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Popular discourses and current government policy focus on the need for individuals and families to make healthy food choices, without acknowledging the social and cultural milieu in which these are embedded. A neo-liberal focus on responsible individualism is part of a middle class habitus that ensures foodwork and foodplay are located within distinct heteronormative cultural fields. In my thesis I explore narratives from seventy-five mainly middle class respondents who engaged in a series of asynchronous online interviews over nine months beginning in November 2010. The themes that emerged aligned with public policy debates on the family, healthy eating, eating disorders, ‘fat’ bodies and elite foodways. Hence, feeding the family ‘healthy’ meals ‘prepared from scratch’ was considered a means of acquiring social, symbolic and cultural capital. ‘Fat’ talk and ‘lipoliteracy’ or learning to read the body were ways of performing femininity, whilst elite foodways were utilised as forms of hegemonic masculinities. Hence, in a challenge to the individualisation thesis my research demonstrates the complexity of food relationships beyond individual consumer choice. Throughout I adopt an auto/biographical approach that stresses the interconnectedness of biography and autobiography, focuses on researcher reflexivity and is sensitive to respondent subjectivities. Respondents used a common vocabulary of individuality, whilst simultaneously embedding themselves in family and kinship relations. Indeed, family, gender, and class, were the means of anchorage in a sea of remembering that engendered a sense of ontological security. Foodways are, thus, part of a habitus that is gendered, classed, temporal and historical. Women in the study conformed to cultural scripts of heteronormative femininity, whilst men resorted to hegemonic masculinities to distance themselves from feminised foodways and care work. These identities were not part of a negotiated family model, but located in cultural fields that reinforced and naturalised gendered divisions, they were bound by gender and class.

In the winter of 2009, Barbie celebrated her 50th birthday. The occasion was marked with all the pageantry befitting a debutante, starlet, or modern-day princess. Lavish parties were hosted in her honour, and fashion models impersonated the doll on the catwalk. Luxury brands created limited edition Barbie products—from cosmetics to cars—to commemorate the milestone. And, at the height of the revelry, the plastic doll even underwent ‘plastic surgery’ in order to squeeze into a couture pair of birthday stilettos. Taking this distinctive cultural moment as its starting point, this thesis examines how the Barbie doll’s complex and indefatigable cultural presence is understood in Western popular culture. A range of media and industries engage with representations of the doll: advertising, consumer, and celebrity cultures; the fashion, beauty, and cosmetic surgery industries; music; reality television; social networking; and pornography. This thesis interrogates how these media and industries, and the discursive practices therein, reproduce images and narratives of Barbie as a uniform and idealised representation of white, affluent femininity in the West. However, as her birthday celebrations suggest, Barbie is also written as a ‘real’ girl. This thesis also interrogates this narrative of ‘realness’ as it helps to explain why the doll has remained relevant for over 50 years, while complicating readings of her position as a uniform cultural object. Moreover, while Barbie is being portrayed as a ‘real’ girl, popular culture narratives also present ‘becoming Barbie’ as an achievable goal for young women and girls. Motivating this research throughout is the question of how such a referential relationship reinforces and destabilises constructions of the feminine subject in our postmodern and posthuman times.

