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Obvious differences exist between the comedy styling of, for example, Jack Benny and Benny Hill. Terms like “highbrow” or “lowbrow” are often used, but there is no functional method yet that could feasibly be used to qualify all of the single jokes, let alone the broader work. Currently loose classification systems are used, but they don’t claim to be all encompassing. They are either too vague or too exclusive. This thesis selects several movies from the AFI list of the 100 funniest movies of alltime. In order to have a broad selection across time, it uses the highest-ranking movie from every decade beginning with the 50s. The movies are: Some Like it Hot (1959), Dr. Strangelove, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964), Annie Hall (1977), Tootsie (1982), and There’s Something About Mary (1998). Each movie is scrutinized, and each joke notated and analyzed. Once the analysis is complete on each individual joke from each individual film, the jokes are then sorted and organized. Patterns and characteristics are then sought and notated. / Department of Telecommunications

The study has identified seven Puerto Rican composers that shared a common bond as first products of the recently established system of post-secondary music education of the island of Puerto Rico. A review of relevant literature produced only one fugitive document with any information about these composers. Through the use of a questionnaire and documents supplied by the composers, information available about these artists was collected and updated in order to provide accurate documentation of their artistic activities. An orchestral work from each of these composers was examined in order to give an insight into some aspects of their individual style, although it was not possible to make generalizations about each composer's style due to the limits of the sample.The study demonstrated the existence of significant works for orchestra by these composers and provided, for each of these artists, a short biographical sketch and a complete list of works up to the present. The composers and works studied were:Esther Alejandro, El zapatero prodigioso Carlos Cabrer, CanticosErnesto Cordero, Concierto evocativo (guitar concerto)Jose Daniel Martinez, Tiempo sinfdnicoJose A. Montalvo, Canto para la America sufridaRoberto Sierra, PolarizacionesCarlos A. Vazquez, Casa LlenaDuring preliminary research, the study also identified substantial errors and omissions in general reference works in music on the subject of Puerto Rican music. The first chapter includes a review of all available literature on the subject of the study, covering published and fugitive sources. The bibliography includes a section with annotated newspaper articles on some of the composers appearing in the study. Computer print-outs from searches of the Comprehensive Dissertation Index and the Repertoire International de Literature Musicale on key words "Puerto Ric" and "music" appear in the appendices.

French composer Eugene Bozza (1905-1991) has made significant contributions to the repertoire of wind instruments in the twentieth century. Not least among his compositions are the clarinet concerto, the eleven works for clarinet and piano, chamber works involving the clarinet, and numerous etudes for clarinet. Information gathered throughout the course of the study demonstrates why the concerto is a significant work for clarinetists, demanding from the performer technical prowess, tonal control, and mature musicianship. The additional works for clarinet and piano are mostly sectional pieces written in a morceau de contours vein challenging the performer's lyrical and technical playing.This study reveals through analysis a number of compositional devices used by the composer that are stylistic threads running through virtually all the works for clarinet. Harmonically, these devices include extended tertian chords used in succession, parallel chord movement, and quartal and quintal harmonies. Melodic resources include diatonic scales, chromatic scales, some transposed modes, and a limited use of whole tones. The composer prefers homophonic textures, but uses countermelodies and the occasional use of the unaccompanied soloist for contrast. Bozza uses the element of rhythm dynamically, featuring rhythmically-charged motives throughout much of his composition. Numerous expressive modifiers are included in the works, but leave the performer enough latitude for supplementary dynamics and rubato.In addition to analyses of the concerto and the works for clarinet and piano, the study addresses the orchestration of the concerto. This discussion shows the ways in which Bozza uses orchestral colors and alerts the performer to discrepancies between the orchestral score and the piano reduction. Few of the changes from the score to the reduction are significant. Many changes are cosmetic involving the deletion of color effects and short countermelodies in the reduction to allow for idiomatic piano writing.The study offers the performer recommendations for the successful performance of the concerto and the works for clarinet and piano. The recommendations include supplemental expressive modifiers, fingering choices, additional phrasing choices, and practice techniques. As an introduction to the study, biographical information was gathered to provide the reader with a concise sketch of the life and style of Eugene Bozza. Correspondence received from Alphonse Leduc gives additional information on Bozza's works for clarinet. / School of Music

