Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Fictions, Theory of'
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1
Watson, Lauren Pamela. "Contingencies and masterly fictions : deconstructive dialogues in/between Dickens, contemporary fiction and theory." Thesis, Lancaster University, 2007. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.444642.
2
O'Rawe, Catherine Geraldine. "Fictions of theory and theories of fiction : umorismo, metaphor and epiphany in the narrative of Luigi Pirandello." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2001. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.621235.
3
Kelly, Alexandra. "Fingo, fingere, finxi, fictum a philosophical treatment of fiction /." Diss., Connect to the thesis, 2004. http://hdl.handle.net/10066/711.
4
Gough, Noel Patrick, and noelg@deakin edu au. "Intertextual turns in curriculum inquiry: fictions, diffractions and deconstructions." Deakin University. School of Social and Cultural Studies in Education, 2003. http://tux.lib.deakin.edu.au./adt-VDU/public/adt-VDU20040517.163306.
Abstract:
This thesis is based primarily on work published in academic refereed journals between 1994 and 2003. Taken as a whole, the thesis explores and enacts an evolving methodology for curriculum inquiry which foregrounds the generativity of fiction in reading, writing and representing curriculum problems and issues. This methodology is informed by the narrative and textual 'turns' in the humanities and social sciences - especially poststructuralist and deconstructive approaches to literary and cultural criticism - and is performed as a series of narrative experiments and 'intertextual turns'. Narrative theory suggests that we can think of all discourse as taking the form of a story, and poststructuralist theorising invites us to think of all discourse as taking the form of a text; this thesis argues that intertextual and deconstructive readings of the stories and texts that constitute curriculum work can produce new meanings and understandings. The thesis places particular emphasis on the uses of fiction and fictional modes of representation in curriculum inquiry and suggests that our purposes might sometimes be better served by (re)presenting the texts we produce as deliberate fictions rather than as 'factual' stories. The thesis also demonstrates that some modes and genres of fiction can help us to move our research efforts beyond 'reflection' (an optical metaphor for displacing an image) by producing texts that 'diffract' the normative storylines of curriculum inquiry (diffraction is an optical metaphor for transformation). The thesis begins with an introduction that situates (autobiographically and historically) the narrative experiments and intertextual turns performed in the thesis as both advancements in, and transgressions of, deliberative and critical reconceptualist curriculum theorising. Several of the chapters that follow examine textual continuities and discontinuities between the various objects and methods of curriculum inquiry and particular fictional genres (such as crime stories and science fiction) and/or particular fictional works (including Bram Stoker's Dracula, J.M. Coetzee's Disgrace, and Ursula Le Guin's The Telling). Other chapters demonstrate how intertextual and deconstructive reading strategies can inform inquiries focused on specific subject matters (with particular reference to environmental education) and illuminate contemporary issues and debates in curriculum (especially the internationalisation and globalisation of curriculum work). The thesis concludes with suggestions for further refinement of methodologies that privilege narrative and fiction in curriculum inquiry.
5
Dreshfield, Anne C. ""All are finally fictions": Fan Fiction as Creative Empowerment Through the Re-Writing of "Reality"." Scholarship @ Claremont, 2013. http://scholarship.claremont.edu/scripps_theses/237.
Abstract:
This paper examines online fan fiction communities as spaces for identity formation, collaborative creativity, and fan empowerment. Drawing on case studies of a LiveJournal fan fiction community, fan-written essays, possible world theory, and postmodern theories of the hyperreal and simulacrum, this paper argues that writing fan fiction is a definitive, postmodern act that explores the mutable boundaries of reality and fiction. It concludes that fans are no longer passive consumers of popular media—rather, they are engaged, powerful participants in the creation of celebrity representation that can, ultimately, alter reality.
6
Cesare, Nicole L. "Intricate Fictions: Cartography and the Contemporary African Novel." Diss., Temple University Libraries, 2014. http://cdm16002.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/p245801coll10/id/255972.
Abstract:
EnglishPh.D.
Intricate Fictions: Cartography and the Contemporary African Novel examines the relationship between narrative and mapping practices in recent African novels. Considering the continent's well-documented history as a site of cartographical projection, I ask how its literary output remaps this space in the years following colonial rule. This project responds to calls for increased attentiveness to space in African literature, employing an interdisciplinary methodology that puts critical cartography into conversation with African literary criticism and globalization studies. I trace a trajectory from post-independence novels writing against colonial depictions of the continent to contemporary novels interested in engaging the instability concomitant with globalization and its attendant diasporas, migrations, and challenges to epistemological categories such as the nation. These novels develop what I term dynamic cartography, a mode of space-writing characterized by fluidity, disjunction, and mobility. This study brings to the fore a corpus of works that embody the spatial tensions of the contemporary era, raising provocative questions about our metageographical and cartographical tendencies. As absolute frameworks of time and space give way, new modes of space-writing continue to blur the boundaries between the map and the novel, offering further avenues of analysis. Ultimately, I pursue these avenues in order to contend that as global space becomes increasingly dynamic, so too do the genres that represent that global space. Contemporary African novels, composed with a profound awareness of geographical transformation, are thus also positioned at the forefront of generic transformation.
Temple University--Theses
7
Joyce, Laura Ellen. "Luminol theory and the excavation of narrative, &, The dead girl scrolls : unearthed apocalyptic fictions." Thesis, University of Sussex, 2015. http://sro.sussex.ac.uk/id/eprint/58510/.
Abstract:
This thesis is concerned with developing a new approach to reading and thinking about culture (especially US culture), which I am proposing to call Luminol Theory. Luminol Theory is a textual reading strategy that draws on both psychoanalysis and depth reading. It reveals what has been occulted and it illuminates the contemporary United States as a crime scene. I argue for the singular importance of Luminol Theory as it provides a dystopian account of contemporary culture in the US. A culture that is haunted, that is characterised by injustice and brutality, and that reads bodies as disposable. I introduce luminol as an agent of forensic enquiry that excavates and illuminates narratives, particularly crime narratives, which have been erased. This interdisciplinary intersection of theory, forensic science, and literary criticism offers a specific, contemporary textual reading strategy. I situate Luminol Theory within its origins in feminism (with particular reference to Tiqqun's theory of the ‘Young-Girl'), psychoanalysis (with particular reference to Kristevan abject-analysis, queer theory, and the field of death studies), and depth reading strategies (working through Paul Ricoeur's ‘hermeneutics of suspicion' and Michel Foucault's ‘genealogy' and ‘archaeology'). Though it draws on each of these fields, Luminol Theory is a new contribution to contemporary literary criticism. The three critical chapters investigate the contemporary Unites States as a crime scene, moving through the exploratory steps that a forensic investigation might take. The first chapter opens with a reading of the crime scene itself by embedding Colorado crime fictions within the violent history of the state. The second chapter discovers artefacts at the scene, reading textual objects for hidden meanings and reading contemporary experimental fiction from the United States as apocalyptic material, through the lens of the Book of Revelation. Just as Revelation literally reveals the cultural anxieties of first millennium Christians and their fears of impending apocalypse so too Skin Horse by Olivia Cronk and Entrance to a Pageant where we all begin to Intricate by Johannes Göransson are apocalyptic texts for the third millennium. The final critical chapter approaches the body of the dead girl at the heart of the crime scene in order to discover the aesthetic coherence between death and femininity and the violence wrought interchangeably by sexual violence and capital. The fourth section of the thesis demonstrates Luminol Theory in practice. This collection of short fictions The Dead Girl Scrolls: Unearthed Apocalyptic Fictions is modelled on the Dead Sea Scrolls. The Dead Sea Scrolls were found serendipitously by shepherds in 1946 in the Qumran caves, West Bank. These scrolls contain a key to ancient languages, cultures, and narratives that were previously hidden. Later forensic analysis of the papyrus scrolls involved using UV light, a blue chemical glow that excavated layers of hidden narrative. By offering a secular version of these sacred texts, The Dead Girl Scrolls operates within a forensic imaginary; that is, it performs an empathetic and creative response to the secular aporia. It does this through offering dead women a central position that refuses to reify, objectify, or fetishise them or their bodies.
