Digitized Theses and Dissertations

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Bone health In adolescent female athletes: The influence of menstrual and oral contraceptive status on bone mineral density and content of the lumbar spine and proximal femur
(2002) DeNeef Ooms, Shana L.; Gaul, Catherine A.
The purpose of this research was to investigate the influence of menstrual status and oral contraceptive status on areal bone mineral density (aBMD) and bone mineral content (BMC) of the lumbar spine and proximal femur in 31 adolescent, athletic Caucasian, non-smoking females, aged 14 to 21 years (mean 18.8 ± 1.3 years). Participants were grouped by menstrual and oral contraceptive status: eumenorrheic, non-oral contraceptive users (ENOC, n=15), eumenorrheic, oral contraceptive users (EOC, n=11), and irregularly menstruating (amenorrheic and oligomenorrheic), non-oraJ contraceptive users (INOC, n=5). A secondary purpose was to determine if the ENOC, EOC and INOC groups were distinguishable by other factors which have been associated with aBMD and BMC, such as anthropometrics, age at menarche, physical activity, calorie and calcium intake, and eating attitudes. Subjects participated in a regular program of vigorous weight bearing activity that involved a minimum of 3 times per week for at least 45 minutes each time. Measures of aBMD and BMC of the lumbar spine (LS, L1-4), proximal femur (PF) and its sub regions, the femoral neck (FN) and trochanter (FT), were taken using a Hologic QDR 2000 dual energy x-ray absorptiometer (DXA) in array mode. Descriptive information regarding menstrual and oral contraceptive history, familial history of osteoporosis, medical history and current physical activity levels was gathered with a general health questionnaire. A three-day dietary record was used to assess calorie and calcium intake, and the Eating Attitudes Test (EAT-26) was used to evaluate restrictive eating tendencies. Anthropometrics including stature, weight, body mass index (BMJ), and sum of five skin folds (So5S) were also assessed. ENOC, EOC and INOC groups were similar in terms of chronological age, age at menarche, anthropometrics, current physical activity and resistance training (hours per week), and all dietary measures. Height and weight correlated significantly with measures of BMC and bone mineral area (BMA) (p<0.05), but not with measures of aBMD. Weight bearing activity and resistance training correlated significantly with aBMD of the FT and FN, respectively (p<0.05). Age at menarche, calorie and calcium intake, EAT-26 scores, and So5S did not correlate significantly with any of the bone mineral measures. A one-way ANOVA revealed that in non-oral contraceptive users (ENOC and INOC), menstrual status did not influence aBMD and BMC at the LS and PF. Conversely, in the eumenorrheic groups, oral contraceptive users (EOC) had significantly higher BMC at the PF (p=0.028) and FT (p=0.020) compared to non-oral contraceptive users (ENOC). Oral contraceptive use did not influence BMC at the LS or aBMD at any site. BMC at the PF may be influenced by initiation of oral contraceptive use prior to 20 years of age and before adult peak bone mass is achieved. Skeletal growth during puberty reflects increases in BMC more so than in aBMD because of increases in bone size. A longer period of bone mineral accrual after longitudinal growth has ceased, therefore, might be necessary before any influence of oral contraceptive use on aBMD is observed.
"Once upon a crime”: Young and older adult eyewitnesses' use of narrative in testimony
(2002) Allison, Meredith; Bavelas, Janet Beavin; Brimacombe, C. A. Elizabeth
This thesis examines differences in the manner in which older and young adult witnesses present information about a crime and whether these differences affect assessments of the witnesses' credibility. Older and young adult witnesses' crime recollections were analyzed to determine whether some witnesses organize their testimonies in a more cohesive, narrative-like fashion than others, especially as a function of age. First, an operational definition of the features of narrative was formulated. Two independent raters analyzed the testimonies to assess their narrative features. Inter-rater reliability analyses indicated that the operational definition was reliable. Then, two principal components analyses examined how the narrative features were related to one another. Finally, University students acting as mock jurors assessed the witnesses' credibility. Older adults were more likely than young adults to use several narrative features in recounting the crime they witnessed. Witnesses who used few Sequencing features and Elaborations were perceived as most credible. Implications for future research in aging and narrative are discussed.
