My Trip to Notan charts my own journey from the rawness and acceptance of multiple life losses into understanding, and finally, renewal. The key result of this project is a prototype book, a 48-page digital Print-On-Demand (POD) publication, which also includes a DVD that inserts into book’s back and features live demonstrations, interviews and other segments related to the book. Additionally, the body of work from which the book was gleaned was presented at the thesis exhibition. Ultimately, My Trip to Notan is a sketch of my understanding of the framework that threads through design, physics and philosophy, inspired by the simplicity of the ancient art of Notan, and upon my own fragmentary observations gathered from the journey. My hope was to reveal some sense of the pulse that drives the inquiry, rather than the suggestion of any sort of destination.

Today, especially after various critical evaluations of mainstream theories of International Relations (IR), it is common place to observe that IR discipline is Eurocentric. Natural outcome of this Eurocentric character of IR discipline has been the privileging of modern identity (and thus, modernity) and the marginalization of different cultures and identities as &quot / others&quot / . This thesis analyzes the relationship between the concepts of modern identity, national interest and difference within the framework of IR theory. The thesis asserts that IR discipline should solve the problem of exclusion of the &quot / other&quot / or suppression of differences since International Relations means first and foremost interaction with the &quot / Other&quot / . In order to solve this contradiction, I argue that IR theory should be deconstructed on the basis of a treatment of differences and heterogeneity. However, criticizing the creation of the &quot / others&quot / necessitates also the critique of modern identity since &quot / heterophobia&quot / is the result of the homogenizing character of European identity. Therefore, a deconstruction of the hegemony of modern identity in IR is the main concern of this thesis. The thesis finally argues that &ldquo / other worlds&rdquo / which leave room for different identities and other &quot / truths&quot / are also possible.

Migrants from the Global South, coming to Sweden predominantly since the 1980s, have become a major focus of public discussions about immigration. The fears of and resentments toward the migrant ‘other’ appear to have shifted from European migrants to migrants of the Global South. Numerous studies (and official reports) showing the marginalisation of these migrants confirm their spotlight position. The aim of this thesis is to describe and explain the kind of challenges which African migrants face in their local Swedish context and to find out if they undergo any significant transformations affecting their identities and/or ways of life. This objective was pursued through a field study of African migrants from Cameroon and Somalia living in the city of Malmö. The empirical material consisted of semi-structured interviews with individuals and groups and participant observations at migrant cultural associations. The analysis utilised two main theoretical frameworks: theory of conflict transformation and theories of discrimination (racism). The choice of the former was made to illuminate the agency of migrants by highlighting their capacity to act in their own interests within the host society. A major strength of this approach is that it draws attention to the (re)actions of both ‘natives’ and migrants towards each other. Theories of discrimination address the important issue of unequal power relations working against migrants, which tend to be neglected in conflict theory. The advantage of using these different theoretical approaches is that they complement each other and thus strengthen the theoretical discussion in the thesis. Analysis of the empirical material indicated that established practices in major institutions, as well as individual actions at the micro level of society, contribute to the marginalisation of migrants. A major finding was that both migrants and ‘natives’ are involved in practices that produce experiences of marginalisation and discrimination for the former. Actions that produced conflicts, material deprivation and exclusion were identified with both migrants and ‘natives’. However, actions by ‘natives’ had a more negative impact than those by migrants. This was seen as the result of the fact that ‘natives’ have greater influence in society because of their relative position of power. Finally, the thesis showed that migrants perceive the challenges confronting them in Sweden in different ways, due to the specific experiences they face in Sweden but also by reason of their experiences in their countries of origins and their different migration histories. Some of them saw the practices that produced their marginalisation as infringements on their basic rights and responded by actively fighting back. Others were  less critical of similar practices and did little or nothing about them. Important differences between migrants were also noted in relation to their transformations in Sweden affecting important aspects of their lives: their identities, power relations among them and between them and the host society, gender relations, and their ways of dealing with the challenges with which they were confronted. These differences were seen as a result of the heterogeneity of the migrants under study, who nevertheless are often homogenised as the African ‘other’. This heterogeneity consisted of hierarchical gender relations, varying access to material resources, and membership in exclusive networks of belonging based on particularistic  national and regional identities.

