This dissertation, the first book-length investigation of the works of Julia Franck, investigates representations of the mother-daughter relationship in Franck’s five major texts: Der neue Koch (1997), Liebediener (1999), Bauchlandung: Geschichten zum Anfassen (2000), Lagerfeuer (2003), and Die Mittagsfrau (2007). Specifically, it examines the roles of “daughter” and “mother” as social constructs, which are open to resignification and reinvestigation. In the introduction, I outline the trajectory of Franck’s career, focusing particularly on her relationship with feminist scholarship and her persona as a representative of feminism in the German media. In chapter 1, I begin with Judith Butler’s theory of gender performativity and look for examples of performative identity in Franck’s works of fiction. I further destabilize identity in chapter 2 by demonstrating how identity is contingent on space, drawing on Marc Augé’s theory of “places” and “non-places.” In chapter 3, I demonstrate how psychoanalysis, as the primary theoretical lens through which the mother-daughter relationship has been viewed, conflicts with destabilized gender binaries, as laid out in chapter 1. Consequently, I argue, the psychoanalytic models of attachment and identity are not relevant to an investigation of the mothers and daughters in Franck’s works. I explain my theory of “maternal drag” in chapter 4. I argue that the mother figures in Franck’s novels exhibit a performative maternal identity, specifically one that so conflicts with expectations of the maternal that it calls into question those very expectations. Finally, in the conclusion, I consider the wider implications of my theory, particularly in light of the media discussions in Germany surrounding feminism, motherhood, and the decline in birth-rate.

This dissertation is an investigation of the spatial and temporal Othering of subjects, characters, and themes in German-language film and literature by means of a series of case studies, which illustrate a certain kind of alterity. This work offers a classification for a new type of Othering based on the interactions among gender, sexuality, and a notion of home or belonging. Heimosexuality, this kind of Othering, can appear when certain conditions are met: new bodies (corporeal constructions) will result from the combination of gender-sexual behaviors with notions of “home” and the pressures of abjection. The entities that emerge from this process operate in various spatiotemporalities, fusions of space and time with Otherness (allospaces and allotimes). Building on Sigmund Freud’s idea of the uncanny, chapter one provides and introduction to and foundation for the theoretical concepts employed throughout the dissertation by presenting a unique combination of phenomenological, psychoanalytic, feminist, and queer theories. ^ The following chapters demonstrate the application of these concepts to four main cultural products. Chapter two argues that the characters in Frank Wedekind’s play, “Frühlings Erwachen” (1891), affect/effect each other’s bodies and sexual identities, as the adolescent characters demonstrate the polymorphous nature of corporeal eroticism and its dependence on national ideas of respectability. Chapter three is an analysis of Robert Musil’s novel, Die Verwirrungen des Zöglings Törleß (1906), in which Foucauldian disciplinary power, colored by ideas of cultural propriety and social fitness, mold the sexualized and gendered methods by which privileged young men subjugate their surroundings. Chapter four is an examination of Kutlug Ataman’s film, Lola und Bilidikid (1999), in which “majority Germans” and “minority Germans” affect each other’s attempts to construct a home despite obstacles of race, gender, and sexuality. Chapter five examines Pierre Sanoussi-Bliss’s film, Zurück auf los (2000), and its presentation of the re-temporalization of its Afro-German, HIV-positive, gay protagonist. Chapter six, the conclusion, builds on the theory presented in chapter one and posits the simulacral nature of identity categories, including that of belonging, whether Othering takes place in a national or anational or post-national setting. ^

In this master thesis a category of men otherwise often taken for granted is examined: noncriminal,non-violent men. With the help of in-depth interviews with young men who havepreviously lived a life with drugs and criminal behaviour, I examine the young men's identityand masculinity projects. To do this, I use theories by researchers R.W. Connell and MichaelS. Kimmel, among others. It turns out that the young men use othering, distancing anddichotomization in their identity projects, and that they work very hard to build a newmasculinity, constructed as totally separated from their former one. They also work very hardto dichotomize their identities, separated in now/then, followed by dichotomies such aspure/impure, honest/criminal, good/bad, deep/shallow and communicative/closed-off. Theirpresent masculinity projects must be seen in a context of what can be called a regionalSwedish masculinity, where equality, fatherhood, communication and respect for women arecentral features. I claim that the young men in their masculinity projects work exceptionallyhard to reach this kind of masculinity, and that they, in their struggle to do this use discoursesof embodiment, class, (dis)ability, sex, and authenticity.

