Ruptures in the heterosexual matrix through teenage flows and multiplicities

This article analyzes a series of stories and artworks that were produced in a collective biography workshop. It explores Judith Butler’s concept of the heterosexual matrix combined with a Deleuzian theoretical framework. The article begins with an overview of Butler’s concept of the heterosexual matrix and her theorizations on how it might be disrupted. It then suggests how a Deleuzian framework offers other tools for analyzing these ruptures at the micro level of girls’ everyday interactions.

Ruptures in the heterosexual matrix through teenage flows and multiplicities

Feminist research on girlhood has drawn extensively on Butler's conceptual work in order to theorise the normative forces of heterosexuality in the everyday construction of gender. This chapter explores girlhood by drawing on memories and artwork generated in a collective biography workshop held in Australian on the topic of girlhood and sexuality. We are interested in thinking through Butler's notion of the heterosexual matrix. Following Renold and Ringrose (2008) we do so with the help of Deleuze and Guattari, who invite us to think about difference as differenciation or continuous becoming, where difference is an evolutionary multiplicity.

Ruptures in the production of girlhood : teenage flows and multiplicities [Abstract]

This paper examines the paradoxical and ubiquitous nature of Butler’s heterosexual matrix, and opens it up to an alternative Deleuzian analysis. Drawing on stories and art works produced in a collective biography workshop on girls and sexuality this paper extends previous work on the subversion of the heterosexual matrix undertaken by Renold and Ringrose (2008). The paper moves, as they do, from a molar to a molecular analysis, but extends that work by re-thinking the girl/subject in terms of Deleuze and Guattari’s endlessly transforming multiplicities where “the self is only a threshold, a door, a becoming between two multiplicities” (Deleuze and Guattari, 1987: 249)

Elämää suuremmat sankarittaret : Suomalaisen teatterin elämäkerralliset taiteilijahahmot vuosina 2000 - 2010

In the first decade of the 21st century, national notables were a significant theme in the Finnish theatre. The lives of artists, in particular, inspired the performances that combined historical and fictional elements. In this study, I focus on the characters of female artists in 18 Finnish plays or performances from the first decade of the 21st century. The study pertains to the field of performance analysis. I approach the characters from three points of view. Firstly, I examine them through the action of performances at the thematic level. Secondly, I concentrate on the forms of relationships between the audience and the half-historical character. Thirdly, I examine the representations of characters and their relationships to the audience using myth as a tool. I approach characters from the frame of feminist phenomenological theatre study but also combine the points of view of other traditions. As a model, I adapt the approach of the theatre researcher Bert O. States, which concentrates on the relation between a play s text and an actor, and between an actor and the public. Furthermore, I use the analysing tools of performance art in an examination of performances counted among the contemporary performance genre. The biographical plays about these artists are concentrated in the domestic sphere and take part in the conversation about the position of women in both the community and private life. They represent the heroines work, love, temptations and hardships. The artists do not carry out heroic acts, being more like everyday heroines whose lives and art were shared with the audience in an aphoristic atmosphere. In the examined performances, criticism of the heterosexual matrix was mainly conservative and the myths of female and male artists differed from each other: the woman artist was presented as a super heroine whose strength often meant sacrifices; the male artist was a weaker figure primarily pursuing his individualistic objectives. The performances proved to be a kind of documentary theatre, a hybrid of truth and fiction. Nonetheless, the constructions of subject and identity mainly represented the characters of the mythical stories and only secondarily gave a faithful rendition of the artists lives. Although these performances were addressed to the general and heterogeneous public, their audience proved to be a strictly predefined group, for which the national myths and the experience of a collective identity emerged as an important theme. The heroine characters offered the audience "safe" idols who ensured the solidity of the community. These performances contained common, shared values and gave the audience an opportunity to feel empathy and to be charmed by the confessions of well-known national characters.

Complicating hetero-femininities : young women, sexualities and girl power at school

This paper is concerned with expanding knowledge of how femininity/sexuality intersections are constituted in secondary schools. Existing studies have drawn upon Judith Butler’s notion of a ‘heterosexual matrix’ in order to understand how intersections of femininity/sexuality are produced in schools through normative discourses of heterosexuality and gender. Drawing on ‘after-queer’ theoretical resources from within cultural studies that focus on the deployment of notions of sexuality within constructions of intelligible citizenship, I explore how the femininity/sexuality intersection within secondary schools might be complicated, when the significance of discourses of ‘girl power’, linked with successful neoliberal citizenship, is considered. I analyse young women’s discussions of key ‘girl power’ icons in popular culture, generated through fieldwork in an elite girls’ school in Australia. Throughout the analysis I explore how understanding intersections of femininity/sexuality in secondary schools requires an analytical framework that can attend to both familiar notions of heterosexuality and gender – and their ongoing currency – as well as how notions of sexuality are mobilized in the production of successful neoliberal girl citizens. I propose that this analytical approach is useful in terms of avoiding the reinscription of sexuality identity categories in education research.

