Rezension von zwei Büchern des Rabbiners Shimon Gershon Rosenberg / Reviews of two books of Rabbi Shimon Gershon Rosenberg.

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Multiple Affiliations explores the autobiographical negotiations of memory and multilocality articulated by five (im)migrant women writers writing from, and being read (primarily) within, the US. Texts as diverse as Korean-American Theresa Hak Kyung Cha's Dictée (1982), Polish (Jewish)-American Eva Hoffman's Lost in Translation: Life in a New Language (1989), Chinese-American Maxine Hong Kingston's The Woman Warrior Memoirs of a Girlhood among Ghosts (1976) and China Men (1980), Caribbean/African-American Audre Lorde's Zami: A New Spelling of My Name (1982), and Pakistani-American Sara Suleri's Meatless Days (1989) highlight how various (cross-race and transnational) experiences of location, dislocation, and relocation resonate with each other and "immigrant America." Whereas the conventional immigration/assimilation paradigm assumes the resolvability of difference, (im)migration, related to the concept of diaspora, is sensitive to "different differences," related to race, class, gender, etc. Further, (im)migration points to the variability and mobility within the immigrant experience. I use the concept of diaspora, not as a metaphor, but as a lens through which to investigate subjectivities that disturb the assumed union between place, culture and identity. I further employ various exigencies of "locational feminism" to take into account shifting, unstable, postmodern identities and, at the same time, pay attention to historical and material particularities. Multiple Affiliations shows how "diasporic" dialectics - negotiations of here and there, continuity and change, roots and routes - continually shape (im)migrant subjectivities, even if the possibility of returning to the homeland is precluded and even if the experience of immigration is not firsthand. Acts of imaginative memory are called upon to re-configure diasporic identity by linking the present and the past, here and there, self and ethnic group, and with marked insistence, to rewrite history, frequendy to trouble national schemes. I propose that, far from inhabiting separate spheres, immigrant and diasporic sensibilities often overlap. / digitalisering@umu

ABSTRACT “Theories of the Fantastic: Postmodernism, Game Theory, and Modern Physics” Karen Pike Degree: Doctor of Philosophy (2010) Centre for Comparative Literature University of Toronto This dissertation examines the fantastic mode of narrative as it appears in postmodern texts in a variety of media including literature, television, and film. By analyzing the kinds of changes which the fantastic mode has undergone in order to accommodate postmodern concerns, this project attempts to answer both how and why the fantastic has maintained its popularity and effectiveness. The first chapter seeks to define the fantastic mode by tracing the history of its definition from the early twentieth century up until the present. In doing so, it revisits the contributions of such analysts as Vax, Caillois, Todorov, and Freud. The second chapter discusses the changes to conventions demanded by postmodern discursive strategies, many of which include a back-and-forth movement between equally valid interpretations of the text. A discussion of Armin Ayren’s “Der Brandstifter,” a comparison of a recurring X-Files sub-plot to Bram Stoker’s Dracula, and an analysis of an intentionally self-reflexive episode of The X-Files demonstrate these changes. The third chapter introduces game theory as a way of understanding the back-and-forth movement typical of the fantastic mode. Hanns Heinz Ewers’s “Die Spinne” is used to illustrate the psychoanalytical aspect of this movement. The next chapter compares and contrasts three vampire films, The Addiction, Lair of the White Worm, and Nadja, in order to demonstrate how the degree to which this back-and-forth movement is present is an indicator of how successfully the fantastic effect emerges. The fifth chapter introduces modern physics as another mode for understanding the presence of the fantastic mode in the postmodern era. The analysis of House of Leaves in the final chapter illustrates how postmodern theory, game theory, and physics all work together to explain the fantastic’s effectiveness. This dissertation’s aim is to explain how and why a mode once defined as a specific nineteenth-century phenomenon keeps reinventing itself and re-emerging to continue to frighten and entertain us.

