Thesis (doctoral)--Université de Perpignan, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 347-371) and index.

Thesis (M.A.)--Rowan University, 2009. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Minnesota, 1961. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves [447]-486).

<p> This dissertation demonstrates how characteristics and functions of African and Japanese oral narrative traditions make narratives about the ocean in these traditions useful for exploring some of the complex psychological roles the ocean plays in people&rsquo;s lives. A background of these oral narrative traditions and the main characteristics and functions of African and Japanese oral narratives are identified from the literature, African and Japanese ecopsychological perspectives are outlined, and a hermeneutic methodology applies text analysis to identify connections between humans and the ocean represented in a selection of text versions of ocean oral narratives. African and Japanese oral narratives are transmitted in adaptable yet continuous traditions, reflective of self and group identity, used to serve social and community functions, connected to spiritual traditions, and used as tools for power or resistance to power. Intimate connections between humans and the ocean are represented in the selection of narratives. In African oral narratives, connections are represented including merging identities of the ocean and humans, contrasting of nurturing mother and dangerous mother elements, the ocean bringing children, extreme love, and taking extreme love, connections between the ocean and performance, and representations of the ocean in colonization, slavery, healing, and empowerment. In Japanese oral narratives, intimate connections are represented including magic gifts from the ocean, water deity wives, warnings of fishing, bodily sacrifice, and connections to spiritual traditions, people, and local places.</p><p>

Simone Schwarz-Bart (1938-) and Albertine Sarrazin (1937-1967) offer an example of the cultural diversity that French Literature provides to the readers. Two of Albertine Sarrazin's novels, L'Astragale and La Cavale, were published in 1965; the third one La Traversiere in 1966. Simone Schwarz-Bart first published a novel, Plat de porc aux bananes vertes, in 1967, in collaboration with Andre Schwarz-Bart. In 1972, she published by herself Pluie et vent sur Telumee Miracle and in 1979 Ti Jean L'Horizon. / As a young teenager, life in a rigid family felt too hard and too stifling for Albertine Sarrazin and she fled away at the age of fifteen. For the young girls and Ti Jean, in Schwarz-Bart's novels, life in the West Indies presented difficult situations from which they too wanted to escape. The two women writers explore the technics that the creative imagination summons up to take the heros away from these stressful situations. Dreams, meditations, travels or changes of locations, temporary madness are common themes studied according to the theories of Carl Jung in the six novels cited above. / In order to become a better person and get away from their unhappy situations, the characters had to go deep inside themselves to get to know their innerself. Through this universal process of search for happiness and a better way of living, despite their differences, they reach a common ground that allows the reader to identify with their ordeals, their reactions. We recognize the characters as being of the universal human family. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 53-09, Section: A, page: 3210. / Major Professor: Victor Carrabino. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1992.

The women in Doris Lessing's major novels attain plateaus of selfhood through their different experiences as surrogate mothers. At each plateau they reach an apex of sociopolitical, psychological and spiritual development. These plateaus are self-reliance, emotional fortitude, sagacious wisdom, spiritual awakening and restorative power, the highest level of selfhood. Reaching one plateau often generates the movement toward another, though each plateau is attained independently with no defined order or sequence of progression. Attaining plateaus of selfhood, however, is contingent upon breaking the pattern of what the novelist calls the "nightmare repetition." This term refers to the attitudes and code of behavior with which one patriarchal generation indoctrinates the next. It is only when a woman does not strive to evade the "nightmare repetition" that she fails to attain any plateau of selfhood. Any attempt by the woman to reproduce the patriarchal structure, according to her own perceptions, results in its distortion. Then, not only does the woman fail to attain plateaus of selfhood, but also the altered re-creation of the social order produces chaos and havoc for her own familial unit and for the culture as a whole. / This study examines six female protagonists who most distinctly illustrate the relationship between surrogate motherhood and the attainment of selfhood. Martha Quest in The Children of Violence series (1952-1969), Kate Brown in The Summer Before the Dark (1973), the unnamed narrator in The Memoirs of a Survivor (1974), and Janna Somers in The Diaries of Jane Somers (1984) attain plateaus of selfhood through their different experiences as surrogate mothers. The major characters in Lessing's latest novels, Alice Mellings in The Good Terrorist (1985) and Harriet Lovatt in The Fifth Child (1988), however, fail to reach plateaus of selfhood, neither initiating a quest nor denouncing the "nightmare repetition." Consequently, they fail to undergo sociopolitical, psychological or spiritual development within the context of the works. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 50-06, Section: A, page: 1663. / Major Professor: Fred L. Standley. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1989.

