published_or_final_version / Architecture / Master / Master of Architecture

published_or_final_version / Comparative Literature / Master / Master of Philosophy

M.A. / South Africa is a multiracial and multicultural society, and the diversity of languages reflect a complex and differentiated nation. This investigative study attempts to show how South Africans from different cultural and linguistic groups experience the humour in the Madam & Eve comic strips and whether, to some extent, they share a common sense of humour. The study starts with an investigation into the relationship between culture and language through the Sapir and Whorf hypothesis. Furthermore the study discusses the relationship between culture, language and humour to show that humour is in many instances culture specific. In culture-specific humour, the humour tends to be at the cost of people from a different cultural group; thus “we” can laugh at “them”. The study also defines humour and investigates the working of humour through the superiority theory, the relief theory and the incongruence theory. The discussion shows that participants in humour need to share the right context and knowledge before they can enjoy the humour. The study looks at comic strips as a genre and how humour operates in comic strips. The investigation also discusses the background on and the characters in the Madam & Eve comic strips. The discussion shows the humour in the Madam & Eve comic strips depicts social issues, racial relationships, especially the relationship between the white Madam, her elderly mother and the black Eve, crime in South Africa and politics. An empirical survey serves as the vehicle to investigate how respondents from different cultural and linguistic backgrounds experience the humour in Madam & Eve. The different examples were chosen to see if respondents experienced certain types of humour depicted in the comic strips in a negative way. The study includes analysis of the different racial and linguistic groups’ experience of the humour depicted in the comic strips included in the questionnaire to show differences in different groups’ experiences. Although some of the respondents took a more neutral stance to some of the ethnic humour depicted in Madam & Eve, generally speaking the respondents experienced the humour depicted in the comic strips in a positive way.

This paper explores the way Hong Kong independent comics encapsulate the essence of the city. Independent comics are distinguished from mainstream comics by their specific mode of production. More significantly they demonstrate an emphasis on subjective personal creativity and craftsmanship, which stands out sharply in the pervasive objective culture in modern society. Adopting an anthropological approach in representing local ways of living, these comics attempt to map an identity of Hong Kong in a way that is free from confusing influences of her postcolonial history, her political subordination to China and the global capitalist forces. The artists of independent comics embrace the essence of local culture by focusing on space and cultural memory and thereby rediscovering the truth and characteristics of life in Hong Kong. As a form of popular cultural text, Hong Kong independent comics package the local identity and history into fashionable goods for cultural consumption. Together with this, the articulation of a shared past creates forces of cohesion that binds the community together and offers a way for the people to negotiate their identity. / published_or_final_version / Literary and Cultural Studies / Master / Master of Arts

The establishment of the French Absolutism under King Louis XIV depended in part on pictorial representation generated by the French Academy. As a vehicle and institute of the state, the Academy created a canon of imagery, which was known throughout Europe. This enabled Louis XIV's image to be reversed by the creators of the satirical images. The makers of the reverse image appropriated the institutionalized styles and genres of royal portraiture to create innovative satirical images of the monarch using the very canon Louis XIV sanctioned. In its analysis of a small body of satirical imagery, the thesis draws on various theories about the body of the king proposed by Jean-Marie Apostolides, Ernst Kantorowicz and Louis Marin. A comparison of satirical images with official images of the king demonstrates the successful strategies of satirical imagery and the collective need for these kinds images in the seventeenth century.

Entertainer or agent provocateur? The modern Canadian political cartoonist, historically speaking, possesses a split identity. The Gazette cartoonist Terry Mosher---a.k.a. Aislin---in his experience, career and involvement in the fall 1988 fight against free trade, illustrates the tension inherent in the identity of the modern Canadian political cartoonist. Mosher's experience offers a theory as to what circumstances might compel a cartoonist to break the cartoonist's compromise---an informal promise not to use their powerful platform to advance a coherent, systematic and specific political agenda or aim in exchange for editorial independence, journalistic "status," and proper financial remuneration---a state of affairs modern cartoonists are, under normal circumstances, happy to accept.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Adelaide, 1990. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (in v. 3).

Applied research project (D. Min.)--School of Theology and Missions, Oral Roberts University, 2003. / Includes abstract and vita. Translated from Korean. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 221-230).

Applied research project (D. Min.)--School of Theology and Missions, Oral Roberts University, 2003. / Includes abstract and vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 143-152).

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Massachusetts Amherst, 2009. / Open access. Includes bibliographical references (p. 89-94).