This thesis seeks to discuss the ways in which canonical Francophone Algerian authors, writing in the late-colonial period (1945 - 1962), namely Kateb Yacine, Mohammed Dib, Mouloud Feraoun, Mouloud Mammeri and Assia Djebar, approached the representation of Algerian women through literature. The thesis, divided into five chapters, each focusing on the late-colonial oeuvre of one writer, initially makes use of Bourdieusian conceptions relating to a gendered "dissymétrie fondementale" and concomitant Spivakian notions of representation, to argue that a masculine domination of public fields of representation contributed to, if not ensured, a post-colonial marginalization of women and a reduction of their public role. However, it is the principal argument of this thesis that the canonical writers of the period, who were mostly male, both textually acknowledge their inability to articulate the experiences and subjectivity of the feminine Other, to represent women, and deploy a remarkable variety of formal and conceptual innovations in an attempt to tentatively produce evocations of Algerian femininity that seek to upset or highlight the structural imbalance of masculine symbolic hegemony in literary and socio-political milieux. Though this thesis does not shy from investigating those aspects of its corpus that produce ideologically conditioned masculinist representations, it chiefly seeks to articulate a shared reluctance concerning representativity and an omnipresent literary subversion of a masculine subject pole. It deploys formal narrative analysis, Lacanian psychoanalytical frameworks and a conceptualisation of "pessimistic" form to achieve these ends and to argue that the texts of its corpus discreetly militate for a communal feminine self-representation to be inaugurated, before outlining in its conclusion a post-colonial Algerian feminine literary tradition, in particular contemporary symbolic conduits such as la bande dessinée that might serve as effective motors for progression in gender relations.

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This thesis provides an in-depth study of the possibilities of applying bibliometric methods to the research field of literary studies. The four articles that constitute the backbone of this thesis focus on different aspects of references and citations in literary studies: from the use of references in the text to citation patterns among 34 literature journals. The analysis covers both an Anglo-Saxon context as well as research in Swedish literary studies, and the materials used include Web of Science data, references in the Swedish literature journal TFL (Tidskrift för Litteraturvetenskap) and applications to the Swedish Research Council (Vetenskapsrådet). A study is also made of the influence of one single publication—Walter Benjamin’s Illuminations—and its impact in literary studies and in wider academia. The results from the four articles are elaborated upon using a theoretical framework that focuses on differences in the social and intellectual organization of research fields. According to these theories literary studies can be described as a fragmented, heterogenic, interdisciplinary and ‘rural’ field with a diverse audience. The fragmented and rural organization of the field is reflected in low citation frequencies as well as in the difficulties in discerning research specialities in co-citation mappings, while the analysis of the intellectual base (highly cited authors) is an example of the heterogenic and interdisciplinary character of the field, as it includes authors from many fields across the humanities and the social sciences. The thesis emphasizes that bibliometric studies of research fields in the humanities need to incorporate non-English and non-journal publications in order to produce valid and fair results. Moreover, bibliometric methods must be modified in accordance with the organization of research in a particular field, and differences in referencing practices and citation patterns ought to be considered. Consequently, it is advised that bibliometric measures for evaluating research in these fields should, if used at all, be applied with great caution. / <p>© Björn Hammarfelt 2012</p>

This thesis explores the ways in which seventeenth-century nonconformist writers used the Puritan model of spiritual autobiography to record their individual forms of dissent. Spiritual autobiography is read against the political and religious turmoil that existed in England in the aftermath of the Civil Wars and during the subsequent Restoration. Through a study of four dissenting writers I show how a genre seen usually as a record of spiritual crisis and ultimate reconciliation, was also used as a way of communicating gendered, psychological, domestic, and religious dissent by writers from the extreme margins of society. The argument differs from other studies of spiritual autobiography in that I situate the genre beyond the strict confines of soteriology and adopt an interdisciplinary approach that deploys literary, historical, and theoretical readings. I draw upon the theories of Jean-François Lyotard in order to illustrate a mood analogous to postmodernism apparent in the nonconformist psyche as well as to contextualise the wider dissent shown to exist in the seventeenth century. By applying Lyotard’s concepts of Svelteness, competing Phrase Regimens, and the Differend to spiritual autobiographies by John Bunyan, Agnes Beaumont, Laurence Clarkson, and Richard Norwood this study raises questions with regard to assumptions associated with the genre, the context in which they were written, and so presents new readings of often marginal texts.

