This thesis uses critical race theory to investigate and explain the ways in which the media discourse of the opioid crisis compared to the crack epidemic. This research combines critical discourse...Show moreThis thesis uses critical race theory to investigate and explain the ways in which the media discourse of the opioid crisis compared to the crack epidemic. This research combines critical discourse analysis and digital methods to analyze the narratives and rhetoric of a range of articles published in the National Review. These findings are compared to published secondary literature that explore trends in media coverage about the crack epidemic to draw conclusions about the shifting media narratives between the 1980s and 2010s. The findings reveal that 1980s media largely constructed crack users as the perpetrators of the crack epidemic. At the same time, the media largely promoted the key components of the War on Drugs campaign, include more regulation and criminalization. Coverage of opioid users contrastingly, were met with greater empathetic concern and their recovery became seen as a priority. By exploring these findings through the lens of critical race theory, this research finds that these narratives reveal significant racial inequities of conservative media coverage.Show less
This thesis examines the way in which the novels Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents present inequality based on disability, gender, class, religion and race and critically examines the...Show moreThis thesis examines the way in which the novels Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents present inequality based on disability, gender, class, religion and race and critically examines the intersections between these socioeconomic inequalities. This thesis focuses on the concept of change. Butler utilises science fiction — the genre of change — to critique social inequality on the basis of disability, gender, class, religion and race by founding Earthseed — the religion of change. Intersectionality is a tool, or lens, that aids in achieving change.Show less
James Marion Sims (1813-1883) is known as the ‘godfather of gynaecology.’ This American doctor had a career spanning Alabama, New York City and even undertook a European tour. He founded the United...Show moreJames Marion Sims (1813-1883) is known as the ‘godfather of gynaecology.’ This American doctor had a career spanning Alabama, New York City and even undertook a European tour. He founded the United States’ first Woman’s Hospital, but one of his first major contributions to medicine was finding a cure for vesico-vaginal fistula: the tearing of the vaginal wall due to trauma. This launched his career in medicine. However, he found this cure by performing medical experiments on enslaved Black women in his private clinic. In the Woman’s Hospital his patients were predominantly Irish immigrant women from the working classes of the city. This research explores what made it possible for a White man such as Sims to perform these unethical experiments on these women, who were racialised as Black. Through Foucault’s concept of the medical gaze and Kimberlé Crenshaw’s intersectional feminist critique, this thesis explores the professionalisation of medicine in the nineteenth century, scientific racism, the genesis of gynaecology, racial formation, medical experimentation and how Sims fits into these structures. The focus is the identity formation of Sims himself and his patients, who were intersectionally marginalised. Considering their race, class, ability and gender, one can reconstruct how they fit into the fabric of American society, and why exactly Sims and his colleagues were allowed to experiment on enslaved, working class, ill women when they never considered treating more privileged women (or men) in such a manner.Show less
In this essay it is researched whether Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex is still relevant in today's age, in which intersectionality is the reigning theory of oppression. This essay suggests...Show moreIn this essay it is researched whether Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex is still relevant in today's age, in which intersectionality is the reigning theory of oppression. This essay suggests that The Second Sex is in fact still relevant, since De Beauvoir’s The Second Sex is compatible with the concept of intersectionality. This essay demonstrates that The Second Sex is a work of queer phenomenology and, therefore, serves the same disorienting function as intersectionality regarded as a provisional concept.Show less
This thesis discusses Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale (1985) in relation to Harriet Jacobs’s Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861) and examines to what extent Atwood used Jacobs’s...Show moreThis thesis discusses Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale (1985) in relation to Harriet Jacobs’s Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861) and examines to what extent Atwood used Jacobs’s slave narrative as a template for her dystopian novel. With this comparison, this thesis considers whether Atwood’s novel marginalizes Afro-American experiences of slavery and to what extent The Handmaid’s Tale can be seen as a product of white feminism through a focus on the concept of intersectionality.Show less
By analysing various works set in seventeenth-century Puritan New England, stemming from different periods, this thesis demonstrates that this historical period proves to be a fruitful allegorical...Show moreBy analysing various works set in seventeenth-century Puritan New England, stemming from different periods, this thesis demonstrates that this historical period proves to be a fruitful allegorical vehicle to critically reflect upon contemporary concerns of authoritarianism, and elements of inclusion and exclusion, such as the scapegoating and general position of marginalised groups within American society. It is foregrounded that Robert Eggers’ film The Witch (2015) builds on and continues a tradition in American Gothic fiction by revealing its close intertextual relations to Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Gentle Boy” (1832), “The May-Pole of Merry Mount” (1832), “Young Goodman Brown” (1835), and The Scarlet Letter (1850), Arthur Miller’s The Crucible (1953), and Maryse Condé’s I, Tituba (1986). What decisively links these texts together is the centrality of the woods in each narrative as a space outside the restrictions of society, both in the Puritan period and contemporary times.Show less
