The purpose of the research reported in this thesis is to investigate the occurrence and recognition of “limit experience” among some Catholic High School students in their final year at selected secondary colleges in Brisbane. “Limit” experience was defined as an experience that reveals a reality of life beyond the self, beyond the here and now. It may be recognition of our own fragility and vulnerability as much as a joyous awareness of a reality beyond our normal encounter with life.” The research work of the Alistair Hardy Research Centre and of Hay (1987) in particular has centred on the question, asked in various ways: Have you ever been aware of, or influenced by, a presence or power, whether you call it God or not, which is different from your everyday life? The survey instrument for this research was designed to divorce questions on such experiences from the direct reference to the term “religious”, although individuals might indeed interpret them as “religious”. To approach the issue, an extensive open-ended survey was administered to senior high school students. It was designed first to determine the extent of recognition of such experiences among the students and second to examine whether factors such as home background, regular religious practice, type of school, subject choice or co-curricula activities may make a difference in enhancing the awareness of such experience. This research has also been designed to enable comparison with similar studies. Major research in Australia by Flynn (1975, 1985, 1993) highlighted the factors above as influencing student achievement. Flynn also made connections to religious practice and attitudes to church but not to religious experience as such. Robinson and Jackson (1987) had undertaken extensive research on religious experience in Great Britain that also has important parallels to this research. Some of the techniques of both studies and in some cases actual questions have formed part of this research instrument. This research has gone further than both studies by incorporating the Hay (1987) categorisation of types of religious experience to form the basis for direct questions on student experience. The data gathering, treatment and analysis focused on four catholic secondary schools in the Brisbane Archdiocese. While the research focus was by definition limited, and while the results have of necessity to be treated with some caution before wider generalisation, the outcomes of the research do illuminate some of the important issues identified in the literature. The results of the survey showed that over 90% of the respondents could affirm some association with a “limit” experience along the lines of the Hay (1987) framework. With significant strengthening of criteria to allow for meaningful statistical analysis, this reduced to 76% of respondents. Results for this smaller group were shown to be essentially independent of home background, type of school attended, co-curricula programs and level of religious practice. With the significant exception of religious education, their recognition of “limit” experience was also independent of subject choice. This last is in contrast to the earlier work of Robinson and Jackson (1987). Exploratory analyses of the data enabled comparisons to be made with a suggested framework for “spiritual sensitivity” and the context of “relational consciousness”, both of which were first proposed by Hay and Nye (1998). This suggests some possible directions for further research into adolescent spirituality. The exploratory analyses also highlight some of the conflict between the reality of these experiences for students and their experience of dissonance with institutional religion.

When scuba diving under a physical overhead such as a cave, a mine, a shipwreck, or under a virtual overhead due to decompression requirements, it makes it impossible to safely access the surface in the event of an emergency. Therefore, diving with overhead is often described as technical diving. In this research, I address how technical divers in Outaouais, Quebec, practice this risky sport with unforgiving consequences. Based on fieldwork in Outaouais, I focus on divers, including myself, who perform trimix dives deeper than 200 feet. I argue that the process of becoming a deep diver is a lifelong journey where a diver learns to adapt to a milieu hostile to human life. The basic skills are acquired during classes to ensure that a novice diver will survive in this limit-environment. As divers bend the rules and take more risks to go deeper for longer lengths of time, they will go through a series of limit-experiences and near misses that are essential to their development and found to be regenerative. In turn, those limit-experiences and near-miss events shared with teammates create mutual trust. It is this trust that becomes the foundation of the team and allows the team to improve upon existing techniques and increase the depth and difficulty of their dives.

Human sexuality has been overrun with narratives that limit the possibilities of pleasure. Sex-positive workers have the potential to challenge the ways in which these limitations become embodied. In this research I explore narratives of sex education and youth, pleasure as prevention, and the medicalization of sexuality. I engage in collective biography as a way to identify how these narratives shape the way bodies and pleasure get taken up in specific places. Drawing from poststructural feminist theory I propose three ways of reconceptualizing bodies and pleasure as emergent sites of change and potential. Through an analysis of the experiences of sex-positive service workers in Canada, I consider what else, and for whom, bodies, pleasure, and sex education might look like. / Graduate / 0680 0733 0573 / yorkchender@gmail.com

