This thesis aims to, with the aid of Anthony Gidden¡¦s and Stuart Hall¡¦s theories on modernity and identity, discuss the process of changes initiated by modernity in the societies of V. S. Naipaul¡¦s three Trinidad novels in his writing career: namely, The Mystic Masseur (1957), Miguel Street (1959), and A House for Mr. Biswas (1961). My argument is that in these Trinidad novels, the process of modernization is fragmenting the old and agrarian Trinidadian society, and therefore has caused rupture and discontinuities in people¡¦s life. This fragment is actually a pertinent chance for both the protagonists and Naipaul to regain their genuine self and cultural identity by escaping from the limiting environment. In Chapter One, there is basic historical background information of Trinidad and of V. S. Naipaul. I will list out some key concepts of Anthony Gidden¡¦s ideas of modernity, along with the ones of the importance of self-identity in a modern society. Moreover, Stuart Hall¡¦s concepts of modernity and identity will be presented as well. Chapter Two, with some comparisons with The Mystic Masseur and A House for Mr. Biswas, will mainly focus on Miguel Street and on the impact of modernity on it. The institutional and economical changes caused by modernity lead to rupture and discontinuity in people¡¦s life, and consequently, force them to search for self-identity. Chapter Three will move on to discussion of the self-identity formation of Mr. Biswas in A House for Mr. Biswas. During his growth and struggle in Trinidad, he finally gains his identity as an individual in a modern society. Moreover, his newly established sense of cultural identity will be inherited by his son, Anand. Anand serves an analogy to the boy narrator in Miguel Street whereas Ganesh in The Mystic Masseur is seen as an antithesis to Mr. Biswas. At last, I will define Naipaul¡¦s sense of identity as a Trinidad-born writer.

This thesis concerns about the hidden problems of public sphere in contemporary society. Through social thinker, Zygmunt Bauman¡¦s liquid modernity theory, we can make sense for this topics,and uses Zygmunt Bauman¡¦s liquid modernity theory as the basis for analyzing.My basic proposition is that the public sphere is now in the predicament as the transition of modernity, and faces new challenges. Briefly speaking, the act of translating private troubles into public issues is in danger of falling into disuse and being forgotten. I primarily sum up three major causes to this situation: the forces of individualization, globalization, and consumption behavior of capitalism. I hope this research can help we think about public sphere issues and strengthen the awareness of the obligations of citizens and importance of their participating.

This research is motivated by the proposition of the legitimacy of applying ¡§little theatre¡¨ as the mode of theatre management. The core context and the judgment of value of theater management today are founded basically on a ¡§large-scare theatre¡¨ paradigm; this causes, for most of the time, prejudice and insufficient result in managing theatrical affairs. To analyze the details of this problem, I started from rediscovering the ideological conflicts between Modernity and Post-Modernity, and tried to solve this dualistic misunderstanding by using ¡§Post-Modern Turn¡¨ as the mode of transcending. Since the term ¡§Post-Modern¡¨ is generally associated with social aspects as post-industry society, information society, organizational behaviors and consumption theory, etc. it is necessary to redefine theatre management as the issue of discussion in the realm of sociology. In order to approach my ideal strategy for today¡¦s theatre management, I developed three major parts as the frameworks of study: 1. the Post-Modern Turn of sociology of art, 2. five faces of modernization of Taiwan¡¦s modern theatre, 3. the Post-Modern Turn of organizational management and Taiwan modern theatre. I believe the difficulty of theatre management today lies not in the issue itself, but in the way we look at it. By relocating this problem in a social context, we can have a rethinking of how art management is possible, of exploring the updated and proper solutions for today¡¦s theatre management.

Almost all the sources on modernism originate material transformations in Western world to industrial revolution while mental ones to enlightenment. In all these narrations, technology, engineering, and modernism are considered as correlated. Besides these concepts, the everyday life rituals that were naturally constructed in the historical process also strengthen this attitude. Then, what are the meanings of the same concepts in a country that experience a reverse process instead of the modernization through industrialization? How new technologies had adapted to local circumstances of an unindustrialized country? While having these questions in mind, this study intends to identify the role of engineer and to reflect on the importance of technology on Turkish modernization project, hence, this dissertation is an historical inquiry into the role played by new building technologies and civil engineering. It covers a broad period extending from late Ottoman to 1960. Among many prestigious building types of engineering such as silos, dams, harbors, factories, railroad etc. that also became popular representations of development, prosperity and modernity, the bridges have been focused on with a particular emphasis because of both their importance for engineering and construction of transportation networks.

