Thesis (M.A.)--University of North Texas, Dec., 2007. / Title from title page display. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--UCLA, 2007. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 204-217).

Thesis (M.A.)--Bowling Green State University, 2008. / Document formatted into pages; contains v, 93 p. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2004. / Title from first page of PDF file. Document formatted into pages; contains vii, 238 p. Includes bibliographical references (p. 229-238).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 1995. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves [228]-248).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2005. / Title from first page of PDF file. Document formatted into pages; contains vii, 217 p. Includes bibliographical references (p. 203-217). Available online via OhioLINK's ETD Center

Thesis--Temple University. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 637-648).

The main focus of this thesis is to examine how identity and culture are conceived and articulated in a representative selection of contemporary South African poetry. In the introductory chapter, an examination is made of the concepts of identity and culture, in the course of which the polarities of inside and outside, self and other, personal and political, subjective and objective, are carefully examined. Then, through close textual reference to relevant poems considered under the titles “Poetry of the Self”, “Black Consciousness Poetry”, “The Poetry of Revolution”, “Worker Poetry” and “Feminist Poetry”, the thesis attempts, by tracing the dialectical relationship of these polarities, to analyse how each putative body of poetry conceives and articulates cultural identity. The concluding chapter of the thesis, titled “Towards a New Aesthetics”, argues that current research into the relationship between identity and culture opens the way to a “new” aesthetics, a new literary-critical practice, one that takes into cognisance the intersubjective complexities that shape cultural expression.

Paul Auster is regarded by some as an important novelist. He has, in a relatively short space of time, produced an intriguing body of work, which has attracted comparatively little critical attention. This study is based on the premise that Auster's art is the record of an entertaining, intelligent and utterly serious engagement with the possibilities of conceiving of the identity of an individual subject in the contemporary, late-twentieth century moment. This study, focussing on Auster's novels, but also considering selected poetry and critical prose, explores the representation of identity in his work. The short Foreword introduces Paul Auster and sketches in outline the concerns of the study. Chapter One explores the manner in which Auster's early (anti-),detective' fiction develops a concern with identity. It is suggested that Squeeze Play, Auster's pseudonymous 'hard-boiled' detective thriller, provided the author with a testing ground for his subsequent appropriation and subversion of the detective genre in The New York Trilogy. Through a close consideration of City of Glass, and an examination of elements in Ghosts, it is shown how the loss of the traditional detective's immunity, and the problematising of strategies which had previously guaranteed him access to interpretive and narrative closure, precipitates a collapse which initiates an interrogation of the nature and construction of ideas about individual identity. Chapter Two develops a suggestion that City of Glass was written in response to particular emotional concerns of the author by turning to an examination of the memoir-novel, The Invention of Solitude. This chapter examines the extent to which Auster's Jewishness is implicated in his understanding of identity, and in the techniques with which he expresses his concerns. It is argued that Auster's engagement with texts and memories important to him in order to find a voice adequate to the task which he assumes in The Invention of Solitude, reveals the ethical imperative of recognizing and accepting a relationship to alterity. The influence on Auster of certain Jewish writers, like Edmond Jabes, is considered in the course of the chapter. The third chapter addresses the issue of the description of Auster's work as postmodernist, in the light of what the study has presented as Auster's ethical engagement with alterity. Critical responses to Auster's texts are canvassed, before it is suggested that aspects of the ethical phenomenology of Emmanuel Levinas may be useful in considering these important issues in Auster's oeuvre. Chapter Four returns to a consideration of The New York Trilogy, examining its final part, The Locked Room, before discussing In the Country of Last Things and Moon Palace. All three novels are narrated by first-person narrators who, in very different situations, come (consciously and unconsciously) to negotiate their own identities in relation either to other people or to adverse circumstances. The chapter thus considers the manner in which these texts figure Auster's concern with relationships between individuals and otherness. Chapter Five seeks, as a means of concluding the study, to consider aspects of Auster's presentation of the manner in which identity is connected to perception, and to an engagement with that which is other than the self This chapter focuses on Auster's figuration of necessary responses to the otherness of the objective world and to chance as a radical alterity. Beginning with a consideration of an early essay, the chapter explores relevant aspects of Moon Palace, The Music of Chance, Leviathan and Mr Vertigo, considers elements in Auster's poetry, and demonstrates the usefulness of exploring the influence on his work of the 'objectivist' poets and aspects of Dada and Surrealist poetics. The seemingly punitive severity of the fates of some of Auster's protagonists is shown ultimately to be positive, and (potentially) redemptive, reflecting Auster's profoundly ethical conception of the responsibilities and possibilities of selfhood.

M.A. / Language, specifically the narrative use of language, is not only a medium through which people express and understand themselves. Language is the vehicle wherein and whereby personal identity is constituted. Thus, identity is not seen as fixed, but as a product-in-process of narrative discourse.The interrelationship between narrative and personal identity can be observed in a person`s almost inborn urge to mentally reconstruct his lifestory. Narratives supply personal identity with continuity and cohesion. Ricoeur`s description of the instance of “mimesis” – narratives are “mimesis” in the sense of being the representation of an action – is used to explain the construction of two selfnarratives (Griet Swart in Griet skryf `n sprokie and Stoffel Mathysen in Die lang pad van Stoffel Mathysen). Ricoeur`s two “functions” of narrative, i.e. to expose and to transform, are considered. Griet Swart`s narrative identity is constituted by her being situated in a tradition (mimesis 1 ) – that of being writer of fairy-tales as well as reader of literature. Drawing on conventions and prior knowledge, a plot is created (mimesis 2), in which Griet narrates her lifestory. The narration, the perspective on a patriarchal society as well as the continuous redefining of narrative identity by means of the writing process, are examined. The act of writing becomes metaphor for personal freedom. In Die lang pad van Stoffel Mathysen the use of the epic hero figure, travel prose, Western literature, hunting prose and the outobiography are examined in order to understand Mathysen`s narrative construction of personal identity. Both Griet and Mathysen reconfigure personal identity by means of narrative. It is this process of constant change in self-understanding that Ricoeur calls “narrative identity”.