Edward Said's description of Orientalism as a constitutive element of the modern West is one of the enduring concepts of cultural history. The Orientalism thesis begins with the observation that in the 19th century Westerners began describing the "Orient," particularly the Middle East and India, as a place that was once gloriously civilized but had declined under the influence of incompetent Islamic governments. This construction was then employed to justify Western Imperialism and the expansion of Christianity into Asia. This dissertation examines a case of Orientalism with a twist. Between 1775 and 1830 a group of Anglophone writers and artists depicted Spain as a state with a cultural trajectory similar to that described by the Orientalists. But in the Spanish case, the glorious past was the age of the Islamic Moors who had ruled parts of the Iberian Peninsula from 700 until 1492, while the current Christian rulers were the backwards and religiously intolerant impediments to progress. Thus the case of Spanish Orientalism employs an argument structurally identical to Said's Orientalism, with the role of the Christians and Muslims reversed. In examining this phenomenon, I focus on three particular issues. The first is the representation of the Moors in early modern European popular culture. I argue that these earlier traditions use the Moors as an emblematic manifestation of oppositionality to the centralizing state and elite authority. The romantics found in the Moors a symbol comparable to such other proto-Europeans as the Celts and the Goths, worthy predecessors to the warlike, chivalric, and liberty-loving modern Europeans. The second is the political context of Spanish Orientalism. Like "classical" Orientalism, Spanish Orientalism had a clear political payoff. Its articulators meant to show that the Spanish government was an unworthy steward of its rapidly disintegrating empire, thus Spanish Orientalism is closely associated with attempts to assert Anglophone authority in the Caribbean. Third, I examine in detail the work of the author most clearly associated with Spanish Orientalism, Washington Irving. In the four books he wrote while in Spain during the 1820s, Irving became the individual most responsible for reframing the long representational tradition of the Moors into a modern idiom and bringing it to a mass audience.

En 1999, Alexander Wendt publiait Social Theory of International Politics. Cet ouvrage phare du constructivisme a ses détracteurs qui le critiquent surtout pour ses positions ontologiques. Rares sont les tentatives de vérifier empiriquement la puissance explicative du modèle de Wendt. Tel est le but de cette thèse. Le constructivisme de Wendt a ceci de particulier qu'il s'intéresse aux conditions de l'évolution « culturelle » du système international. Wendt identifie trois cultures de l'anarchie. Dans la culture kantienne, le recours à la force devient illégitime. Puisque le Japon s'affiche depuis 1947 comme un État pacifiste en raison de sa Constitution qui lui interdit d'utiliser la force, un examen de l'activité militaire de cet État s'imposait donc puisque cela permettrait peut-être de tester les prédictions du modèle de Wendt. La question de recherche porte donc sur l'existence dans le Japon de l'après-guerre d'une identité de sécurité de nature kantienne en dépit d'un contexte qui semblait pourtant peu propice à amener cet État à adopter une telle identité. Cette question est explorée pour les deux périodes - et cultures systémiques - couvrant respectivement 1951-1990 et 1991-2005. Le modèle de Wendt résistera mal à l'épreuve de la démarche empirique. Plusieurs problèmes logiques inhérents à ses fondements mêmes amènent à conclure que le Japon n'aurait pas pu accéder au stade culturel kantien, puisque même s'il affiche l'attitude d'un État kantien, il n'en aurait pas possédé l'identité. Ce paradoxe n'est qu'un de ceux qui seront dégagés dans cette thèse et qui permettent de démontrer que la notion même d'identité - centrale chez Wendt - fait s'effondrer tout le modèle. ______________________________________________________________________________ MOTS-CLÉS DE L’AUTEUR : Japon, Politique, Sécurité, Défense, Constructivisme, Théorie.

