Research Doctorate - Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / Visual Art education, in an increasingly globalized visual world, is gaining significance for its contribution to the intuitive, critical and creative aspects of student learning and meaning-making. This awareness is foregrounded by a realization that tomorrow’s world will be increasingly dominated by the triumph of the image, multi-modal practices, technologies and visual culture. In this context, the development of an ethico-aesthetic disposition through visual contemporary communicative capacities might be regarded as essential to modern meaning-making. The research seeks to reveal the impact of studying Visual Art for the adolescent student and its value to them in terms of its contribution to their personal, social and cultural understandings beyond the classroom. This research represents a qualitative examination of a post-compulsory Visual Art curriculum in New South Wales, Australia that has shifted from a modernist perspective to a conceptual framework informed by contemporary art practices and by a Habermasian theory of communicative knowing. The research presents its findings in the form of, first a meta-analysis of a longitudinal study of the ARTEXPRESS exhibition spanning 15 years of student learning outcomes from the Visual Art curriculum and, second, a case study of 7 students who reflect on the value of the Visual Art learning to them beyond school. The study employs a critical hermeneutic phenomenological methodology, using image and text analysis as data. The methodology bridges traditional educational research methods with Visual Art practices by employing arts-inquiry as a qualitative research method. It uses the montage as a visual communicative platform informed by narrative perspectives to present the results. In the 21st century, educators, together with the entire world community, are growing in consciousness of the arts as a significant player in developing the attributes and skills that citizens will require in order to be effective participants of tomorrow’s rapidly evolving world. The public welfare benefits that accrue from the arts' intrinsic values are increasingly being seen to constitute a central role in generating wider benefits (McCarthy, Ondaatje, Zakaris & Brooks, 2004; National Review of Visual Education, 2006). Through analysis of ARTEXPRESS student artworks, reflective journals and interviews, the research identified that the skill of visual communicative proficiency links explicitly to the performative act as it emerges from each student’s desire and affectivity. In turn, this act is demonstrated to be beyond the knowledge of Visual Art cultural practices, being shaped by critique and power relationships in society. Self-portrait as narrative and subjectivity production were seen by the students as legitimate means of communicating meaning about self and other. The understanding of the logic of the relationships between visual technical activity, embodied material processes and conceptual understandings as contemporary communicative practices was valued by students and parents for its capacity to mediate societal and cultural values, as well as ethical practice and citizenship. Visual and performative communicative practice links identity, image and meaning. In this study these practices supported self-agency and the creative development of multiple, reflective returns. Visual artmaking is presented as supporting the development of creative possibilities. In turn, an understanding of the endless ways in which imaging and communicating can represent self, truth, reality and existence benefit the individual and society quite beyond the bounds of the traditional classroom.

<p>This thesis is an exploration of the historical, socio-cultural, economic, and political settings in which identities are negotiated and performed among Cameroonian immigrants in Cape Town. Focusing on language as localized practices and different interaction regimes, the thesis investigates how Cameroonian immigrants maintain and reconfigure the Anglophone/Francophone identity options in novel and hybrid ways. In addition, the study examines how ideologies favouring different languages are reproduced and challenged in translocal and transnational discourses. Guided by the poststructuralist theories the thesis explores the stance that reality is socially constructed, based on symbolic and material structural limitations that are challenged and maintained in interaction. That is, whatever we do or believe in, is supported by some historical or cultural&nbsp / frames of meanings in our lived world, which often gives room to some manoeuvre to do things in a new way. The study adopts a multiplex interpretive approach to data&nbsp / collection. This entails a qualitative sociolinguistic approach where interviews, discussion and observations at different socio-economic places namely / meetings, workplaces,&nbsp / homes, restaurants, drinking spots and many sites from all over Cape Town, were explored. The study suggests that Cameroonians have a multiplicity of identity options, which are manifested and negotiated performatively through language, dress code, song, food, business, and other practices that comprise their lifestyles. These identities are&nbsp / translocal and transnational in nature, and tend to blend South African, Cameroonian, and even American traits. It is also suggests that the different identity options which they manifest are highly mobile, enabling Cameroonians to fit into South African social structures as well as the Negotiation of Identities and Language Practices Cameroonian ways of doing things. Additionally, the multiplicity of identities that Cameroonians manifest, blur the fault-line between Anglophone/Francophone identities. It is evident from the study that hybridity and the reconstruction practices are not only confined to languages. Hybridity also extends to discourse orders especially in terms of how meetings are conducted. The Cameroonian meetings captured through the activities of Mifi Association and CANOWACAT are characterised by &lsquo / disorder of discourse&rsquo / in which both formal and informal versions of English and French are used separately or as amalgams alongside CPE and their national languages, not only in side talks, but also when contributing to the meeting proceedings. Ultimately, the study concludes that Cameroonians are social actors making up an indispensable part of the social interaction in the Cape Town Diaspora. Just as they influence the languages, the entrepreneurial practices, and spaces in which they interact, the Cameroonian immigrants are also transformed. The major&nbsp / contribution of the study is that it adds to the recent debates about the nature of multilingualism and identities in late modern society. It emphasises that languages and identities are fluid, complex, and unstable. The distinction or boundaries between the various languages in multilingual practices are also not as clear-cut. This leads to a reframing of voice and actor hood as meaning is constructed across translocal and transnational contexts and domains in a networked world transformed by the mobility of endless flows ofinformation, goods, ideas, and people. Thus, the study contributes to those arguing for a paradigm shift in sociolinguistic theory in which language is not a property of groups, nor is it an autonomous and bounded system fixed in time and space. Thus, identities, languages and the spaces of interaction are not fixed systems / identities, languages, and spaces are dynamic and in a state of flux. This in turn questions the notions of multilingualism and language itself, as well as the veracity of concepts such as code-switching,&nbsp / speech community, language variation, as the search for a sociolinguistic framework that can deal with phenomena predicated by motion, instability, and uncertainty, continues.</p>

