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Christopher Marlowe’s narrator-lover in Ovid’s Elegies increasingly embodies an epitome of conventional ideology. As I study Ovid’s Elegies and Marlowe’s poetics of subjectivity, I specifically address how the narrator’s inability to find the truth about himself, about love, and about the value of poetry reveals his gross misconceptions of his own contrived and illusory subjectivity, particularly the way in which his ill-conceived notions misrepresent love and poetry. That is, he cannot discover from his experience a personal identity and subjectivity. Without the ability to define himself, to embody feelings more substantive than his desire for sexual gratification and masculine conquest, the narrator cannot achieve self-knowledge, let alone self-mastery. In short, he lacks virtus. While Marlowe’s narrator repeatedly enters a liminal space wherein he recognizes a necessary advancement toward virtus within the symbolic order, he invariably collapses back upon his imaginary order, and he volitionally maintains a state of psychic stasis.

How do we establish objectivity when each person’s perspective is uniquely subjective? Borges’s “The Writing of the God” shows how an epistemically isolated subject is incapable of ever arriving at a robust sense of objectivity without reference to an Other. Donald Davidson’s theory of interpretive triangulation posits that the Other’s external perspective establishes objectivity by making the subject aware of the limits of his or her perception. Emmanuel Levinas suggests that the face of the Other establishes ethics as first philosophy through a primordial, affective discourse. The ethical relation is what undergirds the questions of epistemology which Davidson addresses.

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This dissertation argues that Hegel’s theory of tragedy is best understood in combination with his theory of the historical progress of subjective freedom, and that this progress is manifested as the heroes of tragic drama in its different stages of antiquity, early modernity, and late modernity. The truth of tragedy for Hegel, like the content of all art, progresses concomitantly with human freedom, reason, and subjectivity. Likewise, humanity’s self-understanding of these aspects of itself also historically progresses. In this light, I further argue that Hegel’s theory shows tragedy to be not only a historically contextualized cultural practice and form of self-understanding but also a presentation of absolute truth: the truth of a culture at a particular historical moment is presented in its tragedy, yet that culture is a part of a larger narrative, so that a common thread running through tragic drama of all eras comes to light when tragedy is examined through the lens of Hegel’s philosophy. Specifically, I show that Hegel views self-contradiction, alienation, and the drive to reconcile these as underlying universal human conditions, and in tragedy this universal truth is embodied in the tragic hero. This appears in tragic heroes as they take responsibility for unintentional actions, or as they remain fixed to their cause although it brings about their own downfall. In consideration of our own historical standpoint and of my agreement with Hegel’s view that tragedy retains an important role in our cultural self-understanding, this dissertation shifts the focus from ancient Greek tragedy, the prevailing theme in Hegel scholarship and in wider discussions of Hegel’s theory of tragedy, and instead directs more attention to modern tragedy. According to Hegel, a key aspect of all tragic heroes is that they either freely will their actions or take responsibility for them, or both. Additionally, as subjective freedom historically progresses, so does our awareness of our freedom to choose our actions or to take responsibility for them. I show how this progress is manifested in ancient, early modern, and late modern tragic heroes—in works by Sophocles, Shakespeare, and Schiller, respectively—and, finally, in the tragic heroes of some contemporary works of film. The historical grounding of my reading of Hegel’s theory of tragedy combined with my focus on the tragic hero lends a unique perspective to our understanding of Hegel’s theories of tragedy and of subjectivity, and to our interpretations of the tragic works themselves. This dissertation thus sheds new light on Hegel’s theory of tragedy, an important endeavor in itself, with the larger aim of showing how Hegel’s philosophy of tragedy helps us better understand both tragedy and ourselves, as inheritors of and participants in philosophical discussions of tragedy, and as contemporary audiences that engage with tragic dramas in a variety of venues. / Philosophy

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No / Rhetorically contextualised against a history of poor outcomes and negative attitudes, New Labour’s mental health policy introduced recovery as a turn towards optimism, control and choice for those who provide and use mental health services. Recovery continues to occupy a key role within contemporary policy and practice. Despite such privilege recovery remains a contested concept, not least because it means different things to different people. This article reports empirical work conducted during 2010-11, and explores two interpretive repertoires (traditional and responsibilised-progressive) that mental health practitioners draw upon in their accounts of recovery. Grounded in constructionist theory, the findings suggest that practitioner accounts of recovery are diverse, and produce many different subject positions from which recovery may be experienced. Developing Webber and Joubert’s (2016) editorial comments on the challenge for Social Work, it is argued that professional Social Work must practice in a manner compatible with its own value-base and any model of recovery must be held up for scrutiny. A knowledgeable position for the practitioner is advocated, one that is capable of working multiple paradigms in order to better understand and meet service user need. / ESRC

