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Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Feminism. Women in popular culture. Feminist criticism'
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1
Murphy, Kylie. "Bitch: the politics of angry women." Thesis, Murphy, Kylie (2002) Bitch: the politics of angry women. PhD thesis, Murdoch University, 2002. https://researchrepository.murdoch.edu.au/id/eprint/217/.
Full textAbstract:
'Bitch: the Politics of Angry Women' investigates the scholarly challenges and strengths in re theorising popular culture and feminism. It traces the connections and schisms between academic feminism and the feminism that punctuates popular culture. By tracing a series of specific bitch trajectories, this thesis accesses an archaeology of women?s battle to gain power.
Feminism is a large and brawling paradigm that struggles to incorporate a diversity of feminist voices. This thesis joins the fight. It argues that feminism is partly constituted through popular cultural representations. The separation between the academy and popular culture is damaging theoretically and politically. Academic feminism needs to work with the popular, as opposed to undermining or dismissing its relevancy.
Cultural studies provides the tools necessary to interpret popular modes of feminism. It allows a consideration of the discourses of race, gender, age and class that plait their way through any construction of feminism. I do not present an easy identity politics. These bitches refuse simple narratives. The chapters clash and interrogate one another, allowing difference its own space.
I mine a series of sites for feminist meanings and potential, ranging across television, popular music, governmental politics, feminist books and journals, magazines and the popular press. The original contribution to knowledge that this thesis proffers is the refusal to demarcate between popular feminism and academic feminism. A new space is established in which to dialogue between the two.
2
Murphy, Kylie. "Bitch : the politics of angry women /." Murphy, Kylie (2002) Bitch: the politics of angry women. PhD thesis, Murdoch University, 2002. http://researchrepository.murdoch.edu.au/217/.
Full textAbstract:
'Bitch: the Politics of Angry Women' investigates the scholarly challenges and strengths in re theorising popular culture and feminism. It traces the connections and schisms between academic feminism and the feminism that punctuates popular culture. By tracing a series of specific bitch trajectories, this thesis accesses an archaeology of women?s battle to gain power.
Feminism is a large and brawling paradigm that struggles to incorporate a diversity of feminist voices. This thesis joins the fight. It argues that feminism is partly constituted through popular cultural representations. The separation between the academy and popular culture is damaging theoretically and politically. Academic feminism needs to work with the popular, as opposed to undermining or dismissing its relevancy.
Cultural studies provides the tools necessary to interpret popular modes of feminism. It allows a consideration of the discourses of race, gender, age and class that plait their way through any construction of feminism. I do not present an easy identity politics. These bitches refuse simple narratives. The chapters clash and interrogate one another, allowing difference its own space.
I mine a series of sites for feminist meanings and potential, ranging across television, popular music, governmental politics, feminist books and journals, magazines and the popular press. The original contribution to knowledge that this thesis proffers is the refusal to demarcate between popular feminism and academic feminism. A new space is established in which to dialogue between the two.
3
Legge, Janet Helen. "Post-feminism in Cosmopolitan and For Him magazine (FHM) : a critical analysis." Thesis, Rhodes University, 2013. http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1005956.
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Cosmopolitan and For Him Magazine (FHM) are, at present, both the most widely read and, therefore, the most popular "white" consumer magazines in South Africa. They both appeal to young audiences of between 18 and 34 years of age, approximately, and target middle-class, educated groups of readers. My interest in Cosmopolitan and FHM lies in their ability to influence and shape their readers' actions, values, identities and relationships, in particular with the other gender. My analysis is focused on the cover pages and the Editor's letters of six copies of each magazine, ranging from April to September 2003, providing me with a corpus of 12 cover pages and 12 Editor's letters. I adopt a critical perspective through the use of Fairclough's (1989) Critical Discourse Analysis, supported by Mills (1995) Feminist Stylistics, McLoughlin's (2000) textual analysis of cover pages and Kress & van Leeuwen's (1996) visual analysis tools. By combining these different methodologies my research falls into what is newly termed Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis (Lazar 2005). The cover page analyses used primarily McLoughlin and Kress & van Leeuwen and provides an element of pure genre analysis, while the analysis of the Editor's letters were subject to Fairclough's three inter-related stages of analysis, namely: a Description of the formal textual elements of the letters, an Interpretation which analyses the processes of text production and interpretation, and lastly an Explanation of the socio-historical context. Through an analysis of these magazines, whose interests are being served and how the readers are shaped and positioned by the magazines can be identified. My analyses revealed conflicting discourses within each magazine, however it was Cosmopolitan that revealed more tension and conflict in terms of identifying and representing women, while FHM subscribed, for the most part, uniformly to the "new lad" ideology. However, while Cosmopolitan attempted to show a forward-thinking and emancipatory view of the roles of men and women in society, both magazines covertly sustain patriarchal dominance and hegemonic masculinity. In conclusion, I reveal the need for consumers of the mass media to become more critically aware of the ideologies that are promoted through the differing tools of the media and that only through this critical awareness can any further movement towards equal relations between men and women be made.KMBT_363
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4
Tapia, Ruby C. "Conceiving images : racialized visions of the maternal /." Diss., Connect to a 24 p. preview or request complete full text in PDF format. Access restricted to UC campuses, 2002. http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/ucsd/fullcit?p3057347.
