This thesis examines the novels of Christine Brooke-Rose and A. S. Byatt in order to question the extent to which contemporary British novelists are free to innovate with the forms of literary realism, forms that have a long and valued tradition in British literary production. Both authors, I argue, have reassessed the limits of the realist novel over the course of their careers, and the specific ways in which they engage with, or depart from, their literary inheritance are discussed. The introduction contextualises the literary climate out of which the two writers emerge. In the 1960s and 1970s, it was a commonplace of literary criticism to declare the “death of the English novel.” In the years following modernist experimentation, British novelists made a conscious return to the mimetic realism of the nineteenth century. Rather than the intellectual sterility that is often assumed to have dominated this period, I observe that there were in fact many writers who were continuing the innovations of the preceding generations, Christine Brooke-Rose and A. S. Byatt amongst them. To view realism to be in need of renewal is first of all to view literary production in terms of an ontological-historical distinction of texts as types of objects. It may be also to neglect the ways in which literary history is always already in dialogue with the present. Both authors have made concerted efforts to refresh literary realism; however, they have proceeded in very different ways. Brooke-Rose has experimented with the content and the form of the novel in order to renew conventions she insists are fatigued or overworked. The novels she has published since 1964 depart radically from what would ordinarily be recognised as realist fictions as they make no attempt to disguise their own textuality. Byatt, on the other hand, has reassessed realism through the forms of realism itself. Through an engagement with literary history, she revisits realism to pursue what has always been of value within it. In so doing, she creates a developmental model of literary production in which literary debts are made visible in the work of the contemporary writer. Chapter One examines Thru, the literary experiment for which Brooke-Rose is most celebrated. My starting point is her claim, following Roland Barthes’s S/Z, that she is the author of writerly as opposed to readerly texts. I argue that to establish any such easy opposition is to neglect Barthes’s departure from the polemicism that had marked his earlier work. Rather than interrogating how well her texts are supported by her claim to be writerly, I turn the opposition around in order to examine precisely how Barthes’s readerly operates within Thru. Through a close reading both of the novel and of Barthes, I illustrate that many characteristics of literary realism that Brooke-Rose argues are exhausted, in particular characterisation and narration, are still operating in Thru. Chapter Two develops Brooke-Rose’s opposition of readerly and writerly in order to examine its consequence for her own experimental writing. Here I return to Thru to demonstrate the ways in which Barthes’s readerly and writerly operate as interdependent processes rather than as opposing terms. I then reconsider her earliest work, a period she has since disavowed. I argue that rather than a separation, there is a continuum between her earliest works and her later, more experimental, writing that has not been recognised by the author or her critics. In Chapter Three I turn my attention to Byatt’s insistence on a developmental model of literary production. Here I identify the role that evolutionary narratives play in her texts. Two of her works, Possession and “Morpho Eugenia” are set largely in 1859, a year in which a specific epistemological emergence was to reconsider genealogical relations. In this chapter I examine the writings she invents for her characters and argue that she takes metaphors from natural history in order, not only to show the close relationship between literature and natural history, but to provide her reader with a framework of literary-generational descent. Chapter Four examines more closely the ways in which Byatt converses with her literary predecessors. She offers a version of realism that has always been concerned with perception, and with the impossibility of translating that perception into verisimilar fiction. In this chapter I identify the role that art works play within two of Byatt’s earlier novels, The Virgin in the Garden and Still Life, as she finds in them the same metaphorical ambiguities that bind the language of the novelist to imprecision. I then examine the ways in which metaphor works in these novels to elude precise signification of meaning. Chapter Five returns to Byatt’s neo-Victorian texts, Possession and Angels and Insects, and examines the author’s ventriloquism of her Victorian characters, which includes Alfred, Lord Tennyson and Arthur Hallam. Ventriloquism, I argue, is concerned with a remembrance of the literary dead within the present work and is thus an expression of mourning. However, to avoid melancholia the new text must also emphasise its difference from that which is being ventriloquised. I then discuss Byatt’s focus on nineteenth-century spiritualism, as it is through the trope of the séance that she reconsiders the afterlife of literary history itself. The final chapter examines the role of the critic. The mourning of Byatt’s fictionalised Tennyson is singular and overpowering. Chapter Six begins with a consideration of two of Possession’s critics, Mortimer Cropper and Leonora Stern, whose readings, I argue, are similar to Tennyson’s mourning in their inhospitality to other readings, other mournings of the literary text. I compare Cropper and Stern to Possession’s other critics, Roland Michell and Maud Bailey, whom Byatt places in the role of literary heir. Not only do Roland and Maud display an essential respect for the texts that they study, but also their reading is open to revision. The literary text, as Barthes argues, must always keep in reserve some essential meaning. Only through interpretive revision, Byatt implies, is the promise of this hopeful-yet-impossible revelation made to the reader.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2007. / Full text release at OhioLINK's ETD Center delayed at author's request

