In Bleak House , Dickens satirizes contemporary conditions in London in order to diagnose what he sees as social and industrial ills to prescribe a solution to the "Condition-of-England" question. Beginning with a review of the topicality in the novel, I use Dickens's personal letters, the text of Bleak House , and articles from Household Words to explain his contempt with the Great Exhibition, misguided philanthropy, and sanitary conditions, among others. Ultimately, it is his anathema to the Great Exhibition which drives both Dickens's plot and the issues he explores. Dickens's mockery of England is refracted and emphasized through his use of multiple genres. I seek to illuminate how the varieties of genres frame the plot trajectory as well as Dickens's subtle solution to London's problems. Using Michel Foucault's discussion of the discourse of discipline, I explain how Bleak House employs the Gothic novel, the Detective novel, and the Romance novel to influence the reader towards a more ordered and dutiful society. I end with an examination of the objects in the novel, concluding that objects symbolize not only characters' roles, but also their psyches.

This thesis examines the role of an intellectual confronted with the power of a totalitarian state. It is based on a literary analysis of two literary works: Prisoner without a name, cell without a number by Jacobo Timerman and Archipelago Gulag by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. This work explores the dynamics manifested in the language used by an intellectual (a writer) at the level of discourse to challenge the status quo and question power relations established in a society with a repressive state system. The main focus of the analysis lies in establishing how social reality is reflected through discourse of an intellectual who is at the same time a writer, a former political prisoner, a witness, a victim and a judge. Furthermore, the purpose is to examine the notion of power and its relation in respect to such concepts as discourse, literature, knowledge, state and an individual and how the existing power relations affect and contribute to construction and / or deconstruction of individual and collective identity. The thesis's particular interest consists in the transformative effect of discourse on power relations (indoctrination, dominance, collaboration, etc.) which exist within a society as reflected through literary discourse. The theoretical foundation for the analysis will be partially based on the concepts proposed by Michel Foucault in his theory of power, Mikhail Bakhtin in his literary theory and Norman Fairclough in his CDA (critical discourse analysis) theory.

The following project will consist in the study and examination of the concepts and theories that lie in the domain of political theory. The enquiry into the dimensions and complexities of the socio-political organization and the political substance of individual human agents will be conducted with the intellectual assistance of the postmodernist turn of thought. I will interrogate and develop a specifically Foucauldian reading of international politics and the emerging global world order as well as situate Foucault's insights and theorizing in a cosmopolitan framework, which calls for a progressive re-conceptualization of the dimensions of power and the modalities of state-citizen autonomy, and sovereignty. The thesis will proceed through five stages of analysis: (i) examination of freedom and self-creation as foundational and fundamental to the cosmopolitan citizenship; (ii) investigation of governmentality, power and the role of personal and political resistance in shaping new horizons of political order (iii) development of a structural approach to cosmopolitan democracy; enhanced by (iv) decoupling of identity from citizenship, and prompted by (v) an inquiry into and recalibration of the political space and sovereignty of states and political agents. I will contend for a conception of citizenship, illuminated by a postmodernist lens of analysis, set in a cosmopolitan framework and premised upon a notion of a layered and constituted dialectic, as the most adroit model for a re-articulation of the spirit of democratic qua cosmopolitan citizenship in the world of increasingly displaced loyalties, porous identities, and atrophied civic commitments. The study aims to inquire into the possibilities of meaningfully addressing the fundamental question in political theory, that of: how is the state to be organized in an era of globalization accompanied by an unprecedented compression of space and time, and re-spatialization of socio-economic and political relations. The thesis will conclude with a synthesis of proposed theoretical assumptions that are to serve as the structural basis and philosophical guidance for the institutionalization of measures conducive to the enactment and perpetuation of cosmopolitan consciousness and cosmopolitical practice.

In this thesis, I critically analyse power relations between donors and the government of Malawi (GoM) under the new aid architecture and argue that this new configuration represents a shift away from domination, with donors attempting to impose policies, and towards more subtle interactions, through which donors seek to transform the GoM into a self-disciplined, entrepreneurial, neoliberal subject by shaping its aspirations and promoting specific norms of conduct, ‘truths’ and policy-related techniques. The research focuses on funding for AIDS and draws on forty interviews with representatives from the GoM, donors and civil society, conducted in Malawi 2008, as well as discursive analysis of secondary sources. I use Foucault’s concept of governmentality, a form of productive power focused on the care of the population and working through individuals’ subjectivities, and extend it to the relation between donors and the GoM. I show that the agency of the GoM is both elicited by the principle of country ownership, and re-worked through the increased involvement of donors in the policy sphere. I explore how these interactions are legitimised by a discourse that presents donors and the GoM as equals, while casting the GoM as technically deficient and requiring donors’ intervention. I analyse how donors instrumentalise dialogue with the GoM to instil an ethos of self-responsibility.I also investigate how AIDS funding has been made reliant on public financial management reforms, which re-code social domains according to an economic logic, by subordinating government activities to macroeconomic imperatives and creating new undemocratic accountabilities based on market rationalities. I argue that by restructuring the GoM according to this neoliberal rationality, the new aid architecture has programmatic effects, allowing donors to rule at a distance. I also examine avenues for resistance, particularly the potential residing in the intrinsic contradictions of this rationality.

