Orientador: Roxana Guadalupe Herrera Alvarez / Banca: Elaine Cristina Cintra / Banca: Lúcia Granja / Resumo: Este trabalho tem como objetivo realizar um percurso reflexivo sobre o papel do leitor na literatura estabelecendo um diálogo entre a teoria do escritor italiano Umberto Eco (1932-) e alguns textos do escritor argentino Jorge Luis Borges (1889-1986). Em um primeiro momento, investigamos como o papel do leitor é tratado pela teoria de Eco, detendo-nos na leitura de alguns capítulos de suas obras intituladas Obra aberta, Lector in fabula e Os limites da interpretação, publicadas respectivamente em 1962, 1978 e 1990. Do contato com essas obras, pudemos depreender que a concepção teórica de Eco a respeito do papel do leitor se baseia no reconhecimento do leitor-modelo como uma categoria textual que norteia o caminho de leitura do leitor empírico. Para complementar essa perspectiva teórica, abordamos a visão Borges sobre o papel do leitor desenvolvida no interior da própria ficção. Antes disso, foi importante que passássemos pelos ensaios "A flor de Coleridge" [La flor de Coleridge] e "Magias parciais do Quixote" [Magias parciales del Quijote], publicados pela primeira vez em 1952 na obra Outras inquisições [Otras inquisiciones], e pelo conto "O Livro de Areia" [El Libro de Arena], publicado pela primeira vez em 1975 na obra de mesmo título, para que pudéssemos primeiramente conhecer a concepção de literatura do autor, baseada no conceito de panteísmo. Em nosso corpus principal, constituído pelo conto "Pierre Menard, autor do Quixote" [Pierre Menard, autor del Quijote], publicado pela primeira vez em 1942 na obra O jardim dos caminhos que se bifurcam [El jardín de los senderos que se bifurcan], identificamos a atuação da personagem Pierre Menard...(Resumo completo, clicar acesso eletrônicoi abaixo) / Abstract: The aim of this study is to outline a reflection on the role of the reader in literature by setting a dialogue between the theory produced by Italian writer Umberto Eco (1932-) and a collection of writings by Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges (1889-1986). We begin by looking into the approach of Eco’s theory to the role of the reader, sparing a moment to read selected chapters spanning his works Obra aberta (The Open Work), Lector in fabula (The Role of the Reader) and Os limites da interpretação (Limits of Interpretation), published in 1962, 1978, and 1990 respectively. From the contact with these works we learn that Eco’s theoretic conception of the role of the reader is based on a recognition of the model reader as a textual category which ushers the empirical reader through the reading path to follow. In order to complement this theoretical position, we make an approach to Borges’s views on the role of the reader as developing within fiction itself. But before that we deem it important to go about the essays "The Flower of Coleridge" [La flor de Coleridge] and "Partial Magic in the Quixote" [Magias parciales del Quijote], first published in 1952 in Other Inquisitions [Otras inquisiciones], and the short story "The Book of Sand" [El Libro de Arena], first published in 1975 in the work with the same title, so that we could first become familiar with the writer's concept of literature, based on the concept of pantheism. Looking at our main corpus, consisting of the short story "Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote" [Pierre Menard, autor del Quijote], first published in 1942 in The Garden of Forking Paths [El jardín de los senderos que se bifurcan], we find that the active role of character Pierre Menard impersonates the role of the reader of a piece of literature. We go on to trace this metaphorisation within the short story to a depiction of the transformation...(Complete abstract clik electronic access below) / Mestre