This thesis examines the extent to and the way in which the contemporary political and socio-cultural context of South Korea, a divided, postcolonial and Northeast Asian nation is embedded in the national media coverage of global sport events, especially the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. Attention is given to the implications of current state of international relations, politics and foreign policies between the R.O.K. and its geopolitical neighbours such as the U.S. and the D.P.R.K., Japan and China from the Northeast. The similarities and differences in the symbolic descriptions of Olympic athletes and delegates, and their achievements along with their identity markers such as national identity, regional identity, race and ethnicity are analysed. The global-national patterns and transformations in the power relations between hegemonic and ideological elements, such as nationalisms, racial/ethnic stereotypes, pan-Asian sentiments and Asianism, are examined. According to the characteristics of conservative or progressive, mainstream or sport-specific and print or television media coverage, the ways in which reporting style and tendency are distinctive from each other are clarified. Data was collected from newspapers and television coverage in the period of Beijing Olympic Games and a week before and after the Games. Media content analysis, including thematic analysis, discourse analysis and visual/image analysis, is used to analyse the data in both quantitative and qualitative terms. The theoretical frameworks of identity politics, contemporary cultural studies and figurational sociological concepts of personal pronouns and the established and outsiders are applied. The research findings discuss the twin process of increasing varieties and diminishing contrasts and homogenising and heterogenising tendencies in the globalisation process, which was evident in the South Korean media coverage of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games and its opening ceremony.

Cultural artifacts, such as language, survive and replicate by passing from mind to mind. Cultural evolution always proceeds by an inductive process, where behaviors are never directly copied, but reverse engineered by the cognitive mechanisms involved in learning and production. I will refer to this type of evolutionary change as inductive evolution and explain how this represents a broader class of evolutionary processes that can include both neutral and selective evolution. This thesis takes a mechanistic approach to understanding the forces of evolution underlying change in culture over time, where the mechanisms of change are sought within human cognition. I define culture as anything that replicates by passing through a cognitive system and take language as a premier example of culture, because of the wealth of knowledge about linguistic behaviors (external language) and its cognitive processing mechanisms (internal language). Mainstream cultural evolution theories related to social learning and social transmission of information define culture ideationally, as the subset of socially-acquired information in cognition that affects behaviors. Their goal is to explain behaviors with culture and avoid circularity by defining behaviors as markedly not part of culture. I take a reductionistic approach and argue that all there is to culture is brain states and behaviors, and further, that a complete explanation of the forces of cultural change can not be explained by a subset of cognition related to social learning, but necessarily involves domain-general mechanisms, because cognition is an integrated system. Such an approach should decompose culture into its constituent parts and explore 1) how brains states effect behavior, 2) how behavior effects brain states, and 3) how brain states and behaviors change over time when they are linked up in a process of cultural transmission, where one person's behavior is the input to another. I conduct several psychological experiments on frequency learning with adult learners and describe the behavioral biases that alter the frequencies of linguistic variants over time. I also fit probabilistic models of cognition to participant data to understand the inductive biases at play during linguistic frequency learning. Using these inductive and behavioral biases, I infer a Markov model over my empirical data to extrapolate participants' behavior forward in cultural evolutionary time and determine equivalences (and divergences) between inductive evolution and standard models from population genetics. As a key divergence point, I introduce the concept of non-binomial cultural drift, argue that this is a rampant form of neutral evolution in culture, and empirically demonstrate that probability matching is one such inductive mechanism that results in non-binomial cultural drift. I argue further that all inductive problems involving representativeness are potential drivers of neutral evolution unique to cultural systems. I also explore deviations from probability matching and describe non-neutral evolution due to inductive regularization biases in a linguistic and non-linguistic domain. Here, I offer a new take on an old debate about the domain-specificity vs -generality of the cognitive mechanisms involved in language processing, and show that the evolution of regularity in language cannot be predicted in isolation from the general cognitive mechanisms involved in frequency learning. Using my empirical data on regularization vs probability matching, I demonstrate how the use of appropriate non-binomial null hypotheses offers us greater precision in determining the strength of selective forces in cultural evolution.

