Thesis (Ed.D.)--Teachers College, Columbia University, 1962. / Typescript; issued also on microfilm. Sponsor: Francis Shoemaker. Dissertation Committee: Lennox Grey, Leland B. Jacobs, . Includes bibliographical references (leaves 288-301).

Thesis (Ed.D.)--Teachers College, Columbia University, 1971. / Typescript; issued also on microfilm. Sponsor: Alice Miel. Dissertation Committee: Edmund Gordon. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2004. / Document formatted into pages; contains 185 p. Includes bibliographical references. Abstract available online via OhioLINK's ETD Center; full text release delayed at author's request until 2007 Aug. 26.

Dissertation (Ph.D.)--The University of North Carolina at Greensboro, 2010. / Directed by SallyAnn Ferguson; submitted to the Dept. of English. Title from PDF t.p. (viewed Jul. 12, 2010). Includes bibliographical references (p. 165-176).

Thesis (M.A.)--Liberty University, 2010. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2007. / The entire dissertation/thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file (which also appears in the research.pdf); a non-technical general description, or public abstract, appears in the public.pdf file. Title from title screen of research.pdf file (viewed on September 27, 2007) Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.A.)--Villanova University, 2006. / English Dept. Includes bibliographical references.

Saisis par les violences d'actualité, les écrivains de la francophonie se penchent sur les questions de victimisation et de discours mystificateurs, pour éviter que ne sombre dans l'oubli l'être humain place au centre des conflits, tel que le dirait Milan Kundera. L'être en relation, comme point focal de la dissidence littéraire; les thèmes du désir et de l'exclusion, comme enjeux pivots dans les textes sur la violence contemporaine; les savoirs et les pouvoirs du discours littéraire sur l'anthropologie de la violence, comme éclairage aux résurgences victimaires actuelles: nos trois hypothèses auront permis de multiplier les analyses sur les dynamiques conflictuelles dans les romans à l'étude en empruntant une approche méthodologique centrée sur les enjeux de victimes émissaires et de discours victimisateurs (René Girard). Qui sont les victimes dans les textes? Quels sont les discours qui viennent soutenir ou pourfendre leur victimisation, en plus d'approfondir la réflexion sur la violence? Telles étaient les questions fondamentales à poser afin d'aborder des oeuvres de Frédéric Beigbeder, Marie-Claire Blais, Gil Courtemanche, Yasmina Khadra, Ahmadou Kourouma, Jean-Luc Raharimanana et de Véronique Tadjo, dans notre approche qui transcende frontières et discours nationaux pour aller au plus clair de la difficulté et de la possibilité de l'être-ensemble. Du génocide des Tutsis au Rwanda de 1994 aux actuels attentats terroristes, la pensée des écrivains sur les violences des douze dernières années jette un éclairage essentiel fait de curiosité, de doute, de lucidité, d'ambiguité et d'ironie, où la rencontre avec l'être humain et le monde est encore possible: un bastion plus sur contre la spirale ascendante des violences?

M.A. (French) / Please refer to full text to view abstract

This study focuses on Blackness and shows how changes in its meaning reflect arguments about the short story as a fictional form. I argue that Blackness, as a socially constructed identity marker and the corresponding discourse designed to reify Whiteness, led to the evolution of an aesthetic consciousness that found critical and creative expression during the Black Power and Black Consciousness movements of the 1960s and 70s. In a process I call the "Politics of Creation," where Blackness and the short story move towards self-definition, we discover that Blackness and the short story reshape the socially constructed groupings designed to "fix" categories of people and genres. In chapter one reviewing the relevant literature concerning the origins of racial prejudice proves instructive for understanding the role of narrative in constructing discursive categories: i.e. Blackness and Whiteness. Chapter two addresses the historical context and introduces this study's attitudinal "common ground." In chapter three, we see how the collective identity of a community, marginalized by the "majority" status society (in this respect, the "imagined community" of Blackness), coalesces in response to white domination and becomes part of the larger culture of resistance known as the African diaspora. Examining Black participation in the discourse shows how "essentialism" racialized the ideological discourse. Chapter four reviews the critical literature on the short story and shows how its diminishment as a "minor" form of fiction, is analogous to the process by which Blackness was "othered." In chapter five, the short story and Blackness meet in a discussion of the aesthetic issues that fostered the explosion of African and Black Short Story anthologies and the growth of a critical discourse to offset the prejudicial attitudes expressed under the guise of "universalism." Using representative short stories by Henry Dumas, Toni Cade Bambara, Njabulo Ndebele, and Sindiwe Magona, chapter six addresses storytelling as "expressive" common ground, while revealing the "conflicts of unity" to Black solidarity. Chapter seven closes with a discussion of the commonalities I find in their writing styles. African American, African/a, Literary, Cultural, and Genre Studies will benefit from this study's insights into Black American and South African's reconsiderations of Blackness.