This dissertation examines the films of David Cronenberg which all conduct a consistently thorough examination of the relationship between the ideologically constituted Cartesian subject and the disciplinary structures that surround, control and limit this subject. Cinema, because of the presence of both film form and narrative content, functions as a double articulation of this disciplinary activity. Each film’s narrative disciplines, on screen, the bodies contained within the plot, even as each film’s form disciplines both the way in which these cinematic bodies are delivered to an audience, and the way the audience’s own viewing practices are controlled and composed. Thus it becomes vital to explore the mechanisms implicated in these processes, and to gain an understanding of how Cronenberg’s cinema works to highlight and critique them. The primary assertion of this thesis is that Cronenberg’s work functions as a particular style of resistance to hegemony that Slavoj Žižek labels‘heresy’. For Žižek,heresy occurs not when one disobeys one’s ideological requirements, but when one over-fulfills them, thereby extending these ideological demands and disciplinary discursive structures out to a site of logical absurdity. In assessing and charting this territory, the thesis is constructed in the following manner. The first chapter,which outlines my methodology, applies itself to a brief examination of Cronenberg’s least discussed commercial feature (Fast Company). Chapter Two is concerned with charting the disciplines applied to the body in Shivers, Rabid and The Fly, while Chapter Three continues a focus on Cronenberg’s movement and play with framing devices as a means of subverting a stable spectatorial position, utilising eXistenZ, Spider and The Dead Zone as examples. Chapter Four explores the manner with which heretical adherence to a single ideological construction pushes the protagonists towards large-scale disciplinary violations, as detailed in Crash, M. Butterfly and Dead Ringers while the fifth chapter examines notions of discipline and recuperation is focused on Naked Lunch, Scanners and The Brood. A final sixth chapter compares Cronenberg’s most recent film, A History of Violence, with Videodrome in order to explore the changing face of his disciplinary ambivalence and its relationship to a broader cinematic industry.

The thesis argues that who we are, what we aspire to, and how we enact social and cultural practices are a result of the way we narrate stories about ourselves as both individuals and members of communities. The question ‘Who am I?’ is frequently answered with reference to what is important to us: our commitments and what we determine as good, valuable and right. Our identity is thus inextricably woven into our understanding of life as an unfolding story, bound by an ethical commitment to what we value. In this way, understandings of narrative and identity become part of the social and cultural context of education, drawing upon complex relationships between individual and community. It is through narrative that we construct truth about ourselves in relation to others. The central concern of the thesis is the interplay between the ‘capable’ child subject and various readings of texts that form the educational landscape in Aotearoa New Zealand: in curriculum documents with their emphasis on relationships, reciprocity, community, culture and language; and in policy documents with their emphasis on economic rationality. The thesis examines some important narratives that emerge from readings of these curriculum and policy documents, and the impact of those narratives on identity formation in early childhood education. Examined in turn are a liberal narrative, an economic narrative and a social narrative. Each of these narratives emphasises particular discourses and rationalities within education. The thesis finds these narratives inadequate to explain understandings of the self of early childhood education. The thesis argues that Ricoeur’s hermeneutical approach enables a range of narrative possibilities for early childhood education. The use of Ricoeur’s narrative theory in the thesis is twofold: a methodological approach for the study, and a critical exploration of the formation of ‘narrative identity’ (for both the individual and the group) through an examination of selected narratives. The thesis responds to the tensions of these narratives through Ricoeur’s understandings of ‘intersubjectivity’ and ‘just institutions’ and provides educators with an ethical framework by promoting Ricoeur’s understandings of the ‘good life’ and a ‘capable subject’.

This dissertation examines the films of David Cronenberg which all conduct a consistently thorough examination of the relationship between the ideologically constituted Cartesian subject and the disciplinary structures that surround, control and limit this subject. Cinema, because of the presence of both film form and narrative content, functions as a double articulation of this disciplinary activity. Each film’s narrative disciplines, on screen, the bodies contained within the plot, even as each film’s form disciplines both the way in which these cinematic bodies are delivered to an audience, and the way the audience’s own viewing practices are controlled and composed. Thus it becomes vital to explore the mechanisms implicated in these processes, and to gain an understanding of how Cronenberg’s cinema works to highlight and critique them. The primary assertion of this thesis is that Cronenberg’s work functions as a particular style of resistance to hegemony that Slavoj Žižek labels‘heresy’. For Žižek,heresy occurs not when one disobeys one’s ideological requirements, but when one over-fulfills them, thereby extending these ideological demands and disciplinary discursive structures out to a site of logical absurdity. In assessing and charting this territory, the thesis is constructed in the following manner. The first chapter,which outlines my methodology, applies itself to a brief examination of Cronenberg’s least discussed commercial feature (Fast Company). Chapter Two is concerned with charting the disciplines applied to the body in Shivers, Rabid and The Fly, while Chapter Three continues a focus on Cronenberg’s movement and play with framing devices as a means of subverting a stable spectatorial position, utilising eXistenZ, Spider and The Dead Zone as examples. Chapter Four explores the manner with which heretical adherence to a single ideological construction pushes the protagonists towards large-scale disciplinary violations, as detailed in Crash, M. Butterfly and Dead Ringers while the fifth chapter examines notions of discipline and recuperation is focused on Naked Lunch, Scanners and The Brood. A final sixth chapter compares Cronenberg’s most recent film, A History of Violence, with Videodrome in order to explore the changing face of his disciplinary ambivalence and its relationship to a broader cinematic industry.

