Neste estudo propomos uma leitura interdisciplinar, confrontando a trajetória e o encontro de dois olhares, a saber: de um lado, o olhar do escritor belga-argentino Julio Cortázar (1914/1984), e, do outro, o do cineasta italiano Michelangelo Antonioni (1912), e dado às divergências consideráveis que existem entre as duas linguagens, buscaremos encontrar o ponto onde nos parece que acontece o diálogo das poéticas do autor e do diretor. Ao postular a aproximação entre a palavra e a imagem, o olhar é eleito como questão nuclear, transitando ainda pelo erótico e a personagem feminina. / In this study we propose an interdisciplinary interpretation that evaluates the trajectories and convergence of two looks: on the one hand, the view of the Belgian-Argentinean writer Julio Cortazar (1914/1984), and on the other, the view of the Italian film director Michelangelo Antonioni (1912). Given the considerable incongruities between the two languages, we aim to find a poetical meeting point at which the dialogue between the writer and the director can be established. By postulating a convergence between word and image, the gaze is chosen as the core issue, transiting also through the erotic and the feminine character.

Li Fung Kwan. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 92-98). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / Abstract --- p.i / Acknowledgement --- p.iii / Chapter Chapter One: --- Introduction --- p.1 / Chapter Chapter Two: --- On slash and De Certeau --- p.18 / Chapter Chapter Three: --- The Pleasure of Escape --- p.30 / Chapter Chapter Four: --- The Fan Community --- p.58 / Chapter Chapter Five: --- Conclusion --- p.86 / Reference --- p.92

This dissertation explores the surprising intersections among women's scandalous fiction and other popular genres in late seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century England. I use the term "women's scandalous fiction" to refer to the illicit tales of seduction authored by Aphra Behn, Delarivier Manley, and Eliza Haywood. Women's scandalous fiction has consistently been viewed, both by contemporary readers and writers and modern critics, as a distinct genre: contemporary writers explicitly distance their works from its illicit and immoral content and modern critics continue to focus on the transgressive aspects of the works to the exclusion of other considerations. Challenging earlier critics whose analyses rely on the superficial qualities of these texts, in this dissertation I emphasize the ideological consistency that aligns women's scandalous fiction with other popular prose genres of this period. This comparative work reveals a consistent ideal of moderation and restraint-across eighteenth-century genres-that evidences a larger cultural belief in the value of regulating sexual desire. Chapter one establishes the mutability of genre categories in the early eighteenth century in contrast to the narrow specificity of genre definitions constructed as a result of the modern critical "origins of the novel" debate. This chapter shows that, while modern genre distinctions are theoretically useful, it is important to recognize that contemporary readers of the early novel had different and significantly broader ways of categorizing genre. I also discuss eighteenth-century attitudes about gender and genre, and I highlight the importance these attitudes have for understanding the ideological connections among texts in the period. In chapter two I compare women's moral fiction with immoral fiction and argue that, though these genres differ in the nature and degree of their sexualized discourse, both genres convey an implicit critique of failed patriarchal influence. Using self-proclaimed moral fictions-Penelope Aubin's The Strange Adventures of Count de Vinevil and Jane Barker's Love's Intrigues-and stigmatized immoral, scandalous fiction-Behn's The History of the Nun and Haywood's The City Jilt-I argue that many of these texts idealize female self-restraint and hold father figures responsible for women's capacity to perform this model of female identity. Chapter three compares Haywood's Fantomina: or, Love in Maze and Manley's New Atalantis with two English translations of French pornographic texts, The School of Venus and Venus in the Cloister, and explores the ways in which differing patterns of sexual discourse construct surprising ideals of femininity; specifically, analysis of narratives of seduction shows that both genres defer power at moments of sexual encounters to the man, allowing the ideal of feminine passivity to prevail. Chapter four moves to popular periodical papers by Joseph Addison and Richard Steele that construct an ideology of the aesthetic subject that parallels libertine ideology; I argue that the similar constructions of libertine and aesthetic pleasure in Addison and Steele's The Spectator, Addison's "Pleasures of the Imagination" essays, Haywood's Love in Excess, and Behn's Love Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister are underpinned by the same hegemonic systems of patriarchal authority that govern the ideological constructions of gender discussed throughout this dissertation. Ultimately, the analysis in these chapters shows that we should continue to question the degree to which Haywood, Manley, and Behn are "scandalous writers" whose works challenge dominant eighteenth-century discourses about gender. By instead recognizing the ideological intersections among these texts and "moral" texts of the period, we can see the ways in which these writers engaged with dominant discourses about gender in complex ways.

