Identity

This thesis exhibition explores how digital culture affects identity and connection through a series of paintings made through collage, mixed media, and reflective surfaces. It looks at how identity is fragmented in the digital age when we construct personas online that are selected and, therefore, less authentic. The paintings juxtapose the use of analog methods with digital imagery, in order to ask about the tension between vulnerability and performance and the authenticity of online interactions. The series is about emotional exhaustion, curated personas, and the search for genuine connection. Reflective elements and textures mounted and layered encourage viewers to engage in a dialectic between themselves and the mediated world, between 'digital self' and the 'authentic self.' The thesis hopes that this work can provoke discourse regarding the ramifications of digital culture on self-perceiving and interpersonal relations in recognizing the human dependence on depth and vulnerability in our fragmented reality.

This thesis examines different forms that ‘disidentification,’ as defined by Lisa Lowe and José Esteban Muñoz, takes in Bluebird: A Memoir by Vesna Maric and The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie. I further define ‘disidentification’ by narrowing down to two types that I coin ‘social disidentification’ and ‘political disidentification.’ I use ‘social disidentification’ as a model of survival and ‘political disidentification’ as a model of resistance. Throughout, I examine how the construct of multiculturalism effects the formation of migrant identities and because of this I look at which type of ‘disidentification’ the migrant will align with. By examining migrant identities and how they come to identify with some form of a British identity across both texts, I conclude that the idea of “Britishness” needs to be revised to be inclusive of all identities that make up the space of Britain rather than just including privileged identities.

In this study I analyze how college students transition to adulthood. Based on 38
semi-structured interviews with young adults, I found that two groups appeared: emerging
adults and accelerated adults. Emerging adults were more likely to come from
economically privileged families and had the social and economic resources to focus on
education, pursue a fulfilling career, and have fun while in college. In contrast, accelerated
adults had adopted adult responsibilities during their childhood or teenage years and
struggled to succeed in college due to inadequate guidance, lingering emotional anguish
over childhood events, and lack of financial support. Although enrolled in the same
university, these groups transitioned to adulthood very differently. I discuss the
implications for each type of transition, as well as the implications of my findings for public
policy and for future sociological research.

Scholars of southern Jewish history maintain that ante-bellum southerners displayed genuine philo-Semitism towards their Jewish neighbors. Historians attribute this to the southern Jews "effort to assimilate into southern society and to the presence of other, more preferred, targets of the southerners" animus, namely blacks and Catholics. This analysis, however, is not sufficiently broad to explain the South's Protestant-Jewish dynamic. It neither appraises the relationship from the perspective of the Protestants, nor accounts for the intellectual inconsistencies such a conclusion presents regarding both Protestants and southerners, generally. This thesis identifies and responds to these shortcomings by examining southern philo-Semitism through the eyes of the Protestants and thesis argues that pro-Judaic rhetoric of southern evangelical clergy inundated southerners with favorable references and images of the biblical Jews, causing southerners to develop a high degree of reverence and respect for Jews, whom they saw as their spiritual kinfolk.

For many gay men performing a gay-centric identity can be challenging. By adopting a set of expected behaviors known as the gay cultural script, many of these men are potentially met with discrimination from both heterosexual and homosexual communities. The gay cultural script is readily available as it is found within the gay ghettos and through various representations of gay men in the media. This research question examines how the gay cultural script when found within the gay ghetto and through the media's representation of gay men provides a lens to which the performance of a gay-centric identity may be communicated and shared. The focus of this research is separated into three interconnected areas: (1) exploration of gay-cultural script, (2) location to which the gay cultural script operates and, (3) analysis of the relationship between the gay cultural script and gay-centric identity performance.