The nineteenth century critics appraised Shakespeare's heroines by standards different from those of the twentieth; consequently the two ages reached different conclusions. The purpose of this paper is to point out just what these differences are. A paper of this scope had to be narrowed in some ways. Otherwise a formidable array of heroines would have been enumerated, but little depth of research could have been shown. In the general conclusion the result would have been the same, as I have discovered through wide reading. To limit the subject only the most famous heroines could be included. The process of assembling a bibliography on the field of criticism of Shakespeare's heroines showed that some heroines bad been fully discussed, while others had been given little in the way of criticism. A great mass of material on a certain heroine, for example, would show that, since she was considered important by many writers of a certain period, she should be given consideration in this discussion. In this way the number of heroines discussed in this paper was limited to seven: Portia (in Merchant of Venice), Rosalind, Juliet, Ophelia, Desdemona, Cleopatra, and Lady Macbeth.

En 2017, l’éducation à la sexualité au Québec est redevenue obligatoire dans la foulée des dénonciations de violences sexuelles sur les réseaux sociaux avec les #metoo et #moiaussi. Conjointement, plusieurs discours autour de l’hypersexualisation des jeunes filles, de l’accessibilité à la pornographie et de la multiplication de contenus à caractère sexuel dans les médias numériques inquiètent de plus en plus les adultes québécois.e.s (Mercier, 2016). Des initiatives pour répondre à ce que nous considérons, dans ce mémoire, comme une panique morale ont donc vu le jour. Ainsi, Télé-Québec a pour mandat de faire des capsules humoristiques et ludiques adressées aux jeunes de 12 à 15 ans pour faire leur éducation sexuelle avec On parle de sexe (2018-2019). Dans le cadre du mémoire, nous nous posons la question: est-ce que ces capsules reproduisent ou remettent en question des normes sociales véhiculées au Québec autour de la sexualité? Pour y répondre, nous mobilisons les théories critiques de la sexualité (Foucault, Rubin, Bozon) afin de développer l’analyse d’une capsule qui traite des pratiques sexuelles « moins conventionnelles ». À travers une analyse textuelle et visuelle, nous avons constaté une tension entre le désir de discuter de sexualité de manière décomplexée et de protéger la jeunesse contre les maux contemporains liées à la panique morale des adultes. Le dispositif de la sexualité (Foucault) nous permet d’inscrire l’étude de cet échantillon dans un contexte sociopolitique et historique particulier au Québec, en nous permettant de tirer des conclusions autour de l’humour comme vecteur d’oppression ou de libération des normes sociales autour de la sexualité. / Since 2017, sexual education in Quebec has once again become mandatory in the context of widespread accusations of sexual violence on social media (#metoo, #moiaussi). Following this wave, several initiatives have emerged to respond to what we describe in this study as a « moral panic » around youth sexuality associated with widespread access to sexually explicit material on the Internet. Quebec adults are increasingly concerned about the hypersexualisation of young girls, the accessibility of pornography and the proliferation of sexual content. In this context, the Québec public broadcasting company Télé-Québec produced a web series entitled “On parle de sexe” (2018-2019) that explores various questions around sexuality in humorous and playful episodes addressed to teenagers aged 12 to 15. This study explores the following question: does this web series reproduce or question the social norms used in Quebec around sexuality? In order to respond to this question, we draw on the field of critical sexuality studies (Foucault, Rubin, Bozon) to analyze one episode that deals with “less conventional” sexual practices. Through textual and visual analysis, we explore a tension between the desire to discuss sexuality in an uninhibited manner and to protect youth from the contemporary evils associated with moral panic. The dispositif of sexuality (Foucault) allows us to situate the study of this sample in a particular socio-political and historical context in Quebec, while allowing us to draw conclusions around humour as a vector of oppression or liberation from social norms.

We all have stories to share, to build, to pass around, to inherit, and to create. This story - the one I piece together now - is about a Thai-/Bengali-/Muslim-/American-/Feminist looking for home, looking to manage the tension and conflict of wanting to belong to her family and to her feminist community. This thesis focuses on the seemingly conflicting obligations to kinship on the one hand and to feminist practice on the other, a conflict where being a good scholar or activist is directly in opposition to being a good Asian daughter. In order to understand how and why these communities appear at odds with one another, I examine how the material spaces and psychological realities inhabited by specific hyphenated, fragmented subjects are represented (and misrepresented) in both popular culture and practical politics, arguing against images of the hybrid body that bracket its lived tensions. I argue that fantasies of home as an unconditional site of belonging and comfort distract us from the multiple communities to which hyphenated subjects must move between. Hyphenated Asian-/American bodies often find ourselves torn between nativism and assimilationism - having to neutralize, forsake, or discard parts of our identities. Thus, I reduce complicated, difficult ideas of being to the size of a thimble, to a question of loyalty between my Asian-/American history and my American-/feminist future, between my familial background and the issues that have become foregrounded for me during college, between the home from which I originate and the new home to which I wish to belong. To move with fluidity, I must - in collaboration with others - invent new stories of identity and belonging.

