Atonement in literature and life,

Mode of access: Internet.

Running on Rooftops: a novel and critical reflection on writing from an identity of expatriation with an examination of West-meets-East encounters and attitudes depicted in literature

This thesis is in two parts: a creative work of fiction and a critical reflection on writing from an identity of expatriation. The creative work, a novel entitled Running on Rooftops, revolves around a fictitious community of expatriates living and working in China. As a new college graduate, Anne Henry, the novel’s protagonist and narrator, decides to spend a year teaching English in China. Twelve years later, though still unsure of how to make sense of the chain of events and encounters that left her with an X-shaped scar on her knee, she nevertheless tells the story, revealing how “just a year” can be anything but. The critical reflection, entitled Writing on Rooftops, explores the nature of expatriation as it relates to identity and writing, specifically in how West-meets-East encounters and attitudes are depicted in literature. In it, I examine the challenges and benefits of writing from an identity and mindset of expatriation as illustrated in the works of Western writers who themselves experienced and wrote from viewpoints of expatriation, particularly those Western writers who wrote of expatriation in China and Southeast Asia. The primary question addressed is how expatriation influences perception and how those perceptions among Western foreigners in China and Southeast Asia have been and can be reflected in literature. In the end, I argue that expatriation can be a valuable viewpoint to write from, offering new ways of seeing and describing our world, ourselves and the connections between the two.

Rhetoric and Representation : Exploring the Cultural Meaning of the Natural Sciences in Contemporary Popular Science Writing and Literature

Kirjallisuuden- ja kulttuurintutkimus on viimeisten kolmen vuosikymmenen aikana tullut yhä enenevässä määrin tietoiseksi tieteen ja taiteen suhteen monimutkaisesta luonteesta. Nykyään näiden kahden kulttuurin tutkimus muodostaa oman kenttänsä, jolla niiden suhdetta tarkastellaan ennen kaikkea dynaamisena vuorovaikutuksena, joka heijastaa kulttuurimme kieltä, arvoja ja ideologisia sisältöjä. Toisin kuin aiemmat näkemykset, jotka pitävät tiedettä ja taidetta toisilleen enemmän tai vähemmän vastakkaisina pyrkimyksinä, nykytutkimus lähtee oletuksesta, jonka mukaan ne ovat kulttuurillisesti rakentuneita diskursseja, jotka kohtaavat usein samankaltaisia todellisuuden mallintamiseen liittyviä ongelmia, vaikka niiden käyttämät metodit eroavatkin toisistaan. Väitöskirjani keskittyy yllä mainitun suhteen osa-alueista popularisoidun tietokirjallisuuden (muun muassa Paul Davies, James Gleick ja Richard Dawkins) käyttämän kielen ja luonnontieteistä ideoita ammentavan kaunokirjallisuuden (muun muassa Jeanette Winterson, Tom Stoppard ja Richard Powers) hyödyntämien keinojen tarkasteluun nojautuen yli 30 teoksen kattavaa aineistoa koskevaan tyylin ja teemojen tekstianalyysiin. Populaarin tietokirjallisuuden osalta tarkoituksenani on osoittaa, että sen käyttämä kieli rakentuu huomattavassa määrin sellaisille rakenteille, jotka tarjoavat mahdollisuuden esittää todellisuutta koskevia argumentteja mahdollisimman vakuuttavalla tavalla. Tässä tehtävässä monilla klassisen retoriikan määrittelemillä kuvioilla on tärkeä rooli, koska ne auttavat liittämään sanotun sisällön ja muodon tiukasti toisiinsa: retoristen kuvioiden käyttö ei näin ollen edusta pelkkää tyylikeinoa, vaan se myös usein kiteyttää argumenttien taustalla olevat tieteenfilosofiset olettamukset ja auttaa vakiinnuttamaan argumentoinnin logiikan. Koska monet aikaisemmin ilmestyneistä tutkimuksista ovat keskittyneet pelkästään metaforan rooliin tieteellisissä argumenteissa, tämä väitöskirja pyrkii laajentamaan tutkimuskenttää analysoimalla myös toisenlaisten kuvioiden käyttöä. Osoitan myös, että retoristen kuvioiden käyttö muodostaa yhtymäkohdan tieteellisiä ideoita hyödyntävään kaunokirjallisuuteen. Siinä missä popularisoitu tiede käyttää retoriikkaa vahvistaakseen sekä argumentatiivisia että kaunokirjallisia ominaisuuksiaan, kuvaa tällainen sanataide tiedettä tavoilla, jotka usein heijastelevat tietokirjallisuuden kielellisiä rakenteita. Toisaalta on myös mahdollista nähdä, miten kaunokirjallisuuden keinot heijastuvat popularisoidun tieteen kerrontatapoihin ja kieleen todistaen kahden kulttuurin dynaamisesta vuorovaikutuksesta. Nykyaikaisen populaaritieteen retoristen elementtien ja kaunokirjallisuuden keinojen vertailu näyttää lisäksi, kuinka tiede ja taide osallistuvat keskusteluun kulttuurimme tiettyjen peruskäsitteiden kuten identiteetin, tiedon ja ajan merkityksestä. Tällä tavoin on mahdollista nähdä, että molemmat ovat perustavanlaatuisia osia merkityksenantoprosessissa, jonka kautta niin tieteelliset ideat kuin ihmiselämän suuret kysymyksetkin saavat kulttuurillisesti rakentuneen merkityksensä.