8
Penazzi, Leonardo. "The fellow (novel) : and Australian historical fiction, debating the perceived past (dissertation) /." Connect to this title, 2007. http://theses.library.uwa.edu.au/adt-WU2008.0070.
9
Diarra, Myriam. "Figures et fictions d'auteur chez Lucien de Samosate." Thesis, Paris 4, 2017. http://www.theses.fr/2017PA040141.
Abstract:
Partant du constat de l'omniprésence de Lucien dans son corpus, notre thèse se propose de dresser un panorama des autoreprésentations auctoriales dans l'ensemble de l'œuvre de Lucien de Samosate, mais dans une perspective résolument théorique. En effet, parce qu'il se constitue comme point focal de sa propre œuvre, Lucien a souvent tendance à faire l'objet d'une lecture biographique de la part de la critique. Cette thèse se donne pour objet de redonner à l'autoreprésentation de l'auteur son sens de geste poétique. En choisissant le terme de figure, auquel on donne ici un sens plus restreint qu'à celui de persona, on s'intéressera uniquement aux moments où l'auteur fait explicitement l'objet de son propre discours.La première partie de notre thèse consiste donc en une importante typologie des mises en scène de soi chez Lucien: on part des apparitions les plus explicites de l'auteur en contexte référentiel, dans le corpus oratoire ou biographique, pour traiter ensuite de la partie fictionnelle du corpus. L'un des objectifs de ce travail est en effet de redonner à Lucien sa place de pionnier dans l'invention de l'autofiction.La seconde partie de notre thèse tire les conclusions poétiques de cette typologie, en dégageant aux autoreprésentations de l'auteur une double fonction : d'abord, elles doivent dire l'individu social et intellectuel, mais dans une démarche qui transcende les genres et la séparation traditionnelle entre référentialité et fiction. Ensuite, les figures de l'auteur ont pour fonction de servir de vecteur à un message métapoétique extrêmement riche, qui va de la théorie de la fiction à celle de la réceptionThe starting point of this PhD thesis was the constatation of Lucian's omnipresence within his own corpus. This phenomenon often led critics to have an excessively biographical approach to this author. The aim of this thesis is thus to give an account of the vast scope of self-representations within Lucian's corpus, in a theoretical perspective, in order to show that the staging of the self can be seen as a poetical gesture. The first part of this work thus consists in a typology of all the auctorial self-representations that can be found within Lucian's œuvre. It ranges from the most explicit forms of authorial presence, in referential works, such as prolaliai and biographies, to the most fictional part of the corpus. The aim of this work is to establish Lucian's position as a pioneer in the invention of autofiction.The second part of this thesis draws the theoretical conclusions of this typology, by showing that authorial self-representations have two main functions : first, they help defining Lucian's social and intellectual identity, beyond generic boudaries ; second, they serve a metaliterary purpose : as vicarious surrogates, Lucian's doubles appear as a powerful means of expressing his aesthetical views
10
Pei, Kong-ngai. "Fictional characters and their names a defense of the fact theory /." Click to view the E-thesis via HKUTO, 2007. http://sunzi.lib.hku.hk/hkuto/record/b4020389x.
11
Pei, Kong-ngai, and 貝剛毅. "Fictional characters and their names: a defense of the fact theory." Thesis, The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong), 2007. http://hub.hku.hk/bib/B4020389X.
12
Ivanovitch, Alexandra. "Fictions d'apocryphes au XXeme siècle chez Borges, Boulgakov et Saramago. Théorie et parcours." Thesis, Paris 4, 2012. http://www.theses.fr/2012PA040140.
Abstract:
Dans Naissance de Dieu. La Bible et l’historien, Jean Bottéro explique qu’il ne nous est resté que le livret de la pièce : la Bible. L’apocryphe en est le supplément. Outre les livraisons irrégulières et parcimonieuses, venues des sables d’Égypte entre autres, que nous a léguées l’histoire des découvertes archéologiques, il est un fonds incommensurable par lequel d’autres écrits apocryphes chrétiens nous sont parvenus : la littérature du XXe siècle. Borges, par tel poème se présentant comme un fragment de manuscrit apocryphe retrouvé, Boulgakov en insérant dans Master i Margarita [Le Maître et Marguerite] un évangile centré sur Pilate, Saramago avec son roman brûlot O Evangelho segundo Jesus Cristo [L’Évangile selon Jésus-Christ]: tous ont fourni des livraisons supplémentaires à ce que Jean Bottéro appelait la « pièce ». Les textes de notre corpus sont à lire comme des fictions d’évangiles apocryphes ; mais l’histoire de la (non-)réception des écrits apocryphes chrétiens depuis l’Antiquité ne nous enseigne-t-elle pas qu’ils furent très souvent considérés comme de la fiction ? Le canon biblique distingue les textes inspirés des autres, relégués au statut de fables ou d’inventions : et tout le reste est littérature… En outre, les apocryphes, antiques et modernes, attestés et fictifs, constituent autant de midrashim, parfois paradoxaux sur les Écritures. En quoi la notion de midrash, cette forme d’exégèse narrée et de narration interprétative, permet-elle de projeter un regard nouveau sur la théorie de l’intertextualité ? Conformément à ce que le sous-titre annonce, au terme de ces considérations plus théoriques, le dernier temps de la réflexion est consacré à l’étude plus détaillée des textes du corpus, à la lumière des critères qu’avait jadis dégagés Auerbach, dans Mimésis, pour distinguer la Bible des récits profanes. L’apocryphe, dans tous ses états et manifestations, nous invite à scruter les ‘définitions’, au sens étymologique du terme, à savoir les frontières de la Bible et la littérature. Plus encore que de livrer une étude thématique ou intertextuelle sur les réécritures de l’Évangile au XXe siècle, cette thèse entend reposer des questions – canoniques – de littérature générale, à travers un prisme bibliqueIn Naissance de Dieu. La Bible et l’historien [The Birth of God. The Bible and the Historian], Jean Bottéro explains that we are left with the play’s libretto: the Bible. The apocrypha is the supplement. Apart from the irregular and parsimonious issues, notably from the sands of Egypt, transmitted to us by the history of archaeological finds, there is an immeasurable collection through which other apocrypha have come to us: XXth century literature. Borges, through his poems presenting themselves as apocryphal manuscripts which are lost and found, Bulgakov by inserting a Gospel centered on Pilate in his Master i Margarita [The Master and Margarita], Saramago with his O Evangelho segundo Jesus Cristo [The Gospel According to Jesus-Christ]: all have given supplements to what Jean Bottéro called the « libretto ». These texts are to be read as fictional apocryphal Gospels; but then again, the history of the (non-)reception Christian apocrypha encountered since Antiquity tells us that they were very often considered and read as mere fiction. The Biblical canon distinguishes the inspired texts from the rest, which is relegated to the status of fables or inventions: and all the rest is literature… Furthermore, the apocrypha, be it antique or modern, attested or fictional, constitute midrashim on the Sacred Scriptures, which are sometimes paradoxical. How does the notion of midrash -- a form of narrated exegesis and interpretative narration -- allow us to see differently the theory of intertextuality? As stated in our subtitle, after these more theoretical considerations, the last part of our dissertation is dedicated to a more detailed study of our body of texts, in the light of the criteria Auerbach used in Mimesis to distinguish the Bible from secular narratives. The apocrypha invite us to examine the ‘definitions’, in the etymological sense of the term, that is, the frontiers between the Bible and literature. More than a thematical or intertextual study, this dissertation strives to give answers to some of the canonical questions tackled by the theory of literature, through a Biblical prism
13
Shmilovits, Liron. "Deus ex machina : legal fictions in private law." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2019. https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/286225.
