Thesis (doctoral)--University of Bergen, Norway, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 348-392).

Thesis (doctoral)--University of Bergen, Norway, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 348-392)

The experiences of those with difficult to diagnose conditions, chronic illnesses, and disability lack intelligibility in an able-bodied world. Much of this originates in the disjuncture between first- and third- person experience as accounted for between patients and their doctors, caregivers, and the greater public. Utilizing the insights of feminist philosophy and disability studies, I will explore how these marginalized identities face consequences in the real world for their embodiment. I propose that the best methodology to examine the experiences of chronically ill, hard to diagnose, and disabled individuals’ experiences is through the phenomenological perspective. Through utilizing case studies, I will demonstrate the importance of first- to third- person encounters in medicine and receiving adequate treatment. By examining such experiences, as well as my own, through such a perspective, I argue we can work towards creating a more equitable world for the chronically ill, hard to diagnose, and disabled. / Includes bibliography. / Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2020. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

From 1924-1959, the United Lutheran Church of America operated a girls" boarding school in Southwest Virginia. When Konnarock Training School opened, there were few educational opportunities in the isolated mountains, especially for girls. Students from five states came to Konnarock, with some receiving eleven years of education there. Konnarock Training School recruited faculty from throughout the United States and at least one teacher from Europe. These individuals lived in the Virginia mountains, taught academic classes, and engaged in extensive community outreach. A unique level of cooperation existed among church, public schools systems, and government agencies during the school's existence. The mission of Konnarock Training School was to help women reach their potential and to become leaders in their families, their church, and their communities. Students were taught, by example and by word, that they had a place in the church, that women did not have to accept prevailing social and economic circumstances, and that they could make decisions about their own lives. The day-to-day examples given to the students became a scaffold for social change; KTS encouraged the women to become authors of their own lives. This research is essentially a case study using a feminist oral history methodology. A total of twenty-three interviews with eight women alumnae and faculty of KTS provides the basis for the study. Interviews were transcribed and analyzed using the constant comparative method. In addition, extensive archival material provided data for analysis. The central argument presented is that KTS was a community embodying both Christian and feminist ideals, one that looked toward the vision of a just, equitable world but that persisted in the real and imperfect world. Overlapping themes leading to a view of the school as an example of feminist theology in practice are Family and Friends, Community, Identity, A Tradition of Leadership, and An Eschatological Focus. The role that memory plays in the telling of one's oral history is also considered. / Ed. D.

This thesis reclaims the eschatological future in light of and for feminist theology. It is mindful of critiques which expose the patriarchal, androcentric, and futuristic tendencies of traditional eschatological thought. Themes are detected amongst these critiques that pertain to the process, content, and time of eschatology: feminist theologians have proposed that traditional models of eschatology present the process as known and controlled by God alone; the content as fleshless and static; and the time as dislocated from present realities and concerns. Feminist theologians respond by attending to and affirming the complexities and significance of present embodiments. Three aspects of existence that are typically associated with women emerge as integral to this pursuit; namely embodied relationality, fluidity, and sensuality. I detect in these responses both potentials and problems. Reclaiming aspects of existence that have been excluded from and therefore devalued by eschatology, specifically because of their association with women, is affirmed as a necessary and important contribution. However, I note that the overwhelming (if understandable) reluctance amongst feminist theologians to speak of eschatological finality, or to grasp at specificity about the future, prevents us from hoping for fulfilled experiences of these aspects, and robs all of creation of a usable and hopeful future. The eschatological future is ultimately left in the hands of patriarchy. I attempt, therefore, to reconstruct the process, content, and time of eschatology in such a way that it not only affirms embodied relationality, fluidity, and sensuality, but also offers new and beneficial ways to think about these values. My thesis is thus firmly rooted in present feminist perspectives on, and some women’s experiences of, embodiment. What is more, it converses with these by negotiating some ways in which a reconstructed eschatology can be open to and changed by our present existences, even as it is able to inform and direct them. My ultimate goal is to uncover in the eschatological future a way in which to take and transform patriarchal constructions of female bodies in order to uncover a real and present hope for all bodies.

This thesis proposes to study comprehensively the contribution of Buchi Emecheta to African literature and to the debate over feminism and African and black women. Chapters one and two are a background to the investigation of Emecheta's fiction. They examine the work of selected African female and male novelists in order to assess the representation of he African woman in the novel and her role and place in a changing society. The writings of women are considered in relation to women's priorities and the orientation of the African novel itself. The notion of protest as a rhetorical device is considered in Chapters three and four. They chart Emecheta's condemnation of patriarchal ethics in four of her novels. The awakening and growth in consciousness of her heroines is studied in detail in Chapter four which also considers the novelist's interest in national questions. Chapters five and six discuss the attitudes of African/black women towards feminism as practised in the West and how it is reflected in the positions of Emecheta and some other African female writers; how this is perceived in the writing of black women in Britain and of representative African-American novelists and critics. Lesbianism and radical separatism are discussed, as is the womanist alternative. While Chapter five is fundamentally theoretical, Chapter six traces the evolution of Emecheta's own views by way of her first two novels of the early seventies and the latest one published in 1989. Language and style are under consideration in Chapters seven, eight and nine. Chapter seven is concerned with placing Emecheta within the debate about literatures in African languages. Chapter eight deals with stylistic developments in Emecheta's fiction in terms of narrative strategy and the source from which she constructs the figures in her prose. The presentation of speech is scrutinized in chapter nine as part of realism, which entails an examination of the function of proverbs and Pidgin English in the novels.

This thesis is an interpretive case study, drawing upon feminist and Aboriginal perspectives, about working in an educational environment described as a border world comprised of overlapping cultures. It is a chronological account of the delivery of a university programme in a First Nations community. The study seeks to explore the reasons why Aboriginal women enter and successfully complete post-secondary study, and whether their roles in traditional Aboriginal culture facilitate this process. This first portion of the study involved semi-structured interviews with three female Aboriginal educators, focusing on the traditional roles of women within Cree culture, and the relationship of these traditional roles to their roles in contemporary Cree society. The second portion of the study involves a series of group and personal interviews with female Aboriginal learners involved in a community-based programme in a Northern Cree community. The interviews, which encompassed a three-year period, sought to provide a chronological account of the learners' experiences in the programme. In addition, interviews were conducted with faculty members teaching within the programme. The interviews provided the data for an operation model entitled Community-Controlled Education that suggests criteria for the delivery of an inclusive learning experience for Aboriginal learners.

No description available.

No description available.

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