As the war in Syria is about to enter its seventh year, Syrians continue to head towards Europe to seek safety and protection. This challenges European countries to provide urgent relief and services including education for a high number of Syrian refugees every year. However, the journey of Syrian refugees does not end with their arrival to safety. The refugee experience presents many difficulties including issues of wellbeing and self-worth. This qualitative comparative study examines the different platforms and solutions Mobile Learning could offer to refugees. In addition to that, it also discusses the possibility of leveraging Mobile Learning as a mean for Syrian refugees in Europe to achieve a sense of self-worth from the Kantian perspective of agency. The study starts with a comprehensive overview of the meaning of the term ‘refugee’ and the refugee experience, then it moves on to identify Mobile Learning and its impact and relationship to the recent refugee crisis. Then, the study introduces the Kantian philosopher Christine Korsgaard and her idea of agency, action, identity and value. The literature review after that discusses Korsgaard’s philosophy and links it to refugees and Mobile Learning. After viewing the research methods and methodology, the study comparatively analyses and discusses findings drawn from semi-structured interviews of 10 participants pertaining to the use of Mobile Learning platforms for higher education and language learning. The implications of these findings are that Syrian refugees in Europe have access to Mobile Learning platforms that vary in use and quality. However, when these platforms are used successfully, they do have the potential to support refugees’ sense of self-worth. The study then ends with a conclusion and suggestions for future research.

This bachelor's thesis examines the information-seeking behavior of Swedish engineering students. In comparison with research conducted on professional engineers there is little known about engineering students. The previous research is limited in providing an in-depth understanding of the information-seeking behavior of engineering students. Therefore, this thesis aims to explore the information-seeking activities and factors influencing the activity of choice. A qualitative research approach was applied, and semi-structured interviews were conducted with five students to capture the students’ thoughts and self-perceived experiences. The empirical data was analysed using ‘a non-linear model on information seeking behavior model’ originally created by Foster (2004) later modified by Foster & Urquhart (2012). The model consists of the five broad concepts of Opening, Orientation, Consolidation, Intrinsic Context, and Extrinsic Context. The findings show a rather homogeneous group of engineering students when it comes to information-seeking activities consisting of keyword searching, networking and selective browsing. The influencing factors, however, differ between the students but are summarized in knowledge, affect, motivation, project, time, physical location, and resource access. The findings are consistent with previous research showing that engineering students access information in a fast and effective way due to time constraints with sources that require the least effort, but not at the expense of credibility of the source and quality of the information. Furthermore, the findings are discussed and linked to user education in university libraries.

Although the works of Christine de Pizan have been of interest to scholars for some time, technological advances and initiatives to make digital copies of manuscripts available online have only recently enabled close comparisons between the visual programmes of her works to be made. This thesis demonstrates that detail usually considered secondary or 'paratextual' in Christine's manuscripts actually formed a carefully-constructed part of the work itself that Christine explicitly asks her audience to read. Through 'reading' the text and image simultaneously, the visual programme proves to comprise additional layers of meaning that were woven into her didactic works. These meanings can serve to supplement the educational and moral aims of the works, or, conversely, can be inconsistent with the message conveyed in the text, leading the reader-viewer to contemplate further on the matters presented and form their own opinions on them. Sometimes, meaning is created by intervisual connections with pre-existing iconography, such that viewers may be creating associations between the miniatures seen in Christine's manuscripts and other imagery, leading them to make certain associations - this is notably the case in author-portraits of Christine. As manuscripts prepared under the author's supervision came to be copied, changes were made to the iconographic programmes, testifying to and enabling different types of readings to take place. The findings of this thesis have implications for editorial practices of medieval works in general, as these tend to circulate in editions without the visual programme, providing modern readers with only a partial view of the complete work.

The objective of this thesis is observing the process of launching the small independent movie in the context of big film industry and its hegemony. We will observe the differences between low budget, independent, the auteur film and well known ’blockbuster' entertainment cinema products. In the analysis, we will not focus on the creative aspects of preproduction and production - such as script writing, film directing, casting, photography, and production design. We will observe the film from the pragmatic point of view in postproduction, film placement and distribution, from the last clip to the first introduction to the audience at film festivals. The complexity of the task is to make a distinction between defining free, independent, auteur film as a piece of art and expression, and everything else that auteur film is not, despite the pragmatism in realisation of each film.  This research will focus on film as art and as a sum of artistic teamwork, following its marketing and placement. Our aim is to find the factors that influence the success of launching low budget films of the independent film production in the US.  Analysing the literature and researching the adequate examples, accomplished results will give us an idea of forming a pattern or directions for successfully launching an Independent film in the US film market.  The example given in this paper is the authors' low budget film Boys Don't Cry(1999)produced by Chrisitne Vachon, where we can clearly analyse the way of developing of the film and postproduction activities of the producer, from the utmost postproduction margin, to winning an Oscar for the best female role by Hilary Swank, in the year of 2000. This film was chosen as an example in this thesis for being a successful low budget film with a strong women's author's identity, which finds its path in media from a marginalized queerfilm to a highly ranked film with great market placement. We pay special attention to an important detail - that women are in the role of the director and the producer.

