This thesis investigates the multiple readings that arise when the division between the biological and technological is interrupted--here abjection is key because the 
binary between abjection and gadgetry gives multiple meanings to other binaries, including male/female. Using David Cronenberg’s Videodrome and eXistenZ, I argue that multiple readings arise because of people’s participation with electronically mediated technology. Indeed, abjection is salient because Cronenberg’s films present an ambivalent relationship between people and technology; this relationship is often an uneasy one because technology changes people on both a somatic and cognitive level.

The purpose of this research was to investigate the additive therapeutic effects of a yoga intervention on the anxiety, depression and behavioral problems of conduct-disordered male adolescents in residential treatment. In addition, the moderating effects of callous-unemotional (CU) traits on outcome measures were assessed. The program consisted of a four-week intervention program in which participants were randomly assigned to either the yoga group (n=25), in which they practiced yoga with an instructor, or the control group (n=19), in which they met for a supervised study hall. The study included pre-testing on symptoms of anxiety, depression and CU traits, and post-testing on anxiety and depression measures only. Behavioral data were unavailable due to unanticipated program changes. A repeated measures MANOVA was utilized to investigate the benefits of yoga practice on a combined mental health variable that consisted of two dependent variables, anxiety and depression. A significant effect for time, but not for the interaction between time and group, was found. This indicated that both groups' scores decreased over time on the depression and anxiety variables, but that there was no statistically significant difference between the treatment groups' depression and anxiety scores over time. In spite of non-significant results, additional exploratory analysis was conducted. Results indicated a trend towards significantly greater decreases in anxiety outcomes for the yoga group vs. the control group over time. The moderating effects of CU traits on the relationships among the treatment conditions and anxiety outcomes were found to be non-significant. Limitations of the present research, including low sample size and statistical power, are discussed.

This study takes a phenomenological approach to squirt kayaking. It looks to examine mystical states of consciousness, as defined by William James, and flow theory, as defined by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, and focuses on what these experiences mean for participants of the squirt kayaking community. The study poses three research questions. (1) Do squirt kayakers experience mystical states of consciousness through squirt kayaking, and what does this experience mean? (2) Do squirt kayakers experience flow states of consciousness through squirt kayaking, and how was this experienced? (3) What is the mystery zombie or the mystery trance state, and how is it experienced? By posting messages on online message boards dedicated to squirt kayakers twenty participants responded to the post and were then contacted by telephone for an interview based off of an original questionnaire created for this study. The results show that mysticism and flow does occur through the squirt kayaking medium. Four primary themes emerged from the data about the experience and are as follows: defies expression, serious leisure, different realm, and the trance. Results indicate that there is not a distinctive difference between mysticism and flow, although further research should be done to support this. Also this study would suggest that further research be conducted concerning the build-up of carbon dioxide in the brain and its effects on mystical experiences. Implications of this research to look to challenge the concept of mysticism and flow by broadening what recreation offers its participants. Keywords: charc, flow, mystery trance, mystery zombie, mysticism

The study aims to explain the role of external causes in René Descartes’s (1594–1650) and Benedictus de Spinoza’s (1632–1677) accounts of the mastery of the passions. It consists in three parts: the mind-body union, the passions and their classification, and the mastery of the passions. In the first part I argue that Descartes’s conception of the mind-body union consists in two elements: mind-body interaction and the experience of being one with the body. Spinoza rejects the first element because there cannot be psychophysical laws. He accepts the second element, but goes beyond Descartes, arguing that the mind and body are identical. In the second part I discuss the classifications of the passions in the Passions of the Soul and the Ethics and compare them with the one Spinoza presents in the Short Treatise. I explain that hilaritas is an affect that expresses bodily equilibrium and makes it possible for the mind to be able think in a great many ways. Furthermore, I consider the principles of imagination that along with imitation and the striving to persevere provide a causal explanation for the necessary occurrence of the passions. In the last part I argue that in Descartes the external conditions do not have a significant role in the mastery of the passions. For Spinoza, however, they are necessary. Commentators like Jonathan Bennett fail to see this. Hilaritas requires a diversity of sensual pleasures to occur. As Medea’s case shows, reason is not detached from Nature. Spinoza attempts to form a stronger human nature and to enable as many people as possible to think adequately. His recognition of the need for appropriate external conditions and a society in which ideas can be expressed freely allows him to present an ethics with a practical application, instead of another utopia or fiction.

