School of Culture and Communication - Theses

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    (Re)defining recovery: exploring poetry as a therapeutic tool in recovery from severe mood episodes and associated suicide attempts in bipolar disorder
    Lacey, Felicity ( 2020)
    The critical component of this thesis explores the value of poetry as a therapeutic tool in recovery from severe mood episodes and associated suicide attempts in individuals diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Through literary analysis of Shira Erlichman’s Odes to Lithium and Jeanann Verlee’s Said the Manic to the Muse, I suggest that poetry allows a therapeutic space for dynamic reclamation of subjective narrative experiences of bipolar disorder from the medical discourse. Poetic devices such as personification and juxtaposition support the decentralisation of narrative in the subjective dialectic, thus creating scope for the productive tolerance of polarities, fragmentation and disorder. In doing so, poetry can facilitate emotional healing whilst eschewing redemptive narrative arcs. This provides valuable alternate readings and renderings of ‘recovery’ as part of an ongoing management of chronic mental illness which prioritises the experiential perspective, and thereby posits poetic process as a dynamic therapeutic tool in bipolar and attempted suicide contexts. The creative component of this thesis is a collection of poetry exploring my own recovery.
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    Conceptual metaphor for COVID-19 in Australian newspapers
    Almutairi, Hend ( 2020)
    It is important to understand how news sources communicate information about pandemics to the public, and a central aspect of news is the use of metaphors. This study analyses cognitive frames and conceptual domains that metaphorically characterise COVID-19 as a concrete reality for the masses. Data were drawn from a corpus of Australian newspapers in the online Coronavirus Corpus (n.d.). Data were filtered, edited, and classified into three cohorts of corpora, each targeting one of three keywords: coronavirus, COVID-19, and virus. Through the KWIC tool and concordances in the cohorts, metaphoric linguistic expressions (MLEs) were identified. The textual analysis showed spreading and moving were the most common MLEs, followed by impede, force, drive, fight, and battle. The contextual analysis of the MLEs helped identify conceptual metaphors, such as COVID AS A MOVING ENTITY, COVID AS A WAVE, and COVID AS A KILLER. Based on the conceptual coherence between conceptual metaphors, four cognitive domains were classified: COVID AS A LIVING BEING, COVID AS A TSUNAMI, COVID AS A CRIMINAL, and COVID AS AN ENEMY. The findings differ slightly from previous research that found the WAR domain was a dominant source domain for disease metaphors, and many framing options for COVID-19 were used in Australian newspaper discourse. More research is required to better understand the representation of COVID-19 in media discourse to improve the government and public response.
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    The impact of the Biennale of Sydney on the collecting habits of the Art Gallery of New South Wales
    Werkmeister, Sarah ( 2019)
    The aim of this research is to examine the impact of the Biennale of Sydney on the collecting habits of the Art Gallery of New South Wales. While there is research within the area of Biennales and their impact on local economies, there is little research into their impact on how local (in this context, Australian) art is collected by public (State or Federal) institutions, whose role it is to keep safe the culture of the locality they are meant to represent. Biennales are often researched in the context of the Global internationalisation of art, with the ‘type’ of art shown being known as ‘biennale art’ - often spectacular, internationalising, and heeding little attention to the context in which the art is being shown. It can be argued that eventually, artists in the areas where Biennales have become either a source of civic pride or a tourist destination for global visitors, tend to adapt their artistic styles to mimic the work of those artists shown in such arenas. In Australia, this raises questions on how Australian artists see themselves in an international context and how this impacts on national narratives. With this in mind, I am examining, as a case study, the collection of contemporary art in the Art Gallery of New South Wales in correlation with art exhibited in the Biennale, from six years prior to the Biennale’s inception through to Australia’s Bicentennial year of 1988.
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    When romance is dead: vampires in romance narratives for girls
    Tealby, Alison ( 2018)
    In this thesis, I examine how the archetype of the vampire in Western literature continues to evolve within contemporary Young Adult vampire romance narratives. Building on Auerbach’s contention that vampires mutate according to the social demands of their time, I argue that the late twentieth and early twenty-first century proliferation of romantic vampire figures in Young Adult narratives for girls is a response to cultural anxieties concerning rapidly changing societal expectations of femininity following second-wave feminist movements in the twentieth century. I study three contemporary vampire romance narratives, Whedon’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997-2003), Meyer’s Twilight (2005-2008) and Mead’s Bloodlines (2011-2015). Through my analysis of these texts, I demonstrate different ways in which the romantic vampire archetype has responded to Western anxieties concerning contemporary femininity, and I argue that the romantic vampire continues to evolve, drawing on conventions that have been set up in preceding vampire romance narratives to address changing social environments. The creative component of this thesis is an opening extract of a Young Adult vampire romance narrative titled The Blood Pact. In this extract, I explore ways in which the romantic vampire archetype can continue to transform in response to contemporary cultural concerns.
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    Extreme males: autistic masculinity in three bestsellers
    Kelly, Peter ( 2015)
    Inspired by Simon Baron-Cohen’s theory that autism can be understood as an extreme version of typical male behaviour, this thesis will examine whether this view is reflected in the representation of autistic males in best-selling fiction (“Extreme Male Brain” 248). It will investigate autism representations in the context of hegemonic masculinity, by comparing the behaviour of Christopher Boone from The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Jacob Hunt from House Rules, and Don Tillman from The Rosie Project to Linda Lindsey’s masculinity norms. These include anti-femininity, emotional reticence, success, intelligence, toughness, aggressiveness and an obsessive heterosexuality (Lindsey 241-7). While Christopher's surprising violence, extreme intelligence, insensitivity and stubbornness are masculine traits, his asexuality disqualifies him from being an extreme male. Jacob’s masculinity is shown in his aggressiveness, intellect and physique, but is undermined by his ambiguous sexuality and patchy career history. Don’s physical appearance, heterosexuality, stoic attitude and intellect are all masculine qualities, unlike his need for social guidance and apparent virginity at the novel’s beginning. All three characters are white and compensate for a lack of emotional awareness with hyper-rationality. Their paradoxical masculinity may account for their novels’ success. This thesis finds that these three fictional autistics are not extreme males by the standards of hegemonic masculinity.
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    A creative nation is a productive nation: a theoretical and contextual exploration of Tasmania’s Collect Art loan scheme
    Buckley, Caroline ( 2015)
    Tasmania’s Collect Art loan scheme enables eligible consumers to take out an interest free loan from the Tasmanian Government in order to purchase works of art. As the first scheme of its kind in Australia, Collect Art presents an interesting and real life case study of a market facilitating instrument of government subvention. With the aim to explore and establish its significance as such, this thesis discusses the Collect Art loan scheme within relevant theoretical and contextual frameworks. It explores the implications of Collect Art with respect to its impact on artists, government and consumers, and under these circumstances, assesses its efficacy. I have determined that the efficacy of Collect Art is located predominantly in its economic outcomes. To this end, I have concluded that the scheme’s significance lies in its orientation toward the consumer, and in its establishment as a consequence of the economic paradigm that permeates the contemporary arts ecosystem.