134 research outputs found
Frances Ellen Colenso, 1849-1887 : her life and times in relation to the Victorian stereotype of the middle class English woman
No full textIncludes bibliographical referencesThe stereotype of the Victorian middle class woman, which generally characterised her as a passive, ornamental, helpless and dependent creature, has been one of the most popular caricatures of the nineteenth century. Recent research into this hitherto largely ignored social class has begun to re-adjust this image. The stereotyped distressed gentlewoman who emigrated to Australia and New Zealand for instance has recently been critically examined, but so far the female emigrant and settler in colonial South Africa has been ignored. It is only since the early 1970s that academic research into feminism began to appear. The influence of the women's liberation movement and of the increasing interest in social history, while stimulating research into Victorian women in England and her colonies, has only penetrated historical research within South Africa in the last decade
Hormone replacement therapy: perspectives from women, medicine and sociology
No full textDeveloped on the boundary between medicine and sociology, this thesis develops a critique of the perspectives of these disciplines through analysis of a study of women's perspectives on hormone replacement therapy. Women's perspectives are explored through a postal questionnaire survey and a study using individual interviews and focus groups. The survey results provide a measure of women’s attitudes towards, and knowledge of, hormone replacement therapy. The individual interviews detail the way women move towards a decision about the therapy and identifies common themes, particularly women's fears and what influences their fears. The focus groups explore contrasting themes including women's control and choice in decisions about therapy, contrary themes in women’s attitudes and the different ways of thinking used by the women. The results of the studies are assessed for their implications for clinical general practice. The thesis also takes a sociological perspective on women and HRT and on the research process, in particular exploring two themes. Firstly, the interaction between the social context, the research subject and the research process. This includes the social factors influencing the development of the research and choice of research methods, and the influence of the research methods on the results obtained. The second theme is the perspectives and levels of analysis used by the main disciplines contributing to the thesis; biomedicine, biostatistics, general practice and sociology. The thesis explores how the different perspectives and levels of analysis influence research and how they are used to manage the social context. These explorations are used to suggest future directions for research on hormone replacement therapy and for general practice
A portrayal of the black family in Frances E.W. Harper's Minnie's Sacrifice, Trial and Triumph and Iola Leroy, 2000
No full textThis study examines three types of nineteenth-century black families in the fiction of Frances Ellen Watkins Harper: the displaced family, the cohesive family and the reunited family. The study reflects how these African American families struggle for spiritual awareness, community involvement, and economic security before, during and after the Civil War. Three works are considered in this study: Minnie's Sacrifice (1859), Trial and Triumph (1887-88), and Iola Leroy (1892). The conclusions that were drawn from this study suggest that Harper strayed far from the typical nineteenth-century motifs in African American literature. Where writers of her time often focused on the exterior of the black experience, such as the Middle Passage and slavery, Harper's fiction focuses on the internal structure of the black family
Harper, Historiography, and the Race/Gender Opposition in Feminism
No full textThe article discusses the historiography of feminist and abolitionist Frances Ellen Watkins Harper. According to the author, the historical narrative of a split between white and black women activists in the U.S. during the 19th century has elided the theoretical contributions of Harper and other black women to feminism. It is suggested that rather than choosing between working for either racial or gender equality, Harper and other black women activists made significant contributions to both
Authorial Introductions: Presentations of the Self as Author in Prefaces and Autobiographies. (Volumes I and II).
No full textThis dissertation examines the prefaces and autobiographies of creative writers as authorial introductions, textual spaces in which writers present themselves to their readers as authors. It consists of three main parts. Part One concerns autobiographical prefaces by two writers, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Mary Shelley, who did not write autobiographies and who were defensive about the autobiographical content of their prefaces. Both writers were ambivalent about authorship and hesitant about bringing themselves forward in print, but within the limits of their prefaces, they were able to speak autobiographically and portray themselves as authors. Part Two examines the autobiographies and prefaces of three prolific novelists as stories of authorship. The lives of Vladimir Nabokov, Ellen Glasgow, and Henry James were all centered on literature. Their autobiographies and prefaces reveal their pride in authorship and their ambivalent relationships with their readers, whose responses sometimes gratified, but more often frustrated these writers. For these three authors, the conviction that they were great writers was accompanied by a sense of being set apart from the mass of humankind. Their prefaces and autobiographies are attempts to bridge the gap between author and reader without sacrificing the privileged stance of the author for whom literary creation is its own reward. Part Three focuses on prefaces to autobiographies. A theoretical chapter addresses two questions. First, what prompts an autobiographer, who is already addressing the reader in the first person, to step outside the text in a preface? Second, what effect does the presence of a preface have on the autobiography? The final chapter discusses two autobiographies which not only begin with prefaces but include prefatory interchapters: Mary McCarthy\u27s Memories of a Catholic Girlhood and Lillian Hellman\u27s Three. In both autobiographies the elusiveness of truth becomes a central issue, largely because of these interchapters and the authors\u27 awareness of themselves as writers which is manifested there. These autobiographies are contrasted with McCarthy\u27s How I Grew and Hellman\u27s Maybe, less successful autobiographies in which the consciousness of a dual role as storyteller and autobiographer, which the use of interchapters encouraged, is lost
Writing One’s Self Into Being : An Analysis on Self-authoring as a mean of Agency in Frances Burney’s Evelina – or a Young Lady’s Entrance Into the World
No full textThis essay aims to explore Evelina’s abilities to self-author her life as a tool of agency, self-authoring means to be able to write your own life. Evelina was written by Frances Burney in 1778 and tells the story of a young orphan lady who visits London. She is inexperienced and makes mistakes that can be seen as fatal in the social sphere. Despite that she reflects on her mistakes and reactions and gains agency in the end. One of her bigger problems is her beauty. It puts her in situations she almost cannot control. She becomes a sexual prey quite easily. Jane Eyre written by Charlotte Bronte in 1847 is relevant for this essay because a lot of criticism has been made about the threats and abilities that Jane’s agency has. The theoretical framework for this essay is based on the works by eight different critics: Diana Meyers, Judith Butler, Jane Spencer, Ellen Moers, Virginia Woolf, Gayatri Spivak, Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar. The framework explains what agency and gendered act is, it also explains the historical context behind Burney and Bronte. Lastly it discusses how the other half of the two heroines has to disappear in order for them to achieve agency. The conclusion for this essay is that Evelina attains agency though her reactions and behavior, even if she looks at herself trough the eyes of another, or in other words attains a God-like perspective, she manages to self-author her life and herself in to being.
