Thesis (M.A.)--Rowan University, 2006. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.A.)--Rowan University, 2007. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.A.)--Rowan University, 2007. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (doctoral)--Lund University, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 332-346) and index.

Thesis--Emory University. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves [186]-190).

Thesis (M.A.)--Rowan University, 2009. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 1986. / Vita. Bibliography: leaves [278]-282.

No description available.

War-focused life-writing and the study of the female subject in a period where war had the potential to destabilise traditional women's roles and identities remains an under researched topic. This thesis focuses on how the self-representation of the lives of right wing women were discursively constructed and reflexively represented in relation to large scale political, social and economic contexts. It supports Passmore's view that by deconstructing the traditional binary position in which right-wing women found themselves, they 'are no longer seen simply as such as victims or victimisers, but as both simultaneously. This thesis draws upon the life-writing of four women who belonged to Franco's elite regime: Maria Rosa Urraca Pastor, Regina García, Pilar Millán Astray and Pilar Primo de Rivera and explores the (re)construction and reflexive representations of the self. It shows how they not only struggled to identify with one collective group, but adopted and shifted between different collective identities. It demonstrates how womanhood and motherhood were created, recreated, redefined and modified to become a politicised and patriotic idea of woman. It shows how these four women reconstructed a new (female) identity by adapting their femaleness and their expected role as women in order to achieve acceptance within the Francoist movement. This thesis shows the need to rethink the right-wing meaning of womanhood, motherhood, and female agency in contemporary scholarship.

This study presents an investigation into the process of constructing an autobiographical self within the genre of the autobiographical picture narrative, and explores this process both in terms of a theoretical study of this concept as well as an interpretation of a number of photographs. The interpretation entails a reading of selected autobiographical picture narratives by the artist-photographers Maggie Taylor and Lori Nix by means of a method derived from visual social semiotics. Specifically, the semiotic reading focuses on Taylor and Nix’s photographs Twilight swim (2004) and Ice Storm (1999), respectively, after which the researcher’s own autobiographical photograph entitled Fennel and coriander is read by means of the same methodological approach. The semiotic reading is guided by five salient characteristics of the autobiographical picture narrative, namely fabrication and reality, autobiographical memory, socio-cultural relevance, commonalities in female narration and narrative function. Harrison’s (2003) visual social semiotic framework (which reflects the work of social semioticians Kress and Van Leeuwen, 2002) was augmented in light of the five salient characteristics in order to construct an appropriate methodological framework. A comparative reading of the works by Taylor, Nix and the researcher reveals that although each of the artistphotographers followed a peculiar and unique approach in constructing the autobiographical picture narrative, parallels can be established in terms of various central concepts, as is evident from the semiotic reading. In particular, the role of memory and the interpretation of autobiographical elements emerged as common denominators. The process of constructing an autobiographical memory therefore provides the narrator-photographer with the options of escaping into and not from memory, thus allowing for unique possibilities in terms of interpretation, fantasy and construction.