Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Feminist literary theory and philosophy'
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Wulff, E. M. "Exploring Alternative Notions of the Heroic in Feminist Science Fiction." Thesis, The University of Sydney, 2007. http://hdl.handle.net/2123/2224.
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In this thesis I discuss feminist science fiction as a literature that explores a variety of alternative social realities. This provides the site to explore alternative notions of the heroic inspired by feminist critiques of the traditional heroic, which come from feminist philosophical, as well as literary critical sources. Alternative notions of the heroic offer a shift in perspective from a specific heroic identity to the events the characters are involved in. The shift to events is made precisely because that is where the temporal is located and dynamic change occurs. Events are where 'becoming' alternatively heroic occurs: in the interaction between a character and the environment.
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Lury, Celia. "Feminist literary theory and women's writing." Thesis, University of Manchester, 1985. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.370953.
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Gibbs, Anna. "Gertrude Stein and feminist literary theory." Thesis, Gibbs, Anna (1989) Gertrude Stein and feminist literary theory. PhD thesis, Murdoch University, 1989. https://researchrepository.murdoch.edu.au/id/eprint/52950/.
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This thesis attempts to render intelligible some significant issues in feminist literary theory - and perhaps 'feminist theory' more generally - through a reading of some of Gertrude Stein's writing, concentrating especially on The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas and some of Stein's shorter prose.
The issues explored all arise out of the confrontation of Anglo-American empiricism with what has been qualified - too neatly - as French theoretical work in the domains of philosophy, and literary theory. I refer particularly to a body of work that may be broadly termed 'postmodern', though in fact it is heterorather than homo- geneous.
While this work is troubling to feminists for its reinscription of metaphors of Woman, local rather than global uses of it may open up new possibilities for feminist readings of texts other than those that form a part of the realist canon and have come to dominate (especially) American thought about feminist strategies of writing and reading. Modernist and postmodernist texts fit less easily into a critical framework which concerns itself primarily with defining and delimiting a female literary tradition, and hence depends upon notions of the self as individual, autonomous entity; of experience as conscious and transparent; and writing as representation.
My reading of Gertrude Stein aims to show both how her texts resist this kind of interpretation, and how, within a framework of sexual difference, they may be mobilized to elaborate (and problematize) questions of authorship, of the possibility of feminine subjectivity, and of 'writing the body'.
Further, I argue that a focus on these issues reveals the androcentric bias of most discussions of modernism, especially as it is opposed to postmodernism, and that an adequate reading of Stein's writing must force a redefinition of the relations between the two. Thus, the very theoretical work which facilitates a new understanding of Stein's textual strategies can in turn be revised by such a reading.
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Potts, Tracey. "Can the Imperialist read? : race and feminist literary theory." Thesis, University of Warwick, 1997. http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/63653/.
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Since the mid 1980's it has been unthinkable for white feminist literary critics to neglect race in their theoretical work. Strong challenges from black feminists have been effective in placing race high on the critical agenda. No longer is the kind of exclusivity that marked early (white) feminist literary theory possible. However, despite the evident commitment to addressing the race question in their work, the black feminist challenge has been greeted with a considerable degree of anxiety by white feminist critics. I suggest that the main source of anxiety is a failure to square the pressing need to 'include' race on the feminist agenda with doubts about straying into what is perceived to be black feminist territory. In other words, white feminist critics have yet to resolve their relation to the black feminist project. This anxiety has meant that a concern over the notion of exclusion has given way to that of appropriation. This has tended to place the white feminist reader in the paralysing position where there seems little available ground between the twin poles of exclusion and appropriation. Typical questions that have arisen out of this dichotomy are: should white feminists teach black women's writing? Should white feminist critics produce critical readings of texts authored by black women? Can white women readers read black women's writings without imposing onto them their own critical agendas? Is a non-appropriative reading relation possible? How should white feminists deal with the fact of their own race privilege and what bearing does this privilege have upon the readings they, potentially, might produce? This project examines some of the ways in which white feminists have attempted to address their relation to the race question in feminist literary criticism. Over the space of six chapters I focus on a number of specific reading strategies offered as positive critical interventions. My main contention is the impossibility of a guaranteed anti-imperialist theory or reading position. I also argue for the necessity of asking the question: whether the imperialist can read, as a complement to that of whether 'the subaltern can speak'. Chapter 1 questions the white feminist ambition of arriving at the truth of the black text as a means of decolonising the text. Through an examination of the Rodney King events some of the perils of appeals to pure seeing are highlighted. Chapter 2 explores the implications of white feminist abstention from the race debates. Chapter 3 looks at the issue of identification as a basis for reading. Chapter 4 questions the identifications that inhere in applying theory to a text. Chapter 5 challenges the use of contextualisation as a source of textual limits. Chapter 6 examines the limits of self-reflexivity as an anti-imperialist method.
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Markey, Bren April. "Feminist methodologies in moral philosophy." Thesis, University of St Andrews, 2016. http://hdl.handle.net/10023/9107.
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This thesis develops a critique of the methodology of mainstream academic moral philosophy, based on insights from feminist and more generally anti-oppressive political thought. The thesis consists of two parts. In the first, I loosely characterise a certain dominant methodology of philosophy, one based on giving an important epistemological role to existing, 'pre-theoretical' moral attitudes, such as intuitions. I then argue that such methodologies may be critiqued on the basis of theories that identify these moral attitudes as problematically rooted in oppressive social institutions, such as patriarchy and white supremacy; that is, I identify these attitudes as ideological, and so a poor guide to moral reality. In the second part, I identify and explore of a number of themes and tendencies from feminist, anti-racist, and other anti-oppressive traditions of research and activism, in order to draw out the implications of these themes for the methodology of moral philosophy. The first issue I examine is that of how, and how much, moral philosophers should use abstraction; I eventually use the concept of intersectionality to argue for the position that philosophers need to use less, and a different type of, abstraction. The second major theme I examine is that of ignorance, in the context of alternative epistemologies: standpoint epistemology and epistemologies of ignorance. I argue that philosophers must not take themselves to be well placed to understand, using solitary methodologies, any topic of moral interest. Finally, I examine the theme of transformation in moral philosophy. I argue that experiencing certain kinds of personal transformation may be an essential part of developing accurate ethical views, and I draw out the political implications of this position for the methodology of moral philosophy.
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Parris, David. "Reception theory : philosophical hermeneutics, literary theory, and biblical interpretation." Thesis, University of Nottingham, 1999. http://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/12110/.
