In his article 'The Death of the Author', Roland Barthes posits that the intentions and identity of an author are irrelevant to the understanding of an artwork. Yet in his analysis of a text by Balzac, Barthes inadvertently demonstrates that there are basic thematic categories associated with an artist's identity, which are intrinsic to a work's interpretation. This thesis proposes that the author of an artwork functions as a semiotic curator, collating signifiers from within these external categories in order to reflect their understanding of the world. Taking as a case study Nicholas Maw's 1976 score Life Studies - a piece described by the composer as being based on his own life - this experiential understanding of identity and self is explored through the lens of David Hume's bundle theory, where the unified experience of self is created through the collection of a series of perceptions. This thesis hypothesises that there are five key categories of perception that constitute Maw's artistic self in Life Studies: simulacra, narrative, design, agency, and nostalgia. Methodologically, these five areas - or rhizomes - are presented through a tripartite study, in an attempt to combine the three distinct disciplines which the philosopher Gilles Deleuze believed approached a holistic understanding of reality: philosophy, analysis, and - in the accompanying portfolio - composition (creativity).

Orientadora: Fabiana Lopes da Cunha / Banca: Célia Reis Camargo / Banca: Sandra de Cássis Araújo Pelegrini / Resumo: A pesquisa objetiva analisar e registrar os sentidos do ritual e do patrimônio da Folia de Reis da cidade de Florínea/São Paulo, dando ênfase ao período de 1993 a 2013, momento em o grupo de foliões (praticantes do ritual religioso e membros da Associação Folclórica de Reis Flor do Vale de Florínea) identificam as principais ressignificações do bem cultural no contexto da cidade. A história oral foi o método utilizado no processo de levantamento e avaliação das entrevistas, sendo complementada com um acervo documental de fontes textuais de diferentes tipologias (25 relatos orais transcritos, atas manuscritas, leis e processos jurídicos), audiovisuais (DVDs), sonoras (CD) e visuais (fotografias). Neste sentido, a reunião da documentação e as discussões do presente trabalho contribuem com a salvaguarda da memória e história do grupo e do patrimônio em questão e, também, com... (Resumo completo, clicar acesso eletrônico abaixo) / Abstract: This research aims to analyze and record the meanings of the ritual and heritage of Folia de Reis of the city of Florínea/São Paulo, emphasizing the period from 1993 to 2013, when the group of revelers (practitioners of this religious ritual and members of the Flor do Vale Folkloric Association from Florínea) identify the major reinterpretation of the cultural object in the city's context. Oral history was the method used in the assessment process and evaluation of interviews, complemented with a documentary archive of textual sources from different types (25 transcribed oral histories, handwritten minutes, laws and lawsuits), audiovisual (DVDs), sounds (CD) and visual (photograph). Regarding this, the gathered documentation and discussions in this study contribute to the preservation of the group's memory, history and heritage, and also with ... (Complete abstract click electronic access below) / Mestre

Dan Jacobson has written short stories, many non-fiction articles and eight novels: The Trap (1955), A Dance in The Sun (1956), The Price of Diamonds (1957), The Evidence of Love (1959), The Beginners (1966), The Rape of Tamar (1970), The Wonder-Worker (1973), and · The Confessions of Josef Baisz (1977) . The first five are all set in South Africa, though Jacobson has been living in England since 1954, i.e. since before his first novel was published. A distinct break in terms of subject matter and voice occurs after The Beginners , giving Jacobson what he calls "two rounds as a novelist. But critics recognizing this break seem not to have recognized that all eight novels are linked by certain thematic preoccupations, notably the notion of the trapped identity, which this thesis will attempt to demonstrate. On a first reading of Jacobson's work one is drawn to affirm his portrayal of the position of the white English-speaking South African, but a closer reading reveals that he does not speak as vitally to the South African situation as he seems to, or has been taken to do. Why this should be so is the second main concern of this thesis. In the first chapter the expectations underlying English literary activity in South Africa are outlined, as this is a necessary background to the discussion of Jacobson's South African novels. (Introduction, p. 4)

Still Lives and Set Pieces is a collection of stories that explore concepts of identity under pressure, using meta-fictional approaches and various formal strategies, such as borrowing structural traits from other styles of composition, to fracture POV and add dimensionality. One tale explodes the few moments immediately following an assisted suicide as the surviving partner starts the slow process of self-redefinition. Another wonders if a composer's search for the right five notes to complete his project has more to it than pitch and rhythm. A third sees two would-be criminals, stuck in time, playing darts in the back room of a nameless pub, while they await word of why they are there and what's to happen to them.