“What should we read, how should we read it, and why?”: The cultural politics of English Studies in British Columbia’s Language Arts English (Graduation) Program
(1995) Depledge, Norma Elizabeth; Gunew, Sneja
Postcolonial critics such as Benedict Anderson, Robert Morgan, Homi Bhabha, and Ian Hunter explore the study of English literature within a context of nation building or as an element of the "Imagined Communities" which Anderson finds to be the essence of nationness. These critics connect the study of literature to the shaping of both individual and collective subjectivities and, in doing so, offer a framework within which to explore one facet of the politics of English reading. It is within the context of postcolonial theory that this thesis examines the politics of British Columbia's Language Arts English (Graduation) program. It examines the values, attitudes, beliefs and assumptions--the ideology—about nationness embedded in policy documents, curricula and resources. The thesis takes its compass bearing from the questions of Francis Mulhern: "What should we read, how should we read it, and why?" It concurs with Mulhern that unexamined, unproblematized assumptions about the collective pronoun "we" settle in advance "[i]ssues of selection, procedure, and purpose" (Mulhern, 250). The first chapter establishes a theoretical framework, one which recognizes the imbrication of postcolonial theory with poststructuralism and feminist theory. Chapter 1 also touches on current debates around multicultural and antiracist education. Chapter 2 applies the theory outlined in Chapter 1 to a study of curricula and policy documents. Chapter 3 examines officially approved resources, and Chapter 4 presents the findings of an empirical study carried out in high schools. That study examines ways in which teachers interpret, and either implement or resist the ideology embedded in curricula, and ways in which students receive and understand or refuse that ideology.
"[A]n account of our capture and the most remarkable occurrences": The textual and cultural construction of John Jewitt in his Journal and Narrative
(1997) Eustace, Sarah Jane; Vibert, Elizabeth
The discourse surrounding John Jewitt's captivity at Nootka Sound by the Nuu-chah-nulth (1803 to 1805) is examined in this thesis. Particular attention is focused on the construction of John Jewitt in his Journal, purported written while he was a captive, and his Narrative, ghostwritten several later in 18I5. Drawing on the work of Stephen Greenblatt and other literary theorists, this thesis seeks to challenge the hegemonic status of Jewitr's Narrative as a window into Nuu-chah-nulth early contact life. By presenting other disparate stories of the capture of the Boston, the Narrative's authority as a historical document is challenged. It is argued that scholars must recognize the shifting and evolutionary nature of all historical texts. This thesis further asserts that Jewitt's Journal observations must be recognized a refracted through a masculine, English middle-class lens. Similarly, Jewitt's ghostwritten Narrative must be placed within the literary genre of the captivity narrative, and it must be recognized that its author's own conceptions of appropriate American masculinity substantially shaped the Narrative.
"She's filing her nails while they're dragging the lake": representations of women in contemporary film noir
(2000) Hewlett, Julie Lynne; McLarty, Lianne
This thesis examines the representation of women in contemporary film noir. Its purpose is to demonstrate how film noir, by virtue of its pessimistic and anti-institutional thematic concerns and formal strategies, offers a unique opportunity for more progressive representations of women and gender relations than mainstream narrative cinema conventionally allows. Through an investigation of Blue Velvet, Twin Peaks, Body Heat, The Last Seduction, Bound, and Diabolique l identify the ways in which film noir exceeds and challenges the boundaries of conventional mainstream narrative cinema. The methodology used incorporates theories of representation, theories of spectatorship and feminist cultural theory. This work seeks to articulate the way in which film noir problematizes and denaturalizes patriarchal social practices and systems, provides the female spectator with a pleasurable, empowered construction of woman through the figure of the femme fatale, and expands discourse on gender and sexuality by subverting the mainstream endorsement of a heterosexist cultural norm.
