Olaudah Equiano or Gustavas Vassa may have had abolitionist motivations when writing The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano or Gustavas Vassa, the African, Written by Himself, but the function of the text is much different and self-serving. Specifically, in looking closely at the wording of the text, with its language of we versus they, in group versus out group, ours versus theirs, Equiano clearly feels he at no time belongs fully to any specific group or place; rather, he only partially belongs anywhere, and thus, creates this work of autobiography and appropriation of fiction and oral tradition to negotiate and cultivate his own liminal, or even heterotopic, space. In other words, I suggest he may have used the writing of this text to define his sense of self, creating a space in which he was both in control and fully belonged.

Tails & Tales is a collection of work that explores the construction of identity within a contemporary painting practice. Based on an autobiographical use of my own body as source material, this series of paintings and drawings incorporates narrative strategies of representation alongside imagery that is reminiscent of childhood states of being.<p>This thesis exhibition and support paper explore the liminal period of pre-adolescence and poses questions about the positing of identity. There is a focus on the construction of masculinities and sexualities, with a particular interest in how cultural, social, and moral norms are encoded into being.

Background: Alzheimer´s disease is a so-called degenerative dementia in which brain cells gradually degenerate and die. The disease causes memory disorders and the trait of character disappears. Alzheimer´s disease also affects the related parties that may take a great responsibility. Related caregivers are entitled to support from healthcare. Aim: The aim of the study was to describe the experiences of being related when caring for a person suffering from Alzheimer´s disease. Method: The study was based on narratives, which in this case means analysis of autobiographies. Six books were analyzed in accordance with Dahlborg-Lyckhage. Results: Three themes and nine sub-themes were developed. The related experienced several emotions. The feelings are reflected in three themes; anxiety, new life and powerlessness. Fear and anxiety were feelings that were there constantly. The new life led to a role change and aroused feelings of sorrow and loneliness. There were times when the related felt powerless. Anger, irritation, guilt and shame were experiences which they could not control. Conclusion: Alzheimer´s disease affects the entire family. The burden of the related caregiver can lead to illness. It is important that nurses take their responsibility by providing information and support the related so that he or she can better deal with the situation.

<p>This dissertation argues that the metaphor of integration, which describes the incorporation of immigrants into the national body, functions as a way to exclude "Muslim" immigrants from German national identity, as these groups are those most often deemed "un-integratable" (<italic>unintegrierbar</italic>). By looking at cultural products, I explore how the spatial metaphor of integration is both contested and reproduced in a variety of narratives.</p><p>One of the recurring themes in integration debates focuses on finding a balance between multiculturalist strategies of population management; the regulation and enforcement of the third article of the German Basic Law, which guarantees gender parity; and the public religious life of conservative Islamic social movements like Salafism, which demand gender segregation as a tenet of faith. Discourses of women's rights as human rights and identity politics are the two most frequent tactical interventions on the integration landscape. My dissertation explores how identity, performance and experience of gendered oppression manifest in the autobiographical novels of Turkish-German women, comic books, journalistic polemics, activist video and the activities of the social work organization <ital>Projekt Heroes</ital>. Reading a broad array of cultural products allows me to explore the tension between the metaphor of integration and the reluctance of some to reenvision German national identity, with specific attention to how this tension plays out in space and place. Through literary analysis, participant-observation and interviews, I explore how the language of integration shapes the space of the nation and limits what the space of the nation could become. I argue that the tone of integration debates over the past decade has become increasingly shrill, and propose that limited and strategic silence may offer potential as a political strategy for reenvisioning modes of immigration incorporation.</p> / Dissertation

