Science fiction, like any other genre, is sub-divided into categories. Yet scholars in the field have long debated the existence of multiple, regional sf genres. The most critiqued of these classifications is between sf produced in Britain, and America. Though Britain remains the birthplace of sf, American author have undoubtedly left a mark on the genre. Scholars mark this difference in the writing styles and themes of authors in these regions. To examine this difference, I analyze two authors that have worked on a common theme: religion and in particular, the concept of hell. Evaluating the arguments put forth by critics such as Peter Kuczka, Cy Chavin, Franz Rottensteiner, and others; I examine works by Scottish author Iain m. Banks, and American author Cordwainer Smith to determine the validity of this classification. / Includes bibliography. / Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2016. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

Published research suggests that literature should transmit ethnic and societal values as well as reassure one's own confidence and self-respect. This study provides a model for examining Asian-American children's and adolescent literature critically from the perspective of identity issues. It examines fifteen award-winning Asian-American children's and adolescent titles written by writers of that culture and published in the United States from 1999 to 2007, with a focus on Chinese (Taiwanese) American, Korean American, and Japanese American books. As published studies indicate, self, social, and ethnic identities are significantly intertwined. Hence, a content analysis was conducted based on these three major groups of categories. The findings of the study demonstrate that even though the selected books cover all three aspects of the identity issues to a certain degree, a considerably greater number of depictions of ethnic identities are made over those of internal identities and social identities. Moreover, less than half of the main characters assume an active role in improving the difficult situation. Two major voids regarding the presentation of social identities are successful social integration and positive social interactions. Recommendations for teaching, writing, illustrating, publishing, and future research are suggested, including publishing more Asian-American books which present an optimistic outlook on life, active conflict-resolving behaviors, and a balance of gender among individuals with whom the main character interacts.

"It is the purpose of this paper, therefore, to explore some of those books included in several literary selection tools in order to determine whether they present the needs of children and the satisfaction of those needs in terms of experiences showing developmental values of a social and ethical nature. To recognize that a certain youngster needs more self-confidence, to give him a book in which the hero is beset by the same situation and overcomes it, and then to sit back with the calm expectation of seeing a miracle wrought would be optimistic to the point of simple-mindedness. All that the librarian can do is to present the book to the child in the hope that he will absorb some help from his reading and thus be encouraged to solve his problems successfully"--Introduction. / Typescript. / "August, 1958." / "Submitted to the Graduate Council of Florida State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science." / Advisor: Agnes Gregory, Professor Directing Paper. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 45-47).

This study examines the relation between gender and genre in four novels that chart the development of American domestic life from the Colonial to the Gilded Age. In these novels, the presence in the house of women--mothers, daughters, sisters, servants, slaves--often threatens the fathers' dynastic ambitions and subverts the formal intentions of the narrative. These women represent familiar but strange forces of the uncanny which lurk beneath the apparently placid surface of domestic narrative. In "house" novels by Hawthorne, Stowe, Alcott, and James, interactions of the uncanny feminine with dynastic concerns threaten not only the novel's social message of destiny and dynasty, but the traditional form of the novel itself. In The House of the Seven Gables, Hawthorne constructs a narrative in which patrician fathers and domestic daughters struggle for control of the House and its story. Slavery disrupts domestic life in Uncle Tom's Cabin, inverting and thereby perverting traditional notions of home and family and producing monstrous mothers and failed households. Alcott details the abuses and dangers of reified gender roles in family life, while depicting a young woman's attempt to reconstruct domesticity as a female community in Work. Finally, James displaces domestic concerns entirely from The Other House, portraying instead the violent nature of feminine desire unrestrained by tradition, community, or family. Story and telling work at cross-purposes in these novels, creating a tension between Romantic structures and realistic narrative strategies. These authors depart from the tropes of their times, using gothic devices to reveal monstrous mothers, uncanny children, and failed or fallen houses within the apparently conservative domestic novel. Such gothic devices transcend literary historians' distinctions of romance and sentimental fiction as respectively male and female stories and reveal the fundamentally subversive nature of domestic fiction. For these writers, the uncanny presence of the feminine produces a counternarrative of gender, class, and race, redefines the cultural boundaries of home and family, and exposes the fictive nature of social constructions of gender and domesticity.

The main problem of this research was to discover if children's picture books over the last fifty years have depicted rural values more significantly than urban values. One-hundred and one children's picture books were systematically chosen for analysis. This study takes an overall view of the history of children's literature. Also included is a review of the current studies and literature most germain to this study. Content analysis was used as the technique of data analysis, A descriptive analysis of the sample is also given. The study supports the main hypothesis that rural set, tings and rural values do occur more often than non-rural settings and urban values in children's picture books.

