186 research outputs found
British Women Travellers And The Harems: Liberties, Enslavement and Domesticity
No full textThis thesis examines the complex perspective of a woman traveller. Wortley Montagu, Martineau, Burton and their contemporaries, represented the harem through various lenses. The Oriental harem has fascinated Western civilization since time immemorial. This sacred place, reserved for the women and children of the Muslim household, had long been a terra incognita to British outsiders, until the publication of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu’s (1689-1762) Turkish Embassy Letters (1763), which gave impetus to a whole tradition of travel writings, particularly harem accounts, penned by British women. The aristocratic Wortley Montagu recasts Turkish women from their previous Western image as over-sexed and soulless beings to idealized domestic goddesses, living in an ideal world, the harem. Harriet Martineau(1802-1876) , travelled to the Ottoman Empire more than a century after Wortley Montagu’s residency in Oriental lands. Martineau was a rare talent. She was an accomplished journalist and a pioneering figure in Western sociology. She spent her life validating a place for herself and her sex in a patriarchal and male-dominated society; she earned her own keeping, and lived independently. Martineau related her eastern experience in Eastern Life: Past and Present (1848), in which the Oriental harem figures very little. Martineau pitied the women she encountered in Egypt, and depicted them as slaves of a corrupt system, the harem and the practice of polygamy. My thesis ends with the travel writings of Lady Isabel Burton (1831-1896) whose view of the Oriental women she met in Syria is the most tempered. Her Inner Life of Syria, Palestine and the Holy Lands: from my Private Journal (1875) displays a tolerance of other cultures and a move toward moral and cultural relativisms.
Each of the women considered in this thesis formed her own harem, projecting on to this distant Oriental structure her fears, hopes and desires. Wortley Montagu’s harem was a utopia for women only. The Victorian Martineau opined that the Oriental harem was a hell on earth. Lady Isabel Burton constructed a happy medium between the two. Although at times ambivalent towards the Syrian women she encountered, she partook in their customs and manners, particularly public bathing, smoking and other Eastern indulgences. Her attitude illustrates that the British home and the Oriental harem are not so dissimilar, bridging the gap between us and them
Women's life writing 1760-1830 : spiritual selves, sexual characters, and revolutionary subjects
No full textPhDThis thesis uses print and manuscript sources to analyse and interpret women's life
writing at the end of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth centuries. I
explore printed works by Catharine Phillips, Mary Dudley, Priscilla Hannah Gurney,
Ann Freeman, Elizabeth Steele, Mary Robinson, Helen Maria Williams, Mary
Wollstonecraft, Grace Dalrymple Elliott, and Charlotte West and discuss the
manuscripts of Mary Fletcher, Mary Tooth, Sarah Ryan, and Elizabeth Fox. Of these
sources, five have never been analysed in the critical literature and six have received
little attention. Considered as a group, this large corpus of texts offers new insights
into the personal and political implications of different models of female selfhood and
social being.
In chapter one, I compare the religious identities presented in the spiritual
autobiographies of Quakers and Methodists. For these women, religious identification
provides a powerful sense of social belonging and enables public participation.
However, it may also lead to a loss of self in the demand for religious conformity and
self-abnegation. In chapter two, I consider the life writing of late eighteenth-century
courtesans. These women adapt available models of femininity and female authorship
in order to establish themselves as socially connected subjects. However, their
narratives also reveal that dependence on the sexual and literary marketplace puts
female selfhood under pressure. In chapter three, I explore the eyewitness accounts of
British women in the French Revolution. I argue that, for these writers, connecting
personal identity to political history is an enabling source of self-definition but it also
exposes them to the risks of self-fragmentation.
