“Children of a Former Future” argues that the political upheavals of the twentieth century have produced a body of German-language literature that approaches children and childhood differently from the ways these subjects are conventionally represented. Christa Wolf, Herta Müller, and Jenny Erpenbeck use the child as a device for narrating failed states; socialization into obedience; and the simultaneous violence and fragility of normative visions of the future. In their narratives of girlhood under authoritarian or repressive societies, these authors self-consciously decouple the child from the concept of futurity in order to avoid reproducing the same representational strategies as the twentieth-century authoritarian regimes that co-opted the child for political ends. Examining literature from the GDR, Communist Romania, and post-Reunification Germany, “Children of a Former Future” argues that these representations offer important insights into the fields of German literary studies, queer theory, and feminist scholarship. The dissertation contends that a historically-grounded reading of Cold War and post-Cold War German-language literature can meaningfully contribute to and complicate current feminist and queer scholarship on the child. This scholarship has focused primarily on historical, social, and cultural developments associated with Western democracies and capitalism. “Children of a Former Future” demonstrates how a consideration of literature from Socialist and post-Socialist context complicates these theorizations of the child. At the same time, the dissertation demonstrates how the analytical modes developed by queer and feminist scholarship can create new frameworks for the interpretation of German-language literature. “Children of a Former Future” examines authors who intentionally set out to complicate readers’ preconceptions about children in their writing, specifically the pervasive theme of childhood innocence. Written during the 1970s, Christa Wolf’s Kindheitsmuster (1976) examines the effects of authoritarianism on childhood development, as well as critiquing the German Democratic Republic’s founding historical myths. Herta Müller’s Niederungen (1982/4) and Herztier (1994) examine childhood in an ethnic German community in Communist Romania; Müller’s protagonists grapple with the legacies of their parents’ experiences with fascism and Soviet labor camps, as well as the experience of entering Romanian society as a cultural minority during the dictatorship of Nicolae Ceaușescu. Writing after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Jenny Erpenbeck’s Geschichte vom alten Kind (1999) and Wörterbuch (2005) critically examine the emotional impact of adult idealizations of childhood through the lens of post-authoritarian transition states. “Children of a Former Future” argues that these narratives use the child to reflect on socialization into obedience and conformity; kinship formations; social reproduction; trauma; and political life. Wolf, Müller, and Erpenbeck highlight the ramifications of the emotional burdens placed on children, particularly on girls. Their representations resist conventional idealizations of children and childhood. Intensely concerned with complicity, the authors scrutinize how children are taught to conform to and even revere repressive social systems. The authors posit that certain childrearing practices in fact enable the rise of authoritarianism, in that they condition children that love is contingent upon obedience. The dissertation argues that for these authors, examinations of childhood are at once opportunities to sift through the experiences that begin to constitute the individual self, and to analyze how these psychological dynamics contribute to, sustain, and reproduce larger social and political dynamics.

The purpose of this study was to examine differences in anxiety levels between the sexes and between sex role identification groups (as defined by scores on a test of masculinity-femininity). Possible explanations for these differences were explored using a questionnaire made up of an openness versus closedness scale, a liberalism versus conservatism scale, and a cross-sex versus same-sex parent identification scale. A sample of 108 females and 71 males was administered Gough's Femininity Scale, Cattell's IPAT Anxiety Scale Questionnaire, Taylor's Manifest Anxiety Scale, and a questionnaire devised for this particular study. The sexes did not differ significantly in anxiety level but it was found that feminine persons of both sexes had higher anxiety levels on both of the anxiety scales employed. Females were more open than males on the openness versus closedness scale and feminine persons of both sexes were more open than masculine persons. This study suggests the possibility that higher anxiety levels in females and feminine persons may be due to greater openness.

This thesis is a historical comprehensive case study on masculinity that explores stereotypes of masculinity in professional wrestling. Working from theories about gender roles, hegemonic masculinity, misogyny (with its disdain for femininity) and heteronormativity, this study utilizes a content analysis of American professional wrestling to look at the gendered basis of how and why wrestling characters are created and how they are successful. Professional wrestlers historically have created characters based in American popular cultures and specifically American gender ideologies of masculinity that are based in hetero-patriarchal cultural ideals. By looking through the history of masculinity and gender stereotypes in professional wrestling, I uncover how contemporary wrestlers are reworking these stereotypes to create new characters with changing gender inflections based on global cultural ideals, rather than American culture, demonstrating the influence global culture and the globalized wrestling community has on contemporary American wrestling. / Includes bibliography. / Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2019. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

Deeply concerned with body politics, sexual slavery, identity, and technology, this work takes a serious and brutally honest route through the close perspectives of those living it moment by moment. With influences from science fiction, horror, weird, and literary fiction, the untitled novel blends genres for a disturbing account. This novel also plays with constraints in the spirit of many constraint-based writing movements, without the inclusion of names, few identifying markers, and in publication the removal of title, chapter numbers, page numbers, and author name.

No description available.

This research examines first the consequences of a learned, individualistic construction of masculinity as it exists within an aging population of farm men, and second the influence of this form of masculinity on possibilities for change in human relationships and industry practices. It is suggested that in a context of diminishing economic power and political influence, the prevailing model of masculinity has disabled the capacity of many farm men to manage change proactively. It is argued that evidence of a necessary change from instrumental, to-values and feelings-based engagement with human and natural systems has been slow to appear. A range of beliefs and attitudes are identified from the research data.Alternatives to traditional models of masculinity are examined. The research has been conducted using a Social Ecology approach, in which the personal autonomy arising from a coherent integration of values and beliefs informs our approach to all human and natural systems. Some possible consequences of such a change in personal orientation are explored, in relation to agricultural practices, community viability, and the fostering of social capital, and reference is made to alternative forms of community organisation. / Master of Science (Hons)

The first purpose of this study was to determine if the effects of experiencing an assertiveness treatment group influenced the perceived attitudes toward sex roles in alcoholic women in aftercare. It was expected that alcoholic women in aftercare who had received an assertiveness group intervention, with an emphasis on awareness building, practice of assertiveness verbal responses, and sex-role exploration, would demonstrate lower masculinity scores on the BEM pre and post test (Bern, 1981) than a control group who had received usual treatment. The second purpose of this study was to determine among demographic variables and alcoholic women in aftercare, if there was a difference on the BEM pre and post test scores, among experimental and control groups. The following demographic variables were assessed: age, religiosity, ethnic background, income level, marital status, employment history, and length of treatment. There was a total of 59 women who participated in the study, ten of whom dropped out. The study was conducted across five treatment centers in Oregon. The study settings were all alcohol treatment centers which included aftercare components for women. The instrument utilized for the study was the BEM Sex Role Inventory developed by Sandra Bem in 1981. There was one experimental group which received three assertiveness sessions, and one control group which received three standard aftercare treatment sessions, in place of usual treatment. This process was repeated five times among 29 experimental and 27 control subjects. The treatment consisted of three one hour sessions which addressed three aspects of assertiveness. Data indicated that there was strong evidence that the attitude change reflected in the masculine score showed significantly more assertiveness for the experimental group than the attitude change reflected in the masculine score or the control group. There was no significant evidence of difference for the total, feminine, and demographic scores. / Graduation date: 1996

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Delaware, 2006. / Principal faculty advisor: Charles Q. Pavitt, Dept. of Communication. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Memorial University of Newfoundland, 2005. / Restricted until May 2006. Bibliography: leaves 233-247.

Thesis (M.S.)--Eastern Illinois University. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 38-40).