This dissertation examines the following works from the original repertoire of the American Brass Quintet (ABQ): Charles Whittenberg, Triptych for Brass Quintet; Ralph Shapey, Brass Quintet; Gilbert Amy, Relais; William Lovelock, Suite for Brass; Leonardo Balada, Mosaico; Virgil Thomson, Family Portrait; Elliott Carter, Brass Quintet; Jacob Druckman, Other Voices; Robert Starer, Evanescence; Dan Welcher, Brass Quintet; Vladimir Ussachevsky, Dialogues and Contrasts; David Sampson, Morning Music; Maurice Wright, Quintet; and Eric Ewazen, Colchester Fantasy. These works represent a small part of the ABQ's repertoire and attest tothe significance of the ensemble's contribution to brass quintet literature. The purpose of this study is to bring these works to the attention of performers and to provide a guide for those wishing to perform them. Composers will be interested in the discussion of compositional techniques. The fourteen works are studied in chronological order and in the following manner: composer biography, historical background of composition, descriptive analysis (form, harmony, melody, rhythm, texture), and performance considerations (range, special techniques, use of basstrombone or tuba, and equipment needs). Program notes from the ABQ's performances of the works, many written by the composers, are included.Through the study of these works the following conclusions are reached: (1) the ABQ has influenced the development of university brass programs and has helped to make brass quintet experience an integral part of brass education, (2) it has encouraged composers to write for brass quintet, and (3) the ABQ has played a significant role in developing an original brass quintet repertoire. Through its residencies at the Aspen Music Festival and the Juilliard School of Music and touring, the ABQ has reached a large number of students, performers, and composers throughout the world. The quintet's performances of new music has inspired composers to write for brass quintet; the group receives many unsolicited scores each year. Since its founding in 1960, the ABQ has been a leader in the commissioning of original works for brass quintet and has played a significant role in the development of the brass quintet repertoire. / School of Music

My dissertation investigates how Chinese American writers invent transnational Chinese American identities in the 1980s and 1990s. In particular, I focus on Amy Tan's The JoyLuck Club (1989), Shirley Geok-lin Lim's Among the White Moon Faces: An Asian American Memoir of Homelands (1996), and Shawn Hsu Wong's American Knees(1995). 1 argue that Tan, Lim, and Wong challenge the conventional ideas of a singular, pure, and fixed identity but instead create Chinese American identities in the post-1965 era as multiple, hybrid, and constantly changing to accommodate to an open, diverse, and multicultural America. Specifically, in Tan's work, by describing both the conflicts and connections between the Chinese mothers and their American horn daughters, she represents a group of Chinese American women who transcend their cultural, generational, and linguistic differences to achieve an identity that connects the West with the East. In Lim's work, by portraying the domestic and international movements of herself as an immigrant, she reveals the long and painful process of negotiating multiple cultures and identities that enables her to change from a Chinese Malaysian to a new Asian American woman. In Wong's work, by focusing on how the fourth- and fifthgeneration of Chinese and/or Asian American men and women negotiate racial, ethnic, gender, and sexual identities, Wong meditates on what the term Asian American means in the new age. Together the three works reflect the range, diversity, and invention of contemporary Chinese American identities by Chinese American writers in the new era. / Department of English

The purpose of this study is to explore a phenomenon which is both literary and social: the popularity of didactic Christian novels in twentieth-century American literature. Specifically, the study is restricted to a consideration of best-selling Christian novels and an examination of the attitudes of American readers over a time of extreme social change in America, 1918-1953. Nineteen such novels were best sellers over the thirty-five years encompassed by the study. One was popular between World War I and the Depression, five were best sellers between 1929 and 1939, and the remainder were best sellers between 1939 and 1953. The data suggest that within the period 1918-1953, public interest in Christian novels increased during times of national stress but waned in times of prosperity.The popular Christian novels mirrored the concerns of the reading public, for subject matter, theme, and characterization of the novels tend to reflect the era in which a given novel is published. The one novel popular between the end of World War I and the Depression was Ralph Connor's The Sky Pilot in No Man's Land (1919), an unabashedly anti-German propaganda novel incorporating elements of Christian thought. Between 1919 and 1929, Americans were preoccupied with social change and the prosperity of the times, and thus demonstrated little interest in fictional piety.In the Depression, five novels by Lloyd C. Douglas were immensely popular: Magnificent Obsession (1929), Forgive Us Our Trespasses (1932), Green Light (1935), White Banners (1936), and Disputed Passage (1939). All were contemporaneous in setting, and paradoxically stressed the practice of altruistic self-giving along with the promise of material rewards for the follower of Christianity. Clearly, Douglas appealed to the public because his works were optimistic and because they offered to the reader the hope that Christianity might provide relief from economic distress.From 1939 through 1953, thirteen Christian novels became best sellers. Seven were historical Christian novels: The Nazarene (1939), The Apostle (1943), and Mary (1949) by Sholem Asch; The Robe (1942) and The Big Fisherman (1948) by Lloyd C. Douglas; The Song of Bernadette (1942) by Franz Werfel; and The Silver Chalice (1953) by Thomas B. Costain. The historical novels tended to become more conservative and restrained than Douglas' novels of the Depression. Their popularity points to tendencies in Americans to look to the past and to ancient values in search of answers to contemporary problems.Six Christian novels published 1939-1953 were generally contemporaneous in setting. Significantly, four were either by or about Roman Catholics: A. J. Cronin's The Keys of the Kingdom (1941), Russell Janney's The Miracle of the Bells (1946), Henry Morton Robinson's The Cardinal (1950), and Francis Cardinal Spellman's The Foundling (1951). Two by Agnes Sligh Turnbull were Protestant: The Bishop's Mantle (1947) and The Gown of Glory (1952). Four of these novels depicted clergymen as protagonists. The popularity of these novels indicated widespread concern for religion and curiosity about churchmen. The acceptance of Roman Catholicism in popular fiction is of major significance, for no popular Christian novels before 1939 were distinctly pro-Catholic. A more tolerant mood is clearly indicated for the American novel-reading public.It is clear from this study that almost all popular Christian novels widely accepted between 1918 and 1953 advanced a simplistic and rewarding Christianity. Inevitably the theology is uncomplicated, and most of the works adapt Christianity to the needs of the day. Religious attitudes are emphatically this-worldly. Little eschatological content is apparent; readers and writers alike were apparently more concerned with a religious faith which provided strength and guidance for living well in the present, rather than providing a means of preparation for a heavenly afterlife.

