4210 research outputs found
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“Every Mother a Missionary”?: The Vlogs of Mormon Mothers
Full text linkThe Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) places high expectations on mothers because their role in the church is to rear children into godly adults. When their lives are made public through social media, Mormon mothers online avoid religious expectations by withholding information about their Mormon faith and scarcely showing their husbands on-camera. Mormon husbands are expected to be the providers for the family, but as demonstrated through mothers’ vlogs on Instagram, husbands’ erasure allows for mothers to market their expertise to others as a paid product to earn their own revenue. Through descriptive coding, this study categorizes the roles of husbands, children, and online marketing in the vlog content of ten Mormon mothers on Instagram. The coding process incorporated the 10 most recent videos on each Instagram account as of March 21, 2025, totaling at 100 posts coded. In only 9% of the videos, husbands were present and cared for, while in 33% of the videos, children were present and cared for. In place of the absences of family, 53% of the videos contain advertisement, the operational definition of which includes partnerships, sponsorships, affiliate links, or self-promotion. Looking to their accounts as a whole, all 10 Mormon mothers earn commission on products, sell their own products, or both. Finally, only 2% of the videos mentioned their religious beliefs. Mormon mother influencers omit their husbands and religion where possible to monetize themselves independently of their family members, become marketable to a broader audience, and subvert expectations of the LDS Church
Japan and Its Hesitation in Legalizing Same-Sex Marriage
Full text linkJapan is the only state in the G7 that has not legalized same-sex marriages despite increasing support of LGBTQ+ rights and norms for respecting human rights. While some local governments and constitutional courts have made progress with recognizing same-sex partnerships and deeming the ban on same-sex marriage unconstitutional, the Japanese national government has not enacted comprehensive pro-LGBTQ+ policy. Instead, the Diet (Japan’s legislative body) passed the “LGBT Understanding and Enhancement Bill” in 2023, which is a law that fails to legally recognize same-sex marriage or provide protections. This project aims to explore Japan’s hesitancy by examining politics, culture, history, and intersectional understandings of sexuality, class, gender, and nationality.
A comparative case-study of Taiwan offers useful insights for same-sex marriage in East Asia. In research, Taiwan is a poster-nation for Japan’s neighboring countries in legalizing same-sex marriage driven by a trifecta of factors: a liberal and progressive political elite, a robust and visible domestic LGBTQ+ movement, and a younger generation that tends to be more accepting of LGBTQ+ people and same sex marriage. This trifecta, named the ‘Rainbow Triangle’ by Frederic Krumbein, is an available and useful tool for analyzing the factors behind Japan’s reluctance in legalizing same-sex marriage. While the Japanese youth is reported to be more supportive of the LGBTQ+ community, national political institutions and politicians have not prioritized LGBTQ+ issues, and the style of the Japanese LGBTQ+ movement, though active, does not have the same level of mainstream visibility or influence as in Taiwan
Called for Jury Duty
No full textThis project presents the process of rehearsing, analyzing, and performing as Juror 2 in UMW Theatre’s 2024 production of Twelve Angry Jurors. The website includes my character analysis, research, daily rehearsal and performance journals, as well final reflection on my experience in this production and my time with UMW Theatre
‘‘I am not this, not here, this time’’: Claudia Emerson’s Infusion Suite as a Compelling Account of the Lived Experience of Cancer
No full textClaudia Emerson’s Infusion Suite section within her poetry collection Impossible Bottle is a significant contemporary literary representation of cancer. In this twelve-poem sequence, Emerson dispenses with the typical martial metaphors so often used to represent this lived experience. Instead, she focuses on more mundane everyday moments in a way that acknowledges and respects the humanity of all those at the treatment center—especially that of the patients. Emerson refuses to airbrush out the daunting, debilitating aspects of cancer, but she also preserves space for light and life
Remaking Othello in India: Race, Caste, and Colorism in Vishal Bhardwaj’s Omkara (2006)
No full textThis essay examines Vishal Bhardwaj’s Omkara (2006), a Hindi-language adaptation of Othello, through the lens of premodern critical race studies and anti-caste studies. Tracing the structural similarities between race and caste, I argue that the film stages a conflict between the rhetoric of castelessness embraced by its eponymous hero, Omkara, and the casteist beliefs of its antagonist, Ishwar “Langda” Tyagi. I consider the repercussions of these narratives on the kinship network to which both characters belong and suggest that Langda favors a patriarchal masculinity based on alliances with dominant-caste men whereas Omkara forges relationships across caste and gender lines. I demonstrate that Langda’s quest for caste-patriarchal domination reminds Omkara of the terms of his marginalization, severs his relationship with his paternal ancestry, and relegates him to the company of women. I conclude by suggesting that Omkara’s relationship with Langda’s wife, Indu, imagines an alternative to the world of caste masculinity. Attending to caste and colorism not only sheds light on the alignment between historical structures of oppression, but also invites us to reflect on the role that appropriations of Shakespeare can play in critiquing these structures
