This practicum project examines the long-standing association between the domestic realm and gendered space as well as issues that have emerged in urban areas, such as poor access to healthy food options. Drawing on utopian concepts that have challenged conventional forms of residential development and the organization of domestic functions and spaces, it proposes the adaptive reuse of the Royal Albert Arms Hotel in Winnipeg. Concerned with the design of a model of housing that features a communal kitchen and dining facility, among other shared spaces, this project investigates the potential of such common rooms as a means to foster a sense of community within the building. In doing so, it explores how interior design can reimagine domestic space in a more proactive and socially conscious manner, improving the quality of life for inhabitants in the context of their homes, and more broadly, the city. / May 2017

The thesis examines the specificities of the different concepts of "Assembly principle" (principle of "Montage") in expert literary studies. Making use of this theoretical base, it dares to classify phenomenon. They are also analysed selected prose literary works of twenties and thirties of 20th century, in which the Montage apply. The thesis points to some of the world's pioneering novels, in which their authors discover the possibilities of the method (Joyce, Dos Passos, Döblin). Special attention is paid to the presence of "Montage" in the Czech utopian fiction novels. The Montage is used in a specific way to enlarge the effect of the (utopian) content - see: War with the Newts by Karel Čapek, "Dům o tisíci patrech" (House of Thousand Floors) by Jan Weiss or Jiří Haussmann's "Velkovýroba cnosti" (Mass production of Virtue). In addition to the Utopia appearance the Montage is used as a tool of author's game with readers - e.g. in the book "Robinsonáda" by Karel Konrád, representative of the Czech Poetism (literary movement).

This thesis argues that emotions and memories in a community are essential to shaping a common future. Furthermore, when performed on stage, these memories and emotions create a utopian experience that moves performers and audience members towards a brighter future. The foundation for this thesis is built upon the ideas of utopian performative theories combined with the Asian Ganzhi belief that every sixty years a new cycle of hope begins. This thesis also includes a practical work. I was invited to write and direct a cultural production for the 60th year anniversary celebration of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Taiwan. The practical experience of creating this production and the utopian theories and Ganzhi beliefs interacted throughout the process of creating the production and writing this thesis. These utopian and Ganzhi ideas influenced the production and the production tested the theories. Historical memories of one generation performed by and to the next generation is a way for a community to shape a brighter future together. The performance of the 60th year anniversary celebration was based on the re-creation, restoration and emotional connection of the members of the performing group to the personal historical memories of the previous generation. When the Taiwanese LDS members prepared, rehearsed and performed their cultural celebration in October of 2016, the production shaped a common, brighter future.

The doctoral dissertation “Waterbirth and Russian-American Exchange: From the Iron Curtain to Facebook” presents the social history of the Russian waterbirth movement, from the Cold War epoch to the present. One of the first ethnographies to examine Russian-American cultural exchange, this study fills a number of gaps in both Russian and American cultural history, bringing together the issues of religion, science, gender, body politics and the state. By drawing on interviews with Russian and American birth practitioners, as well as participant observation of the birthing practices on both continents, I seek to define their agendas for the development of alternative ideologies and practices, as well as their specific effects, experienced on both global and local scales. In particular, I attempt to problematize the conventional narratives of globalization and biomedicalization, presenting “local” cultures either as passive victims of the dominant Western agent or rebels exercising futile resistance. Despite the turbulent effects of Western intervention into the Russian value system and everyday practices, the local culture of Russia proved capable of producing, promoting, and communicating to the world particular models and schemes that proved to be viable, went global, and affected the vision of the body and self in the Western world. By examining the case of the waterbirth movement, the project seeks to enrich current understanding of the information flows between Russia and the West. By looking at Russian and American utopian projects, which center on science, nature, tradition and globalization, and carefully tracing their sources, origins, mutual impacts and conflicts, we can get a better understanding of the formation and distribution of authoritative knowledge on global and local levels. An empirical study of this specific set of problems is expected to stimulate a valuable insight into the mechanisms governing the relationships between social orders, complex transnational identity formation, and global/local knowledge production in late modern societies.