Abstract:
This PhD dissertation is about legal fictions in private law. A legal fiction, broadly, is a false assumption knowingly relied upon by the courts. The main aim of the dissertation is to formulate a test for which fictions should be accepted and which rejected. Subsidiary aims include a better understanding of the fiction as a device and of certain individual fictions, past and present. This research is undertaken, primarily, to establish a rigorous system for the treatment of fictions in English law - which is lacking. Secondarily, it is intended to settle some intractable disputes, which have plagued the scholarship. These theoretical debates have hindered progress on the practical matters which affect litigants in the real world. The dissertation is divided into four chapters. The first chapter is a historical study of common-law fictions. The conclusions drawn thereform are the foundation of the acceptance test for fictions. The second chapter deals with the theoretical problems surrounding the fiction. Chiefly, it seeks precisely to define 'legal fiction', a recurrent problem in the literature. A solution, in the form of a two-pronged definition, is proposed, adding an important element to the acceptance test. The third chapter analyses modern-day fictions and recommends retention or abolition for each fiction. In the fourth chapter, the findings hitherto are synthesised into a general acceptance test for fictions. This test, which is the thesis of this work, is presented as a flowchart. It is the author's hope that this project will raise awareness as to the merits and demerits of legal fictions, de-mystify the debate and bring about reform.
14
Zamorano, Julie. "Les fictions pensantes de Georges Perec et Enrique Vila-Matas." Thesis, Paris 4, 2015. http://www.theses.fr/2015PA040075.
Abstract:
À partir du concept de « fiction pensante » élaboré par Franck Salaün, l’objectif de cette étude est de montrer, à partir des œuvres de Georges Perec et d’Enrique Vila-Matas, que la fiction littéraire est un lieu de pensée critique et existentielle de l’auteur. Partant des interrogations sur le rapport de l’individu à la mise en écriture de soi, les romans de ces deux auteurs apparaissent comme de véritables lieux pour penser leur existence, leur écriture et leur relation à la littérature, qui sont autant d’éléments montrant leur façon d’être au monde. La fiction étant considérée comme un élément inhérent à la constitution de la pensée, la pensée se révèlera être également inextricable de la littérature. Parce qu’elle construit des mondes possibles auxquels le lecteur peut s’identifier et parce qu’elle apporte des connaissances morales, la littérature est une forme de savoir sur le monde différent mais tout aussi légitime que celui apporté par la philosophie et les sciences (tant les sciences dures que les sciences sociales). À partir des œuvres de ces deux écrivains, la fiction littéraire est donc envisagée comme le lieu où s’expriment leurs pensées littéraires aussi bien que leur conception du mondeUsing the concept of « thinking fiction » created by Franck Salaün, on the base of the works of Georges Perec and Enrique Vila-Matas, the objective of this study is to demonstrate that literary fiction is the expression of the author’s critical and existential thinking. Based on the interrogations concerning the relation between the individual and the writing of the self, their novels appear to be a place to think their existence, their writing and their relation to literature, which constitute the elements of the way they live the world. When considering fiction as an inherent element of the constitution of thought, thought will reveal itself to be also inextricable from literature. Because it creates possible worlds to which the reader identifies and because it contributes to moral knowledge, literature is a form of knowledge of the world as legitimate as the one built by philosophy and sciences (hard sciences as well as human sciences). Based on the works of these two writers, literary fiction will be considered as a place to express their literary thoughts as well as their conception of the world
15
Davis, G. Todd. ""The age of oddities" Byronism and the fictional representations of Byron /." Oxford, Ohio : Miami University, 2003. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc%5Fnum=miami1070042896.
16
Girard, Jean Pierre. "Les inventés, suivi de Le tremblé du sens." Thesis, National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 1999. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk1/tape9/PQDD_0028/NQ47569.pdf.
17
Fanning, Sarah Elizabeth. "Changing fictions of masculinity : adaptations of Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights, 1939-2009." Thesis, University of Exeter, 2012. http://hdl.handle.net/10871/8524.
Abstract:
The discursive and critical positions of the ‘classic’ nineteenth-century novel, particularly the woman’s novel, in the field of adaptation studies have been dominated by long-standing concerns about textual fidelity and the generic processes of the text-screen transfer. The sociocultural patterns of adaptation criticism have also been largely ensconced in representations of literary women on screen. Taking a decisive twist from tradition, this thesis traces the evolution of representations of masculinity in the malleable characters of Rochester and Heathcliff in film and television adaptations of Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre and Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights between 1939 and 2009. Concepts of masculinity have been a neglected area of enquiry in studies of the ‘classic’ novel on screen. Adaptations of the Brontës’ novels, as well as the adapted novels of other ‘classic’ women authors such as Jane Austen, George Eliot and Elizabeth Gaskell, increasingly foreground male character in traditionally female-oriented narratives or narratives whose primary protagonist is female. This thesis brings together industrial histories, textual frames and sociocultural influences that form the wider contexts of the adaptations to demonstrate how male characterisation and different representations of masculinity are reformulated and foregrounded through three different adaptive histories of the narratives of Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights. Through the contours of the film and television industries, the application of text and context analysis, and wider sociocultural considerations of each period an understanding of how Rochester and Heathcliff have been transmuted and centralised within the adaptive history of the Brontë novel.
