Magazine and reader constructions of 'metrosexuality' and masculinity: a membership categorisation analysis

Since the launch of men's lifestyle magazines in the 1980s, academic literature has predominantly focused on them as a cultural phenomenon arising from entrepreneurial and commercial initiatives and/or as cultural texts that proffer representations of masculinity such as 'new lad' and 'new dad'. This paper steps aside from the focus on culture and, instead, treats magazine content as a discursive space in which gender and sexuality are oriented to, negotiated, and accomplished within and beyond the magazine itself (i.e. through readers' responses). Specifically, membership categorisation analysis is deployed to explore how the relatively new (and perhaps alternative) category for men - 'metrosexual' - is presented and received. Our analysis suggests that masculinity concerns are central in debates about 'metrosexuality', with self-identified 'metrosexuals' invoking heterosexual prowess and self-respect on the one hand, and critics (e.g. selfidentified 'real men') lamenting 'metrosexuality' for its perceived effeminacy and lack of authenticity on the other. Implications for understanding contemporary masculinities are discussed

Convergence Without Hard Criteria: Does EU Soft Law Affect Domestic Unemployment Protection Schemes?

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Women and the framed-novelle sequence in eighteenth-century England : clothing instruction with delight

English women writers of the eighteenth century manifested enthusiasm for a form best described as a framed-novelle sequence, that is, a form in which conversations between characters/narrators are interspersed with embedded narratives. This thesis argues that the framed-novelle, with its distinctive juxtaposition of narrative and critical conversation facilitated feminine intervention in the period’s political, social, and literary debates. It demonstrates that Delarivier Manley, Jane Barker, Eliza Haywood, Sarah Scott, Sarah Fielding and Jane Collier used the framed-novelle sequence to develop a feminine but nonetheless authoritative socio-critical voice which allowed them not only to intervene in contemporary literary debates about the risks and rewards of reading fictions (especially with regards to the wider significance of the feminocentric and apparently trivial matter of amatory, romantic tales)but also to construct timely argument about the effect of fictional exemplarity on readers. Consideration of the literary and cultural contexts of the framed-novelle’s production, specifically its relation to other forms of narrative sequences such as the oriental tale and the fairy tale collection and to the period’s ideals of sociable conversation and critical practice also allows this thesis to identify the framed-novelle’s importance within the larger field of eighteenth-century literary development. Through close readings in each main chapter of an earlier and later framed-novelle by each author, this thesis explores the distinctiveness and internal cohesion of the framed-novelle as a subgenre, while also recognizing the particularity of each writer’s protofeminist perspective on their accumulation of feminocentric tales.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo