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1
Kocan, Peter. "The fable of all our lives : a novel." Thesis, View thesis, 2008. http://handle.uws.edu.au:8081/1959.7/29359.
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Perrin, Steve. "The plughole of time." Thesis, View thesis, 2003. http://handle.uws.edu.au:8081/1959.7/30107.
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This thesis is comprised of a survey of all the varying influences behind the author's art making. All pre-occupations are included, the concepts of childhood memory; the use of imagination; the ability to comprehend and put together an old fashioned story in varying forms; as well as considering the notion of blurring historical and actual fact with personal elements of fantastical fiction. These themes have all been threaded delicately through the motif of time-travel, the author's personal favourite of literary genres. The main aim has been to make an attempt to re-create the feelings of childhood.Whilst embracing whimsy, the absurd and the time travel genre, this project hopefully shows a struggle and is an allegorical comment on the author as an artist, who having lost a little of his faith in the world and his abilities, becomes seduced by a new focus.
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Gray, Nigel. "His story, a novel memoir (novel) ; and Fish out of water (thesis)." University of Western Australia. School of Social and Cultural Studies, 2009. http://theses.library.uwa.edu.au/adt-WU2009.0095.
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His Story takes the form of a fictive but autobiographically based investigation into the child and young adult I used to be, and follows that protagonist into early adulthood. It tries to show the damage done to that character and the way in which he damaged others in turn. As Hemingway said, We are all bitched from the start and you especially have to hurt like hell before you can write seriously. More importantly, the main protagonist is somebody who became concerned with, and cognizant of the main political and social events of his day. His life is set in its social context, and reaches out to the larger issues. That is to say, the personal events of the protagonist's life are recorded alongside and set in the context of the major events taking place on the world stage. The manuscript is some sort of hybrid of novel, autobiography, and historical and social document. As Isaac Bashevis Singer said, The serious writer of our time must be deeply concerned about the problems of his generation. In order to make His Story effective in sharing my ideas and beliefs, and, of course, in order to protect the innocent and more particularly, the guilty, it is created in the colourful area that is the overlap between memory and fiction. When we tell the stories of our lives to others, and indeed, to ourselves, we prise them out of memory's fingers and transform them into fiction. To write autobiography well, as E.L. Doctorow said, you have to invent everything, even memory.
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Flynn, Warren. "Fragments of the moon (novel) ; and." University of Western Australia. School of Social and Cultural Studies, 2008. http://theses.library.uwa.edu.au/adt-WU2008.0073.
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Fragments of the Moon is a novel set mostly in South Korea, examining relationships between people, interpersonal spaces, architectural spaces and landscape through a cross-cultural context. Matt, a graduate architect from Perth, Australia, finds himself increasingly vulnerable to cultural confusion as he adjusts to life away from his home and friends. Having initially assumed that Seoul's western facade echoes its social dynamic, Matt increasingly discovers that the Confucianism which underpins much of contemporary Korean society makes all relationships far more complex than his assumptions had allowed. Together with a Canadian student who is seeking to find the essence of a different Korea through her investigation of Buddhism, and through meeting diverse Korean characters, readers will discover several of the many facets of contemporary Korean culture. Readers will be encouraged to test the slippery surfaces on which familiar and unfamiliar attitudes to bodies, landscape and created spaces rest. 'Body, Space, Ideas of Home: Cross-cultural Perspectives' (thesis) The thesis examines the interaction of body space, architectural space, landscape, and emotional states in contemporary literary fiction from several cultural perspectives. Bodies, landscapes, and architectural spaces are shown to be devices through which contemporary authors with different cultural backgrounds have expressed character and explored ideas, especially thematic concerns related to cultural or cross-cultural confusion or understanding. Notions of 'feeling at home' and 'being alien' are investigated through the work of authors who either have a cross-cultural heritage (e.g. Jhumpa Lahiri a Bengali/American), or who write about a culture which is not their own (e.g. Dianne Highbridge, an Australian writing about Japan). Several chosen authors explore the relationships between the spiritual and the physical, the metaphysical and the corporeal. These elements are particularly highlighted when examining the narratives of Tim Winton (The Riders, 1994) and Simone Lazaroo (The World Waiting To Be Made, 1994); and two of Japan's most popular writers, Haruki Murakami (Norwegian Wood, 2000) and Banana Yoshimoto (Lizard, 1995). For some writers, this exploration of spaces forms the focal point of their work; for others, it is an important facet of their narrative world, which helps to ground their writing for contemporary readers whose own backgrounds must also influence their understandings.
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Dedman, Stephen. "Techronomicon (novel) ; and The weapon shop : the relationship between American science fiction and the US military (dissertation)." University of Western Australia. School of Social and Cultural Studies, 2008. http://theses.library.uwa.edu.au/adt-WU2008.0093.
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Techronomicon Techronomicon is a science fiction novel that examines far-future military actions from several different perspectives. Human beings have colonized several planets with help from the enigmatic and more technologically advanced Zhir, who gave spaceships and habitable worlds to those they deemed suitable and their descendants. The Joint Expeditionary Force is the military arm of the Universal Faith, called in when conflicts arise that the Faith decides are beyond the local government and militia and require their intervention. Leneveldt and Roader are JEF officers assigned to Operation Techronomicon, investigating what seems to be a Zhir-built defence shield around the planet Lassana. Another JEF company sent to Kalaabhavan after the murder of the planets Confessor-General loses its CO to a land-mine, and Lieutenant Hellerman reluctantly accepts command. Chevalier, a civilian pilot, takes refugees fleeing military-run detention camps on Ararat to a biological research station on otherwise uninhabited Lila. The biologists on Lila discover a symbiote that enables humans to photosynthesize, which comes to the attention of Operation Techronomicon and the JEF's Weapons Research Division. Leneveldt and Roeder, frustrated by the lack of progress on Lassana, are sent to Lila to detain the biologists, who flee into the swamps. Hellerman's efforts to restore peace on Kalaabhavan are frustrated by the Confessors, and his company finds itself besieged by insurgents. The novel explores individuals' motives for choosing or rejecting violence and/or military service; the lessons they learn about themselves and their enemies; and the possible results of attempts to forcibly suppress ideas.
6
Allen, Claire. "Beyond postmodernism : London fiction at the millenium." Thesis, University of Northampton, 2010. http://nectar.northampton.ac.uk/8845/.
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Akhtar, Jaleel. "Dismemberment in the fiction of Toni Morrison." Thesis, University of Sussex, 2015. http://sro.sussex.ac.uk/id/eprint/53849/.
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Dismemberment in the Fiction of Toni Morrison investigates the motif of dismemberment in Morrison's fiction from multiple perspectives—historical, psychological and cultural. My first chapter on A Mercy focusses on the aspect of historical dismemberment in the context of colonialism and slavery. I look at the forced separation of African Americans from their families and motherland in terms of originary experiences of racism and dismemberment. This entailed fragmentation for African Americans who struggled to develop strategies of survival in the New World. My second chapter on Jazz focuses on the impact of transgenerationally transmitted trauma. I argue that experiences of dismemberment – such as feelings of amputation and phantom limbs – arise not from physical amputation but from traumatic experiences and the unconscious of preceding generations as the result of trasgenerational hauntings. I borrow from the psychoanalytic insights of Nicolas Abraham and Maria Torok in my explanation of phantom limbs in Jazz. The third section of my project looks at how social order is brought about in the fictive community of Sula through the scapegoating mechanism. I define the scapegoating principle in Sula in terms of cultural dismemberment because of the ways the community members symbolically cut a pariah figure, like Sula, off by performing symbolic acts of violence. The characterization of Sula emphasizes the psychological need for a scapegoat figure who can give an outlet to the defensive tendencies of the community following discrimination. My final chapter focusses on Morrison's most recent novel Home, which is about homecoming. In this novel, Morrison continues with her project of imagining a space of domestic and social comfort which is physically and psychically safe in the broad sense of a homeland for African Americans. Home offers a place of salvation from social, historical and psychic fragmentation or the traumas of racism which result in experiences of disruption, amputation and dismemberment.
