Current Search: Jones, Anna (x)
View All Items
(1 - 11 of 11)
- Title
- REIMAGINING DESIRE: QUEER TIME, LIMINAL SPACE, AND NARRATIVE ANXIETY.
- Creator
-
Mitchell, Aidan, Jones, Anna Maria, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
-
Media shapes and supports certain ideas about how we view ourselves and others. The narratives that we consume train us to desire a particular formula of what critic Lauren Berlant calls "the good life": growing up, becoming a man or a woman, getting married, having children, and retiring. People who fail to fit into these narratives are often punished and excluded from society. However, queer theorist Jack Halberstam asks us to reconsider failure as a means of resistance. The texts that I...
Show moreMedia shapes and supports certain ideas about how we view ourselves and others. The narratives that we consume train us to desire a particular formula of what critic Lauren Berlant calls "the good life": growing up, becoming a man or a woman, getting married, having children, and retiring. People who fail to fit into these narratives are often punished and excluded from society. However, queer theorist Jack Halberstam asks us to reconsider failure as a means of resistance. The texts that I examine fail to conform to narrative expectations or to fit formulae that are easily consumable or defined. They present queer characters and relationships that exceed social norms and generic conventions. These characters and relationships encourage us to reconsider the models of desire given to us, and to embrace a more nebulous state of anxiety found in liminal space. In Chapter 1, I discuss Argentine-Spanish-French film XXY (2007), which follows the story of Alex, an intersex teen who refuses to fit within the binary of male or female. In Chapter 2, I argue that Hitchcock's Vertigo (1958) lays the groundwork for the visual representation of anxiety and desire in the Japanese manga Aku no Hana (Flowers of Evil ), which explores non-monogamous relationships structured around sadistic voyeurism. In the conclusion I turn briefly to children's cartoons Steven Universe and Adventure Time, in which failure has been reimagined as queer utopia. By focusing on media that resist heteronormative conventions we can start to reimagine models for more empathetic and compassionate communities.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2015
- Identifier
- CFH0004847, ucf:45437
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFH0004847
- Title
- THE UNCANNY AND THE POSTCOLONIAL IN J.R.R. TOLKIEN'S MIDDLE-EARTH.
- Creator
-
Brown-Fuller, Molly, Jones, Anna, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
-
This thesis examines J.R.R. Tolkien's texts The Hobbit, The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, and The Return of the King from a postcolonial literary perspective. By examining how these texts, written at the decline of the British Empire, engage with the theoretical polemics of imperialism, this thesis takes a new look at these popular and widely regarded books from a stance of serious academic interest. The first chapter examines how certain characters, who are Othered temporally in...
Show moreThis thesis examines J.R.R. Tolkien's texts The Hobbit, The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, and The Return of the King from a postcolonial literary perspective. By examining how these texts, written at the decline of the British Empire, engage with the theoretical polemics of imperialism, this thesis takes a new look at these popular and widely regarded books from a stance of serious academic interest. The first chapter examines how certain characters, who are Othered temporally in the realm of Middle-earth, manage to find a place of narrative centrality from the defamiliarized view of Merry, Pippin, Samwise, and Frodo, uncannily reoccurring throughout the narrative in increasingly disturbing manifestations. From there, the thesis moves on to uncanny places, examining in detail Mirkwood, Moria, Dunharrow, and the Shire at the end of The Return of the King. Each of these locations in Middle-earth helps Tolkien to explore the relationship between colonizer, colonized, and fetishism; the colonizer(s) disavow their own fears of these places by fetishizing the pathways they colonize for their safe passage. Since their paths are unsustainable colonially, these fetishes cannot fulfill their function, as the places are marked with unavoidable reminders of wildness and uncontrollability which cannot successfully be repressed for long. Ending this chapter with a discussion of the hobbit's return to the Shire, the argument moves into the next chapter that discusses the small-scale colonization that takes place in the heart of Frodo himself, making the Shire he used to know firmly unavailable to him. The Ring, in this case, is the colonizer, doubling, fracturing, and displacing Frodo's selfhood so that he becomes unfamiliar to himself. The uncanniness that this produces and Frodo's inability to heal from his experience with the Ring, this thesis argues, echoes the postcolonial themes of irreconcilability and the fantasy of origin. Concluding on this note, the thesis argues that reading The Lord of the Rings in this way renders postcolonial concepts accessible to a whole generation of readers already familiar with the series, and points to the possibility of examining other contemporary texts, or even further analysis of Tolkien's to reveal more postcolonial sensitivities engendered in the texts.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2013
- Identifier
- CFH0004428, ucf:45133
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFH0004428
- Title
- SHAMING THE LOVE PLOT: INCONVENIENT WOMEN NAVIGATING CONVENTIONAL ROMANCE.
