This dissertation provides an understanding of Sediqeh Dowlatabadi's notion of modernity and her contribution to the Iranian women's movement by an examination of her life and writings. In particular, the dissertation pays attention to her role as a newspaper publisher of Zaban-e Zanan (Women's Tongue) and director of the Kanun-e Banuvan (Women's Society.) Dowlatabadi's understanding of her social condition was based on the space she found herself within at different phases of her life; the concept of modernity she held in her youth, which was partially inhibited by societal expectations, was not the view of modernity she ascribed to in the later stages of her career and has become known for as a pioneer of Iranian women's rights.In Chapter Two, Dowlatabadi's formative environment and benefits from a politically and culturally fluid space because of her family's heterodox religious ties and participation in events leading up to and during the Iranian Constitutional Revolution (1905-1911 CE) are examined. In this environment Sediqeh received a strong education but continued to adhere to many common cultural practices. Thereafter, in Chapter Three, Dowlatabadi's actions and writings during the first run of her publication are examined. "A Pitiful Story," which is a piece of Dowlatabadi's fiction from the period, is analyzed utilizing neo-historicist criticism. During this time period the public space allowed her to imagine a somewhat more liberal notion of modernity than many of her contemporaries. In Chapter Four, Dowlatabadi's support to go abroad and reasons for moving to an international space are considered. Her interactions with the international women's movement and the new space she found herself in are analyzed in Chapter Five; regardless, she remained true to her own Iranian-ness above all else. Finally, in Chapter Six, Dowlatabadi's return to Iran is deconstructed as is her behavior of working within the Pahlavi system to oppose it.Dowlatabadi made many unique contributions to the Iranian women's movement and the international women's movement. Dowlatabadi, in her role as an advocate of Iranian modernity, created a façade for herself as an "every woman" which other Iranian women could identify with and aspire to be.

The modern principle of freedom of subjectivity sets a moral standard which radically departs from Aristotle’s doctrine of the mean: modern moral agents, exemplified by the rising middle class, are granted the right to develop extreme dispositions towards goods like honour and wealth. Given that Aristotle considers such goods divisible in the sense that when one person gets more another gets less―the basic definition of distributive injustice―it isn’t surprising that modern philosophers like Kant have trouble reconciling this right with duty to others. Failing to resolve this dilemma satisfactorily in ethical terms, Kant and others turn to aesthetics, but Kant, at least, takes no account there of moral agents’ interest in the actual existence of goods. In this respect, the alternative to the Kantian aesthetic response I document in my dissertation is more Stoic than modern. This response, the modern mediocre-artist narrative, features a mediocre artist who fails to achieve the new standard of distributive justice and a genius who ostensibly succeeds. Though other critics discuss the ethical dimension of mediocre-artist narratives, they don’t consider the possibility that the mediocre artist’s failure might be due to the ethical dilemma just described. They therefore tend to uphold uncritically the narratives’ negative judgments of mediocrity, ascribing the latter’s failure to egotism. By contrast, I examine the genius’ artistic efforts for evidence of a similar failure. Ultimately, I demonstrate that the genius does indeed fail, albeit less spectacularly, arguing on this basis that egotistical characterizations of mediocrity are unjust. But the mediocre aren’t the only victims: in “concealing” genius’ failure, mediocre-artist narratives ignore unmet claims on its fruits. Finally, I invoke Derrida’s notion of the “lesser violence” to outline a new genre that recognizes the unattainability of the modern standard of justice. I call this genre morally progressive, rejecting Jürgen Habermas’ view that freedom of subjectivity has hit a dead end, and that we must backtrack to a philosophical turning indicated but not taken by Hegel, namely, the path of intersubjective freedom.

