This dissertation presents an historical overview of the interdependent representations of gender, class, ethnicity, race, nationality, sexuality, and (dis)ability in a selection of films and first-person written autobiographical texts from the 1940s to the early twenty-first century. Cinematic and written autobiographical representations of “mental illness” reflect and shape various models of psychological trauma and wellness. I explore the ways that these two genres of representation underscore, exert influence upon, and interrogate socio-cultural understandings and interpretations of deviance and normalcy, madness and sanity, and pathology and health. Some models of health and illness carry more ideological weight than others, and thus differentially contour public policy formation and the materiality of people’s daily lives. My project is distinct from other kinds of scholarship on the subject of women’s “madness.” Whereas scholarship has been written on “madness” and cinema, and on “madness” and autobiography, this related academic work has not consistently drawn linkages between multiple genres or utilized interdisciplinary methodologies to critically explore texts. Feminist scholars who address the interconnections between autobiographies and cinematic representations often pay only limited attention to psychiatric survivors. I draw parallels and distinctions between these genres, based upon my training in social work, cultural studies, film and autobiography theory, medical and linguistic anthropology, and disability studies. My perspective hinges upon my longstanding involvement with and commitment to the subject of women’s “madness” in both personal and professional arenas.

My main purpose with this paper of John Steinbecks Of mice and men is to both analyze the long-lived structures and the unique individual destinies of the novel. I employ the method of the historical Annales-movement and use three divided levels in my analysis to try to capture these high structures and low moments of humanity in Structure, Konjuncture and the Individuality. The first level, Structure, is used to see how long-lived almost invisible geographic structures set the human act of condition. The second level, Konjuncture, is easier to grasp in understanding of time and embraces for example economic structures as the industrialism. The last level of Individuality is the fastest in time and easiest to understand but in the long run also the least important. Humans are controlled by structures and norms. I try to inspect what these three levels look like in Of Mice and Men and how they affect each other and the main characters of the novel. I make use of Foucault and Butler in the Konjuncture-level to explore how power, production and discourse create structures that affects the working man and the “non-working” woman in Of Mice and Men. I adopt Butler to see how Steinbeck creates gender through clothes and working tools. In the Indivual-level we can see the effects of the other levels in the characters actions. For example how their sexual preferences are effects of the power-structure of the production (Rubin and Foucault), how a society see images of filth or purity when someone differ from the norm (Douglas and Foucault) and how we sacrifice one member of the social group to contain stability when chaos threatens (Girard).

The purpose of this essay is to examine the construction of the norm-breaking characters Saga from the young adult novel Tusen gånger starkare written by Christina Herrström and Pippi Longstocking from the books written by Astrid Lindgren. In order to do this I have applied queer theory as well as theories of narrative in my analysis. To be able to study the breaking of norms, it has been essential to first examine the way the norm itself is manifested in the books. Because of this I have chosen to begin my analysis with an examination of two other characters who by their normative behavior contrasts against Pippi and Saga, namely Signe and Annika. The understanding of the normative discourse that Signe and Annika represent is crucial in understanding the way Saga and Pippi later turn against it. After that I examine in which ways Saga and Pippi breaks prevalent norms and how they as characters are constructed as being different. Subsequently I study the effects of Saga’s and Pippi’s norm-breaking, taking focus on how it influences Signe and Annika. Finally I discuss the view of Saga and Pippi as subversive characters, and however the books can be said to have a subversive effect. Even though the norms are revealed as arbitrary through Saga’s and Pippi’s behavior, the books about Pippi as well as Tusen gånger starkare send out a clear message about what the expectations of normative behavior look like.

