2021

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://digital.lib.washington.edu/handle/1773/47731

Browse

Now showing 1 - 15 of 15

Oh! Silly white Women: I was a monument to the patriarchy
(2021-08) Ward, Katie
Stereotypes around femininity presented to young Women have historically not been inclusive often consisting of single-story one-dimensional white ideals of femininity. Young Women could lean into the stereotype or turn away, the dismissal often created new stereotypes due to a lack of variety in feminine representation such as “I’m not like other girls.” The exposure to these white feminine stereotypes created cracks in a young Woman’s relationship with femininity and what it means to be girl. Causing a shift to antifeminist and sexist thought while developing internalized misogyny. This presents externally as Women hating behavior that supports the learned mindsets of white men in regards to the sexualization, degradation and the general treatment of other Women. The patriarchal system influenced millions of young Women across the country in their homes, in their classrooms, each night on television, and then reinforced the same imagery on the covers of teen magazines. These young Women often started behaving as a monument to the Patriarchy acting for the best interest of the heteronormative white male experience. I was one of those young white Women, and due to a lack of strong feminist representation I instead turned into a living, breathing, and sometimes ‘preaching’ monument to the patriarchy. Through autoethnography and research of pop culture from the 1990’s and 2000’s, I will analyze my own experience. I was manipulated by the heteropatriarchy and colonialism to be antifeminist, to hate other Women and actively cause harm to others based on their expression of femininity.
Voicing Otherwise: Archival Vocality//Unsettling the Listening Body
(2021-08) Nowack, Ethan Kolokoff
Voice has typically been understood as an external representation of an internal uniqueness or individuality, often at the expense of the recognition of its always already relational, multi-sensory, and multi-sitedness. This project engages with the interdisciplinary and critical study of voice, the archival and epistemic violences that have been enacted around it, and the ways in which it opens resistive and unsettling possibilities otherwise. I ask, how does listening, to past and present, to archives and voices, offer new and unsettling modes of relating to the world?. Through this exploration, I intend to illuminate the radical potential of listening differently, and offer openings towards an anti-colonial listening practice. To do this, I engage a critique of Alan Lomax’s “Cantometrics,” a vocal/musical classification system for global music, positioning it as an example of colonial listening practice. I then turn towards the music of Wolastoqiyik singer Jeremy Dutcher, and their reimagining of archival Wolastoqey language songs and recordings. I position Dutcher’s music as a “voicing otherwise” that encourages listening differently. Additionally, in an effort to unsettle the ways that we write about and through music and sound, I explore various multisensory and performative writing practices, inviting the reader to listen differently through the form and structure of the written project. Voice and listening have the potential to become critically engaged elements of experience in a deeply liberating sense. My hope is that this project will contribute to such a widened conception of voice, particularly in the context of monumental reckoning and unsettling colonialisms.
Words and Weapons: The RAMM:ΣLL:ZΣΣ’s Formula for Reclaiming the Power of Language
(2021-08) Barone, Ruby
This project explores the history and power of language in relation to graffiti writer Rammellzee’s philosophy of Ikonoklast Panzerism as well as to his art. Using informal interviews, ethnographic engagement, and close readings relating to Rammellzee and the alphabet’s history, I investigate how the individual can claim the power of language back from colonizers and oppressors through subversive art. I question how Rammellzee’s work can be used to reimagine the alphabet as a tool to deconstruct monuments of oppression and imperialism that are pervasive to society. Rammellzee founded Ikonoklast Panzerism on the idea that each individual letter of the alphabet can be armored and weaponized in order to free themselves from the institutions which wield the power of language over the rest of society. He bases his beliefs in the medieval history of monastic illuminated calligraphy and uses his theories to create art which subverts structures of power. I argue that Rammellzee’s work reveals the potential of individualized power by reclaiming the almighty power of language and challenging the limitations of legibility and standardization. Drawing from concepts such as ethnographic refusal, and from the writing of scholars like Michel-Rolph Trouillot to inform my creative work, this project emphasizes the power of the written word in today’s world and investigates how language can be reimagined and repurposed by each individual. I synthesize my research findings into a creative form that touches on my own relationship to language in academia, and how I can apply Rammellzee’s ideas to my own life.
