I argue that Matthew’s seven acts of corporal mercies provide a means of reading Piers Plowman within a framework familiar to medieval audiences, but also exposes the different models of health that are at work within the poem and the soteriological significance of these healths. In chapter one, I focus...
Many queer scholars have made the turn away from orientations that treat Victorian queerness as either “lost” or “hidden.” Adding more complexity to literary theories which center practices of “revealing” queer artifacts, Sharon Marcus, for instance, argues queer encounters exist at the surfaces of Victorian literature. In addition, Anjali Arondekar’s...
This thesis analyzes Sophocles’ classic Greek tragedy Antigone as it relates to biopolitics, biopower, democratic language and non-normative principles of politics. I argue that the figure of Antigone enables a better understanding of exclusive biopolitical philosophy. Antigone is a figure not recognized as human because her gender is tortured and...
This thesis examines the internet phenomenon of the “Sad Girl,” a name given to young women who identify and present themselves as inherently melancholic people online. I position the internet community of the Sad Girl, which spans across three social media platforms, Tumblr, TikTok, and Instagram, within a larger history...