18
uk, tom_lonie_tefl_teacher@yahoo co, and Thomas Christie Lonie. "Magic causality : the function of metaphor and language in the earlier verse, essays and fictions of Jorge Luis Borges, read as consitutive of a theory of generic incorporation." Murdoch University, 1997. http://wwwlib.murdoch.edu.au/adt/browse/view/adt-MU20100108.131010.
Abstract:
Borges saw narrative as the bearer of universally re-combinable elements. Although these elements seem sequential, their essential formal integrity guarantees their rearrangement to generate new narratives. The ficción lives beyond its author. However, Borges ontological anxieties also have a life of their own that undermines the ficcións assimilative potential.
By developing poetic and linguistic insights Borges creates immortal text through the construction of a symbolic repertoire. Each element of the repertoire has its genesis in the authors personal development. This history is archaeologised in the early poetry and mediated through a theory of metaphor and the readers interaction with the text. Borges sees no need for a
Freudian reading theory. Instead he develops an antipsychological poetics. He enlists the reader as a willing participant in the text by a dual strategy of symbolic incorporation. Firstly, readers identify with characters through vicarious emotional prediction. Secondly, he refreshes the readers participation by presenting emblematic devices serving as sub-text to enhance symbolic participation. Together these strategies constitute a magic causality of negotiated textual interpretation continually operating in his narratives. But the discipline of magic causality also conceals a rhetoric of presence establishing counter-motivational effects to disturb symbolic incorporation at the level of genre.
The dissertation extracts key features for scrutiny from Borges early literary theory and criticism, elaborating them into a general aesthetic programme. It examines biographical influences in shaping his critical and creative work. It problematises his texts from the point of view of his ideas about linguistics, their identity as contributions to the genre of the ficción, and the centrality of metaphor and analogy as interpretative strategies. I use a number of approaches for this enterprise, including biographical criticism (ontological preoccupations), substitutional analysis (temporal subjectivity), linguistic interpretation (theory of metaphor), literary criticism (readerly reception), structuralism (readerly incorporation), and deconstruction (rhetoric of suppression). The dissertation pragmatically investigates, and contests, Borges assimilative poetics of textual presence.
19
Lonie, Thomas Christie. "Magic causality: the function of metaphor and language in the earlier verse, essays and fictions of Jorge Luis Borges, read as consitutive of a theory of generic incorporation." Thesis, Lonie, Thomas Christie (1997) Magic causality: the function of metaphor and language in the earlier verse, essays and fictions of Jorge Luis Borges, read as consitutive of a theory of generic incorporation. PhD thesis, Murdoch University, 1997. https://researchrepository.murdoch.edu.au/id/eprint/1678/.
Abstract:
Borges saw narrative as the bearer of universally re-combinable elements. Although these elements seem sequential, their essential formal integrity guarantees their rearrangement to generate new narratives. The ficción lives beyond its author. However, Borges’ ontological anxieties also have a life of their own that undermines the ficción’s assimilative potential.
By developing poetic and linguistic insights Borges creates immortal text through the construction of a symbolic repertoire. Each element of the repertoire has its genesis in the author’s personal development. This history is archaeologised in the early poetry and mediated through a theory of metaphor and the reader’s interaction with the text. Borges sees no need for a Freudian reading theory. Instead he develops an antipsychological poetics. He enlists the reader as a willing participant in the text by a dual strategy of symbolic incorporation. Firstly, readers identify with characters through vicarious emotional prediction. Secondly, he refreshes the reader’s participation by presenting emblematic devices serving as sub-text to enhance symbolic participation. Together these strategies constitute a ‘magic causality’ of negotiated textual interpretation continually operating in his narratives. But the discipline of magic causality also conceals a rhetoric of presence establishing counter-motivational effects to disturb symbolic incorporation at the level of genre.
The dissertation extracts key features for scrutiny from Borges’ early literary theory and criticism, elaborating them into a general aesthetic programme. It examines biographical influences in shaping his critical and creative work. It problematises his texts from the point of view of his ideas about linguistics, their identity as contributions to the genre of the ficción, and the centrality of metaphor and analogy as interpretative strategies. I use a number of approaches for this enterprise, including biographical criticism (ontological preoccupations), substitutional analysis (temporal subjectivity), linguistic interpretation (theory of metaphor), literary criticism (readerly reception), structuralism (readerly incorporation), and deconstruction (rhetoric of suppression). The dissertation pragmatically investigates, and contests, Borges’ assimilative poetics of textual presence.
20
Lonie, Thomas Christie. "Magic causality: the function of metaphor and language in the earlier verse, essays and fictions of Jorge Luis Borges, read as consitutive of a theory of generic incorporation." Lonie, Thomas Christie (1997) Magic causality: the function of metaphor and language in the earlier verse, essays and fictions of Jorge Luis Borges, read as consitutive of a theory of generic incorporation. PhD thesis, Murdoch University, 1997. http://researchrepository.murdoch.edu.au/1678/.
Abstract:
Borges saw narrative as the bearer of universally re-combinable elements. Although these elements seem sequential, their essential formal integrity guarantees their rearrangement to generate new narratives. The ficción lives beyond its author. However, Borges’ ontological anxieties also have a life of their own that undermines the ficción’s assimilative potential.
By developing poetic and linguistic insights Borges creates immortal text through the construction of a symbolic repertoire. Each element of the repertoire has its genesis in the author’s personal development. This history is archaeologised in the early poetry and mediated through a theory of metaphor and the reader’s interaction with the text. Borges sees no need for a Freudian reading theory. Instead he develops an antipsychological poetics. He enlists the reader as a willing participant in the text by a dual strategy of symbolic incorporation. Firstly, readers identify with characters through vicarious emotional prediction. Secondly, he refreshes the reader’s participation by presenting emblematic devices serving as sub-text to enhance symbolic participation. Together these strategies constitute a ‘magic causality’ of negotiated textual interpretation continually operating in his narratives. But the discipline of magic causality also conceals a rhetoric of presence establishing counter-motivational effects to disturb symbolic incorporation at the level of genre.
The dissertation extracts key features for scrutiny from Borges’ early literary theory and criticism, elaborating them into a general aesthetic programme. It examines biographical influences in shaping his critical and creative work. It problematises his texts from the point of view of his ideas about linguistics, their identity as contributions to the genre of the ficción, and the centrality of metaphor and analogy as interpretative strategies. I use a number of approaches for this enterprise, including biographical criticism (ontological preoccupations), substitutional analysis (temporal subjectivity), linguistic interpretation (theory of metaphor), literary criticism (readerly reception), structuralism (readerly incorporation), and deconstruction (rhetoric of suppression). The dissertation pragmatically investigates, and contests, Borges’ assimilative poetics of textual presence.
21
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.
Abstract:
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
22
Samperi, Ida Maria. "Critical fiction, fictional criticism : Christine Brooke-Rose's experimentalism between theory and practice." Thesis, University of Edinburgh, 2009. http://hdl.handle.net/1842/4067.