Storying: A Monument of Resilience and Decolonial Healing
(2021-08) Ibrokhim, Fotimakhon
This project explores the impact of migration on personal and familial relationships, through the process of storytelling. Focusing on my family’s migration story from Uzbekistan to the U.S., I explore themes of intergenerational trauma, resilience, survivance, and re-making relationships as central to our experience. For the diasporic community of Uzbeks, our past is informed by Russian colonial and imperial rule which is inherently rooted in the erasure of Central Asian history. This erasure is also a central theme when exploring the lived experiences of familial trauma, distance, struggle, and silencing. More importantly, the project also explores the ways resilience is foundational in our lives. The questions I am asking are: How is our family trauma-informed by our migration story, and in what ways is it linked to life before migration? What does a path for decolonial healing and restoring familial relationships look like? Through a desired-centred approach and mosaic methodologies, I am in conversation with my close friends, family, and my own stories to produce a piece of creative writing. This work explores the very lived realities–both individual and collective– of the manifestation of coloniality and the inheritance of pain and resilience it has on survivors of violence and displacement. My aim is to re-write stories and imagine possibilities of healing that go beyond survival. This project informs transformative and anticolonial healing that embodies resilience, longevity, and the de-pathologization of ourselves.
Looking as Political Act: The Oppositional Gaze in Cinematic Realism
(2021-08) Alino, Mayumi Sophiya
Within the ethnographies, memories, and archives produced throughout a capitalist empire, the ‘gaze’ has generally been used against the subject, creating narratives which entrench the hegemony in defining the subject to accord with the needs of the dominating culture. The term ‘oppositional gaze’ was developed in 1992 by bell hooks in conversation with Laura Mulvey’s Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema: the ‘gaze’ is a scopophilic act albeit with the potential to be a radical method for resistance, the oppositional gaze then refers to ‘looking’ as a defiant act to which the actors reclaim a sense of autonomy over the spectator and turn the gaze back upon their oppressors. What makes the act of ‘looking’ so defiant and how this looking translates to an oppositional gaze is the question this project attempts to answer through a close reading of various media and using an array of methods and theories from such disciplines as film studies, ethnography, data ethics. I build upon the foundations of hooks and Mulvey while asserting that the definition of ‘looking’ goes beyond visual perception and into the act of understanding and perceiving. I apply these theories of the ‘gaze’ and my own explorations of ‘looking’ to juxtapose Rahul Jain’s Machines (2016) and Chloe Zhao’s Nomadland (2020) in analyzing its application and limitations. With this project, I hope to impel further discussion on the study of the gaze by compiling demonstrations of its application in various media and its disruption of prevailing narratives.
Reckoning with Ragnarok: Critique and Reinterpretation in Marvel’s Thor Franchise
(2021-08) Werner, Madeline
As media conglomerates continue to grow and subsume smaller artists and studios, attending to the types of narratives they are producing and how those narratives serve or complicate the aims of the overall corporation becomes increasingly important. Furthermore, Disney’s global reach as an American media franchise can be considered a product and extension of historical colonial violence, even as some of its products purport to critique such forms of oppression. In this project, I examine how Marvel’s Thor: Ragnarok, directed by Māori filmmaker Taika Waititi, reframes the glorified civilization of Asgard as a violent colonial empire, a fascinating recontextualization that potentially critiques not only sanitized narratives of colonialism but Disney’s utilization of them. The movie was commercially successful, raising further questions on how the film critiques and serves Disney. I question how Thor: Ragnarok constructs its critique of its fantasy-colonialism and the parameters of that engagement. To accomplish this, I perform a close reading of the film alongside contextual materials such as previews, interviews, and previous Marvel media from which it draws. I argue that Thor: Ragnarok reframes and subverts the previous Thor movies to critique historicized and overtly violent colonialism, and constructs a simultaneous critique of ongoing legacies of colonialism and systems of oppression. Its critique of ongoing oppression is couched in humor, avoiding being provocative in a way that would alienate audiences accustomed to the previous whitewashed depictions of power and empire or fully implicate Disney’s participation in those narratives.
Memory Made Material: Unearthing the Histories of Monumental Matter
(2021-08) Chan, Em
This narrative web experience invites readers to rethink their own relationships with the material world. The piece frames materials within Western monumental structures — namely the marble pedestal, the bronze figure, and the “living” rock carving — not as inanimate instruments in colonial systems, but as living victims and actors within those very systems. I examine how these materials are treated within the Western monument-making process through alternate frameworks—namely Neolithic, Queer and Indigenous material theories—in order to expose the violences inherent in Western material theory and practice. This piece, structured in a series of web pages, leads the reader through a research narrative strung together from conceptual images, academic text, and instructions for a tactile activity. I intend to explore how the critical lenses we apply to examine monumental materials can act to liberate them from the inanimacies inflicted upon them, and highlight the resistances they mount against monumentalization, prompting a further “dematerialization” of the Western monument.
