Theses and Dissertations

This paper calls attention to the importance of the friendship bond in Mary Hays's Memoirs of Emma Courtney. I particularly isolate male-female friendships, claiming that Hays's reformative project is aimed at changing men's behavior and adapting masculinity to be receptive to the idea of women as full subjects. Building on Jessica Benjamin's work on mutual recognition, I argue that Emma desires relationships with men based on the delicate balance of assertion and recognition, alluding repeatedly to "the value and importance of unequivocal sincerity" in progressive gender relations.

Masculinity is defined as "cultural belief systems about masculinity and male gender, rooted in the structural relationships between the two sexes" (Pleck, 1995, p. 19). Contemporary Chinese masculinities are influenced by Taoism that supports androgynous gender roles, Confucianism that promotes male dominance and familial responsibilities, wen masculinities that stress men's societal responsibilities, and the socio-cultural changes taking place in China since the 19th century (Hirschman \u0026amp; Teerawichichainan, 2003).

This work explores the newest generation of black male Hip Hop artist and how their work challenges hypermasculinity and hegemonic masculinity that so dominated gangsta rap of the 1990s and earlier cultural expressive forms like the black badman ballads of the 19th century. Through close readings of the work of artist such as Big K.R.I.T., J. Cole, Kendrick Lamar, Wale, Lil' B and others I find that artist of this new generation are challenging normative masculinity by disturbing the binaries upon which hegemony and hypermasculinity rest.

Momma's Boy: Queer Masculinity and Cross-Gender Identification in U.S. Modernism traces a particular strand of non-normative masculinity in three major works of early 20th century American fiction: Willa Cather's One of Ours (1922), Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio (1919), and Jean Toomer's Cane (1923). Putting a twist on the traditional, Oedipal paradigm of male artistic growth, Cather, Anderson, and Toomer imagine the writer as growing, in the spirit of emotional communion, to resemble his own mother.

This thesis will examine the filmic conventions and ideological implications of the current reigning mode of the romantic comedy genre: the romantic hommecom (more popularly referred to as "romcoms for boys"). The romantic hommecom essentially centers one or more male characters within a neo-traditional romantic comedy-a mode typically associated with female audiences-infused with elements of the male-centered gross-out or buddy comedy.

Although prevention efforts exist on many college campuses, hazing remains a continual threat to the well-being of students in social organizations. Acts of hazing committed by current group members vary in levels of emotional and physical harm to initiates. My research seeks potential risk factors for more relatively extreme forms of hazing, examining a link between the groups' performance of masculinity and the severity of aggression and violence enacted by members in their hazing rituals.