Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Authors and readers – Fiction'

PONTIFÍCIA UNIVERSIDADE CATÓLICA DO RIO DE JANEIRO
CONSELHO NACIONAL DE DESENVOLVIMENTO CIENTÍFICO E TECNOLÓGICO
Em diversos países europeus, norte e latino-americanos estão disseminados entre especialistas termos que representam um tipo específico de subcategoria da literatura infantil, como picturebook, album illustré, álbum ilustrado, livro-álbum e bilderbuch, caracterizado pelo papel que a linguagem visual representa na leitura da obra. Apesar de não haver um nome específico para tal subcategoria no Brasil, há muitos exemplos de livros ilustrados brasileiros que aqui a representam. Esta pesquisa trata sobre tal objeto analisando-o sob três aspectos: primeiro, suas definições por diferentes autores brasileiros e estrangeiros, com foco nas especificidades do diálogo entre linguagens verbal e visual e uso consciente da tecnologia livro como recurso estético; segundo, em uma análise da infância sob abordagem filosófica e social, em busca dos pressupostos de leitura que o livro ilustrado, ao ser considerado um livro infantil, pode produzir; e terceiro, sobre as particularidades da criação de um objeto que muitas vezes é fruto de quatro autores - o escritor, o ilustrador, o designer e, por vezes, o editor.
In many countries from Europe, North and Latin America there are different terms commonly used by specialists to refer to a certain subcategory of children s literature - picturebook, album illustré, álbum ilustrado, livro-álbum, and bilderbuch - characterized by the role that visual language plays in reading of the work. Despite the want of a specific name for this subcategory in Brazil, there are many examples of Brazilian picturebooks. This research focuses on the picturebook, and analyzes it from three different perspectives: firstly, definitions presented by different Brazilian and foreign authors, with focus on the specificities of the dialog between verbal and visual languages, and the deliberate use of the book technology as an aesthetic object; secondly, analyzing childhood under a philosophical and sociological approach in search of the possible implications to reading that the categorization of the picturebook as children s book may produce; thirdly, the particularities of creating an object which often has four authors - the writer, the illustrator, the designer, and the editor.

Thesis (D.A.)--Illinois State University, 1997.
Title from title page screen, viewed June 5, 2006. Dissertation Committee: Ronald Fortune (chair), Rodger Tarr, Ray Lewis White, Douglas Hesse. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 187-199) and abstract. Also available in print.

This thesis constitutes the first detailed study of the life and works (published and unpublished) of the writer Giovanna Zangrandi (1910-1988). It is a study of the relationship between autobiography, fiction and history in her writing, in the light of recent developments in the criticism of autobiography and of feminist historiography and literary criticism. It aims to place Zangrandi's work in its historical and literary context and pays particular attention to the periods of fascism, the Resistance and neorealism. The thesis considers the nature of autobiography, and the implications of women writing about themselves, and analyses Zangrandi's use of autobiography, highlighting the inevitable intrusion of fiction into such writing. It uses that analysis, along with material including Zangrandi's unpublished diaries and testimonies of people who knew her, to write a biography of Zangrandi and to examine the way that she writes about the fascist period and the Resistance. The question of representing real life in fiction, rather than autobiography, is also discussed, with reference to Zangrandi's first novel and to neorealism. It is shown that, as well as her constant interest in the lives of women, her attitude to history and traditions of the Cadore, the mountainous region in the north of the Veneto, where she lived all her adult life and where nearly all her novels, short stories and autobiography are set, is of considerable importance. Her writing about the Cadore can be seen both as an attempt to write herself into those traditions, and as a means of expressing her commitment to improving society. Moreover, it is argued, her commitment takes the form of both autobiography and fiction as her concern to write about lived experience is balanced by a constant interest in the story-telling tradition of the Cadore and an interpretation of fiction that judges it to be an integral part of everyday life.

This thesis questions how Russian women's identity is attached to the textual use of public/private spaces in contemporary literature by Russian women writers by drawing from feminist theories. I. Grekova and N. Baranskaia portray female protagonists in their everyday lives, public and private worlds overlapping. While these heroines create stable support systems with other women, male figures enter as interruptive forces in women's lives. Hospital settings in several works by Russian women allow comparisons between women's fictional hospital experiences and those of Muscovite women interviewed. In L. Petrushevskaia's stories, women protagonists' identities are linked to the uncertain quality of locale and the tenuous relationships which transpire in it. Russian women's identity expressed in fiction may change as the self-perceptions of a younger generation of Russian women writers evolve toward a new, gendered concept of self.

Nancy Drew is widely recognized as an influential American cultural icon. In this paper I make a detailed examination of Nancy's initial characterization as girl sleuth in the first ten books of the Nancy Drew Mystery Stories, published in the 1930s. I spend another chapter examining the initial volumes of later Nancy Drew series books, specifically the 1960s rewritten texts, the 1980s-90s Nancy Drew Files series, and the contemporary Girl Detective series. My penultimate chapter discusses Nancy Drew as realized in fanfiction, or stories written by readers and fans. My emphasis is on explaining Nancy's appeal as a cultural icon and the ways fanfiction authors reinvent and appropriate that icon for their own purposes in stories. To this end I cite fanfic writers and readers' response to why they read and write Nancy Drew fanfiction, and I analyze the content and function of a sample of stories written by Nancy Drew fans. I conclude that Nancy's appeal and the basis of her status as cultural icon is due to her unique nature as a figure frozen in transition between adolescence and adulthood, along with her more conventionally admirable traits. Her Everygirl appearance when removed from that unique matrix makes her extremely adaptable to readers for their own purposes, both within the context of fanfiction and without.