The teaching of literature in New South Wales secondary schools has shifted significantly in the period 1990-2001, influenced both by the newer literary theories and by the belated application to the teaching of Shakespeare of active approaches designed to encourage students to think dramatically, think theatrically when approaching playscripts. This essay explores the way in which the author's research papers and the pedagogical materials that they have generated have supported and indeed to some extent been instrumental in bringing about these changes. Beginning with an overview of literature teaching in secondary schools 1990, the essay identifies the questions which have driven the research over the past decade: 1/. Can Reader-Response Theory be made explicit to junior and middle secondary students? Would such knowledge be of value to them? 2/. Are there other aspects of modern literary theory that are worth exploring with secondary students? 3/. Can young readers be encouraged to reflect on their processes of response? Is such an endeavour worthwhile? 4/. How can the teaching of Shakespeare be improved? The last question led the author, during the period of candidature, to explore the puzzling question of why the pedagogy of teaching Shakespeare had lagged so far behind the methods employed in the teaching of other literature, and thus to an historical enquiry covering the teaching of Shakespeare over the past hundred years. At the same time, the author has been concerned to refine some of his teaching methods in order to encourage senior students to explore the plays from, for example, feminist, new historicist and post-colonial perspectives. / Doctor of Education (Ed.D.)

Humankind yearns for reconciliation, fulfilment and salvation, and the human heart has always sought deliverance from negative forces. In particular, this yearning for salvation is most apparent when poets envisage such yearning in living situations and in recognisable life circumstances. Reading them shows how the quest for salvation is being achieved in daily steps that incarnate movements of hope and a contesting of despair. This dissertation captures some significant images of salvation expressed in selected Australian poetry. It argues that what is classically called final salvation is imaged in the trope of transcendence in poetry. Because the concept of salvation both indicates the right path and promises a way of liberation and fulfilment, gaining salvation is not an escape from the world, but rather an engagement with it, through just and humane actions. The study’s poetic selections image salvation as redressing wrongs, regenerating the land, seeking new life, and envisaging better states of affairs. This dissertation functions at the interface of theology and poetry. It shows how a reader in the Christian community may identify some key images in public poetry as foreshadowing religious salvation. This is possible because, like the poet engaging in an aesthetic experience, the believer brings a remarkable openness to reality in the exercise of the religious imagination. This analogical imagination identifies images in poetry that do touch the human spirit in deeply spiritual ways. The study employs the competence of methodical hermeneutic interpretation. It proceeds as an aesthetic-theological reading employing critical-analytical scholarship. Rather than attempt a formal explication of authorial intent, the hermeneutic reads in a careful excavation of the poems for those significant “scraps of experience” that coax the imagination towards hope in the mystery of salvation. The dissertation approaches the poetic texts using “Christian literary theory” as its hermeneutical framework. The dissertation presents readings of selected poetry and prose of three celebrated Australian voices, Judith Wright, Les A. Murray and David Malouf. The study’s primary data are their poetic images recognising and affirming the dream of transcendence embodied in human happiness, moments of rescue and relief, events of forgiveness and transformation, and insights for a better life for humans and the planet. The study shows how poetical insights image partial fulfilments in transcendent perceptions, transformed personal destinies and envisaged social reforms. This exercise in contextual theology searches for depth and perennial resonances that sustain Australians in their culture. The discussion is especially concerned with the poetic use of the trope of hope and its effects, and especially with the power of metaphor for accessing the sublime. The study distils ten virtues for salvation from the readings of the selected poems as pathways for implementing salvation in the world. The study presents poetic images of promise, rescue and transformation that refresh discourses regarding salvation.

Doctor of Philosophy / In this thesis I discuss feminist science fiction as a literature that explores a variety of alternative social realities. This provides the site to explore alternative notions of the heroic inspired by feminist critiques of the traditional heroic, which come from feminist philosophical, as well as literary critical sources. Alternative notions of the heroic offer a shift in perspective from a specific heroic identity to the events the characters are involved in. The shift to events is made precisely because that is where the temporal is located and dynamic change occurs. Events are where 'becoming' alternatively heroic occurs: in the interaction between a character and the environment.