The thesis argues that who we are, what we aspire to, and how we enact social and cultural practices are a result of the way we narrate stories about ourselves as both individuals and members of communities. The question ‘Who am I?’ is frequently answered with reference to what is important to us: our commitments and what we determine as good, valuable and right. Our identity is thus inextricably woven into our understanding of life as an unfolding story, bound by an ethical commitment to what we value. In this way, understandings of narrative and identity become part of the social and cultural context of education, drawing upon complex relationships between individual and community. It is through narrative that we construct truth about ourselves in relation to others. The central concern of the thesis is the interplay between the ‘capable’ child subject and various readings of texts that form the educational landscape in Aotearoa New Zealand: in curriculum documents with their emphasis on relationships, reciprocity, community, culture and language; and in policy documents with their emphasis on economic rationality. The thesis examines some important narratives that emerge from readings of these curriculum and policy documents, and the impact of those narratives on identity formation in early childhood education. Examined in turn are a liberal narrative, an economic narrative and a social narrative. Each of these narratives emphasises particular discourses and rationalities within education. The thesis finds these narratives inadequate to explain understandings of the self of early childhood education. The thesis argues that Ricoeur’s hermeneutical approach enables a range of narrative possibilities for early childhood education. The use of Ricoeur’s narrative theory in the thesis is twofold: a methodological approach for the study, and a critical exploration of the formation of ‘narrative identity’ (for both the individual and the group) through an examination of selected narratives. The thesis responds to the tensions of these narratives through Ricoeur’s understandings of ‘intersubjectivity’ and ‘just institutions’ and provides educators with an ethical framework by promoting Ricoeur’s understandings of the ‘good life’ and a ‘capable subject’.

This dissertation examines the films of David Cronenberg which all conduct a consistently thorough examination of the relationship between the ideologically constituted Cartesian subject and the disciplinary structures that surround, control and limit this subject. Cinema, because of the presence of both film form and narrative content, functions as a double articulation of this disciplinary activity. Each film’s narrative disciplines, on screen, the bodies contained within the plot, even as each film’s form disciplines both the way in which these cinematic bodies are delivered to an audience, and the way the audience’s own viewing practices are controlled and composed. Thus it becomes vital to explore the mechanisms implicated in these processes, and to gain an understanding of how Cronenberg’s cinema works to highlight and critique them. The primary assertion of this thesis is that Cronenberg’s work functions as a particular style of resistance to hegemony that Slavoj Žižek labels‘heresy’. For Žižek,heresy occurs not when one disobeys one’s ideological requirements, but when one over-fulfills them, thereby extending these ideological demands and disciplinary discursive structures out to a site of logical absurdity. In assessing and charting this territory, the thesis is constructed in the following manner. The first chapter,which outlines my methodology, applies itself to a brief examination of Cronenberg’s least discussed commercial feature (Fast Company). Chapter Two is concerned with charting the disciplines applied to the body in Shivers, Rabid and The Fly, while Chapter Three continues a focus on Cronenberg’s movement and play with framing devices as a means of subverting a stable spectatorial position, utilising eXistenZ, Spider and The Dead Zone as examples. Chapter Four explores the manner with which heretical adherence to a single ideological construction pushes the protagonists towards large-scale disciplinary violations, as detailed in Crash, M. Butterfly and Dead Ringers while the fifth chapter examines notions of discipline and recuperation is focused on Naked Lunch, Scanners and The Brood. A final sixth chapter compares Cronenberg’s most recent film, A History of Violence, with Videodrome in order to explore the changing face of his disciplinary ambivalence and its relationship to a broader cinematic industry.

