CSWS Graduate Student Research Grant

My dissertation builds on a stance that views pleasure and safety as fundamental human rights. I am motivated by a wish to democratize pleasure for all, and specifically the questions, “What prohibits individuals from fully enjoying the sexual aspect of their humanity,” and “When it comes to sexual encounters, why do some groups of people consistently have a better and easier time than others?” I use critical feminist theory and queer quantitative methodology to examine how social contexts influence young adults’ experience with sexual injustices and sexual victimization.

by Min Young Park, PhD Candidate, Department of English

Nella Larsen’s Quicksand opens with a vivid portrait of Helga Crane’s room. It is brimming with furniture and garments of her “rare and intensely personal taste” (1). The emphasis on the privacy of her taste is easily overlooked as it is soon followed by a disturbing remark by a white priest who claims that “Naxos Negroes…had good taste” because “[t]hey knew enough to stay in their place” (3)...

by Anu Sugathan, PhD Student, Department of English

My interest in graphic narratives as a research topic emerged during my master of philosophy studies. While contemplating my thesis, I discovered various Indian graphic novels by contemporary writers and artists that brought back memories of my childhood comic books like Balarama, Balabhumi, and Champak. However, unlike earlier comic books, these graphic novels stood out due to their distinctive style, paper quality, and thematic depth...

by Magela Baudoin, PhD Candidate, Department of Romance Languages

Women’s autobiographical writing has historically faced devaluation within the realm of so-called “high” literature (Huyssen 2006). This marginalization stems from several factors: firstly, the misguided association of “literary” with “fiction,” which tends to discredit narratives perceived as not purely imaginative (Lejeune 1989; Molloy 1996); secondly, entrenched paradigms in modern Western thought...