The purpose of this thesis is to examine the complexities of daughterhood as portrayed by nine contemporary women writers: from former West Germany(Gabriele Wohmann, Elisabeth Plessen), from former East Germany (Hedda Zinner, Helga M. Novak), from Switzerland (Margrit Schriber) and from Austria (Brigitte Schwaiger, Jutta Schutting, Waltraud Anna Mitgutsch, Christine Haidegger). Ten prose-works which span a period of approximately ten years, from the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s, are analysed according to theme and character. In the Introduction, we trace the historical development of women's writing in German, focusing on the most significant female authors from the Romantic period through to the rise of the New Women's Movement in the late sixties. We then consider a definition of 'Frauenliteratur' and the extent to which autobiography has become a typical feature of such women's writing. In the ensuing four chapters we highlight in psychological and sociological terms the mourning process a daughter undergoes after her father's death; the identification process between daughter and mother; the daughter's reaction to being adopted; and the daughter's decision to commit suicide. We see to what extent the environment in which each of these daughters is brought up as well as past events in German history shape the daughter's attitude towards her parents. Since we are studying the way in which these relationships are portrayed, we also need to take into account the narrative strategies employed by these modern women writers. In the light of our analysis of content and form we are able to examine the possible intentions behind such personal portraits: the act of writing as a form of self-discovery and self-therapy as well as the sharing of female experience. We conclude by suggesting the direction women's writing from German-speaking countries may be taking.

During the 1910s, there was an increasing concerted effort on the part of Canadian artists to create art and literature which would affirm Canada's sense of nationhood and modernity. Although in agreement that Canada desperately required its own culture, the Canadian artistic community was divided on what Canadian culture ought to be. For the majority of Canadian painters, writers, critics and readers, the future of the Canadian arts, especially poetry and painting, lay in Canada's past. These cultural conservatives championed art which mirrored its European and Canadian predecessors. Their domination of the arts left little room for the progressive minority, who rebelled against prevailing artistic standards. In painting, the Group of Seven was one of the first groups to challenge this stranglehold on Canadian culture. The Group waged a protracted and vocal campaign for the advancement of Canadian approaches and subjects. In literature, A. J. M. Smith and F. R. Scott began a similar movement to modernize Canadian poetry and reform critical standards. By examining the poetry, essays, criticism and archival material of these poets and painters, the thesis establishes strong parallels between the modernist campaigns of these two groups and investigates this cross-fertilization between the modern Canadian arts.

This work proposes a double analysis of the mundane society representations between 1885 and 1914, in the press and the novel. This analysis separates these two categories of media to insist on their particularities, and tries to think of them in terms of an interaction. / A first part explores the organisation of the topics and the main genre of the mundane society in the press, applying the social discourse theory. The analysis is based on the perusal of a set of representative daily newspapers (Le Gaulois, Le Figaro) and of weekly and monthly publications (Le Grand monde, La Vie parisienne, Femina notably, as well as around thirty other titles). It shows that the mundane society in the newspaper is constrained by a poetics stemming from the characteristics of press writing: collective writing, periodicity of the publication, text length limitation and reference to reality. Some texts are tempted by fiction, even though they keep a reality-based referential, whereas other texts that are openly fictitious, fit the mundane fiction into the newspaper. / The second part is based on the general conclusion of the first part: the mundane society in the newspaper is a represented society, made of for a distant and anonymous public. With the advent of the medias in the 19th century, the mundane society has entered into the era of mediations and "industrial writing". Some writers, from Bourget to Proust, take these upheavals into account and present the mundane society as a metaphor of the mass media society. This is done following three main axes: the temptation of withdrawal of the fiction into a closed world (psychological and mundane movement impulsed by Goncourt with Cherie, prolonged by Bourget and Hervieux notably); the games of exchange between the novel and the newspaper (Maupassant, Toulet, Legrand, amongst others); and finally, the isolation of the mundane world and the aesthetic work on mediations (Rolland, Colette, Mirbeau, Lorrain et Gide notably). All these writings address the question of sociability at the era of the triumph of mediations: what room is left for the mundane society, for direct encounter, for exchange, in a world of mediation and mass media coverage? for immediate connections in a society of mediated ties? The epilogue proposes a journalistic reading of A la recherche du temps perdu, synthesis-work which inaugurates a modern and sociological perception: it is in the world of the imagined mundane society, distant and represented in the mass media, that the narrator draws the resources for his observation of the world.

