To see the other types of publications on this topic, follow the link: Homosexuality – United States – Miscellanea.
Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Homosexuality – United States – Miscellanea'
Create a spot-on reference in APA, MLA, Chicago, Harvard, and other styles
Consult the top 27 dissertations / theses for your research on the topic 'Homosexuality – United States – Miscellanea.'
Next to every source in the list of references, there is an 'Add to bibliography' button. Press on it, and we will generate automatically the bibliographic reference to the chosen work in the citation style you need: APA, MLA, Harvard, Chicago, Vancouver, etc.
You can also download the full text of the academic publication as pdf and read online its abstract whenever available in the metadata.
Browse dissertations / theses on a wide variety of disciplines and organise your bibliography correctly.
1
Ito, Daisuke. "College Students' Prejudiced Attitudes toward Homosexuals: A Comparative Analysis in Japan and the United States." unrestricted, 2007. http://etd.gsu.edu/theses/available/etd-08032007-123056/.
Full textAbstract:
Thesis (M.A.)--Georgia State University, 2007.Dawn Baunach, committee chair; Elisabeth Burgess, Toshimasa Kii, committee members. Electronic text (152 p.) : digital, PDF file. Description based on contents viewed October 10, 2007. Includes bibliographical references (p. 116-130).
2
Decoo, Ellen. "Changing Attitudes Toward Homosexuality in the United States from 1977 to 2012." BYU ScholarsArchive, 2014. https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/etd/4091.
Full textAbstract:
Support for civil rights for gays and lesbians has been increasing nationally. Changes in attitudes may be due not only to the influence of younger, more progressive cohorts, but also to the influence of other factors such as education, religious attendance, political identity, and attitudes toward women's roles. This thesis utilized General Social Survey data from 1977 to 2012 and examined changes in response to attitudinal questions regarding civil rights for gays and lesbians, as well as demographic factors predictive of changing attitudes. Between 1977 and 2012, attitudes became more accepting of civil rights for homosexuals in the United States. Results from multivariate regression models indicate that younger birth cohorts are more accepting of civil rights for gays and lesbians, as are those with higher education. Higher tolerance of non-traditional roles for women is associated with the support of civil rights for gays and lesbians. In addition, religious attendance is negatively associated with acceptance of civil rights for homosexuals, whereas political identity has no association.
3
Lvovsky, Anna. "Queer Expertise: Urban Policing and the Construction of Public Knowledge About Homosexuality, 1920–1970." Thesis, Harvard University, 2015. http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:17463142.
Full textAbstract:
This dissertation tracks how urban police tactics against homosexuality participated in the construction, ratification, and dissemination of authoritative public knowledge about gay men in the United States in the twentieth century. Focusing on three prominent sites of anti-homosexual policing—the enforcement of state liquor regulations, plainclothes decoy campaigns to make solicitation arrests, and clandestine surveillance of public bathrooms—it examines how municipal police availed themselves of competing bodies of social scientific information about homosexuality in order to bolster their enforcement efforts, taking into account such variable factors as the statutes authorizing their arrests, the humors of the courts, and their need to maintain public legitimacy. Lending the authority of the state to their preferred paradigms for understanding sexual deviance, and attaching direct legal penalties to anyone who tried to disagree, the police influenced whether—and when—new scientific research about homosexual men reached the mainstream public and was embraced as authoritative. Even as vice squads’ anti-homosexual campaigns allowed them to amass increasingly sophisticated and rarefied insights into the urban gay world, however, police officers consistently denied their reliance on any “expert” knowledge about homosexuality in court, legitimating their tactics on the basis of public’s ostensibly shared knowledge about gay men. Tracking the history of urban vice policing alongside the shifting landscape of popular knowledge about homosexuality, this project examines both the ambivalent place of “expertise” in public debates about sexual deviance in the United States, and the multifaceted origins and repercussions of the lay public’s evolving knowledge about gay communities in the twentieth century.American Studies
4
Hare, Patricia. "The Relationship between Christian Religiosity and Heterosexism in the Southern United States." ScholarWorks, 2016. https://scholarworks.waldenu.edu/dissertations/2731.