“Luke Tower sat in front of his laptop, staring first at the unyielding, blinking cursor and then to the bright red “8:05” displayed on his alarm clock. He always made sure to hide the taskbar on his screen, so that time was never an issue, but somehow it always managed to find him in one way or the other.” In many ways, this opening passage sums up Luke’s story. His life is almost a constant state of battle, whether it’s against writer’s block, time, or his unrealized feelings. Through the following story, Luke’s character takes a journey, searching for clues to the mystery of the colony of Roanoake, that may also end up leading him to find other things in his own life, some of which he wasn’t even aware were lost.
Access to thesis permanently restricted to Ball State community only
Department of English

In surveying the cultural context of modern-day Turkey it must be acknowledged that, historically, there have been critical problems between different ethnic (Turkish and Kurdish) and religious groups in Turkey arising from prejudice, intolerance and leading to hatred and conflict. One way of easing the tension between these groups could be by challenging prejudice through developing empathy, understanding and respect. Among a number of ways this could be done, researchers in the field of literacy and children’s literature have stressed the positive effects of reading books that emerge from the transaction between the reader and the text which have the potential to raise awareness about prejudice (Arizpe et al., 2014b; Farrar, 2017). However, research suggests that young people’s amount of reading books is low in Turkey (OECD, 2009; OECD, 2012); in addition, the Board of National Education in Turkey (BNET) and education policies in Turkey have not paid attention to young people’s reading interests or their reading for pleasure (BNET, 2011a and b). Based on the theoretical tenet that reading fiction can affect readers’ thoughts and emotions, the wide aim of this study was to explore the potential of reading fiction for developing empathy and understanding. Given that young people’s reading interests have not been considered in Turkey in detail, this thesis had to begin by investigating what kind of books were preferred and what effects they had on adolescent readers in that country. In order to accomplish this, a case study method with a mixed method design was employed and it was decided that an approach using the Transactional theory of reading as well as Cognitive Criticism would help to achieve this goal. In total, 381 students (aged between 16 and 18) responded to an online questionnaire and 10 of these students participated in interviews and reading activities. The data was analysed using the IBM SPSS 22 statistical analysis program and NVivo qualitative analysis software. The findings of the study identified the significant impact that gatekeepers and facilitators (government, publishers and social community) have on Turkish adolescents’ reading attitudes and choices. It was also found that, although young people liked reading contemporary fiction and online texts, so far this has not been taken into account in the Curriculum and in the promotion of reading in Turkey. The study has identified a major gap between what schools offer and what students read (or between in-school and out-of-school practices), a key aspect in reducing students’ interest in reading books and therefore a missed opportunity for raising awareness about prejudice. Finally, this study provides strong evidence about the potential of reading and discussing books with a small group of adolescent readers, an activity that enabled them to express their thoughts about serious issues and thus supported them in developing self-understanding and understanding of others.

This study of D'Arcy McNickle (1904-1977) focuses primarily on his literary work: his two novels, The Surrounded (1936) and Wind from an Enemy Sky (1978), the manuscript versions of the two novels, and his short fiction. McNickle regarded fiction as a vehicle to explore his own identity as an American Indian. Of mixed French-Cree-American ancestry McNickle grew up on the Flathead Reservation in western Montana. Cut off from the Reservation and its traditions by a rather unhappy childhood, he struggled throughout his life to reestablish the severed bonds to his roots. In addition to this personal involvement in his fiction, McNickle also considered fiction a proper medium for writing tribal history, one that could include such diverse materials as oral tradition, literature, history, anthropology, etc. The first three chapters of the dissertation provide some background information on the Flathead tribal history, as well as the problems and prejudices McNickle encountered while growing up as a "breed," which led to a rejection of his American Indian heritage. This section ends with a consideration of his pivotal years in New York City when he started to rethink his earlier experiences and took the first step on his journey back to his tribal roots. The middle section, chapter four, gives a brief summary of McNickle's activities during the years he was involved with federal Indian policy. Even though McNickle did not work on any new fiction during those years, he continued his journey in a more detached way through non-fiction and biography. The last two chapters of the dissertation, the final stage of his journey, analyzes McNickle's disassociation from the abstract policies of the Bureau of Indian Affairs and how he turned to fiction once more in order to complete the painful but successful journey back to his tribal roots.

