In her introduction to a special issue of the South Central Review on literary biography published in 2006, Linda Leavell writes, "Many would trace the disdain for literary biography—in both senses of the word “literary”—back through Roland Barthes’s “death of the author” to the New Critics’ division of text from context all the way to T. S. Eliot’s theory of impersonality. Critical theory of the past century has generally deemed an author’s life, personality, and intentions irrelevant to the text" (1). Leavell’s explanation of how critical theory of the twentieth century came to shape the current scholarly attitude towards literary biography establishes the genre’s status in an era of literary theory that is commonly characterized by the diminishment of the author as the source of meaning in a text, an era in which we remain. This characterization, however, overlooks the different ways that the theorists of the era displaced the author as the dominant figure in literary studies. This paper demonstrates how these different ways, despite whatever damage they might have done to the status of literary biography, actually benefit the study of the genre. Additionally, this paper argues that they not only comprise one side of Vladimir Nabokov’s contradictory views on his own authorship, which makes him an ideal subject for the study of authority over biographical representation, but also gave rise to new methodologies of literary biography, which are the methodologies of Nabokov’s biographers themselves. As a result, this paper concludes, “an author’s life, personality, and intentions” in turn have assumed new relevancy in literary studies. / text

This thesis explores the teaching and learning of English for Medical Purposes (EMP) in a Syrian Arab university (Tishreen University). It investigates the inherent contradictions in the position of EMP in an Arab-medium university by drawing on the socio-political and economic factors shaping English language education policy in Syria. It also critiques “mainstream” ESP through examining the “purpose” in English for Medical Purposes. Rather than viewing learning as an end product, this study suggests that learning English is part of a dynamic process of learning to become a doctor in Syria and as part of constructing the 21st Century Syrian “doctor” identity. I draw on aspects of poststructuralism and complexity theory to take the analysis of English for Specific Purposes beyond issues of needs analysis, content, and materials development. ESP, from its outset, has been proposed for decades as a commodity that meets students’ linguistic and communicative needs. However important these concerns are for the development of the discipline, as I argue in this thesis, ESP seems to adopt a “mechanistic” approach by predetermining “needs” and “purposes” which fails to account for the complexity of human beings’ behaviours and responses in educational contexts. The deterministic conceptualisation of ESP places rigid boundaries between ESP and the reality of the medicine profession, therefore, fails to meet students’ needs which transcend boundaries of classroom in aspiration for recognition by the medical community worldwide. English for Medical Purposes, in this study, goes beyond “specific purposes” to account for the role of English as a foreign language in constructing doctor identity and in the process of becoming a doctor. Data in this qualitative research were collected through focus groups with students of medicine in Tishreen University, semi-structured interviews with medical tutors and management officials in the Faculty of Medicine and the Higher Institute of Languages, as well as ESP teachers. Policy documents were analysed, and field notes were taken in classroom and hospital observations. Based on the analysis of these sources, a deeper understanding of EMP at Tishreen University is reached through the lens of poststructuralism and complexity theory. Finally, this thesis ends by drawing an ESP/Applied Linguistics relationship among the implications the findings have for policy makers, teachers and medical students, alongside recommendations for future ESP research directions.

