O presente trabalho tece uma análise do romance A varanda do frangipani, do escritor moçambicano Mia Couto, a fim de iluminar as reinvenções operadas pelo autor de aspectos do Sagrado ligado às crenças tradicionais de Moçambique. Apropriando-se e subvertendo o padrão do romance policial clássico símbolo da exaltação da racionalidade europeia , o autor reinventa no âmbito literário animais sagrados, rituais de iniciação e de adivinhação, espíritos de falecidos que convivem com viventes, assim como árvores divinizadas e mostra ao leitor uma visão de mundo e uma forma de existência diversas da eurocêntrica. Com isso, há a iluminação de questões culturais e sociais do país de onde fala Mia Couto, onde a tentativa de esmagamento cultural foi operada por anos de dominação e guerras. Para a realização desta pesquisa, embasamo-nos em autores como Mircea Eliade, Carlos Serrano, José Luís Cabaço, Omar Ribeiro Thomaz, entre outros, com o objetivo de obtermos a consistência teórica necessária a cerca do conceito de Sagrado e de questões sócio-culturais relacionadas a Moçambique e a outros países africanos; apoiamo-nos ainda em autores como Tzvetan Todorov e Ernest Mandel para percebermos o padrão estrutural e um pouco da ideologia ligada ao romance policial clássico e, assim, verificarmos a reinvenção dessa forma em solo moçambicano. / This paper presents an analysis of the novel A varanda do frangipani, from the Mozambican writer Mia Couto, in order to illuminate the reinventions done by he author of the sacred aspects linked to the traditional beliefs of Mozambique. Appropriating and subverting the Standard classic detective novel the symbol of European rationality exaltation the author reinvents within literary sacred animals, rituals of initiation and divination, spirits living among us, as well as divine trees, and shows the reader a different world view and a form of existence from the Eurocentric one. Therefore, there is enlightenment of cultural and social issues from the country where Mia Couto speeks, where the attempt to cultural imposition was operated by years of wars and domination. We based this research, on authors such as Mircea Eliade, Carlos Serrano, Jose Luis gourd, Omar Ribeiro Thomaz, and others, to obtaining the necessary theoretical consistency about the concept of sacred and socio-cultural issues related to Mozambique and other African countries, we rely on authors as Tzvetan Todorov and Ernest Mandel also, to establish the structural pattern and a little bit of the ideology linked to classic detective novel and thus verify the reinvention so on Mozambican soil.

Este estudo consiste em uma análise dos elementos e estratégias constitutivos da prosa de Antonio Tabucchi, especificamente observados no romance Notturno Indiano. O romance apresenta-se sob a forma de uma viagem em busca de alguém que se perdeu na Índia, sugerindo uma questão policial. A questão policial será enfocada em consonância como o método investigativo, que se insinua por todo corpo textual, e a sua relação com o desvio de um capítulo. Margeado pela reversão entre ficção e crítica este romance breve afirma-se como referência ilusória que mascara, mas não esconde, as outras vozes que se insinuam na narrativa / The present study is an analysis of the elements and strategies which constitutes Antonio Tabucchi\'s prose, specifically observed in the novel Notturno Indiano. The novel\'s plot is about a journey in which a search for somebody who got lost in India suggests a detective question. This detective story will be treated in consonance with the investigative method which is insinuated through the whole text, and its relation with the deviation of a chapter. Framed by the reverse between fiction and criticism, this short novel shows itself as an illusory reference that masks but does not hide the other voices which insinuate themselves into the narrative