Syftet med denna uppsats är att studera vilka familjekonstellationer som barnen möter i barnlitteraturen på förskolan. För att undvika en alltför generell tolkning av representerade familjeformer i litteraturen är vi likaledes intresserade av hur dessa framställs. Både kvantitativ och kvalitativ metod finner vi lämplig då vi avser att göra innehållsanalyser av litteraturen. Enbart en undersökning av barnböckerna visar inte pedagogernas utgångspunkt i arbetet med familjen eller hur den analyserade barnlitteraturen egentligen används samt väljs ut på förskolorna. Därför kompletterar vi våra litteraturstudier med kvalitativa intervjuer med pedagoger i verksamheten. Vår teoretiska utgångspunkt under samtliga analyser är det normkritiska perspektivet som har rötter i såväl poststrukturalismen som i queerteorin. Resultaten från vår kvantitativa litteraturstudie visar att alla familjekonstellationer förutom regnbågsfamiljen finns representerad i barnlitteraturen. De vanligast förkommande familjeformerna är kärnfamilj tätt följd av ensamstående/skild mamma och pappa. Vidare finner vi en spännvidd i det empiriska materialet under den kvalitativa litteraturstudien. Familjekonstellationerna framställs på olika vis i barnböckerna. Dock påträffar vi ett heteronormativt drag gällande hur kärnfamiljen skildras i barnlitteraturen. En familj är mamma, pappa, barn och denna kategori utesluter således alternativa diskurser gällande sexualitet. Angående hur barnböckerna används och väljs ut på förskolorna samt vilken utgångspunkt pedagogerna har i sitt arbete med familjen, kan vi bland annat konstatera att en utgångspunkt som samtliga förskollärare har är att utgå från den barngrupp som man har framför sig. Valen sker beroende på vem man frågar såväl medvetet som omedvetet. Samtliga pedagoger berättar att de använder sig av barnlitteraturen dagligen vid gemensam högläsning efter lunch samt i temaarbeten och vi upptäcker tre olika sätt att behandla litteraturen på förskolan. En av förskollärarna tittar på vad boken förmedlar och ändrar ibland innehållet, en annan läser litteraturen rakt av och en tredje anpassar texten.

Bill C-31 represents an important piece of policy in the history of Canadian citizenship. It takes its place in a dialog of policy and resistance about who ‘gets in’ and who is excluded from Canadian citizenship. By critically reading the text of Bill C-31 through other policy texts, academic arguments and research, and activist texts, this analysis elucidates historical connections between relations of capital, immigration, labour, and the criminal justice system. It works from a materialist feminist framework, critical of race, gender, class, and sexual orientation as systems that work through one another in dialectical and historically specific ways. The analysis argues that Bill C-31 is a continuation of relations of capital and that a dialectical conceptualization can yield strategies for a revolutionary praxis that offers hope for the transformation of existing social relations towards new and more humane ways of relating to one another.