One common element of Kripke’s and Chalmers’ reactions to physicalist theories of mind is their reliance upon the intuition that concepts about conscious experiences are essentially identified by the “immediate phenomenal quality” of the conscious experience, how the experience feels from the subjective point of view. I examine how Kripke’s and Chalmers’ critiques require that concepts about conscious experiences be identified by their subjective feel and then move on to provide some ways in which this intuition about concepts of conscious experience could be wrong. Specifically, the intuition is not consistent with our intuitions about unusual cases reported by pain researchers and does not take such cases to be genuine cases of pain. These inconsistencies weaken the intuition, making it problematic for any critique of identity theory or physicalism to rely heavily upon it.

This thesis compares philosophers Ken Wilber (Integralism) and Leonard Peikoff (Objectivism), who argue that Western philosophy is saturated with a fallacious mind/body dichotomy, which they trace historically and psychologically. Wilber’s and Peikoff’s agendas, worldviews and starting points are contrasted, specifically, Wilber’s holons, Kosmos model, the Big Three Value Spheres and Peikoff’s metaphysical axioms. Their definitions of consciousness are reviewed, along with their mutual epistemological emphasis on knowledge as contextual. Wilber makes mystical validity claims supported by stages of cognitive development. Discussed attributes of the mind/body dualism are: regression and repression; control versus chaos; hedonism, uniformity and authoritarianism; Subjectivism and Intrinsicism; Ego-agency versus Eco-communion. Both philosophers maintain that each partial strategy collapses into the dysfunctions of the opposite strategy. Their respective models of resolution through integration are presented in conclusion, particularly Wilber’s case for nondual Self-realization.

This study takes a phenomenological approach to squirt kayaking. It looks to examine mystical states of consciousness, as defined by William James, and flow theory, as defined by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, and focuses on what these experiences mean for participants of the squirt kayaking community. The study poses three research questions. (1) Do squirt kayakers experience mystical states of consciousness through squirt kayaking, and what does this experience mean? (2) Do squirt kayakers experience flow states of consciousness through squirt kayaking, and how was this experienced? (3) What is the mystery zombie or the mystery trance state, and how is it experienced?By posting messages on online message boards dedicated to squirt kayakers twenty participants responded to the post and were then contacted by telephone for an interview based off of an original questionnaire created for this study. The results show that mysticism and flow does occur through the squirt kayaking medium. Four primary themes emerged from the data about the experience and are as follows: defies expression, serious leisure, different realm, and the trance.Results indicate that there is not a distinctive difference between mysticism and flow, although further research should be done to support this. Also this study would suggest that further research be conducted concerning the build-up of carbon dioxide in the brain and its effects on mystical experiences. Implications of this research to look to challenge the concept of mysticism and flow by broadening what recreation offers its participants. Keywords: charc, flow, mystery trance, mystery zombie, mysticism

The two essays that comprise this thesis use personal narrative to discuss various aspects of illness, resistance and the body. The first essay uses performance theory to explore the social structures, mandates and restrictions concerning illness. I use the cancer experience to explore the co-creation of self, identity, and modes of being between "performer" and "audience." "Performer," in this case, is the "breast cancer patient," and the "audience" is comprised of the "social others.” The second essay explores cyborgization of the body, its painful effects, and associated social and moral values. It also discusses how we create theory and understanding of self through fiction, media and experience.

This project is a translation of ideas I have encountered in my journey through Women's Studies. With this interactive book, I offer a concise, understandable, and empowering method for self-discovery from one feminist's perspective. Traditional self-help materials often set the reader up as the one with the issue or problem and they rarely call out the functioning systems of oppression as a stumbling block or offer ways to circumvent them. With this project, I hope to shine light on the functioning systems of gender discrimination, racism, classism, and heterosexism, and to provide a framework for understanding. There are three main theoretical contexts for this project. The first context includes perspectives on language and the ways in which language limits women's communication with themselves and with each other. .The second is gender socialization and how it enforces norms of "appropriate" female behavior. The third context is recent work in feminist spirituality and the possibilities it offers for recovering a spiritual self in direct relationship to a higher being. By narrating my own experiences in these three areas, and by offering resources and tools for further exploration, I hope this thesis will enable readers to understand that it is not they who are sick or in need of "self-help" but the society and culture in which they live.

This dissertation makes progress on the mind-body problem by examining certain key features of epistemic defeasibility, introspection, peer disagreement, and philosophical methodology. In the standard thought experiments, dualism strikes many of us as true. And absent defeaters, we should believe what strikes us as true. In the first three chapters, I discuss a variety of proposed defeaters—undercutters, rebutters, and peer disagreement—for the seeming truth of dualism, arguing that not one is successful. In the fourth chapter, I develop and defend a novel argument from the indefeasibility of certain introspective beliefs for the conclusion that persons are not complex objects like brains or bodies. This argument reveals the non-mechanistic nature of introspection. / text