The thesis argues that who we are, what we aspire to, and how we enact social and cultural practices are a result of the way we narrate stories about ourselves as both individuals and members of communities. The question ‘Who am I?’ is frequently answered with reference to what is important to us: our commitments and what we determine as good, valuable and right. Our identity is thus inextricably woven into our understanding of life as an unfolding story, bound by an ethical commitment to what we value. In this way, understandings of narrative and identity become part of the social and cultural context of education, drawing upon complex relationships between individual and community. It is through narrative that we construct truth about ourselves in relation to others. The central concern of the thesis is the interplay between the ‘capable’ child subject and various readings of texts that form the educational landscape in Aotearoa New Zealand: in curriculum documents with their emphasis on relationships, reciprocity, community, culture and language; and in policy documents with their emphasis on economic rationality. The thesis examines some important narratives that emerge from readings of these curriculum and policy documents, and the impact of those narratives on identity formation in early childhood education. Examined in turn are a liberal narrative, an economic narrative and a social narrative. Each of these narratives emphasises particular discourses and rationalities within education. The thesis finds these narratives inadequate to explain understandings of the self of early childhood education. The thesis argues that Ricoeur’s hermeneutical approach enables a range of narrative possibilities for early childhood education. The use of Ricoeur’s narrative theory in the thesis is twofold: a methodological approach for the study, and a critical exploration of the formation of ‘narrative identity’ (for both the individual and the group) through an examination of selected narratives. The thesis responds to the tensions of these narratives through Ricoeur’s understandings of ‘intersubjectivity’ and ‘just institutions’ and provides educators with an ethical framework by promoting Ricoeur’s understandings of the ‘good life’ and a ‘capable subject’.

This dissertation examines the films of David Cronenberg which all conduct a consistently thorough examination of the relationship between the ideologically constituted Cartesian subject and the disciplinary structures that surround, control and limit this subject. Cinema, because of the presence of both film form and narrative content, functions as a double articulation of this disciplinary activity. Each film’s narrative disciplines, on screen, the bodies contained within the plot, even as each film’s form disciplines both the way in which these cinematic bodies are delivered to an audience, and the way the audience’s own viewing practices are controlled and composed. Thus it becomes vital to explore the mechanisms implicated in these processes, and to gain an understanding of how Cronenberg’s cinema works to highlight and critique them. The primary assertion of this thesis is that Cronenberg’s work functions as a particular style of resistance to hegemony that Slavoj Žižek labels‘heresy’. For Žižek,heresy occurs not when one disobeys one’s ideological requirements, but when one over-fulfills them, thereby extending these ideological demands and disciplinary discursive structures out to a site of logical absurdity. In assessing and charting this territory, the thesis is constructed in the following manner. The first chapter,which outlines my methodology, applies itself to a brief examination of Cronenberg’s least discussed commercial feature (Fast Company). Chapter Two is concerned with charting the disciplines applied to the body in Shivers, Rabid and The Fly, while Chapter Three continues a focus on Cronenberg’s movement and play with framing devices as a means of subverting a stable spectatorial position, utilising eXistenZ, Spider and The Dead Zone as examples. Chapter Four explores the manner with which heretical adherence to a single ideological construction pushes the protagonists towards large-scale disciplinary violations, as detailed in Crash, M. Butterfly and Dead Ringers while the fifth chapter examines notions of discipline and recuperation is focused on Naked Lunch, Scanners and The Brood. A final sixth chapter compares Cronenberg’s most recent film, A History of Violence, with Videodrome in order to explore the changing face of his disciplinary ambivalence and its relationship to a broader cinematic industry.

The thesis argues that who we are, what we aspire to, and how we enact social and cultural practices are a result of the way we narrate stories about ourselves as both individuals and members of communities. The question ‘Who am I?’ is frequently answered with reference to what is important to us: our commitments and what we determine as good, valuable and right. Our identity is thus inextricably woven into our understanding of life as an unfolding story, bound by an ethical commitment to what we value. In this way, understandings of narrative and identity become part of the social and cultural context of education, drawing upon complex relationships between individual and community. It is through narrative that we construct truth about ourselves in relation to others. The central concern of the thesis is the interplay between the ‘capable’ child subject and various readings of texts that form the educational landscape in Aotearoa New Zealand: in curriculum documents with their emphasis on relationships, reciprocity, community, culture and language; and in policy documents with their emphasis on economic rationality. The thesis examines some important narratives that emerge from readings of these curriculum and policy documents, and the impact of those narratives on identity formation in early childhood education. Examined in turn are a liberal narrative, an economic narrative and a social narrative. Each of these narratives emphasises particular discourses and rationalities within education. The thesis finds these narratives inadequate to explain understandings of the self of early childhood education. The thesis argues that Ricoeur’s hermeneutical approach enables a range of narrative possibilities for early childhood education. The use of Ricoeur’s narrative theory in the thesis is twofold: a methodological approach for the study, and a critical exploration of the formation of ‘narrative identity’ (for both the individual and the group) through an examination of selected narratives. The thesis responds to the tensions of these narratives through Ricoeur’s understandings of ‘intersubjectivity’ and ‘just institutions’ and provides educators with an ethical framework by promoting Ricoeur’s understandings of the ‘good life’ and a ‘capable subject’.

