Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Massachusetts Amherst, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 225-239). Print copy also available.

Thesis (M.A.)--York University, 1998. Graduate Programme in French. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references. Also available on the Internet. MODE OF ACCESS via web browser by entering the following URL:http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/yorku/fullcit?pMQ27348.

Thesis (M.Phil.)--Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 72-81). Also available in electronic version. Access restricted to campus users.

published_or_final_version / Chinese / Master / Master of Philosophy

This dissertation offers the first full-length study of five feminist writing practices developed between May 1968 and the publication of Rachel Blau DuPlessis's The Pink Guitar in 1990: ecriture feminine (Helene Cixous), ecriture au feminin/writing in the feminine (Nicole Brossard, Daphne Marlatt, Lola Lemire Tostevin), lesbian/political writing (Monique Wittig), innecriture (Trinh T. Minh-ha), and writing as feminist practice (DuPlessis). These share what I call a feminist poetics; I develop the concept of "sympathy" (the transmission of symptoms from one body to the next) to explain how they nourish one another. I recount their poststructuralist context, and outline key historical influences, such as the student protests of 1968, the nascent women's movements in France and North America, and feminist cultural production in the 1970s. I then describe their poetics---the textual, grammatical, and semantic strategies used to undermine the patriarchal symbolic. I focus on the status and function of the female body in this feminist poetics, and suggest the body provides it with a non-essentialist theoretical foundation. I conclude by evaluating two models that best describe these writing practices: the palimpsest and the matrix. While the palimpsest, with its textual allusions, is an attractive model, I suggest that the matrix offers two advantages: its corporeal connotations and its emphasis on writing as process.

Grace Paley's fiction has suffered from being labeled as (alternately) post-modernist and feminist. There is a critical assumption that post-modernist and feminist works are plotless because they are nontraditional. Plot has been defined in Aristotelian terms, and those terms have colored the thinking of critics who attempt to discuss non-Aristotelian plots. Ironically, even feminist critics who are keenly aware that language is empowerment use the traditional language of literary criticism to describe nontraditional plots.As a result, post-modernist and feminist narrative modes are seen as fragmentary. This judgment often as not is simply a reaction to the Aristotelian emphasis on the unity of plot. Literary "unity" is not, however, an antonym for "fragmentation." To assume that nontraditional works such as Paley's are fragmented is to ignore the stories. The opposite of literary unity is not fragmentation, but amalgamation.Similar critical assumptions are that Paley's work is plotless and carries no implicit meaning. Careful readings of the stories in question lay both of these assumptions to rest. The point here is to make reading and understanding the stories the first priority. To use the stories as merely a chance to apply theory is to do both theory and the stories a disservice. / Department of English

Marie Laberge began her career as a playwright at the end of the 1970's. Presently, with 15 plays to her name, she holds an important place in women's theatre in Quebec and in Quebecois theatre in general. Not only is Marie Laberge a successful playwright, she is also a novelist. / This work examines the feminist ideas and the female experience as presented in Marie Laberge's plays and novels. / Initially, the important themes of women's theatre in Quebec and Marie Laberge's position and role within this movement will be explored. The dominant themes of the feminist movement in Quebec since 1970 will be highlighted. The concept chronotope, defined by the Russian theorist Mikhail Bakhtine, will be employed in the thesis to assist with the evaluation of the female experience. / Three periods of Marie Laberge's work will be defined as feminist action, moderated feminism and absence of feminism. To properly study these three phases, one text from each, which best represents the ideas of that period, will be analyzed in detail. Once the ideas relevant to this study are exposed, they will be explored in relation to the other works in each phase and to the feminist movement in Quebec during the same period. / In conclusion, the growth of the feminism in Marie Laberge's work will be summarized and compared to the feminist movement in Quebec and its evolution.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Western Australia, 2007.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Saskatchewan, 2000. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 200-205). Also available online in PDF format via the World Wide Web; System requirement: Adobe Acrobat Reader.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Washington State University, May 2009. / Title from PDF title page (viewed on Apr. 19, 2010). "Department of English." Includes bibliographical references (p. 210-216).