The purpose of this thesis is to offer an exposition of Anthony Giddens¡¦ thoughts on modernity. The terms ¡¥modern¡¦ and ¡¥modernity¡¦ are probably among the most frequently used yet rarely discussed with regards to meaning and connotation. In contemporary social theories, the term modernity is frequently taken as either obsolete or true by definition. In this thesis, I try to interpret Giddens¡¦ ideas on modernity to offer a better purchase on current ideas within the field. In the first chapter, I explain why I think the research on modernity is critical to contemporary social science. Moreover, to explicate Giddens¡¦ thinking, I also discuss Giddens¡¦ academic life and the contemporary academic study in Taiwan of Giddens¡¦ writings. In the second chapter, I briefly describe Giddens¡¦ most widely discussed theory, the Structuration theory, for I think it is the theoretical basis of the thoughts on modernity. I also refer to two important contemporary thinkers¡¦ to trace Giddens¡¦ theoretical background, namely Roy Bhaskar and Jürgen Habermas. In following two chapters, I detail Giddens¡¦ theory of modernity, focusing on its fundamental characteristics, consequences and implications for the study of an increasingly globalized world. In the fifth chapter, I review the criticisms on Giddens¡¦ theory of modernity and try to defend some of those criticisms. In the conclusion chapter, I briefly go through the major points of this thesis and assess Giddens¡¦ insights to the study of modernity.

The purpose of this thesis is to give a critical analysis of ¡§Macphersonian possessive individualism¡¨, with regards to the issues of historical methodology as well as political theory. Having introduced my project of study in the opening chapter, I begin chapter two with an examination of the very idea of ¡§possessive individualism¡¨ proposed by C. B. Macpherson, and the theory of property and democracy that the thinker comes to develop in his later works. In chapter three, I turn to cope with the methodological problems implicit in Macpherson¡¦s study of history, mainly in terms of the Cambridge School¡¦s serious attack on its anti-historicity. In addition, the relative criticisms that I have addressed to Macpherson¡¦s methodology include the Marxist determinism and the Rationalist mode of modernity that appear his work. In chapter four, by contrast, it is Macpherson¡¦s theory of property and democracy that is under consideration. Here, taking the thought of Hayek as my case, I set out to show how the liberal formulations of democracy and property can still be free from Macpherson¡¦s Marxist charge. Finally, I conclude this thesis with a brief talk about the plausibility of Giddens¡¦ third way as the possible solution for the long-term debate regarding the intricate tension between property and equality.

In research, we frequently position “modernity” against “tradition” to explain cultural changes within the indigenous realm. Such is the case of Andean textile studies, where commercialization and modernity are frequently attributed to the decline in Andean communities’ production and donning of hand-woven textiles. By doing this, we distance ourselves from the underlying issues causing these changes: poverty, discrimination, ethnic social stratification, etc. Also, by positioning “modernity” outside and against the indigenous realm, we contribute to the notion that modernity belongs to the western world alone and can only be achieved by Western influence. In doing so, we confine Andean textiles to a static notion of identity and ignore and antagonize the creative strategies that weavers’ use, moving outside of this notion. My work questions the “tradition” versus “modernity” binary by analyzing its history and first appearance in Bolivian Andean textile scholarship, and by analyzing changes within Andean textiles between the Inca and Colonial periods. My study also sheds light on the workings of internal colonialism within Andean textiles in the Bolivian regions of Jalq’a and Tarabuco. / text

