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This doctoral thesis identifies and analyzes narratives of Greenland's future that emerged in the context of developing and modernizing the dependency's natural resources industries in the 1900s until the 1960s. After almost two centuries of Danish colonial rule, the turn of the 20th century witnessed a profound change in Greenland's governance. Although contested at first, the notion of cultural progress increasingly linked developing a modern industry to a productive economy under Danish auspices. Ideas of modernity that connected rationalities of the market with political power and science were unparalleled in the colonial discourse on Greenland's future. How were the development of Greenland's natural resource industries and its role in Danish governance debated? Which narratives emerged in this context? As the studies in this compilation thesis suggest, the rationalities of science, markets, and power became entangled in an unprecedented way during these decades, creating new ways to imagine Greenland's future. The first paper analyzes the application of a private stakeholder group of Copenhagen's financial and economic elite for access to Greenland as a private, for-profit venture to extract and trade with the colony's living resources in 1905. The motif of an Arctic scramble was constructed through the authority of science, still resonating in the debate on rare earth mining today. The second paper identifies the business relationships between the group's members, connecting major Danish financial institutes and private economic interests in the late 19th and early 20th century. The third paper focuses on the commercialization of Greenlandic fisheries in the 1910s until the late 1920s and the fisheries scientist Adolf Severin Jensen (1866-1953). Jensen's work is an example of how applied sciences connected both scientific and political agendas, carried out in a colonial setting. The fourth paper focuses on the narrative analysis of (Danish-language) Greenlandic newspaper coverage of Qullissat between 1942 and 1968. Representations of the coal mine and nearby settlement on Greenland's west coast, which were closed down in 1972, are at the center of this study. While the coal mine was presented as a Danish success to establish an independent energy supply and to introduce modernization measures, it was presented as a Greenlandic failure to adapt to modern demands of economic productivity in the years leading up to its closure.

This study primarily investigates the autobiographical code in Antjie Krog's poetical oeuvre, spanning from 1970 to the present. Krog's poetry collections may be read as offering life writing through poetry, while the prose works mostly present the reader with a mixture of autobiographical fact plus creative reworkings of fact and fiction. Even though her 10 volumes of poetry follow her biological development from young girl to grandmother, uncertainty still exists about about where truth ends and fiction begins in this poet and autobiographer's interwoven tapestry of multiple and varied perspectives. Furthermore, autobiographical (as utilised and adapted in Krog's oeuvre, in combination with the conventioans from other genres), offers a variety of creatively innovative, experimental strategies and possibilities exploited adroitly by Krog. Reading her poetry with the focus on autobiographical markers leads to another, mostly untapped, dimension of interpretation. This literary approach is in stark contrast to the approach prescibed by N.P. van Wyk Louw in "Die 'mens' agter die boek" ["The 'Person' behind the Book] (1956), in which he states clearly that a text should be interpreted as not "about the human behind the text". To a large extent Krog as poet is inviting the reader to consciously break the taboo that Louw placed on the reader intent on "searching the actual person behind the text". My hypothesis is that in Krog's poetry there is a distinct interrelationship between the perceptions, experiences and sensual impressions of the lyrical "I" in the poems and that of the authobiographical "I" writing. It would be irresponsible to declare the poet and the speaker as one and the same, but in instances where the poet purposefully integrates autobiographical elements into her poems, she is implicitly requesting the reader to interpret her work in this way. This fictive and implicit request is referred to by Philippe Lejeune as the autobiographical poet. Krog's poetry can be divided into four categories: "direct autobiographical", "indirect autobiographical", "universal" and "general" poems. The first category involves criteria that are linked to the poet, such as the use of the names, initials and dates. Indirect autobiographical poems can be read against the background of knowledge (previously published information) about the poet. Poetry with no apparent autobiographical element, but with universal themes such as love, loss and transience, fall into the third category of "universal" poetry. If poems do not fit into the mentioned categories, they are deemed "general".

