This thesis argues that contemporary theorizations of online identities on social-networking sites (SNS) require more robust accounts of the relationship between language, perfomativity, and the tensions of the material/virtual binary. In her analysis of subject formation on multi-user domains, Internet sociologist Jenny Sundén uses poststructuralist philosophy to theorize identity as a process of “textual performativity”. Citing Sundén, many contemporary sociologists theorizing subjectivity on SNS use the terms “writing the self” and “performing the self” and overlook the poststructuralist philosophy that informs them. To explore the lack of philosophical analyses within sociological accounts of subject formation on SNS, and to rethink “writing” and “performing” the self, I draw on the work of J.L. Austin, Judith Butler and Jacques Derrida. I argue that creating a self on SNS is a ”sedimentation” process whereby different discursive identity performances are reiterated over time, and I investigate the implications of archiving and externalizing the self.

The purpose of this study is to explore the manifestations and representations of masculinity and feminity in two novels of Marguerite Duras from a gender studies perspective. We will first review the traditional place of masculine and feminine stereotypes in the phallocentric order, basing our research on Bourdieu’s and Badinter’s work about the role of men and women in our society. Regarding the topic of sexual identity, our theoretical background will include feminist theories as Judith Butler’s gender performativity concept as well as Luce Irigaray’s notion of mimesis. The philosophy part can also give important clues for the interpretation of both male and female sentimental and sexual behavior: the work of the philosopher Michel Onfray, in particular his theory called "solar erotic", will help us to reveal the characteristics of Duras’ erotic writing. The results of our analysis show that both characters in the two novels present an ambiguous sexual identity: they seem to hesitate between the social obligation relative to their gender and the need of acting according to their own nature (androgyny of the Chinese). Our analysis shows the possibility of a deconstruction of the gender as well as a tendency to what Butler calls the subversion of identity. The exploration of Duras’ erotic writing seems to confirm those results, demonstrating the power of feminine desire and sexual pleasure in opposition to masculine sentimental pain and fragility.

Festivals and other events are often seen as important means for contributing to the positive image of a place and for increasing visitor numbers, for involving the local community and for creating job opportunities. Organising an event involves the temporary coordination of performers, an audience, volunteers, sponsors and other partners, and in the end an event is simultaneously produced and consumed. When the music has stopped or the actors have come off stage, when the audience has gone home and the premises have been cleared of rubbish, there might be few signs of an event having ever taken place. However, the value of an event is seen to extend beyond its immediate boundaries. This dissertation looks at event organising from a resources perspective. Which resources are engaged, and how do they contribute? Key questions that emerge concern the event’s connection to the place where it is held, how different actors are included or excluded and finally how the aesthetic aspects of an event attract resources. The study draws on observations of five cultural events and interviews with artistic directors, managers and collaboration partners. / <p>Diss. Stockholm : Handelshögskolan, 2008</p>

This thesis contributes to critical theoretical interpretation of Sophocles' Antigone. Analyzing texts by Kelly Oliver, Jacques Lacan, and Judith Butler, the thesis demonstrates how the work of these writers re-installs oppositional binarism, the form of thought that undergirds the hierarchical structure of Western metaphysics as exemplified in the dialectical philosophy of G. W. F. Hegel. Focusing on texts by Carol Jacobs, Martin Heidegger, and Jacques Derrida, the thesis analyzes the performative effect of Antigone, as sister figure, in the graphics of these works. Employing a deconstructive and performative critical approach, the thesis explores the theoretical productivity of a "sororal" graphics, that, dispersing and subverting binarism, opens the texts and their interpretation to alterity. The thesis demonstrates how critical reading of the performativity of Antigone as sister figure implicates ethicological discussion on justice in relation to family, genre/gender, classification, and inheritance.

University of Technology, Sydney. Faculty of Education. / This thesis examines the construction processes of language, culture and identities in relation to both the macro level of society and culture, as well as the micro-individual level. It argues that there is a need to understand these constructions beyond discrete notions of language, identities and culture. The thesis mobilises performativity theory to explore how exposure to a variety of practices during the life trajectory has an impact on the construction and performance of language, identities and culture. It shows how a theory of performativity can provide a comprehensive account of the complex process of, and the relationships between, hybridisation (engagement in a range of cultural practices) and monolithication (nostalgic attachments to familiar practices). The thesis also suggests that the deployment of performativity theory with a focus on individual biography as well as larger social-cultural factors may fill a gap left in some other modes of analysis such as Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) and Conversation Analysis (CA). Analysing data from four workplaces in Australia, the study focuses on trans-institutional talk, namely casual conversation in which people from a variety of linguistic and cultural backgrounds work together. Following the suggestion (Pennycook 2003; Luke 2002) that there is a need to shift away from the understanding that a particular language is attached to a particular nation, territory and ethnicity, the thesis shows how discrete ethnic and linguistic labels such as ‘Japanese’ and ‘English’ as well as notions of ‘code-switching’ and ‘bi-lingualism’ become problematic in the attempt to grasp the complexity of contemporary transcultural workplaces. The thesis also explores the potential agency of subjects at the convergence of various discourses through iterative linguistic and cultural performances. In summary, the thesis provides deeper insight into transcultural performances to show the links between idiosyncratic individual performances and the construction of transcultural linguistic, cultural phenomena within globalisation.

