Sexual blinging of women : Alice Walker's african character tashi and issue of female genital cutting

This thesis provides a reading of the different forms of representation that can be attributed to the character Tashi, the protagonist of the novel Possessing the Secret of Joy (1992), written by the African American writer Alice Walker. Before this work Tashi had already appeared in two previous novels by Walker, first, in The Color Purple (1982) and then, as a mention, in The Temple of My Familiar (1989). With Tashi, the author introduces the issue of female circumcision, a ritual Tashi submits herself to at the beginning of her adult life. The focus of observation lies in the ways in which the author’s anger is transformed into a means of creative representation. Walker uses her novel Possessing the Secret of Joy openly as a political instrument so that the expression “female mutilation” (term used by the author) receives ample attention from the media and critics in general. The aim of this investigation is to evaluate to what extent Walker’s social engagement contributes to the development of her work and to what extent it undermines it. For the analysis of the different issues related to “female genital cutting”, the term I use in this thesis, the works of feminist critics and writers such as Ellen Gruenbaum, Lightfoot-Klein, Nancy Hartsock, Linda Nicholson, Efrat Tseëlon and the Egyptian writer and doctor Nawal El Saadawi will be consulted. I hope that this thesis can contribute as an observation about Alice Walker’s use of her social engagement in the creation of her fictional world.

Alasdair Gray`s 1982 Janine (1984): a postmodernist scottish novel

Alasdair Gray is now an established figure in the Scottish literary scene and has numerous claims to be considered an important voice writing in English. First Lanark: A Life in Four Books (1981) and then 1982 Janine (1984) contributed to the recognition of Gray as one of the founding fathers of the new Scottish writing and as a figure of importance in international contemporary fiction due to his innovative, experimental and postmodernist novels. As the title of this dissertation - “Alasdair Gray’s 1982 Janine (1984): A Postmodernist Scottish Novel” - suggests, it aims at analysing the author’s second novel, 1982 Janine (1984), in a thematic and formal perspective, in order to justify the choice of the terms - Postmodernist and Scottish - to classify this novel. 1982 Janine projects a world through Jock McLeish’s mind and is a powerful stream-of-consciousness narrative. Jock is an alcoholic who lives a personal crisis and, therefore, tries to escape from his depressing reality through sexual fantasies and political diatribes. During a single night in a Scottish hotel room, he drinks and dreams, and spends the whole night alone with his fantasies and fears, his memories and hopes. In Chapter 11, the most daring experimental section of the novel, Jock attempts to commit suicide by taking an overdose of tablets with alcohol but fails. Following this, he decides to review his life and make for a new beginning; the novel thus closing with an optimistic note. Also, the narrative is based on a constant interweaving of sex fantasy with political satire, that is, it is through his protagonist that Gray manages to convey the state of Scotland as well as the concerns and aspirations of the Scottish people and then, proceed to a political and social critique. This dissertation appears structured in three chapters. In Chapter I - “Alasdair Gray: A Postmodernist Scottish Writer” - I present Gray as a powerful postmodernist writer who also sees himself as a Scottish author, and more particularly as a Glaswegian, who concentrates on Scottish subject matter in his literary work. In a first section, I offer a brief survey of the Scottish literary scene from the fourteenth to the twentieth century, in order to understand Gray’s choice of setting and themes and to check his influence or indebtedness to previous Scottish authors. As 1982 Janine is also a good example of selfconscious experimental writing, in a second section, I present various seminal fictional works that introduced and developed experimentalism in British fiction, in order to evaluate the influence of modernist developments in form and technique on recent experimental writing. The third section consists of an introduction to Gray’s work for he is not only a novelist, but also an artist, a playwright, a poet, an activist and a scholar. Chapter II - “Postmodernist Features in 1982 Janine” - aims at listing and examining the postmodernist devices that the novel includes, in what content and form are concerned. On the one hand, the use of a developed type of the modernist stream of consciousness, the presence of a protagonist who feels entrapped in a specific system, the quest for freedom, the incoherence and fragmentation of time, the nonchronological order of the narrative, the blending of fantasy and “reality”, as well as the importance of the Scottish material are definitely current aspects within postmodernist literature that can be found in Gray’s novel. On the other hand, the handling of literary self-conscious devices, such as typographical experimentation, presence of metafiction and intertextuality, and inclusion of an Epilogue, are likewise among recurrent postmodernist features. As the title - “A Narratological Analysis of 1982 Janine” - evidences, Chapter III offers a description of the mechanics of the narrative and its functioning in order to better understand the narrative technique of postmodernist fiction. This study is based primarily on Gérard Genette’s theoretical framework and terminology, presented in Narrative Discourse: An Essay in Method, an analytical tool that allows me to provide a more objective and scientific analysis. Hence, I follow the Genettian division of narrative discourse in Time, Mood and Voice while examining the novel. Finally, I proceed to a description of the intertextual relationships 1982 Janine establishes with other texts.

