Theodor Fontane’s famous novel Effi Briest (1895) has been widely discussed in secondary literature, and every single aspect of the novel’s complex content and style seems to have been analysed; however, the similarities in content and style between Fontane’s Effi Briest and his less known and discussed work Schach von Wuthenow (1882) have not yet been recognized. A remarkable and meaningful similarity between the two regarding the content is the portrayal of a close relationship between mother and daughter which is strongly influenced by the latter’s relation to the mother’s (former) admirer. The relationship of Josephine von Carayon and her daughter Victoire and that of Luise von Briest and her daughter Effi will be compared by means of an analysis based on Michel Foucault’s theories on discourse, truth and power; in particular, the discourse of beauty, illness, honour and love will be closely examined. A method based on Foucault’s theories facilitates an analysis of the female protagonists’ actions that is free of moral implications for the protagonists are understood in their non-freedom of action owing to their discourse-constructed identity. Since the constellations of power in which the female protagonists are living cannot be analysed without the male protagonists’ influence, the constitution of Schach and Innstetten’s characters will be closely examined, too. The analysis of the discourse of beauty and illness shows that those disourses are portrayed as inseparably connected. In the society outlined by Fontane in Schach von Wuthenow, Victoire is made an outsider due to the pockmarks in her face; during the private conversation at Prince Louis’ castle, however, the prince calls Victoire a beauté du diable whose beauty is based on the survival of a fatal disease which has resulted in a passionate character. Innstetten, on the contrary, considers Effi to be particularly beautiful when she looks pale, lethargic and frail for he connects Effi’s ill appearance with his wife finally becoming a woman. Beauty, however, is exposed as a construct in both of Fontane’s works: on the one hand, by the (in itself) contradictory argumentations of the characters; on the other hand, by the narrators who criticize and disprove the prince’s idea of Victoire, which is temporarily accepted by Schach, and Innstetten’s connection of illness, beauty and femininity. The examination of the discourse of honour and love reaches the conclusion that both of Fontanes’s works portray honour as a construct with changing truth. In Schach von Wuthenow honour is exposed and critiziced mainly by Josephine, in Effi Briest mainly by Innstetten and Luise because these characters are aware of the identity-constructing quality of the demands made by society. Nevertheless, Innstetten submits his love for Effi to the claims by the disourse of honour; Luise, however, realizes in her love for Effi a part of her human essence. Luise’s love for her daughter is completely accepted since it is considered natural; thus it turns out to be beyond the demands of honour. Josephine also acknowledges the greater truth of parental love and retreats from her strong wish to live a life in harmony with society in favour of her daughter. By means of their female protagonists, Fontane’s story Schach von Wuthenow and his novel Effi Briest demand a re-evaluation of the discourse of love. Not the love between a man and a woman but the love of a mother for her daughter is portrayed as natural and is thus considered beyond any demands of the disourse of beauty and honour.

The goal of this thesis was to validate journalist Rick Perlstein’s assertion in Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America (2008) that the foundational dialectic of the 1960s “has not yet ended.” With Nixon as the principal cultural architect of modern American political discourse, Perlstein defined Nixonland as “the America where two separate and irreconcilable sets of apocalyptic fears coexist in the minds of two separate and irreconcilable groups of Americans.” Perlstein’s grand narrative for the inherited socio-political landscape of the 1960s has conceptually synthesized the nature of the “culture wars” of the 1960s based on Nixon’s imposed hegemonic framework for political discourse through the theatre of television. The central argument of this thesis is shaped by the dialogue in the historiography in that Richard Nixon and Barack Obama appear to be “bookend presidents” of the limits of the modern American kulturkampf- the ongoing conflict between religious and secular elements in American society. While Nixon confined political discourse within the hegemonic framework of the images and rhetoric of modern American conservatism imbibed in the 1960s, Obama expanded the limits of political discourse through the motives and motifs of New Left rationalism established in the 1960s. Within this interpretative framework, this thesis illustrates the foundational dynamic of campaigning and governance within modern American political discourse by demonstrating how presidential elections are structured according to the Republican style of conservative “populist aggression” against the liberal Democratic substance of “fairness issues.”

