Sarah Kornfield
Biographic Data
| ID | 934120 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Sarah Kornfield |
| GIVEN NAMES | Sarah |
| FAMILY NAME | Kornfield |
| SIGNATURE | KORNFIELD S |
| AFFILIATIONS | Hope College |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-3185-9163 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 11 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 18 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 11 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2012 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
A Rhetoric of Equivalence in White Christian Women’s Advice Ministries
The Christian women’s advice ministry is a longstanding, popular segment of the Christian book industry—which is a historically white industry. Analyzing a representative sample of lifestyle advice books by Baker Publishing Group, we identify a pervasive rhetorical appeal that we term the “rhetoric of equivalence.” Specifically, we demonstrate how this discourse constructs a chain of equivalences from white women’s laborious self-control to their…
Bold resistance
Feminist analyses of postfeminism too often abject femininity, rendering spectacular femininity as a masquerade that endears women to heterosexual men. Moving into the era of popular feminism, feminist analyses have yet to renegotiate this abjection of femininity, often eclipsing the potential for resistance in favor of highlighting the pernicious effects of capitalism. Analyzing vignettes from The Bold Type (2017–2021), this research draws on fe…
Poetic Politics
National Youth Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman stunned the United States with her captivating performance of “The Hill We Climb: An Inaugural Poem for the Country” during the 2021 inaugural ceremony for President Biden and Vice President Harris. Analyzing this political poem, we contribute to the rhetorical scholarship of inaugural ceremonies and demonstrate how Gorman's performance renews a tradition of Black jeremiads. Specifically, we argue that G…
Televising popular feminism
Recently, televisual programs such as TV Land’s Younger (2015), Freeform’s The Bold Type (2017), The CW’s Charmed reboot (2018), and Netflix’s Sex Education (2019) joined consumer culture’s era of popular feminism by hailing audiences through feminist appeals. Pilot episodes sell series to network executives and viewers – establishing series’ central tensions. Thus, we analyze how feminism operates in these series’ pilots, attending to their narr…
MeToo on TV
After the tremendous response to actor Alyssa Milano’s 2017 #MeToo tweet, U.S. television series began incorporating explicit #MeToo episodes. As feminist scholars amply demonstrate, television has a poor history of portraying feminist activism—especially sexual assault activism, often dramatizing rape myths that undermine feminism and survivors. In this analysis, we draw on sexual assault activism and #MeToo scholarship to survey television’s #M…
Girls Gone Fundamentalist
GirlDefined Ministries is a flourishing multiplatform purity ministry developed by Texan sisters Kristen Clark and Bethany Beal. Clark and Beal’s goal for GirlDefined Ministries is to develop a sisterhood that encourages women and girls to find their identity in what they imagine as God’s design for femininity. Analyzing this discourse, we demonstrate how it mobilizes White supremacist strategies that have long nationalist histories within White …
Prophesying a Feminist Story
When Sarah Bessey walked to the pulpit at South Bend City Church on May 6, 2018, she enacted a role widely debated in evangelical circles: a woman preacher. Analyzing this featured sermon, we explore the ways in which Bessey draws upon and reinvents the styles and strategies women have long employed when preaching within the church. Ultimately, we demonstrate how Bessey weaves together evangelical discourse, the feminine rhetorical style, and the…
Televisual pregnancy beauty
Theorizing the contours of televisual pregnancy beauty, this essay demonstrates how televisual stylistics construct and communicate a political ideology of pregnancy. When the crime dramas Bones and In Plain Sight incorporated their star actors’ pregnancies, they produced different televisually styled portrayals of pregnancy; these medium-specific portrayals play an important role in how pregnancy itself is culturally conceptualized. Although pre…
Fixating on the Stasis of Fact
Drawing on stasis theory, this essay explores how the debate frame functions within U.S. journalism. Using the news coverage of Marissa Mayer’s coinciding pregnancy and promotion to Yahoo! CEO and the reportage of Hillary Clinton’s upcoming grandchild during the 2016 precampaign as case studies, I develop a two-part argument. First, by analyzing the rhetorical mechanisms within this media debate, I demonstrate how the debate frame makes facts the…
Pregnant Discourse
The debate over whether women can or cannot “have it all” played out in two prime-time television dramas, Bones and In Plain Sight, when their stars became pregnant and their pregnancies were incorporated into story arcs. By analyzing these doubled performances of pregnancy and their extratextual echoes in entertainment news, I argue that pregnancy discourse functions as a crucible for gender norms. My analysis illustrates how public discourse co…
Japanese Anime Heroines as Role Models for U.S. Youth
This paper uses survey methods (N=385) to examine the underlying processes through which U.S. fans create meaningful relationships with Japanese media characters. Specifically, this study tests an integrated model linking character perceptions, wishful identification, and parasocial relationships in the context of fans of shōjo, a heroine-centric genre of Japanese anime. Results suggest that liking a heroine's pro-social traits leads to greater w…
MeToo on TV
After the tremendous response to actor Alyssa Milano’s 2017 #MeToo tweet, U.S. television series began incorporating explicit #MeToo episodes. As feminist scholars amply demonstrate, television has a poor history of portraying feminist activism—especially sexual assault activism, often dramatizing rape myths that undermine feminism and survivors. In this analysis, we draw on sexual assault activism and #MeToo scholarship to survey television’s #M…
Girls Gone Fundamentalist
GirlDefined Ministries is a flourishing multiplatform purity ministry developed by Texan sisters Kristen Clark and Bethany Beal. Clark and Beal’s goal for GirlDefined Ministries is to develop a sisterhood that encourages women and girls to find their identity in what they imagine as God’s design for femininity. Analyzing this discourse, we demonstrate how it mobilizes White supremacist strategies that have long nationalist histories within White …
