The Whitby life of Gregory the Great: exegesis and hagiography

The eight-century Whitby Vita Gregorii is one of the earliest examples of Anglo-Saxon hagiography, and is the earliest surviving life of Gregory the Great (590-604). The work has proved itself an anomaly in subject matter, style and approach, not least because of the writer’s apparently arbitrary insertion of an account of the retrieval of the relics of the Anglo-Saxon King Edwin (d.633). There has, however, been relatively little research on the document to date, the most recent concentrating on elements in the Gregorian material in the work. The present thesis adapts a methodology which identifies patristic exegetical themes and techniques in the Vita. That is not only in material originating from the pen of Gregory himself, which is freely quoted and cited by the writer, but also in the narrative episodes concerning the Pope. It also identifies related exegetical themes underlying the narrative of the Anglo-Saxon material in the document, and this suggests that the work is of much greater coherence then has previously been thought. In the course of the thesis some of the Vita Gregorii’s major patristic themes are compared with Bede and other insular writers in the presentation of topics that have been of considerable interest to insular historians in recent years. That is themes including: the conversion and salvation of the English people; the ideal pastor; monastic influence on formation of Episcopal spiritual authority; relations between king and bishop. The thesis also includes a re-evaluation of the possible historical context and purpose of the work, and demonstrates the value of a proper understanding of the Vita’s spiritual nature in order to achieve this. Finally the research is supported by a new structural analysis of the entire Vita Gregorii as an artefact formed within literary traditions.

A literary occupation: responses of German writers in service in occupied Europe

This thesis examines the literary output of German servicemen writers writing from the occupied territories of Europe in the period 1940-1944. Whereas literary-biographical studies and appraisals of the more significant individual writers have been written, and also a collective assessment of the Eastern front writers, this thesis addresses in addition the German literary responses in France and Greece, as being then theatres of particular cultural/ideological attention. Original papers of the writer Felix Hartlaub were consulted by the author at the Deutsches Literatur Archiv (DLA) at Marbach. Original imprints of the wartime works of the subject writers are referred to throughout, and citations are from these. As all the published works were written under conditions of wartime censorship and, even where unpublished, for fear of discovery written in oblique terms, the texts were here examined for subliminal authorial intention. The critical focus of the thesis is on literary quality: on aesthetic niveau, on applied literary form, and on integrity of authorial intention. The thesis sought to discover: (1) the extent of the literary output in book-length forms. (2) the auspices and conditions under which this literary output was produced. (3) the publication history and critical reception of the output. The thesis took into account, inter alia: (1) occupation policy as it pertained locally to the writers’ remit; (2) the ethical implications of this for the writers; (3) the writers’ literary stratagems for negotiating the constraints of censorship.

Diverse heritage: exploring literary identity in the American Southwest

Since the age of colonisation, the territory of New Mexico has been exposed to a diversity of cultural influence. Throughout recorded history various forces have battled for control of this territory, resulting in a continuous redefinition of its political, geographic and economic boundaries. Early representations of the Southwest have been defined as “strategies of negotiation” between Anglo, Hispanic and Native populations, strategies that are particularly evident in the territory of New Mexico. The contemporary identity of regions like northern New Mexico have destabilised the notion of what constitutes racial purity in regions which are defined by diversity. This thesis aims to evaluate the literary history of northern New Mexico in order to determine how exposure to a diversity of cultural influence has affected the region’s identity. An analysis of Anglo and Native writers from northern New Mexico will illustrate that these racial groups were influenced by the same geographic landscape. As such, their writing displays many characteristics unique to the region. In providing a comparative analysis of Native and Anglo authors from northern New Mexico, this thesis seeks to demonstrate commonalities of theme, structure and content. In doing so this research encourages a new perspective on New Mexico writing one which effectively de-centres contemporary notions of what the American canon should be.