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The goal of this thesis is to explore the possibility of applying Hans Robert Jauss' hermeneutic of reception theory to biblical interpretation. The traditional methods employed in biblical interpretation involve a two-way dialogue between the text and the reader. Reception theory expands this into a three-way dialogue, with the third partner being the history of the text's interpretation and application. This third partner has been ignored by biblical interpreters but recently the need to include this has gained some attention. In the first part of the thesis, the work of Hans-Georg Gadamer will be examined in order to provide the philosophical hermeneutical framework for reception theory and its significance for biblical studies. In the second part, this framework will be fleshed out by Hans Robert Jauss' conception of reception theory. Jauss not only builds upon Gadamer's work but his literary hermeneutic provides a model which is applicable to the biblical text and its tradition of interpretation. In the final part, the parable of the Wedding Feast in Matthew 22:1-14 and its Wirkungsgeschichte will be considered as a case study.
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Hicks, Pamela Jane. "A gaze of one's own : feminist film theory, with application to Klute." Master's thesis, University of Cape Town, 1994. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/18260.
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This study is concerned with the development of a field of film theory around the place of the female spectator. Chapter 1 presents an historical overview of some trends in the development of film theory, with emphasis on the emergence of a paradigm in which theories of semiotics, ideology and psychoanalysis intersect. It critically assesses the establishment of a dominant theory founded in the notion of film as art, proposing certain parallels between this and contemporary Leavisite literary theory, and notes auteurism as the point of departure from this into the consideration of film as popular culture. It then traces the impact of the critiques by Barthes and Foucault of authorial intentionality, Althusser's theory of ideology and Lacanian psychoanalytic theory in the shift to a body of film theory centrally concerned with the notion of film as text. The feminist intervention is located at the meeting point of this theory with the concerns of the emergent women's movement, and is traced in its development from the "image of" criticism of Rosen and Haskell to Claire Johnston's and Laura Mulvey's seminal work on women and representation. Chapter 2 focuses on some of the theoretical considerations of the image and the gaze, extends these into the theory of cinema as an apparatus, and outlines feminist critiques of apparatus theory. Accounts of representation and the image are drawn from Bill Nichols, John Berger, and Peter Wollen's summary of C.S. Peirce. In the shift of theoretical interest to the process of viewing film, Munsterberg's account of the psychology of vision is noted. The psychoanalytic construction of visual meaning is traced through Lacan's elaboration of the mirror phase to its significance for cinema in the centrality of desire and the gaze. The consequent development of a model of cinema as an apparatus by Baudry and Metz is followed. The feminist criticism of the androcentricity of this model is traced, both through its outright rejection, and through specific critiques by Teresa de Lauretis, Jacqueline Rose, Kaja Silverman, Mary Ann Doane and Constance Penley. Chapter 3 follows three theorists in their attempts to account for female spectatorship: Laura Mulvey's theory of oscillation, Teresa de Lauretis's double identification and Mary Ann Doane's accounts both of textual strategies of specularization in the "woman's film" and the masquerade are considered. Chapter 4 presents an analysis of the text Klute in order to apply some of the theoretical implications, particularly around questions of female subjectivity and spectatorship. It situates Klute within its historical context, in relation to the cinema industry and the emergent women's movement, and within the terms suggested by its generic structuration. The Conclusion provides a summary of my intention to provide an overview of this difficult and fertile field of debate. An Appendix provides a script of Klute.
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梁敏兒 and Man-yee Leung. "Naturalism and Mao Dun's literary theory." Thesis, The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong), 1989. http://hub.hku.hk/bib/B31208733.
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Jolliffe, Christine. "After relativism : literary theory after the linguistic turn." Thesis, McGill University, 1998. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=35901.
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In this dissertation I examine the issues concerning the problematics of historical-textual relations in the wake of the linguistic turn. I begin by showing how the emphasis on the generative rather than the mimetic properties of language has led a number of critics to reject the notion of knowledge as "accurate representation" (Richard Rorty), and then go on to demonstrate how this critical position has undermined the way in which literary and intellectual historians alike have traditionally understood such concepts as causality, human agency and social determination.I show that, in the light afforded by the linguistic turn, there can be no unproblematic distinction between literature and history, text and context, but I also contest some of the more dogmatic versions of this position which make the claim that there can be no such thing as history prior to its textualization, or no such thing as human agency because individual human persons are thoroughly constrained by discursive structures. I suggest that in giving up the notion of an uninterpreted reality, we do not have to abandon the idea of the historically real, of reality, of agency, or of truth.
In doing so I examine the work of Alasdair MacIntyre and other critics who provide us with a productive way of approaching the methodological and philosophical issues that are raised by these questions, and then I examine a variety of literary texts which I believe give the questions further historical detail and relevance. In the letters which the twelfth-century abbess Heloise wrote to Abelard, in Geoffrey Chaucer's treatment of the problem of historical-textual relations, and in Brian Friel's inquiry into the linguistic embodiment of traditions in his play Translations we have a variety of testimonies to the dynamic way in which self and world, agency and structure, are related.
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Billingsley, Amy. "Humorwork, Feminist Philosophy, and Unstable Politics." Thesis, University of Oregon, 2019. http://hdl.handle.net/1794/24550.
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This dissertation examines humor as a situated practice of reappropriation and transformation undertaken by a subject within a social world. I bring together insights from humor studies, philosophy of humor, and feminist philosophy (especially feminist continental philosophy) to introduce the concept of humorwork as an unstable political practice of reappropriating and transforming existing images, speech, and situations. I argue that humorwork is an unstable politics because the practice of reappropriation and transformation often exceeds the intentions of the subject practicing humor, taking on a continued life beyond the humorist’s intentions. By focusing on the practice of humor, the subject who produces it, their social and political world, the affects circulated through political humor, and the politics of popular and scholarly discourse about humor, I push against a reductive, depoliticized concept of humor and the trivializing gesture of “it’s just a joke.” Instead, I argue that humorists are responsible and connected to (if not always blameable) for the social and political life of their humorwork, despite the unstable and unpredictable uptake of humor against a humorist’s intentions.
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Woodward, Suzanne. "The androgynous ideal in twentieth-century feminist literature : Woolf, Carter, Winterson and Harpman." Master's thesis, University of Cape Town, 2000. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/9737.
