Two female gangsters, locked in a bitter rivalry, battle for control of Sydney’s underworld in the Roaring Twenties while fighting the corrupt police and legal system run by men. Based on the true story of Kate Leigh and Tilly Devine.

The purpose of this thesis was to examine and explore themes within Swedish gangster rap lyrics. The method was content analysis with the purpose of coding content from every new gangster rap song released in Sweden 2019 to 2023 appearing in the top 50 lists each month in the archive “Swedishcharts.com”. The number of new songs released differed in quantity year to year, and the total number of Swedish gangster rap songs in every year combined was243 songs. The main themes appearing in Swedish gangster rap were discovered as: violence, guns, drugs, misogyny, gangs, and environment. There were also themes appearing that didnot appear as commonly such as: political awareness, police harassment, and ethnicity. The extent to which themes referring to criminality and violence resonated with media representations of the genre was not common. More likely, the subgenre could be interpretednarratively and critically to reveal depictions of difficult environments, with several aspects not mentioned in the media that potentially portray real experiences for the gangster rappers. In cases where the themes could resonate with the Swedish media representations, they were often expressed in a braggadocious or exaggerated way, with possible causes like protecting the authenticity of the genre or potentially articulating difficulties within society. A comparison with how violence and criminality refer to relevant themes in the content analysis showed a nuanced pattern as to whether the media representation of gangster rap was equivalent to criminal activity in society.

Absent Presence: Women in American Gangster Narrative investigates women characters in American gangster narratives through the principal roles accorded to them. It argues that women in these texts function as an “absent presence,” by which I mean that they are a convention of the patriarchal gangster landscape and often with little import while at the same time they cultivate resistant strategies from within this backgrounded positioning. Whereas previous scholarly work on gangster texts has identified how women are characterized as stereotypes, this dissertation argues that women characters frequently employ the marginal positions to which they are relegated for empowering effect. This dissertation begins by surveying existing gangster scholarship. There is a preoccupation with male characters in this work, as is the case in most gangster texts themselves. This preoccupation is a result of several factors, such as defining the genre upon criteria that exclude women, promoting a male-centred canon as a result, and making assumptions about audience composition and taste that overlook women’s (and some women characters’) interest in gangster texts. Consequently, although the past decade saw women scholars bringing attention to female characters, research on male characters continues to dominate the field. My project thus fills this gap by not only examining the methods by which women characters navigate the male-dominated underworld but also including female-centred gangster narratives. Subsequent chapters focus on women’s predominant roles as mothers, molls, and wives as well as their infrequent role as female gangsters. The mother chapter demonstrates how the gangster’s mother deploys her effacement as an idealized figure in order to disguise her transgressive machinations (White Heat, The Sopranos). The moll chapter examines how this character’s presence as a reforming influence for the male criminal is integral to the earliest narratives. However, a shift to male relationships in mid- to late-1920s gangster texts transforms the moll’s status to that of a moderator (Underworld, The Great Gatsby). On the other hand, subsequent non-canonical texts feature molls as protagonists and illustrate the potential appeal of the gangster figure to women spectators (Three on a Match). Subsequently, the wife chapter explores texts that show presence is manifested in the wife’s cultivation of a traditional family image, while absence is evident in her exposure of this image as a façade via her husband’s activities (The Godfather, Goodfellas). In the following female gangster chapter, I examine how gender functions to render this rare character a literal absent presence such that she is inconceivable as a subject (Lady Scarface, Lady Gangster). Expanding upon this examination of gender, a final chapter on the African-American female gangster (in Set It Off and The Wire) explores how sexuality, race, and female—as well as “gangsta”—masculinity intersect to create this character’s simultaneous hypervisibility and invisibility. By examining women’s roles that often are overlooked in a male-dominated textual type and academic field, this dissertation draws scholarly attention to the ways that peripheral status can offer a stealthy locus for self-assertion.

