Graduate Theses & Dissertations

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"TOUGH BUT NECESSARY"? AN ANALYSIS OF NEOLIBERAL AND ANTI-FEMINIST DISCOURSES USED IN THE ELIMINATION OF THE NEW BRUNSWICK ADVISORY COUNCIL ON THE STATUS OF WOMEN
This study demonstrates that the New Brunswick government rationalized the 2011 elimination of the New Brunswick Advisory Council on the Status of Women (NBACSW) by discursively framing it as a duplication of services and as a non-essential service. The study relies on interviews with women who had been involved with the NBACSW, as well as literature about the use of neoliberal and anti-feminist discourses at the national level. I argue that the two rationalizations offered by the New Brunswick government rely on similar neoliberal and anti-feminist discourses to those used at the national level to eliminate women's institutional machinery and thus diminish women's capacities for advocacy and political representation. I argue that this discursive move positioned the province's largest women's advocacy group as an impediment to the common good of the province and as a threat to "Ordinary New Brunswickers," signalling a negative step for women in the province. Author Keywords: Anti-feminist backlash, Canadian Feminism, Canadian Women's Movements, Discourse Analysis, Neoliberalism, New Brunswick
"Non-compliance" in the system
This thesis examines how co-creators Kelly Sue DeConnick and Valentine De Landro’s 2014 graphic work, Bitch Planet, is in all conceivable ways a seminal and prescient example of — to use their term — “non-compliance” in the comics form and industry. From its inception as a feminist dystopia, written by a white woman and illustrated by a Black man, in an industry that is over-represented by white men, Bitch Planet is a prime example of activist comics that is situated perfectly within the “Blue Age” of comics, to use the term coined by comic scholar Adrienne Resha. This is evident in the main narrative of Bitch Planet in which, in an industry still over-represented by white characters, the main cast of characters are four Black women and one Japanese-American woman, each of whom we see come up against a theologically patriarchal white supremacist system that imprisons them for crimes that are gendered, racialized, classist and ableist. DeConnick and De Landro’s collaboration with other artists extends from Laurenn McCubbin’s satirical paratextual in-universe advertisements on the back page of each comic which complement Bitch Planet’s main narrative to an invitation to world- building to the greater comic community, allowing creators with marginalized identities to craft short comic stories that satirically and deeply explore the socio-political issues developed in the main narrative of Bitch Planet. The final act of “non-compliance” comes out of the expansion of authorship of Bitch Planet to the readership via the letters pages, and beyond: highlighting readers’ Twitter messages, connecting with them through Tumblr, and posting pictures of fan “non-compliant” tattoos within the pages of Bitch Planet. Author Keywords: Bitch Planet, comics, critical race studies, dystopia , gender studies, intersectional feminism
"Learning to Be Mad, In a Dream"
The Beat Generation shaped, and was shaped by, the post-WWII containment culture that arose in 1950s America. This so-called cultural containment reflected the social, political, and economic factors that were unique to the post-WWII period and are often considered concurrent to post-war McCarthyism, which promoted a national ideology of exclusionism that was foremost opposed to the threat of Communism. I propose in my thesis that containment was a major influence in the rhetoric of resistance that is found within the most prominent works of the Generation. My thesis also looks at the how Beat literature shifted from the counterculture to the mainstream and the impact that celebrity had on the Generation. When the Beats achieved literary fame their counterculture represented the forefront of the New Left and was synonymous with succeeding protest cultures of the 1960s. Author Keywords: Beat Generation, Cold War, Containment Culture, McCarthyism, Postmodernism, Second Wave Feminism
"I like big books"
The purpose of this study was to determine whether students at the Royal Military College (RMC) preferred electronic or print texts, their reasoning for this preference, and whether preference was related to student characteristics. Students (N=139) in a core course were provided with both formats. Due to a limited number of e-text users, statistical analyses of most variables were not possible. Instead, qualitative responses were analyzed to gain insight into student preferences. Students reported on the benefits and concerns of using each format. Their discussion of the benefits to the e-text and concerns about the print text were related to the level of convenience of each format. When considering the benefits of print and drawbacks of e-texts, students explained how these features could impact their reading experience. This study provides qualitative support for the continued use of print texts. Although they frequently use various forms of technology in the classroom, students are reluctant to study using electronic devices and feel their reading experience is best with print. Author Keywords: Educational technology, Qualitative, Textbooks, Text preferences
"Energetics" of Mycenaean Defense Works
This thesis examines the mobilization of labour required for fortification construction during the Late Helladic (LH) period of the Aegean Bronze Age. It adopts an "energetics" approach to architecture, as a framework for systematically calculating the labour costs of construction, and using such costs to infer relative differences in political power among groups and communities through the implied differences in labour control. Accordingly, construction costs were generated for thirty-six LH fortifications, located across seven distinct regional zones of the Greek mainland and Aegean Sea. These values were then compared and evaluated against what is known of the political geographies for each region, to measure the extent to which the mobilization of labour was a function of regional power in Late Bronze Age Greece. These assessments revealed that a wide range of variation existed among the sampled regions in terms of the strength and nature of this connection, underscoring the diversity in labour relations that developed throughout the Aegean during the LH period. The labour costs were also used to suggest specific systems of recruitment that may have been in place for mobilizing workers, and to argue that fortification construction would not have been particularly burdensome or demanding for certain local populations. Author Keywords: Energetics, Fortifications, Late Bronze Age, Monumental Architecture
"Changing our community"
Community-based research (CBR) is a method of discovery that can provide pragmatic methods of advocating for and enabling community change. CBR literature and practice has focused on securing educational and job skills training outcomes for students rather than the communities, and community outcomes CBR and partnership frameworks were truly meant to serve. This research evaluates the effectiveness of a research brokering organization, and the community outcomes that can be meaningfully related back to established partnerships and research. A linked contribution and realist evaluation were employed to consider the contributions of U-Links Centre for Community-Based Research to capacity building in Haliburton County, for host organizations, local municipalities and the public. A community survey (n=65), interviews with past project hosts and management committee members (n=26) anecdotal project exploration, internal document review, and participant observation from living in the region and working within the organization, offers qualitative and quantitative data to support this contribution narrative, while also theorizing key factors for developing projects with high contribution potential. Five key factors were found which can act as both contexts and mechanisms of community-based research mobilization: relevance, relationships, resources, rigour and reach. Author Keywords: capacity building, community, community-based research, contribution analysis, evaluations, research impact

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Graduate student theses produced at Trent University. You may also browse theses and dissertations by year, program, or author.

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