This thesis investigates the life and work of six eighteenth-century writers, two male and four female. It explores their experience of depression through their letters and other autobiographical material, and examines the ways in which they represent melancholy in their poetry and prose. The subject of Chapter Two is Thomas Gray, whose real life persona as the lonely intellectual is also identifiable in his poetry. The Scottish poet Robert Fergusson is studied in Chapter Three. Fergusson’s lively and vigorous mind was shattered in the months leading up to his death, during which time some of his writing became darkly nihilistic. Chapter Four looks at Anne Finch, Countess of Winchilsea, a lifelong depressive who often wrote about her feelings of despair in her poetry. Chapter Five explores Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. She was a courageous and controversial figure, but despite her resilience, on occasion in her letters she reveals her vulnerability and susceptibility to low spirits, a mood which is sometimes expressed in her creative writing. Sarah Scott, whose life and work have not yet been considered in relation to the subject of melancholy, is examined in Chapter Six. Her novel includes several low-spirited and depressed female characters who are continually seeking asylum from a hostile world. Chapter Seven analyses Charlotte Smith, a mother of twelve children whose unhappy marriage ended in separation. Smith wrote extensively about her depression in her letters, prefaces, poetry and novels. This study shows that the women in particular use their writing on melancholy and depression to express their discontent with the confined way in which they are often expected to live out their lives.

In recent years, through the process of narrative and literary criticism, scholars have begun suggesting that satire is present in specific texts of the Old Testament. Thus the primary function of this thesis is to analyse the validity of these arguments alongside suggesting different places where satire may be found. To achieve this goal, the thesis begins by analysing and defining satire as a concept. A clear definition provides the thesis with the method needed to identify satire in texts which predate any defined understanding of the concept. The thesis also uses satirical works from throughout history as templates for understanding similar types of satire within the biblical works. Once this methodology has been established, different genres of the Old Testament form the different chapters of the thesis. It identifies four different places where satire is deployed. Thus it examines satire in narratives, the book of Jonah, prophetic texts and wisdom literature. Each chapter combines new ideas with the analysis of previous scholastic arguments concerning the presence of satire. Within each genre a different type of satire with a range of complexity is deployed. The idol critiques in prophetic texts show simplistic satire. Narrative satire shows both situational and character-based satire. The book of Jonah is an example of hypocritical satire. Finally, satire in the wisdom literature contains a range of different satirical styles. The thesis concludes that satire is present within the texts of the Old Testament. This has implication to the field of satire. It affirms the existence of pre-Hellenistic satire. Alongside this, it shows that satire is a subconscious human technique, deployable even when the proponent has no defined understanding of the concept. In the field of Old Testament studies it provides an alternative reading of many familiar texts. A satirical reading provides clear insight into authorial intent as well as offering different interpretations of the texts which are examined.

Se nos primórdios da atividade publicitária no Brasil a participação de literatos na redação de anúncios foi marcante, o cenário atual aponta para a publicidade em um contexto discursivo muito mais complexo, em que a presença da literatura vai muito além de marcas explícitas no texto. Nesse sentido, este trabalho se desenvolve sobre o tema do discurso publicitário brasileiro atual, após seu reconhecimento como processo discursivo em que se fazem presentes outras vozes, entre elas a literatura. Propomos a constituição dos Estudos Mediáticos da Publicidade, a partir da apropriação de categorias deontológicas já desenvolvidas nos Estudos Literários. Tais categorias serão trabalhadas com vistas à análise de mensagens publicitárias, permitindo assim a compreensão da publicidade em sua perspectiva mediática, a partir deste modelo de análise interdisciplinar. / If in the beginning of advertising activity in Brazil the participation of writers in drafting ad was remarkable, the current scenario points to advertising in a much more complex discursive context in which the presence of literature goes beyond the text\'s explicit marks. In this regard, this work is developed on the subject of current Brazilian advertising discourse, after its recognition as a discursive process in which other voices are present, including literature. We propose the setting up of Mediatic Studies of Advertising from the appropriation of deontological categories already developed in Literary Studies. These categories will be worked on aiming towards the analysis of ads, allowing the understanding of advertising in its mediatic perspective, starting from this model of interdisciplinary analysis.

