This thesis explores the politics of community in five Shakespearean comedies: The Comedy of Errors (1594), The Merchant of Venice (1596-8), Measure for Measure (1603-4), The Tempest (1611) and The Two Noble Kinsmen (1613). The idea of community addresses many issues usually thought to belong to 'high politics'. Thinking about this topic therefore enables us to articulate a notion of the political firmly grounded within the functioning of the commonwealth at a local level and as a state of interpersonal relations. This thesis has three key aims. Firstly, it argues that the plays highlight the responsibility of all community members, no matter their gender or status, in shaping and contributing to their political environment by displaying civic virtue, working to obtain justice and influencing their ruler's behaviour. By so doing, it focuses on the processes of civic engagement and the political implications of everyday life within a community which have often been neglected in readings of Shakespeare's work thus far. Secondly, this thesis illustrates the inseparability of ethics and politics. It demonstrates throughout that relationships between individuals within a community can have widereaching implications, whether that be in terms of the existence of trust between friends, family members or fellow citizens; the importance of consent existing between subjects and ruler; or the ability of fellow-feeling to confer a sense of agency upon subjects. Lastly, it contends that Shakespeare's assessment of the commonwealth in his comedies, with its emphasis on civic values and on the relationship between the community and the individual, remains attuned to Aristotelian and Ciceronian thought, in contrast to the Tacitean influences critics have detected in the darkness and scepticism of his tragedies and histories. Shakespeare's comedies therefore question the commonly accepted paradigm in early modern intellectual history that Tacitus' prominence increased greatly in the intellectual climate of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, while Aristotle's and Cicero's diminished. Moving away from the predominant focus on the tragedies and histories in analyses of Shakespeare's political thought, this thesis foregrounds the significance of citizenship, the household and friendship and reassesses the role of the comedies in Shakespeare's thinking about politics.

This thesis is an attempt to analyse the narrative structure of the Turkish satiric comedies that were produced in the 1980s. It focuses on the relation between the narrative structure of the satiric comedies and the socio-political atmosphere of the period. It argues that the satiric comedies aimed to criticize the new right policies and the social transformation in the 1980s through the opposition between the &ldquo / honourable&rdquo / hero on the one hand, and the &ldquo / swindler&rdquo / figure(s) or the &ldquo / degenerated order&rdquo / on the other. The narrative tools and stereotypes were used to represent the decline of such social values as solidarity, collectivism and philanthropy and rise of new ones like individualism, competitiveness and self-reliance. The study also analyzes the transformation of satiric comedies themselves throughout the decade, focusing on the change in the construction of oppositions and conflicts, and the emergence of nostalgia and romanticism as part of their critical discourse.

This diploma thesis focuses on Czech teen comedies produced during the 2000s and the production practices associated with them. The thesis defines a teenage film as a film that not only thematizes adolescence, but primarily targets an adolescent audience. In other words, the film's creators were consciously aiming at teenagers. The basic conceptual framework used to select individual films is the category of film cycle, which is defined as a series of typologically related films produced over a limited period of time, while also conforming to the same genre conventions of a dominant genre trend. The selected films are analyzed at a specific historical moment with emphasis on the wider context of the contemporary film and media industry. The methodological approach is based on production studies and industrially oriented genre theory which views genre primarily as an industrial concept that should be examined in relation to the film business. The analysis of the production practice used in the teen comedies is grounded in interviews with the film creators. This thesis aims to show how individual producers used the business opportunities available to them at the time, how the industrial conditions are reflected in their work, and how they thought about the concepts of genre and film cycle while...

Considering the comedies of the Restoration, and those of Congreve in particular, as the prototype of the comedy of manners and as the model for Sheridan later to revive and emulate, this thesis proposes to point out how the concepts of morality and wit have been a major obstacle to literary critics in analyzing the comedy of manners from its very beginnings, to discuss morality and wit as the basis of a proper evaluation of the comedy of manners both from the standpoint of seventeenth-century precepts and those of a century later, and, finally, to show how, during the early periods in which the comedy of manners flourished,--that of Congreve, 1693-1700; and of Sheridan, 1775-1779--morality and wit were modified and used to suit the divergent sociological and psychological conditions of each period.

