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Screening the Closet: the Discourse of Visibility, Sexuality, and Queer

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Screening the Closet: the Discourse of Visibility, Sexuality, and Queer Screening the Closet: The Discourse of Visibility, Sexuality, and Queer Representation in American Film and Television, 1969-Present By Melanie E. S. Kohnen M.A., Heinrich-Heine-Universitaet, Duesseldorf, Germany, 2001 A.M., Brown University, 2002 A Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of American Civilization at Brown University Providence, Rhode Island May 2010 © Melanie E.S. Kohnen 2010 This dissertation by Melanie E. S. Kohnen is accepted in its present form by the Department of American Civilization as satisfying the dissertation requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Date __________ ___________________________________ Lynne Joyrich, Advisor Recommended to the Graduate Council Date __________ ___________________________________ Wendy Hui Kyong Chun, Reader Date __________ ___________________________________ Robert Lee, Reader Approved by the Graduate Council Date __________ ___________________________________ Sheila Bonde, Dean iii Curriculum Vitae Melanie E. S. Kohnen was born on July 23, 1975 in Duisburg, Germany. She completed her Magister Artium degree in English Languages and Literatures with a minor in Media Studies at Heinrich-Heine-Universität in Düsseldorf, Germany. During her studies there, she received a one-year DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service) scholarship to attend Wesleyan University in Middletown, CT. At Wesleyan, Melanie focused on American government, history, material culture and cultural studies. Upon her return, she began research for her thesis, eventually titled Crossing Borders, Re-Locating Our Selves: Chinese American Women’s Identities After 1965. While working on her thesis, Melanie received two additional scholarships. The first scholarship was a DAAD research grant that allowed Melanie to attend ifu, the International Women's University, a pilot project sponsored by the European Union. Over the course of three months, she participated in lectures and workshops on the topics of migration, transnational communities, and globalization. As final project, she worked on a multimedia performance that combined photography, digital images, oral history, music and spoken word to trace transforming moments in the lives of twelve ifu participants. The second scholarship was a John F. Kennedy Institute Library Research Grant at Freie Universität in Berlin, Germany. The grant provided access to the John F. Kennedy Institute's resources. After completing her Magister Artium degree, Melanie joined the Ph. D program in American Civilization at Brown University. During her first two semesters at Brown, iv she completed the requirements for an A.M. in American Civilization. She received a Brown University Fellowship during her first year as a Ph.D. student and the Miss Abbott's School Alumnae Dissertation Fellowship during one of her final years at Brown. In the summer of 2008, she received the Historical Society of Southern California Haynes Research Grant to support her dissertation research. While working towards the completion of her Ph. D, Melanie taught a first-year and sophomore seminar entitled “'The Gay '90s?': Sexuality, Identity, and the Media in the 1990s.” She also developed a class called “From I Love Lucy to Lost: Television and American Culture” for Summer @ Brown. Due to the popularity of the class, she has taught the course every summer since 2007. Melanie also worked as a Teaching Assistant for the Department of American Civilization and the Department of Modern Culture and Media. She led discussion sections, gave lectures and graded papers in courses on film, television, new media, advertising, and America's urban development. In addition to teaching, Melanie worked as a Teaching Consultant for Brown's Sheridan Center for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education for five years. She observed and evaluated teaching in the humanities, sciences, and arts at both Brown University and the Rhode Island School of Design. During her last three years at Brown, Melanie also held the position of Managing Editor of Digital Humanities Quarterly, a peer-reviewed digital journal run through Brown's Women's Writers Project. As a graduate student, Melanie published two articles. The first article, "Signal to Noise: The Paradoxes of History and Technology in Battlestar Galactica," appeared in v FlowTV: A Critical Forum on Television and Media Culture, in December 2007. In 2008, she contributed an essay entitled "The Adventures of a Repressed Farmboy and the Billionaire Who Loves Him: Queer Spectatorship in Smallville Fandom" to Teen Television: Essays on Programming and Fandom, an anthology edited by Sharon Ross and Louisa Stein. The collection was published by McFarland in 2008. Melanie has accepted a position as Marion L. Brittain Postdoctoral Fellow in the School of Literature, Communication and Culture at the Georgia