Author: miles.c.luce

Publication: “Druze Women and Gender in Druze Society: A Systematic Literature Review”

Originally published in Religions, Volume 12, on December 17th, 2021. Co-authored with Dr. Rami Zeedan. This systematic literature review on Druze women and gender in Druze society reviews central conceptual themes from existing publications to chart future research trajectories. Using a meta-ethnographic methodology, this literature review covers Druze women’s experience of gendered realities in higher education, economic participation, marriage, family life, and health.

Publication: The “Gec-Effect:” How 100 Gecs Queers Genre and Gender

My article tracks the queer relations to genre and vocality embodied by contemporary hyperpop duo, 100 gecs. I argue that 100 gecs initiates a nomadic approach to genre through absurdism and parody. Furthermore, I describe how 100 gecs’ use of vocal modulation resists gender’s construction of the masculine and feminine voice. I conclude with a meditation on “gec” feminism that attempts to follow the ethic of hyperpop for articulating a wacky, yet subversive genre of (un-)academic writing. My investigation of 100 gecs’ album, 1000 gecs and The Tree of Clues, is a cross-disciplinary exercise in queer theory, gender studies, musicology, art history, and philosophy; it primarily contributes to queer theory discourses on genre, gender, art, and the body.

Presentation: Druze Women and Gender in Druze Society

This presentation represents my submission to the University of Kansas' 2021 Undergraduate Research Symposium. The event began on April 24th at 8am on April 24th and will conclude on April 30th. Feel free to explore my submission at the website's address. This systematic literature review on Druze women and gender in Druze society not only provides existing researchers with centralized access to publications on the topic but points out future trajectories for research while consolidating conceptual innovations into overarching concepts. Its meta-ethnographic methodology seeks to address the question of Druze women’s experience of gender as presented in the literature and national disparities between publications on the topic. Too often, gender as a concept is written off as irrelevant, and even when it is taken seriously, it is done so through insufficient analyses. Synthesizing the conceptual specificities of Druze women’s experience reveals the limits of universalist Western feminist frameworks of analysis while providing a holistic feminist anthropological account of the Druze.

The “Gec-Effect:” How 100 Gecs Renders Genre and Gender Absurd

When analyzed as absurd, 100 gecs produces a political-philosophical project aimed at decimating, or confusing at the least, the concept of the mainstream itself. My argument does not analyze intention, but tracks the effects of 100 gecs’ music. The “gec-effect,” as I call it, consists of stitching together different genres and sounds to produce a new outcome that pushes the boundaries of what the mainstream considers “to be popular music.” To go even farther, its decimation of lines between genre renders the boundaries separating them useless altogether. After the dust clears, we are only left with “gec:” the basis of a radical musical monism that refuses the genre categorization altogether. Sonically, the duo primarily “queers” popular music by experimenting with voice modulation. 100 gecs’ voice modulation often makes the “gender” of the singer unrecognizable. The voices on 100 gecs’ discography range from masculine, feminine, to robotic, and somewhere in-between. The sheer variability of voices renders categorizing them impossible, reductive, and possibility politically problematic. By virtue of its fanbase, 100 gecs establishes a fun feminism rooted in pop culture, where its “generation z” adherents sing along to condemning cishet “piss babies” as they deconstruct gender norms.

“Duel of the Fates:” J.M.W. Turner and the Storm

J.M.W. Turner’s Snow Storm: Steamboat off a Habor’s Mouth displays a battle between elements: fire and ice. The spiraling, harsh, and violent brushstrokes enclose upon a lone steamboat, struggling to stay afloat. By attacking the canvas and refusing to define his objects, Turner conjures chaos—the imperceptibility of the snow storm. The dominant palette of grays and blues display a bleak landscape, while oozing dire emotions of hopelessness and isolation.

“I Like Trains:” Tracking the Locomotive Through Modern Art

My tracing of the train from the 19th to the 21st centuries interrogates the use of locomotives in art and how they reflect and interact with the historical climates of their artists. Tracking the temporality of the train displays an arc of modernity: from fascination, to struggle, to disdain. If modernity has offered us nothing but violence and environmental degradation, what might the future hold? Will we keep riding its train, hoping to arrive at a different station despite its circuitous tracks, or shall we fly off the rails towards a new, uncertain destination?