This thesis explores how gender can affect experiences of health and illness, with the understanding that gender is constructed differently across the life course, and is mediated by 'race' and class relations in Britain. Research was conducted with a small sample of informants drawn from African-Caribbean community groups in east London, using focus groups and in-depth interviews. Findings are three-fold. First, participation in health research itself was problematic for informants, relating directly to their experiences of personal and institutional racism in Britain. Evidence showed that these experiences encouraged informants to use public accounts of health and illness when more structured research methods were used. In-depth interviews encouraged informants to develop more private accounts of their illness experiences. A second finding was that social relations and low social status were often implicated in private accounts as contributing factors to illness. Women and men felt that racialised experiences, especially in the workplace, were problematic for black people collectively. Older female informants also connected personal health problems to their efforts in fulfilling the more traditional expectations of women in the home, family and workplace. Finally there is evidence that women and men have developed a variety of strategies to mediate the impact that social circumstances may have on their health. Some strategies influenced the way that illness discourses themselves were constructed, whilst others focused on building self-esteem through Caribbean or Black identity, or through developing a sense of 'self. ' Besides these findings, the methodology of this study is discussed. This was developed in response to the sensitive nature of the racialised research context. Key concerns have been to develop trust and rapport with informants, and to offer them the opportunity to comment critically on this research project and its findings. It was felt that this approach enhanced the insight into informants' reporting and understandings of health and illness. Conclusions of this research have theoretical, methodological and policy implications. Most topical are implications relevant to east London's Health Action Zone strategy. There are specific recommendations for understanding the mental health needs for African-Caribbean communities, and for developing appropriate ways to involve these communities in this initiative and offering them better access to information.

Nous nous proposons de mettre en évidence le processus sociopolitique de construction d'une industrie cinématographique et audiovisuelle européenne en abordant la question par l'entrée des financements européens que sont MEDIA et Eurimages. Nous utilisons deux méthodes de travail complémentaires : une analyse des communiqués de presse européens sur les programmes de financement et leurs objectifs, et d'autre part une enquête par questionnaire auprès des producteurs européens du secteur.Plusieurs lignes de force se dégagent de cette réflexion. Il apparaît en effet que les financements européens pour ce secteur ont été une opportunité pour la création et l'implémentation d'une politique culturelle cinématographique. Mais en même temps, elle a favorisé la rentabilisation de tout un secteur industrialisé de la production culturelle. Cette dernière est mesurable avec des indicateurs économiques quantitatifs, mais peut aussi être mesurée avec des outils qualitatifs portant sur le rayonnement culturel, l'efficacité dans la cohésion européenne ou l'efficacité dans la construction d'une identité cinématographique européenne que nous suggérons comme perspective d'évolution.Les politiques sont entrés dans le jeu et ont valorisé l'industrie pour mieux financer la culture, puisque le domaine culturel est épineux à défendre.Il émerge aussi une répartition des producteurs en trois catégories. Les paneuropéens qui sont satisfaits, et même s'ils trouvent la procédure un peu lourde, ils n'y changeraient rien sur le fond. Les eurosceptiques, producteurs nationalistes qui s'isolent volontairement et qui dénigrent des fonds qu'ils ne connaissent pas. Les producteurs volontaires, qui souhaiteraient obtenir les fonds et faire des coproductions européennes, mais qui n'ont pas la taille critique requise pour y accéder. Enfin, cette recherche fait apparaître un cinéma européen pouvant se définir comme un conglomérat de nationalités européennes, dont les points forts sont justement la diversité culturelle, linguistique et esthétique, reconnue en dehors même du territoire européen. A travers la cinématographie et l'audiovisuel, l'Union Européenne se dote d'un imaginaire et d'une identité véhiculée à l'écran. On peut y distinguer une dominante culturelle forte : celle des films art et essai. Ils connaissent une bonne circulation transnationale, et une dominante socioculturelle et patrimoniale. Derrière le champ du cinéma et de l'audiovisuel se cache en réalité un enjeu d'une toute autre envergure : l'identité européenne, qui se fonde sur sa diversité, faite d'exceptions culturelles additionnées. Nous concluons en soulignant que l'Union Européenne se sert de l'industrie cinématographique et audiovisuelle comme prétexte pour construire et consolider un cinéma européen à partir des cinémas nationaux et de leurs spécificités. L'Europe finance la méthodologie de projet et la "technique" pour