In this dissertation, I develop a postcolonial theoretical approach to localized Muslim feminism(s) in Aceh, Indonesia, based on interviews with women in Aceh in 2009 and 2010. One of the central aims of this study is to challenge the dominant exclusivist discourse of "Islamic" feminism by providing a viable alternative for "Muslim" feminism(s), derived from collaborative, indigenous, and post-secular politics. I address the need for a religious feminist model of subjectivity that incorporates both the political and ethical dimensions of agency in potentially non-patriarchal and non-state-centric formations. I suggest a communal understanding of religious law as an alternative to conceptualizing religious law (syariah) in terms of a personal ethical code or a system of laws emanating from a state. I propose an alternative discourse of feminist agency and religious identity, one that reaches beyond a secular-liberal epistemology and challenges the hegemonic discourse of state-centrism within a privatized religious identity. / Ph. D.

This study intends to evaluate the extent to which gender inequality permeates representation in the media. By drawing on the literature of feminist phenomenology I define subjectivity as the tendency of characters to interact with the world around them rather than merely have that world act upon them. I use the themes of sexual spectacle, motivation, and violence and protection to evaluate the gender differences among superbeing characters from the DC and Marvel franchises. Through the use of a qualitative content analysis this study has shown that the dichotomous gender hierarchy actively subordinates female superbeing characters through their diminished subjectivity. A character's ability to act upon the world through act-break motivations, direct capacity for violence, and the protection of others defines them as subjects. Conversely, a character's inability to do those actions as well as their instances of sexual spectacle and unmotivated sexual displays in costuming and gender performance relegates them to the role of object. The subjectivity score is used to more clearly show a definitive ranking of these characters. Female superbeing characters often hold negative scores. This means that their total deductions from categories that diminish their subjectivity, such as instances of sexual spectacle or revealing costumes, outweigh any points they earn from categories that award them more subjectivity, such as protection/rescuing others. The male characters hold double or triple the scores of their female counterparts, which perfectly highlights the gendered division of the attributes that inform subjectivity. By allowing superbeing characters to transcend gender dichotomy and engage with the full human spectrum of emotion and wellbeing, we could celebrate people as fully human and disrupt the gender normativity that maintains inequality. / Master of Science / Marvel and DC Comics are two of the most popular comic book companies in the US. They are responsible or the creation of well-known characters such as Superman and Iron Man. Within the last few decades the comics because popular film franchises. Both companies release several films every year from their respective cinematic universes. These are highly grossing movies and popular enough to have character costumes produced for purchase. Popular cultural phenomenon such as these film franchises provides an opportunity to study social topics such as gender inequality and heteronormativity. This study focuses on the on-screen depictions of these superbeing characters in order to establish a connection between gender and subjectivity in these super-human bodies. Subjectivity, defined by Iris Marion Young’s conceptualization of a feminist phenomenology uses the themes of motivated action, violence and protection, and sexual spectacle to determine if there is a gendered difference in the ways these characters are able to be super and how that impacts their overall subjectivity level. The data supports the theory that male superbeing character are allowed to be full subjects who are able to act upon the world while female superbeing characters are still relegated to the sphere of objectification.

A love ethic is the ground of agency and subjectivity for both men and women, and mutuality is the heart of love. Many feminist scholars are working to articulate and understand love by examining women's identity and language. In this thesis, I explore a language used for love and desire through theoretical examination and poetic expression. Using a dialectical relationship between the text and the reader, this project demonstrates that mutual love depends on access to language that can express love and sexuality. Three central texts are used: 'All About Love: New Visions' by bell hooks, 'I Love to You: Sketch of a Possible Felicity in History' by Luce Irigaray and 'Love Lyrics from the Bible: The Song of Songs, a New Translation' by Marcia Falk. In six sections of theoretic analysis and poetry, I show that female subjectivity and agency are conditions for mutuality in both love and sexuality.