This project investigates the English-language life writing of diasporic Iranian Jewish women. It examines how these women have differentially imagined their diasporic lives and travels, and how they have in turn been imagined and accepted or rejected by their audiences. In the first chapter, I use “home” as a lens for understanding three distinct life writing texts, showing how the authors write about what it means to have a home and to be at home in contrasting and even contradictory ways. I show how, despite potential hegemonic readings that perpetuate unequal relationships and a normative definition of the ideal home, the texts are open to multiple contestatory readings that create spaces for new formulations and understandings. In the second chapter, I look more closely at the intersections between trauma stories and the life writing of Iranian Jewish women, and I argue that readers use life writing texts about trauma to support an egocentric reconstruction of American democracy and dominance. I also show how a critical frame for understanding trauma can yield interpretations that highlight, rather than ignore, relationships of power and privilege. In the final chapter of the thesis, I present a case study of two online reading groups, and I show that communal reading environments, though they participate in dominant discourses, are also spaces where resistance and subversion can develop. / Thesis (Master, Gender Studies) -- Queen's University, 2011-09-08 22:54:33.728

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Quanto mais nostálgicas e românticas se tornam as noções que apresentam sobre mundo idealizado de Austen, mais claramente podemos perceber as carências que fazem com que assim o percebam. Portanto, o objetivo desta tese é apresentar uma leitura de The Jane Austen Book Club através da aproximação com a obra de Austen, e assim entender o que as personagens de Fowler estão procurando, e por quê. A premissa é que essa busca revela muito a respeito do mundo contemporâneo. No âmbito da literatura, tomando Austen e Fowler como autoras que revelam os protocolos de leitura de suas épocas, espero explicitar algumas das razões do fascínio exercido por Austen sobre o leitor de hoje. Para tanto, utilizo como apoio teórico o contraste entre os conceitos de modernidade sólida e modernidade líquida propostos por Zygmunt Bauman, especialmente em relação às considerações sobre os termos fluidez, ética, velocidade, desimpedimento e medo. / Almost two hundred years separate Karen Joy Fowler from Jane Austen. The latter is a great English literary icon, author to six of the best treasured novels in English literature, admired for her style, wit and subtlety in the delineation of her characters and their social relations. The former is a contemporary awarded American Sci-fi and Fantasy writer, author to the novel The Jane Austen Book Club, which is the corpus of the present dissertation. In spite of the wide distance in time, subject matter, and even in literary stature that separates them, both authors are deeply involved in the investigation of human nature and human bonds. The Jane Austen Book Club not only pays homage to Jane Austen, it also offers a rich contrast between life as it was, in the 18th Century, in Austen’s rural England, and as it is now, in Fowler’s present-day sunny California. In Fowler’s novel we meet six interesting characters who undergo different kinds of personal crises. They form a book club and meet monthly, during half a year. In each meeting, they discuss one of Jane Austen´s novels. Each of them is in charge of leading the discussion on one of the novels. Fowler’s book is divided in six chapters, respectively: Jocelyn with Emma, Allegra with Sense and Sensibility, Prudie with Mansfield Park, Grigg with Northanger Abbey, Bernadette with Pride and Prejudice, and Sylvia with Persuasion. The way they interact with their assigned novels tells much not only about them and their circumstances, but also about the world in which they live. The more nostalgic and romantic their notion of Austen’s idealized past becomes, the clearer we can identify the circumstances in present-day life that provoke such reactions. The aim of this dissertation is to present a reading of The Jane Austen Book Club through an approximation with Austen’s work, so as to understand what Fowler’s characters are looking for, and why. The premise is that their quest tells about the world we live in nowadays, and about the difficulties we have in dealing with personal relations. To approach the contrast between the solid fictional world of Jane Austen and the liquid fictional world of Karen Joy Fowler, I rely on the theories presented by Zygmunt Bauman, especially on his use of concepts as fluidity, ethics, velocity, disengagement and fear.

