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Previous analyses of the history of the innovation and commodification of menstrual hygiene products largely subscribe to the misconception that the establishment of the industry was begun in the early years of the 20th century. This research firmly relocates the decisive development of this industry to the inception of Southall's Antiseptic and Absorbant Pad in Britain in 1880. Following analysis of the imperatives of menstrual management in the mid-19th century, consideration is given to the origins of the commodification of menstruation, its vital early promotional culture and the rapid development of an established competitive commercial context within an effective industrial infrastructure. Product development and diversification are considered through to the maturation of the industry prior to the First World War. These events are considered within a historically based interdisciplinary approach employing a historical and cultural analysis to develop a fuller understanding of the issues that are explored. The industrial and cultural encoding of menstrual objects within promotional discourse is seen to reconstruct Victorian menstrual etiquette; positioning objects of menstrual management in the establishment of new hygienic protocols and brand loyalty through an emphasis on issues of social transformation, technical innovation, medical certification and discretion. The presentation and interpretation of contemporary source material facilitate a reconstruction of accepted histories and contribute to a new understanding of early menstrual communication strategies.

This research outlines the theoretical positions of Pierre Bourdieu's structuralist constructivism and Fredrik Barth's generative transactional ethnic process in relation to social practices, identity constructions and community formations of first generation migrant Muslims and Latina/Hispanic groups. It is proposed that although each theory appears to oppose the other, they can be synthesised to form a reflexive, mutually supportive and flexible discursive theoretical framework that can be effectively applied to the process of migration and its resultant social formations. The research theoretically considers the social delineation of such groups, the internal processes of group formation, and the significance of wider points of identity and belonging within group construction. It is found that the experiential process of migration is only made meaningful in relation to the current social world that both groups exist within and the subjective meanings of individuals collected within each group. Such subjective elements of knowledge often focus upon points of origin and current manifestations of identity. The research is based upon 12 months of residential fieldwork using methods of participant observation and various forms of interviewing.

This thesis constructs an analysis of the representation of blood in a selection of American films. This analysis does not aim to construct a representative theory of blood, rather, it examines discrete instances and certain relationships between a mainstream discourse of blood and various resistances presented by women film directors. In particular these films present critical approaches to blood at the level of mise-en-scene. The specific presentation of blood works in ways that resist a realist and masculinist tradition that codes blood as a marker of the feminine. An analysis of blood in mise-en-scene is used to reflect upon wider questions of narrative. I use this methodology in the absence of film criticism identifying blood as a specific object of extended analysis. Three theoretical essays form a general backdrop to the project: Barbara Creed's influential study of horror, The Monstrous Feminine: Film, Feminism, Psychoanalysis, where blood indicates abjection, castration and the femme castratrice; Steve Neale's essay 'Masculinity as Spectacle' that reads blood as indicating disavowed homoeroticism and doomed narcissism in the Western; and Teresa de Lauretis's essay 'Desire in Narrative' where blood is a marker of the story of the mythological male subject. I isolate two films; Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho (1960) and Martin Scorsese's 'Taxi Driver'(1976) as inaugurating certain mainstream aesthetics of libidinal violence. Blood here is the paint of penetration and distorted pleasure, however blood also serves to erase a female narrative. In the three films that form the focus of the project, blood is frequently an intertextual key that undoes the overdetermined patterns it speaks to. Bette Gordon's Variety (1983) and Kathryn Bigelow's Blue Steel (1990) evoke scenes from Taxi Driver and Psycho. In Variety sex and blood are the red herrings to an open ended investigation into the scene of pornography. Blue Steel explores the allure of the gun for a female protagonist while detaching the gun from blood as libidinal. While both Variety and Blue Steel intervene into existing structures and genres, Maya Deren's Meshes of the Afternoon (1943) is an experimental film and defines itself in opposition to Hollywood cinema. However, this film serves as a postscript to the project in its poetic displacement of mise-en-scene and a female subject position. This film speaks to de Lauretis's concerns in 'Desire in Narrative' in its evocation of the myth of Perseus from the Medusa's point of view. Blood functions as a literal condensation of dreamed and lived events: it is ambivalent realisation of woman's figuration within cinematic myth.

My thesis examines the discourse which has encoded the dingo since it arrived in Australia nearly five thousand years ago. While post-colonial theory has exposed the ideological structures and material practices which position indigenous peoples as "other" to the colonisers, most scholars have remained curiously silent when it comes to nonhumans. Animals now stand as the ultimate "other", denied a subjective life of their own, for their behaviour is usually read, as Helen Tiffin argues, "as having primary (and exclusive) significance for humans." The project of this thesis is to examine the narratives within which Australians have "trapped" their dingoes. My methodology takes as its starting point Foucault's theories which connect discourse and power. The thesis is divided into three sections; Colonial Discourses, Aboriginal Dreaming and Contemporary Configurations. The colonial section asks how discourse forces the dingo to represent human fears and failings. I argue that a denigrating discourse is used to justify the ill treatment of the dingo, that discourse reveals little about the "real" dingo, and that there are similarities in the discursive treatment of dingoes and Aborigines. The thesis also acknowledges the dingo's attempts to slip through the gaps in the discourse "fence". The second section researches traditional Aboriginal myths of the Dreaming Dingo. By encouraging the dingo to trot back to happier times, I allow the reader to step back also and assess Aboriginal representations of the dingo, arguing that these are based on an empirical knowledge of its habits and nature. I contend that in contrast to a colonial discourse based on difference, the Aboriginal narratives assume similarities to animals and the potential for crossovers. This section argues that a pragmatic Dreaming Dingo teaches humans to live harmoniously and cautiously in an environment which is both nurturing and dangerous. Finally the dingo returns to the trail and trots into a place where practical knowledge of wilderness is negligible. The contemporary section of this thesis argues that in their longing to claim the dingo and its wildness for their emotional and spiritual needs, urban Australians generate a confused, incompatible and ignorant mix of colonial and Dreaming Discourse. The dingo in the National Park is required to carry an impossible discourse and it fails - biting the hands which feed it. "Bringing the Dingo Home" reflects an exciting time as one more "other' breaks "the deafening silence" described by Wolch and Emel, and demands a position in post-colonial discourse. At last the discourse of the dingo can be foregrounded and its misrepresentations can be redressed.

