Defining rarity as a relative quality in matter roughly opposite to density, this dissertation focusses on the way material qualities of molecular gases, such as semi-opacity, permeation, and blending, inform modernist representations of embodied spatial experience. In modernist writing, rare matter—including air, fog, smoke, and haze—functions as an active component of the sensory environment, filling up the negative space that sets off subjects from objects, and characters from settings. Representing matter across the full range of the rarity-density spectrum allows modernist writers to challenge the ontological status of such boundaries, and to develop dynamic spatial models of the self-world threshold. The Introduction defines rare matter and examines its function as a sensory medium that can alternately define and blur subject/object boundaries. Interpreting dynamic thresholds as products of authorial activism, I argue that modernist narratives disrupt the normative constructions of the self-world boundary that prevailed in biomedical discourse around the turn of the century. Chapter 1, seeking to expand the scope of modernist object studies to include rare matter, analyzes illustrated books about London to demonstrate the increased cultural visibility of the atmosphere in the modernist period. Visual and verbal gestalt effects, modelled on the hermeneutic oscillation between looking at and looking through the fog, foreground the materiality of the atmosphere that fills up three-dimensional space, pressing up against the thresholds of the body and disrupting fixed distinctions between subjects and their surroundings. Chapter 2 shows how D. H. Lawrence harnesses the properties of rare matter to construct dynamic representations of the self-world boundary. In his early novels and his criticism, the oscillation between self-diffusion and self-differentiation expresses characters’ psychological responsiveness to changing interpersonal and ontological pressures. Chapter 3 demonstrates how Virginia Woolf takes advantage of rare attributes like permeation, fluid motion, and variable particle spacing to model process-oriented communities that incorporate dynamic shifts between social autonomy and collective identity. The Conclusion examines rare imagery in modernist scenes of narration, arguing that dynamic self-world thresholds help to articulate a responsive form of reader-text interaction that allows for the alternation of independent and collaborative reading practices.

Scholarship has firmly established that the short story cycle is well-suited to representations of community. This study considers eight North American examples of the genre: four by Canadian authors Stephen Leacock, Duncan Campbell Scott, George Elliott, and Alice Munro; and four by American authors Sarah Orne Jewett, Sherwood Anderson, John Cheever, and Joyce Carol Oates. My original idea was to discover whether there were significant differences between the Canadian and American cycles, but ultimately I became far more interested in the way that all of the cycles address community formation and disintegration. The focus of each cycle is a small community, whether a small town, a village, or a suburb. In all of the examples, the authors address the small community as the focus of anxiety, concern, criticism, and praise, with special attention to the way in which, despite its manifold failings, the small community continues to inspire longings for the ideal home and source of identity. The narrative feature that ultimately provided the critical framework for the study is the recurring presence of the metropolis in all of the eight cycles. The city, set on the horizons of these small communities, consistently provides a backdrop against which author and characters seem to measure and understand their lives. Always an influence (whether for good or bad), the city’s presence is constructed as the other against which the small community’s identity is formulated and understood. The relationship between small community and city led me to an investigation into the mythology of the small community, a mythology that sets the small community in opposition to the city, portraying the former as the keeper of virtue and the latter as the disseminator of vice. The cycles themselves, as I increasingly discovered, challenge the mythology by identifying how the small community depends, in large part, on the city for self-understanding. The small community, however, as an idea, and a mythic ideal, is never dismissed as obsolete or irrelevant.

