Diss.--English--University of Freiburg, 2001. / Bibliogr. p. 178-194.

Diss.--Berlin--Freie Univ., 1997. / Bibliogr. p. 189-204.

Texte remanié de: Dissertation--Kassel, 2004.

Thesis (D. Min.)--Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, 2001. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 176-178).

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

Numerous studies have pointed to the historiographic and metafictional aspects of Ian McEwan’s and Graham Swift’s fiction, although few have examined the connections between McEwan and Swift. This study develops from that work by proposing that McEwan’s and Swift’s fictions explore similar themes, beyond those of just history and metafiction. By situating McEwan and Swift as postmodern writers who are strikingly intertextual, in the sense initially coined by Julia Kristeva, this study will show that both authors are deeply concerned with the violence of the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, and the role that violence has played in the failure of metanarratives, as well as the resulting terror subjects face as they seek replacements for the personal authenticity, legitimacy, and meaning once provided by totalizing metanarratives. This study also illustrates that McEwan and Swift recognize the persistence of the metanarrative of science, as well as the psychic violence inherent in trying to replace metanarratives with received literary traditions. By developing on these ideas, this thesis argues that McEwan and Swift are actively engaged not only in exploring the anxiety subjects face as they realize there is nothing left upon which they can base their personal legitimacy, but also that the authors are suggesting there is no easy replacement for the lost, albeit fictitious, authenticity once situated in metanarratives and received genres. Finally, this paper will demonstrate that while these two contemporary novelists significantly problematize narrative and narrative frameworks, McEwan and Swift ultimately convey only one sure method to cope with the mourning and terror of the postmodern condition: continue writing.

A renewed merging of art and design accompanied by the inflation of design in relation to art has been increasingly noted by writers since the 1990s. Some critics and artists such as Dan Graham have celebrated this phenomenon as a critical opportunity; others such as art historian and critic Hal Foster have criticized the trend as a catastrophic loss of the limits required for liberal subjectivity. In the first chapter, I consider Graham's position as outlined in "Art as Design/Design as Art" (1986) and contrast it with Hal Foster's argument as presented in "Design and Crime" (2002). While the writers share some points of reference, it becomes clear that the two texts are based on different critical models. My second and third chapters present case studies of works often considered to be part of the "design art" trend. At either end of the 1990s, Dia Center for the Arts realized large-scale projects: Dan Graham's Two-Way Mirror Cylinder Inside Cube and a Video Salon: Rooftop Urban Park Project for Dia Arts Center (1981- 1991) and Jorge Pardo's Project (1998-2000). Both works fit the profile of art projects that make use of the modes and methods of the fields of architecture and design. My study considers how each project related to its art institutional site, to the greater art historical and contemporary context and to changes in social, political and cultural conditions that unfolded during the 1990s. My third chapter considers works by Andrea Zittel, an artist also often discussed in terms of design, architecture and life style. While Zittel's "critical optimism" offers promise, there are some critical failings of her project. I analyze some of the problems presented by Zittel's works in relation to comparable projects by Dan Graham and Jorge Pardo. These projects question, but also contribute to, the overvaluation of design that accompanies the contemporary phenomenon of obsession with styling self.

In the early 1990s Graham Nuthall and Adrianne Alton-Lee developed a model of the learning and remembering process which has profound implications for teaching and learning at all levels. Using their model they were able to predict what selected primary school students would and would not learn and remember from the teaching of a series of Science and Social Studies units and to do so with an accuracy of between 80 to 85 per cent. The Nuthall model states that for a student to learn and remember a new fact or concept he or she needs three to four learning opportunities with the complete set of information needed to learn the new fact or concept, and a gap of no more than two days between any pair of those two learning opportunities. It had always been Graham Nuthall's intention to test the model he developed with Adrienne Alton-Lee in a series of experiments. Tragically, Professor Graham Nuthall died before this was possible. The ten experiments in this thesis put the Nuthall model to the test.