‘Bitch: the Politics of Angry Women’ investigates the scholarly challenges and strengths in re theorising popular culture and feminism. It traces the connections and schisms between academic feminism and the feminism that punctuates popular culture. By tracing a series of specific bitch trajectories, this thesis accesses an archaeology of women’s battle to gain power. Feminism is a large and brawling paradigm that struggles to incorporate a diversity of feminist voices. This thesis joins the fight. It argues that feminism is partly constituted through popular cultural representations. The separation between the academy and popular culture is damaging theoretically and politically. Academic feminism needs to work with the popular, as opposed to undermining or dismissing its relevancy. Cultural studies provides the tools necessary to interpret popular modes of feminism. It allows a consideration of the discourses of race, gender, age and class that plait their way through any construction of feminism. I do not present an easy identity politics. These bitches refuse simple narratives. The chapters clash and interrogate one another, allowing difference its own space. I mine a series of sites for feminist meanings and potential, ranging across television, popular music, governmental politics, feminist books and journals, magazines and the popular press. The original contribution to knowledge that this thesis proffers is the refusal to demarcate between popular feminism and academic feminism. A new space is established in which to dialogue between the two.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1981. / Typescript. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references.

Häxjakten på Miley Cyrus: en tesdrivande uppsats vars syfte är att bevisa den samhälleliga tendensen att provoceras av avvikelser från hur kön och genus normalt görs i populärkulturen. Materialet består av Miley Cyrus hitsingel We Can't Stop, samt dess musikvideo. Uppsatsen har en retorisk metodik, med utgångspunkt i Fanny Ambjörnssons definition av queer, samt de teorier som Judith Butler, med flera, tidigare lanserat.

This study seeks to understand what kink is, exploring this question using narratives and experiences of gay and bisexual men who engage in kink in the UK. In doing so, contemporary understandings of the gay kinky subcultures in the UK are provided. It discusses the role of the internet for these subcultures, highlighting the use of socio-sexual networking sites. It also recognises the existence of kink dabblers who engage in kink activities, but do not immerse themselves in kink communities. A qualitative analysis is used consisting of semi-structured in-depth interviews with 15 individuals who identify as part of a kink subculture and 15 individuals who do not. Participants were recruited through a mixture of kinky and non-kinky socio-sexual networking sites across the UK. Complimenting this, the author attended kink events throughout the UK and conducted participant observations. The study draws on subcultural theory, the leisure perspective and social constructionism to conceptualise how kink is practiced and understood by the participants. It is one of the first to address the gap in the knowledge of individuals who practice kink activities but who do so as a form of casual leisure, akin to other hobbies, as well as giving due attention to the increasing presence and importance of socio-sexual networking sites and the Internet more broadly for kink subcultures. Community and non-community members were shown to possess similarities as well as distinct differences. The Internet was shown to play a significant role in all participants’ kink narratives. The research calls for further explorations of different aspects of the UK kink subculture which recognises the important role of the Internet for kink practitioners in shaping both the offline and online kink communities. The study also calls for research related to kink practitioners who are not embedded within subcultural kink communities.

金庸自一九五五年在新晚報開始連載第一篇武俠小說《書劍恩仇錄》，至一 九七○年封筆作《鹿鼎記》，共創作了十五部小說。這十五部小說在華人世界中 歷久不衰，更引起不少討論。一九八四年，台灣遠景出版社出版了一系列「金 學研究叢書」，「金學」一詞正式出現。最初，討論金庸作品都以短小的筆記型 文章為主，集中在閱讀金著的感受、討論書中情節和人物等。一九八○年代末 開始，「金學」己成為學術界的熱門研究課題，有大學更主辦「金庸小說學術研 討會」，與會者多為享負盛名的學者，最近更出現了所謂「金庸學」(Jinyonology) 一詞。「金學研究集」發行人王榮文認為金庸「極有可能在有生之年看到其作品 「經典化」的完成，這真是古今中外作家們少有的幸運」。王德威在《金庸小說 國際學術研討會論文集》的序言中亦提到：「本書的出版，無疑為金庸作品經典 化發展，再下一城。」 這情況在當代華文創作圈中非常罕有，實在是一個值得深思的文化現象。 金庸小說能發展到現在成為「經典」，內在原因當然是其小說本身的確是不可多 得的好作品。然而，這並不是唯一，甚至不是最重要的原因，外在的文化脈絡 因素發揮的作用更大。作為作者，金庸花了很大心力把自己的小說包裝成「經 典文學」呈現在讀者面前；另外，經過中國大陸、香港和台灣的學術界和文化 界不斷討論，金庸小說終於成為「經典」。然而，由於三地的政治文化環境不同， 金庸小說的經典化在中港台所經歷的道路也有很大差異。本論文的研究目的， 首先是分析金庸如何為其小說製造出一個「經典」形象，再進一步對金庸小說 不同的經典化過程作一疏理，從而探討其間三地在金學研究現象中所包涵的文 化政治意義。