Absent Presence: Women in American Gangster Narrative investigates women characters in American gangster narratives through the principal roles accorded to them. It argues that women in these texts function as an “absent presence,” by which I mean that they are a convention of the patriarchal gangster landscape and often with little import while at the same time they cultivate resistant strategies from within this backgrounded positioning. Whereas previous scholarly work on gangster texts has identified how women are characterized as stereotypes, this dissertation argues that women characters frequently employ the marginal positions to which they are relegated for empowering effect. This dissertation begins by surveying existing gangster scholarship. There is a preoccupation with male characters in this work, as is the case in most gangster texts themselves. This preoccupation is a result of several factors, such as defining the genre upon criteria that exclude women, promoting a male-centred canon as a result, and making assumptions about audience composition and taste that overlook women’s (and some women characters’) interest in gangster texts. Consequently, although the past decade saw women scholars bringing attention to female characters, research on male characters continues to dominate the field. My project thus fills this gap by not only examining the methods by which women characters navigate the male-dominated underworld but also including female-centred gangster narratives. Subsequent chapters focus on women’s predominant roles as mothers, molls, and wives as well as their infrequent role as female gangsters. The mother chapter demonstrates how the gangster’s mother deploys her effacement as an idealized figure in order to disguise her transgressive machinations (White Heat, The Sopranos). The moll chapter examines how this character’s presence as a reforming influence for the male criminal is integral to the earliest narratives. However, a shift to male relationships in mid- to late-1920s gangster texts transforms the moll’s status to that of a moderator (Underworld, The Great Gatsby). On the other hand, subsequent non-canonical texts feature molls as protagonists and illustrate the potential appeal of the gangster figure to women spectators (Three on a Match). Subsequently, the wife chapter explores texts that show presence is manifested in the wife’s cultivation of a traditional family image, while absence is evident in her exposure of this image as a façade via her husband’s activities (The Godfather, Goodfellas). In the following female gangster chapter, I examine how gender functions to render this rare character a literal absent presence such that she is inconceivable as a subject (Lady Scarface, Lady Gangster). Expanding upon this examination of gender, a final chapter on the African-American female gangster (in Set It Off and The Wire) explores how sexuality, race, and female—as well as “gangsta”—masculinity intersect to create this character’s simultaneous hypervisibility and invisibility. By examining women’s roles that often are overlooked in a male-dominated textual type and academic field, this dissertation draws scholarly attention to the ways that peripheral status can offer a stealthy locus for self-assertion.

Taiwan area has administered local autonomy for over fifty years. At first its authority was mainly based on an administrative order called the Guidelines for Local Autonomy and then the Local System Law at present. Among the powers vested by the law, veto is an important weapon for the local administration to balance legislative power. However, the veto power has yet to be further elaborated for it was used in just a little more than 500 cases all over Taiwan area in the past sixty years. This essay tries to probe both the theoretical and practical facets of the veto system. The local system of this country adopted an administration and legislature separation system. In case a conflict should occur between the two powers, its time for veto to help solve the dilemma. As a matter of fact, government is responsible for proposing important bills, the officials can defend its policies while attending the legislature for interpellation or proposal deliberation. In addition, budgets are only proposed by local administrations. Local legislatures are restrained from increasing the sizes of the proposed budgets by law. So while deliberating on draft resolutions, the legislature would consider officials¡¦ opinions and not to make less feasible resolutions. Despite an unfeasible resolution should be made, the administration would rather seek other ways out than veto it in order to maintain the harmony between the two powers. More over, the content of the Local System Law has put more weight on administration power so as to make the legislature conservative in enforcing its power lest its resolutions should be vetoed. In recent years, democracy has enrooted into the daily lives of the society; Local political environment change drastically and divided government is now a commonplace; Local cliques have either reformed or vanished; Gangsters and money politics enter local legislatures and struggle for personal interests. The administrations are facing an overwhelmingly new eco system in local legislatures. Comparing the factors that induce a veto, it is found that the conflict for personal interest is the most common cause. The veto system is a mechanism of instrument equilibrium. Administration and legislation should stand on an equal position to discuss veto dispute to reach the purposes of the separation of powers between the executive and legislature. This essay suggests the central government that the time limit, quorum, scope and method in deliberating a veto should be explicitly defined in law so as to make sure a healthier veto system.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Bowling Green State University, 2009. / Document formatted into pages; contains xi, 452 p. : col. ill. Includes bibliographical references.