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Includes bibliographical references.This thesis is an investigation of the concepts of androgyny used in the work, both theory and fiction, of Virginia Woolf, Angela Carter, Jeanette Winterson and Jacqueline Harpman. Androgyny is an idea which is thousands of years old, and an overview of its presence in religion, mythology and psychology is included as background to its representation in the work of these writers. The basic concept of androgyny in this context, is one in which the psychological aspects of 'masculine' and 'feminine', as generally understood by Western society, are synthesised into a harmonious and balanced whole within each individual. Within a feminist epistemology, it offers an opportunity to escape the power structures and value systems of patriarchy, and to attain individual fulfilment in both writing and identity. Virginia Woolf introduces the idea of androgyny into feminist literary theory in A Room of One's Own and into feminist ontology through the androgynous protagonist of Orlando, although the binary distinction between theory and fiction is deliberately blurred. Angela Carter continues the examination of androgyny with regard to women and writing in The Sadeian Woman and 'Notes from the Front Line', and explores androgyny fictionally in The Passion of New Eve. Jeanette Winterson returns to Woolf's ideas and develops them in Art Objects and creates the ultimate androgynous character in Written on the Body. Jacqueline Harpman revisits and recreates Woolf's fiction from a contemporary perspective in Orlando. Differences are identified in the style and approach of these writers, resulting from their respective historical contexts, starting points, and intentions. However, the commonalities are examined in greater detail, including analogous ideas and tropes, as well as references to and interrelations with each other. The connection between Woolf's work and that of Winterson and Harpman is identified as particularly strong. Through the examination of their work, the four writers are found to have similar feminist beliefs and concerns: there is a common interest in the emancipation of women from the constraints of patriarchy, implemented through a deconstruction of gender essentialism and artificial gendering processes. Furthermore, a utopian concern is identified, in all four writers, with the creation of a new space which exists beyond the confines of patriarchy in which the woman writer is able to create freely, and the woman subject is able to develop freely. Although the writers are dealt with chronologically, the cyclical aspect of their work is emphasised, as well as their cyclical relationship to one another, through their common androgynous vision. The continuing presence of the androgynous ideal is taken as indicative of its strength. The conclusion is drawn that, although the concept of androgyny tends to be highly idealised in the work of these writers, it is a viable option to the transformation of both society and the individual. These writers are creating the awareness of the artificial nature of gender, which is required for the transformation to begin.
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Simon, Jane. "Risking it : Deleuze and feminist literary theory : Gertrude Stein and becoming-woman /." Title page, table of contents and introduction only, 2001. http://web4.library.adelaide.edu.au/theses/09AR/09ars5951.pdf.
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Mulder, Anne-Claire. "Divine flesh, embodied word incarnation as a hermeneutical key to a feminist theologian's reading of Luce Irigaray's work /." Amsterdam : Amsterdam University Press, 2000. http://site.ebrary.com/lib/librarytitles/Doc?id=10182191.
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Gilman, Todd Nathaniel. "Communicative Action as Feminist Epistemology." PDXScholar, 1995. https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/open_access_etds/4906.
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This thesis proposes that feminist social and political theory adopt the epistemology inherent in Jurgen Habermas's communicative ethics in order to more coherently work toward the goal of freeing individuals from social oppression. This thesis first examines the fundamental differences that exist between the particular claims for knowledge made by the three major schools of feminist theory; the empirical feminists, the standpoint feminists, and those allied with postmodernism. After illuminating the specifics of these feminist claims, the conception of knowledge central to Habermas's thought is explored and shown to be split into three distinct realms; the objective, the social, and the subjective. It is shown that the three realms of Habermas's knowledge account for the underlying claims of the differing groups of feminist theory, and provide a basis for reconciling the differences between them. Habermas's objective realm of knowledge corresponds to the concerns of empirically oriented feminists. A need for an accurate description of the events and conditions of the actual world is shared by both, as is a trust in the human potential for grasping these objects and events accurately. Standpoint feminism's concern for interpersonal relations, accounting for the context of an individual's or group's existence, is reflected in the type of knowledge that Habermas considers social in nature. Habermas's conception of our capacity for social knowledge, which guides our actions with other human beings, is shown to be dependent upon both social existence and communication. Finally, Habermas acknowledges the human potential for critical knowledge to explain the individual's ability to differentiate herself from the group, a task which a postmodern feminism demands to avoid essentializing any aspect of women. If feminist theory is able to move beyond the entrenched differences that it now finds itself locked within, perhaps then it will be able to continue with the project shared with Habermas, that of providing a meaningful emancipation for human beings.
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Squires, Judith Ann. "The contribution of contemporary feminist political theory to the public/private debate." Thesis, Queen Mary, University of London, 1989. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.321101.
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O'Donnell, Carolynn. "A philosophical account of feminist solidarity between women /." Connect to online version, 2007. http://ada.mtholyoke.edu/setr/websrc/pdfs/www/2007/216.pdf.
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鄭建生 and Kin-sang Cheng. "Social theory and gender bias." Thesis, The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong), 1993. http://hub.hku.hk/bib/B31211288.
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Palamarek, Michael. "Women's domination as reification: A socialist feminist critique of Habermas's theory of communicative action." Thesis, University of Ottawa (Canada), 1996. http://hdl.handle.net/10393/9491.
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This thesis endeavours to articulate a socialist feminist critique of Jurgen Habermas's theory of communicative action through an examination of the conception of domination and the possibilities of emancipation elaborated in this theory. It argues that the example of women's domination in late modern societies reveals shortcomings that significantly challenge Habermas's conception of domination as the systemic and cultural reification of communicatively-structured contexts of everyday life. The thesis locates these lacunae in Habermas's reading of the concept of labour in Hegel and Marx, conducted within the terms of a distinction between labour and interaction. Utilizing the socialist feminist categories of the gender division of labour and of patriarchy, the theory of communicative action is demonstrated to be markedly ambivalent with respect to its capacity to systematically identify forms of women's oppression. Consequently the notion of emancipatory practice as the communicative rationalization of everyday life is likewise constrained.
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Fulfer, Katherine N. "The concept of "woman" feminism after the essentialism critique /." unrestricted, 2008. http://etd.gsu.edu/theses/available/etd-04202008-093433/.
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Thesis (M.A.)--Georgia State University, 2008.Title from file title page. Christie J. Hartley, Andrew I. Cohen, committee co-chairs; Andrew Altman, committee member. Electronic text (70 p.) : digital, PDF file. Description based on contents viewed August 1, 2008. Includes bibliographical references (p. 68-70).
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Headley, Beth Ann. "Feminist theories of autonomy and their implications for rape law reform." CONNECT TO THIS TITLE ONLINE, 2007. http://etd.lib.umt.edu/theses/available/etd-04092007-143444/.