- Creator
-
Wilkey, Brittan, Jones, Anna Maria, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
-
The love plot is one of the most widely consumed genres of fiction for women. Romance often dictates a woman's identity and her "story" or narrative, leaving little room for other avenues of self-development. However, when romance fails, even in the realm of fiction, women are left with shame. Shame might suggest a catastrophic aftereffect of the failure of women's initial investment of the love plot; however, I argue that shame functions in place of the love plot and helps to provide a...
Show moreThe love plot is one of the most widely consumed genres of fiction for women. Romance often dictates a woman's identity and her "story" or narrative, leaving little room for other avenues of self-development. However, when romance fails, even in the realm of fiction, women are left with shame. Shame might suggest a catastrophic aftereffect of the failure of women's initial investment of the love plot; however, I argue that shame functions in place of the love plot and helps to provide a critique of the oppressive and patriarchal nature of conventional romance. Using affect theory, I look at both Mrs. Henry Wood's East Lynne and Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea as they rewrite the love plot typified by Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2013
- Identifier
- CFH0004437, ucf:45089
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFH0004437
- Title
- THREE WAVES OF UNDERGROUND FEMINISM IN ÂÂ"SOFTÂÂ" CONSCIOUS-RAISING NOVELS.
- Creator
-
Perez, Jeannina, Jones, Anna, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
-
In the chapters of my thesis, I explore how ÂÂ"softÂÂ" consciousness-raising novels of the first, second and third-waves of feminism practice underground feminism by covertly exposing womenÂÂ's socio-political issues outside of the confines of feminist rhetoric. In moving away from the negative connotations of political language, the authors enable the education of female audiences otherwise out of reach. Working from and extending...
Show moreIn the chapters of my thesis, I explore how ÂÂ"softÂÂ" consciousness-raising novels of the first, second and third-waves of feminism practice underground feminism by covertly exposing womenÂÂ's socio-political issues outside of the confines of feminist rhetoric. In moving away from the negative connotations of political language, the authors enable the education of female audiences otherwise out of reach. Working from and extending on various theorists, I construct a theoretical model for what I term underground feminism. Running on the principal of conducting feminist activism without using feminist rhetoric, underground feminism challenges the notion that ÂÂ"subtleÂÂ" feminism means weak feminism. In illustrating how underground feminism works in novels and in physical activism, I hope to encourage the recognition of the political utility of womenÂÂ's writings that do not fit the strict archetypes of feminist authorship. Analyzing the effectiveness of covert feminist conversion narratives, I discuss one soft consciousness-raising novel for each wave. The novelsÂÂ--Sarah GrandÂÂ's The Heavenly Twins (1893), Dorothy BryantÂÂ's Ella PriceÂÂ's Journal (1972), and Helen FieldingÂÂ's Bridget Jones's Diary (1996)ÂÂ--accused by scholars of employing weak feminist politics, are investigated as feminist literature that disidentifies with the feminist label with the possibility of facilitating a wide spread conversion process in ÂÂ"would beÂÂ" feminists. After analyzing how the novels place womenÂÂ's issues at the center of discourse by discussing female education, womenÂÂ's voice, and narrative control, I consider how the underground feminism implicit in the texts extends to activism outside of literature. I also end by arguing that these novels enable a more intricate conversation about womenÂÂ's issues in which the voices of both self-identified and non-identified feminists are recognized.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2010
- Identifier
- CFE0003329, ucf:48456
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0003329
- Title
- SISTERHOOD ARTICULATES A NEW DEFINITION OF MORAL FEMALE IDENTITY: JANE AUSTEN'S ADAPTATION OF THE EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY TRADITION.
- Creator
-
Curtis, Katherine, Jones, Anna, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
-
Writing at a moment of ideological crisis between individualism and hierarchical society, Jane Austen asserts a definition of moral behavior and female identity that mediates the two value systems. I argue that Austen most effectively articulates her belief in womenÂÂ's moral autonomy and social responsibility in her novels through her portrayal of sisterhood. Austen reshapes the stereotype of sisters and female friendships as dangerous found in her domestic novel...