Individual’s existential ambivalence has according to Jacques Derrida, one of the foremost proponents of post-structuralism, led to a continuous demand for structure (Cooper, 1989). Categories, used as structural tools, are however often hierarchically organized, where one category is more preferable than the other, also referred to as binary oppositions. Alternative categories and/ or references will appear when adopting a deconstruction process, which is crucial in order to invoke change and development (Cooper, 1989; Markkula et al., 2011; Marion, 2006). The aim of present research is trying to identify if Derrida’s theory of undecidable transfer of features (Agger, 1991; Cooper, 1989; Livingston, 2010; Bates, 2005) is applicable in fashion, more specifically fast- and slow fashion, and if the two categories are susceptible to a merge. Deconstructionism and Derrida’s theory of undecidable was furthermore applied as the theoretical framework throughout the study. Present research has been executed with an interpretive methodological approach and through a poststructural epistemological outlook (Hudson & Ozanne, 1988; Eriksson & Kovalainen, 2016). Data was derived through two focus group interviews, involving seven informants at a time, with Autodriving as a visual research tool (Heisley & Levy, 1991) and open-ended questions as a complementing instrument (Eriksson & Kovalainen, 2016). A thematic analysis was furthermore applied when revisiting the data and analysing its content. The findings finally suggest that a merge between fast- and slow fashion is executable, which furthermore also legitimises Derrida’s theory of undecidability. This study has however only begun the deconstruction process and does therefore encourage future researchers to continue investigating the theory of undecidability (Agger, 1991; Cooper, 1989; Livingston, 2010; Bates, 2005) not only in fashion, but also within other institutions.

This is a theoretical and exploratory study of the social construction of the lived experience I am calling "ableness."  Through the repetition of behaviors and practices performed by able-bodied people, the representation of the able body has come to appear natural and unconsciously taken for granted, as they do not have to think about their bodies in interaction with everyday objects. I argue that this able-bodied solipsism is heightened in advanced industrial societies where discourses and practices created by Human-Factors Engineering compile knowledge based on the assumption that the able body is the norm. This knowledge is then employed in the fabrication of everyday items. Through an examination of theoretical perspectives on impaired bodies, a history of human-factors engineering, and an ethnography of how able bodies interact with their everyday surroundings, I intend to uncover the assumptions underlying the social construction of "ableness" and able-bodied solipsism.

This feminist study examines women's use of improvisation in discovering, creating, and articulating various self-identities. To create a theory of identity formation, two feminist theoretical position, essentialism and poststructuralism, are analyzed and merged. This hybrid theory addresses the interplay between the self and society that women must recognize in order to form satisfying identities. Improvisational practices, involving bodily awareness and movement, are demonstrated to have the potential for helping women to actualize themselves in these various identities. For this study, the writer uses her experience as an improviser and interviews three women who use improvisation in their choreographic processes. She also discusses performers whom she has seen and performers about whom feminist performance critics have written. This study examines improvisation in dance and performance art from a feminist perspective. I clarify what improvisation entails and, by doing so, illustrate how improvisational movement in dance and performance art can enhance the lives of women as viewers and performers. Through exploring improvisation from this feminist perspective, I demonstrate the psychological insights I have gained from practicing improvisation and document performances that have been improvisationally inspired by women who feel dissatisfied with the manner in which this society shapes and limits their identities.

In this thesis I investigate intimate partner violence (IPV) against women in heterosexual relationships by analysing the accounts of women and men in the Anglophone Caribbean country of St. Vincent and the Grenadines. Since IPV occurs in the context of a range of abusive practices (Dobash and Dobash 2004) participants' talk on the use and experiences of violent acts, violent threats, as well as other controlling and coercive tactics are examined as part of this study. Analytically, I focus on the points at which discourses of gender converge with narratives of violence. In other words, the current work examines the ways in which participants construct, (re)produce, disturb and/or negotiate gender in their accounts of IPV, and the kinds of power dynamics that are implicated in these verbal performances. I apply a feminist poststructuralist framework to the study of IPV against women. Synthesising feminist theories of gender and power, and poststructuralist insights on language, subjectivity, social processes and institutions, feminist poststructuralism holds that hegemonic discourses of gender are used to subjugate women (Weedon 1997; Gavey 1990). The points at which individuals complicate dominant discursive practices will also be assessed as part of this approach. In-depth interviews conducted with 34 participants - 19 women and 15 men - between 2007 and 2008 are analysed by using a version of discourse analysis (DA) compatible with the feminist poststructuralist framework outlined in the thesis. My analysis begins by highlighting the ways in which narratives of gender inscribe asymmetrical relations of power. The focus then shifts to a comparison of women's and men's accounts on a range of abusive acts. Traditional scripts on gender are often used to police the boundaries of femininities and masculinities, tying these to female and male bodies respectively. This is the context in which control, coercion, violence and violent threats are discussed in these accounts. Understandings of manhood and womanhood also emerge in the analysis of the strategies used to explain violence. I conclude with a summary and discussion of the analysis, and I suggest possible areas for further research on IPV in the Anglophone Caribbean.

