This thesis examines Judith Butler's account of performative agency in relation to its critics, in particular, the question of whether Butler's thesis disavows materiality and thereby agency. These questions are answered by reading Butler's work through the work of Merleau-Ponty, in particular, by comparing Butler's account of performative agency to Merleau-Ponty's account of bodily intentionality. It is argued that a common ground underlies these featured concepts. I identify this common ground through the institution of the concept "simultaneity" to express a relationship of reciprocity between meaning and materiality through which ontological and epistemological significance is, reciprocally, sedimented and transformed; stabilised and destabilised.

This paper addresses the aesthetic encounter from the perspective of the writings of Maurice Merleau-Ponty on the visible and the invisible. It begins with the premise that from time to time we encounter situations which precipitate a sense of slippage in our experience of the world. The paper proceeds to argue that the arts can provide a point of access to this experience, and that aesthetic theory has, for example, responded to it through the development of the notion of 'the sublime'. The writings of Maurice Merleau-Ponty and, in particular, aspects of his text The Visible and the invisible, are presented with a view to augmenting this aspect of aesthetic theory. Proceeding from a 'Merleau-Pontian' perspective, the paper explores how the arts can serve to disrupt our conventional sense of space and time - creating ripples in the substance Merleau-Ponty names as 'flesh' - so as to expose the chiasm or blind spot in our experience of the world. The methodology adopted is an experiential one, which draws on the writer's interaction with the selected works of various artists as well as her own practice in glass.

Doctor of Philosophy / People gather. Everywhere. They gather to witness. To tell and to listen to stories. To show what was done, and how what is to be done might best be done. To perform the necessary procedures to make sure the gods are glorified and the world continues to be made as it should. To dance, to heal, to marry, to send away the dead, to entertain, to praise, to order the darkness, to affirm the self. People are gathering. As they always have—everywhere. Doctors, lawyers, bankers and politicians don evening wear to attend performances in which people sing in unearthly voices in languages they do not understand, to sit in rows, silent, and to measure the appropriate length of time they should join with each other in continuing to make light slapping noises by striking the palms of their hands together to show their appreciation at the end of the performance. One hundred thousand people gather on the last Saturday of September every year in a giant stadium in the city of Melbourne, Australia at the “hallowed turf” of the Melbourne Cricket Ground, to watch 36 men kick, punch and catch an oval shaped ball with each other, scoring points by kicking it between long sticks planted in the ground. The gathered multitude wears the same ritual colours as the men playing the game. They cry out, stand and sing anthems. This game is played and understood nowhere else in the world, but in the Melbourne cultural calendar it is the most important day of the year. It is what makes Melbourne Melbourne. Before the whitefella came, aborigines from the clans of the Yiatmathang, Waradjuri Dora Dora, Duduroa, Minjambutta, Pangerang, Kwatt Kwatta—the wombat, kangaroo, possum, Tasmanian tiger, echidna, koala and emu, would gather on the banks of the Murray River, near what is now the twin cities of Albury/Wodonga to organize marriages, perform initiations, to lay down weapons, to dance, to settle debts and disputes, to tell stories, to paint their bodies, and to request permission from the Yiatmathang to cross the river and make the climb to the top of Bogong High Plains in late spring, to feast on the Bogong moths arriving fully grown after their flight from Queensland, ready to be sung, danced and eaten. On the island of Sulawesi, a son of a family bears the responsibility of providing the largest possible number of buffalo to be sacrificed at the funeral of his father. A sacrifice which will condemn the son to a life of debt to pay for the animals which must be slaughtered in sufficient number to affirm the status of his family, provide enough meat to assure the correct distributions are made, and assure that his father has a sufficiently large herd in Puya, the afterworld. Temporary ritual buildings for song and dance must be constructed, effigies made, invitations issued. Months are spent in the preparations. And then the people will arrive, family, friends, colleagues and tourists, in great numbers, from surrounding villages, from Ujung Pandang, from Jakarta, from Australia, from Europe, from the USA, to sing, dance, talk, look and listen. And if the funeral is a success, the son will gain respect, status and honour for himself, and secure a wellprovided journey to the afterlife for his father. In a primary school playground, in an outer suburb of any Australian city, thirty parents sit in a couple of rows of metal and plastic chairs on a spring afternoon to watch their own and each other’s children sing together in hesitant or strident voices, in or out of time and tune versions of well-known popular songs praising simple virtues are applauded; the younger the children, the greater the effort, the longer and louder the applause. Some of these people are the same doctors, bankers and lawyers who had donned evening wear the night before at opera houses, now giving freely of the appreciative palm slapping sound held so precious in that other environment. And they will gather and disperse and regather, at times deemed appropriate, at the times when these gatherings have always occurred, these lawyers, doctors, sons, mothers, sports fans, when and where they can and should and must, to sing, to dance, to tell stories, to watch and listen, to be there with and among each other bearing witness to their faith, their belief, their belonging, their values. But what, in these superficially disparate, culturally diverse and dispersed groups of people, what draws them, what gathers an audience, what gathers in an audience, and what in an audience is salient for the audience members? What gathers, what gathers in an audience?

Thesis (M.V.A.)--Sydney College of the Arts, University of Sydney, 2005. / Title from title screen (viewed 26 May 2008). "Glass"--At the foot of t.p. Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Visual Arts to the Sydney College of the Arts. Degree awarded 2005; thesis submitted 2004. Includes bibliographical references. Also available in print form.

Thesis (PhD)--Macquarie University, Division of Society, Culture, Media & Philosophy, Department of Critical and Cultural Studies, 2005. / "2004". Bibliography: p. 315-327.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Oregon, 2005. / Typescript. Includes vita and abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 256-273). Also available for download via the World Wide Web; free to University of Oregon users.