This dissertation examines the legacy of secrecy, silences, and the unspoken in twentieth century African American literary texts. Using a range of texts representing various eras within the genre of African American literature, this dissertation contends that secrecy is a trope and may be attributed to inherited, maintained traditional practices from West and West Central Africa. Having read a number of African American texts and connecting my personal experiences with these works, I noticed a pattern of withheld discourse throughout. Most notably, Leslie Lewis’s Telling Narratives posits a reason for this trope by examining earlier narratives, specifically nineteenth-century African American texts. She argues the master/slave relationship as the prevailing reason for the secretive motif. Yet, traditional and cultural practices noted in early African publications demonstrate that Africans were keeping secrets prior to their diasporic scatterings. By examining early West African-derived works, as well as nineteenth-century African American texts, I ground my position that secrecy as we see it evolves from or relates to early signifying and language manipulations, particular to African-derived people. Thus, the early works connect sustained homeland ties to the literature that follows, providing an explanation for the secrecy reflected in African American literature. This study highlights three types of secrets: identity, family, and sexual, all of which are interrelated and, out of one, the other type may result. The texts that best demonstrate these silences are James Weldon Johnson’s The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man and Nella Larsen’s Passing; James Baldwin’s Go Tell It on the Mountain and Alice Walker’s The Color Purple; and Gayl Jones’s Corregidora and Lalita Tademy’s Cane River. Each text group corresponds with a secret type. Overall, this dissertation challenges the notion that secrecy as a trope in African American literature limits itself to the master/slave relationship in the United States. The previously mentioned texts highlight a direct link to West and West Central African traditions maintained after the Middle Passage. Hence, these preserved homeland customs, including secrecy, are reflected in twentieth-century African American literature.

First Semester: My thesis project is about showing women’s empowerment through their sexuality and comfort within their bodies own bodies. In our society women’s eroticism is seen as taboo and women are taught to turn away from the exploration of the erotic as a source of power within themselves. The erotic is often confused and misunderstood, it is an emotion and sense of empowerment that has been named by men and used against women. It’s now difficult to recognize that the erotic can even have a sense of empowerment for women, because strong women have been taught through our society to be viewed as dangerous. As Audre Lorde, a feminist writer states, “The erotic is a resource within each of us that lies in a deeply female and spiritual plane, firmly rooted in the power of our unexpressed or unrecognized feeling. In order to perpetuate itself, every oppression must corrupt or distort those various sources of power within the culture of the oppressed that can provide energy for change. For women, this has meant a suppression of the erotic as a considered source of power and information within our lives” (Lorde). A woman’s strength comes from her sexuality. Once women begin to believe in this concept, they will begin to require this deep powerful sensation from all aspects of their lives and will not settle for anything less. Women should embrace their sexuality and use it as a sense of strength, instead of falsely believing that they can only be strong by suppressing this eroticism. My project is based on a collaborative experience with the models about what their sexuality means to them, and how they can show this through a camera. These photographs are meant to be raw and real; they are representations of real women who have chosen to show the viewers their own sexuality in the way in which they see best fits their sexual personality and comfort with their own bodies. The writings from the models on the back of the photographs show their own struggles with their sexuality. It may make the viewers feel uncomfortable, but this is the point. We are working towards being able to live in a society where women can be sexual if they choose to be. This is still a working progress, and having to view photographs that make one uncomfortable, may be the first step in change. Second Semester: Visual Poetic Abstractions: A Close Photographic Rendering of The Female Body: My personal thesis project shifted after first semester ended. Second semester I decided to continue the question of the body, but step away from the cultural views and instead start to dissect the body in it’s natural form. The project is a close examination of the formalist aspects of the body, including a self-evaluation of what the body means to me. This project resulted in a series of close-up photographs that will help the viewer in seeing portions of the body in ways they have not before. Some photographs will even be unrecognizable as to what part of the body the photograph is representing. This is important because it leads the viewer to examine each photograph for what the beauty of the photo entails, and not for their previous cultural understandings of body parts prior to viewing. The idea behind the black and white photographs is so the viewer again dissects the photograph without the context of color – for example skin no longer can be recognized as skin when the color context is taken away from these photographs. Within this project, I have paid specific detail to the poetic formalist view of the body, dissecting different body parts to create awe and wonderment. The photographs are an anatomical view of the body in its most raw and poetic form.

