While there is a long history of rhetorical studies that focus on oral and written discourses, the relatively recent trend of studying rhetorical images, materiality, and rhetorical bodies presents a shift toward an expanded perspective on what constitutes texts and what can be considered rhetorical. The study of bodies as rhetorical texts prompts the questions of how language is material and visual in nature. In my dissertation I examine the relationship between rhetoric and the body through Judith Butler's theories of materiality and performativity. Using Butler's theories of performance as a lens, I analyze the rhetoric of plastic and cosmetic surgery and demonstrate the role of performance in the perpetuation of and response to rhetoric of the body. Cosmetic and plastic surgery are performatives in that they not only confer a binding power on the action performed by altering the body through surgical and non-surgical means, but also initiate various citational practices within the field of medicine and in popular culture (through various mediums such as television, magazines, billboards, and websites). These procedures result in images and claims that authorize particular social expectations of beauty, youth, and sexuality.I examine a range of mass media texts related to cosmetic surgery (television shows, magazines, news clips, websites, and films) that portray different normative and deviant performativity of the body. In my research, I include interviews from volunteers in Los Angeles; my analysis involves local individuals' relationships to plastic and cosmetic surgery and their various body performatives in terms of normativity and agency. By comparing global and local perspectives, I argue that media sensationalizes the agent/victim binary in order to sell plastic and cosmetic surgeries, as well as related texts. The local stories serve to counter assumptions about the role of power in plastic surgery, revealing a far more complicated relationship between clients, rhetoric, and the reasons behind their surgeries; the agent/victim binary that is emphasized in mass media fails to capture lived experience and creates a detrimental rhetoric of empowerment.

Bill C-31 represents an important piece of policy in the history of Canadian citizenship. It takes its place in a dialog of policy and resistance about who ‘gets in’ and who is excluded from Canadian citizenship. By critically reading the text of Bill C-31 through other policy texts, academic arguments and research, and activist texts, this analysis elucidates historical connections between relations of capital, immigration, labour, and the criminal justice system. It works from a materialist feminist framework, critical of race, gender, class, and sexual orientation as systems that work through one another in dialectical and historically specific ways. The analysis argues that Bill C-31 is a continuation of relations of capital and that a dialectical conceptualization can yield strategies for a revolutionary praxis that offers hope for the transformation of existing social relations towards new and more humane ways of relating to one another.

Bill C-31 represents an important piece of policy in the history of Canadian citizenship. It takes its place in a dialog of policy and resistance about who ‘gets in’ and who is excluded from Canadian citizenship. By critically reading the text of Bill C-31 through other policy texts, academic arguments and research, and activist texts, this analysis elucidates historical connections between relations of capital, immigration, labour, and the criminal justice system. It works from a materialist feminist framework, critical of race, gender, class, and sexual orientation as systems that work through one another in dialectical and historically specific ways. The analysis argues that Bill C-31 is a continuation of relations of capital and that a dialectical conceptualization can yield strategies for a revolutionary praxis that offers hope for the transformation of existing social relations towards new and more humane ways of relating to one another.

The aim of this dissertation is to make a contribution to the historiography of North American anthropology in the 1970s. Specifically, it asserts that by focussing exclusively on academic literature, the historiographical representations of materialist anthropology in this period are incomplete. Starting with the work by Sherry Ortner and William Roseberry on the development of Marxist anthropology and their analyses of the strengths and weaknesses of the political economy and structural Marxist / mode of production trends in the discipline, it then turns to the explication of two case studies, from the Canadian context in the 1970s, where these approaches confronted each other directly. In particular, it examines the application of anthropological theories to the representation of Indigenous economies in disputes about resource development projects in the Canadian North. In these two examples — a court case, Kanatewat v. James Bay Development Corporation, where the Cree of James Bay sought an injunction against the construction of a series of dams which would flood large parts of their homeland, and a tribunal, the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Inquiry, where the Dene and Inuit sought to demonstrate that the construction of a massive gas pipeline would irrevocably damage the land and their societies and economies as a result — advocates for the projects adopted a political economy orientation to justify development in the regions, while those working on behalf of the Indigenous groups adopted an approach based on mode of production analyses to demonstrate the continuing vitality of Indigenous economies and social structures. More generally, I will show that the historiography of the period does not accurately reflect the relative impact of the two approaches on the wider world beyond the discipline; the conclusion includes a discussion of this problem as a problem shared by the historiography of anthropology more generally.

