Moderator: Monica C. Keel, Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Brandeis University
Radicalizing the Radical: Rewriting the Story of Revelation by Darian Rahnis (she/her), Simmons University, Gender and Cultural Studies
Description: Within the Christian tradition, radical love is a buzz term used to demonstrate God’s unwavering and immeasurable love for even the worst sinners. It is also the ideal love for all Christians regarding their love for God and their love for other humans. But what happens when this radical love becomes twisted, a weapon used to oppress those deemed “inferior” and “unworthy?” The Book of Revelation, the tumultuous and violent finale to the Bible, is the ultimate Christian doomsday survival manual. Within the 40 pages of Revelation, salvation (and with it the radical, eternal, and all-powerful love of God) is only promised to those who reinforce harmful, stereotypical roles for women. Radical love, which is meant to transcend all barriers and reshape our relationships and existences for the better, is used to abuse in this context. My paper utilizes feminist and postcolonial thought to peel back the metaphorical layers of Revelation as a piece of apocalyptic literature. I argue that Revelation’s author, John of Patmos (a Christian exile living in the Roman Empire), demonstrates a dire need for control over women by reducing women’s roles in Christian society to three options: the Virgin Bride, the Deserted Mother, and the Whore. These roles exist within a story seemingly written about the dangers of the Roman Empire and sex. Postcolonial readings of Revelation establish the book as a warning against the notion of empire itself, in all forms and all cultures, and reveals some negative imagery of female sex to be a stand-in for capitalism. To truly read Revelation as postcolonial, we must remove the misogynistic barriers that keep women from receiving and giving radical love in the Christian faith, as postcolonialism is inherently anti-patriarchal and anti-capitalist.
Beyond Mammy, Jezebel, & Sapphire: Reconceptualizing Negotiations through a Black Feminist Lens by Krystal-Gayle O'Neill (she/her), University of Massachusetts Boston, Conflict Resolution, Human Security, and Global Governance
Description: Black women are woefully undervalued on the job market and in negotiation when it comes to things such as salary, time off, etc. Even after reading all the self-help and negotiation books, they can find; they are met with the various tropes attributed to them as Black women. Even after doing countless research, reading books like Getting to Yes, Women Don’t Negotiate, and dare I say Trump: The Art of the Deal, they will still be at a disadvantage. In negotiations that are value-based or distributive, Black women have to contend with racialized and gendered tropes that deem them unworthy and less deserving. Studies have shown that in salary negotiations hiring managers do not negotiate with Black candidates. If Black candidates do negotiate, it leads to lower salaries. This is exponentially significant for Black women as they have to navigate unfair stereotypes, racial and gender biases. Hence, traditional modes of teaching and preparing individuals for negotiations need to evolve and integrate an intersectional approach. It is far time that we move beyond the Mammy, Jezebel, and Sapphire archetypes, especially in negotiation.
Retooling Respect by Morgan Easterly (she/her), Tufts University, English
Description: Otis Redding penned his masculine breadwinner anthem “Respect” in 1965. Two years later, Aretha Franklin released the arguably wider known cover of this tune, but with a major adjustment. Of course, the largest change was the fact that a woman rather than a man was now the breadwinner figure singing a song demanding respect from a man; but Aretha added the famous repeated refrain “sock it to me.” Additionally, she says to her man to “keep on tryin’/ you’re runnin’ out of fools” thus referencing her own songs imploring women to free themselves from their manipulative male partners. But what of the aforementioned command? Why would she put something so taboo, so explicitly sexual, in a song about wanting respect? Obviously, Aretha’s music signifies a shift in the female ethos, specifically the Black female ethos, toward a doctrine of freedom and independence via the tool of erotics. Later would come seminal Black feminist thinkers like Audre Lorde, who emphasizes women’s power and her tools to wield it in her essay on feminine erotics.
I want to examine this shift and argue that current Black female rappers are taking up the same calls, these same ideas, demanding “respect” by redefining it, or reorienting it as “sex” and “pleasure.” As an intensely marginalized group, Black women do this in order to reclaim the humanity stolen from them by white male hegemony. I want to analyze the song “WAP,” by Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion, which I argue speaks about these Black feminist ideals not just in theory, but in praxis. Black women are aggressively objectified; the aforementioned artists know this, and in turn subvert sexualization by using it for their own gain. Essentially these Black women rappers create new signification for the term “respect”; sex is respect given to the Black woman, and, at times, money acts as pleasure insurance in case the respect is not properly delivered. These women rappers help perpetuate the idea that Black women created, and Audre Lorde talked about: the radical idea of sex as respect, freely given if the women so please, but requiring something in return in order for her to maintain some level of independent status and store Self power where she can, either pleasure or income. In this way, they are introducing their listeners to a remarkable new tool, wielding the ability of pleasure to beget pleasure within the oppressive system that dominates them. In exploring this, we will see that Cardi and Megan’s verses in the song WAP also create a Black anthropocene on which for women to explore their erotic pleasure and potential. "
"You are the Descendants of Gods": Indigenous Storytelling as an Act of Resistance by Taylor Eubanks (she/her), Simmons University, Gender and Cultural Studies
Description: Storytelling is considered the oldest form of information sharing. Stories are meant to educate, entertain, and communicate valuable information while transmitting cultural values and traditions. They also contribute to individual understanding of the past, present and future, thereby ensuring cultural survival as knowledge passes from one generation to the next. As such, stories are a powerful means of information sharing. Using a framework built on bell hooks’ theory of radical love and relying on the expertise of Indigenous educators, scholars, and researchers, this paper seeks to examine how the act of storytelling is a form of resistance via the decolonization of knowledge production. Because many Indigenous cultures utilize storytelling, particularly the sharing of myths and legends, to interconnect generations of Indigenous peoples to their ancestry, despite both the historical and contemporary colonization of their nations, Indigeneity can act against systems of domination. Furthermore, by applying these principles to the medium of children’s literature, this paper will then demonstrate how Gabrielle Ahuli`i’s children’s book series Hawaiian Legends for Little Ones creates space to share Native Hawaiian origin stories, thus exemplifying resistance which celebrates Indigenous identity. The goal of this paper, then, is to investigate how adapting Hawaiian legends for children’s literature invites both children and adults to participate in the sharing of knowledge, where even the act of choosing the book, of reading and/or listening to the words becomes resistance. By making visible Indige
I'm a graduate student in the Gender and Cultural Studies program at Simmons University. My research examines storytelling as a method of decolonization and resistance against United States empire through the increase of visibility by and for marginalized and excluded populations... Read More →
Morgan is a first year in the Tufts English department, studying postmodern critique and theory, critical literary theory, feminist gender and sexuality theory, and philosophy.
Krystal-Gayle O'Neill (She/Her) is a Ph.D. student in the Global Governance and Human Security program in the Department of Conflict Resolution, Human Security and Global Governance, at the University of Massachusetts Boston’s McCormack Graduate School. She is also an Adam Smith... Read More →