L‟objectif de mon mémoire se concentre sur la notion d‟altérité émanant des philosophies d‟Emmanuel Lévinas et de Paul Ricoeur ; je m‟intéresse plus précisément au concept clé d‟éthique et de savoir en quoi enrichit-elle le dialogue judéo-chrétien. Le point initial de ma réflexion est l‟herméneutique biblique, qu‟Emmanuel Lévinas et Paul Ricoeur articulent, d‟après moi, différemment selon leurs héritages religieux respectifs à savoir juif et chrétien. Néanmoins, la signification éthique des Textes Sacrés perdure pour chacun d‟eux comme lieu commun même si la signification leur est différente et propre à leurs traditions religieuses. Ainsi, dans ce mémoire l‟altérité développée par Lévinas, talmudiste reconnu, sera comparée avec la pensée de Ricoeur dont la conception est davantage chrétienne, en référence à son travail exégétique. Quand bien même Lévinas et Ricoeur ont tenu à distinguer leurs philosophies de leurs théologies, l‟hypothèse de départ prend une liberté herméneutique qui oscille souvent entre philosophie et théologie et qui tend à retracer au mieux l‟altérité et son lien intrinsèque avec l‟éthique. Cette lecture comparatiste m‟amènera donc à penser et à intégrer l‟altérité comme une prémisse éthique au dialogue judéo-chrétien. Mon travail en sciences des religions qui prend racine depuis l‟herméneutique même, s‟oriente vers une perspective éthique et dialogique et c‟est cette visée de médiation interreligieuse qui lui confère une appartenance à cette discipline. / The Otherness is the focus of my thesis, a notion that emanates from Emmanuel Levinas’ and Paul Ricoeur’s philosophies; I’m interested more precisely about the concept of ethics and to discover how it improves the reflection upon Jewish and Christian dialogue. The initial point of my reflexion is the biblical hermeneutics that Emmanuel Lévinas and Paul Ricoeur structure, to my point of view, variously depending their religious background: Jewish for Lévinas and Christian for Ricoeur. Nevertheless, the ethical signification of the Bible perpetuates for both of them as a commonplace, even if the signification is different and inherent to their own religious traditions. In my thesis, the Otherness, as elaborated by Lévinas, will be compared with Ricoeur’s thoughts, whom conception is more Christian as his biblical works let us guess. Even if Lévinas and Ricoeur have tried to distinguish their philosophical work from their theological one, claiming a neutrality about theology, my initial hypothesis take an hermeneutical freedom which often oscillates between theology and philosophy and which try to recount the alterity and its intrinsic link to ethics. A comparatist reading will lead me to think that the ethics of the Otherness is the basis of Jewish and Christian dialogue because of Levinas’ and Ricoeur’s works. My work in religious studies is based upon hermeneutics and turns toward an ethical and dialogical perspective; it is this interreligious mediation aim which confers to my thesis a belonging in this discipline.

The following thesis represents an attempt to account for the novelist Don DeLillo's last three novels (Underworld (1999), The Body Artist (2001), and Cosmopolis (2003)) through the examination of what I conceive as DeLillo's philosophy of language. It is my assertion that the crucial and articulating aspect of DeLillo's philosophy of language is his investment in, and investigation of, irony. As I argue, DeLillo's novels presume a certain conjugation of what I refer to as the work of irony (the seemingly impossible work of tendering both the allegorical imperative of naming and the ironic imperative of Otherness) with the work of art. In other words, DeLillo's theory of language reveals his theory of art and, thus, his own theory of writing. This aesthetic philosophy becomes the critical tool with which DeLillo evaluates the various symbolic economies of a culture and its individuals caught within late capitalism. The impossibility of defining irony becomes, for DeLillo, a metaphor by which to understand language itself as what I refer to as a fallen and tender economy, constituted by an Otherness, which language can only tender. In his novels, DeLillo, I argue, suggests that language and subjectivity ought to be conceived of as forms of a faith in an Otherness, impossible to represent as such, to which all speech, violence, art, commodity and reproduction are indebted, and which we may mourn and represent - as we must - more or less faithfully, more or less blindly, and, by virtue of irony, more or less tenderly. The possibilities of faith and the ethical in art and representation, thus, for DeLillo, arise through an attention to an Otherness that can only be tendered through the very tenderness (fallenness, profanity, weakness) of allegory and language. To understand this is to understand the role of irony in DeLillo's philosophy, and also to understand DeLillo's profound commitment to language, his renovation of allegory through its mortification by irony and, thus, its remembering and mourning of Otherness. In this regard, DeLillo shares much with the melancholia of deconstruction as evinced within the language philosophies of Jacques Derrida and Paul de Man, in particular, Derrida's economic consideration, differance, and his notion of the work of mourning, both of which, I argue, offer the reader of DeLillo's texts ways of tendering the work of irony.