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Mayes-Elma, Ruthann Elizabeth. "A Feminist Literary Criticism Approach to Representations of Women's Agency in Harry Potter." Oxford, Ohio : Miami University, 2003. http://www.ohiolink.edu/etd/view.cgi?miami1060025232.
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Ritchie, Fiona Judith. "The search for a coherent and universal feminist theory of international relations : a critical assessment." Thesis, University of Hull, 2015. http://hydra.hull.ac.uk/resources/hull:12410.
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[From the introduction]; This thesis has three interlocking aims. The first is to examine the extension in recent decades of feminist theory to International Relations. The second is to consider the challenge of some leading non-Western feminist thinkers to key assumptions about International Relations made by Western thinkers. The third objective is to consider the implications of feminist theory for political practice. This is achieved through an examination of the recent attempt by the United States to implement a female emancipation project based on Western universal values, in Afghanistan.
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Heyes, Cressida J. "'Back to the rough ground!' : Wittgenstein, essentialism, and feminist methods." Thesis, National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 1997. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk2/ftp02/NQ36981.pdf.
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Drabek, Matthew Louis. "A phenomenological account of practices." Diss., University of Iowa, 2012. https://ir.uiowa.edu/etd/2861.
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Appeals to practices are common the humanities and social sciences. They hold the potential to explain interesting or compelling similarities, insofar as similarities are distributed within a community or group. Why is it that people who fall under the same category, whether men, women, Americans, baseball players, Buddhists, feminists, white people, or others, have interesting similarities, such as similar beliefs, actions, thoughts, foibles, and failings? One attractive answer is that they engage in the same practices. They do the same things, perhaps as a result of doing things at the same site or setting, or perhaps as a result of being raised in a similar way among members of the same group. In the humanities, appeals to practices often serve as a move to point out diversity among different communities or diversity within the same community. Communities are distinct from one another in part because their members do different things or do things in different ways. The distinct and varied ways in which different communities enact social norms or formulate law, state institutions, and public policy might be explicable in part by the different practices their members are socialized into. Appeals to practices hold the promise of explaining these differences in terms of the different background practices of the groups, cultivated through a kind of cultural isolation or sense of collective identity. In the social sciences, appeals to practices have played a central role in fundamental theorizing and theory building. Appeals to practices in the social sciences are often much more systematic and theoretical, forming the core of the systematic theories of Pierre Bourdieu and Anthony Giddens in Anthropology and Sociology. Practice theory has thus become a growth industry in social scientific investigation, offering the promise of a central object of investigation that explains both unity and difference within and across communities and groups. But it is unclear just what practices are and what role, both ontological and explanatory, that practices are supposed to play. The term `practices' is used to pick out a wide range of things, and its relation to other terms, from `tradition' or `paradigm' to `framework' or `presupposition', is unclear. Practices are posited as ubiquitous, yet they are difficult to isolate and pin down. We are all said to participate in them, but they remain hidden. Their role, whether causal, logical, or hermeneutical, remains mysterious. After locating the historical origins of appeals to practices in the work of Ludwig Wittgenstein and Martin Heidegger, my dissertation uses Stephen Turner's broad and systematic critique of appeals to practices to develop a new type of account. My account is a phenomenological account that treats practices as human doings that show up to people in material and social environments and make themselves available for specific responses in those environments. I argue that a phenomenological account is an effective alternative to accounts that treat practices as either shared objects with properties or shared and implicit presuppositions. I use a phenomenological account of practices to treat important debates in feminist philosophy and the philosophy of the social sciences, particularly debates over pornography's subordination of women and the classification of mental disorders in psychiatry.
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Peabody, Robyn. "John Dewey's Theory of Growth and Amy Allen's Feminist Theory of Power Applied to the Work of Domestic Violence Shelters." Bowling Green State University / OhioLINK, 2010. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1272226209.
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Snider, Kathryn. "From real essences to the feminine imaginary : critiques of essentialism in feminist theory in North America in the 1980's." Thesis, McGill University, 1994. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=26330.
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The polemical debate, within feminist theory in North America, in the 1980s, around essentialism is the central focus of this thesis.In particular, this work attempts to critically examine the notion of essentialism, the resistance to accepting a feminine "essence," and the loosely defined and employed terminology surrounding this field of inquiry. In accomplishing these objectives I draw upon, and critique, the more recent work elaborated around theorizing with/through the "body."
Aspects of feminist theory which are examined as contributive towards the above aim are an analysis of the explicit, and implicit, dangers of accepting or discarding essentialism, and an analysis of the inherent ontological and philosophical tenets that function within this present discourse.
It is maintained that by addressing the issue of essentialism, the relationship between subjectivity, identity, and gender, within feminist theory, will be liberated from further constraining propositions.
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Travers, Ann. "The invisible woman : a feminist critique of Habermas's theory of communicative action." Thesis, University of British Columbia, 1990. http://hdl.handle.net/2429/29857.
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Feminist theory is a vast area of discourse and, while the differences between the many tendencies are extremely interesting, it is beyond the scope of this thesis to engage in such an inquiry. I have chosen to conduct a critique of Habermas's theory of communicative action from a perspective informed for the most part by postmodern/poststructural feminism. I hope that my reasons for working within such a framework will become evident in the following chapters but, in my view, a postmodern/poststructural feminist perspective sharpens the critique of Habermas's theory precisely because it stands in such contrast to it.
For the purposes of this thesis, my critique will focus upon Habermas's most recent work - The Theory of Communicative Action, Volume I: Reason and the Rationalization of Society (1984), and Volume II: The Critique of Functionalist Reason (1987). Other works by Habermas will not be specifically addressed although references will be made to them as necessary to clarify his positions on various issues.Arts, Faculty of
Sociology, Department of
Graduate
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Gatyas, Maxwell. "A Theory of Emotion Sharing." University of Cincinnati / OhioLINK, 2021. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1623167135638119.
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Arellano-neri, Olimpia. "Cinematographic and Literary Representations of the Femicides in Ciudad Juarez." University of Cincinnati / OhioLINK, 2013. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1368013240.
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Guzman, Dahlia. "The Strategic Naturalism of Sandra Harding's Feminist Standpoint Epistemology: A Path Toward Epistemic Progress." Scholar Commons, 2018. https://scholarcommons.usf.edu/etd/7626.