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West, Mark Peter. "Between times : 21st century American fiction and the long sixties." Thesis, University of Glasgow, 2014. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/5621/.
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This thesis examines conceptions of time and history in five American novels published between 1995 and 2012 which take as their subject matter events associated with the counterculture and New Left of the 1960s and 1970s. The thesis is organized around close readings of five novels. The first chapter focuses on Jennifer Egan’s The Invisible Circus (1995) and argues that it incorporates a number of problematic temporal experiences which have the effect of establishing a key tension of all the novels considered here: the concern with contextualizing and historicizing particular events and cultural atmospheres while remaining faithful to utopian ideas of radical change. Chapter two argues that Dana Spiotta’s Eat the Document (2006) is oriented both structurally and thematically towards a future in which the relationship between the 1960s and 1990s will more clearly understandable. The third chapter examines the way Christopher Sorrentino’s Trance (2005) explores the multiplicitous nature of historical narratives, and how he distinguishes between those narratives and a conception of the bare events beneath them. The focus of chapter four is Lauren Groff’s Arcadia (2012) and examines how conceptions of the relationship between humans and nature influence theories of time, mythic histories and post-apocalyptic narratives. The final chapter on David Foster Wallace’s The Pale King (2011) argues that the tension between continuation and change found in the conversion narrative is partly reconciled by a conception of time that allows the moment of radical utopian change (the moment of conversion) to be one of re-entrance into history. At stake throughout is the way these novels’ interpretation of particular events and larger cultural tendencies reveals and makes manifest various processes of historicization. I maintain a dual focus on the way these novels present historicization as something undertaken by individuals and societies and the ways in which these novels themselves not only engage in historicizations of the period but are in various ways self-conscious about doing so. If contemporary scholarship on the emergence of what has been called post-postmodern literature (Stephen J. Burn, Andrew Hoberek, Adam Kelly, Caren Irr) identifies a return to temporal concerns in recent fiction, the readings that comprise my thesis also make use of conceptions of time and history by Mark Currie, Jacques Derrida, Reinhold Niebuhr, Norman Mailer, Christopher Lasch, and Robert N. Bellah (among others) in order to ask: what are the particular material contours of the experiences of time and history manifested in these recent examples of the ‘sixties novel’?
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Raulerson, Joshua Thomas. "Singularities: technoculture, transhumanism, and science fiction in the 21st Century." Diss., University of Iowa, 2010. https://ir.uiowa.edu/etd/2968.
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A spectre is haunting contemporary technoculture: the spectre of Singularity. Ten years into a century thus far characterized chiefly by the catastrophic failure of global economic and political systems, deepening ecological anxieties, and slow-motion social crisis, the only sector of our collective cultural myth of Progress still vibrantly intact is the technological - a project which, in vivid contrast to the systemic failure that seemingly prevails at nearly every other level, continues to charge forward at breakneck speed. Since the late twentieth century, prompted by the all-but-exponential growth of machine intelligence and global information networks, and by the still largely obscure but increasingly profound-seeming implications of emerging nanotechnology, futurists and fabulists alike have postulated an imminent historical threshold whereupon the nature of human existence will be radically and irrevocably transformed in a sudden explosion of technological development. This moment of transcendence, it is supposed, is at most only a few years off; indeed, some say, it may have already begun. The "Singularity" - a term coined in 1986 by the mathematician and science fiction writer Vernor Vinge, and subsequently adopted throughout technocultural discourse - is at present the primary site of interpenetration between technoscientific and science-fictional figurations of the future, an area in which the longstanding binary distinctions between science and SF, and between present and future, are rapidly dissolving. As much as the Singularity thesis implies a total reorganization of society and of the self - which posthumanist cultural studies and cyborg theory have already begun mapping - it also poses a daunting existential challenge to the enterprise of SF itself, to the extent that the Singularity imposes what Vinge has described as "an opaque wall across the future," an impenetrable cognitive obstacle beyond which the extrapolative imagination cannot glimpse. For a genre long defined by its efforts to assert, through the narrative technique of extrapolation, a meaningful continuity between present and future, the Singularity presents a thorny problem indeed, demanding both a reevaluation of SF's conception of and orientation toward the future, and a new narrative model capable of grappling with the alien and often paradoxical complexity of the postsingular.
This study is an inquiry into the properties and problematics of Singularity across fictional and nonfictional discourses, and as such it operates on two levels. Reading Singularitarian literature against a broadly articulated context of fringe-science and transhumanist movements, consumer culture, political and economic theory, and related areas of contemporary cyber- and technoculture, I examine how the metaphor of Singularity structures and signifies the aspirations and anxieties of late-twentieth and early twenty-first century technocivilization. As a project of literary criticism specifically, the study works to identify and theorize a grouping of texts that is emerging from cyberpunk and postcyberpunk tendencies in contemporary SF, organized around the premises of Singularity and the posthuman, and classifiable primarily in terms of an attempt to mount a response to the formal and conceptual problems Vinge has identified. Primary readings are drawn from a wide-ranging selection of twentieth- and twenty-first-century technocultural fiction, with emphasis on SF works by Charles Stross, Cory Doctorow, Neal Stephenson, Bruce Sterling, Rudy Rucker, and William Gibson.
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Crotty, Tammy J. "Left of mainstream : genre fiction and its ability to transcend formula." Virtual Press, 2005. http://liblink.bsu.edu/uhtbin/catkey/1313073.
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This collection of short stories studies the elements of genre fiction and applies them to literary fiction. Science fiction, fantasy, and horror have specific manners in which they speak to an audience. By using these elements, for example the desensitization of the current generation of readers to most horrors, an author can demonstrate the core of the human relationship to pain, faith, or hope. Though some genre fiction seems to fit certain formulas, there are also horror or science fiction stories which do not fit a conventional mold. This collection sets forth to break away from genre fiction conventions. Also, this project utilizes the genre of magical realism, which is the medium between genre fiction and literary fiction, by using fantastic events within a mundane setting to emphasize the author's ideas. By bridging the gap between genres, magical realism reveals how interrelated the elements of all genres are. In this study stories use magical and horrifying events while maintaining an intention beyond the formulaic thrill. Therefore, genre fiction can have a place amongst literature.Department of English
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Browne, Vicky Kay. "Images of sound and the sound of images." Thesis, The University of Sydney, 2010. https://hdl.handle.net/2123/24589.
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'The line between art and life should be kept as fluid, and perhaps indistinct, as possible'
Allan Kaprow1
Shortly before beginning this paper I moved into a new house, under the house was my office a
humble room to write in. For over ten years I had been stock piling articles and papers these
were placed in boxes on the floor ready to be unpacked and incorporated into my paper. Away
we went on holiday so I could return, refreshed to start writing. While we were away everything
flooded. I returned to a floating soup of Derrida and Deleuze, a sodden mash of Virilio and
Baudrillard. Floating down the drain was ten years of collected French theory and art writings. It
was like my brain had gone soggy along with my office and all its contents. However, as
everything began to dry out so too did my methodology and writing plan. Sometimes it takes a
flood to reveal the old and come up with the new.
I began to ask why was I doing a masters degree and what kind of paper would my practice
benefit from. I decided that trawling though academic theories in art and using artists as
illustrations for these theories was not going to inform my practice. After considerable thought I
concluded the main things that influenced my work was the stuff of life, the theories and ideas
floating around my brain. Walking the dog, living in the mountains, the radio station I listen to,
are the things that have influenced and moulded both my work and therefore the choice material
and the method of writing this paper. Along the way it is hoped that I can contextualise my work,
where it sits in the art world, what the materials I use mean, and the wider environmental and
political comments I am trying to make.
