The events of 9/11 deeply impacted the Arab American community, initiating a renewed Orientalist narrative that framed them as the “enemy within”. This thesis examines how Arab American playwrights are reclaiming their voice and agency to offer narratives of self-representation that unsettle and counter the discourse of Otherness that entraps them. Through an exploration of selected Arab American plays, this thesis examines the newly articulated Arab American identity, which aims to transcend an either/or dichotomy, despite being positioned on the periphery. Focusing on the racial, national, social, gender and sexual components of Arab American identity, this thesis problematises definitions of the “suspect” Arab, the “sexual” Arab and the “victimised” Arab woman and homosexual. It further questions the politics of visibility/invisibility influencing Arab American playwrights and theatre platforms as they attempt to defy their marginal positioning. It investigates the possibility of alternative theatrical spaces where Arab American playwrights can overstep the political and cultural limitations/demarcations imposed on them by a hegemonic “multicultural” discourse that privileges whiteness. In doing so, it celebrates the emergence of a resistant discourse within an Arab American theatre movement that liberates Arab American identity from Otherness.

In this thesis, I explore the desirability of including polygamous marriages within contemporary legal understandings of marriage in the UK. I develop existing research in this area to undertake a contextualised, historically-conscious examination of English legal and judicial responses towards polygamous marriages which I then use to underpin my analysis of real women’s narratives. My thesis addresses five research questions: 1.) How are legal and judicial responses towards polygamous marriage framed in English law? 2.) What is the impact of current legal and judicial attitudes towards polygamous marriages on women in the UK? 3.) How are women’s views, experiences and perceptions of polygamous marriage constructed in relation to law, religion, culture and society in the UK? 4.) How might the UK’s legal regulation of polygamy be changed to better reflect the needs of women? 5.) Is legal recognition for polygamous marriages in the UK, a desirable or viable option for reform? I argue that current English legal and judicial responses towards polygamous marriages are archaic and remain underscored by colonial imperialist, orientalist and sexist attitudes. These attitudes have also permeated wider social and cultural attitudes towards polygamy. The debate surrounding the legal recognition of polygamous marriages has evolved very little because the same arguments concerning equality and harm have been made for centuries. A more sensitive engagement with the advantages and implications of legal recognition for polygamous marriages is required to promote a nuanced model of recognition.

This thesis considers the role of the Zhenotdel (Woman's Bureau) of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) in Soviet Central Asia through a close reading of its activist journal Kommunistka from 1920-1930. This research seeks to address conflicting narratives within academic literature concerning the Zhenotdel's status within the CPSU, and in particular between accounts of its role in Central Asia rather than in European parts of the Soviet Union. Historians who have written on a campaign, known as the Hujum, launched by the CPSU in a direct attack on indigenous society in Central Asia in 1927, have tended to view the Zhenotdel as a compliant part of the Party apparatus. This interpretation contrasts with accounts of the Zhenotdel's far more problematic relationship with the Party outside of Central Asia during the same period. A close reading of Kommunistka throughout the entire period of the Zhenotdel's work in Central Asia has not previously been undertaken, although the journal has been relied on along with other source materials by various historians. Therefore, this study brings new and original material and analysis to further our understanding of the Zhenotdel's activities in Central Asia. It provides a close examination of the views of activists and leaders, and a better understanding of the Zhenotdel project on its own terms, as opposed to the goals of the CPSU. The shifts within Zhenotdel policy over the decade can also be situated within the changing conditions of the 1920s within Soviet Central Asia, and the discussions within its ranks. This thesis analyses the opinions expressed by Zhenotdel activists about indigenous women, along with the methods employed to interact with these women. It gives a detailed account of the Zhenotdel's social, economic and legal strategy and contrasts it with that of the CPSU. This thesis also considers the relationship of the Zhenotdel to the CPSU in the context of Central Asia. It shows how the tensions and conflicts within that relationship, already discussed through research focusing on the experience in the RSFSR and other European Republics, expressed themselves in the specific conditions of Central Asia. This research throws new light on many of the assumptions made about the Zhenotdel's programme in Central Asia and shows how this programme actually diverged very significantly from that of the Party leadership. A revaluation of the role of the Zhenotdel in the Hujum has been possible, based on this study. It shows that the involvement of the Zhenotdel in the Hujum and all other aspects of its activity in Central Asia has to be understood on the terms of an organisation which was committed to a woman-centred socialism. Ultimately this research shows the Zhenotdel in a struggle to make progress for its own programme while at the same time seeking to establish itself as a core part of the Soviet strategy in Central Asia.

