Heroines, monsters, victims: representations of female agency in political violence and the myth of motherhood

By using a poststructuralist feminist perspective, this thesis argues that representations of female agency in political violence are told as stories of heroines, monsters and victims through a Myth of Motherhood. I conceptualise the myth as a meta-discourse constituted by different discourses within each type of story. In all stories, a tension between identities of life-giving and life-taking is present which means that motherhood is ‘everywhere’ albeit not necessarily visible. Thus, these stories are versions, perversions and inversions of motherhood. In heroine stories, this takes place as the subject’s heroism is communicated through motherhood/lack of motherhood. In monster stories, the myth is communicated as ‘natural’ femininity is emphasised and defined as that which the monster is not. In victim stories, female subjects are denied agency which means that a life-taking identity is removed whereas a life-giving identity is promoted communicating the Myth of Motherhood. I argue that motherhood is not simply a discourse denying women agency in political violence, but also instrumental as to how agency in political violence is enabled. As such motherhood is ‘everywhere’ in representations of female agency in political violence and fundamental in order to understand how representations of female agency in political violence are gendered

Grieving, Valuing, and Viewing Differently: The Global War on Terror's American Toll

In March 2003 (the eve of Iraq’s invasion) the George W. Bush Administration reissued, extended, and enforced a Directive prohibiting the publication and broadcast of images and videos capturing the ritual repatriation of America’s war dead. This Directive (known as the Dover Ban) is exemplary of a wider set of more subtle processes and practices of American statecraft working to move suffering and dead American soldiers out of the American public eye’s sight. This is due, I argue, to dominant (Government and Military) bodies knowing, valuing, and counting generic soldier material as but a “precious resource” with which to fuel the GWoT. However, my investigation into the (in)visibility of suffering and dead American soldiers since 9/11 reveals that subordinate yet challenging American bodies could not be stopped from knowing, valuing, and counting American soldiers differently—in life, injury, and death. Indeed, regarding American soldiers as grievable persons, the challenging actions discussed in this article demonstrate how Americans were moved to demand and take the right to count and account for soldiers’ suffering and deaths in public and the very face of dominant bodies that “don’t do body counts”

1600-1500 Ma hotspot track in eastern Australia: implications for Mesoproterozoic continental reconstructions

The definitive version is available at www.blackwell-synergy.comMesoproterozoic A-type magmatic rocks in the Gawler Craton, Curnamona Province and eastern Mount Isa Inlier, form a palaeo-curvilinear belt for reconstructed plate orientations. The oldest igneous rocks in the Gawler Craton are the Hiltaba Granite Suite: c. 1600–1575 Ma. The youngest in the Mount Isa Inlier are the Williams-Naraku Batholiths: c. 1545–1500 Ma. The belt is interpreted as a segment of a hotspot track that evolved between c. 1600 and 1500 Ma. This hotspot track may define a quasilinear part of Australia’s motion between 1636 and 1500 Ma, and suggests that Australia drifted to high latitudes. An implication of this interpretation is that Australia and Laurentia may not have been fellow travellers leading to the formation of Rodinia. A hotspot model for A-type magmatism in Australia differs from geodynamic models for this style of magmatism on other continents. This suggests that multiple geologic processes may be responsible for the genesis of Proterozoic A-type magmas.Peter G. Betts, David Giles, Bruce F. Schaefer and Geordie Mar