This dissertation comprises a historical survey and thematic analysis of the various regional and temporal expressions of Chinese and Taiwanese xiangtu wenxue (“nativism” or “homeland literature”). Chapter One traces Chinese xiangtu wenxue from the rural stories of Lu Xun through the 1920s generation of writers of xiangtu wenxue (xiangtu zuojia f’g). These writers used two different narrative modes to analyze China’s deepening rural crisis. One of these was the antitraditionalist mode inspired by Lu Xun; the other was a positivist mode formulated from new concepts and intellectual thought prevalent in China at the time of May Fourth (1919). The narrative configuration established by this decade of xiangtu writers is characterized by nostalgia and is based on the migration of the Chinese village intellectual to large urban centres. This configuration set the standard for subsequent generations of writers of xiangtu wenxue who used an urban narrator to describe a rural area which was either the author’s native home, an area he/she knew well or one which was idealized. Chapters Two and Five discuss Taiwanese xiangtu wenxue from the 1920s to the 1970s. The emergence of this fiction is linked with Taiwan’s insecure status in the forum of international relations. In Taiwanese xiangtu wenxue, the countryside is a refuge from the forces of modernization; it is also a storehouse nurturing ancient traditions which are threatened by new and modern ways. Taiwan’s xiangtu writers valorize traditional culture and seek in rural Taiwan a transcendent China predating Taiwan’s invasion by the West. These works are all narrated by an urban narrator who rejects modernity and desires to counteract foreign influences. The focus of Chapter Three is China’s rural regional xiangtu wenxue of the 1930s. In this decade, rural fiction became a general trend in China with the rise of the Chinese Communist Party, Japanese aggression and China’s increasing urbanization. The shift away from China’s urban-based fiction is characterized by an increasing concern for the peasants, regional decay under the onslaught of Westernization and the life, customs and lore of China’s hinterland. In many of these regional works, concern for the nation is interwoven with non-nationalistic interests. Chinese xiangtu wenxue of the 1940s and 1950s is discussed in Chapter Four. The xiangtu wenxue of this period took on a distinctly Communist guise in the wake of Mao Zedong’s 1942 Talks at the Yan’an Forum on Literature and Art. Chinese Communist xiangtu wenxue is primarily defined as revolutionary realism and is concerned with the construction of Chinese socialism which takes place in the countryside through the forced implementation of draconian Party policies. The peasants in this fiction often attempt to evade these policies. Occasionally, these stories and novels slip into a hardcore realistic mode conveying a peasant reality which strongly dissents from the orthodox Party view. At least one writer of this period was persecuted and killed for his putatively disloyal beliefs. Finally, with the passing of Maoism in China, a new form of xiangtu wenxue emerged in the mid-1980s. This is the subject of Chapter Six. In these works, traditional Chinese culture supercedes Maoism as the basic fabric unifying Chinese life. Many of the writers in this period evince a psychological bifurcation arising from their conflicting views about the value of traditional Chinese culture. This bifurcation stems from the narrator in this fiction who is caught up in the process of urbanization and is unable to fully integrate his vision of the countryside into a larger vision of modernity. The ambivalence about Chinese culture in xiangtu wenxue is a leitmotif which underlies xiangtu wenxue’s many, disparate forms. / Arts, Faculty of / Asian Studies, Department of / Graduate

The thesis is a record of the writing and rehearsal process which led to the British premiere of the full length Canadian play, Danceland, at The Old Red Lion Theatre, London, in November of 1994. The first chapter is a discussion of the dramatic theories and historical research which informed the initial creative writing process. The second chapter is the final draft of the play itself. The third chapter is a record of the rehearsal and production process, as well as an overview of the major dramaturgical problems which the actors, director and designers encountered during rehearsals of the play. A full cast and crew list and the reviews from the British press are contained in the appendices. The playwright's "experiment" which sits at the heart of this production record is that Aristotle's idea of "place" is essential to the creation of an indigenous, Canadian dramatic literature. The writing process, however, is only the beginning of the translation of drama from the page to the stage; and it is this final, rehearsal and production process which demands that all dramatic theory be placed within the context of believable characterization and dramatic action. / Arts, Faculty of / Theatre and Film, Department of / Graduate

