Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Popular literature – Italy – History and criticism'
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Papanikolaou, Dimitris. "Singing poets : literature and popular music in France and Greece /." London : Legenda, 2007. http://bvbr.bib-bvb.de:8991/F?func=service&doc_library=BVB01&doc_number=016510046&line_number=0002&func_code=DB_RECORDS&service_type=MEDIA.
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McAleer, Joseph. "Popular literature and reading habits in Britain, 1914-1950." Thesis, University of Oxford, 1989. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:7cf39377-41a1-4a44-bb62-0786b297fc37.
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This thesis is an examination of the mass-market publishing industry in Britain after the First World War and of the 'literature' read by the lower-middle and working classes: novels and weekly magazines. We chronicle the development of the industry both generally and through the experiences of three publishers, examine the activity and motivations of the reading public and consider the treatment of contemporary issues and attitudes within popular fiction as a useful barometer for the historian. There are seven chapters. Chapter 1 considers the period before 1914 in order to provide the necessary background for an understanding of the focus of this study, 1914-1950. The origins of the popular publishing industry and Wilkie Collins' 'Unknown Public' are examined and continuities with post-1914 popular literature traced. In Chapter 2 a broad overview of our period is conducted: the development of the industry and of the market, the influence of war and the depression, and the effect on reading of the growth of other leisure activities. Chapters 3 and 5 look at the reading habits of adults and children/adolescents from the lower-middle and working classes. In both cases contemporaries and readers themselves seemed to think 'escapism' was paramount in the selection of 'light' fiction and there was therefore a significant continuity between child and adult reading. Finally, Chapters 4, 6 and 7 focus on the histories and influence of three publishers of popular fiction during this period. These include two of the most successful (Mills and Boon, D.C. Thomson) and in contrast, a prominent but declining firm (The Religious Tract Society). In each case the complex relationship between market forces and editorial policies is discussed. We conclude that a reciprocal relationship existed between publisher and reader, with the latter dictating much of what was published. Popular fiction, moreover, served to reinforce predominant stereotypes and ideological views of society rather than to impose specific doctrine.
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Linekin, Kim. "The modern popular song as a literary art form." Thesis, National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 1997. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk2/ftp01/MQ37216.pdf.
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El-Mouelhy, Mossino Lauretta. "Tra magia, incantesimo e immaginario : (an tra masche, mascheugn e mistà) : la figura della masca dall'antichità celtica alla letteratura piemontese odierna." Thesis, McGill University, 2004. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=85159.
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Questa dissertazione e imperniata sulla parola masca, che denota un personaggio popolare e antichissimo di genere femminile, riscontrabile esclusivamente nel folclore e nella letterature della regione italiana del Piemonte. Si attribuisce a questo personaggio la facolta rarissima di esercitare tanto il bene che il mate, a seconda de¡ casi.La tesi si basa su ricerche storiche e linguistiche che traggono i loro dati dai recessi piu remoti della civilta celtica in territorio piemontese, dove essa e prosperata dall'inizio del 4° secolo a.C. fino al 1° secolo della nostra era, epoca alta quale questa regione fu inglobata dall'impero romano.
Basandosi su dati storici e archeologici, la ricerca prende atto di un substrato celtico persistente e profondo nella cultura e nella tradizione piu antiche del Piemonte. In modo particolare si concentra l'attenzione sulla derivazione dei personaggio della masca da una figura religiosa dei Druidi, venerata fervidamente dai Celti, i quali attribuivano a questa divinita il dualismo tipico (bene-male) che si riscontra nel personaggio oggetto di questo studio.
In seguito si traccia il discrimine tra la masca e le streghe demoniache con cui la prima e spesso e del tutto erroneamente confusa ed associata. Una volta tracciata questa distinzione si possono riallacciare i legami tra la masca e il suo sacrale pristino ove ('equilibrio sotteso tra bene e mate e permanente e inestricabile dagli attributi fondamentali della dea celtica centrale, la Grande Madre.
Le ricerche etimologiche per appurare l'origine della parola masca non fanno che confermare la dualita e l'equilibrio tra il bene e il mate inevitabilmente compresente in questa parola e nel personaggio ch'essa denota.
Si passa in rassegna la tradizione orale e la letteratura del Piemonte (tanto in lingua piemontese che in lingua italiana) per, inventariare i diversi significati che possono assumere questa parola e questo personaggio. Si perviene a dimostrare che la dicotomia di valori e di poteri contrastanti insiti nella religione dei druidi rimane ad un dipresso la stessa nel personaggio delta masca. Ci si puo imbattere in questo dualismo di valori opposti e antitetici anche in altri personaggi del folclore piemontese, strettamente connessi alta masca, quali il mascon, i1 setmin o anche in personaggi mitologici, come la faja, il faunet e il servan.
La somma di queste prove letterarie, folcloriche, archeologiche e filologiche avalla l'attribuzione di un carattere unico, non demoniaco, al personaggio della masca, che riannoda strettamente la letteratura e la tradizione orale del Piemonte alta religione dei druidi e al passato celtico, fornendo altresi scorci preziosi su uno dei capitoli piu oscuri del passato delle etnie europee.
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Bedon, Elettra. "Il filo di Arianna : letteratura in lingua veneta nel XX secolo." Thesis, National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 1997. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk2/ftp03/NQ29888.pdf.
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Zachik-Smith, Susie. "Romance by the book: A morphological analysis of the popular romance." CSUSB ScholarWorks, 1993. https://scholarworks.lib.csusb.edu/etd-project/810.
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白雲開 and Wan-hoi Anthony Pak. "Literature and the masses in China at the time of the MayFourth Movement." Thesis, The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong), 1988. http://hub.hku.hk/bib/B3120885X.
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Trani, Maria. "La poesia di E.A. Mario /." Thesis, McGill University, 1992. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=68141.
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The present work examines the poetry in neapolitan language and particularly the works of E. A. Mario, fin de siecle poet and melody writer, who contributed considerably to the song history.The first part introduces us to the neapolitan regional poetry as well as to its language to finally conclude with the poetry set to music: the song. The ideal atmosphere is the cafe-chantant. The poets of the time including Salvatore Di Giacomo and the generation after are surveyed.
The second part deals with the author. It describes his life, his art and his works, rich of popular and especially classical elements, which crowned him with success.
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Balletti-Thomas, Joanne. "Women's writing and the "anxiety of authorship" in nineteenth-century Italy : Bruno Sperani and others." Thesis, McGill University, 1996. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=26718.
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As women's literature emerged in late nineteenth-century Italy, female authors encountered many obstacles. Foremost among them was the near-total absence of Italian female literary role models. Female writers often expressed ambivalence towards the writing of other women, which was considered inferior to male writing. However, their reverence for male writers revealed how conflictive their identities as writers were, and it was an impediment to the establishment of a serious women's literary tradition. In addition to such personal conflicts, these writers also faced the challenge of gaining acceptance by the male-dominated literary community and by their readers. These two groups expected that women's writing conform to a moral code which did not apply to men's writing. This thesis is an analysis of the specific problems that female novelist Bruno Sperani and others faced as they strove to establish themselves in Italian literature.
