Date of Award
1-1-2018
Document Type
Masters Thesis
Degree Name
M.A.
Organizational Unit
College of Arts Humanities and Social Sciences, English and Literary Arts
First Advisor
Rachel Feder, Ph.D.
Second Advisor
Tayana Hardin
Third Advisor
Erin Willer
Keywords
American, Cultural studies, Feminism, Motherhood, Representation, Reproductive justice
Abstract
This thesis analyzes the television series adaptation of The Handmaid's Tale, specifically the episode "A Woman's Place," and Beyoncé's Lemonade: A Visual Album. I argue that these cultural texts leverage representations of women's lived experiences to scrutinize contemporary American anxieties about motherhood and reproductive justice. Lemonade, a celebration of Black womanhood, presents a counterpoint to The Handmaid's Tale's preoccupation with white motherhood in way that speculates on the utopian potentials of a woman-centered society.
Using bell hooks' film analysis, Avery Gordon's "haunting," and Luce Irigaray's "mimicry," I examine two interconnected themes: feminist aesthetics and generational haunting. While The Handmaid's Tale evokes the fear of possible descent into a dystopic society, Lemonade reaches for a feminist futurity. Each text re-inscribes a worldview that tracks a contradiction or reaffirmation of expectations of who is allowed to be a mother in contemporary society within the social imagination of reproductive justice inseparable from our current moment in American culture.
Publication Statement
Copyright is held by the author. User is responsible for all copyright compliance.
Rights Holder
Julia Michele Fleming
Provenance
Received from ProQuest
File Format
application/pdf
Language
en
File Size
94 p.
Recommended Citation
Fleming, Julia Michele, "Away from the End of Motherhood: Sites of Haunting in the Social Imaginary in Lemonade and The Handmaid's Tale" (2018). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 1446.
https://digitalcommons.du.edu/etd/1446
Copyright date
2018
Discipline
Comparative literature, African American studies, Women's studies
Included in
African American Studies Commons, Comparative Literature Commons, Other American Studies Commons, Women's Studies Commons