This thesis acknowledges the presence of a clear note of affirmation in some novels of the mid-Twentieth Century. Finding a similar affirmation in Albert Camus' essays, The Myth of Sisyphus and The Rebel, it attempts to demonstrate a basic agreement between the essays and a limited selection of such novels. It then attempts to support this conclusion by examination of two novels in some detail. It considers that this relationship arises naturally from the artists' mutual perception of man's perilous condition in the modern world, and that it does not imply the necessity of conscious imitation of Camus' thoughts on the absurd. Nevertheless, since this thesis intends to show that the affirmation in the novels arises from an attitude that Camus termed "absurdist" and inheres in a way of life that he termed "absurd," such novels, for the purpose of this study, are called "Absurd." Chapter One attempts to explain man's existential anxiety as a spiritual state germane to his condition as an intelligent being in an obscure universe, and to describe how this natural anxiety, painfully intensified in a godless, materialistic age, has resulted in spiritual sterility and paralysis of creative action. Of this condition, such novelists as Malcolm Lowry, Joseph Heller, William Golding, Lawrence Durrell and William Styron seem acutely aware. In addition, it attempts to define Camus' uses of the term "absurd," and to explain the nature of the absurd life—the life of absurd rebellion—that he advances as the only-positive answer to the challenge of the times. While recognizing that the diversity evident among these novels attests to their nature as independent creations, Chapter One attempts to establish their basic agreement with Camus' ideas of the absurd, and to trace the existence among them of broad similarities. Finally, by examination of values implied, it notes that these authors seem to arrive at Camus' conclusion that "everything is permitted," limited, as Camus limits it, by the necessity of individual responsibility. Chapters two and three, detailed examinations of the absurd in two novels, Malcolm Lowry's Under the Volcano and Joseph Heller's Catch-22, attempt to clarify the nature of the authors' protest by pointing out what forces, both external and internal, are attacked. As this process involves an analysis of the nature and results of destructive escapism, whether individual escape into alcoholism or mass escape into meaningless conformity or excessive rationalism, it suggests also the urgency of the individual struggle for the "lucid awareness" that Camus demands. In particular, these chapters hope to clarify the affirmation implied by the individual liberation from illusion and anxiety to defiant joy in conscious living. The Conclusion restates the fundamental agreement between the controlling themes of these novels and the tenets of the absurd delineated by Camus. Also, it demonstrates the diversity of method and approach by which the two novels deal with common themes and arrive at affirmative conclusions. Finally, it warns against the interpretation of this fiction as the expression of a doctrine for universal salvation. The Absurd Novel is not, therefore, what Camus would call disparagingly a "thesis-novel" ; at most, like The Myth of Sisyphus, it issues a positive challenge to the individual in the modem world. / Arts, Faculty of / English, Department of / Graduate

This thesis examines the theme of alienation along with the train motif in the life journeys of the protagonists in four modern Japanese novels. Each chapter is devoted to an individual novel and explores its hero's feelings of socio-psychological estrangement on personal and interpersonal levels as well as the role of the train journey which serves to arouse, create or alleviate such feelings. Chapter One deals with Sanshiro (Sanshiro. 1908) by Natsume Soseki and follows the hero on his long train journey from backward Kyushu to progressive Tokyo. The people he meets on the train foreshadow the feelings of uneasiness and estrangement he will encounter in the capital. For Sanshiro, the noisy, crowded streetcars initially represent the "real world," constantly reminding him of his alienation from it. Once over his culture shock the hero's sense of not belonging shifts to his relationships with his friends. Gradually he begins to feel more comfortable with himself and the world around him. Chapter Two examines A Dark Night's Passing (An'ya Koro, 1921-37) by Shiga Naoya. In his search to resolve feelings of unacceptability arising from his childhood experiences, Kensaku takes a series of journeys, many by train, "backward" in time. The train thus serves as an agent which can transcend the barriers of both time and space, separating or reuniting people and creating or breaking down distances between places. It can arouse feelings of happiness, excitement, sadness or loneliness in its passengers or simply provide him with a place to relax and dream about a brighter future. Chapter Three focuses on Snow Country (Yukiguni. 1934-1947) by Kawabata Yasunari. Shimamura's purpose in visiting the snow country is two-fold -- he both desires to escape from and needs to confront the reality of the wasted effort in his life and resulting sense of alienation from humanity. The train complies. As it brings him into this region of Japan it completely loses any connection with reality, creating a void in which weirdly beautiful apparitions float up before our hero's very eyes. Once in this fantasy land our hero is taught to see his own coldness and how to become more human by two beautiful women. It is then left up to Shimamura to put what he has learned into action when he returns to Tokyo by the train which, heading away from the snow country, takes on very real qualities. The final chapter examines The Temple of the Golden Pavilion (Kinkakuii. 1956) by Mishima Yukio. This novel deals with Mizoguchi, a most frightening character whose mixed-up views of both himself and the world are but a thin disguise for insanity. The hero suffers terribly from the resulting feelings of not belonging as well as a great inferiority complex. The situation is complicated by his strange love-hate relationship with the Golden Temple to which he attributes human qualities. The train in this novel serves as the symbolic vehicle which transports the hero back and forth between the region of his birth and what he calls "the station of death" where he will eventually destroy both the temple and the hated half of his personality. In the conclusion the relevance of alienation, trains and the journey of life in modern Japanese literature are discussed. / Arts, Faculty of / Asian Studies, Department of / Graduate