Since devolution there has been a wealth of stimulating and exciting literary works by Welsh and Scottish women writers, produced as the boundaries of nationality were being dismantled and ideas of nationhood transformed. This comparative study brings together, for the first time, Scottish and Welsh women writers’ literary responses to these historic political and cultural developments. Chapter one situates the thesis in a historical context and discusses some of the connections between Wales and Scotland in terms of their relationship with ‘Britain’ and England. Chapter two focuses on the theoretical context and argues that postcolonial and feminist theories are the most appropriate frameworks in which to understand both Welsh and Scottish women’s writing in English, and their preoccupations with gendered inequalities and language during the pre- and post-devolutionary period. The third chapter examines Welsh and Scottish women’s writing from the first failed referendum (1979) to the second successful one (1997) to provide a sense of progression towards devolution. Since the process of devolution began there has been an important repositioning of Scottish and Welsh people’s perception of their culture and their place within it; the subsequent chapters – four, five, six and seven – analyse a diverse body of work from the symbolic transference of powers in 1999 to 2008. The writers discussed range from established authors such as Stevie Davies to first-time novelists such as Leela Soma. Through close comparative readings focusing on a range of issues such as marginalised identities and the politics of home and belonging, these chapters uncover and assess Welsh and Scottish women writers’ shared literary assertions, strategies and concerns as well as local and national differences. The conclusions drawn from this thesis suggest that, as a consequence of a history of sustained internal and external marginalization, post-devolution Welsh and Scottish women’s writing share important similarities regarding the politics of representation. The authors discussed in this study are resisting writers who textually illustrate the necessity of constantly rewriting national narratives and in so doing enable their audience to read the two nations and their peoples in fresh, innovative and divergent ways.

PONTIFÍCIA UNIVERSIDADE CATÓLICA DO RIO DE JANEIRO
COORDENAÇÃO DE APERFEIÇOAMENTO DO PESSOAL DE ENSINO SUPERIOR
PROGRAMA DE SUPORTE À PÓS-GRADUAÇÃO DE INSTS. DE ENSINO
Causa estranheza que as listas de livros de ficção mais vendidos no Brasil, publicadas em jornais e revistas nos últimos anos, sejam frequentadas quase que exclusivamente por autores estrangeiros, especialmente quando observamos que a situação não se repete nas listas de livros de não-ficção: nestas, autores brasileiros são maioria. Onde se encontra a explicação para este fenômeno? Será que os autores nacionais de ficção, com suas histórias e formas narrativas, não conseguem despertar o interesse dos leitores brasileiros como fazem os autores de não-ficção? Ou o problema se encontra nas editoras, que preferem investir em livros com sucesso já testado em outros países? E os leitores: por que preferem a ficção estrangeira? Pesquisa como esta daria um romance policial. E deu...
Causes strangeness that best-selling fiction books lists published in Brazilian newspapers and magazines in the last years are almost exclusively frequented by foreign authors, especially when we observe that the situation doesnt repeat at the lists of no-fiction books. What explains this phenomenon? Will it be that national authors of fiction, with its histories and narrative forms, dont gather Brazilian readers interest, as non-fiction authors does? Or the problem lies on publishers, that prefers to invest in books with success already tested in other countries? And the readers: why do they prefer foreign fiction instead of national? This research intends to analyze the situation and to look for answers to all those subjects. I could write a novel with a research like this. And I did…

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Illinois State University, 2004.
Title from title page screen, viewed May 18, 2006. Dissertation Committee: Bob Broad (chair), Jan Neuleib, Ron Fortune. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 148-151) and abstract. Also available in print.

This dissertation examines the complex and multi-faceted ways in which contemporary minority women's fictions may be thought of, both generically and individually, as practices of bearing witness to silence---practices of giving testimony to the presence of lives, experiences, events and historical realities which, otherwise, have been absented from the critical terrain of North American literary studies. For the most pact, the texts included in this study all tell tales of various, and often extreme, forms of sexual, racial, gender, colonial, national and cultural violence. Through readings of select works by Toni Morrison, Shani Mootoo, Arundhati Roy, Louise Erdrich, M. K. Indira, Mahasweta Devi and Leslie Feinberg, I argue for the ways in which these fictions may be understood as situated within the bounds of a genre---a genre that attempts to provide an account of what we might call "the half not told." I examine these fictions, both generically and specifically, as texts which have the ability to make several important critical interventions in the field of literary studies. Firstly, these texts have the potential to negotiate the impasse that feminist and postcolonial literary scholarship finds itself in around debates about the relationship between theory, activism and experience---as well as in debates about the relationship between violence, beauty, culture, subjectivity and desire. Secondly, the fictions under study help to challenge our very definitions of witnessing. Witnessing, in these works, is not simply a matter of "speaking out" against violence, but rather the issue of making space for the affective and emotive dimensions of various kinds of silences and silencings. Finally, in attempting to chart more precise vocabularies with which to assume readings of these narratives, my thesis also helps to think about the ways in which reading, writing and storytelling may, themselves, be seen as profoundly ethical undertakings that seek to give evidence

