Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico / Patrick Bateman, o protagonista narrador do romance American Psycho (1991), de Bret Easton Ellis, confunde por ser rico, bonito e educado e, ao mesmo tempo, torturador, assassino e canibal. Mas esta personalidade antagônica não o torna singular. O que o particulariza são as quatro faces que ele apresenta ao longo de sua narrativa: (1) ele consome mercadorias e humanos, (2) compete para ter reconhecimento, (3) provoca horror por suas ações, e (4) não é um narrador confiável. Sendo um yuppie (termo popular usado nos Estados Unidos na década de 1980 para denominar jovens e bem sucedidos profissionais urbanos), Bateman é materialista e hedonista. Ele está imerso em uma sociedade de consumo, fato que o impossibilita de perceber diferenças entre produtos e pessoas. Sendo um narcisista, ele se torna um competidor em busca de admiração. No entanto, Bateman também é um serial killer e suas descrições detalhadas de torturas e assassinatos horrorizam. Por fim, nós leitores duvidamos de sua narrativa ao notarmos inconsistências e ambiguidades. Zygmunt Bauman (2009) afirma que uma sociedade extremamente capitalista transforma tudo que nela existe em algo consumível. Christopher Lasch (1991) afirma que o lendário Narciso deu lugar a um novo, controverso, dependente e menos confiante. A maioria das vítimas de Bateman são membros de grupos socialmente marginalizados, como mendigos, homossexuais, imigrantes e prostitutas, o que o torna uma identidade predatória, segundo Arjun Appadurai (2006). A voz autodiegética e a narrativa incongruente do protagonista, contudo, impedem que confiemos em suas palavras. Estas são as quatro faces que pretendo apresentar deste serial killer / The autodiegetic protagonist Patrick Bateman, in Bret Easton Elliss American Psycho (1991), is a troubling character, for he is highly-educated, wealthy and handsome as well as a torturer, a killer and a cannibal. This antagonistic behavior, nonetheless, does not make him a singular character. The four sides he presents throughout the novel are singular, though: (1) he consumes humans and commodities equally; (2) he competes for recognition and admiration; (3) his acts are horrific; and (4) his narration is unreliable. As a yuppie (a popular term from the 1980s used to define young urban U.S. professionals), Bateman is materialistic and hedonistic. As he lives off the excesses of a consumer society, he is incapable of distinguishing people from products. As a self-absorbed, narcissistic protagonist, he becomes a competitor struggling to get approval from his peers. Nevertheless, Bateman is a serial killer, and his detailed descriptions of tortures and murders are horrifying. Finally, we readers cannot rely on his narrative once we notice ambiguities and divergences. Zygmunt Bauman (2009) posits that an extremely capitalist society forces people to be commodified. Christopher Lasch (1991) asseverates that the old legendary Narcissus gave birth to a new one, paradoxical, dependent and less confident. Most of Batemans victims are socially-marginalized characters, members of minority groups, such as homeless people, homosexuals, immigrants, and prostitutes. As a matter of fact, Bateman may be regarded as having a predatory identity, as defined by Arjun Appadurai (2006). However, this autodiegetic narrator, together with his inconsistent narrative, cannot be entirely trusted. These are the points I want to debate regarding this fourfold serial killer

There is a consensus today that we have witnessed the end of postmodernism in both fiction and theory. Due to contemporary fiction’s break with postmodernism being recent, little research has been done to outline the parameters of what exactly this break entails and its relationship to theory and current socio-political issues. The aim of this thesis is to attempt to differentiate between postmodernist fiction and contemporary fiction that was produced from the late 90’s up to today, outline its main characteristics and suggest alternative ways theory may be used to critically analyse fiction. We will be looking at how Habermas’s, Agamben’s, Žižek’s and Badiou’s theories, as well as, a reconsideration of some of Derrida’s and Baudrillard’s theories, can help elucidate certain aspects of contemporary fiction and vice versa. Some of the novelists that will be considered in this discussion are Paul Auster, Don DeLillo, Douglas Coupland, J G Ballard, Julian Barnes, Jonathan Coe and Michel Houellebecq due to their close association with postmodernism and its aftermath. The thesis is divided thematically in five chapters. In the first chapter we will be discussing the impact of 9/11 on contemporary fiction in relation to Derrida’s, Habermas’s, Baudrillard’s and Žižek’s responses to the attacks. The second chapter is concerned with notions of reality and its representations in contemporary fiction. It will be discussed how they differ from Baudrillard’s conceptualisation of hyperreality during postmodernity in light of Badiou’s and Žižek’s theory mainly. The realist/antirealist debate will also be addressed. The third chapter is a consideration of notions of subjectivity in both contemporary theory and fiction and how they may be said to differ from playful, schizophrenic representations of the subject during postmodernity. The fourth chapter is concerned with the return of the political in both theory and fiction after the supposed apoliticality of the postmodern novel, which we will also be addressing. The final chapter is an investigation of the re-emergence of the religious in contemporary culture, including the novel, which proves that the death of meta-narratives may not have been that final after all.