A critical feminist discursive approach was used to explore how and to what ends women organized their talk about female genitals. Exploration and interpretation of how the eight women in this research used talk to orient their constructed positions for female genitals, within the dyad conversational sessions, was informed by the analytic concepts of interpretative repertoires, subject positioning and ideological dilemmas. Findings indicated that these women repeatedly drew on socially available information (e.g., fictional and non-fictional literature, media, family and friend, empirical research) regarding female genitals during their dyad discussions. Shared components in the womens accounts were organized into two opposing interpretative repertoires consistent with those identified in a selection of reviewed textual resources: powerful female genital repertoire and powerless female genital repertoire. The participants drew on both these repertoires when arguing and defending multiple, and often contradictory, subject positions on this topic. Although the women discursively demonstrated a strong pull toward a position that aligned with the powerful repertoire, their powerful subject positions were tenuous. This tenuousness may have been due to the sensitive nature of this topic, the rhetorical demands of the research conversations, and/or the untenability of an extremist position in either of the powerful or powerless female genital repertoires. Further, these women did not construct any new information in their talk regarding female genitals, thus suggesting that the female genital repertoires are discursively pervasive and constraining. This research contributes to our knowledge of talk regarding female genitals by illustrating how and to what ends women choose to organize, interpret and exclusively use existing discourses on this topic.

The purpose of this qualitative study was to examine the ways in which the primary Discourse and school experiences inform the literate identity of a male teacher, as well as his professional practice. The research looks at the various influences and relationships that come to bear on male literate identity from childhood to professional practice. As well, it responds to the contention of the popular media that boys lagging literacies might be remediated through the presence of more male literacy role models in the classroom. This study suggests that although role models may be influential under particular circumstances, the development of literate identity is far more complex and nuanced.<p> This study focuses on six male teachers and describes their experiences of literacy, particularly reading, from childhood into professional practice. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews and informal observations. The interviews revealed that male literate identity is a product not only of parental attitudes toward literacy, but it is also determined by the individuals sense of competence and purpose, as well as sometimes serendipitous encounters with other readers.

The purpose in this study is to investigate how the educational system in Tanzania is seen to enable the transformations of globalization in order to develop the economy, society and individuals. I look at how educational development in Tanzania is described, what the purpose of educational development is and under which conditions educational development is seen to enable global transformations. The main perspectives of this study are globalization and governmentality to highlight global transfers and governance of the individual. I interview ten people and scrutinize policies and vision from the area of education. The analyze method is critical discourse analysis to highlight the transferring of ideas or discourses. From the results the purpose with educational development is to develop the individual, the social welfare and the economy to be a part of a competitive and global world but there are a lot of limitations such as poverty, a lack of resources and lack of motivation.

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The critical endangered species has become one of the main concerns regarding the loss of biodiversity in the 21th century. It is also a new challenge for the protection of the endangered Chinese White Dolphin (CWD) which was discovered living along the western coast of Taiwan since the year 2002. It has a large overlapping occurred in the coastal place where the CWD population is inhabited around with human¡¦s development activities. Therefore, the conservation actions are emergently needed tasks and immediately entangled with difficulties. The present study employs the qualitative tool to investigate the institutional policy on the conservation strategies related to the protection of endangered CWD. These include documental analysis of literatures, interviews, and observations to identify the key concepts for the conservation strategies. The interactions among context of the strategies, actions to impacts and threats, and scientific contributions are also analyzed. The results are assessed according to three levels of conservation objectives, i.e. the individual/population, habitat, and ecosystem. The formal regulations cover the individual/population level much less than the habitat and ecosystem levels. The policies and scientific efforts are mostly concerned on the individual/population and habitat levels. The ecosystem level is ignored. The legal guidelines have set for the impacts and threats to the conservation policy, but there is lack of scientific investigation and input. It is imperative to emphasize the intensive interaction between scientific research and conservation strategies. The scientific development is obviously one of the key institutional policies of conservation. This study examines three issues in relevance to the development of conservation strategies and the implementation of management. Furthermore, the present work concludes that the conservation strategy must perceive to a correct direction for future planning and implementation, in order to integrate the conservation capacity and achieving the comprehensive conservation results.