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Rhodes, Molly Rae. "Doctoring culture : literary intellectuals, psychology and mass culture in the twentieth-century United States /." Diss., Connect to a 24 p. preview or request complete full text in PDF format. Access restricted to UC campuses, 1997. http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/ucsd/fullcit?p9809139.
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6
Robinson, Penelope A. "A postfeminist generation young women, feminism and popular culture /." View thesis, 2008. http://handle.uws.edu.au:8081/1959.7/37397.
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Thesis (Ph.D) -- University of Western Sydney, 2008.A thesis submitted to the University of Western Sydney, College of Arts, School of Social Sciences, in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Includes bibliographical references.
7
Di, Guglielmo Antoinette Christine. "Sex and the city: A postmodern reading." CSUSB ScholarWorks, 2007. https://scholarworks.lib.csusb.edu/etd-project/3239.
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Sex and the City was a television show that aired on Home Box Office from 1998-2004. The tv show succeeded because of feminist's wanting a modern woman's drama rich in episodes about consumption, women's sexuality, financial independence, fashion and contemporary relationship dynamics. The characters captured and perpetuated just that. The modern take on the ideologies that drive women's perception of personal fulfillment, body image, consumerism, social behavior and values and romantic relationship dynamics made this tv show the phenomena that it became.
8
Mosher, Victoria. "BEYOND POSTMODERN MARGINS: THEORIZING POSTFEMINIST CONSEQUENCES THROUGH POPULAR FEMALE REPRESENTATION." Master's thesis, Orlando, Fla. : University of Central Florida, 2008. http://purl.fcla.edu/fcla/etd/CFE0002141.
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Dunn, Jennifer C. "Legal Prostitution as Sex Work: Discourses of the Moonlite Bunny Ranch." View abstract, 2009. http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&res_dat=xri:pqdiss&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:dissertation&rft_dat=xri:pqdiss:3371481.
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Harrington, Erin Jean. "Gynaehorror: Women, theory and horror film." Thesis, University of Canterbury. Cultural Studies, School of Humanities and Creative Arts, 2014. http://hdl.handle.net/10092/9586.
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This thesis offers an analysis of women in horror film through an in depth exploration of what I term ‘gynaehorror’ – horror films that are concerned with female sex, sexuality and reproduction. While this is a broad and fruitful area of study, work in it has been shaped by a pronounced emphasis upon psychoanalytic theory, which I argue has limited the field of inquiry. To challenge this, this thesis achieves three things. Firstly, I interrogate a subgenre of horror that has not been studied in depth for twenty years, but that is experiencing renewed interest. Secondly, I analyse aspects of this subgenre outside of the dominant modes of inquiry by placing an emphasis upon philosophies of sex, gender and corporeality, rather than focussing on psychodynamic approaches. Thirdly, I consider not only what these theories may do for the study of horror films, but what spaces of inquiry horror films may open up within these philosophical areas.
To do this, I focus on six broad streams: the current limitations and opportunities in the field of horror scholarship, which I augment with a discussion of women’s bodies, houses and spatiality; the relationship between normative heterosexuality and the twin figures of the chaste virgin and the voracious vagina dentata; the representation and expression of female subjectivity in horror films that feature pregnancy and abortion; the manner in which reproductive technology is bound up within hegemonic constructions of gender and power, as is evidenced by the figure of the ‘mad scientist’; the way that discourses of motherhood and maternity in horror films shift over time, but nonetheless result in the demonisation of the mother; and the theoretical and corporeal possibilities opened up through Deleuze and Guattari’s model of schizoanalysis, with specific regard to the 'Alien' films. As such, this thesis makes a unique contribution to the study of women in horror film, while also advocating for an expansion of the theoretical repertoire available to the horror scholar.
11
Silas, Elizabeth J. "THEMES OF AWAKENING IN MAINSTREAM FILMS: FEMALE SUBJECTS AND THE LACANIAN SYMBOLIC." Connect to this document online, 2005. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc%5Fnum=miami1133495057.
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Thesis (Master of Arts)--Miami University, Dept. of Mass Communication, 2005.Title from first page of PDF document. Document formatted into pages; contains [1], iv, 63 p. Includes bibliographical references (p. 58-63).
