Year: 2021, 2021
Member of: Trent University Graduate Thesis Collection
Name(s): Creator (cre): McLaughlin, Adam, Thesis advisor (ths): Holdsworth, David, Degree committee member (dgc): Hutchinson, Tom C., Degree committee member (dgc): Rutherford, Stephanie, Degree committee member (dgc): Classens, Michael, Degree granting institution (dgg): Trent University Abstract: <p>This thesis re-imagines the social sustainability of civic agriculture. This entails critically examining the idea of sustainability and exposing why a tendency to undertheorize its social dimension is problematic for how we think about sustainability, and consequently for how we do sustainability. What is demonstrated is that we can overcome this tendency by adopting Stephen McKenzie… more
Year: 2018, 2018
Member of: Trent University Graduate Thesis Collection
Name(s): Creator (cre): Ingwersen, Moritz Andree, Thesis advisor (ths): Hollinger, Veronica, Thesis advisor (ths): Berressem, Hanjo, Degree committee member (dgc): Junyk, Ihor, Degree committee member (dgc): Holdsworth, David, Degree committee member (dgc): Pethes, Nicolas, Degree committee member (dgc): Milburn, Colin, Degree granting institution (dgg): Trent University Abstract: <p>This dissertation presents the work of the American science fiction writer Neal Stephenson as a case study of mediations between literature and science by mobilizing its resonances with contemporary science studies and media theory. Tracing the historical and thematic trajectory of his consecutively published novels Snow Crash (1992), The Diamond Age; or, A Young Lady's Illustrated… more
Year: 2018, 2018
Member of: Trent University Graduate Thesis Collection
Abstract: <p>This thesis explores the seemingly innocuous call to "grow up," which is never simply a biological imperative. It is also a moral one. Demanding that one should "grow up" is not demanding that one grow older, but that one transform into a specific kind of subject – the "grown up." In the reading advanced here, The Little Prince thermalizes the suppleness of… more
Year: 2017, 2017
Member of: Trent University Graduate Thesis Collection
Abstract: <p>The end of the Cold War and the global triumph of neoliberalism were accompanied by the evolution of certain themes in dystopian fiction. According to some of its advocates, such as Francis Fukuyama, neoliberalism's success signified the "end of history," understood as ideological evolution, since the decline of communism left Western liberal democracies without any major… more
Year: 2016, 2016
Member of: Trent University Graduate Thesis Collection
Abstract: <p>Emmanuel Levinas' philosophy focuses on the idea that no human subject exists outside of their relationship to other people. Each of us holds a profound degree of responsibility to and for all others. Since responsibility is fundamental to human (co)existence, it does not impede on freedom but proves that the sovereign individual is a dangerous myth: any philosophical, political or… more
Year: 2016, 2016
Member of: Trent University Graduate Thesis Collection
Abstract: <p>Sustainable development is normative - making decisions in the present that construct the experience of place for the future. It is primarily driven by global measures developed to meet the needs of the present while ensuring future generations can meet their own needs. These measures attempt to balance economic prosperity, social justice, and environmental stewardship in many nations.… more
Year: 2016, 2016
Member of: Trent University Graduate Thesis Collection
Name(s): Creator (cre): Allwood, Mark, Thesis advisor (ths): Bordo, Jonathan, Thesis advisor (ths): Holdsworth, David, Degree committee member (dgc): Egan, Kelly, Degree committee member (dgc): Junyk, Ihor, Degree granting institution (dgg): Trent University Abstract: <p>The following thesis is a work in Critical Topography that choses as its site of study two documentary films. The films being studied are El Sol del Membrillo by Victor Erice and Rivers and Tides by Thomas Riedelsheimer. My approach to critical topography in the thesis is twofold: first, I have traced the topical motifs that have appeared to me as I looked at the two films; second, I… more
Year: 2015, 2015
Member of: Trent University Graduate Thesis Collection
Abstract: <p>This thesis critically analyses the connection between ideology and nature, and in particular, aims to reflect on the dominant discourses on the topic of ecological crisis. The ecological thought framework that I adhere to rests on a combination of Frankfurt School and Žižekian theories. This combination is not without serious tensions and deviations; however, central to this project are… more