Teaching Local Difficult History through Primary Sources: Exploring Tensions in Teachers’ Pedagogical Reasoning
No full textTeaching about local, difficult pasts can center students, their communities, and civic action. However, doing so poses personal and professional challenges. Drawing from Critical Historical Inquiry and Activity Theory, this study explored how six experienced secondary social studies teachers reasoned about selecting primary sources to teach the history of policing and activism in Detroit. As teachers developed their text-sets, they navigated a variety of tensions related to their instructional goals, beliefs, and knowledge of students’ identities and communities. We focus on two common areas of tension: how to teach the racialized history of Detroit policing while positioning students as sense-makers and while attending to students’ affective well-being. Findings highlight the complex, situated nature of pedagogical reasoning and the promises and challenges of a critical historical inquiry approach to local, difficult history. Findings also underscore the value of teachers’ multidimensional expertise in designing difficult history curricula
Proximity to Power: Rethinking Race and Place in Alexandria, Virginia
No full textLocated just across the Potomac River from Washington, DC, Alexandria, Virginia, has long held a unique sociopolitical position due to its proximity to the nation’s capital. This unexplored relationship had a profound impact on African Americans\u27 access to schools, transportation, and other resources in comparison to other southern towns and cities. Proximity to Power examines the history of Alexandria’s African American community from the mid-nineteenth century to the twenty-first century, focusing on its dynamic relationship with the federal government before, during, and after the Civil War. Krystyn R. Moon highlights the long-standing advocacy and agency of Alexandria’s Black residents, adding further nuance to our understanding of the relationship between race and place.https://scholar.umw.edu/hist_amst_books/1006/thumbnail.jp
The Deceptive Defense of a Woman Scorned: The Unreliable Narrator and Her Reworking of the Truth in Marina Mayoral’s Casi Perfecto
No full textMarina Mayoral’s female protagonist and first-person narrator in her epistolary noir novel, Casi perfecto (2007), is a writer by trade whose representation of reality and herself are, at times, contradictory and hence disorienting for even the most discerning of readers. In response to the accusation of her youngest son that she plotted the perfect murder of his father (her ex-husband), modeling it after the fictional homicide of one of her male protagonists, Ana—Mayoral’s narrator—drafts a letter in which she unfalteringly maintains her innocence while unrepentantly rationalizing her questionable behavior and decisions through the years. As she composes her defense, Ana engages in a dual exercise of rhetoric and autobiographical self-fashioning with the aim of convincing both her implicit and explicit reader of her coherence and authenticity and, thus, exonerating herself in the process. Nevertheless, Ana undermines the original purpose of her epistle by either neglecting or brazenly refusing to conceal her character flaws, self-contradictions, and actions, not to mention her anger and frustration in response to her son’s accusations, as well as the deliberately ambiguous nature of her text and motivations. As her unintended—or perhaps intended—audience, we therefore come to question both who she claims to be and the very reliability and purpose of her account. In this essay, I depart from Roberta Johnson’s belief that Mayoral’s narrator-protagonist is indeed a reliable one, by identifying her many inconsistencies, her use of irony, and, as she herself discloses, her possible motivations for wanting her ex-husband dead. With the help of Dorrit Cohn’s seminal studies on discordant narration and narrative consciousness in self-narrated monologues, I explore the paradoxical manner in which Ana fashions herself as a way to simultaneously control the narrative and persuade her reader into accepting her version of the truth, while I also maintain that the narrator’s defense doubles as a feminist apology, or self-justification, for her actions and premeditated crime
Happily Ever After?: Romantic Ideas and Gender Roles in Disney Media
No full textThis research aims to study a sample of animated Disney movies to examine the gender roles and romantic relationships displayed. With Disney\u27s wide reach in the media realm, they have gained popularity across the globe for the movies they produce; however, the genre they are most well-known for is romance and fairytales. This study will utilize content analysis to examine the behaviors and stereotypes displayed in each movie in the sample as well as common themes that are present
Contentious Unions: Black Baptist Schools and White Baptist Money in the Jim Crow South
No full textIn Contentious Unions: Black Baptist Schools and White Baptist Money in the Jim Crow South, Mary Beth Swetnam Mathews interweaves the stories of the founding and development of Richmond Theological Seminary (Virginia), Central City College (Macon, Georgia), and American Baptist Theological Seminary (Nashville, Tennessee)—colleges that saw challenges, complexities, and hard-won accomplishments in the Post-Reconstruction era. Her study begins just after the Civil War, when one of these institutions provided educational opportunities for newly freed slaves, and follows the fortunes of the schools through the 1960s.https://scholar.umw.edu/cpr_books/1003/thumbnail.jp