John Corigliano's Etude Fantasy (1976) is a significant and challenging addition to the late twentieth century piano repertoire. A large-scale work, it occupies a particularly important place in the composer's output of music for piano. The remarkable variety of genres, styles, forms, and techniques in Corigliano's oeuvre as a whole is also evident in his piano music. This profusion of sources and its application to the Etude Fantasy are explored in the introduction, which is a general discussion o f the composer's background and aesthetic stance. The intriguing title of the Etude Fantasy implies the coexistence of two genres and raises the issue of the role of each genre in the thematic and structural organization o f the work. It is this issue which is the principal subject of inquiry in the thesis. Chapter I examines the historical background o f the etude genre, discussing similarities between the pianistic techniques employed in Corigliano's work and those found in specific historical instances of the etude genre over two centuries. Chapter II focuses on the historical background of the fantasia genre, emphasizing contrasting characters, textures, and keys as the main indicators o f a free form, and at the same time drawing attention to thematic transformation as a device of structural unification. Chapter III concentrates on elements that produce structural and formal coherence in John Corigliano's Etude Fantasy. These elements are motivic, intervalic, melodic, and harmonic in nature. / Arts, Faculty of / Music, School of / 3 Cass, 1 CD / Graduate

The thesis explores the vexed concept of Heimat in recent German culture. Heimat evokes an exclusive group, founded on the idea of the unity and homogeneity of its members. Conflicts arise around the concept because it constructs oppositions between those who belong and those who do not, insiders and outsiders, the domestic and known in opposition to the foreign and strange. Historically, the concept has been used to tell a story about the cohesion of the German nation; it has also, however, been used to assimilate, eliminate, or exile its Others. The thesis examines how the legacies of the concept and its narrative reverberate through the nation-building process of Germany today. The concept of Heimat is active in films, literature, the law and contemporary German society. The argument is that the concept of Heimat still shapes German identity in ways that use old forms and oppositions to respond to recent social changes. It is argued further that the tensions around the concept have not diminished, but are spreading into many different areas of German everyday life. Two films by Edgar Reitz provide the starting point for exploring the tensions around Heimat in contemorary German culture. Following readings of texts by Jewish-German, Austrian- German, Swiss-German, Persian-German, Rumanian-German, East and West German authors show the concept persisting in different forms with different consequences, according to the different cultural contexts. In each of these contexts, the concept of German Heimat produces both social cohesion and social tensions. As much as people are united by the concept, they are also driven apart by its differentiating and disintegrating mechanisms. Motivated by the search for communal intimacy, the concept also has the effect of controlling and manipulating what appears different and alien. As such a network of interests and strategies it is not merely closed, fixed and bounded, as desired perhaps by the dominant cultural groups, but rather open for contestation and negotiation within and across national borders. / Arts, Faculty of / Central Eastern Northern European Studies, Department of / Graduate