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Bedon, Elettra. "La poesia in lingua veneta dalla fine della Prima Guerra Mondiale a oggi." Thesis, McGill University, 1994. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=26252.
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Writers and poets who wrote in the "language of Venice" are far more numerous than is commonly reported in the history of Italian literature. It is the purpose of this dissertation to present and highlight their works.Since here we mainly deal with writers and poets of the second half of the twentieth century, for which there is no roll call, we deemed it appropriate to research and introduce them, supplying for each of them detailed biobibliographical data.
In the course of our work we tried to sketch a subdivision of the matter which keeps in mind what has been previously done, but which is also new if one takes into account the whole scope and breadth of this literature.
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Du, Plessis Irma. "Crafting popular imaginaries : Stella Blakemore and Afrikaner nationalism." Diss., University of Pretoria, 2002. http://hdl.handle.net/2263/25581.
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Potts, Dale E. "Woods Voices, Woods Knowledge: Work and Recreation in the Popular Literature of the Northeastern Forest, 1850-1963." Fogler Library, University of Maine, 2007. http://www.library.umaine.edu/theses/pdf/PottsDE2007.pdf.
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Gavito, Cory Michael. "Carlo Milanuzzi's Quarto scherzo and the climate of Venetian popular music in the 1620s." Thesis, view full-text document, 2001. http://www.library.unt.edu/theses/open/20012/gavito%5Fcory/index.htm.
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Shen, Yipeng. "In the Heat of Sentiments: Nationalism, Postsocialism, and Popular Culture in China, 1988-2007." Thesis, University of Oregon, 2010. http://hdl.handle.net/1794/10846.
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xi, 284 p. A print copy of this thesis is available through the UO Libraries. Search the library catalog for the location and call number.My dissertation delves into the recent articulation of popular nationalism in Mainland China, with particular emphasis on the changes that globalization and transnationalism have brought about to the representation of the Chinese nation in sentimental terms. Complementing the rich existing literature of Chinese nationalism that focuses mainly on the pre-1949 period, my study explores the less-treaded contemporary era characterized by the new historical condition of postsocialism, which features a residual of the socialist past as well as its reinvention under new overwhelming trends of globalization. Postsocialism and its consequences-the deepening of a neoliberalist economic refonn, the state-intellectual promotion of cultural economy, the emergence of a dominant consumer culture, etc.-have produced new issues existing scholarship on Chinese nationalism has yet to address. One such issue is how the paradoxical entity of the "nation" in time and space has been fragmented by the accretion of diversified voices from a wide spectrum of Chinese society. In postsocialist China, the agents imagining the nation include not only regulars like the state and intellectuals, but also new players like mass-media elites and netizens (wangmin). I argue that these voices of different social forces that break up the hegemony of the state in representing the nation-the result of which being not that the state is excluded from this enterprise but that it now tells only part of the story-become expressed as modes of national sentiments (minzu qinggan) when the nation is imagined under the historical condition of postsocialism. My study then explores in detail the fashioning and refashioning of contemporary Chinese subjectivity, as it relates through the joining of national sentiments to the literal and figurative body of the nation and the social power structure, by analyzing these specific voices in a broad range of popular texts from TV, film, and the Internet. The detailed examination includes four chapters dealing with specific modes of national sentiments articulated by the intellectuals, the state, the mass-media elites, and the netizens, respectively.
Committee in charge: Tze-lan Sang, Co-Chairperson, East Asian Languages & Literature; David Leiwei Li, Co-Chairperson, English; Maram Epstein, Member, East Asian Languages & Literature; Bryna Goodman, Outside Member, History
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陳器文 and Chi-wen Chen. "A study of the ordeal stories in Chinese popularfictions." Thesis, The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong), 1998. http://hub.hku.hk/bib/B31236637.
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Rawson, Angela. "A critical linguistic analysis of a popular comic genre in Japan." Thesis, Edith Cowan University, Research Online, Perth, Western Australia, 2001. https://ro.ecu.edu.au/theses/1021.
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This research will focus on the issue of power and gender in the language of Japanese comics (manga). Comics in Japan are enormously popular and are read by a wide audience. They are aimed at specific audiences and it is my argument that the language of manga helps to reinforce certain social stereotypes - particularly the inferiority of women and the dominance of males. The language of children's manga will be analyzed using the framework of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), which concerns itself with the relation between ideology and power in discourse. The analysis will be at various levels including lexica-semantic, pragmatic, textual and ideological. The texts to be analyzed will be Japanese manga in the original Japanese language. Manga aimed at specific audiences, i.e. young boys and girls, will be analyzed to determine the presence of male-dominant ideology in the text. I argue that an interpretation of the text under the framework of GOA supports the hypothesis that the ideology of male dominance is present in manga and that it has become normalized in Japan.
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Tait, Lisa Olsen. "Mormon Culture Meets Popular Fiction: Susa Young Gates and the Cultural Work of Home Literature." Diss., CLICK HERE for online access, 1998. http://patriot.lib.byu.edu/u?/MTNZ,25499.
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Wilkins, Wendy. "Images of Italy and Italians in the modern English novel." Thesis, The University of Sydney, 2001. https://hdl.handle.net/2123/27857.
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The English literary imagination has been nourished on the experience and idea of Italy for centuries, at least since Chaucer's Italian visits in 1372 and 1378. A combination of survey, critical analysis and theory, the thesis examines the idea of Italy and the Italians in fiction in English from Henry James to the present. The thesis provides an inclusive account of literary themes and motifs about Italy and the Italians in the modern English novel, defining the modem tradition of fiction about Italy established by James, E.M. Forster and D.H. Lawrence, and describing the continuities and discontinuities which extend to postmodern, international fiction in English about Italy and Italians.
No single theoretical model is employed. An eclectic approach is favoured in order to draw together cultural history, literary history, discourse analysis, literary criticism and biography. In addition, the aim has been to recapture and examine the sense of flux and the idea of selfrealisation through art which characterise the Italianate impulse in past and present English fiction. In terms of method and focus, the thesis converses with ideas about Italy and the Italians, literary tradition, recent theories about the representation of place, and the notion of Italy as a favoured site for the development of literary identity and style.
An introduction traces the early development of the Italian image and establishes themes which appear in the succeeding chapters: otherness cultural and self identity; the 'gaze'; 'seeing' as a metaphor for self-knowledge; the importance of place in the formation of identity; and the connections between artistic representation and place. The second chapter, on Henry James, defines some of the main terms of the recent tradition, including the relationship between Italy and the act of imaginative creation. The James chapter examines the influence of Romanticism on his Italian work; the 'Italian' contradictions in his fiction; and his search, expressed in traditional Italianate tropes, for a transcending equilibrium. James's Italian tales are given equal consideration with the novels, and both are discussed in relation to the travel essays collected as Italian Hours. The third chapter, on E.M. Forster, focuses on the conflict between chaos and order in Forster's Italian fiction, and his concern with further perennial 'Italian' themes, including paganism, the Edenic myth, and the importance of art in self-becoming. The Italian motifs in Forster's stories are compared with those in his Italian novels Where Angels Fear to Tread and A Room with a View. A shorter chapter on D.H. Lawrence outlines his problematic place in the tradition. The final section deals with Italianate postmodernism. A lengthy introduction raises general issues and is followed by closer readings of texts which demonstrate the relevance of 'Italy' to postmodern writing in English. The English, American and Australian
authors chosen for closer comment include Robert Coover, Robert Dessaix, Michael Dibdin, Ian McEwan, Michele Roberts, William Trevor and Jeanette Winterson. The final section illustrates
the continuity of the image of Italy, especially the way its reputation as artifice lends itself to elaborate, postmodern metafiction.