The aim of the present study is to theoretically ground and practically present how the sexual identity of homosexual individuals is constructed through the language they use in an American TV series Queer as Folk. Since the LGBT (Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) individuals have become a more visible group in the present-day society both in Lithuania and abroad, it is natural that there is a certain degree of interest in the lives of non-heterosexual people, their customs, communication patterns, the relationship among themselves as well as the relationship between them and the heterosexual, heteronormative society around them. One of the most recent branches of linguistics researches the peculiarities of the speech and speaking patterns of homosexual individuals. This study is a humble attempt to look, at least superficially, at this new branch of linguistics which has not yet been research in Lithuania. The thesis is divided into two separate parts: the first part of the thesis, the theoretical part, deals with aspects of alternative human sexualities and explains some sociological aspects of homosexuality. Also, some basic features of the Lithuanian and American LGBT communities are presented. This part theoretically covers the link between sexual identity and language. Theoretical part also presents earlier research carried out by scholars in the fields of sociolinguistics, sexuality and sociology. Also explained are the gay communication strategies, according to... [to full text] / Šio darbo tikslas – teoriškai pagrįsti ir pristatyti kaip homoseksualių žmonių identitetas, jų lytinė tapatybė, yra konstruojama per kalbą amerikiečių televizijos seriale Queer as Folk. Homoseksualūs asmenys šiandieninėje visuomenėje, tiek Lietuvoje, tiek užsienyje, tapo pakankamai matoma grupė, todėl natūralu, kad kyla susidomėjimas homoseksualių žmonių gyvenimo, bendravimo, jų tarpusavio santykių bei santykių su kitais heteroseksualios ir heteronormatyvios visuomenės nariais ypatumais. Viena iš naujausių lingvistikos mokslo šakų tiria homoseksualių žmonių kalbėsenos ir kalbos vartojimo ypatumus. Šis darbas – tai kuklus bandymas bent paviršutiniškai pažvelgti į šią naują lingvistikos mokslo šaką, kol kas netyrinėtą Lietuvoje. Studija yra padalyta į dvi dalis: pirmojoje, teorinėje dalyje apie alternatyviąsias seksualines tapatybes aiškinami kai kurie homoseksualumo sociologiniai aspektai, bei bendrais bruožais pristatomos Lietuvos ir Jungtinių Valstijų homoseksualų bendruomenės. Taip pat teoriškai grindžiama seksualinio identiteto ir kalbos sąveika. Teorinėje dalyje pristatomi anksčiau atlikti mokslininkų tyrimai sociolingvistikos, seksologijos ir sociologijos srityse bei paaiškinamos gėjų komunikacijos strategijos, kuriomis remiantis praktinėje dalyje šifruojami homoseksualių asmenų bendravimo ypatumai. Praktinėje šio darbo dalyje pristatomas 2010 m. balandžio mėn. Vytauto Didžiojo universitete atliktas studentų požiūrio į homoseksualumą tyrimas bei analizuojama medžiaga... [toliau žr. visą tekstą]

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Cette dissertation propose un nouveau récit des expériences de William Faulkner à Hollywood afin de réévaluer la deuxième moitié de son œuvre de fiction. Dans ses premiers projets de scénarios de films, Faulkner a choisi d’adapter des œuvres de fiction qu’il avait publiées antérieurement. À la lumière de l’utilisation du genre —autant des films que des personnes— par les studios d’Hollywood pour organiser la production et le marketing des films, la fiction de Faulkner apparut soudainement comme perverse et ses représentations de la masculinité comme homoérotiques. Dans les premiers jets de Turn About et de War Birds, Faulkner s’approprie les normes du genre hollywoodien pour nier ces connotations sexuelles. Ses révisions ultérieures révèlent un recul systématique par rapport à la perversité d’Hollywood et au genre du woman’s film, au profit de la performance de la masculinité propre aux war pictures. Ses révisions réimaginent également des matériaux qui sont au cœur de son œuvre de fiction. Quand il se remet à écrire de la fiction, Faulkner répète cette approche narrative dans des nouvelles telles que “Golden Land” et “An Odor of Verbena,” deux récits qui rompent avec les pratiques et le style de ses premières fictions majeures. Les conséquences découlant de cette influence hollywoodienne—une volonté d’éradiquer toute connotation sexuelle, l’adoption authentique plutôt qu’ironique du mélodrame générique, et une rhétorique morale explicitement construite comme une négation d’Hollywood—se manifestent plus tard dans des textes aussi divers que The Reivers, Compson Appendix, ou son discours de réception du Prix Nobel. Vues sous cet angle, les dernières fictions de Faulkner deviennent une composante essentielle de son œuvre, fournissant une base nouvelle pour réexaminer la place des genres narratifs populaires, du genre et de la sexualité dans son cycle de Yoknapatawpha. / This dissertation offers a new narrative of William Faulkner’s Hollywood experiences and uses it to initiate a reevaluation of his middle and late fiction. In his earliest screenplay projects, Faulkner chose to adapt his previously published fiction. Read in light of Hollywood studios’ reliance on gender and genre to organize film production and marketing, this fiction suddenly appeared perverse; its portraits of masculinity, homoerotic. In his draft screenplays for Turn About and War Birds Faulkner appropriates Hollywood genre norms to negate these sexual connotations. His revisions reveal a pattern of recoil from Hollywood perversity and the woman’s film; and of an embrace of the war picture’s performance of masculinity. They also re-imagine materials central to Faulkner’s ongoing fictional project. Faulkner later repeats this pattern of response in such stories as “Golden Land” and “An Odor of Verbena,” both of which break from the defining practices and styles of his earlier, major fiction. The consequences that follow from this Hollywood influence—an effort to extinguish sexual connotation, an authentic rather than ironic embrace of generic melodrama, and a moral rhetoric explicitly constructed as a negation of Hollywood—later manifest in texts as diverse as The Reivers, the Compson Appendix, and the Nobel Prize acceptance speech. Viewed in this light, the late fictions become an essential component of his oeuvre, offering a new site for re-examining the place of popular genre , gender and sexuality in the Yoknapatawpha saga.