<p>This thesis is an exploration of the historical, socio-cultural, economic, and political settings in which identities are negotiated and performed among Cameroonian immigrants in Cape Town. Focusing on language as localized practices and different interaction regimes, the thesis investigates how Cameroonian immigrants maintain and reconfigure the Anglophone/Francophone identity options in novel and hybrid ways. In addition, the study examines how ideologies favouring different languages are reproduced and challenged in translocal and transnational discourses. Guided by the poststructuralist theories the thesis explores the stance that reality is socially constructed, based on symbolic and material structural limitations that are challenged and maintained in interaction. That is, whatever we do or believe in, is supported by some historical or cultural frames of meanings in our lived world, which often gives room to some manoeuvre to do things in a new way. The study adopts a multiplex interpretive approach to data collection. This entails a qualitative sociolinguistic approach where interviews, discussion and observations at different socio-economic places namely / meetings, workplaces, homes, restaurants, drinking spots and many sites from all over Cape Town, were explored. The study suggests that Cameroonians have a multiplicity of identity options, which are manifested and negotiated performatively through language, dress code, song, food, business, and other practices that comprise their lifestyles. These identities are translocal and transnational in nature, and tend to blend South African, Cameroonian, and even American traits. It is also suggests that the different identity options which they manifest are highly mobile, enabling Cameroonians to fit into South African social structures as well as the Cameroonian ways of doing things.&nbsp / Additionally, the multiplicity of identities that Cameroonians manifest, blur the fault-line between Anglophone/Francophone identities. It is evident from the study that hybridity and the reconstruction practices are not only confined to languages. Hybridity also extends to discourse orders especially in terms of how meetings are conducted. The Cameroonian meetings captured through the activities of Mifi Association and CANOWACAT are characterised by &lsquo / disorder of discourse&rsquo / in which both formal and informal versions of English and French are used&nbsp / separately or as amalgams alongside CPE and their national languages, not only in side talks, but also when contributing to the meeting proceedings. Ultimately, the study concludes that&nbsp / Cameroonians are social actors making up an indispensable part of the social interaction in the Cape Town Diaspora. Just as they influence the languages, the entrepreneurial practices, and&nbsp / spaces in which they interact, the Cameroonian immigrants are also transformed. The major contribution of the study is that it adds to the recent debates about the nature of multilingualism&nbsp / and identities in late modern society. It emphasises that languages and identities are fluid, complex, and unstable. The distinction or boundaries between the various languages in multilingual practices are also not as clear-cut. This leads to a reframing of voice and actor hood as meaning is constructed across translocal and transnational contexts and domains in a networked&nbsp / world transformed by the mobility of endless flows of information, goods, ideas, and people. Thus, the study contributes to those arguing for a paradigm shift in sociolinguistic theory in which&nbsp / language is not a property of groups, nor is it an autonomous and bounded system fixed in time and space. Thus, identities, languages and the spaces of interaction are not fixed systems / &nbsp / identities, languages, and spaces are dynamic and in a state of flux. This in turn questions the notions of multilingualism and language itself, as well as the veracity of concepts such as&nbsp / &nbsp / &nbsp / code-switching, speech community, language variation, as the search for a sociolinguistic framework that can deal with phenomena predicated by motion, instability, and uncertainty, continues. <br /> &nbsp / </p>

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Oregon, 2002. / Typescript. Includes vita and abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 212-220). Also available for download via the World Wide Web; free to University of Oregon users.

