This dissertation focuses on the particular ways in which early modern English playwrights connect geographical territory depicted in charts, travel, and colonial literature to the female body. By examining the rhetorical methods that both male and female writers employ, I demonstrate how the emerging imperial discourse relies upon the idea that through marriage, women represent and convey territory for their male relatives. But as physical embodiments of family wealth and property that serve as crucial links between males, these women can subvert this use of their bodies in order to formulate a site of resistance to masculine modes of mapping that penetrate, explore, and chart both territory and bodies. Beginning with depictions of Queen Elizabeth and English geography, I investigate plays from the 1570s to the 1670s that reflect and reshape Elizabeth's cartography of her virgin body. In my consideration of Christopher Marlowe's Tragedie of Dido, Queene of Carthage, and Tamburlaine, I argue that although Dido and Zenocrate serve to represent their homelands and legitimize its conquest by their men, the two queens upset this rhetoric when they delineate their own geographic re-imaginings. Elizabeth Cary's The Tragedie of Mariam and The History of the Life, Reign, and Death of Edward II reveal how both Mariam and Isabel are inscribed by the same colonial rhetoric that imagines the women to be fertile land that can only be properly civilized by men. The next chapter reveals how Thomas Heywood's works reflect and legitimize the growing importance of trade rather than outright conquest in English overseas expansion. In If You Know Not Me, You Know No Bodie and The Fair Maid of the West, Heywood's Queen Elizabeth and her counterpart Bess Bridges demonstrate how any woman's virginity becomes a commodity to be used and traded as a representation of English virtue. The final chapter examines how Margaret Cavendish in Loves Adventures and Bell in Campo reclaims the body as a site of potential resistance by redeploying the rhetoric of virginity and cartography. The coda calls for continued investigation into the uses of geographic rhetoric through the example of Queen Anne.

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This paper explores how the formal aspects of streaming platforms create a female inheritance that helps foster multiple representations of femininity and womanhood which empowers women. Building off of Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar's Madwoman in the Attic, the paper argues that because streaming platforms produce original content, are a space for multiplicity and interconnection, and act as a type of archive, they can build a female inheritance. The combination of these attributes offer a widespread emergence of multiple stories that valorize women and what is socially coded as feminine, creating a creative network that improves the representation of women as well as their opportunity to work in the visual media industry. Three case studies are explored in connection to these ideas including Amazon Prime's The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, and the Netflix original series, Followers, and The OA.

Submitted by Cássia Santos (cassia.bcufg@gmail.com) on 2014-09-03T11:09:21Z No. of bitstreams: 2 Dissertacao Savia Diniz.pdf: 1319842 bytes, checksum: e419755bfe224b2ee528f044d61cb020 (MD5) license_rdf: 23148 bytes, checksum: 9da0b6dfac957114c6a7714714b86306 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2014-09-03T11:09:22Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 Dissertacao Savia Diniz.pdf: 1319842 bytes, checksum: e419755bfe224b2ee528f044d61cb020 (MD5) license_rdf: 23148 bytes, checksum: 9da0b6dfac957114c6a7714714b86306 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2013-04-25 / Conselho Nacional de Pesquisa e Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico - CNPq / This work presents an historical research on the representations of women in the chroniques and articles from a Brazilian newspaper (City of Goiás), Correio de Goiás, in the period 1930-1936. Despite its name, this newspaper was a mixture of official documents, political and social news and opinions columns. This discourses had been generated in political and social transition context from the Belle Epoche, the crisis of the decade of 1920, the advent of the Revolution of 1930 and the Estado Novo of Getúlio Vargas. This context had been marked by social, political and economic changes but at same time by permanences in the Brazilian society. The newspaper texts had been written by doctors, religious men, teachers, civil servants and intellectuals and had been analysed through the historical category of gender relations. This research focuses on the representations of women, which had been built and spread through those newspaper discourses. Such representations in the press had sought to establish the boundaries of social roles of men and women in the City of Goiás. The vilaboenses women had to face and choose between tradition and transgression or in their private daily life (marriage, divorce, attitides, fashion, consumption etc.) or in their urban life (work, sociability, education, culture, citizenship and emancipation) / Essa dissertação tem como objeto de investigação as representações femininas forjadas nas crônicas e artigos jornalísticos publicados no Correio Oficial – um misto de órgão oficial, noticioso e opinativo – da Cidade de Goiás, entre os anos de 1930 e 1936. Os discursos que emanam desses textos foram gerados num contexto sócio-político de transição entre a denominada Belle Époque – passando pelas crises e reviravoltas da década de 1920 e pelo o advento da Revolução de 1930 – e a instauração do Estado Novo de Getúlio Vargas. Um contexto marcado por profundas mudanças político-econômicas e socioculturais na sociedade brasileira, mas também por insistentes permanências, ambas refletidas na e por meio da imprensa da Cidade de Goiás. Os textos jornalísticos do Correio – escritos majoritariamente por médicos, religiosos, professores, funcionários públicos e intelectuais – são aqui interpretados sob a perspectiva das relações de gênero. O foco principal da investigação é voltado para as representações das mulheres vilaboenses, construídas e difundidas por meio desses discursos, que buscavam delimitar comparativamente os limites e especificidades próprios das esferas do feminino e do masculino. Tais representações são estudadas levando em conta o dilema vivido pelas mulheres vilaboenses entre as alternativas da tradição e da transgressão, seja no âmbito mais restrito da vida privada, doméstica e familiar (casamento, divórcio, comportamento, moda, consumo, cultura, autonomia) ou no âmbito mais amplo da vida pública (cultura, educação, sociabilidade, trabalho, profissionalização, cidadania e emancipação).