Full textAbstract:
The internalization of heterosexism places lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) individuals at disproportionately higher risks of depression and self-destructive behaviors. For LGB Christians, this phenomenon is often exacerbated. Although literature on heterosexism has increased, little research has examined more insular, religious environments. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between Christian denominational religiosity and heterosexism and to compare the degree of religiosity and heterosexism between members of 5 Christian denominations and between same-sex sexuality perspectives in the southern United States. Guided by the attribution theory, a correlational, cross-sectional survey design was used to analyze degree of religiosity and heterosexism among 225 self-identifying Christians as measured by the Religiosity Measure and Attitudes Toward Lesbians and Gay Men Scale. A Pearson Correlation revealed a large, positive relationship between religiosity and heterosexism. Two ANOVAs revealed significant differences in degrees of religiosity among denominations and same-sex sexuality perspective, in addition to significant differences in degrees of heterosexism among denominations and same-sex sexuality perspectives. Implications for positive social change center on illuminating the effects of heterosexism in insular environments, which may contribute to the understanding of heterosexist ideology including heteronormative assumptions that are replete throughout the United States, including mental health professions. Moreover, LGB Christians may particularly benefit from understanding the variability and distinctions within denominational religiosity, such that denominational choices become evident and viable options.
5
Wake, Naoko. "Private practices Harry Stack Sullivan, homosexuality, and the limits of psychiatric liberalism /." [Bloomington, Ind.] : Indiana University, 2005. http://wwwlib.umi.com/dissertations/fullcit/3178480.
Full textAbstract:
Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, Dept. of History, 2005.Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 66-06, Section: A, page: 2362. Adviser: James H. Capshew. "Title from dissertation home page (viewed Nov. 28, 2006)."
6
Gavlas, John T. "Psychometric Properties of the Modern Homonegativity Scale in the Southern United States." ScholarWorks, 2018. https://scholarworks.waldenu.edu/dissertations/4919.
Full textAbstract:
The Modern Homonegativity Scale (MHS) is designed to measure a distinct modern form of prejudice against gay people. Based on the conceptual framework of old-fashioned and modern antigay prejudice advanced by Morrison and Morrison, the present study was conducted to assess the reliability and validity of the MHS as a measure of modern antigay prejudice in the southern United States a region where antigay prejudice appears to be particularly pervasive and damaging. This purpose was achieved by analyzing survey responses from 691 adult residents of 14 southern states. As hypothesized, MHS scores were correlated with political conservatism, contact with gay people, nonabusive antigay behavior, and scores on a traditional measure of antigay prejudice. Contrary to hypotheses, MHS scores were not related to sexual orientation, educational level, income level, or religious self-schema. Results concerning the relationships between MHS scores and other known correlates of antigay prejudice were mixed. In factor analyses, items on the MHS and a traditional measure of antigay prejudice did not load on different factors. The results of this study suggest that the MHS is a highly reliable measure of modern antigay prejudice in the South, but that its validity as such is limited. This study promotes positive social change by providing evidence that should aid in the selection of appropriate measures to use in future studies of prejudice against gay people in the South. Such studies promise to result in the development of more effective interventions to reduce antigay prejudice in the southern United States but such studies will produce useful findings only to the extent that the instruments used are reliable and valid measures of the constructs they purport to measure in this region.
7
Coffin, Donna Aileen 1951. "WINDOWS IN THE CLOSET: PERSPECTIVES ON HOMOSEXUALITY FOR THE HELPING PROFESSIONS." Thesis, The University of Arizona, 1986. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/291401.
Full text
8
Madigan, Corinne James. "The "M" Word: An Analysis of Gay Marriage in the United States." Thesis, Boston College, 2009. http://hdl.handle.net/2345/698.
Full textAbstract:
Thesis advisor: Donald HafnerThere is perhaps no issue more controversial in the so-called American culture war than that of gay marriage. In the last five years, four states have legalized same-sex marriages and several more appear poised to follow suit. This paper creates an analytical framework with which to evaluate the chances of successful gay marriage initiatives in any given state. Demographics, political institutions, and state-specific variables make up the three parts of the framework, which is then applied to three case studies in which gay marriage has already been addressed: Massachusetts, Vermont, and California. A fourth case, Maine, serves as a prediction state to test the validity of the framework. The paper’s conclusions indicate that, in the current political and cultural domain, there is a set of factors that tend to promote the legalization of gay marriage. The demographics of a population need to be such that they qualify as a “tolerant citizenry,” people who are hesitatingly accepting of gay marriage and can be persuaded to support that legalization. On the political side, a positive evaluation of gay marriage by the state supreme court that then passes on responsibility to the state legislature is the most conducive to legalization. The court provides the constitutional and legal grounds for gay marriage, while the legislature acts as an intermediary between the justices and the wider population. Finally, states in which the constitutions are difficult to amend, and which amendment procedures are controlled by the legislature, are the most likely to legalize gay marriage. The application of the framework to the three case studies illustrates this complex process
Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2009
Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences
Discipline: Political Science Honors Program
Discipline: Political Science
9
Freeman, Jeffrey B. "The Potential for religious conflict in the United States Military Jeffrey B. Freeman." Thesis, Monterey, California. Naval Postgraduate School, 2005. http://hdl.handle.net/10945/1793.