Abstract:
This thesis focuses on the mature development of Christine Brooke-Rose’s experimental fiction, taking particular interest in the exemplary texts Between and Thru. I argue that these texts both critically refigure and respond to central aspects of the poststructuralist debate. I investigate Between and Thru specifically in relation to the theories of Irigaray, Barthes (in the case of Between), Derrida and Kristeva (in the case of Thru), demonstrating how the two novels develop these theorists’ core tenets in an innovative manner that critics have failed to recognise up to this point. Starting – in the first chapter – from Brooke-Rose’s first four conventional novels, I explore the issues which lie at the basis of the experimental direction she comes to take, and investigate her first two experimental novels, Out and Such. The second chapter explores Between in relation to the debate over language and identity, whereas the third chapter investigates the way the novel addresses the gender issue as related to language. The fourth chapter concentrates on Thru’s narrative technique in order to better elucidate – in the fifth and sixth chapters – how the novel succeeds in resolving both the tension generated by the notion of language as linked to the representation of an ontologically unstable reality, and the narrative anxiety deriving from the dispute around the death of the author and the ontological status of characters. The seventh chapter offers an overview of Brooke-Rose’s fictional output after Thru, while the eighth and final chapter aims at further positioning Brooke- Rose in the context of the postmodern debate, showing how her work represents a countertendency to the nihilist attitude engendered by the major critical tenets of postmodernism. The thesis thus sheds light on the importance and role of Brooke-Rose as a highly innovative intellectual figure, while rethinking some of the main literary implications of the postmodernist debate.
23
Long, Bruce Raymond. "Informationist Science Fiction Theory and Informationist Science Fiction." Thesis, The University of Sydney, 2009. http://hdl.handle.net/2123/5838.
Abstract:
Informationist Science Fiction theory provides a way of analysing science fiction texts and narratives in order to demonstrate on an informational basis the uniqueness of science fiction proper as a mode of fiction writing. The theoretical framework presented can be applied to all types of written texts, including non-fictional texts. In "Informationist Science Fiction Theory and Informationist Science Fiction" the author applies the theoretical framework and its specific methods and principles to various contemporary science fiction works, including works by William Gibson, Neal Stephenson and Vernor Vinge. The theoretical framework introduces a new informational theoretic re-framing of existing science fiction literary theoretic posits such as Darko Suvin's novum, the mega-text as conceived of by Damien Broderick, and the work of Samuel R Delany in investigating the subjunctive mood in SF. An informational aesthetics of SF proper is established, and the influence of analytic philosophy - especially modal logic - is investigated. The materialist foundations of the metaphysical outlook of SF proper is investigated with a view to elucidating the importance of the relationship between scientific materialism and SF. SF is presented as The Fiction of Veridical, Counterfactual and Heterogeneous Information.
24
Long, Bruce Raymond. "Informationist Science Fiction Theory and Informationist Science Fiction." University of Sydney, 2009. http://hdl.handle.net/2123/5838.
Abstract:
Master of Philosophy (MPhil)Informationist Science Fiction theory provides a way of analysing science fiction texts and narratives in order to demonstrate on an informational basis the uniqueness of science fiction proper as a mode of fiction writing. The theoretical framework presented can be applied to all types of written texts, including non-fictional texts. In "Informationist Science Fiction Theory and Informationist Science Fiction" the author applies the theoretical framework and its specific methods and principles to various contemporary science fiction works, including works by William Gibson, Neal Stephenson and Vernor Vinge. The theoretical framework introduces a new informational theoretic re-framing of existing science fiction literary theoretic posits such as Darko Suvin's novum, the mega-text as conceived of by Damien Broderick, and the work of Samuel R Delany in investigating the subjunctive mood in SF. An informational aesthetics of SF proper is established, and the influence of analytic philosophy - especially modal logic - is investigated. The materialist foundations of the metaphysical outlook of SF proper is investigated with a view to elucidating the importance of the relationship between scientific materialism and SF. SF is presented as The Fiction of Veridical, Counterfactual and Heterogeneous Information.
25
Stolen, James Bernt. "The Theory of Light." Thesis, Virginia Tech, 2013. http://hdl.handle.net/10919/50601.
Abstract:
This manuscript is written from the perspective of thirteen-year-old Adrian Matthiessen, who arrives in mid-2008 in Bethlehem, South Africa at a clinic in the township of Bohlokong where his mother is volunteering. Adrian is witness to an act of magic surrounding an orphan girl who arrives at the clinic; an event that many use to label her as a pariah. Deeply troubled by this, Adrian begins to investigate who this strange girl is by seeking out the stories of the Basotho, and by befriending a volunteer medical student from France, the grandson of the clinic\'s founder, and a South African girl he grows attracted to. This investigation reveals the troubled history of the founder who fought in Angola, a history that has now brought danger upon the clinic and its residents. Adrian also discovers that this investigation becomes a part of his own process of grieving over a recent family tragedy. The Theory of Light draws much of its material from the rich history of the region, as well as from the traditional myths and practices of the Basotho people. In many ways the manuscript bridges two worlds: one that is struggling to cope with globalization, and one that strives to retain cultural and historical traditions. This bridge places Adrian in a limbo of trying to understand magic, historical conflict, personal loss, first-love, and what it is like to be an outsider in South Africa.
Master of Fine Arts
26
Tsoulou, Martha. "After postmodernism : contemporary theory and fiction." Thesis, Brunel University, 2014. http://bura.brunel.ac.uk/handle/2438/13753.
Abstract:
There is a consensus today that we have witnessed the end of postmodernism in both fiction and theory. Due to contemporary fiction’s break with postmodernism being recent, little research has been done to outline the parameters of what exactly this break entails and its relationship to theory and current socio-political issues. The aim of this thesis is to attempt to differentiate between postmodernist fiction and contemporary fiction that was produced from the late 90’s up to today, outline its main characteristics and suggest alternative ways theory may be used to critically analyse fiction. We will be looking at how Habermas’s, Agamben’s, Žižek’s and Badiou’s theories, as well as, a reconsideration of some of Derrida’s and Baudrillard’s theories, can help elucidate certain aspects of contemporary fiction and vice versa. Some of the novelists that will be considered in this discussion are Paul Auster, Don DeLillo, Douglas Coupland, J G Ballard, Julian Barnes, Jonathan Coe and Michel Houellebecq due to their close association with postmodernism and its aftermath. The thesis is divided thematically in five chapters. In the first chapter we will be discussing the impact of 9/11 on contemporary fiction in relation to Derrida’s, Habermas’s, Baudrillard’s and Žižek’s responses to the attacks. The second chapter is concerned with notions of reality and its representations in contemporary fiction. It will be discussed how they differ from Baudrillard’s conceptualisation of hyperreality during postmodernity in light of Badiou’s and Žižek’s theory mainly. The realist/antirealist debate will also be addressed. The third chapter is a consideration of notions of subjectivity in both contemporary theory and fiction and how they may be said to differ from playful, schizophrenic representations of the subject during postmodernity. The fourth chapter is concerned with the return of the political in both theory and fiction after the supposed apoliticality of the postmodern novel, which we will also be addressing. The final chapter is an investigation of the re-emergence of the religious in contemporary culture, including the novel, which proves that the death of meta-narratives may not have been that final after all.