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This dissertation considers the “strategic naturalism” of Sandra Harding’s standpoint theory in the philosophy of science, and it should be applied to epistemology. Strategic naturalism stipulates that all elements of inquiry are historically and culturally situated, and thereby subject to critical reflection, analysis, and revision. Allegiance to naturalism is de rigueur, yet there is no clear agreement on the term’s meaning. Harding’s standpoint theory reads the lack of definition as indicative of its generative possibilities for epistemic progress. The driving question is why Harding’s approach has not been considered a viable candidate for determining progress in epistemology. Beyond the fact that epistemic labor, in its scientific and non-scientific forms, is a social activity, Harding’s approach recognizes that it is situated in and reinforced by a broader network of social institutions, beliefs, and practices. Harding’s strategic naturalism would invigorate epistemology by increasing the awareness, acceptance, and respect for epistemic difference and drive epistemic progress that not only acknowledges pluralistic ways of knowing but also gives a more accurate account of the knowing subject.
Chapter one is a discussion of non-naturalized epistemology and Quinean Naturalized Epistemology (QNE), framed by Harding’s historical account of the related projects of modern epistemology and science. This chapter highlights two important issues. The first issue is that epistemology is more complex than the story Quine offers. The second, and decisive issue is that the shared history of modern epistemology and science demonstrates the influence of social and cultural values on that history, and the long shadows they cast on naturalism debates in epistemology, science, and philosophy of science.
Chapter two is an exegetical account of the origins of and motivations for critical feminist responses to both the received epistemological theory and QNE discussed in chapter one. The justifications for the feminist critiques and the problematic issues that motivate these critiques provide the backdrop for the initial, positive response to QNE, as well as their disenchantment with Quine’s influential proposal. Ultimately, feminist epistemologists and philosophers of science assess QNE as not naturalized enough to address their concerns.
Chapter three considers several feminist standpoint theories to show that they are more naturalistic and better at providing a multi-faceted theory that is based on actual scientific practice, and re-introduces social values and interests as having a positive influence on epistemology and philosophies of science. This chapter shows that given the closely shared histories and assumptions of modern epistemology and science, FSE would be a viable resource for a more naturalistic epistemology.
The final chapter argues that the project of naturalizing epistemology could incorporate FSE insights and the positive role FSE’s controversiality would play in naturalizing epistemology and philosophies of science. If we are to take seriously the concept of situatedness and what that entails, then naturalism must also be situated, and revisited with a critical and reflective eye. The implications on both our epistemic theories and our accounts of what kinds of knowing subject we are would foster epistemic progress.
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Hinton-Johnson, KaaVonia Mechelle. "Expanding the power of literature African American literary theory & young adult literature /." Columbus, OH : Ohio State University, 2003. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc%5Fnum=osu1054833658.
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Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2003.Title from first page of PDF file. Document formatted into pages; contains vii, 175 p. Includes abstract and vita. Advisor: Caroline Clark, College of Education. Includes bibliographical references (p. 160-175).
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Ucar, Ozbirinci Purnur G. "Mythmaking In Progress: Plays By Women On Female Writers And Literary Characters." Phd thesis, METU, 2007. http://etd.lib.metu.edu.tr/upload/2/12608981/index.pdf.
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This thesis analyzes the process of women&rsquos mythmaking in the plays written by female playwrights. Through writing the lives of female writers and rewriting the literary characters, which have been created by male writers, the women playwrights assume the role of a mythmaker. A mythmaker possesses the power to use the &lsquo
word,&rsquo
thereby possesses the power to control &lsquo
reality.&rsquo
However, for centuries, women have been debarred from generating their own myths, naming their own experiences, and controlling their own &lsquo
realities.&rsquo
Male mythmakers prescribed the roles women were required to perform within the society. Feminist archetypal theorists believe that through a close study of related patterns in women&rsquo
s writing, common grounds, and experiences, the archetypes shared by women will be disclosed. Unveiling these archetypes will eventually lead to the establishment of new myths around these archetypes. As myths are regarded as the source of collective experiences, analyzing how women have rewritten, revised, devised, and originated myths would thus permit women to reclaim the power to name, and hence to influence the so-called reality established by the patriarchy. Hence, this study analyzes the constantly developing process of women&rsquo
s mythmaking/mythbreaking in Liz Lochhead&rsquo
s Blood and Ice, Rose Leiman Goldemberg&rsquo
s Letters Home, Bilgesu Erenus&rsquo
Halide, Timberlake Wertenbaker&rsquo
s The Love of the Nightingale, Bryony Lavery&rsquo
s Ophelia, and Zeynep Avci&rsquo
s Gilgamesh. These playwrights try to depose the stereotypical images attributed to women by male mythmakers.
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Bonner, Sarah K. "Woolf's philosophy of literary subjectivity : Virginia Woolf's 'To the lighthouse' and Jean-Paul Sartre's existentialist theory." Master's thesis, University of Cape Town, 2011. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/10091.
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Sartre's theory of existentialism is used as a lens to interpret Woolf's approach to literature as the philosophy of "literary subjectivity." The notion of subjectivity is explored within theoretical existentialism and then applied to Woolf's life and her moment of awakening to subjectivity. To the Lighthouse is examined theoretically and textually to demonstrate Woolf's philosophy of literary subjectivity.
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Wieseler, Christine Marie. "A Feminist Contestation of Ableist Assumptions: Implications for Biomedical Ethics, Disability Theory, and Phenomenology." Scholar Commons, 2016. http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/etd/6433.
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This dissertation contributes to the development of philosophy of disability by drawing on disability studies, feminist philosophy, phenomenology, and philosophy of biology in order to contest epistemic and ontological assumptions about disability within biomedical ethics as well as within philosophical work on the body, demonstrating how philosophical inquiry is radically transformed when experiences of disability are taken seriously.
In the first two chapters, I focus on epistemological and ontological concerns surrounding disability within biomedical ethics. Although disabled people and their advocates have been quite vocal regarding their views on disability and in critiquing bioethicists’ approaches to issues that affect them, the interests, knowledge, and experiences of disabled people have had minimal impact on discussions within biomedical ethics textbooks. The risks of making problematic assumptions about disability are high within this subfield insofar as bioethicists impact practices within medical facilities, public policy, and, through student engagement with their texts in biomedical ethics courses, the views of potential health care professionals. All of these, in turn, affect the care provided to disabled people and potential/actual parents of disabled children.
