This thesis explores how constructs of gender and sexual identity in both psychoanalytic and fictional writing between the wars affect the fonn and structure of a text. The keen interest Bowen, Lehmann and Townsend Warner show in mental processes and patterns of sexual development, allows us to read across psychoanalytic and fictional discourses and rigid genres. While the psychoanalytic texts utilise elements of the Bildungsroman, the fictional narrative often enacts the pathologies of the story in an erotics of fonn. The intersection of scientific and narrative discourses coincides with a modernist debate about the limitations of conventional modes of representation in Edwardian and realist texts. The shifts between earlier modernist gestures of moving away from realist modes and structures and a later return to a more conciliatory approach of utilising them for modernist agendas, can be interpreted as a specific anxiety of origins. Shifting between modernist and realist modes of writing, and between nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century concepts of sexuality and gender produces peculiarly hybrid texts which negotiate this anxiety in various fonns of ambivalence and in-between-ness. Through the examination of six novels by Rosamond Lehmann, Elizabeth Bowen and Sylvia Townsend Warner, the thesis examines this anxiety in the difficulties psychoanalytic and fictional texts have in talking about the maternal, placing them in the context of socio-cultural ambiguities about femininity and motherhood during the interwar period. The thesis opens with a discussion of the possibilities and limitations of crossing between post-structuralist, psychoanalytic and historicist readings of modernist texts and provides a brief biographical framework for the three women writers in so far as it relates to gender, sexuality and the maternal. The following six chapters are divided into two parts grouping the first novels against the mature work in order to trace changes in the ways of representing sexuality, gender and maternal ambivalences through form, plot and structure. The first part discusses Rosamond Lehmann's Dusty Answer (1927), Elizabeth Bowen's The Hotel (1927) and Sylvia Townsend Warner's Lolly Will owes (1926), while the second part examines The Weather in the Streets (1936), The Death of the Heart (1938) and Summer Will Show (1936) retaining the order of authors. The conclusion summarises the findings, contemplates its implications for the discourse on modernism and broaches the divergencies of Bowen's, Lehmann's and Warner's fictions in the 1940s.

This thesis investigates and contextualises as a historical subject a woman textile artist, Annie Gamett (1864-1942). It explores her personal writings, in particular the diary which she kept between the years 1899 and 1909. The use of autolbiographical writings requires a reflexive methodology. In recognising this I engage with the fragmentary material in the archive using feminist theories and discourses to produce an 'intellectual biography', within which the elements of Annie Gamett's life, revealed through her own words, interact with the cultural narratives which challenged and impinged on her individual life. In engaging with Annie's subjectivity, as a historical 'site', I aim to reveal the subtle complexities of 'real' lived experience, and show how a woman, who was inspired by her love of nature and troubled by the effects of industrialisation, was able to develop her creative skills and run a successful textile business within the remit of the Arts and Crafts Movement. My approach to this historical subject unites a feminist perspective with an endorsement of the discipline of Women's History and its central commitment to the recovery of lost vOIces.

This dissertation project bridges the interdisciplinary fields of rhetoric and composition and tourism studies to examine both the reliance on and rejection of the patriarchal tourist "gaze" in digital travel stories composed by Western travelers. By using a combination of autoethnography and feminist rhetorical analysis, I begin by tracing contemporary conversations in tourism studies in order to contextualize this study within a more nuanced understanding of modern tourism, and then, I deconstruct John Urry's theory of the patriarchal tourist "gaze" in order to posit a theory of a feminist travel perspective, one informed by a postmodern approach to feminism I call "reciprocal feminism." From there, I analyze three rhetorical topoi from which many travelers compose their stories—food, bodies, and landscapes—from a feminist rhetorical perspective in order to advocate that the misinformed image of the "tourist," an outdated rhetorical construct, must be delinked from colonialism and reclaimed and reimagined in order to more effectively represent the diverse voices and subject positions of modern traveling subjects, subjects who are more often than not composed of multiple identities, languages, heritages, and cultures. I then turn to more practical applications of this theory, considering the ways in which travelers, teachers, and students might employ this approach to tourism both in the classroom and in their communities. By tracing the composing practices of contemporary Western tourists online and considering the opportunities presented by an approach to feminist travel, this project contributes to ongoing discussions of the ethics and politics of international travel and tourism, raises questions about representation, and hopes to support more ethical ways of being and interacting with and among Others in personal and academic contexts.