The novel American Psycho was first published in 1991. It recieved harsh criticism and was viewed as a work of heterosexism, misogyny and pointless violence. Despite the criticism, the protagonist, a wealthy serial killer yuppie namned Patrick Bateman, fascinated the readers. He hides his monstrosity behind a façade of heteronormativity, but this essay shows that the norms in American Psycho are fragile. Batemans relationships are shallow, his identity is constructed out of traditional masculinitynorms and even though he’s homophobic there’s a homoerotic undertone in the text, as well as gothic patterns that give the novel a fair amount of queerness too. This analysis shows that the fear of AIDS, imprinted in the text, works as a representation for Bateman’s discrepancy concerning his sexuality. It brings to light that Bateman’s feelings towards two of his collegues are charachterized by homoerotic yearnings, and that shallow readings, where the text is not interpreted, allows the brutal violence to divert attention from the novel’s queer meaning. / Romanen American Psycho publicerades 1991. Den fick hård kritik och sågs som ett heterosexistiskt, misogynt verk fullt av meningslöst våld. Trots kritiken fascinerade protagonisten, den förmögna seriemördaryuppien Patrick Bateman, läsarna. Bateman döljer sin monstrositet bakom en heteronormativ fasad men den här uppsatsen visar att textens heteronorm är bräcklig. Batemans relationer är ytliga, identiteten är konstruerad från traditionella maskulinitetsnormer, han är homofobisk, även då gotiska, homoerotiska undertoner präglar texten. Analysen visar att AIDS-skräcken som präglar boken är synonym med Batemans sexualitetsdiskrepans, att hans känslor för två av hans kollegor är av homoerotisk karaktär, samt att i ytliga läsningar av romanen, där texten inte tolkas, gör det explicita våldet att läsarens uppmärksamhet avleds från romanens queera innebörd.

Cette thèse est consacrée à l’étude du positionnement des partis politiques nationaux vis-à-vis de l’intégration européenne ;ce qu’ils pensent de cette dernière sous sa forme actuelle ainsi qu’au sens large, du projet européen dont ils se font les porteurs. Bien qu’importante, la littérature consacrée à ce sujet reste à ce jour influencée par l’axiome selon lequel l’ensemble des positionnements possibles peuvent être identifiés le long d’un axe unique opposant supporters et adversaires de la cause européenne. Dans les faits, une telle lecture a pour conséquence d’aboutir à des classifications confuses, voire erronées, des rapports partisans à l’Europe. En particulier, celles-ci s’avèrent incapables de surmonter le problème de l’existence d’orientations politiques divergentes dans le chef des partis en fonction de la nature des enjeux européens évalués.À partir de la définition du soutien politique telle que théorisée par David Easton, cette thèse rompt avec le reste de la littérature en faisant le choix de décomposer systématiquement la nature des positionnements partisans à l’Europe. En particulier, une triple distinction est introduite entre le rapport à i) la Communauté européenne, à savoir le projet et les valeurs qui doivent la sous-tendre, ii) le régime institutionnel de l’Union européenne, c’est-à-dire la nature du processus décisionnel qu’ils souhaitent voir se mettre en place à l’échelle européenne ;iii) la gouvernance européenne, soit les décisions de politique publique qui devraient être prises à l’échelle européenne, ainsi que leur orientation politique. Théoriquement, ce choix est élaboré au travers de la constitution d’un modèle original de l’étude du soutien politique vis-à-vis de l’intégration européenne, construit sur une grille d’analyse comportant un ensemble de vingt-cinq variables ordinales. Empiriquement, le modèle est testé sur une trentaine de partis répartis entre la France, la Grande-Bretagne et la Belgique de 2001 à 2014. Dans chaque cas, l’analyse repose sur une collecte de données propres, extraites des programmes européens des partis considérés ainsi que, dans chaque pays, les débats parlementaires entourant la ratification des traités européens au cours de la période. Une fois les principaux résultats d’analyse croisés, une observation transversale des similitudes et des divergences constatées entre partis est opérée pour construire une typologie originale et exhaustive des rapports à l’Europe organisée sous la forme d’une matrice intégrée. Sous sa forme simplifiée, celle-ci amène à l’identification de onze idéaux-types dans le positionnement des partis politiques nationaux vis-à-vis de l’intégration européenne. Cette liste détaillée constitue l’aboutissement de cette recherche. Facile à appréhender, la classification que propose cette thèse constitue un outil d’analyse efficace, tant sur le plan conceptuel que sur le plan opérationnel, qui s’adresse non seulement aux experts de l’intégration européenne, mais aussi plus largement au grand public. Simple à l’emploi, elle ne renonce pour autant pas aux objectifs de sophistication qui ont amené à son élaboration. / Doctorat en Sciences politiques et sociales / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

