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This dissertation explores the reoccurrence of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein within twentieth-century American novels. While the inaccurate 1931 film version by James Whale remains the best known adaptation of Frankenstein, I argue that Willa Cather, Ralph Ellison, Toni Morrison, and Chuck Palahniuk return to Shelley’s 1818 novel to critique racist and misogynistic responses to anxieties about gender and racial power in the age of industrial consumer culture. In doing so, I extend existing scholarship on the American Gothic to demonstrate that The Professor’s House, Invisible Man, Beloved, and Fight Club represent a specifically Shelleyan Gothic tradition in twentieth-century American literature. My project draws upon influential feminist and postcolonial readings of Frankenstein and on the theoretical work of Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick and later critics who have developed her theory to show how the twentieth-century novels echo themes and motifs from Shelley’s novel to critique the destructive effects of male homosociality. Each novel contains a protagonist that resembles Victor Frankenstein and responds to historically specific anxieties about gender, race, and industrial technoscience by creating a doppelgänger who enables participation in a homosocial bond that is initially empowering but proves destructive to women, racial minorities, and eventually the creature and creator figures themselves. My reading reveals unexpected similarities between Cather’s The Professor’s House and Palahniuk’s Fight Club. Cather’s novel appears to glorify Tom Outland as the ideal masculine hero but ultimately reveals him to be a monstrous doppelgänger who acts out the Professor’s oppressive impulses; similarly, Fight Club seems to romanticize the male violence instigated by the doppelgänger figure Tyler Durden but actually echoes Shelley’s critique of male homosociality as monstrous. My reading also reveals previously overlooked similarities between Invisible Man and Beloved, both of which feature a black protagonist who surprisingly resembles Victor Frankenstein by creating a doppelgänger to challenge his or her disempowerment by the structures of white male homosociality but end up emulating the destructive homosocial structures they critique. My dissertation shows how all of these writers share Shelley’s critique yet move beyond it by offering alternatives to the destructive cycle of violence, embodied in each case by a female figure who resists or reclaims the position of the abject other in the homosocial triangle.

While the gothic in its various interpretations is well established in contemporary culture, the traditional form, rooted in its late eighteenth century literary conventions, would seem to have little relevance for theatre audiences today. A reappraisal of the convention's foundations, however, offers the playwright opportunities to explore new narratives in which the tradition can be re-inflected in the present. An analysis of the writing of my play Burn, which presents as a contemporary family drama, will demonstrate how the narrative can be structured with deliberate reference to the established tropes of the classic gothic mode. It will be shown that a re-engagement with the tradition in concert with new interpretations of the gothic can reinvigorate the form as a mode of playwriting practice.

This dissertation explores the reoccurrence of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein within twentieth-century American novels. While the inaccurate 1931 film version by James Whale remains the best known adaptation of Frankenstein, I argue that Willa Cather, Ralph Ellison, Toni Morrison, and Chuck Palahniuk return to Shelley’s 1818 novel to critique racist and misogynistic responses to anxieties about gender and racial power in the age of industrial consumer culture. In doing so, I extend existing scholarship on the American Gothic to demonstrate that The Professor’s House, Invisible Man, Beloved, and Fight Club represent a specifically Shelleyan Gothic tradition in twentieth-century American literature. My project draws upon influential feminist and postcolonial readings of Frankenstein and on the theoretical work of Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick and later critics who have developed her theory to show how the twentieth-century novels echo themes and motifs from Shelley’s novel to critique the destructive effects of male homosociality. Each novel contains a protagonist that resembles Victor Frankenstein and responds to historically specific anxieties about gender, race, and industrial technoscience by creating a doppelgänger who enables participation in a homosocial bond that is initially empowering but proves destructive to women, racial minorities, and eventually the creature and creator figures themselves. My reading reveals unexpected similarities between Cather’s The Professor’s House and Palahniuk’s Fight Club. Cather’s novel appears to glorify Tom Outland as the ideal masculine hero but ultimately reveals him to be a monstrous doppelgänger who acts out the Professor’s oppressive impulses; similarly, Fight Club seems to romanticize the male violence instigated by the doppelgänger figure Tyler Durden but actually echoes Shelley’s critique of male homosociality as monstrous. My reading also reveals previously overlooked similarities between Invisible Man and Beloved, both of which feature a black protagonist who surprisingly resembles Victor Frankenstein by creating a doppelgänger to challenge his or her disempowerment by the structures of white male homosociality but end up emulating the destructive homosocial structures they critique. My dissertation shows how all of these writers share Shelley’s critique yet move beyond it by offering alternatives to the destructive cycle of violence, embodied in each case by a female figure who resists or reclaims the position of the abject other in the homosocial triangle.