'Go Grrrl!' : constructions of femininity in the textual practices of elite girls' schooling

In this paper I consider the utility of discourses of ‘girl power’ for understanding, and complicating, the way youthful femininities are produced in schooling. The paper is concerned with expanding the possibilities for how queer theoretical resources might be utilized within studies of girls and schooling. Existing studies have drawn upon Judith Butler’s notion of a ‘heterosexual matrix’ for understanding, and attending to, the way normative discourses of heterosexuality underpin the school-based production of youthful femininities. The term ‘heterofemininities’ has been used in order to label these school-produced intersections of sex/gender/sexuality. Drawing on discourses of ‘girl power’ that gather around ‘voice’ and responsibility, I propose that the production of ‘hetero-femininities’ within educational contexts might be further explored, and thus complicated, when the significance of discourses of ‘girl power’ is considered. I analyse young women’s discussions of key ‘girl power’ icons in popular culture, generated through fieldwork in an elite girls’ school in Australia. In this analysis I explore the intersections of gender/sexuality/girl power that are produced in the young women’s textual practices.

Gender und Genre in melodramatischen Literaturverfilmungen der Gegenwart - Far From Heaven, The Hours, A Single Man

Die Dissertation Gender und Genre in melodramatischen Literaturverfilmungen der Gegenwart untersucht das Medium Film anhand von Todd Haynes’ Far from Heaven (2002), Stephen Daldrys The Hours (2002) und Tom Fords A Single Man (2009) als Quelle des Wissens über gesellschaftlich-normierte Geschlechterrollen und sozialkonstruierte Genderkonzepte. Die Arbeit versteht sich als eine nachhaltige Schnittstellenforschung zwischen Gender-, Literatur-, Film- und Medienwissenschaften und zeigt die Öffnung der Germanistik für den medial geprägten Kulturwandel, welcher den deutschen bzw. den deutschsprachigen Kulturraum betrifft. Gender und Geschlecht destabilisieren die Gesellschaft und die „heterosexuelle Matrix“ durch das individuelle Suchen, Finden, Konstruieren und Anerkennen einer eigenen, individuellen Genderidentität. Dieser Prozess kann unter Zuhilfenahme des Erzählens von Geschlecht im Film verdeutlicht werden, denn die audiovisuelle Fiktion modelliert Wirklichkeitsvorstellungen und das Wirklichkeitsverständnis der Rezipienten. Wobei offen bleibt, ob die Fiktion die Realität oder die Realität die Fiktion imitiert. Denn es gibt nicht nur eine Wahrheit, sondern mehrere, vielleicht unzählige Bedeutungszuschreibungen. Die drei paradigmatischen Literaturverfilmungen wurden jeweils in Bezug zu ihren Literaturvorlagen von Virginia Woolf, Michael Cunningham und Christopher Isherwood gesetzt. Sie können als Beispiele für ein wissendes, postmodernes Pastiche des Themen-Clusters Diskriminierung/Homophobie/Homosexualität/„Rasse“ gelten. Alle drei Filme verhandeln durch gemeinsame, melodramatische Motive (Spiegel, Telefon, Krieg, Familie) die Darstellbarkeit von Emotionen, Begehren, Sehnsüchten, Einsamkeit und dem Verlust der Liebe. Durch Verbindungslinien zu den Melodramen von Douglas Sirk und mittels den Theorien von u.a. Judith Butler, Stanley Cavell, Carolin Emcke, Thomas Elsaesser, Sigmund Freud, Hermann Kappelhoff und Laura Mulvey wurde das Begriffspaar Genre und Gender her-ausgestellt und im zeitgenössischen Geschlechter-Diskurs verortet. Das im Verlauf der Arbeit erarbeitete Wissen zu Gender, Sexualität, Körper und Geschlecht wurde als ein Gender-Genre-Hybrid verstanden und im Genre des queeren bzw. homosexuellen Melodrams (gay melodrama) neu verortet. Die drei Filme sind als ein Wiederbelebungsversuch bzw. ein Erweiterungsversuch des melodramatischen Genres unter dem Genderaspekt anzusehen. Die Analyse und Dekonstruktion feststehender Begriffe im Kontext der Gender- und Gay Studies und dem Queer Cinema lösen produktive Krisen und damit emanzipierte Verfahren aus. Diese müssen immer wieder neu beschrieben werden, damit sie wahrgenommen und verstanden werden. Daher sind die drei melodramatischen Literaturverfilmungen ein fiktionales Dokumentationsmodell gesellschaftlicher Konflikte, welches anhand individueller Schicksale verdeutlicht wird.