Esta tese investiga de que forma a ficção contemporânea de língua portuguesa encontra possibilidades de resistência à crise do romance que tem se estabelecido na contemporaneidade. As obras dos autores Bernardo Carvalho e Francisco José Viegas, inscritos no início do século XXI, permitem verificar como a ficção da era atual suplanta a crise da narrativa e inscreve-se como elemento de resistência. Com base nas teorias de Walter Benjamim, Theodor Adorno, Zygmunt Bauman e Andreas Huyssen - acerca do declínio da narrativa e do romance aliadas a questões de deslocamento, memória e identidade procuramos demonstrar que essa ficção responde a um momento de crise e de transição. Assim, a ficção dos autores investigados representa não a crise do romance, antes configurase como romance da crise, justamente por encontrar nas questões conflitantes (transgressão narrativa, deslocamento espacial, diluição da memória e identidades fluídas) os muros para a construção de seu labirinto ficcional. / This thesis investigates how the contemporary fiction of Portuguese language meets possibilities of resistance to the crisis of the romance that has established in the contemporaneity. The titles of the authors Bernardo Carvalho and Francisco José Viegas, registered in the beginning of the 21st century, allow examining how the fiction from the current era supplants the narrative crisis and inscribes itself as a resistance element. Based in the theories of Walter Benjamim, Theodor Adorno, Zygmunt Bauman and Andreas Huyssen about the decline of the narrative and the romance allied to questions of displacement, memory and identity we try to demonstrate that this fiction responds to a moment of crisis and transition. Thus, the fiction of the authors investigated represents not the crisis of the romance, before, it configures itself as romance of the crisis, justly for meeting in the conflicting questions (narrative transgression, spatial displacement, dilution of the memory and fluid identities) the walls for the construction of its fictional labyrinth.

My dissertation examines the ways that canine roles affect genre—the categories into which we place works of literature, which shape their forms and which in turn shape our expectations of what we read. For instance, if epitaphs and elegies are at least partially meant to usher the dead into heaven and praise the dead’s suitability for a Christian afterlife, what happens when the subject is a dog denied a soul by Christianity? These are the kinds of questions I address. In addition to epitaphs and elegies, I consider detective and sensation fiction as well as dog autobiographies—works of fiction written from the dog’s perspective—to explore how taking the dog as a subject forced the conventions of certain genres to change, or in the case of detective and sensation fiction, how dog-like ways of knowing helped to birth a new genre altogether. In either case, what is important is that the generic changes signal a less human-centered approach to literature: one which opens animals up to be the possessors of souls, intelligence, and subjectivity. These changes paved the way for the Victorians to consider animals as beings worthy of compassion and respect.

Cette étude qui interroge l'ensemble des fictions policières de Leonardo Padura Fuentes propose une réflexion sur la place et la spécificité de l'écriture de cet auteur dans la tradition de la littérature policière cubaine. Cette réflexion identifie et met en lumière les liens qu'entretient la fiction policière de cet écrivain avec la réalité quotidienne, ainsi que l'ancrage de ces récits dans un référent identifiable, condition indispensable pour que ceux-ci assument le rôle traditionnel de peinture sociale du roman policier. Ce travail analyse comment, grâce au remaniement des canons du genre, à la rénovation de la tradition littéraire policière cubaine et aux liens tissés avec la réalité, Leonardo Padura Fuentes transcende le littéraire pour livrer, au-delà de ses fictions, une vision réaliste d'une société cubaine contemporaine en crise, proposant de la sorte une chronique sociale ainsi qu'un éclairage particulier et original sur l'histoire de Cuba des vingt dernières années. / This study examines all of Leonardo Padura Fuentes' detective novels and offers a reflection on the place and the specificity of this author's writing within the tradition of Cuban enigma-crime literature. This dissertation identifies and highlights links that connect the police drama of this writer's novels with Cuban society's everyday reality, as well as arguing for the anchoring of these stories within an identifiable historical referent, a prerequisite for the traditional role of social investigative writing. This work analyses how, thanks to the redefinition of gender cannons, the renovation of the Cuban detective novel literary tradition and its links with reality, Leonardo Padura Fuentes transcends literature to deliver, beyond its drama, a realistic vision of a contemporary Cuban society in crisis, proposing a social chronicle as well as a particular and original focus on the history of the Cuba of the last twenty years.