This thesis investigates autobiography from the standpoint of Native Americans, using Anita Endrezze¡¦s work as my anchor text. Drawing on Hertha Wong¡¦s critical position on Native American life writing, I argue that Anita Endrezze¡¦s autobiography, Throwing Fire at the Sun, Water at the Moon (2000), widens the scope of traditional generic limitations. The first chapter is the introduction, which delineates the theme of the thesis and introduces Yaqui history and Endrezze¡¦s family and cultural background. The second chapter analyzes what characterizes Native American autobiography by borrowing Hertha Wong¡¦s standpoint. Hertha Wong is one of the first theorists who yearn to widen the scope of the well-established generic limitations. She theorizes Native American autobiography by putting its etymology (¡§self,¡¨ ¡§life,¡¨ and ¡§writing¡¨) under scrutiny. Wong¡¦s critical base is the key thread of the chapter, and other critics¡¦ positions on Native American life writing are also provided as subsidizing points. Chapter Three revolves around how Endrezee conceptualizes ¡§the self¡¨ in her autobiographical narratives. Wong argues that Native Americans never regard the self as a separate entity from their community. Correspondingly, Endrezze consciously strives to construct a communal self in her personal narratives. To reach the aim, she relates herself to her relatives, her ancestors, and the present-day Yaquis. Besides, through her homing-in journey, she makes a direct connection to her ancestral homeland. Therefore, the representation of the self is not only community-based but also localized. Chapter Four aims to show that Endrezze¡¦s life narratives go beyond the realms of humans. That is, her autobiography resists anthropocentric narratives. She tells stories about the corn, the rain, and a wide variety of plants and animals. It is through the assistance of non-humans that human life is sustainable. Chapter Five aims to argue that Endrezze¡¦s autobiography shatters the fallacy that Native American culture is in demise. On the contrary, it is burgeoning. Endrezze uses her autobiography to fight back. Endrezze attempts to hybridize the languages to pose some reading obstacles to Euro-Americans. Besides, inserting her paintings at the end of autobiography is also a political act because it subverts traditional writing system. She mocks at the mono-dimensional narratives. Chapter Six is my conclusion, in which Endrezze¡¦s cultural and literary contributions are re-affirmed. It is my deep hope that Endrezze¡¦s book can, as her book title symbolizes, become another form of fire/water to continue the life of Yaquis.

Paul Auster¡¦s The Invention of Solitude is not merely an autobiography, but an attempt to render such a genre to challenge writing itself by trying to write what is of no possibility to be written. In addition, Auster further adds elements of photography in The Invention of Solitude, which on the one hand enhance the genre itself (as an autobiography with photos attached as solid evidences to the written words), and on the other hand, by doing so, the author as a matter of fact deconstructs everything he has been trying to construct. By adding photographs and descriptions of the photographs very consciously, he actually, beyond the ostensible purpose of trying to lend credibility to the autobiographical work, tries to challenge the solidity of such work. Lots of researches have been done on Paul Auster, for whom has already recognized world-widely as an important contemporary American writer, most of them focus on his renowned New York Trilogy (1987),The Music of Chance (1990), or The Brooklyn Follys (2005), while little researches have been done to The Invention of Solitude¡V¡Voften referred to as a memoir of Auster. The book is structured with ¡§Portrait of an Invisible Man¡¨ and ¡§The Book of Memory;¡¨ the former is written right after the sudden death of the author¡¦s father Samuel Auster and the latter is Auster¡¦s own account on matters that later have become his re-occurrent themes throughout his works. I study the utilization of involving photographs in fictional autobiography by looking at the two photographs Paul Auster has reproduced in The Invention of Solitude. Namely, how photography and fiction put together to ¡§renew¡¨ each other (Louvel 31). In chapter one I discuss autobiography and photography, the intertextuality between photographs and texts, and the selection of the two photographs in The Invention of Solitude (including different arrangements of the two photographs in various editions). In chapter two, I mainly focus on Walter Benjamin and Roland Barthes¡¦ reading on photographs; I aim to conclude that each of them talks about one particular essence of photography respectively only with different terms¡V¡Vas aura and punctum¡V¡Vthe endeavor is to illustrate and attest to a certain and unique quality of human that can never be portrayed any how and by any means. Auster¡¦s usage of putting together the words and the photos is also a means to pursuit the same untraceable human quality; he testifies the unseen by presenting something to be seen. The Invention of Solitude requires reader to treat it with the way of reading photographs and pictures; a pictorial reading of words is of necessity in tackling the work, just as in Liliane Louvel¡¦s words, to treat ¡§the image as a means to study fiction through the lens of what I call the ¡¥pictorial third¡¦¡¨ (31). In chapter three, I delve into the anxiety and hunger for portrayal, linking which to the act of writing that functions as a healing process for the writer. I then concentrate on the text, demonstrating how this text itself can possibly be decoded with ways analyzing a picture. In its form and way of writing, the composition of The Invention of Solitude is just like the early procedure of long exposure in taking photographs, the distance and aura have both remained through the writing and the given photographs. In addition, the text is far more than simply combination of words, each word has been rendered as if an element of photography; that is, words can be read with multiple layers of meanings that are all linked with photographs. And I would explore this point through the reading of ¡§room¡¨ in the book. Besides, I¡¦ve involved Susan Sontag, Henri Van Lier, John Berger, Edward W. Said and Thierry de Duve in the three chapters, serving to converse with my argument. Chapter four includes the film Smoke as the subject, the film not only contains photographs as a heavy ingredient and one of the major themes; what¡¦s more, the sequence of weighting smoke also best serves as the footnote, penetrating Benjamin, Barthes and Auster.

