This thesis explores the potential for ethico-politically committed cultural critique in investigating lived experiences of gender in the hegemonic global north, where the neo/liberal rhetoric of sexual equality tends to portray issues of gender as already sufficiently addressed. It argues that the ideological roots of dominant gender discourses can be productively explored through the interrelated histories of Christianities and neo/liberalisms that have powerfully shaped mainstream Canadian society. Supported by an extensive body of literature bringing religious studies, feminist, and queer theory to bear on sociological and political questions, this rhetoric is investigated by applying critical discourse analysis to transcripts of interviews conducted over a year of participant observation with the members of a local United Church women's discussion group. Findings suggest a complex set of attachments, rejections, and ambivalent attitudes toward those elements of feminism that have entered into the social, cultural, political and economic discourses that have become dominant in Canada. The discussion of results considers the forces which produced respondents' general complacency with the status quo of gender equality along with their hesitancy to make judgments about the validity of competing claims regarding gender ethics. Analysis concludes by examining the implication of these attitudes for the prospects of gender justice movements, especially those conceived in terms of allyship and coalition-building at the intersection of different axes of identity and practice.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2006. / Printout. Vita. Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 67-07, Section: A, page: 2628. Adviser: Nancy Abelmann. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 232-254) Available on microfilm from Pro Quest Information and Learning.

"Planting Wholesome Seeds"| Organic Farming and Community Supported Agriculture at Sweetwater Organic Community Farm

Economies of obligation| Western Nicaraguan women and valuations of their work

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, School of Education, 2008. / Title from PDF t.p. (viewed on Feb 4, 2010). Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 70-04, Section: A, page: 1152. Adviser: Margaret Sutton.

Thesis (M.A.)--Lehigh University, 2009. / Advisers: John Pettegrew; Dawn Keetley.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2009. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 70-06, Section: A, page: . Adviser: Nancy Abelmann. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 204-212) Available on microfilm from Pro Quest Information and Learning.

The philosophers of the Enlightenment base their ideas on reason while attracting public attention on the futility of religion. The concept of the universe inherited from Antiquity is rejuvenated by contemporary sciences and, at first sight, we would think that nature governs the supernatural. A number of philosophical works, which would today be considered anthropological, deal with the customs and manners of different countries of the world, inevitably describing the religious cults and ceremonies practiced throughout the centuries. To what extent are these rituals kept, neglected or transformed in the century of Enlightenment? What is the connection between the ceremonies of Antiquity and the rituals practiced in the confined space of modern secret societies? Speculative Freemasonry, introduced to France at the beginning of the 18 th century, counts among its members a number of well-known philosophers. Do these enlightened minds, most of whom are adversaries of religion, practice the rituals based on sacred and incommunicable mysteries? These are some of the questions which this dissertation tries to answer in analyzing the philosophers' (i.e. Voltaire, Dupuis, Boulanger, Demeunier) anthropological views; the origins of Freemasonry and the ancient sacred tradition; the founding murder and the sacrificial ritual; freemasonic and initiatory symbols in Ramsay's Voyages of Cyrus (1727); Ramsay's quest and the mysteries in his Discourse (1736); Casanova's Icosameron (1788), a freemasonic utopia, hermetic allegory and symbolic fable. This dissertation attempts to demonstrate that the denial of the mystery and the supposed domination of the world by reason are only the well-known and visible aspect of the 18 th century.

Evidence for everyday resistance by Japanese American internees can be identified at the Manzanar War Relocation Center, California through an archaeological analysis of refuse deposits left by the internees. The center landfill contains ceramic tablewares in traditional Japanese forms such as rice and tea bowls, Japanese "dishes," and tiny and sake cups, indicating that internees maintained traditional Japanese foodways despite assimilation pressure from the War Relocation Authority and European American society. The cultural context of Japanese American internment and resistance is reconstructed using ethnographic, oral history, documentary, and archaeological data. This analysis of resistance at Manzanar suggests limitations of existing models of resistance and acculturation in historical archaeology and methods for exploring strategies of cultural persistence as resistance.

Whereas the presence of an ashtray on every table in American restaurants was once the norm, smoking in public places has become increasingly restricted during the late twentieth century. Given the changes in numerous physical and social environments impacting on smoking messages and behaviors within the larger context of contemporary American ideologies about morality, identity, the body, and the social order, how has the relationship between smoking and identity changed? The task of this thesis is to explore this question from the perspective of 22 contemporary young adults with personal smoking histories. After reviewing social trends in cigarette consumption during the past century, I examine the present relationship between smoking and identity, including the influence of social factors, and the significance of identity to motivations and practices pertaining to self-restricted smoking and cessation. The work of constructing, reconstructing and negotiating one's moral identity through discourse and practice receives special attention.