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Robinson, Laura M. "Educating the reader, negotiation in nineteenth-century popular girls' stories." Thesis, National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 1998. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk2/tape15/PQDD_0007/NQ27853.pdf.
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Nash, Andrew. "Kailyard, Scottish literary criticism, and the fiction of J.M. Barrie." Thesis, University of St Andrews, 1998. http://hdl.handle.net/10023/15199.
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This thesis argues that the term Kailyard is not a body of literature or cultural discourse, but a critical concept which has helped to construct controlling parameters for the discussion of literature and culture in Scotland. By offering an in-depth reading of the fiction of J.M. Barrie - the writer who is most usually and misleadingly associated with the term - and by tracing the writing career of Ian Maclaren, I argue for the need to reject the term and the critical assumptions it breeds. The introduction maps the various ways Kailyard has been employed in literary and cultural debates and shows how it promotes a critical approach to Scottish culture which focuses on the way individual writers, texts and images represent Scotland. Chapter 1 considers why this critical concern arose by showing how images of national identity and national literary distinctiveness were validated as the meaning of Scotland throughout the nineteenth century. Chapters 2-5 seek to overturn various assumptions bred by the term Kailyard. Chapter 2 discusses the early fiction of J.M. Barrie in the context of late nineteenth-century regionalism, showing how his work does not aim to depict social reality but is deliberately artificial in design. Chapter 3 discusses late Victorian debates over realism in fiction and shows how Barrie and Maclaren appealed to the reading public because of their treatment of established Victorian ideas of sympathy and the sentimental. Chapter 4 discusses Barrie's four longer novels - the works most constrained by the Kailyard term - and chapter 5 reconsiders the relationship between Maclaren's work and debates over popular culture. Chapter 6 analyses the use of the term Kailyard in twentieth-century Scottish cultural criticism. Discussing the criticism of Hugh MacDiarmid, the writing of literary histories and studies of Scottish film, history and politics, I argue for the need to reject the Kailyard term as a critical concept in the discussion of Scottish culture.
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Klopper, Annie Elizabeth. "Die opkoms van Afrikaanse rock en die literêre status van lirieke, met spesifieke verwysing na Fokofpolisiekar." Thesis, Stellenbosch : University of Stellenbosch, 2009. http://hdl.handle.net/10019.1/2201.
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Thesis (MA (Afrikaans and Dutch))--University of Stellenbosch, 2009.The aim of this study is to examine the rise of Afrikaans rock music and the literary status of Afrikaans rock lyrics, with Fokofpolisiekar as example. An investigation is done into how the specific sociopolitical context within which Afrikaans rock music developed manifests in lyrics and musical style. The implications of Afrikaans rock with regards to the identity of Afrikaner youth in the new millennium are also explored. A case study of the Afrikaans punk rock group Fokofpolisiekar is done by way of demonstration of this interdisciplinary and contextual investigation. Not only the formation and impact of the group are examined, but a considerable section of the thesis is dedicated to the analysis and interpretation of this group’s lyrics, which are viewed and explored from a literary point of view. In this process certain questions regarding the position of lyrics in the Afrikaans literary system comes under scrutiny. The analysis and interpretation of the lyrics of Fokofpolisiekar are therefore aimed towards examining the literary status of this group’s lyrics. It will be proved that the sociopolitical context within which Fokofpolisiekar’s lyrics came to be formulated, impacted on the character and themes thereof. The thematic struggle with issues like liberation (redemption) and identity in the lyrics are shown to bear relation to the sociopolitical context of the Afrikaner youth after the Afrikaner’s loss of power in 1994 and the postmodern condition at the turn of the millennium. This postmodern condition is characterized by the continuing fragmentation of identity. The conclusion is made that Afrikaans popular music sets up a space within which new ideas with regards to ‘truths’ of identity can be formulated. In other words, the punk rock music of Fokofpolisiekar offers an opportunity for the re-articulation of Afrikaner identity. By incorporating the polysistem theory (and other relevant theories) in investigating the creation and reception of Fokofpolisiekar’s lyrics, it is shown that the Afrikaans literary system holds a place for Afrikaans lyrics. Although similar, lyrics should not be regarded as synonymous to poetry. Seeing that the creation and reception thereof differs from that of other literary forms, I argue that lyrics are lyrics and should be regarded as such in order for it to come to its full right in literary study.
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Young, Erin S. "Corporate heroines and utopian individualism: A study of the romance novel in global capitalism." Thesis, University of Oregon, 2010. http://hdl.handle.net/1794/11460.
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x, 195 p. A print copy of this thesis is available through the UO Libraries. Search the library catalog for the location and call number.This dissertation explores two subgenres of popular romance fiction that emerge in the 1990s: "corporate" and "paranormal" romance. While the formulaic conventions of popular romance have typically centralized the gendered tension between hero and heroine, this project reveals that "corporate" and "paranormal" romances negotiate a new primary conflict, the tension between work and home in the era of global capitalism. Transformations in political economy also occur at the level of personal and emotional life, which constitute the central problem that contemporary romances attempt to resolve. Drawing from sociological studies of globalization and intimacy, feminist criticism, and queer theory, I argue that these subgenres mark the transition from what David Harvey calls Fordist capitalism to flexible or global capitalism as the primary social condition negotiated in the popular romance. My analysis demonstrates that corporate and paranormal romance novels reflect changing ideals about intimacy in a globalized world that is increasingly influenced, socially and culturally, by the values and philosophies that dominate the marketplace. Each of these subgenres offers a distinct formal resolution to the cultural and social effects of a flexible capitalist economy. The "corporate" romances of Jayne Ann Krentz, Nora Roberts, Elizabeth Lowell, and Katherine Stone feature heroines who constantly navigate the dual and intersecting arenas of work and home in an effort to locate a balance that leads to success and happiness in both realms. In contrast, the "paranormal" romances of Laurell K. Hamilton, Charlaine Harris, Kelley Armstrong, and Carrie Vaughn dissolve the tension between home and work, or the private and the public, by affirming the heroine's open and endless pursuit of pleasure, adventure, and self-fulfillment. Such new forms of romantic fantasy at once reveal the tension in globalization and the domination of corporate and masculinist values that the novels hope to overcome.
Committee in charge: David Leiwei Li, Chair; Mary Elene Wood; Cynthia H. Tolentino; Jiannbin L. Shiao
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Beaty, Bart H. "Good expectations : adaptation and middlebrow literacy." Thesis, McGill University, 1995. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=104369.