Pregnant Discourse
The debate over whether women can or cannot “have it all” played out in two prime-time television dramas, Bones and In Plain Sight, when their stars became pregnant and their pregnancies were incorporated into story arcs. By analyzing these doubled performances of pregnancy and their extratextual echoes in entertainment news, I argue that pregnancy discourse functions as a crucible for gender norms. My analysis illustrates how public discourse co…
Televising popular feminism
Recently, televisual programs such as TV Land’s Younger (2015), Freeform’s The Bold Type (2017), The CW’s Charmed reboot (2018), and Netflix’s Sex Education (2019) joined consumer culture’s era of popular feminism by hailing audiences through feminist appeals. Pilot episodes sell series to network executives and viewers – establishing series’ central tensions. Thus, we analyze how feminism operates in these series’ pilots, attending to their narr…
Japanese Anime Heroines as Role Models for U.S. Youth
This paper uses survey methods (N=385) to examine the underlying processes through which U.S. fans create meaningful relationships with Japanese media characters. Specifically, this study tests an integrated model linking character perceptions, wishful identification, and parasocial relationships in the context of fans of shōjo, a heroine-centric genre of Japanese anime. Results suggest that liking a heroine's pro-social traits leads to greater w…
Pregnant Discourse
The debate over whether women can or cannot “have it all” played out in two prime-time television dramas, Bones and In Plain Sight, when their stars became pregnant and their pregnancies were incorporated into story arcs. By analyzing these doubled performances of pregnancy and their extratextual echoes in entertainment news, I argue that pregnancy discourse functions as a crucible for gender norms. My analysis illustrates how public discourse co…
Fixating on the Stasis of Fact
Drawing on stasis theory, this essay explores how the debate frame functions within U.S. journalism. Using the news coverage of Marissa Mayer’s coinciding pregnancy and promotion to Yahoo! CEO and the reportage of Hillary Clinton’s upcoming grandchild during the 2016 precampaign as case studies, I develop a two-part argument. First, by analyzing the rhetorical mechanisms within this media debate, I demonstrate how the debate frame makes facts the…
Televisual pregnancy beauty
Theorizing the contours of televisual pregnancy beauty, this essay demonstrates how televisual stylistics construct and communicate a political ideology of pregnancy. When the crime dramas Bones and In Plain Sight incorporated their star actors’ pregnancies, they produced different televisually styled portrayals of pregnancy; these medium-specific portrayals play an important role in how pregnancy itself is culturally conceptualized. Although pre…
Prophesying a Feminist Story
When Sarah Bessey walked to the pulpit at South Bend City Church on May 6, 2018, she enacted a role widely debated in evangelical circles: a woman preacher. Analyzing this featured sermon, we explore the ways in which Bessey draws upon and reinvents the styles and strategies women have long employed when preaching within the church. Ultimately, we demonstrate how Bessey weaves together evangelical discourse, the feminine rhetorical style, and the…
MeToo on TV
After the tremendous response to actor Alyssa Milano’s 2017 #MeToo tweet, U.S. television series began incorporating explicit #MeToo episodes. As feminist scholars amply demonstrate, television has a poor history of portraying feminist activism—especially sexual assault activism, often dramatizing rape myths that undermine feminism and survivors. In this analysis, we draw on sexual assault activism and #MeToo scholarship to survey television’s #M…
Girls Gone Fundamentalist
GirlDefined Ministries is a flourishing multiplatform purity ministry developed by Texan sisters Kristen Clark and Bethany Beal. Clark and Beal’s goal for GirlDefined Ministries is to develop a sisterhood that encourages women and girls to find their identity in what they imagine as God’s design for femininity. Analyzing this discourse, we demonstrate how it mobilizes White supremacist strategies that have long nationalist histories within White …
Televising popular feminism
Recently, televisual programs such as TV Land’s Younger (2015), Freeform’s The Bold Type (2017), The CW’s Charmed reboot (2018), and Netflix’s Sex Education (2019) joined consumer culture’s era of popular feminism by hailing audiences through feminist appeals. Pilot episodes sell series to network executives and viewers – establishing series’ central tensions. Thus, we analyze how feminism operates in these series’ pilots, attending to their narr…
Bold resistance
Feminist analyses of postfeminism too often abject femininity, rendering spectacular femininity as a masquerade that endears women to heterosexual men. Moving into the era of popular feminism, feminist analyses have yet to renegotiate this abjection of femininity, often eclipsing the potential for resistance in favor of highlighting the pernicious effects of capitalism. Analyzing vignettes from The Bold Type (2017–2021), this research draws on fe…
Poetic Politics
National Youth Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman stunned the United States with her captivating performance of “The Hill We Climb: An Inaugural Poem for the Country” during the 2021 inaugural ceremony for President Biden and Vice President Harris. Analyzing this political poem, we contribute to the rhetorical scholarship of inaugural ceremonies and demonstrate how Gorman's performance renews a tradition of Black jeremiads. Specifically, we argue that G…
A Rhetoric of Equivalence in White Christian Women’s Advice Ministries
The Christian women’s advice ministry is a longstanding, popular segment of the Christian book industry—which is a historically white industry. Analyzing a representative sample of lifestyle advice books by Baker Publishing Group, we identify a pervasive rhetorical appeal that we term the “rhetoric of equivalence.” Specifically, we demonstrate how this discourse constructs a chain of equivalences from white women’s laborious self-control to their…
Art (8 works) · Sociology (8 works) · Gender Studies (6 works) · Gender Studies (5 works) · Gender, Feminism, and Media (5 works) · Media Studies and Communication (5 works) · Political science (5 works) · Aesthetics (4 works) · Law (4 works) · Law (4 works)