Master of Fine Arts, The Ohio State University, 2021, Art

Monsters are powerful symbols of transformative agency, heavily ingrained in Western culture. With transmutating creatures living rent-free in our collective imagination, I have to wonder: why is it taboo for queer people to transform? Tracing a historical line from biblical angels, Greek mythology, the gothic novel, and contemporary horror cinema, I create a framework for understanding monsters as revered, transformative figures in important texts throughout the centuries. Just as LGBTQ+ activists reclaimed `queer' as a radical identifier, I reclaim `monster' as an uncompromising symbol of bodily agency, engaging with Queer readings and critical media theory along the way. Using my MFA Thesis artwork God Made Me (And They Love Me), I weave my soft sculpture beasties through historical imagery, religious text, folklore, and media pieces depicting `monster' and `monstrosity'.

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Ohio University, 2019, Communication Studies (Communication)

I began this dissertation with two goals in mind: 1) to understand how queer Appalachians negotiate their intersectional identities to reframe our understanding of queers, Appalachians, queers in Appalachia, and queer Appalachians, and 2) to investigate the types of social support available to queer Appalachians as well as their awareness of and perceived access to these resources. Using grounded theory and an engaged scholarship approach, I examine how queer Appalachians in/from Central Appalachia negotiate their queer and Appalachian identities, and how they experience outlets of and access to social support. Drawing on 14 semi-structured interviews with individuals who self-identify as queer and live in or are from Central Appalachia, I explore how individuals navigate their identities and utilize various forms of social support. I utilized a constant comparative method to analyze the data (Charmaz, 2004) and report the findings in three chapters. First, I situate negotiations of a queer identity, and the identity itself, along a continuum between the public and the private where several contexts and factors influence identity negotiations. Then, I offer a participant-produced definition of “Appalachian” and describe identity negotiations within this definition. Finally, I highlight the ways in which queer Appalachians are resilient in a seemingly unsupportive region and I detail three major needs for queers in/from Central Appalachia. To conclude this project, I use the communication theory of identity (CTI) as a sensitizing framework and propose an extension to the theory. At a time when national conversations about Appalachians are abuzz, I strive to contribute new voices and queer narratives.

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2022, EDU Teaching and Learning

This dissertation is a text-based analysis of queer young adult literature featuring queer youth of color. The project utilizes literary analysis and enters into conversation with queer theorist of color (Snorton; Sharpe) to help define and articulate my notion of livability. I define livability as a method of recognizing and envisioning how minoritized peoples—specifically queer youth of color—live and thrive currently within and despite systemic oppression as well as the future aspirations of living and thriving without systemic oppression. Focusing on several queer young adult novel (Silvera's More Happy Than Not; McLemore's When the Moon was Ours; Oshiro's Anger is a Gift), I demonstrate how the young adults within these novels enact livability and bring them into conversation with the theoretical ideas of queer of color theory. In doing so, I expand and refine the idea of livability by focusing on three aspects of the large theoretical idea—identity, embodiment, and resistance. Taking the literary analysis further, I offer possibilities for teaching queer young adult novels that feature queer youth of color in secondary classroom, showing the relevance and potential beneficial impact these books can have for all students. In this way, my dissertation brings together literary analysis and queer of color theory to show the relevance of queer youth adult literature to our current political and social moment.

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Ohio University, 2020, Interdisciplinary Arts (Fine Arts)

Envisioning Feminist Genre Film: Relational Epistemology, Catharsis, and Erotic Intersubjects addresses the ways in which feminist filmmakers create narratives that unravel masculinist power paradigms in order to demonstrate different approaches to knowledge production and subjectivity as established through erotic, relational, and feminist dialogism, which foregrounds an ideology that individually and culturally we shape language through interactive and collaborative methods. This study delves into how these feminist films offer the filmmakers and viewers cathartic and pedagogical experiences to explore trauma as well as navigate expanding conceptions of gender, sexual, and relationship diversities. The focus of this project is to examine the impact of including the diverse voices and experiences of marginalized people into the modes of film production through on- and off-screen roles, arguing that these creators' ontological and experiential frames establish structures for the exploration of feminist and queer theories. While attentive to the prior approaches of feminist and queer theories when applied to film, I articulate the ways feminist filmmakers create specifically feminist films and how constructing narratives based on feminist ideologies unlocks opportunities for undoing and transforming gender and sexuality. Methodologically using close visual textual analsysis of feminist genre films, my dissertation delves into feminist film noir, queer melodrama, horror, and pornography to demonstrate how genre impacts the tools and approaches feminist filmmakers use to interogate and establish relational epistemologies in order to envision erotic intersubjectivity, as a part of the ongoing process of articulating the sovereign sexual subjecthood of the individual.

