This thesis is about the ontology and epistemology of foreignness. With other issues,it developed through a series of conversations on foreignness with Australian and international writers and intellectuals, and a subsequent series of radio essays and conversations based on some of the dialogues. A critical framework is developed which examines the relationships between foreignness, cultural identity and the practice of writing through a series of dialogues. The author's analysis involves exploring how the conversations 'speak' the personal and political experiences of living and writing as a foreigner. The interest lies in the various ways narrating one's life touches on certain elements in the aesthetics and politics of writing.The politics of experience and aesthethic production intertwine throughout the conversations and in the production of the text. As the thesis is dialogic in character, the reader can choose to work through the thesis in a linear fashion or to begin at any part. In this sense, the work is divided into three interrelated parts which can be read as different translations of each other. In the last part, in CD format, the author discusses and includes as a postscript to the research, the radio essays and dialogues based on conversations. It is suggested how these radio conversations enact a different way of speaking and writing about foreignness, and explore the on-going relationships between dialogue, translation and a critical imagination. / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

This thesis explores a notion of “queer being” in relation to a difficult yet creative articulation of queer self-consciousness. The difficulty of attempting to “particularise” self-consciousness is challenged and dismantled by proposing ways in which putatively exclusive esoteric knowledges of being can be exposed and expanded. This is achieved by justifying singular (queer) experience as it coincides with the disparities between subjectivity and objectivity, experience and existence. I argue that two key perspectives (those of interstitiality and self-transformativity) provide a basis whereby we can “force” a radical articulation of queer being-ness into general and contemporary philosophical discourses of being. In doing so, a particularised theory of intersubjective being emerges as a way to identify the complicity of ethics and ontology. “Queerness” in this thesis is especially articulated as an eccentricity or poetics of being, experienced at the juncture of diverse knowledge spaces. These include not only the threshold and radical spaces of sexuality and gender, but also the perceived limits of theories of being which allow us to formulate understandings of self-consciousness. This is evidenced through a critical analysis of feminist, queer, transgender, phenomenological and existential texts and/or practices, paying special regard to “everyday, real-life” experience. By using a combination of the “logic of the interstice”, genealogical methods, hermeneutical analysis and a deconstructionist theoretical approach, the thesis seeks out, and insists upon, ways to articulate and determine the possibility of a queer sensibility as both a practice of self-transformativity and a more broadly applicable knowledge heuristic. The thesis demonstrates that by increasing an awareness of a particular kind of self-transformative queer being-ness – one that embraces a critical ethics of being – the rich insights of queer experiences and knowledges can act as a valuable resource for reviewing the horizons of the ontology of the subject. It also suggests that particularising the term “queer” in relation to a complex theory of “sensibility” provides new depths for understanding, and practical ways to make use of, a queer theory of being.

The Philippine Education Theater Association (PETA), the People’s Theatre in the Philippines was founded within the bounds of the nationalist leftist tradition. Its origin therefore determines to a great extent the contours of the discourse on the feminist movement in the Philippines, its participation within the cultural movement and the founding years of the pioneering People’s Theatre in the country. As a grass roots theatre from a Third World nation, the PETA theatre model responded to the needs in raising socio-political and economic consciousness and can therefore serve as an alternative tool to formal education for other Third World countries. This thesis argues, the People’s Theatre development is determined within the matrix of gender, class, politics and the nationalist movement to which it is intertwined or inextricably linked. The feminist, nationalist and radical movements have become superimposed upon the history of the People’s Theatre and have nurtured its development as a consciousness raising educational tool.

