https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/5889 2026-04-06T04:16:28Z 2026-04-06T04:16:28Z Deguara, Angele https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/38145 2026-02-09T09:22:44Z 2018-01-01T00:00:00Z

Title: Reconstructing a fragmented self: how LGBT Catholics negotiate a coherent sense of identity Authors: Deguara, Angele Abstract: This paper explores how lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans (LGBT) Catholics deal with the intra-personal conflict that emerges from the incongurence between their faith and their sexuality. When they start experiencing sexual desires for persons of the same sex, their inner state of being is shattered as they are engulfed with feelings of guilt, fear, anger, doubt and anxiety. They have to deal with their apparently irreconcilable sexuality and faith as they feel judged by God and by his Church. The LGBT Catholics in my study are spiritually profound, introspective, faithful beings. Yet they are not afraid to engage with the Church’s teachings to develop their own individual morality. Drawing upon the Catholic tradition itself, they seek to develop an alternative, LGBT-affirming moral heremeutic, a process aided by therapy, reflection, prayer, priestly advice and other techniques which enable them not only to find themselves but to relocate themselves within Catholicism. Through what Foucault calls “practices of the self” such as self-reflection, self-knowledge and self-examination, individuals engage with the established and prescribed moral code in a process of “moral subjectivation”. Such processes enable them to reconstruct their fragmented self and to ‘reclaim’ their rightful place in religious texts which was denied them through heteronormative theological interpretations.

2018-01-01T00:00:00Z Visanich, Valerie https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/17966 2018-02-16T13:51:02Z 2012-01-01T00:00:00Z

Title: Generational habitus of youth during the ‘swinging’ sixties : a case study in Malta Authors: Visanich, Valerie Abstract: The aim of this paper is to present common attitudes, perceptions and dispositions of youth in the 1960s in Malta. Building on Bourdieu’s habitus theory and Williams’s study on the ‘structure of feeling’, this paper makes sense of the meanings of everyday experiences of these youth in relation to education, employment, the situation of young women and popular culture. This paper presents primary data collected using in-depth, ethnographic interviews with retired participants who experienced their youth in the 1960s in Malta. The presentation of youth’s account cannot be studied divorced from the local and global social, economical and cultural situation. In effect, the intention here is to move towards a greater understanding of the interplay between the historical and socio-economical structural framework in society, as a key factor in the formation of youth generational habitus.

2012-01-01T00:00:00Z Cassar, George https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/5780 2017-07-21T09:35:07Z 2004-01-01T00:00:00Z

Title: Before the birth of real popular education in British Colonial Malta (1800-1836) Authors: Cassar, George Abstract: Before Britain took over the Maltese Islands, the latter did not have any real school structure. Even with the arrival ofthe British in 1800, little changed for the first three decades. Malta had only some private schools. which were run by afewforeign and local teachers, and a number ofnormal schools run as semi-charitable institutions. Gozo fared even worse. The local Roman Catholic Church did not help much to promote education along this period and the colollial government did not show any particular verve towards the opening of schools for the populace. Things only began to change when (j Royal Commission visited Malta in 1836.

2004-01-01T00:00:00Z