Thesis, LLD--University of Pretoria, 2005. / Includes summaries in Afrikaans and English. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of South Florida, 2003. / Includes vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 469-503).

Thesis (M.A. in Theological Studies)--Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary, 1996. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 87-93).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2006. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.A.I.S.)--Oregon State University, 2008. / Printout. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 106-113). Also available on the World Wide Web.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Texas Christian University, 2008. / Title from dissertation title page (viewed Feb. 26, 2009). Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references.

This study examines the relationship between a television text and the women in the audience, using Carla Lane's situation comedy, The Mistress [BBC], broadcast in 1985, as a case study. The project is entirely directed by the audience point of view. An eclectic multi-disciplinary approach was taken to devise an 'open' conceptual model of the audience which located women as key actors in the viewing process. The concept of the Skilled Viewer was developed, incorporating elements from feminist film and television theory, reader response theory, and Uses and Gratifications theory. A feminist perspective, systematised by an ethnographic account and feminist sociological principles, guided the qualitative methods of data collection from 14 individual and nine groups of women viewers. Their discussions were recorded, transcribed, categorised, and analysed. Audience responses were classified into Uses and Gratifications categories. Viewers responded on emotional and/or intellectual levels, pointing up concerns relating to identification with stars/characters; aspects of realism; confirmation of personal values; and aesthetic criticism. Responses were defined within a framework of expectation, in terms of anticipations-expressed/fulfilled and/or hopes-expressed/ fulfilled. Viewers' 'interpretive strategies' and their source 'interpretive repertoires' via which they understood and enjoyed the text were explored. Reasons were posited for response. Major findings are as follows. A multi-disciplinary theoretical design supported by a reflexive, compatible methodological approach is effective. Application of the concept of the Skilled Viewer produces a number of findings not available via pre-existing theoretical models. Viewers are active, self-monitoring participants in the viewing process. The text/audience relationship is in constant negotiation. Viewers' enjoyment depends to a great extent on the priorities with which they approach it. Placing theoretical priority on the female viewer can prove methodologically effective. Legitimating their voice successfully empowers the women in the audience.

This thesis aims to interrogate the notion that biography is a 'traditional, old-fashioned' genre immune to change through an investigation of the work of contemporary female biographers. Whilst biography is constrained by what could be defined as an historicist definition of fact, evidence that is immutable and cannot be altered to make a psychological or artistic point, the genre has been transformed because women's life writing has taught us that conventional biography is inadequate for telling the narratives of women's lives. Women writing biography have made experiments. Whilst some have failed, female biographers have demonstrated that the form can be adapted to incorporate a post-modern understanding of the self and the role of the author, and act as a valuable medium for telling the stories of the lives of women who have been hidden or ignored by history. The first two chapters provide a theoretical and historical framework for the writing of individual female biographers. Today a feminist epistemology has emerged- a more sophisticated post-modern form that is concerned with the theories or grounds of Knowledge rather than with the politics of feminism that dominated the biographies of the seventies. Chapters Three to Seven are devoted to contemporary female biographers who have made a significant contribution to the genre and thus helped to redefine the form. The final chapter is a synthesis of the conversations undertaken with women biographers for this thesis in order to provide a conceptual framework for my conclusions.

The introduction discusses the problematics involved in developing a feminist theory of late Renaissance and early modem witchcraft. It includes an overview of both Renaissance feminist theory and witchcraft studies, and posits that the witch is a hybrid, multivalent figure. Chapter one examines contemporary sources for portrayals of witches. The second chapter analyses the roles of witches, hags, and viragos in The Facrie Queene. Throughout the work their femininity is problematised, its meaning displaced onto horrific figures or fragmented into "good" and "bad" women. Both inspire dis-ease. Lyly's Endimion introduces a witch in the Thessalian tradition and women whose transgressions lie in daring to act and speak. Chapter three expands the definition of witch to other unruly women, including the shrew and the power-wielding woman; it also proves that Dipsas' power is the strongest in the play. Chapter four analyses the way in which the definition of witcheraft can be imposed on a woman by exterior societal forces, with reference to The Witch of Edmonton. Also discussed are the role of cursing and the problematics of female sexuality. Chapters five through eight discuss Shakespeare. Shakespeare's Joan of Arc is fragmented and reflects the varying views about her, and again shows how one woman may be variously defined. With Joan's death, Margaret of Anjou becomes the virile woman in the tetralogy. She and other women who share her verbal potency are condemned not only by the men in the plays but also by critics who erroneously take the negative view as definitive. Macbeth concerns itself with exploration of gender, androgyny, power (occult and otherwise) and its betrayal. Chapter eight outlines how the women in other Shakespearean plays do not achieve dramatic impact as witches because they are robbed of primary agency in the plays. Chapter nine demonstrates how Middleton distances his Heccat and proves that the real witches and villains lie in the structure of the patriarchy of The Witch. Lyly combines cunning woman with Sibyl in Mother Bombie; wit defines wisdom. Chapter eleven presents The Wise-Woman of Hogsdon, an anomaly in that the witchfigure and unruly characters of both sexes are not condemned and have happy resolutions. The conclusion summarises briefly and outlines areas of further study. Appendix A is a table; Appendix B outlines the role of cursing as gendered speech in Shakespeare's first tetralogy.

abstract: Authenticity has been conceived of in several different ways with various meanings and implications. The existential conception has the advantage of tracking authenticity from the phenomenology of human beings and their lived, social experience. From Jean-Paul Sartre and Martin Heidegger’s criteria for existentialist authenticity, I develop the argument that authentic, feminist projects are necessarily one mode of being authentic within a patriarchal society. In defining a conception of authenticity out of Sartre and Heidegger’s terms, the question of what qualifies as an authentic feminist project arises as well as the question of what sort of content qualifies as authentic. While Simone De Beauvoir does not focus on authenticity in her ethics, she does give a basis for a value oriented, content relevant aspect of existentialism generally. Insofar as authenticity is an existentialist concept, feminist authenticity is one valuable and worthwhile project within a social patriarchy, as it promotes existence as freedom. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Philosophy 2017