Le concept d’indicible, aussi complexe soit-il, peut se fonder sur une expérience du sensible, et trouver un contexte commun dans les évènements transgressant la limite et pointant un certain chaos. Ceux de la Guerre d’Espagne ont constitué, par de nombreux aspects, des exemples de ces excès impensables. L’impact de l’environnement sur les créateurs s’est entendu dans les traces thématiques qui s’imposent dans les œuvres composées sur les thèmes de la mort, de la violence ou de la guerre : en partant des phénomènes sonores, ont été relevées des figures qui rendent sensible le dépassement de la limite et la connotation chaotique et font écho à ce qui dépasse l’entendement, comme la destruction de l’homme ou l’inintelligibilité de la mort. Ces figures, relevées grâce à des outils de sémiotique (icônes, indices et symboles peirciens, disjoncteurs d’après Rinn, être et faire inspirés de Greimas, sémiose interne que l'analyse structurelle viendra alimenter), s’inscriront dans des champs sémantiques que nous avons relevés comme étant liés au concept d’indicible contextualisé (démesure ; altérité absolue ; irréel ; mort ; abjection…), non seulement en musique, mais aussi dans les autres arts. Nous explorerons la parenté de ces figures relevant parfois d’un niveau pré-sémique. Nous dégagerons des figures de l’indicible partagées par différents compositeurs espagnols dans des œuvres composées sur ce thème et soulignerons des réminiscences chez certains auteurs, tandis que les spécificités compositionnelles et sémantiques manifestant l’indicible évènement seront explicitées, y compris au sein d’une proto-intrigue dont nous observeront les particularités symptomatiques. / The concept of unspeakable, as complex as it may be, can base itself on an experience of the sensitive, and find a common context in the events exceeding the limit and pointing a certain chaos. Those of the Spanish Civil War have constituted, by numerous aspects, examples of these unthinkable excesses. The impact of the environment on the creators has been heard in the thematic traces which are imperative in the works composed on the themes of death, violence or war: from the sound phenomena, some figures making sensitive the exceeding of the limit and chaotic connotation have been highlighted and echo what is beyond belief, as the destruction of man or the inaudibility of death. These figures rose thanks to semiotics’ tools (icons, indications and peircian symbols, breakers (“disjoncteurs ”) according to Rinn , being and doing inspired by Greimas, introversive semiosis that the traditional structural analysis will come to feed), will join semantic fields which we found as being connected to the contextualized concept of unspeakable (immoderation; absolute otherness; unreal; death; abjection …), not only in music, but also in other arts. We shall explore the kinship of these figures being sometimes of a pre-semic level. We will bring out figures of the unspeakable shared by various Spanish composers in works written on this theme and will underline some recollections at certain authors, whereas compositional and semantic specificities showing the unspeakable event will be clarified, including within a “proto-intrigue” whose we will observe the symptomatic peculiarities.

Studien undersöker, kartlägger och synliggör hur erfarenheter av psykisk sjukdom gestaltas och kommuniceras litterärt i tre samtida, nordiska verk: En dåre fri (2010) av Beate Grimsrud, Nonsensprinsessans dagbok: en sjukskriving (2018) av Isabella Nilsson och Jag är gråvit (2018) av Bjørn Rasmussen. Syftet är att synliggöra och fördjupa förståelsen för hur erfarenheter som tycks ifrågasätta språkets gränser kan formuleras och gestaltas litterärt. Med hjälp och mot bakgrund av Michel Foucaults begrepp gränserfarenhet diskuteras relationen mellan språk, gränser och sjukdom. Begreppet, som Foucault definierade som en intensiv erfarenhet som för individen till den yttersta gränsen av både liv och språk, lyfter flera perspektiv som är relevanta för uppsatsen. Utöver användandet av gränserfarenheten i uppsatsen aktualiseras flera teorier som sträcker sig utanför det litteraturvetenskapliga fältet och är anknutna till medicin, språk och sjukvård.   Studien har identifierat ett antal litterära tekniker som visat både sjukdomens konsekvenser och begränsningar – samtidigt som de också blivit en metod att skriva sig ur och bort ifrån dessa. Teknikerna har också visat sig omförhandla flera gränser och därmed upplöst motsättningar mellan exempelvis det friska och sjuka, allvar och komik, styrka och skörhet samt verklighet och fiktion. Studien har visat hur exempelvis användandet av motsatspar, kroppslig metaforik, färgkodssystem, ironi och komik, genrebrott och omskrivningar av existerande uttryck utgör litterära strategier för att framställa och omförhandla tillståndet av psykisk sjukdom. Användandet av den medicinska journalen i en skönlitterär kontext har konstaterats fungera som en litterär teknik för att framställa tystnad och förnekande något som flera teoretiker inom området betonar vara avgörande i framställningen av vansinne. Även skönlitterärt och fiktivt skrivande, oavsett självupplevt eller inte, har visat sig vara ett viktigt tillvägagångssätt för att närma sig en formulering av gränserfarenheten. Begreppet gränserfarenhet har fungerat som ett vitalt begrepp för att närma sig dessa texter. Samtidigt har flera av de litterära tekniker som identifierats tillfört insikt till gränserfarenheten som begrepp då det präglas av paradoxala och mångsidiga aspekter. I synnerhet har det bidragit med att uppmärksamma hur ett ”både-och” tillåts samexistera i såväl litterär gestaltning som i sjukdomserfarenhet vilket i sin tur nyanserat bilden av sjukdomen som formulerbar och formbar.