Global ETD Search

1	Nature and narratives : landscapes, plants and animals in Palaiologan vernacular literature Stewart, Kirsty January 2015 (has links) This thesis identifies the role of nature within Palaiologan entertainment literature. The texts on which this thesis focuses include a selection of the Palaiologan novels, namely the Achilleid, Velthandros and Chrysandza, Kallimachos and Chrysorroi and Livistros and Rodamni, as well as two other, more satirical works, The Synaxarion of the Honourable Donkey, and An Entertaining Tale of Quadrupeds. These texts seem to be different from earlier works in which nature is prominent, utilising such material in an innovative way. The study of these texts provides us with information both on the Byzantine view of the natural world and on the use of literature during a particularly troubled period of Byzantine history. My main questions therefore are how nature is portrayed in these texts and what can this tell us about the society that produced them. The study of these vernacular texts indicates that the natural world is given a prominent place in the literature of the period, using landscapes, plants and animals in diverse ways to express assorted ideas, or to stress particular aspects of the stories. The animals and landscapes provide hints of the plot to the audience, which the authors sometimes then subvert. The authors draw on earlier Greek material, but parallels with literature from other cultures show similarities which imply a shared medieval perspective on nature with local differences.
2	Turning nature into essays : the epistemological and poetic function of the nature essay Schroder, Simone January 2017 (has links) The topic of this doctoral thesis is the nature essay: a literary form that became widely used in European literature around 1800 and continues to flourish in times of ecological crisis. Blending natural history discourse, essayistic thought patterns, personal anecdotes, and lyrical descriptions, nature essays are hybrid literary texts. Their authors have often been writers with a background in science. As interdis-cursive agents they move swiftly between different knowledge formations. This equips them with a unique potential in the context of ecology. Essayistic narrators can grasp the interdisciplinary character of environmental issues because they have the ability to combine different types of knowledge. They can be encyclopae¬dic fact mongers, metaphysical ramblers and ethical counsellors. More often than not they are all in one person. Where nature essays were taken into consideration so far they were mostly discussed together with other nature-oriented nonfiction forms under the label ‘nature writing’. This study proposes a different approach in that it insists that the nature essay has to be understood as a literary form in its own right. It explores canonical works of nature writing, such as Thoreau’s Walden, often for the first time as nature essays by discussing them alongside other typical examples of this genre tradition. In order to better understand the discursive impact of this form, I frame my discussion in the context of ecocritical theory. This means that I analyse my corpus of texts with regard to the ways in which writers depict the relationships between human and nonhuman spheres. Putting a particular focus on Germanic and An-glophone literature, the present thesis investigates central paradigms in the evolu-tion of nature essay writing. It covers a time period that stretches from its roots in late eighteenth-century natural history discourse to the present, identifying key epistemological, formal, and thematic patterns of this literary form the importance of which so far has been rather neglected by literary criticism.
3	Under the Nuclear Sun: Ecocritical Literature and Anticolonial Struggle in the Pacific Maurer, Anais January 2018 (has links) This dissertation argues that Pacific literature is haunted by a form of ecological aggression known as nuclear colonialism. The Pacific is the region of the world where Western nations tested most of their nuclear and thermonuclear weapons – an extreme form of colonial occupation that will impact both the land and the people for hundreds of thousands of years. This study analyzes Pacific works published post World War II, from Māori poet Hone Tuwhare’s 1964 collection of poetry to riMajel oral performer Kathy Jetn̄il-Kijiner’s 2017 videoart, focusing in particular on the francophone works of writers identifying as Kanak, Mā’ohi, and Ni-Vanuatu. Through a series of close-readings of this multilingual and transnational corpus, it argues that nuclear colonialism functions as a leitmotiv informing both the politics and the poetics of this anticolonial corpus, despite the fact that nuclear violence is often denounced in between the lines, through oblique and diffuse references mirroring the ubiquity of radioactivity itself. Comparative literature Ecocriticism in literature Pacific Island literature Imperialism in literature Nuclear weapons testing victims
4	Narrating other natures a third wave ecocritical approach to Toni Morrison, Ruth Ozeki, and Octavia Butler / Campbell, Andrea Kate. January 2010 (has links) (PDF) Thesis (Ph. D.)--Washington State University, May 2010. / Title from PDF title page (viewed on June 17, 2010). "Department of English." Includes bibliographical references (p. 151-162).