Full textAbstract:
The 2004 presidential election seemed to signal growing religious fervor across the political spectrum. Members of the media and pollsters alike were left wondering what went on inside the voting booth. Religion has long played a role in American politics, dating back to the Constitution of the United States of America. When components of government, the military, religion, and society converge, discussion and debate invariably follows. The United States military is a religiously pluralistic institution, with members belonging to an estimated 700 religions. The chaplaincy champions religious accommodation and the military itself supports over 245 faith groups. The chaplaincy is at the core of this religious accommodation since chaplains maintain a dual allegiance, as members of the clergy and as members of the officer corps. As religious diversity grows, the likelihood of controversy increases when, for instance, Indian members of the Native American Church take peyote, Wiccans observe pagan rites on military bases, and Muslim chaplains serve Muslim soldiers who find themselves at war within an Islamic country. This thesis explores some of the challenges inherent in ministering to so many diverse religions, and takes a critical look at areas of potential friction that might cause the Department of Defense to want to take a more attentive look at what such diversity means for the future.
10
Rea, Theresa M. "Unit cohesion and the military's "Don't ask, Don't Tell" policy." Thesis, Monterey, Calif. : Springfield, Va. : Naval Postgraduate School ; Available from National Technical Information Service, 1997. http://hdl.handle.net/10945/31935.
Full textAbstract:
Thesis (M.S. in Management) Naval Postgraduate School, March 1997.Thesis advisors, Eitelberg, Mark J. ; Thomas, Gail Fann . Includes bibliographical references (p. 117-119). Also available online.
11
Gabhart, Elizabeth A. "The Spiritual But Not Religious: Who Are They, and Who Is More Likely to Be One?" Thesis, University of North Texas, 2015. https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc799544/.
Full textAbstract:
The “spiritual but not religious” (SBNR) are a rising social group in America in the past two decades, but social scientists and the general public know quite little about this group. Using the pooled 2006, 2008, 2010, and 2012 GSS data, this study examines who the SBNR are and who is more or less likely to be SBNR controlling for other variables. Descriptive analysis reveals that, compared to the general U.S. adult population, the SBNR group has slightly more males, is slightly younger, has fewer racial minorities, is better educated, and is slightly higher in social class. Additionally, more SBNR are from the Northeast and West than the general population, are slightly more urban, fewer are currently married, fewer have children, more have had homosexual sex, and more were religious Nones when they were 16 years old. Logistic regression analysis of the SBNR finds that, holding other variables constant, Americans who are more educated, live in Northeastern or Western regions, have homosexual sex, or had no religion at age 16 are more likely to be SBNR than their respective counterparts. Those who are racial minorities, live in the South or the Midwest, are currently married, or have children are less likely to be SBNR than their respective counterparts. Gender, age, social class, full-time work status, and metropolitanism of area do not make a significant difference. The implications of the findings for the research of religion and spirituality are discussed.
12
Murray, Olivia Jo. ""Outing" Queer Issues in Teacher Preparation Programs: How Pre-Service Teachers Experience Sexual and Gender Diversity in Their Field Placements." PDXScholar, 2011. http://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/open_access_etds/635.
Full textAbstract:
Currently in the United States there are more than 4 million lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) students in K-12 public schools (Bochenek, Brown, & Human Rights Watch, 2001). Despite the prevalence of LGBT youth and the diversification of family populations, teacher preparation programs rarely acknowledge "queer" aspects of multiculturalism (Letts, 2002). As a result, a majority of K-12 educators enter the field of teaching unwilling and/or unprepared to engage with queer issues as they relate to students and families, curriculum, and instruction. The culture of silence around homosexuality can put queer youth at risk and deter school stakeholders from addressing queer issues, the discussion of which can lead to deepened understanding, increased empathy, and social action. Employing critical social theory as a theoretical framework, this paper examines the promise of increased awareness about and use of queer-inclusive pedagogy and curriculum in pre-service teacher education. It is argued that such inclusion is necessary to counteract heterosexism in schools that reinforce gender norms and impart heteronormative values. Guided by interpretivist inquiry, the current multiple-case study describes how eight pre-service teachers encountered, made sense of, and responded to sexual and gender diversity in their K-8 field placements. Findings are presented in individual case descriptions followed by a cross-case synthesis and suggest that pre-service teachers came into direct and constant contact with queer issues. Participants' overwhelming desire to process and make sense of their encounters as a means of supporting students as well as negotiating their own personal sense of identity also emerged from the data. The implications of these findings for pre-service teacher education are discussed as is a proposed framework for queer inclusion and next steps for future research.
