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Stemming from the dialectical concepts of critical epistemology developed by feminism and Critical Theory (specifically, the Frankfurt School), this thesis attempts to articulate the political dimension of knowledge and to demonstrate how this dimension is incorporated into the liberatory pedagogical theory of Paulo Freire, Henry Giroux and various feminist authors. Hence the epistemological significance of domination and oppression is explored in relation to the concepts of subjectivity and objectivity held by critical epistemology. / In ultimately aiming at liberation from social oppression, both Critical Theory and feminist epistemology provide theoretical insights into the social construction of knowledge, the intersubjective character of knowledge and the depth psychological dimension of the knower. It is maintained that a synthesis of these insights can provide the groundwork for a liberatory educational theory based on the interrelation between experience and knowledge. Also, in dialectical interaction, a liberatory educational theory provides a means for actualizing the liberatory aim of critical epistemology.

This essay attempts to define Mary Wollstonecraft’s Mary: A Fiction and Maria or The Wrongs of Woman as early feminist propaganda from its historical perspective. Initially, feministic values as well as propaganda are connected to the eighteenth century with the help of contemporary scholars.  These theories are then applied on Wollstonecraft’s Mary: A Fiction and Maria or the Wrongs of Woman, in order to establish these as propaganda. The conclusion reached is that Wollstonecraft had a political and feminist aim when writing her novels as there are many similarities between Mary: A Fiction and Maria or The Wrongs of Woman and her political text A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. Thus, it is possible to regard Mary: A Fiction and Maria or The Wrongs of Woman as early feminist propaganda.

This inquiry is a two-tongued performance as research project asking &quotWhy was the voice of the Sirens deadly?" and &quotHow can the Sirens inform contemporary feminist theatre praxis?". The two questions in constant dialectic have been explored in a written dissertation as well as in a one-hour original and ensemble performance called The Quivering: a Matter of Life and Death. Analysing references in mythology, art and history, the written component suggests how the Siren's sonic qualities are manifest in distinct cultural icons and embodied by actual female performers. Four Siren vocalities are identified and theorised: The Monster vocality is evidenced in the figure of the femme fatale; the Lamenter exists in traditional funerary singers and contemporary torch songs; the sound of the Diva is heard in the opera queen; and the Lullaby Maker acoustics oscillate between the banter of Mother Goose and the 'red hot mamas' of the blues. Pursuing what is deadly about each of these embodied voices, the thesis articulates why female sound, like the Siren song of knowledge, is so ambivalently received - its evocation of otherness (Monster), liminality (Lamenter), jouissance (Diva) and contra-diction (Lullaby Maker) is both feared and revered. These four vocalities have grown in and out of The Quivering, a performance odyssey that has interrogated aesthetic, content, characterisation, narrative and devising practice, all with an ear to the Siren's 'deadly' sonority. Subverting portrayals of death as a woman and a taboo, its comic-tragic heroines exist in a liminal landscape as lamenters who confront and facilitate the audience's death passage. In counterpoint to Homeric legacy, it has been designed as an open text, which, combined with its heightened physicality and musicality, make for an 'other' aesthetic or contemporary Siren 'song'. The Quivering is pitched at the same tone as the distilled Siren vocalities or 'blue notes', and, as a performance as research project, also re-sounds provocatively within traditional academic discourse. The 'deadliness' of the female voice, in myth, in theory and in performance thus resides in its dissolution of logos and certainty. It quivers with the pleasure and trauma of a corporeal jouissance that exceeds narrative and linguistic frames with its full-bodied, acoustic and imagistic resonance.

Thesis (M Ed (Language and Literacy) -- University of South Australia, 1994

Thesis (MA)--University of South Australia, 1998

[Abstract]This doctoral research explored Australian mothers’ unique, engaging, and predominantly enjoyable transitions to early motherhood. Their expectations, beliefs, and experiences were investigated using narrative and thematic analyses underpinned by a feminist, poststructural methodology. The 10 participants in this study were white, middle-class, heterosexual, partnered, and able-bodied women living in south-east Queensland and expecting their first child. In-depth ante- and postnatal interviews were conducted at the 2nd trimester of pregnancy and 8 months post-birth respectively. These women experienced the early motherhood journey as an unsettled period which necessitated the utilisation of four, often contradictory, maternal identities. The four identities, or voices, were Ideal Mother; Challenged, Practical Self; Extended, Spiritual Self; and Independent Self. This research has shown that becoming a mother for contemporary Australian women is simultaneously joyful, thrilling, confronting, depressing, constraining, and empowering. Thus, the transition to motherhood was a complex and chaotic experience which confronted their sense of self. Moreover, it is clear that young women are often under prepared for the paradoxes and intensity of their journeys. My thesis is that for these contemporary Australian women, becoming a mother necessitated drawing on four dominant, often contradictory voices or identities resulting in a complex transitional experience of individual and personal negotiation and integration. The complexity of this life-transition defies simple explanation and solution. Regardless, the findings suggest that all the stories of mothering need to be told to make them equally real, valid, valuable, and normal. Thus can we find and develop new and useful models of modern motherhood to enable policy makers and health practitioners to provide more informed, particular, and empathetic support for new Australian mothers, as well as strengthen future mothers for and feel positive about their mothering careers.

Thesis (MA)--University of South Australia, 1998