Definitions of celebrity authorship and material textuality at the turn of the twenty-first century have predominantly emphasised the implicitly negative aspects of contemporary developments in the literary marketplace. Particularly prominent are arguments that the practice of authorship has become subject to homogenisation by the matrix of celebrity in which successful writers are now expected to function; and, further, that the changing nature of texts themselves and the ways in which they are marketed is eroding the implicitly superior position traditionally held by literature in the cultural marketplace. This thesis views such readings as pessimistic, and offers an alternative, seeking to formulate a new critical approach to literary value in the contemporary sphere which would appreciate notions of celebrity, populism, and digital mediation as integral and productive aspects of how literary value is formed today. Through in-depth focus on the cases of a number of unconventional contemporary American authors whose work demonstrates differing, innovative approaches to the process of authorship, this thesis exposes the ways in which contemporary, atypically ‘literary’ instances of writing can and do work within and develop beyond traditional conceptualisations of authorship and literary value. Bret Easton Ellis and Jay McInerney, largely critically considered prototypical ‘celebrity’ authors, are in the first chapter reconsidered as writers whose understanding of their position within the literary marketplace affords them a self-conscious, critical perspective on the notion of celebrity in their work and public personae. The productively self-conscious author-figure is reconsidered in the second chapter, which reads the individual and joint works of author Paul Auster and visual artist Sophie Calle as foregrounding the process of creative collaboration as uniquely illuminating and transformative within the contemporary literary sphere. The notion of dual authorship is revisited and reconceptualised in the third chapter, which considers JT LeRoy and the practice of hoax authorship, outlining how this process forces the reformulation of literary value, particularly in a contemporary setting in which authors are accountable for their work in newer, more visible ways. The final chapter expands these previously-introduced themes to consider bloggers-turned-authors, particularly Tucker Max and Julie Powell, and the impact of the merging of old and new textualities on both the orientation of the figure of the writer and the way in which value is attached to his texts by readers. Ultimately, the unconventional nature of these examples is shown to belie the universality of the representations of value they enact, contributing to a full and salient account of how literary value is determined at the beginning of the twenty-first century.

