Thesis--Heidelberg, 1978. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 253-267).

This essay will investigate the role of electricity in Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man, in connection to the concept of Otherness, as a result of race differences. It will argue that electricity in the novel is used as a metaphor in discourses of power by the oppressive white society, as well as a means of resistance for the protagonist/narrator, who is socially invisible because of his race. This will be done by performing a close reading of the novel focusing on the way Ellison uses the metaphor of electricity to deconstruct the hierarchy between black and white on several levels. Three main episodes will be analysed, in order to prove these claims: the Battle Royal, the Liberty Paints Factory Hospital and the Brotherhood Speech. The essay will also draw a parallel between Invisible Man and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, in order to further clarify the issue of Otherness in connection to electricity, and the aesthetic value of electricity in literature.

No description available.

In my dissertation I examine the steps in and performance of revolution through the writings of three Postmodern authors, Ralph Ellison, Toni Morrison, and E. L. Doctorow, in light of the model of the biblical Exodus journey and the revolution which precipitated that movement. I suggest that the revolution which began with the Israelites' bondage in Egypt has provided the foundation for American literature. I show that Invisible Man, Beloved, and Ragtime not only employ the motif of the Exodus journey; they also perpetuate the silent revolution begun by the Israelites while held captive in Egypt. This dissertation consists of six chapters. Chapter One provides the introduction to the project. Chapter Two provides the model for this study by defining the characteristics of the Exodus journey, Moses as the leader of the Israelites, and the pattern of revolution established by Michael Walzer in Exodus and Revolution. In Chapters Three, Four, and Five, I apply the model established in Chapter Two to the individual texts. In Chapter Six, I draw three conclusions which arise from my study. My first conclusion is that the master story of the Exodus journey and the Israelites' liberation from Egypt informs all Western literaturewhether the literature reinforces the centrality of the master story to our lives or whether the literature refutes the significance of the master story. Second, the stages of revolution present in the biblical Exodus are also present in twentieth-century American literature. My third conclusion is that authors whose works deal with an exploration of the past in order to effect healing are authors who are revolutionary because their goal is to encourage revolution by motivating readers to refuse to accept the status quo and to, instead, join the revolution which demands change. They do this by asking questions which are characteristic of that which is postmodernnot so much looking for answers as demonstrating that questioning what is, is appropriate and necessary.

Mémoire numérisé par la Direction des bibliothèques de l'Université de Montréal.

Cathy Caruth's pioneering study of trauma and the posttraumatic forges a connection between the psychoanalytic theory of traumatic experience and the literary as such. Since trauma defies linguistic processing, she explains, the language used to describe it will always be figural. For this reason Caruth privileges imaginative literature, with its highly mediated nature, as a means of representing the otherwise "unclaimed" experience of trauma. Her influential reflections inform a crucial direction within trauma studies: the search for a narrative voice that articulates trauma effectively. But how should we think about trauma that is not a singular "event" but a chronic occurrence? Over the last twenty years trauma scholarship has explored how trauma outstrips discursive and representational resources, but has only begun to address the ways gender, race, and class must complicate our understanding of the posttraumatic. I argue that in order to frame an adequate approach to the posttraumatic, we must take account of the cultural, political, and social matrix of trauma. The feminist psychotherapist Maria Root has developed an idea that she calls "insidious trauma" to refer to the cumulative degradation directed toward individuals whose identities, such as gender, color, and class, differ from what is valued by those in power. Though not always blatant or violent, these effects threaten the basic well being of the person who suffers them. Root's conceptualization provides a useful framework for understanding certain long-term consequences of the institutionalized sexism, racism, and classism that systematically denigrate the self worth of the socially othered who are rendered voiceless. Where Caruth privileges literary representations of the traumatic, I explore how literature can also be a privileged site for the articulation of insidious trauma. My study addresses literary representations of father-daughter incest and the complex trauma associated with it, showing how--in very different ways--six works of modern American literature compel us to confront the traumatogenic nature of social oppression, especially that which is endemic to the structure of the heteropatriarchal family and American racism and classism. F. Scott Fitzgerald's Tender Is the Night ambivalently exposes the gendered politics of psychological trauma, particularly the conspiracy of silence perpetuated by a psychiatric culture that revictimizes the female victim of incest. Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man uses a story of paternal incest to work through the trauma of racism, challenging stereotypes of black masculinity even as it reinscribes patriarchal phallocentrism. Referencing Ellison's depiction of father-daughter incest, Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye marks a watershed in the inscription of incest narratives as it is written mostly from the perspective of what I call a "could-be" victim of incest. Morrison includes the perspective of the father while foregrounding the experience of the daughter, exposing child abuse as an extensive social and political problem ultimately supported by imperialist ideals. Enabled by Morrison, Dorothy Allison's semiautobiographical Bastard Out of Carolina is narrated by a young "white trash" woman who shares her story of sexual violation in defiance of that culture's patriarchal structure. Conforming to certain class stereotypes of father-daughter incest, Bastard Out of Carolina escaped the hostile backlash provoked by Kathryn Harrison's memoir, The Kiss, whose critical reception suggests that, even while allowing some discussion of incest, mainstream culture continued to collude in its silencing within the context of the white middle-class. Finally, I revisit a particularly infamous literary narrative of father-daughter incest, Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita, but in terms of the feminist appropriation of Nabokov effected in Azar Nafisi's memoir, Reading Lolita in Tehran. Problematically downplaying the sexual abuse of Lolita, Nafisi appropriates Nabokov's work to bear witness to the patriarchal subjugation of women in her home country, the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, Santa Cruz. / Xerox copy of typescript. Bibliography: leaves 287-299.