Written Into History? Solastalgia and Emotion Under the Western Gaze
(2021-08) Suominen, Rachel
In 2003, after witnessing strong emotional distress in populations near new open-pit mining projects, environmental philosopher Glenn Albrecht coined the environmental neologism solastalgia to refer to “the pain or sickness caused by the loss of, or inability to derive solace from, the present state of one's home environment.” The term has spread beyond Albrecht, now used in both climate change related academic literature and attempts to grapple with climate change through the arts. In this project, I consider the pathologized presentation of the term solastalgia and its conceptualization through western science in order to explore how the naming and ‘languaging’ of a particular experience influence what is written into history, what is not, and why that writing is being done in the first place.
Healing Through Art An Examination of the Intersection of the Queer and Disabled Communities
(2021-08) Gatsby, Tiffany-Ashton
Individuals identifying as both ‘queer’ and ‘disabled’ are presented with unique challenges when interacting with support systems of family, community, institutions, and biomedicine. For queer-disabled people, the act of seeking care within these systems does not necessarily result in healing and can often lead to increased trauma, often necessitating alternative healing options. Queer-disabled people use art as one such holistic healing modality in various ways, including through art therapy, individual art practice, and as a tool for community building and social justice. The artistic expression channeled by the queer-disabled community is an effective site of resistance that promotes visibility and has the power to affect change. My research explores how interaction within support systems drives queer-disabled individuals to utilize art as a form of healing and resistance. I examined the impact of community-based art projects in comparison to art therapy and art practice, conducted ethnographic interviews and participant observation where I created a community-based art project with a cohort of my queer-disabled peers. My research shows how the experience of using art as a healing modality empowers the queer-disabled community on an individual and group level. My research results provide a strong foundation for my further study of the queer-disabled community and the challenges faced when seeking care in the biomedical system while taking a deeper look into the complexities of engagement with the arts for healing.
All the World’s On Stage?: Metatheatrical Presence of Indigenous Absence in Public Works’ As You Like It
(2021-08) Carey, Sophia
Public Works is a program of the Seattle Repertory Theatre that annually produces works of community-based theater in the effort to create “theater of, by, and for the people” built upon ostensibly anti-colonial practices. In this paper, I address the question: How does Public Works’ 2019 production of Shakespeare’s “As You Like It” resist, reproduce, and/or reimagine legacies of theatrical colonialism, as in line with the program’s anti-colonial intentions? I will perform a close reading of the script and video recording of the 2019 production of “As You Like It” in conversation with Indigenous, performance, and Shakespeare scholars to argue that Seattle Rep’s Public Works 2019 production of Shakespeare’s “As You Like It” uses metatheater in order to decenter Shakespeare as an authority over the production, instead positioning performers, audience members, and the theater itself as those actively reshaping the play’s meaning. This use of metatheater takes important steps to preempt Shakespeare from acting as an active tool of colonial violence, but becomes insufficient to convert the absent presence of Indigeneity in the production into a full presence, due in part to the lack of Indigenous voices onstage. By evaluating Public Works’ productions in terms of their relationship to colonialism and white supremacy, my goal is to further develop understandings of and frameworks for anti-colonial practices within theater spaces and the Western canon.
For the US to Live the Wolf Must Die: Extermination in the Southwest from 1880-1930
(2021-08) Ferrand-Sapsis, Jordan
The United States established itself as a cohesive and internally policed nation-state through a process of exclusion through border making and racialized violence. Above all, the construction and regimentation of the state involved practices that sought to naturalize the borders of the United States in order to endow its barriers with an immutable solidity. This solidity was ratified through physical demarcation, legislation and violence directed at those deemed “other,” both human and non-human. By relying on a constructed archive that documents the federally organized Gray Wolf eradication programs in the borderlands of Arizona and new Mexico from 1880 until 1930, I demonstrate how the delineation of the United States/Mexico border was both preceded and continues to be perpetually defined by policies that enact precisely these kinds of exclusionary measures. I will show how this federally mandated dominance over the lives and the habitats of non-human animals was utilized by analogous procedures to surveil and police the border in their effort to bolster and sustain the United States as a settler-colonial state. By revealing otherwise concealed historical insights, I hope to undermine the prevailing conceptions of national boundaries by denaturalizing the illusion of fixed, constant, and enduring lines of demarcation and consequently offer opportunities to envision a world without such divisive separations. Such a vision would allow for the recognition of borders not as sites of inclusion, but as spaces built on methodical exclusion of both human and non-human beings.
