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Little research has looked in detail at the subjective experience of adolescents who have been admitted to psychiatric hospital and the potential impact of this on their developing identity. This study aimed to construct a theory of the perceived impact of hospitalisation on the identity of young people admitted to a psychiatric ward, the ways young people might manage threats to their identity and any perceived impact of diagnosis. Nine young people aged 15-17 were interviewed in depth about their experience of admission and any perceived impact on their identity. Young people were current in-patients or ex-patients attending follow-up treatment in the community. Grounded theory methodology was employed in this study. A preliminary model is proposed showing the process from admission to post-discharge with hypothesised impacts on personal and social identity at each stage. Positive outcomes were associated with an improved sense of self and self-efficacy. In contrast, the development of an “illness” explanation for one’s difficulties while in hospital may be a risk for a more negative self-concept and a less favourable future outlook. The study concluded that longitudinal research is required to ascertain long-term outcomes of the proposed model. Emphasizing psychological formulation may ameliorate the perception of individual ‘deficit’ that appeared to be associated with diagnosis.

All taxa must cope with assault from parasites and pathogens, and have thus developed an immune system that may require resources that would otherwise be invested in life history traits, such as those used in mating and reproduction. Consequently, male sexual signaling traits that are costly to develop and maintain can act as honest signals, since only the highest quality males can cope with the energetic demands required to both express these traits and maintain an effective immune system. In this study, I investigated the tradeoffs between immunity and sexual signaling in the brush-legged wolf spider Schizocosa ocreata. First, I sought to determine whether male multimodal sexual signals are an honest indicator of male health and immunity, and whether females can acquire information about male health status through the evaluation of these traits in a live mating context. While I found evidence that females avoid the chemical cues of infected males, there was no difference in vibratory sexual signals or in overall mating success between infected and healthy males. However, these were males that were infected as adults, after sexual signaling traits were fixed, and may not accurately reflect a change in male health. Therefore, I infected males as juveniles during the penultimate stage of development, when the most resources should be allocated toward the development of sexual signals. These juvenile infected males had higher immune function as adults, but had more asymmetrical visual traits, lower quality vibratory signals, and overall lower mating success.

This thesis examines the various futures presented by the original children's theatre of the Federal Theatre Project. Combining original archival research and play analysis, I investigate four plays from the Federal Theatre's canon: The Emperor's New Clothes (1935) and A Letter to Santa Claus (1938) by Charlotte Chorpenning, Revolt of the Beavers (1937) by Oscar Saul and Lou Lantz, and Pinocchio (1938-9) by Yasha Frank. I posit that the futures presented by the four plays allowed the spectators to envision a new American future beyond the Great Depression: of prosperity, of class equality, of individual agency. These futures were in conversation with the larger unspoken political goal of the Project - to produce theatre relevant to its time and place, and thus to its audiences' time and place. By analyzing the plays and their reception by young, adult, and critical audiences, my thesis reveals a a critical genealogy, one that can be traced through conservative arts criticism in the 1930s through present-day attacks on national arts such as PBS and the NEA