Submitted by Automa??o e Estat?stica (sst@bczm.ufrn.br) on 2017-09-05T19:09:38Z No. of bitstreams: 1 JeanCarlosDosSantos_DISSERT.pdf: 2384951 bytes, checksum: a3bee8a2bc3dab828b39b947957ad74c (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Arlan Eloi Leite Silva (eloihistoriador@yahoo.com.br) on 2017-09-12T22:53:18Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 JeanCarlosDosSantos_DISSERT.pdf: 2384951 bytes, checksum: a3bee8a2bc3dab828b39b947957ad74c (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-09-12T22:53:18Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 JeanCarlosDosSantos_DISSERT.pdf: 2384951 bytes, checksum: a3bee8a2bc3dab828b39b947957ad74c (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-06-02 / Coordena??o de Aperfei?oamento de Pessoal de N?vel Superior (CAPES) / A concentra??o industrial ? capaz de influenciar as caracter?sticas de determinadas regi?es, algumas vezes de forma construtiva e outras destrutiva. ? importante observar que dependendo da localidade, algumas caracter?sticas se tornam predominantes na atra??o de ind?strias, tais como, tradi??es produtivas, formas de trabalho e o perfil dos consumidores. A Teoria da Nova Geografia Econ?mica, tendo como principais autores Krugman (1991), Fujita (1989), Venables (1996) e Thisse (1996), aborda os efeitos da localiza??o no mercado e, consequentemente, das aglomera??es industriais. O estudo desses autores ? feito a partir da Trindade Marshalliana (transbordamento de conhecimento, fornecedores de insumo e especializa??o do trabalhador) e do Modelo de Concorr?ncia Monopol?stica de Dixit-Stiglitz, que examina como economias de escala, retornos crescentes e custos de transporte podem incentivar ou justificar a concentra??o das firmas em determinadas localidades. No caso brasileiro, Lautert e Ara?jo (2007), Silva e Bacha (2014) e Resende (2015) tratam quest?es que envolvem as aglomera??es industriais. Neste sentido, este trabalho ter? como objetivo principal promover uma an?lise que investigue quais os fatores que influenciaram a concentra??o industrial entre as Unidades Federativas do Brasil no per?odo de 2003 a 2014. Para execu??o desse objetivo, ser? utilizado o ?ndice de Concentra??o Ellison e Glaeser para medir a concentra??o industrial. As vari?veis utilizadas na observa??o dos impactos da concentra??o s?o as proxies, da influ?ncia do governo sobre a concentra??o industrial (al?quota do ICMS), o transbordamento de conhecimento (anos de estudo), externalidades (participa??o regional das firmas, competitividade das firmas) e custo de neg?cio (custos de transporte). Os dados ser?o organizados em forma de painel e ser? elaborado um modelo econom?trico de Vetores Autorregressivos em Painel ? PVAR, que permitir? estudar as rela??es din?micas e mecanismos de ajustes entre as vari?veis analisadas. Como fonte de dados, majoritariamente, utilizam-se dados encontrados na Rela??o Anual de Informa??es Sociais (RAIS), Censo Demogr?fico do IBGE e Banco Central do Brasil. Este estudo contribui com a literatura ao utilizar um ?ndice pouco explorado a n?vel nacional e ferramentas econom?tricas in?ditas para o estudo da concentra??o industrial. Os resultados da an?lise em painel indicam que dentre as vari?veis utilizadas, as que apresentaram maior signific?ncia sobre a concentra??o industrial est?o relacionados ? influ?ncia do governo e as externalidades. Verificou-se que choques relacionados ao transbordamento de conhecimento impactam positivamente na concentra??o industrial. Podemos concluir, portanto, que as externalidades e educa??o formal s?o fatores importantes para atra??o de ind?strias em uma regi?o. / The industrial concentration is capable of influencing the characteristics of certain regions, sometimes constructive and sometimes destructive. It is important to notice that depending on the locality, some characteristics become predominant in attracting industries, such as productive traditions, ways of working and the profile of the consumers. The New Economic Geography Theory, whose main authors are Krugman (1991), Fujita (1989), Venables (1996) and Thisse (1996), approaches the effects of market location and, consequently, industrial agglomerations. The study of these authors is based on the Marshallian Trinity (knowledge overflow, input suppliers and worker specialization) and the Dixit-Stiglitz Monopolistic Competition Model, which examines how economies of scale, increasing returns and transport costs can encourage or sometimes justify the concentration of firms in certain localities. In the Brazilian case, Lautert and Ara?jo (2007), Silva and Bacha (2014) and Resende (2015) deal with issues involving industrial agglomerations. In this sense, this work will promote an analysis that investigates the factors that influenced the industrial concentration between the states of Brazil in the period that goes from 2003 to 2014. In order to achieve this goal, we will use the Ellison and Glaeser Concentration Index to measure the industrial concentration. The variables used to check the impacts of the concentration are the proxies, the influence of the government on the industrial concentration (ICMS rate), the knowledge overflow (years of study), externalities (firms' regional participation and firm competitiveness) and business cost (Transport costs). The data will be organized in panel form and an econometric model of Autorregressive Panel Vectors - PVAR will be elaborated, which will allow to study the dynamic relations and mechanisms of adjustments among the analyzed variables. As a data source, we used the data found in the Annual Social Information Ratio (RAIS), Demographic Census of the IBGE and Central Bank of Brazil. This study contributes to the literature by using an index that has not been explored at a national level and some new econometric tools for the study of industrial concentration. The results of the panel analysis indicate that among the variables used, those that presented the highest significance on industrial concentration are related to government influence and externalities. It was also verified that shocks related to knowledge overflow cause a positive impact on industrial concentration. We can therefore conclude that externalities and formal education are important factors when it comes to attracting industries in a region.