No human condition is invested with more diverse and complex perceptions, ideals and emotions than childhood. Although it has long been accorded a particular significance in the context of his life and work, Maurice Ravel’s conception of childhood, together with the musical language through which it found expression, has never been the subject of a detailed, extended study. This thesis, therefore, explores the roles and realisations of childhood in Ravel’s music, arguing that they were inextricably linked with the language, traditions and idioms of the literary fairytale – an hypothesis Ravel himself supported when he wrote that his intention in his fairytale-based Ma mère l'Oye was to evoke ‘the poetry of childhood’. Through a study of these intertwined themes, the thesis develops new analytical and interpretative approaches to three major works: the piano duet suite Ma mère l’Oye (1910), the Trois chansons for mixed choir (1914-1915), and the opera L’Enfant et les sortilèges (1919-1925). These works span a fifteen-year period that saw a decisive evolution in Ravel’s compositional style, and was crucially impacted by the great cataclysm of the First World War. Ravel deliberately aligned his music with the traditions of the fairytale through the creation and expressive manipulation of musical and dramatic structure, language, gesture and perspective. One may trace the voice and presence of the storyteller in Ma mère l’Oye, a work dedicated to two children for whom Ravel was a favourite companion and teller of fairytales. L’Enfant et les sortilèges presents a detailed portrait of its eponymous Child, set within a fairytale in which traditional elements combine with a complexity of dramatic, musical and psychological construction that invokes the zeitgeist of the 1920s. The shadows of real events intrude more disturbingly upon the Trois chansons, whose distorted fairytale narratives represent a direct and personal response to the War. In its balance of musical interpretation and explication, supported by a clearly defined historical and philosophical context, the study yields new insights into a central facet of Ravel’s musical identity. / http://proxy.library.adelaide.edu.au/login?url= http://library.adelaide.edu.au/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?BBID=1348982 / Thesis (Ph.D.) - University of Adelaide, Elder Conservatorium of Music, 2008

In 1878, Britain occupied Cyprus to protect imperial interests in the Near East and India, interests, both strategic and economic, that Russian expansion threatened and Ottoman weakness undermined. By 1912, Cyprus had become a pawn. The island had not been converted into the strategic, economic or political base to protect and extend British interests in the Near East. The policy of 1878 had failed because it was perceived rather than actual benefits that underlay the imposition of British rule. / The primary aim of this study is to present Cyprus as a failed case of imperialism. Historians have traditionally claimed that Cyprus was a strategic asset within the British imperial structure throughout British rule (1878-1960). That notion is challenged for the first phase of British rule – from the occupation of Cyprus in 1878 to when it was annexed in 1914 and then offered to Greece in October 1915. The approach is to situate the island within the British imperial imagination, which will help to understand why the island was occupied, and then to situate it within the British imperial structure after it was occupied to determine its place, value and viability. Understanding British politics and imperial policy is vital when trying to grasp the complexities of the imperial imagination(s) and the role of Cyprus within the imperial structure. This dissertation will show that perceptions generate reality and inform policy and that often these perceptions are imagined and exaggerated and thus, not based on evidence or reality. / This study will show that the British perceived Cyprus within two competing imaginaries that were at the heart of an imagined European spiritual identity: the Christian/Crusader/Holy Land tradition and that of Ancient Greece. The first tradition helps to explain why Cyprus was occupied; understanding the second provides one of the main reasons why the British failed in their imperial venture in Cyprus. Many British Conservative politicians and those that knew the Near East, through their imagined view of the Holy Land and their travels, diplomatic and military careers, situated Cyprus within the first tradition. They considered it strategically vital to the Levant and beyond to Armenia and Mesopotamia. Liberal leaders perceived Cyprus to be apart of Europe and, more significantly, within the unitary ideal of Modern Greece that the British had fashioned in continuum of the unitary ideal of Ancient Greece. Although the identity of the Cypriots was complex, the British imposed – unwittingly – modernity on the Cypriots. / Ultimately, it was the latter imagination that became dominant and with the failure of Cyprus to have a place within imperial strategy, it became a pawn to be parted to Greece with.

