This thesis offers an interpretation of how eight male primary school teachers experience touch between themselves and their pupils/students. Despite the positive benefits of touch and evidence suggesting that appropriate forms of touch should be encouraged, the many meanings, interpretations and reactions to touch potentially complicate the ways in which people react. The potential for touch to enhance human well-being is therefore often diminished. The taboo surrounding touch is particularly evident in the school environment where limited research has been undertaken. This study gives voice to male teachers as they share their experiences in an era when the risks associated with physical contact between teachers and pupils are increasing. Hermeneutic phenomenology was used to explore and gain deeper understanding of the meaning of touch in education through interpreting the day to day experiences of male primary school teachers in New Zealand. Narrative interviews were interpreted and described thematically. The themes: ‘being careful, cautious and visible’, ‘worrying about misinterpretation’, ‘feeling sad’ and ‘battling with boundaries’, revealed a complex array of tensions that contributed to the findings. Male primary school teachers are constantly aware of the risk they take when interacting with students. They experience tensions and conflict when deciding where and how they will touch children and whether this will be misinterpreted by others. Consideration of the ways in which people respond to this complex and sensitive subject is necessary so that male teachers feel able to use positive and appropriate forms of touch without fear of suspicion and reprisal.

This thesis presents a critical reading of the theme of phenomenology in the work of the contemporary French philosopher Alain Badiou. My criticism is exercised through a reading of Badiou’s references to this theme. I demonstrate that Badiou’s magnum opus, Being and Event, and its sequel, Logiques des Mondes, are the two pillars between which the philosopher exercises his constructive attack against the phenomenological tradition. I argue that Badiou’s developmental logic is driven by a subterranean and disavowed dialogue with phenomenology, a tradition he deliberately marginalises. / The thesis begins with a literature review of academic responses currently in circulation. Six respondents and their critiques of Badiou’s enterprise are examined for key points, significance to this research, gaps and omissions, and consequences thereof. Each respondent’s primary focus (for example, existential criticism or the phenomenon) is detailed for its specific connection to Badiou’s disregard for phenomenology. The thesis then examines ten of Badiou’s works and meticulously lists specific references (or lack thereof) to phenomenology. I demonstrate that Badiou’s philosophical arguments all carry the ghost of phenomenology that the philosopher has, largely, left unexamined. / The thesis ends with a detailed exegesis of Badiou’s most recent text, Logiques des Mondes. With the release of this text, Badiou returns to the question of phenomenology to present an explicit position regarding questions of experience, existence, phenomenality and appearing. Badiou’s references to phenomenology throughout his texts prior to the release of this sequel are clearly marginal, but his attack on the phenomenological tradition is renewed here via a new theory of appearing. Highly dependent on arguments established in Being and Event, Badiou’s theory of appearing provides him with a superior mathematico-logical model (category theory and set theory) to explain the philosophical notions of ontology (what-is) and being-there (there-is) which create the material world.

Supersymmetric extensions to the Standard Model (SM) have many interesting experimental consequences which can provide important hints to the physics beyond the SM. In this thesis, we first study the anomalous magnetic moment of the muon and show that a significant constraint on the parameter space can be obtained from its current experimental value. In the next topic, we study the CP violations in B -> phi K decays and show that the SM and the minimal supergravity model (mSUGRA) cannot account for the current experimental observation. We then show that all the data can be accommodated for a wide range of parameters in models with non-universal soft breaking left-right A terms. In our last topic, which is based on a Horava-Witten inspired model proposed by R. Arnowitt and B. Dutta, we extend their analysis to the full fermion sector of the SM and propose a new mechanism different from the usual see saw mechanism to generate small neutrino masses which are in good agreement with the current neutrino oscillation data.

This study explores Beckett’s use of physical movements in his plays as part of a strategy to escape the limits of semantic meaning and as an instrument of artistic expression. In a sense, the use of physical movements constitutes a phenomenological, heuristic ‘solution’ to the problem of presentation and representation that Beckett explicitly addresses already in the early 1930s. Drawing out the parallels between Beckett’s dramatic writing and phenomenology, this study seeks to establish the role perception plays in the creative task Beckett set out for himself—namely the realisation of a new means of expression. While Beckett’s careful structuring and de-structuring of movement patterns have not gone unnoticed, the philosophical consequences of Beckett’s ‘assault against words’, has not been fully appreciated. Beckett uses mis-movements not only to ‘desophisticate’ words, but also to expose the means by which the effect of aesthetic perception is produced. This is not to say that mis-movements can be reduced to a set of clear significations—according to Kant “there is no formula that can produce the beautiful”—but to suggest that Beckett uses mis-movements to refocus the audience’s attention on the realm of sensuous perception.