This thesis traces the etymology of 'materialism' using a Foucauldian discourse analysis to bring to the fore the word's use as discursive mode of power. Through examining over 5000 texts, spanning across 400 years, I trace a line from the origins of materialism in philosophical thought of the Renaissance and Enlightenment eras to its uptake in American rhetoric and integration into the consumer behaviour literature. This approach leads to a reconceptualization of materialism. Commonly viewed in consumer studies as a measurable value, trait, or motive inherent in the consumer, I situate materialism as external to the consumer. The word's history, especially in consumer studies, demonstrates that it embodies moral condemnations. I find that accusations of materialism rise in discourses during moments of intense social dislocations. It is wielded by social groups as part of a play for status. In this analysis, concepts of power as per Foucault and social distinctions as per Bourdieu, are used to explain the motives residing behind the use of the word. These motives, which reflect sociocultural dynamics and geo-political agendas, manifest in the meanings attributed to 'materialism', and the directionality of the allegation. Thus I argue that 'materialism', at its essence, is an epithet used to advance or demobilise a set of interests. This is what I term, delegitimizing discourse - words used to debase other social groups. Studying 'materialism' as a case in point, I note that groups use delegitimizing discourse either an assimilative measure - rhetoric geared towards indoctrination - or as a defensive mechanism - rhetoric used to debase threatening elements and behaviours. It is hoped that this new perspective will encourage academics to be rethink their approach to studying materialism, or in the least, to be aware of what is being measured, and what moral judgements and interests they are perpetuating through their continued studies.

O presente estudo busca apontar os principais preceitos da principal metodologia desenvolvida por Moacy Cirne para o estudo das histórias em quadrinhos, a Semiologia Materialista. Para tal, observamos o contexto acadêmico em que suas obras se inserem, de modo a apontar suas principais influências e explorar seus conceitos mais relevantes. / The present research intends to point out the main precepts of Moacy Cirne\'s most important methodology developed for the study of comics, the Materialist Semiology. To this end, we observe the academic context in which his works are inserted, in order to point out his main influences and to explore his most relevant concepts.

Esse trabalho sintetiza a busca por uma orientação alternativa para o tratamento teórico-prático da determinação judicial da pena, com destaque especial para as particularidades referentes à fixação da pena-base. Para tanto, de saída, foi revisitado o discurso tradicional sobre a punição, de sorte a explicitar, já a partir desse campo de legitimação da pena, algumas das principais limitações das abordagens ditas oficiais a respeito dos fundamentos e finalidades atribuídos à reprimenda penal. Em seguida, buscou-se empreender uma crítica materialista da punição, o que foi feito por meio de uma abordagem histórico-social da pena e das instituições penais, das quais se examinou a origem e consolidação, até o desaguar no atual quadro de encarceramento em massa. Por fim, analisou-se as principais contribuições teóricas ao debate sobre a determinação da punição, de maneira a que fossem aduzidas as suas mais graves insuficiências, e, ao cabo, esboçou-se indicações, ainda que gerais, voltadas a uma atuação penal fundamentalmente referenciada na necessidade de se minorar os efeitos reconhecidamente dessocializadores do cárcere. / This paper summarizes the search for an alternative orientation to the theoretical and practical treatment of judicial sentencing, with particular attention to the particularities regarding the base sentencing. To do so, the traditional discourse on punishment was revisited, in order to clarify, from this field of penalty legitimacy, some of the main limitations of the so called official approach concerning the foundations and purposes attributed to criminal reprimand. Next, we sought to undertake a materialist critique of punishment, which was done through a socio-historical approach of sentences and penal institutions, whose origin and consolidation was examined, to the current flow of mass incarceration. Finally, the main theoretical contributions to the debates on the determination of punishment were analyzed, so that they were put forward to its most serious shortcomings, and indications were laid out, albeit general, geared primarily to a criminal action referenced on the need to mitigate the well known disocialisating effects of the jail.

No description available.