Cob, as an arts-based research process, creates movements and moments of survival. Survival is an ideological construction and an actual, local practice. Survival is also about desiring and fulfilling arts-based desires to work with the land through academic and material scavenging. Cob creates strategies for surviving, for working with our respective environments wisely. Cob building teaches people how to negotiate the natural economy and their relationships to labor and each other through an artistic and intimate practice. From a feminist poststructural lens, survival happens on the local level, between and with people. Cob building creates knowledge through creative, kinesthetic, and collaborative engagement. As a feminist poststructuralist, arts-based research allows me to examine local action and interaction among people, positionalities, and competing differences. Rather than appeasing the modern impulse to objectify and rationalize an end-point or an object- oriented view of the production of art, feminist poststructural theory works to problematize the end-point. Through cob building, a rich, arts-based process, I call into question the modern impulse to find Truth and ask that we be aware of developing new oppressions when working toward equity and justice. Cob building teaches people how to engage together within the form of artistic creation. Cob is an arts-based research process that includes the land as an integral part of its canvas. In order to articulate, uncover, and engage the claim that, as an arts-based process, cob creates movements and moments of survival, I use the arts-based process, a/r/tography. This a/r/tographical text does not offer an end point but works to recreate moments and movements of cob building as an arts-based research project. A/r/tography helps to layer the movements of arts-based survival within cob building and this text. Throughout this work, the arts-based process of cob building is the overlying metaphor for the construction of the structure of this text. As the chapters move forward, the structure builds up.

While many adolescents list unstructured "hangout" spaces as central to their social lives and activities, the availability of such spaces has dramatically declined in the last two decades, and attendance at afterschool programs has increased. Concurrently, these programs have drawn new scrutiny: from researchers eager to show their educational value, and from funders and policy makers seeking measureable evidence of that value. Even youth centers that were deliberately designed to give young people a space to "hang out" have been forced to reorganize due to the pressure to demonstrate program results. In this dissertation, through participant-observation, archival documents, and interviews with youth workers and young people, the author investigates and critiques the complex politics of representation in the funding, research, and day-to-day existence of one unstructured youth program, the Youth Action Alliance's offering known simply as Hang Out. Rather than producing a unified picture of Hang Out, the author takes a non-dialectic approach, using poststructuralist and posthuman theory to propose multiple plausible and powerful perspectives, and to explore their productive tensions with one another.