Virtue in early modern France was a broad concept considered by clergymen, philosophers, and moralists as an instrument for measuring and implementing human ethics. This unprecedented research seeks to track the development of the notion of virtue from a gendered and dichotomous notion to a unique and undivided term. The word virtue is constantly present in French texts such as manuels de conduite1 , since the medieval period. Thus, it can be regarded as one of the most significant concepts defining genders in Western civilization. However, it is difficult for modern readers to grasp the complexity of the debate unless it is explained through its socio-historical and cultural implications regarding gender behavior. What is the author referring to when he/she uses the word virtue? Is it chastity for women, strength for men, or just the achievement of the highest moral standard? What are the social implications of virtue? Through an inter and multidisciplinary study involving literature, religion, philosophy, folklore, women and gender studies, and sociology, this cutting-edge research revolves around the literary analysis of conduct manuals, plays, novels and treatises, from the middle ages to the 18th century. Its objective is to map the evolution of the notion of virtue by evidencing social fluctuation of gender differences and conceptualizing our western civilization through the lenses of its moral discourse.

No description available.

<p>It might be time for critics of early Canadian literature to avoid avoiding blackness in early Canada in their work. This dissertation<em> </em>takes up the recurrent pattern of displacement that emerges in critical studies that recall or rediscover early Canada. It attends in particular to the displacements and subordinations of Canadian blackness, particularly those conspicuously avoided by critics or rendered conspicuously absent by authors in the literatures of Upper Canada during the height of the Underground Railroad era, between 1830 and 1860. Not only is blackness in Upper Canada concealed, omitted, derided, and caricatured, but these representational formulas shape the hegemonic common-sense of what Antonio Gramsci terms “the national popular.” I argue that canonical texts contain accounts of early Canadian blackness from the national popular and subsequent criticisms of them produce an attitude and a history that excises blackness when literary and cultural critics examine the complexities of early Canada. Informed by Stuart Hall’s concept of the “floating signifier,” I draw the tropes of blackness out from behind the backdrop of early Canadian texts and into the foreground of Canadian literary and cultural criticism as well as critical race studies; in turn, this theoretical model helps me to explain what cultural work “undefined and indefinable” blackness did in early Canada and in contemporary imaginings of it (Clarke <em>Odysseys</em>, 16). Working out this paradox in John Richardson’s <em>Wacousta </em>and <em>The Canadian Brothers</em>, Susanna Moodie’s <em>Roughing It in the Bush</em>, and Catharine Parr Traill’s <em>The Canadian Settlers Guide</em>, my three chapters examine how these Upper Canadian authors display as much as hide the crucial roles of blackness in the formation of Canada and Canadian national identity.</p> / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

This thesis is an exploration of the relationships between humans and mechanized beings in Japanese science fiction anime. In it I will be discussing the following texts: Ergo Proxy (2006), Chobits (2002), Gunslinger Girl (2003/2004), and Mahoromatic (2001/2002). I argue that these relationships in these anime series take the form of master/slave relationships, with the humans as the masters and the mechanized beings as the slaves. In virtually every case, the mechanized beings are young females and the masters are older human males. I will argue that this dynamic serves to reinforce traditional power structures and gender dynamics in a posthuman landscape. Additionally, I will argue that by enforcing a dynamic of human-male as master and nonhuman-female as slave, science fiction anime works to fortify the “human” as the primary subject of society. This is done to preserve humanism in the overpowering wave of posthumanism.

As long as disparities persist in the way women are treated as compared to their male counterparts, the issue of gender will continue to call forth literary productions. For this reason, female writers are on a mission to dismantle the stereotypes that keep women confined to societal roles. Grounded in a feminist framework, this study focuses on the gender disparity theme in Chimamanda Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus and Tsitsi Dangarembga’s Nervous Conditions. The aim is to examine how these writers represent the trauma of women living in an African patriarchal system. The traumatic experiences of the female characters in both texts for this study are analyzed using Judith Herman’s Psychological trauma and Bessel Van der Kolk’s trauma theory to explain women’s struggles and their responses to traumatic experiences. A content analysis of the novels shows that resilience and agency are achievable and that one way to achieve agency is through interdependence which is a crucial dimension often overlooked in existing scholarly engagements.

This study examines the educational persistence of women of African descent (WOAD) in pursuit of a doctorate degree at universities in the southeastern United States. WOAD are women of African ancestry born outside the African continent. These women are heirs to an inner dogged determination and spirit to survive despite all odds (Pulliam, 2003, p. 337).This study used Ellis’s (1997) Three Stages for Graduate Student Development as the conceptual framework to examine the persistent strategies used by these women to persist to the completion of their studies.

The purpose of this paper is to understand and criticize the role of social media in the development and/or encouragement of eating disorders, disordered eating, and body dissatisfaction in college-aged women. College women are exceptionally vulnerable to the impact that social media can have on their body image as they develop an outlook on their bodies and accept the developmental changes that occurred during puberty. This paper provides evidence that there is a relationship between the recent surge in disordered eating and high consumption of social media. I examine the ways in which traditional advertising has portrayed women throughout history, as well as analyze the ways in which this depiction of the female ideal has helped shaped society’s perspectives about beauty and increased the rate of disordered eating among college aged females. Further, this analysis assesses the ways in which the thin ideal as portrayed in advertising encourages women to look a certain, unrealistic way. I also consider various social psychological theories to explain how women in society form their perceptions with a combination of what they see in the media as well as what they see in their friends and family. I demonstrate that social networking sites (SNS) have similar effects on young women as advertising and other forms of mass media do. Therefore, I will argue that SNS, as a combination of real life and a personalized form of advertising, can potentially have the same, yet amplified, consequences. Indeed, I argue that the ubiquitous and enduring nature of social media websites result perhaps in a wider and more detrimental impact to the body image concerns of college aged women than advertising or the media generally.