Mark C. McKnight
Senior Fellowship (Interdisciplinary Honors in English & Religion):

“Sex, Sports, and Sin in Frederick Barthelme's ‘Shopgirls’ and Barry Hannah's ‘Yonder Stands Your Orphan’”

Through close creative readings of Frederick Barthelme’s short story, “Shopgirls” (1981), and Barry Hannah’s novel, Yonder Stands Your Orphan (2001), I engage in a critical dialogue with contemporary American attitudes toward the body and sexuality. Arranged in four chapters, the study begins with a reading of Barthelme’s story, engaging feminist theories of the male gaze, especially in relationship to the late capitalist phenomenon of commodification. I the second chapter, I turn to Hannah’s novel, specifically his treatment of violence inflicted on the genitals, drawing parallels to the horror film genre in order to discuss sexism and the fear of castration. In the third chapter I look at Hannah’s use of football as a community ritual serving to reinforce often-defective cultural stereotypes about male power and sexist dominance. The fourth chapter specifically isolates Hannah’s theological concerns in an attempt to imagine a more loving and healthy politics of the body and sexuality.