my senior thesis: raced performances.

as a women, gender, & sexuality studies concentrator, i am required to write a senior thesis. i am doing it loosely on gender, race, and performativity. below is my research question & my argument to be delineated in 70 or so pages.

My research question is as to whether the meaning of raced performances (“black queerness” and “black femininity”) change when mapped onto a white body? Why does Madonna use black images in her artistic project particularly during her early 1990s career? What is the tension between Madonna and the communities “she speaks” to? How are these tensions delineated to the end that gender, racial, and sexed hierarchies are exposed?

My research argument contends:Re-inscribing raced articulations on a white female body (in this case, Madonna) compromises the integrity and characterizations of non-normative sexual communities. Further, appropriation of raced performances is not an innocuous winner take-all game of re-inscription & representation rather a disruption of “urban sexuality.”