My thesis explores what I call the "Sopranos Experience," which draws upon both the historical conventions of the gangster genre as well as the aesthetics and economics of pay-cable television to complicate The Sopranos' (HBO, 1999-2007) psychological relationship with the 21st-century, neoliberal American audience. The Sopranos Experience explicates how wavering identifications and dis-identifications that develop for the spectator through the series' form and content draw the responsibility of an audience away from moral ultimatums that attempt to finalize their experience with the genre, and towards a more personal ethical entanglement with the characters and their socioeconomic anxieties and desires. The ethical entanglement highlighted by The Sopranos reveals an entanglement that has always existed for the gangster genre throughout its history that has been recognized, but not thoroughly explored by previous gangster scholarship. Because of the The Sopranos' psychotherapy story arc through Tony's (James Gandolfini) relationship with Dr. Melfi (Lorraine Bracco), psychoanalysis plays a key role in the Sopranos Experience. The serial form and narrowcasting develop a more in-depth psychological relationship between the spectator and the characters than seen in previous gangster genre films. Through the psychoanalytic theory of Jean Laplanche, I argue the spectator's closer relationship with the series not only results in the spectator's constitution of self through the fictional characters, but that this constitution of self extends into their lived, everyday experiences with others. In this discussion of the psychological connection between the spectator and the characters, their shared anxieties about and desires for socioeconomic stability in a neoliberal environment mobilizes the spectator's relationship not just with the series, but with others in their lives. In recognizing their atomized role in the viewership experience, The Sopranos allows the spectator to make ethical demands about their atomization and vulnerability in a neoliberal society. Because they can recognize the collective's similar situation, the spectator is situated to make larger demands about socioeconomic systems that atomize the individual.

South Korea is internationally well known for its ethnic and cultural homogeneity, economic and technical success, and strong sense of nationalism. The peoples of South Korea have flourished economically after a series of colonizations, industrialization and political chaos. Over the past few decades, Korea has gained interest internationally for its entertainment industry through the Korean Wave (or Hallyu in Korean). Korean Wave is a term that refers to the increase in the popularity of South Korean culture since the late 1990’s due to Korean music, television shows and fashion. The Korean Wave first swept and captivated the hearts of citizens in East and Southeast Asia and now has expanded its popularity beyond Asia and has captivated millions of people all over the world. After a steady increase in cultural exports as a result of the Korean Wave since 2005, the Korean Tourism Organization (KTO) has realized the value in the exportation of Korean culture and goods and has now created programs that capitalize on this popularity and increase tourists South Korea. Korean popular music or K-Pop is a large and profitable aspect of the Korean Wave. According to CNBC in Move Over Bieber — Korean Pop Music Goes Global “The [k-pop] industry’s revenues hit about $3.4 billion in 2011, according to the Korea Creative Content Agency (KOCCA), a government group that promotes the country’s cultural initiatives. K-pop’s exports also rose to $180 million last year — jumping 112 percent compared to 2010. Exports have been growing on an average annual rate of nearly 80 percent since 2007.” And that “for every $100 of K-Pop exports, there was an average increase of $395 worth of I.T. goods such as cell phones or electronics that were being exported” (Naidu-Ghelani). The exportation of K-pop music and cultural can be seen as an economic success story. But in fact, for the Black American community it is the exportation of cultural appropriation and the degradation of Black American culture. The Korean Wave is packaging, promoting and exporting a “window into Korean culture, society and language that can be as educational as a trip to Korea. South Korea is using the Korean wave to promote its traditional culture within Korea and abroad” (“Hallyu, the Korean Wave” 1). Despite South Korea’s strong sense of nationalism and cultural homogeneity, its pop music has a distinct Black American musical influence. Rap and hip-hop musical style/culture (which is distinctly affiliated with representative of Black Americans) is an integral, if not necessary, part of Korean popular music. The synchronized dance moves, attractive idols and “rap/hip hop” style draws in millions of fans from every walk of life all over the world. The “hip hop” dance moves, clothing and lyrics that dominate Korean popular music, however crosses the line of cultural appreciation and instead can be defined as cultural appropriation.