Chapter three raises ontological issues related to disability theory, examining the role of the impairment/disability distinction in framing discussions of the body as well as the status of experience. I discuss two approaches to incorporating subjective experiences of the body in disability, arguing that neither is sufficient. I examine debates within feminist theory on questions related to experience. I argue that a feminist phenomenological approach that builds on Merleau-Ponty’s work offers the best way to address bodily experiences in disability theory. The assumptions that disability theorists and Merleau-Ponty make about disability are often at odds. Chapter four points out the ableism in Merleau-Ponty’s use of a case study and considers some of the oversights within Phenomenology of Perception. In spite of my critique, I argue that his approach to phenomenology—with appropriate modifications—is useful not only for theorizing the experiences of disabled people but also for addressing other types of marginalized embodiment. Chapter five applies this method to body integrity identity disorder (BIID), arguing that combining Merleau-Ponty’s insights with those of disability theory allows us to address lived experiences of BIID and to identify assumptions about disability within research on this condition.
35
Alvandi, Nazanin. "Literary Theory in Upper Secondary School : Should It Be Used Before Higher Education?" Thesis, Högskolan i Jönköping, Högskolan för lärande och kommunikation, 2019. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:hj:diva-44612.
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This essay examines the use of literary theory when teaching literature before higher education. The objective isto see how and if the integration of literary theory facilitates students’ engagement with and understanding of literature. The study is conducted with the qualitative method of interviews. Four teachers, certified for upper secondary school, were deemed appropriate to interview about their current use of literary theory, as well as their attitudes towards an increased use of literary theory. Besides the data collected through interviews, this study finds its theoretical foundation in the literary theories feminist, Marxist and postcolonial theory as well as in the Swedish curriculum for English at upper secondary level. Presently, the teachers do not use literary theory distinctly; however, they do consider the use of literary theory together with literature to be beneficial for the students’ understanding of literature and the world around them. Teachers stated that while some students only will grasp the idea of the theories, other students will be able to use and apply them. The curriculum supports the use of literary theory in the core values for students of upper secondary level.
36
Barga, Rachel M. "Sex Theory: Theology of the Body as Literary Criticism." Miami University Honors Theses / OhioLINK, 2011. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=muhonors1304527876.
Full text
37
Yount, Lisa Michelle. "Remembrance, representation and feminism : toward a politics of memorial curation /." view abstract or download file of text, 2006. http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=1192184061&sid=1&Fmt=2&clientId=11238&RQT=309&VName=PQD.
Full textAbstract:
Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Oregon, 2006.Typescript. Includes vita and abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 169-176). Also available for download via the World Wide Web; free to University of Oregon users.
38
Carastathis, Anna. "Feminism and the political economy of representation : intersectionality, invisibility and embodiment." Thesis, McGill University, 2008. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=105369.
Full textAbstract:
It has become commonplace within feminist theory to claim that women's lives are constructed by multiple, intersecting systems of oppression. In this thesis, l challenge the consensus that oppression is aptly captured by the theoretical model of "intersectionality." While intersectionality originates in Black feminist thought as a purposive intervention into US antidiscrimination law, it has been detached from that context and harnessed to different representational aims. For instance, it is often asserted that intersectionality enables a representational politics that overcomes legacies of exclusion within hegemonic Anglo-American feminism. largue that intersectionality reinscribes the political exclusion of racialized women as a feature of their embodied identities. That is, it locates the failure of political representation in the "complex" identities of "intersectional" subjects, who are constructed as unrepresentable in terms of "race" or "gender" alone. Further, largue that intersectionality fails to supplant race- and class-privileged women as the normative subjects of feminist theory and politics. [...]Dans la théorie féministe, l'énoncé selon lequel la vie des femmes est structurée par de multiples systèmes d'oppression qui se croisent est devenu un lieu commun. La présente thèse conteste l'accord général que le modèle théorique connu comme « l'intersectionalité » explique adéquatement l'oppression. Alors que l'intersectionalité a ses origines dans le féminisme noir comme intervention spécifique dans la loi antidiscriminatoire des États-Unis, elle a depuis été arrachée à ce contexte et consacrée à d'autres buts. Par exemple, on affirme souvent que l'intersectionalité permettrait une politique de représentation qui surmonte l'héritage d'exclusion du féminisme hégémonique anglo-américain. Je soutiens que l'intersectionalité réinscrit l'exclusion politique des femmes racialisées, cette fois comme caractéristique de leurs identités incarnés.[...]
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Forry, Joan Grassbaugh. "The Gender Politics of Contemporary Sport: Ethics, Power, and the Body." Diss., Temple University Libraries, 2008. http://cdm16002.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/p245801coll10/id/8021.
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PhilosophyPh.D.
Gendered power relations in sport pose important problems for mainstream feminist and ethical arguments for the alleviation of gender-based oppression. Though mainstream feminist theorists and applied ethicists have largely left sport undertheorized, some multi- and inter-disciplinary scholarly attention has been devoted to analyzing gender and sport. However, this scholarship encompasses disparate lines of thought with a range of philosophical, political, disciplinary, methodological and theoretical commitments, which translate into conflicting and competing normative views on how to best conceptualize, theorize, and practically navigate gender relations in sporting contexts. My dissertation remedies the tensions between these conflicting normative views by excavating and critically evaluating the political and philosophical assumptions that ground these views of gender relations in sport. I define 'sport feminism' as the normative views and consequent practical strategies that are concerned with interpreting, navigating, and eliminating the unjust restrictions on women's freedom in sporting contexts. I identify and critically evaluate four sport feminist views: liberal, radical, somatic, and post-structuralist. These views are distinct from one another as they differ in their conceptualizations and interpretations of three elements: (1) the nature of gender and the significance of physiological difference; (2) the function of sport and fitness practices; and (3) the ethical grounds and strategies for defining and alleviating gender-based oppression. Drawing from the merits of these views, my project develops a feminist framework for ethical action with regard to unequal gendered power relations in sport.
Temple University--Theses
40
Epstein, Hugh. "Hardy, Conrad and the senses : epistemiology and literary style in the early fiction." Thesis, St Mary's University, Twickenham, 2013. http://research.stmarys.ac.uk/413/.