In my focus on the social function of women's life writing, I present an alternative to
the traditional alignment of the eighteenth-century autobiographical subject with the
autonomous self of individualism. These narratives allow us to reconsider the
productive and problematic dialectic between personal expression and representative
selfhood, self-authorship and collective narratives, and individualism and social
being. They suggest that women's life writing has the potential to be both the self-expression
of a unique heroine and the self-inscription of a politicised subject
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Daughter of fortune: Isabel Allende's popularity from a readership perspective
No full textThe primary aim of this thesis is to explore and critically interrogate Isabel Allende’s popularity cross-culturally in Britain and Spain. It analyses readers’ responses to Allende’s works as well as the discourses surrounding her public representation, an approach that is ‘readerly’ but must also take account of production and text. This approach is intended to further the understanding of Allende’s work which so far has always been analysed from a textual perspective. However, the relationship between Allende’s popularity, her texts, public representation and readers has not been yet analysed in detail.This thesis is innovative in other ways too. Methodologically, it approaches readers through the under studied cultural form of the reading group. It also incorporates a comparative dimension by looking at the reception of Allende in two different cultural contexts: the British and Spanish respectively. Finding out about Allende’s popularity has involved asking readers about their reading experiences as well as analysing the production of discourses around her public representation. Paul Ricoeur’s (1984, 1988) perspective on authorial intentions and readers’ responses to texts helps in understanding the intricacies surrounding what is involved in reading any text. It draws attention to Allende’s and her publishers’ authorial strategies, her ‘strategies of persuasion’ and the specificity of the lives and contexts of British and Spanish reading publics. Equally, this ‘readerly’ approach draws on feminist audience research and primarily on the work of Ien Ang and Janice Radway. Their work with viewers and readers respectively is particularly useful in establishing and developing methodological parameters for the study of reading groups. As a whole, this thesis contributes to the understanding of Allende’s cross-cultural popularity by situating readers at the centre
"In this moment of alarm and peril": Female Education, Religion and Politics In the Late Eighteenth Century, With special reference to Catharine Macaulay and Hannah More
No full textPhDCatharine Macaulay and Hannah More are conventionally represented as
ideological opposites. Through an analysis which centres on their writings, this
thesis critically examines that representation, and more broadly explores
contemporary perceptions of the roles of women of the middling sort in the late
eighteenth century. It argues that revolution, particularly the French Revolution,
created a climate wherein the duties of women became the subject of increasing
debate. The discussion challenges and builds upon recent work on women's
writing and history, by examining how and why the role of women changed at this
time. This work is concerned with contemporary representations of women, and
concentrates on analysis of primary texts and archival material over a wide range
of genres, including educational treatises, plays, popular tracts, political pamphlets,
historical writing and newspapers - the latter proving a major resource.
Following a critical introduction, the thesis falls into four chapters. Chapter one
discusses the reputation, critical reception and public fame of Macaulay and More,
thereby providing insights into contemporary sexual and social politics. Women
were considered arbiters of morals and manners - believed to play a vital role in
ensuring social stability - and the second chapter examines how the threat of
revolution led to increasing anxiety and debate about the nature of female
education. The third and fourth chapters discuss religion and politics respectively,
and argue that beliefs about the interdependency of Church and State, together with
the feminization of religion, legitimized women's involvement in politics and
enlarged their sphere of influence.
