This research conducts a feminist poststructuralist examination of the vocabularies of heterosex: it investigates those terms, modes of talking, and meanings relating to sex which are associated with discourses such as scientific and popular sexology, medicine and psychiatry, public health, philosophy, and some feminist critique. The analysis of these various representations of heterosex involves the deconstruction of binaries such as presence/absence, mind/body, inside/outside and masculine/feminine, that are endemic to Western notions of sex. It is argued that such dualisms (re)produce and perpetuate differential power relations between men and women, and jeopardize the negotiation of mutually pleasurable and safer heterosex. Particular attention is paid to the ways in which sexological discourse deploys such dualisms as normal/abnormal, natural/unnatural, and healthy/unhealthy sex, and produces specifically gendered 'experiences' of sexual corporeality. The thesis examines a variety of written texts and excerpts from film and television; it also analyzes transcript material from individual and group interviews conducted by the researcher with heterosexual women and men, as well as sexual health and mental health professionals, in order to identify cultural pressures influencing participation in risky heterosexual behaviours, and also to identify alternative and safer pleasurable practices. Some of these alternative practices are suggested to rely on a radical reformulation of sexual relations which derives from the disruption of particular dualistic ways of understanding and enacting sex. The overall objective of the thesis is to deconstruct cultural imperatives of heterosex and promote the generation and acceptance of other modes of erotic pleasure. It is hoped that this research will be of use in the future planning and implementation of sex education and safer sex campaigns in Aotearoa/New Zealand which aim to be non-phallocentric and non-heterosexist, and which might recognize a feminist poststructuralist politics of sexual difference. / Note: Thesis now published. Potts, Annie (2002). The Science/Fiction of sex: feminist deconstruction and the vocabularies of heterosex. London & New York: Routledge. ISBN 04152567312. Whole document restricted, see Access Instructions file below for details of how to access the print copy.

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Masculinity is an increasingly prominent and important issue in debates within feminism, literary studies and visual theory. This study intervenes in and contributes to such debates by analysing an emerging group of Australian women’s fictions (published between 1998 and 2002) which focus on male characters and, in particular, on the description and narrative potential of their bodies. The majority of these texts, and the ones that are explored in this thesis – namely, Jillian Watkinson’s The Architect, Georgia Blain’s The Blind Eye, Mireille Juchau’s Machines for Feeling, Fiona Capp’s Last of the Sane Days, Sarah Myles’s Transplanted and Wendy Scarfe’s Miranda – share two preoccupations. Firstly, male characters bodies’ are almost always damaged or suffering in some way; secondly, the ability (or inability) of female characters to look at these bodies is repeatedly foregrounded. I argue that the interactions between male characters’ bodies and female characters’ gazes function in complex ways both to confirm and to challenge patriarchal constructions of masculinity and male corporeality. Specifically, this occurs in relation to the engagement of each text with popular discourses of feminism and masculinity crisis, discourses that emerge and interact in complex and often contradictory ways in depictions of male visibility and exposure. While my approach is generally feminist, it is also fiction-centred. Thus, I draw on a variety of theoretical perspectives, including literary theory, masculinity studies, visual theory, history, sociology and philosophy, in order to unpack and engage with these contemporary Australian women’s fictions. Paradoxically, one of the main consequences of this fiction-centred approach is a reengagement with and a rethinking of theoretical concepts emerging from psychoanalytic feminist film theory. In a remarkably consistent and explicitly pedagogical way, these fictions explore notions of objectification and dichotomisation, especially as they are elucidated in Laura Mulvey’s analysis of Hollywood narrative cinema. Objectification is overwhelmingly aligned with oppressive power structures and identified as problematic, and the first half of this thesis explores the novels’ critiques of this mode of visual interaction. The second half investigates the alternatives to objectification imagined in these fictions. While, upon closer consideration, some of these alternatives recapture male and female characters within traditional patriarchal power relations, others enable a rethinking of both women’s vision and desire, and men’s subjectivity, visibility and desirability.

