The body` of criticism concerning N. Scott Momaday's House Made of Dawn demonstrates a lack of material dealing with the ramifications of the Priest of the Sun's sermon which examines the "Word" of St. John. This thesis explores what is meant by St. John's Word, and how this Word relates to Momaday's novel as a whole. Momaday, through Tosamah, the Priest of the Sun, claims modern society is being overloaded with meaningless words. The Word, in its pure form, is connected to the Native American oral tradition and Momaday's belief that words are powerful when they are used in a traditional manner. The context of language is shown to be an important element in this novel, as the topic of Native American assimilation into white culture is discussed. / Department of English

For the past two decades, scholars have been reassessing the ways in which Western writers and intellectuals have traditionally misrepresented the non-white world for their own ideological purposes. Orientalism, Edward Said's ground-breaking study of the ways in which Europeans projected their own social problems onto the nations of the Near East in an attempt to take their minds off the same phenomena as they occurred closer to home, was largely responsible for this shift in emphasis. Fantasy America: The United States as Seen Through French and Italian Eyes is an exploration of a parallel occurrence that could easily be dubbed "Occidentalism." More specifically, it is a study of the ways in which French and Italian writers and filmmakers have sought to situate the New World within an Old World context. "Among the (More Advanced) Barbarians" (a.k.a. Chapter One) examines the continuities and discontinuities of French travel writing in America from the days of the Jesuits to the heyday of the existentialists. Certain motifs and idees fixes—the uniqueness of American racism; the "magic" of New York—are first identified and then examined. "A Meeting of the Mafias" (Chapter Two) is more cosmopolitan in scope, tracing the ways in which French, American, and Italian crime fiction have historically influenced each other, as well as the relationship of the policier to differing notions of the nation-state. "The Ruins of Rome" (Chapter Three) demonstrates how Italian intellectuals have looked to the United States for new World Solutions to Old World problems. This chapter encompasses two major sub-themes: the positive possibilities for Italy of "Fordismo" (the American industrial model) and American literature (which was believed to promote political, as well as cultural, liberty). "Lurching Towards the Millennium" picks up the threads of the first three chapters and places them in the contemporary context of globalization, a process which threatens to replace the hegemony of the nation state with the omnipresence of corporate power. The cultural model of Quebec is introduced at this point as a New World/Old World paradigm that embodies the chimerical contradictions of a globe on the brink of a new millennium. / Arts, Faculty of / English, Department of / Graduate

Christian Spirituality, Church History and Missiology / D. Th. (Missiology)

Christian Spirituality, Church History and Missiology / D. Th. (Missiology)

This dissertation focuses on a critical approach to Latin-American children's literature, its evolution and its particular issues. It is based on the analysis of Colombian realistic fiction for children and young adults. The aim of this work is to show how Colombian children's literature has established some particular features that make it distinguished in Latin-American children's literature. The methodology is based on literary studies along with specifications of children's literature theory in perspective with the Colombian political and social situation during the twentieth century. The dissertation adresses elements from literary analysis: The narratology (V. Propp, and G. Gennette) the literary criticism (M. Bakhtin, and the concept of ideology) plus cultural studies in Latin America (Á. Rama). The research takes theoretical concepts from children's literature, related to pedagogy (T. Colomer), aesthetics (M. Nikolajeva), ideology (P. Hollindale) and historiography of children's literature in Latin America: A. Rodriguez, 1993, 2010; M. Muñoz, 2009; B. Robledo 1997, 2012 & L. Borrero, 2001. The first part of this dissertation is an analytical approach to the concepts and characteristics of Latin-American children's literature, it focuses also on Colombian children's literature evolution...

El tema a tratar, la relación entre el discurso historiográfico y la realidad, por una parte, y la nueva novela histórica y la ficción, por otra, tiene tanto en la literatura como en las ciencias literarias y culturales un carácter tópico. Diversos autores, desde Aristóteles, Cervantes y Diderot hasta Balzac y Flaubert, Borges, Robbe-Grillet y Calvino se han ocupado reiteradamente con el, al parecer, siempre actualísimo fenómeno de la relación entre ficción y realidad.:Introducción al problema. - Las tesis principales de la "nueva historiografía" y "metahistoriografía". - La reelaboración de la historia: historia como construcción semióticopragmática y estrategia de hibridización. - Resumen

La elección de los autores y obras aquí estudiados se debe a que son parte de una experiencia, epistemología y concepto de arte "orillas", de los "márgenes", entendido como una perenne oscilación, travesía y recorrido entre los dos lados de las orillas/márgenes. Los autores elegidos son habitantes de varios mundos, al menos de dos, y este "entremedios", esta producción en las intersecciones, es lo que marca su escritura, discurso y performances, en definitiva, su forma de producción.:El naranjo como figura de los pasajes transculturales. - Cartografías de la Otredad: "Cross-Cultural-Border-Land" : Guillermo Gómez Peña, Gloria Anzaldúa y Alberto Kurapel. - Resumen