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No description available.

No description available.

There is no abstract available for this thesis.

There is no abstract available for this thesis.

This study documents the musical life of Zinka Milanov, a distinguished Metropolitan Opera dramatic soprano who lived from 1906 to 1989. In this writer's opinion, the Yugoslavian-born singer ranks with Maria Callas and Renata Tebaldi in accomplishments and legacy, although her acclaim has been less notable.This study reveals that Milanov had a distinguished Metropolitan Opera career, leaves a legacy of 226 recordings with unsurpassable high-register pianissimo spinning tones and elegant phrasing, was supported by a fan club and by sold-out opera houses, and maintained an active career on three continents.This writer shares a similar Eastern European heritage with Milanov and was inspired by a former voice teacher to listen to legendary Milanov recordings while learning the spinto-dramatic soprano repertory. Milanov's artistry on these recordings demonstrates a bel canto style of singing which aspiring vocal artists may well strive to emulate. For these reasons, and because no previous complete study exists about Zinka Milanov's life and career, this research is a unique chronological document of Milanov's operatic career.In 1995, this researcher was granted access to The Metropolitan Opera Archives to collect data. Information on Milanov's musical career from scrapbooks, articles, reviews, interviews, photographs, contracts, fan club newsletters, personal letters and telegrams, is presented in chapter three.This research provides summaries and discussion of each Metropolitan Opera season; it includes the number of Metropolitan Opera performances, opera titles, names of cast members and conductors, and Milanov's salary. A complete listing of recordings of Milanov's performances is provided in Appendices 1 and 2. Historic photographs of Milanov in various operatic roles are found throughout this study.Chapter four contains this writer's insights on Milanov's vocal technique. Teachers of voice may be interested in learning her method. / School of Music

This thesis explores the lives of women in a small group of families in the Nottinghamshire elite between 1720 and 1820. A close reading of family papers, gives access to the minutiae of female life and it is from these small details that the attitudes, activities and responsibilities of elite women are constructed. Drawing on the distinct historiographies of women and gender, and of the elite, the evidence produced by this sharply-focused approach is used to explore women's formal and informal roles, and the specific ways in which they were fulfilled, in the domestic, social, economic and political life of the elite. Consideration is first given to attitudes towards girls within the family and to how childhood experience contributed to the construction of elite womanhood. An assessment of the level of convergence between family and individual interests in the matter of marital choices is followed by an exploration of the weight of domestic responsibility experienced by women within the family, as wives, mothers and housekeepers. Attention turns to assessing the extent of female engagement with political, economic and social life, in the pursuit of personal and family interests. The narratives of women and their families illuminate how the female elite balanced the particular mix of subordination and privilege conferred upon them by gender and status. The range of activities in which they engaged and the multifaceted nature of that engagement demonstrate that throughout the eighteenth century women at all levels of the Nottinghamshire elite worked to support the ethos of elite pre-eminence in many small but cumulatively significant ways.

The following PhD thesis will explore the connection between autobiography and myth of origin: On the one hand, I am concerned with the ways in which women autobiographers rewrite classical myths of origin; on the other hand, I contend that autobiography itself is a myth of origin, a recreation of the forces that created the narrator. Throughout this thesis, I will develop two main themes: the first is the use of myth as a framework for autobiographical writing. This is possible because of myth's characteristic double focus on the universal and on the particular version, the historical context. Myth allows feminist autobiographers to connect themselves to universal truths from which they are barred by patriarchal tradition and to carve out their own, highly personal version. The second theme is that the autobiographers depict the origin as the core of the self and utterly Other. First, the narrator has to rely on the stories of other people, or a 'family memory'. Second, the past can be seen as connected to or leaving traces in the present; at the same time, it can be completely Other and incompehensible. Third, the autobiographical I is often cut off from her origins, and a constructive return that integrates the past and the present self is only possible through a deliberate act of mythmaking: It is mythmaking and storytelling that provides a connection between self and Other. I hope to make a contribution to feminist theory of autobiography as well as to feminist theory. Reading autobiography as myth of origin approaches the persistent problem of the relationship between the historical author and the autobiographical self. Moreover, I will explore the the specific relation between women and origins, and address the necessity for feminist theory to develop a framework where self and Other are intimately connected.

The South African years (1925-1966) of Alex la Guma is examined in this thesis. While La Guma's father was an important role model, most critics have overlooked his mother's contribution to his literary and political development. Throughout the thesis the same point is made about Blanche, La Guma's wife, who supported him in many ways. The researcher describes La Guma's infancy, childhood and adolescence, his father's political profile, how notions of race and writing, coloured identity and family and political experiences created the conditions that enabled him to become a story teller and political activist ...

Ghetto Medic: A Father in the ’Hood, a biographical memoir, examines Baltimore City through the experiences of my father, Bill Hennick, a white paramedic who worked in Baltimore City for over thirty years, beginning his career at the height of the civil rights movement. Numerous stories have been written about African Americans living in slums, struggling to survive, but few are told from the point of view of a white man who endured the traumas of the ghetto while trying to assist them. The Major Work explores what motivated Bill Hennick to risk his life in caring for the poorest of the poor in a city with one of the world’s highest crime rates. What did he think as he witnessed the devastation of Baltimore as upwardly mobile whites and blacks abandoned the ‘wasteland’ and headed for the suburbs? Why did he remain with the underdogs? How did he learn about ghetto culture? How did he win the trust of people in the community who were otherwise suspicious of Caucasians? How did the environment affect him and how did he cope with tragedy? The Major Work also considers whether Bill Hennick survived unscathed. In representing his encounters with an underclass in Baltimore, Ghetto Medic offers a microcosm of race relations and poverty in the United States. It raises questions about the development of the African American ghetto while considering the problem of racial stereotypes, exploring historical influences and offering insight into the chasm that still exists between black and white people. While Bill Hennick bandaged gunshot wounds, gave mouth to mouth resuscitation and assisted in birthing the babies of people who were ignored by the wider community, he tried all the while to provide a stable life for his family, sheltering us from the dangers of his job with his sense of humour. His life as a ghetto medic stands in stark contrast to suburban family life. He began his career wanting to make a difference. But did the ghetto change him? In my exegesis accompanying Ghetto Medic, I have tried to demonstrate how creative nonfiction can be used as a powerful medium in initiating social change and building a bridge between races. The genre liberated me from the constraints of traditional nonfiction while allowing me to preserve factual and historical integrity in the overall work. Because I was attempting to tell someone else’s story from his point of view, it became necessary and inevitable to understand my responsibilities, roles and rights as a creative nonfiction writer. The exegesis considers the evolution of Ghetto Medic from a dictated autobiography, based on a series of transcribed interviews interspersed with Baltimore’s history, to a ‘biographical memoir’, including my personal recollections of my father. In this process I became both listener and storyteller. My exegesis describes my experimentation with different points of view, analyses the collaborative process between subject and author and considers the relationship between assumed objectivity and ‘truth’. / Thesis (Ph.D.) - University of Adelaide, School of Humanities, 2008