<p>Döva personer i Sverige och världen lever nästan uteslutande i ett hörande majoritetssamhälle och har således på ett eller annat sätt en fortlöpande kontakt med hörande människor i såväl privat- som arbetsliv. De flesta döva i arbetslivet arbetar som enda eller som en av få döva på en hörande arbetsplats och ofta anlitas tolk för möten mellan hörande och döva kollegor. Föreliggande uppsats är en etnografisk studie av tolksituationen på en arbetsplats där en döv samt ett tjugotal hörande kollegor arbetar tillsammans. Med hjälp av fältanteckningar, intervjuer och videofilmning har en bild av tolksituationen genererats. I resultaten visas tecken på att den döva deltagaren till stor del lider av informationsbrist på olika plan. Därtill verkar det finnas en stor kunskapslucka hos de hörande kollegorna gällande teckenspråk och dövas villkor i ett hörande samhälle. Resultatet visar även tendenser till att den döva deltagaren genom det omgivande majoritetsspråkssamhället själv medverkar till sin egen underordning. I den komplexa tolksituationen verkar tolken fungera som en grindvakt. Tolken kan ha en svår och inte alltid definierad roll att översätta och samordna turer mellan hörande och döva och föra samtalet framåt i en gemensam riktning. Det verkar även som att den döva deltagaren och hennes hörande kollegor har olika uppfattning om tolkens roll. Tolkens arbete verkar härigenom kunna försvåras, något som i sin tur skulle kunna påverka relationen mellan den döva deltagaren och hennes hörande kollegor. Resultaten har diskuterats utifrån ett poststrukturalistiskt perspektiv för att visa på samband mellan mikro- och makronivå med kopplingar till språkideologi, språkpolitik, maktrelationer samt teorin om Deafhood.</p> / <p>Deaf people in Sweden and worldwide live with few exceptions in a hearing society, and thereby in one way or another they have connections with hearing people in their private and professional lives. Most Deaf people in working life have no or few Deaf co-workers at hearing workplaces and hence a Sign Language interpreter is often hired to facilitate the communication between deaf and hearing co-workers. This thesis is an ethnographic study of the interpreting situation at a workplace where one Deaf and about 20 hearing co-workers work together. With field notes, interviews and video recording an illustration of the situation has been generated. The results show a tendency that the Deaf participant to a great extent suffers from information loss in several areas. In addition, the hearing co-workers seem to have a gap in knowledge about Sign Language and the conditions of Deaf people. Also, the Deaf participant seems to participate in her own subordination through the surrounding majority society. In the complexity of the interpreting situation, the interpreter seems to serve as a gatekeeper. She also has a challenging and not always easily definable role in translating and coordinating turns between Deaf and hearing participants, thus moving the conversation forwards in a mutual direction. Nevertheless, the Deaf participant and her hearing co-workers often seem to have different views of the responsibilities of the interpreter, something that might make the interpreter’s job even more challenging. This, in turn, can influence the relationship between hearing and Deaf co-workers. The results of the thesis have been discussed from a poststructural perspective to show a connection between the intimate workplace situation and language ideology, language policy, power relations and the theory of Deafhood.</p><p> </p>

This study examines some of the significant challenges that Nakoda peoples encountered from 1870-1980 in the Banff-Bow Valley, Alberta. Beginning with missionary movements, the 1877 Treaty Seven agreements and the establishment of the reservation systems, I trace the emergence of a disciplinary power regime and the subsequent consequences for Nakoda communities. Canadian governments and agents of the colonial bureaucracy manipulated time, space and movement which altered the structure of Aboriginal lives in ways that attempted to increase visibility, economic productivity and docility. Race as a normalizing and dividing practice (Foucault, 1975) is used to demonstrate how levels of discipline furthered assimilation strategies through the formation of Canadas first national park and the development of the regions tourism economies. As the preeminent example of the engagement of Nakoda peoples in local tourism industries, the Banff Indian Days sporting and cultural festivals, which were celebrated from 1894-1978, are also investigated. Borrowing from poststructural and postcolonial theory, the interactions between tourists, participants, organizers and performers are problematized. It is revealed that the festivals became critical sites of cultural exchange that engendered unique socio-economic, political and cultural opportunities. In addition, the Indian Days fostered important identity-making possibilities and crucial spaces to assert, contest, and produce perceptions of Aboriginal cultures. This research privileges information obtained from oral history interviews with Nakoda peoples. However, archival materials, mainly newspaper accounts, photographs, tourism advertisements, and government documents also contribute to the primary evidence collected. As well as analyzing racial discourse, this work also considers how Nakoda peoples responded to the representations and expectations that informed the production of Aboriginal identities. I conclude this study by suggesting that it is crucial for researchers to consult diverse Aboriginal perspectives and collaborate with the communities within which they work. This research offers new understandings of the cultural histories of the Banff-Bow Valley which reflect the dynamic and complex nature of colonial power relations.