This Master's thesis examines the status of myth and symbol in postmodern religious discourse, and proposes a new way of understanding representation in religion. The first chapter deals with the sense of symbol as it emerged out of literary and philosophical romanticism, and explores several divergent interpretations of the meaning of the symbol according to modernist and structuralist criticism. The second chapter, after analysing the function of myth and history in religious understanding, connects the romantic symbol to a contemporary hermeneutics based on the aesthetic and epistemological tenets of magic realism. It is my contention in this thesis that magic realism, in its conflation (and deconstruction) of the ideologically charged dichotomy of myth and reality, provides a hermeneutical tool with which to critique demythologization; and that, in its dual aspect as heir to both romanticism and realism, magic realism may be a more fertile source than either neo-romanticism or post-structuralism for a truly postmodern religious criticism.

The myths and rumours that circulated during the First World War originated with soldiers and the general public, excepting atrocity stories. The British population used these myths and rumours to construct a discourse to explain its involvement in the First World War. This discourse reconciled the experience and understanding of civilians with the new era of Total War, offering hope and consolation in a time of crisis. It also acted as a form of mass, popularly produced propaganda which promulgated pro-war views that supported the British and Allied causes, while demonising the Germans and their methods of warfare. Belief in myths and rumours was equated with patriotism, and criticism decried as pro-German and un-British. The myths were widely disseminated and widely believed by important sections of the population. They drew on concepts palatable to British civilians: ideas of ‘just’ war and a moral cause; the nobility of their sacrifices; the bestiality of the enemy; and the necessity for the subordination of all else to the war effort. Myths about atrocities, spies and the paranormal helped the British public to survive a war that surpassed previous human and disquietude, but also experience. They also hinted at vulnerability, while expressing the unequivocal support which the majority offered the British war effort.

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.

This thesis is an exploratory examination of identity construction and children’s media, with a focus on the Palestinian political groups of Fatah and Hamas. It looks at how children’s media are framed within the context of the Arab-Israeli conflict. It examines how internal and external social factors contribute to identity formation and the interaction among these elements during times of conflict and war. This thesis hypothesizes that both Fatah and Hamas use various myths to differing degrees in order to frame their conception of a Palestinian identity. Specifically, it explores the use of the Myth of Battle, the Myth of Hero, the Myth of Victim, the Myth of Religion, the Myth of Land and the Myth of Other. It seeks to determine which of these myths each group emphasizes through a qualitative and quantitative visual ethnographic content analysis. The quantitative analysis uncovered interesting, albeit not statistically significant, differences between Fatah’s and Hamas’ use of all of the myths in their videos. Specifically it found that both groups made equal and great use of the Myth of Religion; that Hamas produced the videos with the greatest focus on the Myth of Battle and the Myth of Hero; and that neither group greatly emphasized the Myth of Victim, the Myth of Land or the Myth of Other. Finally, the analysis discovered positive correlations between the Myth of Hero and the Myth of Battle as well as between the Myth of Battle and the Myth of Other.

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This study looks at how professional male athletes—particularly undersized athletes—are represented throughout televised sport. Based on the assumption that televised sport is a gendered and predominantly masculine genre, the focus of this analysis is to demonstrate whether or not professional male athletes are evaluated differently based on physical stature, and whether or not such representations reinforce a dominant—mythic—male ideology. Grounded mainly in Gramscian hegemony and Peircean semiotics, the subsequent analysis compares broadcast commentary and visuals taken from the 2010 men’s Olympic ice hockey tournament and the 2010 men’s FIFA World Cup. In both events, it was generally found that taller athletes were praised more positively than smaller athletes. These findings appear to support common sports-related stereotypes, such as, the apparent media-reinforced expectation that professional male athletes be almost inhuman, mythical representations of ordinary men, i.e., the best athletes should be large, intimidating, aggressive, and hyper-masculine symbols.

The land of deep water lies in Ontario’s north, atop the boundless rock of the Shield. It holds the secret of an island once blossoming with copper ore. Here primordial elements dance in the ancient landscape and invite us to join them in their awakening. Liquid portals, layered ancient rock and plunging mine shafts unearth a cosmic order born of chaos. Myth, geology and alchemy all fuse together in defining this place. This thesis is a journey to centre of the Shield, through the deep water, rock and voids that encircle it. It is an expedition into the multiplicities of time through the poetic imagination. Here on the bridge to preconsciousness, we are invited in. At the heart lies Copperfields, a mine isolated on an island in Temagami. Once bearing some of the purest copper on Earth, it now sits abandoned amidst fragments of its former glory. The design proposed reclaims these elements and animates them as gateways to the dynamic Shield. In the folds of time, quivering between thought and the preconscious, a fiction rich in meaning and experience is offered up. Let us now embark on our journey to the centre of the Shield.

The Sentimental/Gothic myth, which dominates much of English and American literature during the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, represents a cultural attempt to achieve unity, but the attempt is foredoomed because the essence of the myth is division. The myth's metaphor is sexual. The division that forms the acknowledged basis of the myth is that between two modes of being, seen as sexual modes: masculinity (power, aggression, violence, energy, dominance, etc.) and femininity (attraction, passivity, submissiveness, etc.). The unity sought by the myth on its acknowledged level is domestic harmony, the infusion of masculine strength into feminine passivity, the taming of masculine power by feminine submissiveness. Thus the myth regardsmarriage as the perfect state and the family as the perfect model of cultural unity. But the myth itself is flawed by a further division, of which the masculine/feminine division is actually a reflection: this is a division of the conscious, Sentimental myth from the largely unconscious Gothic myth. The Gothic, reversing the acknowledged direction of the myth (or carrying it full-circle to its inevitable conclusion), seeks the destruction of femininity by masculinity, the throwing off of feminine submissiveness by masculine violence. Thus it regards death(the "marriage" of murderer and victim) as the perfect state, and sterility, the blasted family, as the perfect model of unity.Mary Shelley's Frankenstein reflects both mythic divisions and their close interrelationship. Its hero seeks to establish his Sentimental masculinity and to achieve domestic unity, but in doing so creates the Gothic Monster who destroys the creator's beloved, his family, and finally drains life from the hero himself. Frankenstein, in form, themes, and characterization, reflects the ironies by which the Sentimental/Gothic myth is divided against itself, and shows the tragic consequences of its divisions.

