Graduate Student Research Conference
Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/10877/8272
The Graduate College invites graduate students from all disciplines to present at the Graduate Student Research Conference (GSRC) (previously known as the International Research Conference) and showcase their original research and creative works!
Graduate Student Research Conference Website: https://www.gradcollege.txst.edu/events/research/graduate-student-research-conference.html
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Browsing Graduate Student Research Conference by Department "English"
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Item A Twitter Case Study: The Spreadability of the Viral Chilean Feminist Anthem #UnVioladorEnTuCamino(2021-04) Blanco, Clarice A.Digital Activism has become notorious for not creating real change and, instead, creating Slacktivist or Clicktivist who consider the passive actions of sharing and liking social justice posts as real activism. Boots on the ground, picket lines, and marches are the traditional get-off-your-ass type of activism that enacts real change, or so we thought. This study explores a moment in which social media activism creates change by building a collective voice, community, and bringing awareness to gendered violence and gender inequalities—topics not usually discussed in public or private spaces. To understand how the #UnVioladorEnTuCamino anthem and Twitter movement became a global social media activism movement, the author rhetorically analyzed several Twitter posts from the beginning of the movement in November of 2019 to early 2020, as it is ongoing and still referenced online. The results of this study indicate the simplicity of use, convenience, and accessibility of Twitter internationalized this anthem and message. These results suggest the spreadability of the hashtag #UnVioladorEnTuCamino is in direct relation with the easy-to-use social media platform that already had a reputation for social activism, as well as an anonymous space provided to discuss such controversial topics of gendered violence and gender inequalities. On this basis, it is important to note the #UnVioladorEnTuCamino movement does not behave like traditional social media activism movements; it began as live performances, shifted to being shared on Twitter, and eventually adapted to Twitter by being performed and discussed for the online space.Item "Back in the Shadows": Passivity and Working-Class Injustices in Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go(2022-04) Hecker, MadelineThis essay explores humanity’s passivity towards injustice within the context of modern labor in Ishiguro’s 2005 novel, Never Let Me Go. It also analyzes the dignity of human life as it relates to the working class and the willingness of others to minimize and ignore struggle. Secondary material includes Louis Althusser’s “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses” (1971), Anthony Giddens’s “Power, the Dialectic of Control and Class Structuration” (1982), Roberto del Valle Alcala’s “Servile Life: Subjectivity, Biopolitics, and the Labor of the Dividual in Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go” (2019), Lisa Fluet’s “Immaterial Labors: Ishiguro, Class, and Affect” (2007), and Marissa Martin’s “Boundaries and Biopolitics: The Construction of Bare Life in Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go” (2021). One problem this essay addresses is predeterminism and the inability to improve upon one’s current situation. The clones in Never Let Me Go were created to follow a set path of becoming carers, donors, then completing. This physical and emotional labor is inescapable for them, yet outsiders minimize their situation and view them as subhuman to make reality easier to accept. Although a work of dystopian fiction, the lack of agency and enslavement to labor that the clones experience aligns to the real world. Through a close analysis of Ishiguro and the secondary materials, the essay achieves a clearer understanding of modern labor in society. Working-class literature is quite difficult to define, so the overarching question of the essay is, “What constitutes this genre?” Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go speaks to the struggle of the working class in a unique way while highlighting how capitalism trains children to believe the system they live in is normal and acceptable. This essay situates Ishiguro as a working-class writer and expands the confines of the genre.Item Creating a Developmental Education Curriculum for Student Success with Diverse Cultures(2023-04) Guest, Jayson; Mumu, Maisha FarzanaA sense of belonging and community support is extremely important to college student success. Both engender the kind of systems thinking students need to excel in the university. This is especially true for developmental education students who must take a non-credit bearing class, or classes, in addition to the standard requirements for their degree. These classes provide obstacles to student motivation in the way they impose an added financial burden and also come with the stigma of remediation. One of the most effective ways to foster a sense of belonging and offer community support is through a practice of culturally sensitive pedagogy. This project looks to answer the question “How does an instructor create a welcoming and equitable developmental education curriculum for students of diverse cultures, and to what extent are Texas State University developmental education instructors implementing those measures?” By combining a literary analysis and qualitative data from learning environment observations of Texas State University developmental education reading classes, an evaluation of useful practices for student success is offered in our results.Item Fragments of a Broken Image: Latino Immigrant Stories(2021-04) Blanco, Clarice A.