This thesis is a discursive and historical analysis of the concept and usage of 'postfeminism' in contemporary feminist debates. The importance of the vocabulary used to frame these debates is demonstrated through a survey of popular feminist discourses in the 1920s, and the circulation of the term 'postfeminism' in 1980s and 1990s mainstream and feminist media, academic journals, and bestselling books. Foremost among these contexts are mainstream newspaper and magazine articles in which postfeminism is used as a descriptive term applied to trends in fashion, television and film. Through an investigation of the texts and contexts in which post feminism is used, associations to generational disparity, antifeminism, the 'death of feminism,' commercialism, and other 'post-' discourses such as postmodernism, will be illustrated. In the process, it will be demonstrated that feminism, as it is represented through discourses of postfeminism, resides in an area of cultural criticism which straddles the spheres of the academic and the popular.

The Italian literature which came to life in the Eighties broke with the tradition of the preceding period during which fiction was but a fertile ground for social criticism. Furthermore, the new literary scene came to be dominated mainly by unknown young writers, who had come of age in a decisively new and modern social setting in Italy. / This thesis aims at presenting the writers that make up most of the "Giovane Narrativa" of the Eighties. It also presents the main aspects of the social and economic development in Italy after the war and their relevance to this generation of young writers.

This study is an attempt to present the thought of Yusuf `Abd Allah al-Qarad&dotbelow;awi and his views on the Islamic awakening of the last two decades. Considered one of the contemporary world's leading moderate Islamic thinkers and activists, he has undertaken the mission to promote the idea of what he sees as a "true Islam," which he envisions as a moderate force that is all-encompassing in human life. An Egyptian, now living in Qatar, he leads a major stream within the Islamic movement today, the tayyar al-wasa&dotbelow;tiyah al-Islamiyah , which believes in the "inevitability of the Islamic solution." Al-Qarad&dotbelow;awi recommends a "long-term plan," seeking in the first place to transform individuals as a prelude towards changing society. The chief step toward accomplishing this mission involves renewing the religion by rediscovering Islam's soundest foundation and going back to its purest sources, i.e., the Qur'an and Sunnah, in addition to applying the "moderate" methodology of the salaf (early Muslim generation). Al-Qarad&dotbelow;awi employs this traditionalist methodology and the wasa&dotbelow;tiyah's ideology in his approach to guiding the Islamic awakening and to directing the Islamic movement in its particular fields of work (which include education, politics, social work, economics, jihad, the media and propaganda, and finally, thought and learning) out of a conviction that these domains represent the crucial issues facing the Muslim world today. Yet despite al-Qarad&dotbelow;awi's fondness for logical discourse, he is a victim of the tendency to make axiomatic statements, which in turn endangers the entire structure of his arguments and leads him into inconsistencies. Despite these problems, his moderate voice is a welcome corrective to some of the more extremist discourse of today.

The thesis offers an examination of the use of the Bible in Viens vers le Pere, a Catholic catechetical series published between 1964 and 1969 for use in the primary schools of Quebec. It enjoyed great popularity from the 1960s to the 1980s and was translated into several languages and used in some fourteen countries. The series places particular emphasis on the use of the Bible in catechesis. The thesis investigates the method of biblical interpretation underpinning these catechetical resources and constitutes the first indepth study of the series. Developments in educational psychology and Catholic theology from the first half of the $20 sp{ rm th}$ century influence the use and interpretation of the Bible in this series. The thesis concludes that the Bible and typical experiences of young children are exploited as a means for presenting and understanding doctrine. / From a hermeneutical perspective, the thesis offers an exercise in metacriticism. The thesis suggests an alternative to the exploitation of the Bible and the experiences of the audience as a means to clarify doctrine. It concludes that catechesis should engender a dialogue between the scriptural world and the child's world in hopes of an encounter which would elucidate both.

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