atteindre un but ultime : la création d'une cohésion européenne et par conséquent une identité, à travers le vecteur de l'imaginaire le plus puissant : le cinéma. Tout cela de manière subversive, afin d'avoir l'adhésion de l'ensemble des pays, qui conservent leurs prérogatives culturelles, protégeant l'Europe de la standardisation. / We intend to highlight the sociopolitical process of building an European film and audiovisual industry by addressing through the issue of European funds that areMEDIA and Eurimages. We use two complementary working methods : an analysis of the European pressreleases on funding programs and objectives, and also a questionnaire survey of European producers of the sector.Several main lines emerge from this reflection. It appears that European funding for the sector have been an opportunity for the creation and implementation of a cinematographic cultural policy. At the same time, it promoted an entire industrialized business area of cultural production. The latter is measured with quantitative economic indicators, but can also be measured with qualitative tools concerning the cultural influence, effectiveness in European cohesion or effectiveness in building a European cinematographical identity perspective that we suggest as evolution. Politicians entered the game and valued the industry in order to better finance culture, since the cultural field is difficult to defend. It also emerges a division of producers into three categories. The pan-European who are satisfied. Even if they find the procedure rather complicated, they would not change anything in substance. Eurosceptic, nationalist producers who voluntarilyisolate themselves and denigrate funds they do not know. Volunteers producers, that would like to obtain the funds and make European co-productions, but do not have the critical mass required for access. Finally, this research reveals an European cinema which can be defined as aconglomerate of European nationalities, whose strengths are precisely the cultural,linguistical and aesthetical diversity, recognized even outside of Europe.Through the cinematographical and audiovisual sector, the European Union adopts an imaginary and an identity conveyed on screen. A strong cultural dominance canbe distinguished : that of the arthouse films. They register a good transnational movement, and their socio-cultural heritage is prevailing. Behind the cinema and audiovisual field actually hides a challenge of a differents cale : the European identity, based on its diversity, made with added cultural exceptions.We conclude by emphasizing that the European Union is using cinematographicaland audiovisual industry as an excuse to build and consolidate an European cinemathrough national cinemas and their specificities. Europe is funding the project methodology and the “technique" to achieve the ultimate aim of creating anEuropean cohesion and there fore identity, through the vehicle of the most powerful imaginary : the film. All this in a subversive way in order to have the support of all countries which preserve their cultural prerogatives, protecting Europe fromstandardization.

The broad aim of this thesis is to demonstrate that the Victorian letter is more than the sum of its parts. By focusing on the archival collection of a gentry family from Derbyshire, it asserts that the material remains of a nineteenth-century letter are as important as the words and, as such, have a valuable contribution to make to the understanding of letters and letter writing culture of the period. Furthermore, throughout it is demonstrated that the nineteenth-century familial letter was important as an emotional and material object to both the reader and the sender but, as yet, is an undervalued tool in historical research. It argues against the dominant historical trend to read only the text of letters, and in so doing offers a model that can be adopted and adapted to investigate the nineteenth-century letter. The thesis applies James Daybell’s argument that, in order to understand an early modern manuscript, the historian must be directed both to the physical characteristics as well as to the social contexts of its composition, delivery, reception and latterly its archiving. By taking a case study approach, this thesis examines the unpublished nineteenth-century letters of the Turbutt family collection. Each chapter focusses on a particular aspect of letter writing which affords a greater understanding of the nineteenth-century letter as literary culture as well as material culture. Taking this approach uncovers a wide range of uses for the familiar letter and demonstrates that the letter was vital to the nineteenth-century Turbutt women of the Ogston estate. It is demonstrated that the Turbutt women used letters to perform their role as gentry women, to navigate courtship and the emotional and relational divide, and also determine how the letter writer used the material properties to their advantage and, if so, did the material and literary qualities of letters converge to further this. In so doing this thesis bridges the gap between text and materiality, two areas that have tended to be treated separately and, as such, it contributes to the scholarship of letter writing in the nineteenth century as both literary culture and material culture and also to the letter writing culture of nineteenth-century gentry women.