A narratological analysis of D. M. Thoma`s: the white hotel (1981)

“A Narratological Analysis of D. M. Thomas’s The White Hotel (1981)” originated within a seminar on British Postmodernist Literature during the first Master’s Degree in “British and North-American Culture and Literature” (2001-04) at the Universidade da Madeira set up by the Department of English and German Studies. This dissertation seeks to present a narratological analysis of Thomas’s novel. The White Hotel stands as a paradigmatic example of the kind of literature that has dominated the British literary scene in the past three decades, commonly referred to as postmodernist fiction, owing to its formal craftsmanship (multiplicity of narrative voices and perspectives, mixing of differing genres and text types, inclusion of embedded narratives) alongside the handling of what are deemed as postmodernist topoi (the distinction between truth and lies, history and fantasy, fact and fiction, the questioning of the nature of aesthetic representation, the role the author and the reader hold in the narrative process, the instability of the linguistic sign, the notion of originality and the moral responsibility the author has towards his/her work), The narratological approach carried out in this research reveals that Thomas’s text constitutes an aesthetic endeavour to challenge the teleological drive that is inherent in any narrative, i. e., the inevitable progression towards a reassuring end. Hence, the subversion of narrative telling, which is a recurrent feature in Thomas’s remaining literary output, mirrors the contemporary distrust in totalising, hierarchised and allencompassing narratives. In its handling of historical events, namely of the Holocaust, The White Hotel invites us to reassess the most profound beliefs we were taught to take for granted: progress, reality and truth. In their place the novel proposes a more flexible conception of both the world and art, especially of literary fiction. In other terms, the world appears as a brutal chaotic place the subject is forced to adjust to. Accordingly, the literary work is deemed hybrid, fragmented and open. So as to put forth the above-mentioned issues, this research work is structured in three main chapters. The initial chapter – “What is Postmodernism?” – advances a scrutiny not only of the seminal but also of more recent studies on postmodernist literary criticism. Following this, in Chapter II – “Postmodernist British Fiction” – a brief overview of postmodernist British fiction is carried out, focusing on the fictional works that, in my opinion, are fundamental for the periodising of British postmodernism. In addition, I felt the need to include a section – “D. M. Thomas as a Postmodernist Novelist” – in which the author’s remaining literary output is briefly examined. Finally, Chapter III – “A Narratological Analysis of The White Hotel” – proposes a narratological analysis of the novel according to the particular Genettian analytical model. To conclude, my dissertation constitutes an approach to D. M. Thomas’s The White Hotel as a text whose very existence is substantiated in the foregrounding of the contingency of all discourses, meeting the postmodernist precepts of openness and subversion of any narrative that claims to be true, globalising and all-inclusive.