AFRIKAANS: Die teenwoordigheid van vroue in die massamedia, en spesifiek in televisie, is vroeg in die een-en-twintigste eeu groter as ooit vantevore. Reekse waarin uitbeeldings van vroue beperk was tot dié van meestal onderontwikkelde, periferale of sekondêre karakters, is iets van die verlede. Die wyse waarop vroue in televisie uitgebeeld word is dus uiters belangrik aangesien so ’n groot hoeveelheid televisiereekse spesifiek die vrouegehoor teiken wat, hetsy aktief of passief, met wat hulle in hierdie reekse sien omgaan. Boodskappe wat deur televisiereekse versprei word, sal waarskynlik onbewustelik ’n uitwerking hê op hoe vroue hulleself beskou, hoe hulle ander vroue beskou, sowel as op hulle houding jeens kwessies soos feminisme en vroulikheid. Die doel van hierdie studie is om dominante diskoerse oor feminisme en vroulikheid wat deur hedendaagse televisiereekse aan die samelewing voorgehou word, te ondersoek. Die studie konsentreer spesifiek op drie gewilde en veelbekroonde Amerikaanse televisiereekse van 1997 tot 2012, naamlik Ally McBeal (Kelley 1997- 2002), Sex and the City (Starr 1998-2004) en Desperate Housewives (Cherry 2004- 2012) – reekse wat al drie as sogenaamde zeitgeist-televisie beskryf kan word. Die artikulering van feministiese doelstellings, hetsy dié afkomstig uit die tweede generasie of uit meer onlangse bewegings in feminisme, val onder die soeklig en die wyse waarop hierdie doelstellings aangespreek word, word bespreek. Deur aspekte wat teoreties nóύ verband hou met feminisme (aspekte soos melodrama as ’n vroulik-geïdentifiseerde genre en verbruikerswese) te identifiseer, word daar aangvoer dat die drie reekse beslis in ’n feministiese sfeer geposisioneer is. Die teenwoordigheid van hierdie aspekte in die drie reekse het dan ook dieperliggende narratiewe oor feminisme blootgelê – narratiewe waarvan die alledaagse kyker waarskynlik nie bewus sal wees nie, maar wat onderbewustelik moontlik ’n invloed kan hê op kykers se denke oor en begrip van feminisme. Die belangrikste gevolgtrekking van hierdie studie is dat die drie gekose televisiereekse op verskillende en uiteenlopende wyses met feminisme en vroulikheid omgaan. Verder ondersteun die studie die uitgangspunt dat daar ’n behoefte is aan kritiese debat rakende die uitbeeldings van feminisme en vroulikheid in hedendaagse voorbeelde van populêre massamedia. ENGLISH: The presence of women in mass media, specifically in television, in the twenty-first century is larger than ever and the days of series featuring women that are generally underdeveloped, peripheral or secondary characters is a thing of the past. The way in which females are portrayed in television is thus of the utmost importance since such a large number of television series cater to an extensive female audience, who engage (whether actively or passively) with that which they see. Messages received from popular television series are likely to inadvertently have an effect on how women view themselves, how they view other women, as well as their attitudes towards issues like feminism and femininity. The purpose of this study is to examine dominant discourses on feminism and feminity that are being propagated by contemporary television series. The specific focus of the study falls on three highly successful and critically acclaimed television series running from 1997 until 2012, namely Ally McBeal (Kelley 1997-2002), Sex and the City (Starr 1998-2004) and Desperate Housewives (Cherry 2004-2012) – series that have all been described as so-called Zeitgeist television. The articulation of feminist goals, whether from the second wave or more recent feminist movements, is examined and the ways in which these goals are addressed are discussed. By identifying aspects that are theoretically related to feminism (aspects like melodrama as a female identified genre and consumerism), it is argued that these three series are definitely positioned in a feminist sphere. The presence of these aspects also uncovered deep-seated feminist narratives – narratives that the everyday audience member will most likely not be aware of, but which could unconsciously influence viewers’ thoughts on and understanding of feminism. The main conclusion of this study entails that the three chosen television series deal with feminism and femininity in very different and diverse ways. Furthermore, the study supports the view that there is a need for critical debates on the representation of feminism and femininity in contemporary examples of popular mass media / Dissertation (MA)--University of Pretoria, 2013. / Visual Arts / unrestricted