Rabies Pride: Queer Micro Communities on the Internet as Sites of Liberation
(2021-08) Burns, Torin
In 2017, Tumblr user dirk-has-rabies created the Rabies Pride Movement for autistic trans individuals who feel like they are treated as less than human or diseased. In July of 2018 a satire account called rabidloving was created that co-opted rabies pride into a joke label about being attracted to people with rabies or the idea of having rabies. Currently the true meaning is virtually impossible to find under associated tags or searches on Tumblr. How does the formation of rabies pride produce insights into the complexities of online queer spaces as sites of liberation and assimilation? Through archival research on TikTok – where I first came across the movement – and Tumblr I seek to contextualize the Rabies Pride Movement and its appropriation within broader narratives around queer liberation and LGBT+ assimilation while disrupting the idea that there is a singular queer mindset in online spaces. I will articulate how rabies pride is an example of smaller communities in queer internet culture that function as sites of liberation through a refusal to be palatable to cis-heteronormative society that are often lost or perpetually rejected by others due to the assimilative nature of jokes other LGBT+ people make around these communities. This understanding helps challenge homogenizing views of online queer spaces, and recontextualize how we interact with the internet while seeking to give understanding to the appropriated movement rabies pride.
Multi-generational Desire-based Design: A Critical Examination of the Bainbridge Island Japanese American Exclusion Memorial
(2021-08) Wang, Zipei
On March 30, 1942, under President Roosevelt’s Executive Order 9066, 227 Japanese Americans living in Bainbridge Island, Washington were gathered at the Eagledale Ferry Dock and forcibly sent to the internment camps for “national security” concerns during World War II. In 2011, 69 years after the exclusion order, though with few victims still alive, a memorial at the Eagledale Ferry Dock was dedicated, thanks to the collective effort of local Japanese American community organizations. Yet, after decades of generational identity transformation, how did the development of the historic site fulfill the diverse expectations of multiple generations of Japanese Americans? This paper, drawing on Eve Tuck’s desire-based framework and an in-depth analysis of the multi-generational Japanese American identities, provides a critical examination of the memorial’s design. From the story of first Japanese immigrants to the recent Asian American movements, this paper first disentangles the complexity of multi-generational Japanese American identities. Then, with ethnographic observation and literature review, this paper examines the capability of key design elements of the memorial to represent the individual and collective desire held by different Japanese American generations. This pilot study challenges the traditional linear approach to historic site development and calls for intentional engagement with diverse identities and desires within the community to promote inclusive urban design.
Tomb in paradise: The preservation of the Tomb of Cyrus the Great during the Islamic Revolution
(2021-08) Peterson, Elizabeth
The 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran saw the destruction of many monuments to previous regimes. Despite the close alignment of the previous regime to the Tomb of Cyrus the Great and calls from Chief Justice Sadeq Khalkhali to raze Cyrus’s tomb, the tomb remained intact as a historical site. Why was Cyrus’s tomb preserved when other pre-Revolution monuments were razed? I answer this question through the analysis of secondary sources about Cyrus’s tomb, architecture, and nationalism. I combine this approach with the examination of primary photographic and documentary footage of the tomb. The tomb was preserved because it is a palimpsest, representing many facets of Iranian culture and heritage - from tomb to mosque to monument. Nationalists in Iran succeeded in attributing modernity and patriotism to Cyrus, both of which are gendered masculine. The combination of Islam and nationalism into religious nationalism allowed not only for the preservation of Cyrus’s tomb, but also his later rehabilitation. Additionally, the tomb is about 800 km south of the capital city which allowed for the silencing of the tomb without necessitating its destruction. The iconoclasm of revolution often results in the destruction of important historical monuments and architecture, but the preservation of this particular monument is an important case study for how oppositional new regimes can preserve the monuments of previous ones while still bolstering their own legitimacy.
"Don’t Mythologize Me": Monumentalization and Refusal in Audre Lorde’s Berlin Years, 1984-1992
(2021-08) Zhou, Wendi
"In the spring of 1984, I spent three months in Berlin conducting a course in Black american [sic] women poets and a poetry workshop in English for German students. One of my aims for this trip was to meet Black German women. I’d been told there were quite a few in Berlin, but I had been unable to obtain much information about them in New York." (Lorde 56) So wrote Audre Lorde (1934-1992) as an introduction to her diary entries published in the essay collection A Burst of Light (1988). Lorde—who frequently defined herself using the terms “Black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet”—is well-known today for her poetry and prose works in addition to her intersectional against racism, sexism, homophobia, and other injustices in the United States. However, more recent scholarship on Lorde has grown to cover her activist legacy extending beyond the U.S., from the Caribbean islands to South Africa. In this paper, I focus on Lorde’s time in Germany throughout the period 1984-1992, commonly known as her “Berlin Years.” Dagmar Schultz, then an assistant professor of North American Studies at the Free University of Berlin (Freie Universität Berlin), first met Lorde at the 1980 United Nations World Women’s Conference in Copenhagen and proposed the latter for a semester-long visiting professorship at the Free University (Schultz 199). Although Lorde made her first trip to Berlin in 1984, the connections she formed with both Black and white Germans there—especially with Black German women—compelled her to keep returning for multiple months every year until her death of cancer in 1992 (199).

Browse

Recent Submissions