#doctoral dissertation

Summary: "Please join for a discussion of the results and process behind my dissertation study, which looked at nonhuman mental health, minority stress, resilience, and the intersections between nonhuman, gender, and autistic identities. This was the largest and most comprehensive scholarly psychological study on nonhuman identity to date in terms of sample size, topics investigated, and community demographics assessed. This panel will share the results of the study; specifically, I will discuss interesting demographic trends in our community (spoiler alert: we're hella queer and neurodivergent), how nonhuman mental health compared with human mental health, and minority stress and resilience factors our community exhibits. I want to express a huge THANK YOU to everyone who participated, and I'm excited to share the results with everyone!"

“But of course his music does not agree with everyone’s taste and philosophy of life. The escapist will find nothing to like in Charlie Parker, and perhaps even feel repulsed by his art, which is realist in the best and most profound sense of the word, and which ruthlessly expresses the uncertainty, doubts, and angst-ridden loneliness of modern man. One does not play Parker's records on an everyday basis; exactly because they mean so much, they are only brought out on rare occasions. But in fact, while they confront us mercilessly with ourselves, they also bring the resolution of showing us that we are not alone in being lonely, and that others also feel the same angst and doubts. These records are, first and foremost, irrefutable and deeply true documents of the times we live in, which is much more important than their ‘immortality’ and the potential reverence of future listeners. In his day, Louis Armstrong allowed modern man to rediscover the childish immediacy which lives inside us as an unrealized potential, but his music also inspired a desire to escape from our circumstance into carefree and irresponsible play, and to solve any problems by simply closing our eyes to them. It is to Charlie Parker’s everlasting credit that he managed to polish that facet of jazz which reflects and shows us the shadow-side of our modern consciousness.” - from Erik Wiedemann: Eulogy for Charlie Parker, 1955

Read more. 

But there is a light at the end of the tunnel. I can do this. 

This dissertation explores the frameworks of color-blind racism and gender-blind sexism as they are disseminated through the social media site Reddit. I analyze data in the form of posts and comments submitted to the site. Qualitative discourse analysis reveals employment of the frames of color-blindness and gender-blindness as well as narratives which function to anchor the dominant ideologies to apparent lived experiences. This dissertation offers two major contributions to the scholarship of racism and sexism. First, the findings demonstrate that ideologies of race and gender are often articulated through common narratives and intertwined rhetoric, establishing a foundation for future research into ideologies of White masculinity. Second, the study reveals the crucial role of definitions of racism and sexism play in justifying systems that maintain racial and gender inequality. In particular, how a rigid adherence to an individual-level approach to definitions of racism and sexism is necessary for ideologies that support those systems. Taken together the findings demonstrate the power of social media in maintaining and reproducing the dominance of color-blind racism and gender-blind sexism.