The Hybridity of Violence : Location, Dislocation, and Relocation in Contemporary Canadian Multicultural and Indigenous Writing

Cette thèse explore la relation entre les littératures autochtones et multiculturelles du Canada. Même si les critiques littéraires examinent les littératures dites mineures de plus en plus, ces dernières sont rarement étudiées sans la présence médiatrice de la littérature canadienne considérée comme étant dominante. Afin de produire une telle analyse, cette thèse mobilise le concept d’hybridité en tant que catégorie d’analyse de texte qui, en plus de son histoire raciale et coloniale, décrit convenablement les formes d’expérimentations stylistiques que les écrivains autochtones et multiculturels emploient afin de représenter et questionner leur marginalisation. Ne voulant pas reproduire les interprétations fétichistes qui réduisent les littératures autochtones et multiculturelles à leurs représentations de concepts d’altérité, j’examine ces textes dans leurs relations avec différents discours et débats ayant marqué les études littéraires canadiennes, notamment, le long poème canadien, l’écriture des prairies canadiennes, la littérature urbaine, le multiculturalisme, et les premières nations. Ma méthode d’analyse repose sur la façon dont chaque texte étudié alimente ces catégories d’analyse littéraire tout en les modifiant radicalement. De plus, je développe un cadre conceptuel et théorique permettant l’étude de la relation entre les textes autochtones et multiculturels sans toutefois confondre ou réduire les contextes d’où proviennent ces littératures. Ma thèse et ma méthode d’analyse se concrétise par l’interprétation des textes écrits par Armand Garnet Ruffo, Suzette Mayr, Rawi Hage, et Jeannette Armstrong. Le chapitre d’introduction détaille la façon dont la relation entre les textes autochtones et multiculturels a été appréhendée jusqu’à présent. J’y élabore mon cadre théorique qui joint et réinterprète de manière critique diverses théories, dont celle du postcolonialisme, de l’hybridité, et de la mondialisation, et la façon dont ces théories se rapportent aux études littéraires canadiennes. Dans mon deuxième chapitre, j’analyse le long poème d’Armand Garnet Ruffo, Grey Owl: The Mystery of Archie Belaney, en m’attardant particulièrement aux stratégies d’expérimentations stylistiques et génériques que Ruffo développe afin de rendre le genre du long poème canadien autochtone et de questionner l’identité de Grey Owl. Mon troisième chapitre examine Venous Hum, un roman de Suzette Mayr. Ce texte remet en question la tradition de « prairie writing », le multiculturalisme canadien, et le conservatisme albertain à travers son style expérimental, son usage des métaphores et du réalisme magique. Mon quatrième chapitre interprète le roman montréalais Cockroach, de Rawi Hage, en examinant la façon dont ses unités locales, nationales, et globales rencontrent le colonialisme et contestent les discours nationaux une fois que sa critique de la mondialisation se trouve réarticulée dans une approbation des discours d’interventions humanitaires de l’occident. Mon dernier chapitre explore le roman de Jeannette Armstrong, Whispering in Shadows, afin de démontrer les limites de ma méthode d’analyse. Puisque l’hybridité sous-entend inévitablement la notion d’assimilation, son application dans le contexte de l’œuvre d’Armstrong s’avèrerait réductrice. Pour cette raison, ce chapitre utilise des concepts autochtones définis par Armstrong afin de développer une méthode de lecture non-hégémonique. Ma thèse examine donc la façon dont chaque texte déploie le concept d’hybridité pour à la fois contester et enrichir les discours critiques qui tentent de contenir ces textes. Elle contribue aux études postcoloniales de la littérature canadienne en élargissant leur champ habituel pour inclure les complexités des théories de la mondialisation, et en examinant quelles stratégies littéraires les textes autochtones et multiculturels partagent, mais mobilisent à des fins différentes.

Reading race, aboriginality in Australian children`s literature

This text looks at the ways in which Australia's indigenous peoples have been, and continue to be, represented in books for children. These varying representations have helped to colour the attitudes, beliefs and assumptions of different generations of Australians.

New world orders in contemporary children's literature : utopian transformations

"New World Orders shows how texts for children and young people have responded to the cultural, economic, and political movements of the last 15 years. With a focus on international children's text produced between 1988 and 2006, the authors discuss how utopian and dystopian tropes are pressed into service to project possible futures to child readers. The book considers what these texts have to say about globalisation, neocolonialism, environmental issues, pressures on families and communities, and the idea of the posthuman."--BOOK JACKET.

