Persia and kingship in William Cartwright's The Royall Slave (1636)

The recent reorientation of early modern studies draws attention to the Renaissance stage as a site of exploration of images of the Islamic world. This article examines the use of ancient and contemporary Persia in William Cartwright’s The Royall Slave (1636), in which Persia figures as a convenient space through which to examine political issues relevant to the audience at home in England. Assessing the construction of idealized societies and rulers in the play, The Royall Slave is a contemporary Court and academic drama that demonstrates its importance as one of a number of synchronous texts that represent Persia.

Diagnosis of limb-girdle muscular dystrophy 2A by immunohistochemical techniques

The Western blot technique is currently the standard detection method for suspected limb girdle muscular dystrophy (LGMD) 2A (calpainopathy). This is the first report in the English literature of the successful application of immunohistochemical techniques to support a diagnosis of LGMD 2A. This approach is straightforward and appears to be reasonably specific. We propose that immunohistochemical methods should be re-evaluated for the screening of undiagnosed patients with suspected LGMD 2A.

"I'm still here. Sort of." : Constructed Identities in Paul Auster's City of Glass

Paul Auster’s City of Glass contains a jumble of identities. In fact, the identities are more numerous than the characters, and consequently, characters have several different identities. Some of these identities are obvious constructs, but with others the degree of construction is less evident. Poststructuralist theory, however, puts forward the idea that these seemingly original identities are in fact constructs to the same level as all others. Thus, this essay argues that there are no original identities; identities are constructed by outer factors. This essay discusses three outer factors contributing to the construction of identities, factors commonly discussed in poststructuralist criticism, these three being language, cultural codes and chance.

Interview with Cynthia Venables

In her July 3, 2013 interview with Martha Manning, Cynthia Burris Venables shares her experiences at Winthrop from 1985-1989, as well as her career teaching English. Discussed is Venables coursework as an English major and the rigor of her studies. Additionally, Venables talks about Latin and Biology courses and who her favorite professors were. Venables details what it is like teaching in the 21st Century, her opinions on technology and teaching, and her accomplishments as an educator. This interview was conducted for inclusion into the Louise Pettus Archives and Special Collections Oral History Program.

A narratological analysis of D. M. Thoma`s: the white hotel (1981)

“A Narratological Analysis of D. M. Thomas’s The White Hotel (1981)” originated within a seminar on British Postmodernist Literature during the first Master’s Degree in “British and North-American Culture and Literature” (2001-04) at the Universidade da Madeira set up by the Department of English and German Studies. This dissertation seeks to present a narratological analysis of Thomas’s novel. The White Hotel stands as a paradigmatic example of the kind of literature that has dominated the British literary scene in the past three decades, commonly referred to as postmodernist fiction, owing to its formal craftsmanship (multiplicity of narrative voices and perspectives, mixing of differing genres and text types, inclusion of embedded narratives) alongside the handling of what are deemed as postmodernist topoi (the distinction between truth and lies, history and fantasy, fact and fiction, the questioning of the nature of aesthetic representation, the role the author and the reader hold in the narrative process, the instability of the linguistic sign, the notion of originality and the moral responsibility the author has towards his/her work), The narratological approach carried out in this research reveals that Thomas’s text constitutes an aesthetic endeavour to challenge the teleological drive that is inherent in any narrative, i. e., the inevitable progression towards a reassuring end. Hence, the subversion of narrative telling, which is a recurrent feature in Thomas’s remaining literary output, mirrors the contemporary distrust in totalising, hierarchised and allencompassing narratives. In its handling of historical events, namely of the Holocaust, The White Hotel invites us to reassess the most profound beliefs we were taught to take for granted: progress, reality and truth. In their place the novel proposes a more flexible conception of both the world and art, especially of literary fiction. In other terms, the world appears as a brutal chaotic place the subject is forced to adjust to. Accordingly, the literary work is deemed hybrid, fragmented and open. So as to put forth the above-mentioned issues, this research work is structured in three main chapters. The initial chapter – “What is Postmodernism?” – advances a scrutiny not only of the seminal but also of more recent studies on postmodernist literary criticism. Following this, in Chapter II – “Postmodernist British Fiction” – a brief overview of postmodernist British fiction is carried out, focusing on the fictional works that, in my opinion, are fundamental for the periodising of British postmodernism. In addition, I felt the need to include a section – “D. M. Thomas as a Postmodernist Novelist” – in which the author’s remaining literary output is briefly examined. Finally, Chapter III – “A Narratological Analysis of The White Hotel” – proposes a narratological analysis of the novel according to the particular Genettian analytical model. To conclude, my dissertation constitutes an approach to D. M. Thomas’s The White Hotel as a text whose very existence is substantiated in the foregrounding of the contingency of all discourses, meeting the postmodernist precepts of openness and subversion of any narrative that claims to be true, globalising and all-inclusive.

The Magic Toyshop: A narrativa imagética como processo de recriação

Because it belongs to a cultural practice, the adaptation of a novel into a feature film will always exist within a context and, for being subject to changes, corresponding modifications in the political sphere and even variations in the meaning of the story may occur. This seems to be precisely the result of the transformation of Angela Carter's second novel, The Magic Toyshop, into the homonymous film, directed by David Whealtey in 1987. Removed from the context of the book's production and publication, a crucial period of questioning about the importance of women in society and culture, the plot created by the English author in the sixties, rewritten two decades later, with the author herself as the script writer, seems to have acquired another meaning during this time. Although the film maintains the same plot of the novel, the political engagement visibly present in the narrative, namely Carter's critical stance about the model of patriarchal society, seems to lose its strength, highlighting now its fantastic character. Briefly discussing issues such as loyalty and betrayal of one gender to another, we seek in this paper to observe the film, based on the re-writers perspective, in other words, the prospects of both writer and director, as a process of rebuilding the story. In this dialogue, the script was also used as an intertext for a better understanding of this process.

Tradição e modernidade em O Senhor dos Anéis

Pós-graduação em Ciências Sociais - FFC

Frankenstein: uma releitura do mito de criação

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

As manifestações do gótico em Lovecraft: do Castelo de Otranto ao solar de Ward

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)