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The goal of this thesis is to advance understanding of the ways in which discourses of reading, literacy and culture were used to reify class stratification in mid-twentieth-century America. This project uses the examples of The Reader’s Digest magazine and Classics Illustrated comic books to assess the adaptation and the ideologies surrounding textual form. It examines the efforts of self-proclaimed cultural elites to identify and denigrate middlebrow reading habits through dismissive critiques of texts and audiences as one moment in an on-going historical process of domination and exclusion. These avenues of exploration will reveal the complexity and variance of class definition in a pluralist democracy which, it turns out, are still very much a part of contemporary culture. [Pages 101 and 102 are missing.)Le but de cette thèse est de faire progresser la connaissance des manières dont les contexts discursifs de la lecture, de l’alphabétisation et de la culture étaient utilisés en Amérique, au milieu du vingtième siècle, afin de réifier la stratification sociale. Des exemples tels que la revue The Reader ‘s Digest et la bande dessinée Classics Illustrated seront utilisés, dans ce projet, pour illustrer l’adaptation et les idéologies autour de la forme textuelle. Cet ouvrage examine comment ceux qui proclamés par eux-mêmes élites culturelles, ont tenté d’identifier et de dénigrer les habitudes de lecture du lecteur moyen par des critiques dédaigneuses des textes et du public, en un procédé historique persistant de domination et d’exclusion. Ces voies d’exploration révèleront la complexité et la diversité des définitions du concept de classes à l’intérieur d’une démocratie pluraliste, lesquelles, somme toute, cotinuent de faire partie intégrante de la culture contemporaine. [Il manque de pages 101 et 102.]
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Applauso, Nicolino. "Curses and laughter: The ethics of political invective in the comic poetry of high and late medieval Italy." Thesis, University of Oregon, 2010. http://hdl.handle.net/1794/10874.
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xiv, 479 p. : ill. (some col.) A print copy of this thesis is available through the UO Libraries. Search the library catalog for the location and call number.My dissertation examines the ethical engagement of political invective poetry in thirteenth- and fourteenth-century Italy. Modern criticism tends to treat medieval invective as a playfully subversive but marginal poetic game with minimal ethical weight. Instead, I aim to restore these poetic productions to their original context: the history, law, and custom of Tuscan cities. This contexts allows me to explore how humor and fury, in the denunciation of political enemies, interact to establish not a game but an ethics of invective. I treat ethics as both theoretical and practical, referring to Aristotle, Cicero, and Brunetto Latini, and define ethics as the pursuit of the common good in a defined community. Chapter I introduces the corpus, its historical and cultural background, its critical reception, and my approach. Chapter II discusses medieval invective in Tuscany and surveys the cultural practice of invective writing. Chapter III approaches invectives written by Rustico Filippi during the Guelph and Ghibelline wars. Chapter IV explores invectives by Cecco Angiolieri set in Siena, which polemicize with the Sienese government and citizenry. Chapter V examines invectives in Dante's Commedia (Inf. 19, Purg. 6, and Par. 27), focusing on his unexpected humor and his critique of the papacy, the empire, and Italian city governments. My conclusion examines the ethical function of slanderous wit in wartime invective. These poems balance verbal aggression with humor, claiming a role for laughter in creating dialogue within conflict. Far from a stylistic or ludic exercise, each invective shows the poet's activism and ethical engagement. This dissertation includes previously published material.
Committee in Charge: Regina Psaki, Chairperson, Romance Languages; Massimo Lollini, Member, Romance Languages; David Wacks, Member, Romance Languages; Steven Shankman, Outside Member, English
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Allen, Joseph J. "The retina blues : invisibility and cultural visibility." Virtual Press, 1995. http://liblink.bsu.edu/uhtbin/catkey/941584.
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My text formulates a theory of postmodern invisibility while examining the condition of cultural invisibility. As I track strategies of position and space in contemporary American literature and music, I propose a tactic for attaining cultural visibility that draws from Jean Baudrillard's notion of the-more-visible-than-the-visible, postmodern aesthetics and the cultural metaphor of the optics of the vision system.In our technoculture, Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man and his narrator's choice of an invisible identity, though wonderfully evocative, is no longer a viable solution to the dilemma of cultural invisibility. Later contemporary American fiction, especially Don DeLillo's White Noise, offers a strategy that oscillates between invisibility and visibility and is ineffective in curing cultural invisibility. My project centers on Leslie Marmon Silko's Ceremony and her representation of a storytelling ceremony that can cure the problem of cultural invisibility. Silko proposes a narrative mode capable of representing and accomplishing cultural work by reversing the flow of culture. Nathaniel Mackey's jazz-inspired fiction, Dibot Baghostus's Run (1993), expands Silko's magical blueprint by employing a culturally dense, hyper-visible narrative mode.Like Silko and Mackey, cultural theorist Trinh Minh-ha, anthropologist Michael Taussig, and sociologist Stephen Pfohl employ the more-visible-than-the-visible composition strategy of collage. Their writings, as well as the aesthetic of hiphop, serve as a model for my text because in collage, there is room for disorientation, noise, local elements, plurality, recomposition, hyper-visibility, and the sampling of crosscultural artifacts and debris. Experiencing a montage can shock sensory perceptions into novel paradigms of representation and, as Silko and Mackey hope, bring about a meaningful cultural visibility.For Minh-ha, Silko, and Mackey, stories and other cultural artifacts circulate freely like gifts. The pleasure is in transmitting, circulating, and retransmitting the story: the pleasure of making the story more-than-visible. Then the story functions, as Minh-ha states, "as a cure and a protection [that] is at once musical, historical, poetical, ethical, educational, magical." While my text strives to represent several of these elements, my theory of postmodern invisibility reflects and transmits a narrative mode that is capable of curing the problem of cultural invisibility.Department of English
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Fonsato, Vanna Marisa. "Giudizi letterari di Isabella Teotochi Albrizzi nel carteggio inedito della Raccolta Piancastelli." Thesis, McGill University, 1992. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=61287.
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The present work examines the literary criticism expressed by Isabella Teotochi Albrizzi in several of her unpublished letters.The first part outlines the cultural and historical tradition of Venice during the Eighteenth Century. Particular attention is subsequently given to the intellectual role of women, their contribution to the literary salons of the time, and the neoclassical tradition. This first part is essential in that it supplies a valuable context to Isabella Teotochi Albrizzi's writings.
In the second part, I examine Isabella Teotochi Albrizzi's literary criticism of major European authors and works. Through these criticisms she exposes her misvision of the literary world to which she aspired, and reveals that although she was influenced by the subtle preromantic tendencies, she remained faithful to the neoclassical school.
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Seward, James W. "The German exile journal Das Wort and the Soviet Union." PDXScholar, 1990. https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/open_access_etds/4104.
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Das Wort was a literary journal published by German Communist writers and fellow-travelers exiled in Moscow from 1936 to 1939. It was to be a mouthpiece for German literature in exile and to promote the Popular Front policy, which sought to unite disparate elements in non-Fascist Europe in opposition to the Nazis. Das Wort, under the editorship of German Communist writers whose close association with the Soviet Union had been well established in the previous decade, tried to provide a forum for exiled writers of various political persuasions, but was unwavering in its positive portrayal of Stalin's Soviet Union and the policies of that country. As the level of hysteria grew with the successive purges and public show trials in the Soviet Union, the journal adopted an even more eulogistic and militant attitude: any criticism or expression of doubt about Soviet policy was equated with support for Fascism. Thus the ability of the journal to contribute to the formation of a true common front in Europe to oppose Fascism was compromised from the outset by its total support for the Soviet Union. The Popular Front policy foundered on this issue, and that portion of German literature in exile which was to form the first generation of East German literature was inextricably bound to the Soviet Union well before the German Democratic Republic came in to existence.