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Camara, Samba. "Recording Postcolonial Nationhood: Islam and Popular Music in Senegal." Ohio University / OhioLINK, 2017. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1510780384221502.
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Young, Erin S. "Corporate heroines and utopian individualism: A study of the romance novel in global capitalism." Thesis, University of Oregon, 2010. http://hdl.handle.net/1794/11460.
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x, 195 p. A print copy of this thesis is available through the UO Libraries. Search the library catalog for the location and call number.This dissertation explores two subgenres of popular romance fiction that emerge in the 1990s: "corporate" and "paranormal" romance. While the formulaic conventions of popular romance have typically centralized the gendered tension between hero and heroine, this project reveals that "corporate" and "paranormal" romances negotiate a new primary conflict, the tension between work and home in the era of global capitalism. Transformations in political economy also occur at the level of personal and emotional life, which constitute the central problem that contemporary romances attempt to resolve. Drawing from sociological studies of globalization and intimacy, feminist criticism, and queer theory, I argue that these subgenres mark the transition from what David Harvey calls Fordist capitalism to flexible or global capitalism as the primary social condition negotiated in the popular romance. My analysis demonstrates that corporate and paranormal romance novels reflect changing ideals about intimacy in a globalized world that is increasingly influenced, socially and culturally, by the values and philosophies that dominate the marketplace. Each of these subgenres offers a distinct formal resolution to the cultural and social effects of a flexible capitalist economy. The "corporate" romances of Jayne Ann Krentz, Nora Roberts, Elizabeth Lowell, and Katherine Stone feature heroines who constantly navigate the dual and intersecting arenas of work and home in an effort to locate a balance that leads to success and happiness in both realms. In contrast, the "paranormal" romances of Laurell K. Hamilton, Charlaine Harris, Kelley Armstrong, and Carrie Vaughn dissolve the tension between home and work, or the private and the public, by affirming the heroine's open and endless pursuit of pleasure, adventure, and self-fulfillment. Such new forms of romantic fantasy at once reveal the tension in globalization and the domination of corporate and masculinist values that the novels hope to overcome.
Committee in charge: David Leiwei Li, Chair; Mary Elene Wood; Cynthia H. Tolentino; Jiannbin L. Shiao
14
Nyh, Johan. "From Snow White to Frozen : An evaluation of popular gender representation indicators applied to Disney’s princess films." Thesis, Karlstads universitet, Institutionen för geografi, medier och kommunikation, 2015. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:kau:diva-36877.
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Simple content analysis methods, such as the Bechdel test and measuring percentage of female talk time or characters, have seen a surge of attention from mainstream media and in social media the last couple of years. Underlying assumptions are generally shared with the gender role socialization model and consequently, an importance is stated, due to a high degree to which impressions from media shape in particular young children’s identification processes. For young girls, the Disney Princesses franchise (with Frozen included) stands out as the number one player commercially as well as in customer awareness. The vertical lineup of Disney princesses spans from the passive and domestic working Snow White in 1937 to independent and super-power wielding princess Elsa in 2013, which makes the line of films an optimal test subject in evaluating above-mentioned simple content analysis methods. As a control, a meta-study has been conducted on previous academic studies on the same range of films. The sampled research, within fields spanning from qualitative content analysis and semiotics to coded content analysis, all come to the same conclusions regarding the general changes over time in representations of female characters. The objective of this thesis is to answer whether or not there is a correlation between these changes and those indicated by the simple content analysis methods, i.e. whether or not the simple popular methods are in general coherence with the more intricate academic methods.Betyg VG (skala IG-VG)
15
Robinson, Penelope A., University of Western Sydney, College of Arts, and School of Social Sciences. "A postfeminist generation : young women, feminism and popular culture." 2008. http://handle.uws.edu.au:8081/1959.7/37397.
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The under-theorisation of the concept of generation within feminism has led to negative and unproductive disputes. In the heated generational exchanges of the 1990s, feminists were cast according to age into opposing sides: old or young, mothers or daughters, second wave or third wave. These categories are limiting and the conflict harmful for feminist politics. In order to avoid these pitfalls, a theoretical framework is developed that draws on the work of Karl Mannheim and post feminist cultural analyses to elucidate the significance of popular culture in marking a generation. This framework then enables an examination of the way feminist discourses are played out in popular culture and helps explain young women’s complex engagement with feminism. This thesis brings together interviews with young Australian women and an analysis of two television programmes that exhibit post feminist characteristics: Sex and the City and Desperate Housewives. It examines the ways in which young women critically engage with these texts and explores popular culture as an arena where feminist discourses are contested. The era is characterised as post feminist because of the entanglement of feminism with popular culture, but it is also marked by the intersection of equality feminism with a neoliberal emphasis on individualism. Within this context, second wave feminist discourses of equality have slipped into the rhetoric of choice, which has important implications for feminist theory. The pervasive sense of choice and opportunity circulated by these discourses obscures the structural limitations that continue to affect women’s lives and demand that women make the “right” choices, build a successful career, find a suitable long-term partner, and become a good mother. This thesis mobilises post feminism as a valuable analytical concept that can be used to characterise the current generation of young women, not simply because they have grown up after the height of second wave feminism, but because the prevailing discourses of this historical moment reflect both continuity with, and a challenge to, earlier feminist debates. The mainstreaming of many feminist ideas and their reflection in popular culture provides the conditions for new forms of feminism to emerge.Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
16
Masuku, Norma. "Images of women in some Zulu literary works : a feminist critique." Diss., 1997. http://hdl.handle.net/10500/18156.