'Eaten for a word': the intersection of food and revolution in Russia
(2002) Holmes, Matthew John; Cobley, Evelyn
This paper explores the linkages between food and revolution in Russia, from 1850 to the present. Food is examined as both material and symbol, and situated in notions of hunger, consumption, power relationships and identity formation. The paper beg ins by discussing the writing of the populist A.N. Engelgardt within the context of common views of the peasants in the late-nineteenth century. The second chapter looks at the 1905 and 1917 Revolutions as they relate to food politics and class identity through the writings of Andrei Bely and Victor Pelevin. The final chapter discusses the social and literary theory of M.M. Bakhtin, specifically of the carnival and banquet traditions, and reflects on the relationship between his philosophy and the historical reality of Stalin's government, the Gulag labour camps, and the politics of consumption. The conclusion touches on some contemporary Russian literature, notably of Victor Pelevin and Andrey Kurkov, which respond to events since the Revolution of 1917.
"Trying to get a future": Microcredit in Victoria
(2001) Hutton, Tamera Leigh; Matwychuk, Margo Lyn
Microcredit is considered a viable tool for the reduction of poverty in developing countries. It involves the dispensation of small loans, primarily to women who cannot access loans from conventional lending institutions. Microcredit strategies employed in Victoria are derived from those used in other parts of the world, but they are unique to their particular social and economic context. This study is concerned with the use of microcredit as a means to alleviate women's poverty in Victoria. The purpose of this research was to determine women's experiences while participating in, or organizing, microcredit programs in Victoria between February 1997 and June 1998. The study focussed on three organizations with microlending components operating in and around Victoria. Research methods included (1) a literature review, (2) participant observation in community economic development organizations, (3) personal communication with program administrators of three lending organizations and six economic development organizations, and (4) semi-structured interviews with program administrators and women participants in microcredit programs. Data gathered through participant observation, personal communication, and semi-structured interviews describe the benefits and difficulties involved in the creation and utilization of microcredit in Victoria. My analysis of this data is compared with benefits and difficulties of microcredit schemes described in studies based on fieldwork conducted elsewhere by Adams (1992), Ardener (1964, 1996), Bouman (1977), and Geertz (1962), among others. The constructive objective of my analysis is to outline the complexity of issues surrounding the implementation and sustainability of microcredit within a specific social and economic environment. This study suggests that microcredit programs did not emerge in Victoria as fully developed and discrete entities. Their emergence was conditioned by the dynamic and persistent socially minded initiatives influenced by women's poverty and community cooperation. The success of microcredit programs available to women in Victoria was dependent upon the viability of individual business plans, the appropriateness of specific programs, the complementarity of government policy, and the level of cooperation between loan recipients.
"We looked after all the salmon streams": traditional Heiltsuk cultural stewardship of salmon and salmon steams, a preliminary assessment
(2002) Jones, James Thomas; Turner, Nancy J.; West, Paul R.
There has been an increasing interest in aboriginal salmon stewardship practices by First Nations during recent years as Pacific salmon stocks decline in spite of scientific resource management. I undertook a representative study of Heiltsuk traditional salmon and salmon stream stewardship practices. My method was to combine literature and archival research with a collaborative, participatory action, interview project in the Heiltsuk community of Waglisla (Bella Bella). Despite some loss of traditional knowledge, due to dramatic disease induced population declines after European contact, followed by more than a century of federal and provincial policies of cultural assimilation, five specific practices central to stream stewardship were identified in addition to a requirement for exclusive systems of tenure. These were: one - stream clearing to ensure ease of entry for spawning salmon; two - selective harvesting of salmon; three - transplanting of salmon eggs; four - restricted hook and line fish harvesting through secret "hot spots"; and five - a "First Salmon" ritual ceremony that limited fishing when the annul runs were beginning. My study suggests that these practices were critical in perpetuating the reliable and abundant yields that supported relatively high populations of First Nations peoples. I also ascertained that salmon stewardship is just one manifestation of ancient care-taking ethics inextricably embedded in First Nations' cultures.