In 2011, over 1.5 million new book titles were published in the United States, a 400% increase in just five years compared to 2006. In the same time period, the market share for eBooks increased dramatically and now comprises 20% or more of sales from many of the biggest publishing companies. This hyper-abundance of titles in an increasingly heterogeneous market place has made it difficult for consumers to connect to books they might want to read. This is the discovery problem. It is compounded by the continuing decline of traditional gatekeepers and sources of discovery such as mass media reviews and advertising, as well as the decline of traditional bookstores where people often find books through browse. Authors and publishers therefore have turned to social media to spread the word about their titles. Social gatekeeping, an extension of traditional gatekeeping theory, is proposed as the framework for understanding how author participation in social networks initiates a flow of the diffusion of information over the web and other computer mediated communication channels, and through individuals and social networks to potential readers. Serendipitous browse and discovery is a key strategy for readers to find titles of interest, and the serendipitous tie is proposed as a social mechanism through which individuals discover new titles and bring it back to their social networks to share. To explore these concepts, a random sample of new eBook titles published during the first week of April, 2012 was generated and analyzed in three phases. The first phase of research classified books and authors according to facets such as traditional or self-published, use of social media and other factors. The second phase used multiple regression to establish an association between the use of social media by authors and a title's sales and presence on the Web. The third phase reviewed selected titles for new approaches to social media use and evidence of the serendipitous tie. The results are consistent with the hypothesis that author web presence predicts discoverability and sales.