The main theme of this study is to form a culturally appropriate approach to music therapy concepts from a Maori perspective that could be inclusive and accommodate both Maori and Tauiwi (non-Maori) Rangatahi (adolescents) in health care settings. In order to provide a descriptive account of the holistic aspects of introducing Maori musical concepts in a music therapy setting a qualitative design was employed. The study draws on my personal journal entries, an interview with Kaumatua (Maori respected elders) regarding the appropriateness of introducing and altering traditional Maori musicality to accommodate the patient’s needs and a case study involving the Haka as a music therapy intervention strategy with a young Maori patient diagnosed with schizophrenia. My findings show that as a music therapist consultation with Kaumatua regarding anything related to Maori cultural aspects was essential. I also found that when working with a Maori Rangatahi who is immersed in Maori culture, it created an atmosphere of containment, familiarity, enjoyment, engagement and an environment that facilitated the achievement of therapeutic goals. Te Whare Tapa Wha Maori mental health model is well suited as a music therapy assessment tool to the characteristics of the physical, emotional, spiritual and family context of the Haka. I also found that Tauiwi music therapists wishing to introduce cultural elements must first learn about Maori culture and the people in order to confidently understand the music. Tauiwi Rangatahi may also benefit from the introduction of Maori musicality as a therapeutic means by being an inclusive member of the community and the positive psychological effects. For example, Rangatahi benefited from learning the proper pronunciation and meaning of the Haka, which in turn gave them a sense of achievement. I also found that some Maori protocols fit well with the protocols of music therapy, such as the beginning and endings with a hello and goodbye song.

Degeneration of the striatum and striatal-frontal circuits are generally thought to cause most of the neuropsychological symptoms experienced in Huntington‘s Disease (HD). Advances in cortical thickness mapping (an automated MRI method for precisely measuring the cortical thickness across the entire cortex) provide a new technique for examining changes in the brain in HD. Recent studies using this technology have reported provocative results. They found significant cortical thinning in participants with early HD (Rosas et al., 2002; Rosas et al., 2008) and even in presymptomatic HD (Rosas et al., 2005). Moreover, cortical thinning was most prominent in posterior regions of the brain, with relative preservation of the anterior frontal regions. The present study replicated Rosas et al.‘s (2005) study but used a larger sample of presymptomatic HD participants (n = 19) and a control group matched for age, gender and education (n = 19). Presymptomatic HD participants were divided into two groups, PreHDclose and PreHDfar, based on their estimated proximity to clinical onset. The distribution of cortical thinning was assessed using an identical MRI method to previous cortical thinning studies with HD participants. Specific neuropsychological tests were used to assess cognitive and mood changes that may be associated with cortical thinning. It was hypothesised that cortical thinning would be more evident in posterior than frontal cortical regions. It was also hypothesised that presymptomatic HD participants would perform more poorly than controls on tests that are subserved primarily by specific posterior cortical regions, but not on tests that are subserved by anterior cortical regions. Lastly, it was predicted that poorer performance in the neuropsychological measures would be associated with greater thinning in cortical regions that are important during performance of these tasks. Consistent with predictions, the presymptomatic HD group showed regionally-specific cortical thinning which was most prominent in the posterior cortices, particularly around the right parieto-temporal-occipital (PTO) junction. Thinning occurred in people up to 15 years before clinical onset, with little to no thinning before that. The presymptomatic HD group, and particularly the PreHDclose participants, performed significantly worse than controls in 2 of the 6 cognitive tests that are subserved primarily by posterior cortical regions (the Judgment of Line iii Orientation test and modified Roadmap Test), but not in tests that are subserved primarily by frontal cortical regions. Correlational analyses showed a number of regionally-specific relationships between thinning and cognitive performance, although the distribution of these relationships did not generally support our region-of-interest predictions. The results contribute to a better characterisation of the cortical and neuropsychological changes that occur early in the development of HD, and provide tentative support for cortical thickness mapping as a valid and sensitive measure for assessing cortical changes in presymptomatic HD.