[pt] O objetivo desse estudo foi investigar a relação entre a percepção dos filhos acerca das crenças e valores materialistas dos pais com os próprios sistemas de crenças e valores em seu percurso de desenvolvimento. Participaram da pesquisa 892 jovens, moradores dos 27 estados brasileiros e com idades entre 18 e 25 anos. De acordo com a fundamentação teórica, os pais são os principais responsáveis pela transmissão de crenças e valores aos filhos. Esse processo é dinâmico, interacional e pode ser alterado de acordo com as ênfases socioculturais e históricas de cada geração. Os jovens de 18 a 25 anos pertencem à Geração Y e seus pais, às gerações Baby Boomers e X. O estudo mostrou que, apesar das inúmeras e intensas transformações entre essas gerações no Ocidente, os valores e crenças materialistas foram transmitidos pelos pais durante a trajetória de vida dos filhos. As crenças sobre status, lucro, riqueza e autoridade podem ser utilizadas para definir os valores materialistas. A pesquisa apresentou que, no percurso da parentalidade material, a punição e a rejeição durante a adolescência estão possivelmente associadas à aquisição de valores e crenças materialistas no futuro. O estudo também apontou que, a transmissão geracional de valores e crenças materialistas pode ressaltar os objetivos de vida extrínsecos durante a trajetória de desenvolvimento. Acredita-se que esse estudo tenha contribuído para a área da Psicologia da Saúde e do Desenvolvimento. / [en] The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between children s perceptions of their parents beliefs and material values with their own belief systems and values in their developmental path. Eight hundred and ninety two young people (892), residents of the 27 Brazilian states and between the ages of 18 and 25 participated in the study. According to the theoretical framework, parents are the main responsible for the transmission of beliefs and values to their children. This process is dynamic, interactive and can be altered according to the sociocultural and historical emphases of each generation. Young people between the ages of 18 and 25 belong to generation Y and their parents, to the generations Baby Boomers and X. The study showed that, parents transmitted materialistic values and beliefs during their children s life trajectory, despite the numerous and intense transformations between these generations that happened in the West. Beliefs about status, profit, wealth, and authority can be used to define the materialistic values. The research showed that, in the course of material parenting, punishment and rejection during adolescence are possibly associated with the acquisition of materialistic values and beliefs in the future. The study also pointed out that the generational transmission of values and materialistic beliefs highlights the extrinsic life goals during the development trajectory. It is deemed that this study has contributed to the area of Health and Developmental Psychology.

<p>French Feminism has little to do with feminism in France. While in the U.S. this now canonical body of work designates almost exclusively the work of three theorists—Hélène Cixous, Luce Irigaray, and Julia Kristeva—in France, these same thinkers are actually associated with the rejection of feminism. If some scholars have on this basis passionately denounced French Feminism as an American invention, there exists to date no comprehensive analysis of that invention or of its effects. Why did theorists who were at best marginal to feminist thought and political practice in France galvanize feminist scholars working in the United States? Why does French Feminism provoke such an intense affective response in France to this date? Drawing on the fields of feminist and queer studies, literary studies, and history, “Inventing ‘French Feminism:’ A Critical History” offers a transnational account of the emergence and impact of one of U.S. academic feminism’s most influential bodies of work. The first half of the dissertation argues that, although French Feminism has now been dismissed for being biologically essentialist and falsely universal, feminists working in the U.S. academy of the 1980s, particularly feminist literary critics and postcolonial feminist critics, deployed the work of Cixous, Irigaray, and Kristeva to displace what they perceived as U.S. feminist literary criticism’s essentialist reliance on the biological sex of the author and to challenge U.S. academic feminism’s inattention to racial differences between women. French Feminism thus found traction among feminist scholars to the extent that it was perceived as addressing some of U.S. feminism’s most pressing political issues. The second half of the dissertation traces French feminist scholars’ vehement rejection of French Feminism to an affectively charged split in the French women’s liberation movement of the 1970s and shows that this split has resulted in an entrenched opposition between sexual difference and materialist feminism, an opposition that continues to structure French feminist debates to this day. “Inventing ‘French Feminism:’ A Critical History” ends by arguing that in so far as the U.S. invention of French Feminism has contributed to the emergence of U.S. queer theory, it has also impeded its uptake in France. Taken as a whole, this dissertation thus implicitly argues that the transnational circulation of ideas is simultaneously generative and disabling.</p> / Dissertation