This project argues that there is a previously unnamed canon of literature called Magical Feminism which exists across many current popular (even lowbrow) genres such as science-fiction, fantasy, so-called realistic literature, and contemporary television and film. I define Magical Feminism as a genre quite similar to Magical Realism, but assert that its main political thrust is to model a feminist agency for its readers. To define this genre, I closely-read the image of the female magic user as one of the most important Magical Feminist metaphors. I argue that the female magic user–commonly called the witch, but also labeled priestess, mistress, shaman, mambo, healer, midwife– is a metaphor for female unruliness and disruption to patriarchy and as such, is usually portrayed as evil and deserving of punishment. I assert that many (although not all) of the popular texts this genre includes are overlooked or ignored by the academy, and thus, that an important focus for contemporary feminism is missed. When the texts are noticed by parts of the academy, they are mostly considered popular culture novelty acts, not serious political genres. As part of my argument, I analyze third wave feminism’s attempt to reconcile traits previously considered less than feminist, such as the domestic. I also deconstruct the popular media’s negative portrayal of contemporary feminism and the resulting reluctance for many young women to identify themselves as feminist. I also argue that this reluctance goes hand in hand with a growing attempt to seek new models for empowering female epistemologies. My assertion is that these texts are the classrooms where many readers learn their feminism. Finally, I list a short bibliography as a way of defining canon of texts that should be considered Magical Feminist.

Du fait de son très grand potentiel de découverte, l'entrée en activité du Large Hadron Collider (LHC) au CERN est très attendue par toute la communauté de la physique des particules. En effet, les énergies disponibles ouvrent de nouvelles perspectives dans de nombreuses thématiques. En particulier, elles permettront de tester expérimentalement différents formalismes de la ChromoDynamique Quantique (QCD) élaborés depuis ces dernières années afin d'étudier les collisions hadroniques dans la limite des hautes énergies. La théorie du Color Glass Condensate (CGC) est l'un d'entre eux et prédit un régime de saturation, au sein des noyaux, de la densité<br />partonique dans le domaine des très petits x, domaine largement accessible au LHC. Le CGC présente un grand intérêt dans l'étude des collisions d'ions lourds ultra-relativistes plomb-plomb puisqu'elle permet d'en décrire les conditions initiales du système qui évoluera vers un état où les quarks et les gluons sont déconfinés : le Plasma de Quarks et de Gluons (PQG). ALICE est l'expérience du LHC dédiée à l'étude du PQG dont l'une des voies d'étude est la mesure de la production des quarkonia lourds à l'aide d'un spectromètre à muons. Couvrant un domaine de rapidité entre −4 < y < −2.5, ce dernier peut s'avérer particulièrement intéressant pour étudier le CGC.<br />La première partie de ce travail présente les tests de performances des chambres de trajectographie du spectromètre à muons équipées avec l'électronique d'acquisition finale CROCUS. Ils ont conduit à poser les bases du processus de calibration de l'électronique frontale. La seconde partie concerne des simulations effectuées sur<br />certains paramètres électroniques pouvant affecter les performances du spectromètre à muons. La dernière partie développe les prédictions du modèle du CGC pour la production de quarks lourds et la manifestation des effets de saturation via la mesure des muons issus de ces quarks.

The present study explores the relationship between language and architecture as symbolic systems against the background of the creation of independent Czechoslovakia at the end of World War I. It takes as its focus the Prague Castle, and the intent of the first President of Czechoslovakia, philosopher Thomas Garrigue Masaryk (1850--1937), to "democratize" the vast complex of historic structures that formed it, with the help of the Slovenian architect Joze Plecnik (1872--1957). To effect change in the charged, historically circumscribed spaces of the Castle can be viewed as a language analogy mainly in the terms of creating new relationships . Polysemy is a characteristic, sometimes dominant, feature of the transformation process. / In the hierarchy of public spaces, the Castle was meant to constitute the ultimate symbolic space not just for Prague, but for the entire nation. Memory as recollection, but also as imagination and ingegno, impelled symbolic action both verbally and architecturally. Plecnik's own "grammar of creation" sought constitutive forms in the traditions of Antiquity and ancient Egypt, in Masaryk's ideas of democratic governance as well as in the collective memory of the city. These were the informing principles that created a more layered referential field. / The invention of the tradition and symbolic identity of the Castle in the new context of republican Czechoslovakia was a complex process accompanied by competing narratives. Masaryk wished the Castle to become "a symbol of our [Czech and Slovak] national democratic ideals," and spoke of a need to "embody" the new parliament in search for an ethical existence rooted in faith and self-education, imbued with both scientific rigour and poetic making, and implemented through the everyday work by all citizens. / A unique example of another type of narrative is a body of correspondence addressed to Plecnik between 1920 and 1956 by the President's daughter, Alice Garrigue Masaryk (1879--1966), who represented her father in his role as patron and served as a conduit between him, the Castle Building Administration and Plecnik himself. A close reading of these letters explores to interrogate the role of language in both the transmission of tradition and in the actual process of architectural making and constitutes an original contribution to scholarship.