Spanish women writers that establish their literary careers early in twentieth century find themselves at an interesting historical crossroads as the world changes from an agrarian to an industrial paradigm. On one hand, this change leads to a strong current of traditionalism, to which most male writers adhere, as it offers the attractive idea of return to a pre-modern simplicity; on the other, this change opens up possibilities for social improvement and participation for those groups traditionally excluded from power. Embracing this change poses the opportunity for female subjects to reshape fundamental structures of society and, in sum, eventually create a different world where women can become full citizens. Blanca de los Ríos, Concha Espina, Carmen de Burgos, María Lejárraga, and Caterina Albert are representative of Spanish women writers facing this situation. Their fictional works written between 1898 and 1914 offer a rich literary production that invites us to examine the emergence of new cultural and social practices. These authors renegotiate deeply rooted ideologies that structure not only gender relations but also the social class system, the spatial organization around country/city, and Spain’s national identity built around the discourse on race. Addressing conflicting perspectives between tradition and modernity through the prism of gender, the analysis of their works reveals their taking on a modern stand, hopeful of the promises brought by the new socioeconomic reality and the liberating aspect of modernity. As Rita Felski and Barbara Mashall´s studies have pointed out, many theorists of modernity, such as Marshall Berman and Jürgen Habermas, do not take gender into consideration. Grounded in a gendered analysis, this study reveals the importance of Spanish female authors as agents of modernity at the turn of the twentieth century.

All theories attempting to explain the rise of fundamentalism in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries agree that fundamentalism is a problematic and threatening response to a problematic and threatening modernity. This contention can be supported, inasmuch as fundamentalists do indeed seem very much at home in a technological world. However, how much can be extrapolated from this familiarity is highly debatable. To this end, it is vital for any discussion of fundamentalism to first attempt to achieve a clear-eyed view of the modern world. Such a view, at least that which is achievable, seems to suggest that the modern world is not, in fact, one of heretofore unimaginable horror. The recently uncovered scale of the genocide committed on the native peoples of the Caribbean and both hemispheres of the New World between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries, for example, demonstrates that genocide is not, in any sense, a product of modern ways of thought or even the industrialization of slaughter. Likewise, most of the examples used to prove the contention of a uniquely traumatic modernity, for example, the rise of racism or the Holocaust, are, when considered closely, far less novel and idiosyncratically modern than often considered. Such a re-evaluation inevitably raises questions about culture, tradition, relativity, universalism, and not least morality, particularly the question of what morality is, where it comes from, and what if any role, does religion play in the formation of morals and ethics. This inevitably feeds back into the question of fundamentalism, most notably in the question of whether the fallen, sinful world against which fundamentalists so often proclaim themselves to be rebelling, is in fact, the world in which we live, or a Manichean world of their own imagining, invented to justify their rebellion.

For Walter Benjamin, architecture is the clearest expression of the ‘latent mythology’ that underlies any historical epoch; by engaging with works of modernist architecture in continental Europe during the first half of the twentieth century, my project hopes to reveal the underlying tensions, mythologies, and contradictions that reveal modernity to be a construction both more open and unstable than might first be imagined. Using Benjamin’s work as a background also allows for Surrealist practice to become the dialectical foil to an architecture that is still widely understood as clinical, functionalist and utopic, but whose own paradoxes and uncanny intrusions ultimately reject a teleological and hyper-rationalist modernity. The tension between the profane and the messianic, time and timelessness, is here played out through modernist architecture as the search for the form and nature of dwelling within secular space. This culminates in a study of two of Benjamin’s allegorical characters, the collector and the brooder, who between them embody different modes of response to the conditions of modernity: on the one hand, a redemptive practice centred around creative bricolage and the unmasking of modernity’s ambiguity, on the other, the reactive and melancholic attitude of the brooder, whose private dreams of entering and rescuing the past negate the critical potential of romanticism – of the modernist architects and their project to build a meaningful world.