This study explores the historic relationship between pop music divas and gay male fandom. It charts fan experiences from the early 60s with Judy Garland to contemporary times with pop diva Lady Gaga. This project also gives a description of the embodied experience of Brett Farmer's "queer sublimity of diva reception." Farmer (2005) argues that diva worship among gay men has become a queer sublimity, "the transcendence of a limiting heteronormative materiality and the sublime reconstruction, at least in fantasy, of a more capacious, kinder, queerer world" (p. 170). Using the methods of participant observation in drag performance and karaoke singing, performance ethnography, and autoethnography, I attempt to understand how a diva's performance can influence the lives of gay men and how it can inspire visions of a more perfect world for everyone.

This dissertation explores the reflexive and performative practices found in Mocha Jean Herrup's documentary work, POM, LESBIANFILM, and A FEW GOOD DYKES. By exploiting realism's failure to ever fully represent, reflexive and performative techniques enable a queer discourse. These techniques create 1) a parodic premise that calls attention to the disjunction between documentary's legitimizing conventions and queer as a viable subject, 2) a subjectification of the insider-outsider that troubles distinctions between the audience and the subject and the filmmaker and the subject, and 3) enables the embodied knowledge of queer subjectivity to emerge. / text

While proponents of process saw a contradiction in the current-traditional pedagogy--teaching toward product marginalized valuable practices embedded in the processes of writing--post-process scholars sought to move beyond attempts to codify writing processes for easy instruction. Because it avoids resting upon foundations, the critical focus of post-process does not allow for easy pedagogical application. In order to navigate the post-process theoretical impasse, I argue for an approach to composition pedagogy that emphasizes a performative and sophistic aspect of topical reasoning that when practiced challenges Cartesian self-certainty and works to transform subjectivity. Through communicating judgments of similarity and difference within any given situation, the performance of topical reasoning serves to either reproduce or transform the customary understanding of the rhetor's community; the latter is the exception, the former the rule within our inherited rhetorical traditions. Derivative of the efforts of Plato and Aristotle to discipline rhetoric, and especially following the emergence of the Enlightenment project, rhetorical traditions that exclude sophistic perspectives have continued to understand topics as codified sets of rules a rhetor simply follows to invent discourse, making the topics easily dismissible because invention had become a matter of reporting on reality or of following inner inspiration. While several projects to employ topics in composition pedagogy have emerged during the late 20th century--spanning process, post-process, and new rhetorical pedagogies--the performative dimension of topical reasoning has been overlooked, or left to the realm of theory because of its radical nature vis-a-vis university composition courses. Building from a Heideggerian reading of the topics, and through an extensive analysis of the sophistic pedagogic practices employed in a weekend seminar called the Landmark Forum, I work to develop a full understanding of topical reasoning as primarily performative, where only in risky moments of performance can one undergo an experience with language and so develop a rhetorical subjectivity receptive to recalcitrance while maintaining integrity to one's commitments. I claim that to "learn" topical reasoning requires a program of rigorous dialogic exercise, an ontological paideia, which calls for performances that revise identity and the networks of rhetorical relationships that reinforce identity.