For the past decade or so, a shaky aura of respectability has surrounded the genre of science fiction. Recognition as a branch of literature was late coming to what was, and to some extent still is, a confused form of fiction. Critics are still unable to agree on a definition of science fiction; they are no longer even sure what the letters 'SF' should stand for; they argue about its role, relevance and historical origins, and debate its relationship with 'mainstream' literature. What they do seem to agree on, however, is that science fiction is a form of popular literature that offers an alternative approach to the common concerns of the dominant mode of narrative - realist fiction. Having been relegated to the periphery of 'literature' for so long, the realm of science fiction has been largely unmediated by academic criticism and there is still a tendency for some literary critics to dismiss science fiction as childish, escapist and generally unimportant. Kirpal Singh (1983) explains: Various factors have conspired - and I use the term deliberately - to create problems for sf. As is usual in most areas of human intercourse whenever an apparently new and vigorous subject offers itself for exploration, human beings are wont to put up resistance. The literary fraternity ... have time and again given scant attention to sf. Some critics see sf as an inferior form of literary expression and so do not think it worth their time and energy; sf in their minds is associated with Superman, Bug-Eyed Monsters, and Spaceships. They find all this irritating, or at best amusing. There is a tendency - very often expressed in no uncertain terms - to regard sf as juvenile ... not quite the thing for adults and certainly not suitable for the literary critic. (p.106) Not only science fiction, however, has suffered at the hands of literary critics as has been indicated by Stephen Knight in his book, Form and Ideology in Crime Fiction (1980): Literary criticism has shied away from commercial success as a ground for taking a book seriously. Literary critical skills have not been used to study the interests and needs of mass society: they have been turned inwards in a fully ideological way to gratify and ratify the taste - and needs to - of the highly educated minority who validate their position by displaying a grasp of complicated cultural artifacts. (p.2) Marc Angenot has described 'paraliterature' as occupying "the space outside the literary enclosure, as a forbidden, taboo, and perhaps degraded product; against which the 'self' of literature is forged". (in Parrinder, 1980, p.46) Despite the discriminatory 'high' versus 'low' literary dichotomy, it is becoming less necessary to justify the study of popular literary forms. Recent years have seen a stretching of boundaries resulting in a proliferation of essays that address various forms of popular literature, science fiction included, by people from a wide variety of disciplinary perspectives. Most of these studies have approached popular literature as bodies of fictional works with similar themes. They typically focus on such textual elements as plot formula, narrative, characterisation, style and symbolism. Derek Longhurst ( 1989) identifies "a range of largely formalist strategies designed to demonstrate that unlike 'literature', popular fiction was standardized and formulaic, a debased coinage of little 'moral' value, distorting the truths of 'lived experience', time-bound rather than addressing the transhistorical and universal territory of the 'human condition"'. (p.1) Such strategies ignore the actual readers of popular literature and as a result the cultural roles of such texts are not well understood. "A good literary critic should be able to say why a mass-seller works, and how it works. The dismissive certainties of most comments on popular culture do not satisfy these requirements." (Knight, p.2) Popular culture audiences have received quite condescending treatment as many studies have assumed them to be a passive and receptive body upon which ideological content is inflicted. In 1981, Janice Radway, writing about Gothic romances, expressed concern at the lack of theories connecting popular literature and culture: " ... studies characterized by considerable variety in subject matter and method are united by their common assumption that popular literature tends only to reconfirm cultural convention". (p.140) Radway's insistence on shifting attention from isolated texts 'to the complex social event of reading' culminated in her development of an innovative methodology for analysing popular literature and its application to romantic fiction (1984). Having concluded that 'ethnographies of reading' were what was required, Radway set out to discover what it is about romantic fiction that captivates millions of female readers. In Reading the Romance (1984), Radway describes how, instead of focusing on the romantic text alone, she concentrated on the readers' perspective. In distinguishing between the event of reading and the actual text, Radway draws heavily on the work of Stanley Fish (1980) who challenges the notion of text as a fixed object. Although Fish's views imply an impotency of the actual text that deserves to be questioned, his identification of the informed reader as part of an interpretive community that agrees upon interpretive conventions is extremely important. Richard Johnson (1986) advocates the connection of readings with 'lived culture' and the necessity to study the readers' milieu (p.285). While acknowledging the importance of textual analysis, Johnson questions its competence to handle an 'inter-discursive reality of reading'. Longhurst describes this emergence of involvement of the reader as an emphasis on reading 'textuality' rather than the reading of self-contained texts (p.5). It is Radway's model for popular literature analysis that lays the groundwork for this present study, which focuses on the nature of the relationship between science fiction readers and the science fiction text. The objective of this research is to gain a greater understanding of what motivates people to read a particular type of text and to strive toward an explanation for the genre's popularity. Some of the questions to be explored are: what do the readers find particularly interesting and enjoyable about these texts?; what are their criteria for distinguishing between 'good' and 'bad' texts?; and to what extent does the collective enthusiasm exhibited by some readers of science fiction affect the content of science fiction texts? For Radway's Smithton readers, the event of reading was considered more important than any particular novel encountered in the process. Similarly, this study will reveal that reading texts as a member of the science fiction community is more important to the readers than are the individual texts themselves. 'Fandom' is central to science fiction. In a genre long neglected by outside commentators, science fiction fandom has established its own standards of quality (Lundwall, 1971, p.227). Commenting on the social universe of fandom, author Roger Zelazny (1975) writes: ... science fiction is unique in possessing a fandom and convention system which make for personal contacts between authors and readers, a situation which may be of peculiar significance. When an author is in a position to meet and speak with large numbers of his readers he cannot help, at least for a little while, feeling somewhat as oldtime story-tellers must have felt in facing the questions and the comments of a live audience. The psychologbe given some consideration as an influence on the field. (p.11) This subculture of fandom peculiar to science fiction attracts hordes of devotees world-wide. They set up clubs, edit magazines, share a shorthand language of fandom, attend science fiction conventions and take their place in a vast network of correspondence. Ursula Le Guin identifies "a ready audience - ready to discuss and to defend and to attack and to argue with each other and with the artist, to the irritation of and the entertainment and the benefit of them all" (1975). Bob Tucker describes the science fiction phenomenon as "a network of infinite self-analysis and mutual support which is quite unparalleled even in Alcoholics Anonymous" (1975). Such descriptions highlight the existence of an active, socially important subculture. The very nature and extent of communication within the science fiction community, particularly the relatively enormous amount of feedback science fiction writers receive from readers, makes it appear simplistic to explain the proliferation of the different variations of the science fiction literary form as a preoccupation of writers alone. "In the democratic, if incestuous, processes of this subculture, SF readers are more vocal than those of other popular forms, and as a consequence, exercise some influence over writers and publishers." (Mellor, 1984) According to Linda Fleming (1978), in an article titled "The American SF Subculture", A SF subculture originated, developed, and exists today because of the enthusiasm SF arouses in some people, the subsequent commercial exploitation of that enthusiasm, and because both professionals and readers have found belonging to a group a socially rewarding experience for brief or long periods of their lives. (p.290) Fleming prompts the investigation of this network which mediates the reading experience for so many readers and has done so for many years. Sheical process involved in this should poses questions about fandom and the nature of people's involvement in science fiction that have yet to be answered adequately by research. This study will illuminate several of these, accepting Fleming's assertion that modern science fiction cannot be fully understood without understanding the subculture in which so much of it evolved. In order to account for the existence of modern science fiction and its many themes, a review of the field of science fiction will include a brief history of the genre and its followers. The Australian science fiction scene will be examined so that the primary research can be considered in context. Central to this study are the members of the Melbourne Science Fiction Club who, as survey respondents, have expressed what it is to be part of Australian science fiction fandom as no external critic can. The Melbourne Science Fiction Club was chosen to take part in the survey for several reasons: Melbourne is recognised as the centre of Australian science fiction fandom; the Club has a history longer than most others in Australia (it was formed in 1953); the Club meets every week and produces a bimonthly publication; it is a 'general' club, that is, not concerned solely with one particular strand of science fiction, like Star Trek movies; and, most importantly, the members were willing participants. Obviously, members of the Melbourne Science Fiction Club do not constitute a random representative sample of readers of the science fiction genre. They did, however, present an excellent opportunity to test questionnaire design and sample a slice of science fiction's active readership. The survey of readers is supplemented with content analysis of their Club 'fanzine', Ethel the Aardvark, and science fiction texts are discussed as the products of interpretation. Of the great variety of science fiction narrative types, disaster novels are identified as possessing a formula that has proved particularly durable. Discussion of several disaster texts that illustrate the modern evolution of this formula reveals many of science fiction's icons and oppositions that promote regularities in textual readings. While the questionnaire follows a similar format to that designed by Radway, it has proved more appropriate to tap science fiction fandom's correspondence and fanzine network than to hold in-depth discussions with Club members as Radway was able to arrange with the Smithton readers. Science fiction fandom's preference and, indeed, exuberance, for written communication has compensated for some of the problems inherent in being distanced from survey respondents. The reason for choosing to follow Radway's method, aside from its wide acclaim as a useful model for future literary research, is an interest in applying her approach to another genre of popular literature. Radway offers a way of connecting the analysis of texts and structural insights with study of the readers in the texts' wider socio-cultural context. The nature of repetitive reading of various types of science fiction texts becomes particularly interesting when it is considered that fans may be equally, if not more, submerged in science fiction fandom than they are in science fiction.