This thesis is based on the belief that representations of women in contemporary Ugandan art serve cultural and political purposes. The premise is that the autonomous woman (seen as the new woman in this study), emerging in Uganda in the mid-1980s, agitated for the social, economic and political emancipation of women in Uganda. It has been demonstrated that the patriarchy attempted to subordinate, confine and regulate this new woman. The press, drama, music and film became powerful tools to force her into silence. This study posits that contemporary Ugandan art was part of this cultural discourse. Adopting a feminist art historical stance, it examines and assesses the gendered content of Uganda’s contemporary art masked as aesthetics. On the one hand, the study exposes the view that some men artists in Uganda use their works to construct men’s power and superiority as the necessary ingredients of gender difference. I demonstrate that some artists have engaged themes through which they have constructed women as being materialistic, gold-diggers, erotic and domesticated. I argue that this has been a strategy to tame Uganda’s new woman. On the other hand, the thesis attempts to show that some women artists have used visual discourse to challenge their marginalisation and to reclaim their ‘agency’ while revising some negative stereotypes about the new woman. This study makes an interdisciplinary contribution to Uganda’s art history, cultural studies and gender studies. / Art History, Visual Arts & Musicology / D. Litt. et Phil. (Art History)

This thesis is based on the belief that representations of women in contemporary Ugandan art serve cultural and political purposes. The premise is that the autonomous woman (seen as the new woman in this study), emerging in Uganda in the mid-1980s, agitated for the social, economic and political emancipation of women in Uganda. It has been demonstrated that the patriarchy attempted to subordinate, confine and regulate this new woman. The press, drama, music and film became powerful tools to force her into silence. This study posits that contemporary Ugandan art was part of this cultural discourse. Adopting a feminist art historical stance, it examines and assesses the gendered content of Uganda’s contemporary art masked as aesthetics. On the one hand, the study exposes the view that some men artists in Uganda use their works to construct men’s power and superiority as the necessary ingredients of gender difference. I demonstrate that some artists have engaged themes through which they have constructed women as being materialistic, gold-diggers, erotic and domesticated. I argue that this has been a strategy to tame Uganda’s new woman. On the other hand, the thesis attempts to show that some women artists have used visual discourse to challenge their marginalisation and to reclaim their ‘agency’ while revising some negative stereotypes about the new woman. This study makes an interdisciplinary contribution to Uganda’s art history, cultural studies and gender studies. / Art History, Visual Arts and Musicology / D. Litt. et Phil. (Art History)

This thesis focuses on three fashion industry themed female friendship films: Pret-a-Porter/Ready to Wear (1994) by Robert Altman, The Devil Wears Prada (2006) by David Frankel, and The September Issue (2009) by R.J. Cutler. Female interpersonal relationships are complex – women often work to motivate, encourage and transform one another but can just as easily use tactics like intimidation, manipulation, and exploitation in order to save their own jobs and reputations. Through the lens of post-feminist theory, this thesis examines significant female interpersonal relationships in each film to illustrate how femininity is constructed and driven by consumer culture in the fashion industry themed films.