This research was based on the question of how Foundation Phase teachers perceived and experienced their professional development. This study was done at a school in the Northern Areas of Nelson Mandela Bay, South Africa. The school is situated in a developing community that has a low socio-economic status characterised by infrastructural challenges. The school is newly established and started the year 2012 with mostly newly qualified teachers. In this study, the researcher wanted to know how the participants’ perceptions and experiences as teachers impact on their professional development. The review of relevant literature provided a conceptual framework for the study. This study explored the fact that a social constructivist theory is relevant for the professional development of foundation phase teachers. This theory is based on the fact that teachers construct their own knowledge and that more emphasis should be placed on theory within teachers’ practice. A qualitative research approach was suitable for this study. The data for the study was obtained by using photovoice and focus group interviews. The most important theme that emerged from the data collection was that the physical environment of the school and the surrounding area played a major role in how the teachers experienced their development. Other themes that emerged from the study were the need for educational resources, teacher collaboration and leadership. The findings show that more emphasis should be placed on the professional development of Foundation Phase teachers. Schools in poverty stricken areas of South Africa have an impact on how teachers experience their professional development. It has become clear that places of higher education need to consider the contexts in which schools are situated, especially in poverty stricken areas. Foundation Phase teachers are a vital part of education and as such the training of teachers in this phase should develop around whole-person learning within a life-long learning framework.

Level of Occupational Aspiration is a complex though relatively unexplored phenomenon which is theorized to play a major role in career choice. This study explores the relationship between level of occupational aspiration (real/ideal) and self-concept (as measured by the Piers Harris self concept scale), and level of occupation and ego identity (as measured by the Revised Ego Identity Scale). Significant positive correlations were found between both real and ideal aspirations and self-concept for females. No relationship was demonstrated for males. Significant positive correlations were also established between real and ideal aspirations and ego identity for females. A significant positive relationship was established between real aspirations and ego identity for males. Implications for adolescent career counselling are discussed. / Education, Faculty of / Educational and Counselling Psychology, and Special Education (ECPS), Department of / Graduate

I offer some tentative thoughts on Sto:lo relations with the forest and, in turn, suggest how those relations may inform Sto:lo views on identity and culture. While highlighting the variety and complexity of Sto:lo attitudes toward the forest, I pay particular attention to those that appear contradictory. In so doing, I suggest that such "contradictions" are instead necessary antagonisms that spring from the constantly changing pressures to which the Sto:lo have been subjected, as well as from the ways in which they have struggled to cope with such pressures. More specifically, in pointing to Sto:lo attitudes towards forest work and forest conservation, I suggest that the Sto:lo have been forced and even encouraged to make claims to their identity that do not, and need not, conform with what is considered "traditional." In this way, my discussion is structured around the relationship between a sense of Sto:lo identity and the notion of cultural continuity, while aimed at highlighting the material as well as the intellectual realities behind that relationship. In a broader context, my discussion is aimed at reinforcing the need for more flexible examinations of Native identity; those that will highlight what it means to live in a modern Native culture, and what it means to be vulnerable to power. / Arts, Faculty of / Geography, Department of / Graduate

The Exotic World Museum is a small amateur ethnographic museum created by Harold Morgan and founded on his extensive tourist travels with his wife Barbara. It consists of over 500 pictures, photographs, labels and artifacts which cover the walls and ceiling of the back room of Alexander Lamb's Wunderkammer Antiques, where it is currently housed. Through this museum, Morgan has created an identity for himself as a world traveler and a learned man. As such, the collection stands as a narrative of Morgan's life, portraying the identity he has projected for himself. Morgan constructs this identity by establishing authenticity through the Museum and tourist experience, by using the National Geographic as a projection in which to place himself, and by creating an encounter between Self and Other. As such, the study of Exotic World has larger implications in the context of the history of museums and of collecting in general. / Arts, Faculty of / Anthropology, Department of / Graduate

This work explores identity positions of speakers in modern and contemporary poetry with respect to themes of subjectivity, self-awareness, lyricism, heteroglossia, and social contextualization, from perspectives including Bakhtinian, queer, feminist and postructuralist theories, and Peircian semiotics. Tony Hoagland, W.H. Auden, Adrienne Rich, and the poetic prose of Hélène Cixous provide textual examples of an evolving aesthetic in which the poet's self and world comprise multiple dynamic, open relationships supplanting one in which simple correspondences between signifiers and signifieds define selves isolated from the world. Hypertext and polyamory serve as useful analogies to the semantic eros characteristic of such poetry, including the collection of original poems that the critical portion of this thesis introduces.

The poems contained in this collection attempt to enact the dizzying experience of being a thing of consciousness in the world, the strangeness of navigating life as a body among bodies. In doing so, they stumble over, into and through themes of relation, grief, solitude, ritual, identity, perception, failure, idolatry and survival, among other things.