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This essay aims to understand how meaning and materiality work in four picture books from the 00s and 10s; Gittan och gråvargarna by Pija Lindenbaum, I skogen by Eva Lindström, Vem ser Dim? by Maria Nilsson Thore and Vi blåste bort ibland by Viveka Sjögren. The essay uses two theoretical works about picture books: Bilderbokens pusselbitar by Maria Nikolajeva and Modernismens bilder – Den moderna bilderboken i Norden by Elina Druker. Questions to lead the analysis are: How can text and picture be understood as materiality? How can meaning be understood as a material-discursive phenomenon? How can reading and meaning be understood as performative processes? The chapter “Diffractions: Differences, Contingencies, and Entanglements That Matter” from Karen Barad’s book Meeting the Universe Halfway – Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning provides help to understand diffraction as a metaphor and methodological attitude. Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick’s understanding of knowledge as performative in the book Touching Feeling – Affect, Pedagogy, Performativity is used to understand the picture book as an act of knowledge and meaning, and reading as a performative process where human involvement cannot be overlooked. The essay problematizes the theoretical texts about picture books by taking on different parts of the picture book’s form and drawing examples from the four chosen picture books. Parts that are examined are divisions of signs in semiotics (and in the picture book theory), the picture book’s limits between for instance framework and content, fiction and reality, and book and reader, mimesis and the analytical problems with looking for truth, the impact of the picture book’s size and shape, and lastly illustration techniques and the influence that illustrator, materiality and reader have on the book. The essay shows how different involvements affect the meaning that is created in the picture book, how solid delimitations of different kinds can be problematic, and how words such as picture, text, paratext and content should be treated gently and consciously. Different ways of breaking with methods and thoughts of habit are presented, for instance by using Barad’s concept of diffraction. The essay ends by emphasizing the complexity that follows meaning, materiality and reading, the responsibility it demands of us and how picture book theory sometimes simplifies analysis. This essay stresses the importance of questioning how the methods and words we use affect what is possible to understand, but not in the sense that we should read in a paranoid and closed way, but rather open minded and with room for failures, reconsiderations and other ways forward. / Syftet med denna uppsats är att förstå hur mening och materialitet hänger ihop i fyra bilderböcker från 00- och 10-tal; Gittan och gråvargarna av Pija Lindenbaum, I skogen av Eva Lindström, Vem ser Dim? av Maria Nilsson Thore och Vi blåste bort ibland av Viveka Sjögren. Uppsatsen går i dialog med de bilderboksteoretiska verken Bilderbokens pusselbitar av Maria Nikolajeva och Modernismens bilder – Den moderna bilderboken i Norden av Elina Druker. Frågor för att leda undersökningen är som följer: På vilket sätt är text och bild materialitet? Hur kan mening förstås som materiellt-diskursivt fenomen i bilderböckerna? Hur kan läsning och mening förstås som performativa processer? Avsnittet ”Diffractions: Differences, Contingencies, and Entanglements That Matter” ur Karen Barads verk Meeting the Universe Halfway – Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning fungerar som hjälp för att förstå diffraktion som metafor och metodologisk hållning. Eve Kosofsky Sedgwicks förståelse av kunskap som performativ i verket Touching Feeling – Affect, Pedagogy, Performativity används för att förstå bilderboken som ett görande, och läsningen som en performativ process där mänsklig inblandning inte kan förbises. Uppsatsen problematiserar de bilderboksteoretiska verken genom att ta sig an olika aspekter av bilderbokens form samt exemplifiera detta med hjälp av det skönlitterära materialet. Områden som vidrörs är semiotikens (och bilderboksteoretikernas) indelning av tecken, bilderbokens gränser mellan bland annat ramar och innehåll, fiktion och verklighet samt verk och läsare, mimesis och sanningssökandets analytiska problem, bilderbokens påverkan av storlek och format, samt slutligen illustrationstekniker och den inverkan illustratör, materialitet och läsare har på verket. Uppsatsen visar på hur olika inblandningar påverkar den mening som skapas i bilderboken, hur fasta gränsdragningar av olika slag kan anses problematiska, samt hur begrepp som till exempel bild, text, paratext och innehåll bör behandlas varsamt och medvetet. Olika sätt att komma runt upptrampade metodologiska tillvägagångssätt och tankespår presenteras, bland annat med hjälp av Barads diffraktionsbegrepp. Uppsatsen avslutas med att betona den komplexitet som följer med mening, materialitet och läsning, det ansvar detta avkräver oss och hur bilderboksteorin ibland fungerar förenklande i analyser. Denna uppsats lyfter vikten av att ifrågasätta vad de metoder och ord vi använder egentligen gör med vad som är möjligt att förstå, men inte i den mening att vi bör läsa misstänksamt och stängt, utan snarare öppensinnat och med utrymme för misslyckanden, omprövningar och andra vägar vidare.

