Prenatal stress exposure (PNS) has detrimental effects on the offspring’s brain and behaviour and has been identified as an etiological factor in inducing cognitive function deficits in rodents and humans. The neural mechanisms are unclear, however reprogramming of the neuroendocrine stress axis, the hypothalamo-pituitary- adrenal (HPA) axis is hypothesised. A psychosocial stressor (residentintruder paradigm) was used to generate PNS rat offspring, making these studies clinically compatible. The hippocampus and the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) are critical in regulating cognitive function and also contribute to the negative feedback control of the HPA axis via corticosteroid receptors, including the mineralocorticoid receptor (MR) and the glucocorticoid receptor (GR). Here the Barnes maze was used to assess spatial learning and memory in male and female PNS offspring during adulthood under different scenarios, including basal and acute and chronic stress conditions. Under basal conditions, PNS was associated with reduced GR and MR mRNA expression in the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) and the hippocampus, respectively; suggesting inhibitory feedback control of the HPA axis may be compromised in PNS rats. Moreover, impaired spatial learning was observed in male PNS rats following acute restraint stress. Bilateral lesions of the prelimbic cortex and central administration of an MR antagonist in control rats suggested acute stress-induced learning deficits in PNS males were a result of impaired hippocampus-mediated inhibitory feedback control of the HPA axis. Conversely, a one-week variable stress regimen facilitated spatial learning in PNS rats and this was associated with elevated MR mRNA expression in the dentate gyrus. Moreover, facilitated learning in the PNS rats exposed to chronic stress could be blocked by central administration of an MR antagonist, indicating a facilitatory role of hippocampal MR in spatial learning. In summary, opposite effects of PNS on spatial learning were observed under acute and chronic stress conditions, in which hippocampal MR played a key role in regulating behavioural performance. The effect of age was also examined in PNS rats, and the findings from middle-aged (10-11 months old) rats indicated PNS may accelerate cognitive decline. Sex differences were also studied, with control females’ out-performing males under basal conditions in terms of spatial learning and behavioural flexibility; however following prenatal or chronic stress these sex differences were no longer detected. Furthermore, acute stress impaired spatial learning to a greater extent in females, and this might be attributed to greater HPA axis responses to stress in females compared with males. In conclusion, prenatal stress alters later cognitive performance, in a sex- and stress context-dependent manner. Hippocampal MR plays a critical role in mediating spatial learning, particularly during stress conditions.

Cette thèse explore la topologie de l'inconscient, afin de déterminer comment se constitue l'écriture du sujet, à travers la perspective lacanienne du nouage des registres réel, symbolique et imaginaire. L'auteur présente une analyse différentielle, à partir de l'autobiographie de Mary Barnes et du journal intime de Nijinski. Si dans l'hystérie de M. Barnes le symptôme, vécu comme un voyage initiatique par le sujet, tient fermement les trois registres ensemble et que dans la schizophrénie de V. Nijinski, il existe un nouage de type sinthomatique tel que l'a exposé J. Lacan dans le Séminaire XXIII, qui se trouve saboté par l'arrêt de la danse, l'écriture, dans la névrose comme dans la psychose, peut être envisagée comme l'effet du mouvement rétrograde imposé par le désir lui-même. Ce travail, enfin, vise à continuer la conception lacanienne de la topologie des psychoses

<p>The aim of this thesis is a comparative study of Djuna Barnes' 1928 book <em>Ladies Almanack</em> and turn of the century sexological texts focusing on Havelock Ellis' studies of 'sexual inversion in women'. The study is based on queer theory concepts from Judith Butler and Fanny Ambjörnson as well as Michel Foucault's studies of the history of sexuality. After a presentation of the theoretical concepts and a short introduction of earlier research on Barnes' works my reading and conclusions are presented in five chapters focusing on different theoretical and thematic aspects of the studied texts. A recapitulation and discussion ends the thesis.</p><p>In short, my conclusions are that <em>Ladies Almanack</em> contrary to earlier research can be read as a queer text, and a form of counter-discourse to the general one regarding lesbianism in the early 1900's. The text also reveals itself as a pointed critique and a satire of Havelock Ellis' writings on 'sexual inversion in women'. As well, when read against Radclyffe Hall's <em>The Well of Loneliness</em>, perhaps the archetypal 'lesbian novel', Hall's book reveals itself as an echo of the same discourse Barnes opposes.</p><p> </p>

