Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Oregon, 1999. / Typescript. Includes vita and abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 169-182). Also available for download via the World Wide Web; free to University of Oregon users. Address: http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/uoregon/fullcit?p9955914.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1974. / Typescript. Vita. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M. A.)--University of Hong Kong, 2005. / Title proper from title frame. Also available in printed format.

This study is an investigation of responses of four adolescent girls to the characters in two adolescent novels: Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, by Mildred Taylor; and Lyddie, by Katherine Paterson. The novels were chosen because the main characters are strong, independent young females, whose various struggles could provide a medium for a discussion of the needs, preoccupations, and aspirations of the girls in the study. The approach to the series of book discussions was based on Louise Rosenblatt’s conceptions of literature as human experience and a medium for exploration. The research was further informed by multiple perspectives on reader response theory as presented by Richard Beach, and by the work of Belenky, Clinchy, Goldberger, and Tarule on the various ways women approach learning. Although response begins as an individual activity, a primary focus of the study was an investigation of responses shared in a group setting. The study is a contribution to the efforts of educators and others concerned with the enhancement of women’s confidence by a validation of their experiences, and through demonstrations of social constructions of meaning. / Ph. D.

Doris Lessing and Tsitsi Dangarembga write fiction set in Zimbabwe, the former Southern Rhodesia. Although Lessing grew up as a white settler and Dangarembga, a generation later, as part of the colonized African population, the women sometimes address similar issues. Both write of young girls trying to find a speaking position; under colonialism, what they want to say cannot be said. Lessing's first-person stories differ from her more distant third-person works, which show how white settlers either refuse to recognize their own complicity within the colonial system or accept living a compromised life. Her younger narrators are as yet innocent; the stories often focus on the character's discovery of her own responsibility as a member of the white ruling class. However, these girls have varying levels of self awareness; some seem unaware of the implications of their stories, while others catch glimpses of their own complicity, yet are unable to act. Although Lessing herself is highly critical of colonialism, her stories sometimes risk textually replicating and thus reinforcing the values she criticizes. Dangarembga's first-person novel Nervous Conditions (1988) portrays Tambu, a girl from a poor African family, and her more modern cousin Nyasha. Tambu narrates the story as an adult, Although Nyasha resents colonialism and her patriarchal family, Tambu proceeds with her education, attempting to ignore the injustice around her. Because of the use of an adult narrator, the reader sees what Tambu the child cannot see. Nyasha is unable to voice her concerns; her protest surfaces as anorexia. Both Lessing's and Dangarembga's characters have difficulty speaking because colonialism does not include a space for what they want to say; even if they spoke, their words could make little difference. Lessing' s characters can "speak" only by leaving the country, as Lessing herself did. Dangarembga's Tambu may or may not have "escaped" her situation; by the book's publication, Rhodesia had overcome white rule, and it may be this political change that allows Tambu to tell her story. / Graduation date: 2002

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Illinois State University, 1997. / Title from title page screen, viewed June 29, 2006. Dissertation Committee: Roberta Seelinger Trites (chair), Jan Susina, Bruce W. Hawkins. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 170-177) and abstract. Also available in print.

This study describes a content analysis of six contemporary young adult fiction novels. Adolescence is a time of great change, particularly for girls. It is during this time that female adolescents develop their voice and identity. As literature reflects the reader’s world, it also affects in part how female adolescents perceive their identity. Latent content analysis was used to code eight variables to determine if select contemporary young adult fiction novels appropriately describe the development of identity among adolescent females. All of the novels included in the study provided sufficient evidence of accurate portrayal of female adolescent identity development, by having examples of at least four out of eight variables, with most having examples of seven out of eight variables.

