This study of the theatre of the British Labour Movement had its roots in 1985 when History Workshop published a collection of documents relating to the Workers' Theatre Movements in Britain and America between 1880 and 1935. In his introductory essay in Theatres of the Left, Raphael Samuel concludes that there are no traditions in British Labour Theatre except those which have been broken or lost, that There is no continuous history of socialist or alternative history to be discovered, rather a succession of moments separated from one another by a rupture (1). Since this conclusion was reached, others have repeated Samuel's assertion in varying forms. So, Andrew Davies talks of "scanty Chartist theatrical activity" and of the mainstream lab6ur movement in the 1920s remaining "uninterested in cultural matters" and Ian Saville asserts that the conception of a partisan, organised theatre devoted to spreading the socialist message throughout the working classes only began to take shape in Britain in the mid-1920s (2). Yet a cursory glance at the theatre which preceded the Workers' Theatre Movement, a glance which Raphael Samuel provides in his introductory essay on theatre and socialism in Britain, reveals I a plethora of activity in the labour movement. From the Chartists and the Owlenites in the nineteenth century, through the Socialist Sunday Schools and the Socialist League to the Clarion movement, the Independent Labour Party and the Labour Party, the theatrical activity pointed to by Samuel is startling in comparison to anything we can see today. What follows is an attempt to look at some of those moments, to look at the plays they produced and at both how and why working class political organisations looked to the theatre, to try to ascertain if they were indeed no more than broken threads and if so to try to account for why this may be the case. It is also an attempt to re-examine some of our notions of what is political theatre, for since the discovery of the work of the Workers' Theatre Movement and subsequently of the Actresses Franchise League much has been made of these as the starting point of political theatre in Britain. Yet, for a country with one of the longest traditions of organised working class movements, such assertions seem at best strange, at worst dishonest. One clue as to the reason for such claims can be found in the characterisation of the theatre of the organised working class prior to the Workers' Theatre Movement which has become common currency. It was, in the words of Colin Chambers, primarily of ethical and anti-militarist rather than directly political", or in the words of Raphael Samuel: First, the belief that it is their mission to bring the working class into contact with "great" art (ie capitalist art) and second, the tendency to produce plays which may deal with the misery of the workerss may even deal with the class struggleg but which show no way out, and which therefore spread a feeling of defeat and despair (3). Such definitions of what is (or rather what is not) political theatre rest very heavily on a notion that political is most importantly propaganda. If the theatre that existed in connection with political organisations prior to 1926 was not propagandist then it follows for some that it was not political. What follows is therefore also an attempt to uncover a different approach, by looking at the groups own justifications for their involvement in theatrical ventures as part of the struggle for socialism.

Minimally invasive technique (MIS) revolutionized the field of surgery for its shorter hospitalization time, lower complication rates, and ultimately reduced morbidity and mortality. However, one of the critical challenges that prevent it from reaching the full potentials is the restricted visualization from the traditional monocular camera systems at the presence of tissue deformations. This dissertation aims to design a new approach which can provide the surgeons with real time 3D visualization of complete organ deformations during the MIS operation. This new approach even allows the surgeon to see through the wall of an organ rather than just looking at its surface. The proposed design consists of two stages. The first training stage identified the deformation subspaces from a training data set in the transformed spherical harmonic domain, such that each surface can be sparsely represented in the structured dictionary with low dimensionality. This novel idea is based on our experimental discovery that the spherical harmonic coefficients of any organ surface lie in specific low dimensional subspaces. The second reconstruction stage reconstructs the complete deformations in realtime using surface samples obtained with an optical device from a limited field of view while applying the structured dictionary. The sparse surface representation algorithm is also applied to ultrasound image enhancement and efficient surgical simulation. The former is achieved by fusing ultrasound samples 5 with optical data under proper weighting strategies. The high speed of surgical simulation is obtained by decreasing the computational cost based on the high compactness of the surface representation algorithm. In order to verify the proposed approaches, we first use the computer models to demonstrate that the proposed approach matches the accuracy of complex mathematical modeling techniques. Then ex-vivo experiments are conducted on freshly excised porcine kidneys utilizing a 3D MRI machine, a 3D optical device and an ultrasound machine to further test the feasibility under practical settings. / text

Released in the era of third-wave feminism, postfeminism and “girl power,” HSM causes such a sensation, especially among the girl audience. Girls in HSM complicate the traditional understanding of femininity and what it means to be a girl. This thesis focuses on the gender representations in the High School Musical trilogy, explores Disney’s ideologies of representing girl characters through different sites like romantic relationship, intellectual ability and fashion style, and analyzes the influence of postfeminism and consumerism on the construction of girls’ identity and femininity. / text