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Trainin, Sarah Jean. "The rise of mass culture theory and its effect on golden age detective fiction." CSUSB ScholarWorks, 2002. https://scholarworks.lib.csusb.edu/etd-project/2255.
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Jordaan, Doret. "Zur Darstellung der weißen Frau als Hauptfigur in ausgewählten Unterhaltungsromanen der Gegenwart mit Afrikabezug." Thesis, Stellenbosch : University of Stellenbosch, 2009. http://hdl.handle.net/10019.1/1826.
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Thesis (MA (Modern Foreign Languages))--University of Stellenbosch, 2009.The noticeable popularity of contemporary German novels set in Africa, as well as the many similarities between these novels, provided the cause for this investigation. Especially the large number of autobiographies, biographies, novels, television productions and films featuring a white female protagonist raised some questions regarding the cause of the popularity of this character. The aim of this thesis is to try and answer some of these questions based on a close analysis of two particular female characters in two contemporary German novels set in Africa. A short overview of the research done on popular fiction, colonial German literature and the history of the white woman in Africa in literature will be given. Theoretical points of departure involve a discussion of the aims and effects of popular fiction in general, as well as a look at how German colonial Fantasies, as found in colonial Literature, are being propagated by contemporary Literature set in Africa, specifically with regard to the representation of the white female Protagonist. Further theoretical background will be provided by a brief appraisal of Gender Studies and Postcolonial Studies. Furthermore, a considerable part of the research for this thesis involved the reading of several contemporary popular German novels. Ein Land, das Himmel heißt (2002) by Stefanie Gercke and Die weiße Jägerin (2005) by Rolf Ackermann were selected as prime examples for closer analysis. In this thesis the two female protagonists of the selected novels, Jill Court and Margarete Trappe, will be analysed in order to identify and interpret a pattern followed in the representation of the white female protagonist in Africa in general. A central aspect of the depiction of this protagonist is her ability to cross boundaries between stereotypical representations of both masculinity and femininity. Therefore, she is a versatile character, allowing a large number of readers to identify with her. However, her capacity to cross such boundaries is limited to a certain extent and she never oversteps the boundaries far enough in order to surpass her lover when it comes to strength, knowledge, and maturity. The conclusion of this study is that both the versatility and the limitations of this protagonist explain her immense popularity as a new literary stereotype.
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Comberiati, Daniele. "Ecrire dans la langue de l'autre: la littérature des immigrés en Italie, 1989-2007." Doctoral thesis, Universite Libre de Bruxelles, 2008. http://hdl.handle.net/2013/ULB-DIPOT:oai:dipot.ulb.ac.be:2013/210477.
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Dans ce travail on essaye de donner une définition et une historicisation de ce qu’on appelle « littérature italienne de la migration ». Il y a tout de suite une distinction à faire entre les écrivains étrangers qui écrivaient en italien avant le grand flux migratoire des années ’80 et ceux qui sont issus de cette vague, dont la thèse s’occupe dans une manière plus spécifique (années 1989-2007). Les changements sociaux et culturels que les nouveaux immigrés ont apporté, ont transformé l’Italie de pays d’émigration en pays d’immigration. Au niveau littéraire ces écrivains ont d’abord utilisé un langage standard, pour se faire comprendre du public et pour témoigner les difficultés du voyage migratoire et de l’intégration ;les dernières œuvres, pourtant, analysées dans la deuxième partie de la thèse, ont été écrites par des écrivains qui manipulent plus facilement la langue italienne, utilisant un plurilinguisme témoin d’un lien très stricte entre oralité et écriture, et entre langue d’origine et langue d’accueil. Enfin, les oeuvres des écrivains italophones postcoloniaux et de ceux issus de la deuxième génération peuvent rapporter la littérature italienne contemporaine avec des autres situation (France, Allemagne, Angleterre, Etats Unis) qui semblent très similaires.ENGLISH: On this work we want to give a definition about “Italian Migrant Literature”. There is a difference between writers came in Italy before or after the migration’s fluxes on the 80’s. With this social and cultural changes, Italy became immigration country. First, migrant writers used a standard language, to have a big public and to talk about migration. Last works are more interesting because they use a plurilingualism that can show the relationship between oral and write. Finally, Postcolonial Italian writers and Second Generation writers make a connection with the literary situation in the other countries (France, Germany, Britain, United States).
Doctorat en Langues et lettres
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Olivier, Séverine. "Le roman sentimental: productions contemporaines et pratiques de lecture." Doctoral thesis, Universite Libre de Bruxelles, 2009. http://hdl.handle.net/2013/ULB-DIPOT:oai:dipot.ulb.ac.be:2013/210245.
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Etiqueté péjorativement « roman à l’eau de rose », le roman sentimental, critiqué et plutôt méconnu, est pourtant un genre paralittéraire à succès. Bien qu’inspirant mépris et indifférence, cette production et son lectorat francophone méritent dès lors qu’on s’y attarde. Produit emblématique de la culture médiatique, le roman sentimental représente en effet un indicateur de mutations culturelles d’importance. Articulée en deux temps, notre analyse se centre, d’une part, sur les spécificités de cette production et, d’autre part, sur son lectorat francophone. L’examen du roman sentimental sous l’angle textuel, éditorial et auctorial est donc couplé à une enquête qualitative basée sur un ensemble d’entretiens semi-directifs visant à circonscrire les pratiques du lectorat, à éclaircir les motifs à la base de la lecture sentimentale et à déterminer sa fonction principale.Doctorat en Langues et lettres
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Grappe, Yann D. "La culture du vin dans la littérature italienne du Moyen Âge tardif au début des Temps Modernes: critères de qualité, systèmes de représentation et identités." Doctoral thesis, Universite Libre de Bruxelles, 2009. http://hdl.handle.net/2013/ULB-DIPOT:oai:dipot.ulb.ac.be:2013/210252.
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Cette étude entend rechercher les traces d'une culture gastronomique du vin dans la littérature italienne sur la période à cheval entre l'époque médiévale et les Temps modernes. La littérature, lorsqu'on lui applique une critique appropriée, est en mesure de fournir à l'historien des informations ponctuelles sur la culture du vin. Elle permet également de mettre en lumière le regard porté par les hommes sur cet objet chargé de significations. Dans le cadre de cette étude, la gastronomie ne sera pas considérée comme une notion vague, voire anecdotique mais comme un phénomène culturel qui place l'homme en relation avec les différentes réalités alimentaires, sensorielles et hédoniques. À quoi tient la qualité d'un vin ?Cette question simple présente l'avantage d'ouvrir une large perspective de recherche historique et anthropologique. Pister les critères de qualité d'un vin pour les hommes d'une autre culture et d'un autre temps c'est aussi comprendre la manière dont ils ont cherché à représenter cet objet. Ce système de représentation révèle la pensée et l'imaginaire des hommes, en même temps qu'il dévoile les valeurs, les identités et les structures socio-économiques d'une société.