Around the world many people are affected by war, persecution, rebellion, famine, etc. and are therefore forced to move and start a new life elsewhere under new conditions. The struggle for survival is one of the factors that force children to escape. Being forced into emigration and immigration is evident in people's lives and affect how their identities are constructed. My study is focused on how refugee young people are constructing their identities in the complex context in which they live. The intersectional perspective – maintaining that power relations are created and recreated in interaction with factors such as gender, age, ethnicity and location – is the basis for my study. I have tried to understand how these factors affect refugee youth identity construction. In order to answer my questions and get an idea of whether the refugee youth identity constructions constitute a transition to better opportunities or creating identification problems, I have conducted an ethnographic study in a multicultural school in a suburb in Stockholm. The selected group of study consisted of six refugee young people between 14 and 19 years of age who attend a so-called preparatory class. All of them live with their families and they all have been living in Sweden for less than one year. I have focused on six thematic categories: background, gender, and ethnicity, social network, future and positioning. My choice of perspective on identity constructions is based on the premise that people are constantly looking for social recognition. When meeting other persons they are positioning themselves in different ways, by testing limits and facing the consequences, thereby constructing their identities. Exercise of power and powerlessness are expressed in different ways in their daily lives in which they are seeking their positions in a restricted social network. The result of my study shows that the informants are located in a field of tension between the quest for liberation and identification problems in the paradoxical context that they are in. The dilemma, on the one hand their wish to maintain their ethnic identity and on the other hand to question it, is expressed in their relation to “Swedishness” and the Swedish language. The informants are also using different strategies when they try to construct and maintain their gender identities. Their life chances vary depending on the options available. My informants did actually create an immigrant identity that stands as an antithesis of being Swedish. They all agree that they are striving for self-realization and a brighter future, a future that not least could render them some symbolic capital. But the path towards such goals does not seem to be an easy task. / Ute i världen drabbas många människor av krig, förföljelse, uppror, svält m.m. och tvingas därför att flytta och starta ett nytt liv någon annanstans under nya villkor. Kampen för överlevnad är en av de faktorer som tvingar barn till flykt. Att tvingas till utvandring och invandring sätter spår i människors liv och påverkar hur deras identiteter konstrueras. Min studie tar sin utgångspunkt i hur flyktingungdomar konstruerar sina identiteter i den komplexa kontext som de befinner sig i. Det intersektionella perspektivet – som går ut på att maktrelationer skapas och omskapas i samspelet med faktorer såsom kön, ålder, etnicitet och plats – ligger till grund för min studie. Jag har försökt förstå hur dessa faktorer påverkar flyktingungdomarnas identitetskonstruktioner. För att besvara mina frågeställningar och få en uppfattning om huruvida flyktingungdomars identitets­konstruktioner utgör en övergång till bättre möjligheter eller skapar identifika­tionsproblem har jag genomfört en etnografisk studie i en mångkulturell skola i en av Stockholms förorter. Urvalsgruppen bestod av sex flyktingungdomar mellan 14 och 19 år som går i en så kallad förberedelseklass. Alla bor med sina familjer och alla har vistats i Sverige i mindre än ett år. Jag har utgått från sex tematiska kategorier: bakgrund, kön, etnicitet, nätverk, framtid och positionering. I mitt val av perspektiv på identitetskonstruktioner är utgångspunkten att människor ständigt söker socialt erkännande. I mötet med de andra positionerar de sig på olika sätt genom att testa gränser och möta konsekvenser, därigenom konstruerar de sina identiteter. Maktutövning och maktlöshet uttrycks på olika sätt i deras vardag där de söker sina platser i ett begränsat nätverk. Resultatet visar att informanterna befinner sig i ett spänningsfält mellan å ena sidan strävan efter bättre möjligheter och å andra sidan identifikationsproblem i den paradoxala kontext som de befinner sig i. Dilemmat med att å ena sidan vilja vidmakthålla sin etniska identitet och å andra sidan ifrågasätta den uttrycks i förhållandet till svenskhet och till det svenska språket. Informanterna använder sig också av olika strategier för att iscensätta och upprätthålla sina könsidentiteter. Deras livschanser varierar beroende på vilka möjligheter som erbjuds. Ungdomarna har konstruerat en invandraridentitet som står som motpol till svenskhet. De var alla eniga om att de strävar efter självförverkligande och en ljusare framtid, en framtid som inte minst kan skänka dem symboliskt kapital, men vägen dit tycks inte enkel.

This thesis is based on a life history study of two women involved in activism for social change. Broadly guided by life history methodology and feminist and constructivist postmodern theories and approaches, this inter-disciplinary research explores experiences and stories in the lives of these women that evoke the transformative journeys of womens long-term commitments to social change activism, and that portray ways in which personal and social transformation interweave. The stories illuminate how individual courses of action both resonate with and diverge from meta-narratives of social movements, and how they reflect and resist the contexts in which those courses evolve. Reflection on the process of constructing the stories reveals the effects on the participants and the researcher of the inter-subjective realm from which life history arises. The studys practical purpose relating activism, transformative education and postmodernism also leads to experimentation with creative texts that at once provide educational tools and invite participation in the interpretive process. Overall the thesis melds more traditional approaches with more unconventional ones. The study is both provocative and supportive of those working for social change through transformative education and activism.

With the postmodern prevalence of shopping as both a recreational and subsistence activity, social class identity is increasingly constituted around access to the landscape of consumption. U.S. middle-class identity is normalized in commercial spaces and the exclusion of the lower-class from these spaces perpetuates wider social disparities. For socially aware members of the middle-class, distinction may be achieved by selectively shopping throughout the metropolitan area with the goal of influencing corporate practices. Yet this distinction is not without cost as middle-class shoppers are prime targets of identity marketing schemes and of the neoliberal regime’s construction of consent. Through 15 self-proclaimed middle-class shoppers’ reported use of Atlanta’s postmodern landscape of consumption, this study focuses on performances of middle-classness and representations of commercialized spaces with the goal of furthering the anthropological understanding of class identity and urban space as heterogeneous.