"Stockings, slippers, camisoles, and stays": Demystifying authority and constructions of female sexuality in T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land
(1999) Khambalia, Andrea Catherine; Carson, Luke
This study attempts to identify the site of The Waste Land's authority. Examining T.S. Eliot's theoretical investments, namely his theory of impersonality articulated in "Tradition and the Individual Talent," results in an awareness of the authority he invests in tradition, which he conceives of as impersonal and objective. However, what appears to be impersonality in fact constitutes a consensual agreement among individuals of a specific social and ideological perspective. The paper then reveals the strategies the poem employs to engineer objectivity and to obscure its subjective perspective. The analysis specifically exposes the poem's use of metaphoric and metonymic devices to project its image of woman and female desire. Consequently, misogyny is inscribed in The Waste land through metonymy, and universalized through metaphor.
'Foreign villains and home-grown heroes': A critical geopolitical re-reading of a neoliberal text from The Atlantic Monthly
(2001) Lloyd, Andrea L.; Moss, Pamela; Lonergan, Stephen C.
This study presents a critical analysis of neo-liberal discourses of international migration. Through a close reading of the text "Must it be the West against the Rest?", I challenge the authors' representation of refugee/migrants as a pre-eminent geopolitical threat to 'global order' in the post-Cold War period. I employ a critical geopolitical approach to problematise this identification of a 'new' antagonism not as an objective description of reality, but as part of powerful discursive representational practices that produce exclusion. I argue that these sorts of explanations are less about refugees/migrants and the 'reality' of international migration, and more about the need to secure Western hegemony and its idealised way of life. One means to resist the exclusions in neo-liberal texts is to resist the narrow conceptual categories that they force upon their readers, and to reject the exclusive 'we' that is created for 'us' in these texts.
'We' are not amused: R. B. J. Walker on the state of the political imagination
(2000) Matthews, Ian Douglas; Tully, James
This thesis is a critical conversation with the work of R. B. J. Walker, major theorist of international relations, and political theory. The attempt here has been to read Walker specifically as a theorist of political imagination, proper, this although he presents no explicit theory of political imagination. He does, however, appear to write according to an implicit and codified theory/praxis of imagination roughly informed by phenomenological concepts of poetic imagination, particularly those of Gaston Bachelard. His major works, we contend, ultimately read as 'super-historical' attempts to convince the reader of the very possibility of political possibility, as opposed to the timeless reign of political essentialisms. Ultimately, it is the principle of sovereignty, he claims, which is, in the modem era, the constitutive principle of the political itself. As such it is also said to present itself as the only alternative to itself. The transfixing idealism of this 'historically specific' principle is what must be overcome.
"You're armed, I think you're better armed": Women's opinions of genetic counselling and testing for hereditary breast and ovarian cancer susceptibility (BRCA1)
(2000) Holmes, Christina Patrice; Stephenson, Peter H.
Opinions of those who went through genetic counselling for hereditary breast and ovarian cancer risk were sought on genetic counselling and genetic testing for BRCA1. The majority of those interviewed were happy with the genetic counselling received and had generally positive attitudes towards genetic testing for BRCA1. Information gained was considered important and provided a sense of control and avenues for further action. Family experience with cancer also appeared important in how individual women perceived their risk. Correspondingly, biomedical knowledge provided by genetic counselling and testing was mediated by and combined with personal experiences to create an embodied knowledge of risk.
"I don't want to move": Older women deciding where to live
(2001) McNulty, Vicki; Reitsma-Street, Marge
This phenomenological study explored the process of deciding where to live for seven women over the age of 75. All the women were Caucasian, in failing health, lived alone and had minimal kin support. They all described themselves as being in the middle-class strata of society. The four themes identified and described are: Practical Realities of Deciding Where to Live, Supports and Connectedness to Others. Ways of Understanding their Situation, and Responses to their Situation. The concepts developed in the findings: caring work; reciprocity in relationships; and the managing of need and being managed by others, are taken up to contextualize the experiences reported by the senior women in failing health as they face making decisions about where they wish to, or can, live. The most significant finding came in the resistance all the women showed to moving. They clearly articulated a need to remain independent, autonomous and in control of their lives. Yet they understood that failing health, minimal kin support, a change in previously experienced reciprocal support and not knowing how long their resources would need to last, was threatening their ability to remain independent. The paper concludes with a discussion on these findings, their implications for policy and practice and recommendations for further research.
