In the wake of a disturbing decades-long trend in both print and visual media—the appropriation of Black history and culture—another trend is observed in works of African American fiction: the reclamation of the appropriated imagery, in both neo-slave narratives and works of Afrofuturism. The image focused on specifically in this paper is that of the ship, which I argue serves at least two identifiable functions in Black fiction: first, to address the historical treatment of Africans and their American descendants, and secondly, to demonstrate Black progress and potential. Through an exploration of three works of African American fiction, works that take their Black protagonists beyond the ship's dreadful hold, the reader can see the important themes being channeled: Charles Johnson's Middle Passage sets a course on how to arrive at true freedom, enacting a process of Black liberation that begins with learning how to survive "in the wake," a concept derived Christina Sharpe's work In the Wake: On Blackness and Being. Rivers Solomon's An Unkindness of Ghosts demonstrates not only the effects of "the hold," but how the hold itself has evolved from its origins on the slave ship; as new holds are constructed and demanded by society, rebellion is often necessary to dismantle them. Lastly, Octavia Butler's Dawn exposes the threat of neocolonialism, as well as the methodology under which subjection and enslavement is often justified. In each text, the protagonists exercise their empowerment to demonstrate that Black individuals possess the ability to change not only our nation, not only our world, but our entire universe. By tracking the evolution of ship in African American literature, a transformation is witnessed as the ship shifts from being an image of despair to an image of progress.

This study explores the impact of neoliberal education policies on the discourses of citizenship and citizenship education in an Australian citizenship education project entitled 'Discovering Democracy School Materials.' This project is the largest national curriculum development project in Australia and represents the official discourses of citizenship in Australia. The materials were developed in response to concern about the poor understanding of civics and citizenship in Australia and the lack of quality citizenship education materials and background information for teachers. The scope of the study was managed by focusing on a corpus of twelve text groups, selected from the materials because they related to the environment - an area of citizenship of interest to young people and which allows consideration of recent trends in the practice of citizenship. An approach to critical discourse analysis recommended by Fairclough (1992) was used. This involved a three-step process of identifying and analysing: (i) the discourse evident in the words in the text, (ii) the processes of production, dissemination and consumption of the texts, and (iii) the contextual social and cultural practices that influenced the development of the text. There were six steps in the discourse analysis. The first involved identifying the corpus related to the environment. The second was to identify and describe the discourses of citizenship and citizenship education evident in the text. The third involved interviewing key participants in the processes of text production, dissemination and consumption to ascertain their perceptions of the discourses evident in the texts. The fourth was an analysis of these interviews to interpret the discourses participants acknowledged as being within the text and the discursive practices that operated to establish those discourses. The sixth was an explanation of the impact of neoliberalism on the development of the materials. The results indicate that two discourses of citizenship and citizenship education were dominant within the materials - Legal Status and Public Practice. The same two discourses were evident in the interviews with key participants in the processes of text production, dissemination and consumption. In all cases, the materials lacked any evidence of the citizenship or citizenship education discourses of Democratic Identity, World Citizenship and Democratic Participation, although Democratic Identity was a minor aspect of one of the twelve text groups. A range of discursive practices related to neoliberalism was identified as influential on this pattern of discourses. Perceptions of teacher deficiency were influential in the process of text production as was the power of key individuals and groups such as the national education minister and his department, a government-appointed Civics Education Group, the Curriculum Corporation and, to a much lesser extent, teacher professional associations. Two discursive practices were influenced in text dissemination: the materials were provided free of charge to all schools and extensive professional development was provided. These provided significant inducements to teachers to use the materials. Discursive practices operating in the process of text consumption provided added inducement by showing teachers how to select key components of the materials for local use. However, this concern for local context was undermined by the extreme strength of the presentation of what counts as legitimate citizenship and the lack of opportunity for alternative or resistant readings of the texts. Three aspects of neoliberalism were seen as especially influential in these discursive practices - the strong focus on the development of legitimate knowledge, marketisation, and an emphasis on the need for evaluation. The study concludes with an examination of the implications of the findings to identify recommendations for teachers, teacher educators, materials developers and opportunities for further research.