This project consists of two parts, Section One: Steel Riders, a novel for young adult readers, and Section Two: An Hermeneutical Examination q(Steel Riders. Section One: Steel Riders is a hybrid text based largely on the conventions of the detective novel. The protagonist of Steel Riders is a nineteen-year-old university student, Bella Buchanan, who returns to her home in a small industrial town in regional Western Australia. Bella is disillusioned with her life in the city, but finds that she has become alienated from the life of her peers in her home town of Sandon. This distancing of Bella allows her to observe the manners of the townspeople from the perspective of an outsider/insider. Bella's quiet life is interrupted by the arrival of her ex-boyfriend, Tallis McGuin, local Nyungah football hero who has recently joined the police force as an Aboriginal Police Aid. Bella's life is thrown into further turmoil when she begins work as a security guard at the local sand mining plant. It is here at the plant that Bella discovers a plot to conceal an important anthropological report relating to a local Nyungah burial ground. The resulting 'investigation' undertaken by Bella and Tallis into this situation results in their uncovering of local government corruption and a large, commercial marijuana plantation. This simple plot allows for a complex investigation of many issues and situations that confront young people living in regional and remote areas and at the same time celebrates the beauty of the Australian bush and the importance of community. Section Two: An Hermeneutical Examination of Steel Riders is a circular investigation of the journey to creativity which investigates the ways in which the lived experience feeds the creative impulse. The fictional town of Sandon, where Steel Riders is set, is based on the real-life coal-mining town of Collie in Western Australia where I have lived for a number of years. My experiences before I came to Collie and my "life-relation" (Bultmann, 1986, p. 243) to that town, my researches into the history of the town, and my friendships with the local residents, both Nyungah and Wadgela, are interrogated within the context of the Hermeneutic Circle and the work of Johann Martin Chladenius (1742/1986) and Johann Gustav Droysen (1858/J 986). Steel Riders features a number of Indigenous characters and I have contextualised my position as a white, female writer within a discourse of Aboriginalism as propounded by Bob Hodge and Vijay Mishra (1991 ).

A key aim of this study is to shed light on the representation of coloured women with reference to racial passing, using fictive characters depicted in Sarah Gertrude Millin’s (1924) God’s Stepchildren,Zoë Wicomb’s (2006) Playing in the Light, and Pat Stamatélos’s (2005) Kroes, as presented by these three racially distinct female South African authors.Since I propose that literature provides a link between a subjective history and the under-represented narratives from the margins, I use literature to reimagine these. I analyse the ways in which the authors present ‘hybrid’ identities within their characters in different ways, and provide an explanation and contextual basis for the exploration of the theme of ‘passing for and as white’ within South Africa’s complex history. I provide a sociological explanation of the act of racial passing in South Africa with reference to the United States by incorporating Nella Larsen’s (1929) Passing. Since the analyses will concentrate on coloured females within the texts, gendered identity and female sexuality and stereotypes will be the focus. I look at the act and agent of passing, the role of raced and gendered performance in giving meaning to social identities, and the way in which the female body is constructed in racial terms in order to confer identity. Tracing the historical origins of coloured identity and coloured female identity, I interrogate this colonial, post-colonial, apartheid and post-apartheid history by employing a feminist lens. A combination of postcolonial feminist discourse analysis, sociological inquiry and feminist narrative analysis are therefore the methods I use to achieve my research aims.
Magister Artium - MA

This qualitative research study examined the concepts of authorship exhibited by twelve selected good readers and writers in grades six and eight. Data were collected during pre-writing session interviews, five hour-long writing sessions, and post-composition interviews, and from written compositions and questionnaires. The following conclusions were drawn from the study. School and home reading programs that emphasized children's literature selections and regular and wide-ranged reading practices directly influenced the subjects' writing behaviors and concepts of authorship. In addition, those students who performed strongest as authors were those who found time to write privately at home or in a home-like situation. Revision occurred in traditional ways, such as movement or deletion of text, but also appeared to be related to the subjects' personal writing styles, such as verbalization, mental outlining, or reading the text out loud. Both grade levels exhibited individual writing development through integration of experiences, knowledge, and physical and social maturation. For these young writers, the key factor in perceived authorship was whether a writer had an interest in and enjoyed writing.

Contemporary young readers have not just derived comfort from their consumption of gothic texts, they have offered generative responses that indicate huge diversity in both content and format in their interrogation of the gothic. These generative responses, ranging from persuasive writing containing complex argument structures; parodies and satiric play, among other responses, indicate young readers’ confidence and comfort critiquing gothic texts. This is in contrast to well-documented adult fears and moral panic, past and present, about gothic texts’ perceived negative influence on young readers, such as having difficulty differentiating fact from fiction, or being easily misled by gothic’s compelling narratives. Borrowing research from sociology and psychology, in addition to literary theories, and data from neurological studies, this thesis offers a systematic investigation on young readers consuming gothic texts which are targeted at them, as opposed to the implied young reader of the gothic, or gothic texts targeted at adults. Using a historical case study of young adult readers, this study also demonstrates that the phenomenon of young readers avidly and comfortably interrogating the gothic, with no signs of being confused, is in fact, not new. Instead, having identified and defined two separate genres of gothic texts – romance gothic focusing on romance with the monster; and horror gothic which has explicit violence, and grotesque and disgusting elements – this investigation presents original data from fieldwork conducted at two local schools of 23 students (age eleven to thirteen) reading and discussing Darren Shan’s horror gothic text, Lord Loss. Data on reader reception for romance gothic is from young adult readers (age 25 and below), who have comfortably and confidently posted their responses online based on Stephenie Meyer’s romance gothic Twilight series of books and films. Evidence indicates that contemporary young readers are carving out their own unique (albeit transient) conceptual space, in which they have derived great comfort and enjoyment in consuming gothic texts of romance gothic or horror gothic. By sharing their opinions online, and in discussion groups, these young readers are discovering their own voice in passionately embracing or gleefully vanquishing the monster in the comfort of consuming horror.