Doctorat en Histoire, art et archéologie
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Derrick, Stephanie Lee. "The reception of C.S. Lewis in Britain and America." Thesis, University of Stirling, 2013. http://hdl.handle.net/1893/19765.
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Since the publication of the book The Screwtape Letters in 1942, ‘C. S. Lewis’ has been a widely recognized name in both Britain and the United States. The significance of the writings of this scholar of medieval literature, Christian apologist and author of the children’s books The Chronicles of Narnia, while widely recognized, has not previously been investigated. Using a wide range of sources, including archival material, book reviews, monographs, articles and interviews, this dissertation examines the reception of Lewis in Britain and America, comparatively, from within his lifetime until the recent past. To do so, the methodology borrows from the history of the book and history of reading fields, and writes the biography of Lewis’s Mere Christianity and The Chronicles of Narnia. By contextualizing the writing of these works in the 1940s and 1950s, the evolution of Lewis’s respective platforms in Britain and America and these works’ reception across the twentieth century, this project contributes to the growing body of work that interrogates the print culture of Christianity. Extensive secondary reading, moreover, permitted the investigation of cultural, intellectual, social and religious factors informing Lewis’s reception, the existence of Lewis devotees in America and the lives of Mere Christianity and The Chronicles of Narnia in particular. By paying close attention to the historical conditions of authorship, publication and reception, while highlighting similarities and contrasts between Britain and America, this dissertation provides a robust account of how and why Lewis became one of the most successful Christian authors of the twentieth century.
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Louckx, Audrey. "Empowering voices: testimonial literature and social justice in contemporary American culture." Doctoral thesis, Universite Libre de Bruxelles, 2014. http://hdl.handle.net/2013/ULB-DIPOT:oai:dipot.ulb.ac.be:2013/209257.
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Within the last three decades, contemporary North America came to reinvent a socially focused genre of literary personal narratives. These new editorial and writing projects, published in the form of collections of personal narratives, emerged as a tool for the socially voiceless to secure some measure of agency in their contemporary social and cultural situation. Projects such as the Freedom Writers’ Diary or volumes of the Voice of Witness book series fit in the process that is currently labeled social empowerment. Witnesses express a deep urge to share their story in the hope to denounce their experience of an enduring social injustice. The written word, primary a means for self-disclosure, serves to exorcise the suffering associated to this specific predicament. The narrators engage in a powerful self-investigative gesture oriented towards resilience and renewed enfranchisement in regaining control over their life and environment. At the moment of publication, however, these testimonies come to be validated as authentic examples of the injustices they disclose. These examples serve an educational purpose: raising the audience’s awareness and opening deliberative fora for these issues to be discussed and for solutions to be hammered out and eventually implemented. The purpose of this dissertation is to propose a theoretical model for the subgenre of testimonials of social empowerment. With the concept of empowerment as groundwork, the model develops a textual approach framed in a psychosocial structure. I argue that testimonials may be described as examples of Jürgen Habermas’s communicative action. As speech acts aimed at reaching understanding, testimonials capitalize both on the binding and bonding aspects of illocutionary force in the hope to secure with their audience an ongoing dialogue over issues of social justice. The volumes, as unofficial public spheres, mobilize the normative and practical dynamics at work in social movements. These dynamics express as two narrative guiding threads: an aesthetic based on impact, and an ethics based on responsibility. The texts’ aesthetic develops a form of perlocutionary realism instantiating a sense of authenticity and sincerity embodied in the narrators’ voices. The resulting impact is coupled to moral concerns based on a polysemic understanding of social responsibility, on which narrators seek to build their narratives’ ethical potential. A series of case studies allowed to demonstrate that both narrative threads are realized as an appropriation of four paradigmatic forms of rhetorical ethos, each based on a specific realm of the social world: intimacy, justice, spirituality and activism.
Doctorat en Langues et lettres
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Sadoun, Clara. "Le roman de La Vie parisienne, 1863-1970: presse, genre, littérature et mondanité, 1863-1914." Doctoral thesis, Universite Libre de Bruxelles, 2010. http://hdl.handle.net/2013/ULB-DIPOT:oai:dipot.ulb.ac.be:2013/209915.
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Fondée en 1863,la Vie parisienne est une revue illustrée, galante et mondaine qui connut, jusqu'aux années 1930, un très grand succès. La thèse ici présentée s'attache à en retracer l'histoire, à en étudier le discours social, notamment sur les femmes, et son implication - problématique - dans le champ littéraire.
Doctorat en Langues et lettres
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Caristia, Stefania. "La réception de la littérature française dans les revues littéraires italiennes de la deuxième moitié du XXème siècle (1944-1970)." Thesis, Sorbonne université, 2019. http://www.theses.fr/2019SORUL079.
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Comment l’étude de la réception d’une littérature étrangère dans les revues – objets hybrides et fluides dont les spécificités essentielles sont l’inscription dans la durée et le rapport entretenu avec le temps historique, ainsi que le fait d’être le résultat polyphonique d’une création collective – permettrait-elle de dépasser les distinctions entre les approches de l’« esthétique de la réception » et de l’« histoire de la réception » (et encore, de la sociologie et de la sociopolitique), et entre les notions de « réception critique » et de « réception créatrice » ? Notre recherche, portant sur un corpus hétérogène composé de trente revues littéraires et politico-littéraires italiennes, s’est articulée autour de cette question. En s’appuyant sur les notions de transfert et de réseaux et en croisant les approches quantitative et qualitative des textes français, des traductions et des contributions critiques publiés dans les revues, notre travail vise à identifier les lieux et les modalités de la réception, ses évolutions et ses invariants après la Deuxième Guerre mondiale. L’optique interdisciplinaire adoptée, s’attachant aux multiples facettes de ce phénomène, porte un nouveau regard sur les histoires croisées des littératures française et italienne, ainsi que sur l’activité des revues et les pratiques de la critique littéraire. En interrogeant les mécanismes par lesquels les revues s’approprient la littérature étrangère, ce sont les rapports qui existent entre la réception des œuvres littéraires, l’histoire d’un champ littéraire national et les facteurs extra-littéraires (historiques, politiques, idéologiques…) que nous nous proposons de sonderBeing periodicals a hybrid and fluid object, whose essential particularities are periodicity and the relationship with historical time, as well as being the polyphonic results of a collective creation, how would the study of the reception of a foreign literature in periodicals allow to overcome the distinctions in approaches between the aesthetics of reception and the history of reception, and between the notions of critical reception and creative reception? My research focuses on this question through the analysis of a heterogeneous corpus of thirty Italian literary and politicalliterary periodicals. Building on the notions of “transfer” and “networks” and by crossing quantitative and qualitative approaches in the analysis of French texts, translations and criticism edited in the reviews, my research aims at identifying reception’s places and modalities, its evolutions and invariants after World War II. The interdisciplinary point of view adopted, focusing on the phenomenon’s many aspects, takes a new look on the intermingled histories of French and Italian literature, as well as on the periodicals’ activity and forms of literary criticism. By questioning the mechanisms through which periodicals adapt foreign literature, I aim at surveying the relationships between the reception of literary works, the history of a national literary field and the extraliterary factors (history, politics, ideologies…)
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Blake, Greyory. "Good Game." VCU Scholars Compass, 2018. https://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/etd/5377.