My dissertation takes a translation studies approach to four medieval works that are both translations and depictions of translation in metaphorical senses (namely, migration and spiritual transformation/conversion): the Exodus of the Old English Illustrated Hexateuch, the Old English verse Exodus, Chaucer’s Man of Law’s Tale, and the Exodus of the Middle English Metrical Paraphrase of the Old Testament. I approach these narratives through a lens of modern translation theory, while at the same time, I investigate the texts with an eye toward classical and medieval theories of translation as espoused by Jerome, Augustine, and King Alfred. By examining these works through a diachronical lens of translation, I show how understanding medieval translation practice can inform our understanding of how the English conceived of themselves in the Middle Ages. The origins of England, or of English Christianity, were a recurring theme throughout the Middle Ages, and the texts in this dissertation all materially touch on narratives related to those origins. The two Old English Exodus translations participate in an early English literary trend that deploys the Exodus narrative as part of a fantasy of re-casting the English takeover of Britain as establishing a new chosen people. This populus israhel mythos, as Andrew Scheil terms it, served as a common thread in Anglo-Saxon self-mythology. In the Middle English period, Chaucer’s revisits the origins of English Christianity in the Man of Law’s Tale, a tale that involves numerous sea-crossings and the unveiling of the hidden inclination toward Christianity among the people of England. Meanwhile, the Exodus of the Middle English Metrical Paraphrase of the Old Testament touches less on English origins and reveals more the emerging English sense of whiteness as a racial category. By exploring the nascent notions of whiteness and its (in)applicability to Moses and Jews at large in the text, I examine how the poet of the Paraphrase was able to call upon contemporary concerns about race and participate in establishing, through difference to the Jews, the idea of English whiteness. Translation was a major component of the development of English literary sensibility and thus the emerging sense of what Englishness is. It is particularly important that these translations narrate versions of the past because the ability to re-shape the past for a present need allowed the English to take ownership of history, just as Augustine’s image of the Israelites taking ownership of the Egyptian treasure after the crossing of the Red Sea sees the Egyptian past superseded by the Hebrews (and the Hebrews superseded by Christianity, following Augustine’s argument). By taking up the treasures of the past on the shoreline of the present, English translators assumed a right of ownership over history and how to use it. Through representations of the past in translation, the English developed a sense of English-ness that they would then export globally. I demonstrate that by translating texts that deal with migrations, conversion, and the origins of the Israelites and of the peoples of the British Isles, the English crafted for themselves an image, a history, a literature that grows and thrives to this day.

In the lead up to the 2011 official U.S. State Department decision on the proposed Keystone XL pipeline--running from the Alberta, Canada Tar Sands to the Gulf of Mexico--the Department held nine public meetings in Fall 2011 in the six U.S. states through which the proposed Keystone XL pipeline project would pass (the Department rejected the proposal; however, a new proposal is under consideration as of this writing). The transcripts of these public meetings are publicly accessible. Understanding the pipeline as a project of trans-national trade and the global circulation of petrochemicals--including global emissions of carbon dioxide--this paper hones in on one region within one U.S. state: the Nebraskan Sandhills, a cattle ranching region of grass-stabilized sand dunes and inter-dunal valleys stretching 20,000-square miles across the north-central part of the state, under which rests a vast hydrological network, including the largest freshwater aquifer in the world - the Ogallala Aquifer. This essay argues that we can read the Public Comments as a form of poetic expression, paying attention to the ways the State Department transcription process formatted the oral testimonies into an "official" and sanctioned public document -- instituting line-breaks and other syntactical procedures. Using the tools of literary-critical analysis, this paper makes a case that we can read the Comments as a form of documentary poetry - in the tradition of such American modernist poets as Charles Reznikoff, Muriel Rukeyser, and George Oppen - that explore ecological questions while experimenting with lyric structures. The Comments reveal competing environmental stakeholders' stances - on such topics as Prairie systems ecology and the neoliberal economics of private-public capital markets. In doing so, they subsequently express citizens' various understandings of themselves in relation to landscape, ecology, technology, and geo-politics.

This thesis provides an in-depth study of the possibilities of applying bibliometric methods to the research field of literary studies. The four articles that constitute the backbone of this thesis focus on different aspects of references and citations in literary studies: from the use of references in the text to citation patterns among 34 literature journals. The analysis covers both an Anglo-Saxon context as well as research in Swedish literary studies, and the materials used include Web of Science data, references in the Swedish literature journal TFL (Tidskrift för Litteraturvetenskap) and applications to the Swedish Research Council (Vetenskapsrådet). A study is also made of the influence of one single publication—Walter Benjamin’s Illuminations—and its impact in literary studies and in wider academia. The results from the four articles are elaborated upon using a theoretical framework that focuses on differences in the social and intellectual organization of research fields. According to these theories literary studies can be described as a fragmented, heterogenic, interdisciplinary and ‘rural’ field with a diverse audience. The fragmented and rural organization of the field is reflected in low citation frequencies as well as in the difficulties in discerning research specialities in co-citation mappings, while the analysis of the intellectual base (highly cited authors) is an example of the heterogenic and interdisciplinary character of the field, as it includes authors from many fields across the humanities and the social sciences. The thesis emphasizes that bibliometric studies of research fields in the humanities need to incorporate non-English and non-journal publications in order to produce valid and fair results. Moreover, bibliometric methods must be modified in accordance with the organization of research in a particular field, and differences in referencing practices and citation patterns ought to be considered. Consequently, it is advised that bibliometric measures for evaluating research in these fields should, if used at all, be applied with great caution. / © Björn Hammarfelt 2012