This study aims to investigate how the U.S. military presence has become possible and why the U.S. military bases have concentrated in Okinawa. Since 1945, the U.S. military and the Japanese government have maintained U.S. military bases in Okinawa. U.S. military accidents and soldiers’ crimes have been serious problems in Okinawa. Moreover, Okinawans have not been protected from military violence by adequate judicial measures for over a half century. I employ the analytical insights of Michel Foucault and Giorgio Agamben to analyze archival and secondary documents and investigate historical and current U.S. military problems in Okinawa. Foucault’s insight allows me to analyze American rationalizing discourses and power relations that have contributed to the U.S. military presence and concentration on the Okinawa islands. The analytical insight of Giorgio Agamben is a useful reference to investigate juridical contradictions of U.S. military presence in Okinawa. I argue that the U.S. military and the Japanese government have attempted to make the American military presence in Okinawa legitimate through multiple tactics of governance. Given Okinawans’ persistent resistance against the U.S. military and the Japanese government, the U.S. military base presence does not seem wholly accepted in Okinawa. Nevertheless, the military burden has been imposed on Okinawans who are represented and treated by the U.S. military and the Japanese government as the insignificant “Other.” I argue that the analytical approaches that I develop in this study can be applicable to grasp patterns of modern domination in other cases of governance wherein political elites realize their interests by suspending the juridical rights of minority groups.

Rather than offering a traditional interpretation of what constitutes a spatial queer politics, which Brown and Knopp (2006) describe as "claiming space," this dissertation seeks instead to explore a Foucauldian politics of disappearing, of incoherency, and illegibility. I call this the politics of invisibility, describing a queer politics that questions visibility at every avenue and that is extremely critical of the ways that queer bodies are often made less complex, indeed less visible, when "gays and lesbians" are incorporated more and more into the mainstream. The work does this through three different papers. First, it lays down the theory of the politics of invisibility through a Foucauldian analysis of the changing nature of heteronormativity since queer theory's origin in the early 1990's. Second, it asks whether new directions in mapping gays and lesbians based on problematic census data from the 1990 and 2000 censuses should be reconsidered in light of this changing heteronormativity. Third, it explores the radical potential of a gay male subculture that is striving to become more visible and by doing so ruptures the taken-for-granted no-tions of how traditional forms of masculinity should be interpreted in a queer theoretical framework.

This thesis explores the implications of the thought of Michel Foucault in relation to traditional Systematic Theology. It offers an outline of different types of theology to address the shortcomings exposed in the critique of Systematic Theology. / The first two parts of the thesis are an inquiry into the meaning of an archive. This word identifies an epoch of history, but it is a spatial rather than a chronological emphasis. An archive identifies experiential conditions that limit both the potential and sense of thinking; yet, such limitations simultaneously permit sense and thinking. An archive denies and constitutes possible sense-perception. In relation to knowledge, this calls forward several sociological and historical factors. It was Foucault's uniqueness to place great emphasis on power and on the general sense of the sociology of knowledge. / The focus of Part III rests on the critique of traditional Systematic Theology. In particular, this tradition has tended to presume the correctness of what Schleiermacher called the religious a priori. In this approach, the fact of existence demonstrates the necessity of a pregiven source of existence. But this attempt to transcend existence covered up several important questions related to the experience of the a priori from within the archive. Foucault demonstrates that the transcendental tradition did not sufficiently consider its sociological context or the spatial dynamics involved in its production. / In response, there are different types of theological practices available. The first type (called theology A) arises from the affirmation that knowledge is a dynamic archive location. From this point of view the history of Christian thought can be approached as sets of archives in which certain types of God-sense are produced. The second type of theology (called theology B) arises from the affirmation that a critical theology is possible only when, from its location, it orients itself to non-events and non-being. Theology is accomplished critically when it undertakes to affirm itself as both a product of its archive and an orientation toward the available nothingness of its archive. / The work of Michel Foucault opens to theology two different manners of approaching its history and its contemporary task.