BA, Oberlin College, 2019, Comparative Literature

Speculation is a futurist practice of looking outwards in which the subject turns to other realities in the face of a crushing here-and-now. It is from this premise, which draws from Jose Esteban Munoz's Cruising Utopia (2009) and Fred Moten's In the Break (2003), that I set out to understand how experiential, literary, and artistic speculation acts as a rejection of the capitalist and colonial structures of this world. Through a conversation with the aforementioned theorists, as well as other queer, posthumanist, and radical black thinkers, this project will analyze three different instances of speculation. First, a queer nightclub in New York which enacts a glitch between temporalities; next, a Dominican sci fi novel by Rita Indiana that shows how remixing queers time and narrative structure; and finally, a video art piece where artist Mickalene Thomas subverts the imperial male gaze, cutting into normative power and creating a break from which speculation can arise. Although these artistic forms of speculation by no means exhaust speculative potential, they sound out expressions of radical imagining that effectively draw the contours around this practice. I argue that the act of speculating towards other worlds by subjects historically excluded from the category of the Human is a radical refusal of the established order, and an embrace of the spaces between so as to find happiness and self-determination.

MFA, Kent State University, 2017, College of the Arts / School of Art

This essay analyzes the works in Trey D. Gehring's M.F.A.- Textile Arts Thesis Exhibition Musclebound. The writing discusses how this exhibition presents, in the form of woven and knitted works, the male body as a decorative object and proposes that the sculpting of the male body into an idealistic form– suggestive of patriarchal power and extremes of biological maleness– is an intentional act of objectifying one's own body to allow for homosocial bonding within the patriarchal structure that regulates men's homosocial interaction. It further asserts that the digital nature of the processes, imagery, and their underlying reliance on optical mixing emphasize the abstract quality of identity and gender.

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Bowling Green State University, 2009, American Culture Studies/Popular Culture

This dissertation examines transgender images in film, television and media from the 1950s through the present, with an emphasis on images from the 1980s through today. The primary goal of the dissertation is to interrogate the various gender and sexual ideologies contained within the representations to determine the social status of trans people in American society. How do these images function to both encourage and stymie the liberation of transgender people in the United States? The dissertation deploys trans, queer and feminist theories to critically analyze the cultural work performed by these mass-media texts. What are the trends within the trans media canon, and how do they relate to the treatment of real-world gender-nonconforming people? In order to answer these questions, I separate the trans images into four different stereotypes. For each of these stereotypes, I analyze three to four films to compare and contrast the way the films deal with the issues of gender and sexual variation. The first stereotype I examine is the Transgender Deceiver. The Transgender Deceiver utilizes drag and gender transformation to obtain something they want from society. While the films analyzed are comedies (Tootsie, Just One of the Guys, Sorority Boys, and Juwanna Mann), I argue that they are not as innocuous as they appear due to the way they stereotype gender-variant people as duplicitous, selfish and conniving. Next, I examine the trope of the Transgender Mammy. Through turning my analytical lens on To Wong Foo, Holiday Heart and Flawless, I look at the stereotype of the fabulous, servile and palatable trans-feminine subject. In these films, the characters exist to fix the problems of gender-normative people, add color and spice to their broken lives, and become worthy through their devoted service to the hegemonic class. The Transgender Monster describes the use of gender-transgressive killers in horror and slasher films. While films such as Psycho and Silence of the (open full item for complete abstract)

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2023, Arts Administration, Education and Policy

This dissertation and research study is dedicated to the exploration of critical posthuman educational technology. Research in this study determines, evaluates, and considers educational technology in U.S. art museums through a wide-reaching survey and case study evaluations of the implementation of digital content creation in museums during the COVID-19 era. Critical posthumanism provides a way to understand and restructure expectations of the educational goals of museums that are aligned with the experiences and expectations of digital learning as well as incorporate a multitude of ontological considerations through Critical Race Theory, Queer Theory, and Critical Disability Studies. Beyond simply assessing what has happened in museums, this study seeks to find opportunities for greater change within the system of museum practice and education.