Quanto mais nostálgicas e românticas se tornam as noções que apresentam sobre mundo idealizado de Austen, mais claramente podemos perceber as carências que fazem com que assim o percebam. Portanto, o objetivo desta tese é apresentar uma leitura de The Jane Austen Book Club através da aproximação com a obra de Austen, e assim entender o que as personagens de Fowler estão procurando, e por quê. A premissa é que essa busca revela muito a respeito do mundo contemporâneo. No âmbito da literatura, tomando Austen e Fowler como autoras que revelam os protocolos de leitura de suas épocas, espero explicitar algumas das razões do fascínio exercido por Austen sobre o leitor de hoje. Para tanto, utilizo como apoio teórico o contraste entre os conceitos de modernidade sólida e modernidade líquida propostos por Zygmunt Bauman, especialmente em relação às considerações sobre os termos fluidez, ética, velocidade, desimpedimento e medo. / Almost two hundred years separate Karen Joy Fowler from Jane Austen. The latter is a great English literary icon, author to six of the best treasured novels in English literature, admired for her style, wit and subtlety in the delineation of her characters and their social relations. The former is a contemporary awarded American Sci-fi and Fantasy writer, author to the novel The Jane Austen Book Club, which is the corpus of the present dissertation. In spite of the wide distance in time, subject matter, and even in literary stature that separates them, both authors are deeply involved in the investigation of human nature and human bonds. The Jane Austen Book Club not only pays homage to Jane Austen, it also offers a rich contrast between life as it was, in the 18th Century, in Austen’s rural England, and as it is now, in Fowler’s present-day sunny California. In Fowler’s novel we meet six interesting characters who undergo different kinds of personal crises. They form a book club and meet monthly, during half a year. In each meeting, they discuss one of Jane Austen´s novels. Each of them is in charge of leading the discussion on one of the novels. Fowler’s book is divided in six chapters, respectively: Jocelyn with Emma, Allegra with Sense and Sensibility, Prudie with Mansfield Park, Grigg with Northanger Abbey, Bernadette with Pride and Prejudice, and Sylvia with Persuasion. The way they interact with their assigned novels tells much not only about them and their circumstances, but also about the world in which they live. The more nostalgic and romantic their notion of Austen’s idealized past becomes, the clearer we can identify the circumstances in present-day life that provoke such reactions. The aim of this dissertation is to present a reading of The Jane Austen Book Club through an approximation with Austen’s work, so as to understand what Fowler’s characters are looking for, and why. The premise is that their quest tells about the world we live in nowadays, and about the difficulties we have in dealing with personal relations. To approach the contrast between the solid fictional world of Jane Austen and the liquid fictional world of Karen Joy Fowler, I rely on the theories presented by Zygmunt Bauman, especially on his use of concepts as fluidity, ethics, velocity, disengagement and fear.

Quanto mais nostálgicas e românticas se tornam as noções que apresentam sobre mundo idealizado de Austen, mais claramente podemos perceber as carências que fazem com que assim o percebam. Portanto, o objetivo desta tese é apresentar uma leitura de The Jane Austen Book Club através da aproximação com a obra de Austen, e assim entender o que as personagens de Fowler estão procurando, e por quê. A premissa é que essa busca revela muito a respeito do mundo contemporâneo. No âmbito da literatura, tomando Austen e Fowler como autoras que revelam os protocolos de leitura de suas épocas, espero explicitar algumas das razões do fascínio exercido por Austen sobre o leitor de hoje. Para tanto, utilizo como apoio teórico o contraste entre os conceitos de modernidade sólida e modernidade líquida propostos por Zygmunt Bauman, especialmente em relação às considerações sobre os termos fluidez, ética, velocidade, desimpedimento e medo. / Almost two hundred years separate Karen Joy Fowler from Jane Austen. The latter is a great English literary icon, author to six of the best treasured novels in English literature, admired for her style, wit and subtlety in the delineation of her characters and their social relations. The former is a contemporary awarded American Sci-fi and Fantasy writer, author to the novel The Jane Austen Book Club, which is the corpus of the present dissertation. In spite of the wide distance in time, subject matter, and even in literary stature that separates them, both authors are deeply involved in the investigation of human nature and human bonds. The Jane Austen Book Club not only pays homage to Jane Austen, it also offers a rich contrast between life as it was, in the 18th Century, in Austen’s rural England, and as it is now, in Fowler’s present-day sunny California. In Fowler’s novel we meet six interesting characters who undergo different kinds of personal crises. They form a book club and meet monthly, during half a year. In each meeting, they discuss one of Jane Austen´s novels. Each of them is in charge of leading the discussion on one of the novels. Fowler’s book is divided in six chapters, respectively: Jocelyn with Emma, Allegra with Sense and Sensibility, Prudie with Mansfield Park, Grigg with Northanger Abbey, Bernadette with Pride and Prejudice, and Sylvia with Persuasion. The way they interact with their assigned novels tells much not only about them and their circumstances, but also about the world in which they live. The more nostalgic and romantic their notion of Austen’s idealized past becomes, the clearer we can identify the circumstances in present-day life that provoke such reactions. The aim of this dissertation is to present a reading of The Jane Austen Book Club through an approximation with Austen’s work, so as to understand what Fowler’s characters are looking for, and why. The premise is that their quest tells about the world we live in nowadays, and about the difficulties we have in dealing with personal relations. To approach the contrast between the solid fictional world of Jane Austen and the liquid fictional world of Karen Joy Fowler, I rely on the theories presented by Zygmunt Bauman, especially on his use of concepts as fluidity, ethics, velocity, disengagement and fear.