Includes bibliographical references (leaves 84-91) / My thesis focuses on the representation of marginalized voices and trauma in the selected fiction of Tsitsi Dangarembga and Yvonne Vera. I analyze three novels written by the Yvonne Vera—Without a Name (1994), Under the Tongue(1996) and The Stone Virgins(2002) set during the Zimbabwe liberation struggle period and postcolonial Zimbabwe dissident era respectively and Nervous Conditions(1988) and its sequel, The Book of Not (1996), by Dangarembga set during the 1960s to 1970s colonial Rhodesia period (the colonial name for Zimbabwe) and during the period of white‐minority rule in Rhodesia to the attainment of independence in 1980. I analyze these novels from the feminist/womanist, gender and postcolonial literary models. The rational for grouping these theoretical models in the analysis in this thesis is that they commonly highlight from a gender perspective the complex factors which oppress and marginalize women in the colonial and postcolonial contexts in which the two authors set their writings. These literary paradigms highlight the oppression of women from an African perspective and all acknowledge the need to address all factors which oppress and subordinate women (gender, race, class) if total emancipation for them is to be achieved. I also posit that Vera and Dangarembga offer discourses that challenge the silencing of narratives of oppression and violation in their novels selected for analysis in this thesis. The thesis has five chapters. In Chapter 1, I set out the argument of the thesis and give a brief history of gendered colonialism and the historical period which provides a setting for the fiction of the two authors. Next, I describe the conceptual framework I will use in analyzing the works of the two postcolonial Zimbabwe female writers. Then I will outline the research questions and hypothesis and expose the research methodology and approach that will serve as my vehicle for data collection, analysis and interpretation. In Chapter 2, I will focus on gender, class and race and discuss the ways Dangarembga explores these factors in Nervous Conditions and The Book of Not. I will also discuss innovate ways women explore to champion their freedom and voice in the fiction of Dangarembga. Chapter 3 focuses on the novels of Yvonne Vera— Without a Name, Under the Tongue and The stone Virgins —which articulate narratives of violated subjects and silenced voices. I will discuss the ways Vera explores to show how narratives of violated subjects are silenced by patriarchy, colonialism and masculine narratives of nationalism in these novels. Chapter 4 focuses on narratives of trauma. Using theories of trauma, I will analyze Without a Name, Under the Tongue and The Stone Virgins by Vera and show how these narratives articulate colonial and postcolonial trauma and female child trauma. I will also discuss The Book of Not by Dangarembga and show how the novel articulates colonial and racial trauma. My discussion of the novels of Vera and Dangarembga in this chapter will show that these novels work out traumatic experiences in the colonial and postcolonial eras and will also reveal the challenges of representing tra / English Studies / M.A. (English)

Thèse (Ph.D.)--University of British Columbia, 1998. / Comprend des réf. bibliogr.

This thesis reports on an analysis of the discursive construction of female and male physical identity in children’s literature and explicitly combines corpus linguistic methods with a critical discourse approach. Based on three novels from each of the Chronicles of Narnia and the Harry Potter series, it shows clear gendering of body parts, not only in terms of the purely quantitative preferences for certain body parts to be associated with one or other gender, but in terms of discourse prosody, or the uses to which the body parts are put. Human body parts in these series are mostly used in the following four ways, all of which show differences in realisation in terms of gender: · to describe individuals, physically, in order to distinguish one from the other; · to convey emotion, unintentionally as well as consciously; · for physical interaction between people and · for interaction with the world more broadly: responses to danger and agency, i.e. the ability to act on the world and the nature of what is achieved. The use of body parts by characters to express emotion and act agentively on the world is revealed to be strongly gendered in the two series. I characterise the most prominent patterns in terms of the bodily products blood, sweat and tears, of which the last is strongly connected to female characters, who are generally associated with emotion. The other two, referring to active participation in fighting and injury, as well as agency, are almost exclusively reserved for males, with female characters rendered unable to act on the physical world as a result of overwhelming feelings. The females’ response to danger suggests stereotyped discourses of inequality which see women and girls as requiring protection and being physically incapable. Thus gender is still a particularly salient aspect in these widely-read examples of children’s literature, despite plots which appear to be fairly positive towards women. The strength of the inclusion of a corpus approach in this study lies in its capacity to reveal objective, and often fairly covert, trends in language use. These in turn enrich the critical analysis of discourses in these influential texts, which facilitates social change through linguistic analysis.