Millennium development goals. 2006 report: a look at gender equality and empowerment of women in Latin America and the Caribbean

Includes bibliography

In search of work. International migration of women in Latin America and the Caribbean. Selected bibliography

Includes bibliography

Clinical patterns and epidemiological characteristics of facial melasma in Brazilian women

Background Melasma is a common acquired chronic hypermelanosis of sun-exposed areas which significantly impacts quality of life. There are few epidemiological studies in medical literature concerning these patients. Objective Characterize clinical and epidemiological data on Brazilian female patients with melasma. Methods A semi-structured questionnaire was administered to melasma patients treated at a dermatology clinic between 2005 and 2010. Association between variables was performed by multivariate regression models. Results We assessed 302 patients; intermediate skin phototypes III (34.4%) and IV (38.4%) were prevalent. Mean disease onset age was 27.5 ± 7.8 years and familiar occurrence of melasma was identified in 56.3%. The most commonly reported trigger factors were pregnancy (36.4%), contraceptive pills (16.2%) and intense sun exposure (27.2%). Preferred facial topographies were zygomatic (83.8%), labial superior (51.3%) and frontal (49.7%). Pregnancy induced melasma has been associated to early disease (OR = 0.86) and number of pregnancies (OR = 1.39). Childbearing was correlated to melasma extension. Older disease onset age was associated to darker skin phototypes. Co-occurrence of facial topographies supported clinical classification as centrofacial and peripheral melasma. Conclusion This population was characterized by: a high prevalence in adult females, intermediate skin phototypes, disease precipitation by hormonal stimulus and familiar genetic influence. © 2012 The Authors. Journal of the European Academy of Dermatology and Venereology © 2012 European Academy of Dermatology and Venereology.

Women's political participation and gender parity in decision-making at all levels in the Caribbean

Includes bibliography

Confinamento e vastidão: a representação feminina e a subversão em The magic toyshop

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Carmilla e Sabella: em busca de uma identidade feminina em Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu e Tanith Lee

Pós-graduação em Letras - IBILCE

Da Camelot arturiana à Terra-média: representações da mulher em Le morte Darthur e the Lord of the rings

Pós-graduação em Letras - IBILCE

Nostra Signora del Mar Dolce: a (re) criação da viagem na narrativa de Gemma Ferruggia

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

Prostituição e morte em Maggie: a girl of the streets: uma leitura feminista sobre a Slum fiction norte-americana de Stephen Crane

Pós-graduação em Letras - FCLAS

Identidades em movimento: a representação feminina e as relações de gênero na obra de Angela Carter

Pós-graduação em Letras - FCLAS

Matt Christopher Papers - Accession 1092

The Matt Christopher Papers consist of published manuscripts, published short stories (1943-1994) (drafts, synopses, plot outlines, and magazines, comics, and newspapers with articles and short stories), galleys (1954-1990s), leather bound author’s editions (1954-1991), and publisher’s editions of Matt Christopher’s children’s books (1954-2004). The collection contains many unpublished manuscripts and drafts outside the children’s book field (1954-1997), unpublished poems (1938-1993), unpublished screenplays (1940-1997), and unpublished short stories (1954-1997). Also included are taped (audio and video) interviews of Matt Christopher, as well as, puzzles for children (1988-1992), research materials and notes (1954-1997), sports rule-books (1954-1995), and writing guides (1909-1995), personal (1949-1997) and business correspondence (1952-2002), contract agreements (1952-1993), royalty statements (1954-1999), and biographical information (1917-2004), memorabilia (personalized baseball bat, framed pictures and award certificates, etc.), fan mail (1964-1999) and his personal book collection (1847-1995) (some signed by authors).

AAUW- Rock Hill Chapter Records (American Association of University Women) - Accession 13

The AAUW- Rock Hill Chapter Records consists of minutes, membership lists, correspondence, newspaper clippings, financial statements, constitutions and by-laws and branch reports of the chapter’s presidents and committee chairmen to the national office, extending from 1925 to 1985.