The paper floats much like the articles in the flood; there is no hypothesis, no monumental
conclusion; no light bulb moment. This mirrors my work, where meaning is often open ended
and contradictory, scale is out of whack, technique is shonky and materials are used in an ad
hoc way. There exists a kind of philosophical approach to the position of art and life, a blurring.
It is this blurring that is the catalyst for this paper. I do not dismiss art theory or theorists, indeed
the paper references Virilio, Bachelard and Deleuze to name a few, but they are not the driving
force behind the paper. The forces that drive the paper are the tangents, the intersections, the
trains of thought that occur when out walking or taking a shower. These are the trails that are
played out, investigated and recorded in this paper.
Chapter one by way of introduction looks at sound devices and music culture ('pop' culture) that
informs my work. It also considers how I use these devices and the wider meanings and
implications arising from this use. I additionally investigate different techniques and influences in my practice such as humour, theatrics and songs. These materials, techniques and influences
give the work meaning which is grounded in the realm of domestic life and social structures.
Chapter two discusses my practice in relation to the wider art world. It is a meditation both on art
movements that have influenced my work and on one way of reading those art movements;
namely Virilio's theories regarding trauma and the catastrophe. The chapter traces some
modernist movements from the futurists to 1960's video and sound artists through to presentday
installations, via Virilio's writings on trauma; it considers the trauma of war and the impact
on art at the time. Then the chapter considers possible traumas existing in the 1960's and the
present day and their impact on art. The chapter concludes with an examination of the impact of
perceived traumas and catastrophes in contemporary society and how they manifest
themselves in my practice.
The remainder of the paper looks at specific things that have informed my practice; namely;
iPods, housing, radio, scale and craft. I try to contextualise these things within my practice and
also give them a wider context via an investigation into their inherent meanings and politics.
The things I have chosen to consider are by no means the only things that inform my work, nor
are they finite. The things that inform my practice today may easily be rejected tomorrow; rather
it is the meditations and considerations behind writing about iPods or radios that are important.
It is the construction of a framework, the casting out of a wider net. I am hoping to capture
meaning and information that works towards contextualising, informing and clarifying my
practice, yet in a method which does not pin it down or estrange it from other possibilities and
directions. In a way this paper could work like a recording of my practice, the Dictaphone could
record another story and lay-down another track but right now, you have this one to read...........
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Halliday, Sophie. "Representations of gender and subjectivity in 21st century American science fiction television." Thesis, University of East Anglia, 2014. https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/51483/.
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This thesis interrogates representations of gender and subjectivity within 21st century American science fiction television. It recognises a recent convergence of generic concerns, the shifting contexts of television, and the cultural context of 21st century America. Identifying a recent shift in how American science fiction television of this era has engaged with issues of gender and subjectivity, I offer an exploration of this trend via four key texts: Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (FOX, 2008-2009), Fringe (FOX, 2008-2013), Battlestar Galactica (SyFy, 2004-2009) and Caprica (SyFy, 2009-2010). The importance of this thesis lies in its exploration of new representational strategies in contemporary science fiction television in relation to the female body, and its consideration of the wider socio-cultural concerns of America in the 21st century. Previous attempts have been made to examine the socio-political import of certain series this thesis interrogates. I intervene in these debates by offering a much more focused interrogation of gender and subjectivity in 21st century science fiction television, via the framework of acclaimed and newly emerging series. Utilising a methodological approach that involves detailed textual analysis informed by social and cultural theory, I situate my case study series within the socio-cultural context of 21st century America. As such, this thesis covers a broad range of current representations that speak to how constructions of gender and subjectivity within a contemporary US cultural context are currently being worked through. Foregrounding an engagement with a particularly fraught period of American history via the female body, I argue that the protagonists my case study series present offer a positive intervention in previous estimations of how the female body has been utilised in film and television. As such, this thesis considers the implications of this particular context upon how these protagonists are represented by these newly emerging series.
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Wang, Labao. "Australian short fiction in the 1980s : continuity and change." Thesis, The University of Sydney, 1999. https://hdl.handle.net/2123/27583.
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This thesis offers a critical survey and a comprehensive bibliography of the
Australian short story in the 1980s. Conceived partly as an continuation of Stephen
Torre’s study of Australian short fiction of the 1940-1980 period, it starts where
Torre’s thesis stopped, focusing on Australian short story writing published in the
ten years between 1981 and 1990. Torre has summed up the 1940-1980 period as
‘a time of development and innovation’ in the history of Australian short fiction. In
comparison, the 1980s is probably best described as a decade of unprecedented
expansion and diversification. During that time, Australian short fiction broke away
from its earlier domination by monolithic traditions and became a much more
eclectic and pluralistic form. Contributing to this eclecticism and plurality were five
different streams of story writing created by five separate groups of writers. Due to
constraints of space, the critical text of the thesis examines only four of them.
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Smith, Olga. "Between reality and fiction : the art of French photography since the 1970s." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2012. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.610275.
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Royters, Nathan Miller. "Ghosts Amid the Gears: Neoliberal Subjectivity in 21st Century Chinese and American Fiction." Thesis, The University of Sydney, 2022. https://hdl.handle.net/2123/28053.
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This thesis investigates patterns of contemporary Chinese and American fiction reflecting and refracting neoliberal subjectivity. This essay adopts David Foster Wallace’s disapproving motif of ‘gears’ as an organising metaphor for neoliberal reductions of subjectivity, forcing eruption of potentialities as literal and figurative ‘ghosts’ seeking escape from diegetic worlds. The Cartesian dichotomy (ghosts/gears), derived from British philosopher Gilbert Ryle’s notion of the “ghost in the machine,” is balanced in strangely consistent yet contrasting ways by all characters who synthesise entrepreneurialism with spirituality, communalism, ecology, and ethnicity. American Wallace’s The Pale King reveals a gentle, spiritual rebellion against neoliberal hegemony wherein characters protest the existential paucity of bureaucratic labour, instead seeking monastic, hedonistic transcendence. In Paul Beatty’s The Sellout impoverished African-Americans are estranged from racially-striated, capitalist ‘machinery,’ pioneering liminal neo-economic spaces and rejuvenating industry through a radical return to ‘magical’ ethno-subjectivity. The Chinese novels display both cosmopolitan and rural capitalism, sounding alarmist timbres in tracing work’s transnational, technological, ecological and eschatological dangers. In Chen Qiufan’s The Waste Tide, capitalist overdeterminations augment worker flesh and selfhood, disrupting feng shui and precipitating cataclysm. Likewise, Yan Lianke’s The Day the Sun Died shows mercantilism as antagonistic to spiritual-temporal ontologies. The comparative study reveals American admonitions of neoliberalism as parochial, compared with panoramic, macrocosmic concerns in Chinese fictive violence, cognisant of globalisation. Despite continental distance, all texts imagine spectral, subjective potentiality in pneumatic tension with neoliberal demands. These trans-Pacific, bi-national texts resist economic totalitarianism, imagining alternative ontologies.
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Bakker, Barbara. "Arabic dystopias in the 21st century : A study on 21st century Arabic dystopian fiction through the analysis of four works of Arabic dystopian narrative." Thesis, Högskolan Dalarna, Arabiska, 2018. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:du-27968.