Long overshadowed by the subsequent 1960s ‘Boom’, Cuban novels of the 1950s have been confined to the backwater of literary analysis, often grouped together and dismissed as mere social realism like their Spanish counterparts, or described as inferior. The spatial has been similarly overlooked in literary analysis in favour of a focus on stylistic experimentation, narrative structure, characterisation and the temporal. More recently, however, theorists such as Mitchell (1980) and (1989), and Wegner (2002), have argued that literature has become increasingly spatial, and that a greater focus on spatial analysis is needed. Furthermore, conceptions of space in literature have moved from the static notion of ‘setting’ and identification within a specific location and time, to embrace the function of actual physical spaces, whether exterior or interior, public or private, embedded or liminal, juxtaposed, dynamic, static or fluid. One Cuban novel of the 1950s has already been discussed from a spatial perspective - El acoso (1956) by Alejo Carpentier. Using the two previous studies on spatiality in this novel as a starting point (Stanton [1993] and Vásquez [1996]), this analysis expands on the conclusions made by these studies, stressing the importance of water imagery, and demonstrating that spaces in El acoso are essentially dynamic and female-gendered, arguing that the crisis experienced by the acosado is actually one of masculine identity. Building on the expanded analysis of space in El acoso, three lesser-known Cuban novels of the 1950s are then considered from the perspective of space: Los Valedontes (1953) by Alcides Iznaga, Romelia Vargas (1952) by Surama Ferrer, and La trampa (1956) by Enrique Serpa. The socio-economic, political and cultural backcloth for the novels is set out, before an investigation into theories of space, both literary and non-literary, is conducted. Spaces in Los Valedontes reveal that in the rural domain, sexual identities are stable with conventional masculine hegemony virtually uncontested. Spaces in Romelia Vargas demonstrate that in the urban domain, female sexual identity, albeit historically suppressed, triumphs over the traditionally dominant male norm, whilst a study of spaces in La trampa demonstrates that not only are gangsters, policemen and homosexuals shown to occupy particularly challenged positions, but also that constructions of mainstream Cuban masculinity are under threat. The conclusion compares the function of spaces across all four novels, adding new insights into existing theories of literary space where appropriate. This thesis, therefore, tests the hypothesis that the manipulation of space in these novels constitutes material worthy of study, showing that spaces are dynamic and challenging when female-gendered, and constituting a threat to the hegemony exerted by traditional models of masculinity. Spaces in these novels demonstrate how the early part of the 1950s was a period in which an unpredictable array of contested positions was exposed through cultural, racial, gender and sexual stereotypes, leaving conventional norms of identity open to question.

Durant l’entre-deux-guerres, les figures de truand ont proliféré dans la production culturelle.Les conditions socio-économiques ont historiquement favorisé l’essor d’une criminalité qui a largement été représentée dans la culture de masse, les films, les romans policiers et les pièces de théâtre de cette période. Les figures de truands sont d’autant plus protéiformes que les relations de pouvoir ont été bouleversées : les autorités officielles ont été contestées,les frontières de la légalité redéfinies et, avec l’avènement du Troisième Reich, les anciens contestataires ont accédé au pouvoir. Les personnages criminels prennent ainsi des significations ambivalentes : ils peuvent servir le contrôle social, imposer des normes et justifier des mesures de surveillance auprès de la population, mais aussi incarner une résistance aux pouvoirs en place, indiquant des échappatoires dans les dispositifs de contrôle et de nouveaux modes de vie. Se fondant sur les théories de Michel Foucault, cette thèse examine les discours – sociaux,politiques, scientifiques – à l’œuvre dans la production culturelle et les instrumentalisations– idéologiques, esthétiques ou pratiques – de ces personnages. Elle fait apparaître que les truands participent de logiques punitives et disciplinaires qui assujettissent le public, mais qu’ils remettent également en cause les pouvoirs et les discours qui façonnent leurs représentations.Ce travail montre en outre que, la culture de masse s’adaptant aux désirs de ses consommateurs,les truands peuvent faire l’objet d’une réappropriation du public. Ces personnages se font les vecteurs de nouvelles pratiques culturelles et de nouveaux liens sociaux. / The cultural productions of the interwar years were marked by the proliferation of representations of the mobster figure. Historically, the socio-economic context facilitated the emergence of a certain criminality which started being widely depicted in mass culture including films, crimen ovels and drama. The mobster figure depicted in these productions turns out to be all the more versatile since power relations were going through profound changes at that time : the official authorities were being contested, the limits of legality were redefined and with the advent of the Third Reich, those who had once challenged power eventually acceded to it. The representations of mobsters therefore acquired ambiguous meanings. These characters could very well support social control by imposing norms and justifying measures of surveillance orembody resistance against the establishment, pointing out loopholes in control systems and promoting new life styles. Based on Michel Foucault’s works, this dissertation examines the social, scientific and political discourses featured in the cultural productions of that periodas well as the ideological, esthetical and practical instrumentalisation of these characters. This dissertation argues that mobsters may appear as participants of punitive and disciplinary systems which subdue the people, but may also be questioning the powers and discourses that shape their representations. This work further demonstrates that, because mass culture usually adapts itself to its consumers, the mobsters may also be taken on by the audience, being the promoters of new cultural practices and new social bonds.