This dissertation attempts to contribute to the literature on the transformation of gender relations and patriarchy by creating a discursive nexus between two seemingly incompatible paradigms: materialist dialectics as interpreted by Mao Tsetung and poststructuralist feminism. Despite the important differences between the two traditions, it argues that they have important ontological similarities. This creates the potential for a fecund cross-fertilization, a potential which has been largely unrecognized by scholars. This dissertation argues that Mao's ontology of ceaseless transformation arising from universal and concrete contradictions provides an essential foundation for any progressive praxis of social transformation. It examines aspects of how the maoist approach to materialist dialectics was put into practice in revolutionary China, along with a summary of some of the recent contributions to this paradigm by Bob Avakian. It examines the historical experience of transforming patriarchal relations and ideas under Mao and argues that, though there were real shortcomings, the historical experience of revolutionary China remains an essential foundation and contribution to transforming patriarchal gender relations and identities. Focusing on the writings of Judith Butler, it discusses the contributions of poststructuralist feminist, particularly its thorough critique of essentialism and the deconstruction of the categories and conceptual foundations of feminism. Butler's emphasis on the cultural production of gender and sex, along with the need to destabilize the regulatory functions and frameworks which police them, are invaluable in developing the ability of maoist materialist dialectics to transform gender relations. The dissertation includes a discussion of sexuality, violence and democracy as way of pointing towards a thoroughly materialist and dialectical method and approach which can move beyond the anchors of metaphysics while embracing thinking from a wide spectrum, including Queer theory. The dissertation concludes with a brief discussion on how such abstract theoretical concerns are relevant to current political realities.

This essay focuses on the idea of the inner landscape as a source of artistic and creative freedom in the mind of the protagonist of the novel Fear of flying, Isadora Wing. Isadora wishes to be a writer but is hindered by the imposing wills of family, society, cultural norms and her own feelings of inadequacy. In order to free herself from these wills she goes through a cathartic journey which involves an extra-marital affair and culminates in finding peace of mind. This essay analyses how the novel portrays how one can be a creative force in spite of conflicting impositions that would stop one from being a writer.

Connecting with Courage (CWC) is a three-day Outward Bound self-discovery programme, designed by women for women. It was developed to bring feminist theory to bear on outdoor and experiential education (OEE). The re-thinking of OEE research from a feminist standpoint is less than two decades old. It began by challenging previous assumptions about participants in OEE as male and set out to explore women's different experiences and needs in OEE programmes. However while this new literature criticised the standard OEE literature for universalising male participants' experiences, it tended to provide a universalist and essentialist view of women's experiences and needs in OEE. More recently, this latter tendency has been criticised by a small number of writers within the women-and-OEE literature. This study examines women's experiences during and after four of Outward Bound's CWC courses in light of some branches of contemporary feminist theory. The study employs qualitative methodology placing the researcher at CWC as both a participant and observer, and carrying out individual open-ended, semi-structured, in-depth, ethnographic interviews with 21 women. The study explores the limitations of the standard OEE framework and the women-and-OEE literature. Its central contribution is to show how women's experiences at CWC and their subsequent understanding of these experiences can be interpreted differently depending on the theoretical framework used. The study highlights the potential of contemporary feminist theory in four respects. First it illustrates the value of re-thinking the universalist concept of woman by exploring how sexual identity, as one example of social difference, is relevant to experience. Second the study validates Carol Gilligan's notion of the self as relational while examining contemporary feminist theorisations of the self. Thus, third, it also demonstrates how far more nuanced and rich insights can be derived by employing a postmodern-inspired f