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Bowling Green State University, 2023, Media and Communication

Christianity has consistently played a key role in shaping the politics of sexuality in the United States, from debates over LGBT rights (Krutzsch, 2019; Petro, 2015; White, 2015) to shaping sexual norms through the life of local congregations (McQueeney, 2009; Perry & Whitehead, 2016; Tranby & Zulkowski, 2012). Polyamory, a form of consensual non-monogamy, has been a frequent staple of the Christian right's “slippery slope” rhetoric suggesting that marriage equality will inevitably lead to further forms of experimentation in the form of families and marriages (Sheff, 2011). Since the legalization of same-sex marriage by the Supreme Court ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges, there are signs that polyamory is increasingly seen as a focus of concern rather than a secondary threat, with Christian public figures seeking to prepare pastors and laypeople to respond to polyamorous people showing up in congregations (Leake, 2021; Sprinkle & Parler, 2019; Strachan, 2020). In this present study, I sought to gain an understanding of the current relationship between polyamory and Christianity through a critical interpersonal and family communication lens. I approached this task from two directions. First, I conducted a qualitative content analysis of 118 articles in the online Christian publications The Christian Post and CrossWalk. This analysis was oriented by framing theory, which examines how issues are constructed in the media through the selection of key organizing ideas. Second, I conducted a critical thematic analysis of conversations with polyamorous Christians in the form of 17 podcast episodes and 18 original research interviews. This analysis was guided by the framework of relational spirituality, which organizes phenomena in which individuals' pursuits of spirituality and intimate relationships become intertwined. The findings from both of these studies were analyzed through a queer theoretical lens, examining mononormative hegemony and resistance by blending Sara Ah (open full item for complete abstract)

PHD, Kent State University, 2022, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of English

The origination and application of a textual analysis of identity, identity formation, and perception of the self and the individual is, as a part of a specific time and space, something that is sociological in nature. The anthropological links between fiction and its sociological aspects highlight symbols of identity and interactions between the self, the other, and the individual. The end goal of this project's articulated theoretical model is to contribute to readings and analysis of the self and identity in different, othered spaces. This project works towards locating patterns and understanding that make the text and its underlying archetypal and mythological structures work so well with contemporary readers. It is grounded in the serious nature of contemporary storytelling as a part of the self, individual identity, and its place in society and culture. There is no shortage of specific work in literary analysis that relies on aspects of the hero's journey, the archetypes, and identity. This theoretical model of analysis adapts myth and C.G. Jung to incorporate much of this material into something cohesive and applicable to contemporary genre fiction. Because of this, this project necessitates the introduction of a definition of myth that situates contemporary genre texts as uniquely anthropological artifacts and as items worth analyzing and containing content capable of explicating overarching themes of the individual, the self, and the other in relation to identity formation in opposition. This new and adapted terminology from both myth and Jung assists in reorganizing a vocabulary that allows the analysis to delve into discussions on the creative representation of self, other, gender, sexual identity, the mind and body, transhumanism, and trans(inter)national identity, as well as help highlight how these representations are internalized or externalized by those who read these works of contemporary genre fiction and how these representations and internalizati (open full item for complete abstract)

Master of Fine Arts, The Ohio State University, 2022, Art

Waiting Room explores the existence and creation of artwork in the in between. Through collecting, recontextualizing, and reprinting images and printed matter that defined what the “societal ideal male figure” should be, I consider the construction of identity at the intersection of ability, gender, and sexuality shifting perceptions of the body and the self, allowing for multiple narratives and speculative existences.

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2021, Bioethics

The medical management of intersex persons focuses primarily on forms over functions, with limited attention paid to the futurity for these individuals through reproductive capabilities and fertility preservation. Some types of intersex conditions preclude reproductive or preservation options, while other impediments to these capacities stem from surgical interventions to address malignancy risks or from sexual assignment procedures. There is clear documentation for general medical management, debates on the ethical implications of sex assignment interventions, as well as some addressment for fertility preservation options for post-pubertal individuals. Absent is inquiry into medicine's relationship with intersex futures, and this paper seeks to delve into the driving influences of socio-cultural norms that direct intersex medical interventions. Specifically, I ask what, if any, obligation does medicine have to intersex futurity. By interrogating conceptions of proxy decision-making on open futures, noting hegemonic norms that direct collective understanding, and challenging these norms through queer, disability, and crip perspectives, I have presented the conversations that are being had as well as highlighting the ones that are still needed. Acceptance of fallibility and contributing unknowns gives space to confront responsibilities and obligations, re-evaluating engagement with the norms behind ethical decision making.