The purpose of this study was to investigate if there is a difference in the way male and female authors of contemporary realistic fiction for young adults portray decision making by their male or female protagonists. Questions asked in the study were: (1) Do female writers of contemporary young adult realistic fiction employ an ethic of justice or an ethic of care for male protagonists involved in moral decision making? (2) Do female writers of contemporary young adult realistic fiction employ an ethic of justice or an ethic of care for female protagonists involved in moral decision making? (3) Do male writers of contemporary young adult realistic fiction employ an ethic of justice or an ethic of care for male protagonists involved in moral decision making? and (4) Do male writers of contemporary young adult realistic fiction employ an ethic of justice or an ethic of care for female protagonists involved in moral decision making? Content analysis was used as the method of collecting data. The sample consisted of 194 novels written from 1989 to 1998, 53 of which contained a moral dilemma. A discussion of the novels included examples of moral dilemmas, alternative solutions, dilemma resolutions, and resolutions based upon care or justice. Analysis of the data revealed: (1) Female writers employ an ethic of care and an ethic of justice for male protagonists involved in moral decision making. (2) Female writers prefer an ethic of care for female protagonists involved in moral decision making. (3) Male writers prefer an ethic of justice for male protagonists involved in moral decision making. (4) Male writers prefer an ethic of justice for female protagonists involved in moral decision making.

This thesis consists of an original novel, Rogue, and an exegesis titled Wonderlust: the value of wonder for readers, writers, and The Vault. Rogue is the second novel of the series titled The Vault, which is a speculative fiction duology for young adults (thirteen and above) with the possibility for crossover into adult readership. Rogue picks up the story of fifteen-year-old Hayley who, after choosing to leave her previous home of an underwater seed vault, finds herself washed onto the cliffs of Maria Island, off the coast of Tasmania. As Hayley ventures further into the terrestrial ‘real world’ of 2120, she must call on her wits, intelligence, and creativity to survive. Rogue is a story of new beginnings, discovery, belonging, relationships, choice, and responsibility. Wonderlust: the value of wonder for readers, writers, and The Vault, is an examination of wonder which investigates the role of wonder in literature and how it can be evoked without relying on overused tropes of science fiction. The exegesis first explores the experience of wonder and its importance to us individually and collectively, along with its relationship to philosophy, psychology, nature, and science. Secondly, it investigates wonder in literature, particularly in speculative fiction: its composition, appeal, reception and potential, on and beyond the page. It specifically examines how narrative elements have been successfully manipulated to facilitate wonder in creating an original two-book series of speculative fiction for young adults titled The Vault. Thirdly, it discusses the role of wonder for the writer, both as initial impulse for creativity and as an experience during the writing process. In this, reference is made to the writing of Rogue: a novel inspired and shaped by wonder. Ultimately, the thesis argues the value of wonder in fiction — particularly contemporary young adult fiction — and positions Rogue in this context as a work which reminds readers of the astonishments of this puzzling world, and their important place within it.

The commitment to community shared by Native American authors such as N. Scott Momaday, James Welch, and Louise Erdrich is partially evinced by each author's readiness to inscribe in novel form the values and traditions of the tribal community or communities with which he/she is closely associated. Many students of the novel will attest to its pliant, sometimes transmutable nature; nevertheless, as this study attempts to make clear, there are some reasons why Native American authors should reconsider using the novel as a means to express their tribal communities' values and traditions. Unambivalent prescriptions, however, seem more suited to the requirements of law or medicine; and so this study also examines some of the reasons why Native American authors should continue to embrace this relatively "new" art form persistently termed the novel.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, San Diego, 2009.
Title from first page of PDF file (viewed July 7, 2009). Available via ProQuest Digital Dissertations. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 237-258).