<p>This thesis is an exploration of the historical, socio-cultural, economic, and political settings in which identities are negotiated and performed among Cameroonian immigrants in Cape Town. Focusing on language as localized practices and different interaction regimes, the thesis investigates how Cameroonian immigrants maintain and reconfigure the Anglophone/Francophone identity options in novel and hybrid ways. In addition, the study examines how ideologies favouring different languages are reproduced and challenged in translocal and transnational discourses. Guided by the poststructuralist theories the thesis explores the stance that reality is socially constructed, based on symbolic and material structural limitations that are challenged and maintained in interaction. That is, whatever we do or believe in, is supported by some historical or cultural frames of meanings in our lived world, which often gives room to some manoeuvre to do things in a new way. The study adopts a multiplex interpretive approach to data collection. This entails a qualitative sociolinguistic approach where interviews, discussion and observations at different socio-economic places namely / meetings, workplaces, homes, restaurants, drinking spots and many sites from all over Cape Town, were explored. The study suggests that Cameroonians have a multiplicity of identity options, which are manifested and negotiated performatively through language, dress code, song, food, business, and other practices that comprise their lifestyles. These identities are translocal and transnational in nature, and tend to blend South African, Cameroonian, and even American traits. It is also suggests that the different identity options which they manifest are highly mobile, enabling Cameroonians to fit into South African social structures as well as the Cameroonian ways of doing things.&nbsp / Additionally, the multiplicity of identities that Cameroonians manifest, blur the fault-line between Anglophone/Francophone identities. It is evident from the study that hybridity and the reconstruction practices are not only confined to languages. Hybridity also extends to discourse orders especially in terms of how meetings are conducted. The Cameroonian meetings captured through the activities of Mifi Association and CANOWACAT are characterised by &lsquo / disorder of discourse&rsquo / in which both formal and informal versions of English and French are used&nbsp / separately or as amalgams alongside CPE and their national languages, not only in side talks, but also when contributing to the meeting proceedings. Ultimately, the study concludes that&nbsp / Cameroonians are social actors making up an indispensable part of the social interaction in the Cape Town Diaspora. Just as they influence the languages, the entrepreneurial practices, and&nbsp / spaces in which they interact, the Cameroonian immigrants are also transformed. The major contribution of the study is that it adds to the recent debates about the nature of multilingualism&nbsp / and identities in late modern society. It emphasises that languages and identities are fluid, complex, and unstable. The distinction or boundaries between the various languages in multilingual practices are also not as clear-cut. This leads to a reframing of voice and actor hood as meaning is constructed across translocal and transnational contexts and domains in a networked&nbsp / world transformed by the mobility of endless flows of information, goods, ideas, and people. Thus, the study contributes to those arguing for a paradigm shift in sociolinguistic theory in which&nbsp / language is not a property of groups, nor is it an autonomous and bounded system fixed in time and space. Thus, identities, languages and the spaces of interaction are not fixed systems / &nbsp / identities, languages, and spaces are dynamic and in a state of flux. This in turn questions the notions of multilingualism and language itself, as well as the veracity of concepts such as&nbsp / &nbsp / &nbsp / code-switching, speech community, language variation, as the search for a sociolinguistic framework that can deal with phenomena predicated by motion, instability, and uncertainty, continues. <br /> &nbsp / </p>

<p>This thesis is an exploration of the historical, socio-cultural, economic, and political settings in which identities are negotiated and performed among Cameroonian immigrants in Cape Town. Focusing on language as localized practices and different interaction regimes, the thesis investigates how Cameroonian immigrants maintain and reconfigure the Anglophone/Francophone identity options in novel and hybrid ways. In addition, the study examines how ideologies favouring different languages are reproduced and challenged in translocal and transnational discourses. Guided by the poststructuralist theories the thesis explores the stance that reality is socially constructed, based on symbolic and material structural limitations that are challenged and maintained in interaction. That is, whatever we do or believe in, is supported by some historical or cultural&nbsp / frames of meanings in our lived world, which often gives room to some manoeuvre to do things in a new way. The study adopts a multiplex interpretive approach to data&nbsp / collection. This entails a qualitative sociolinguistic approach where interviews, discussion and observations at different socio-economic places namely / meetings, workplaces,&nbsp / homes, restaurants, drinking spots and many sites from all over Cape Town, were explored. The study suggests that Cameroonians have a multiplicity of identity options, which are manifested and negotiated performatively through language, dress code, song, food, business, and other practices that comprise their lifestyles. These identities are&nbsp / translocal and transnational in nature, and tend to blend South African, Cameroonian, and even American traits. It is also suggests that the different identity options which they manifest are highly mobile, enabling Cameroonians to fit into South African social structures as well as the Negotiation of Identities and Language Practices Cameroonian ways of doing things. Additionally, the multiplicity of identities that Cameroonians manifest, blur the fault-line between Anglophone/Francophone identities. It is evident from the study that hybridity and the reconstruction practices are not only confined to languages. Hybridity also extends to discourse orders especially in terms of how meetings are conducted. The Cameroonian meetings captured through the activities of Mifi Association and CANOWACAT are characterised by &lsquo / disorder of discourse&rsquo / in which both formal and informal versions of English and French are used separately or as amalgams alongside CPE and their national languages, not only in side talks, but also when contributing to the meeting proceedings. Ultimately, the study concludes that Cameroonians are social actors making up an indispensable part of the social interaction in the Cape Town Diaspora. Just as they influence the languages, the entrepreneurial practices, and spaces in which they interact, the Cameroonian immigrants are also transformed. The major&nbsp / contribution of the study is that it adds to the recent debates about the nature of multilingualism and identities in late modern society. It emphasises that languages and identities are fluid, complex, and unstable. The distinction or boundaries between the various languages in multilingual practices are also not as clear-cut. This leads to a reframing of voice and actor hood as meaning is constructed across translocal and transnational contexts and domains in a networked world transformed by the mobility of endless flows ofinformation, goods, ideas, and people. Thus, the study contributes to those arguing for a paradigm shift in sociolinguistic theory in which language is not a property of groups, nor is it an autonomous and bounded system fixed in time and space. Thus, identities, languages and the spaces of interaction are not fixed systems / identities, languages, and spaces are dynamic and in a state of flux. This in turn questions the notions of multilingualism and language itself, as well as the veracity of concepts such as code-switching,&nbsp / speech community, language variation, as the search for a sociolinguistic framework that can deal with phenomena predicated by motion, instability, and uncertainty, continues.</p>