The thesis project focuses on the narrative and uses identity as its subject matter. The narrative is examined through digitally manipulated imagery as a dynamic system of performative sense making implicated in both self-creation and reality creation. The fundamental role of narrative in creating self/identity and community/history, as embedding contexts is considered. The role of variously language and acts, community, disnarration, and the limits of systems are examined in relation to identity and issues of intelligibility, coherence, and 'tellability'. The work which results from an examination of this area are semionautic emplotments of operally mediated events in a quasi-mimetic experiential evocation of real life, that is "true fictions".

In my thesis project, I aim to explore the ways in which we can perform parts of our identity by hiding the body through the use of performative disguises. These characters transgress the boundaries between societal norms and abject interactions. In these costumes, I hope to find whether or not the multiple facets of our identities can be distilled into one character--whether the self can be shifted into another character for a constructive narrative.

Les débats sur la spécificité ou non d’une écriture féminine à caractère sexuée, l’investissement exponentiel des femmes dans le champ littéraire de ces dernières décennies dans des thématiques variées et des discours transgressif et subversif, justifient notre intérêt pour l’analyse du discours de femmes dans la fiction littéraire contemporaine. En littérature comme dans d’autres disciplines, les discours des femmes sont presque toujours en conflit entre le besoin de dire les hiérarchies sociales, et celui de revendiquer une légitimité universelle. Aussi, à travers une analyse immanente et structurelle des textes qui constituent notre corpus à savoir : Riwan ou le chemin de sable (Ken Bugul,), Les vaisseaux du coeur (Benoîte Groult), L’empreinte de l’ange (Nancy Huston), La Joueuse de go (Shan Sa), ce travail de recherche s’interroge sur la spécificité du discours de ces femmes et la valeur de l’autofiction associé à ces discours. En nous servant des méthodes de l’analyse du discours et des Women Studies, cette thèse se donne de lire les thématiques, le contour des stratégies discursives des femmes, ce qu’elles disent d’elles et du monde qui relèvent ou non de l’influence féministe afin d’en dévoiler la performativité. / The debates on the specificity or not of a feminine gendered writing. The exponential investment of women in the literary field of these recent decades, in various themes, justify our interest of discourse analysis of women in contemporary literary fiction. In literature as in other discipline, the women’s discourses are mostly in conflict between the need to say social hierarchies of genders and to claim universal legitimacy. Also, through an immanent and structural analysis of the texts that constitute our corpus: Riwan ou le chemin de sable (Ken Bugul,), Les vaisseaux du coeur (Benoîte Groult), L’Empreinte de l’ange (Nancy Huston), La Joueuse de go (Shan Sa). This research is about the specificity of these women discourses, and the autofiction value associated with these discourses. Thoroughly using the methods of Discourse Analysis and Women Studies, this thesis aims to read themes, the outline of women's discursive strategies, what they say about them and the world that is or not influenced by feminism and then reveals the performativity of their discourse.

In this chapter I consider the religious conversion of Indian populations as the primary objective of Catholic evangelization during the first two centuries of the Spanish colonial period in Huarochirí (in the highlands east of Lima). I demonstrate how these activities were performative acts aimed at the conversion of space, which had implications for the conversion of the Andean past. Due to its unique Quechua manuscript, Huarochirí has been an epicenter both for studies of evangelization and for the reconstruction of the culture and history of the prehispanic and colonial indigenous world. However, the prevalence of ethnohistoric studies and the lack of systematic archaeology in the central axis of the manuscript’s composition has hindered deeper understandings of Huarochirí’s past and the different historicities employed in its reconstruction. Here history is combined with recent systematic archaeological research to provide a view of the different ways the past was understood, codified, and communicated in Huarochirí’s past–evident both in the material record and in the contents of the manuscript itself. The evidence presented challenges the prevalent ethnohistorical reconstruction of Huarochirí’s prehistory, demonstrating how both the contents and the very concept of history were converted as narrative sequences were conflated with historical sequences, obscuring culturally distinct forms of understanding, codifying, and communicating the past in the indigenous Andes. Additional archaeological and historical data provide a glimpse of an «Andean historicity». / En este capítulo, considero la conversión religiosa de los indios como objetivo principal de la evangelización católica durante los primeros dos siglos de la Colonia en Huarochirí (sierra de Lima). Demuestro cómo estas actividades eran «presentaciones formales» dirigidas a la conversión del espacio y, por lo tanto, a la conversión del pasado andino (además de la conversión de la gente indígena misma). Debido a su manuscrito quechua de carácter único, Huarochirí ha sido un epicentro tanto del estudio de la evangelización como de la reconstrucción de la cultura e historia prehispánica y colonial. Sin embargo, la prevalencia de estudios etnohistóricos y la falta de investigaciones arqueológicas sistemáticas en el eje central de la composición del manuscrito han impedido una comprensión más profunda de la prehistoria de Huarochirí y sus modos de historicidad asociados. Aquí, se combina historia con arqueología sistemática recientemente hecha en Huarochirí para permitir una visión de ciertas características culturales del entendimiento, codificación y comunicación del pasado, tanto en el registro arqueológico como en el contenido del mismo manuscrito. Las evidencias presentadas desafían la reconstrucción (etno) histórica prevalente del pasado huarochirano, lo que demuestra cómo el contenido y el mismo concepto de la historia fueron convertidos cuando las secuencias narrativas fueron interpretadas como secuencias históricas, lo cual ha ofuscado formas culturalmente distintas de entender, codificar y comunicar el pasado en los Andes indígenas. Datos históricos y arqueológicos adicionales proveen vistas de una «historicidad andina».