This study explores the idea that the Western adaptation of Tibetan Buddhism is in fact a continuum of the Protestant Reformation. With its inhospitable terrain and volatile environment, the geography of Tibet has played an important role in its assimilation of Buddhism. Demons, ghosts and gods are a natural part of the Tibetan world. Yet why is it that Tibetan Buddhism often downplays these elements in its self portrayal to the West? Why are Westerners drawn to an idealistic view of Buddhism as being rational and free from belief in the supernatural when the reality is quite different? This thesis will show that in its encounter with Western modernity Tibetan Buddhism has had to reinvent itself in order to survive in a world where rituals and belief in deities are regarded as ignorant superstition. In doing so it will reveal that this reinvention of Buddhism is not a recent activity but one that has its origins in nineteenth century Protestant values. While the notion of Protestant Buddhism has been explored by previous scholars this thesis will show that rather than solving the problems of disenchantment, Buddhist Modernism ignores the human need to find meaning in and to take control over one’s surroundings. In doing so it will argue that rather than adopting a modern, crypto-Protestant form Buddhism, Westerners instead need to find a way to naturally transplant Tibetan Buddhism onto their own surroundings.

Some places which once were celebrated by many slowly become places of desolation and social problem while others built with similar intentions and forms continue to flourish. This is typically true of a number of large residential neighbourhoods of Post-World War II Europe and many cities of the global South. Large residential environments have been extensively studied since their emergence in the early 20th century, but often from disciplinary perspectives. Moreover, studies have often focused on singular aspects of these environments. Thus, knowledge of how large residential environments develop as places once created, and what the residents’ role in this process is, remains fragmented and hardly usable for effective urban design/planning interventions. Studies, particularly in the last decade, have begun to show the usefulness of the notion of place as an integrative conceptin housing research. This thesis aims to contribute to interdisciplinarydiscussions on large residential environments by drawing upon theories of space and place from vast fields of social and human sciences, and using anthropological and historical research methods. It explores the multiple ways and means that large residential environments gain their material and social identity as places. The main interest is to understand how the residents perceive, receive and appropriate living environment, and how that contributes to the becoming of the places. Based on such a notion of place, the study presents a critical review of the current transformation of Addis Ababa and its ongoing large-scale housing development. Residents’ ways of articulating their needs, desires, and values are investigated ethnographically and in relation to the socio-political, historical and spatial contexts within which they are taking place.The findings of the study are presented in four academic articles, and in an introductory essay. Each article addresses the main research question (i.e. “how residential places become”) from different angles: Article I (History, Modernity and the Making of an African Spatiality) explores place as a construction of historical and socio-political processes; ArticleII (Socio-SpatialTensions and Interactions: An Ethnography of Condominium Housing of Addis Ababa) and Article III (Home-looseness in Large Residential Environments?) explores place as an assemblage of multiple spatial practices and experiences. Article IV (Sustainable Urbanism: Moving Past Neo- Modernist &amp; Neo-Traditionalist Housing Strategies) explores place as a product of particular urban design/planning paradigm.The findings of the thesis show that the key processes that shape spaces into places are highly embedded in the dialectical relationship between larger structures (i.e. social, economic, political and physical) and the everyday practices of people within the built environment. The findings also show that this relationship is highly mediated by local experiences of modernity. Thus, for example, when modernity is sought as an end, as in the case of the condominium housing of Addis Ababa, a fragile and often paradoxical relationship develops between people and their places as could be seen by the weak senses of place or attachment among condominium residents. One implication for urban design/planning practice is the recognition that place (or the home-place) is predominantly a process, and in the context of modernity, placemaking is highly contested because the process is evaded and people’s relationships with place overridden. Based on the findings, the limits and potentials of the urban design or planning are highlighted. It is recommended that theories of