Representations of Blacks have had its limitations on television. The Black sitcom has proven to be a fruitful place of analysis as it relates to the presence of Black bodies and the portrayal of Black culture. The lack of accurate depictions and the portrayal of a diverse Black culture has been a challenge for many years. The Cosby Show (1984-92) however, has been hailed for representations of Blacks as upper class, educated, and portraying a two-parent house hold. With this, an overwhelming amount of scholarly research on Black sitcoms surrounds The Cosby Show. Other shows that have a fair amount of scholarship include Amos and Andy (1951-53-) and The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air (1990-96). As I am constantly reminded through song lyrics and social networks that my peers are still reflecting about the sitcom Martin, I am also intrigued by its lack of exploration by scholars in the field. As Martin does not portray status and wealth, or educated professionals it is my assumption that this lack of research is reflection of the presumed low significance of the show. There appears to be an obvious divergence between academic and Hollywood's coverage of the show and viewers engagement with the show. 15 years after the show has aired new episodes, many of my peers indulge as if it never left. This paper seeks to further explore the sitcom and its critiques. Through a survey I poll viewers to explore how viewer's opinions can inform future discussions about the show. My exploration of the show through song lyrics, social network posts and survey results will reveal valuable components and complicate discourse of the shows reception, ultimately contributing to the scholarship on Black sitcoms. / text

Gypsies or Roma are one of the minorities frequently represented in film, whenever we talk about European or American film; within this context Russian and Eastern European cinema seems to offer the richest palette of portrayals, as in this region Roma represent an important and controversial minority. Film scholars agreed that from the moment when Roma appeared on screen and until the last decades when a shift toward a more realistic approach can be detected, their filmic representations were predominantly stereotypic and highly exoticized. Films from the last decades show more interest in the depiction of poverty, discrimination and marginalization, but stereotypical representation is still present and dominant. The purpose of this paper is to focus on several stereotypes generally perceived as negative stereotypes (theft, drunkenness, vulgar language, falseness, etc.) and to demonstrate that in relation to Gypsy representations on screen, these stereotypes change their function, trying to inculcate upon the viewer sympathetic feelings and accentuating the gap between the Roma cinematic image and the dominant ideology about them in the societies where they live. This thesis will examine negative stereotypes and their function in some of the most representative films of the Gypsy cinema: Skupljaci perja / I Even Met Happy Gypsies (Petrović 1967), Tabor ukhodit v Nebo/ Gypsy Camp Goes to Heaven or Queen of the Gypsies (Loteanu 1976), Ko to tamo peva? / Who’s Singin’ Over There? (Sijan 1980), Dom za vesanje / Time of the Gypsies Gypsies (Kusturica 1988), Gadjo Dillo / The Crazy Stranger (Gatlif 1997), Dallas Pashamende / Dallas among Us (Pejo 2005), and Baklava (Petrov 2007). Special attention will be paid to the relationship between the subjects of representation (Roma), their authors (the directors), and their consumers (the viewers). / text

The topic of this research are the linkages between the descriptive and the substantive representation of women. The research questions seek to explore 1. in how far and on what basis women in parliament represent women and women's issues and how women in civil society perceive this 2. what obstacles to the work of women in congress are identified 3. to what extent women in Chilean congress work amongst each other and over organizational barriers with women's organizations and SERNAM and lastly 4. how the findings on the questions above relate and contribute to the broader debate on mediating factors between DRW and SRW and what conclusions on the potential impact of a quota on these factors they allow. For this purpose, this field study involved interviews conducted in April and May 2015 in Santiago de Chile and Valparaiso as well as one via Skype. The interviewees were seven current and recent female members of the Chilean congress as well as five representatives from reputable women's organizations. Furthermore, the extensive literature on the topic as well as reports on the issue of gender equality were reviewed. The method applied was qualitative and abductive. No theory-testing was involved, instead the approach was exploratory and theories and analytical frameworks were used as inspiration for interview questions in an abductive way. The results of this study shed light on six variables drawn from the research debate, the role of women's diversity, the impact of their attitudes towards the representation of women, tokenism, 'women's issues', feminist triangles and here also the relation of legislators to feminism, and finally the impact of numbers on all variables. Specifically feminist triangles reveal a wealth of interactions and potential for the promotion of enhancing SRW in ways contingent and non-contingent on DRW.