Year: 2015, 2015
Member of: Trent University Graduate Thesis Collection
Abstract: <p>Institutional military strategists are developing theories of asymmetric and unconventional warfare that complicate the notion of strategic agency, the idea that military action emanates from a coherent agential source or subjectivity. This thesis attempts to push the conceptual trajectories of the theories of Hybrid War, Unrestricted War and Onto-power towards an even more radical… more
Year: 2015, 2015
Member of: Trent University Graduate Thesis Collection
Abstract: <p>Gilles Deleuze claims that understanding the eternal recurrence as a recurrence of the same is a misreading of Friedrich Nietzsche, yet, this assertion is not supported by Nietzsche's texts. In all instances where Nietzsche describes the eternal recurrence, he emphasizes that it is one of the same events. One's willingness to love one's fate and to will the eternal… more
Year: 2015, 2015
Member of: Trent University Graduate Thesis Collection
Abstract: <p>This thesis is an investigation of the theme of freedom in the work of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari. Chapter One investigates Deleuze and Guattari's concept of becoming as it is articulated in their book A Thousand Plateaus, and seeks to resolve a problem related to their shifting descriptions of the role of agency in the process of becoming, at times described as voluntary,… more
Year: 2015, 2015
Member of: Trent University Graduate Thesis Collection
Abstract: <p>New conditions of materiality are emerging from fundamental changes in our ontological order. Digital subjectivity represents an emergent mode of subjectivity that is the effect of a more profound ontological drift that has taken place, and this bears significant repercussions for the practice and understanding of the political. This thesis pivots around mathematician Grigori '… more
Year: 2015, 2015
Member of: Trent University Graduate Thesis Collection
Abstract: <p>In my Master's thesis, I consider how the space of the animal laboratory shapes human-animal relationships, and how, in turn, these relations impact the laboratory, and more specifically, the spatially-bound practices that unfold in this space. I use the frameworks of biopolitics and animal geography, both of which help in illuminating the space of the lab as a site of power, within… more
Year: 2015, 2015
Member of: Trent University Graduate Thesis Collection
Abstract: <p>ABSTRACT</p><p>The Art of the Sustainable Street</p><p>Miriam L. R. Mutton</p><p>The street influences our sense of community every day. It is argued that getting the street right communicates a collective vision for action leading to sustainable community.</p><p>This investigation continues conversations for community repair and resilient… more
Year: 2014, 2014
Member of: Trent University Graduate Thesis Collection
Abstract: <p>ABSTRACT</p><p>The Ethics of Being-With: Exploring Ethics in Heidegger's Being and Time</p><p>Adam Rejak</p><p> Martin Heidegger is perhaps best known for his work Being and Time, in which he tries to re-discover what he deems to be a forgotten question; the meaning of being. However, what many have missed in this work is the ethical potential it… more
Year: 2014, 2014
Member of: Trent University Graduate Thesis Collection
Abstract: <p>There is little research devoted to exploring psychology's historical and discursive development. Psychological knowledge is generally presented as the contributions of individuals, but without context. The social, political, and economic aspects of psychology's development are scarcely discussed, including how the discipline came to be considered a science. This thesis project… more
Year: 2014, 2014
Member of: Trent University Graduate Thesis Collection
Abstract: <p>This research investigates urban climate governance through a case study of climate change adaptation policy making in the Canadian municipality of Vancouver, British Columbia (BC). It investigates the context in which the City of Vancouver was motivated to develop its climate change adaptation strategy (CCAS) by exploring the motivating factors and drivers behind the formulation of this… more
Year: 2014, 2014
Member of: Trent University Graduate Thesis Collection
Abstract: <p>This dissertation traces the concept of transcendentalism from Kant's Critique of Pure Reason (1781) to Michel Foucault's historical a priori and Pierre Bourdieu's field and habitus, with implicit reference to Deleuze's `transcendental empiricism,' and the influence this trajectory has had on contemporary theory and culture. This general conceptual framework is… more