13
Stearns, Susan 1965. "Making Meaning out of Difference: A Cultural Studies Analysis of the Struggle over the Meaning of Gayness in "Ellen" and Time Magazine." Thesis, University of North Texas, 1998. https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc935679/.
Full textAbstract:
On April 30, 1997, for the first time in television history, an actress on a popular television sitcom announced to the world that both se and the character she played were lesbians. This study offers an interpretation of the significance of Ellen DeGeneres' coming through a cultural studies analysis of the April 14, 1997 Time magazine article in which DeGeneres comes out and the April 30, 1997 "Ellen" television episode in which DeGeneres brings her character, Ellen Morgan, out. The study revealed sites of ideological differences between the two texts that could point to a struggle over the meaning of gayness in modern American society. The results suggest that mainstream attitudes and beliefs could be in the process of shifting toward a more normalized view of homosexuality.
14
Sanford, Michele L. "Attitude toward gay and lesbian students: an investigation of resident advisors at Virginia Tech." Thesis, Virginia Tech, 1994. http://hdl.handle.net/10919/40642.
Full text
15
Sorrells, David J. "The Evolution of AIDS as Subject Matter in Select American Dramas." Thesis, University of North Texas, 2000. https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc2600/.
Full textAbstract:
Dramatic works from America with AIDS as subject matter have evolved over the past twenty years. In the early 1980s, dramas like Larry Kramer's The Normal Heart, William Hoffman's As Is, and Robert Chesley's Night Sweat educated primarily homosexual men about AIDS, its causes, and its effects on the gay community while combating the dominant discourse promoted by the media, government, and medical establishments that AIDS was either unimportant because it affected primarily the homosexual population or because it was attributed to lack of personal responsibility. By the mid-eighties and early nineties, playwrights Terrence McNally (Love! Valour! Compassion!)and Paul Rudnick (Jeffrey)concentrated on relationships between sero-discordant homosexual couples. McNally's "Andre's Mother" and Lips Together, Teeth Apart explored how families and friends face the loss of a loved one to AIDS. Tony Kushner's Pulitzer Prize-winning Angels in America epic represents living beyond AIDS as a powerful force. Without change and progress, Angels warns, life stagnates. Angels also introduces the powerful drugs that help alleviate the symptoms of AIDS. AIDS is the centerpiece of the epic, and AIDS and homosexuality are inextricably blended in the play. Rent, the Pulitzer Prize-winning musical by Jonathan Larson, features characters from an assortment of ethnic and social backgrounds - including heterosexuals, homosexuals, bi-sexuals, some with AIDS, some AIDS-free, some drug users - all living through the diverse troubles visited upon them at the turn of the millennium in the East Village of New York City. AIDS is not treated as "special," nor are people with AIDS pandered to. Instead, the characters take what life gives them, and they live fully, because there is "no day but today" ("Finale"). Rent's audiences are as varied as the American population, because it portrays metaphorically what so many Americans face daily - not AIDS per se, but other difficult life problems, including self-alienation. As such, Rent defies the dominant discourse because the community portrayed in Rent is the American community.
16
Hilt, Jennifer Falconi. "The advantages and obstacles of having been raised by a gay or lesbian parent." CSUSB ScholarWorks, 2006. https://scholarworks.lib.csusb.edu/etd-project/3106.
Full textAbstract:
In an exploratory study 10 adult children, with at least one identifiable gay or lesbian parent, were interviewed and asked to discuss their childhood experiences growing up in diverse families. Understanding the introspective views of adult children with gay or lesbian parents will allow social workers the ability to tailor services to ensure the needs of these new family constellations are met.
17
Crowell, Mark. "Attitudes Toward Homosexuality: American and Canadian Patterns, 1981-2000." Thesis, 2007. http://hdl.handle.net/10012/3085.