Memory mixed with desire : a preliminary study of philosophy and literature in the works of Friedrich Nietzsche and Milan Kundera

Memory Mixed with Desire: A preliminary study of Philosophy and Literature in the works of Friedrich Nietzsche and Milan Kundera Robert Spinelli Brock University, Department of Philosophy This thesis studies intertextuality in the works of Friedrich Nietzsche and Milan Kundera through the primary themes of memory and forgetting. The thesis starts with two introductory chapters that delineate memory according to Nietzsche and Kundera respectively. From here, I move into a discussion of Nietzsche's Ubermensch as an example of the type of forgetting that Nietzsche sees as a cure for the overabundance of memory that has led to Christian morality. Next, I explore the Kunderan concept of kitsch as the polar opposite of what Nietzsche has sought in his philosophy, finishing the chapter by tying the two thinkers together in a Kunderan critique of Nietzsche. The thesis ends with a chapter devoted to the Eternal Return beginning with an exegesis of Nietzsche's idea and ending with a similar exegesis of Kundera's treatment of this thought. What I suggest in this chapter is that the Eternal Return might itself be a form of kitsch even in its attempt to revalue existence.

O Aleph e seus duplos: mimesis e auto-reflexividade na obra de Jorge Luis Borges

This study approach the Jorge Luis Borges s prose of fiction under the perspective of mimesis and the self-reflexivity. The hypothesis is that the Aleph is a central symbol of the Borges s fictional universe. The rewriting and the retake of this symbol along of his work entail to a reflection about the possibilities and the limits of mimesis. This study is divided in three parts which contain two chapters. The first part Bibliographic revision and conceptual fundaments of inquiry discuss the critical fortune of author (Chapter 1) and the concepts that will give sustentation to the inquiry (Chapter 2). The second part About the Borges s aesthetic project sketch out the literary project defended by Borges that is his conception of the literature and his ideological matrix (Chapter 3) beside his anti-psychologism and his nostalgia of epos (Chapter 4). The third and last part is entitled The Aleph and his doubles. In the chapter 5 this study analyses the short story El Aleph and consider its centrality on the Borges s work. The argument that is on this short story Borges elaborates a reflection about mimesis. In the chapter 6, on the same hand, four short stories will be analysed: Funes el memorioso ; El Libro de Arena ; El evangelio según Marcos and Del rigor en la ciencia . The conclusion that is the Borges s literature is self-awake of its process as such demonstrate its parodic sense and its bookish origin. Hence, the Borges s literature overlapping the mimetic crisis of language and challenge the limits between fiction and reality. However, it doesn t surrender to the nihilist perspective that is closing of literature to the world