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The conclusion argues that the political and religious climate provided
opportunities for women to reassess and redefine their roles; while often remaining
within parameters defined by commonly held perceptions of femininity, they
politicized the domestic, extended female agency, and elevated the status of
women
Faith, feeling and gender in the writing of Hartley, Wollstonecraft and Blake
No full textThis thesis examines David Hartley’s Observations on Man (1749) and elucidates how Hartley’s mechanical approach to mind, his conception of emotion, and the religious status he awards the body were newly relevant after 1791. In this way it identifies a ‘Hartlean culture’ within the Romantic period and seeks to explore how such an intellectual climate influenced the radical writers William Blake (1757–1827) and Mary Wollstonecraft (1759–1797). Blake and Wollstonecraft were acquainted with the famous bookseller Joseph Johnson, who republished Observations on Man in various forms and versions between 1775 and 1801. They also had an association with Johnson’s circle; the Hartlean concepts found throughout their work evidence Hartley’s latent popularity within intellectual culture, as well as the writers’ engagement with contemporary philosophical ideas. I propose that the renewed curiosity in Hartley during the 1790s reveals a specific religious and revolutionary culture wherein non-conformist views about Christianity and new ideas about the body, emotion and women flourished. Such a cultural moment renders Hartley a particularly important figure for debate since he integrated progressive values about equality and faith alongside advancing understanding of anatomy and mind. Hartley identified how God and happiness could be found physically within each person. He did this by combining a complex theory of vibrations and theory of association, where the body and mind functioned mechanically through a person’s feelings of pleasure and pain. These feelings manifested as physical vibrations and eventually led every person to desire goodness until finally, they can become ‘Godlike’ themselves. Hartley’s amalgamation of Christian and new theoretical concepts appealed to Blake and Wollstonecraft, and was much unlike the approach of Joseph Priestley who abridged Observations in 1775 to promote a wholly ‘scientific’ text. In this way, we can see resonances between Hartley, Blake and Wollstonecraft, even if they existed in different cultural contexts. In rethinking Blake and Wollstonecraft through Hartley, I offer new insights into their feminism. In particular I attend to how Hartlean culture enabled these writers to re-imagine gender and emotion: Wollstonecraft reinstates the female experience back into Hartlean concepts in order to promote women’s emotional potential and what she understands as the special power of the female-female bond. Blake responds to both Wollstonecraft and Hartley with his elevation of the feminine, one that envisions new potential for both sexes, emotionally and spiritually. In both cases, the writers share a fascination for the image of the female saviour, and they use terminology and concepts found in Hartley’s work to communicate their views. In being attentive to the shared vocabulary and ideas of these three writers’ works, this thesis highlights the importance of David Hartley and Hartlean culture for the field of Romantic Studies. It also illuminates Observations on Man as a vital contribution to the intellectual context of the 1790s
Mariología, reginalidad y poder en Isabel de Villena : una teoría política femenina del siglo XV
No full textIsabel de Villena, autora del Humanismo, presenta un paradigma femenino de gobierno en su Vita Christi: la Virgen María reina y papisa. Mediante la reginalidad formula una nueva ética política a seguir por los titulares masculinos del poder. Su estudio refrenda la participación de la autora en la Querella de las Mujeres y muestra sintonías con cortes de reinas contemporáneas como Isabel I.Isabel de Villena, author of Humanism, offers a female paradigm of government in her Vita Christi: The Virgin Mary as queen and as pope. Through queenship, she formulates a new political ethic that she presents as a model to power male holders. Its study confirms the participation of the author in the "Querelle of Femmes" and show coincidences with contemporary courts of queens like Isabel I
Mariologia, Realeza e Poder em Isabel de Villena. Uma teoria política feminina do séc. XV
No full textIsabel de Villena, autora del Humanismo, presenta un paradigma femenino de gobierno en su Vita Christi: la Virgen María reina y papisa. Mediante la reginalidad formula una nueva ética política a seguir por los titulares masculinos del poder. Su estudio refrenda la participación de la autora en la Querella de las Mujeres y muestra sintonías con cortes de reinas contemporáneas como Isabel I.Isabel de Villena, author of Humanism, offers a female paradigm of government in her Vita Christi: The Virgin Mary as queen and as pope. Through queenship, she formulates a new political ethic that she presents as a model to power male holders. Its study confirms the participation of the author in the “Querelle of Femmes” and show coincidences with contemporary courts of queens like Isabel I