Automatic detection of learner-style for adaptive eLearning

The advent of modern wireless technologies has seen a shift in focus towards the design and development of educational systems for deployment through mobile devices. The use of mobile phones, tablets and Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) is steadily growing across the educational sector as a whole. Mobile learning (mLearning) systems developed for deployment on such devices hold great significance for the future of education. However, mLearning systems must be built around the particular learner’s needs based on both their motivation to learn and subsequent learning outcomes. This thesis investigates how biometric technologies, in particular accelerometer and eye-tracking technologies, could effectively be employed within the development of mobile learning systems to facilitate the needs of individual learners. The creation of personalised learning environments must enable the achievement of improved learning outcomes for users, particularly at an individual level. Therefore consideration is given to individual learning-style differences within the electronic learning (eLearning) space. The overall area of eLearning is considered and areas such as biometric technology and educational psychology are explored for the development of personalised educational systems. This thesis explains the basis of the author’s hypotheses and presents the results of several studies carried out throughout the PhD research period. These results show that both accelerometer and eye-tracking technologies can be employed as an Human Computer Interaction (HCI) method in the detection of student learning-styles to facilitate the provision of automatically adapted eLearning spaces. Finally the author provides recommendations for developers in the creation of adaptive mobile learning systems through the employment of biometric technology as a user interaction tool within mLearning applications. Further research paths are identified and a roadmap for future of research in this area is defined.

“Fiction makes a better job of the truth”: dialogism, oppositional consciousness and re-membering in the novels of Helena María Viramontes

This thesis comprises close textual analyses of Chicana author Helena María Viramontes' two published novels, Under the Feet of Jesus (1995) and Their Dogs Came With Them (2007). These analyses fall under three broad frameworks: space, time and body. Chapter One engages with the first of these frameworks, space, and explores concepts of cognitive mapping and heteroptopias. Chapter Two, which looks at time, employs theories of intertextuality and the palimpsest, while Chapter Three looks at the interrrelationship between mythology and images of the body in the texts. This study emerges five years after the publication of Viramontes' last novel, Their Dogs Came With Them, but offers fresh insight into the contribution of the author to both the Chicano literary tradition and also the U.S. canon through her critique of hegemonic power structures that suppress not only the voices of lower class ethnic citizens but also of ethnic writers. In particular, her work chastises the paucity of attention given to ethnic women writers in the U.S. This thesis reaffirms Viramontes' position as one of the most important writers living and writing in the U.S. today. It corroborates her work as a contestation against ethnic and gender suppression, and applauds the craftsmanship of her narrative style that delicately but decisively exposes the socio-political wrongs that occur in ocntemporary U.S. society.

The Celtic dragon slayer - a literary analysis of Tochmarc Emire in connection with Tristan et Iseut

As Celtic scholars have long noted, the medieval Irish tale Tochmarc Emire “The Courtship of Emer” is heavily indebted to other medieval Irish texts. In this tale of courtship and otherworldly quests, the Irish hero Cú Chulainn must prove himself worthy of the hand of the noblewoman Emer. Among his overseas adventures, Cú Chulainn rescues a princess from three attackers of the Fomoire. This episode may represent the only medieval Irish example of AT300 “The Dragon Slayer”, a story pattern known from classical models such as the stories of Perseus and Andromeda; and Hercules and Hesione. Moreover, in the company of Cú Chulainn we find a character otherwise unknown to Irish tradition by the name of Drust mac Seirb. This has led scholars to argue that Tochmarc Emire may preserve a Celtic precursor of the Continental Tristan legend, seeing in Drust the Pictish origin of the character Tristan, himself a famous dragon slayer. In this interdisciplinary dissertation, a number of questions are addressed. If the redactor of Tochmarc Emire drew on material from outside Irish tradition, what does this tell us about medieval Irish concepts of literature and genre? Further, what evidence do we have for tracing the origin of the Continental Tristan legend back to Pictland, and what explanation might we offer for a putative Pictish prince featuring in an Irish Dragon Slayer story? Finally, what place does the Dragon Slayer episode occupy within Tochmarc Emire and can we find other narratives, Celtic or classical or other, fitting the pattern of AT300, which may strengthen the link between Tochmarc Emire and Tristan?

Corporeal prisons: dynamics of body and mise-en-scène in three films by Paul Schrader