Bill C-31 represents an important piece of policy in the history of Canadian citizenship. It takes its place in a dialog of policy and resistance about who ‘gets in’ and who is excluded from Canadian citizenship. By critically reading the text of Bill C-31 through other policy texts, academic arguments and research, and activist texts, this analysis elucidates historical connections between relations of capital, immigration, labour, and the criminal justice system. It works from a materialist feminist framework, critical of race, gender, class, and sexual orientation as systems that work through one another in dialectical and historically specific ways. The analysis argues that Bill C-31 is a continuation of relations of capital and that a dialectical conceptualization can yield strategies for a revolutionary praxis that offers hope for the transformation of existing social relations towards new and more humane ways of relating to one another.

The thesis aims to produce a reconsideration of the queer spaces articulated in 1980s and 1990s literary criticism through the corporealising theory of gender and sexuality in the recent development of Australian material feminism and Rita Felski‟s idea of transient time. It particularly focuses on interpretations of transgender characters in critical readings of Renaissance drama and contemporary fiction. The academic fields investigated are thus late twentieth-century Renaissance criticism of gender and sexuality, late twentieth-century queer interpretations of transgenderism and transgender characters in contemporary literature, contemporary transgender studies and material feminist theory. Chapter 1 introduces a queer space articulated by discourses of gender and sexuality in 1980s and 1990s criticism of Renaissance drama. It concludes that the historical methodology of the critics is flawed and that the idea of Renaissance queerness is built as a contrast to late twentieth-century queerness. Chapter 2 is a reconsideration of the Renaissance anatomical sources used by the canonical critics introduced in the previous chapter. It establishes that the queer idea of sex and gender developed through these should rather be read in light of the more corporeal Renaissance discourse of monstrosity. Chapter 3 reconsiders the transgender characters in Shakespeare‟s Twelfth Night and As You Like It and introduces a reading of Middleton and Dekker‟s The Roaring Girl from a point of view that introduces Renaissance sexual monstrosity as a formation of corporealised though flexible gender subjectivity. Chapter 4 introduces a late twentieth-century queer space partly articulated in relation to the Renaissance queer space. It critiques the theoretical foundations of late twentieth-century queer theory, introducing transgender responses to „queering‟ readings of transgender bodies, as well as queer theorists‟ own attempts to narrativise themselves as points of incoherence in Butler‟s model and introduces a corporealising material feminist perspective of gender subjectivity as a more accommodating alternative. Chapter 5 reconsiders queer readings of transgender characters in Angela Carter‟s The Passion of New Eve. It concludes that the novel has been evaluated from a queer perspective and that it offers a more interesting comment on sex and gender if read from a material feminist point of view. Chapter 6 discusses John Cameron Mitchell‟s Hedwig and the Angry Inch as one transgender narrative that has been critiqued by transgender academia and Gore Vidal‟s Myra Breckinridge as a transgender narrative that has been approved. It analyses and critiques the reasons for the texts‟ reception and formulates a new poetics of corporeal gender based on the idea of nomadic gender subjectivity developed in the works of the Australian school of material feminists. The thesis finally exchanges a queer reading of transgender characters for a nomadic corporeal reading that better accommodates the historical discourses surrounding the Renaissance material, the literary content of the contemporary fiction, and the idea of transgender identity as it is considered in transgender studies.