The thesis begins with the book History of Madness in the Classical Age of the noteworthy debate revolving around the two thinkers, Foucault and Derrida, and then embarks on the inquiry of Foucault¡¦s archeological methodology from two aspects. First, Cartesian Meditations presents the individual differences between the two thinkers¡¦ methodologies on the one hand, and it raises different viewpoints concerning the privileges of dream and madness on the other. Second, the debate in this sense is made to employ Derrida¡¦s comment as an angle of rereading Foucault, which serves to offer an attempt to renew Foucault¡¦s textual reading and conduct a methodological inquiry. Both dream and madness are the main thread of the thesis. Along with the two threads and Foucault¡¦s textual exposition, we are allowed to discover that the Classical Age offers a discursive practice between the visibility and the enunciability. Due to the discourse and language in reason and subjectivity embedded in the philosophical thought, which then obtains their priority, I aim to further strengthen the argument that Foucault¡¦s archeological work does not merely rely on the dimensions of discourse and language. Instead, it suggests de facto the transferring of moving toward the image and figure.

While No Child Left Behind (NCLB) provides a mechanism for holding states, local education agencies (LEA), and schools accountable to improve academic achievement for all students, policy itself has done little to include students from dropping out of school. Rather, dropout prevention/recovery schools/programs such as alternative schools of choice are recognized and relied upon as a means to reduce the number of students dropping out of school. These schools seek to re-engage the student who is at-risk to dropping out of school through nontraditional means and strategies. As more and more students become disenfranchised and drop out of school, these schools grow in importance. To ensure that all students have equity in education, regardless of educational setting, these schools warrant further attention and consideration. Therefore, two questions become evident: (a) How do educators in alternative schools interpret and implement policy such as NCLB? and (b) How do they define their role and responsibility? This case study examined the socio-legal discourse applied when seven administrators and 15 teachers administered policy as a response to an at-risk student population in five demographically diverse alternative education settings in California and Texas. A critical discourse analysis of text, interviews, and observations was used to reveal administrator and teacher assumptions and motivations of policy and risk. The data analysis revealed three dominant discourses of risk compliance and policy knowledge that were notable forces in the policy implementation of NCLB at these schools. Themes that emerged from the data included responsibility, dissociation, success, and equity. The findings from this study have demonstrated that a moment-by-moment process shapes the construction of role, responsibility, success, and equity as defined by the teachers and administrators. Furthermore, the discourse of risk and policy converged as ideological and political conceptions that perpetuate the notion that educating disadvantaged children as a process of demonstrating a particular level of knowledge and/or acquitting what it means to be considered at-risk. The implication for these educators is that the risk discourse that was engaged influenced their sense of responsibility, practice, and thus may counter policy intent.

Secular nationalism, India?s official ideology and the basis for its secular Constitution, is being challenged by the rising religious nationalist discourses. This has resulted in an ongoing struggle between the secular and religious nationalist discourses. Since women are regarded as symbols of religious tradition and purity, the religious nationalist discourses subject them to increasing rules and regulations aimed at controlling their behavior to conform to the ideal of religious purity. In this study I examine the subject positions that the Hindu and Muslim nationalist discourses in India are constructing for "their women" and its implication for women's citizenship rights. I focus my research on two topics, where religious nationalist discourses intersect with the women's question in obvious ways. These are "the Muslim personal law" and "marriages between Hindu women and Muslim men". The Muslim personal law has emerged as the most important symbol of Muslim identity over the years, and holds an important position within the Hindu and the Muslim nationalist discourses as well as the secular discourse. The debates around the Muslim personal law are centered on questions of religious freedom and equal citizenship rights for Muslim women. The issue of marriages between Hindu women and Muslim men is located in the Hindu nationalist discourse?s larger theme pertaining to the threat that the Muslim "other" poses to the Hindu community/nation. I juxtapose the religious nationalist discourses with the secular nationalist discourse to understand how the latter is contesting and negotiating with the former two to counter the restrictive subject positions that the religious nationalist discourses are constructing for Hindu and Muslim women. The study is based on the content of debates taken from three mainstream English newspapers in India. Further, interviews with people associated with projects related to women rights and/or countering religious nationalism are used to supplement the analysis. The analysis is carried out using concepts from Laclau and Mouffe's discourse theory. The analysis suggests that the subject positions being constructed by the religious nationalist discourses for Hindu and Muslim women, although different from each other, freeze them as subjects of religious communities, marginalizing or rejecting their identities as subjects of State with equal citizenship rights. The women rights and secular discourse counters this by offering a subject position with more agency and rights compared to the former two. However, it is increasingly getting trapped within the boundaries being set by the religious nationalist discourses. I argue that there is a need for women rights and secular discourse to break the boundaries being set by the religious nationalist discourses. In order to prevent the sedimentation of the meaning "women as subjects of community", the secular discourse needs to employ the vocabulary of liberal citizenship as rearticulated in feminist, pluralist terms.