Over the last three years a number of significant, alleged cyber offensive operations have taken place: the North Korean operations against Sony Pictures in 2014; the BlackEnergy3 Virus which targeted Ukrainian power substations in 2015; and the cyber offensive operations that were designed to influence recent presidential elections. This thesis will investigate whether these types of operations are new or similar to activities that took place in the twentieth century, especially during the Cold War, termed ‘covert action’. Focusing on the US and British experience, and using a comparative methodology, this study will compare covert action and cyber offensive operations. It will achieve this by addressing what covert action is and what forms it takes; this will then be employed in the analysis of cyber offensive operations. The thesis seeks to establish a clear relationship between these two forms of state tactics employed against state and non-state actors. It argues that although the two forms of behaviour are linked, there is a need to modify the existing understanding of covert action; this will allow, in turn, a clearer understanding of the nature of cyber offensive operations to be developed. It is concluded that there is a need to re-examine the organisational structures of covert action, including ethical dimensions, in relation to cyber operations.

My practice-based thesis examines the effects of physical interventions on text and typography, and the signifying potential of these attributes in contemporary art. The title, Working Against Type, responds to common perceptions of textbased visual art, suggesting that viewable traces of production—the working— can alter the way we read, experience, and interpret words. Building from and working against assertions posed by a previous generation of word-based artists, I reveal the interventions as landing places where meaning is opened to include tactile, sensuous, and kinesthetic responses. The practice-chapters analyze the effects generated from three distinct physical approaches. The first, Breaking Words Apart, adopts a critically reflective stance to examine interventions on existing texts, as they unfold into mark, texture, absence, and abjection. Diverted from their conventional paths, the reader jumps, pauses and meanders, amplifying the performativity of reading. Messy Gestures observes the impacts of the artist’s trace in hand-printed text, where the abstracted and expressive letterforms adopt a ‘voice’ for the reader. The blemishes suggest words as unfixed and uncertain, challenging the authority of text, while offering the impressions as aesthetic encounters that expand the connotations of words. Words that move us examines how words are changed for someone who must physically relocate their posture or position while reading. Much of the text is hidden or closed off unless the viewer engages in some demonstrable shift of their body, a term I call choreogrammatics, which highlights the agency of movement on reading. Through this study, I identify how effects of physical interventions on typography can create interpretations outside and beyond the verbal, lexical reading. In so doing, I articulate a field of meaning for text-based artwork that has been overlooked.

This thesis compares modern children’s fantasy literature with older texts, particularly Grimms’ fairy tales. The focus is on tropes from fairy tales and myths that devalue women and femininity. In looking at these tropes, this thesis examines how they are used in modern fiction; whether they are subverted to show a more empowering vision of femininity or simply replicated in a more modern guise. Whereas other approaches in this area have addressed the representation of gender in an isolated fashion, this study adopts an intersectional approach, examining the way that different axes of oppression work together to maintain the patriarchal hegemony of powerful, white, heterosexual men. As intersectional theory has pointed out, mainstream feminism has tended to focus only on the needs and rights of more privileged women, who are themselves complicit in the oppression of their more marginalised “sisters”. Intersectional feminism, in contrast, seeks to dismantle the entire system of interlinked oppressions, rather than allowing some women to benefit from it to the detriment of others. The intersectional issues around feminism that this thesis addresses include race, disability, class, and sexuality. There is also an emphasis on female solidarity, which is championed as an effective strategy to weaken the hold of patriarchy and subvert it in its aim to “divide and conquer”. It is this intersectional approach to children’s fantasy literature that is seen as the thesis’s main contribution to knowledge. The primary texts under examination are mainly from the United Kingdom, but also include works from the United States, Australia, and Germany. All of them were originally published between 1980 and 2013. The thesis explores heroism, beauty, magic, and gender performance in these works, showing how such themes can be dealt with in ways that are either reactionary and detrimental or progressive and empowering.

This thesis explores the notion that, in short fiction, plot is a component part of genre. Using original fiction, and with reference to classic and contemporary examples from a broad range of short stories, the thesis investigates this relationship through an examination of the semantic and syntactic features found in a variety of genres. The thesis begins with an examination of horror, romance and erotic fiction, three of the five supergenres examined and the genres that are perceived to have the strongest focus on character, and on characters’ inter-relationships. The thesis then moves on to consider plot-focused supergenres, such as the mystery and the adventure, arguing that the whodunit, fantasy and science fiction are basic level genres, subordinate to either the mystery or adventure supergenres. The thesis concludes by discussing further original, and somewhat experimental fiction that has come from this approach to the notion of plot being a component part of genre. It is hoped that this study will be of value to writers on both theoretical and practical levels. From a theoretical perspective, this material demonstrates one writer’s approach to analysing genre fiction, which should prove a useful model for other writers to use or appropriate. From a practical point of view, the contents of this thesis should prove an aid to writers, who will be able to see what it is that makes their fiction successful, or not, from a genre perspective.

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While some traditionally underrepresented artists may have recently gained access to recognition and visibility, this has not generally led to broad, diverse representation and participation. Numerous ‘feminist art’ researchers, practitioners and activists working in an interdisciplinary tradition have critically addressed social inequality in the arts. However, even research, practice and activism that challenge dominant norms can serve an economic system that thrives on perpetuating inequality. The production of ‘art’ does not escape, and often contributes to, unwanted socio-political and economic consequences. This thesis argues that combinations of art research, practice and activism can play a critical role in the attainment of social equality inside and outside the arts, building on feminist critiques of dominant aesthetics and feminist efforts to restructure art canons. It recommends that feminist art stakeholders expand their collaborations outside the arts, in order to work with researchers, practitioners and activists from other disciplines. The proposed transdisciplinarity, in which feminist art plays a key part, can help avoid new forms of exclusion and discrimination that can emerge when the multiple, intersectional positions of marginalised individuals remain unrecognised. It is recommended that primary or empirical research is used to help achieve intended outcomes. The thesis presents a novel approach to addressing social inequality, within and beyond the arts, by exploring the transdisciplinary potential of feminist art, contextualising feminist art as a restructuring currency, and calling for monitoring and evaluating the impact of feminist art. Original cartoons are included to illustrate the proposed feminist research reflexivity and transdisciplinarity. The proposed approach can help feminist art researchers better differentiate the multiple values of ‘art’, recognise broader selections of traditionally marginalised artists, and dismantle out-dated ideas of Great Art.

What Use is Music in an Ocean of Sound? is a reflective statement upon a body of artistic work created over approximately five years. This work, which I will refer to as "object- orientated", was specifically carried out to find out how I might fill artistic spaces with art objects that do not rely upon expanded notions of art or music nor upon explanations as to their meaning undertaken after the fact of the moment of encounter with them. My drive to create these objects was fuelled by a reaction against the work of other practitioners that I felt did not fulfil these criteria and lacked the self-awareness required to appreciate the cultural context within which it is produced. The title of this thesis is metaphorical and refers to the idea that cultural production is no use if it is not distinct from that which surrounds it. My practice is an attempt to produce objects that are self-consciously and self-reliantly distinct. It is no use for anything other than that.