Literary voices of nineteenth-century reform movement : an examination of the literary works of Frances E. W. Harper
No full textThis dissertation adds a comprehensive study to the small body of literary scholarship that has been published about Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, a nineteenth-century black American female poet, essayist, short fiction writer novelist, orator and social activist. The document examines the poetry and prose that she penned in support of the anti-slavery movement, the women\u27s rights movement, and the temperance movement. The fundamental focus of this inquiry is whether Harper subordinated her personal artistic voice to become a public voice for the three reform movements mentioned. Also tangential to this question is the veiled tension created between the author\u27s total acceptance of patriarchal Christianity and her personal conviction favoring the emancipation of slaves and women. A combination of the new historical critical approach and a materialist-feminist method was used in the analysis of the author\u27s works. Using both these analytical modes allowed a significant range of social-historical criteria to be considered in examining the quality of Harper\u27s literary voice, and in expanding the range of interpretations of a number of her literary contributions. Harper embraced an aesthetic which viewed the function of literature as a means to delight and instruct. Her experimentation with various literary techniques and forms revealed that she was indeed concerned about the artistic quality of her craft. Even though her literary voice was a public one, she did not compromise its artistic nature when she composed works about the injustice of slavery and the need for women to gain equality before the law. The lack of stylistic innovation and the extreme sentimentality that characterized the temperance poetry, however, yielded it ineffective as literature. On the other hand, the prose written in the area presents a clear portrait of the black woman\u27s role in the Woman\u27s Christian Temperance Union and the bigotry that guided that organizations policies about blacks
Re-visioning myth : feminist strategies in contemporary theatre
No full textThis thesis examines the strategy of re-visioning myth within contemporary European
feminist theatre, a strategy which has proved popular over time and across cultures but
which has received insufficient critical attention. This study seeks to fill that gap by
offering a framework through which this practice can be considered, exploring the
diverse motivations of individual playwrights, and evaluating the achievements of
particular plays in context. Twelve case studies are included, grouped together to
demonstrate a variety of approaches to re-visioning ranging from utilisation of myth as
pretext for examination of social issues, to an apparent abandonment of contemporary
reality for a utopian otherworld. However, it is argued first that mythical, social and
psychological strands remain intertwined, and second that the diversity of approaches
reflects the importance for feminist theatre of selecting strategies to meet specific needs,
and that these strategies can thus be viewed as complementary rather than in conflict.
Chapter One introduces selected critical perspectives on myth, re-visioning and feminist
theatre, framing these within Rita Felski's model of the feminist counter-public sphere.
Chapter Two discusses plays by Hella Haasse, Franca Rame and Sarah Daniels, which
examine myth as ideological narrative. Plays by Maureen Duffy, Caryl Churchill and
David Lan, and Timberlake Wertenbaker, considered in Chapter Three, investigate
myths of female violence. Chapter Four looks at plays by Andree Chedid and Angela
Carter which use myth to confront women's complicity in maintaining the status quo.
Plays by Serena Sartori, Renata Coluccini and Helene Cixous, discussed in Chapter
Five, offer psychological investigations into women's relationships with myth,
language and power. The thesis concludes with a summary of the research findings,
and assesses their significance
The Lady Lord Mayors of Norwich, 1923-2017
No full textCover -- Dedication -- Book Title -- Copyright -- Contents -- Illustration Credits -- Foreword by Baroness Hollis of Heigham -- Introduction and Acknowledgements -- Chapter 1 Ethel Mary Colman 1923-24 -- Chapter 2 Mabel Maria Clarkson 1930-31 -- Chapter 3 Ruth Elsie Hardy 1950-51 -- Chapter 4 Jessie Ruby Griffiths 1969-70 -- Chapter 5 Joyce Lilian Morgan 1975-76 -- Chapter 6 Valerie Guttsman 1979-80 -- Chapter 7 Barbara Ellen Edith Stevenson 1985-86 -- Plate section -- Chapter 8 Jill Betty Miller 1986-87 -- Chapter 9 Brenda Ferris-Rampley 1994-95 -- Chapter 10 Lila Divi Cooper 1995-96 -- Chapter 11 Joyce Anthea Climie Divers 2004-2005 -- Chapter 12 Felicity Hartley 2006-2007 -- Chapter 13 Evelyn Jean Collishaw 2009-10 -- Chapter 14 Jennifer Susan Lay 2011-12 -- Chapter 15 Judith Elizabeth Lubbock 2014-15 -- Chapter 16 Brenda Arthur 2015-16 -- Chapter 17 Marion Frances Maxwell 2016-17 -- Bibliography -- Index -- Back CoverDescription based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, YYYY. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries
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