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Dystopian fiction as intended in the Western literary tradition is a 20 th century phenomenon on the Arabic literary scene. This relatively new genre has been experiencing an uplift since the beginning of the 21st century and many works that have been defined dystopias have been published and translated into English in the last 10 – 15 years. In order to find out their main features, Claeys’s categorization of literary dystopias is applied and a thematic analysis is carried out on four Arabic dystopian works of narrative, written by authors from different parts of the Arabic world. The analysis shows that 21st century Arabic dystopias are political dystopias, with totalitarianism as their main variation. Rather than on society, their focus is on the individual, and more specifically on personal freedom. The totalitarian constraints are mainly caused by religious fundamentalism and bureaucratic procedures. Surveillance and control over population are implemented by means of religious precepts and bureaucratic constructions, together with, in some instances, control over language and technological devices. Political totalitarianism regardless of a specific political ideology is identified as main theme. The thesis suggests that a Western-based classification framework is only partially suitable for Arabic dystopian fiction of the 21st century and that further research, including but not limited to a specific classification theory for Arabic dystopian fiction, is necessary to properly investigate this new literary trend in Arabic literature.
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Bakker, Barbara. "Arabic dystopias in the 21st century : A study on 21st century Arabic dystopian fictionthrough the analysis of four works of Arabic dystopian narrative." Thesis, Högskolan Dalarna, Arabiska, 2018. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:du-28495.
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Dystopian fiction as intended in the Western literary tradition is a 20 th century phenomenon on the Arabic literary scene. This relatively new genre has been experiencing an uplift since the beginning of the 21 st century and many works that have been defined dystopias have been published and translated into English in the last 10 – 15 years. In order to find out their main features, Claeys’s categorization of literary dystopias is applied and a thematic analysis is carried out on four Arabic dystopian works of narrative, written by authors from different parts of the Arabic world. The analysis shows that 21 st century Arabic dystopias are political dystopias, with totalitarianism as their main variation. Rather than on society, their focus is on the individual, and more specifically on personal freedom. The totalitarian constraints are mainly caused by religious fundamentalism and bureaucratic procedures. Surveillance and control over population are implemented by means of religious precepts and bureaucratic constructions, together with, in some instances, control over language and technological devices. Political totalitarianism regardless of a specific political ideology is identified as main theme. The thesis suggests that a Western-based classification framework is only partially suitable for Arabic dystopian fiction of the 21 st century and that further research, including but not limited to a specific classification theory for Arabic dystopian fiction, is necessary to properly investigate this new literary trend in Arabic literature.
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Lee, Jason Eng Hun. "'All is not Well in the world' : critical cosmopolitanism in twenty-first century fiction." Thesis, The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong), 2013. http://hdl.handle.net/10722/197089.
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This thesis considers how contemporary American and British novels at the turn of the century attempt to conceptualize global human, political, economic and ecological risks through different levels of global connectedness. Taking a theoretical approach, the thesis offers up the notion of critical cosmopolitanism as a form of literary critique that might help to connect the field of literature to current sociological debates about globalization and cosmopolitanism. Critical cosmopolitanism is summarized here as follows: a predisposition towards cosmopolitan ideals but also a self-reflexive awareness of its perceived ideological and narrative shortcomings; a desire to conceive of a planetary self-conscious by maneuvering across and between spatial containers like the nation-state; an attempt to map disjunctive flows of global capital onto various narrative ‘worlds’; a type of narrative reflexivity that is transferred onto the reader.
The thesis comprises of two parts. Part 1 considers how the war on terror discourse problematizes novelists’ attempts to imagine planetary connectedness, and their struggles to imbue their readers with a self-reflexivity as an act of critical cosmopolitanism. Chapter 1 discusses the representational challenges that 9/11 presents to the novelist in terms of historicity, and outlines some of the prevailing metanarratives/counternarratives that are projected by them. Chapter 2 considers how alterity is used to critique or negotiate representations of the terrorist persona in novels by Don DeLillo, John Updike and Mohsin Hamid. Pointing to flaws in their narrative forms, these novelists enable their reader to transcend certain ideological boundaries which are denied to their own protagonists. Chapter 3 considers the interrelationship between terror and the spectacle in novels by Don DeLillo, Jonathan Safran Foer and Ian McEwan, looking at how 9/11’s images are able to project itself across the world but still reduce viewers’ capacity for imagining global connectedness.
Part 2 explores how novelists use a range of postmodern strategies to represent the various connections/dislocations made possible by global capital and how it problematize perceptions of human relationships across the world. Global capital is presented as a fluid dynamic that enables greater connectivity across the globe, but it also poses difficulties in one’s ability to realize a genuine cosmopolitanism against the all-incorporating power of the market. Chapter 4 deals with a variety of attempts in novels by William Gibson and Don DeLillo to cognitively map the relations of capital and consumer culture, and to make these complex global systems more intelligible to the reader. Chapter 5 discusses novels by David Mitchell and Rana Dasgupta that experiment with heterotopic, multi-layered narrative platforms to represent interconnecting but geographically separate ‘worlds’, and their ability to project cosmopolitan ideals across these textual horizons of space and time.published_or_final_version
English
Doctoral
Doctor of Philosophy
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Gill, Josephine Ceri. "Race, genetics and British fiction since the Human Genome Project." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2012. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.610822.
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Majola, Fundile Lawrence. "Good-Gooder-Goodest." Thesis, Rhodes University, 2014. http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1015657.
Full textAbstract:
My stories are set in the townships, and move with the vigorous rhythms and jagged structures of township life. Some of them are written in English and others in isiXhosa. Some of the dialogue is township slang, a mixture of languages; and pure isiXhosa. The stories follow no particular pattern and are arranged according to any form of chronology, and different voices, at times as a man/boy and in others as a girl. The characters are not related each story perfectly stands for itself. Some of the stories hark back to the days of apartheid and are seen through the eyes of a child confused by the humiliations of his elders.Amabali am asekelwe ezilokishini yaye ahambelana neemeko ezimaxongo zokuphila zasezilokishini apho yaye amanye asukela kwixesha lengcinezelo yesizwe esimnyama. Imiba echatshazelwa kula mabali iquka intlupheko, intiyo kwakunye nokuphilisana koluntu ezilokishini, phantsi kwezo meko. Amabali la ndizame ukuwenza alandele indlela yokubalisa yhenkwenkwana enguSkhumba, ethi ibone iqwalasele iimeko zokuphila zabantu bohlanga lwayo. Ingqokelela esisiqendu sokuqala yona ibhalwe ze yangeniswa ngesiNgesi.
This thesis is presented in two parts: English and isiXhosa.
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Guzman-Medrano, Gael. "Post-Revolutionary Post-Modernism: Central American Detective Fiction by the Turn of the 21st Century." FIU Digital Commons, 2013. http://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/etd/917.
Full textAbstract:
Contemporary Central American fiction has become a vital project of revision of the tragic events and the social conditions in the recent history of the countries from which they emerge. The literary projects of Sergio Ramirez (Nicaragua), Dante Liano (Guatemala), Horacio Castellanos Moya (El Salvador), and Ramon Fonseca Mora (Panama), are representative of the latest trends in Central American narrative. These trends conform to a new literary paradigm that consists of an amalgam of styles and discourses, which combine the testimonial, the historical, and the political with the mystery and suspense of noir thrillers. Contemporary Central American noir narrative depicts the persistent war against social injustice, violence, criminal activities, as well as the new technological advances and economic challenges of the post-war neo-liberal order that still prevails throughout the region.
Drawing on postmodernism theory proposed by Ihab Hassan, Linda Hutcheon and Brian MacHale, I argued that the new Central American literary paradigm exemplified by Sergio Ramirez’s El cielo llora por mí, Dante Liano’s El hombre de Montserrat, Horacio Castellanos Moya’s El arma en el hombre and La diabla en el espejo, and Ramon Fonseca Mora’s El desenterrador, are highly structured novels that display the characteristic marks of postmodern cultural expression through their ambivalence, which results from the coexistence of multiple styles and conflicting ideologies and narrative trends. The novels analyzed in this dissertation make use of a noir sensitivity in which corruption, decay and disillusionment are at their core to portray the events that shaped the modern history of the countries from which they emerge. The revolutionary armed struggle, the state of terror imposed by military regimes and the fight against drug trafficking and organized crime, are among the major themes of these contemporary works of fiction, which I have categorized as perfect examples of the post-revolutionary post-modernism Central American detective fiction at the turn of the 21st century.