This study is aimed to read Shakespeare's problem comedies, Troilus and Cressida and Measure for Measure into the historical and cultural context of dynamically-changing English Renaissance society at the turn of the sixteenth century. In the historical context of emerging capitalism, growing economic crisis, reformed theology, changing social hierarchy, and increasing sexual control, this study investigates the nature of complicated moral problems that the plays consistently present. The primary argument is that the serious and dark picture of human dilemma is attributed not to Shakespeare's private imagination, but to social, political, economic, and religious crises in early modern England.

Le stéréotype, représentation caricaturale sur un groupe social, est dénoncé tout le temps mais présent partout. Les diverses productions culturelles auxquelles nous sommes quotidiennement confrontés, des émissions télévisées aux articles politiques, du discours quotidien aux films hollywoodiens, participent à reproduire ces représentations caricaturales. La persistance de certaines représentations, non perçues comme stéréotypées, participent à des processus de stéréotypification : par leur récurrence et leur évidence, elles sont posées comme allant de soi, comme le reflet objectif d’une réalité tangible. Sous cette catégorisation qui est parfois questionnée dans la sphère publique, ce n’est pas la validité d’existence de ce classement qui est remise en cause mais la volonté d’appréhender le caractère véritable des qualités essentialistes de ce que l’on regroupe sous une étiquette. Or, le stéréotype, malgré sa capacité à revendiquer une universalité, est le fruit d’un travail culturel, historiquement et politiquement construit. De fait, le stéréotype est un vecteur hégémonique qui peut traduire des tendances idéologiques dominantes sous-jacentes à son expression : il incarne la façon dont sont légitimées et naturalisées ces représentations à un moment donné et dans une conjoncture particulière. Je tenterai de définir théoriquement dans ce mémoire le stéréotype au sein du discours social et plus particulièrement au sein des mediacultures. J’investiguerai sa circulation, son caractère politique, son incidence normative et, par corrolaire, sa fonction hégémonique. Puis, à l’aide d’une analyse intertextuelle critique, je tenterai empiriquement de discerner les stéréotypes et les idéologies qui les sous-tendent au sein de trois comédies romantiques hollywoodiennes. A partir de l’observation de ces productions culturelles de divertissement, ce travail m’amènera à dégager deux idéologies prégnantes - l’idéologie capitaliste et l’idéologie patriarcale -; sous-tendues par un ensemble d’autres idéologies qui, d’une façon ou d’une autre, rejoignent les principales : idéologie de la masculinité, de l’hétérosexualité, d’un idéal socio-économique, etc. / Stereotypes, caricatural representions about social groups, are always denounced, still present everywhere. The diverse cultural productions surrounding us everyday, from tv shows to politic articles, from everyday life discourse to hollywood movies, contribute to reproduce these caricatural representations. This persistence of certain representations – unperceived as stereotypical – participate in stereotypical process : by their recurrence and supposedly evident nature, they seem taken-for-granted, as an objective mirror of a tangible reality. Even if this categorisation is sometimes questionned, it is not the nature of this classification that is called into question but which essentialist qualities, which true inherent characteristics, should be enumerate under this label. Yet, the characteristics presented by the stereotype are not universal : this is the work of an ongoing, historical, cultural and political construction. Thus, the stereotype is an hegemonic vehicule which translates ideological trends underlying its expression : it embodies the ways by which are legitimized and naturalized these representations in a specific context. In this paper, I shall define theoretically the stereotypes and probe how function their underlying ideologies within social discourse, and more precisely within mediacultures. I shall investigate their political nature, normative impacts and ideological functions. Then, using a critical intertextual approach, I will try to detect empirically which stereotypes and ideologies are pregnant in three hollywood romantic comedies. From the observation of this cultural prouctions of entertainment, I will extricate two main ideologies : one capitalistic and one patriarchal; which will lead to underline other underneath but linked ideologies of heterosexuality, masculinity, socio-economic ideal, etc.