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This thesis and its corresponding art installation, Lessons from Ziggy, attempts to deconstruct the variables prevalent within several complex systems, analyze their transformations, and propose a methodology for reasserting the soap box within the display pedestal. In this text, there are several key and specific examples of the transformation of various signifiers (i.e. media-bred fear’s transformation into a political tactic of surveillance, contemporary freneticism’s transformation into complacency, and community’s transformation into nationalism as a state weapon). In this essay, all of these concepts are contextualized within the exponential growth of new technologies. That is to say, all of these semiotic developments must be framed within the post-Internet sphere.
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TAYLOR, SHAWN. "SPEED AND RESOLUTION IN THE AGE OF TECHNOLOGICAL REPRODUCIBILITY." VCU Scholars Compass, 2015. http://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/etd/3888.
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The rate of acceleration of the biologic and synthetic world has for a while now, been in the process of exponentially speeding up, maxing out servers and landfills, merging with each other, destroying each other. The last prehistoric relics on Earth are absorbing the same oxygen, carbon dioxide and electronic waves in our biosphere as us. A degraded .jpeg enlarged to full screen on a Samsung 4K UHD HU8550 Series Smart TV - 85” Class (84.5” diag.). Within this composite ecology, the ancient limestone of the grand canyon competes with the iMax movie of itself, the production of Mac pros, a YouTube clip from Jurassic park, and the super bowl halftime show. A search engines assistance with biographic memory helps our bodies survive new atmospheres and weigh the gravities that exist around the versions of an objects materiality. Communication has moved from our vocal chords, to swipes and taps of our thumbs on a screen that predicts the weather, accesses the hidden, invisible, and withdrawn information from the objects around us, and still ducks up what we are trying to say. This txt was written on a tablet returned to stock settings and embedded with content to mine the experience in which mediated technology creates, communicates and obscures new forms of language. Life in a new event horizon — a dimensional dualism that finds us competing for genetic and mimetic survival — we are now functioning as different types of humans.
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TASCA, Luisa. "Galatei : buone maniere e cultura borghese nell'Italia dell'Ottocento." Doctoral thesis, 2002. http://hdl.handle.net/1814/5992.
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Defence date: 16 December 2002Examining board: Giovanni Levi, Università di Venezia ; Luisa Passerini, European University Institute (supervisor) ; Raffaele Romanelli, European University Institute ; Edith Saurer, Universität Wien
PDF of thesis uploaded from the Library digitised archive of EUI PhD theses completed between 2013 and 2017
Le buone maniere non rappresentano vuote formalità o regole fini a se stesse, ma sono rivelatrici di rapporti, conflitti e contesti che riguardano la società nella sua totalità e che aiutano a rileggerne e interpretarne le complesse dinamiche. Nel corso dell'Ottocento furono pubblicati in Italia oltre 400 galatei, il cui studio è fondamentale per comprendere a fondo il XIX secolo. I galatei furono infatti uno degli strumenti con i quali le èlites dell'Italia risorgimentale e post-unitaria organizzarono schemi utili a ordinare il "corpo sociale" secondo modelli più gerarchici che democratici, più tesi alla disciplina che non fiduciosi nel libero protagonismo della società civile.
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Caucutt, Jason Steven. "The intermediate decade : male homosexuality in American popular fiction of the 1930's." Diss., 2004. http://hdl.handle.net/10500/1564.
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In the short period between 1931 and 1934 a flurry of gay-themed novels was published
which were blatantly marketed as novels exploring the "twilight world" of homosexual
men. In the subsequent seventy-odd years these titles have received very little attention,
being entirely forgotten or sometimes erroneously grouped with postwar gay pulp fiction.
Furthermore, almost without exception, the 1930s novels portray a concept of
homosexuality which does not quite fit into the postwar view of sexual orientation or gay
isolation.
Section I explores how titles like A Scarlet Pansy, Strange Brother, and Twilight Men, all
show a view of homosexuality that was immersed in gender norms and class differences
much more than psychology or the modern concept of sexual orientation. In many cases,
masculine or feminine behavior denotes status more than does the actual gender of one's
sexual partner. Words like "homosexual" and "heterosexual" had a "highly clinical"
sound to most 1930s ears (to quote a character in Better Angel). That is not to say,
however, the readership of these novels were unfamiliar with "the love that dare not
speak its name". In fact, it seems many novels took for granted their readers' knowledge
of urban, working-class "fairy culture" and were seeking either to shock or, conversely,
elicit sympathy by depicting non-flamboyant protagonists as well as stock pansies. In contrast to postwar treatments, the novels of the 1930s never depict gay men as
existing in confused isolation. Section II explores how the novels oflen treat the gay shadow world as an elite, artistic club-albeit one filled with sinful excesses and
potential dangers. Finally, after 1935 the tone of gay-themed novels changed abruptly, as
the public's "pansy craze" abated. Older notions of"gender inversion" and ''Nature's
intermediates" faded and homosexuality became more associated with psychological
affliction with societal implicationsHistory
M.A.
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Ishihara, Tsuyoshi. "Mark Twain in Japan: Mark Twain's literature and 20th century Japanese juvenile literature and popular culture." Thesis, 2003. http://hdl.handle.net/2152/669.
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Mowatt, Robert. "Popular performance : youth, identity and tradition in KwaZulu-Natal : the work of a selection of Isicathamiya choirs in Emkhambathini." Thesis, 2005. http://hdl.handle.net/10413/1858.
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In recent years there has been an increasing interest in the study of African popular arts and performance genres. In this study, I will focus on isicathamiya, a South African musical performance genre, and in particular the attempt of its practitioners to create new identities and a new sense of self through their own interpretation of the genre. This study will concentrate on the 'isicathamiya youth' in the semi-rural community of Emkhambathini (located about 30 kilometres east of Pietermaritzburg) and their strategies of self-definition in the New South Africa. Isicathamiya has strong roots in migrant labour and this has been the main focal point around which many researchers have concentrated. However, recent years have seen a movement of isicathamiya concentrated within rural and semi-rural communities such as Emkhambathini. The performers in these areas have a unique interpretation of the genre and use it to communicate their thoughts and identities to a diverse audience made up of young and old. In this study I will be looking at the 'isicathamiya youth' within three broad categories, the re-invention of tradition, the re-interpretation of the genre, and issues of masculinities. Each of these categories accounts for the three chapters within this study and serves to give a broad yet in-depth study of the 'new wave' of isicathamiya performers. The first chapter, entitled 'Traditional Re-invention', will deal with issues relating to the project of traditional 'redefinition' which the 'isicathamiya youth' are pursuing in Emkhambathini. I will show that tradition is not a stagnant concept, but is in fact ever-changing over time and place, a concept that does not carry one definition over an entire community. Through various song texts and frames of analysis I will attempt fto show how tradition is being used to further the construction of positive identities within Emkhambathini and give youth a place in Zulu tradition and in a multi-layered modernity. The second chapter will deal with how the 'isicathamiya youth' raise and stretch the boundaries of the genre in relation to a number of concepts. These concepts include topics of performance, women and popular memory and serve to give a broader view as to what the 'isicathamiya youth' are trying to achieve, namely a new positive self identity that seeks to empower the youth in the New South Africa. The last chapter will look at issues of masculinity and how the youth use different strategies to regain the masculine identities of their fathers and grandfathers and maintain patriarchal authority. Issues looked at within this chapter will include men's role within society and their perceptions of women.Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2005.