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Dougherty, Mary Ann. "Betrayal : Short Stories." PDXScholar, 2015. https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/open_access_etds/2233.
Full textAbstract:
This collection of short stories, titled Betrayal, is my thesis project to meet the requirements for a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing/Fiction. In each story, of course, there is betrayal, of sister, daughter, wife, husband or lover. The settings of the stories are various, the Midwest, the Great Lakes, the Allegheny Mountains and Louisiana bayou country. Northeastern Ohio and Lake Erie, especially, have informed description and metaphor in the stories, and their atmosphere is influenced by Gothic literature.
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Mason, Anthony, and n/a. "Australian coverage of the Fiji coups of 1987 and 2000: sources, practice and representation." University of Canberra. Communication, 2009. http://erl.canberra.edu.au./public/adt-AUC20090826.144012.
Full textAbstract:
For many Australians, Fiji is a place of holidays, coups and rugby. The extent to which we
think about this near-neighbour of ours is governed, for most, by what we learn about Fiji
through the media. In normal circumstances, there is not a lot to learn as Fiji rarely appears
in our media. At times of crisis, such as during the 1987 and 2000 coups in Fiji, there is
saturation coverage. At these times, the potential for generating understanding is great. The
reporting of a crisis can encapsulate all the social, political and economic issues which are a
cause or outcome of an event like a coup, elucidating for media consumers the culture, the
history and the social forces involved. In particular, the kinds of sources used and the kinds
of organisations these sources represent, the kinds of themes presented in the reporting, and
the way the journalists go about their work, can have a significant bearing on how an event
like a coup is represented. The reporting of the Fiji coups presented the opportunity to
examine these factors. As such, the aim of this thesis is to understand the role of the media
in building relationships between developed and developing post-colonial nations like
Australia and Fiji.
A content analysis of 419 articles published in three leading broadsheet newspapers, The
Sydney Morning Herald, The Australian and The Canberra Times, examined the basic
characteristics of the articles, with a particular focus on the sources used in these articles.
This analysis revealed that the reports were dominated by elite sources, particularly
representatives of governments, with a high proportion of Australian sources who provided
information from Australia. While alternative sources did appear, they were limited in
number. Women, Indian Fijians and representatives of non-government organisations were
rarely used as sources. There were some variations between the articles from 1987 and those
from 2000, primarily an increase in Indian Fijian sources, but overall the profile of the
sources were similar.
A thematic analysis of the same articles identified and examined the three most prevalent
themes in the coverage. These indicated important aspects of the way the coups were
represented: the way Fiji was represented, the way Australia's responses were represented,
and the way the coup leaders were represented. This analysis found that the way in which
the coups were represented reflected the nature of the relationship between Australia and
Fiji. In 1987, the unexpected nature of the coup meant there was a struggle to re-define how
Fiji should be understood. In 2000, Australia's increased focus on Fiji and the Pacific region
was demonstrated by reports which represented the situation as more complex and uncertain,
demanding more varied responses.
A series of interviews with journalists who travelled to Fiji to cover the coups revealed that
the working conditions for Australian media varied greatly between 1987 and 2000. The
situational factors, particularly those which limited their work, had an impact on the
journalists' ability to access specific kinds of sources and, ultimately, the kinds of themes
which appeared in the stories. The variation between 1987 and 2000 demonstrated that
under different conditions, journalists were able to access a more diverse range of sources
and present more sophisticated perspectives of the coup.
In a cross-cultural situation such as this, the impact of reporting dominated by elite sources
is felt not just in the country being covered, but also in the country where the reporting
appears. It presents a limited representation, which marginalises and downplays the often
complex social, cultural and historical factors which contribute to an event like a coup.
Debate and alternative ways of understanding are limited and the chance to engage more
deeply with a place like Fiji is, by and large, lost.
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Bell, Pamela. "Art that never was : representations of the artist in twentieth-century Australian fiction." Thesis, The University of Sydney, 2003. http://hdl.handle.net/2123/7310.
Full textAbstract:
This thesis traces the development of the artist figure as a leading character in twentieth-century Australian novels. In Australia there have always been complex interconnections between the worlds of art and literature, perhaps the most obvious being the cluster of artists and writers centred on the journal Vision, co-edited by Norman Lindsay’s son Jack with Kenneth Slessor, who was heavily influenced by Lindsay. Slessor’s poem “Five Bells”, an elegy for his artist friend Joe Lynch, later became the subject of a mural painted for Sydney Opera House by John Olsen. Although this and other connections between poetry and art are of interest, this thesis concentrates on fiction only.
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Davis, Laurel Faye. "Novel, The Fourth Expedition, Based on the Journals of a Nineteenth Century Australian Explorer; Essay, The Pastoral Myth in the Twenty-First Century." Thesis, Edith Cowan University, Research Online, Perth, Western Australia, 2000. https://ro.ecu.edu.au/theses/242.
Full textAbstract:
The novel, The Fourth Expedition, which follows a collection of poetry, Things Visible and Things Invisible, already presented in the first year of the Masters, is based on the journals of a nineteenth century explorer of the Australian continent. Built into the story is the relationship between the explorer and a woman who is also a historic figure and an acknowledged artist, a painter.
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Wheeler, Elizabeth. "Colour, immateriality & uncertainty in painting." Thesis, The University of Sydney, 2004. https://hdl.handle.net/2123/28007.
Full textAbstract:
The objective of the research paper is to explore the theoretical concerns raised in the studio work. The paper discusses concerns such as colour activity and perception; the interdependence of the material and the immaterial in painting; and the uncertainty inherent in the process of painting and how that relates to wider experiences of uncertainty. The discussion focuses on the practice of artists who engage with such concerns, comparing and highlighting commonalities in their work, the objective being to articulate the central concerns of my own practice and in doing so, po-sition it within the discourse of contemporary painting.
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Carvalho, Alyssa May. "The novel as cultural and historical archive: an examination of Marlene van Niekerk's Agaat (2006)." Thesis, Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, 2009. http://hdl.handle.net/10948/1224.
Full textAbstract:
This research engages with a contemporary theoretical debate in the literary field, namely the ability of fictional texts to contribute to archival records. Contemporary research in archival discourse suggests that there are many intersections between fiction and the archive. Using Hamilton and others’ seminal text Refiguring the Archive (2002) and Pasco’s “Literature as Historical Archive” (2004) as point of departure, this dissertation offers an analysis of the South African English translation of Marlene van Niekerk’s Agaat (2004, translated 2006). In both form and function, the novel is viewed as a simulation of an archive. In Agaat, Van Niekerk has compiled a fictional archive of two indigenous South African cultures through her portrayal of the two main characters: Afrikaner culture during apartheid as embedded in the focalization of Milla de Wet and remnants of Khoi and/or San culture as emerge from the fictionalised subjectivity of her coloured housekeeper-nurse, Agaat. Through a conceptual and theoretical exploration of archival discourse, I argue that literary texts, such as Van Niekerk’s novel, have the potential to refigure (or creatively redefine) the archive and to enhance its scope and relevance, especially as South Africa undergoes transformation.
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Lyssa, Alison. "Performing Australia's black and white history acts of danger in four Australian plays of the early 21st century /." Thesis, Electronic version, 2006. http://hdl.handle.net/1959.14/714.
Full textAbstract:
Thesis (MA)--Macquarie University (Division of Humanities, Department of English), 2006.Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Masters in English in the Division of Humanities, Dept. of English, 2006. Bibliography: p. 199-210.