This thesis aims to understand the experiences of community development practitioners who are located in the organisational context of bureaucracies. Over the last decade there has been a revitalised interest in community development as a means of addressing social issues within Australia. Local, state and federal governments, as well as large non-government organisations, have developed policies and programs aimed at building, strengthening, renewing and revitalising communities. At the same time, a set of ideologies have emerged that have given rise to a global neoliberal welfare regime, and that have shaped ways of thinking and behaving within bureaucracies. Whilst much has been written about these two broad trends and their impact upon Australia, what appears to be missing from these analyses is an understanding of the impact upon the actual practitioners operating at the intersection of these forces. This research addresses the gap in the literature between the academic discussion and the personal experience of undertaking community development in bureaucracies. This investigation adopts a qualitative approach. Twenty-two semi-structured interviews were conducted with community development practitioners from federal, state and local government and from large non-government organisations in Queensland and the Australian Capital Territory (ACT). The interview transcripts were then analysed utilising a framework known as Causal Layered Analysis (CLA) which enabled the responses to be examined through multiple lenses: social, discursive and metaphoric. What this study reveals is that community development practitioners have a largely negative experience of bureaucracies: the work is difficult to do, it is not well understood, and it is not well supported. Whilst this is not particularly surprising, what IS of interest is the level of shock and frustration felt by practitioners, and their lack of preparedness for these experiences. Whilst community development workers have a very good understanding of the content of their practice, what appears to be missing is a critical analysis of their context and themselves as practitioners, and this invites a more negative experience of the work. Practitioners respond to these experiences by distinguishing between themselves as bureaucrats and what they name as their true and authentic selves. They articulate a difference between “working developmentally” from within bureaucracies and undertaking what they call “real” community development, which occurs “in community”. The acts of distinguishing an authentic self and authentic community development are both forms of resistance. However, I suggest that such constructions are largely unhelpful as they construct false binaries which render practitioners ineffective. The work of community development practitioners is compromised because the context in which they are operating is compromised. I also argue that community development students require greater preparation for the organisational context of bureaucracy, which includes understanding not only methodology, but also the objectives, arenas and structures for practice. Practitioners need a deeper understanding of relations of power within these contexts. This requires workers to be clear about their motivations, their commitment and their analysis. Finally I contend that what is required is the creation and sharing of metaphors that articulate a relational rather than individualistic and heroic form of agency. In this way community development theory and practice can shift away from a modernist narrative of development to a discussion of mutual transformation.

This thesis aims to understand the experiences of community development practitioners who are located in the organisational context of bureaucracies. Over the last decade there has been a revitalised interest in community development as a means of addressing social issues within Australia. Local, state and federal governments, as well as large non-government organisations, have developed policies and programs aimed at building, strengthening, renewing and revitalising communities. At the same time, a set of ideologies have emerged that have given rise to a global neoliberal welfare regime, and that have shaped ways of thinking and behaving within bureaucracies. Whilst much has been written about these two broad trends and their impact upon Australia, what appears to be missing from these analyses is an understanding of the impact upon the actual practitioners operating at the intersection of these forces. This research addresses the gap in the literature between the academic discussion and the personal experience of undertaking community development in bureaucracies. This investigation adopts a qualitative approach. Twenty-two semi-structured interviews were conducted with community development practitioners from federal, state and local government and from large non-government organisations in Queensland and the Australian Capital Territory (ACT). The interview transcripts were then analysed utilising a framework known as Causal Layered Analysis (CLA) which enabled the responses to be examined through multiple lenses: social, discursive and metaphoric. What this study reveals is that community development practitioners have a largely negative experience of bureaucracies: the work is difficult to do, it is not well understood, and it is not well supported. Whilst this is not particularly surprising, what IS of interest is the level of shock and frustration felt by practitioners, and their lack of preparedness for these experiences. Whilst community development workers have a very good understanding of the content of their practice, what appears to be missing is a critical analysis of their context and themselves as practitioners, and this invites a more negative experience of the work. Practitioners respond to these experiences by distinguishing between themselves as bureaucrats and what they name as their true and authentic selves. They articulate a difference between “working developmentally” from within bureaucracies and undertaking what they call “real” community development, which occurs “in community”. The acts of distinguishing an authentic self and authentic community development are both forms of resistance. However, I suggest that such constructions are largely unhelpful as they construct false binaries which render practitioners ineffective. The work of community development practitioners is compromised because the context in which they are operating is compromised. I also argue that community development students require greater preparation for the organisational context of bureaucracy, which includes understanding not only methodology, but also the objectives, arenas and structures for practice. Practitioners need a deeper understanding of relations of power within these contexts. This requires workers to be clear about their motivations, their commitment and their analysis. Finally I contend that what is required is the creation and sharing of metaphors that articulate a relational rather than individualistic and heroic form of agency. In this way community development theory and practice can shift away from a modernist narrative of development to a discussion of mutual transformation.