5	Beastly spaces : geomorphism in the literary depiction of animals Paddock, Alexandra Angharad January 2016 (has links) In 2010, Simon Estok observed that, "the most immediate question ecocriticism can ask is about how our assumptions about animals affect the natural environment". In this thesis, I respond to this challenge by generating a sustained conversation between the hitherto surprisingly distinct fields of animal studies and ecocriticism. I do this by formulating a new critical concept, that of the geomorphic animal, which I use to show how literary representations of animals often expose the many complex ways in which they constitute space rather than simply inhabiting it. This, in turn, should make them central to future ecocritical readings. I focus on two periods, medieval and modern; the broad historical and generic scope of this thesis is intended to demonstrate the conceptual validity and robustness of geomorphic readings. Chapter One shows how concerns with death and symbiosis are expressed through the earth-bound activities of the geomorphic animals of the Exeter Book riddles. Chapter Two examines geomorphic whales in texts deriving from two related traditions: the Book of Jonah and the Physiologus. Chapters Three and Four focus on modern theatre, which affords distinctive ways of articulating the spatial implications of geomorphism. Chapter Three discusses the literary representation of museums and zoos in terms of the interpretative complexities generated by staging and spectacle. Chapter Four, focusing on mediation, discusses the interplay between animals, viewpoints and place in theatre, also taking into account particular issues arising from the adaptation of plays into films. This argument paves the way to addressing the geomorphic depiction of marginalised humans and human groups, suggesting the critical potential of geomorphism as a means of furthering feminist and post-colonialist aims.
6	McCarthy's God : determining a worldview from Cormac McCarthy's fiction Lang, Robert J. 01 January 2009 (has links) Following the growth of criticism related to Cormac McCarthy, this study examines the author's early works in such a way that treats the different novels as a group, deriving a worldview that functions for McCarthy's works when viewed together, as opposed to treating each novel separately as has been the only previous mode of criticism for this award-winning author. Specifically, the study examines three main themes of the first five novels in McCarthy's oeuvre: The Orchard Keeper, Outer Dark, Child of God, Suttree, and Blood Meridian: Or the Evening Redness in the West. In order, the themes are ontological equality, survival of "ruder forms," and time as it relates to permanence and transience. Taking an interdisciplinary approach, the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche's texts regarding the concepts of rationality, morality, war, and philosophy itself greatly inform parts of this study, especially relating to the fifth novel, Blood Meridian. Nietzsche's notion of rationality and morality (pre-revaluation) as inimical to survival ( and his conception of war, albeit as a metaphor) directly corresponds to how McCarthy's universe functions as constructed by the characters and action of the novels. democracy English Language and Literature
7	Reflexos nos olhos do drag?o: uma saga da rela??o homem-natureza a partir das narrativas de drag?o Chinellato, Giovanna 15 December 2017 (has links) Submitted by SBI Biblioteca Digital (sbi.bibliotecadigital@puc-campinas.edu.br) on 2018-03-27T12:33:16Z No. of bitstreams: 1 GIOVANNA CHINELLATO.pdf: 10121982 bytes, checksum: 6e513d601a91650a81d4d7fb2de0c66a (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-03-27T12:33:17Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 GIOVANNA CHINELLATO.pdf: 10121982 bytes, checksum: 6e513d601a91650a81d4d7fb2de0c66a (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-12-15 / Dragons have been flying over humanity since the old ages, they are a part of myths and stories from East to West, Old and New Worlds, they crawled through cultures of societies that have supposedly never met, from Aztec to Chinese, Nordic to Hindu. Smith (1919, loc 1980) believed the dragon reflected society?s fears and aspirations of the last fifty centuries and beyond, because dragons evolved along with civilization itself. This dissertation investigates the representations of notable dragons from different contexts and concludes that there is a connection between the imaginary about dragons and men?s relationship with nature. / O drag?o sobrevoa a humanidade desde a Idade Antiga, ele faz parte de mitos e hist?rias do Ocidente e Oriente, Antigo e Novo Mundos, rastejou pela cultura de sociedades que supostamente nunca se encontraram, da asteca ? chinesa, da n?rdica ? hindu?sta. Para Smith (1919, loc 1980), o drag?o vem refletindo os medos e aspira??es da humanidade por mais de cinquenta s?culos, pois desenvolveu-se com a pr?pria civiliza??o. Esta dissera??o analisa a representa??o de drag?es not?veis de diversos per?odos e observa que existe um paralelo entre o imagin?rio acerca dos drag?es e a rela??o do homem com a natureza.