ABSTRACT “Theories of the Fantastic: Postmodernism, Game Theory, and Modern Physics” Karen Pike Degree: Doctor of Philosophy (2010) Centre for Comparative Literature University of Toronto This dissertation examines the fantastic mode of narrative as it appears in postmodern texts in a variety of media including literature, television, and film. By analyzing the kinds of changes which the fantastic mode has undergone in order to accommodate postmodern concerns, this project attempts to answer both how and why the fantastic has maintained its popularity and effectiveness. The first chapter seeks to define the fantastic mode by tracing the history of its definition from the early twentieth century up until the present. In doing so, it revisits the contributions of such analysts as Vax, Caillois, Todorov, and Freud. The second chapter discusses the changes to conventions demanded by postmodern discursive strategies, many of which include a back-and-forth movement between equally valid interpretations of the text. A discussion of Armin Ayren’s “Der Brandstifter,” a comparison of a recurring X-Files sub-plot to Bram Stoker’s Dracula, and an analysis of an intentionally self-reflexive episode of The X-Files demonstrate these changes. The third chapter introduces game theory as a way of understanding the back-and-forth movement typical of the fantastic mode. Hanns Heinz Ewers’s “Die Spinne” is used to illustrate the psychoanalytical aspect of this movement. The next chapter compares and contrasts three vampire films, The Addiction, Lair of the White Worm, and Nadja, in order to demonstrate how the degree to which this back-and-forth movement is present is an indicator of how successfully the fantastic effect emerges. The fifth chapter introduces modern physics as another mode for understanding the presence of the fantastic mode in the postmodern era. The analysis of House of Leaves in the final chapter illustrates how postmodern theory, game theory, and physics all work together to explain the fantastic’s effectiveness. This dissertation’s aim is to explain how and why a mode once defined as a specific nineteenth-century phenomenon keeps reinventing itself and re-emerging to continue to frighten and entertain us.

This thesis examines how context in Derridean signature theory is taboo and underutilized, and calls signature theory to embrace the contaminating mark of context. Signature theory, as proposed by Jacques Derrida and Peggy Kamuf, offers a mere glimpse into Romanticism’s strained relationship with the signature, with a close reading limited to Rousseau. This thesis widens the scope of existing signature scholarship, and expands the context of the signature by focusing on a variety of signatures, events and contexts to reveal that the slipperiness of the signature is a pervasive problem, irreducible to simply just Rousseau. This thesis does not involve a return to the origin, or a search for origins; Part I is a return to the period which Derridean signature theory investigates, in an attempt to interrogate Derrida, Kamuf, and the signature itself; expanding the concept of the signature through its various manifestations of handwork and linework, and weaving together a more complicated, contaminated, and ultimately convincing context for signature theory to begin (again) from. Part II forces signature theory to begin again by putting it into practice. Here, I take Kamuf to task for her failure to fully ‘contract’ the signature. She completely ignores the physical dimension of the word ‘contract.’ Going one step further than simply critiquing her signature practices, I ‘contract’ the signature by having Derrida’s signature tattooed on my body. The tattoo and its location comment on the current limitations of signature theory, and perhaps of academic practice generally; of contracting without touching, and fearing contexts.

Achievement and the experiences of women in secondary school mathematics have been well documented in the research literature (e.g., Benbow & Stanley, 1980, 1983; Tartre & Fennema, 1995; Sherman, 1982; Ryckman & Peckham, 1987; Keller & Dauenheimer, 2003). With respect to achievement, the research literature primarily focuses on how women are deficient to men (e.g., Benbow & Stanley, 1980, 1983) and the roles affective attributes (e.g., Sherman, 1982; Fennema, Petersen, Carpenter & Lubinski, 1990) and stereotype threat (e.g., Quinn & Spencer, 2001; Steele & Aronson, 1995) have played in women’s deficiencies. Despite the perspective and nature of this research, there are, however, women who have achieved at extraordinarily high levels in the secondary mathematics classroom. It is important to examine this historical research as it has impacted the views of teachers, researchers, and media with regard to female mathematics students’ opportunities. By reflecting upon the research literature and its far reaching impacts, high-achieving women in mathematics can begin to reverse the perceptions that limit their opportunities. Thus, the purpose of this study was to explore, through the experiences and stories relayed by the study’s participants, how young women might negotiate the (historic all male) mathematics domain. Employing a qualitative research designed within a phenomenological framework and analyzed through a combination of postmodern and standpoint feminisms, I examined the stories of four undergraduate female students who were identified as being high-achieving in secondary school mathematics. These young women, by reflecting upon their secondary school experiences, and by reflecting upon their experiences within the context of the existing research literature, not only identified the aspects of their lives they felt had the greatest impact upon their opportunities but also examined their personal definitions of success and the impacts their gender had on their (socially defined) achievements within secondary school mathematics.