No description available.

This thesis addresses the question of how structural and perceived privilege impact on political participation in the United Kingdom. In doing so it adopts the causal propositions of the Civic Voluntarism Model as its starting point and adds Pierre Bourdieu’s concepts of economic, social, and cultural capital, which are argued to encompass structural privilege. Perception of privilege is posited to be constituted by self-perceived status, explanations for that status, and explanations for status differences in society. Subsequent politically relevant components are perceptions of the difference and privilege of politically active people. Thus, the thesis proposes a model running from background characteristics through capital profiles to perception of privilege and thence political engagement and participation. An original survey covering these areas was designed and fielded online to a representative sample of 1,480 British adults. The resultant data is analysed using structural equation modelling, which allows for the simultaneous estimation of underlying tendencies and the structural relationship between them. The results of that model generally support the causal hypotheses of the research, as well as providing evidence of the impact of the three forms of capital and perception of privilege. In particular, a strong positive effect of legitimate cultural capital is observed and found to be more important in influencing political participation than the previously observed effects of social and economic capital. In addition, perception of privilege is found to promote participation and to channel people towards individualised political activities, especially where they subscribe to the fundamental attribution error. These effects are as hypothesised and confirm the role of both structural and perceived privilege in influencing political participation in the United Kingdom.

The present thesis has focused on helping behaviour towards disadvantaged outgroups. Research was done at an intergroup level, and obtained its theoretical foundation from the Social Identity theory (Tajfel & Turner, 1986), self-categorization theory (Turner, 1985; Turner et al., 1987) and the empathy-altruism model (Batson, 1987, 1991; Batson et al., 1989; Batson & Shaw, 1991) and focused on the influence of identity content and ingroup norms in investigating outgroup helping. Experiments were carried out concerning different instances that could affect outgroup helping and were centred around social identity and identity content, accountability, intragroup power and empathy towards the outgroup. The first two studies focused on the role of particular identities in terms of the Social identity theory (Tajfel & Turner, 1986). In experiment 1 it was found that people regulate their empathy towards beggars by their non-salient religious identity when they are together with others. The presence of others such as friends and partner, who are aware of the participant‘s religious identity, could possibly evoke accountability concerns, which are then reflected in empathy and prosocial behaviour towards a disadvantaged group. In experiment 2 a salient political identity only led to pro-social behavioural preferences and empathy towards beggars for those with left-wing identities; as opposed to those with a right wing preference. Concluding, the content of ideologically-defined identities (religious, political) served to regulate empathy and prosocial behaviour, but the salience of these identities could play a crucial mediating role in certain contexts. The plausible effect of accountability was further investigated in experiments 3 and 3a. Unfortunately no conclusive results were found. Experiments 4 and 5 investigated the role of intragroup power on outgroup helping. Results showed that people with high intragroup power either affect the prosocial behaviour of people that are less certain of their political preference compared to people who are certain of their political preference, possibly due to processes in accordance with the social comparison theory (Festinger, 1954) and intragroup differentiation (experiment 4), or were found to be less prosocial towards an outgroup (experiment 5) than people with lower intragroup power. Finally in experiment 6 and 7, research was directed towards intergroup awareness and empathy. Experiment 6 demonstrated that an outgroup will be perceived with more empathy and prosocial behaviour when awareness of the outgroup is high than when awareness of the outgroup is low. In experiment 7, people high in empathy towards a disadvantaged outgroup were more willing to allocate money to the outgroup than people lower in empathy. Overall, the results of the experiments in the subsequent chapters led to believe that ingroup identity and content, and ingroup norms are feasible with regard to helping a certain disadvantaged outgroup. These findings fit with the theories of social identity and self categorization, given that feeling and behaving according to ingroup norms is the objective, and suggesting that people each have a variety of different identities, which become activated in different social contexts. Furthermore inducing empathy towards an outgroup seemed to be an useful tool to promote helping behaviour towards an outgroup.