University of Macau / Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities / Department of English

This study describes a content analysis of six contemporary young adult fiction novels. Adolescence is a time of great change, particularly for girls. It is during this time that female adolescents develop their voice and identity. As literature reflects the reader’s world, it also affects in part how female adolescents perceive their identity. Latent content analysis was used to code eight variables to determine if select contemporary young adult fiction novels appropriately describe the development of identity among adolescent females. All of the novels included in the study provided sufficient evidence of accurate portrayal of female adolescent identity development, by having examples of at least four out of eight variables, with most having examples of seven out of eight variables.

This thesis develops and refines a term used initially by Bill Buford to refer to works of contemporary realism. Dirty realism characterises a strain of realism first appearing in American and Canadian writing during the 1960s and increasing in prominence through the 1970s, 1980s, and early 1990s. The study focuses on the scholarship surrounding both the term and the works of particular authors, and applies the theories of Fredric Jameson and Michel de Certeau to develop a basic critical vocabulary for engaging the fiction and poetry of Charles Bukowski, Raymond Carver, Richard Ford, and Mark Anthony Jarman, as well as other writers treated with less intensity, such as David Adams Richards, Helen Potrebenko, Al Purdy, and Bobbie Anne Mason. In particular, the dissertation attempts to develop a critical terminology through which to discuss dirty realist texts. The most prominent of such terms, the "hypocrisy aesthetic," refers to dirty realism's aesthetic of contradiction, discursive variance, and offsetting of theory against practice. The chapters of the dissertation deal with the emergence of the hypocrisy aesthetic through a study of literary genealogy, history, and theory. The second chapter, "Dirty Realism: Genealogy," traces the development of major currents in twentieth-century American realism, particularly naturalism. Arguing for dirty realism as a variant of naturalism, the chapter traces the transmission of ideas concerning dialectics, determinism, and commodity production from Theodore Dreiser and Frank Norris, through James T. Farrell and John Steinbeck and ending with an extensive discussion of Charles Bukowski's Factotum. The third chapter, "Dirty Realism: History," addresses the impact of the Cold War on the development of dirty realism. Referring to major critics on the period, this section of the dissertation follows the development of hypocrisy as a form of discourse eventuated by Cold War contradictions, particularly between that of democratic freedoms proclaimed abroad and the atmosphere of suspicion and paranoia on the domestic scene (as—in the USA—in the HUAC hearings chaired by Senator Joseph McCarthy).

This thesis develops and refines a term used initially by Bill Buford to refer to works of contemporary realism. Dirty realism characterises a strain of realism first appearing in American and Canadian writing during the 1960s and increasing in prominence through the 1970s, 1980s, and early 1990s. The study focuses on the scholarship surrounding both the term and the works of particular authors, and applies the theories of Fredric Jameson and Michel de Certeau to develop a basic critical vocabulary for engaging the fiction and poetry of Charles Bukowski, Raymond Carver, Richard Ford, and Mark Anthony Jarman, as well as other writers treated with less intensity, such as David Adams Richards, Helen Potrebenko, Al Purdy, and Bobbie Anne Mason. In particular, the dissertation attempts to develop a critical terminology through which to discuss dirty realist texts. The most prominent of such terms, the "hypocrisy aesthetic," refers to dirty realism's aesthetic of contradiction, discursive variance, and offsetting of theory against practice. The chapters of the dissertation deal with the emergence of the hypocrisy aesthetic through a study of literary genealogy, history, and theory. The second chapter, "Dirty Realism: Genealogy," traces the development of major currents in twentieth-century American realism, particularly naturalism. Arguing for dirty realism as a variant of naturalism, the chapter traces the transmission of ideas concerning dialectics, determinism, and commodity production from Theodore Dreiser and Frank Norris, through James T. Farrell and John Steinbeck and ending with an extensive discussion of Charles Bukowski's Factotum. The third chapter, "Dirty Realism: History," addresses the impact of the Cold War on the development of dirty realism. Referring to major critics on the period, this section of the dissertation follows the development of hypocrisy as a form of discourse eventuated by Cold War contradictions, particularly between that of democratic freedoms proclaimed abroad and the atmosphere of suspicion and paranoia on the domestic scene (as—in the USA—in the HUAC hearings chaired by Senator Joseph McCarthy). / Arts, Faculty of / English, Department of / Graduate

Critics and historians of science fiction widely recognize the genre's importance as a forum for political ideas during the 1950s. But the political role of science fiction diminished during the 1960s, overshadowing the ongoing involvement of sf writers in future-related debates. This paper employs biography, autobiography, memoir, archival papers, recordings, and secondary sources to demonstrate that sf writers continued to discuss the future and its potential problems after the 1950s. Judith Merril and Isaac Asimov, two giants in science fiction, form the core of this paper's focus. Merril and Asimov began to discuss the future in essays, interviews, and documentaries in the 1960s. By the early 1970s, Merril and Asimov were examining the then-emerging problems of overpopulation and planetary ecology in mainstream non-fiction. Merril and Asimov demonstrate that sf writers still addressed political and social issues in the 1960s and early 1970s - even if their involvement increasingly took place outside the boundaries of science fiction literature. / Arts, Faculty of / History, Department of / Graduate