Foucauldian Panopticism: The Gaze in Selected 19th Century Literature

Throughout history, women have often been perceived as hysterical and weak. This perception has been reflected through the representation of women in literature which has resulted in a limited scope of female normality and morality creating characteristics fundamentally different than male characters. Though these characteristics have been contributed as natural female characteristics, the theories of Jeremy Bentham, a 18th and 19th century Englishman, can be applied as a possible reason for these reactions. Bentham’s Panopticon, the theory of punishment wherein a constant unseen gaze peers at inmates theoretically creating paranoia and psychological breakdown, creates characteristics similar to those that women in literature seem to exhibit. In this paper, I will outline the characteristics of three various characters in novels. First, I will review the Panoptic literature that has been written on The Woman in Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper, then I will conduct my own analysis on The Governess in Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw and Jane Eyre in Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre . In this analysis, I will consider the “gaze,” the symbolic Panopticon implemented by society, and argue how characteristics present in stereotypical representations of women are not inherent in women due to gender or sex, but because women are most objectified and thereby most affected by the Panoptic gaze of society.

Transnationalism and Identity: the Concept of Community in Ghanaian Literature and Contemporary Ghanaian Culture

In my thesis, I use anthropology, literature, and adinkra, an indigenous art, to study Ghanaian concepts of community from an interactive standpoint. While each of these disciplines has individually been used to study the concept of community, the three have not previously been discussed in relation to one another. I explore the major findings of each field—mainly that in anthropology, transnational informants find communities upheld; in literature, transnational characters find the opposite; and in adinkra, there are elements of both continuity and dissolution—to discuss Ghanaian constructs of community in the transnational world. Throughout time, there have always been transnational individuals and concepts, but as globalization continues, transnationalism has become an ever-more vital topic, and combined with the common anthropological discussion of tradition and modernity, its influence on developing countries, like Ghana, is significant. Therefore, in my thesis, I explore how differing conceptions of community present themselves in each discipline, and how those divergences create a new understanding of place and identity.

With the ears of strangers; the Mexican in American literature.

Rev. ed. (c1977) published under title: Mexico and the Hispanic Southwest in American literature.

Insurgent Testimonies : Witnessing Colonial Trauma in Modern and Anglophone Literature /

This book examines testimony in the works of Rebecca West, Joseph Conrad, E.M. Forster, H.G. de Lisser, V.S Reid, and Ngũgi wa Thiong’o, and argues that disruptions to imperial and national power and the legal and legal responses they inspired shape the formal practices of modernist and Anglophone literature. This title was made Open Access by libraries from around the world through Knowledge Unlatched.

The conservative principle in our literature : an address before the literary societies of the Hamilton Literary and Theological Institution, Madison County, N.Y. /

Mode of access: Internet.

Main currents in nineteenth century literature /

Vols. I, II and V translated by Diana White and Mary Morison; vols. III, IV ad VI, by Mary Morison.

A fogyasztói érték és az élmény kontextusa a turisztikai szakirodalomban (The context of consumer value an experience in tourism literature)

Tanulmányában a szerző a szakirodalomban fellelhető főbb fogyasztóiérték- és élménymegközelítéseket és kapcsolatokat mutatja be. A turizmus területére fókuszálva kitér az egyes érték és a hozzá szorosan kapcsolódó élménymegközelítéseken belül található nézetkülönbségekre és azonosságokra. A szerző célja, hogy bemutassa a turizmusszektorban tapasztalt fogyasztóiérték-megközelítések sokféleségét, alátámassza a fogalom tudományos szempontú tisztázatlanságát, valamint korábbi empirikus kutatások alapján összesítse a fogyasztói érték lehetséges dimenzióit a turizmusban. ____ In this paper, the author presents consumer value and experience approaches and connections found in literature. Focusing on the area of tourism she introduces value – experience connections, the differences and accordance among approaches of the experts, and the changes of the content of interpretations from time to time. The author set several targets with her work: introducing the diversity of consumer value approaches in tourism; proving the lack of the precisely and scientifically composed concept of consumer value; and based on former empirical researches summarizing the potential consumer value dimensions in tourism.