Institutional transformation initiated the creation of an online forum by academic staff at the North- West University. This forum functioned as an official space on the intranet of the institution as a result of the need of academics to communicate their opinions and concerns. Participants in the forum judged the university and other co-discussants according to their ideals of a democratic, multiracial and self-reflective institution of higher learning. Debates which interested the broad academic community focused on the practice of religion, the student culture, hostel traditions and the language of instruction. The threads which dealt with these subjects were usually characterised by intense emotion and conflict as divergent racial and cultural identities constituted a pervasive presence in the discussions. The study explored the reasons, strategies and consequences of internal exclusion which participants exercised within the forum discourse and the external incidences of exclusion practised within the larger discursive contexts (institutional, socio-political) of the forum. The inclusive focus of the communicative model of democratic discourse on emotion as an expansion of reason determined the exploration of patterns of exclusion. The online discussion has been in existence for more than twelve years. The forum is not in the public domain and only administrative and academic staff within the institution has access to it. The asynchronous participations are authored and archived since 2004. Six discussants who acted as protagonists in the thread on racism were the main participants in the interviews. Five more participants were interviewed as their presence in, perceptions of and relationship with the forum and its participants were significant to the researcher and other discussants. Qualitative research methodology informed the critical phenomenological approach of the study. The researcher conducted interviews and analyses between August 2010 and July 2011. The methodology of grounded theory directed the coding of interview transcripts and the text of the forum thread. The research diary and reflective notes enabled the researcher to find synergy between the practical field experience and theory. The study found that strong ideological positions led to frustration with the idealised role participants contributed to the forum as a vehicle for change. These frustrations were incorporated in their rationalistic and moralistic strategies of interaction with participants holding equally strong but opposing positions. Eventually those who were motivated to participate because of their dissonance with discourse, within and outside the context of the forum, either excluded themselves or became excluded as their voices were not appreciated. They could also not persuade others or effect structural change. Participants with mediating presences brought an amiable nuance to the forum and influenced protagonists to assume less declarative styles of interaction and reflect on their own unemancipatory positions. Based on the inclusionary and exclusionary elements found in the analyses, the study concludes with recommendations for the design and moderation of an inclusive and equalising space. This redefined space could subverse the dominating discourse of protagonists and foster a democratic discourse within the context of the forum and the university. / Thesis (PhD (Curriculum Development Innovation and Evaluation))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2013

Calculus at the university level is taken by thousands of undergraduate students each year. However, a significant number of students struggle with the subject, resulting in poor problem solving, low achievement, and high failure rates in the calculus courses overall (e.g., Kaput, 1994; Szydlik, 2000; Tall, 1985; Tall & Ramos, 2004; White & Mitchelmore, 1996). This is cause for concern as the lack of success in university calculus creates further barriers for students who require the course for their programs of study. This study examines this issue from the perspective of Tall’s Three Worlds of Mathematics (Tall, 2004a, 2004b, 2008), a theory of mathematics and mathematical cognitive development. A fundamental argument of Tall’s theory suggests that connecting between the different mathematical worlds, named the Embodied-Conceptual, Symbolic-Proceptual, and Formal-Axiomatic worlds, is essential for full cognitive development and understanding of mathematical concepts. Working from this perspective, this research examined, through the use of calculus task questions and semi-structured interviews, how fifteen undergraduate calculus students made connections between the different mathematical worlds for the calculus topics of limits and derivatives. The analysis of the findings suggests that how the students make connections can be described by eight different Response Categories. The study also found that how the participants made connections between mathematical worlds might be influenced by the type of questions that are asked and their experience in calculus courses. I infer that these Response Categories have significance for this study and offer potential for further study and educational practice. I conclude by identifying areas of further research in regards to calculus achievement, the Response Categories, and other findings such as a more detailed study of the influence of experience.

For most people in North America, undergoing treatments for cancer occurs exclusively in a healthcare setting. All too often, this healthcare setting provides a backdrop privileging the technological requirements of conventional medicine over the well-being of the people who inhabit it. Conversely, this practicum project is founded on a different, more holistic approach to cancer care called integrative oncology. The project investigates how an integrative cancer treatment centre can be designed to be more than a technological backdrop, endeavoring to become an active entity that truly supports those dealing with cancer. The investigation includes an extensive literature review of theoretical and evidence-based sources that relate to fostering connections to nature on a variety of levels. Informed by this, a review of relevant design precedents and the functional issues of integrative cancer treatment, the investigation concludes with a design solution for an integrated cancer treatment centre and related findings.