This dissertation is a cultural history of deviance in the United States. I use a series of case studies to examine the way deviant figures have been represented and experienced within American culture. The dissertation covers four historical eras and examines a representative deviant figure in each of them. The first chapter deals with the figure of the witch in Puritan New England, the second examines the libertine in the early American republic, the third deals with freaks in Victorian America and the fourth studies the flapper in the roaring twenties. Each of these chapters is focused on a particular historical crisis, trial or scandal that produced a rich body of historical evidence for study and analysis: the Salem Witch Trial of 1692, the Apthorp-Morton Scandal of 1788, the sensational Beecher-Tilton Affair of 1875 and the Ruth Snyder Trial of 1927. My overarching thesis is that representations of deviants reveal a deep cultural preoccupation with failure and inadequacy, which are projected onto deviant figures. This interpretation is an attempt to move beyond viewing representations of deviance as simply being attempts to repress those who do not conform to societal norms, or to shore up fragile social identities by creating ‘others’ against whom the normal American could be negatively defined. Instead, I argue that representations of deviance were compelling to the Americans who created them primarily as powerful fantasies about failure, lack and inadequacy. On to the rich symbolic canvas of the deviant figure, Americans projected their anxieties about personal and social failure. In different ways at different times, deviants have been used to articulate the various possible ways in which a person could fail to meet their society’s ideals and expectations, and to imagine the consequences of such failures for both individual personhood and society as a whole. The deviant has therefore historically served as a kind of mirror to the culture which produced him or her: a mirror in which a culture might darkly glimpse its own values, distorted by the terrifying failure to achieve that which is most prized.

Samernas första politiska rörelse runt sekelskiftet i Sverige var startskottet, inte bara för samernas egen politiska organisation, utan också för en debatt kring samernas rasifierade identitet. Debatten kretsade kring rätten till land, och huruvida den skulle förbehållas endast nomadiserande renskötande samer, eller om rätten skulle inkludera alla samer oavsett levnadsuppehälle. Samtidens argumentativa klassificeringssystem satte samernas yrkesutövning främst, men med rasifierade premisser kring samernas temporala och spatiala tillhörighet. En av premisserna för argumentationen, samernas temporala tillhörighet, präglades ur svensk medias synvinkel av en stark tro på att samerna riskerade att försvinna. Jag argumenterar för att detta hade en rasbaserad logik i form av en anakronistisk tillhörighet utanför en (svensk) evolutionistisk tidslinje. Genom en annan premiss, den spatiala, visade de svenska journalisterna på en stark tendens att placera samerna i ett mytiskt mellan-rum, där fjällen fungerade som en gränslös kuliss, som befäste samernas utanförskap i det svenska produktiva landskapet. Då den svenska definitionen av samerna inte baserades på yttre karaktärsdrag, utan på en yrkesutövning, destabiliserar den de flesta västerländska uppfattningar om ras. Denna studie presenterar därför några ledtrådar till hur och varför moderna minoritetsfrågor är så komplexa för den svenska självbilden. / The first political movement of the Sami, the indigenous Swedes, at the turn of the last century, became the starting point, not only for the political organization of the Sami, but also for a debate concerning the racial identity of the Sami. The debate dealt with the right to the land, and whether the use of the land should only be allowed for the nomadic reindeer herding Sami, or whether the right should be extended to all Sami regardless of means of living. The argumentative classification at the time was based on the Sami’s occupation, but with racial premises around the Sami’s temporal and spatial belonging. One of the premises for the argumentation, the temporal belonging of the Sami, was marked by a strong belief on behalf of the Swedish media that the Sami were at risk of disappearing. I argue that this came to have a racial logic in the form of an anachronistic belonging outside a (Swedish) evolutionist timeline. Through the means of a separate logic, the spatial, the Swedish journalists showed a strong tendency to place the Sami in a mythical in between-ness, in which the mountains functioned as a borderless backdrop, which confirmed the alienation of the Sami in the Swedish productive landscape. Because the Swedish definition of the Sami was not based upon physical features, but upon a professional category, it destabilizes most western notions about race. This study therefore presents some clues to how and why modern minority issues are so complex within the Swedish self-image.

Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), an endocrine disorder with no known cure that compromises fertility, is a lifestyle disease affecting a growing number of urban Indian women. Media accounts and medical practitioners have noted a recent rise in PCOS cases in urban India and attribute it to "Westernization," modernization, stress, and lifestyle changes following on the heels of economic liberalization in 1991, which opened up the country to processes of globalization. Discourse about PCOS has thus opened up a space for commentary indexing anxieties about larger social and political economic shifts in the country, and women with PCOS are individualized embodiments of the biosocial stresses caused by these shifts. Against the backdrop of a rapidly changing sociocultural landscape with potential for new opportunities for women, the syndrome also poses a challenge to women's traditional roles as wives and mothers, as its symptoms negatively affect reproduction and physical appearance. In this dissertation, I investigate aspects of public discourses about PCOS and lived realities of the syndrome in India as a lens into the interaction of processes of globalization with the local socioculturally embedded body.