Show moreWriting at a moment of ideological crisis between individualism and hierarchical society, Jane Austen asserts a definition of moral behavior and female identity that mediates the two value systems. I argue that Austen most effectively articulates her belief in womenÂÂ's moral autonomy and social responsibility in her novels through her portrayal of sisterhood. Austen reshapes the stereotype of sisters and female friendships as dangerous found in her domestic novel predecessors. While recognizing womenÂÂ's social vulnerability, which endangers female friendship and turns it into a site of competition, Austen urges the morality of selflessly embracing sisterhood anyway. An Austen heroine must overcome sisterly rivalry if she is to achieve the moral strength Austen demands of her. As Mansfield Park (1814) and Pride and Prejudice (1813) demonstrate, such rivalry reveals the flawed morality of both individualism and patrilineal society. I further argue that in these novels sisterhood articulates the internally motivated selflessness Austen makes her moral standard. Sisterhood not only indicates female morality for Austen, it also enables this character. Rejecting RousseauÂÂ's proposal of men shaping malleable female minds, Austen pronounces sisters to be the best moral guides. In Northanger Abbey (1818), Austen shows the failure of the man to educate our heroine and the success of his sister. In Sense and Sensibility (1811), Austen pinpoints the source of sisterly educationÂÂ's success in its feminine context of nurture, affection, intimacy, and subtlety. With this portrait of sisterhood, Austen adheres to the moral authority inherent in Burkean philosophy while advocating individual responsibility, not external regulation, to choose selfless behavior. Austen further promotes gender equality by expressing womenÂÂ's moral autonomy, while supporting gender distinctions that privilege femininity. By offering such powerful, complex sister relationships, Austen transforms eighteenth-century literary thought about women, sisters, and morality.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2010
- Identifier
- CFE0003388, ucf:48482
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0003388
- Title
- "BUT THIS IS WHAT I SEE; THIS IS WHAT I SEE": RE-IMAGINING GENDERED SUBJECTIVITY THROUGH THE WOMAN ARTIST IN PHELPS, JOHNSTONE, AND WOOLF.
- Creator
-
Wayne, Heather, Jones, Anna, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
-
Since the publication of Laura MulveyÂÂ's influential article ÂÂ"Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,ÂÂ" in which she identifies the pervasive presence of the male gaze in Hollywood cinema, scholars have sought to account for the female spectator in her paradigm of gendered vision. This thesis suggests that women writers have long debated the problem of the female spectator through literary depictions of the female artist. Women...
Show moreSince the publication of Laura MulveyÂÂ's influential article ÂÂ"Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,ÂÂ" in which she identifies the pervasive presence of the male gaze in Hollywood cinema, scholars have sought to account for the female spectator in her paradigm of gendered vision. This thesis suggests that women writers have long debated the problem of the female spectator through literary depictions of the female artist. Women writers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuriesÂÂ--including Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, Edith Johnstone, and Virginia WoolfÂÂ--recognized the power of the woman artist to undermine the trope of the male gazing subject and a passive female object. Examining PhelpsÂÂ's The Story of Avis (1877), JohnstoneÂÂ's A Sunless Heart (1894), and WoolfÂÂ's To the Lighthouse (1927) illustrates how the woman artistÂÂ's active vision disrupts MulveyÂÂ's ÂÂ"active/male and passive/femaleÂÂ" binary of vision. PhelpsÂÂ's painter-heroine Avis destabilizes the power of the male gaze not only by exerting her own vision, but also by acting as an active object to manipulate the way she is seen. Johnstone uses artist Gasparine to demonstrate the dangers of vision shaped by either aesthetic or political conventions, suggesting that even feminist idealism can promote the objectification of its heroines. Finally, Woolf redefines the terms of objectification through painter Lily Briscoe, whose vision imbues material objects with subjectivity, thereby going beyond the boundaries between male and female to blur the distinction between subject and object. Through their novels, Phelps, Johnstone, and Woolf suggest that depictions of human experience need to be radically re-thought in order to adequately represent the complexity of subjectivity.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2010
- Identifier
- CFE0003291, ucf:48491
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0003291
- Title
- The Gender Gap in Technical Communication: How Women Challenge the Predominant Objectivist Paradigm.
- Creator
-
Bower, Nathan, Jones, Daniel, Jones, Anna, Flammia, Madelyn, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
-
Women are currently underrepresented in the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) fields. The purpose of this thesis is to explore how this underrepresentation translates to a gender gap in the field of technical communication and how this gap causes women to challenge the predominant objectivist paradigm in the field. Through an investigation of peer-reviewed journal articles, periodicals, critical theory, and articles published in online magazines such as Slate, I...