¿Cómo se siente ser un inmigrante en los Estados Unidos? What is it like to be an immigrant in the United States? Using the portraiture methodology, in-depth interviews, poetry, and prose, this study attempts to explore how Latino¹ immigrants’ expectations of life were affected by their immigration to the United States. To paint the reality these participants experienced when immigrating and assimilating to American life, I identify two main themes, immigration and lifestyles changes/cultural differences, and specific supportive codes within each theme, such as language, isolation, and more. Additionally, it is important to remember that America was built by immigrants because this portrait highlights the inaccurate claims the current political climate has made about Latino immigrants—branding them as violent criminals and social outcasts. The results of this study indicate the struggles and experiences these Latino immigrants had to endure, as well as the overwhelming pressure they felt to fit in American society. Finally, this study humanizes Latino immigrants by telling their authentic migrant stories which are usually hidden for fear of deportation or violent abuse by others. "Latino," "Latina," and country of origin labels are used in this project instead of the American pan-ethnic labels of "Latinx," "Latin@," or "Latino/a," because "Latino," "Latina," and country of origin labels are the preferred terminology used in the American Latino community.Item The Marginalized Other: Distortions and Limitations in the Representations of Latina Women in American Media(2021-04) Blanco, Clarice A.In an era where there are Latina Congresswomen, professors, astronauts, CEOs, and other highly regarded career titles, the American media still portrays Latinas as sexual objects for the White Gaze to control and contain as desirable, exotic, consumable, and other. As a result, this study explores how and why Latina bodies are exploited commercially by American media through Latina celebrities, such as Jennifer Lopez (J. Lo) and Salma Hayek who foreground this critical discourse analysis because of the overwhelming publicity that is centered on their bodies. Through detailed rhetorical analysis of J. Lo’s performance at the 2020 Super Bowl Halftime Show and Salma Hayek’s Mexican American character in the film Fools Rush In (1997), the author explores the theories of Karma Chavez’s validation of bodies, Lisa Flores’s raced bodies, and the American tropes of tropicalism and Latinidad that both burdens and empowers these Latina celebrities and Latina Americans. Additionally, the author argues that the (limited) Latina role models [Lopez and Hayek specifically], Latina Americans have been designated by the media, is potentially problematic as the media creates a standardized Latina body (rooted in Latinidad) that marks other Latina body shapes as invalid. The author’s analysis indicates Latina celebrities are marketed as other and exotic to sell beauty, sex, and diversity, and the limited and lack of authentic Latina representation in American media leaves Latina Americans feeling invisible.Item What Does It Mean to be in an Academic Space that Doesn’t Reflect Your Cultural Background? Identidad, Empoderamiento, y Representación Latina in the Texas State MARC Program(2022-04) Blanco, Clarice A.What does it mean to be in an academic space that doesn’t reflect you or your cultural background? As Latina/o/x1 students navigate higher education, they are isolated as Latina/o/x-faculty-to-Latina/o/x-student ratios continue to be unbalanced. Additionally, Latina/o/x students are preoccupied with negotiating issues on identidad management and formation as well as feeling empowered to persevere in a predominately White space. There is already a significant amount of scholarship that stress the importance of ethnic faculty representación, but most of this research is focused on K-12 education, not the university level, or does not consider Latina/o/x representación specifically. This case study seeks to understand how the lack of ethnic faculty representación in a particular place and program—the Master of Arts in Rhetoric and Composition program at Texas State University, a Hispanic-Serving Institution—affects a cohort of Latina students and how it informs (a) identidad, (b) empoderamiento, and (c) representación étnica through academic relationships, participation, and self-identification in a predominantly White academic space. To do so, I incorporate student perspectives through semi-structured interviews with the Latina MARC students enrolled in the Spring 2021 semester. Footnote: 1 To acknowledge the diversity of this community, "Latino" and "Latina," are used in this paper to address individual male- and female-identifying people, as well as "Latina/o/x" and "Latinas/os/xs" to address the general group of people who are of Latin American origin and descent. To acknowledge the individual identities in this case study, I will use the specific labels the participants and myself identify as, such as "Latina" and "Chicana."