Denne afhandling undersøger tegneseriens tilsyneladende simplicitet ved at afsløre nogle af de meningsskabende lag, der bliver skabt i et komplekst netværk med fokus på tid og rum deles tegneserien op i flere spatio-temporale lag, der alle interagerer i den måde hvorpå repræsentation, forestilling og erfaring bliver konstitueret i tegneserier. Afhandlingen anvender forskellige teoretiske tilgange i en undersøgelse af forskellige slags tegneserier på tværs af genrer og formater for at afsløre, hvordan tid og rum konstrueres i tegneserier. Jeg argumenterer for at "tid og rum i tegneserier" er en alt for bred betegnelse, og at vi har brug for at konceptualisere en multipel, spatio-temporal konstruktion, der tager højde for hvordan diegesens tids-rumlighed bliver repræsenteret gennem strukturens tids-rumlighed og hvordan den igen bliver aktiveret gennem læserens forestillingsevne. Afhandlingen indeholder 5 artikler og to essays, der alle diskuterer den generelle problemstilling på forskellig vis. Ved at anvende Mikhail M. Bakhtins begreb om kronotopen undersøger jeg hvordan sammenstillingen af flere spatio-temporale konstruktion forbinder sig i superhelteserien Top 10. Disse forbindelsertrækker på for læseren gennem erfaringer erkendte virkelige verdens tids-rumlighed, og jeg diskuterer, hvordan spatio-temporale strukturer fra diegesen kan påvirke vores opfattelse af virkeligheden gennem brug af Paul Ricoeurs tanker om fiktion. Afhandlingen undersøger også specifikke formelle elementer som fx helsiden og det sorte panel og deres effekter på tid og rum ved at sammenligne værker af forskellige kunstnere eller af samme forfatter. På baggrund heraf er der et specifikt kapitel, der analyserer tegneseriens struktur som et netværk ved at kombinere Thirry Groensteens tegneserieteori med Manuel De Landas begreb om assemblagen. Denne kombination anvendes efterfølgende i en analyse af den klassiske albumserie, Asterix. Afslutningsvist bliver tegneseriens strukturelle rum og dets relation til virkelighedens rum analyseret ved hjælp af Edward Sojas begreb om "Thirdspace" og Michel Foucaults "heterotopi" begreb.

When we think of “law” in a popular sense, we think of “rules” or the institutions that make or enforce those rules (legislatures, the police, courts, etc.). But where do these rules come from and what makes them legal rules? Put differently, does a rule’s status as a legal rule mean that it is sealed off from the influence of other systems of human knowledge and inquiry (like the humanities)? There are many possible answers to these questions, but the one that I am concerned to examine in my work arises from narrative, which is one of the most fundamental modes of human expression. By keeping narratives at a distance or delay, law loses (and has indeed lost) some of its essential humanity. My project is, then, an attempt to explain the relationship between law and narrative, and—in the end—to suggest ways to rehumanize law by reconnecting it to its narrative roots and certain cognates in the humanities. To do this, I retell dozens of law-stories within a theoretical framework derived from literary, legal, and political theory.

This research has taken place at a time when governments in Australia, like governments throughout the Western world, have given higher priority to funding teachers’ professional learning. This support for teachers’ learning tends to be informed by standards-based ‘reforms’ of schooling, underpinned by narrowly individualistic paradigms of teacher knowledge and enacted in managerial models of professional development. The effectiveness of this ‘PD’ for individual teachers tends to be measured in rigid accountability regimes. My study is a conceptual, grounded and reflexive inquiry into teachers’ professional learning in Victoria, Australia. Central to the study is a multi-levelled account of a small group of English-literature teachers at Eastern Girls’ College, in Melbourne, Australia, learning about literary theory over a period of fourteen months. These teachers operate within an institutional setting in which they are certainly expected to be accountable in managerial terms, and yet they can be seen negotiating a very different paradigm of professional learning. In my account of their learning in this study, I develop a model of inquiry-based professional learning that offers a richly dialogic alternative to narrowly individualistic paradigms of professional knowledge and professional development.

Doctor of Philosophy / In this thesis I discuss feminist science fiction as a literature that explores a variety of alternative social realities. This provides the site to explore alternative notions of the heroic inspired by feminist critiques of the traditional heroic, which come from feminist philosophical, as well as literary critical sources. Alternative notions of the heroic offer a shift in perspective from a specific heroic identity to the events the characters are involved in. The shift to events is made precisely because that is where the temporal is located and dynamic change occurs. Events are where 'becoming' alternatively heroic occurs: in the interaction between a character and the environment.