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Zaharchenko, Tanya. "Where the currents meet : frontiers of memory in the post-Soviet fiction of East Ukraine." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2014. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.708117.
Full text
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Burns, Kathryn E. "This other Eden exploring a sense of place in twentieth-century reconstructions of Australian childhoods /." Connect to full text, 2006. http://hdl.handle.net/2123/1691.
Full textAbstract:
Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Sydney, 2007.Title from title screen (viewed 25 March 2008). Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy to the Dept. of English, Faculty of Arts. Degree awarded 2007; thesis submitted 2006. Includes bibliographical references. Also available in print form.
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Williams, Court. "Sensitive skin." Thesis, The University of Sydney, 2008. https://hdl.handle.net/2123/28932.
Full textAbstract:
The work being considered for examination will be my gallery installation Affliction.
Consisting of approximately six hundred digitally printed and hand constructed three
dimensional models, it will be installed on the gallery floor as a part of the Postgraduate
Degree show at Sydney College of the Arts (Tuesday December 9th through to Wednesday
December 17th).
My masters project explores the isolation and dislocation experienced in the urban
environment and situates un-commissioned street art as a construct that potentially
generates modes of plurality through immediate encounter, collaboration and intervention.
My work explores the inter-activity of street art. This is done through a reading of Nicolas
Bourriaud’s Relational Aesthetics - a theory of art that takes as its theoretical horizon
the realm of human inter-actions in social spaces. 1 demonstrate the inter-activity of street
art through a discussion of my work as well as the work of three other street artists.
In doing so, 1 also draw attention to the virtual characteristics of the anonymous urban
environment by locating street art as a virtual representation of the art world, the street
artist as an avatar and the city surface as an online blog.
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Wenholz, Mary Peta. "Painting about painting: the contemporary expansion of medium specificity." Thesis, The University of Sydney, 2007. https://hdl.handle.net/2123/28934.
Full textAbstract:
Studio:
The work submitted for examination in December 2007 at SCA
Galleries, consists of a painting constructed within the gallery
space, and is the culmination of the research undertaken during
the Masters of Visual Arts program. Untitled (Vinyl wall
composition) I (2007) investigates how the act of making can
function as a speculative activity interested in both the
materiality of painting and the architectural context in which the
work is placed.
Research Paper:
The objective of this research paper is to investigate the
theoretical concerns raised by the studio work. It explores the
contemporary position of medium specificity through the work of
Tony Tuckson, Robert Ryman, Bernard Frize, Alan Charlton, Daniel
Buren and Katharina Grosse.
Discussion of the work of each of these artists focuses on the way
in which the physical characteristics of the materials used to
construct a painting can inform how the work is read and the ways
in which the architectural context can influence how a painting is
perceived.
Through exploring the practices of each of these artists and
establishing the conceptual strategies employed by each, this
paper seeks to locate the central concerns of my practice within
the discourse of contemporary painting.
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Mahlangu, Songeziwe. "Penumbra." Thesis, Rhodes University, 2012. http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1015207.
Full textAbstract:
After failing his Post Graduate Diploma in Accounting Mangaliso Zolo takes an office job at a large insurance company in Cape Town. Anonymous and overlooked in a vast bureaucracy but with a pay check promising happiness and security, he slides into a series of personal crises that test his grip on what he believes in. When at his lowest ebb he leaves his job, grabs his bible and hits the streets his world closes in on him and he is eventually confined to a psychiatric hospital. Penumbra is a novel that explores the liminal area between faith and avarice, sanity and madness, modernity and tradition, friendship and enmity. It is set in contemporary South Africa, a society defined by alienation and excess.
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Armanno, Venero. "The volcano." Thesis, Queensland University of Technology, 1998.
Find full textAbstract:
The problems associated with marketing in China have been raised in several studies in the last 10 years. However, these prior studies focused on the four elements of
marketing mix for China and not on strategic marketing for the market in China, nor did they emphasise the implications of culture and marketing systems in China for developing strategic marketing plans.
This thesis has focused on building a general framework that could help Western firms, particularly Hong Kong-based, to develop strategic marketing plans that deal with
Chinese cultures and marketing systems in China. Therefore this thesis addresses the
research problem:How do wholly-owned Western firms in Hong Kong develop strategic marketing plans to do business in China? This research reviewed the available literature relating to cultures and marketing
systems in the West and China. By comparing and contrasting these differences, eleven research questions were formulated and shown as follow. In developing strategic marketing plans for the market in China: RQJ: how is market research as important a foundation for strategic marketing effectiveness as it is in the West?
RQ2: how is planning longer-term than in the West?
RQ3: how is the approach evolutionary rather than revolutionary, compared to the
West?
RQ4: how does strategy emphasise long-term relationships with and among consumers
(for example, by offering sales service) more than in the West?
RQ5: how does target marketing emphasise the group rather than the individual?
RQ6: how are product line strategies different.from those in the West?
RQ7: how do marketing strategies allow for less flexibility in price than in the West?
RQB: how will promotion strategies which Western firms can exercise within
distribution channels in China be similar to those used in the West?
RQ9: how are the choice of institutions and levels of channels in China different from
those in the West?
RQI Oa: how is market segmentation of consumers in China more difficult than in the
West?
RQllb: how can cultural differences between West and China be used as a basis for market segmentation?
As discussed in chapter 3, data were collected by using the case study methodology,with one pilot case study conducted in Brisbane to refine the research protocol and
procedure. In the major stage of data collection, six wholly-owned Western firms from different industries were interviewed and examined in Hong Kong. As discussed in chapter 4, data was analysed by using case descriptions, cross-case analysis and explanation building methods. Triangulation was carried out in order to ensure the findings and conclusion were convincing and generalisable.
The results of the research indicate that most of the methods for developing strategic marketing plans for the market in China (for example, market research, segmentation and targeting) are derived from the Western conventional marketing principles. However, the methods are relatively rudimentary and the approach tends to
evolutionary and emphasises relationships. Indeed, there are only a few similarities between strategic marketing planning in China and the West, with the differences being attributable in the main to cultural factors and marketing systems. The major contribution of the research was to provide far more detailed descriptions and
sometimes explanations of strategic marketing planning processes than those provided in the extant literature.
On the basis of these research findings, a model (refer table 5.2 and figure 5.1) has been built to help Western firms to develop strategic marketing plans that deal with
Chinese cultures and marketing systems.
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Kneen, Kris. "Head on." Thesis, Queensland University of Technology, 1998. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/35902/1/35902_Kneen_1998.pdf.
Full text
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Nimmo, Heather. "Three plays : The other woman, Banana split, Awa' the crow road ; and an essay, Writing the end." Thesis, Edith Cowan University, Research Online, Perth, Western Australia, 2005. https://ro.ecu.edu.au/theses/645.
Full textAbstract:
The Other Woman is an eighty-minute stage play which asks the question: Do women really play the political game differently? A high-flying politician can't admit to a small mistake. A woman kills herself. Does her mother want justice or revenge? Banana Split is a ninety-minute comedy for two actors which investigates life after divorce, the connections between risk and reward, and the implications of doubling (or coupling). The play asks a number of questions: Is it riskier to stay or to go? Which is the more damaging to a relationship-nostalgia for a golden age or the fantasy of a perfect future? Awa’ the Crow Road is a half-hour play for radio. Two brothers are brought to Australia from Scotland, as children. Their father tells them;' We're here. We're Australian. We're not going back.' One brother goes back 10 Scotland. never to return. The other stays in Australia, never to leave. Thirty years pass. They meet again when their father is 'awa' the crow road'. The essay, Writing the end, examines selected literary and performance theory on endings from the perspective of the playwright who must write the end but avoid 'a strangulation'. Later sections of the essay use the endings of the three plays that make up the creative project, to illustrate more specific aspects of writing the end.
