamp, The Tease, and The Femme Fatale."

The early film roles of women were both the literal product of male screenwriters, producers, directors, and censors as well as the cultural product of the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s, decades noted for an ambivalent sentiment towards the role of women. In this paper, I argue that while the so-called "bad girls" of film: vamps, teases, and femmes fatales, embodied the fears of their contemporary culture, they also utilized an exaggerated performativity to transcend their traditional roles while continuing to feed male sexual desire. The vamp (or vampire) of the Post-World War One era resonated the avaricious capitalism of the 1920s; her lust cast her as a parasite, feeding on the decade¹s wholesome optimism, threatening to destroy the decade¹s fragile infrastructure. The teases of the 1930s (notably Mae West) amplified the sexual power of their female physical bodies, while often simultaneously incorporating traditionally masculine qualities; the power of their bodies intimidated able-bodied men, of whom confronted occupational impotence in the Depression era. In the 1940s, as America confronted a threat to the "American way of life," the intellectual femme fatale threatened the sanctity of motherhood, wifehood and family values, forcing men to reevaluate their own positionality. My analysis includes close readings of films like I’m No Angel, Mildred Pierce, and Sunset Boulevard, and incorporates the criticism of Judith Butler, Michel Foucault, and Mary Ann Doane.

Tyrone Coronado "The Lighter Side of Hollywood"

Representations of black female bodies in contemporary popular culture have changed with the times. Unfortunately contemporary media continues to privilege the light-skinned black female body over the dark-skinned black female body. These light-skinned black female bodies are used to reinforce a white standard of beauty by looking and acting white.  At the same time the media masks and assigns negative characteristics to the darker black female bodies. This essay deconstructs the light-skinned/dark-skinned binary that is common in Hollywood and the media through an analysis of texts and movies with black female characters, the writings of black feminist bell hooks, and through a study of western standards of beauty.

Colin Hanlon "Of Mice and Monsters: Hollywood's Depiction of Large Men"

Hollywood is guilty of perpetuating many stereotypes in our culture. Among these are the stigmas surrounding men who are above average size. The classic stereotypes of these men involve any combination of above average strength, below average intelligence, dependency upon others, and the all time favorite "heart of gold" setup. In my paper, I examine Hollywood’s use of these character types in leading the movie going public to see them as a reality. The near absence of an above average size male character in a lead role without any of the above characteristics prevents those viewing these films to see anything other than the stereotype which Hollywood presents. Through examinations of some of the more popular large male characters in film, I show the mold that Hollywood has created and continues to use. This formula forces all large men to, at some point in their lives, encounter those who hold these views. Among the films used in this paper are The Princess Bride (1987), Of Mice and Men (1992), One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975), and The Terminator (1984).

Mary Ernst "Stuttering: A Comparative Analysis as represented in Film and Television."

This seminar paper is an examination of the means by which the character portrayal of stuttering in film and television, results in a negative image of the stutterer. This critical examination of stutterers in popular films and television programs, is a entity in which the sociological effects of stuttering are illustrated through the use of different personality characteristics and plot complications. Stutterers are commonly portrayed in these media forms as having shy, devious, or incompetent personalities, thereby rendering the stutterer the butt of jokes. This relegates the stutterer to a place of non- importance in these media forms and diminishes the stutterer’s sense of self worth and belonging.

Jay Trussel (untitled)