Mariología, reginalidad y poder en Isabel de Villena : una teoría política femenina del siglo XV
No full textIsabel de Villena, autora del Humanismo, presenta un paradigma femenino de gobierno en su Vita Christi: la Virgen María reina y papisa. Mediante la reginalidad formula una nueva ética política a seguir por los titulares masculinos del poder. Su estudio refrenda la participación de la autora en la Querella de las Mujeres y muestra sintonías con cortes de reinas contemporáneas como Isabel I.Isabel de Villena, author of Humanism, offers a female paradigm of government in her Vita Christi: The Virgin Mary as queen and as pope. Through queenship, she formulates a new political ethic that she presents as a model to power male holders. Its study confirms the participation of the author in the "Querelle of Femmes" and show coincidences with contemporary courts of queens like Isabel I
The allegory of profane love in the relationship Jesus - Mary Magdalene in sister Isabel de Villena's Vita Christi
No full textEntre els recursos literaris de la Vita Christi de sor Isabel de Villena, ocupen un lloc destacat les al·legories. En uns casos, aquestes es concreten en la representació d'entitats de naturalesa abstracta a través de personatges humans; en altres casos, es materialitzen en passatges més o menys extenses del discurs que adquireixen un significat últim diferent de l'estrictament literal, en virtut de l'analogia existent entre tots dos. Un exemple d'aquest últim tipus d'al·legoria són les nombroses seqüències de l’obra que narren la particular relació espiritual entre Jesús i Maria Magdalena. L’autora construeix aquests passatges amb alguns ingredients propis d'una melodramàtica història sentimental protagonitzada per un home i una dona, que s'enamoren, conviuen, gaudeixen, pateixen, es separen, es retroben i es tornen a separar definitivament.Among the literary resources of Sister Isabel de Villena's Vita Christi, allegories occupy a prominent place. In some cases, these are concretized in the representation of entities of abstract nature through human characters; in other cases, they materialize in more or less extensive passages of discourse that acquire an ultimate meaning different from the strictly literal, by virtue of the analogy existing between the two. An example of this last type of allegory is the numerous sequences in the play that narrate the particular spiritual relationship between Jesus and Mary Magdalene. The author constructs these passages with some ingredients typical of a melodramatic sentimental story starring a man and a woman, who fall in love, live together, enjoy, suffer, separate, reunite and separate once and for all
RESPUESTA FISIOLÓGICA DE CYPRINODON DEARBORNI (PISCES:CYPRINODONTIDAE), FRENTE A UN EXTRACTO METANÓLICO DE FAGARAMONOPHYLLA (RUTACEAE).
No full textEl objetivo de este trabajo fue evaluar la actividad piscicida de un extracto en metanol de la corteza del tallode Fagara monophylla en la condición fisiológica de C. dearborni. Se realizaron bioensayos estáticos con seis peces, tresréplicas y dos controles, en acuarios de 5 l de capacidad tratados con una dosis subletal de 0,01 μg/ml, durante 72 horas. Despuésde este período, se decapitaron los peces y se les disecó parte del tejido muscular esquelético e intestinal. Luego, en estos tejidos,se evaluaron las concentraciones de ADN y ARN por el método fluorimétrico, así como las proteínas totales por el métodocolorimétrico. La condición fisiológica se estimó por la relación ARN/ADN. Los resultados obtenidos revelaron que el nivelde ácido desoxirribonucleico (ADN) aumentó significativamente (p < 0,05), mientras que los niveles del ARN, las proteínastotales y el cociente ARN/ADN disminuyeron significativamente (p < 0,05) en ambos tejidos, con relación a los peces notratados con el extracto. Se concluye, que el uso de esta planta en etnomedicina debe hacerse con cautela, hasta no tener mayorinformación toxicológica.Palabra clave: Toxicidad, tejidos muscular e intestinal, peces.ABSTRACT: The study aimed to evaluate the activity of a methanolic extract of the crust of the stem of Fagaramonophylla on the physiological condition of C. dearborni. Static bioassays with six fish, three replicates and two controlswere done by using aquariums of 5 L of capacity with a sublethal dose, 0.01 ìg/mg of the extract, during 72 hours. After thisperiod, the specimens were beheaded and dissected to obtain portions of the skeletal muscle and intestinal tissues. The tissueconcentrations of DNA and RNA were evaluated by fluorometry, and total proteins through colorimetry. Physiologicalcondition was determined in terms of RNA/DNA ratio. The results showed an increase of DNA levels (p < 0,05), whereas RNAlevels, total proteins concentrations as well as the RNA/DNA ratio decreased in both tissues (p < 0,05), in relation to untreatedfishes. It can be concluded that, this plant in etnomedicine must be used with caution, until greater toxicological informationwill be obtained.Keywords: Toxicity, muscles and intestinal tissues, fish
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