by Chung Ka Man Amy. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2000. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 108-113). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / Abstract --- p.i / Acknowledgment --- p.iii / Abbreviations --- p.iv / Chapter Chapter I --- Introduction --- p.1 / Chapter Chapter II --- Sons and Lovers (1913): The Release --- p.20 / Chapter Chapter III --- The Rainbow (1915): Experiencing the State of Balance --- p.41 / Chapter Chapter IV --- Women in Love (1920): Articulating the Idea of Balance --- p.60 / Chapter Chapter V --- Lady Chatterley´ةs Lover (1929): Towards the Balance --- p.77 / Chapter Chapter VI --- Conclusion --- p.91 / End Notes --- p.102 / Bibliography --- p.108 / Appendix I --- p.114

by Phoebe Tse Wing Han. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1999. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 104-108). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / Chapter Chapter One --- A Simple Historical Rundown of Visual Monsters --- p.1 / Chapter Chapter Two --- Sexual Hybridity in Science Fiction Monsters --- p.32 / Chapter Chapter Three --- Monstrous Hybridity of the Alien Mother --- p.66 / Conclusion --- p.100 / Work Cited --- p.104 / Illustrations --- p.109

This dissertation, “Communicating Across Time: Female Genealogies in the Medieval Literary Imagination,” explores the range of genealogical forms, alternative to patrilineage, that British writers used to depict the transmission of women’s power across time in early-twelfth to late-fourteenth-century literature. By taking an expansive definition of genealogy and exploring romance and hagiography, it highlights a widespread and persistent interest in medieval literature in the ways female characters record their legacies and communicate these legacies to future generations. By examining genealogy in these literary terms, this study revises current understandings of a core aspect of medieval culture and expands current definitions of what constitutes medieval historiography. Though patrilineal genealogy has been widely studied, we currently have little vocabulary to talk about female genealogies. Broadly stated, genealogy in this study describes the author’s description of a deliberate communication from the past that explains, curates or contests contemporary social-political landscapes, and to make claims to the future. Patrilineage, which became the main system of genealogy from the twelfth century, idealized the transmission of power – name, land holdings, and the legend of a common ancestor – from father to son. Even the notion that women possessed power and stories to communicate threatened a system that relied on mothers as passive genealogical vehicles. Aristocratic women, as landholders, heirs, politicians and religious leaders, did of course have legacies to communicate. Because medieval women’s claims to land and power were more mobile and less standardized than men’s, this dissertation is less interested in what female protagonists communicate across time and more interested in how - the means and processes of communication. This study’s focus on alternative female genealogies also highlights new ways of understanding literary representations of medieval maternity. In the texts examined, motherhood is not limited to the domestic, bodily and momentary, but is a political and agential role that is actively managed by the woman herself, often in conjunction with other forms of written and verbal communication. Literary texts reveal the various, and often unexpected, means medieval writers and readers imagined for women’s cross-temporal communications. Female characters frequently employ alternative genealogical ‘bodies’ to that of a male child, actively revising the topos of women as simply the bodily matter and means for a male line. The characters inscribe their claims to land, power and spirituality through footprints in rocks, blood-impressed doors, tenderly-handled books, a mother’s exact resemblance imprinted in her child’s face. The intimacy and deliberateness with which these women create and manage their cross-generational communications both draws on and destabilizes traditional ideals of motherhood and genealogy. The four chapters read across French, English and Latin texts, as many English readers would have done, with a focus on the genres of hagiography, romance and chronicle from the twelfth to fourteenth centuries.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2006. / Full text release at OhioLINK's ETD Center delayed at author's request

Thesis (M.A.)--North Carolina State University, 2002. / Title from PDF title page (viewed Apr. 2, 2005). Includes vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 86-88).

