Following the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, Afghan women suddenly gained high visibility all over the world. Since then, representations of Afghan women in the Western media and notably in the U.S. news media provide a critical concern to scholars. Much of the relevant literature on this topic speaks to the fact that the dominant portrayal of Afghan women in the Western media has shown them as passive victims of war and violence, to be liberated only by the Western military intervention. However, the question remains as to how the popular fictional narratives, as another vivid source of information, represent Afghan women to the Western readers. To address this question, A Thousand Splendid Suns, as a popular novel authored by Khalid Hosseini, an Afghan novelist, was selected. Bormannian fantasy theme analysis of this novel conveys the passivity of women in the context of Afghanistan. The findings reveal that the portrayals of Afghan women in the novel correspond with the images of Afghan women in the Western media. Moreover, an examination of a sample of book reviews of the novel unveils the important contribution of Khalid Hosseini to the Orientalist discourse.

This study focuses on the relationship between women&rsquo / s work and women&rsquo / s liberation and emancipation from male domination by examining, within a feminist epistemological and methodological standpoint, the personal and occupational experiences of women doing professional work in Turkey. The aim of this study is to make a conceptual discussion by referring to the field of professional work and the particular form it takes in the Turkish case. Patriarchy at professional work, which operates differently than it does in waged work, has been approached with a socialist feminist standpoint. However, socialist feminist conceptualisation of patriarchy at work has been interpreted with a special focus on different forms of patriarchy. According to this, patriarchy is an incomplete formation which manifests itsef in different actual forms. Due to its changing and fluid nature it is maintained in different social practices. This interpretation of patriarchy with the notions of &quot / manifestation&rdquo / and &ldquo / practice&rdquo / provides for conceptualising the contextual features of patriarchy without being lost or dispersed in the contextuality of the patriarchal operations. It connects different contexts that arise from regional, religional, ethnic, racial, or class-based effects or social, economic, political and historical conditions without reducing them to a generalised sameness. In this context, women&rsquo / s becoming and being professionals in Turkey in the early republican period appears to be a significant example. In Turkey, Kemalism appears to be the practice which determines not only the professions but also the conditions of women&rsquo / s entery to the public realm as educated professionals. In this connection patriarchy is manifested within the interacting practices of professionalism and Kemalism. As the research design of oral history narratives of 18 women and some other biographic and historical sources indicates, women internalised professional values above and beyond Kemalist values together with their patriarchal contents. Although being professional has a certain liberating effect on women&rsquo / s lives they had to deal with patriarchal manifestations within the practices of professionalisma and Kemalism.

This thesis is a study of Italian women’s sensual embodiment in leisure and tourism experiences (involving beautifying in the city and tanning at the beach) in, and around, the city of Rome. The central link in this thesis connects the field of tourism studies with social cultural theories of the ‘body’, placing this research within the most recent theoretical debates on the body. It is argued that in everyday life people take their bodies for granted, yet the body is absolutely crucial to the way we engage with the world and the people around us. Through analysing Italian women’s embodiment, this thesis seeks to gain in-depth understanding of Italian society and more particularly women’s position in society, thereby positioning the field of tourism studies as a means for analysing people’s quotidian cultural habits. Embracing the critical paradigm, this thesis takes a reflexive and embodied approach to research, challenging the all-pervasive hegemonic dominance of positivist, masculinist Western academic approaches. Through post feminist lenses, auto ethnography, in-depth interviewing and document analysis were used to carry out the field work, with the central aim of capturing and contextualising Italian women’s voices and embodiment. This research shows Italian society to be strongly patriarchal, reflecting gender inequity and inequality. Women are dominated in discourse (politics, senior management and television shows being predominantly male), pressured into family roles, and objectified in society through the media and the male gaze. Paradoxically, women are empowered through choosing to reproduce patriarchal values of beauty and objectification (the power of the agency), and to embody these in a sensual and sensuous way, thereby reversing power relations in their favour. Aiming to understand Italian society through exploring women’s sensual embodiment, this thesis contributes to a broader understanding of the gendered construction of social identity, and of patriarchy and power relations, from a woman’s perspective. It contributes to gender and body studies in the tourism field through bringing these separate fields together, through exploring the power of agency in embodiment, and through the critical research approach to the body.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Bowling Green State University, 2008. / Document formatted into pages; contains viii, 301 p. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.A.)--Eastern Illinois University, 2008. / Subtitle on abstract: Appetite in the construction of identity in the writing of William Byrd II and Thomas Jefferson. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 71-75).

Thesis (M.A.)--Carleton University, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 114-130). Also available in electronic format on the Internet.

Thesis (PhD.(Practical Theology)--University of Pretoria, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 264-286).

Thesis (M.A. (Health Social Science))--Mahidol University, 2005.

Thesis (M.A. (Health Social Sciences))--Mahidol University, 2006. / LICL has E-Thesis 0012 ; please contact computer services.

Thesis (M.A. (Health Social Sciences))--Mahidol University, 2008. / LICL has E-Thesis 0039 ; please contact computer services.