Household inventories record objects that can be compared with surviving artefacts contributing to the study of material culture and social history. However, this thesis shows how heterogeneous inventories found in early modern Scottish sources resist quantification and aggregation. Instead, qualitative use of inventory evidence is advocated. Inventories can contribute information on the locations of activities in the home. These activities may be preferred to the object as evidence of historical change and as units of international comparison. Furnishing a house was cultural activity, and a construction of culture. In this study, objects are regarded as participants in cultural activities, strategies, and the construction of values. Sixteenth-century inventories are often impersonal and tend to show similarities in content, encouraging mechanistic interpretations of domestic life. The seventeenth century saw a proliferation of household equipment and furnishing for elites throughout Europe due to changes in production and consumerism. Some of this new furnishing was bought in London, some in France. While national difference was apparently maintained in architecture, new furnishings may have effaced distinctions within elite rooms. Scottish and English culture was merged by aristocratic intermarriage. This new culture is seen in the inventories of Mary, dowager Countess of Home. She maintained houses in England and Scotland. Some of her furnishings represented the style of an inner circle at court. Her inventories are also significant because they detailed equipment for a range of activities. She personally prepared medicines and sweetmeats, and had a number of scientific instruments. Pursuits reconstructed from the detail of later inventories can illuminate other domestic situations where clues are more subtle or absent. The level of autonomy Lady Home and her daughters exercised over their homes is a reminder of the agency exercised by women over furnishings, gardens, architecture, and estate policy.

Die Musikbetriebe der klassischen und der „Neuen“ Musik sehen sich gegenwärtig mit zwei publikumsbezogenen Problemen konfrontiert. Während „die Neue Musik einsam alt geworden ist“ und „das spärliche Publikum, das oft nur ein Konzert besucht, weil es zum Abonnement gehört, […] dieser Musik häufig verständnislos gegenüber [sitzt]“ (DIE ZEIT 43/2009: 57), droht das vergreiste und oftmals als „elitär“ etikettierte Publikum der klassischen Musik allmählich auszusterben. Diese Befunde beruhen methodisch oft auf subjektive, alltagspsychologische Betrachtungen der Konzertbesucher im Konzertsaal, was häufig zu einer Fehlinterpretation der tatsächlichen Situation führt (vgl. Dollase 1985: 371). Will man erfahren, ob es das typische Klassik- bzw. Neue-Musik-Publikum wirklich gibt und worin es sich vom jeweils anderen unterscheidet, so ist eine wissenschaftliche Auseinandersetzung mit dieser Problematik unumgänglich. Seit dem Boom der Kultursoziologie in den 1970er Jahren wurden der Konzertbesuch und der Musikgeschmack immer mehr zum Gegenstand soziologischer Forschungen. Ihre Ergebnisse führten zu der Auffassung, dass die musikalische und musikkulturelle Praxis nicht nur auf persönlich bevorzugte ästhetische Qualitäten, sondern auch auf die Zugehörigkeit zu sozialen Gruppen verweist (vgl. Neuhoff 2001: 752). Anzunehmen wäre deshalb, dass sich aufgrund der kulturellen Nähe der klassischen und Neuen Musik zueinander, auch ähnliche Publika herausgebildet haben. Dass sowohl theoretisch als auch empirisch vieles gegen diese Annahme spricht, soll die vorliegende Studie zeigen. Ausgehend von einer Publikumsbefragung des „Moritzburg Festivals“ für Kammermusik und des „Tonlagen-Festivals“ für zeitgenössische bzw. Neue Musik sollen im Folgenden die sozialen Strukturen der jeweiligen Publika aus der Perspektive der sozialen Ungleichheit vergleichend analysiert werden. (... aus der Einleitung)