Novel:

Revised and extended version of the author's doctoral thesis. / Includes bibliographical references and index.

In 1990, German literary critics agreed that the end of the Cold War should mark the end of politically committed post-war literature. The political caesura prompted a debate about the future of German literature during which the concept of 'readability' evolved as a contested issue. It was championed in particular by the author Matthias Politycki and the publishers Uwe Wittstock and Martin Hielscher. Ever since, 'readability' has remained a benchmark for authors and critics alike in the battle for value and success. The thesis will establish a theoretical basis for 'readability' that draws on narratology, the Aristotelian concept of 'mimesis', classical rhetoric, and the poetics of contemporary authors who explicitly engage with 'readability'. Discussion will centre on the novel since this genre has been the focus of debate ever since the novel gained prominence with the rise of the reading middle classes in the eighteenth century. An analysis of the historical role of 'readability' will demonstrate that the debate as it manifested itself around 1990 developed out of a specifically German tradition, in which authors and critics alike viewed it as potentially in conflict with true art. In 1990, German literary critics agreed that the end of the Cold War should mark the end of politically committed post-war literature. The political caesura prompted a debate about the future of German literature during which the concept of 'readability' evolved as a contested issue. It was championed in particular by the author Matthias Politycki and the publishers Uwe Wittstock and Martin Hielscher. Ever since, 'readability' has remained a benchmark for authors and critics alike in the battle for value and success. The thesis will establish a theoretical basis for 'readability' that draws on narratology, the Aristotelian concept of 'mimesis', classical rhetoric, and the poetics of contemporary authors who explicitly engage with 'readability'. Discussion will centre on the novel since this genre has been the focus of debate ever since the novel gained prominence with the rise of the reading middle classes in the eighteenth century. An analysis of the historical role of 'readability' will demonstrate that the debate as it manifested itself around 1990 developed out of a specifically German tradition, in which authors and critics alike viewed it as potentially in conflict with true art. The thesis will demonstrate that 'readability' is key to understanding the debates about German literature in an era of globalisation when readers are more attracted to works by foreign authors than to works by German ones. It will examine how writers such as Helmut Krausser, Daniel Kehlmann, and Thomas Glavinic have exploited the opportunities of the changed parameters by writing and promoting 'readable' books. It will further explore to what extent 'readability' has opened up new avenues even for authors like Felicitas Hoppe and Ulrike Draesner, who distrust the quest for 'readability'. The thesis will conclude with a reflection on the prospects for 'readability' in the current literary landscape in Germany.

DIPLOMOVÁ PRÁCE Project teaching on the regional history of the town of Dobříš in the 20th century Gita Otavová Abstract Diploma thesis deals with the project teaching and regional history of the town of Dobříš. The research part of the thesis contains proposal of project teaching on the topic of the history of the town of Dobříš in the 20th century. Pupils explored regional history of the town and architecture and regional monuments located in the town and it is surroundings especially. Pupils revealed how these sites have changed during the 20th century. They compared the history development with the present situation of the buildings. They explored for example the castle of Vargač, the chateau of Dobříš, so-called Cultural House, House and Gym of Sokol Association, secondary school building and Kopáček's house. Key words Regional history, projects methods, history teaching at lower-secondary school, town of Dobříš, 20th century

For several reasons, translingual writers, defined here as authors who write in a language that is not their native one, have gained increased visibility in recent years. This is particularly true in the context of French literature where, more frequently than before, and with a more explicit recognition of their particular status, translingual writers have received important literary prizes and have been welcomed into the French Academy. Central to this recognition is their rich and diverse mobilisation of life writing, a corpus curiously neglected in the study of the phenomenon of literary translingualism. This thesis focuses on the writers Andreï Makine, Hector Bianciotti, Vassilis Alexakis, Nancy Huston, Agota Kristof and Katalin Molnár. It demonstrates that the translingual experience, in its capacity to question one's sense of self and provide novel tools for the exploration of one's personal history and subjectivity (conceived as an experience in language), appears eminently suited to the genre of life writing and that, in the current configuration of the French literary space, life writing is demanded from translingual authors. It proposes an original cartography of contemporary translingual literature in French, suggesting that more than any similarities in the conditions of their literary adoption of French, what creates family resemblance between translingual writers is the types of relation with their adopted language that are constructed in their autobiographical texts.