It's OK not to be OK: Shared Reflections from two PhD Parents in a Time of Pandemic

Adopting an intersectional feminist lens, we explore our identities as single and co‐parents thrust into the new reality of the UK COVID‐19 lockdown. As two PhD students, we present shared reflections on our intersectional and divergent experiences of parenting and our attempts to protect our work and families during a pandemic. We reflect on the social constructions of ‘masculinities’ and ‘emphasized femininities’ as complicated influence on our roles as parents. Finally, we highlight the importance of time and self‐care as ways of managing our shared realities during this uncertain period. Through sharing reflections, we became closer friends in mutual appreciation and solidarity as we learned about each other’s struggles and vulnerabilities

The Fine Art of Commercial Freedom: British Music Videos and Film Culture

An outline and analysis of the British music video industry and its impact on film culture in the 1990s and 2000s

Dialogical Selves: Exploring “Sameness and Difference” in “Queer” Identification

“The LGBTQIA+ community”, like all social groupings, is moulded by dialectical forces: inclusivity/exclusivity, belonging/non-belonging, sameness/difference. Literature on it is riddled with dichotomous conflicts over (dis)identification and (anti)relationality in theory, lived experiences, and political mobilisation. Dominant discourses tend to overlook intersectional complexities therein, focus on labels over interactions, and reiterate a framing of the LGBTQIA+ as inherently vulnerable. The gaps point to a need for a more open and reparative investigation that creates space for exploring and (re)negotiating the assumed coalition. This study investigated what diverse groups of queer-identified individuals experienced when sharing their lived accounts of “sameness and difference” with others. Twenty-one people each participated in one of four focus groups and in a follow-up interview were invited to reflect on their experience. Decolonial Intersectional Narrative Analysis (Boonzaier, 2019) and a Bakhtinian-dialogical analysis (Grossen & Salazar Orvig, 2011) were used to inspect the “what” and the “how” of the group dialogues, respectively. Participants recounted significant experiences of sameness and difference that both foregrounded and transcended their particular intersectional identities. Moments/relationships of being treated as more an object than a full subject, due to divergence from certain monoglossic gendered/sexed/sexual norms (both intra- and extra-communally), were conarrated as keys to ongoing queer abjection. Participants expressed that dialoguing in this particular setting was an experience of coming-out-of-isolation, intersubjective learning, and strengthening senses of self and community. Future research and activism are encouraged to invest in accessible open dialogue as a site itself for LGBTQIA+ community-building in South Africa and beyond

The question of gendered voice in some contemporary Irish novels by Brian Moore and John McGahern

This thesis questions the use of the 'voice' metaphor in contemporary Irish cultural studies in order to examine the ways in which gendered identities are constructed in some Irish Catholic communities in twentieth-century Ireland. With reference to novels by Brian Moore and John McGahern as well as to Judith Butler's theories of performativity and citational practices, it argues that gendered identities are constructed through the repetitive citation of hegemonic cultural discourses. This thesis focuses on the ways in which gendered identities are produced and maintained through the citation of the official discourses of the Catholic Church and the State as well as the more mundane discourses related to popular nationalism and the family. The first two chapters concentrate on novels whose protagonists are trying to construct powerful identities in urban Irish society through the manipulation of gendered discourses. The discussion of Moore's The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne identifies some of the strategies through which conventional Irish women's voices are constructed and questions the validity of the category of 'authentic' women's voices. In the chapter relating to McGahem's The Pornographer, the powerful, abstract male voice is exposed as a performative construct which is sustained only through the abjection of those elements which disrupt the narrator's performance of masculinity. The remaining chapters concentrate on the use of idealised images such as those of the 'woman-as-nation' and the iconised mother in novels by Moore and McGahem. Moore's The Mangan Inheritance provides the basis for a discussion of whether or not voices attributed to women in texts by Irish men can be read in ways that disrupt the apparent authority of Irish men's voices. This thesis discusses the issues raised when men participate in the deconstruction of idealised images of Irish women. The final chapter examines the processes through which conventional identities are discursively constructed and maintained in two novels by John McGahem: The Dark and Amongst Women. This thesis contends that through the strategic redeployment of those voices attributed to idealised images of Irish women, voices which are conventionally regarded as silent, patriarchal gendered identities can be destabilised or displaced

