Scholars have thoroughly researched the political backlash against the LGBTI community in Poland and Hungary after EU accession. As time has passed, a new wave has arisen. With very little research...Show moreScholars have thoroughly researched the political backlash against the LGBTI community in Poland and Hungary after EU accession. As time has passed, a new wave has arisen. With very little research conducted concerning this new wave or its relation to the earlier wave, it is time to update the body of literature surrounding politicized LGBTI phobia. Therefore, this thesis researches how politicized LGBTI phobia has developed in Poland and Hungary since their accession into the EU in 2004. This question has been answered through an examination of academic articles and NGO reports from the earlier wave, and a thematic analysis of interviews with local and transnational actors combined with information of NGO reports about the current wave. Thematic analysis has been used to analyze these interviews and this thesis utilizes antagonism theory as the wider framework. This thesis observes both parallels and differences among the waves within Poland and Hungary individually and the totality of waves between the two countries. There are continuations of factors, but also new factors to be found in the new waves. This thesis concludes that politicized LGBTI phobia has come in waves, with a shift towards anti-migration narratives in between the two waves. Furthermore, the developments consist of unique domestic factors, regional parallels that can be understood as echos, and also global developments such as the overall anti-gender and anti-LGBTI movements. New factors include new intensified forms of previous characteristics which are for example LGBT free zones, rule by decree, NGO restructuring and family mainstreaming. However, it is apparent that the latest wave has not yet ended and is showing no evidence of dissipating.Show less
‘Gothic has, in a sense, always been ‘queer’’, or so Hughes and Smith argue in their introduction to Queering the Gothic. Other critics have suggested that Gothic is queer in the sense that it has...Show more‘Gothic has, in a sense, always been ‘queer’’, or so Hughes and Smith argue in their introduction to Queering the Gothic. Other critics have suggested that Gothic is queer in the sense that it has always occupied the liminal spaces and transgressed boundaries in order to interrogate what is “normal” in society . In the Victorian age the sexual aspect of the queer becomes of pivotal importance. When the Labouchere Amendment was passed in 1885, acts of homosexuality became officially criminalised. Research shows how the Gothic then evolved even more strongly into a space for expressing ‘sexual defiance’. Late Victorian authors found ‘a safe location’ in the Gothic genre to ‘explore the landscape of sexual taboos’. The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and The Picture of Dorian Gray are both narratives of the late Victorian period and have been widely researched for expressing homosexuality in their narratives. This thesis examines the two novels explicitly for the similar Gothic tropes they use in order to express their queer narrative. This thesis is a close reading of the two novels, comparing and contrastingthese texts by showing how they employ similar Gothic tropes the two novels use to express their homosexual narrative, namely: contemporary anxiety around degeneration, a repressed hidden identity, and the strategical use of elision and “silence”. Through this I will investigate how The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and The Picture of Dorian Gray mirror one another’s queer narratives and how they use the Gothic to criticise and accuse Late Victorian society and law enforcement for marginalising homosexual men and thus creating the internalised double homosexual ‘monster’.Show less
This paper locates sexuality/ies within the field of International Relations by identifying how the latter shapes and is shaped by sexualities. Through the empirical application of the concept of ...Show moreThis paper locates sexuality/ies within the field of International Relations by identifying how the latter shapes and is shaped by sexualities. Through the empirical application of the concept of ‘Ethical Power Europe’ to the 2016 EU-Turkey Statement, and the analysis of Turkish ‘conservative democracy’ and 'traditional social life', it analyses the consequences for sexual minorities in Turkey. The use of Queer International Relations allows for the realisation of Turkey as an ‘unsafe haven’ and of how figurations of LGBTIQ asylum-seekers/refugees are less protected there. In contrast, this reflects on the concepts of ethics and universalism implied in ‘Ethical Power Europe’, and the EU's level of protection of sexual minorities.Show less
This thesis offers an insight into the emergence of the New Woman, who was initially largely a literary phenomenon, but grew out to become a self-identity for many women after World War I, which...Show moreThis thesis offers an insight into the emergence of the New Woman, who was initially largely a literary phenomenon, but grew out to become a self-identity for many women after World War I, which was enabled by their sudden social and economic freedoms. As such, a period of roughly a hundred years, namely from 1830, the beginning of the Victorian Period, to 1930, the aftermath of the Great War, will be studied, and the role of the New Woman in this period will be largely scrutinized through the literature of that era. Specifically, Daphne du Maurier’s 1938 novel Rebecca will be analysed, and in particular the titular character – who, by being both the title character and the antagonist of the story, represents the unstable and volatile characteristics of what identity can be. By employing Queer Theory, this thesis will hopefully provide a closer understanding as to who exactly the New Woman, personified by Rebecca, was, what she wanted, and how she was perceived in her time – effectively exploring if she was not merely a woman defying social boundaries, but a Queer phenomenon.Show less