"This delightful country:" Lansford W. Hastings' The Emigrants ' Guide to Oregon and California and the tradition of the California prospect in pre-Gold Rush travel literature
(2002) Peddle, Kirsty Joanne; Dippie, Brian W.
The pre-Gold Rush literature on California is marked by little variation in either content or form. From the earliest account, published in 1808, American visitors saw California as an earthly paradise in the hands of an undeserving Other. While historians have often attributed the repetitive nature of pre-Gold Rush travel literature to California itself, I argue that the forces that shaped early American responses to California are not found in California. hut outside of it. When Americans came to write about the California landscape in the years before the Gold Rush, they fell back on conventional ways of ordering the landscape that have their roots in the earliest moments of American colonization. By the time Americans began visiting California in the early years of the nineteenth century, a primary American landscape had been articulated in the pages of American travel literature generally. Rather than develop new aesthetic strategies for responding to California. these early travelers employed these traditional aesthetic responses to create a California landscape that was a variation of a larger American landscape. In California. American visitors fell back on to deeply rooted topoi to shape their prospects - the Paradise tradition and anticipation. Lansford Warren Hastings' The Emigrants' Guide to Oregon and California, published in 1845. included a seductive vision of California's present condition and future prospects. In placing Hastings within the context of the more than twenty works published in the United States on California before the Gold Rush, and within the larger context of the literature of American discovery and exploration, it is clear to see not only an awareness of earlier California accounts, but of a national tradition of landscape description. Using Hastings' work as the guide, this paper examines the creation of these topoi in the national literature generally and their specific application in the pre-Gold Rush literature of California.
"Imaginative complicity": Audience education in professional theatre
(2001) Prendergast, Monica M.; Miller, Carole
Belfry 101 is an arts partnership in education between the Belfry Theatre and both public and private senior secondary schools in and around Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. This partnership seeks to address questions around the development of cultural/aesthetic literacy and its relationship to audience education in the professional arts. This audience education project is also an example of synthesis between drama education and theatre education. Drama education strategies deepen students' interest, involvement and understanding of adult-audience professional theatre productions. Employing drama strategies in a professional theatre setting - in cooperative and interactive partnership with the theatre company involved - supports emerging theatre artists and may encourage future youth theatre attendance.
"Living words": Tracing processes of national subject formation and racialization in Japanese Canadian life writing
(1999) Quirt, Maggie; Kamboureli, Smaro
ln the process of being constituted as subjects, individuals respond to a variety of coterminous interpellations. Identification along lines of national affiliation is encouraged, in part, through diverse pedagogical strategies, while identification based on racial categories is developed through a process of racialization characterized by porous temporal boundaries. Both forms of identification are ambivalent; while they may be mobilizing processes, they can also serve to contain individuals within limiting fields of association. In the World War II Japanese Canadian internment, identification based on national and racial affiliation became of paramount importance to displaced individuals. Japanese Canadian life writing narratives chronicling this event provide first-hand evidence of how such forms of identification operate. By exploring the discursive formation and content of these texts, 1 suggest that national subject formation and racialization can be understood as ongoing processes. This, in turn, invites us to re-visit and theorize anew the history of the internment.
"The sentence of history": The politics of death and life-writing
(2002) Raymundo, Jose Emmanuel; Magnusson, Warren
As illustrated in the essay "The Snake Twins of the Philippines," traditional Western narratives- in political theory, the social sciences and literature- either exclude or exoticize the lives of non-Western, racialized people. Framing the works or Jamaica Kincaid in conjunction with postcolonial and critical race theory, this thesis argues that the genre of life-writing is important for racialized people to challenge racist exclusion and exoticization. Through life-writing, we who have been left out of (or been objectified by) History, can then become fully speaking, thinking and writing subjects who can relay for ourselves our unarticulated (and therefore "unreal") experiences and realities. In so doing, we then confront and challenge racist notions of the static and unchanging "Other" by articulating a dynamic diasporic identity that, in the words of Paul Gilroy, "is always unfinished, always being remade."
