This thesis is intended to illustrate that monsters, as beings made of pure culture, embody social anxieties and can be deployed as a means of protest. Therefore this thesis examines monsters in Japanese anime, manga, and film that embody the excesses of capitalism. The first chapter examines Spirited Away and how capitalism’s excesses create monsters such as over consumption, greed, and loss of identity through the disintegration of social relationships. The second chapter examines modern onmyoji and why they are different from their ancient counterpart, especially with regards to the commodification of women and the alienation of others. By examining the societal ills that have created monsters we can determine if these representatives of capitalist excess can be managed.

This thesis is intended to illustrate that monsters, as beings made of pure culture, embody social anxieties and can be deployed as a means of protest. Therefore this thesis examines monsters in Japanese anime, manga, and film that embody the excesses of capitalism. The first chapter examines Spirited Away and how capitalism’s excesses create monsters such as over consumption, greed, and loss of identity through the disintegration of social relationships. The second chapter examines modern onmyoji and why they are different from their ancient counterpart, especially with regards to the commodification of women and the alienation of others. By examining the societal ills that have created monsters we can determine if these representatives of capitalist excess can be managed.

This dissertation pairs a nineteenth-century American writer, Herman Melville, and a twentieth-century New Zealand writer, Janet Frame, to consider points of overlap between two novelists who were unusually sensitive to the problem of political thinking and decision in situations of state emergency. Consisting of three chapters on Melville’s later maritime fiction (Moby-Dick, Benito Cereno, and Billy Budd, Sailor) and two interleaving chapters on Frame’s late autobiographical and fictional writings (An Angel at My Table and The Carpathians), the dissertation explores how, in the work of these writers, figural work builds around interlinked questions of emergency and judgment. Both writers are interested in situations of peril when the fragility of bodily life is exposed and when the coherence of given political orders is tested. Both probe the response of the human legislative urge and the limits of the power of judgment in the time of crisis and exception, producing narratives of the tense moment of executive decision. Their literary forms heighten awareness of the mechanisms, frameworks, and effects of different modes of judgment--whether cognitive, moral, legal, aesthetic, or political--under emergency conditions. Out of this engagement with the nexus of judgment and security, both writers ask what might happen if we were to abide with precariousness and insecurity rather than default to the often destructive praxis of security. Melville and Frame also push the capacities of language and form in their attempt to represent the possibility of modes of judgment adequate to such political renewal. In their rhetoric and formal structures--including their experimental “disfiguration” of narrative lines--and in their creation of intricate, reflexive literary voices, these writers imagine what it would mean to come up against the limit of, and even to overturn, accepted categories of knowledge and thought, of calculation and judgment.

This dissertation pairs a nineteenth-century American writer, Herman Melville, and a twentieth-century New Zealand writer, Janet Frame, to consider points of overlap between two novelists who were unusually sensitive to the problem of political thinking and decision in situations of state emergency. Consisting of three chapters on Melville’s later maritime fiction (Moby-Dick, Benito Cereno, and Billy Budd, Sailor) and two interleaving chapters on Frame’s late autobiographical and fictional writings (An Angel at My Table and The Carpathians), the dissertation explores how, in the work of these writers, figural work builds around interlinked questions of emergency and judgment. Both writers are interested in situations of peril when the fragility of bodily life is exposed and when the coherence of given political orders is tested. Both probe the response of the human legislative urge and the limits of the power of judgment in the time of crisis and exception, producing narratives of the tense moment of executive decision. Their literary forms heighten awareness of the mechanisms, frameworks, and effects of different modes of judgment--whether cognitive, moral, legal, aesthetic, or political--under emergency conditions. Out of this engagement with the nexus of judgment and security, both writers ask what might happen if we were to abide with precariousness and insecurity rather than default to the often destructive praxis of security. Melville and Frame also push the capacities of language and form in their attempt to represent the possibility of modes of judgment adequate to such political renewal. In their rhetoric and formal structures--including their experimental “disfiguration” of narrative lines--and in their creation of intricate, reflexive literary voices, these writers imagine what it would mean to come up against the limit of, and even to overturn, accepted categories of knowledge and thought, of calculation and judgment.

Texte remanié de: Diss.--Philosophische Fakultät--Düsseldorf, 1979-1980. / Bibliogr. p. 198-208.

Pendant la deuxième moitié du vingtième siècle, les régions du Pacifique, et notamment l’Australie et la Nouvelle-Zélande, ont vu augmenter les mouvements de migrations. Ces derniers ont permis une diversification des concepts de nationalité, d’identité, de langage et d’espace. De ce fait, bon nombre d’auteurs ont donc décidé d’approcher leurs écrits à travers le spectre du transnationalisme et ont cherché à repousser les limites culturelles et les frontières géographiques -imposées par un état colonial.- Par conséquent, c’est avec une approche comparative que j’analyserai, en tenant ainsi compte de la constante évolution des nouveaux cadres géographiques et culturels, le recueil de poèmes Star Waka (1999) de l’auteur maori Robert Sullivan, le roman graphique Night Fisher (2005) de l’artiste hawaiien R. Kikuo Johnson et le roman Carpentaria de l’autrice waanyi Alexis Wright. En effet, j’examinerai la formation des identités autochtones en lien avec le lieu natal respectif de chaque auteur tout en tenant compte de l’évolution de la notion de frontière, qu’elle soit locale ou nationale. En se détournant de la perspective coloniale, je mettrai ainsi en lumière les différents outils que les auteurs utilisent dans leurs oeuvres pour permettre de définir une ou plusieurs identité(s) autochtone(s) qui se lisent entre les lignes et au-delà des limites spatiales. La question de l’enracinement et du déplacement est au coeur de ce réseau d’alliances autochtones, et permet une approche et une lecture transnationales, ainsi qu’une vision d’un monde littéraire commun et partagé. Ce réseau va au-delà des frontières locales et nationales, créant ainsi des géographies alternatives. / The second part of the twentieth century saw movements of migration increased, notably in Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific regions, resulting in a diversification of the concepts of nationhood, identity, language, and space. As such, many authors have worked through the lens of transnationalism and have sought to think beyond the concept of borders, since locality is ultimately attached to a specific identity. Thus, to account for shifting geographical and cultural frameworks, I aim to paint a cross-cultural comparison within different genres of Indigenous literatures in Oceania. Through an analysis of Robert T. Sullivan’s Star Waka (1999), R. Kikuo Johnson’s Night Fisher (2005), and Alexis Wright’s Carpentaria (2006), I examine the formation of Indigenous identities in relation to the authors’ respective homelands while also interacting with the changing concepts of local and national boundaries. By decentering the Western definition of the border I highlight the way in which these authors can be read through the semantic lines of their works as well as across geographical borders, thereby challenging the dichotomy between the local and the global by disorientating and regenerating creative Indigenous identities on a larger scale. As the twenty-first century engages with new sorts of narratives, the issue of rootedness and displacement within a network of Indigenous alliances allows for a comparative and transnational approach, and a vision of a shared literary world that crosses over local and national boundaries, thereby enabling alternative geographies and accounting for contrasting perceptions of the world.