In this thesis, I explore the textual strategy of feminist revision employed by contemporary women writers. After investigating Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea as a prototype of feminist revision, I focus specifically on Angela Carter’s “The Bloody Chamber” as a revision of Charles Perrault’s “Bluebeard,” Michèle Roberts’s The Book of Mrs Noah as a revision of the Old Testament Flood narrative, Margaret Atwood’s The Penelopiad as a revision of Homer’s Odyssey and the Troy narratives, and Ursula K. Le Guin’s Lavinia as a revision of Vergil’s Aeneid. Through investigating the historical and literary contexts of each revisioned text, I identify the critical focus of the revision and analyse the textual effect produced by the revision. In each case, the feminist revision exposes the underlying ideological assumptions of the source text. By rewriting the canonical narrative from an alternative perspective, each revision extends beyond the source text, altering meaning and reinterpreting key symbols for feminist ends.

A evolução do aumento da expectativa de vida registrada nas últimas décadas foi uma conquista significativa para a sociedade e trouxe novos desafios em diversas áreas do conhecimento humano. Dentre os impactos do aumento da longevidade, destaca-se sua influência no equilíbrio técnico dos planos previdenciários. Nas entidades de previdência complementar, a identificação oportuna de possíveis desvios da premissa da mortalidade à realidade subjacente visa garantir a solvência e a manutenção dos benefícios de longo prazo. Assim, o presente estudo tem por objetivo estimar os fatores de improvement (fator redutor de mortalidade) para a população coberta por planos privados de aposentadoria, com base no método Lee-Carter e na abordagem CMI (Continuous Mortality Investigation), bem como analisar o impacto da incorporação da estimativa do aumento da expectativa de vida no fluxo de caixa atuarial em uma carteira de benefício definido. Em virtude da carência de informações históricas de tábuas de mortalidade para o Brasil, fez-se uso da técnica de pareamento (propensity score), o qual consiste na identificação do país que mais se assemelha ao Brasil no que se refere às variáveis socioeconômicas relevantes para prever a evolução da expectativa de vida. Essa técnica foi aplicada para uma amostra de 21 países da OCDE. As variáveis socioeconômicas consideradas no estudo foram: Fertilidade, PIB per capita, Crescimento anual do PIB, Saúde, Desemprego, Gini, Analfabetismo e Escolaridade. Diante dos testes efetuados, Portugal foi escolhido para servir de base para as projeções da mortalidade e obtenção dos fatores de improvement, em decorrência da técnica de pareamento e do teste de aderência realizado. Comparando-se as médias dos fluxos de caixa da AT-2000 com e sem improvement e levando-se em consideração os cenários de taxas de juros de 3%, 4%, 5% e 6% ao ano, observou-se que, não considerar o improvement, gera uma elevação do fluxo atuarial entre 7,15% a 10,51% para a carteira simulada. A projeção pelo método CMI forneceu resultado semelhante, sendo que o impacto variou entre 7,05% a 10,32%. Embora os métodos de improvement sejam bem diferentes, é importante destacar que os resultados foram bem semelhantes. Um ponto que merece preocupação é a questão da taxa de juros, pois com a tendência de queda, no longo prazo, maior será a sensibilidade do impacto da projeção do risco de longevidade. Adicionalmente, compararam-se os resultados obtidos com a Tábua Geracional RP-2000 e a Tábua SUSEP BR-EMS. Assim, os resultados anteriores mostram que não considerar a tendência de aumento da expectativa de vida na constituição das provisões técnicas pode expor as entidades de previdência a riscos pouco suportáveis no longo prazo. / The evolution of increased life expectancy recorded in recent decades has been a significant achievement for the society and brought new challenges in various areas of human knowledge. Among those, living longer has impacted the technical balance of the pension plans. In the private pension entities, the timely identification of possible deviations from the assumption of mortality to the underlying reality is to ensure the solvency and the maintenance of long-term benefits. Thus, based on Lee-Carter method and approach CMI (Continuous Mortality Investigation Bureau), this study aims to estimate the factors of improvement (reduction factor of mortality) for the population covered by pension plans as well as analyze the impact of incorporating an estimated longer life expectancy on actuarial cash flow into a portfolio of defined benefits. Due to a lack of historical information about mortality tables of Brazil, the matching technique (propensity score) was used to identify the country which is the most similar to Brazil concerning relevant socioeconomic variables, in order to predict the evolution of life expectancy. This technique was applied on 21 OECD sample countries. Socioeconomic variables considered were: Fertility, GDP per capita, annual growth of GDP, Health, Unemployment, Gini, Illiteracy and Schooling. According to test results, Portugal was chosen as the basis for projections of mortality and acquisition of factors of improvement, due to the matching technique and the adherence test performed. Comparing the averages of the cash flows of the AT-2000 with and without improvement and taking into account the scenarios of interest rates of 3%, 4%, 5% and 6% a year, it was observed that not considering the improvement generates an increased actuarial flow between 7.15% and 10.51% for the simulated portfolio. The CMI method provided similar projection, and the impact varied from 7.05% to 10.32%. Even though the methods of improvement are quite different, it is important to emphasize that the results were much the same. One point that deserves concern is the issue of interest rate since, due to the declining trend in the long run more sensitive will be the impact of the projection of longevity risk. Additionally, those results were compared with the table Generational RP-2000 and BRTable SUSEP EMS. Thus, previous results show that not considering the trend of increasing life expectancy in the establishment of technical provisions can expose the private pension entities to a little bearable risk in the long term.