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In discussions of English fiction, Hardy and Conrad are only occasionally considered together, and generally as being different exemplars of a late Victorian pessimism who give human dimension to the cosmic ironies of a world bereft of Providence. This study argues for a more vital connection than a coincidence of intellectual outlook, one that finds their fiction is generated by similar conceptions of how human beings experience and gain knowledge of the world in which they live. An epistemology of sense impressions underlies the invention of ‘fictional worlds’, the construction of characters, and the literary style of the otherwise very different novels considered here. As such, it is illuminating to explore both of these novelists in the light of the empirical scientific investigations of the nineteenth century which accorded such prominence to the function and evidence of the senses. While both authors have been the subject of several excellent studies of their relation to Darwin, such studies have tended to concentrate on biology in the case of Hardy, and have seen Conrad more in the province of metaphysics than empirical science. The originality of my study lies in its attention to physics and physiology as informing realms for fiction, not as a matter of direct influence upon the writers, but rather as conceptually and historically complementary modes of apprehending the world within which human experience takes place. Consequently, some of the work of contemporary scientists, as well as modern theorists in the fields of sensation, vision and sound, are seen to be as helpful in elucidating the sensory effects achieved in Hardy’s and Conrad’s novels as the many contemporary and modern literary critics whose work also informs this study. After an Introduction which locates Hardy and Conrad in relation to each other in terms of critical estimation, and which establishes the importance of the senses to their fiction and to their theoretical outlook as novelists, the study closely examines the modes of writing found in three sets of paired novels, exploring their individual treatment of a shared epistemology. In taking Desperate Remedies and The Rescue as often disregarded yet, in my view, foundational texts for each author, the focus is upon the phenomenology of sensation itself, with a distinction made between the outer-directed sensory field established in these novels as opposed to the inner mental world characteristic of Walter Pater which was so influential for Modernism. Both Hardy and Conrad are renowned for their visual evocations, and I take Far From the Madding Crowd and Lord Jim in order to explore each novelist’s extraordinary attention to light, and what it reveals to the eye. I argue that, unlike the later Modernists, the scenic construction of Hardy and Conrad creates occasions that exceed the perceptions of individual consciousness, which it renders as participating in a larger process of the ‘event’. Attending to the sound-world of these novels yields a different inflection of this account: The Return of the Native and ‘Heart of Darkness’ show characters surrounded by an active universe which penetrates to that which is hidden within, and the subject for portrayal is the attempt to give a human accent to phenomena that retain a mystery in their location and transmission. Throughout, both novelists are seen to have a united interest in the medium that surrounds human action and perception, but each novel examined is allowed its individuality and is not coerced into being a mere representative for a theoretical position. This is a study centred upon the early fiction, but the Conclusion proposes that Tess of the d’Urbervilles and Nostromo explore in very different ways an end-point for the novel of sensation, in which the identity of the individual self is open to absorption by the sensory qualities of the circumambient universe that it apprehends.
41
Burke, Megan. "Gender and Time." Thesis, University of Oregon, 2015. http://hdl.handle.net/1794/19262.
Full textAbstract:
This dissertation examines how gender and temporality are co-constitutive of one another and what temporalities underlie the actuality of gendered life. I weave together the insights of feminist phenomenology and feminist poststructuralism in order to argue that temporality produces and constrains the actuality of lived gender as racialized, heterosexist, and cissexist. More specifically, I argue that this is done through sexual violence. Ultimately, I suggest that the temporality of sexual violence is encrusted into the dominant configurations of gender and into the bodily life of gendered subjects solidifying what gendered subjectivity can become.10000-01-01
42
Taghavie-Moghadam, Mariah. "A Miraculous Deliverance: An Adaptation Through Historical Criticism and Feminist Theory." VCU Scholars Compass, 2019. https://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/etd/5740.
Full textAbstract:
This thesis attempts to reconstruct the narrative of Anne Greene, a young female servant in 1650 England that was wrongfully found guilty of infanticide and made into a spectacle by her peers as an example of what happens when one breaks societies gender norms and is met by the influence of the gender politics of the period. Her female body was objectified and placed on display by a ritual performance of the hangman’s noose and the criminal corpse to further the process of by maintaining fear among members of the population, especially rebellious women. Thus, making Anne Greene a subversive figure, victimized by a patriarchal society, a trope that remains relevant today. By way of literary adaptation, explorations of bodily practice, and engagements with the historical archive this thesis allows Anne Greene’s disembodied figure to unfold as a narrative and visual tool in history. This study and the accompanying original play text allow Anne Greene to become an essential figure to feminist studies and continuing struggles for equality in the era of the “Me too” social narrative.
43
Wiedeman, Megan. "A Queer and Crip Grotesque: Katherine Dunn's." Scholar Commons, 2018. http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/etd/7244.
Full textAbstract:
The grotesque has long been utilized in literature as a means for subverting societal constraints and inverting constructions of normalcy. Unfortunately, in many instances, it has been constructed at the expense of disabled characters using their embodiment as metaphorical plot devices rather than social and political agents. Criticism of the grotesque’s use of bodily difference has prompted this analytical project in order to rethink disability as socially and politically positioned within texts, rather than simply aesthetics for symbolic means. The aim of this paper is to explore the ways the literary grotesque can be reread using queer theory and crip theory as frameworks for constructing agential disabled embodiments in Katherine Dunn’s Geek Love. Ultimately, the potential of queer and crip interventions necessitates an examination of the systems of power disabled subjects operate within in these narratives.
44
Krasny, Karen A. "Imagery, affect, and the embodied mind: implications for reading and responding to literature." Texas A&M University, 2004. http://hdl.handle.net/1969.1/3274.
Full textAbstract:
Since Plato first banished poets from his Republic, the relationship between the aesthetic and moral value of literature has been subject to philosophical, critical, and pedagogical debate. In this philosophical investigation, I sought to explain how the evocation of the senses during literary transactions shapes the phenomenal experience of the reader. Recent developments in neuroscience (Damasio, 1999, 2003; Edelman, 1992) provide strong evidence in support of embodied theories of cognition in which imagery and affect play a central role. The purposes of this philosophical investigation were to describe the structure and function of imagery and affect in the cognitive act of reading, to provide a detailed account of how we exercise our capacity for imaginative thought in order to achieve literal, inferential, and critical comprehension, and to explore the implications of an embodied mind for reading and responding to literary texts. The investigation yielded a critical review of contemporary theories of reading (Kintsch, 1998; Rumelhart, 1977; Sadoski & Paivio, 2001) to examine their ability to explain the phenomena associated with the literary experience. Dual coding theory (Sadoski & Paivio, 2001) which maintains an empirical and embodied view of the mind was shown to have considerable theoretical advantages over rationalist computational theories of
cognition in explaining phenomena associated with reading and responding to literary texts. A neurobiological account of consciousness provides support for the idea that literature can engage readers imaginatively in the process moral deliberation (Dewey, 1932/1985). In addition, I concluded that considerable evidence exists to suggest that somatic and visceral changes experienced as a result of undergoing the text can potentially incite individual and social change.
