<p> In 1796, Dr. Edward Jenner began vaccinating individuals against small pox by using matter from the pustules of the cow pox. Though extremely controversial because of its discomforting mixture of animal and human, by the end of the Romantic period, vaccination was celebrated as the safest way to immunize the British population. Through the practice of vaccination, Britain found a way to save its body politic from a destructive epidemic while affirming the strong connection between individual health and collective well-being that writers of the period like Mary Wollstonecraft, William Wordsworth, Jane Austen, and Mary Shelley recognized in their works. From the beginning then, medical immunity was inherently connected to politics; at the same time that Jenner was experimenting with vaccination, writers were debating over the most effective way to stifle the "jacobin influenza" and the "French malady," the contagious revolutionary ideas migrating to England from France. </p><p> Importantly, the use of medical terms and concepts to define the political points to the already immunological process by which modern political subjects are born, a process explored by contemporary biopolitical theorists like Roberto Esposito and which my project grounds in the historical record of early modernity. In particular, I argue that the rupture in sovereignty caused by the French Revolution, resulted in a shift in the way that political subjectivity was conceived. Individuals, rather than being constituted in relation to a transcendental sovereign whom, according to Hobbes, they created to protect themselves, instead internalize sovereign power. In a sense, the modern political subject comes into being through an essential immunization. </p><p> The discourse of what I call "medico-politics" made its way into the literature of the period. In fact, literature distinctively influenced how the modern, medicalized political subject was imagined. Capital-L literature&mdash;itself an burgeoning kind of discipline&mdash;was drafted into the immunizing project of modern politics because of the way it disciplines readers' bodies and minds. While Saree Makdisi claims that there is a "uniquely Blakean slippage between political and biological language" during the period and other critics view the relationship between literature and medicine as unilateral and metaphorical, I argue that medical practices like inoculation not only influenced literature, but became a part of literature's own self-definition as a modern discipline. </p>

<p> This thesis examines the complicated network of deities and divine forces in Geoffrey Chaucer's &ldquo;Troilus and Criseyde&rdquo; and how these forces contribute to the lovers' tragic ends. The gods of Love and War&mdash;Venus, Cupid, Mars, and Minerva&mdash;are the central focus of this study, but Fortune and the Christian God are examined as well. I propose that both the beginning and end of the affair are brought about by the gods in order to punish Troilus or Criseyde for excessive pride. </p>

<p> As psychology has become increasingly globalized, the Western orientation of the foundations of psychology has become apparent. The international practice of psychology requires a more universal theoretical framework for ethical and effective study and intervention. The study of fiction literature provides an avenue of exploration of universal constructs that can contribute to the creation of an international theoretical framework. As the most widely read and widely translated piece of fiction literature relevant today, J. K. Rowling's <i> Harry Potter</i> series is an ideal candidate for a phenomenological, cross-cultural study. This dissertation conducts a phenomenological analysis of participants' experiences reading <i>Harry Potter</i> and suggests three subsequent universal psychological constructs.</p>

<p> This project examines the ethical implications of relationships between Shakespeare&rsquo;s fools and their audiences. More specifically, I argue that in instances within certain comedies Shakespeare presents different kinds of fool/observer interactions in order to investigate whether fool figures, as literary devices, could produce the moral reflection and amendment that humanists like Erasmus often associated with such characters. Typically, Shakespeare portrays these humanist conceptions of the fool&rsquo;s utility as being limited by complications of the specific rhetorical situations in which fool/audience relationships occur. However, for Shakespeare, the possibility of dramatizing these complex effects provides an opportunity for exploration into the nuances of action and observation that occurs in interactions between fools and their audiences, whether in performance or on the page. More importantly, because of the fool&rsquo;s unique position as both a dramatic and social figure, the fool&rsquo;s interaction with auditors on stage offers opportunities to mirror social performances and observations that occur in the world outside the theater. As Ervin Goffman notes, the impressions created by performances and observations in social situations often are intertwined with moral judgments, not just through intentional and overt gestures, but also through implied and unintentional signals. In this light, this project makes apparent an ethical dimension in these comedies in that Shakespeare&rsquo;s spectrum of fools point to the fact that one&rsquo;s empathy and understanding for others is the product of close and particular attention to one&rsquo;s role as a performer and an observer in the social world. At the same time, this study also helps demonstrates that the sometimes puzzling shifts in tone between seriousness and mirth that run through a number of Shakespeare&rsquo;s comedies can be partially attributed to the author&rsquo;s sustained scrutiny of the fool/audience relationship.</p>

<p> The primary objective of this thesis project is to investigate Woolf's narrative construction of consciousness and its enactment of resistance against the clinical model of cognitive normativity, using <i>Mrs. Dalloway. </i> This objective is part of an effort to identify the ways in which Woolf's writing can be used, foundationally, to challenge the contemporary language of clinical diagnosis, as it functions to maintain power imbalances and serves as a mechanism of the rigid policing of normativity. It is also intended to support the suggestion that Woolf's novels and essays make a valuable contribution, when advanced by theory&mdash;including disability theory, to scientific conversations on the mind. One major benefit is that doing so encourages border-crossing between disciplines and views. More specifically, this project examines the ways in which <i>Mrs. Dalloway</i> resists the compulsory practice of categorizing and dividing the mind. The novel, I assert, supports an alternative narrative treatment, not of the mind but, of the normative social forces that police it. It allows and encourages readers to reframe stigmatizing, divisive, and power-based categories of cognitive difference and to resist the scientific tendency to dismiss pertinent philosophical and theoretical treatments of consciousness that are viable in literature. The critical portion of the project is concerned with the way in which <i> Mrs. Dalloway</i> addresses consciousness and challenges medical authority. Its implications urge the formation of an investigative alliance between Woolf's work and psychology that will undermine the power differential, call attention to and dismantle the stigma of "mental illness," and propel clinical treatment into new diagnostic practices.</p>

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, Dept. of English, 2007. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 68-09, Section: A, page: 3875. Adviser: Susan Gubar. Title from dissertation home page (viewed May 5, 2008).

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, Dept. of English, 2007. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 68-07, Section: A, page: 2960. Adviser: Linda Charnes. Title from dissertation home page (viewed Apr. 10, 2008).

Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Adelaide, Dept. of English, 1972.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, Dept. of English, 2007. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 68-07, Section: A, page: 2953. Adviser: Janet Sorensen. Title from dissertation home page (viewed Apr. 14, 2008).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Catholic University of America, 1916. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 77-84).