Changing positions: The Sexual Politics of A Women’s Field Hockey Team 1986-1996

Despite a huge expansion in the literature on individual aspects of sexual identity and sexuality, and the growth of studies on women in sport, there are still relatively few investigations into women’s sporting and sexual subcultures. In addition, practical difficulties frequently preclude the adoption of longitudinal research designs when studying sport groups. This research describes the micro-dynamics of a particular women’s field hockey team, tracing the shifting composition of the team from predominantly heterosexual to almost entirely lesbian over the ten year period 1986-1996. A retrospective, longitudinal design was used: data from semi-structured interviews with 26 players were matched against data depicting the changing distribution of heterosexual and lesbian players during the ten year period. Two major findings emerge: first, that the women’s sexual identities were more fluid and complex than most of the literature on women in sport implies. Secondly, the status system of the club was more strongly influenced by organisation sexuality than it was by structural tradition. Consequently the status system changed from one based on structure (i.e. years of experience in the club) to one based on culture (i.e. identity as a lesbian organisation) as the number of self-identified lesbians increased beyond 38%

Limitlessness of Queer Performance: On-stage Performances and the Construction of Off-stage Identities

Most recent research regarding non-normative and alternative identities in the context of performance has alluded to the various social effects of these performances such as forming communities, demonstrating the possibility of living outside normative ideas of existing, and spatial transformation. However, little research has focused on understanding how such performances influence performers’ on and offstage identities. We understand the individual benefits gained from performing actions that maintain gender and racial norms, but we do not understand much regarding the effects of performances by individuals who deviate from such norms, especially once they have left the performance site. By interviewing vogue performers who perform at “Ballroom events”, I aimed to uncover the bi-directional relationship between performers’ radical on-stage performances and their off-stage everyday identities. Given that non-queer, white individuals largely maintain the status quo within our society, it is important to understand how the articulation and formation of queer identity through performances allow for the construction of alternative identities for marginalized people unable to be deemed normal in today’s society. My findings show that vogue performance can elicit transformations in performers off-stage identities through a repetitive engagement with both Ballroom as a space and vogue as a performance. Because my respondents connected the Ballroom space with their ability to construct authentic on-stage vogue performances, they were able to maintain characteristics of their on-stage performances, which include a construction of non-normative racial, gendered, and sexuality characteristics, within their everyday life. Such transformations included an increased view of self-worth, changes in gendered self-presentation, and community engagement

The Heckler’s Promise

From gluing audience members to their seats and purposefully selling the same ticket to more than one person, artists associated with the Historical Avant-Garde often sought to provoke and antagonise by employing disruption via interruptive processes. This paper responds to Claire Bishop’s call for more agonism (Bishop, 2004) by inserting the heckler as both method and object into art performance. It is a hybrid of practice and theory, statement and response, test and experiment; it is a combination of all these things because you can’t really envisage a heckler without taking him out for the night putting him in the world and observing the exchanges that take place. We think that practicing heckling has got to be worth the aggravation.  This paper seeks to do two things: first to explore the heckler as a ‘device’ for reassessing the potential of interruption in democratic exchange, in particular in relation to contemporary theories of art and participation and second to try it out; to put the heckler at the centre of an artwork. In short, we propose a rethinking of the heckler.  Part 1: Heckle, Hiss, Howl and Holler asks if there is something worth considering in the process of heckling for democratic exchange and, Part 2: Contract, Collaboration, Countdown and Confrontation strikes out to see what happens when you present an artwork that trials a performance about heckling via the act of heckling.  The inhospitable performance Contract with a Heckler demonstrates a complex knitting of theory and practice whereby argument is supported by the undertaking of action (by the necessity of experiencing interruption in practice) and reveals working with interruption on a theoretical, practical and emotional level can be exciting, provocative and dangerous. Exploring contractual agency through hostipitality (Derrida, 2000) wherein a host may be as hostile as she is hospitable, this performance reimagines the event of performance as an event of (in)hospitality by embodying an ambivalent conviviality and employing heckling to disrupt convivial participation (Bourriaud, 1998)

Ability not disability: A transformative exploration of student experiences in higher education.

