According to the 2011 College Music Society directory, 9% of university band directors in the United States are women. Band directing in higher music education remains dominated by men. In a career field traditionally occupied by men, women have anecdotally reported a variety of experiences with gender as they sought to be considered competent or worthy enough to fulfill what is sometimes presumed to be a male role. The purpose of this study was to understand the ways three women have experienced gender within the culture of band directing while identifying as women, university-level band directors. Of prime interest was the process of how (and if) verifications and agreements were (or were not) made between these women, their students, and colleagues. This study was based on the theoretical platforms of gender theory, role theory, and identity theory, which, when combined, provided the foundation from which I was able to view, understand, and interpret the ways three women university band directors felt pressure to exist within a culture that demanded they “do” and “undo” gender within the role of band director. Via interview and observation within a qualitative, multiple case study format, it became clear that women who wish to become university band directors face a variety of obstacles, most having to do with gendered expectations of the role of band director. Findings indicate that the participants’ experiences of gender were more complex than initially expected. The participants’ understanding of the expectations related to the role of band director were easier to negotiate than the identities they sometimes struggled to name. Participants engaged in a variety of types of negotiation, including the use of gendered attributes, humor, and confidence, which when viewed as a whole, suggest that these women engaged in behaviors that represent what Ahmed (2014) terms as willfulness, a component necessary for each to attain their positions as university band directors. Although participants engaged in such willfulness, each was compelled to acquiesce to the patriarchal rules that continue to govern the role of band director and conductor.

This study aims to investigate how history teachers relate to whiteness and the whiteness norms in their teaching. The material mainly consists of qualitative interviews with history teachers who are active in lower secondary schools in Jönköping County. The questions are based on how the teachers reason regarding the whiteness norms, how they work with these in their teaching and how the teachers appraise that these norms affect their pupils' identity creation and history consciousness. The results show that a large part of the respondents show an uncertainty when they talk about the whiteness norm, this stems from a lack of understanding for the meaning of the concepts. It also appears that some respondents have reflected on the whiteness norms in their teaching before, however, a difference can be seen in the respondents’ answers depending on how or if they have reflected on the subject of whiteness norms or not. The respondents handle the uncertainty in different ways, among other things by being or not being a killjoy (a person who decides whether they should bring down the mood in the room through confrontation or not). In the conversation with the respondents, they describe how their view of the students' identity and that it can vary depending on whether the pupil belong or does not belong to the whiteness norm.

Ce mémoire examine le potentiel des joies fécondes, à travers la prose de l’auteure italienne Goliarda Sapienza. Nous verrons comment l’arrimage des désirs réflexifs à des luttes émancipatrices est au centre de son roman d’apprentissage L’Art de la joie. Il s’agira de baliser une caractéristique essentielle de l’émotion joyeuse : sa capacité de dilatation physiologique, individuelle et collective. De ce fait, nous affirmons que la joie et le bonheur agissent comme de véritables synonymes antinomiques. Reconnaissant l’immense pouvoir induit par la joie, nous proposons une réconciliation de la raison et de l’émotion, à contre-courant des injonctions du bonheur et de la psychologie positive. Dans l’importance qu’elle accorde aux doutes, au combat et à la peine, nous verrons aussi comment Sapienza fait figure de rabat-joie, posture rhétorique de résistance développée par Sara Ahmed, qui dénonce l’illusion des dogmes aliénants. / Through the prose of the Italian author Goliarda Sapienza, this master’s thesis examines the potential of fecund joy. We will see how the alignment of reflexive desires with emancipatory struggles is central to his novel, L’Art de la joie. We shall examine the guiding, essential characteristic of joy: its capacity for physiological growth and expansion, on an individual and collective level. As a result, we affirm that joy and happiness act as actual contradicting synonyms. Recognizing the immense power induced by joy, we propose a reconciliation of reason and emotion, contrary to the admonition of happiness and positive psychology. In a rhetorical resistance developed by Sara Ahmed, who denounces the illusion of alien dogmas, we will see how Sapienza appears to be a damper by examining the importance she attaches to doubts, struggles and pain.

