Tag: Oral Session 2O

Another Girl Bites the Dust: Motherhood and Futurity at the End

Presenter(s): Megan Schenk − English

Faculty Mentor(s): Forest Pyle, Casey Shoop

Oral Session 2O

Research Area: English (Humanities)

Funding: Presidential and Summit Scholarships

A post-apocalyptic setting is a particularly potent arena for sexist narratives precisely because such an environment allows the author control over depicting how people will naturally act when stripped of modern conventions in order to survive. “Masculine” traits often appear favorable if not necessary to survival in the midst of a futuristic wasteland, while “feminine” qualities like hysteria, sentimentality, and domesticity deem an individual submissive, weak, and utterly incapacitated. Within these exaggerated patriarchal structures, women are simultaneously linked to a failing, stagnant past while providing the only true form of creation: motherhood. My research focuses on how women writers like Megan Hunter, Claire Vaye Watkins, and Louise Erdrich confront and repurpose certain apocalyptic tropes to force readers to reevaluate preconceived notions about male dominance, femininity, and motherhood, specifically in interaction with a post-apocalyptic environment. By engaging with existing literature on gendered heroics in apocalyptic media, intersectional feminist histories in speculative fiction, feminist theory in futurism studies, and the representation of motherhood in popular film and literature, I illuminate how these authors demonstrate that the nurturing of motherhood, not masculinity, is the ultimate means of conquering a decaying world. My research contributes to the important and growing feminist criticism of popular media that works to reveal how we think about the world and how that might (and hopefully, will) change.

The More it Looks Like Queer Street, The More I Ask

Presenter(s): Guy Jones − Psychology

Faculty Mentor(s): Mai-Lin Cheng

Oral Session 2O

Research Area: Literature

The infamous Mr. Hyde from Robert Louis Stevenson’s novella “Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde” is remembered by most as monstrous, however one of Hyde’s most interesting qualities is his incredibly average, normal appearance. If Hyde functioned as a reflection of that which the Victorian populace feared, this begs the question of what his common appearance represented to the audience at the time of publication. The Victorian era was marked by increasingly nationalist sentiments and a great deal of insecurity regarding unseen foreign invaders polluting the purity of Londoners’ lineages. These invisible intruders were largely grouped under the term degenerate, popularized by Cesare Lombroso around the 1850s, and believed to be inherently evil. Among these degenerates were foreigners, the mentally ill, and homosexuals. These deviant identities were heavily interconnected as foreigners were believed to be the origins of homosexuality and other so-called mental illnesses. The subtle depiction of Hyde mimics the Victorian understanding of these supposed degenerates as documented in primary sources and in research done by Historians on the time period. Enfield, on page 14, declared that “the more it looks like Queer Street, the less I ask” however, anyone can admit a name like Queer Street demands questions.

Beyond Muses: Feminism and Gender in Modern Irish Literature (1880 – Present) from Augusta Gregory to Eavan Boland

Presenter(s): Sarah Hovet − English, Journalism

Faculty Mentor(s): Barbara Mossberg

Oral Session 2O

Research Area: Humanities

Funding: Vice President for Research and Innovation (VPRI) Undergraduate Fellowship, Sigma Tau Delta Study Abroad Scholarship, GEO Ambassador Scholarship, Tims Ellis Endowed Scholarship

In the largely male-dominated Irish literary arts scene, the role of women has historically been confined to muses for men’s work. (Examples include James Joyce’s usage of his wife Nora as inspiration for Ulysses and Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Paul Muldoon’s treatment of his former partner Mary Farl Powers in his poem “Incantata.”) The particular masculine-coded “genius” of Irish writers like James Joyce, William Butler Yeats, Samuel Beckett, and J.M. Synge; the perceived role of women as iconography for the nation and not creators, and the Irish constitution itself contribute to the absence of women from the Irish canon. However, today’s Irish writing scene fosters a critical mass of female-identifying Irish writers through whom one can trace matrilineal literary influence from contemporary writers including Mary Lavin, Edna O’Brien, and Eavan Boland back to their modern predecessors, such as folklorist, playwright, and National Theatre co-founder Lady Augusta Gregory. My research begins by establishing an academic foundation from critical and historical works, then expands to archival research in the Edna O’Brien papers at University College of Dublin and feminist Attic Press collection at National University of Ireland Galway. My work intends to establish that today’s female Irish writers, from Claire Louise-Bennett to Nuala Ni Dhomhnaill, produce significant models of female consciousness, exploring sexuality, motherhood, and more with a frankness significant for a culture prevalently Catholic and feeling the effects of censorship laws late into the 20th century, as well as with formal innovation. Furthermore, their vibrant voices comprise the natural evolution of what is actually a long tradition of meritorious female Irish writers who have been eclipsed due to sociohistorical factors, thus bringing these women’s history back into the light for new criticism, and creating a more complex understanding of modern Irish literature as a whole.