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In her work on cultural critique, Rosemarie Buikema conceptualises culture as a terrain for the elaboration and contestation of collective memory, a form that mediates social formations, and a practice that critically supplements the political. Taking the polysemic relationship between culture and critique as our starting point, we bring Buikema’s reflections to bear on our own work on post-Yugoslav visual art, feminist graphic narratives, and digital media. We pay special attention to the question of “medium specificity”, which is central to Buikema’s conceptual intervention. Our goal is to illustrate the expansive reach of this intervention across multiple fields of inquiry.

In this thesis, I will argue that the science fiction/fantasy literature series The Broken Earth trilogy by N.K. Jemisin (2015-2017) portrays the entanglement of exploitative capitalism, colonialism, and its relation to the natural world and natural disaster. I will argue that through this entanglement a cycle of inheritance of oppression and dehumanization is shown, and that ultimately, the trilogy as a whole makes an intervention in how we see the past, and how we might reconcile with it in hope to make a better future. In the first chapter of the analysis, I will show the entanglement of exploitative capitalism and colonialism and its oppressive and dehumanizing forces as portrayed in these novels. In the second chapter I will argue that this entanglement is intrinsically linked to the natural world through the concept of magic as portrayed in these novels, and that this leads to the dehumanization of nature as a whole, with natural disasters as a consequence. In the last chapter I will argue that this entanglement of capitalism, colonialism and the natural world is inherited by those who are marginalized and dehumanized through their cyborgian transgressions. I will argue that this cycle of inheritance as shown in these novels shows us the importance of reconciliation with the past, if we wish to make a better future.

There is a long history of feminist authors rewriting stories. The goals of these rewritings can vary, but they are often concerned with bringing the female perspective into focus where it has been left out. All The Ever Afters by Danielle Teller (2018) is one such rewriting; it tells the story of Cinderella from her stepmother’s perspective; what she calls the “humble truth” (Teller 2018, 2). In her rewriting, Teller subverts the rivalry narrative present in older versions of the fairy tale. Both the version of Cinderella by the brothers Grimm and the one by Charles Perrault depict the stepmother as an evil, jealous, proud villain without motivations beyond her jealousy of Cinderella, and Cinderella’s stepsisters as mean, self-obsessed creatures that do everything in their power to torment their stepsister. In All The Ever Afters, however, these characters are provided with humanity and motivations, and their relationship towards the Cinderella character is made more complex. Instead of giving the stepfamily all the power, the Cinderella character is the one with the higher status, which allows her agency. Whereas the fairy tales clearly draw a line between the good and the evil characters, All The Ever Afters blurs this line by showing the differences in personality between the characters without condemning one and praising the other. The first-person narrative perspective of the stepmother allows the reader to see her as a human being, and understand her actions. Through the changes Teller made from the fairy tales, the rivalry between Cinderella and her stepfamily is subverted; showing that while there are difficulties for a stepmother and her stepdaughter to have a good relationship, they can still love and support each other. By subverting the rivalry, this story does what Adrienne Rich (1972) states rewritings should do: challenge the power of traditional narratives, in this case about relationships between women.

This research aims to explore the relationship between counter-memory, visual representations and Ireland’s Magdalene laundries. Through the exploration of three chosen visual works: Burke Brogan’s Eclipsed (1992), Steve Humphrie’s Sex in a Cold Climate (1998) and Alison Lowry’s (A)dressing Our Hidden Truths (2019), this thesis will explore the different representations of the Magdalene women and experiences, analyse the way in which each individual way engages with memory and assess if the chosen works can be considered to be sites of counter-memory which challenge the hegemonic historical narrative in which the Magdalene women have been rendered largely invisible and voiceless. The Magdalene asylums operated in Ireland from the late 18th century, with the first institution opening in Dublin in 1767 (Smith, 2007, p.25). Originally set up by religious orders with the intention to house and reform sex workers who were perceived to be “fallen” women, these asylums changed function following the turn of the 20th century. These institutions became a place where women who were deemed to be morally impure and corrupt were coercively confined, forced to rigorous and harsh free labor while being subjected to a myriad of abuses. It is estimated that between 10,000 to 30,000 thousand women passed through these institutions during their years of operation. And yet, the history of these women is seldom known. The experiences and stories of the Magdalene women have been expunged from Irish history and confined to the peripheries, shrouded in secrecy and shame. This research aims to contribute to the small, yet significant, body of work which exists about the Magdalen women, by providing further visibility about their existence and experiences and exploring how they can be included in the Irish collective memory.

Recent technological developments and the introduction of a more participatory internet called Web 2.0 has influenced the ways in which feminism occurs today. In this research, I focus on one digital development that has been picked up and spread by feminists, that is the phenomenon of the internet meme. The term ‘Internet meme’ refers to the propagation of content items such as jokes, rumours, videos, or websites from one person to others via the Internet (Shifman, 2013). I chose the ‘Not All Men’ meme format as my case study, because I noticed how different memes with the same text reflect upon different smaller and bigger debates within the discourse of women’s oppression. I ask the question: In what ways can feminist memes subvert contemporary dominant discourses that are problematic in western society? With feminist textual analysis, I analyses seven feminist memes that I retrieved from the websites KnowYourMeme.com and Ranker.com. I found out that all memes are subversive of certain discourses that are problematic, and all of them criticize this culture in which men express their dominance over women’s bodies, consciously or not. This reflects how western culture still views women as inferior to men.

This thesis focusses on patriarchal power structures portrayed in the dystopian comic Bitch Planet. Bitch Planet is an unapologetic intersectional feminist comic which situates within the genre of grindhouse. This genre often focusses on the male gaze in the shower scene, which Bitch Planet uses to expose the associated power structures, through the portrayal of the body. I intent to show that the medium of comics could be used for feminist practices.

Influenced by economic, societal and demographic developments in the Netherlands, there has been an increase in interest to treat diversity as a matter to be managed in the workplace. More and more large corporations announce their diversity strategies due to financial incentives, government regulations that are particularly aimed at women in leadership positions and the wish to show that they are in support of employees’ talents. Due to the latter, corporate diversity strategies claim to be inclusive and welcoming for everyone regardless of ethnicity, gender, sexuality, dis/ability, age and religion. By means of an intersectional analysis of interviews with diversity managers and the diversity texts of various corporations, this thesis analyses how large corporations operating in the Dutch context understand and implement their diversity policies. Also, it considers what intersections and categories of identity are perceived as important by them and why. Additionally, this thesis examines how neoliberal ideals have an impact on this. For this research, Sara Ahmed’s and Eike Marten’s discussions of diversity as ‘nonperformative’ are significant as they demonstrate that saying diversity is not similar to doing diversity. Due to the gap between a corporate sense of ´intersectionality´ and the understanding of this as conceptualized by black feminists, the strategies are still weak in terms of recognizing how the varying axes of identity are interconnected as well as how to avoid tokenism. Although diversity managers claim that there is a strong intrinsic motivation, corporations place a high value on diversity linked to Western, neoliberal terms of profitability, productivity and effectiveness which contributes to the non-performativity of diversity. In this way, toxic ideas of ‘unvalued’ differences are reinforced and different experiences and needs of people are neglected. The racialized system of whiteness and the idea that Dutch society is highly progressive is hi