Proefschrift Universiteit Maastricht. / Met lit. opg. - Met samenvatting in het Engels.

Submitted by Automa??o e Estat?stica (sst@bczm.ufrn.br) on 2016-08-16T23:11:59Z No. of bitstreams: 1 PaulaNunesChaves_DISSERT.pdf: 3646648 bytes, checksum: 5dbd01fc5211bc81cd3c6a519d92016a (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Arlan Eloi Leite Silva (eloihistoriador@yahoo.com.br) on 2016-08-24T19:49:03Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 PaulaNunesChaves_DISSERT.pdf: 3646648 bytes, checksum: 5dbd01fc5211bc81cd3c6a519d92016a (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-08-24T19:49:03Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 PaulaNunesChaves_DISSERT.pdf: 3646648 bytes, checksum: 5dbd01fc5211bc81cd3c6a519d92016a (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-02-17 / Coordena??o de Aperfei?oamento de Pessoal de N?vel Superior (CAPES) / Este estudo objetivou dialogar a teoria queer e o pensamento do fil?sofo franc?s Maurice Merleau-Ponty no que concerne ?s categorias de corpo e sexualidade. A partir desse di?logo, delinearam-se outros objetivos, a saber: identificar poss?veis recorr?ncias da experi?ncia dos corpos e sexualidades queer, pensados sob uma perspectiva merleaupontyana, para o conhecimento da Educa??o F?sica e refletir sobre esse campo do conhecimento a partir das no??es de epistemologia queer e da estesiologia. O estudo teve como moldura te?rica a atitude fenomenol?gica proposta por Merleau-Ponty e a redu??o enquanto t?cnica de pesquisa. Na tentativa de entrela?ar e estabelecer rela??es entre esses pensamentos acionamos o cinema do espanhol Pedro Almod?var como estrat?gia perceptiva, um exerc?cio do olhar enquanto possibilidade de leitura do mundo e novas maneiras de perceber o ser humano. Apreciamos tr?s pel?culas do cineasta, a saber: Tudo sobre minha m?e (1999), A pele que habito (2011) e M? educa??o (2004), que nos colocam em contato com corpos e sexualidades queer, bem como com o corpo estesiol?gico, do ?xtase, das sensa??es e experi?ncias vividas, obra de arte inacabada cujos contornos n?o s?o fixos ou definidos, postulados por Merleau-Ponty. O fil?sofo, ao fornecer um panorama conceitual rico do corpo e de sua experi?ncia sexual, amplia e inaugura horizontes de pensamento e reflex?o para a experi?ncia queer, uma experi?ncia indeterminada e contingente enquanto forma singular de habitar o mundo. Tais horizontes inaugurados pelo fil?sofo e somados ? perspectiva queer contribuem para problematizar os modos de produ??o do conhecimento e os saberes sobre corpo e sexualidade na Educa??o F?sica. Por fim, apontamos que essa conversa??o te?rica nos ofereceu pistas para refletir sobre as reverbera??es de uma epistemologia queer para a Educa??o F?sica a partir de um conhecimento pautado na estesia e no sens?vel enquanto marcos de uma outra racionalidade cient?fica. / This study had the goal of make a dialogue between queer theory and the thoughts of the French philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty in the categories of body and sexuality. From this dialogue, other goals were designed, namely: identify possible recurrences of the experience of bodies and queer sexualities, designed under Merleau-Ponty?s perspective, to the knowledge of Physical Education and reflect on this domain of knowledge using the notions of queer epistemology and esthesia. The study had as methodology the phenomenological attitude proposed by Merleau-Ponty and use the reduction as technic of research. Trying linking these thoughts we used the cinema of the Spanish director Pedro Almod?var as perceptive strategy, an exercise of look as possibility of reading the world and new ways of perceiving the human being. We appreciate three films, namely: All About My Mother (1999), The Skin I Live In (2011) and Bad Education (2004), which put us in touch with bodies and queer sexualities, with the body of esthesia, of the ecstasy, sensations and lived experiences, un type of art whose contours are not fixed or determinable, postulate by Merleau-Ponty. The philosopher, provide a rich conceptual view of the body and their sexual experience, extends and opens horizons of thought and reflection about queer experience, one experience indeterminate and contingent as a singular way of inhabiting the world. Those horizons opened by the philosopher and added to the queer perspective contribute to put in question the modes of knowledge production and the knowledge about body and sexuality in Physical Education. Finally, we point that this theoretical conversation give us clues to reflect about the reverberations of a queer epistemology for Physical Education usiging one type of knowledge guided by esthesia and sensitivity as marks of another scientific rationality.

Dissertação (mestrado) - Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Paraná, Curitiba, 2011 / Bibliografia: f.126-131 / A pesquisa em questão tem por objetivo investigar a expressividade do corpo na superação do problema das relações entre consciência e natureza nas primeiras obras de Merleau-Ponty. Para alcançar esse fim, pretende-se partir da análise das Meditações Metaf / The research in question aims to investigate the expressiveness of the body in overcoming the problem of relations between consciousness and nature in the early works of Merleau-Ponty. To achieve this, it is intended to start from the analysis of the Meta

Dissertação (mestrado) - Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Paraná, Curitiba, 2010 / Bibliografia: f. 94-98 / A pesquisa investiga o pensamento de Merleau-Ponty, que toma o mundo, as coisas e a subjetividade como feitos de um mesmo tecido, reconhecidos de forma intersubjetiva na corporeidade e no movimento de entrecruzamentos das coisas, do eu e do outro no mundo / This research investigates Merleau-Ponty?s thought which considers the world, the things and the subjectivity as being of the same fabric, recognized in an intersubjective way in the embodiment and also in the movement of the crisscrossing of things, the