Olive Schreiner, writing in the tradition of George Eliot and the Brontës, was an isolated yet original figure who opened up new directions in women's fiction. In her novels, The Story of an African Farm (1883) and From Man to Man (1926) she developed a feminist critique of colonialism that was based on her own coming-of-age as a writer in South Africa. Schreiner's work inspired and influenced Isak Dinesen, Doris Lessing and Nadine Gordimer, who have pursued their visions of the colonial African heroine in changing forms which nevertheless consciously hark back to the "mother novel." Dinesen's Out of Africa (1937), Lessing's Martha Quest (1952) and Gordimer's The Lying Days (1953) are in a sense revisions of Schreiner's Story of an African Farm. These texts, together with later novels by Lessing and Gordimer (such as Shikasta and Burger's Daughter, 1979) and key short stories by the four writers, form a body of writing I call the "African Farm" texts. Written in different colonial countries—South Africa, Kenya and Rhodesia—in response to different historical circumstances, from different ideological and aesthetic stances, the "African Farm" fictions depict the problematic situation of the white African heroine who is alienated both from white colonial society and from black Africa. Through her own rebellion against patriarchal mores as she struggles to define herself as an artistic, intellectual woman in a hostile environment, she uncovers the connections between patriarchy and racism under colonialism. She begins to identify with the black Africans in their oppression and their incipient struggle for independence; however she cannot shed her white inheritance of privilege and guilt. Just as colonial society (the white "African Farm") becomes for her a desert, a cemetery, a false, barren, "petrified garden," so black Africa becomes its idealized counterpart: a fertile realm of harmony and possibility, the true Garden of Eden from which she, as White Eve, is exiled. I trace the "African Farm" theme and imagery through the work of other white Southern African writers, such as J.M. Coetzee, whose stark, poetic, postmodernist novels can be read as a coda to the realistic fiction of the four women writers. Finally, I look at the post-"African Farm" texts of such transitional writers as Bessie Head, whose novels of black Africa preserve a suggestive link with Schreiner.
Arts, Faculty of
English, Department of
Graduate

This creative practice-led thesis is in two parts - a novella entitled Leaning into the Light and an exegesis dealing with issues for creative writers who are non-Indigenous engaging with Indigenous characters and inter-cultural relationships. The novella is based on a woman's tale of a cross cultural friendship and is set in a Queensland Cape York Aboriginal community over a period of fifteen years. Leaning into the Light is for the most part set in the late 1960s, and as such tracks some of the social and personal cost of colonisation through its depiction of Indigenous and non-Indigenous relationships within a Christian run mission. In short, Leaning into the Light creates an imaginary space of intercultural relationships that is nevertheless grounded in a particular experience of a 'real' place and time where Indigenous and non-Indigenous subjectivities collide and communicate. The exegesis is principally concerned with issues of non-Indigenous representation of indigeneity, an area of enquiry and scholarship that is being increasingly theorized and debated in contemporary cultural and literary studies. In this field, two questions raised by Fee (in Ashcroft, Griffiths and Tiffin, 1995) are key concerns in the exegesis. How do we determine who is a member of the Aboriginal minority group, and can majority members speak for this minority? The intensification of interest around these issues follows a period of debate in the 1990s which in turn was spawned by the "unprecedented politicisation of {Australian} history" (Collins and Davis, 2004, p.5) following the important Mabo decision which overturned the "nation's founding doctrine of terra nullius" (ibid, p.2). These debates questioned whether or not non-Aboriginal authors could legitimately include Aboriginal themes and characters in their work (Huggins, 1994; Wheatley, 1994, Griffiths, et al in Tiffin and Lawson, 1994), and covered important political and ethical considerations, at the heart of which were issues of representation and authenticity. Moreover, there were concerns about non-Indigenous authors competing for important symbolic and publishing space with Indigenous authors. In the writing of Leaning into the Light, these issues became pivotal to the representation of character and situation and as such constitute the key points of analysis in the exegesis.

This creative practice-led thesis is in two parts - a novella entitled Leaning into the Light and an exegesis dealing with issues for creative writers who are non-Indigenous engaging with Indigenous characters and inter-cultural relationships. The novella is based on a woman's tale of a cross cultural friendship and is set in a Queensland Cape York Aboriginal community over a period of fifteen years. Leaning into the Light is for the most part set in the late 1960s, and as such tracks some of the social and personal cost of colonisation through its depiction of Indigenous and non-Indigenous relationships within a Christian run mission. In short, Leaning into the Light creates an imaginary space of intercultural relationships that is nevertheless grounded in a particular experience of a 'real' place and time where Indigenous and non-Indigenous subjectivities collide and communicate. The exegesis is principally concerned with issues of non-Indigenous representation of indigeneity, an area of enquiry and scholarship that is being increasingly theorized and debated in contemporary cultural and literary studies. In this field, two questions raised by Fee (in Ashcroft, Griffiths and Tiffin, 1995) are key concerns in the exegesis. How do we determine who is a member of the Aboriginal minority group, and can majority members speak for this minority? The intensification of interest around these issues follows a period of debate in the 1990s which in turn was spawned by the "unprecedented politicisation of {Australian} history" (Collins and Davis, 2004, p.5) following the important Mabo decision which overturned the "nation's founding doctrine of terra nullius" (ibid, p.2). These debates questioned whether or not non-Aboriginal authors could legitimately include Aboriginal themes and characters in their work (Huggins, 1994; Wheatley, 1994, Griffiths, et al in Tiffin and Lawson, 1994), and covered important political and ethical considerations, at the heart of which were issues of representation and authenticity. Moreover, there were concerns about non-Indigenous authors competing for important symbolic and publishing space with Indigenous authors. In the writing of Leaning into the Light, these issues became pivotal to the representation of character and situation and as such constitute the key points of analysis in the exegesis.