Consciousness, healing, and women's literacy practices: a feminist critique

dc.contributor.advisorWilkinson, Kate
dc.contributor.authorNickerson, Krista L.
dc.contributor.departmentTowson University. Department of Women's and Gender Studies
dc.date.accessioned2015-12-17T19:32:32Z
dc.date.available2015-12-17T19:32:32Z
dc.date.issued2013-07-24
dc.date.submitted2013-05
dc.description(M.S.) -- Towson University, 2013.
dc.description.abstractThis research surveys scholarly work on consciousness, healing, and women's literacy practices with the goal to characterize current arguments on women's healing and critique those claims from a feminist perspective. Scholars contend that literacy practices, or reading and writing, promote healing for women's traumatized consciousness by stimulating empathetic connection, opening space for dialogic interaction, and fostering personal agency. These changes occur across three "domains of consciousness": physiological, psychological, and socio-cultural. My critique, based on feminist analyses of gendered emotion, emotional labor, and discursive politics, reveals that arguments for the salutary effects of women's literacy practices fail to account for structural inequalities that affect women's consciousness in each domain. This deficit weakens research claims and limits practical approaches to women's healing. I suggest methodological and conceptual adjustments to improve the comprehensiveness and accuracy of research and the effectiveness of interventions for women in a Western patriarchal context.
dc.description.tableofcontentsPhysiological, psychological, and socio-cultural domains of consciousness -- Literacy practices and changed consciousness -- A model of healed consciousness -- Literacy practices and healed consciousness -- Healing literacy practices: a feminist critique
dc.formatapplication/pdf
dc.format.extentvi, 236 pages
dc.genretheses
dc.identifierdoi:10.13016/M24D82
dc.identifier.otherTSP2013Nickerson
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/11603/1985
dc.language.isoeng
dc.relation.ispartofTowson University Archives
dc.relation.ispartofTowson University Electronic Theses and Dissertations
dc.relation.ispartofTowson University Institutional Repository
dc.rightsCopyright protected, all rights reserved.
dc.titleConsciousness, healing, and women's literacy practices: a feminist critique
dc.typeText
dcterms.accessRightsThere are no restrictions on access to this document. An internet release form signed by the author to display this document online is on file with Towson University Special Collections and Archives.

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