Masculinity is an increasingly prominent and important issue in debates within feminism, literary studies and visual theory. This study intervenes in and contributes to such debates by analysing an emerging group of Australian women’s fictions (published between 1998 and 2002) which focus on male characters and, in particular, on the description and narrative potential of their bodies. The majority of these texts, and the ones that are explored in this thesis – namely, Jillian Watkinson’s The Architect, Georgia Blain’s The Blind Eye, Mireille Juchau’s Machines for Feeling, Fiona Capp’s Last of the Sane Days, Sarah Myles’s Transplanted and Wendy Scarfe’s Miranda – share two preoccupations. Firstly, male characters bodies’ are almost always damaged or suffering in some way; secondly, the ability (or inability) of female characters to look at these bodies is repeatedly foregrounded. I argue that the interactions between male characters’ bodies and female characters’ gazes function in complex ways both to confirm and to challenge patriarchal constructions of masculinity and male corporeality. Specifically, this occurs in relation to the engagement of each text with popular discourses of feminism and masculinity crisis, discourses that emerge and interact in complex and often contradictory ways in depictions of male visibility and exposure. While my approach is generally feminist, it is also fiction-centred. Thus, I draw on a variety of theoretical perspectives, including literary theory, masculinity studies, visual theory, history, sociology and philosophy, in order to unpack and engage with these contemporary Australian women’s fictions. Paradoxically, one of the main consequences of this fiction-centred approach is a reengagement with and a rethinking of theoretical concepts emerging from psychoanalytic feminist film theory. In a remarkably consistent and explicitly pedagogical way, these fictions explore notions of objectification and dichotomisation, especially as they are elucidated in Laura Mulvey’s analysis of Hollywood narrative cinema. Objectification is overwhelmingly aligned with oppressive power structures and identified as problematic, and the first half of this thesis explores the novels’ critiques of this mode of visual interaction. The second half investigates the alternatives to objectification imagined in these fictions. While, upon closer consideration, some of these alternatives recapture male and female characters within traditional patriarchal power relations, others enable a rethinking of both women’s vision and desire, and men’s subjectivity, visibility and desirability.

This research conducts a feminist poststructuralist examination of the vocabularies of heterosex: it investigates those terms, modes of talking, and meanings relating to sex which are associated with discourses such as scientific and popular sexology, medicine and psychiatry, public health, philosophy, and some feminist critique. The analysis of these various representations of heterosex involves the deconstruction of binaries such as presence/absence, mind/body, inside/outside and masculine/feminine, that are endemic to Western notions of sex. It is argued that such dualisms (re)produce and perpetuate differential power relations between men and women, and jeopardize the negotiation of mutually pleasurable and safer heterosex. Particular attention is paid to the ways in which sexological discourse deploys such dualisms as normal/abnormal, natural/unnatural, and healthy/unhealthy sex, and produces specifically gendered 'experiences' of sexual corporeality. The thesis examines a variety of written texts and excerpts from film and television; it also analyzes transcript material from individual and group interviews conducted by the researcher with heterosexual women and men, as well as sexual health and mental health professionals, in order to identify cultural pressures influencing participation in risky heterosexual behaviours, and also to identify alternative and safer pleasurable practices. Some of these alternative practices are suggested to rely on a radical reformulation of sexual relations which derives from the disruption of particular dualistic ways of understanding and enacting sex. The overall objective of the thesis is to deconstruct cultural imperatives of heterosex and promote the generation and acceptance of other modes of erotic pleasure. It is hoped that this research will be of use in the future planning and implementation of sex education and safer sex campaigns in Aotearoa/New Zealand which aim to be non-phallocentric and non-heterosexist, and which might recognize a feminist poststructuralist politics of sexual difference. / Note: Thesis now published. Potts, Annie (2002). The Science/Fiction of sex: feminist deconstruction and the vocabularies of heterosex. London & New York: Routledge. ISBN 04152567312. Whole document restricted, see Access Instructions file below for details of how to access the print copy.