South African women of different ethnicity and background, having lived under apartheid, are now challenged by the freedoms expressed in the Bill of Rights and the new Constitution. This study, identifying the connections between gender, race, class and social relations, incorporates an ethnographic methodology and a cultural studies perspective in the reception analysis of thirteen multicultural focus groups. In the analysis of their response to two locally produced situation comedies, Suburban Bliss and Going Up III, the effort to determine existing cultural barriers is made, examining laughter as a benchmark for the comprehension by women from different backgrounds. The theoretical framework for the research evaluates the extent to which the writers, producers and directors created a text which connects with the multicultural women viewers' reality. Changes affecting the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) in terms of broadcasting policy, are traced, and a brief history of the organization since the inception of broadcasting in South Africa is incorporated. Language policy had ret1ected the overt political ideology of Afrikaner nationalism, consequently the political changes resulting from the 1994 democratic election led to major transformations in language and style of programming to incorporate local content for multicultural audiences. This caused economic hardship for the SABC, as advertising revenue was drastically curtailed. Textual analysis of both Suburban Bliss and Going Up III employed a mix of structural, semiotics, and ideological analysis. Through interviews with the production team it became apparent that SB was based on American sitcom genre, while GU III is a hybrid combination, conceived to meet the perceived needs of the local multilingual multicultural audience. The extent to which the programmes mediate the producer/audience relationship, contributing to the hegemonic process is investigated, as the interpretation of the text can be different in the decoding from that originally intended by the producer or encoder when creating the programme. The situation comedies by depicting in a humorous vein the realities of affirmative action, adult access to pornography, the aspirations of the new black elite, feminine participation in the democratic process, and the rejection of authoritarian censorship from the state or the home indicates the ideological position of the production teams. The responses of the focus groups were examined in terms of their own identity as well as where an historic individuality expands into the collective communities of nations, gender, classes, generations, race and ethnic groups. Identity was perceived as connected but distinct and separate, as any event can affect both individuals and society. The thesis explores the proposition that humour as 'cultural reconcilation' can be effective if people are prepared to alter negative patterns of thinking and social practices. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of Natal, Durban, 1998.

Traditionally in the field of aesthetics the genres of tragedy and comedy have been depicted in antithetical opposition to one another. Setting out from the hypothesis that antitheses are aspects of a deeper unity where one informs the construction of the other’s image this thesis questions the hierarchy of genre through a form of ludic postmodernism that interrogates aesthetics in the same way as comedy interrogates ethics and the law of genre. Tracing the chain of signification as laid out by Derrida between theatre as pharmakon and the thaumaturgical influence of the pharmakeus or dramatist, early modern comedy can be identified as re-enacting Renaissance versions of the rite of the pharmakos, where a scapegoat for the ills attendant upon society is chosen and exorcised. Recognisable pharmakoi are scapegoat figures such as Shakespeare’s Shylock, Malvolio, Falstaff and Parolles but the city comedies of this period also depict prostitutes and the unmarried as necessary comic sacrifices for the reordering of society. Throughout this thesis an attempt has been made to position Shakespeare’s comic drama in the specific historical location of early modern London by not only placing his plays in the company of his contemporaries but by forging a strong theoretical engagement with questions of law in relation to issues of genre. The connection Shakespearean comedy makes with the laws of early modern England is highly visible in The Merchant of Venice, Measure for Measure and The Taming of the Shrew and the laws which they scrutinise are peculiar to the regulation of gendered interaction, namely marital union and the power and authority imposed upon both men and women in patriarchal society. Thus, a pivotal section on marriage is required to pinion the argument that the libidinized economy of the early modern stage perpetuates the principle of an excluded middle, comic u-topia, or Derridean ‘non-place’, where implicit contradictions are made explicit. The conclusion that comic denouements are disappointing in their resolution of seemingly insurmountable dilemmas can therefore be reappraised as the outcome of a dialectical movement, where the possibility of alternatives is presented and assessed. Advancing Hegel’s theory that the whole of history is dialectic comedy can therefore be identified as the way in which a society sees itself, dramatically representing the hopes and fears of an entire community.