This thesis considers the meaning and significance of portraying minorities in film. After a short discussion of existing Zainichi cinema, literature on film and gender and intersectionality, the...Show moreThis thesis considers the meaning and significance of portraying minorities in film. After a short discussion of existing Zainichi cinema, literature on film and gender and intersectionality, the thesis zooms in on Yakiniku Dragon (2018) and the way the film deals with Zainichi identity through the exploration of a few scenes and the analysis of Yakiniku Dragon’s script. Yakiniku Dragon’s underlying gender portrayals has implications for the way Zainichi experiences are perceived and has implications for Zainichi women in particular. The analysis of Yakiniku Dragon’s imagery and script sheds light on how gendered labor divisions and a different attribution of themes to different genders excludes Zainichi Korean women’s voices and experiences from Zainichi nationalism or empowerment discourses.Show less
In her book-length works "i is a long memoried woman" and “Picasso, I Want My Face Back,” the Guyanese-British poet Grace Nichols uses poetry to give a voice to a particular woman in history. The...Show moreIn her book-length works "i is a long memoried woman" and “Picasso, I Want My Face Back,” the Guyanese-British poet Grace Nichols uses poetry to give a voice to a particular woman in history. The lyrical subjects speaking in these works, an unnamed enslaved woman and the artist Dora Maar, respectively, bear witness to the past injustices they have endured. Through close reading, I show that both testimonial accounts address not only the historical violence suffered by these women but also the epistemic violence perpetrated by a modernist representation of them in writing and in painting. This epistemic violence presents them as non-agents, in crisis and as victims. I argue that at the heart of Nichols’ two testimonial projects lies an ethics of agency which not only seeks to make these particular women’s voices heard, but which also presents a mode of writing that demonstrates their agency as an inspiration for future women’s voices.Show less
In the past decades, great improvements have been made in relation to the societal position of women. However, non-Western women artists are still forced to face double colonization due to the...Show moreIn the past decades, great improvements have been made in relation to the societal position of women. However, non-Western women artists are still forced to face double colonization due to the application of patriarchal and Orientalist discourses in relation to the interpretation of their art, and the artists themselves. Since the 1980s, Chinese women artists have experienced increased recognition both in the mainland and internationally, however, they are still not freed from orientalism and patriarchy. This research focuses on the reality of China and—through close reading—examines the interviews with two Chinese women artists, Chen Lingyang and Lin Tianmiao which are then juxtaposed with claims of scholars, art critics, and curators. By incorporating the insights from theories of feminism, postcolonialism, and intersectionality, the presence of structural discourses can be revealed and used to identify ongoing oppression directed towards Chinese women artists. The thesis aims to contribute to the discussion about Chinese women artists and to challenge this oppressive reality which can potentially lead to an effective change in terms of avoiding patriarchal and Orientalist interpretations of these artists and their works.Show less
Despite the 1970s black feminists’ efforts towards empowerment, black women are nevertheless overshadowed by racism and sexism in political as well as social structures in contemporary United...Show moreDespite the 1970s black feminists’ efforts towards empowerment, black women are nevertheless overshadowed by racism and sexism in political as well as social structures in contemporary United States. Black feminist scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw initiated the social justice movement “#sayhername” in 2015 to address the severity of black women’s maltreatment and their underrepresentation in society. Her conceptualisation of “intersectionality” theory in 1989 allows for academic debate on the “matrix of oppressions” that undermines black women on the grounds of race, gender, sexual orientation, capitalism and imperialism. This recent development has raised the necessity to overcome the effacement of black women’s narratives from the past and the present. However, roots of intersectionality theory lie in the establishment of the historical black feminist organisations that separated from the “mainstream” black liberation and women’s liberation groups to challenge the intersecting oppressions. This thesis examines the historical black feminist struggles towards empowerment to argue that the oppressions still need to be overcome in the 21st century United States. It discusses three different black feminist organisations that emerged in the 1970s who laid the groundwork for present-day black feminism and intersectionality theory. First, the National Black Feminist Organisation (NBFO) which was the first group to defend black women’s needs and to raise the black feminist consciousness. Second, the Combahee River Collective (CRC), which developed the pivotal basis for intersectionality theory to discuss matters of sexual orientation and lesbianism to bring minority issues to the public attention. Last, the Third World Women’s Alliance (TWWA) that established a democratic global sisterhood to educate and to empower women of colour who were equally burdened by imperialism. An analysis of these three black feminist groups illustrates how feminist and historical literature neglect black women’s accomplishments for black women’s justice. Additionally, an understanding of the historical struggles of black feminists is essential to challenge the injustices minority groups experience today. As a result, this thesis argues that new social justice movements of consciousness-raising, black women’s empowerment and a gender-inclusive political agenda are necessary to foster gender and race equality.Show less