Poetry by Russian women which has been published since the fall of the Soviet Union reveals that the quest to explore female identity and experience is no longer inviolable in Russian literature. This thesis examines female personae, gender and cultural identity in the work of Russian poets Nina Iskrenko (1951--1994), Tatiana Voltskaia (b. 1960), and Iuliia Kunina (b. 1966). Although the poetics of these writers' texts are broad-ranging, all of their work takes up the subjects of gender and cultural identity. Their poems explore identity as a discursive practice, rather than a fixed construct within the strictures of authoritative metanarratives' binary oppositions (male/female, feminine/masculine, Russian/non-Russian). This lends their poetry to postmodern analysis, an approach that heretofore has rarely been applied to poetry by Russian women. Within this theoretical framework, Judith Butler's formulation of "performativity" and Mikhail Epstein's theory of "transculturalism" are particularly well-suited to the task, as each entails non-essentialist conceptions of identity. Donna Haraway's formulation of "woman" as cyborg" is also a fitting theoretical complement, as it suggests the hybridization of identity, as well as the increasing role of the Internet in contemporary and future developments in Russian literature. The rapid changes in the late- and post-Soviet cultural landscape have engendered in contemporary poetry by Russian women powerful, new expressions of gender and cultural identity, which are resulting in startling subversions of authoritative discourses while at the same time forging coalitional "transmodern" identities.

In this dissertation it is indicated that gender is a social construct, while sex is biologically determined. The concept of gender refers to that which is understood within a certain society to define masculinity and femininity, the power struggle between the two sexes, as well as the social limitations which are placed on people's behaviour as a result of gender. Children's and young adult's literature exert a great influence on the youth's idea of gender roles. The social and cultural history of South African society is used in this study to explore stereotypical gender roles in Afrikaans youth literature. The role of a patriarchal society, homosexuality, and changing perceptions of gender roles are investigated. It is indicated that in both English and Afrikaans children's and young adult's literature the portrayal of gender roles is often unrealistic, stereotypical, and contains sexist language. Two novels namely, Gooi horn in die slool (1971) and Skilpoppe (1998), are analysed using the following categories: male or female author, representation of gender roles, and use of sexist language. The teaching implications of the findings for the second language learner are then articulated. OPSOMMING In hierdie skripsie is aangetoon dat geslaglelikheid ("gender"), anders as geslag wat biologies bepaal is, 'n sosiale konstruk is. Geslagtelikheid hou verband met wat in 'n bepaalde samelewing onder manlikheid en vroulikheid verstaan word, asook met magsverhoudings tussen die twee geslagte en sosiale beperkings wat op grond van geslagtelikheid op mense se gedrag geplaas word. Jeugliteratuur oefen 'n groot invloed uit op jeugdiges se siening van geslagtelikheid. Die sosiale en kultuur-historiese agtergrond in die Suid-Afrikaanse samelewing word in die studie gebruik om die uitbeelding van geslagtelikheid in die Afrikaanse jeugliteratuur te problematiseer. Die rol van 'n patriargale samelewing, homoseksualiteit en veranderde sienings oor geslagtelikheidsrolle word onder andere uitgelig. Daar word aangetoon dat die uitbeelding van geslagtelikheid in sowel Engelse as Afrikaanse jeugliteratuur dikwels baie onrealisties is en wemel van stereotiperings en seksistiese taalgebruik. Twee jeugverhale, naamlik Gooi ham in die slool (1971) en Skilpoppe (1998), word aan die hand van 'n aantal kategoriee, naamlik outeur, uitbeelding van geslagtelikheid en seksistiese taalgebruik geanaliseer, voordat onderrigimplikasies vir die tweedetaalklaskamer aangedui word. / Thesis (M.A.) - University of Natal, Durban, 2001.

This thesis examines shojo manga (Japanese comics for girls) as a site of the subversion of gender. The focus will be on stories about cross-dressing, as the crossdressed heroine poses from the outset questions about the nature of girls within shojo manga and the girls who are supposedly reading the texts. The analysis takes place at two levels: visual language and narrative. Over the course of five chapters, focusing on a couple of series in each, this thesis will show the various ways categories of gender and sex are undermined in five different subgenres. Yet gender norms are recuperated in the end. The manga always return to the figure of the shojo , the ambiguously gendered "not-quite-female" female that must expire at adulthood and the regulatory function heterosexuality plays in this inevitable demise. Nevertheless shojo manga readers need not necessarily share this end. The various ways that the reader is positioned both visually and narratively suggests that her gender and sexuality remains ambiguous and indefinable.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Victoria University (Melbourne, Vic.), 2008.

Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Rhode Island, 2008. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 161-168).