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Hon., Trinity College Dublin, 1973 The problem addressed in the study is the low status afforded women’s knowledge in public institutions. Specifically, the purpose was to investigate the form and substance of knowledge acquired through motherhood, and mothers’ experiences of the reception of the knowledge in schools. The political aim was to promote mothers’ knowledge as deserving authoritative status. Post-modern feminist theory framed theses regarding a tension involving two areas of mothers’ knowledge -- named “authoritative knowledge” and “maternal knowledge” -- and informed the reflexive methodology employed. Participants were sixteen women teachers who were or had been mothers of schoolchildren. Each mother/teacher participated in two one and a half hour audiotaped interviews. Following the interviews, eleven of the mother/teachers met for audiotaped group discussions. The data indicated that mother/teachers take to schools a wealth of maternal knowledge acquired through both childraising and living a mother’s life. Participants claimed the knowledge is valuable to their work as teachers. They reported difficulty, however, with respect to both reception and proclamation of the knowledge in school decision-making forums. They attributed the difficulty to various causes. Participants’ talk contained key words such as “instinct” which can be diversely conceived and expressed. That the words may be readily interpreted in ways harmful to promotion of maternal knowledge was noted by the researcher through critical reflection upon her own thinking. The words, the multiplicity of concepts associated with them, and the importance of recognizing this impediment to promoting maternal knowledge, became the topic for group discussion. The findings imply that maternal knowledge could enhance the critical capabilities of frameworks which guide decision-making in educational administration; that maternal knowledge should be explained and promoted during administrator and teacher professional development; and that the notion of the tension within mother/teachers’ knowledge could be usefully applied in several areas of education research. A mismatch was revealed between many participants’ career standings and their experiences and knowledge of value to schools. This implies that when thinking about employment equity for school personnel we need to recognize that being equally qualified may not necessarily mean possessing the same qualifications.

In introduction of the work evolution of essay and its tendencies in Lithuania are reviewed. Flowering of the essay’s genre after recovery of Independence is accented. In the research part genre peculiarities of the collection of essays “Suplanuotos akimirkos” (“Planned moments”) written by famous Lithuanian essayist Giedra Radvilavičiūtė are discussed. The following three germ dominating in “Suplanuotos akimirkos” are distinguished: subjective, epic and publicistic. Subjective germ, which is close to lyric poetry, is created by dominating story in first person, impressionistic stylistics, manifold picture of orator and text written in the form of diary, letter. Existence of epic germ is proved by subjectiveness of “Suplanuotos akimirkos”, pictures of characters, clear link with the novel. Actual cultural, social and political themes, obvious reflections of feminism make essay of G.Radvilavičiūtė to be close to the publicistic germ. When discussing about these distinguished germ a lot of attention is paid to the expression of G.Radvilavičiūtė’s original style, autoirony is accented. In conclusions not only separation of subjective, epic and publicistic germ is accentuated, but also their tune.

One in seven Canadian women lives in poverty. There is a considerable body of research on the factors that cause women’s poverty in Canada and on how poverty affects women’s lives. There are also a number of programs and organizations that help women living in poverty. However, there is a lack of research that examines the meanings and experiences women have with these programs and the role these programs may play in their lives. This study has attempted to fill this gap by examining an innovative training and employment program for women living in poverty. A qualitative approach was taken, which included in-depth, semi-structured interviews with eight women who had recently completed the program, as well as an informal interview with the program director. The interviews explored the women’s experiences with the program, the meanings they associated with the program, and the ways in which participation in the program had influenced their lives. A grounded theory approach was used to analyze the interview data, and socialist feminist theory provided a lens to guide the study as a whole. The analysis led to the development of a number of themes and sub-themes. Safety, stability and connections with others were found to be particularly meaningful and important components of the program. These features enabled the participants to discover a new sense of self through the development of skills, confidence and empowerment. These findings suggest the importance of providing a holistic program, and one that addresses the broad range of challenges and concerns that affect the lives of women in poverty. Programs that focus narrowly on employment and job training may be insufficient. The implications of this research are discussed in terms of the diverse needs of women living in poverty and the range of barriers that they face. Community programs such as the one studied can help women make significant gains in their lives, which can, in turn, contribute to overcoming poverty and achieving economic independence.