Show moreWomen are currently underrepresented in the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) fields. The purpose of this thesis is to explore how this underrepresentation translates to a gender gap in the field of technical communication and how this gap causes women to challenge the predominant objectivist paradigm in the field. Through an investigation of peer-reviewed journal articles, periodicals, critical theory, and articles published in online magazines such as Slate, I identify the gendered nature of modern technology and discuss to what extent a shift in the predominant paradigm has occurred in the professional arena. In looking at several theoretical approaches and contemporary examples, I conclude that a significant paradigm shift has not in fact occurred due to an underlying, culturally promoted sexism. Additionally, I conclude that neither new approaches in the technical communication classroom, nor attempts to increasingly include women in the technological fields will result in a significant paradigm change by themselves. I also point to a need for further meaningful research in how sexism influences the professional world as well as a more thorough conversation regarding a fundamental shift in workplace relations between the genders.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2012
- Identifier
- CFE0004523, ucf:52878
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0004523
- Title
- F. Scott Fitzgerald as a "Hot Nietzschean": The Influence of Friedrich Nietzsche's Philosophy in This Side of Paradise, The Beautiful and Damned, and The Great Gatsby.
- Creator
-
Carman, Lindsey, Trouard, Dawn, Jones, Anna, Angley, Patricia, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
-
Beginning in 1915, F. Scott Fitzgerald was exposed to the ideas of Friedrich Nietzsche under the guidance of mentors and from his personal reading lists. While reading Nietzsche, Fitzgerald's concern with the rise of cultural pessimism in 1920s America appeared in his fiction. Interestingly, both the philosopher and author explore the decline of Western culture in the twentieth century(-)(-)a period of identity crises that affected America and Europe. This thesis investigates Fitzgerald's...
Show moreBeginning in 1915, F. Scott Fitzgerald was exposed to the ideas of Friedrich Nietzsche under the guidance of mentors and from his personal reading lists. While reading Nietzsche, Fitzgerald's concern with the rise of cultural pessimism in 1920s America appeared in his fiction. Interestingly, both the philosopher and author explore the decline of Western culture in the twentieth century(-)(-)a period of identity crises that affected America and Europe. This thesis investigates Fitzgerald's misreading of Nietzschean ideas that appears in his fiction to highlight the author's interest in explaining the cause of America's decline. In particular, this thesis appropriates a Nietzschean framework from Nietzsche's three metamorphoses of the spirit in Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Each thesis chapter compares one metamorphosis to one quest in Fitzgerald's first three novels. I argue that Amory Blaine's quest in This Side of Paradise (1920) represents the camel's metamorphosis, Anthony Patch's journey in The Beautiful and Damned (1922) aligns with the lion's metamorphosis, and Jay Gatsby's quest in The Great Gatsby (1925) mimics the child's metamorphosis. After establishing a connection between Fitzgerald's concerns and Nietzsche's ideas, this thesis asserts that Fitzgerald's limited understanding of Nietzschean philosophy derives from the adulteration of ideas in the twentieth century.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2018
- Identifier
- CFE0007163, ucf:52248
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0007163
- Title
- Concerning the Perceptive Gaze: The Impact of Vision Theories on Late Nineteenth-Century Victorian Literature.
- Creator
-
Rushworth, Lindsay, Jones, Anna, Philpotts, Trey, Campbell, James, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
-
This thesis examines two specific interventions in vision theory(-)namely, Herbert Spencer's theory of organic memory, which he developed by way of Lamarckian genetics and Darwinian evolution in A System of Synthetic Philosophy (1864), and the Aesthetic Movement (1870s(-)1890s), famously articulated by Walter Pater in The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry (1873 and 1893). I explore the impact of these theories on late nineteenth-century fiction, focusing on two novels: Thomas Hardy's Two...