This research conducts a feminist poststructuralist examination of the vocabularies of heterosex: it investigates those terms, modes of talking, and meanings relating to sex which are associated with discourses such as scientific and popular sexology, medicine and psychiatry, public health, philosophy, and some feminist critique. The analysis of these various representations of heterosex involves the deconstruction of binaries such as presence/absence, mind/body, inside/outside and masculine/feminine, that are endemic to Western notions of sex. It is argued that such dualisms (re)produce and perpetuate differential power relations between men and women, and jeopardize the negotiation of mutually pleasurable and safer heterosex. Particular attention is paid to the ways in which sexological discourse deploys such dualisms as normal/abnormal, natural/unnatural, and healthy/unhealthy sex, and produces specifically gendered 'experiences' of sexual corporeality. The thesis examines a variety of written texts and excerpts from film and television; it also analyzes transcript material from individual and group interviews conducted by the researcher with heterosexual women and men, as well as sexual health and mental health professionals, in order to identify cultural pressures influencing participation in risky heterosexual behaviours, and also to identify alternative and safer pleasurable practices. Some of these alternative practices are suggested to rely on a radical reformulation of sexual relations which derives from the disruption of particular dualistic ways of understanding and enacting sex. The overall objective of the thesis is to deconstruct cultural imperatives of heterosex and promote the generation and acceptance of other modes of erotic pleasure. It is hoped that this research will be of use in the future planning and implementation of sex education and safer sex campaigns in Aotearoa/New Zealand which aim to be non-phallocentric and non-heterosexist, and which might recognize a feminist poststructuralist politics of sexual difference. / Note: Thesis now published. Potts, Annie (2002). The Science/Fiction of sex: feminist deconstruction and the vocabularies of heterosex. London & New York: Routledge. ISBN 04152567312. Whole document restricted, see Access Instructions file below for details of how to access the print copy.

Masculinity is an increasingly prominent and important issue in debates within feminism, literary studies and visual theory. This study intervenes in and contributes to such debates by analysing an emerging group of Australian women’s fictions (published between 1998 and 2002) which focus on male characters and, in particular, on the description and narrative potential of their bodies. The majority of these texts, and the ones that are explored in this thesis – namely, Jillian Watkinson’s The Architect, Georgia Blain’s The Blind Eye, Mireille Juchau’s Machines for Feeling, Fiona Capp’s Last of the Sane Days, Sarah Myles’s Transplanted and Wendy Scarfe’s Miranda – share two preoccupations. Firstly, male characters bodies’ are almost always damaged or suffering in some way; secondly, the ability (or inability) of female characters to look at these bodies is repeatedly foregrounded. I argue that the interactions between male characters’ bodies and female characters’ gazes function in complex ways both to confirm and to challenge patriarchal constructions of masculinity and male corporeality. Specifically, this occurs in relation to the engagement of each text with popular discourses of feminism and masculinity crisis, discourses that emerge and interact in complex and often contradictory ways in depictions of male visibility and exposure. While my approach is generally feminist, it is also fiction-centred. Thus, I draw on a variety of theoretical perspectives, including literary theory, masculinity studies, visual theory, history, sociology and philosophy, in order to unpack and engage with these contemporary Australian women’s fictions. Paradoxically, one of the main consequences of this fiction-centred approach is a reengagement with and a rethinking of theoretical concepts emerging from psychoanalytic feminist film theory. In a remarkably consistent and explicitly pedagogical way, these fictions explore notions of objectification and dichotomisation, especially as they are elucidated in Laura Mulvey’s analysis of Hollywood narrative cinema. Objectification is overwhelmingly aligned with oppressive power structures and identified as problematic, and the first half of this thesis explores the novels’ critiques of this mode of visual interaction. The second half investigates the alternatives to objectification imagined in these fictions. While, upon closer consideration, some of these alternatives recapture male and female characters within traditional patriarchal power relations, others enable a rethinking of both women’s vision and desire, and men’s subjectivity, visibility and desirability.