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Musavengana, Shelter K. "Before before & after after." Thesis, Rhodes University, 2015. http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1017775.
Full textAbstract:
The stories in this collection explore the fantastical, the power of memory, and the human capacity to love. Moving between the surreal, the absurd, the allegorical, and the metafictional, they elaborate on life's ordinary madness and the mysteries of the spirit. By challenging the either/or boundaries of the binary of realism and fantasy, the stories provoke the reader to engage actively with the text. Influenced by experimental US author Stacey Levine, the mid‐century British novelist Barbara Comyns, and the adventurous Chinese writer Can Xue, in most cases, they create a playful, experimental world that exists at a slight angle to the world as we know it.
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Masters, Benjamin Scott. "The ethics of excess : style and morality in British fiction since the 1960s." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2014. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.648740.
Full text
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Shishkin, Timur. "Marginalized Characters in Contemporary American Short Fiction." PDXScholar, 2011. https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/open_access_etds/297.
Full textAbstract:
The focus of the present research work is the contemporary American short stories that bring up issues of compulsory norm and the conflict between marginalized characters and their environment. This research was based on those short stories that seemed to represent the idea of being "different" in the most complex and multilayered way, and its goal was to unfold new aspects of the conflict between "normal" and "abnormal"/"different". Variations of norm as well as diversity within the marginalized raise a number of questions about the reasons for their inability to coexist peacefully. The close reading and the analysis of the selected stories show that all the conflicts in them, in one way or another, repeat similar patterns and lead to the same root of the problem of misunderstanding, which is fear. To be more precise, all the cases of hate towards "different" characters can be explained by the hater's explicit or implicit fear of death in its various forms: inability to procreate one's own kind, cultural or personal self-identity loss, actual life threat in the form of a reminder of possible physical harm and death. Most often it would be the case where shame and fear of death overlap in a very complex way. In general, the cases of characters' otherness fall into three major groups. The nature of the alienation for each of these groups is described and analyzed in three separate chapters. Prejudice and stereotypes are playing a great role in formation of fears and insecurities which need to be dismantled in order to make peaceful coexistence possible. This work concludes with pointing out the crucial role of taking an approach of representation of various perspectives and diversification of voices in creative writing, academia and media in the context of multicultural society.
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Kuit, Henali. "Dear space dad and other stories." Thesis, Rhodes University, 2015. http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1017774.
Full textAbstract:
My stories are set around the themes of family, animals and outer space -- which leads to other themes like religion, loneliness, romance, eating animals, growing up and longing for the past. Most of the stories have non-linear structures. Some use gradual shiftings of narrator voice; in others the narrative is flat, lacking plot. I favour repetition over plot-based climaxes to create coherency and narrative flow. I also favour free indirect discourse over dialogue or description as a means to characterize.
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Penazzi, Leonardo. "The fellow (novel) ; and Australian historical fiction, debating the perceived past (dissertation)." University of Western Australia. School of Social and Cultural Studies, 2008. http://theses.library.uwa.edu.au/adt-WU2008.0070.
Full textAbstract:
Novel The Fellow What is knowledge? Who should own it? Why is it used? Who can use it? Is knowledge power, or is it an illusion? These are some of the questions addressed in The Fellow. At the time of Australian federation, the year 1901, while a nation is being drawn into unity, one of its primary educational institutions is being drawn into disunity when an outsider challenges the secure world of The University of Melbourne. Arriving in Melbourne after spending much of his life travelling around Australia, an old Jack-of-all-trades bushman finds his way into the inner sanctum of The University of Melbourne. Not only a man of considerable and varied skill, he is also a man who is widely read and self-educated. However, he applies his knowledge in practical ways, based on what he has experienced in the
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Cartwright, Robert Oliver. "Third crime unlucky." Thesis, Rhodes University, 2012. http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1015729.
Full textAbstract:
This is a contemporary mystery novel set in the Eastern Cape. A town’s airstrip, situated between the golf club and the military base, acts as host to the local flying club and an active skydiving school. An amateur investigator uses unorthodox methods and the help of friends to find the cause of aeroplane fires and sabotage. His investigations lead him via geological research and insurance reports into contact with members of the aviation, property development and military fields.
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Duggan, Lucy. "Reading the city : Prague in Czech and Czech-German narrative fiction since 1989." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2016. https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:3827cf9c-fa91-4fb5-aa7e-8942de885729.
Full textAbstract:
In the course of its history, Prague has been the site of many significant cultural confrontations and conversations. From the medieval chronicle of Cosmas to the work of contemporary writers, the city has taken shape in literature as a multivalent space where identities are constructed and questioned. The evolution of Prague's literary significance has taken place in an intercultural context: both Czech-speaking and German-speaking writers have engaged with the city and its past, and their texts have interacted with each other. The city has played a central part in many collective narratives in which myth, history and literature intertwine. Looking at contemporary prose fiction written in both Czech and German, this thesis explores continuities and contrasts in the literary roles played by Prague. It analyses two German-speaking emigrant authors, Libuše Moníková (1945-1998) and Jan Faktor (1951- ), viewing them alongside three Czech writers, Jáchym Topol (1962- ), Daniela Hodrová (1946- ), and Michal Ajvaz (1949- ). Through close readings of eight texts, the thesis approaches the imagined city from four angles. It discusses how contemporary authors portray the search for meaning in the city by imagining Prague as two contrasting realms (the 'real' city and the 'other' city), how the discontinuities of the city are reflected by the fragmentation of the authorial stance, how these authors assemble new Prague myths from the vestiges of older topoi, and how they confront the contradictory urges to uphold the boundaries of the city and to transgress them. In post-1989 Prague, authors explore the unstable spaces between continuity and discontinuity, constructing an authorial ethos in these areas of tension.
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Holgate, Ben. "Porous borders : the amorphous nature of magical realist fiction in Asia and Australasia." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2016. https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:32abdfeb-baa7-40ee-b721-89b66bc74043.
Full textAbstract:
This thesis aims to broaden the scope of magical realism by examining contemporary fiction in Asia and Australasia, regions which have been largely neglected in critical discussion of the narrative mode. My research seeks to modify and expand our collective conception of magical realism through key texts that challenge not only how we read the narrative mode, but also our expectations of it. My analysis involves a dual intervention in the fields of postcolonial studies and world literature. I supplement existing scholarship of magical realism with new paradigms of critical thought, such as epistemology, mythopoeia, ecocriticism, intertextuality and discourse on human rights. Each of the key authors - Indigenous Australian Alexis Wright, New Zealand Maoris Keri Hulme and Witi Ihimaera, Indian-born cosmopolitans Amitav Ghosh and Salman Rushdie, and Chinese Nobel laureate Mo Yan - subjects the narrative mode to differing intellectual, socio-cultural and historical frameworks, and in the process reinvents magical realism to serve their own artistic purposes. The authors' key texts demonstrate the need to recalibrate theory on magical realism in contexts such as Alexis Wright's depiction of ongoing colonisation of Australia's first inhabitants in a supposedly postcolonial country, and Mo Yan's critique of post-communist China. I argue that magical realism has porous borders, not only geographically and culturally, but also in the sense that the narrative mode frequently spills over into other, different generic kinds such that the distinctions between them are often blurred. In addition, magical realism's constant state of transformation makes it particularly difficult to define. Therefore, I propose a minimalist definition of the narrative mode and a flexible approach. However, underlying cultural elements and individual artistic expression in a text may sometimes limit magical realism's utility as a tool for literary analysis. Finally, I explore the notion of a genealogy of magical realism based on polygenesis, emerging in different cultures at different times.
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Rawlins, Isabel Bethan. "Counting planes." Thesis, Rhodes University, 2013. http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1001816.