Neo-Victorian studies is a burgeoning subfield which seeks to examine contemporary representations of the Victorian period. For the last decade, neo-Victorian scholars have offered up definitions of what makes a text “neo-Victorian”; often, this has been via a description of what the neo-Victorian is not. The ‘ruling’ definition—i.e., the definition most consistently repeated—hails from the introduction to Neo-Victorianism: The Victorians in the Twenty-First Century by Ann Heilmann and Mark Llewellyn: “the Neo-Victorian is more than historical fiction set in the nineteenth century. […] texts (literary, filmic, audio/visual) must in some respect be self-consciously engaged with the act of (re)interpretation, (re)discovery and (re)vision concerning the Victorians” (4). This short delineation significantly comes at the expense of historical fiction, which is a move repeated throughout neo-Victorian efforts to define itself. Neo-Victorian studies has largely concerned itself with literary novels, operating with a heavy anxiety that ‘other’ fiction set in the nineteenth century is escapist and nostalgic in the sense that it simply perpetuates problematic past systems of oppression while evoking the fashionable aesthetic trappings of the Victorian. My dissertation argues that contemporary genre fiction, long derided as ‘simply’ escapist in nature, can also be neo-Victorian. In each of my chapters I analyze texts from a specific genre—steampunk, popular romance, detective fiction, and Sherlock Holmes pastiche—in order to offer a basis for investigating genre fiction with a neo-Victorian lens. I analyze the depiction of corsets and feminist protagonists in three steampunk novels, explore the exhibition of unlikely romantic heroines and Romany romantic heroes in Lisa Kleypas’ historical romance series about the Hathaway family, examine representations of class and gender as well as germane social issues in Anne Perry’s William Monk detective series, and highlight the feminist potential of Carole Nelson Douglas’ series of Sherlock Holmes pastiche featuring Irene Adler. Each chapter considers the Victorian period as represented alongside Victorian novels and literary periodicals in order to demonstrate the shape of these neo-Victorian revisions and make the case the genre fiction can be self-conscious despite its lack of metafictional content.

In Los Angeles, the influence of Hollywood and the film industry, combined with a non-stop barrage of media images, has blurred the line between the real and imaged. The literature reveals a city exploding with cultural, racial and social differences, making Los Angeles a confusing and alienating place. The literature of Los Angeles reflects the changing face of the city. Los Angeles was always a city with a promising future, economic booms and optimism seemed to suggest that here was a place where the American Dream really could come true. Thousands travelled west in search of sunshine, oranges and a life that formerly, they could only dream of having. Yet, the literature of Los Angeles has highlighted the city's actual history together with a realization of undercurrents of violence, prejudice, depression and shattered dreams. The past, present and future is used to reveal a city that is in stark opposition to the Los Angeles, waves of immigrants came to find. This thesis explores the idea of the dreamer coming west to Los Angeles within the literature and the variety of ways in the travellers' romantic notions of Los Angeles as a city of promise, is betrayed, leaving a desperate people in its wake. The literature shows that beneath the shiny surface of a city founded on sunshine and prosperity, corruption reached all levels of society and the 'mean streets' abound. Later, influenced by an overwhelming feeling of powerlessness caused by Post-war nuclear depression, McCarthyism, loss of identity, and living in a city fragmented by racial tension and an ever growing gap between the very rich and the very poor, the literature of Los Angeles reflects not only the fears of that city, but of American society as a whole. The collision of technology, rapid progression and population explosion turned Los Angeles into a disconnected city, where the real and imagined merge in a cityscape that demonstrates a conflicting combination of historical replication, original design and movie-set inspiration. Nothing is ever what it appears to be in Los Angeles.