Der Sammelband umfasst die inhaltlichen Beiträge eines Symposiums gleichen Titels, das anlässlich des 60. Geburtstages von Christine Weiske – Inhaberin der Professur Soziologie des Raumes – im April 2010 an der Technischen Universität Chemnitz stattfand. Die Vielfalt urbanen Zusammenlebens sowie soziodemografische Entwicklungen in deutschen Städten – aber nicht nur dort – werden von den AutorInnen thematisiert und rekonstruieren damit prägnante Umbrüche und andauernde Wandlungsprozesse der Stadtentwicklung. Die Interdisziplinarität der Beiträge ist ein Beleg fruchtbarer Arbeitszusammenhänge zwischen VertreterInnen verwandter Fachdisziplinen zum Vielperspektivenphänomen ‚Stadt’. Die Themen reichen von der aktuellen Reurbanisierungs-Debatte und der Ausprägung neuer städtischer Wohnformen über die schrumpfende Stadt als Ergebnis tiefgreifender Transformationsprozesse bis hin zur Kompatibilität urbaner Lebensstile mit den Zielen nachhaltiger Stadtentwicklung am Beginn des 21. Jahrhunderts. Die Herausgeber sind wissenschaftliche MitarbeiterInnen an der Professur Soziologie des Raumes am Institut für Soziologie der TU Chemnitz. Mit Beiträgen von Salomé Fischer, Susanne Frank, Christine Hannemann, Sigrun Kabisch, Ronny Reißmüller, Jürgen Schmitt, Katja Schucknecht, Annett Steinführer, Bernhard Stratmann, Gabriele Sturm, Antje Walther, Peter Weichhart und Diana Zierold.

This thesis examines the notions of time and epoch through the works of three contemporary French authors: Christine Montalbetti, Hélène Lenoir and Emmanuelle Pireyre. The theoretical framework for this study draws upon literary criticism, time studies and cultural theory: it investigates in particular the ways in which literary fiction may respond to what has been called a ‘culture of speed' in capitalist economies of the twenty-first century. This culture of speed is traced back two major epochal shifts: the revolution in information technology, which has permitted the generating and sharing of information at exponentially higher speeds, and an increasing consciousness of the vast time cycles within which we might situate our own epoch or individual lives. This work considers the ways in which this collective and paradigmatic shift might be reflected in literary fiction. It examines the representation of new information technologies within these literary works, focusing in particular on the texts' representations of obsessive or compulsive uses of technology and the kinds of anxieties emerging as a result of the ubiquity of these devices. It further questions whether new aesthetic trends, what has been called a ‘post-internet aesthetic', may be emerging in literary fiction in light of some of these changes. Further investigation of the representation of diegetic time within these texts demonstrates that these literary works appear to resist the current time culture of speed and simultaneity, embracing instead the literary devices of repetition and digression while maintaining a dilatory pace. This study also considers the emergence of ‘short-termism' and insularity within these literary texts as reflecting a wider societal trend, especially in light of recent theoretical work on the vast timescales (for example those of the planet's climate cycles) that have become increasingly present in political and journalistic discourses.

The modern nation-state is the product of a gradual process in which the religiously concerned medieval political and ecclesiastical synthesis became more secular and centralized. Mirroring this external institutional development, the theoretical conception of the state changed from one of a natural organic unity of diverse corporate members to a consent-based compact among atomized individuals. This change can be traced in the Body Politic metaphor of four authors: John of Salisbury, Christine de Pizan, Johannes Althusius, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. In this project, I argue that the Body Politic metaphor, particularly the inclusion or exclusion of a soul of the Body Politic, is uniquely appropriate for capturing the complexity of political life in general across differing levels of aggregation and for elucidating the political and religious commitments of the authors who employ it, as they critique their own contemporary political and religious institutions and describe their ideal societies. In the conclusion, I suggest that the loss of a strongly organic conception of the state has denied modern society and political theory a well established means for incorporating corporate entities and for explaining the existence of the modern nation-state in any kind of transcendental moral context, thus the lost soul of the Body Politic.

La Sibylle est a la fois une figure mythologique et religieuse, Dans l'Antiquité elle devient également un personnage épique qui figure, par exemple. dans l’Éneide de Virgile. De plus, au Moyen Age, la Sibylle - devenue personnage romanesque apparaît sous forme d'une fée dans la tradition arthurienne. Dans cette these, j'explore - à travers l'analyse des discours sur la Sibylle dans dans Le chemin de longue étude (1402-03) de Christine de Pizan et Le paradis de la Reine Sibylle (1437-8) d'Antoine de la Sale, le repérage des intertextualités aussi bien que les contextualisations historiques et culturelles - l'utilisation littéraire de cette figure religieuse de la Sibylle au XVe` siecle. Le genre expérimental de l'autobiographie des deux textes permet aux écrivains de créer, par l'inclusion (Christine) ou une prise de distance (Antoine) des traditions sibyllines existantes, deux Sibylles nouvelles qui marquent, dans ce contexte littéraire, l'accession au livre de la parole féminine.