27
Piercy, Laurence. "Fiction and the theory of action." Thesis, University of Sheffield, 2014. http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/5913/.
Abstract:
This thesis explores four mid-twentieth century fictional texts in relation to concepts of action drawn predominantly from Anglo-American analytic philosophy and contemporary psychology. The novels in question are Anna Kavan's Ice, Samuel Beckett's How It Is, Vladimir Nabokov's Pale Fire and Malcolm Lowry's Under the Volcano. The theory of action provides concepts, structures, and language to describe how agency is conceptualised at various levels of description. My exploration of these concepts in relation to fiction gives a framework for describing character action and the conceptualisation of agency in my primary texts. The theory of action is almost exclusively concerned with human action in the real world, and I explore the benefits and problems of transferring concepts from these discourses to literary criticism. My approach is focused around close reading, and a primary goal of this thesis is to provide nuanced analyses of my primary texts. In doing so, I emphasise the centrality of concepts of agency in fiction and provide examples of how action theory is applicable to literary criticism.
28
Peters, Susan. "Intending fiction, Lamarque's theory of fiction compared to Walton's and Currie's." Thesis, National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 1999. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk1/tape9/PQDD_0020/MQ54477.pdf.
29
Gillan, Lindsey. "Encountering theory : readings in contemporary American fiction." Thesis, University of Sussex, 1999. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.285082.
Abstract:
This thesis gathers four American fiction writers from the group labelled as blank fiction writers during the 1980s - Lynne Tillman, Kathy Acker, Joel Rose and Catherine Texier - to suggest that their work does more than represent the flat, stunned prose attributed to blank fiction. Rather, their simple, streetwise yet often lyrical language is politically engaged, debating profound questions about the nature of identity, both of the indi vidual and of the text. The writing, while superficially transparent, is illusory, reflecting the belief that meaning is contextual: this has wide-reaching implications for textuality since the borders of meaning and of the text are contested. While the differences in form and style of these writers are evident, their focus upon the links between language, memory and identity within particular historico-cultural contexts show that they all have interests in the politics of language. The characterisation and narratives of their texts are infused with a degree of self-reflexivity that demonstrates a recognition of their own instability and their contingency upon contexts beyond as well as within the textual borders. By focusing upon the limitations of language to discuss or express identity and memory in concrete terms, these writers ask philosophical and political questions that arguably stand apart from the amoral prose of other writers of blank fiction such as Brett Easton Ellis and Dennis Cooper. Their texts address issues of identity regarding gender, sexuality, race, class, ethnicity and poverty while emphasizing that they cannot be divorced from purely philosophical questions about the nature of being and its relationship to language. Yet these writers move beyond postmodern debates about textuali ty to explore the limits of fiction within the wider cultural contexts of writing at the end of the twentieth century.
30
Tanksley, Charles William. "The failure of storytelling to ground a causal theory of reference." Thesis, Texas A&M University, 2002. http://hdl.handle.net/1969.1/147.
Abstract:
I argue that one cannot hold a Meinongian ontology of fictional characters and have a causal theory of reference for fictional names. The main argument presented refutes Edward Zalta's claim that storytelling should be considered an extended baptism for fictional characters. This amounts to the claim that storytelling fixes the reference of fictional names in the same way that baptism fixes the reference of ordinary names, and this is just a claim about the illocutionary force of these two types of utterance. To evaluate this argument, therefore, we need both a common understanding of the Meinongian ontology and a common taxonomy of speech acts. I briefly sketch the Meinongian ontology as it is laid out by Zalta in order to meet the former condition. Then I present an interpretation of the taxonomy of illocutionary acts given by John Searle in the late 1970s and mid 1980s, within which we can evaluate Zalta's claims. With an ontology of fictional characters and a taxonomy of speech acts in place, I go on to examine the ways in which the Meinongian might argue that storytelling is an extended baptism. None of these arguments are tenable-there is no way for the act of storytelling to serve as an extended baptism. Therefore, the act of storytelling does not constitute a baptism of fictional characters; that is, storytelling fails to ground a causal chain of reference to fictional characters.
31
Mathews, Peter David 1975. "Strategies of realism : realist fiction and postmodern theory." Monash University, Centre for Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies, 2001. http://arrow.monash.edu.au/hdl/1959.1/8656.
32
Lowe, Julia (Julia Margaret) Carleton University Dissertation English. "Re-inscribing the mother: feminist theory and fiction." Ottawa, 1991.
33
Fisher, Mark. "Flatline constructs : Gothic materialism and cybernetic theory-fiction." Thesis, University of Warwick, 1999. http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/110900/.
Abstract:
Cyberpunk fiction has been called “the supreme literary expression, if not of postmodernism then of late capitalism itself.” (Jameson) This thesis aims to analyse and question this claim by rethinking cyberpunk Action, postmodernism and late capitalism in terms of three - interlocking - themes: cybernetics, the Gothic and fiction. It claims that while what has been called “postmodernism” has been preoccupied with cybernetic themes, cybernetics has been haunted by the Gothic. The Gothic has always enjoyed a peculiarly intimate relation with the fictional. Baudrillard's theories, meanwhile, suggest that, in a period dominated by (cybernetic) simulation, fiction has a new cultural role. By putting “theory” into dialogue with “fiction”, the thesis examines Baudrillard's suggestion that the era of cybernetics (what he calls “third order simulacra”) “puts an end to science fiction, but also to theory, as specific genres”. The version of the Gothic the thesis presents is one stripped of many of its conventional cultural associations; it is a material (and materialist) Gothic. The machinery for re-thinking the Gothic comes from Deleuze-Guattari’s A Thousand Plateaus. Deriving not from the familiar literary sources (the so-called Gothic novels of the late eighteenth- and early nineteenth century) but from Wilhelm Worringer’s work on “barbarian art”, Deleuze-Guattari’s version of the Gothic departs from any reference to the supernatural. The crucial theme in Worringer, Deleuze-Guattari establish, is that of nonorganic continuum. Following Deleuze-Guattari’s lead, the thesis analyses key cyberpunk texts such as Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner, David Cronenberg’s Videodrome and William Gibson’s Neuromancer in terms of what it calls this “hypematuralist” theme. While these texts have often been analysed in terms of “postmodernism” and “cyberpunk,” they have rarely been discussed in terms of the Gothic. Here, though, it will be shown that these texts, and important precursors, such as Ballard’s The Atrocity Exhibition, are centrally concerned with the breakdown of the boundary between the animate and the inanimate. (A theme that cybernetics has also confronted). The thesis aims to demonstrate that, in its fixation upon catatonic trance, bodies that do not end at the skin, and agency-without-subjectivity, cyberpunk or “imploded science fiction” converges the Gothic with cybernetics on what, following Gibson, it calls the flatline. The flatline has two important senses, referring to (1) a stale of “unlife” (or “undeath”) and (2) a condition of radical immanence. The thesis is divided into four chapters, each of which considers the flatline under a different aspect. Chapter 1 concerns the flatlining of cybernetics and postmodernism; Chapter 2 deals with the flatlining of the body, paying particular attention to the Deleuze-Guattari/Artaud concept of the Body without Organs; Chapter 3 focuses upon the flatlining of reproduction, opposing both sexual and mechanical reproduction to Deleuze-Guattari’s idea of (Gothic) propagation; Chapter 4 considers the flatlining of fiction itself in the context of (Baudrillard’s) hyperreality.