Institute of Technology. vi Preface and Acknowledgments There are many people who have contributed to the rewarding, challenging, and exciting grad school experience I had at Brown. First and foremost, I want to thank the members of my dissertation committee, Lynne Joyrich, Wendy Chun, and Bob Lee. Lynne is the very best advisor one can ask for, going above and beyond in supporting me while I finished my dissertation. Her incredibly detailed and always thought-provoking commentaries on chapter drafts pushed me to consider yet another perspective even when I thought I had exhausted a particular avenue of thought. Lynne is also an amazing teacher. Her seminar on queer cinema and video was the most rewarding and exciting class I took at Brown. She also introduced me to Television Studies—an introduction that allowed me to turn my lifelong passion for TV into the core of my academic research. I can say without a doubt that I would not be the scholar I am today without Lynne's guidance. Wendy also deserves many thanks for her incisive commentary on my dissertation as work-in-progress. But I mostly want to thank Wendy for encouraging me to stick with New Media Studies when I thought I wouldn't be able to wrap my head around it. Wendy reassured me that with time, and much, much more reading in the field, it would all make sense eventually. It did. Wendy also taught me the wonderful phrase, “if it doesn't hurt, you aren't learning,” which I have gone on to share with my students on a regular basis (usually to their dismay). Wendy's insight showed me that frustration with one's research is not a sign of trying to do the impossible, but of being on the brink of an important vii insight or discovery. Bob has been a calming presence during the often stressful time of writing my dissertation. Most importantly, Bob's comments on my dissertation proposal encouraged me to consider race and ethnicity as central categories of analysis in my project. This encouragement had a profound impact on my research; indeed, the intricate connections between whiteness and queer representations constitute the central analytical axis around which my dissertation revolves. Beyond my dissertation committee, many other people at Brown provided me with guidance and assistance. The Department of American Civilization and the Department of Modern Culture and Media were my home bases during my grad student years. At AmCiv, Susan Smulyan always had an open door for me and taught me much about American advertising when I was a Teaching Assistant for her. Likewise, working as a grader for Ralph Rodriguez provided both much-needed financial assistance during my final years at Brown and a deep insight into the field of Ethnic Studies. At MCM, I have always felt very much at home even though I was not officially a grad student there. I was fortunate to work as a Teaching Assistant for a number of MCM courses in critical theory, film, and new media. Teaching alongside Mary-Ann Doane, Wendy Chun, and Lynne Joyrich has shaped my desire to connect research and pedagogy (and to teach poststructuralism to unsuspecting undergrads). In addition to my home departments, I also need to mention Digital Humanities Quarterly and the Sheridan Center for Teaching and Learning as two Brown institutions viii that were of crucial importance to my life as a grad student. Digital Humanities Quarterly offered me the possibility of gathering professional experience beyond academic research and teaching by hiring me as Managing Editor, a position I happily held for three years. During this time, I worked closely with Julia Flanders, the editor-in- chief of DHQ, who introduced me to the field of Digital Humanities and who was most patient in teaching me XML. I am most grateful to Julia and to DHQ for sponsoring me during my final year at Brown—without DHQ's assistance I would not have been able to finish my dissertation. The people and programs at the Sheridan Center have been central to the development of my pedagogical outlook and skills. I want to thank Laura Hess and Kathy Takayama for their wonderful professionalization seminar and for their assistance in developing my teaching portfolio. I also cherished my work as a teaching consultant for the Sheridan Center. As a teaching consultant, I observed many hours of graduate student teaching at Brown and the Rhode Island School of Design. Sitting in on astronomy lessons on top of Barus-Holley or watching a pottery demonstration at RISD allowed me to look beyond my disciplinary focus and encouraged me to think about pedagogy in multiple settings and for diverse groups of students. I also want to thank everyone who provided me with a life apart from writing, researching, and teaching. At Brown, those people included the loyal Battlestar Galactica viewing group, which, at its core, consisted of Julie Levin-Russo, David Bering-Porter, Lynne Joyrich, and myself. We spent many a Friday night huddled around ix a TV set trying to figure out if the Cylons indeed had a plan all along (the question remains unresolved no matter what Ronald D.
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