Focusing on "The Yellow Wallpaper" (1892) by Charlotte Perkins Gilman and The Singing Detective (1986) by Dennis Potter in dialogue with theories from Freud, Szasz, Foucault and Butler, my thesis considers the role of medicine in encouraging a patient toward a normative subjectivity. The protagonists of each text have become ill as a result of their inability to accept the social contradictions and lies upon which gendered subjectivity is reliant; the unnamed narrator of "The Yellow Wallpaper" comprehends femininity as servitude to male demands, while Marlow of The Singing Detective desires the power patriarchy offers him as a male, but his loss of belief and faith prevent his ascension to masculine status.Both the narrator of "The Yellow Wallpaper" and Marlow resist the imposition of normative gender by practitioners of mainstream medicine. Therefore, a more complex and subtle method of treatment, the psychoanalysis developed by Freud, is employed in The Singing Detective, thereby encouraging the patient to identify illness and discontent as personal, not societal, responsibility.I commence the thesis with an overview of the unequal power relations presupposed and encouraged by medical discourse. Through a process of 'hystericisation' the patient is infantilised and made dependent upon medical care. Linguistic control is central to manipulating patient behaviour within the hospital, and correspondingly the narrator of "The Yellow Wallpaper" and Marlow both seek a new subjectivity through their writing. Difficulties in appropriating language leads to internal incoherency for the protagonists, met by a split subjectivity - a defence mechanism which allows the protagonists to deviate from, at the same time as preserving, their 'good self'.The refusal of "The Yellow Wallpaper's" narrator to relinquish her defiant self and assume femininity is contained by patriarchy - embodied by her husband, John - as insanity. The strict limitation upon a nineteenth-century woman's expression prevents her from positively escaping her physician/husband's script leading to her mental demise. By contrast, Marlow successfully resocialises himself by modifying the hypermasculine persona he idealises, and is finally situated to confront and reform the social contradictions that precipitated his ill-health. However, subdued by having been led to identify discontent as a personal problem, Marlow is unlikely to challenge the power relations which have made his subjectivity possible. His capitulation to normalisation demonstrates a fundamental point linking the otherwise divergent theories of Freud and Foucault, that the creation of agency first requires the subject's subordination.

Dashiell Hammett's fiction and detective pulps generally, offered the reader a chance to participate in vicarious power, by giving them a sense of the profession of detection, both in and out of the stories. It was the realism of the detective figure that allowed the audience to relate to him. What the detective offers the reader is an intensely powerful performance of masculinity that is at once ordinary in physicality and intelligence and extraordinary in the power it affords him. This power comes from his professional abilities, which allow him to transcend physical and class limitations. The detective story allows the reader to identify with the detective, and the detective pulps both in the stories and in their other sections offer the reader lessons in the profession of detection. Through this identification and education there is a kind of transference of the detective's power to the reader. The detective story offers the reader a chance to be powerful in a corrupt world, but since the detective is never able to fully rid the world of corruption, the story also offers the reader an opportunity to escape the corrupt world by putting the story down (essentially locating the corruption of the world within the pulp itself). In this escape, the reader inevitably feels happiness and contentment because his real world (though not as exciting or powerful as the detective's) is safe. / Graduation date: 2002

Mammography screening aims to reduce the number of breast cancer deaths by early detection of the disease, which is one of the leading causes of deaths for middle aged women in the western world. The risk from the x-ray radiation in mammography is relatively low but still a factor in the benefit-risk ratio of screening. The characterization and optimization of a digital mammography system is presented in this thesis. The investigated system is shown to be highly dose efficient by employing a photon counting detector in a scanning multislit geometry. A novel automatic exposure control (AEC) is proposed and validated in clinical practise. The AEC uses the leading detector edge to measure the transmission of the breast. The exposure is modulated by altering the scan velocity during the scan. A W-Al anode-filter combination is proposed. The characterization of the photon counting detector is performed using the detective quantum efficiency. The effect of the photon counting detector and the multislit geometry on the measurement method is studied in detail. It is shown that the detector has a zero-frequency DQE of over 70\% and that it is quantum limited even at very low exposures. Efficient rejection of image-degrading secondary radiation is fundamental for a dose efficient system. The efficiency of the scatter rejection techniques currently used are quantified and compared to the multislit geometry. A system performance metric with its foundation in statistical decision theory is discussed. It is argued that a photon counting multislit system can operate at approximately half the dose compared to several other digital mammography techniques. / QC 20100825