This study aims to explore why there are such low numbers of people with (dis)abilities in attendance at Irish Higher Education (AHEAD, 2017), The study explores the experiences of people with (dis)abilities as told to the researcher. These findings are reviewed within the context of the literature on Irish HE and (dis)ability, as well as the medical and social models of (dis)ability. Researching from the constructivist approach, qualitative, conversational interviews with participants are completed. Analysing findings in traditional qualitative format of transcripts becomes a barrier to accurate representation of the emotional resonance of the conversation, so a narrative approach to present findings using the creative method of ‘found’ poetry emerges (Richardson, 1990). The analysis also examines alternative methods of assessment adapting the Universal Design of Learning Technique and explores experiences of stigma as experienced by people in HE with (dis)abilities. Issues of funding policy for part-time students are also acknowledged. Although there have been significant strides in improving the quality of the lives for people with (dis)abilities, due to the efforts of (dis)ability advocates and the development of the Social Model of (Dis)ability, it would seem apparent that significant changes in attitudes and a reduction in the neo-liberal ethos would contribute to a more positive and inclusive experience for all learners in HE

Girl Talk: A Dialogic Approach to Oral Narrative Storytelling Analysis in English As a Foreign Language Research

Research in the fields of Applied Linguistics (AL) and Second Language Studies (SLS) has begun addressing the ways in which second and foreign language (L2) use is a “material” struggle to understand, acquire and author L2 words for one’s own creative purposes – particularly in the face of ideologies about language learning and language use (Squires 2008; Suni 2014). This struggle has implications for the subjectivity, agency and ultimate acquisition and use of the target language by L2 users. This dissertation seeks to augment scholarship in this area by demonstrating how material struggle can surface in the process of data collection (a research interview). It presents an analysis of a recorded narrative of an English as a foreign language (EFL) user, who was a second year graduate student enrolled in a university in the southwest US. She was invited by the author -- a native speaker of English -- to tell an oral narrative story in English to a group with whom she met regularly. However, in positioning the EFL subject as “non-native” in the recruitment process, the author as a native speaker failed to anticipate the manner in which her request was interpellative (Althusser 1971[2001]), thus reproducing and subjecting the “non-native” to the ideology and discourses associated with that category and setting into motion a creative authoring of response to this interpellative call. In approaching the analysis from this perspective, this dissertation adopts an approach to oral narrative story analysis that is based on the Bakhtinian-inspired notion of dialogism (Bakhtin 1981, 1986). Dialogism underscores the resultant narrative as a collection of utterances poised to respond to the request to “tell a story,” while simultaneously addressing the ideology and discourses associated with this request. Additionally, the analysis explores the dialogic nature of the narrative from the standpoint of “tellability” (Norrick 2005; Ochs and Capps 2001), thus highlighting aspects of the narrative that render this tale of friendship, an extramarital affair and a friend “in hatred” meaningful in the context of its telling. Guided by an interest in Bakhtinian dialogism and driven by a concern for narrative tellability, three differing, yet complimentary, analyses of the narrative are explored: 1) ‐ 9 ‐ genre, register and vague (“vaguely gendered”) language, 2) face work, framing and cooperation and 3) gossip, stance and the representation of speech and voice. These analyses likewise uncover three themes that underlie the narrative context of the tale. These themes are: the backgrounding of nativeness and foregrounding of gender, the simultaneous and ambiguous struggle for solidarity and power, and the display of personal style through moral stance in the presentation of a continuous self over time and place. The implication of this work for future research and assessment in AL and SLS is addressed