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1 ABSTRACT Key words: Northern Irish poetry, Leontia Flynn, Medbh McGuckian, domesticity, domestic space, the Troubles, post-Agreement poetry The aim of the thesis is to observe the Northern Irish conflict from the vantage point of domestic space as it is reflected in Northern-Irish poetry of the last 40 years. The thesis builds on the notion that houses and homes are not simply private places but images of the outside world. To illustrate this premise, the works of two Northern Irish poets have been selected: Medbh McGuckian and Leontia Flynn. Divided by time, but not space, their poetry is to be placed into the context of Northern Irish poetry during the Troubles and the post-Agreement period. McGuckian's poetry is engaged with making a sense of the distinction between public and private spheres (Wills 1993), whereas Flynn's poetry, and post-Agreement poetry in general, shows signs of attempts to discover and establish her place within the context of the Troubles. In formulating her stance, Flynn relies on a perspective gained by leaving home and memories of growing up during the Troubles behind and travelling abroad (Heidemann 2016). Both poets write about the Troubles in light of the division between private and public spheres, thus illustrating how the violent politics have been part of Northern Irish...

This thesis is based on the belief that representations of women in contemporary Ugandan art serve cultural and political purposes. The premise is that the autonomous woman (seen as the new woman in this study), emerging in Uganda in the mid-1980s, agitated for the social, economic and political emancipation of women in Uganda. It has been demonstrated that the patriarchy attempted to subordinate, confine and regulate this new woman. The press, drama, music and film became powerful tools to force her into silence. This study posits that contemporary Ugandan art was part of this cultural discourse. Adopting a feminist art historical stance, it examines and assesses the gendered content of Uganda’s contemporary art masked as aesthetics. On the one hand, the study exposes the view that some men artists in Uganda use their works to construct men’s power and superiority as the necessary ingredients of gender difference. I demonstrate that some artists have engaged themes through which they have constructed women as being materialistic, gold-diggers, erotic and domesticated. I argue that this has been a strategy to tame Uganda’s new woman. On the other hand, the thesis attempts to show that some women artists have used visual discourse to challenge their marginalisation and to reclaim their ‘agency’ while revising some negative stereotypes about the new woman. This study makes an interdisciplinary contribution to Uganda’s art history, cultural studies and gender studies. / Art History, Visual Arts and Musicology / D. Litt. et Phil. (Art History)

This thesis is a study of spatial practice and literary depictions of homes in novels by Elsie Johansson, Kerstin Thorvall and Kristina Sandberg. The theoretical perspective is based on Henri Lefebvre´s view on social space, and on the concept of spatial practice. Research questions are: What homes are depicted? How does spatial practice function in the texts? How does the depictedspatial practice relate to norms and ideals? The novels, published 1993-2014, depict an interesting period in Swedish history (cirka 1920-1970) when politics and society at large was deeply involved in reshaping the homes and lives of Swedish citizens. The aim was to turn the citizens into new, healthy and rational parts of the new and rational society. Housewives where put in a position where the new rational housekeeping clashed with the standards and practices of earlier generations. Class is found to be a crucial factor in performing and experiencing domesticity in the studied novels. Housewive characters in the Thorvall and Sandberg novels, raised in working class families, struggle in adapting the spatial practice of home in their new middle class environments.Part of the thesis is a discussion on domesticity seen as an adaptive pracitce – catering to the needs of husbands and children. The novels show this, but also depict housework being used as a way to escape unpleasant conversations or forget ones unpleasant feelings. Another task with complex connotations and uses is cleaning. Cleaning in these novels have a strong connection to positive feelings like pleasure and pride, but also to negative feelings of shame and a loss of control. Acting normal to achieve a state of normality within the home and family is a common strategy for the housewives. The material is found to support Lefebvres idea on the importance of spatial practice - sense of home, for the studied housewife characters, is found to be more dependent on spatialpractice than on the home itself.

This empirical and theological research investigates the self-conception of the east-german women in the Brethren Movement, in order to discover by which role model they predominantly orientated themselves. Therefore women were interviewed, who are – on one hand – socialised in the Brethren Movement, and on the other hand have partly realized the GDR role model through working in a typically male business and/or in a leading position. It was possible to describe in that study three contrasting typologies. On that foundation, thesis and conclusions were drawn for the development of identity and the operation of the church. This project wants to make a contribution to the investigation of the –almost untouched academically – field of the women in the Brethren Movement. At the same time it should serve as an historical example in how the church dealt with changing role models. / In dieser Forschungsarbeit wird das Selbstverständnis der ostdeutschen Frauen in der Brüderbewegung empirisch-theologisch untersucht, um herauszufinden, an welchem der beiden divergierenden Rollenbilder (DDR-Gesellschaft oder Brüderbewegung) sich diese Frauen stärker orientieren. Dazu wurden Frauen interviewt, die einerseits in der Brüderbewegung sozialisiert sind, und andererseits durch ihre Berufstätigkeit in einem männertypischen Beruf und/oder in Leitungspositionen das DDR-Rollenbild teilweise umgesetzt haben. Im Verlauf dieser Studie ließen sich drei kontrastierende Typologien von Selbstbildern erkennen. Auf dieser Grundlage wurden Schlussfolgerungen und Thesen über die Identitätsfindung der Frauen und ihre gelebte Gemeindepraxis gezogen. Mit der Betrachtung der Frauen in den Brüdergemeinden will diese qualitative Studie einen Beitrag dazu leisten, neue Erkenntnisse aus einem wissenschaftlich bisher kaum erforschten Gebiet zu gewinnen. Gleichzeitig soll die vorliegende Studie anhand dieses historischen Beispiels den Umgang einer Gemeinde mit sich verändernden Rollenbildern zeigen. / Christian Spirituality, Church History and Missiology / M. Th. (Missiology)