Thesis (MA)--Stellenbosch University, 2012. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Seeking to navigate and explore diasporic identity, as reflected in and by transatlantic narrative spaces, this thesis looks to three very different novels birthed out of the Atlantic context (at different points of the Atlantic triangle and at different moments in history): Our Sister Killjoy or Reflections from a Black-eyed Squint (1977) by Ama Ata Aidoo, The Chosen Place, The Timeless People (1969) by Paule Marshall and Crossing the River (1993) by Caryl Phillips. Recognising the weight of location – cultural, geographic, temporal – on the literary construction of transatlantic identity, this thesis traces the way in which Aidoo, Marshall and Phillips use fictional texts as tools for grappling with ideas of home and belonging in a world of displacement, fracture and (ex)change. Uncovering the impact of roots, as well as routes (rupta via) on the realisation of identity for the diasporic subject, this study reveals and wrestles with various narrative portrayals of the diasporic condition (a profoundly human condition). Our Sister Killjoy presents identity as inherently imbricated with nationalism and pan-Africanism, whereas The Chosen Place presents identity as tidalectic, caught in the interstices between western and African subjectivities. In Crossing the River on the other hand, diasporic identification is constructed as transnational, fractal and perpetually in-process. This study argues that in the absence of an established sense of terra firma the respective authors actively construct home through narrative, resulting in what Erica L. Johnson has described as terragraphica. In this way, each novel is perceived and explored as a particular terragraphica as well as a fictional lieux de mémoire (to borrow Pierre Nora’s conception of “sites of memory”). Using the memories of transatlantic characters as (broken) windows through which to view history, as well as filters through which the present can be understood (or refracted), are techniques that Aidoo, Marshall and Phillips employ (although, Aidoo’s use of memory is less obvious). Tapping into various sites of memory in the lives of the fictional characters, the novels themselves become mediums of remembering, not as a means of storing facts about the past, but for the ambivalent purpose of understanding the impact of the past on the present. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: In ’n poging om diasporiese identiteit te karteer en te ondersoek, betrek hierdie verhandeling drie uiteenlopende romans wat in die Atlantiese konteks, naamlik vanuit die verskillende hoeke van die Atlantiese driehoek en verskillende geskiedkundige Atlantiese momente, ontstaan het. Die drie romans sluit in: Our Sister Killjoy or Reflections from a Black-eyed Squint (1977) deur Ama Ata Aidoo, The Chosen Place, The Timeless People (1969) deur Paule Marshall en Crossing the River (1993) deur Caryl Phillips. Deur die belangrikheid van plek – kultureel, geografies en temporeel – in die literêre konstruksie van transatlantiese identiteit, te beklemtoon, spoor hierdie verhandeling die manier waarop Aidoo, Marshall en Phillips fiktiewe tekste aanwend na om sin te maak van idees oor tuiste en geborgenheid in ’n wêreld van verdringing, skeuring en (ver)wisseling. Deur die impak van die oorsprong op, asook die weg (rupta via) na, die verwesenliking van identiteit vir die diasporiese subjek te toon, onthul en worstel hierdie tesis met verskeie narratiewe uitbeeldings van die diasporiese toestand (’n toestand eie aan die mens). Our Sister Killjoy stel identiteit as inherent vermeng met nasionalisme en pan-Afrikanisme voor, terwyl The Chosen Place identiteit as tidalekties uitbeeld – vasgevang tussen westerse en Afrika-subjektiwiteite. In Crossing the River word diasporiese identifisering egter gekonstrueer as transnasionaal, fraktaal en ewigdurend in ’n proses van ontwikkeling. Hierdie studie voer verder aan dat die onderskeie skrywers tuiste aktief deur narratief konstrueer in die afwesigheid van ’n gevestigde bewustheid van terra firma, of onbekende land of plek. Die gevolg is ’n voortvloeiing van wat deur Erica L. Johnson beskryf word as terragraphica. Vervolgens word elk van die romans gesien en verken as ’n spesifieke terragraphica asook ’n fiktiewe lieux de mémoire, gegrond in Pierre Nora se konsep “sites of memory”. Die benutting van transatlantiese karakters se herhinneringe as (gebreekte) vensters waardeur die geskiedenis bespeur kan word en filters waardeur die hede verstaan (of gerefrakteer) kan word, is die tegnieke wat Aidoo, Marshall en Phillips aanwend – alhoewel Aidoo se gebruik van geheue minder ooglopend is. Deur verskeie terreine van geheue in die lewens van die fiktiewe karakters te betrek, ontwikkel die romans tot mediums van onthou, nie in die sin van feite van die verlede wat gestoor word nie, maar met die dubbelsinnige doel om die impak van die verlede op die hede te verstaan.

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