8	Theorising the environment in fiction: exploring ecocriticism and ecofeminism in selected black female writers’ works Pasi, Juliet Sylvia 09 1900 (has links) Text in English / This thesis investigates the relationship between humans and the nonhuman world or natural environment in selected literary works by black female writers in colonial and post-colonial Namibia and Zimbabwe. Some Anglo-American scholars have argued that many African writers have resisted the paradigms that inform much of global ecocriticism and have responded to it weakly. They contend that African literary feminist studies have not attracted much mainstream attention yet mainly to raise some issues concerning ecologically oriented literary criticism and writing. Given this unjust criticism, the study posits that there has been a growing interest in ecocriticism and ecofeminism in literary works by African writers, male and female, and they have represented the social, political (colonial and anti-colonial) and economic discourse in their works. The works critiqued are Tsitsi Dangarembga’s Nervous Conditions (1988) and The Book of Not (2006), Neshani Andreas’ The Purple Violet of Oshaantu (2001) and No Violet Bulawayo’s We Need New Names (2013). The thrust of this thesis is to draw interconnections between man’s domination of nature and the subjugation and dominance of black women as depicted in different creative works. The texts in this study reveal that the existing Anglo-American framework used by some scholars to define ecocriticism and ecofeminism should open up and develop debates and positions that would allow different ways of reading African literature. The study underscored the possibility of black female creative works to transform the definition of nature writing to allow an expansion and all encompassing interpretation of nature writing. Contrary to the claims by Western scholars that African literature draws its vision of nature writing from the one produced by colonial discourse, this thesis argues that African writers and scholars have always engaged nature and the environment in multiple discourses. This study breaks new ground by showing that the feminist aspects of ecrocriticism are essential to cover the hermeneutic gap created by their exclusion. On closer scrutiny, the study reveals that African women writers have also addressed and highlighted issues that show the link between African women’s roles and their environment. / English Studies / D. Litt. et Phil. (English) Biodiversity Ecocriticism Ecofeminism Human others Earth others Environment Environmentalism Ecology Andropocentrism Development Anthropocentricism Patriarchy Conservation Hierarchy 809.9336096 Women authors, Black -- Zimbabwe Women authors, Black -- Namibia Ecofeminism in literature Ecocriticism in literature Feminist literary criticism -- Africa Nature in literature Ecology in literature
9	Arboreal thresholds - the liminal function of trees in twentieth-century fantasy narratives Potter, Mary-Anne 09 1900 (has links) Trees, as threshold beings, effectively blur the line between the real world and fantastical alternate worlds, and destabilise traditional binary classification systems that distinguish humanity, and Culture, from Nature. Though the presence of trees is often peripheral to the main narrative action, their representation is necessary within the fantasy trope. Their consistent inclusion within fantasy texts of the twentieth century demonstrates an enduring arboreal legacy that cannot be disregarded in its contemporary relevance, whether they are represented individually or in collective forests. The purpose of my dissertation is to conduct a study of various prominent fantasy texts of the twentieth century, including the fantasy works of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Robert Holdstock, Diana Wynne Jones, Natalie Babbitt, and J.K. Rowling. In scrutinising these texts, and drawing on insights offered by liminal, ecocritical, ecofeminist, mythological and psychological theorists, I identify the primary function of trees within fantasy narratives as liminal: what Victor Turner identifies as a ‘betwixt and between’ state (1991:95) where binaries are suspended in favour of embracing potentiality. This liminality is constituted by three central dimensions: the ecological, the mythological, and the psychological. Each dimension informs the relationship between the arboreal as grounded in reality, and represented in fantasy. Trees, as literary and cinematic arboreal totems are positioned within fantasy narratives in such a way as to emphasise an underlying call to bio-conservatorship, to enable a connection to a larger scope of cultural expectation, and to act as a means through which human self-awareness is developed. / English Studies / D. Litt. et Phil. (English) Liminality Fantasy literature Arboreal Trees Forests J.R.R. Tolkien The lord of the rings C.S. Lewis The chronicles of Narnia Robert Holdstock Ryhope wood Diana Wynne Jones Hexwood J.K. Rowling Harry Potter Natalie Babbitt Tuck everlasting James Cameron Gilles Deleuze Félix Guattari Ursula K. Le Guin Julia Kristeva Ecocriticism Ecofeminism Other Mythology Tree of life Eco-cinema 823.91 Potter, Harry (Fictitious character) Trees in literature Ecocriticism in literature Ecofeminism in literature Ecofiction Liminality in literature Forests in literature

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