This thesis focuses on the complex relationship between representations of the human body and the formal processes of mise-en-scène in three consecutive films by the writer-director Paul Schrader: American Gigolo (1980), Cat People (1982) and Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters (1985). While Schrader’s work has typically been critiqued under the broad category of masculinity in crisis (and often as a subset of the films of his more famous long-time collaborator, Martin Scorsese), I focus on a fiveyear early period of his filmography when he sought to explore his key themes of bodily crisis, fragmentation and alienation through an unusually intense focus upon the expressive potential of film form, specifically via the combined elements of colour, lighting, camerawork and production design. By approaching these three films as corporeal character studies of troubled figures whose emotional and psychosexual neurosis is experienced in and through the body, I will locate Schrader’s filmmaking process and style within the thematic and aesthetic contexts of both his own early film criticism and the European and Japanese art cinemas that he claims as his primary influence. In doing so, I will establish Schrader’s position as a director whose literary and theological background differentiated him from his peers of the postclassical Hollywood generation, and who thus continually sought to develop his own visual literacy through his relationship with the camera and his collaborations with more overtly style-oriented film artists. But instead of merely focusing on mise-en-scène to gain a formalist appreciation of these films, I mobilise stylistic analysis as a new critical approach towards the problematic discourses of identity and embodiment that have haunted Schrader’s career from the beginning. In particular, I argue that paying closer attention to Schrader’s formal choices sheds new light on how these films – which he approached as exercises in style – repeatedly deal with the volatile and unavoidably body-oriented categories of race, gender and sexuality. In the process, I argue that a formalist attentiveness to mise-en-scène can also provide valuable cultural insights into Schrader’s oeuvre.

Chicana poetics: genre and style in Gloria Anzaldúa and Lorna Dee Cervantes

This thesis conducts a formal study of the poetry of Gloria Anzaldúa and Lorna Dee Cervantes, placing their work in dialogue with genre and style. These two Chicana poets are exemplary of politicised experimentation with poetics, underpinned by a keen awareness of the rich history of form, genre and style. In the work of each poet, two poetic modes are examined: one traditional, and one experimental. Anzaldúa’s uses of the dramatic monologue as a border genre, and her construction of [auto]poetics, stemming from her multi-genre, autobiographical approach to writing, are considered. Cervantes’s complex approach to the construction of docupoetics that achieves a depth of field in terms of merging a multidimensional approach to aesthetics with highly politicised transnational content, as well as her engagement with the longstanding poetic of elegy via various formal points of entry, is investigated. These poetic modes are primarily explored via close readings, supported by a multidisciplinary framework that includes Anzaldúa’s feminist theories of identity and writing, abjection theory, postcolonialism, and transnationalism. Overall, these four key areas demonstrate the ways in which aesthetics is a crucial consideration in the exploration of the broader issues of content and context in Chicana poetry.

Na marbhnaí do Shéamas Óg Mac Coitir (1689-1720)

Go príomha, is tráchtas é seo a dhéanann staidéar ar ghné de litríocht iar-chlasaiceach na Gaeilge. Baineann sé go háirithe leis an sraith chaointe nó marbhnaí i bhfoirm véarsaíochta a cumadh do Shéamas Óg Mac Coitir (1689-1720), duine uasal Caitliceach ó Charraig Tuathail, Co. Chorcaí, nuair a ciontaíodh é in éigniú Elizabeth Squibb, bean de Chumann na gCarad; nuair a cuireadh pionós an bháis air; agus nuair a crochadh é i gCathair Chorcaí an 7 Bealtaine, 1720. Ó thaobh na staire de, scrúdaítear Clann Choitir mar shampla de theaghlach nár cheil a ndílseacht do chúis pholaitiúil na Stíobhartach agus a sheas an fód go cróga faoi mar a bhí a ngreim polaitiúil á dhaingniú ag an gCinsealacht Phrotastúnach ó dheireadh an 17ú haois amach. Tagraítear do sheicteachas na sochaí comhaimseartha agus don teannas idir an pobal Caitliceach agus an pobal Protastúnach ag an am. Déantar scagadh ar an véarsaíocht mar fhoinse luachmhar do dhearcadh míshásta an mhóraimh Chaitlicigh ar struchtúr polaitiúil chontae Chorcaí (agus na hÉireann) i dtosach an 18ú haois. Is feiniméan liteartha an dlús véarsaíochta seo a bhaineann go háirithe le traidisiún liteartha Chorcaí. Tá na dánta curtha in eagar agus aistriúchán go Béarla curtha ar fáil: is é seo croí an tráchtais. Tá an t-eagrán bunaithe ar scrúdú cuimsitheach ar thraidisiún na lsí; pléitear modheolaíocht na heagarthóireachta. Déantar iarracht ar na dánta a shuíomh sa traidisiún casta liteartha sa tráchtaireacht tosaigh; sa chuid eile den bhfearas scoláiriúil, scrúdaítear ceisteanna a bhaineann le cúrsaí teanga, foclóra, meadarachta agus stíle. Tá innéacsanna agus liosta foinsí le fáil i ndeireadh an tráchtais.