Full textAbstract:
Previous research has determined that Canadians often exhibit more tolerant attitudes toward homosexuality than Americans, yet few studies have attempted to uncover why this pattern persists. Using World Values Surveys data, this study compares attitudes toward homosexuality between Canadians and Americans from 1981 to 2000. The study re-examines directly Reginald Bibby’s (2004) assertion that divergent levels of religious commitment, rather than other socio-demographic, cultural and socio-structural factors, largely account for attitudinal differences between the two neighbouring nations. Consistent with previous research, the findings suggest that differences in gender, marital status, age, education, home language, community size, region, and many indicators of religious involvement and religiosity assist in predicting attitudes toward homosexuality. Overall, the findings support Bibby’s theory that religious differences between Americans and Canadians largely explain more tolerant attitudes among Canadian citizens. Particular attention is also paid to factors outside of religion that may influence attitudes, but which are not directly observable in quantifiable data analysis.
18
"The limits of Christian love : homosexuality and the politics of church /." 2000. http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&res_dat=xri:pqdiss&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:dissertation&rft_dat=xri:pqdiss:9978049.
Full text
19
McGraw, Cathlene E. "A qualitative study of the determinants of resistance to homosexuality in heterosexual identified students." Thesis, 2006. http://hdl.handle.net/1957/3253.
Full textAbstract:
Graduation date: 2006Two decades of literature from national college student climate reports measuring student attitudes toward people who are lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transgender (LGBT) indicate, “anti-GLBT intolerance and harassment has been prevalent” (Rankin, 2003). This study seeks to explore the determinants of such attitudes and explore the life contexts of students’ processes by which they came to hold such attitudes through a qualitative interview approach. The eight themes that emerged from the interviews reflect participants’ own voices and their worldviews about LGBT people. These themes inform a framework of general recommendations for student affairs programming efforts to reduce homophobia and resistance to LGBT people and lifestyles throughout campus.
20
Cortese, Daniel Keith Hickey. "Are we thinking straight?: negotiating political environments and identities in a lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender social movement organization." Thesis, 2004. http://hdl.handle.net/2152/1302.
Full text
21
Pasternack, Leslie Joyce Wolf Stacy Ellen. "Theatrical transvestism in the United States and the performance of American identities, 1870-1935." 2004. http://repositories.lib.utexas.edu/bitstream/handle/2152/2180/pasternacklj042.pdf.
Full text
22
Boltseridge, Nathan H. "Identical confusion : the history of twin studies on sexual orientation, 1952-1973." Thesis, 2004. http://hdl.handle.net/1957/29741.
Full textAbstract:
In 1952, at the height of the McCarthy era, Franz Kallmann, a Jewish
psychiatrist and eugenicist who fled the National Socialist regime in Germany,
published a study, in which he claimed to have found a one hundred percent
concordance rate for homosexuality among forty pairs of identical twins. From this
data, Kallmann concluded that homosexuality, which he saw as a pathological mental
condition, had a genetic cause. As well as being a clear statement that sexual
orientation is constitutionally based, Kallmann's study also reflected social and
scientific conceptions of lesbians and gay men that had been extant for centuries. The
twin study perpetuated the portrayal of homosexual women and men as insane in
general, and in particular continued the stereotype that lesbians were masculine and
that gay men were effeminate.
Seven responses to Kallmann's study were published between 1960 and 1973,
some in support of his genetic theory, others favoring environmental explanations
based loosely on psychoanalytic theories. The environmental argument eventually
gained ground in twin studies in the late 1960s concurrent with the widespread
acceptance in the psychiatric community of the theory that homosexuality is caused by
dysfunctional relationships between parents and children. The seven twin studies that
responded to Kallmann retained his characterization of lesbians and gay men as
gender transgressors. Simultaneously, homosexual activist groups began to question
the pathological model of sexual orientation. Twin studies of this type ended in 1973,
the same year that the American Psychiatric Association reversed its position on
homosexuality and removed it from the diagnostic manual.Graduation date: 2005
23
Sochacký, Jakub. "Měnící se právní a společenské postavení LGBT osob ve Spojených státech od roku 1990." Master's thesis, 2015. http://www.nusl.cz/ntk/nusl-336403.
