3. Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETDs) - All submissions
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Item The representation of extremists in Western media(2015-08-20) Kapelari, LauraAs radicalised Muslim converts gain ever greater attention within the War on Terror (WoT) and the media, an investigation into their portrayal and the associated discourses becomes ever more relevant. This study aims to shed more light on the representation of these extremist individuals in the Western media, specifically white converts to Islam who become radicalised, exploring whether there is indeed a difference between the portrayal of female and male extremists, at the same time seeking to reveal any related social or national anxieties. The findings indicate that there is indeed a difference: while women extremists are stripped bare of all political agency, the men, though exposed to rhetoric condemning their treachery as well as often depicted as capitulating to mental illness, remain largely intact as agents. This comes down to men being located in the international sphere, while women are fixed within the domestic equivalent. In terms of the link to social and national anxieties, it becomes evident that not only has the domestic fear surrounding the “homogenous Islamist terrorist enemy” (Samiei 2010, 1149) led to the terrorist (and by extension the white Muslim convert) being equated with the foreigner, but that as a result, terrorism/extremism and immigration have come to be situated within the same framework, where the slippery slopes of counter-terrorism and anti-immigration meld together.Item Feminist utopia and dystopia: Marlen Haushofer's Die Wand(2014-01-16) Kapelari, LauraWhy are we still talking about feminism today? Women now have the vote; they have been given the opportunity to pursue their career while also being a wife and/or mother. Instead of there having been an overhaul of the system, women have been tentatively accepted into the existing patriarchal system, forcing them to play according to its rules and expectations of woman. This realisation serves as the starting point for this research report, which uses the novel “Die Wand”, by postwar Austrian author Marlen Haushofer, to explore the contradictory situation women find themselves in within patriarchal society. In the novel, the female protagonist suddenly finds herself isolated but sheltered from patriarchal structures, as a see-through wall cuts her off from the rest of the world and an apparent nuclear disaster. This initially utopian existence is however soon shattered by the appearance of a male survivor, as he kills the protagonist’s animal companions. Though she shoots him dead, the return of patriarchy, in the form of the unknown man, nevertheless symbolises how woman can never truly free herself from patriarchal binds, and so utopia is seen as turning into dystopia.