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Chapter 1 is the introductory chapter which gives the aim of study, delimitation,
scope and methodology. It further presents critical studies that have been done
on Feminism.
Chapter 2 is devoted to the Feminist theory, the origin of the term stereotype and
the diverse schools of thought within the Feminist camp. Feminism from the
African perspective, known as Womanism, has been deliberated on.
Chapter 3 concentrates mainly on two women authors, Damane and
Makhambeni. This chapter looks at how these authors have depicted their female
characters. It also examines the stereotypes employed by these female authors.
Chapter 4 is devoted to the writing of male authors. This chapter also
concentrates on the stereotypes employed by them in their analysis of their female
characters.
Chapter 5, concludes the study and summarizes the main findings of this review.African Languages
M.A. (African Languages)
17
Goodwill, Jo-Anne Shirley. "The action hero revisioned : an analysis of female "masculinity" in the new female hero in recent filmic texts." Diss., 2009. http://hdl.handle.net/10500/2641.
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The hero is a key archetype in Western culture. However, the hero has almost invariably been male, with associated traits deemed “masculine” within the gender binary. Feminists have begun to rigorously interrogate this binary, and the associated biological essentialism that precludes women from heroism. The fruits of this process are evident in recent popular filmic texts, which feature women as heroes. I examine developments in gender theory, propose a behaviour-based definition of masculinity, and argue that the new female action heroes authentically perform this masculinity. I then examine several select recent films and television series, showing that the new female action hero proves that “masculinity” can be authentically performed by female-bodied persons, and moreover is a liberatory model for ordinary women who wish to assert themselves in the public sphere. Finally, I argue that female action heroes model a new heroic archetype which embraces the best traits of both “masculinity” and “femininity.”
Keywords
“women in popular culture”
“women as heroes”
“gender studies”
“filmEnglish Studies
M.A. (English)
18
Hiebert, Luann E. "Encountering maternal silence: writing strategies for negotiating margins of mother/ing in contemporary Canadian prairie women's poetry." 2016. http://hdl.handle.net/1993/31201.
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Contemporary Canadian prairie women poets write about the mother figure to counter maternal suppression and the homogenization of maternal representations in literature. Critics, like Marianne Hirsch and Andrea O’Reilly, insist that mothers tell their own stories, yet many mothers are unable to. Daughter and mother stories, Jo Malin argues, overlap. The mother “becomes a subject, or rather an ‘intersubject’” in the text (2). Literary depictions of daughter-mother or mother-child intersubjectivities, however, are not confined to auto/biographical or fictional narratives. As a genre and potential site for representing maternal subjectivities, poetry continues to reside on the margins of motherhood studies and literary criticism.
In the following chapters, I examine the writing strategies of selected poets and their representations of mothers specific to three transformative occasions: mourning mother-loss, becoming a mother, and reclaiming a maternal lineage. Several daughter-poets adapt the elegy to remember their deceased mothers and to maintain a connection with them. In accord with Tanis MacDonald and Priscila Uppal, these poets resist closure and interrogate the past. Moreover, they counter maternal absence and preserve her subjectivity in their texts. Similarly, a number of mother-poets begin constructing their mother-child (self-other) relationship prior to childbirth. Drawing on Lisa Guenther’s notions of “birth as a gift of the feminine other” and welcoming the stranger (49), as well as Emily Jeremiah’s link between “‘maternal’ mutuality” and writing and reading practices (“Trouble” 13), I investigate poetic strategies for negotiating and engaging with the “other,” the unborn/newborn and the reader. Other poets explore and interweave bits of stories, memories, dreams and inklings into their own motherlines, an identification with their matrilineage. Poetic discourse(s) reveal the limits of language, but also attest to the benefits of extra-linguistic qualities that poetry provides. The poets I study here make room for the interplay of language and what lies beyond language, engaging the reader and augmenting perceptions of the maternal subject. They offer new ways of signifying maternal subjectivities and relationships, and therefore contribute to the ongoing research into the ever-changing relations among maternal and cultural ideologies, mothering and feminisms, and regional women’s literatures.May 2016