I argue that virginity is a distinct phenomenon with essential structures that can be apprehended and described using a phenomenological method, and thus offer the first robust phenomenology of virginity. A more complex passage than the physical transaction of first sexual intercourse, virginity manifests the event of a coming to love through the conduit of the sexual-erotic body. Calling on Jean-Luc Marion’s phenomenology of givenness, I argue that virginity qualifies as a saturated phenomenon, exceeding or overflowing intuition and signification in its paradoxical phenomenality. As a study in saturated phenomena my work pushes the limits of phenomenology by endorsing the exigency of a phenomenology of the evanescent and enigmatic to engage denigrated domains of human experience such as sex and love. Our access to virginity is possible because of our ontological constitution as sexuate beings, but also because of our essential potential to cultivate our sexuate existence through the lens of a primordial erotic attunement. Conscious development of our erotic potential is a form of ascesis that can elevate the sexual-erotic encounter to the ethical height of love. Still, virginity can never be forced, taken, or lost, since the phenomenon is ultimately only gifted through an act of erotic generosity and the intervention of grace. Virginity is not a one-time threshold crossing. It has the essential possibility of being perpetually renewed with each singular sexual-erotic encounter. I seek to sever sex from its legacy as mere animal instinct and from its functional and reproductive teleology in order to open a new way of thinking about our sexual-erotic being that focuses on its ethical potential and its usefulness as a model for being with others outside of the sexual-erotic relation. I take seriously the Irigarayan possibility that we can craft an ethics of Eros. My work draws broadly from twentieth-century literature on phenomenology, poststructuralism, and psychoanalysis, including that of Marion, Beauvoir, Irigaray, Derrida, Heidegger, Foucault, and Butler.

Ethnodrama has been identified as an effective and innovative qualitative research method and dissemination tool which aims to improve and inform society through theatrical performances. Researchers are increasingly utilizing ethnodrama in their work; however it is relatively new and remains unexplored. The lived experiences of this method have not been extensively documented in prior research.<p> Specifically, I focus on a project which involved ethnodrama workshops for women experiencing arm problems after breast cancer. The ethnodrama workshops revealed that women were feeling: 1) there is a lack of support, 2) a sense of isolation, and 3) a need to heal after breast cancer. The workshops began to break that isolation, provide support, and start a journey of healing. They also provided an unexpected finding that yoga is an effective and sought after method of healing for women after breast cancer. This finding moved the workshops into the creation of healing yoga program for women after breast cancer, instead of a research based theatrical performance (ethnodrama). <p> Phenomenological interviews took place with a yoga teacher, dramatists, and researchers who had lived experiences of ethnodrama. The researchers spoke of the challenges involved in ethnodrama creation including time, funding, participant recruitment, and data collection. I also focus on the themes of emotional connectivity, building trust, healing, breaking isolation, and social change as they were found to resonate across all their experiences with the method.<p> I also use the methodology of autoethnography to connect the common themes across the experiences of ethnodrama with my own experience. My participation in an ethnodrama project allows me to connect my participant and researcher involvement with this method.<p> Ethnodrama is an effective knowledge translation strategy for audiences; however I have found that it is also a method which emotionally connects researchers and participants. There are challenges to this method, but I learned they did not outweigh the benefits. The themes of healing, breaking isolation, building trust, and social change show that ethnodrama is a method which positively impacts researchers and participants involved.

In this essay I defend Simone de Beauvoir against the charge that her chapter <i>The Givens of Biology</i> from The Second Sex is biologistic. A work can be said to make the mistake of biologism when it assigns a particular nature or essence to human beings based on their biology. De Beauvoir has been accused of making this mistake because her critics have not understood the philosophical landscape in which she was working. Not only have they missed the subtleties of her arguments, but many formulated their criticisms from a poor translation, provided by H.M. Parshley in 1952. In order to combat the decontextualizing of her theory I provide a conceptual backdrop that locates de Beauvoirs work in relation to her philosophical influences, her contemporaries, and her own philosophical works that predate The Second Sex. I give a phenomenological re-reading of The Givens of Biology based on my situating of de Beauvoir. My work is expositional and argumentative to the point of dissuading the reader from understanding de Beauvoir not only as a biological essentialist, but also as holding especially negative views about womens embodiment.