Mémoire numérisé par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal

The present thesis analyzes the cultural image of the Russian neo-Romantic writer Alexander Grin (1880-1932) as it has been constructed by Soviet ideology and received in Soviet popular culture since the late 1950s. The topic of the thesis is unique, and it has not yet been investigated before. The thesis explores three major aspects of Grin's representation in Soviet culture: critical, fictional and cinematic. The first part "Critical representation of Grin's works in the USSR" focuses upon the process of construction and development of ideological "myths about Grin" in the system of Soviet culture. It demonstrates and analyzes the transformation of the official and public attitude to Grin's works from the 1920s to the 1980s. The second part is entitled "Representation of Grin's image in Soviet fiction: Grin as a fictional character". Through the coherent analysis of three Soviet novels (introducing Alexander Grin as a protagonist), it explores the phenomenon of the transformation of both the personal and socio-cultural attitudes to Grin. The fictional works are viewed in chronological order: The Black Sea by Konstantin Paustovsky (Chernoe more, 1935), The Wizard from Gel'-Giu by Leonid Borisov (Volshebnik iz Gel'-Giu, 1944) and The Lord of Chances by Valentin Zorin (Povelitel' sluchaynostey, 1977-79). The third part concentrates entirely on the Cinematic representation of Grin's works on the Soviet screen, analyzing five major film-versions of Grin's works: Scarlet Sails (Alye parusa, dir. Ptushko, 1961), She Who Runs the Waves (Begushchaya po volnam, dir. Lubimov, 1967), Shining World (Blistayushchiy mir, dir. Mansurov, 1984), The Golden Chain (Zolotaya Tsep , dir. Muratov, 1986), Mister Designer (Gospodin oformitel', dir. Teptsov, 1986). The study of Grin's case offers a unique opportunity to investigate how the old ideological myths are occupying the minds of younger generations nowadays. Grin is still a "cult figure" for Russian society, but it remains to be investigated to what extent his contemporary image (and the image of his fiction) is influenced by the old models of the Soviet era.

No description available.

Shadow Sounds: an Original Collection of Poetry and an Essay on Questions of Femaleness and Diaspora in Meena Alexander’s Illiterate Heart. The thesis comprises two parts: an original collection of poetry entitled Shadow Sounds, and a critical essay exploring the issues of diaspora and femaleness in Meena Alexander‟s Illiterate Heart. Shadow Sounds is a compilation of poems which examines the interrelations of a South African Indian familial structure, the emergence of a strong female sexual identity, and the open, even experimentally processual approach which influences the exploration of lyric voicing. The critical essay on Alexander investigates two major thematic concerns in the collection Illiterate Heart, namely, diaspora and gender. I postulate that the diasporic experiences of the writer have inflected all aspects of her identity, occasioning both rhizomatic compositions and the ongoing composition of a dispersed subjectivity. Alexander‟s hypothesised „selves‟ are observed and identified as constantly shifting and changing throughout Illiterate Heart, and effectively recast the popular conceptualisation of identity as singular and coherent. / M.A. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban 2013.

The Influence of Lucretius' De Rertun Natura and of its English translations by Thomas Creech and John Dryden on Alexander Pope's Essay on Man has not previously been adequately explored. As this thesis demonstrates, comparative analysis shows (1) that the Lucretiun poem is a model for Pope's manner of addressing the audience, for the pose of his speaker, and for his satiric and didactic style; (2) that the English translations of Creech and Dryden are sources of many verbal echoes and allusions and of a few rhymes; (3) that De Rerum Natura is the source of several controlling metaphors for the Essay on Man; (4) that similarities exist between the Lucretiun concept of order arising from disorder and Pope's concept of "discordia concors" and between the recognition of the cycle as the outer aspect of Nature in both poems; (5) that one of Pope's purposes is to refute the Epicurean religious beliefs professed by Lucretius; and (6) that a remarkable similarity exists between the ethical beliefs of Lucretius and those of Pope. The evidence suggests that De Reruzn Natura, and its translations by Creech and Dryden, should be considered major influences on Pope's An Essay on Man.