Thesis (MA (Afrikaans and Dutch))—University of Stellenbosch, 2007. / Two separate texts are submitted towards the degree MA in Kreatiewe Afrikaanse Skryfkunde. Firstly, a thesis with the title ‘Drempellewens: die uitbeelding van bewussyn in vyf debuutromans’, and secondly a novel called Hanna in die park. The novel and the thesis are thematically related. The focus of the thesis is the portrayal of the consciousness of protagonists who, because of their age and situation, may be considered ‘threshold characters’. The question that is posed is the following: what kind of narrator and what narratological strategies can best express the unfixed nature of the protagonist in a so-called ‘coming of age’-novel? To examine this issue, theoretical tools are taken from mainly two sources: the work of anthropologists Arnold van Gennep and Victor W. Turner about the liminal phase in rites of passage, and Dorrit Cohn’s theories about the depiction of consciousness, as set out in her book, Transparent Minds (1983). Five debut novels are discussed using these concepts. They are Die Ryk van die Rawe (Jaco Fouché), Annerkant die Longdrop (Anoeschka von Meck), trips (Manie de Waal), Less than Zero (Bret Easton Ellis) and You Shall Know Our Velocity! (Dave Eggers). The liminal characteristics of the protagonists and their situations are discussed. Using Cohn’s three modes of narration, namely psychonarration, narrated monologue and quoted monologue, a discussion follows of what effect the kind of narrator and narratological modes has on the convincing and striking portrayal of a liminal character’s consciousness. The conclusion is reached that a narrator who is also in some kind of liminal position, or who experiences a threshold-consciousness, is most effective in the portrayal of the nature of liminality. The novel is about a young woman, Hanna Moolman, who is having trouble with the requirements of becoming adult. She works as a waitress in Stellenbosch and leads a somewhat lonely, frustrated life. Her relationship with especially her mother and her younger sister is strained. When her sister, a beautician in training, becomes pregnant, old sibling rivalries and family secrets are brought to the fore. During the crisis of her sister’s pregnancy, there are also various other influences on Hanna’s state of mind; among others, her part-time job as a researcher for an old lady who is writing about the domestic history of the Afrikaner woman, an impudent graffiti artist who seems to be watching Hanna, and a client at the restaurant where she works who leaves her mysterious notes.

民國七十六年七月十五日，台灣地區實施了長達三十八年的戒嚴宣告解除，人民長期 遭受限制的集會游行權利終於可以重新行使。本文主要以C.O.Jones 政策制定過程理 論, 並配合David Easton的系統理論來探究動員戡亂時期集會游行法的制定過程，以 研究解嚴後法律制定方式的轉變，並試圖找出法案制定過程中所存在的問題。本文主 要參考政策制定相關書籍，法律制定過程有關文件，立法院公報及報章雜誌等資料， 以文獻研究法為主，訪問法為輔來進行。 本文共分為六章，第一章緒論主要在說明研究動機與目的，研究方法與限制及所使用 的理論架構。 第二章在釐清集會游行的概念以及本法制定的背景，筆者將制定背景分為內外社會環 境兩部份。內社會環境因素包括因應解嚴保障人民權益及規範群眾沽動維護社會秩序 。外社會環境因素包括人權保障潮流對我國的衝擊及英美日德等國立法對我國的影響 。 第三章以行政部門的研擬與規劃為重點，透過草案在行政部門研擬過程，發掘行政部 門研擬草案的缺失。第四章立法部門的審議，以法案在立法過程中的修正為重點，探 究黨團運作所發揮的影響力，特別是民進黨團在本法制定過程中扮演相當重要的角色 。 第五章係檢討集會游行法的制定過程，主要在討論行政部門在當前政策制定過程中扮 演的角色，行政與立法兩部門間關係的調整及政黨運作對本法制定過程的影響。第六 章結論與建議。 透過集會游行法制定過程之研究，筆者發現我國政黨政治運作已略具雛形，新興的政 治力量日漸狀大，政治發展歷程展現出新契機，如果能妥善運用這些有利因素，我國 將能邁回民土、憲政之坦途。

This thesis analyzes three of the plays inspired by the Haitian Revolution and written by black playwrights. The first chapter covers William Edgar Easton’s Dessalines, a Dramatic Tale: A Single Chapter from Haiti’s History. It discusses Easton’s decision to depict Dessalines as a man of faith, a believer, a Christian. The second chapter employs Langston Hughes’ play, Troubled Island, to argue Dessalines’ modernity. The third play, by Saint Lucian playwright Derek Walcott, is The Haitian Earth. The thesis concludes with a brief discussion of his play and its contribution to black consciousness. I propose that the revolution plays a major role in World History, and argue that the Haitian Revolution served as a looking glass to many African Americans in search of a black identity. / Includes bibliography. / Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2014. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

Thesis (M.P.A.)--Kutztown University of Pennsylvania, 1990. / Source: Masters Abstracts International, Volume: 45-06, page: 2934. Abstract precedes thesis as [4] preliminary leaves. Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 92-94).

No description available.