<p>Saidou, Amina. Bachelor of Arts, Universite Abdou Moumouni de Niamey, Spring 2006; Master of Arts, Universite Abdou Moumouni de Niamey, Winter 2009; Bachelor of Arts (English/TESOL), Wilson College, Spring 2011; Master of Arts, University of Louisiana at Lafayette, Spring 2013; Doctor of Philosophy, University of Louisiana at Lafayette, Spring 2018 Major: Francophone Studies Title of Dissertation: Allegorie initiatique et engagement feminin a travers la litterature et le cinema francophones de l?Afrique subsaharienne et du Maghreb Dissertation Director: Dr. Amadou Ouedraogo Pages in Dissertation: 382; Words in Abstract: 380 ABSTRACT African women?s struggle for freedom can be thought of as an initiatory journey, an allegorical quest. Their long-lasting fight for emancipation happens to be about challenging and subverting traditional, patriarchal, and religious institutions. This research that focuses on female main characters analyzes the process of their emancipation as a journey. Through this study, we aim at deconstructing western feminist ideology and its stereotyping of African women. In doing so, we contribute to an understanding of African women identity(ies). Women in West and North Africa, just like westerners, often face misogyny and discrimination. Socio-cultural beliefs, religious, political, and historical standpoints are proven to be factors that contribute to undermining women?s self-fulfillment. Also, they are factors set to create discrepancies between African and Western feminisms as well as between African types of feminisms. Therefore, these factors should be taken into consideration when conceptualizing and analyzing African women. Although this can be true for most African women, authors construe and characterize their female characters as heroines. They discharge themselves of ?masculine domination.? This work first examines the representation of African women social status and interaction in francophone literary and cinematographic works. Next, based on critics like Pierre Bourdieu?s concepts of habitus and symbolic violence, the second chapter analyzes African women?s social behavior in reaction to oppression. Though violence is experienced through habitus, women who escape can free themselves through an undertaken journey. In this way, the third chapter examines women?s use of different strategies to resist oppression. Consequently, women need to overcome various challenges that they encounter. Overall, we ground our research on theories such as post-colonialism, deconstruction, feminisms, negofeminism, and the concept of ?everyday resistance? or cultural resistance. Also, we examine the authors? standpoints and purposes through their representation of heroines. African women are no more where/who they used to be. Nevertheless, because of deep-rooted and obsolete African cultural beliefs, they still have to fight hard for a more advanced emancipation. Unperceived violence can be more damaging for women who face challenges. Key fundamental aspects are the persistence in raising awareness and revisiting African traditions, values, and practices; encouraging women?s political and religious education; and fostering their economic enterprises for financial self-reliance. Most importantly, women?s self-awareness with regard to their ?reproduction of symbolic violence? is the key factor for this battle ground.

The Rwandan genocide of 1994 has inspired several works in various fields, including literature. At the same time and since the Holocaust, the literary depiction of genocide and mass murder has raised complex issues about the relationship between ethics and esthetics. Using a multidisciplinary approach, the goal of this dissertation is to place the literary narratives of the Rwandan genocide within the larger context of recent studies on the issues of identity as well as the perpetration of evil. The dissertation, thus, hopes to provide a better understanding of both the universal and specific dimensions of the Rwandan genocide.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--West Virginia University, 2001. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains iii, 310 p. Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 301-310).

<p> The enslavement and persecution of African and Native peoples has been occurring in the U.S. since the 1600s. There have been justifications, explanations and excuses offered as to why one race feels superior over another. Slavery, according to the Abolition Project, refers to "a condition in which individuals are owned by others, who control where they live and at what they work" (e2bn.org, 2009). Dr. Maria Yellow Horse Braveheart researched the concept of historical trauma as it relates to American Indians, whereby she found that trauma due to unresolved grief, disenfranchised grief, and unresolved internalized oppression could continue to manifest itself through many generations. This thesis will examine the intergenerational effects of historical trauma as they are depicted in selected African and Native bildungsromans. These specific works were chosen because they allow me to compare and contrast how subsequent generations of these two cultures were still being directly affected by colonialism, especially as it pertains to the loss of their identities. It also allows me to reflect on how each of the main characters, all on the cusp of adulthood, make choices for their respective futures based on events that occurred long before they were born. </p><p> Chapters One and Two highlight specific works from African American authors Toni Morrison and Alice Walker. Walker's novel, <i>The Color Purple, </i> depicts the life of an African American girl in the rural South of the 1930s. In this work I will examine how the loss of the male traditional role of provider and protector has affected the family dynamics and led to the male assuming the role of oppressor. In Morrison's <i>Song of Solomon, </i> I will examine the importance of identity and how one man's flight from slavery has affected the family structure of four subsequent generations. Both of the protagonists, Celie and Milkman, were born free, and yet still feel enslaved, just as their ancestors were, by their lack of choices as well as their quest for purpose and personal justice. </p><p> Chapters Three and Four will discuss literary works by Native American authors Louise Erdrich and Sherman Alexie, both vocal advocates of educating the lost generations&mdash;those who were forbidden to learn of and practice their language or tribal rituals due to colonialism&mdash;as well as Anglo-Americans on the importance of preserving the culture and heritage of their people. In Erdrich's <i>The Round House,</i> young Joe Coutts' family is tragically ripped apart by a physically violent attack on his mother. In an attempt to discover the truth of what really happened and who harmed her, Joe embarks on a journey in which borders, both literal and figurative, jurisdiction, and justice will be defined. The choices made by Joe, the adolescent, will have a direct impact on the evolution of Joe, the adult. In Alexie's <i> Flight,</i> Zits is a fifteen year old boy who seemingly belongs nowhere and to no one. It is this lack of identity that initially leads him down a path of destruction and on a magical journey of self-discovery where he will learn that he has within himself the ability to overcome his own personal tragedies, define who he is, and find happiness. The final chapter introduces the concept of restorative justice, a legal term that emphasizes repairing the harm done to crime victims through a process of negotiation, mediation, victim empowerment and reparations. I will also briefly discuss how both African and Native people are reclaiming their cultural identities through naming, ceremony, and traditions. I will briefly define a new concept developed by Dr. Joy Deruy Leary, referred to as post traumatic slave syndrome, and will show that like historical response trauma, its symptoms can be traced back generations to the enslavement of African people. I will argue that justice, identity and the lack of choices are major themes identified in each of these works which tie them all together. I will also argue that these themes have a direct correlation to the signs and symptoms of both Historical Response Trauma and Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome as defined by Dr. Braveheart and Dr. Leary, and how ultimately each of these protagonists used some means of restorative justice to stop the cycle of trauma and begin the process of healing </p>