Scholarship has firmly established that the short story cycle is well-suited to representations of community. This study considers eight North American examples of the genre: four by Canadian authors Stephen Leacock, Duncan Campbell Scott, George Elliott, and Alice Munro; and four by American authors Sarah Orne Jewett, Sherwood Anderson, John Cheever, and Joyce Carol Oates. My original idea was to discover whether there were significant differences between the Canadian and American cycles, but ultimately I became far more interested in the way that all of the cycles address community formation and disintegration. The focus of each cycle is a small community, whether a small town, a village, or a suburb. In all of the examples, the authors address the small community as the focus of anxiety, concern, criticism, and praise, with special attention to the way in which, despite its manifold failings, the small community continues to inspire longings for the ideal home and source of identity. The narrative feature that ultimately provided the critical framework for the study is the recurring presence of the metropolis in all of the eight cycles. The city, set on the horizons of these small communities, consistently provides a backdrop against which author and characters seem to measure and understand their lives. Always an influence (whether for good or bad), the city’s presence is constructed as the other against which the small community’s identity is formulated and understood. The relationship between small community and city led me to an investigation into the mythology of the small community, a mythology that sets the small community in opposition to the city, portraying the former as the keeper of virtue and the latter as the disseminator of vice. The cycles themselves, as I increasingly discovered, challenge the mythology by identifying how the small community depends, in large part, on the city for self-understanding. The small community, however, as an idea, and a mythic ideal, is never dismissed as obsolete or irrelevant.

Bibliography: leaf 628-669. / 2 v. (xxiii, 669 leaves, [4] leaves of folded plates) : ill., maps ; 30 cm. / Title page, contents and abstract only. The complete thesis in print form is available from the University Library. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Dept. of History, University of Adelaide, 1965

As novas tecnologias de comunicação têm transformado sobremaneira o mundo em que vivemos, incluindo aí a cultura. Neste contexto, muito se discute sobre o futuro da literatura e dos livros, mas este estudo evita especular sobre a permanência ou não do objeto livro e prefere investigar as possibilidades da criação literária diante de novos suportes de leitura, em especial o iPad. Assim como outrora a invenção da imprensa forjou o romance e a popularização das revistas e jornais consolidou o conto moderno, investiga-se de que forma ferramentas próprias das novas tecnologias são utilizadas para a criação de textos literários diferentes do texto impresso, a chamada literatura digital. Para fazer essa comparação, foram usados os dois célebres romances de Lewis Carroll, Alice no País das Maravilhas e Através do Espelho e o que Alice Encontrou por lá, e duas versões da Atomic Antelope, de Chris Stephens, para iPad: Alice for iPad e Alice in New York. Ao final do estudo, que discute também a questão do fim do livro e da literatura, traçando um longo histórico da leitura e contextualizando o livro no que se chama de Era Digital, espera-se mostrar como as possibilidades de criação para plataformas digitais podem ir além do que hoje entendemos por livros, motivo pelo qual a permanência da literatura, independente do seu suporte, está assegurada. / New communication technologies have immensely changed the world in which we live, as well as its culture. Within such context, much has been discussed about the future of literature and books. This study avoided speculating about the persistence of books as physical objects, and, rather, investigated the possibilities of literary creation in face of the new reading media, particularly the iPad. As the invention of the press forged the novel, and the popular spread of magazines and newspapers consolidated modern short stories in the past, we currently investigate how new technological tools may be used to create literary texts, called digital literature, that are different from the print-based text. For this comparison, we used two renowned novels by Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There, and two versions of the Atomic Antelope, by Chris Stephens, for iPad: Alice for iPad and Alice in New York. This study also discussed the possible demise of books and literature by outlining the long history of reading that has set the context for books in the Digital Era; Therefore, it demonstrated that the possibilities of literary creation for digital platforms may go beyond what we understand to be books today, which is why the persistence of literature, regardless of what medium it uses, is ensured.