Antebellum political historians have long studied the era between Andrew Jackson’s election and the secession crisis through the colored knowledge of the Civil War. This project is an effort to reverse that trend. It explores northeast Tennessee’s political culture from the late 1830s through the start of the Civil War. It reveals that the Second American Party System, a wave of new enfranchised voters, and the area’s demographics mixed together to lay a foundation for the aggressive and populist political style that permeated the region from the 1830s through the 1850s. At the heart of these issues was the transition of power from East Tennessee to Middle Tennessee. As a way to analyze the region’s political culture, I look specifically at Democrats Andrew Johnson and Landon Carter Haynes and Whigs William Brownlow and Thomas Nelson.

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對於人口數不多的國家及地區，因為樣本數較少，死亡率的震盪較大，導致死亡率的估計值較不穩定。為解決此種問題，本研究以其他國家的死亡率資料輔助台灣，建構死亡率模型。首先，以群集分析方式選擇適合輔助台灣的國家，也就是死亡率性質相近之國家，本研究建議以死亡改善率做為主要的考量；其次，以主成分分析的方式分解多個國家死亡率，以負荷做為多個國家的共有係數，分數則是隨著資料和時間改變的變數，在研究結果中，5~6個成分個數即會有不錯的配適和預測效果，以五齡組死亡率配適模型為例，成分個數為6時，男性配適Lee-Carter模型全部國家的平均MAPE為5.40%，主成分分析則為4.13%，下降幅度將近24%，而Lee-Carter模型預測的整體MAPE為14.72%，主成分分析為12.22%，下降幅度約17%，因此主成分分析模型確實有明顯改善Lee-Carter模型。 而和台灣死亡率性質相近的國家，主要選入歐洲國家，像是奧地利、法國、愛爾蘭、挪威和西班牙，除了法國和西班牙人口數分別為六千多萬和四千多萬的國家外，其餘三個國家人口數皆不超過一千萬，這說明人口數多寡或許不是輔助小地區建構死亡率模型的唯一重點，應選取適合的國家作為輔助用途。

In Taiwan area, the mortality rates at all ages have decreased since the end of World War II, and the life expectancy of people has increased from 62 in 1950's to 75 in 2000, which is an increase of 21%. The mortality improvement of the elderly (i.e. people ages 65 and over) is especially significant, which effects in the rapid population aging in Taiwan area. For example, the proportion of the elderly has increased from 6.14%in 1990 to 8.52% in 2000. On one hand, the prolonged life span for an individual means a longer period of retirement life and thus a larger retirement fund. On the other hand, a longer life for the government is equivalent to a more thorough social system for the elderly. Therefore, a reliable mortality rates projection is essential to both personal financial and social welfare planning. 　　In this study, we have two main objectives: First, we explore some frequent used models, such as Lee-Carter, multivariate regression and principal component methods. We use the data between 1950 to 1995 as the pilot data and 1996 to 2000 as the test data to judge which method has the smallest prediction error. In addition, based on computer simulation, we also evaluate the performance of the estimation methods for the Lee-Carter method. The second part (and the other objective) of this study is to explore the effect of mortality improvement on the pure premium of annuity insurance. In particular, we calculate the pure premium of the annuity under the best model acquired from the first part, and compare those under 1989 TSO and other life tables. We found that the pure premiums under current life tables are under estimated, which may cause the insolvency of insurance companies.