According to Barlow’s model of sexual dysfunction (1986; Sbrocco & Barlow, 1996), anxiety in sexual situations leads to attentional focus on sexual performance at the expense of erotic cues, which compromises sexual arousal. This negative experience will enhance anxiety in future sexual situations, and non-erotic thoughts (NETs) relevant to performance will receive attentional priority. Previous research with student samples (Purdon & Holdaway, 2006; Purdon & Watson, 2009) has found that people experience many types of NETs in addition to performance-relevant thoughts, and that, consistent with Barlow’s model, the frequency of and anxiety evoked by these thoughts is negatively associated with sexual functioning. Extending this previous work, the current study found that in a community sample of women (N= 81) and men (N= 72) in long-term relationships women were more likely to report body image concerns and external consequences of the sexual activity, while men were more likely to report performance-related concerns. Equally likely among men and women were thoughts regarding the emotional consequences of the sexual activity. Regardless of thought content, experiencing more frequent NETs was associated with more sexual problems in both women and men. Moreover, as per Barlow’s model, greater negative affect in anticipation of and during sexual activity predicted greater frequency of NETs and greater anxiety during sex was associated with greater difficulty dismissing the thoughts. However, greater difficulty in refocusing on erotic thoughts during sexual activity uniquely predicted more sexual problems above the frequency and dismissability of NETs. Together these data support the cognitive interference mechanism implicated by Barlow’s causal model of sexual dysfunction and have implications for the treatment of sexual problems.

According to Barlow’s model of sexual dysfunction (1986; Sbrocco & Barlow, 1996), anxiety in sexual situations leads to attentional focus on sexual performance at the expense of erotic cues, which compromises sexual arousal. This negative experience will enhance anxiety in future sexual situations, and non-erotic thoughts (NETs) relevant to performance will receive attentional priority. Previous research with student samples (Purdon & Holdaway, 2006; Purdon & Watson, 2009) has found that people experience many types of NETs in addition to performance-relevant thoughts, and that, consistent with Barlow’s model, the frequency of and anxiety evoked by these thoughts is negatively associated with sexual functioning. Extending this previous work, the current study found that in a community sample of women (N= 81) and men (N= 72) in long-term relationships women were more likely to report body image concerns and external consequences of the sexual activity, while men were more likely to report performance-related concerns. Equally likely among men and women were thoughts regarding the emotional consequences of the sexual activity. Regardless of thought content, experiencing more frequent NETs was associated with more sexual problems in both women and men. Moreover, as per Barlow’s model, greater negative affect in anticipation of and during sexual activity predicted greater frequency of NETs and greater anxiety during sex was associated with greater difficulty dismissing the thoughts. However, greater difficulty in refocusing on erotic thoughts during sexual activity uniquely predicted more sexual problems above the frequency and dismissability of NETs. Together these data support the cognitive interference mechanism implicated by Barlow’s causal model of sexual dysfunction and have implications for the treatment of sexual problems.

Thesis (doctoral)--Universität zu Köln, 1982. / Added thesis t.p. Includes bibliographical references (p. [i]-xxvi).

Homophobia in men may be, in part, due to reaction formation rooted in unacceptable same-sex attraction. Previous studies have not confirmed a covert same-sex attraction in homophobic men, which is necessary for a reaction formation theory of homophobia. This study sought to reveal possible covert same-sex attraction in homophobic men. In this study, heterosexual and homosexual male erotic images were presented in a passive S1/S2 stimulus prediction design to 48 self-identified heterosexual participants, grouped by homophobia. Three event-related potential responses related to valenced emotional processing were examined: the medial frontal negativity (MFN), the late positive potential (LPP), and the positive frontal slow wave (FSW). While homophobic men have a larger FSW in response to erotics across the board, F(1,46) = 3.88, p = .055, no significant interactions between homophobia and image content were found. As such, homophobic men may have more interest in erotic images in general, but this study does not demonstrate that homophobic men find homosexual erotics appetitive.

The purpose of this study is to explore the manifestations and representations of masculinity and feminity in two novels of Marguerite Duras from a gender studies perspective. We will first review the traditional place of masculine and feminine stereotypes in the phallocentric order, basing our research on Bourdieu’s and Badinter’s work about the role of men and women in our society. Regarding the topic of sexual identity, our theoretical background will include feminist theories as Judith Butler’s gender performativity concept as well as Luce Irigaray’s notion of mimesis. The philosophy part can also give important clues for the interpretation of both male and female sentimental and sexual behavior: the work of the philosopher Michel Onfray, in particular his theory called "solar erotic", will help us to reveal the characteristics of Duras’ erotic writing. The results of our analysis show that both characters in the two novels present an ambiguous sexual identity: they seem to hesitate between the social obligation relative to their gender and the need of acting according to their own nature (androgyny of the Chinese). Our analysis shows the possibility of a deconstruction of the gender as well as a tendency to what Butler calls the subversion of identity. The exploration of Duras’ erotic writing seems to confirm those results, demonstrating the power of feminine desire and sexual pleasure in opposition to masculine sentimental pain and fragility.