Chapters III and IV published also as Thesis (Ph. D.)--Johns Hopkins University, 1924. / Bibliography: p. 159-163.

Thesis (MA)--University of Stellenbosch, 2007. / Bibliography. Also available via the Internet.

My thesis discusses male identity in contemporary culture in relation to work by Bret Easton Ellis and Chuck Palahniuk. Such work reflects the problems, anxieties, and dilemmas of the masculine subject in American culture. The characters in my six selected texts, namely, Ellis' Less Than Zero, American Psycho, and Glamorama, and Palahniuk's Fight Club, Survivor, and Choke, symbolize a generation with no discernible future. Each male protagonist finds himself in a place of no time and no meaning because image and illusion have supplanted essence. These characters combat culture-prevalent emptiness in the sense that each ironically re-asserts his so-called individuality against the dogmas of the establishment. Each, furthermore, is aware that his existence is not subject to a higher order or preset goal: traditional morality thereby has no meaning. My selected texts feature masculine subjects struggling with their own contingencies once stripped of given privileges (gender, class, race, and otherwise). To examine the notion of masculinity, I emphasize the role of power relations in gender construction. Bret Easton Ellis characterizes a world of appearance defined by particular styles. Chuck Palahniuk's males are empty--they do not have any definitive meaning. Judith Butler challenges the proposition of a fixed identity, or an essential permanent masculinity or femininity as structured and reified by social norms. Therefore, we should not view masculinity as a cohesive and homogeneous category. Following Foucault, I examine the relationship between masculine subjects and social practices. At stake here, is how the performative articulation of proper masculinity disempowers and imprisons the masculine subject in a material form over which he has no control. The body becomes the object of desire and thus the vehicle/preserve of the sense of powerlessness that the masculine subject experiences daily within a hegemonic culture. Power is exercised through a dominant presence. This presence structures as a binary classification serving to underscore differences and ensure particular privileged social positioning. The proposition of a fixed identity, or an essential permanent masculinity or femininity, is structured and reified by social norms. Masculinity as a cohesive and homogeneous category is historically represented as an unstable center from which all other identities are defined.

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

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

Many histories of natural history see it as a descriptive science, as a clear forerunner to modern studies of classification, ecology and allied sciences. But this thesis argues that the story of unproblematic progression from eighteenth-century natural history to nineteenth-century and modern natural history is a myth. Eighteenth-century natural history was a distinct blend of practices and theories that no longer exists, though many individual elements of it have survived. The natural history that I discuss was not solely about collecting, displaying, naming and grouping objects. Though these activities played an important part in natural history (and in many histories of natural history) this thesis focuses on some other key elements of natural history that are too often neglected: elements such as experimenting, theorising, hypothesising, seeking causes, and explaining. Usually these activities are linked to natural philosophy rather than natural history, but I show how they were used by naturalists and, by extension, create a new way of understanding how eighteenth-century natural history, natural philosophy and other sciences were related. The first chapter is about the end of eighteenth-century natural history and looks at the role of the Linnean Society of London. It argues that this society tried to homogenise British natural history through the promotion of the Linnean sexual system of plant classification and through the suppression of the kinds of experimental and theoretical work described in this thesis. To understand that experimental and theoretical work, and to see what British natural history really entailed in this period, three central chapters focus on specific case studies. The second chapter shows how English-based naturalists such as John Ellis (1710-1776) approached the problem of distinguishing plants from animals, and especially about how they used chemical experiments to decide whether things such as coral and corallines should be placed in the animal or plant kingdom. The third chapter discusses sensitive plants and the overlaps between natural history and natural philosophy. It draws on case studies of naturalists who investigated things like plant motion and apparent plant sensitivity with different observational and experimental methods, and tried to explain them using various mechanical and vitalist explanations. The fourth chapter focuses on the controversy over whether plants (like animals) can be male or female and shows the theoretical and experimental tools that naturalists used to address this issue. Together, these chapters give a very detailed insight into the everyday practices and theories used by eighteenth-century naturalists and show the variety of activities that made up the field. The next two chapters focus on the identity and interactions of naturalists and show how they created a distinctive science: the fifth chapter is about how someone in England could go about becoming an authority on natural history in the late eighteenth century; and the final chapter looks outwards from Britain and examines how British natural history influenced, and was influenced by, European natural history; it uses correspondence to examine how British naturalists communicated with their overseas counterparts and what each party gained from those exchanges.

A polycrystalline diamond was tested as a bearing material for a tilting pad thrust bearing to be used in an electric submersible pump, which elevates process fluids from the bottom of well bores. The goal of this study was to compare the PCD to a current best of technology, which is stainless steel with an engineering polymer.This study found that PCD can handle larger loads than current technology but is limited in size due to diamond sintering and manufacturing constraints. The maximum size is Ø75mm.

A polycrystalline diamond was tested as a bearing material for a tilting pad thrust bearing to be used in an electric submersible pump, which elevates process fluids from the bottom of well bores. The goal of this study was to compare the PCD to a current best of technology, which is stainless steel with an engineering polymer.This study found that PCD can handle larger loads than current technology but is limited in size due to diamond sintering and manufacturing constraints. The maximum size is Ø75mm.

No description available.

At just under thirty years the serious academic study of American comic books is relatively young. Over the course of three decades most historians familiar with the medium have recognized that American comics, since becoming a mass-cultural product in 1939, have matured beyond their humble beginnings as a monthly publication for children. However, historians are not yet in agreement as to when the medium became mature. This thesis proposes that the medium’s maturity was cemented between 1985 and 2000, a much later point in time than existing texts postulate. The project involves the analysis of how an American mass medium, in this case the comic book, matured in the last two decades of the twentieth century. The goal is to show the interconnected relationships and factors that facilitated the maturation of the American sequential art, specifically a focus on a group of British writers working at DC Comics and Vertigo, an alternative imprint under the financial control of DC. The project consulted the major works of British comic scriptwriters, Alan Moore, Jamie Delano, Grant Morrison, Peter Milligan, Neil Gaiman, Warren Ellis, and Garth Ennis. These works include Watchmen, V for Vendetta, Shade: the Changing Man, Batman: Arkham Asylum, Animal Man, Sandman, Transmetropolitan, Preacher and several other important works. Following a chronological organization, the work tracks major changes taking place in the American comic book industry in the commercial, corporate, and creative sectors to show the processes through which the medium matured in this time period. This is accomplished by combining textual analysis of the comics with industry specific records and a focus on major cultural shifts in US society and culture