45
Foultier, Anna Petronella. "Recasting Objective Thought : The Venture of Expression in Merleau-Ponty’s Philosophy." Doctoral thesis, Stockholms universitet, Filosofiska institutionen, 2015. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:su:diva-113278.
Full textAbstract:
This thesis is about meaning, expression and language in Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy, and their role in the phenomenological project as a whole. For Merleau-Ponty, expression is the taking up of a meaning given either in perception or in already acquired forms of expression, thereby repeating, transforming or congealing meaning into gestures, utterances, artworks, ideas or theories. Contrary to the predominant view in the literature, the relation of expression to meaning, and in particular the problem of expressing new meanings, was of fundamental importance to Merleau-Ponty from the very beginning, in that it was intrinsically related to the overcoming of what he termed “objective thought”. Admittedly, there is an evolution of his philosophy in this respect: from the early stance where the recasting of certain basic categories is taken as pivotal for the development of a new form of thinking, with arguments drawn also from various empirical and social sciences, to what appears to be an effort at an all-pervading reformulation of philosophical language during his last years. But the remoulding of categories was never for Merleau-Ponty a matter simply of finding a few, better adapted concepts, but from the outset an endeavour to think philosophical arguments through to a point where they reveal their inherent inconsistencies. Recasting philosophical expression is thus a risky enterprise, and this is a point I explore further in Essay 1, that focuses especially upon creative expression in painting and to some extent in literature. In Essay 2 I discuss the notion of Gestalt and how it serves this general project, whereas Essay 3 deals with verbal language, on the basis of Merleau-Ponty’s reading of Saussure’s linguistics. Essay 4 examines bodily expression from the point of view of feminist phenomenology and in particular Judith Butler’s early reading of Merleau-Ponty, and finally Essay 5 discusses expression in the art of dance.At the time of the doctoral defense, the following papers were unpublished and had a status as follows: Paper 4: Accepted. Paper 5: Accepted.
46
Eastling, Kyla L. "Education as Democratic Persuasion: Addressing Systemic Inequalities in Brettschneider's Value Democracy." Scholarship @ Claremont, 2018. http://scholarship.claremont.edu/cmc_theses/1726.
Full textAbstract:
In Corey Brettschneider’s book, Democratic Rights: The Substance of Self- Government, he builds the value theory of democracy wherein procedural and substantive rights are both grounded in the core values of democracy. In his second book, When the State Speaks, What Should It Say? How Democracies Can Protect Expression and Promote Equality, Brettschneider elaborates on his theory to provide an account of how a liberal democracy can address hateful and discriminatory views. In response to both theories, critics have charged that the ideal value democracy does not sufficiently account for systemic inequalities that women and black citizens face. In this paper, I will elaborate on his theory of democratic education and argue that this necessary development can address these critics’ concerns.
47
Romeo, Isabella Lombardo. "The Smith-Inspired Interpenetrating Spheres of Association Model: An Analysis of the Shortcomings of Rationality as Self-Interest for Women’s Double Binds in the Workplace." Scholarship @ Claremont, 2018. http://scholarship.claremont.edu/cmc_theses/1931.
Full textAbstract:
Under what is arguably the single most dominant approach in modern economic theory, to act rationally is to act in accordance with one’s self-interest, and it is only “rationality as self-interest” that explains behavior in the market sphere. Many economists attribute this idea to Adam Smith, often referred to as the “father of economics.” Yet, in his The Theory of Moral Sentiments, Smith expands the notion of rationality to reasonableness, or the standards one has reason to value and act on, and includes in this concept both self-interested virtues, such as prudence, and other regarding virtues, such as beneficence. Other academics, such as Elizabeth Anderson, have followed Smith’s lead in expanding the notion of rationality to include values outside of self-interest, but have failed to integrate fully Smith’s moral framework as they accept the problematic tenet of reasonableness as self interest in the market sphere. In this thesis, I propose and explore in four chapters the Smith-inspired interpenetrating spheres of association model as a framework for decision-making that is superior both to the economist’s rationality as self-interest model and to Anderson’s sphere differentiation model. Importantly, the model I propose transcends these former models by concurrently assuaging collective action problems, revealing the immorality of women’s double bind situations in the workplace, and sustaining efficient market transactions.
48
Mueller, Eric. "The Terministic Filter of Security: Realism, Feminism and International Relations Theory." Thesis, University of North Texas, 2001. https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc3040/.
Full textAbstract:
This study uses Kenneth Burke's concept of terministic filters to examine what the word security means to two different publics within the academic discipline of international relations. It studies the rhetoric feminist international relations theorists and contrasts their view security with that of realist and neo-realist interpretations of international affairs. This study claims to open up the possibility for studying the rhetoric of emergent movements through the use of dramatistic or terministic screens.
49
Kaufman, Hall Virginia. "Women transforming the workplace : collaborative inquiry into integrity in action." Thesis, View thesis View thesis, 1996. http://handle.uws.edu.au:8081/1959.7/438.
Full textAbstract:
This collaborative research is an account of the recent lived experience of twelve women who bring about transformations in their own workplaces. The work integrates feminist theory with the social ecology focus of studying interactions between people and their environments. The study is multidisciplinary including psychological as well as social aspects and applies critical social research to workplace situations. The research group informed each other primarily by stories which narrated: social and family context; work situations; particular situations and specific strategies. Reflexive and archetypal meanings emerged from recounting ancient myths to help understand complex and difficult work structures which constrain the participants' creativity. This inquiry is a fresh approach to a range of workplace problems by engaging many women’s preferred working styles and applying this creative response: pro-active strategies which are demonstrated, are indeed, highly effective.
50
Cagle, Lauren E. "Shaping Climate Citizenship: The Ethics of Inclusion in Climate Change Communication and Policy." Scholar Commons, 2016. http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/etd/6197.
Full textAbstract:
The problem of climate change is not simply scientific or technical, but also political and social. This dissertation analyzes both the role and the ethical foundations of citizenship and citizen engagement in the political and social aspects of climate change communication and policy-making. Using a critical discourse analysis of a policy recommendations drafted by the Southeast Florida Regional Climate Change Compact, I demonstrate how climate change policy documentation naturalizes a particular version of citizenship I call “climate citizenship.” Based on environmental critiques of liberal and civic republican citizenship, I show how this “climate citizenship” would be more productive and ethical if based on theories of environmental citizenship rooted in an ecological feminist ethic of flourishing. This critique of current representations of citizenship in climate change policy offers a theoretically sound basis for future engaged work in rhetoric of science focused on policy-making.