This dissertation is situated within the field of media studies, with a particular focus on the "materialities of communication." The concept of "materialities" is oriented to the underlying conditions that allow communication to take place: the places, carriers and modes of communication that serve to shape and even alter meaning. My dissertation asks how this "material turn" can usefully be applied to and help develop the study of theatre. / The dissertation is divided into four chapters. In Chapter 1, I undertake a critical review of the theoretical literature regarding materialities and its applications to media theory. In Chapter 2, I begin to explore the implications of the material turn for theatre. Scholarly interest in the relation of media and theatre has largely been focused on the use of media and technology within theatrical practice. I argue that theatre cannot be conceived of separately from the prevailing communicational possibilities of a given era, even if we accept the capacity for artistic intervention within these parameters. I integrate theoretical standpoints on the reproducibility, iterability and liveness of theatrical presence into a broad discussion of media and communication and thereby demonstrate a more fundamental relationship between theatricality and mediality. / In Chapter 3, I extend my discussion of a "materialities of theatre" to the subject of translatability. Translation has long functioned as a metaphor for media as well as for theatrical representation. Discourses of the translatability between media forms have recently been revived by digital technologies that present translation as a model of universalization: the search for the perfect language into which all forms of knowledge can converge. Theatre works to converge media forms as a point of intersecting bodies, texts, voices and technologies, yet also remains persistently aware of the economy of shifting linguistic exchanges that renders total translation an impossible pursuit. I thus develop a study of the materialities of theatre that can attend to this disjunction in translation theory by addressing theatre as a point of medial convergence as well as a site of linguistic difference. / In Chapter 4, I elaborate upon these standpoints by discussing circulation as a theoretical concept that, on the one hand, complements the study of materialities of communication and, on the other hand, seeks to overcome the abovementioned disjunction of translation theory. Concentrating on the case of Montreal as a site of heightened linguistic interaction, I investigate theatre as a medial system that works to absorb, interrupt and rediffuse the linguistic materialities of this city.

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Thesis (MPhil)--University of Stellenbosch, 2000. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Moral theories often view the problem of abortion as oppositional: either fiercely "pro-life" or adamantly "pro-choice". A closer view at their respective arguments suggests that extreme polar views are hardly tenable. The principle of the sanctity of life has its limits, and the liberal view on abortion leading to the logical conclusion that even infanticide is permissible is counterintuitive and at loggerheads with common morality. Softer views on both polar positions are more appealing and more acceptable. The soft "pro-life" stance has serious limitations for it appeals to the doctrine of double effect or to a secular but similar position, the doctrine of self-defence, which would allow abortion only in cases of rape or incest. The soft "pro-choice" position appeals to the concept of sentience: only the abortion of a presentient embryo/fetus is permissible. The difficulty, however, is that we know little about the sentience of the unborn and its occurrence during intra-uterine development. Both extreme and softer views are basically oppositional (either/or). The postmodern mind aims at deconstructing oppositions in order to highlight the ideologies underscoring the advocacy of either view. In a poststructural perspective that takes into account the complexity of life, it becomes possible to understand and to accept the view that a "pro-choice" stance is far from being "pro-death". This is the position which is argued for in the present essay. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Die probleem van aborsie word dikwels deur morele teorieë beskou as een van oposisies: "pro-lewe" aan die een kant of "pro-keuse" aan die ander. Wanneer die onderskeie argumente van naderby beskou word, word dit duidelik dat hierdie uiters polêre sieninge skaars geregverdig is. Die beginsel van die heiligheid en onskendbaarheid van lewe het sy beperkinge, en die liberale standpunt oor aborsie, wat onvermydelik en op 'n logiese wyse lei na die konklusie dat selfs kindermoord geregverdig kan word, is kontra-intuitief en gaan die algemene moraliteit teen. Standpunte wat 'n minder radikale blik op beide die polêre posisies het is beide meer aantreklik en meer aanvaarbaar. Die sagte "pro-lewe" uitgangspunt het belangrike beperkinge, omdat dit sigself beroep op die doktrine van dubble-effek, of op 'n sekulêre, maar soortgelyke posisie, die doktrine van selfverdediging, wat aborsie sou wou toelaat in die geval van verkragting of bloedskande. Die sagte "pro-keuse" posisie beroep sigself op die konsep van waarnemingsvermoë: slegs die aborsie van die embrio/fetus wat nog nie oor waarnemingsvermoë beskik nie is toelaatbaar. Hierdie standpunt word egter bemoeilik deur die feit dat ons nie oor veel kennis beskik aangaande die waarnemingsvermoë van die ongebore, of van die voorkoms van waarnemingsvermoë gedurende intra-uterinêre ontwikkeling nie. Beide die uiterste en die sagter uitgangspunte is uiteinelik oposisioneel. Postmoderne denke stel hom ten doe Iom oposisies te dekonstrueer, ten einde lig te werp op die idoelogieë wat die aanhang van enige posisie onderskraag. In 'n poststukturele perspektief wat die kompleksiteit van lewe in ag neem, word dit moontlik om die siening dat 'n "prokeuse" uitgangspunt ver verwyderd is daarvan om "pro-die dood" te wees, te aanvaar. Dit is die posisie waarvoor daar in hierdie opstel geargumenteer word.