Le stéréotype, représentation caricaturale sur un groupe social, est dénoncé tout le temps mais présent partout. Les diverses productions culturelles auxquelles nous sommes quotidiennement confrontés, des émissions télévisées aux articles politiques, du discours quotidien aux films hollywoodiens, participent à reproduire ces représentations caricaturales. La persistance de certaines représentations, non perçues comme stéréotypées, participent à des processus de stéréotypification : par leur récurrence et leur évidence, elles sont posées comme allant de soi, comme le reflet objectif d’une réalité tangible. Sous cette catégorisation qui est parfois questionnée dans la sphère publique, ce n’est pas la validité d’existence de ce classement qui est remise en cause mais la volonté d’appréhender le caractère véritable des qualités essentialistes de ce que l’on regroupe sous une étiquette. Or, le stéréotype, malgré sa capacité à revendiquer une universalité, est le fruit d’un travail culturel, historiquement et politiquement construit. De fait, le stéréotype est un vecteur hégémonique qui peut traduire des tendances idéologiques dominantes sous-jacentes à son expression : il incarne la façon dont sont légitimées et naturalisées ces représentations à un moment donné et dans une conjoncture particulière. Je tenterai de définir théoriquement dans ce mémoire le stéréotype au sein du discours social et plus particulièrement au sein des mediacultures. J’investiguerai sa circulation, son caractère politique, son incidence normative et, par corrolaire, sa fonction hégémonique. Puis, à l’aide d’une analyse intertextuelle critique, je tenterai empiriquement de discerner les stéréotypes et les idéologies qui les sous-tendent au sein de trois comédies romantiques hollywoodiennes. A partir de l’observation de ces productions culturelles de divertissement, ce travail m’amènera à dégager deux idéologies prégnantes - l’idéologie capitaliste et l’idéologie patriarcale -; sous-tendues par un ensemble d’autres idéologies qui, d’une façon ou d’une autre, rejoignent les principales : idéologie de la masculinité, de l’hétérosexualité, d’un idéal socio-économique, etc. / Stereotypes, caricatural representions about social groups, are always denounced, still present everywhere. The diverse cultural productions surrounding us everyday, from tv shows to politic articles, from everyday life discourse to hollywood movies, contribute to reproduce these caricatural representations. This persistence of certain representations – unperceived as stereotypical – participate in stereotypical process : by their recurrence and supposedly evident nature, they seem taken-for-granted, as an objective mirror of a tangible reality. Even if this categorisation is sometimes questionned, it is not the nature of this classification that is called into question but which essentialist qualities, which true inherent characteristics, should be enumerate under this label. Yet, the characteristics presented by the stereotype are not universal : this is the work of an ongoing, historical, cultural and political construction. Thus, the stereotype is an hegemonic vehicule which translates ideological trends underlying its expression : it embodies the ways by which are legitimized and naturalized these representations in a specific context. In this paper, I shall define theoretically the stereotypes and probe how function their underlying ideologies within social discourse, and more precisely within mediacultures. I shall investigate their political nature, normative impacts and ideological functions. Then, using a critical intertextual approach, I will try to detect empirically which stereotypes and ideologies are pregnant in three hollywood romantic comedies. From the observation of this cultural prouctions of entertainment, I will extricate two main ideologies : one capitalistic and one patriarchal; which will lead to underline other underneath but linked ideologies of heterosexuality, masculinity, socio-economic ideal, etc.

Thesis (M.S.)--Miami University, Dept. of Family Studies and Social Work, 2005. / Title from first page of PDF document. Document formatted into pages; contains [1], viii, 90 p. Includes bibliographical references (p. 80-86).