This work describes the impact of personalisation on users and professional workers identities in four mental health care settings. The development and context of personalisation is identified and set within an emergent narrative of consumer choice and austerity. International personalisation research is compared and a discussion of UK mental health literature is presented. The social constructions of key participants are analysed through their narrative accounts as they undertook identity work while being involved with individual budget pilots, either as users, carers, brokers or mental health professionals. The work employs Stake’s collective case study as the method of combining semi-structured interview data taken from participants in four personalisation studies designed and led by this author between 2008-2011. Narrative social constructionist methods, positioning theory and story-line are used in the analysis to produce a framework of participants’ orientation to personalisation. The importance of nuance as opposed to binary construction towards personalisation is highlighted, as are the positioning actions of independent brokers for the success of personalisation. The importance of co-production and challenging professional asymmetry in health and social mental health care services is clearly made as are the implications for practice. The value of the proposed framework and possible future research are discussed.

This study aims to explore the use and relevance of Narrative approaches to psycho-social interventions in the South African context. The profession of psychology in South Africa has been in a state of discontentment since the country’s turn to democracy in 1994 which has been voiced from both those within the profession and those it aims to assist. The loudest call is for a psychology that is relevant to the South African context – culturally, socially, and politically. Narrative approaches to psychotherapy and psycho-social intervention are grounded in post-modern and social-constructionist thought and offer an alternative to mainstream psychological theory. Narrative practice aims to promote social justice and views therapy as a political act. It is also an approach that values local knowledges and sees all therapeutic engagements as cross-cultural encounters which are approached with curiosity and a not-knowing stance, rather than an interpretive, analytical lens. This study has investigated what the existing literature has produced regarding the use and relevance of Narrative approaches in South Africa context. The research process was implemented using a mixed methods research methodology whereby a sample of 58 journal articles (n=58) were analysed using both quantitative and qualitative content analysis. The common themes that emerged from the articles were ‘viewing people in context’, ‘listening to the telling of stories’, ‘theoretical constructs of a narrative approach’, and ‘social phenomena’.

In this text, submitted as my master’s thesis, I seek to examine the way that narrative in the comics medium is produced from a series of static illustrations and lexia using narratological methods that have either been previously discarded as having little to no value in the study of comics or that have been overlooked. The first chapter of the text, however, is most faithful to the established tradition of comics studies; in this first chapter, I argue that narrative is distributed visually within comics, essentially becoming part of the text’s visual field of representation. In the second chapter, I deploy Paul Ricoeur’s concept of mimesis to argue that the production of narrative is dependent on the interaction between distinct but related temporal levels. Through the interaction of these temporal levels, which, in comics, rely on the intervention of the visual space of the text, narrative is produced and reproduced by the active participation of the reader, who is responsible for creating connections between textual moments. Finally, in the third chapter, I seek to balance the subjectivity produced by the application of Ricoeur’s system to the comics medium by deploying Genette’s concepts of order, duration, and frequency in an effort to re-introduce some sense of determinateness and objectivity, suggesting that there are overarching patterns that comics narratives do tend to follow.

The Shemihazah and Asael Narrative of 1 Enoch 6-11 is the oldest example of the fallen angels story in Jewish tradition. It tells of the introduction of forbidden secrets into the earth, and the ensuing destruction this caused. The following thesis presents both a literary and textual hypothesis. Attested fully only in the classical Ethiopic version which was preserved by the Ethiopian Orthodox church, there are also two Greek sources (Codex Panopolitanus and the excerpts in Syncellus), a Syriac excerpt from the Chronicle of Michael the Syrian, a Karshuni translation made from the Syriac and, finally, the Aramaic fragments from the Dead Sea Scrolls. The textual hypothesis suggests that the most reliable textual witness is the Greek version Codex Panopolitanus. To date, this source has been considered rather unreliable, but this view is challenged. To enable the construction of the textual hypothesis, the sources for each verse have been assembled and analysed. The evidence and the analysis are presented in a clear verse by verse format, with the overall analysis following at the end. In addition to the textual hypothesis, there is also a literary-critical hypothesis which analyses the narrative in its component parts. This literary hypothesis suggests that the narrative was originally an anti-divination polemic which was subsequently modified to attack other evils such as weaponry and make-up. Finally, the narrative was placed into the wider context of the Book of Watchers which, having a more positive attitude towards the mantic arts, countered the original purpose of the narrative.