This thesis re-evaluates the emergence of the neoconservative critique of American post-war liberalism from 1945 to 1980. Its original contribution to the scholarship on neoconservatism lies in the claim that a particular understanding of Jewishness fundamentally shaped the neoconservatives' right turn, as well as neoconservative ideology. Few scholars have recognised the primacy of Jewish identity politics in the evolutionary history of neoconservatism. Those who have, have done so inadequately and unmethodically. Therefore, my thesis systematically analyses the Jewish dimension of early neoconservatism by placing particular focus on its two principal mouthpieces, Commentary and The Public Interest, while drawing on autobiographical writings, personal papers and oral interviews. Reconsidering neoconservatism from this angle also contributes to a reevaluation of modern Jewish political history by debunking the myth that the American Jewish community is governed by consensus based on political identification with liberalism. My thesis shows that neoconservatism not only contributed to the rise of conservatism and the fall of liberalism on a national level, but also played an important role in post-1945 Jewish intra-communal contentions about which political affiliation best expresses modern Jewish American identity. Accordingly, it demonstrates that Jewish political culture is more diverse than is usually appreciated and that neoconservatives draw on a tradition of Jewish conservatism, which has so far received little attention from scholars of modern Jewish history.

Thèse numérisée par la Direction des bibliothèques de l'Université de Montréal.

This doctoral project explores the narrative representations of transforming subjectivity in modernist and post-modernist texts that deploy the trope of metamorphosis. Subjectivity is explored within a psychoanalytic framework and from a comparative lens, through the juxtaposition of selected short stories and novels of metamorphosis from different literatures, produced in different languages and under different geocultural and historico-political conditions from 1915 to 1996. Chapter One explores subjectivity as sacrificial and in conflict with a symbolic father-authority, through a close reading of insect metamorphosis in Franz Kafka’s “The Metamorphosis” (1915) and Vladimir Nabokov’s “The Aurelian” (1931). Chapter Two addresses the postcolonial dimension of subjectivity and its collective construction in terms of the loss of home in Alejo Carpentier’s The Kingdom of This World (1949) and Vassilis Vassilikos’s ... and dreams are dreams (1988). Chapter Three pairs two feminist writers and their stories of metamorphoses, Virginia Woolf’s Orlando: A Biography (1928) and Darrieussecq’s Pig Tales: A Novel of Lust and Transformation (1996), to explore subjectivity as hybrid: androgynous and human-animal like. Metamorphosis, as this project suggests, allows us to explore an array of subjectivities, both individual and collective: it points to the issues of death, rebirth, sacrifice, the subject’s position within a nation and the processes of nation-formation, and creative writing as negotiating loss, while it also challenges the established boundaries of gender and animal representation. This thesis argues that the twentieth-century stories of metamorphosis which are being examined here articulate a certain metamorphosis in our very conception of subjectivity, namely, the reconceptualization of subjectivity as hybrid, metamorphic, and bound to individual and collective transformations.

In recent years, tourism and cultural policy have been seen as an important means of the revival of many western cities. A number of post-industrial cities- some whose principal concern is of improving their economic and physical structures and of transforming their image- have adopted these means as a key element of urban regeneration. This research examines two case studies featuring urban regeneration strategies that have been instrumental in developing tourism and cultural policy and the thinking behind them. Focusing on the case studies of Birmingham and Liverpool, it critically investigates the interrelationship that emerges between tourism and the use of high-profile projects and cultural industries in the discourse of urban regeneration. This research considers four research questions- their concepts as elements in urban policy, the nature of cultural policy and its influence on tourism activities, their implementation associated with place promotion activities, and the effectiveness of cultural policy to develop tourism provision- as constituent parts of a wider justification for the existence of this interrelationship. The findings demonstrate that there is indeed a strong interrelationship between tourism and cultural policy in the discourse of urban regeneration. This research contributes to an emerging and structured dialogue between tourism studies and cultural policy studies to broaden out what has been so far developed in that existing body of knowledge relating to regeneration strategies.