It is more than 20 years since 1985, when world climate and atmospheric scientists first issued an authoritative warning of the danger of global warming. In 1988, scientists, environmentalists and politicians from 48 countries endorsed the Toronto Declaration to address global warming that called for a twenty percent worldwide reduction in CO emissions by the year 2005 leading to an eventual fifty percent reduction. Contestation and collaboration in the global climate change public policy process, involving a wide range of actors, has continued since then. Two organisations were founded in 1989 by non-state actors on opposite sides of the climate policy debate. These were the Global Climate Coalition (GCC), which was established by a range of US business interests, and Climate Action Network (CAN) established by a range of environmental and scientific non-governmental organisations. The thesis documents, analyses and compares how each organisation was formed, organised and developed. It reviews how GCC and CAN enabled more effective national and transnational advocacy and how they fostered opposing policy coalitions on climate policy. The respective approaches are assessed, evaluated and contrasted as each sought to gain support for their opposing policy positions in the global climate change policy process. The research uses a neo-Gramscian theoretical perspective and develops and applies an analytical framework focused on policy coalitions of state and non-state actors to investigate the role that non-state actors played in the global climate policy process. GCC and CAN played major roles within opposing policy coalitions that became particularly important in shaping the outcome of the global and national climate policy processes. The thesis focuses on the role of GCC and CAN and their associated policy coalitions in influencing the framing, developing, implementation and review of global climate policy. It examines the global climate change policy process through this analytical lens of contestation between policy coalitions from the creation of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 1988 to the first Meeting of the Parties of the ratified Kyoto Protocol in 2005. The thesis assesses the analytical framework and concludes by identifying critical issues that the current global public policy processes have encountered in developing and implementing effective global climate change public policy.

It is more than 20 years since 1985, when world climate and atmospheric scientists first issued an authoritative warning of the danger of global warming. In 1988, scientists, environmentalists and politicians from 48 countries endorsed the Toronto Declaration to address global warming that called for a twenty percent worldwide reduction in CO emissions by the year 2005 leading to an eventual fifty percent reduction. Contestation and collaboration in the global climate change public policy process, involving a wide range of actors, has continued since then. Two organisations were founded in 1989 by non-state actors on opposite sides of the climate policy debate. These were the Global Climate Coalition (GCC), which was established by a range of US business interests, and Climate Action Network (CAN) established by a range of environmental and scientific non-governmental organisations. The thesis documents, analyses and compares how each organisation was formed, organised and developed. It reviews how GCC and CAN enabled more effective national and transnational advocacy and how they fostered opposing policy coalitions on climate policy. The respective approaches are assessed, evaluated and contrasted as each sought to gain support for their opposing policy positions in the global climate change policy process. The research uses a neo-Gramscian theoretical perspective and develops and applies an analytical framework focused on policy coalitions of state and non-state actors to investigate the role that non-state actors played in the global climate policy process. GCC and CAN played major roles within opposing policy coalitions that became particularly important in shaping the outcome of the global and national climate policy processes. The thesis focuses on the role of GCC and CAN and their associated policy coalitions in influencing the framing, developing, implementation and review of global climate policy. It examines the global climate change policy process through this analytical lens of contestation between policy coalitions from the creation of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 1988 to the first Meeting of the Parties of the ratified Kyoto Protocol in 2005. The thesis assesses the analytical framework and concludes by identifying critical issues that the current global public policy processes have encountered in developing and implementing effective global climate change public policy.

It is more than 20 years since 1985, when world climate and atmospheric scientists first issued an authoritative warning of the danger of global warming. In 1988, scientists, environmentalists and politicians from 48 countries endorsed the Toronto Declaration to address global warming that called for a twenty percent worldwide reduction in CO emissions by the year 2005 leading to an eventual fifty percent reduction. Contestation and collaboration in the global climate change public policy process, involving a wide range of actors, has continued since then. Two organisations were founded in 1989 by non-state actors on opposite sides of the climate policy debate. These were the Global Climate Coalition (GCC), which was established by a range of US business interests, and Climate Action Network (CAN) established by a range of environmental and scientific non-governmental organisations. The thesis documents, analyses and compares how each organisation was formed, organised and developed. It reviews how GCC and CAN enabled more effective national and transnational advocacy and how they fostered opposing policy coalitions on climate policy. The respective approaches are assessed, evaluated and contrasted as each sought to gain support for their opposing policy positions in the global climate change policy process. The research uses a neo-Gramscian theoretical perspective and develops and applies an analytical framework focused on policy coalitions of state and non-state actors to investigate the role that non-state actors played in the global climate policy process. GCC and CAN played major roles within opposing policy coalitions that became particularly important in shaping the outcome of the global and national climate policy processes. The thesis focuses on the role of GCC and CAN and their associated policy coalitions in influencing the framing, developing, implementation and review of global climate policy. It examines the global climate change policy process through this analytical lens of contestation between policy coalitions from the creation of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 1988 to the first Meeting of the Parties of the ratified Kyoto Protocol in 2005. The thesis assesses the analytical framework and concludes by identifying critical issues that the current global public policy processes have encountered in developing and implementing effective global climate change public policy.