Yoga has been an organizing feature of community for thousands of years, shaping and being shaped by the bodies, minds, spiritual worlds and social relationships of its practitioners. Over the course of the last century, it has become a global celebrity-endorsed exemplification of how to live a “good” life and been transformed from the “exotic,” grotesque menageries of ascetic “sinister yogis” and itinerant sages, to define the fit, graceful, radiant, blissful personages of American supermodels and pop-stars. Yoga has moved from the ashrams of India to gyms, church basements and specialized studios of Europe, North America and Australia, and from these centers of economic and political power, to “exotic” peripheries through the global and bodily movements of world-travelers seeking self-discovery, health, spiritual transformation, and connection with the natural world in “less developed” locales. This dissertation explores and documents the movement of yoga-motivated travelers to tourism locales with no historical connection to yoga, asking questions about 1) how yoga travelers’ activities fit in larger contexts of ethical tourism and cross-cultural consumption as yoga travels across borders, 2) the role yoga plays in practitioners’ lives, shaping health, gender, sexuality, and lifestyle, 3) outcomes of sustained contemporary yoga practice on the bodies of practitioners, including affective transformation through bodily manipulation, the expansion of sensual awareness through breath, auditory techniques, meditation and mind-body synthesis, 4) how these bodily transformations are interpreted and applied to contemporary life through syncretic adaptations of yoga ethics from classical yoga texts with contemporary ethical discourses of environmentalism and consumer choice, and 5) how yoga tourists and the owners of yoga tourism locales view, interact with, and mobilize “foreign” locals and locales through sustainable development narratives and ideas of global community and universal spirituality. I apply contemporary anthropological agendas to yoga as a means to explore different ways of being alive, paying particular attention to how sensual potentials are brought to conscious experience by relational engagement with nature and culture, thus shaping our affective worlds. This dissertation charts intimate bodily and cross-cultural human relationships played out through yoga. It considers the spiritual, economic, political and cultural impacts of globalized yoga and yoga tourism. Close attention is paid to the experiential aspects of yoga and how yoga enlivens and relates to larger social narratives of nature sanctity under contemporary stresses of neoliberalism, including how yoga practitioners engage with the ethics of yoga and consumption to make lifestyle choices that align with political and economic concerns for viable ecological, social and cultural futures. / Graduate

Traditional knowledges and ways of living in harmony with the Earth and among species have been disregarded, discarded, and destroyed as industrialisation, capitalism, and globalisation have pervaded, all maintained in part by the Cartesian split which dissociates body from mind, heaven from Earth, nature from culture. These hegemonic layers of control have served to bind the fate of the Earth’s eco-systems, including human life, to the global capital economy which thrives on growth and development at any and all costs. This feminist, arts-informed inquiry brought an embodied lens to the stories of eco-activism and inquired as to the role of embodied ways of knowing and their role in eco-activism and the toll of activism upon women eco-activist bodies. This research inquiry interviewed thirteen women eco-activists, conducted four art-making focus groups, and used embodied reflexivity as part of the analysis process in order to find new understandings and knowledge to add to the limited literature on embodiment, embodied ways of knowing, and women’s eco-activism. Furthermore, this research sought to identify and articulate the ways in which activism practice can be more sustainable for activists and intended to add to the growing awareness body/mind connection and unity consciousness for activists, educators, and others working towards social change. The key findings of this research indicate that embodied knowledges counter fragmented ways of living, foster sustainable practices, and offer guidance and direction to live more harmoniously with, and on, the Earth and to practice activism. It also expands our understanding of women’s embodied ways of knowing and illuminates our understandings of how bodies can guide and show alternate ways of living, and practising activism, that are sustainable. This inquiry further added to the growing awareness of body/mind connection and unity consciousness with a focus on activists, educators, and others interested in finding ways to live with, rather than on, the Earth. / Graduate / 0329 / 0453 / lisa@lisamortimore.com

Criticism that involves the linkage of the terms ‘environment’ and ‘literature’, or ‘ecocriticism’, has focused largely on texts such as nature writing or on fiction that is set in rural or wilderness settings. This project attempts to widen the scope of ecocriticism by analysing the contemporary British novel, in which nature conceived in such stereotypical ways is largely absent. However, in my analysis of the fifteen texts selected here, I demonstrate that British women writers employ new discursive constructions of nature in order to contest deterministic formulations that subjugate both women and nature. My focus on female textual bodies enables me to explore representations of the fluid interfaces of nature and culture. In my analysis of novels from an environmental standpoint, `environment' is reconceived to refer to `where we live, work, and play' and may include not only the countryside and urban nature, but also the female body itself. Thus, the nature of my title is an inclusive term that includes contemporary discourses of nature employed by the sciences of biomedicine, genetics and technology. This project examines the ecofeminist premise that discourses of mastery not only affect subjugated others such as women, animals and others, but also influence the treatment of the natural environment. Analysing novels that employ forms of embodiment that foreground extreme bodily conditions such as pregnancy, monstrosity and death, I employ the theoretical constructs of Mikhail Bakhtin (the grotesque body, carnivalisation and dialogism) and Julia Kristeva's notion of abjection as tools of analysis to provide a new conception of ecological bodies. Novelists such as Jeanette Winterson, Fay Weldon, Penelope Lively, Zadie Smith, Margaret Drabble, Kathy Lette and Eva Figes provide a wide range of viewpoints from which to gather evidence of the insistence of the recurring trope of the endangered body within the troubled landscape of contemporary Britain.

