Britney Is the Password

Date of Award

Summer 8-23-2025

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Ph.D. in English

Organizational Unit

College of Arts Humanities and Social Sciences, English and Literary Arts

First Advisor

Rachel Feder

Second Advisor

Jennifer Soong

Third Advisor

Bin Ramke

Fourth Advisor

Scott Montgomery

Copyright Statement / License for Reuse

All Rights Reserved
All Rights Reserved.

Keywords

Poetry, Popular culture, Britney Spears, Body, Omniprescense, Exploitation

Abstract

This project began as a joke about academia but then turned serious. In this pairing of poem and essay, I seek to access, investigate, reimagine and protect the public body of Britney Spears and the bodies of others like her: those public bodies who have once been young, bright, capable and willing to give the world all of themselves. Obviously, poetry and prose of any capacity and largeness cannot create such a barrier of protection and prevention, but perhaps the discussion of a public body’s undoing and destruction can prevent further harm through conversation, through art.

This project suffered a lot of stops and collisions from its start. The stop gap was my tool of respite at each fall, not unlike how Britney’s journey through a mediocre cultural landscape has led her to the current moment of stop. The pandemic came. I got sick. Dropped out of my PhD program twice. Moved. Cried. Half my committee left the department and one beloved professor passed away. So far as Human Resources and Upper Administration go, I hope one day to bop them over their heads with an old Hungarian frying pan gently—this is a metaphor, of course.

Despite all the chaos and grief, I very much enjoyed writing about Britney’s omnipresence through the gazes of other poets, critics, friends and teachers. I wrote alongside myself, as the past several years have been difficult, and so this project is a work of catharsis and self-reflection, as much as it is an outward academic investigation.

I worked with and wrote through Britney’s public presence on social media, inside my television, through news outlets and atop other cultural archives, as well as what of her has been stored in my own memory. Britney is just one year younger than me.

Copyright Date

8-2025

Publication Statement

Copyright is held by the author. Permanently suppressed.

Rights Holder

Eszter Takacs

Provenance

Received from Author

File Format

application/pdf

Language

English (eng)

Extent

110 pgs

File Size

7.7 MB

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