Dynamic matrix control on wind-induced vibration of spatial latticed structures [Chinese title = 空间网壳结构风振抑制的动态矩阵预测控制分析]

Ameliorated strategies were put forward to improve the model predictive control in reducing the wind induced vibration of spatial latticed structures. The dynamic matrix control (DMC) predictive method was used and the reference trajectory which is called the decaying functions was suggested for the analysis of spatial latticed structure (SLS) under wind loads. The wind-induced vibration control model of SLS with improved DMC model predictive control was illustrated, then the different feedback strategies were investigated and a typical SLS was taken as example to investigate the reduction of wind-induced vibration. In addition, the robustness and reliability of DMC strategy were discussed by varying the model configurations.

Decision Matrix Compared with Partnering Principles

The ideas for this CRC research project are based directly on Sidwell, Kennedy and Chan (2002). That research examined a number of case studies to identify the characteristics of successful projects. The findings were used to construct a matrix of best practice project delivery strategies. The purpose of this literature review is to test the decision matrix against established theory and best practice in the subject of construction project management.

Report on the Development and Validation of the Best Practice Decision Matrix

The Co-operative Research Centre for Construction Innovation (CRC-CI) is funding a project known as Value Alignment Process for Project Delivery. The project consists of a study of best practice project delivery and the development of a suite of products, resources and services to guide project teams towards the best procurement approach for a specific project or group of projects. These resources will be focused on promoting the principles that underlie best practice project delivery rather than simply identifying an off-the-shelf procurement system. This project builds on earlier work by Sidwell, Kennedy and Chan (2002), on re-engineering the construction delivery process, which developed a procurement framework in the form of a Decision Matrix

Towards a rule-based matrix for evaluating distress mechanisms in bridges

The effective management of bridge stock involves making decisions as to when to repair, remedy, or do nothing, taking into account the financial and service life implications. Such decisions require a reliable diagnosis as to the cause of distress and an understanding of the likely future degradation. Such diagnoses are based on a combination of visual inspections, laboratory tests on samples and expert opinions. In addition, the choice of appropriate laboratory tests requires an understanding of the degradation mechanisms involved. Under these circumstances, the use of expert systems or evaluation tools developed from “realtime” case studies provides a promising solution in the absence of expert knowledge. This paper addresses the issues in bridge infrastructure management in Queensland, Australia. Bridges affected by alkali silica reaction and chloride induced corrosion have been investigated and the results presented using a mind mapping tool. The analysis highights that several levels of rules are required to assess the mechanism causing distress. The systematic development of a rule based approach is presented. An example of this application to a case study bridge has been used to demonstrate that preliminary results are satisfactory.

Towards a Rule-based matrix for evaluating distress mechanisms in bridges

One of the key issues facing public asset owners is the decision of refurbishing aged built assets. This decision requires an assessment of the “remaining service life” of the key components in a building. The remaining service life is significantly dependent upon the existing condition of the asset and future degradation patterns considering durability and functional obsolescence. Recently developed methods on Residual Service Life modelling, require sophisticated data that are not readily available. Most of the data available are in the form of reports prior to undertaking major repairs or in the form of sessional audit reports. Valuable information from these available sources can serve as bench marks for estimating the reference service life. The authors have acquired similar informations from a public asset building in Melbourne. Using these informations, the residual service life of a case study building façade has been estimated in this paper based on state-of-the-art approaches. These estimations have been evaluated against expert opinion. Though the results are encouraging it is clear that the state-of-the-art methodologies can only provide meaningful estimates provided the level and quality of data are available. This investigation resulted in the development of a new framework for maintenance that integrates the condition assessment procedures and factors influencing residual service life

Inducing shades of meaning by matrix methods : a first step towards thematic analysis of opinion

This article explores two matrix methods to induce the ``shades of meaning" (SoM) of a word. A matrix representation of a word is computed from a corpus of traces based on the given word. Non-negative Matrix Factorisation (NMF) and Singular Value Decomposition (SVD) compute a set of vectors corresponding to a potential shade of meaning. The two methods were evaluated based on loss of conditional entropy with respect to two sets of manually tagged data. One set reflects concepts generally appearing in text, and the second set comprises words used for investigations into word sense disambiguation. Results show that for NMF consistently outperforms SVD for inducing both SoM of general concepts as well as word senses. The problem of inducing the shades of meaning of a word is more subtle than that of word sense induction and hence relevant to thematic analysis of opinion where nuances of opinion can arise.