I identify and analyse an emergent sub-genre of contemporary literature by women that I am calling ‘New Femininities’ fiction. This fiction is about the distinctly feminine experience of contemporary domestic life written by women about the lives of heterosexual female characters that are married or in committed partnerships, often with children. These texts are concerned with the nature of the self, with a self that is plural and ‘in process’, and make use of particular narrative devices – ironic voice, unreliable narration, free indirect discourse, and interrogative endings that exceed their roles as simply telling stories. ‘New Femininities’ fictions allow their language the necessary freedom to multiply meanings and enact the narrative conflicts they raise and by so doing, undermine the binary oppositions which structure a gendered world. In this dissertation, I argue the models of existing criticism would do a disservice to these texts because much of the criticism either overvalues the theoretical and ignores the literariness of the text or seeks to identify a ‘feminine’ language the definition of which serves to reinforce and revalue patriarchal notions of femininity. The readings that this fiction requires necessitate a negotiation with established models of feminist literary criticism. I attempt to identify the characteristics of their style that allows them to straddle binary oppositions and to look at the language these authors use without having to label it ‘feminine’ and by so doing establish, build, or reinforce a boundary with some undefined ‘masculine’ language which stands in for all occurrences that are not ‘feminine’. Additionally, I attempt to forge a transformed, adapted concept vocabulary for dealing with this group of writers. To this end, I make use of various discourses to show how the different authors either negotiate with that discourse or prove its inadequacy to describe or explain these new femininities.

As novas tecnologias de comunicação têm transformado sobremaneira o mundo em que vivemos, incluindo aí a cultura. Neste contexto, muito se discute sobre o futuro da literatura e dos livros, mas este estudo evita especular sobre a permanência ou não do objeto livro e prefere investigar as possibilidades da criação literária diante de novos suportes de leitura, em especial o iPad. Assim como outrora a invenção da imprensa forjou o romance e a popularização das revistas e jornais consolidou o conto moderno, investiga-se de que forma ferramentas próprias das novas tecnologias são utilizadas para a criação de textos literários diferentes do texto impresso, a chamada literatura digital. Para fazer essa comparação, foram usados os dois célebres romances de Lewis Carroll, Alice no País das Maravilhas e Através do Espelho e o que Alice Encontrou por lá, e duas versões da Atomic Antelope, de Chris Stephens, para iPad: Alice for iPad e Alice in New York. Ao final do estudo, que discute também a questão do fim do livro e da literatura, traçando um longo histórico da leitura e contextualizando o livro no que se chama de Era Digital, espera-se mostrar como as possibilidades de criação para plataformas digitais podem ir além do que hoje entendemos por livros, motivo pelo qual a permanência da literatura, independente do seu suporte, está assegurada. / New communication technologies have immensely changed the world in which we live, as well as its culture. Within such context, much has been discussed about the future of literature and books. This study avoided speculating about the persistence of books as physical objects, and, rather, investigated the possibilities of literary creation in face of the new reading media, particularly the iPad. As the invention of the press forged the novel, and the popular spread of magazines and newspapers consolidated modern short stories in the past, we currently investigate how new technological tools may be used to create literary texts, called digital literature, that are different from the print-based text. For this comparison, we used two renowned novels by Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There, and two versions of the Atomic Antelope, by Chris Stephens, for iPad: Alice for iPad and Alice in New York. This study also discussed the possible demise of books and literature by outlining the long history of reading that has set the context for books in the Digital Era; Therefore, it demonstrated that the possibilities of literary creation for digital platforms may go beyond what we understand to be books today, which is why the persistence of literature, regardless of what medium it uses, is ensured.