The purpose of this thesis is to examine the aesthetic structure and components of W.G. Sebald’s novel Austerlitz and to show their reciprocal relationship to ethical forms of remembrance for the present and the future. The goal of this project is to explain how fiction may be utilized as a means of meaningful engagement with points of traumatic memory for the purpose of maintaining viable connections to the past across time. The first chapter deals explicitly with the novel’s overall structure and its relation to philosophical forms of thought that facilitate a practical connection to the past through fiction. The next chapter examines the use of refracted or indirect narration as an aesthetic component of this process. The final chapter constitutes an investigation of photography as a structure in this aesthetic that lends itself to the overall obliqueness I see as necessary to the ethics of representation embodied in Austerlitz. / Graduate / 0311

Whilst the idealisation of extreme slenderness is widely recognised as a problematic issue, the negative portrayal of larger individuals is rarely criticised for its link with stigmatisation and problems with self-esteem. To the contrary, the representation of larger individuals in dehumanising terms – whether in news reports, advertising and research accounts – is generally regarded as a necessary means to encourage the pursuit of a ‘better’, ‘healthier’ self. However, these negative stereotypical portrayals – generally excluding the perspective and consent of those depicted – can also have adverse effects on human dignity, legitimacy and self-esteem of those thus depicted. Building on the work of fat studies scholars, as well as feminist marketing researchers, this research project seeks to contribute to the inclusion and rehumanisation of fuller-figured individuals, by involving them in the dialogue of visual and research representation. To do so, this research invited a group of fuller-figured women living in the UK and Canada, to ‘envision’, ‘model’, and ‘review’ their own self-presentations, primarily via the use of self-directed portraits, blogs, and conversations. Whilst the inclusion of their embodied perspectives is expected to contribute to humanising the representation of larger individuals – and offer a glimpse into what could be if we started considering women ‘of size’ as authors of their own depictions – it also contributes in filling a gap left by consumer researchers who have overlooked the way larger individuals make sense of their selves, bodies and well-being. As such, this research contributes to existing consumer research theories by explaining the ways individuals can envision their selves/bodies in the shadow of, but also in contrast with, the dominant marketplace promotion of slenderness. In terms of contribution, this research illustrates the relevance of therapeutic and embodied perspectives to understand the self, the body and to engage in acts of consumption. A new ‘self-nurtured’ discursive position offers challenges to the meanings generally attributed to larger individuals, and to the traditional approaches taken by consumer researchers to solve the ‘obesity crisis’. Overall, this research provides empirical, methodological and theoretical contributions to the field of consumer research. It also offers practical implications for the representation of larger individuals, and recommendations for those interested in the social marketing of health to enjoin people of all sizes in mindful acts of self-care and consumption.

This research aims to illuminate how and why war challenges the limits of poetic representation, through an analysis of non-combatant poetry of the Second World War. It is motivated by the question: how can one portray, represent, or talk about war? Literature on war poetry tends to concentrate on the combatant poets of the First World War, or their influence, while literature on the Second World War tends to focus on prose as the only expression of literary war experience. With a historicist approach, this thesis advances our understanding of both the Second World War, and our inherited notions of 'war poetry,' by parsing its historiography, and investigating the role critical appraisals have played in marginalising this area of poetic response. This thesis examines four poets as case studies in this field of research-W.H. Auden, Louis MacNeice, Dylan Thomas, and Stevie Smith-and evaluates them on both their individual explorations of poetic tone, faith systems, linguistic innovations, subversive performativity, and their collective trajectory towards a commitment to represent the war in their poetry. The findings from this research illustrate how too many critical appraisals have minimised or misrepresented Second World War poetry, and how the poets responded with a self-reflexivity that bespoke a deeper concern with how war is remembered and represented. The significance of these findings is breaking down the notion of objective fact in poetic representations of war, which are ineluctably subjective texts. These findings also offer insight into the 'failure' of poetry to represent war as a necessary part of war representation and prompt a rethinking of who has the 'right' experience-or simply the right-to talk about war.