How did Late Antiquity’s societies articulate their identities? This dissertation is a study of the construction of textual identities, as revealed by an analysis of Origen’s Paulinism which aimed to construct Christian identity in the third century CE. I have chosen extracts from Origen’s exegesis of Paul, found primarily in one text, his Commentary on Romans, as resources for my examination of identity issues. This text is an extremely helpful example of a deliberate fashioning of Christian identity through Origen’s joint use of Hellenistic paideia and the Bible. Pierre Bourdieu’s notion of habitus provides a helpful lens in decoding Origen’s and Hellenistic texts. Using habitus, the focus is on the rhetoric of identity formation through the fabric of the cultural, social, political, ideological, and literary contexts of Origen’s world. The study is more descriptive than polemical. The Greek paideia provides an immediate background to Late Antiquity’s concept of identity formation. The extant literature of the period comprised the fundamental vehicles of self–definition. This concept of fashioning identity through the construction of texts presents numerous difficulties for the contemporary reader. I will show that Origen used Greco–Roman moral philosophy and rhetoric in interpreting Paul. In seeking Origen’s notion of Christian identity, Origen’s reading of Romans is shaped by strategies of self–scrutiny and self–formation. Although Origen modifies the Greco–Roman moral philosophies—such as the notion of self–control, transformational narratives, and rhetoric deployment in his exegesis—much of the shared cultural and literary background remains. Using the Hellenistic nuances of self–control and rhetoric, Origen shows his audience a distinct picture of what a transformed, mature believer should look like, the humanitas. The transformation that a believer underwent resulted in a new or intensified form of piety with consequent changes in social affiliations, relations and loyalties. He also uses different descriptions —“new man,” “inner man” and “perfect”—to identify the mature transformed believers. This believer is the humanitas, the much sought after identity, with the milieu of the third century C.E. He attempted to create a body of knowledge and to utilize it for the preparation of a strong Christian identity in the midst of the pressures and temptations of the hegemonic Roman Empire and the pervasive Greco–Roman culture. Along with the paideia, the Roman Empire nurtured and challenged Origen’s Paulinism. The Roman Empire did not require individuals, or even communities, to adopt for themselves a distinctly Roman identity to the exclusion of all others. Yet, everyone was required to worship the genus of the Emperor. The Roman identity transformed the Greek–barbarian dichotomy into an imperial ideology which claimed Roman supremacy over all other cultures and people. This usurpation of other societies by the Romans is an inverted mirror image of Origen’s usurpation of Rome’s Romanitas or humanitas through his Paulinism. Thus, he is to be seen constructing identity through shared forms of symbolic and linguistic construction which were readily available within his socio–political reality. / Thesis (Ph.D. (Church and Dogma History))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2012.

This qualitative inquiry uses a life history prospective approach to investigate the social context in which adolescent girls’ sexual feelings emerge and in which girls’ sexual experiences occur. Nine adolescent girls were interviewed at two points in time during their adolescence and themes from their narratives were analyzed with respect to their experiences with sexuality. It appears that peers, family members, and sexual/dating partners have a major effect on both, girls’ sexual experiences and their connection with their sexual feelings. Prospective analysis revealed that over time, the social contexts of adolescent girls became more complex and girls became exposed to increasingly contradictory messages about what they should do and feel and behave. Girls appeared to have internalized the social messages around sexuality, which was evident through how girls talked about sexuality and through girls’ direct reports that their decisions were affected by the social and familial implications of their decisions.

Powerful people perform observable agentic behaviors (e.g., directing tasks), and people expect powerful people to act in these agentic ways. Furthermore, Role Congruity Theory predicts that people are disliked when their behavior contradicts such expectations. To this end, we examined perceivers’ romantic liking for opposite-sex targets depending on whether or not the targets conformed to a powerful role. Participants interacted with two opposite-sex partners in brief, recorded sessions. We manipulated (a) which of the opposite-sex partners was actually given power and (b) participants’ perceptions of which opposite-sex partners was given power. Participants reported the most romantic liking for partners who actually were given power, but only when this reality matched participants’ perceptions of who had power. This interaction effect on liking was mediated by the time the opposite-sex partner directed the conversation; that is, when perceptions of power were shared, the powerful partner behaved more agentically and was better liked.

The goal of this research was to explore how young women make meaning of early experiences of sexual desire, and how these experiences contribute to the development of their sexual selves. The development of the sexual self is one of the fundamental building blocks to adulthood for adolescents, but there are many strong and some diametrically opposing viewpoints on how the discussion around sexuality should be framed. Much of the literature has focused on the health risks and social consequences of sexual activity, such as unintended pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections (Brook, Brook, Rubenstone, Zhang & Rivera, 2010) with less examination of the positive aspects of this phenomenon (e.g. pleasure, respect, emotional connection). In 1988, Michelle Fine opened a dialogue with adolescent women about their experience of and opinions about sexual desire, attempting to shed light on the consequences of suppressing this discourse, including disconnection from their physical selves, possible victimization, and a denial of pleasure. In the last two decades, there has been interest in the concept of sexual desire and its role in the development of sexual subjectivity. Sexual subjectivity is particularly important in the lives of young women, who live, work and learn in a patriarchal society which objectifies their bodies and sexual identities (Levy, 2005; Tolman, 2002a). I interviewed 5 women (19-25 years old) about how they make meaning of their early experiences of sexual desire and how this contributes to the development of their sense of sexual selfhood. I recruited participants using posters placed across a university campus to facilitate interest. I used interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) as developed by Smith, Flowers and Larkin (2012) to understand how participants perceive their experiences to have influenced their feelings and ideas about their sexual desires. My study design also addressed how they retrospectively view early experiences and understandings of sexual desire to have contributed to the development of their sexual identities. In my interviews I also employed the listening guide developed by Gilligan (1982) and Brown and Gilligan (1991). Analysis revealed an overarching theme of unlocking desire with trust and connection, as well as superordinate themes of exploring desire through fantasy and imagination, the power of desire, the spectrum of desire and reflections on lived experiences of female desire. The current research study will be discussed in relation to previous literature (e.g. commonalities, distinctions, its strengths and weaknesses). Finally, future directions for the research, as well as implications for counselling practice, will be elucidated.

Thesis (M. Phil.)--University of Hong Kong, 2008. / Also available in print.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2008. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.A.)--Brandeis University, 2009. / Title from PDF title page (viewed on June 29, 2009). Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (B.A.)--Haverford College, Dept. of Psychology, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (D. Min.)--New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, 2000. / Includes abstract and vita. "July 2000." Includes bibliographical references (leaves 145-150).

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Hong Kong, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 35-37). Also available in print.