This dissertation interrogates the political use of the past in global politics, with a focus on Israel/Palestine. Collective memory is mostly theorised in IR as determinant of national identities. Similarly, in the field of Memory Studies, collective memory is mostly confined to “Methodological Nationalism.” My main argument is that while national narratives purport to be stand-alone stories of the past, or monological narratives, they are in fact in constant negotiation with other stories of that past, they are dialogical. Furthermore, their dynamic transcends the boundaries of the nation state and of transnational institutional politics. To encapsulate these cross-narrative intertextual relationships into a framework that would enable productive analysis, I suggest the re-articulation of the dialogical relationships as transnational constellations, which focus first and foremost on the narratives themselves.

This study presents an investigation into the process of constructing an autobiographical self within the genre of the autobiographical picture narrative, and explores this process both in terms of a theoretical study of this concept as well as an interpretation of a number of photographs. The interpretation entails a reading of selected autobiographical picture narratives by the artist-photographers Maggie Taylor and Lori Nix by means of a method derived from visual social semiotics. Specifically, the semiotic reading focuses on Taylor and Nix’s photographs Twilight swim (2004) and Ice Storm (1999), respectively, after which the researcher’s own autobiographical photograph entitled Fennel and coriander is read by means of the same methodological approach. The semiotic reading is guided by five salient characteristics of the autobiographical picture narrative, namely fabrication and reality, autobiographical memory, socio-cultural relevance, commonalities in female narration and narrative function. Harrison’s (2003) visual social semiotic framework (which reflects the work of social semioticians Kress and Van Leeuwen, 2002) was augmented in light of the five salient characteristics in order to construct an appropriate methodological framework. A comparative reading of the works by Taylor, Nix and the researcher reveals that although each of the artistphotographers followed a peculiar and unique approach in constructing the autobiographical picture narrative, parallels can be established in terms of various central concepts, as is evident from the semiotic reading. In particular, the role of memory and the interpretation of autobiographical elements emerged as common denominators. The process of constructing an autobiographical memory therefore provides the narrator-photographer with the options of escaping into and not from memory, thus allowing for unique possibilities in terms of interpretation, fantasy and construction.

My doctoral research concerns the use of song within narrative works in the Middle Ages. I have concentrated first on the substantial tradition in Old French of incorporating songs in this manner; and second, on the importance of this tradition to Chaucer, a poet who includes songs in nearly all his narrative poetry, and who was deeply familiar with many of the late thirteenth- and early fourteenth-century French works of this type. In order to demonstrate the connection between this very large range of French narratives and Chaucer, it has been necessary first to define the French tradition on its own terms, since even by French scholars it has rarely been treated collectively, and some of the works have barely been explored. This assessment of the French material has involved a fresh attempt to define the lyric interpolations themselves, when (as in the majority of thirteenth-century works) they take the form of brief snatches of song known as refrains. Since the nature of these refrains has been a source of controversy among French scholars, my study begins by analysing them both as texts and as melodies, in order to assess their status and function within the narratives. I then go on to discuss works ranging from Jean Renart's Guillaume de Dole to Adam de la Halle's Le Jeu de Robin et Marion, to the dits amoureux of Machaut and Froissart. The influence of this French tradition upon Chaucer is examined first of all in Chaucer's early poems, through his direct knowledge and assimilation of Machaut and Froissart and other contemporary French poets. It is then traced, more indirectly, through Chaucer's reading of Boccaccio and Boethius. I thus consider Chaucer's use of Boccaccio's Il Filostrato in the light of Boccaccio's own knowledge of this French tradition from his position in the Angevin court of Naples. In addition, by investigating French translations of Boethius's De Consolatione Philosophiae, I examine the structural importance of this work as a prosimetrum both upon French narratives containing songs, and upon Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde. In this way I aim to show that the influences upon his practice of combining lyric and narrative are both multiple and multiply connected. The aim of this dissertation is therefore two-fold: first, to contribute to the understanding of a substantial but little-known area of French studies, and second, to renew the discussion of Chaucer's relation to French love poetry by seeing his work as a late medieval development in England of a distinctive, and distinctively French mode of composition. Throughout the course of my work, my wider interest is in the way in which the juxtaposition of the two categories of lyric and narrative shows us that our understanding of medieval genre is in need of refinement. In particular, by taking account of the presence of musical notation in the manuscripts of several of the French narratives, I hope to suggest that some of our assumptions about the 'literary' nature of medieval genres should be revised, especially as works of this type often seem composed precisely in order to create and exploit contrasts of genre of a musical, as well as a poetic kind.