This research conducts a feminist poststructuralist examination of the vocabularies of heterosex: it investigates those terms, modes of talking, and meanings relating to sex which are associated with discourses such as scientific and popular sexology, medicine and psychiatry, public health, philosophy, and some feminist critique. The analysis of these various representations of heterosex involves the deconstruction of binaries such as presence/absence, mind/body, inside/outside and masculine/feminine, that are endemic to Western notions of sex. It is argued that such dualisms (re)produce and perpetuate differential power relations between men and women, and jeopardize the negotiation of mutually pleasurable and safer heterosex. Particular attention is paid to the ways in which sexological discourse deploys such dualisms as normal/abnormal, natural/unnatural, and healthy/unhealthy sex, and produces specifically gendered 'experiences' of sexual corporeality. The thesis examines a variety of written texts and excerpts from film and television; it also analyzes transcript material from individual and group interviews conducted by the researcher with heterosexual women and men, as well as sexual health and mental health professionals, in order to identify cultural pressures influencing participation in risky heterosexual behaviours, and also to identify alternative and safer pleasurable practices. Some of these alternative practices are suggested to rely on a radical reformulation of sexual relations which derives from the disruption of particular dualistic ways of understanding and enacting sex. The overall objective of the thesis is to deconstruct cultural imperatives of heterosex and promote the generation and acceptance of other modes of erotic pleasure. It is hoped that this research will be of use in the future planning and implementation of sex education and safer sex campaigns in Aotearoa/New Zealand which aim to be non-phallocentric and non-heterosexist, and which might recognize a feminist poststructuralist politics of sexual difference. / Note: Thesis now published. Potts, Annie (2002). The Science/Fiction of sex: feminist deconstruction and the vocabularies of heterosex. London & New York: Routledge. ISBN 04152567312. Whole document restricted, see Access Instructions file below for details of how to access the print copy.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-07-29T16:27:58Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertacaoo Aline Soares Lima.pdf: 6312597 bytes, checksum: dcf48198d022656685ddd224abba21e7 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2009-07-07 / This study investigates the self representations of transvestites in orkut and constitutive elements of their (cyber)identities, having the visuality as the focus and determinant axis. For this, the emphasis is given to pictures and self portraits, present in albums of their profiles on the site. We are interested in understanding what is the image they construct of themselves from physical reconstructions, aesthetic formulations, costumes, scenery, performances and a whole network of symbolic meaning which is important for them. Orkut, like many other social environments of the internet, comprehends speeches and narratives of individuals and social groups that describe, identify and represent themselves of the most varied ways and with the most diverse goals and interests. In order to understand how the self representations of transvestites are built on orkut, it was investigated initially some communities with trans thematic, then it was selected the profiles of two transvestites, with whom interviews were also conducted. Although this study focuses on the self representations in the orkut, other environments in cyberspace have been researched, as blogs and sites for transvestites. We conclude that there are multiple ways to represent transvestitely, not just the stereotypical, stigmatized and marginalized representations widespread by the media / Esse estudo investiga as autorrepresentações de travestis no orkut e os elementos constitutivos de suas (ciber)identidades, tendo como foco e eixo determinante a sua visualidade. Para isso, a ênfase é dada aos retratos e autorretratos, presentes nos álbuns de seus perfis no site. Interessa-nos entender qual é a imagem que constroem de si a partir de reconstruções corporais, de formulações estéticas, vestimentas, cenários, performances e de toda uma rede de significação simbólica que para elas importa. O orkut, assim como tantos outros ambientes de sociabilidade na internet, comporta discursos e narrativas de indivíduos e grupos sociais que se descrevem, se identificam e se autorrepresentam das mais variadas maneiras e com os mais diversos objetivos e interesses. Para compreender como se constituem as autorrepresentações de travestis no orkut, investigou-se inicialmente algumas comunidades com temática trans, selecionando-se em seguida os perfis de duas travestis, com as quais foram realizadas também entrevistas. Embora esse estudo focalize as autorrepresentações presentes no orkut, outros ambientes no ciberespaço foram pesquisados, como blogs e sites de travestis, para estabelecer um diálogo mais abrangente. Assim, o que se pode perceber é que há uma pluralidade de existências e representações possíveis das travestilidades, diferentemente do que as representações estereotípicas, estigmatizantes e marginalizantes, provenientes de distintas instituições sociais, sobretudo das mídias, podem fazer crer

The settlement of the Nunavut land claim in 1993 followed closely by the enactment of the Nunavut territorial legislation in 1999 were significant historical events for all aboriginal peoples in Canada. The newly formed public government made a commitment to have Inuit traditional knowledge, language, and culture as the foundation of "all we do". This commitment provides the starting point for the present study, which explores how the role of Inuit language and culture is constructed within the curricula and practices of Nunavut schooling. Data were generated from dialogue with Nunavut teachers and with authors of the Inuuqatigiit curriculum. In order to interpret the interview texts, a discourse analysis was undertaken using James Gee's ideas of situated meanings, cultural models, and discourses at work within them in relation to the Nunavut schooling context. This analysis was informed by a critical review of government and academic texts related to northern education policy.