In my search for literature and art that are pertinent and reflect some of the ideas surrounding this project, I cast a bit of a wide net. The biggest part I needed to include was the works of Barbara Kruger, whose “…direct address – along with humor, vigilance, and empathy – to expose and undermine the power dynamics of identity, desire, and consumerism,” (artic.edu 2021) greatly influenced the birth of my project. Next, because a major element of my project is based in words and vocabulary, I wanted to explore the vernacular of feminism and the philosophy behind the femenist language. I found an archive entry from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy titled “Femenist Philosophy of Language” by Jennifer Saul, where she breaks down the issue of using “male based” language, stating, “Fighting the invisibility of women is an important femenist project in many areas, and language that makes one less likely to think of women clearly contributes to this invisibility.” (Saul, 2018). Exploring the roots and causes of “self-objectification” was also crucial to the backbone of my project. As a model, this is something I have come to realize that I deal with on a daily basis. In a brief report edited by Leigh Ann Vaughn (and other contributors) titled “Do Self-Objectified Women Believe Themselves to be Free? Sexual Objectification and Belief in Personal Free Will”, she surmises, “…we first assume that being subjected to an objectifying gaze – i.e., male comments focused on physical appearance – may lead women to self-objectify, in terms of self-perception both as an instrument and as lacking human mental states. In turn, these self perceptions may lead to a decrease in their belief of having personal free will.” (Vaughn, 2019). Additionally, I read a thesis by Alaysia M. Herndon, titled “Over Sexualization of Women in the Media and its Effects on Self-Objectification” where she draws the relationship between hyper sexualized women in media such as music videos and an overall decrease in womens’ mental health and body view. And last, I needed to include an article written by UIC’s own John Daughtry about the importance of Biomedical Visualization and why it is so effective. “We are in the age of visualization…biomedical visualization specialists embrace their role as visual translators for the 21st century, leveraging their scientific knowledge and artistic skills to convey complex information for the benefit of everyone…” (Daughtry, 2016)
Bibliography
Baldissarri, Cristina, et al. “Do Self-Objectified Women Believe Themselves to Be Free? Sexual Objectification and Belief in Personal Free Will.” Frontiers in Psychology, vol. 10, 2019, https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01867.
“Barbara Kruger: Thinking of You. I Mean Me. I Mean You.” The Art Institute of Chicago, https://www.artic.edu/exhibitions/2930/barbara-kruger-thinking-of-you-i-mean-me-i-mean-you.
Daughtry, John. “The Role of Biomedical Visualization in Medicine and Health.” 2016.
Herndon, Alaysia M., “Over Sexualization of Women in the Media and its Effect on Self-Objectification” (2020). Honors Undergraduate Theses. 819. https://stars.library.ucf.edu/honorstheses/819
Saul, Jennifer and Esa Diaz-Leon, “Feminist Philosophy of Language”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2018 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2018/entries/feminism-language/>.
The following are all of the links to the sites that I took into consideration for my literature review, including the ones I selected.
https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803100305809
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminism-language/
https://stars.library.ucf.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1913&context=honorstheses
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01867/full
https://www.artic.edu/exhibitions/2930/barbara-kruger-thinking-of-you-i-mean-me-i-mean-you
