Master of Business Administration, The Ohio State University, 1961, Graduate School

Committee: Not Provided (Other) Subjects:

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Bowling Green State University, 2022, Media and Communication

This project examined traditional gendered discourses surrounding the ends and means of sexuality, the emerging role of digital sexual technologies in purported sexual empowerment, and the socio-material aspects which revolve around these technologies, sexual medias, and sexual discourses. Combining critical feminist insights with media ecology, this project explored happenings within the sociosexually violent pre- and present-COVID-19 United States ecology, documenting novel and rigorous contributions in our increasingly algorithmic world. This study of the U.S. context critiques foundational constructs created by Enlightenment decisionmakers who rationalized colonial rhetorics and logics built into each preceding iteration of capitalisms from industrialism into neoliberalism since national origin. As such, it extends critiques of mechanistic models of the human body and sexual communications and situates them within the vastly uncriminalized sexual violences, as well as insufficient sexual education standards. Theoretically, I argue that a mechanization of humans has occurred, been pushed to its extreme, and is flipping into a humanization of objects. To demonstrate this, I critical feminist rhetorically analyzed 75 biomimetic sextech advertisements from the brand Lora DiCarlo, contextualizing them in salient discourses within 428 present-COVID-19 TikTok videos, investigating: “What rhetorical themes occur within advertisements for biomimetic sexual technologies marketed to vulva-havers in the late-stage present-COVID-19 neoliberal U.S. landscape?” “How have biomimetic sexual technologies marketed to vulva-havers effected how their sexual experiences are created and maintained in the sociosexual U.S. landscape?” and “How are biomimetic sextech changing vulva-havers sexual sense-making, experiences, and relations within the sexually violent late-stage capitalist present-COVID-19 U.S. landscape?” Using a feminist eye, this brings to media ecology a contextualization (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Ellen W. Gorsevski Ph.D (Advisor); Kristina N. LaVenia Ph.D (Other); Lara M. Lengel Ph.D (Committee Member); Terry L. Rentner Ph.D (Committee Member) Subjects: Adult Education; American History; American Studies; Bioinformatics; Black Studies; Communication; Economic History; Education; Ethnic Studies; Gender; Gender Studies; Health Education; Higher Education; Individual and Family Studies; Information Systems; Information Technology; Marketing; Mass Communications; Mass Media; Medical Ethics; Middle School Education; Modern History; Organizational Behavior; Personal Relationships; Philosophy; Philosophy of Science; Public Health; Public Health Education; Rhetoric; Science Education; Secondary Education; Social Research; Social Structure; Sociology; Systematic; Systems Design; Technical Communication; Technology; Web Studies; Womens Studies

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 1984, Graduate School

Committee: Not Provided (Other) Subjects: Sociology

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 1978, Graduate School

Committee: Not Provided (Other) Subjects: Sociology

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 1974, Graduate School

Committee: Not Provided (Other) Subjects: Economics

Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, 2014, English/Literature

This thesis investigates one of the tales within Geoffrey Chaucer's greater works, The Canterbury Tales with a focus on the connection between the prologue of the taleteller and the story that he shares with the other pilgrims. Masochism and antifeminism are two of the most prominent features of Chaucer's Merchant, an impoverished man parading as successful, husband to a woman whom he detests. With a business deep in debt and a wife he refers to only as a shrew, the Merchant attempts to bolster his credibility within the group of pilgrims by weaving a narrative about marriage, lust, and cuckoldry. This thesis explores the dynamics of the Merchant and his tale from a variety of perspectives in order to more deeply understand the motivation behind the tale that is told and the person who tells it. The Merchant's failing marriage spurns the chauvinism that is deeply imbedded in his tale as he preaches the importance of obedience and vilifies women who resist or disobey their husbands. While the Merchant offers the qualities of a successful marriage as inherent fact, it is clear that he has instead shaped his opinion as a result of his own unsuccessful marriage, blaming female disobedience rather than his own deficiencies as a husband. Additionally, this thesis delves into the story that the Merchant tells of two lovers called January and May and the way in which the female body operates as capital within the narrative. Employing a Marxist understanding of commodity on top of Wills' ideas on prosthetics, this thesis underscores the way in which May is used constantly as a resource for her husband. Further, this thesis explores the function that May plays in her marriage to her husband and how her body is used as an extension of January and other male influence and her own agency is stripped from her.

Committee: Labbie Erin Ph.D (Advisor); Fitzgerald Christina Ph.D (Other) Subjects: Literature; Medieval Literature