本研究旨在探究國民小學校長讀書會團隊學習與學校效能之關係。本研究採用問卷調查之研究法，問卷調查樣本以臺灣地區基隆市、台北市、台北縣、桃園縣、宜蘭縣、新竹縣、新竹市及苗栗縣八縣市公立國民小學校長為研究對象，共計抽取391位公立國民小學校長，樣本回收247份，回收率為63.17%；樣本可用227份，可用率58.1%。研究工具包含自編之「國民小學校長團隊學習調查問卷」及採用之「國民小學學校效能調查問卷」。本研究統計方法為描述性統計、t考驗、單因子變異數分析、皮爾森積差相關分析、多元逐步迴歸分析、結構方程模式（SEM）分析等方法進行分析討論。根據研究結果與分析後歸納之研究結論如下： 一、國民小學校長團隊學習之內涵包括績效滿意、責任義務、目標承諾、一般承諾、互補技能與團隊衝突。 二、國民小學學校效能之內涵包括學校建築環境設計、學校行政領導、教師教學效能、學生整體表現、社區家長支持與學校組織氣氛。 三、校長團隊學習的得分程度佳，並以「責任義務」得分最高，而「績效滿意」得分最低。 四、學校效能的現況得分程度佳，並以「學校行政領導」能力表現最佳，以「教師教學效能」能力得分最低。 五、校長背景變項中，性別、最高學歷及學校區域在校長團隊學習的得分差異達顯著水準，但在年齡、校長年資、學校規模未達顯著差異。 六、校長背景變項中，性別、年齡及最高學歷對學校效能的得分差異達顯著水準，但校長年資、學校規模及學校區域未達顯著差異。 七、校長團隊學習與學校效能間呈顯著正相關。 八、校長團隊學習對學校效能具有中度預測力，且以責任義務最具有預測力。 九、校長讀書會團隊學習對學校效能的模式經驗證後適配度佳，具有顯著影響力。 最後，本研究依研究結果分別提出以下建議： 壹、對教育行政機關的建議 一、宜有計畫推行、倡導並輔助校長讀書會的成立。 二、教育行政人員一同加入參與校長團隊學習，達到資源互助與共同成長。 三、協助校長讀書會之成功經驗出版或網站建構。 四、舉辦增進校長學校經營效能之團隊學習進修活動。 五、建立完整之國小校長在職訓練發展制度。 六、針對校長讀書會給予經費上的補助。 貳、對國民小學校長的建議 一、校長參與讀書會團隊學習時，應對績效滿意、責任義務、目標承諾、一般承諾、互補技能與團隊衝突有所關注。 二、參與校長讀書會團隊學習首重責任義務。 三、校長應有計畫，且有恆心、毅力的參與校長讀書會團隊學習。 四、各個校長讀書會團隊間應頻繁接觸，以增進交流、對話並學習。 五、建置校長讀書會經驗分享平台，以幫助個人與團隊之成長與發展。 六、注重專業知能與實踐能力，以持續進修達成自我能力之躍進。 七、邀請資優的退休校長或表現優良的現職校長積極參與校長讀書會以分享豐富經驗。 / The main purpose of this research is to study the relationship of principals’ book club team learning and school effectiveness in elementary schools. The research methods used was questionnaires investigation. The research instrument was distributed to 391 public elementary school principals inclusive of Taipei City, Taipei County, Keelung City, I-Lan County, Taoyuan County, Hsin Chu County, and Miaoli County. There are totally 227 valid samples used in this study. The data obtained was interpreted using descriptive statistics, t-test, one-way ANOVA, Scheffé posteriori comparison, Pearson’s product-moment correlation, multiple regression and SEM through the use of LISREL 8.71. The conclusions drawn from the study were as follows: 1. The principals’ book club team learning includes: Commitment to Purpose, Commitment to a Common Approach, Complementary Skills, Accountability, Team Conflict, Team Performance and Satisfaction. 2. The school effectiveness includes: School’s Environment and Facilities, School’s Administrative Leadership, Teacher’s Teaching Effectiveness, Student’s Comprehensive Performance , Parental Support from Community, School Atmosphere. 3. All the elementary principals’ book club team learning got positive outcomes, and “Accountability” dimension ranks the highest, “Team Performance and Satisfaction” dimension ranks last. 4. All the elementary school effectiveness received positive outcomes, and “School’s Administrative Leadership” dimension ranks the highest, “Teacher’s Teaching Effectiveness” dimension ranks last. 5. The elementary school principals’ background demography district incurred a significant difference with all the principals’ book club team learning. 6. The elementary school principals’ background demography incurred a insignificant difference with all the school effectiveness. 7. The principals’ book club team learning for elementary school principals are positively correlated with the school effectiveness. 8. The principals’ book club team learning could positively predict the school effectiveness, especially “Accountability” dimension. 9. The model of the principals’ book club team learning to the school effectiveness for an elementary school principal is proper. In the last, based on the research results, the researcher proposes some suggestions for “Educational Administrative Agencies” and “the principals of elementary schools”, hoping to benefit the professional competence of principals and school principals in-service education in the future. Key words: principals’ book club, team learning, school effectiveness

