A king for the queene: Samuel Sheppard's the faerie king and his reception of Spenser's epic authority

This thesis is the study of the use and abuse of Edmund Spenser as an authority in native English epic literature of the early seventeenth century, within fifty years of his death. It focuses on attempts to emulate or adapt his seminal text, The Faerie Queene (1596), and offers a comparative analysis of two such approaches by the liminal authors, Ralph Knevet and Samuel Sheppard. The former, a tutor to the wealthy Norfolk Paston family, produced his A Supplement of the Ferie Queene in the pre-Civil War period (c.1630-1635), while the latter wrote The Faerie King at the very end of the social upheaval of the war (c.1648-54). The thesis privileges the study of the holograph manuscripts (Cambridge University Library, MS Ee.3.53 and Bodleian Library MS Rawl. Poet. 28 respectively) over the basic editions of these neglected texts. It argues for the need to re-evaluate the significance of such texts within the Spenserian canon and, through new readings of the texts' structures and contexts, the thesis questions the legitimacy of canon formation and continuation, as well as the influence editorial policies and decision making can have on subsequent readers and receptions of the text

Globalization and basketball in China: governance, market and culture

Chinese sports are developing under very complex and unique political, economic, and cultural circumstances in the global age. This study aims to investigate the process of globalization in basketball through an examination of its multidimensional manifestations. The study aligns itself with Ritzer’s (2003, 2007b) conceptualization of dichotomizing the process of globalization into grobalization and glocalization. On that basis, the trajectory of basketball globalization in China is identified as the result of a contextual and competing interplay between the penetration of the NBA and the consequent engagement of Chinese basketball. A qualitative methodological approach was conducted to achieve the research aim. Data were collected from a number of sources, including official documents and semi-structured interviews with relevant basketball participants. The study reveals that globalization and basketball in China, in the political and institutional dimension, is a conflicting process. The universalization of the NBA’s governance model could not be fully assimilated due to the centralization of power in the Chinese government, which is hindering the further professionalization and marketization of basketball. In the economic dimension, the globalization process is seen to interplay with the local basketball market, which is growing thanks to the adaption of the NBA’s marketing strategies. In the cultural dimension, the study demonstrates that the NBA has to some extent cosmopolitanized and consumerized Chinese basketball culture, while resistance from both the state and the Chinese people has risen, creolizing the globalization of basketball culture in China.