This dissertation presents an investigation into the notion of the freak in the guise of exotic characters as these appear in the strange creature-figures in Jane Alexander’s (b. 1959) installation artwork African Adventure (1999-2002). The installation artwork reveals issues pertaining to the way in which the exotic nature of the freak is made manifest in its hybrid spatio-temporal nature, with reference also to the understanding that freaks are often presented as strange yet awesome consumer objects. Alexander’s view of art and her oeuvre are contextualised within the South African milieu which is characterised by change, and laced with utopian as well as dystopian sentiments. The interpretation of African Adventure is theoretically entrenched in certain key concepts: the freak, the exotic, and hybridity, as these are made manifest in the reading of the characters, time and place presented in the installation artwork as allegorical reflection of contemporary South African society. The exploration of the work’s spatio-temporal dimensions are guided by establishing a link between, on the one hand, the desire for experiencing the thrill of the unusual (both in terms of a perspective of a colonial safari as well as the contemporary tourist gaze) and, on the other hand, a number of problematic issues in contemporary South African society. I demonstrate that the South African landscape, people and most likely also history are regarded as exotic – with the freakish associations this implies – also because post-apartheid South Africa has the status of a rarity that can be experienced as an adventure landscape. I further demonstrate how the freak’s exotic figuration ironically reverses the experience of empowered looking, with reference here to the notion of spectacle. In a space where contradiction is exposed for contemplation, this ironic reversal in its hybrid embodiment is understood as a space of reconstitution. In this manner, the presumed notion of a stable South African collective is challenged; South African society comprising of so many hybrid identities is rather understood to be the sum of contestible information where the possibility of fragmented experiences of chaos and reconciliation can coexist. As such, cultural reconstitution and renewal are not based on the exoticism of multiculturalism, but on the articulation of a culture’s hybridity. / MA (History of Art), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2014

Studies of Alexander Scriabin (1871-1915) have traditionally focused on his middle- and late-period music after 1902. Discussions of his personal philosophy and its impact on his music also concentrate on these two periods. This thesis examines Scriabin’s philosophy and piano music from a sub-section of his early period—1892 to 1897—that I designate his “formative” period. I argue that Scriabin’s eccentric belief in transcendence through music was already developing and influencing his music during his formative period. Evidence to support this theory is found in three areas: context, performance practice and analysis. A contextual evaluation of Scriabin’s formative years is compared against his late ideologies from his opera and the Mysterium. Scriabin’s performance practices, as seen in both first-hand documentation and his piano roll recordings, reveal possible philosophical performance traits. Analyses of selected formative compositions expose philosophical and performance related elements, demonstrating the interaction between composer, pianist and philosopher. / Graduate / 0413 / lauralwhitehead@hotmail.com

The Glacier Creek volcanogenic massive sulfide (VMS) deposit is hosted within Late Triassic, oceanic back-arc or intra-arc, rift-related, bimodal volcanic rocks (Hyd or Tats Group) of the allochthonous Alexander terrane known as the Alexander Triassic Metallogenic Belt (ATMB). The deposit presently consists of four tabular massive sulfide lenses with a resource of 4.75 Mt. at 1.84% Cu, 4.57% Zn, 0.15% Pb, 0.28 g/t Au and 29.07 g/t Ag. A deposit-scale thrust fault offsets stratigraphy along the axial surface of a deposit-scale anticline. The massive sulfide lenses are barite-rich and are divided into 6 main ore-types based on mineral assemblages. There is a large range of sphalerite compositions, with low-Fe sphalerite dominant throughout the lenses and high-Fe sphalerite at the top and bottom of the lenses in pyrrhotite-rich zones. Lenses contain anomalous Sb, Hg and Tl. Gangue minerals include barite, quartz, barian-muscovite, calcite, albite, highly subordinate chlorite and locally hyalophane and celsian. Overlying massive sulfide is a tuffaceous hydrothermal sediment with anomalous REE patterns and local hyalophane. The general footwall to all four lenses is a thick unit of coherent to volcaniclastic feldspar-phyric basalt containing extensive lateral alteration. Four alteration facies are recognized based on mineral assemblages. Mass balance calculations for the footwall indicate general gains of S, Fe, Si and K with coincident loss of Ca, Na and Mg, along with trace element gains of Tl, Sb, Hg, Ba, Zn, Cu, As and loss of Sr with increased alteration intensity. Short wavelength infrared (SWIR) spectroscopy shows a general decrease in Na, K and Al content of muscovite and increase of Fe+Mg and Ba content towards ore. Integrated petrographic, mineral, chemical and sulfur-isotope data suggest a transition during deposit formation, from high-temperature, acidic, reduced hydrothermal fluids mixing with oxidized, SO4-rich seawater, to later cooler, low fO2-fS2 conditions of formation and a lack of SO4 in seawater.