Mémoire numérisé par la Direction des bibliothèques de l'Université de Montréal.

The present study analyzes the way in which Toni Morrison, an established author, was covered by U.S. newspapers in the year before and year following her selection for Opraha's Book Club. The content analysis method was used in the research, and the results were used to test 6 hypotheses and 6 research questions. The results indicated that there was a significant increase in the total number of mentions of Toni Morrison in the year after her inclusion in Opraha's Book Club. The overwhelming trend that was seen in all variable comparisons was that while there were obviously more mentions of Toni Morrison post-Book Club, there were also increases and changes in the tone, page placement, and story placement of the mentions of Toni Morrison .

The aim of this master‟s thesis is to investigate the value and impact that reading groups organized by Swedish Public Libraries, have on its participants, role of the librarian and the Library as whole, according to librarian‟s conceptions. In literature and earlier research reading groups are described to represent an important reader pro-motion tool for Public Libraries. At the same time the typical reading group member is often described as a per-son with a familiarity of reading. Another purpose is therefore to investigate the contribution of reading groups in promoting reading, according to librarian‟s conceptions. A phenomenographic approach was adopted and qualit-ative interviews were carried out with five librarians at five Public Libraries. The phenomenographic analysis of the interview-material, concerning reading groups impact on its partici-pants and the Library as a whole, resulted in the following categories: reading groups perceives as a natural part of the Public Library service, reading groups inspirer to reading and literature interest, reading groups leads to human interactions and shared reading experiences, reading groups has a democratic function, limitations of reading groups and reading groups part in reading promotion. Comparisons have also been made to how reading groups fit the Public Library task, as it is described in Swedish Library law and Unesco‟s Public Library manifes-to. The analysis of the interview-material shows that reading groups in many ways fit the task of Public Library service, like promoting literature and reading, supporting individual development and be available to everyone. The phenomenographical analysis of the interview-material, concerning the librarian‟s part in reading groups, resulted in the following categories: administrator, educator, social inspirer and competence and interest for fiction. Comparisons are also made to Jofrid Karner Smidts thesis concerning the five different roles a libra-rian should fulfill working with literature promotion. Based on her thesis it´s foremost the librarian as a critic and literature expert, educator and as ordinary person that correspond with the interviewed librarians perceptions about what part they play and should play in reading groups. One distinct conception that transpired in the interview-material is that reading groups organized by Swe-dish Public Libraries do not necessarily have a specific reading promotion purpose, but that reading groups have potential to have a positive impact on the participants reading habits. Further that more active work from the librarians is required, in order to fulfill a reading promotion function. One of this thesis most important conclu-sions is that there seems to exist a need to make the literature-promotion task of Public Libraries more visible, that it is important that librarians is given the opportunity to develop their competence to fulfill this task and that reading groups can fulfill an important aspect in that context. This study is a two years master´s thesis in library and information science.