This research investigates the music-theatre phenomenon for the purpose of: clarifying how that differs from more traditional forms of musical theatre, i.e., Opera and Broadway musical; discussing its aesthetic bases; explicating its modes of operation in relation to both music and theatre. The writing is structured in three main parts. The first concern of the discussion is to clarify the connection between music and performance. To that end, Part One starts by reflecting on the nature of music and how its perception has been changed by modern technology, throwing live performance into question. The notions of physicality, embodiment, and gesture are then invoked in order to re-position music firmly within the performing arts. Part Two then delves into music-theatre touching on issues of terminology, artistic scope, positioning, production, funding, structures, institutions. Part Three, finally, offers some conclusions and recommendations. The Thesis is then followed by a commentary to the portfolio of compositions accompanying this research. The musical scores and audio-visual material relative to the works therein discussed are included on 1 separately bound volume.

This study is an investigation of embodiment. It is informed by the experiences and understandings of health, healing, violence and oppression among 15 young South Asian women living in Toronto, Canada. Their articulation of the importance of, and difficulties associated with, health and healing in contexts of social inequity contribute to understandings of embodiment as co-constituted by sentient and social experience. In my reading of their contributions, embodied learning – that is, an ongoing attunement to sentient-social embodiment – is a counter hegemonic healing strategy that they use. Their experiences and insights support the increasingly accepted claim that social inequity is a primary determinant of health that disproportionately disadvantages subordinated people. Furthermore, participants affirm that recovery and resistance to violence and oppression and its consequences must address sentient-social components of embodiment simultaneously. In this study, Yoga teachings provide a framework and practice to investigate embodiment and embodied learning. Following 12 Yoga workshops addressing health, healing, violence and oppression, I conducted individual interviews with 15 workshop participants, 3 Yoga teachers and 2 counsellor / social workers. Participants discuss Yoga as a resource for addressing mental, physical, emotional and spiritual consequences of violence and oppression. They resist New Age interpretations of Yoga in terms of individualism and cultural appropriation; they also challenge both New Age and Western biomedicine for a lack of attention to the consequences of social inequity for health and healing. This study considers embodied learning as an important healing resource and form of resistance to violence and oppression. Scholarship addressing embodiment in sociology, health research, anti-racism, feminism, anti-colonialism, decolonization and Indigenous knowledges are drawn upon to contextualize the interviews. This study offers insights relevant to health promotion and adult education discourse and policy through a careful consideration of the embodied strategies used by the participants in their nuanced negotiations of social inequity and pursuits of health and healing.

The concept of desire has been central to most recent philosophical debates, in various forms and styles. I have argued in the present study that, one of the main motivations for this apparent interest in the concept of desire is the result of the increasing awareness of the shortcomings of those presuppositions revolving around an &ldquo / autonomous subject&rdquo / , &ldquo / transcendence&rdquo / , &ldquo / representation&rdquo / , and &ldquo / moral subjectivity&rdquo / . Desire, in this vein, is conceived and put into practice by the traditional philosophy as one among the other attributes that cannot be considered without reference to man. Desire as such is conceived as something that is necessarily controlled and managed by reason. Ethics and politics, in terms of these ill-conceived presuppositions, are narratives erected upon this tension that necessarily refers to a self-conscious subject and her subversive desires. I argue, in this study, for the possibility of imagining other variants of desire, i.e., something other than traditionally established debates, where desire is no longer conceived in strict reference to human beings. These novel accounts, which I will attempt to uncover, hope, will help us see in what ways desire can be considered within the concept of pure immanence and the realm post-humanist ethico-politics. Spinoza, Nietzsche and certainly Deleuze and Guattari are on this side. Desire, according to this non-tradition, belongs to immanence. In arguing for the legitimacy of two affirmative notions of desire, namely, that of immanent desire and embodied desire, I tried to establish a continuity between immanence (totality of bodies and constant differing) and embodied desire (singular intensities), and by means of which I have drawn attention to the importance of a new vision of ethics and politics that might work, not through the already established form of subjectivities, but through new forms of individuation and flow-like encounters of bodies.

Is an actor performing live if that actor is out of sight in the wings and appears on stage as a computer-mediated representation? Is co-presence with such a mediated embodiment problematic for the performer? This project seeks to explore the use of digital media elements, from the perspective of the actor, in the collaborative process of devising, designing, rehearsing and performing a Shakespearian theatre production. It raises issues of the creative possibilities that applications of new technologies afford and of a changing perception of the nature of liveness. Can digital media techniques usefully enhance the liveness of performance and extend the audience’s experience of the production? Specifically, can it augment their perception of themselves, mirrored on stage? Exploring the usefulness of digital media techniques takes a theatre practitioner into the intermedial, liminal spaces where the two fields converge. These are spaces of possibility where new ways of working might emerge. This thesis is presented primarily as an experimental performance and is contextualised by this exegesis with its written and DVD components.