The aim of this thesis is a comparative study of Djuna Barnes' 1928 book Ladies Almanack and turn of the century sexological texts focusing on Havelock Ellis' studies of 'sexual inversion in women'. The study is based on queer theory concepts from Judith Butler and Fanny Ambjörnson as well as Michel Foucault's studies of the history of sexuality. After a presentation of the theoretical concepts and a short introduction of earlier research on Barnes' works my reading and conclusions are presented in five chapters focusing on different theoretical and thematic aspects of the studied texts. A recapitulation and discussion ends the thesis. In short, my conclusions are that Ladies Almanack contrary to earlier research can be read as a queer text, and a form of counter-discourse to the general one regarding lesbianism in the early 1900's. The text also reveals itself as a pointed critique and a satire of Havelock Ellis' writings on 'sexual inversion in women'. As well, when read against Radclyffe Hall's The Well of Loneliness, perhaps the archetypal 'lesbian novel', Hall's book reveals itself as an echo of the same discourse Barnes opposes.

This paper examines Djuna Barnes's Modernist masterpiece, Nightwood, by exploring the author's particular styles of writing. As an ironist, a master of spectacle, and a visual artist, Barnes's distinct stylistic roles allow the writer to construct a strange fictional world that transcends simple categorization and demands close reading. Through textual analysis, consideration of how Barnes's characterization, and engagement with key critical interpretations lead to the conclusion that Nightwood's primary aim is to present the reader with an image of his or her own individual estrangement.

This thesis involves both editorial practice and literary analysis. In order to establish an editorial framework for the electronic scholarly edition of Dr. Ralph Barnes Grindrod's pamphlet <em>Slaves of the Needle</em>, I examine current issues in electronic textual editing. In the electronic scholarly edition, approximately twelve of the pamphlet's thirty-five pages are transcribed and encoded using TEI-based code. The second aspect of my master's thesis concerns the depiction of seamstresses in nineteenth-century British literature. <em>Slaves of the Needle</em> provides a non-fiction counterpart to the fictional seamstresses of mid-nineteenth-century literature. Using <em>Slaves of the Needle</em> as a basis for evaluating the accuracy of mid-nineteenth-century characterizations of seamstresses, I show that authors such as Charles Dickens, Elizabeth Gaskell, Ernest Jones, and Charlotte Elizabeth Tonna were familiar with the working conditions of seamstresses. By conducting a close reading of certain representations of the seamstress in both fiction and non-fiction, I develop a theory of why the depiction of some aspects of the seamstress story are more accurate than others.

The present thesis argues that the present era of post-postmodernism experiences a revival of revised metanarratives through &lsquo / fabulation&rsquo / , the process masterfully depicted in Julian Barnes&rsquo / s novels Metroland (1980), Flaubert&rsquo / s Parrot (1984), History of the World in 10 &frac12 / Chapters (1989) and England, England (1998). The age of postmodernism with its undermining irony, hopelessness, pessimism and the sense of the looming end could not but leave the world in a state of despair, characterised by a propagated rule of the simulacra and the subaltern, hybridism, uncertainty, absence and inconclusiveness. As a result, the world witnessed the appearance of various calls for the re-institution of metanarratives as the only cure to rescue mankind from continuous deferral of signification, which tends to feel secure only with a score of guiding narratives. The same holds true of Julian Barnes&rsquo / s fiction. While many consider the writer&rsquo / s works to be typically postmodern, it is far from being so, as alongside the propagation of multiplicity and flexibility of meaning, it emphasises the existence of the Truth and the necessity to fabulate metanarratives, which are the only guiding poles in human progress through life in post-postmodernism.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, The Divinity School, August, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available on the Internet.

In this report, I examine the reception of Djuna Barnes’s novel Nightwood (1936) from contemporary reviews in periodicals to twenty-first century online reviews. I am interested in how the novel has been situated in both historical and personal canons. I focus on how Nightwood has been read through the lenses of experimental modernism, lesbian feminism and postmodern queer theory, and how my own readings of it have changed over the years. / text

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2007. / The entire dissertation/thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file (which also appears in the research.pdf); a non-technical general description, or public abstract, appears in the public.pdf file. Title from title screen of research.pdf file (viewed on March 6, 2008) Includes bibliographical references.