This article claims that Ralph Ellison's use and then revision of French existential themes is essential to understanding his overriding message of Invisible Man: Ellison's hope for a more polyglot American democracy that transcends the white democracy of mid twentieth century America. Specifically, I argue that Ellison, after demonstrating his ability to understand and engage in the traditional ideology of European existentialism, deviates from its individualistic conclusions demanding that the larger community, not just the solitary individual, must become ethically responsible if the classic existential tenet of authenticity is to be achieved. In order to establish this claim, I identify key passages in Invisible Man that indicate Ellison's desire to engage the existential movement. Writings from Camus and Sartre provide the foundation for comparison between Ellison's work and the French based philosophy. This background provides the groundwork to explore Ellison's deviations from the existential forms of his day. These departures have significant implications for Ellison's view of a socially productive individual, and therefore of his message in Invisible Man. In order to document the prevalence of existentialism in Ellison's literary consciousness, I then discuss its rise and decline in postwar New York. I also outline what is known about Ellison's relationship to the movement. Lastly, I conclude with a discussion of the philosophical tradition of existential philosophy and the difference between the philosophy of existence, seen in the Western canon through philosophers like Kierkegaard, and existentialism, one of its popular manifestations that peaked in the 1940s. Separating the two existential movements allows me to explore the tangential way most Ellison critics have associated him with existentialism and advocate for a more inclusive critical discussion of Ellison's relationship to existentialism.

The omission of boredom from 1950s cultural and literary discourse is somewhat glaring, especially considering the frequency with which terms such as banality, conformity, and uniformity appear in scholarly and popular representations of the era. Such evocations of social and personal malaise derive from postwar sociological and theoretical critiques that rather uncritically dismiss mass culture as hostile to expressions of individuality. For Frankfurt school theorists such as Theodor Adorno, Henri Lefebvre, and Herbert Marcuse, the capitulation of individuals to a contented (and thoroughly dull) status quo is symptomatic of the disappearance of culturally distinct localities into a standardized national space, the parameters of which are determined by commodity culture. I argue that a closer inspection of filmic, literary, and archival texts from the era reveals the limitations of such macro geographies; texts often acknowledge such mass cultural rhetoric while at the same time offering a more nuanced and optimistic appraisal of the potential for meaningful engagement with the marketplace. Texts such as Norman Foster’s Woman on the Run, Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man, Walker Percy’s The Moviegoer, and John Cheever’s “The Swimmer” attribute postwar boredom to passive, diversionary consumption habits that mediate and inhibit the consumer’s ability to find fulfillment within local environments. By scrutinizing setting, characterization, narration, and other formal concerns within the context of boredom theory and Michael de Certeau’s spatial phenomenology, it becomes clear that these texts encourage a mode of spatial and cultural literacy capable of revealing opportunities for meaningful engagement within local environments that remain vital.