Submitted by Johnny Rodrigues (johnnyrodrigues@ufcg.edu.br) on 2018-10-10T18:07:42Z No. of bitstreams: 1 LAÍS MEDEIROS CAVALCANTE - DISSERTAÇÃO PPGH 2014..pdf: 8311281 bytes, checksum: c886c9fd1b03a87baa8b0c93c853395c (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-10-10T18:07:42Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 LAÍS MEDEIROS CAVALCANTE - DISSERTAÇÃO PPGH 2014..pdf: 8311281 bytes, checksum: c886c9fd1b03a87baa8b0c93c853395c (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014-03 / O texto, objetiva analisar, como as identidades transgêneras foram produzidas, significadas e ressignificadas pela cartunista Laerte Coutinho na primeira década do século XXI, mais especificamente no período entre os anos de 2009 e 2013. Para tanto, a pesquisa foi desenvolvida através das tirinhas que tal cartunista produz e publica em seu site chamado Muriel Total. Se lançará mão, ainda, de entrevistas que a mesma cedeu a programas de televisão, cruzando as falas de suas experiências com as tramas desenvolvidas por seus personagens. Nesse sentido, se pensou analisar como as categorias de gênero, corpo, sexualidades e identificações sofrem mutações ao longo do tempo e em determinados espaços, transformando assim as subjetivações dos sujeitos trabalhados, os transgêneros. Desta maneira, problematizo como Laerte Coutinho subjetiva as transformações identitárias e corporais as quais os sujeitos trans são submetidos e se submetem, assim como, quê condições foram necessárias, além de quê barreiras foram encontradas, para que tais processos acontecessem. Assim, realizou-se um diálogo com o arcabouço teórico da Teoria Queer, com destaque para Judith Butler, para pensar as questões de gênero e a abjeção de tais sujeitos. Ainda se trabalhou com Stuart Hall para a análise do que se refere aos processos de identificação, Guacira Lopes Louro, dentre outros. Me apropriei ainda do entendimento do conceito de fronteira utilizado por Deleuze e o de armário da epistemologia produzida por Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick. / The paper aims to analyze , how transgender identities were produced , expressed and re-signified by cartoonist Laertes Coutinho in the first decade of this century , more specifically in the period between the years 2009 and 2013 . Therefore, the research was developed through such strips cartoonist produces and publishes on its website called Total Muriel . It will attack also interviews that yielded the same television programs , crossing the lines of his experiences with the plots developed by its characters . Accordingly, it was thought to analyze the categories of gender, body , sexuality and IDs mutate over time and in certain areas, thereby transforming subjectifications the subjects worked , transgender . Thus , as Laertes Coutinho problematized the subjective identity and bodily transformations which trans subjects are submitted and submit , as well as what conditions were necessary , and what barriers were found to make these processes happen . Thus , there was a dialogue with the theoretical framework of Queer Theory , especially Judith Butler , to think gender issues and abjection of such subjects . Still worked with Stuart Hall for the analysis of the relation to the processes of identification, Guacira Lopes Blonde , among others . Yet appropriated the understanding of the concept of the frontier used by Deleuze and the epistemology of Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick produced by cabinet.