Abstract: This thesis aims to explore how utopian desires re/shape the posthuman, cyberspace and histories by means of information technologies in William Gibson¡¦s Idoru and All Tomorrow¡¦s Parties, which construct a fragmented but subversive power by representing the world in a utopian text that allows the free play of ideology. Gibson uses utopian imagination to cobble together a near future that reflects his concern with information technologies and media over contemporary society. Utopian imaginations on the one hand open up possibilities and transform fixed ideas; on the other, utopian imaginations are easily turned into utopian desires that are subject to manipulation if utopian designers want to sell. I intend to discover how desires to realize a utopia (body, space, and history), which is the ultimate goal of utopian program, are being manipulated by utopian designers. I will mainly adapt and blend Katherine Hayles¡¦s notion of the posthuman perspectives to challenge human possibilities, Donna Haraway¡¦s notion of the cyborg as a blasphemy to Western traditions, Louis Marin¡¦s Disneyland analysis as an apparatus to examine utopic expressions in William Gibson¡¦s textual constructions of utopias, and Walter Benjamin¡¦s notions of material historiography and history¡¦s messianic power in tracing individual memories under a capitalist contextualized History. In Chapter One, I will argue that Idoru as well as Idoru metamorphosize from a dialectical structure into an informational pattern-random structure, from a commodity into a posthuman subjectivity. I will adopt Katherine Hayles¡¦s concept of information narratives in explaining the re/shaping of Rei¡¦s body and her concept of the posthuman to explicate the struggle between the posthuman and the transhuman. In Chapter Two I will argue that cyberspace serves as a utopia that brings forth the desire to transcend the flesh. This utopian desire is a transgressive discourse that breaks up the totality of a closed system. Moreover, cyberspace exposes the feedback looping of the discourses of capitalism and anti-capitalism. Respectively, by the representation of virtual Venice and the Walled City, these two utopias write proposals that project discourses of pleasure and criticism for achieving their programs. I will adopt Donna Haraway¡¦s cyborg ontology in explaining cyberspace as a transgressive discourse and Louis Marin¡¦s Disneyland analysis as an apparatus of utopic expressions and the limits of utopia. Next, in Chapter Three, I shall expose how Harwood the capitalist manipulates the world to fit into his utopian proposal: modernization of the city as a manifestation of a utopia by means of cyberspace as a network that connects people globally. To contravene Harwood, Idoru, Laney and the Walled City denizens collaborate to checkmate Harwood¡¦s king. I will elaborate on the interactions between the universal history and the individual histories based on Walter Benjamin¡¦s concept of history.

This study explores the historic relationship between pop music divas and gay male fandom. It charts fan experiences from the early 60s with Judy Garland to contemporary times with pop diva Lady Gaga. This project also gives a description of the embodied experience of Brett Farmer's "queer sublimity of diva reception." Farmer (2005) argues that diva worship among gay men has become a queer sublimity, "the transcendence of a limiting heteronormative materiality and the sublime reconstruction, at least in fantasy, of a more capacious, kinder, queerer world" (p. 170). Using the methods of participant observation in drag performance and karaoke singing, performance ethnography, and autoethnography, I attempt to understand how a diva's performance can influence the lives of gay men and how it can inspire visions of a more perfect world for everyone.

Thesis--Göteborgs universitet, 1995. / Thesis t.p. laid in. Includes bibliographical references (p. [384]-398) and indexes.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Miami University, Dept. of English, 2005. / Title from second page of PDF document. Document formatted into pages; contains [3], iv, 143 p. Includes bibliographical references (p. 132-143).

Findings through fragmentation Architecture is an obvious remnant of our collective past and gives us a fragment of a former life and a different time. This unique relationship between what’s new and old is a very powerful spatial opportunity. If memory is defined as ‘The faculty by which the mind stores and remembers information’ then the role of architecture comes to play is the prop for our collective and individual memories where it represents past events and people.  If we look closely at the definition of a fragment without it's context it will be read as ‘incomplete’ and subordinate to the completed it is extracted from. Architectural fragments have a power of resisting such expected unity and can be read into an alternative whole of none. By fragmenting industrial buildings that is going to b demolished, representing a time and a group of people in Lövholmen/Stockholm, I wish to embody memory and recall spaces that will be forever lost. / Rummet mellan det som är och det som har varit Arkitektur representerar vår historia och det kollektiva minnet.  Att minnas definieras som ‘förmågan att lagra erfarenheter och göra det möjligt att känna igen och lära’. Minnen placerar oss i förhållande till tid och rum vilket gör att platser och arkitektur kommer att spela en stor roll som bärare av vår kollektiva historia. Byggnader som bär spår av tid där de har varit grunden i en annan kontext kan utgöra ett unikt möte mellan det rum som existerar och det som har varit.  När vårt medvetna väljer ut och sorterar bland minnen fragmenteras det som vi upplevt och bara vissa delar finns kvar. Fragment kan definieras som en pusselbit som tillhört en helhet och blivit en spillra. Styrkan i arkitektonisk fragment är att de kan läsas på nya sätt efter att det isolerats från en helhet och antingen läsas in i en ny kontext eller ingen. Genom att fragmentera byggnader som representerar en specifik tid och grupp av människor som har använt dom vill jag förkroppsliga dessa rumsliga minnen innan de för alltid går förlorade.

This BA thesis is about an attempt to explore micro-utopianism through design, an investigation that seeks which driving forces come into play in a search for a better place. In comparison to conventional utopianism, I will give my insights about why micro-utopianism should instead be practiced as an alternative approach to the subject. It is more about the process, exploring, imagining and experimenting rather than constituting a perfect place. The way I chose to go about this was through participatory design, which is a discipline that involves the stakeholders throughout the whole design process and beyond. I will also talk about dissecting as a design method and how I tried this out to explore micro-utopianism. To do this, the participants and I conducted two workshops so that, together with the participants, we could have a space where our imagination could ‘gestalta’ (or ‘exterpret’) thoughts of critique and opportunities. The two workshops were targeting different age groups: in the first one mainly adults participated and the second workshop was with youth. This will give you an insight of how dissecting can be applied to stimulate the utopian impulse using the power of imagination.