The study is concerned with some aspects of the philosophical development of Russell and Wittgenstein in the period in which their doctrines interacted closely with each other. The questions investigated -nay be summarised as follows: (i) What does it mean to say that language represents reality in an isomorphic manner ? (ii) How is it possible for language to represent reality isomorphically and yet be related to it in such a way that the relation it has in virtue of its sense is independent of the relation it has in virtue of its truth? In answering these questions, particular attention has been paid to Russell's unpublished Manuscript Epistemology (1913) because of the impact it had on Wittgenstein, who severely criticised it. These criticisms began to emerge, as an alternative to Russell's views, in 'Notes on Logic' and in the other pre-Tractarian writings. It is in the Tractatus, eventually, that the two-fold relation between language and reality, which Russell's position left unexplained, is accounted for, by virtue of the distinction form/structure. The following are the central theses of this study: (a) Although Russell and Wittgenstein share the assumption of linguistic isomorphic representation, their isomorphisms are totally different, since Wittgenstein makes the distinction form/structure and Russell does not; (b) Wittgenstein's development from the earlier writings to the Tractatus may be viewed in terms of the emergence of distinctions such as, the world as substance/the world as fact, possibilities/ actualities, form/structure, which lie at the heart of the Tractatus and serve to substantiate its central semantic doctrine concerning the language-reality relation of representation; (c) since the Tractatus maintains the principle that 'sense is independent of the facts' (i.e., that there is an independence or priority of sense over truth) then a proposition's relation to reality cannot be accounted for by means of ostension, for such an account involves the denial of the principle; (d) the divergence between Russell and Wittgenstein as regards the main concern of the Tractatus, centres on the divergence of their views concerning the vagueness of ordinary language; (e) a central aspect of the unity of Wittgenstein's entire philosophy, as regards the internal relation- ship between language and reality, lies in his conception of form.

I contend that 'morality, respectability, and decorum', were Victorian values trumpeted particularly loudly in Birmingham because of the local dominance of Nonconformism. Nonconformists had materially delayed the granting of a licence to Birmingham's playhouse, and continued actively hostile to its existence. Their influence on the prevailing 'official' moral climate is apparent in the reluctance of the local magistracy to grant music hall licence applications. Theatre managers here, then, laboured under an added imperative to maintain tranquil, well-conducted houses, presenting wholesome fare, and with strong community links. II My contention is that the theatre embraced and, occasionally, stimulated technological innovation. I also argue that Birmingham industrialists played a crucial role in materially changing both the functioning and the appearance of playhouses and music halls. That the revolution in mobility was the overriding factor in the contemporary mushrooming of playhouses and music halls is, I suggest, too apparent to be gainsaid. I focus closely on the transformation of Birmingham's transport links, both externally and within the town, and the readiness of local promoters and managers of theatres to exploit the new opportunities to attract audiences. III I suggest that if cultural imperialism operated more subtly than the political brand, imperialism it remained. The relationship with the fledgling United States displayed the classic characteristics of paternalism and condescension, not unmixed with arrogance, on . the part of the metropolitan power, and a general deference, giving way to fits of resentment, pique, and sometimes open rebellion, on the part of the erstwhile colonials. Minstrelsy and the cult of the 'Wild West' represent the beginnings of a reversal of the hitherto one-way cultural traffic, mirroring changes in the transatlantic political balance. I argue that the advent of steam navigation was a key factor in the expanding and vibrant Anglo-American exchange, with Birmingham playing a full role in that exchange.

In this thesis we investigate the problem of defining an extension of sutured instanton Floer homology to give an instanton invariant for a tangle. We do this in three separate steps. First, we investigate the representation variety of singular flat connections on a punctured Riemann surface \(\Sigma\). Suppose \(\Sigma\) has genus \(g\) and that there are \(n\) punctures. We give formulae for the Betti numbers of the space \(\mathcal{R}_{g,n}\) of flat \(SU(2)\)-connections on \(\Sigma\) with trace 0 holonomy around the punctures. By using a natural extension of the Atiyah-Bott generators for the cohomology ring \(H^*(\mathcal{R}_{g,n})\), we are able to write down a presentation for this ring in the case \(g=0\) of a punctured sphere. This is accomplished by studying the intersections of Poincaré dual submanifolds for the new generators and reducing the calculation to a linear algebra problem involving the symplectic volumes of the representation variety. We then study the related problem of computing the instanton Floer homology for a product link in a product 3-manifold <p>\((Y_g, K_n) := (S^1 \times \Sigma, S^1 \times \{n pts\})\).<\p> It is easy to see that the Floer homology of this pair, as a vector space, is essentially the same as the cohomology of \(\mathcal{R}_{g,n}\), and so we set ourselves to determining a presentation for the natural algebra structure on it in the case \(g = 0\). By leveraging a stable parabolic bundles calculation for \(n = 3\) and an easier version of this Floer homology, \(I _*(Y_0, K_n, u)\), we are able to write down a complete presentation for the Floer homology \(I _*(Y_0, K_n)\) as a ring. We recapitulate somewhat the techniques in \([\boldsymbol{27}]\) in order to do this. Crucially, we deduce that the eigenspace for the top eigenvalue for a natural operator \(\mu^{ orb} (\Sigma)\) on \(I_* (Y_0, K_n)\) is 1-dimensional.Finally, we leverage this 1-dimensional eigenspace to define an instanton tangle invariant THI and several variants by mimicking the de nition of sutured Floer homology SHI in \([\boldsymbol{22}]\). We then prove this invariant enjoys nice properties with respect to concatenation, and prove a nontriviality result which shows that it detects the product tangle in certain cases. / Mathematics

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