This thesis is about the possibility of addressing power disparities in divorce mediation in order to maximize the benefits that this alternative practice offers. It describes the development of Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) in general and of divorce mediation in particular, primarily through a feminist lens. In doing so it discusses the promise that feminist proponents saw in mediation initially, and then proceeds to describe the breaking of the promise that developed into some of the harshest critique of this process. The thesis explores a critical element of this critique, namely the problematic nature of utilizing mediation in the face of existing power imbalances generally, and in the context of divorce specifically. In order to facilitate the address of incongruities of power, it delves into an examination of the concept of power from several angles. To enhance and deepen the analysis of this concept, it describes Foucault's definitions and understanding of the term, and applies these towards advancing the discussion regarding the possibility of addressing existing inequality in power between parties to a dispute. Finally, it offers some tools that can be used in addressing power disparities in order to ameliorate the mediation process and its results. To this end it describes the ethical guidelines that can be utilized, comprised of internal tools to address power imbalances through mediation styles, as well as external ethical guidelines inherent to the process. Additionally, it suggests legal boundaries that may be utilized to offset possible power discrepancies. It ends with a hopeful message of the possibility of transformation in the face of conflict, thereby entertaining the prospects of a promising future for this alternative to resolving disputes.

While it is well understood that many resource-based communities are transitioning to tourism to provide a new economic foundation, few studies have probed in-depth the rationale and mechanisms influencing decision-making processes. This case study does that, providing the rationale behind Nanaimo’s City Council’s decision to build a conference centre and in so doing exposes the processes, actors and events that helped framed its decision. A coastal community in British Columbia, Canada, Nanaimo’s downtown suffered continual decline for nearly two decades. In an attempt to reverse the decline, City Council voted 8 to 1 in favour of a conference centre proposal based on its conviction that a centre would serve as a calling card for the community and function to attract both lifestyle residents and tourists. Moreover, Council’s vote signalled its commitment as an active partner in re-establishing the downtown and repositioning Nanaimo as a post-industrial city with high-level infrastructure and amenities. Although there was initial widespread community support, as the conference centre evolved through a series of iterations, one community group surfaced to challenge its merit and the lack of public engagement in the process. In response, another group surfaced to defend the decision. Through a community referendum, the decision was upheld and the community moved forward with the plan. Nonetheless, the viability of the project was threatened a second time with the civic election as several community residents who resisted the project ran for City Council on a platform that would have halted the project. The community, once again, affirmed the decision to proceed. This case has two steps. First, I present a descriptive analysis to illuminate how the community’s social networks played a role in moving a specific agenda forward. There were two phases of data collection from which data were compiled and analysed. The first phase of data collection examined a variety of written documents in the community and principally included minutes of the various City Committees, independent studies commissioned by the City, newspaper accounts, and sources of information provided by the participants. The information collected in this first phase of study helped to inform the 37 in-depth interviews collected in the second phase of the study. Critical discourse analysis was used to demonstrate how and why different groups in the community justified and rationalized an ideological stance supporting a political and economic framework underwritten by tourism. Overall, the strength of the case is in its details. In demonstrating how the social networks and the local coalitions’ capacity-building efforts shaped civic decision-making and public policy, one gains, in a Foucauldian sense, how governmentality played out as different groups engaged in resistant and counter-resistance mechanisms. Tracing these movements reveals how this community was conditioned towards an economic framework underwritten by a political economy of tourism. Moreover, this case demonstrates that although consideration should be given to the broader economic and political climate, it supports claims in the literature that a high degree of autonomy exists within community decision-making processes. Complementing this consideration is the need to theorize more carefully the role of democracy and governance in determining the satisfaction of outcomes. Finally, more consideration should be given by tourism scholars to be more reflexive about their research, its contested and emotive moments.

Denna uppsats undersöker hur deltagare i arbetsmarknadspolitiska program upplever deltagandet och effekten av programmen. Studien riktar sig specifikt mot fas 3 inom jobb- och utvecklingsgarantin, dit individer som varit arbetslösa under flera års tid skrivs in. Problemområdet omfattas av hur arbetslivets förändring leder till komplikationer för individer som är arbetslösa. Sju medverkande intervjupersoner deltog i studien, där semi-strukturerade intervjuer användes. Resultaten visar att deltagarna i programmet upplever att de dagliga aktiviteterna är meningsfulla, men att det politiska och byråkratiska ramverket leder till försämrat välmående och hopplöshet. Två handläggare för deltagare inom programmet intervjuades också, för att skapa en bättre helhetsbild. Den teoretiska ansatsen som används i analys av empirin utgick ifrån Foucaults teori om governmentality, som belyser hur individer disciplineras in i en övervakande mentalitet genom styrning och makt. Makten tydliggörs i analysen, där maktrelationer används för att förklara hur upplevelserna av fas 3 förhåller sig till exempelvis politiska beslut. Slutligen diskuteras hur detta leder till främlingskap för deltagarna i relation till det övriga samhället och varför detta är problematiskt.