Full textAbstract:
This collection of prose-poems and flash fiction, together with a few short stories, shows how romantic relationships colour our perspectives on the world. The collection has echoes throughout of speakers' voices, theme, imagery and tone. There is a narrative logic too, but working on a subtle level of echo and resonance
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Welstead, Adam. "Dystopia and the divided kingdom : twenty-first century British dystopian fiction and the politics of dissensus." Thesis, University of St Andrews, 2019. http://hdl.handle.net/10023/17104.
Full textAbstract:
This doctoral thesis examines the ways in which contemporary writers have adopted the critical dystopian mode in order to radically deconstruct the socio-political conditions that preclude equality, inclusion and collective political appearance in twenty-first century Britain. The thesis performs theoretically-informed close readings of contemporary novels from authors J.G. Ballard, Maggie Gee, Sarah Hall and Rupert Thomson in its analysis, and argues that the speculative visions of Kingdom Come (2006), The Flood (2004), The Carhullan Army (2007) and Divided Kingdom (2005) are engaged with a wave of contemporary dystopian writing in which the destructive and divisive forms of consensus that are to be found within Britain's contemporary socio-political moment are identified and challenged. The thesis proposes that, in their politically-engaged extrapolations, contemporary British writers are engaged with specifically dystopian expressions of dissensus. Reflecting key theoretical and political nuances found in Jacques Rancière's concept of 'dissensus', I argue that the novels illustrate dissensual interventions within the imagined political space of British societies in which inequalities, oppressions and exclusions are endemic - often proceeding to present modest, 'minor' utopian arguments for more equal, heterogeneous and democratic possibilities in the process. Contributing new, theoretically-inflected analysis of key speculative fictions from twenty-first century British writers, and locating their critiques within the literary, socio-political and theoretical contexts they are meaningfully engaged with, the thesis ultimately argues that in interrogating and reimagining the socio-political spaces of twenty-first century Britain, contemporary writers of dystopian fiction demonstrate literature working in its most dissensual, political and transformative mode.
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Kucharova, Sue. "The torch collector." Thesis, View thesis, 1999. http://handle.uws.edu.au:8081/1959.7/30737.
Full textAbstract:
The Torch Collector is a Magical Realist novel set in Sydney. It is a story of non conformity, history, hope. The story moves between three recognisable but not clearly identifiable spheres. A past, a present and the non identified other, which could be called the unreal, magical, other-worldly or third-dimensional The genderless protagonist collects torches which enable him/her to transgress the boundaries between the spheres of existence. S/he moves freely across filling the gaps in her/his identity created by her/his cross-cultural background. The novel examines life on the fringe of contemporary Australian society. The Torch Collector's position appears to be voluntary, defined by his/her relationship to the torches. This vital relationship prevents the protagonist from fully engaging in conventional life. It is also a story of Sydney. A city which hides its cross-cultural spirituality underneath a highly urban and technological facade.
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Burns, Kathryn E. "This Other Eden: Exploring a Sense of Place in Twentieth-Century Reconstructions of Australian Childhoods." Thesis, The University of Sydney, 2006. http://hdl.handle.net/2123/1691.
Full textAbstract:
This thesis explores the sense of place formed during childhood, as remembered by adult Australians who reconstruct their youth through various forms of life writing. While Australian writers do utilize traditional tropes of Western autobiography, such as the mythology of Eden and the Wordsworthian image of the child communing with Nature, these themes are frequently transformed to meet a uniquely Australian context. Isolation and distance from Europe, and the apparent indifference of our landscape towards white settlement, have received much critical attention in Australian studies generally and, indeed, broadly influence the formation of children’s sense of place across the continent. However, writers are also concerned with the role of place on a more local level. Through a comparison of writing from Western Australia, Queensland and Victoria, this thesis explores regional landscape preoccupations that create an awareness of local identity, variously contributing to or frustrating the child’s sense of belonging. Western Australian writing is dominated by images of isolation, the fragility of white settlement in a dry land lacking fresh water, and a pervasive beach culture. A strong sense of the littoral pervades writing from this region. Queensland’s frontier mythology is of a different flavour: warm and tropical, nature here is exuberant, constantly threatening to overwhelm culture, already perceived as transient due to the flimsy aspect of the “Queenslander” house. Writing from Victoria, to some extent, tends to more closely follow English models, juxtaposing country and city environments, although there is a distinctly local flavour to many representations of urban Melbourne and its flat, grid-like organization. As Australian society becomes more concentrated on the coastal fringe, the beach is an increasingly significant environment. Though more prominent in writing from some regions than others, coastal imagery broadly reflects the modern Australian’s sense of inhabiting a liminal zone with negotiable boundaries.
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Kingston, Matthew Patrick. "(Re)inventing the Novel: Examining the Use of Text and Image in the Twenty-First Century Novel." Fogler Library, University of Maine, 2008. http://www.library.umaine.edu/theses/pdf/KingstonMP2008.pdf.
Full text
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Heuschele, Margaret, and n/a. "The Construction of Youth in Australian Young Adult Literature 1980-2000." University of Canberra. Creative Communication, 2007. http://erl.canberra.edu.au./public/adt-AUC20081029.171132.
Full textAbstract:
Adolescence is an incredibly complex period of life. During this time young people are searching for and wanting to create their own unique identity, however being confronted with a plethora of roles and directions is challenging and confusing. These challenges are reflected in the vast array of young adult literature being presented to young people today. As a result young adult literature has the potential to function as scaffolding to assist teenagers in the struggles of adolescence by serving as an important source of information about the world and the people in it. Teenage novels also give young people the opportunity to try on different identities and vicariously experience consequences of actions while developing their own distinctive personality and character.
As this study reveals, the Australian young adult novel has undergone considerable developments, with 1989 serving as a milestone year in which writers and publishers turned in new directions. In general, Australian young adult novels have changed from books set predominately in rural areas, incorporating major themes of child abuse, death, friendship and survival with introverted characters aged between twelve and sixteen in the early 1980s to novels with urban settings, a large increase in books about crime, dating, drugs and mental health and sexually active, extroverted characters aged between fourteen and eighteen in the late 1990s.
To chart the progression of these changes and gain an understanding of the messages young adults receive from adolescent novels an evaluative framework was developed. The framework consists of two main sections. The first part applies to the work as a whole,
obtaining data about the novel such as plot, style, setting, temporal context, use of humour,
issues within the text and ending, while the second part collects information about character demographics including gender, age, occupational status, family type, sexual orientation, relationships with family and authority figures, personality traits and outlook for character. To qualitatively and quantitatively assess the construction of youth in Australian young adult literature a random selection of 20 per cent of Australian young adult books published in each year from 1980 to 2000 were analysed using the evaluative framework, with 186 novels being studied altogether.
During the 1990s in particular, Australian young adult literature was heavily criticised for being too bleak, too dark, presenting a picture of life that was all gloom and doom. This research resoundingly dismisses this argument by showing that rather than being a negative influence on the lives of young people, Australian books for young people present a comprehensive portrayal of youth. They probe the entire gamut of teenage experiences, both the good and the bad, providing a wide range of scenarios, roles, relationships and characters for young people to explore. Therefore Australian young adult literature provides an important source of information and support for the psycho-social development of young people during the formative years of adolescence.
This research is significant because it gives hard evidence to support the promotion of a representative selection of Australian young adult novels both in the classroom and in home, school and public libraries. By establishing the available range of contemporary Australian young adult literature through this study, young adult readers, teachers and librarians can be confident in the knowledge that appropriate titles are accessible which meet the needs and interests of young people. Consequently, the substantial amount of data gathered from this
study will considerably add to the knowledge and understanding ofAustralian young adult novels to date and provide an excellent starting point for further research in the future.