place- becoming – implying understanding of a place as an open-ended process and spatial experiences of ordinary people as the fundamental aspect of place – should be the integral basis of placemaking understanding and practice. Design ethnography is suggested as a possible way to promote placemaking practices closer to the multiple experiences of ordinary people / residents. / Några platser som tidigare prisats av många blir långsamt platser som ligger övergivna och får sociala problem medan andra som byggts med liknande avsikter och med likartad bebyggelse fortsätter att blomstra. Detta gäller särskilt många stora bostadsområden i Europa efter andra världskriget och många städer i det globala Södern. Stora bostadsområden har undersökts utförligt sedan de kom till i början av 1900-talet, men ofta ur ett disciplinärt perspektiv. Dessutom har undersökningarna ofta fokuserat på enskilda aspekter av dessa omgivningar. På så sätt har kunskapen om hur stora bostadsområden utvecklas som platser när de väl skapats och vilken roll som de boende spelar i denna process förblivitfragmentiserad och knappastanvändbar för effektiva insatser inom urban design och planering. Undersökningar särskilt under det senaste årtiondet, har börjat visa användbarhetenav begreppet om plats som ett integrativt koncept ibostadsforskningen. Denna avhandling syftar till att bidra till tvärvetenskapliga diskussioner om stora bostadsområden genom att utnyttja teorier om utrymme och plats från vidsträckta fält inom social- och humanvetenskaperna och genom att använda antropologiska och historiska forskningsmetoder. Den forskar om de många sätt och medel genom vilka stora bostadsområden får sin materiella och sociala identitet som platser. Det viktigaste är att förstå hur de boende uppfattar, mottar och tillämpar dem och hur det bidrar till hur platserna utvecklas. Baserad på ett sådant begrepp om plats presenterar undersökningen en kritisk granskningav den nuvarandeombildningenav Addis Abeba och dess pågående storskaliga bostadsutveckling. De boendes sättattuttrycka sina behov, önskningar och värderingar undersöks etnografiskt och i jämförelse med de sociopolitiska, historiska och spatiala ramar inom vilka de äger rum.Undersökningens resultat presenteras i fyra akademiska artiklar som sedan sammanfattas och kopplas ihop till en inledande monografi. Varje artikel tar upp den viktigaste forskningsfrågan (t.ex. ”hur bostadsområden blir till”) från olika vinklar: Artikel I (Historia, Modernitet, och Skapandet av en afrikansk rumslighet) utforskar plats som en konstruktion av socio-historiska processer; Artikel II (socio-spatiala spänningar och interaktioner: Enetnografi om bostadsrätter i Addis Abeba) och artikel III (Hemlöshet i storabostadsområden?) utforskar plats som en samling rumsliga metoder och erfarenheter. Mer specifikt utforskar Artikel II hur politiska intentioner och folks förväntningar och deras vardagliga användningar av rymd, form och plats och Artikel III utforskar hur hem och platser formas som ett resultat av olika former av rumslig disposition, inom de ramar och de restriktioner som bestämts av hegemonisk rumslig praktik. Artikel IV (Hållbar urbanism: Att gå förbi neomodernistiska &amp; neotraditionella bostadsstrategier) utforskar plats som en produkt av särskilt paradigm av urban design/planering.Avhandlingens resultat visar att de viktigaste processerna som skapar platser av utrymmen ligger lagrade i det dialektiska förhållandet mellan större strukturer (dvs. sociala, ekonomiska, politiska och fysiska) och vardagliga rutiner för människor inom den byggda miljön. Resultaten visar också att detta förhållande har en stor förmedlande funktion i moderniteten. På så sätt ökar spänningent t.ex. inom den förstärkta moderniteten mellan det globala och det lokala, mellan makro och mikro, mellan struktur och verkan och i sista hand mellan utrymme och plats.Men viktigast av allt när modernitet söks som ett ändamål i sig, som i fallet med bostadsrätter i Addis Abeba, utvecklas ett ömtåligt (dvs. ytligt och paradoxalt) förhållande mellan stora platsers identitet och folks rutiner som man kunde se av de svaga känslor för platsen ( eller tillgivenheten) bland bostadsrättsinnehavarna. En slutsats av urban design/planeringspraxis är insikten att plats(ellerhemvist) är företrädesvis en process och inom ramen för moderniteten är urban förnyelse och platsskapande försök omstridda eftersom processen avbryts eller undviks. Baserat på resultaten, framhävs begränsningarna och möjligheterna för urban design eller planering. Det rekommenderas att teorierna om hur en plats blir till vilket innebär förståelse för plats som en öppen process och en rumslig erfarenhet för vanliga människor som den grundläggande aspekten på plats – borde vara den väsentliga grunden för insikt och rutin i platsskapandet. Ett reflexivt tänkande i praktik och teori föreslås, vilket innebär en metod som omprövar sina grundläggande premisser/teorier och erkänner kontextens betydelse. Några idéer om etnografisk design föreslås som ett sätt att främja sådana metoder. / <p>QC 20150423</p>