This empirical and theological research investigates the self-conception of the east-german women in the Brethren Movement, in order to discover by which role model they predominantly orientated themselves. Therefore women were interviewed, who are – on one hand – socialised in the Brethren Movement, and on the other hand have partly realized the GDR role model through working in a typically male business and/or in a leading position. It was possible to describe in that study three contrasting typologies. On that foundation, thesis and conclusions were drawn for the development of identity and the operation of the church. This project wants to make a contribution to the investigation of the –almost untouched academically – field of the women in the Brethren Movement. At the same time it should serve as an historical example in how the church dealt with changing role models. / In dieser Forschungsarbeit wird das Selbstverständnis der ostdeutschen Frauen in der Brüderbewegung empirisch-theologisch untersucht, um herauszufinden, an welchem der beiden divergierenden Rollenbilder (DDR-Gesellschaft oder Brüderbewegung) sich diese Frauen stärker orientieren. Dazu wurden Frauen interviewt, die einerseits in der Brüderbewegung sozialisiert sind, und andererseits durch ihre Berufstätigkeit in einem männertypischen Beruf und/oder in Leitungspositionen das DDR-Rollenbild teilweise umgesetzt haben. Im Verlauf dieser Studie ließen sich drei kontrastierende Typologien von Selbstbildern erkennen. Auf dieser Grundlage wurden Schlussfolgerungen und Thesen über die Identitätsfindung der Frauen und ihre gelebte Gemeindepraxis gezogen. Mit der Betrachtung der Frauen in den Brüdergemeinden will diese qualitative Studie einen Beitrag dazu leisten, neue Erkenntnisse aus einem wissenschaftlich bisher kaum erforschten Gebiet zu gewinnen. Gleichzeitig soll die vorliegende Studie anhand dieses historischen Beispiels den Umgang einer Gemeinde mit sich verändernden Rollenbildern zeigen. / Christian Spirituality, Church History and Missiology / M. Th. (Missiology)

The thesis uses the case study of the experience of middle-class northern white women in America during the period 1800-1860 to explore several issues of wider significance. Firstly, the research focuses upon the dynamic relationships between the culturally-constructed categories of public/formal and private/informal power and participation at both the practical and symbolic levels, suggesting ways in which they intersected on the lives of women. Secondly, consideration is given to the validity of the stereotyped view that 'domestic' women were necessarily disadvantaged and dominated relative to those who aspired to public political and economic roles. Thirdly, the relationship of religious belief to these two areas is discussed, in order to discover its relevance to the way in which women both perceived themselves and were perceived by others. In seeking to explore these issues, the research has analysed the patterns of social and cultural change in the era under question, indicating how those changes influenced the perceptions and experiences of both women and men. Their reactions in terms of discourse and activity are located as strategies of negotiation in redefining both social role and participation for the sexes. The rhetoric of 'separate spheres', which was used by men and women to order their mental and physical surroundings, is reduced to its symbolic constituents in order to illustrate that the distinction between male and female arenas was more perceptual than actual. The motivating forces behind the activities and ideas of women themselves are investigated to determine the role of religion in the construction of both female self-images and wider negotiational strategies. The context of nineteenth-century social dynamics has been revealed by detailed analysis of extensive primary sources originated by both women and men for private as well as public consumption. Feminist tools of analysis which enable the conceptualisation of 'meaningful discourse' as including female contributions have further enhanced the specific focus on how women constructed their own world-views and approaches to reality. 'Traditional' approaches and tools are shown to have seriously skewed and misrepresented the reality and variety of both discourse and female experience in the era. Great efforts have been made to allow women to speak in their own words. This has produced an insight into a richness of female social participation and discourse which would otherwise be obscured. The research indicates that women were indeed actors and negotiators during the period. Those women who advocated as primary the duties of women in the domestic and social arenas were by no means setting narrow limitations on female participation in both society and discourse. The religious impulses and eschatological frameworks derived by women (varied as they were) served to order and renegotiate reality and meaning, whilst they produced female roles and influence of great significance. Women were not passive victims of male oppression. Religion can thus be perceived as a positive force which women were able to approach both for its own sake, and for their own particular ends.