<p>When attempting to convey certain political or ideological agendas in literary texts maintaining specific writing strategies can work as a useful tool. From a feminist perspective the use of <em>écriture feminine</em> as a means of undermining patriarchy has been largely neglected as well as misunderstood by many feminists. However, as argued in this essay, <em>écriture feminine</em> is not only a useful tool for pursuing a feminist agenda, but is also something that needs to be discussed due to the many misunderstandings of it. Resting on the theoretical perspectives of Judith Butler, Hélène Cixous, Antonio Gramsci, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick and Richard Slotkin this essay investigates Angela Carter’s short story “The Lady of the House of Love” in relation to <em>écriture feminine</em> by exploring how the text rejects patriarchy and its idea of the gender binary. In this short story Carter re-works the classic Sleeping Beauty fairy tale and provides us with a feminist’s version of it. The main thesis of this essay is therefore that Carter challenges the gender binary by de-victimizing “woman” and by engaging in a style of writing that overturns western culture’s definitions of “woman” Carter provides a version of Sleeping Beauty that radically differs from the hegemonic/patriarchal versions.</p>

"Elizabeth Carter's Legacy: Friendship and Ethics" examines the written evidence about the relationships between Elizabeth Carter and her father, Dr. Nocolas Carte; Catherine Talbot; Sir William Pulteney (Lord Bath); and Samuel Johnson to explain how intellectual and personal relationships may become the principal ethical sdource of human happiness. Based on their own set of moral values, such as intellectual and individual liberty and equality, the relationships between Carter and her friends challenged eighteenth-century traditional norms of human relationships. The primary source of this study, Carter's poetry and prose, including her letters, present the poet's experience of intellectual and individual friendship, reflecting Aristotle's ethics, specifically his moral teaching that views friendship as a human good contributing to human happiness--to the chief human good. Carter's poems devoted to her friends, such as Dr. Carter, Talbot, Montagu, Lord Bath, as well as her "A Dialogue" between Body and Mind, demonstrate her ethical legacy, her specific moral principles that elevated human relationships and human life. Carter's discussion of human relationships introduces the moral necessity of ethics in human life.

The aim of this dissertation is to study postmodern British Female Gothic fiction in terms of its abject representations of female desire which subvert the patriarchal definition of female sexuality as repressed and female identity as the object of desire. The study analyzes texts from postmodern Female Gothic fiction which are feminist rewritings of the traditional Gothic narratives. The conventional Gothic plot is based on the Oedipal development of identity which excludes the (m)other and deprives the female from autonomous subjectivity. The feminist rewritings of the conventional Gothic plot have a subversive aim to recast the Oedipal identity formation and they embrace the (m)other figure in order to blur the strict boundaries between the subject and the object. Besides, these rewritings aim to destroy the image of the victimized heroine within the imprisoning conventional Gothic structures and transgress the cultural, social and sexual definitions of women constructed by patriarchal sexual politics. The study bases its analyses on Jean Rhys&rsquo / s Wide Sargasso Sea, Angela Carter&rsquo / s The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories, and Emma Donoghue&rsquo / s Kissing the Witch: Old Tales in New Skins as examples in which patriarchal definition of the female desire as passive is destroyed and the female desire as active is promoted by the adoption of abject representations, which challenge the strictly constructed hierarchical relationships between men and women. Basing its argument on Julia Kristeva&rsquo / s psychoanalytical theories, which re-vision the traditional psychoanalytical theories, this study puts forward that by the emergence of postmodernism, which has overtly provided a ground for the marginalized discourses to get into dialogue with the oppressive ones, the abject representations of female desire have gained a positive characteristic that can liberate female body from the control and authority of the male-dominated ideology. Thus, one can chronologically follow the positive development of abject representations of female sexuality in Rhys&rsquo / s, Carter&rsquo / s and Donoghue&rsquo / s works which promote a liberation for the Gothic heroines from patriarchal psychoanalytical identity development, which render female desire active and female body expressive, which rehistoricize female sexuality from a feminist lens and which call for a new world order built upon an egalitarian basis that destroys hierarchically constructed gender roles. As a result, postmodern British Female Gothic Fiction is proved to be offering a utopian ideal of an egalitarian society, but although utopian and radical, not an impossible one to be realized.

This thesis analyzes and compares Angela Carter&rsquo / s Nights at the Circus and Elif Safak&rsquo / s Mahrem (The Gaze) from the perspective of theories of the patriarchal gaze. The study argues that the female protagonists in Nights at the Circus and Mahrem (The Gaze) have a dilemma in relation to the gaze. On the one hand, the gaze makes these characters passive spectacles in front of the audience and objectifies them. On the other hand, the gaze appears to be a necessity for a sense of identity and order. The theoretical framework used to analyze the novels from the perspective of the patriarchal gaze includes John Berger&rsquo / s Ways of Seeing, which is about visual representations in Western art and Laura Mulvey&rsquo / s article &ldquo / Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema&rdquo / , which analyzes women&rsquo / s position in Hollywood movies. In order to explore the dilemma the protagonists find themselves in, on the other hand, Sigmund Freud&rsquo / s theory of scopophilia, Jacques Lacan&rsquo / s discussion of the role of the gaze in psychosexual development and identity formation and Mich&eacute / l Foucault&rsquo / s evaluation of the gaze as a tool for discipline have been made use of. The comparative analysis of the two novels within this theoretical framework aims to demonstrate the complexity and universality of the issue and provide further food for thought for feminist thinking on this topic.