Full textAbstract:
This paper deals with the role of American courts, specifically their decisions, regarding the rights and social status of LGBT people, which is an acronym standing for lesbians, gay, bisexual and transgender persons. The main finding is that court decisions in favor of LGBTs make lives of such people even more difficult, because authorities in states where such decisions are taken often try to circumvent these decisions using legislative powers. However, in the long term, it seems that courts manage to initiate debates about LGBT-related topics with various arguments that the American society is forced to consider. It appears that in such debates common sense prevails over prejudices and myths. One such myth that was widely accepted by society was that when a child lives with a homosexual in a common household, such child was going to become homosexual him- or herself. This paper also explores an analogy between current efforts of LGBT people to reach full equality and secure anti- discrimination measures for themselves and the struggle for civil rights of African-Americans. Both these groups have faced treatment which suggested that they are second-class citizens. One of the ways society expresses this second-class citizenry is by denying LGBTs access to the institution of marriage arguing it...
24
Fruth, Bryan Ray. "Media reception, sexual identity, and public space." Thesis, 2007. http://hdl.handle.net/2152/3214.
Full text
25
Pasternack, Leslie Joyce. "Theatrical transvestism in the United States and the performance of American identities, 1870-1935." Thesis, 2004. http://hdl.handle.net/2152/2180.
Full text
26
Tiemeyer, Philip James. "Manhood up in the air : gender, sexuality, corporate culture, and the law in twentieth century America." 2007. http://hdl.handle.net/2152/15916.
Full textAbstract:
This project analyzes the sexual and gender politics of flight attendants, especially the men who did this work, since the 1930s. It traces how and why the flight attendant corps became the nearly exclusive domain of white women by the 1950s, then considers the various legal battles under the 1964 Civil Rights Act to re-integrate men into the workforce, open up greater opportunities for African-Americans, and liberate women from onerous age and marriage restrictions that cut short their careers. While other scholars have emphasized flight attendants' contributions in battling sexism in the courts, this project is unique in expanding such consideration to homosexuality. Male flight attendants' status as gender pariahs in the workforce (as men performing "women's work")--combined with the fact that many of them were gay--made them objects of "homosexual panic" in the 1950s, both in legal proceedings and in various forms of extra-legal intimidation. A decade later, aspirant flight attendants were participants in some of the first cases brought by men under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. Their victories in the courts greatly benefited the gay community, among others, which thereby enjoyed greater freedom to enter a highly visible, public-relationsoriented corporate career. As such, my project helps to recast the legal legacy of the civil rights movement as a three-pronged reform, confronting homophobia as well as racism and sexism. Beyond legal considerations, Manhood Up in the Air also examines how both labor unions and the airlines negotiated a legal environment and public sentiment that largely condoned firing homosexuals, while nonetheless accommodating gay employees. This form of accommodation existed in the 1950s, though much more precariously than in the post-Stonewall decade of the 1970s. Thus, the project records the pre-history to the current reality, in which both corporations (with airlines at the forefront) and labor unions have become core supporters of the contemporary gay rights movement.text
27
Wise, Rachel Ann. ""A certain zest to his own enjoyment" : homoerotic competition, race, and the rise of a Southern middle class in The marrow of tradition." Thesis, 2010. http://hdl.handle.net/2152/ETD-UT-2010-05-1346.
Full textAbstract:
This essay contends that Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick's "between men" thesis (1985) provides a particularly apt methodology for engaging The marrow of tradition (1901), a post-bellum novel concerned with the structure of the New South in the United States. While the novel contains myriad "between men" pairs, reading the homosocial bond between Lee Ellis and Tom Delamere has the potential to change the way we think about the novel's interest in the complex relationships among class, social mobility, race, whiteness, and the erotics of power. If "the political and the erotic necessarily obscure and misrepresent each other... in ways that offer important and shifting affordances to all parties in historical gender and class struggles," then we can read the Ellis/Tom/Clara erotic triangle as dramatizing the rise of a white middle class whose professional capital encroaches upon and supersedes the central role of a plantation based aristocracy without significantly challenging either the essential hierarchy of white over black or the bloody lynch law that helps enforce that hierarchy (Sedgwick 15). Sedgwick's broad definition of desire as "the affective or social force, the glue, even when its manifestation is hostility or hatred, that shapes an important relationship" can usefully be applied to the rivalry between Lee Ellis and Tom Delamere, a rivalry that epitomizes the Girardian theory that "the bond between rivals in an erotic triangle [is] stronger [and] more heavily determinant of actions and choices, than anything in the bond between either of the lovers and the beloved" (Sedgwick 21). An examination of the erotic triangle and the function of the courtship plot enable us to theorize the implications of this expropriation of the aristocrat by the white southern middle class and this ascendant class's role in remaking a whiteness that at the novel's end still reigns supreme.text