An evil spiritual being, often called the devil, is an antagonist in several religious traditions. The religious ideology among enslaved Africans in America allowed for the devil to play an important, and sometimes ambiguous, role in their lives. Through the examination of conversion narratives, this research intends to argue that their conversion experiences are heavily impacted by and mirrored the reality of slavery. Therefore, the enslaved people’s accounts of the devil are influenced by the power and honor attributed to the institution of slavery. The data from gathered from the narratives will be interpreted through a poststructuralist lens of power and honor. Poststructuralist theories of power and honor will reveal the significance of the devil in conversion narratives and unearth an African American understanding of the devil that is created and sustained by the systems of power and honor in American slavery.

Poststructuralist accounts of gender provide a useful theoretical space to unpack the workings of power and domination as they structure the organization of our language, representations, concepts, and discourse in general. One significant flaw of this theory is a failure to adequately account for the social realm of embodied individuals, social interactions, and interpretive moments. In this paper, I offer conventional femininity as a particular type of gendered habitus that highlights this theoretical flaw as it necessarily links what is promising and useful about poststructuralist accounts of gender with the physical, social, interactive, and interpretive everyday lives of women.

This dissertation investigates the social construction and discursive emergence of US nuclear weapons policy against the backdrop of the nuclear taboo and its associated anti-nuclear discourse. The analysis is drawn from poststructuralism with a focus on the discourses that construct the social world and its attendant “common sense,” and makes possible certain policies and courses of action while foreclosing others. This methodology helps overcome the overdetermined nature of foreign policy, or its tendency to be driven simultaneously by the international strategic environment, the domestic political environment, and powerful domestic organizations, and while being shaped and delimited by the discourses associated with the nuclear taboo. I apply this method to three different cases of presidential administration policymaking: Eisenhower, Reagan, and George W. Bush. In each, the analysis illuminates the coherent discourses that emerged, crystallized, and either became policy, or were usurped by competing discourses and their associated policies. I follow the actions of key actors as they stitched together existing discourses in new ways to create meaning for nuclear weapons and the US arsenal, as well as to limit what could and should be done with that arsenal. The case studies reveal the content of the strategic international, domestic political, organizational, and normative bases of US nuclear weapons policy. These results suggest that most challenges to the nuclear policy status quo emerge from new presidents whose own discourse is built upon personal conviction and critiques of their predecessors. Upon taking office, these sources compete with discourses emerging from organizations, especially the nuclear weapons complex, and anti-nuclear forces including: activists, the scientific community, the international public, US allied governments, and the US public. It was this political conflict and confrontation that made possible the pattern of nuclear weapons policy that characterized each administration. This work points to the strength of the nuclear taboo, and the effort that must be expended for its associated discourses to impact presidential policymaking. This insight provides an opening for managing the nuclear threat posed by the Trump administration’s new nuclear weapons policy.