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2020, Theatre

This study focuses on race, sexuality, and gender in relation to the reading and performance of Shakespearean drama. Taking an intersectional approach, I bring to bear a wide range of theoretical and critical approaches, including scholarship across the fields of affect and queer theory and critical race, performance, and transgender studies in order to explore contemporary failures to account for difference in the reading, editing, and performing of Shakespeare's plays. In the first chapter I argue that the often-overlooked multiple dimensions of the affect generated by the performance of female actors, what I call affective complexity, in plays such as "Measure for Measure," "Titus Andronicus," and "Othello" is valuable and in fact frequently central to an audience's reception of a play. In the second chapter I argue for a more inclusive view of sexuality in "Romeo and Juliet" through an interrogation of the editorial emendations in several contemporary editions, each of which assume heteronormative readings of the play that ignore its queer performance history. In my third chapter I argue that the underlying antiblack dialectic embedded in "Othello" necessitates its careful reading through the lens provided by critical race theory in order to understand the way the play frames itself as a conversation about the ontological status of Black humanity. The fourth chapter explores readings of "Hamlet" and "Twelfth Night" through the lens of transgender rage, a perspective that makes clear that the rage expressed by characters such as Shylock, Hamlet, and Malvolio are the result of the failure of their “disguises”: the denial of their characters to express their chosen gender presentation. Finally, the conclusion discusses the benefits and challenges of my own attempts as a director to experiment with nontraditional casting within performances of Shakespeare's plays by exploring the potentiality within them for nonbinary and transgender presence.

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2020, Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies

Camp is a critical sensibility and a queer reading practice that allows women to simultaneously critique, resist, and enjoy stereotypes and conventional norms. It is both a performative strategy and a mode of reception that transforms resistance into pleasure. Scholarship on feminist camp recognizes a tradition of women using camp to engage with gender politics and play with femininity. Most of the scholarship focuses on women's camp in mainstream and popular culture and how they talk back to the patriarchy. Little work has been done on feminist camp outside of popular culture or on how women use camp to talk back to feminism. My dissertation adds to conversations about feminist camp by exploring a new facet of camp that talks back to feminism and challenges a feminist audience. I examine the work of three contemporary feminist and queer independent filmmakers: Anna Biller, Cheryl Dunye, and Bruce LaBruce to explore the different ways they subvert cinematic conventions to interrupt narrative, play with stereotypes, and create opportunities for pleasure as well as critique. I argue that these filmmakers operationalize a feminist camp gaze and open up space for a feminist camp spectatorship that engages critically with ideas about identity, sex, and feminism. In addition, I consider the ways in which other types of feminist cultural production, including sketch comedy and web series, use camp strategies to deploy a feminist camp gaze to push back against sexism and other forms of oppression while also parodying feminism, ultimately creating space for resistance, pleasure, and self-reflection.

Master of Social Work, The Ohio State University, 2019, Social Work

There is a lack of research on the resilience experiences of non-binary survivors (NBS) of intimate partner violence (IPV) and sexual assault. The primary aim of this study is to highlight the resilience experiences of NBS from their own knowledge, experiences and perceptions related to exploring identities, experiences with trauma, coping mechanisms and social support. NBS (N = 5) participated in an in-depth semi-structured interview. Data was analyzed using Atlas.ti, a qualitative data analysis software. The findings highlight the resilience experiences of NBS and the need for affirming spaces as non-binary people and as survivors. Implications for social workers, agencies, support services, policy change and future research are discussed. An affirming space focusing on resilience is highly recommended to bridge the gap between service systems and NBS and to help NBS find new ways of healing.