34
Xausa, Chiara <1991>. "Feminist environmental humanities: intertwining theory and speculative fiction." Doctoral thesis, Alma Mater Studiorum - Università di Bologna, 2022. http://amsdottorato.unibo.it/10435/1/XAUSA_CHIARA_TESI.pdf.
Abstract:
This dissertation explores the entanglement between the visionary capacity of feminist theory to shape sustainable futures and the active contribution of feminist speculative fiction to the conceptual debate about the climate crisis. Over the last few years, increasing critical attention has been paid to ecofeminist perspectives on climate change, that see as a core cause of the climate crisis the patriarchal domination of nature, considered to go hand in hand with the oppression of women. What remains to be thoroughly scrutinised is the linkage between ecofeminist theories and other ethical stances capable of countering colonising epistemologies of mastery and dominion over nature. This dissertation intervenes in the debate about the master narrative of the Anthropocene, and about the one-dimensional perspective that often characterises its literary representations, from a feminist perspective that also aims at decolonising the imagination; it looks at literary texts that consider patriarchal domination of nature in its intersections with other injustices that play out within the Anthropocene, with a particular focus on race, colonialism, and capitalism. After an overview of the linkages between gender and climate change and between feminism and environmental humanities, it introduces the genre of climate fiction examining its main tropes. In an attempt to find alternatives to the mainstream narrative of the Anthropocene (namely to its gender-neutrality, colour-blindness, and anthropocentrism), it focuses on contemporary works of speculative fiction by four Anglophone women authors that particularly address the inequitable impacts of climate change experienced not only by women, but also by sexualised, racialised, and naturalised Others. These texts were chosen because of their specific engagement with the relationship between climate change, global capitalism, and a flat trust in techno-fixes on the one hand, and structural inequalities generated by patriarchy, racism, and intersecting systems of oppression on the other.
35
Newswander, Lynita K. "Myths and Blueprints: Enacting Utopia through Fiction." Thesis, Virginia Tech, 2007. http://hdl.handle.net/10919/32511.
Abstract:
The study of utopia generally takes place in isolation from empirical social science based on its classification as either political theory or literary genre. While both approaches are well-suited to the academic study of a concept that does not exist in reality, each on its own also lacks the kind of efficacy that could be offered by an integrated situation of utopia in the "real" world. This paper seeks to incorporate utopian thinking into contemporary social and political context by utilizing both fiction and critical theory as a lens for the "real" world. It also considers both blueprint and myth as authorial choices for enacting fiction into reality.
This paper begins with an introduction to and justification for the study of literature as political theory, suggesting various mechanisms for the translation of one into the other. Next, it examines contemporary political theories of utopia and their applicability to fiction-as-motivator. Furthermore, it establishes the practical nature of an impractical genre by proposing two methods for enacting social change through utopian fiction, namely, the use of myth and blueprint as vehicles for theory. These methods are further investigated through case study examples of each, with Edward Bellamy's Looking Backward as an example of utopian blueprint and Charlotte Perkins Gilman's Herland as a model of utopian myth.
Master of Arts
36
Bedore, Pamela. "Open universes, contemporary feminist science fiction and gender theory." Thesis, National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 1999. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk1/tape9/PQDD_0023/MQ51297.pdf.
37
Raghunath, Riyukta. "Alternative realities : counterfactual historical fiction and possible worlds theory." Thesis, Sheffield Hallam University, 2017. http://shura.shu.ac.uk/19154/.
Abstract:
The primary aim of my thesis is to offer a cognitive-narratological methodology with which to analyse counterfactual historical fiction. Counterfactual historical fiction is a genre that creates fictional worlds whose histories run contrary to the history of the actual world. I argue that Possible Worlds Theory is a suitable methodology with which to analyse this type of fiction because it is an ontologically centred theory that can be used to divide the worlds of a text into its various ontological domains and also explain their relation to the actual world. Ryan (1991) offers the most appropriate Possible Worlds framework with which to analyse any fiction. However, in its current form the theory does not sufficiently address the role of readers in its analysis of fiction. Given the close relationship between the actual world and the counterfactual world created by counterfactual historical fiction, I argue that a model to analyse such texts must go beyond categorising the worlds of texts by also theorising what readers do when they read this type of fiction. For this purpose, in my thesis I refine Ryan's Possible Worlds framework so that it can be used to more effectively analyse counterfactual historical fiction. In particular, I introduce an ontological domain which I am calling RK-worlds or reader knowledge worlds to label the domain that readers use to apprehend the counterfactual world presented by the text. I also offer two cognitive concepts – ontolological superimposition and reciprocal feedback – that support a Possible Worlds analysis of counterfactual historical fiction and model how readers process such fiction. In addition, I redefine counterpart theory, transworld identity, and essential properties to appropriately theorise the way readers make the epistemological link between a character and their corresponding actual world individual. The result is a fully fleshed out Possible Worlds model that addresses the reader's role by focusing on how they cognitively interact with the worlds built by counterfactual historical fiction. Finally, to demonstrate my model's dexterity, I apply it to three texts – Robert Harris' Fatherland (1992), Sarban's The Sound of his Horn (1952), and Stephen Fry's Making History (1996). I conclude that the Possible Worlds model that I have developed is rigorous and can be replicated to analyse all fiction in general and counterfactual historical fiction in particular.
38
McGuire, Myles T. "Fruitful approaches: Queer Theory and Historical Materialism in contemporary Australian fiction." Thesis, Queensland University of Technology, 2022. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/230862/1/Myles_McGuire_Thesis.pdf.
Abstract:
"Fruitful approaches: Queer Theory and Historical Materialism in contemporary Australian fiction" investigates the application of Historical Materialist ontologies to gay-themed, contemporary Australian novels, examining these subjects through the lens of totality and reification.
39
Green, Gary L. "The language of nightmare : a theory of American Gothic fiction /." Full-text version available from OU Domain via ProQuest Digital Dissertations, 1985.
40
Kinch, Samuel Sean. "Quantum mechanics and modern fiction." Access restricted to users with UT Austin EID Full text (PDF) from UMI/Dissertation Abstracts International, 2001. http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/utexas/fullcit?p3037511.
41
Coban, Osman. "Reading choices and the effects of reading fiction : the responses of adolescent readers in Turkey to fiction and e-fiction." Thesis, University of Glasgow, 2018. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/30686/.
Abstract:
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.
42
Calder, S. R. "'More sure than shifting theory' : George Eliot's ethics of fiction making." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2011. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.597221.
