Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies

Alaina Monts Wins at Undergraduate Research Expo!

Posted on 04/21/2016

Alaina Monts, a WGS major doing an independent study with AADS, placed 3rd in the Humanities division of the 2016 Carolyn & Norwood Thomas Undergraduate Research and Creativity Expo for their paper “Don’t let me be Misunderstood: Meshell Ndegeocello, Liminality, and Radical Black Sexualities.”

When asked about their paper, they said “I look at the ways that Ndegeocello uses her sound and performance as a means of resisting identity that will be placed on her as a racialized and sexualized being. Using Roderick Ferguson’s queer of color analysis and Ashon Crawley’s theories around Black aurality, I propose that sound is a way that Black women can resist identities placed on them and their sexualities. Ndegeocello uses sound to disrupt white supremacist society that tries to quiet her and allows her to exist comfortably in the in-between space; her artistry offers a model for Black women to do the same with their own lives.”

Congratulations, Alaina!