This dissertation considers why fantasy has been so slow to be valued in literary circles, how those conditions are changing, and the implications of these changes for the broader topic of literary value. What makes literature worthy of study? It has become commonplace to observe, on the one hand, the increasing significance and ubiquity of cultural productions, and on the other hand, the waning significance of the humanities in higher education. Literary study, in particular, has seemed to be in danger of losing the basis for its justification. Over the last several decades, critique has become one of the most popular means of justifying the study of literature, as a practice of awakening resistance to ideological forces. And yet, literature has much more to offer besides critique, such as the affirmative values of communication, integration, and well-being. This dissertation seeks to enhance the relevance of literary study by outlining ongoing revisions to literary value through interpretations of contemporary fantasy. Previously, under modernism, literary value was defined as autonomy from the marketplace. However, following the rise of postmodernism, this ontological definition of literary value became questionable, legible only as a cultural construction. Critique functions as a means of preserving the movement towards, if not the content of, ideals of autonomy. The method of critique locates value in the insights of the critic or the author who demystifies, debunks, or otherwise criticizes social and cultural structures. To the extent that literary value has become identified with the aims of critique, these practices of negation offer an apparent certainty that glosses over the fact that constructions of value continue to require acts of faith from both readers and authors. Recent shifts in literary value point towards the inclusion of affirmative practices of construction, in addition to negative practices of deconstruction. Taking up these trends, this dissertation interprets how recent fantasies work to reconstruct the grounds for faith in literary value. Since the turn of the twenty-first century, especially, fantasists have begun to experiment with new ways of combining the values of critique with the values of affirmation. A postcritical approach to fantasy re-opens avenues in academic valuing for discussing the positive, embodied elements of literary value—particularly the value of escaping into a different world in order to understand, and to cope with, one’s own world better. As a form of genre fiction involving the mode of enchantment, fantasy has long been devalued along gendered lines, criticized for its supposed positioning of readers as passively manipulated. Part One, “Recovering Enchantment,” considers how fantasists have built on the growing recognition of the role of genre as a mode of communication; through enchanted reading, both authors and readers engage in relatively passive acts of absorption, which can be constructed to be more nourishing than other acts of consumption. Building on the substance of enchantment, Part Two, “Integrating the Values of Critique and Affirmation,” interprets how recent fantasies overcome the theoretical divergence that associates critique with literary autonomy and affirmation with popular manipulations, moving towards solutions for re-enchanting literary value. The methodology emphasizes the contributions of individual texts in the context of emerging and established uses of fantastic genres. Because reading fantasy involves an encoded act of faith, this literature is particularly suited for investigating new directions in literary value, and for producing literary artifacts that both recall and progress the inquiry into what it might mean to ‘believe in books.’

This study situates the late work of Henry James in the tradition of Romantic revisionism. In addition, it surveys the history of James criticism alongside the academic critique of Romantic-aesthetic ideology. I read The American Scene, the New York Edition Prefaces, and other late writings as a single text in which we see James refashion an identity by transforming the divisions or splits in the modern subject into the enabling condition for renewed creativity. In contrast to the Modernist myth of Henry James the master reproached by recent scholarship, I offer a new critical fiction – what James calls the man of imagination – that models a form of selfhood which views our ironic and belated condition as a fecund limitation. The Jamesian man of imagination encourages the continual (but never resolvable) quest for a coherent creative identity by demonstrating how our need to sacrifice elements of life (e.g. desires and aspirations) when we confront tyrannical circumstances can become a prerequisite for pursuing an unreachable ideal. This study draws on the work of post-war Romantic revisionist scholarship (e.g. Northrop Frye, Frank Kermode, Harold Bloom, Geoffrey Hartman, and Paul de Man) as well as French theory (e.g. Maurice Blanchot, Michel Foucault, and Jacques Derrida) and other traditions (e.g. Kenneth Burke, R.P. Blackmur, and Lionel Trilling) to challenge new instrumentalizing scholarly methodologies that aim to overcome the ironies of critical vision. I argue that James’s man of imagination not only presents a critical agency that profits from criticism’s penchant for ironic repetition but also a politics that can help us navigate the tension between artistic self-stylization and the social constraints intrinsic to the liberal rule of law. / English