<p>On May 1st 2004 the European Union was enlarged with ten new countries. Eight of these share a common background as satellite states of the former Soviet Union and today three more are candidate countries for an EU membership. These countries share a state-communist past. In terms of gender equality this affects the countries’ norms regarding gender and the conception of equality between the sexes. The EU has an outspoken commitment to gender equality and has throughout the years developed a number of Equal Opportunity Policies to combat the problem with gender discrimination within the EU. What happens when the EU is implementing these policies into the former communist countries and norms from two different environments meet? T</p><p>he thesis aim to critically review and discuss EU equal opportunity policies concerning the labour market in the former communist countries from perspectives of neo-institutionalist and contemporary feminist theory. The discussion concern obstacles to change and the creation of norms regarding gender equality, and whether the specific background (the communist experience) shared by the countries of the Eastern Europe might have implications for the process. </p><p>The thesis uses a multi strategy approach, combining text studies, interviews and quantitative data. The analytical framework consists of concepts relating to change and norm formation from cultural neo-institutionalism and a feminist perspective. The input consists of the present rules and roles in the former communist countries and the existing EU equal opportunity policies. The situation that appears when the perspectives meet is analysed from a critical feminist perspective based on modern debates regarding the east-west dichotomy within the school of feminism. By adding concept of change from the school of cultural neo-institutionalism the situation can be evaluated from a norm creating perspective. This creates an opportunity to discuss potential future scenarios. </p><p>The findings of the thesis show that there is a significant difference between the theoretical foundation for a discussion on gender equality between the EU15 and the CEEC11. This is reflected in a lack of gender awareness in the CEEC11 acknowledged by both NGOs and EU officials. The implication of this is that the EU is challenged to make the public aware of the importance of these values. They are forced to create a change in the norms governing gender equality in the CEEC11. However, the findings also show that the EU is somewhat uncritical towards its own role as the norm shaper in the process. There is a need for the European Commission to reflect over the present equal opportunity policies in order to create sustainable change. If the EU fail to do so it will most likely be the uncontested norm-holder and socialisation ceases to be a two way process. The consequence may be ineffective policies.</p>

<p>This thesis aims to find a graph structure for representing XML documents and to implement the former representation for storing such documents. The graph structure, in fact, is the complete representation for the XML documents; this is dued to the id/idref attribute which could be present inside the XML document tag.</p><p>Two different graph structures have been defined on this thesis, they are called most granular and customizable representations. The first one is the simplest way for representing XML documents, while the second one makes some improvements for optimizing inserting, deleting, and querying functions.</p><p>The implementation of the former graph structures is made over a new kind of database built specifically for storing semi-structured data, such database is called Neo. Neo database works only with three primitives: node, relationship, and property. Such data model represents a new solution compared to the traditional relational view.</p><p>The XML information manager implements two different API which work with the two former graph structure respectively. The first API works with the customizable representation, while the second one works with the customizable representation.</p><p>Some evaluations have been done over the second implemented API, and they showed that the implemented code is free of bugs and moreover that the customizable representation brings about some improvements on making queries over the stored data.</p>