Abstract:
Part I concerns the extent to which Eliot’s novels raise challenging questions about the epistemic function of experimental inquiry and provoke us to reflect on the nature of cognition. In Part II, I demonstrate how Eliot’s writings interrogate the nature of right action and engage in ethical inquiry. In Part III, I contend that Eliot’s writings invite us to distinguish between three distinct modes of teaching: a doctrinal mode, an exemplary mode and an aesthetic mode. I argue that Eliot utilises the third of these modes to impart knowledge and ethical guidance of a kind that more austere forms of writing cannot accomplish, because such knowledge and guidance are inseparable from the delight that readers experience in the act of reading fiction. I grapple with three critiques of Eliot’s authorial conduct. These are Bernard Paris’, that her experiments in life were ‘rigged’; Martha Nussbaum’s, that her writings falsify our human position; and Friedrich Nietzsche’s, that morality was not (yet) a problem for Eliot. By contesting these critiques, I strive to substantiate three positive claims of my own. First, for Eliot the aim to maintain a rich mode of being must precede and inform all endeavours to construct systems of knowledge or to determine moral laws. Secondly, for Eliot it is possible to perform non-scientific experiments in ethics by developing disciplined forms of reading and fiction-making. Thirdly, Eliot had to develop a specifically aesthetic mode of teaching because such ‘truths’ as she sought to convey could not be expressed through more conventional literary forms. I demonstrate how Feuerbach and Spinoza’s conceptions of human nature shaped the structure of Eliot’s fictions, even as her utilisation of the art of fiction-making facilitated the expression of different valuations and an alternate sense of life than we find expressed in these theorists’ writings.
43
Tolan, Fiona. "Connecting theory and fiction : Margaret Atwood's novels and second wave feminism." Thesis, Durham University, 2004. http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/2972/.
Abstract:
This thesis undertakes an examination of the manner in which a novelist interacts with a contemporary theoretical discourse. I argue that the novelist and the theoretical discourse enter into a symbiotic relationship in which each influences and is influenced by the other. This process, I suggest, is simultaneous and complex. The thesis demonstrates how the prevailing theoretical discourse is absorbed by the contemporary author, is developed and redefined in conjunction with alternative concerns, and comes to permeate the narrative in an altered state. The novelist's new perspectives, frequently problematising theoretical claims, are then disseminated by the novel, promoting further discussion and development of the theoretical discourse. The thesis focuses on the novels of Margaret Atwood, considering them in relation to the history and development of second wave feminism. "Second wave feminism" is understood as an umbrella term that incorporates a wide variety of related but diverse and occasionally contradictory discourses, centring on the subjects of gender, femininity, and sexuality. The focus of the discussion is dual and presented simultaneously. Atwood's novels are analysed chronologically, and within the parameter of this analysis I demonstrate how her work has been influenced by earlier feminist theories, how it comments upon a variety of contemporary feminist ideas, and how it can be seen to anticipate further discussions within feminist discourse. Finally, I identify moments in Atwood's writing when alternative discourses compete with feminism to create new directions for feminist criticism. Examples of these discourses include Canadian nationalism, liberalism, communitarianism and environmentalism. The specificity of the novelist's interests and politics create a unique site of interaction for feminism which, I argue, benefits feminist theory by challenging, broadening and diversifying its focus. The thesis concludes that the symbiotic relationship of the theorist and the novelist is self-perpetuating and is also necessary and beneficial to both parties.
44
Bryant, Stephen. "Before 'agreement' : consequences of Wittgenstein's sceptical paradox in theory and fiction." Thesis, University of East Anglia, 1993. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.359323.
45
Campbell, Christopher. "Designing Theory: Social Space(s) in the Fiction of Georges Perec." University of Cincinnati / OhioLINK, 2013. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1377869529.
46
Wiese, Annjeanette. "Narrative understanding: The staging of form and theory in contemporary fiction." Connect to online resource, 2008. http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:dissertation&res_dat=xri:pqdiss&rft_dat=xri:pqdiss:3303856.
47
Greiwe, Teresa. "Do We Mistake Fiction for Fact? : Investigating Whether the Consumption of Fictional Crime-related Media May Help to Explain the Criminal Profiling Illusion." Thesis, Malmö universitet, Malmö högskola, Institutionen för kriminologi (KR), 2021. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:mau:diva-43630.
Abstract:
The disparity between the ongoing use, the overall positive attitudes towards criminal profiling and the lack of empirical evidence for its validity is also referred to as criminal profiling illusion. Associated risks for society range from misled police investigations, hindered apprehensions of the actual offender(s), and wrongful convictions of innocent citizens to mistrust in the police and their methods. Research on potential explanations to the Criminal Profiling Illusion is still in its infancy but assumes that people receive and adopt incorrect messages favouring the accuracy and utility of criminal profiling. One suggested mechanism through which individuals may acquire such incorrect messages is the consumption of fictional crime-related media which typically present criminal profiling as highly accurate, operationally useful and leading to the apprehension of the offender(s). By having some relation to reality but presenting a distorted picture of criminal profiling, fictional crime-related media may blur the line between fiction and reality thereby increasing the risk for the audience to mistake fiction for fact. Adopting a cultivation approach adequate to examine media effects on one’s perception, the present study is the first to investigate whether the perception of criminal profiling may be influenced by the consumption of fictional crime-related media based on a correlation study. Although the results provide support for the assumption that misperceptions of criminal profiling are widely spread in the general population and associated with the consumption of fictional crime-related media, the found cultivation effects are small and must be interpreted cautiously. Considering that even small effects may have the potential to influence real-life decision-making, they may still be relevant and affect the society at large.
48
Moss, Laura F. E. "An infinity of alternate realities, reconfiguring realism in postcolonial theory and fiction." Thesis, National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 1998. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk2/tape15/PQDD_0004/NQ31944.pdf.
49
Wallace, Molly. "Novel ecologies : nature, culture, and capital in contemporary U.S. fiction and theory /." Thesis, Connect to this title online; UW restricted, 2007. http://hdl.handle.net/1773/9329.
50
Maia, Rousiley Celi Moreira. "Crowd theory in some modern fiction : Dickens, Zola and Canetti, 1841-1960." Thesis, University of Nottingham, 1992. http://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/12125/.
Abstract:
This thesis examines some perceptions of collective behaviour and psychology in some nineteenth and twentieth century literature. Focusing on selected works by three novelists, Charles Dickens's Barnaby Rudge (1841) and A Tale of Two Cities (1859), Emile Zola's Germinal (1885) and Elias Canetti's Auto-da-Fe (1935), it is an attempt to analyse the cultural representations of the nature, psychology and behaviour of crowds from 1841-1960. We attempt to contextualize the models of the crowd present in each novel and the interpenetration of the development of crowd theory and political experience. We also evaluate the novelists' attitudes towards the crowd and the implications of their approaches for public policy. We argue that Dickens, failing to distinguish between individual and collective psychology, has a pre-modern perception of the crowd. Zola, placing collective behaviour in a positivist framework presents a modern view of the crowd psychology that prefigures in essentials the classical crowd theory of Le Bon. Canetti, questioning the approach of received crowd theory, and the traditional presumption that the crowd is necessarily unconscious, instinctual and anti-social, presents a post-modern interpretation of the crowd which corresponds to the highly original insights of his crowd monograph, Crowds and Power.