In indigenous African societies, cultural expectations compel women to restrict themselves from excelling in whatever they do as a way of conforming to prevailing customary expectations. This is because those women who are said to disregard cultural expectations by aspring to achieve more than their male conterparts face societal consequences. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2020. / Andrew Mellon Foundation. / African Languages / PhD / Unrestricted

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The underrepresentation and the stereotypical portrayal of women in the news media is an enduring matter. This thesis examines the gender representation and portrayal in news coverage of the underrepresentation of women at the United Nations’ 26th Conference of Parties (COP26). As frame of reference, the theories watchdog journalism, representation, feminist media, and homophily are used. The study conducts a manual content analysis on news reports and news tweets concerning the topic. The analysis focuses on four categories of women; reporters, sources, women who advocate for better representation at COP26, and women in relation to climate change. Previous research shows that women are underrepresented as reporters and sources in political news. However, this study concludes that women are highly represented in the news coverage of this topic, while men are almost totally absent. Furthermore, the study concludes that the women in the stories are portrayed in stereotypical ways. Women’s role as celebrities is highlighted and thereby other roles occupied by women are downplayed. Also, the stereotypical portrayals of women as victims and saviours in relation to climate change impacts are present in the analysed news reports and tweets. Further research is suggested in gender representation in media coverage of gender inequal representation.

En kvalitativ semiotisk analys har genomförts av reklambilderna från skateboardtidingen Big Brother. Syftet med undersökningen var att studera reklambilderna i Big Brother med fokus på representation av kvinnorna. Därav följde frågeställningen "Hur representeras kvinnan i reklambilderna från Big Brother utifrån ett semiotiskt perspektiv". Urvalet av materialet bestod utav fem reklambilder där bildernas tecken analyserades kvalitativt med fokus på blick och posering. Genom att fokusera på dessa tecken i undersökningen blev huvudresultatet att kvinnornas karaktärsdrag blev reducerade till att bli betraktade av en utomstående blick. Därmed konnoterade dessa tecken Big Brother läsare som väsentliga betraktare i kvinnornas representation.

Många har varit utsatta för incest och det är viktigt att belysa erfarenheter av berättande och avslöjanden om att ha varit utsatt för incest för att öka kunskap och förståelse för upplevelser och effekter av att berättande, kunskapen är viktig både för de som har varit utsatta, för närstående och för professionella.  Det finns relativt lite studier om effekter av berättandet av att ha varit utsatt för incest som undersöker effekter i förhållande till olika aktörer som rättsväsende som hälso- och sjukvård, familj och vänner. Det behövs också forskning som täcker bredden i gruppen som har varit utsatta för incest, då flertalet av studierna är kliniska studier. Jag vill därför bidra till att med min uppsats öka förståelse för erfarenheter av att berätta för andra om att ha varit utsatt för incest.  Min teoretiska utgångspunkt är fenomenologi. Jag har valt en kvalitativ forskningsansats för att genom semistrukturerade djupintervjuer få kunskap om och förståelse av en grupp kvinnors verkligheter och upplevelser. Som analysmetod har jag använt tolkande fenomenologisk analys. Mina slutsatser är att det kan vara viktigt för personer som har varit utsatta för incest att veta att berättandet för ursprungsfamiljen kan leda till att man inte blir trodd, förklaras galen, anklagas för att förstöra familjen och att berättandet kan leda till att kontakten med medlemmar i ursprungsfamiljen bryts. Genom att vara förberedd så ökar möjligheten att redan innan berättandet se till att ha stöd från andra, antingen personer i det privata nätverket, stödorganisationer eller från professionella. För professionella kan det vara bra att veta att personer som berättar för ursprungsfamiljen kan behöva stöd då berättandet och dess effekter ofta är en svår och smärtsam process. Då cirka fyra % av befolkningen enligt undersökningar har varit utsatta för incest så kanske vi alla behöver bli mer vana mer att prata om incest och bli medvetna om omfattningen av problemet för att kunna vara ett bra stöd för de som berättar.

abstract: This dissertation examines the embodied experiences of domestic workers and their children as they emerged in organizing campaigns aimed at achieving a Domestic Worker Bill of Rights in California. I analyze the ways domestic worker organizers have historically conceptualized their movements around demands for dignified labor and immigration reform. I argue that their demands for protections and rights force them into a contradictory space that perpetuates vulnerability and recasts illegality—a space where domestic workers’ bodies get continuously figured as exploited and in pain in order to validate demands for rights. I trace this pattern in organizational survey material across generations, where worker’s voices resisted prefigured mappings of their bodies in pain, and where they laid out their own demands for a movement that challenged normative frameworks of fair labor and United States citizenship that continue to center race and gender in the transnational mobility of migrant women from Mexico and Central America. Furthermore, I explore the embodied experiences of domestic workers’ children, and the embedded power relations uncovered in their memories as they narrate their childhood accompanying their mothers to work. Their memories provided an affective landscape of memory where the repetitive, and demeaning aspects of domestic work are pried apart from western, colonial arrangements of power. I argue that their collective embodied knowledge marks a reframing of pain where transfiguration is possible and transformative patterns of becoming are prioritized. I propose interpreting these collective, embodied memories as a constellation of shimmers—luminous points that align to expose the relationships between workers, their children, employers, and their families, and the specific context in which they were produced. Altogether, they create what I call a brown luminosity—forces activated by their mothers’ labor that created multiple worlds of possibilities for their children, resulting in nomadic memories which move beyond victimizing their mother’s bodies to enable an ever-changing perspective of the ways their labor has radically transformed homes, livelihoods, and transnational spaces. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Justice Studies 2019