<p>Postmodernism and neo-liberalism is often thought of as two opposite conceptions of the reality and the world. This thesis takes on a critical view of this assertion and the main purpose was to perform a correlation between postmodernism and neo-liberalism. With different theoretical assumptions about constructions of thoughts, agency and structure and the welfare-state a theoretical framework was created. According to this framework the two isms were correlated to each other and the welfare-state to see if there where similarities or dissimilarities between the isms. The assumptions of this thesis are that there are correlations between postmodernism and neo-liberalism in the constructions of thoughts, namely similar view on epistemology. The two isms also show similarity between each other towards the foundations upon which the modern welfare-state rests. This is mainly manifested in their common view of the institutions of the welfare-state, which the isms both finds problematic. This results in a mutual problematic view on positive freedom, the foundation of legitimacy, the means and economic democracy as they are manifested in a given welfare-state. However, the motive for criticism rests mostly on different justifications for the two isms. Anyhow, their views share doubts about the legitimacy of the welfare-state in common. This even though postmodernism is partly a result of the welfare-politics. This thesis also shows why postmodernism and neo-liberalism at least in a theoretical perspective can not continue to develop side by side.</p>

El objeto de la tesis es el análisis de los límites y de las transgresiones de las luchas antineoliberales en América Latina y específicamente en Chile. Trabajamos sobre dos ejes cuyo punto en común es el modo de vida de la gente: el primer eje es el de la biopolítica según Foucault y el segundo, aquel de la micropolítica según Guattari y Deleuze. Esto implica voluntades subjetivas y conscientes, pero también una amplia combinación de elementos heterogéneos de la naturaleza, de la economía, de la tecnología,de la espiritualidad y de la cultura. El sujeto no preexiste a esta heterogeneidad de elementos, sino que es una parte integrante. El sujeto aparece cada vez que se combinan estos elementos heterogéneos de una nueva forma, esto porque decidir no es elegir entre altenativas dadas en la realidad, sino que introducir una fuga sin resultados conocidos. La decisión se relaciona con los deseos colectivos, como resultado de un inconciente colectivo que produce una realidad conectando -haciendo máquina- la mayor cantidad de elementos posibles. Entonces el sujeto es responsable de decidir sin garantías, pero considerándolo como la unidad mínima real. Se trata del AGENCIAMIENTO como lo denominan Guattari y Deleuze. / L'objet de la thèse c'est l'analyse des limites et des transgressions des luttes anti- néo libérales en Amérique latine et plus spécifiquement au Chili. Nous travaillons sur deux axes, ici, il est important de relever que ces deux axes ont un point commun : Ils sont tous relatifs au mode de vie des gens. • Le premier axe est celui de la biopolitique (selon Michel Foucault) • Le deuxiéme c'est celui de la micropolitique (selon Félix Guattari et Gilles Deleuze) Le premier axe a une particularité ; la bio-politique c'est la trame de notre travail. Par sa part la micropolitique, selon Felix Guattari et Gilles Deleuze, consiste en des pratiques via lesquelles les gens parviennent à vivre « à leur manière ». Ce qui implique non seulement des volontés subjectives et conscientes, mais aussi une combinaison beaucoup plus ample d'éléments hétérogènes de la nature, de la technologie, de l'économie, de la spiritualité et de la culture. Le sujet ne préexiste pas à cette hétérogénéité d'éléments, il en est une partie intégrante. Le sujet apparaît chaque fois qu'on décide de combiner ces éléments hétérogènes d'une nouvelle façon; vu que décider n'est pas choisir entre des alternatives déjà données dans la réalité mais bien d'y introduire une coupure intempestive, sans résultats pré connus. La décision équivaut ici aux désirs collectifs, les comprenant, non comme des fantasmes projetés par l'inconscient des masses, mais bien comme le résultat d'un inconscient collectif qui produit une réalité en connectant – faisant machine –la plus grande hétérogénéité d'éléments possible, comme le font les schizophrènes. Les fantasmes collectifs existent sans doute, mais ils ne sont pas l'expression du désir, mais bien une forme de réprimer les connexions qui réalisent le désir comme une machine collective de production. Donc, le sujet est responsable de décider sans garantie, mais le considérer pour cela comme l'unité minimale du réel, c'est l'abstraire de la réalité plus vaste qui le compose. L'unité minimale de l'analyse réelle est constituée par les combinaisons d'éléments hétérogènes. C'est l'agencement, comme l'appellent Félix Guattari et Gilles Deleuze.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2006. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.