This dissertation presents an investigation into the notion of the freak in the guise of exotic characters as these appear in the strange creature-figures in Jane Alexander’s (b. 1959) installation artwork African Adventure (1999-2002). The installation artwork reveals issues pertaining to the way in which the exotic nature of the freak is made manifest in its hybrid spatio-temporal nature, with reference also to the understanding that freaks are often presented as strange yet awesome consumer objects. Alexander’s view of art and her oeuvre are contextualised within the South African milieu which is characterised by change, and laced with utopian as well as dystopian sentiments. The interpretation of African Adventure is theoretically entrenched in certain key concepts: the freak, the exotic, and hybridity, as these are made manifest in the reading of the characters, time and place presented in the installation artwork as allegorical reflection of contemporary South African society. The exploration of the work’s spatio-temporal dimensions are guided by establishing a link between, on the one hand, the desire for experiencing the thrill of the unusual (both in terms of a perspective of a colonial safari as well as the contemporary tourist gaze) and, on the other hand, a number of problematic issues in contemporary South African society. I demonstrate that the South African landscape, people and most likely also history are regarded as exotic – with the freakish associations this implies – also because post-apartheid South Africa has the status of a rarity that can be experienced as an adventure landscape. I further demonstrate how the freak’s exotic figuration ironically reverses the experience of empowered looking, with reference here to the notion of spectacle. In a space where contradiction is exposed for contemplation, this ironic reversal in its hybrid embodiment is understood as a space of reconstitution. In this manner, the presumed notion of a stable South African collective is challenged; South African society comprising of so many hybrid identities is rather understood to be the sum of contestible information where the possibility of fragmented experiences of chaos and reconciliation can coexist. As such, cultural reconstitution and renewal are not based on the exoticism of multiculturalism, but on the articulation of a culture’s hybridity. / MA (History of Art), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2014

The thesis explores the ways in which Serbian ethnic media in Canada represent their own group and “Others”, specifically Croats, Slovenians and Catholics, Bosniaks, Albanians and Muslims, Montenegrins and the West. The research investigates the convergence of these representations with Canadian multiculturalism. The thesis epistemologically feeds from Jean Jacques Rousseau’s 18th century theories of recognition and patriotism, Stuart Hall’s (1997) theory of representation and identity and Edward Said’s (1978) theory of Orientalism, and is further guided by the theoretical frameworks of Charles Taylor’s (1994) politics of recognition, Benedict Anderson’s (1992) long-distance nationalism and Maria Todorova’s (1994) Balkanism. Qualitative content analysis through purposive and sequential sampling of Serbian ethnic broadcasting is conducted to gauge the programs’ representations of the “Self” and “Others”. Ethnic media provide a method to promote a minority group’s heritage, but also to facilitate communication between various cultural, ethnic, religious and racial groups. In the age of an increased critique of multiculturalism, the role of ethnic media rises in importance. The findings of the thesis show that Serbian ethnic media employ Canadian multiculturalism to promote Serbian heritage, but also to stereotype other groups. Applying the theoretical juxtaposition of multiculturalism, nationalism and “Othering”, this research argues that through negative identification of “Others”, Serbian ethnic media deviate from Canadian multiculturalism that calls for a positive recognition of all Canadian groups.