"this was here procreation": The storie of Asneth and spiritual marriage in the Middle Ages, including a suggestion of the patroness and poet of the later Middle English verse translation; a discussion of late antique typology
(2003) Reid, Heather A.; Kerby-Fulton, Kathryn
The Storie of Asneth survives in Later Middle English Verse in just one manuscript dating from the early fifteenth century. The story was translated from Latin and is originally a Jewish Hellenistic romance dating from around the first century BC. Asneth is sometimes spelled Aseneth or Asenath in English. Chapter One of this thesis discusses the possible identity of the unknown Middle English patroness and poet alluded to in the Prologue and Epilogue. Specifically, I propose that Elizabeth Berkeley commissioned John Walton to translate Asneth in the Middle Ages, a hypothesis supported by John Shirley's ownership of the manuscript. Chapter Two is a literary discussion of the medieval text. The Late Medieval poem may have been translated in the historical context of the practice of Spiritual Marriage, and some discrepancies in the translation may be owing to the promotion of this ideal. Contrasted with an implicit sense that the characters, Joseph and Asneth, are chaste, is an erotic visionary encounter between Asneth and the "Man from Heaven." Asneth seems to have been endowed with many of the same divine characteristics that may have informed the Virgin Mary and Miraculous Conception, though the story is originally pre-Christian. The visionary sequence in Asneth also seems to have much in common with accounts of women visionaries of the Middle Ages, partly because of what appears to be Marian iconography. Chapter Three is a discussion of ancient icons that may have informed the story, but have remained a mystery. There is a discussion of Egyptian myth in the context of the Sacred Marriage associated with harvest rituals, astronomy and temple theology, that unite the Moon Goddess with the Sun God. I propose that the "Field of Our Heritage" spoken of in Asneth, may be a reference to the Egyptian "ancestral field," the Underworld of the Soul. Other associated icons, such as the honey bees, may reflect funerary and fertility expectations from the Ancient Near East, specifically Egypt, that may have informed Judaism and, in turn, Christianity. In any case, paradigms of chastity and fertility, particularly where they inform concepts of conversion and renewal, seem to be supported by the marriage theme in the text, from the Hellenistic Near East, up until the Middle Ages.
"Jazz for myself": Watanabe Sadao and jazz in Postwar Japan, 1945-1969
(2000) Rippingale, Anthony Earl; Moore, Joe B.
The present thesis provides a historical analysis of the development of jazz in Japan with specific emphasis on the life and career of Japanese jazz musician Watanabe Sadao. Issues of race, culture and authenticity, as d1ey relate to jazz, are discussed in reference to Watanabe's life and prominent career in both the U.S. and Japan during the period from 1945 to 1969. As well, this work serves to underscore the need for a critical reassessment of jazz as more than solely a musical genre, but also as an artistic expression imbued with rich social, cultural and historical meaning and significance.
"Gotta light?": Canadian women's cigarette smoking as a social and communicative activity
(1997) Shivel, Mary M.; Prince, Michael J.
Smoking research has focused on the incidence and public health issues associated with smoking or on the deficiencies of the individual smoker. This thesis examines women smokers' experiences of cigarette smoking in face-to-face interactions, that is the overt actions, verbal and non-verbal, that create the behaviour. Seventeen women smokers and five ex-smokers ages 19 to 53 provided the data through in-depth interviews about their smoking interactions. Smokers' perceptions of non-smokers' views of them was also examined. Feminist thinking informed the analysis of the participants' narratives. The complexity of the communicative interactions inextricably tied to cigarette smoking reveal an appealing, supportive side to smoking that extends beyond what is presently discussed in the literature. For public policy and practice my goal is to link the personal experiences of these women smokers with a prevention and/or cessation program.

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