I argue that virginity is a distinct phenomenon with essential structures that can be apprehended and described using a phenomenological method, and thus offer the first robust phenomenology of virginity. A more complex passage than the physical transaction of first sexual intercourse, virginity manifests the event of a coming to love through the conduit of the sexual-erotic body. Calling on Jean-Luc Marion’s phenomenology of givenness, I argue that virginity qualifies as a saturated phenomenon, exceeding or overflowing intuition and signification in its paradoxical phenomenality. As a study in saturated phenomena my work pushes the limits of phenomenology by endorsing the exigency of a phenomenology of the evanescent and enigmatic to engage denigrated domains of human experience such as sex and love. Our access to virginity is possible because of our ontological constitution as sexuate beings, but also because of our essential potential to cultivate our sexuate existence through the lens of a primordial erotic attunement. Conscious development of our erotic potential is a form of ascesis that can elevate the sexual-erotic encounter to the ethical height of love. Still, virginity can never be forced, taken, or lost, since the phenomenon is ultimately only gifted through an act of erotic generosity and the intervention of grace. Virginity is not a one-time threshold crossing. It has the essential possibility of being perpetually renewed with each singular sexual-erotic encounter. I seek to sever sex from its legacy as mere animal instinct and from its functional and reproductive teleology in order to open a new way of thinking about our sexual-erotic being that focuses on its ethical potential and its usefulness as a model for being with others outside of the sexual-erotic relation. I take seriously the Irigarayan possibility that we can craft an ethics of Eros. My work draws broadly from twentieth-century literature on phenomenology, poststructuralism, and psychoanalysis, including that of Marion, Beauvoir, Irigaray, Derrida, Heidegger, Foucault, and Butler.

In this essay I defend Simone de Beauvoir against the charge that her chapter <i>The Givens of Biology</i> from The Second Sex is biologistic. A work can be said to make the mistake of biologism when it assigns a particular nature or essence to human beings based on their biology. De Beauvoir has been accused of making this mistake because her critics have not understood the philosophical landscape in which she was working. Not only have they missed the subtleties of her arguments, but many formulated their criticisms from a poor translation, provided by H.M. Parshley in 1952. In order to combat the decontextualizing of her theory I provide a conceptual backdrop that locates de Beauvoirs work in relation to her philosophical influences, her contemporaries, and her own philosophical works that predate The Second Sex. I give a phenomenological re-reading of The Givens of Biology based on my situating of de Beauvoir. My work is expositional and argumentative to the point of dissuading the reader from understanding de Beauvoir not only as a biological essentialist, but also as holding especially negative views about womens embodiment.

Ethnodrama has been identified as an effective and innovative qualitative research method and dissemination tool which aims to improve and inform society through theatrical performances. Researchers are increasingly utilizing ethnodrama in their work; however it is relatively new and remains unexplored. The lived experiences of this method have not been extensively documented in prior research.<p> Specifically, I focus on a project which involved ethnodrama workshops for women experiencing arm problems after breast cancer. The ethnodrama workshops revealed that women were feeling: 1) there is a lack of support, 2) a sense of isolation, and 3) a need to heal after breast cancer. The workshops began to break that isolation, provide support, and start a journey of healing. They also provided an unexpected finding that yoga is an effective and sought after method of healing for women after breast cancer. This finding moved the workshops into the creation of healing yoga program for women after breast cancer, instead of a research based theatrical performance (ethnodrama). <p> Phenomenological interviews took place with a yoga teacher, dramatists, and researchers who had lived experiences of ethnodrama. The researchers spoke of the challenges involved in ethnodrama creation including time, funding, participant recruitment, and data collection. I also focus on the themes of emotional connectivity, building trust, healing, breaking isolation, and social change as they were found to resonate across all their experiences with the method.<p> I also use the methodology of autoethnography to connect the common themes across the experiences of ethnodrama with my own experience. My participation in an ethnodrama project allows me to connect my participant and researcher involvement with this method.<p> Ethnodrama is an effective knowledge translation strategy for audiences; however I have found that it is also a method which emotionally connects researchers and participants. There are challenges to this method, but I learned they did not outweigh the benefits. The themes of healing, breaking isolation, building trust, and social change show that ethnodrama is a method which positively impacts researchers and participants involved.