Show moreThis thesis examines two specific interventions in vision theory(-)namely, Herbert Spencer's theory of organic memory, which he developed by way of Lamarckian genetics and Darwinian evolution in A System of Synthetic Philosophy (1864), and the Aesthetic Movement (1870s(-)1890s), famously articulated by Walter Pater in The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry (1873 and 1893). I explore the impact of these theories on late nineteenth-century fiction, focusing on two novels: Thomas Hardy's Two on a Tower (1882) and Edith Johnstone's A Sunless Heart (1894). These two authors' texts engage with scientific and aesthetic visual theories to demonstrate their anxieties concerning the perceptive gaze and to reveal the difficulties and limitations of visual perception and misperception for both the observer and the observed within the context of social class.It is widely accepted by scholars of the so-called visual turn in the Victorian era(-) following landmark works by Kate Flint and Nancy Armstrong(-)that myriad anxieties were associated with new ways of seeing during this time. Building on this work, my thesis focuses specifically on how these two approaches to visual perception(-)organic memory and Aestheticism(-)were intertwined with anxieties about social status and mobility. The novels analyzed in this thesis demonstrate how subjective visual perception affects one's place within the social hierarchy, as we see reflected in the fluctuating social statuses of Hardy's star-crossed lovers, Swithin St Cleeve and Lady Constantine, and Johnstone's two female protagonists, Gasparine O'Neill and Lotus Grace.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2019
- Identifier
- CFE0007527, ucf:52624
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0007527
- Title
- The Great Mirror of Fandom: Reflections of (and on) Otaku and Fujoshi in Anime and Manga.
- Creator
-
Graffeo, Clarissa, Jones, Anna, Oliver, Kathleen, Akita, Kimiko, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
-
The focus of this thesis is to examine representations of otaku and fujoshi (i.e., dedicated fans of pop culture) in Japanese anime and manga from 1991 until the present. I analyze how these fictional images of fans participate in larger mass media and academic discourses about otaku and fujoshi, and how even self-produced reflections of fan identity are defined by the combination of larger normative discourses and market demands. Although many scholars have addressed fan practices and...
Show moreThe focus of this thesis is to examine representations of otaku and fujoshi (i.e., dedicated fans of pop culture) in Japanese anime and manga from 1991 until the present. I analyze how these fictional images of fans participate in larger mass media and academic discourses about otaku and fujoshi, and how even self-produced reflections of fan identity are defined by the combination of larger normative discourses and market demands. Although many scholars have addressed fan practices and identities through surveys and participant observation, many of these studies work with Western groups of fans whose identities may not be consistent with those of Japanese otaku and fujoshi, and fewer studies have addressed the way these fans are reflected in the very media (anime and manga) they consume. I examine both negative and positive depictions of otaku and fujoshi, as well as the representations of fan gender identities and sexualities, across a broad range of anime and manga, including Rusanchiman (Ressentiment), Genshiken, N.H.K. ni Y?koso (Welcome to the N.H.K.), Otaku no Video, Kuragehime (Princess Jellyfish), Oreimo, and M?s? Sh?jo Otakukei (Fujoshi Rumi). The varied depictions of otaku and fujoshi in these works illustrate the tension between otaku and fujoshi identities and normative social roles, the problematic elements of identities defined through consumerism, and the complexities of the interaction between fans' fictionalized and lived desires.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2014
- Identifier
- CFE0005172, ucf:50663
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0005172
- Title
- The Clockman Movement.
- Creator
-
Martin, Allison, Jones, Anna, Thaxton, Terry, Smith, Anne, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
-
As a genre of Neo-Victorian fiction, Steampunk is largely identified by Victorian aesthetics and technology centering on clockwork and steam power. The novel The Clockman Movement seeks to emphasize the (")punk(") in (")steampunk(") by exploring the social concerns of colonialism, including sexism, racism, and classism, while embracing the more fantastic and entertaining aspects of steampunk.Before all other labels(-)Nordlunder, daughter, woman(-)Eve Traugott is a machinist. Or she would be,...
Show moreAs a genre of Neo-Victorian fiction, Steampunk is largely identified by Victorian aesthetics and technology centering on clockwork and steam power. The novel The Clockman Movement seeks to emphasize the (")punk(") in (")steampunk(") by exploring the social concerns of colonialism, including sexism, racism, and classism, while embracing the more fantastic and entertaining aspects of steampunk.Before all other labels(-)Nordlunder, daughter, woman(-)Eve Traugott is a machinist. Or she would be, if one of the machinists in the capital would hire her as an apprentice. She thought it would be simple to find a machinist willing to take a chance on her in Aufziehburg, the mechanical center of the State of Nordlund, but so far the Aufziehburger machinists have been as narrow-minded as the one she left behind in her hometown.Her inheritance dwindling, Eve sets her sights on the clockmen, the State's automaton workers, hoping that studying them might help her learn enough to gain an apprenticeship. When her curiosity draws the unwanted attention of Statesman Bristed and the winders, procuring an apprenticeship becomes the least of Eve's concerns.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2016
- Identifier
- CFE0006476, ucf:51439
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0006476
