My concern in Dead Drunk is not simply the subject matter of death, it is rather with the representation of drunks in the form of fictional phantoms in The Glass Canoe and Bliss as rendering the death drive visible. Close scrutiny of the representation of the drunk in Australian fiction, as discussed in relation to The Glass Canoe, and Bliss reveals a ‘constant recurrence of the same thing’ rendered uncannily visible. On inspection, what becomes visible is recurring deaths and subsequent resurrections. For the ghostly Australian drunk there is always the possibility of resurrection, but that resurrection is usually in the form of another drink. A drink promises resurrection, but instead delivers a return or recurrence of the drunken, ghostly state. / The presence of drinking and drunks in Australian fiction can be described as a haunting, the ghostly drunks as repetition of an anachronistic past. It is the repetition of the representations of drunks as ghostly presences in Australian fiction that is telling. Utilising Sigmund Freud’s theories developed in ‘The Uncanny’ (1919) and Beyond the Pleasure Principle (1920), I propose that if the uncanny is an encounter with one’s origins and the death drive is a backward looking return to origins; the drunks are a past that is repeatedly encountered in an uncanny moment. Utilising the modalities of the uncanny in regards to The Glass Canoe reveals the guises of the drunken ghosts. Making reference to an Australian colonial past, founded on intoxicant use and abuse the dissertation suggests alcoholism as a white man’s dreaming. A discussion of Bliss links the uncanny ghosts to a registration or surfacing of the death drive. In conclusion I suggest the psychoanalytic concept of sublimation as both an explanation for and a release from the symptomatic repetition. / Floundering, the creative work, is an extract from a novel in progress. The section presented is the opening to the novel. The narrative unfolds during one day, New Year’s Eve, and involves the interactions between the two brothers Jordy and Tom, and Old Fat. Loretta, the boys’ absent mother, haunts the novel and drives the narrative. Although the creative work does not explicitly depict dead drunks as discussed in the dissertation, the theory has by necessity permeated the creative, and the creative permeated the theory, forming a chiasma – a crossing over between strands of thought.

Thesis (MA)(CrWrtg) --University of Melbourne, Dept. of Media and Communications, Faculty of Arts, 2009. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 36-40)

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Rutgers University, 2009. / "Graduate Program in Literatures in English." Includes bibliographical references (p. 169-181).

Thesis (M.F.A.)--Rochester Institute of Technology, 2006. / Typescript. Film produced by Damul Films. Director, Moonsik Chung. Cast: Jonathan Flanigan, Ashley St. John-Yantz, Greg Petralis, Jesse Knight. Co-writer, Oreathia C. Smith.

Where does the soul go after death? This question is based on my ‘fear of ghosts’ and became the starting point of my degree project, which most obviously stems from our fear of the unknown.   In the age of technology, many people claim that they are atheists and think that everything has or will have a physical explanation. But the fact is that definitions of reality are always provisional. We can only have an imaginary concept of this mysterious land and open up to all possibilities of the afterlife. This project include ideas from mesmerism and use substitutes to represent paranormal ectoplasm in order to materialise immaterial ghosts. The installation represents scientific experiments by including laboratory features. I intend to discuss contemporary attitudes to the afterlife.

No abstract available / English Studies / M.A. (English)

This thesis will cover the use oftheinfluence map technique applied to the retro game Ms. Pac-Man. A game thatis easy to learn but hard to master. The Ms. Pac-Man controller is implemented with five main parameters that alters the behaviour of the controller while the Ghost controller have three parameters. The experimental results of the controllers is explored to using the alterations of the parameters to find its peak of performance. The conclusion from using the influence map for this game shows that you can easy achieve a certain degree of success fairy easily but as with the game itself it is hard to master same goes for developing a sophisticated controller for this game.