Representations of the Other in Contemporary Australia is a thesis consisting of a novel, Brother Nation, and an exegesis in a separate volume. Brother Nation is set in Australia at the beginning of the twenty-first century, a time of great political and social change. The novel explores ambiguities in issues of race, crime and moral justice through the eyes of an adolescent who comes of age amidst a chain of disturbing events. Omar Assaf is a sensitive sixteen-year-old with a problem—he needs to lose his virginity. However, like most boys his age, he is anxious and naive about matters of sex and love. When a young female friend, Belle, rejects his romantic overtures, Omar is crushed. He rapidly falls under the corrupting influence of his older brother, Sam, and Sam’s motley band of miscreant friends. Fuelled by drugs, alcohol and pornography, the boys roam the migrant suburbs of southwest Sydney, alleviating their boredom and frustration by flirting with crime, cruising in cars and pursuing girls. However, Omar soon learns that being involved with Sam and the boys has dangerous consequences. In compensating for his sense of emasculation, Omar finds himself taking part in a series of attacks, including a betrayal of Belle. Though ambivalent about and at times sickened by his complicity, Omar realises much too late that he and his brother have entered a theatre where their fate will be determined by broader, more powerful forces than he could ever have imagined. The exegesis charts the creation of Brother Nation via the author’s movement from a mode of autopoiesis to allopoiesis, through the practice of narrative research. That is, the essay is structured to illustrate how the process of researching the novel resulted in the production of knowledge external to the creative work itself. In doing this I discuss the genesis of the idea to write the novel, the basis and modes of my narrative research, the style of the finished work in relation to the genre of the ‘faction’ or ‘non-fiction novel’, and the internal and external conflicts that arose in relation to the representation of demonised Arabic Other characters in the story. I also contextualise the work in relation to other relevant fiction and non-fiction texts that address similar subject matter, and make a case for holding a non-essentialised notion of cultural identity regarding my own speaking position. In particular, this exegesis investigates problematic questions in relation to representations of contemporary characters with an immigrant Other background; and, via the framework of Bakhtinian theories of dialogism and heteroglossia, considers the extent to which seemingly incompatible moral viewpoints can be coherently instantiated in fiction through a multiplicity of characters’ voices. / v. 1 [Novel]: Brother Nation -- v. 2 [Exegesis]: Representations of the Other in contemporary Australia. / Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Adelaide, School of Humanities, 2007

The research question considers the possibility that culture and identity impedes Chinese New Zealanders from writing fiction about their own culture, and considers a Chinese New Zealand history as interpreted from a Chinese perspective. The research looks at various elements related to this question, such as Chinese as strangers or foreigners, the pressure to conform, and the role of communities.

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / A partir da interface entre psicanálise e cultura, este trabalho tem como objetivo analisar o debate contemporâneo acerca das noções psicanalíticas de alteridade e diferença sexual, instaurado pelos deslocamentos ocorridos no campo da sexualidade e pelos desafios que estes impõem à psicanálise. Para isso, propõe-se, em um primeiro momento, examinar a teoria freudiana sobre a diferença sexual, o que é realizado principalmente a partir das formulações acerca da sexualidade feminina. Como a construção do complexo de Édipo apresenta-se como uma tentativa de dar conta da constituição da identidade sexual e da diferença no processo de subjetivação, traça-se o trajeto do autor desde as primeiras menções ao Édipo até o encontro com o impasse do feminino, passando pela teoria das identificações como mecanismo privilegiado de assunção sexual. Em seguida, investiga-se o pensamento de Lacan em relação ao tema da diferença sexual, desde o seu retorno ao complexo de Édipo e a sua estruturação em termos de linguagem até as propostas apresentadas em seu último ensino, em que sublinha o aspecto real da sexuação assim como se valoriza a diferença sexual em termos de gozo. Finalmente, tendo como pano de fundo a nova cartografia das sexualidades, e como fio condutor, o diálogo travado entre Judith Butler e Slavoj iek, considera-se em que medida a psicanálise baseia a constituição da alteridade no modelo binário e hierárquico da divisão sexual, contribuindo para a manutenção normativa do sistema sexo-gênero ou em que medida a teoria psicanalítica proporciona um deslocamento da alteridade do modelo de diferença sexual, contribuindo para a sua compreensão enquanto indeterminação e contingência. / This work aims to analyze the current debate about the psychoanalitics concepts of difference and sexual difference introduced by displacements occurring in the field of sexuality and the challenges they impose on psychoanalysis from the interface between psychoanalysis and culture. In order to achieve that it proposes as a beginning to the task to examine the Freudian theory on sexual difference, which the main approach is from the formulations about of female sexuality. Then, it investigates the thinking of Lacan in relation to the issue of sexual difference, since its return to Oedipus complex until the proposals presented in his last work. Finally, taking as background the new cartography of sexualities, and like a thread, the dialog braked between Judith Butler and Slavoj iek, it considers to which extent the psychoanalysis is the base of constitution of the difference in the binary and hierarchical division sexual model, contributing to the normative maintenance of sex-gender system or in which extent psychoanalytic theory provides a displacement of the otherness of the model of sexual difference, contributing to their understanding as indeterminacy and contingency.