Mermaids and sirens as myth fragments in contemporary literature

This thesis examines three works: Margaret Atwood's The Robber Bride and Alias Grace, and Angela Carter's Nights at the Circus. All three novels feature female characters that contain elements or myth fragments of mermaids and sirens. The thesis asserts that the images of the mermaid and siren have undergone a gradual process of change, from literal mythical figures, to metaphorical images, and then to figures or myth fragments that reference the original mythical figures. The persistence of these female half-human images points to an underlying rationale that is independent of historical and cultural factors. Using feminist psychoanalytic theoretical frameworks, the thesis identifies the existence of the siren/mermaid myth fragments that are used as a means to construct the category of the 'bad' woman. It then identifies the function that these references serve in the narrative and in the broader context of both Victorian and contemporary societies. The thesis postulates the origin of the mermaid and siren myths as stemming from the ambivalent relationship that the male infant forms with the mother as he develops an identity as an individual. Finally, the thesis discusses the manner in which Atwood and Carter build on this foundation to deconstruct the binary oppositions that disadvantage women and to expand the category of female.

Apprehending butterflies and flying beauties : bringing magical realism to ground

[No Abstract]

Holocaust literature : an exploration of second-generation publication in Australia

Normally we expect the magic of art to intensify, transfigure and elevate actuality. Touch the Holocaust and the flow is reversed (Clendinnen 1998, p. 185). This dissertation explores the relationships between the second-generation Holocaust writer, the Australian publishing industry and the reading public. It contends that a confluence of elements has made the 'genre' of second-generation Holocaust writing publishable in the late 20th century in a way that would not seem obvious from its major themes and the risk-averse publishing strategies increasingly adopted by the multinational conglomerates controlling the Australian industry. The research explores the nature of connections between writing, publishing and reading Holocaust literature, seeking to answer the following questions: What are the driving forces that compel children of Holocaust survivors to write about their parents' lives and their own experiences of growing up in a 'survivor' family? By what mechanisms are such stories published in an Australian industry dominated by international conglomerates focused on mass-market publishing? How do readers receive and make sense of this material?

Feminist perspectives on gender ideology in recent young adult literature

This study of gender in young adult literature examined a range of recently published texts in both the fantasy and realist genres and determined that narrative discourse contests the dominant patriarchal paradigm most sucessfully when female protagonists enact a trickster role.

Renegade judgement : a study of madness in medicine and literature

Explores socio-historical understandings and treatments of madness, examining literary works alongside contemporary medical texts. Incorporating notions of scientific objectivity, individual subjectivity and social totality, the thesis shows conceptual overlaps between art and science, identifying continuities and conflicts between fictional, clinical and cultural investigations into madness.

A procedural, minimal input, natural terrain plug-in for Blender

This project uses methods of terrain representation, creation and realism described in literature. We find that using a combination of Fractional Brownian Motion and procedural formation of rivers via squig curves to form initial terrain, with hydraulic erosion for post processing, we have full control over the style of terrain: from jagged mountains to flat regions; and the phase of river from tightly rock controlled to flood plain regions.

Nasdijj's fake magical realist memoir: re-visioning magical realism's relationship with fakery

Examining what might be described as Nasdijj’s "fake magical realist memoir" The Blood Runs Like a River Through My Dreams, this paper is interested in how Nasdijj's text might be useful in contesting our understanding of the postcolonial literature of magical realism. Drawing attention to Nasdijj’s utilization of the “primitivist” conventions of magical realism, this paper will illustrate how fakery might be seen as essential not only to Nasdijj's text but also to magical realism. In fact, this paper argues that magical realist novels might be productively read as hoaxes, mobilizing what Graham Huggan describes as the "postcolonial exotic" in order to engage in a subversive act of “culture jamming”. The objective of the analysis is not to condemn magical realism along with Nasdijj’s opportunistic memoir, but rather to rescue magical realism from ideas about authenticity, celebrating its ironies and its challenges to colonial discourses of identity and history.

Meta-theories in research: positivism, postmodernism, and critical realism

No scholar or researcher is able to provide robust evidence that counters the scant reflection on metatheory – mostly ontology and epistemology – underlying management studies in general, and industrial marketing and purchasing research in particular. This paper is a contribution to the indispensable discussion of metatheoretical alternatives in research, and most importantly, the strengths and shortcomings thereof, and respective implications on research questions, objectives, and findings.

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.