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2017, East Asian Studies

Yu Xiuhua is a contemporary Chinese poet who became a sensation in China after her poem “Crossing Half of China to Sleep with You” (Chuanguo daban ge Zhongguo qu shui ni) went viral in 2015 via the popular Chinese messaging platform, WeChat (Wexin). As a woman with cerebral palsy who did not complete high school and lives on a small farm in rural Hubei Province, Yu's popularity intersects with her various identities, making her not only an interesting poet but also an interesting public figure. This project aims to translate a selection of her poetry in a queer-feminist mode for a contemporary English-speaking audience of politically engaged poets and writers. Drawing on a long history of feminist translation practices that visibly “womanhandle” texts in order to attend to both the author's and the translator's agency, alongside Aimee Carrillo Rowe's call for a politics of relationality and queer theory's notion of failure as a mode of resistance, these translations challenge a discourse of fluency and the resultant invisibility of the translator in standard English translation. This project thus contributes to a feminist translation practice of accountability, collaboration, and play and promotes an “ecology” of translation that values how different translations interact with each, whether symbiotically or antagonistically. Building on that foundation, these translations enact a practice of vulnerability that acknowledges and honors the failure inherent in translation as it attempts to work across difference and the power dynamics embedded in that difference. The tension between attending to the poet's style and poetics and making visible the translator's own processes of engagement is not relieved but rather presented as an integral part of the final translation. Ultimately, this project makes room for more varied and nuanced consideration of ethical reading approaches for those positioned in the Global North translating work by those positioned in more vulnerable (open full item for complete abstract)

BA, Kent State University, 2017, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of Modern and Classical Language Studies

Love is a Cunning Weaver: Myths, Sexuality, and the Modern World explores the relationship between the modern and ancient worlds by analyzing the depiction of queer and female characters in Greco-Roman mythology. That relationship is illuminated and defined by the modern individual's tendency to apply contemporaneous narratives to myths of the ancient world in order to understand them. The aforementioned queer and female characters are introduced in their original contexts based on the most popular written traditions of the myths in which they appear. They are then broken down through a series of interviews with current (or recently graduated) college students. Finally, the narrative established in the introduction of each chapter is subverted through a creative piece.

Doctor of Philosophy, Miami University, 2017, English

My dissertation explores writing center studies as a useful field not only for developing better approaches to assisting writers, but also for theorizing and transforming wider curricula and institutional norms. Writing center faculty and administrators grapple often with curricular questions—in addition to designing and teaching consultant training courses, they study different disciplinary practices to better assist diverse writers, they work with faculty to run writing-across-the-curriculum programs, they assist departments with writing-in-the-disciplines initiatives, and they support High Impact educational experiences, such as service learning. I contend, however, that writing center scholars could do more to theorize the idea of curriculum itself. To study writing centers as curricular (not just pedagogical), I also develop and employ a methodology of queer assemblage to highlight larger institutional spaces, issues, and pedagogies influenced by—and influencing—writing centers. Specifically, I study a studio approach to the teaching of writing as one of these larger institutional attachments. As courses existing alongside yet separate from traditional classrooms, studios at my research site resist larger systems of oppression by providing students, including a high number of international students, with the opportunity to critique multiple curricula they face in addition to improving as writers—and they employ writing center methods to do so. Thus, by drawing on discourse analysis as well as interviews with studio administrators, teachers, and students, I ultimately articulate studios as an emerging critical modality for asserting a wider curricular force of writing centers within and beyond one-to-one mentoring.

Master of Arts, Miami University, 2016, English

With the increased visibility of transgender figures in serialized television comes a plethora of case studies to examine the ways in which transgender identity is culturally represented and perceived. My thesis examines the representations of transgender figures in the contemporary American serialized television series Orange Is the New Black, Transparent, and I Am Cait. My goal is to explore how these male-to-female transgender people embody alternative masculinities and femininities as well as how their transitions are received by those around them. Their trans identity, I argue, results in negative treatment caused by (and especially due to) their socioeconomic status and race. The introduction outlines the film, critical race, and transgender theoretical frameworks informing the project, followed by an exploration of the three aforementioned series. The first chapter embarks on a study of the ways in which the casting of transgender actors is crucial to provide a meaningful significance to the narrative. This argument carries into the second chapter, which discusses what happens when a cisgender actor is cast as a transgender character. The final chapter moves away from casting practices and instead highlights the social ramifications of nonfictional transgender narratives on television.

MA, Kent State University, 2016, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of English

Drawing from Amy J. Devitt's ideas of classifying genres through the lens of social purpose, I examine several slash stories about the Welcome to Night Vale podcast to better elucidate some of slash's social purposes and its interactions with heteronormativity and homonormativity (as explained by Lisa Duggan). Welcome to Night Vale features canonically gay characters, something which has been almost unheard of in slash fiction until recently. My analysis of Night Vale fics about polyamorous same gender relationships and male pregnancy demonstrates that even these seemingly transgressive stories do not always fully accept nor reject homonormative values. Just as with the genre of slash fiction itself, individual instances of slash can blur boundaries and simultaneously promote transgression and conformity.