Ramon Fernandez, un des plus eminents critiques francais de l’ entre-deux-guerres, revient a l’actualite apres une eclipse de trente-cinq ans. Et en meme temps revient le souvenir d’une carriere commencee avec eclat sous le signe de l’humanisme de la personnalite et terminee prematurement par la mort au moment ou s’effondrait autour de Fernandez le nouvel ordre europeen dont il etait devenu un des principaux porte-paroles. Comment expliquer la trajectoire qui le mena du socialisme au fascisme, de l’extreme-gauche en 1934 a la Collaboration en 1940? Pourquoi le decalage, sensible a ses contemporains, entre la promesse de l’oeuvre et l'apparent echec de l'homme? D'aucuns en ont cherche la clef dans le conflit d'heritages spirituels ou dans le sentiment de declassement social d'un homme ne d'une mere franc;aise d'origine bourgeoise et d'un aristocrate mexicain. Et qui pour comble de difficulte se sentait different de sa generation pour ne pas avoir fait la guerre de 1914-1918. Nous croyons que les racines du drame sont ailleurs, dans le bouleversement subi par un enfant accidentellement prive de son pere a l’age de onze ans, traumatisme qui rencontrant dans le psychisme les traces du fantasme parricidaire, devint le mobile profond de sa vocation. Dans la premiere partie de notre these, nous ex ami nons les faits de la jeunesse de Fernandez et les traits de sa personnalite a la lumiere des concepts psychanalytiques. Dans la deuxieme partie, nous montrons comment les themes, I 'organisation et le langage de sa pensee prennent leur sens dans des idees inconscientes se referant a la mort du pere, problematique que Fernandez essaya d'explorer imaginativement dans ses romans, auxquels nous consacrons la section suivante. Nous montrons enfin comment ses ouvrages critiques successifs reposent sur une identification de caractere paternel avec l'auteur qui evolue selon des modalites psychiques.

This thesis examines the forms of utopianism which developed in U.S. fiction after the Civil War, from Mark Twain to Jack London. It covers the genres and subgenres of the utopia of reform, the fiction of occult utopianism, the lost-race romance, the post-catastrophe utopia, and the dystopia. Its central argument is that utopianism provides a means of developing alternative horizons of historiosophy and of building images of otherness, as it is also an argumentative apparatus which allows utopists to comment on their empirical society, as the other side of otherness. Nineteenth-century U.S. utopian fiction conveyed, through an increasing deconstruction of the utopian genre, conflicting interpretations of such elements of American myth-history as the stock image of America as a new Eden and paradise of abundance, the American Dream, and Manifest Destiny. This helps explain the fragmentation of the utopian genre within literary discourse and its cooptation by modern science fiction as it developed after the first decade of the twentieth century.

This thesis examines the role of Canadian women as presented in English language novels of the 1930s written by women authors. Within the context of the Great Depression it focuses on issues that are central to women's daily lives such as work, love, marriage and motherhood. It also isolates recurring themes in the novels and attempts to understand the authors' messages within their social context. Social reform, politics and gender relationships are among the subjects explored.