Anthony Powell's A Dance to the Music of Time is a "fictional memoir" in which the narrator, Nick Jenkins, describes the events and characters he has observed throughout his life. As such, the primary focus of the novel would seem to be those characters and events, but the way in which Nick relates his story has a considerable impact on the narrative, and, therefore, on that primary focus. Powell has not only chosen to employ a first-person narrator, thereby establishing a specific, and individual, narrative voice, or point of view, but he also has that narrator consume much of novel by describing his perceptions of the world he observes, and this brings into focus the nature of that perspective. Hence, this paper examines the nature of Nick's role in the novel, both as character and narrator, and attempts to delineate the effect that that role has on the novel as a whole. Essentially, Nick can be characterized as a "reader" who, in effect, "interprets" the characters and events he describes, thereby contributing his imagination to their "construction". Whether he reads actual texts or observes human behaviour, Nick engages in an interpretative process which is analogous to that in which a reader interprets a text: interpreting "signs", constructing "causes", translating texts into images and "meaning-bearing" ideas, and subjecting his own "reading" to scrutiny, thereby effectively "rereading" previous "interpretations". As a "reader", Nick is interested in more than mere description: he not only desires to understand the nature of the people with whom he is involved, but also to appreciate the significance of the events he witnesses, so as to form a kind of pattern which would reveal the central themes of an age. In so doing, he does not merely relate "what happens", thereby "putting up a mirror" to his past; he also describes his experience of that past, so that the narrative does not so much present "reality", as it presents Nick’s perception of reality. Nick's characterization as a "reader" is founded on specific theories regarding the nature of the reading process, especially as they apply to the relationship between reader and text, and, therefore, the products of his "interpretations" are considered in relation to the creation of fiction. In essence, Nick's "reading" results in the construction of the characters and events he observes, so that ultimately he creates "fictions". In other words, because he does not present "reality", nor even a "reconstruction" of reality, but a "reconstruction" of his perception of that reality, Nick, in fact, "creates" his narrative, thereby constructing fiction. Hence, just as a reader creates the fiction of a novel by interpreting its text, so too does Nick produce fiction by "interpreting" the world he is portraying. Thus, in his "search for knowledge", in his efforts to understand the world around him, Nick "creates" that world, so that knowledge would seem to be the product of the observer's, or "reader's", construction - in essence; a fiction. / Arts, Faculty of / English, Department of / Graduate

Respighi’s scarcely-known orchestral work Sinfonia Drammatica lives up to its title by evoking a narrative throughout the course of its three movements. In this dissertation, I argue how the work’s surface, subsurface, and formal elements suggest this narrative which emerges as a cycle of rising and falling dramatic tension. I explain how Respighi constructs the work’s narrative in the musical surface through a diverse body of themes that employ three motives of contour. The disposition and manipulation of these motives within the themes suggest frequent fluctuations of the level of conflict throughout the symphony as a whole. To show the involvement of musical forms in the work’s narrative, I employ an approach which integrates harmony and thematic behavior. I utilize analytical methods from the current Formenlehre, including terms from James Hepokoski and Warren Darcy’s sonata deformation theory and William Caplin’s theories of formal functions to elucidate ties between the forms of the Sinfonia Drammatica’s movements and those of conventional sonata forms of the late-eighteenth century. This dissertation also employs Heinrich Schenker’s theories of structures, voice leading, and reduction to illustrate large-scale aspects of the Sinfonia Drammatica’s narrative. The resulting analyses show Respighi’s elaborations of common structural paradigms which serve to heighten the articulation of the narrative.

Fatherhood is a gendered relationship between a male caregiver and a child. The change from non-father to father is a significant transition in men’s lives. Over the past fifty years in North America there appears to be increasing divergence between socially dominant masculinities and fatherhoods with men taking on more caregiving and domestic work. Using a qualitative narrative research methodology, I interviewed seven Canadian fathers about their experience of masculinity in their transition to first time fatherhood. Interviews were transcribed verbatim and individual narratives were generated. The narratives generated told the stories of fathers who spent more time engaged in direct caregiving and domestic labour than previous generations. They described divergence between hegemonic fatherhood roles and hegemonic masculinity as they transitioned to fatherhood. Fathers experienced a deepening of emotion in fatherhood incongruent with historical dominant masculinities. Overall, fathers found the experience of transitioning to fatherhood as meaningful and rewarding. / Graduate