The thesis is a course that a pre-service teacher gropes after his selfhood¡¦s curricular consciousness. The author has a dig at how he ¡§perceives¡¨ it followed by the notion of the curricular consciousness and Cherryholmes¡¦ viewpoint of deconstruction towards curriculum. Furthermore, the author must ¡§awaken¡¨himself to what the possibilities are to ¡§perceive¡¨ such kind of selfhood¡¦s curricular consciousness. In addition, the author refers to the method of the autobiography on curriculum studies from W. F. Pinar¡¦s conception, and he revises it to meet his study condition moderately to anchor the skeleton of the study. The author initiates the review of the literature concerning the ¡§curricular consciousness¡¨ and¡§Cherryholmes¡¦ viewpoint of deconstruction towards curriculum¡¨. Later, he captures the possible complements between them, and he also attempts to ¡§perceive¡¨ the map of his ¡§selfhood¡¦s curricular consciousness¡¨. After that, he gives retrospects to his past school life and tries to ¡§awaken¡¨ his selfhood to understand what the possibilities are to ¡§perceive¡¨ such kind of a map in the process of the study. Afterwards, the author retraces to the ¡§awakening¡¨ process, and intends to form a ¡§meta- awakening¡¨ to catch on how he ¡§awakens¡¨ himself in the process of the study. Eventually, he looks back to the study, and feels like envisaging his deeds in futurity, and he also offers several suggestions to the advanced study of the field. In the awakening country of the ¡§curricular consciousness¡¨, are you preparing for awakening yourself?

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Wyoming, 2008. / Title from PDF title page (viewed on Feb. 3, 2010). Includes bibliographical references (p. 72-78).

Thesis (M.A.)--Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, 2003. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 164-168).

This study explores the normative role of emotional rhetoric and the social passions (with an emphasis on compassion) in politics through a consideration of the divergent perspectives of Rousseau and Nietzsche. These two invite comparison not only because of the wide range of ideas they represent, but also because each employed rare rhetorical skill to effect extensive cultural change. To analyze this dynamic relationship between theory and practice, I focus on how each philosopher sought to transform the sentimental basis of social and political life. I argue that Rousseau, through his intentional use of sentimental rhetoric, inspired cultural romanticism and the equity of the political left, and that Nietzsche, through his extreme attack on ordinary compassion, and his invocation of tragic pity and the “pathos of distance,” hoped to prevent nihilism from taking root in the modern spirit by bringing about an age of renewed cultural depth and robust individualism. My study is unique in its investigation of the autobiographical rhetoric of the two philosophers. I argue that both Rousseau and Nietzsche wrote autobiographies that exemplify their respective philosophical teachings on the sentiments, which is to say that in the autobiographical works they employ personal rhetoric aimed at illuminating and reinforcing these teachings. Rousseau’s pathos-filled self-presentation serves his vision for a withdrawn cultural elite that, while tolerated and quietly influential, does not enjoy public honors; Nietzsche, I suggest, worries that the cost of privatizing great individual virtue will be too high; his bombastic self-portrait not only satirizes faux Rousseauian vulnerability, but also serves personally to exemplify the possibility of a new cultural super-authority. In both cases, I suggest, a fundamental consistency exists between their theoretical teachings and their self-presentations, such that their autobiographical works should be understood as integrated parts of their greater philosophic projects. / text