O Corpo Rifado trata-se de uma tese onde procuro acompanhar a trajetória da protagonista de um filme brasileiro e sua tentativa de se reinventar diante das condições de possibilidade existentes naquele contexto. O Céu de Suely (2006) narra a história de Hermila, uma jovem que volta de São Paulo para sua cidade natal, no interior do Ceará, com seu filho pequeno. Ela aguarda a chegada de seu amor. Logo ela se dá conta de que Mateus não cumprirá com a promessa de encontrá-la. Diante disso, Hermila cria estratégias de sobrevivência enquanto sonha: sair daquele lugar custe o que custar. A tese lança um olhar possível sobre O Céu de Suely. Os itinerários de gênero e sexualidade experimentados por Hermila ao longo da trama fílmica ocupam o centro desta tese, bem como alguns itinerários de outras mulheres que fazem (parte de sua) história. O mergulho nesse filme específico foi regido tanto pelo aporte teórico que sustenta esta tese (especialmente a teorização desenvolvida por Judith Butler em composição com os estudos foucaultianos em torno da sexualidade e do poder) como pelo recurso metodológico escolhido (“etnografia de tela”). A pesquisa toma como ponto de partida o filme dirigido por Karim Aïnouz e a análise de enunciados que compõem e se articulam em torno (d)o gênero, (d)a sexualidade e (d)a brasilidade. Na análise que faço, procuro dar ênfase a enunciados performativos que indicam um lugar para a mulher, um modo de ser mulher (brasileira), um jeito de exercer a sexualidade, bem como, a enunciados que parecem subverter a ordem do gênero e da sexualidade. A partir do (e com o) filme, questiono: Que enunciados performativos são reiterados para a constituição de uma suposta identidade da „mulher brasileira‟? Que enunciados indicam possibilidades de resistência, subversão e ressignificação? Que outros enunciados parecem manter normas regulatórias do gênero e da sexualidade? Como a linguagem cinematográfica empregada neste filme produz sentidos, provoca deslocamentos, desestabiliza, mantém, visibiliza e invisibiliza determinados modos de ser mulher? Ainda que essas questões não sejam assertivamente respondidas na tese, elas indicam um percurso. O filme aponta para possibilidades de resistência e subversão e, no mesmo instante, aciona performativos de gênero e sexualidade. A ação de rifar-se pode ser lida como a possibilidade de agência da protagonista naquele contexto. Encerro, ao lado de Hermila, uma jornada compartilhada que nos convoca novamente ao deslocamento, outra vez na estrada. / O Corpo Rifado is a thesis where I try to follow the trajectory of a Brazilian film‟s protagonist and her attempt to reinvent herself in the conditions of possibility existing in her living context. The film O Céu de Suely (2006) tells the story of Hermila, a young woman who returns from Sao Paulo to her home town in the interior of Ceará, taking together her young son. She awaits the arrival of her lover, Mateus. But soon she realizes that he will not fulfill his promise of meeting her. From then on, Hermila creates survival strategies. At the same time, she dreams about leaving that place at all costs. The thesis looks at the possibilities given by the Film. The itineraries of gender and sexuality experienced by Hermila and ploted along the scenes occupy the center of this thesis, as well as some others routes taken by women who are part of the story. The immersion in this particular film was governed by both the theoretical approach that supports this thesis (especially the theory developed by Judith Butler in composition with the Foucauldian studies of sexuality and power) and the methodological approach chosen ("ethnography of the screen”). The research‟s starting point is the film (directed by Karim Aïnouz) and the analysis of statements organized around concepts of gender, sexuality and Brazilianness. In the analysis I try to emphasize the performative utterances that build a certain place for women, a certain way of being a woman (or a Brazilian woman) and a certain way to exercise sexuality, as well as the statements that seem to subvert the order of gender and sexuality. From and with the movie, I introduce the following questions: What performative utterances are repeated to form a supposed identity of the Brazilian woman? Which statements indicate possibilities of resistance, subversion and redefinition? What other statements seem to maintain regulatory standards of gender and sexuality? How the cinematographic language used in the film makes sense, causes displacement, destabilizes, maintains and renders certain ways of “being a woman” visible or invisible? While these questions are not answered assertively in the thesis, they indicate a route. The film points out to possibilities of resistance and subversion, and simultaneously, triggers gender and sexuality‟s performatives. The raffle‟s action can be read as the possibility of an agency of the protagonist in that context. Along with Hermila, I conclude a shared journey which, once more, calls to the displacement, on the road again.