'Listen, Rama’s Wife!’: Maithil Women’s Perspectives and Practices in the Festival of Sāmā-Cakevā

As a female-only festival in a significantly gender-segregated society, sāmā cakevā provides a window into Maithil women’s understandings of their society and the sacred, cultural subjectivities, moral frameworks, and projects of self-construction. The festival reminds us that to read male-female relations under patriarchal social formations as a dichotomy between the empowered and the disempowered ignores the porous boundaries between the two in which negotiations and tradeoffs create a symbiotic reliance. Specifically, the festival names two oppositional camps—the male world of law and the female world of relationships—and then creates a male character, the brother, who moves between the two, loyal to each, betraying, in a sense, each, but demonstrating, by his movements, the currents and avenues of power. This article makes available to other scholars of South Asian culture and society an extended description and analysis of this distinctive festival, while also contributing to the scholarly discussion of women’s expressive traditions.

"Hey, Hey, He Gay, He Gay . . . Okay" . . . Or Is It?: The Sociological Importance of Bruno

Sacha Baron Cohen is a British comedian who has garnered a great deal of controversy over the years. Through his characters, Ali G, Borat, and Bruno, he attempts to trick people into letting down their guards and revealing any prejudices (racism, anti-Semitism, homophobia, misogyny, et cetera) that they may have. In doing so, each of his three characters has sparked a debate concerning the different issues they bring up: with Ali G, it was whether the character was racist or exposed racism; with Borat, it was whether the character was anti-Semitic or revealed anti-Semitism; and with Bruno, it is whether the character reinforces homophobia or mocks it. I am concerned with the last of these three debates, specifically in relation to Baron Cohen's film Bruno. Many say the film reinforces gay stereotypes and is thus harmful for the gay community, while a seemingly equal number of people say it effectively mocks homophobia and is thus beneficial for the gay community. Using the data I collected from thirty-one interviews conducted after five separate screenings of the film, I argue that Bruno is not harmful for the gay community as audiences understood that the Bruno character is based on exaggerated stereotypes of homosexuals. That is, the film did not reinforce any negative stereotypes. But, I also explain that the film did not change any opinions on homosexuality either. Also in this work, I argue that within the world of cinema, Bruno fails to fit into any pre-existing genre, including the 'mock-documentary' genre where it is most commonly placed. Rather, I suggest the film is better categorized as what I call a Real Fake Mock-documentary. While 'mock-documentaries' are made up of fictional characters in fictional situations, this new term encompasses the fact that Bruno involves a fictional character placed into real situations. I conclude by noting that the content, release, and debate surrounding Bruno all reveal that it is still difficult to bring up the issue of homosexuality in American society, even forty years after the Civil Rights era.

The Modernity of la Mode: a History of the French Revolution Through the Lens of Fashion, Culture, and Identity

In my thesis, I explore the cultural history of the French Revolution and its relation to the modern era which ensued. Many historians have studied the French Revolution as it relates to culture, the rise of modernity, and fashion. I combine the unique histories of all three of these aspects to reach an understanding of the history of the French Revolution and fashion’s role in bringing about change. In the majority of literature of costume history, discussion of fashion surrounds its reflective properties. Many historians conclude fashion as a reflection of the broader cultural shifts that occurred during the Revolution. I, on the other hand, propose that fashion is an active force in bringing out cultural change during this time. In exploring fashion as a historical motivator, I examine the aesthetic world of fashion from 1740 to 1815, the modern system of cultural dissemination of fashion through particular historical heroes, and the rise of “taste” and its relation to modern identity. Through aesthetics, culture, and identity, I argue that fashion is a decisive force of culture in that it creates a visual world through which ideas form and communicate.