This thesis is based primarily on work published in academic refereed journals between 1994 and 2003. Taken as a whole, the thesis explores and enacts an evolving methodology for curriculum inquiry which foregrounds the generativity of fiction in reading, writing and representing curriculum problems and issues. This methodology is informed by the narrative and textual 'turns' in the humanities and social sciences - especially poststructuralist and deconstructive approaches to literary and cultural criticism - and is performed as a series of narrative experiments and 'intertextual turns'. Narrative theory suggests that we can think of all discourse as taking the form of a story, and poststructuralist theorising invites us to think of all discourse as taking the form of a text; this thesis argues that intertextual and deconstructive readings of the stories and texts that constitute curriculum work can produce new meanings and understandings. The thesis places particular emphasis on the uses of fiction and fictional modes of representation in curriculum inquiry and suggests that our purposes might sometimes be better served by (re)presenting the texts we produce as deliberate fictions rather than as 'factual' stories. The thesis also demonstrates that some modes and genres of fiction can help us to move our research efforts beyond 'reflection' (an optical metaphor for displacing an image) by producing texts that 'diffract' the normative storylines of curriculum inquiry (diffraction is an optical metaphor for transformation). The thesis begins with an introduction that situates (autobiographically and historically) the narrative experiments and intertextual turns performed in the thesis as both advancements in, and transgressions of, deliberative and critical reconceptualist curriculum theorising. Several of the chapters that follow examine textual continuities and discontinuities between the various objects and methods of curriculum inquiry and particular fictional genres (such as crime stories and science fiction) and/or particular fictional works (including Bram Stoker's Dracula, J.M. Coetzee's Disgrace, and Ursula Le Guin's The Telling). Other chapters demonstrate how intertextual and deconstructive reading strategies can inform inquiries focused on specific subject matters (with particular reference to environmental education) and illuminate contemporary issues and debates in curriculum (especially the internationalisation and globalisation of curriculum work). The thesis concludes with suggestions for further refinement of methodologies that privilege narrative and fiction in curriculum inquiry.

This thesis uses a poststructuralist methodology and leads to a Foucauldian analysis of power, subjectivity and discursive practices for a group of twelve boys in a Year 3 and 4 classroom. The thesis is written in a poststructuralist way, and as such, it is experimental. It experiments with a writing style that encourages the critical engagement of the reader in deconstructing the text. The personal subjectivity of the author is placed in the foreground risking a vulnerability that is not apparent in theses generally. The thesis describes the structure and practicalities of research in a primary school classroom using a video camera to collect data. Transcripts were made from videotapes of a school day and interviews with the boys. These were analysed for the frequency of use of Foucault's "disciplinary techniques" using qualitative research software. Furthermore computer analysis assisted the extraction of "mini-narratives" from the transcripts. These "mini-narratives" are used to lead a description of the subjectivity of the boys and their positioning in the discourses of schooling and hegemonic masculinity. A picture emerges of a young male subjectivity caught up in the dilemmas of concurrent positioning in both schooling practices and hegemonic masculinity practices. It is proposed that boys often see their available positionings as limited by schooling discourse to "positive-female" or "negative-male". Hegemonic masculinity discourse limits available positioning to "positive male" or "negative-female". Positioning by the boys in these discourses is depicted as rapidly changing to the extent that inconsistencies and confusions arise for boys. The "mini-narratives" use the transcribed voices of the boys to tell of the challenges and practicalities of being a boy in a primary school. Recommendations are made that include moving beyond dualistic ways of subject positioning. The recommendations include ideas for teachers to involve themselves and their students in developing new ways of speaking about gender difference.

Rape cultures in the United States facilitate acts of rape by influencing perpetrators’, community members’, and women who survive rapes’ beliefs about sexual assault and its consequences. While much of the previous research on rape in university settings has focused on individual attitudes and behaviors, as well as developing education and prevention campaigns, this research examined institutional influences on rape culture in the context of football teams. Using a feminist poststructuralist theoretical lens, an examination of newspaper articles, press releases, reports, and court documents from December 2001 to December 2007 was conducted to reveal prominent and counter discourses following a series of rapes and civil lawsuits at the University of Colorado. The research findings illustrated how community members’ adoption of institutional discourses discrediting the women who survived rape and denying the existence of and responsibility for rape culture could be facilitated by specific promotional strategies. Strategies of continually qualifying the women who survived rapes’ reports, administrators claiming ‘victimhood,’ and denying that actions by individual members of the athletic department could be linked to a rape culture made the University’s discourse more palatable to some community members who included residents of Boulder, Colorado and CU students, staff, faculty, and administrators. According to feminist poststructuralist theory, subjects continually construct their identities and belief systems by accepting and rejecting the discourses surrounding them. When community members incorporate rape-supportive discourses from the University into their subjectivities, rape culture has been propagated.