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Rice, Michael. "From Dolly Gray to Sarie Marais : the Boer War in popular memory." Thesis, 2014. http://hdl.handle.net/10210/11419.
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Belluccini, Federica. "“A MUCH MILDER MEDIUM”: ENGLISH AND GERMAN WOMEN WRITERS IN ITALY 1840-1880." 2011. http://hdl.handle.net/10222/14358.
Full textAbstract:
Travel writing is by definition an open and hybrid form that encompasses a variety of genres, styles, and modes of presentation. This study focuses on four little-known travel texts about Italy written between 1840 and 1880 by two English and two German women writers and shows how, by exploiting the openness of the form of travel writing, they broadened its scope beyond mere description to provide insight into national ideologies and identities while expanding the boundaries of the female sphere of influence. This study considers the following texts: Mary Shelley’s Rambles in Germany and Italy, in 1840, 1842, and 1843 (1844), Adele Schopenhauer’s Florenz: Ein Reiseführer mit Anekdoten und Erzählungen (1847/48) (2007), Frances Power Cobbe’s Italics: Brief Notes on Politics, People, and Places in Italy, in 1864 (1864), and Fanny Lewald’s Reisebriefe aus Deutschland, Italien und Frankreich 1877, 1878 (1880).
In the first chapter, the four texts under consideration are presented against the backdrop of nineteenth-century sexual ideology of the ‘separate spheres’ and the conventions of women’s travel writing. A survey of the long tradition of English and German travellers to Italy and their writings is provided to establish the context in which the texts were produced. Also considered is the role they play in the narrative of Italian nation-building. In the second chapter, the discussion of Rambles in Germany and Italy examines how, by presenting herself as a mother and an educator, Shelley foregrounds the pedagogical purpose of the book, which aims at garnering the sympathy of her British audience for the oppressive political situation of the Italian people and their growing nationalism. The third chapter explores Schopenhauer’s attempt in Florenz to create her own gendered version of the guidebook for travellers in the style of Murray and Baedeker and to revive the memory of the democratic institutions of thirteenth-century Florence at a time when Italians were fighting for democratic reforms and independence. The fourth chapter shows how, in Italics, the representation of Italy in the wake of its partial unification in 1861 is closely intertwined with Cobbe’s own thinking on politics, religion, and women’s emancipation. The fifth chapter examines how, in Reisebriefe, the discussion of the social and political changes that had affected both Italy and Germany in the previous forty years allows Lewald to engage in a reflection on her own femininity and on the role of women in the newly formed German nation.
Shelley, Schopenhauer, Cobbe and Lewald each used travel writing to explore their own identities as women and as writers. Pushing the form beyond exposition into the realm of social commentary, they used it to shape public opinion and to explore new roles for women in society.
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Baraban, Elena V. "Russia in the prism of popular culture : Russian and American detective fiction and thrillers of the 1990s." Thesis, 2003. http://hdl.handle.net/2429/15156.
Full textAbstract:
The subject matter of my study is representations of Russia in Anglo-American
and Russian spy novels, mysteries, and action thrillers of the 1990s. Especially suitable
for representing the world split between good and evil, these genres played a prominent
role in constructing the image of the other during the Cold War. Crime fiction then is an
important source for grasping the changes in representing Russia after the Cold War. My
hypothesis is that despite the changes in the political roles of Russia and the United
States, the end of the Cold War and the demise of the Soviet Union continued to have a
significant impact on popular fiction about Russia in the 1990s. A comparative
perspective on depictions of Russia in the 1990s is particularly suitable in regard to
American and Russian popular cultures because during the Cold War, Soviet and
American identities were formed in view of the other. A comparative approach to the
study of Russian popular fiction is additionally justified by the role that the idea of the
West had played in Russian cultural history starting from the early eighteenth century.
Reflection on depictions of Russia in crime fiction by writers coming from the
two formerly antagonistic cultures poses the problem of representation in its relationship
to time, history, politics, popular culture, and genre. The methods used in this
dissertation derive from the field of cultural studies, history, and structuralist poetics. A
combination of structuralist readings and social theory allows me to uncover the ways in
which popular detective genres changed in response to the sentiments of nostalgia and
anxiety about repressed or lost identities, the sentiments that were typical of the 1990s.
My study of Anglo-American and Russian spy novels, mysteries, and action thrillers
contributes to our understanding of the ways American and Russian cultures invent and
reinvent themselves after a significant historical rupture, how they mobilize the past for
making sense of the present. Drawing on readings of literature and culture by such
scholars as Mikhail Bakhtin, Tzvetan Todorov, Siegfried Kracauer, Andreas Huyssen,
Fredric Jameson, and Svetlana Boym, I show that differences in Anglo-American and
Russian representations of Russia are a result of cultural asymmetries and cultural
chronotopes in the United States and in Russia. I argue that Russian and American crime
fiction of the 1990s re-writes Russia in the light of cultural memory, nostalgia, and
historical sensibilities after the end of the Cold War and the fall of the Soviet Union.
Memories of the Cold War and coming to terms with the end of the Cold War played a
defining role in depicting Russia by Anglo-American detective authors of the 1990s; this
role is clear from the genre changes in Anglo-American thrillers about Russia. Similarly,
reconsideration of Russian history became an essential characteristic in the development
of the new Russian detektiv.
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Eberle, Catherine. "Mediating urban identity : orality, performance and poetry in the work of Koos du Plessis." Thesis, 2002. http://hdl.handle.net/10413/4452.
Full textAbstract:
In this article I examine as mediations of urban experience poems written by Koos
du Plessis. a contemporary Afrikaans poet. together with their musical rendition by
Johannes Kerkorrel. a singer and musician from the Afrikaans altemative music
scene and former member of Die Gereformeerde Blues Band. The poetry was
initially published with musical arrangements in the volume Kinders van die Wind :
En Ander Lirieke (1981) . In order to use this material in an article produced as part
of an English study . I have translated the poetry into English . The translation (in
linguistic and performative terms) of these poems has the dual effect of rendering
them more appropriately for this study, and making them accessible to a wider
audience. I am concemed with the way poems written by a poet from an earlier
decade (the 1980s) interpret and mediate an urban identity and. further. with the fact
that performance not only gives them a new lease of life. but also transforms them
into works which have meaning and appeal for a more contemporary, broader
audience. The fundamental issues addressed in this poetry , namely a response to
and a negotiation of urban (South African) experience. continue to speak
compellingly today.Thesis (M.A.)-University of Natal, Durban, 2002.
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Erickson, Paul Joseph. "Welcome to Sodom: the cultural work of city-mysteries fiction in antebellum America." Thesis, 2005. http://hdl.handle.net/2152/1543.
Full text