This thesis explores recent trends in Chinese international relations scholarship from the perspective of post-colonial and critical international relations theory. It begins by interrogating the now widespread view that ‘the discipline’ of international relations is profoundly Eurocentric. The claim to parochialism in international relations discourse is explained and substantiated through a critical re-reading of enduring myths in international relations discourse, which shape not only what we know to be international relations but how we mightknow it and who indeed the ‘we’ is that does the knowing. This research adopts a methodology of ghost hunting inspired by Avery Gordon’s work on ghosts and hauntings in the sociological imagination (Gordon 2008). It follows the meandering trail of a ghostly journey through international relations discourse, telling of multiple and conflicting encounters between Chinese international relations and the wider parochial/global discipline. In particular it examines recent debates surrounding the need for a distinctively Chinese approach to international relations research: a Chinese School of IR.Debates about the place of Chinese international relations research in the wider (parochial/global) discipline remain the focus of this research project. A close (re)reading of these debates reveals the many ways in which Chinese international relations discourse actively constructs ‘the discipline’ of international relations, singing it into life, whilst simultaneously unsettling the myths that make international relations possible. These trends are explored further through the use of two case studies of leading scholars – Yan Xuetong and Qin Yaqing – and the enduring debate between them (and between Chinese scholars in general) over whether or not China needs its own theory of international relations. The work of these two individuals has had a huge impact on wider trends within and about Chinese international relations. The thesis concludes with a return to the question of identity in international relations discourse and questions who is Chinese in the Chinese School and what are the implications of constructing ‘Chineseness’ through international relations discourse. I argue that the Chinese School project is perhaps best understood as an expression of contemporary Chinese nationalism.

Depuis la fin de la guerre civile libanaise en 1991, le cinéma libanais décline le mal existentiel et le sentiment de mélancolie d’une génération dont les personnages étrangers au monde comme à eux mêmes, sans repères, font face à la répétition des violences, la séparation, le deuil, ou l’exil, trainent leur mal-être dans une ville en éternel chantier et où les morts tels des fantômes réapparaissent d’entre les ruines. Entre un monde qui s’effondre et un passé qui s’efface, la mélancolie habite ces films dont les récits fragmentés et éclatés ne s’achèvent jamais. Avec Ghassan Salhab, Michel Kammoun, Joanna Hadjithomas, Khalil Joreige, Mohammad Soueid, Danielle Arbid, Christophe Karabache, Waël Noureddine, Nigol Bezgian, Borhane Alaouié, Jocelyne Saab... un nouveau cinéma s’invente. / As the Lebanese civil war ended in 1991, a feeling of malaise and melancholy started to imprint the works of filmmakers. Between a collapsing world and a fading past, the films’ characters seem to drift aimlessly as they face constant violence, separation, mourning and exile. Their malaise lingers in a city crammed by massive construction sites where the dead, like ghosts, emerge from the ruins. While melancholy roots itself in the films, fragmented and never ending stories interlace.With Ghassan Salhab, Michel Kammoun, Joanna Hadjithomas, Khalil Joreige, Mohammad Soueid, Danielle Arbid, Christophe Karabache, Waël Noureddine, Nigol Bezgian, Borhane Alaouié, Jocelyne Saab... a new cinema is born.

This dissertation is divided into two parts. Part 1 consists of the composition Ghosts Before Breakfast for chamber ensemble and fixed electronics. In this work I was interested in the creation of unity in the horizontal, vertical, and structural dimensions of a composition between the ensemble and the electronics and using electronic music techniques to gradually unify the ensemble and tape parts. Part 2 consists of an investigation into the development of the Electronic Music Studios of the University of Iowa when James Cessna from the Department of Physics and Astronomy came up with a Master’s Thesis project to design an Arbitrary Waveform Generator. An initial discussion with James Van Allen, James Cessna, Himie Voxman, and Philip Bezanson in 1964 led to the initiation of the program with the loan of equipment from the Department of Physics and Astronomy, the Collins Radio Company, and homemade devices. The outcome of this interdisciplinary project between the Department of Physics and Astronomy and the School of Music led to a transformation of the Composition Program, and the studios evolved into a nationally recognized center for the study of electronic music. Its legacy lives on through its students who have reaped the benefits of the program and made successful careers throughout the country from the development of studios at other colleges and universities to work for film industries in Hollywood and New York. A history of the Electronic Music Studios shall be discussed, through the professors who have directed this program, its facilities, its assistants who maintained the facilities, its students, its guests, and its performances.