This study examines the socialist project in Mozambique under the political party Frente de Libertação de Moçambique or Mozambique Liberation Front (FRELIMO) from the time of independence in 1975 to the end of its 15-year war with Mozambique National Resistance (MNR/RENAMO) in 1994. After achieving independence from a brutal and obstinate system of Portuguese colonialism in 1975, the chief organization that led the anti-colonial struggle, FRELIMO began a process of creating a socialist-oriented modern nation, modelled on existing examples worldwide. Facing widespread hardship and seemingly insurmountable challenges as well as crumbling communist regimes elsewhere in the world, FRELIMO’s efforts however, soon came to end in the late 1980s. This thesis critically engages the factors that led to the failure of the development of socialism in Mozambique with particular focus on the way that historians and scholars have understood such factors. Combining a review of the existing historiographical literature on the topic as well as data drawn from primary sources from the historical events under study, the aim of the research is to provide an alternative understanding of the collapse of this much-touted and widely observed period of transition for this southeast African country. The thesis suggests re-conceptualizing the notion of single-state self-sufficient socialism as conceived of by FRELIMO, particularly in nations historically subjugated to colonialism and more recently the dictates of international capital, and in doing so also contends that a number of key elements of socialist theories of development have been overlooked in the process. In the context of a recent global economic recession and the seeming deterioration of state authority in the face of globalization, it is necessary to examine the confluence of historical paths that led to the current situation and in this sense the thesis will contribute another view of these histories.

American historians tend to oppose modernity and modern religion to pre-modern and traditional faith, a binary that has privileged certain religious forms and displays of sacredness over others. This thesis challenges the structuring dichotomy of modernity by arguing that Protestant evangelical revivals were sites on which modernity was made, defined, contested, and remade at the end of the nineteenth century. Examining the major revivals of Dwight Moody and Billy Sunday, among others, it rejects grand narratives and insists on understanding revival campaigns as existing in a braided relationship with the secular public sphere: one player in a symbolic marketplace where various partisans attempted to demonstrate that they were uniquely modern. This modernity was constructed through multiple categories of gender, age, class, ethnicity, and race, linking claims of modernity to common-sense masculinity, idealized family roles, and Anglo-Saxon identity as site upon which Americanness was made. / Graduate / 0320 / 0337 / 0330 / barak65@hotmail.com

This thesis investigates the relation between exception and governmentality in the critique of sovereignty. It considers exception and governmentality as an expression of the problem of sovereignty and argues that this problem is expressed both within the accounts of sovereignty that exception and governmentality articulate, as well as between them. Taking Michel Foucault and Carl Schmitt as the paradigmatic theorists of governmentality and exception, respectively, I engage in close readings of the texts in which these concepts are most thoroughly elaborated: Security, Territory, Population and Political Theology. These readings demonstrate that, despite their apparent differences, exception and governmentality cannot be differentiated from one another. The instability evident in Schmitt and Foucault’s concepts show that the relation between them is best characterized as aporetic. / Graduate / 0615 / 0616 / reganburles@gmail.com