This thesis is an exploration of the historical, socio-cultural, economic, and political settings in which identities are negotiated and performed among Cameroonian immigrants in Cape Town. Focusing on language as localized practices and different interaction regimes, the thesis investigates how Cameroonian immigrants maintain and reconfigure the Anglophone/Francophone identity options in novel and hybrid ways. In addition, the study examines how ideologies favouring different languages are reproduced and challenged in translocal and transnational discourses.Guided by the poststructuralist theories the thesis explores the stance that reality is socially constructed, based on symbolic and material structural limitations that are challenged and maintained in interaction. That is, whatever we do or believe in, is supported by some historical or cultural frames of meanings in our lived world, which often gives room to some manoeuvre to do things in a new way.The study adopts a multiplex interpretive approach to data collection. This entails a qualitative sociolinguistic approach where interviews, discussion and observations at different socio-economic places namely; meetings, workplaces, homes,restaurants, drinking spots and many sites from all over Cape Town, were explored.The study suggests that Cameroonians have a multiplicity of identity options, which are manifested and negotiated performatively through language, dress code, song, food, business, and other practices that comprise their lifestyles. These identities are translocal and transnational in nature, and tend to blend South African, Cameroonian, and even American traits. It is also suggests that the different identity options which they manifest are highly mobile, enabling Cameroonians to fit into South African social structures as well as the Cameroonian ways of doing things. Additionally, the multiplicity of identities that Cameroonians manifest, blur the fault-line between Anglophone/Francophone identities.It is evident from the study that hybridity and the reconstruction practices are not only confined to languages. Hybridity also extends to discourse orders especially in terms of how meetings are conducted. The Cameroonian meetings captured through the activities of Mifi Association and CANOWACAT are characterised by ‘disorder of discourse’ in which both formal and informal versions of English and French are used separately or as amalgams alongside CPE and their national languages, not only in side talks, but also when contributing to the meeting proceedings.Ultimately, the study concludes that Cameroonians are social actors making up an indispensable part of the social interaction in the Cape Town Diaspora. Just as they influence the languages, the entrepreneurial practices, and spaces in which they interact, the Cameroonian immigrants are also transformed.The major contribution of the study is that it adds to the recent debates about the nature of multilingualism and identities in late modern society. It emphasises that languages and identities are fluid, complex, and unstable. The distinction or boundaries between the various languages in multilingual practices are also not as clear-cut. This leads to a reframing of voice and actor hood as meaning is constructed across translocal and transnational contexts and domains in a networked world transformed by the mobility of endless flows of information, goods, ideas, and people. Thus, the study contributes to those arguing for a paradigm shift in sociolinguistic theory in which language is not a property of groups, nor is it an autonomous and bounded system fixed in time and space. Thus, identities, languages and the spaces of interaction are not fixed systems; identities, languages, and spaces are dynamic and in a state of flux. This in turn questions the notions of multilingualism and language itself, as well as the veracity of concepts such as code-switching, speech community, language variation, as the search for a sociolinguistic framework that can deal with phenomena predicated by motion, instability, and uncertainty, continues. / Philosophiae Doctor - PhD