The basic aim of this thesis is to describe and analyse how �the woman voter� was constructed within Labor discourse during the Hawke/Keating years. My domain of investigation is electoral politics, in particular the federal election campaigns of 1983 and 1993. These elections flank the beginning and the end of the Labor decade, a period of great significance to both the development of Labor politics specifically and Australian politics in general. The elections of 1983 and 1993 were campaigns in which the Party made a concerted effort to attract women�s votes. Through a reading of the various texts associated with these two campaigns, I explore the construction of �the woman voter� as a �new� political subject position within Labor discourse. The dominant influences on the construction of �the woman voter� as a new subject position were Labor discourse and feminism, or more precisely Labor discourse affected by the incursion of feminism from the 1970s onwards. This thesis describes and analyses how this subject position has been produced and reproduced within Labor discourse. The gender gap research developed for the 1983 federal election constitutes one of the more important technologies that work to construct �the woman voter� within Labor discourse. A reading of the texts associated with the 1983 campaign reveals the character of �the woman voter� as a caring figure. However, as the Labor decade progressed, �the woman voter� is articulated in Labor discourse as a more complex figure, focused on her responsibilities both in the home and at paid work. A reading of various texts associated with the 1993 election campaign shows that �the woman voter� is constructed as a carer-worker; this subject position is broadly consonant with the objectives liberal, economic government. Certain modifications within this basic subject position can be observed in Labor�s anti-GST campaign materials, which made an appeal to the woman voter as consumer.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2007. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

<p>This is a study of the way power relationships change when women start to play candombe in Montevideo, Uruguay. Candombe is a type of music, which is traditionally played by men within the black minority in the country. This study has been done with an intersectional point of view, taking the social categories gender, class and ethnicity in account. The method used was participatory observation in a field study made in Montevideo between November 2008 and February 2009.</p><p>This study’s main conclusions are that the power relationships change with the participation of women in candombe in several important ways: The women legitimize an alternative way to be a woman when they take the men’s role as a drum player. Hegemonic relationships are made visible. The men’s privileged position within candombe is questioned. Hegemonic ideas of ethnicity and class are in some way challenged since candombe is a space where categories with low status may gain respect from society. However, there is a risk that “the social norm” outlines a framework for what is accepted and approved within candombe, and what is not. It is therefore crucial that the players in candombe define its meaning themselves.<em> </em></p>

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This dissertation is an authorship study of the controversial contemporary French film director Catherine Breillat. Using screen captures to provide visual evidence for the philosophical and theoretical perspectives staked out by Breillat, I perform close analysis of the following six films: Une Vrai Jeune Fille (1976), 36 Fillette (1988), Romance (1999), À Ma Soeur (2001), Brève Traverseé (2001), and Anatomie de L'enfer (2004). Using theory only to supplement interpretations, I draw on the work of George Bataille, Stanley Cavell, and Slavoj Zizek. Breillat's films work through a series of important philosophical ideas integral to an account of eroticism: the paradox of speaking about silence; achieving purity through an encounter with disgust; the singularity of individual desire; the split in identity between the mind and the body; the relationship between sex and death; the relationship between the taboo and transgression; and the violence of female desire. Breillat's films encourage viewers to alter their thinking about sexuality and liberate themselves to lead a more fully erotic life. The capacity of Breillat's films to free eroticism is their most important contribution not only to film history, but also to the totality of human experience.

To investigate the ways in which communities of practice affect individuals' identity development, qualitative research methods were used to understand the impact solo travel had on American women's identity development. A theoretical framework developed from the disciplines of tourism, feminism and adult education was used to inform the study. Using a combined method methods approach (naturalistic inquiry and grounded theory), three components of the backpacker community of practice were identified which gave rise to a model of identity development within a particular community. This study has implications for adult education theory as it clearly suggests the interrelatedness of the social context in which this learning takes place (communities of practice), and adult development theory (identity formation). In practical terms it illustrates and also challenges the notion of identity change as irreversible, suggesting learners need constant support to retain new ways of viewing the world and themselves.

This is a study of the way power relationships change when women start to play candombe in Montevideo, Uruguay. Candombe is a type of music, which is traditionally played by men within the black minority in the country. This study has been done with an intersectional point of view, taking the social categories gender, class and ethnicity in account. The method used was participatory observation in a field study made in Montevideo between November 2008 and February 2009. This study’s main conclusions are that the power relationships change with the participation of women in candombe in several important ways: The women legitimize an alternative way to be a woman when they take the men’s role as a drum player. Hegemonic relationships are made visible. The men’s privileged position within candombe is questioned. Hegemonic ideas of ethnicity and class are in some way challenged since candombe is a space where categories with low status may gain respect from society. However, there is a risk that “the social norm” outlines a framework for what is accepted and approved within candombe, and what is not. It is therefore crucial that the players in candombe define its meaning themselves.