This thesis examines the struggle between the camps of narratology and ludology over video game narrative and what that struggle means for the existence of emergent narratives in video games. It argues that emergent narratives are clear and present in current video games but too stringent definitions can complicate their recognition. Emergent narratives are not flights of fancy but definable and repeatable narrative structures. / Video games can sustain a range of narrative structural possibilities, both unconventional and traditional, but perhaps the most interesting of these possibilities is an emergent narrative. Narrative emergence encompasses narrative structures where a player's choices drive and shape the events of the particular game's storyline. Video games support such narratives as the result of an interactive exchange between the computer game and its player. This thesis analyzes these interactive narrative exchanges as they occur in Tale of Tales' The Path, Bioware's Dragon Age: Origins, and other recent game titles in contrast with choices and structures from more traditional games. / Furthermore, this thesis discusses, with help from Psychoanalytic theory, why players seek out and play through emergent narratives. This structure's entrancing power embodies the strengths of narratives from mediums over. Players play to satisfy their own curiosity for knowing the end and feeling out death. When gamers play through emergent narratives, they play for a narrative and a final conclusion of their own making.

<p>Few philosophers have been more critical of the Western philosophical tradition than Friedrich Nietzsche and Ludwig Wittgenstein. Nietzsche and Wittgenstein did not just reject the conclusions of their philosophical predecessors; they rejected their most basic assumptions. They rejected the very idea of philosophy as the attempt to rationally develop objective theories of the world. And yet Wittgenstein and Nietzsche have now been absorbed into the discipline they wanted to abolish. This dissertation attempts to recapture the force and extent of their respective criticisms of philosophy, and evaluate their conceptions of what philosophy should be. </p><p>I begin by examining Wittgenstein's claim that philosophical problems rest on a misunderstanding of language. I show that this claim does not entail a quietist refusal to engage in philosophical problems, as many have argued. Rather, it offers new insights into these problems, and I demonstrate these insights by considering Wittgenstein's analysis of G.E. Moore's attempt to refute external world skepticism. In the case of Nietzsche, I argue that his criticism of philosophy extends beyond the metaphysics of Plato, Descartes, and Kant to include even those anti-metaphysical philosophical movements with which he is now associated: post-structuralism and naturalism. In this way, his criticism of philosophy is more extensive than has been recognized. I conclude by describing his alternative conception of philosophy as the creation of new concepts, and compare it with Wittgenstein's conception of assembling reminders of what we ordinarily say.</p> / Dissertation

Proefschrift--Amsterdam. / "Bibliografie": p. 257-258.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, 1943. / Lithoprinted. "Selected bibliography": p. 198-204.

Inaug.-Diss.--Leipzig. / Lebenslauf.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--New York University, 2006. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 67-06, Section: A, page: 2148. Adviser: Mikhail Iampolski.

<p> Earthly paradise and its loss have fascinated humanity from the dawn of time. Indeed, the myth of earthly paradise is found throughout the world, and the longing for life in paradise is basic to every human being. The term paradise was first used in ancient Persia where it meant a walled garden. Thus paradise is designed to secure those inside in beauty and peace. However, such a life is also monotonous because perfection is unchangeable. </p><p> Life beyond paradise is complex and difficult, and the relevant myth is that of the hero, the being who rescues civilization from the chaos monster. We fanaticize about being such heroes and tend to worship heroes as a result. </p><p> The Eden Paradox represents the clash between our longing for paradise and our longing to be heroes. It also represents the clash between the first two stages of individuation, the preconscious and the ego-expansion stages. Thus, it has the potential two prevent one in its grip from reaching full maturity. It occurs in both individuals and groups. In individuals it manifests as inconsistent behavior with swings from joy in security to joy in saving others. In groups it manifests as a clash between a leader who acts like a deity and the followers who become passive worshipers who have lost their individuality.</p><p> If there is a cure for the Eden Paradox, it should be found in the final stage of individuation when wholeness results and in its associated myths of spiritual transformation. However, neither has a relationship to the Eden Paradox because those in its grip are not sufficiently mature to surrender part of our egos to the Self, the potential for wholeness in our unconscious minds. Thus they are trapped in eternal adolescence.</p><p> The Eden Paradox represents a central truth about humanity: We always want what we don&rsquo;t have. If we feel secure, we want challenge; if we are constantly challenged, we want a quiet life. To be human is to be dissatisfied and, thus, open to the emotional swings caused by the Eden Paradox.</p><p> Key words: mythology, earthly paradise, hero myths, Eden, Jungian psychology, individuation</p>

This study examines Emerson's influence on Melville's works from Mardi through The Confidence-Man. Each work demonstrates Melville's deep concern and keen interest in Emerson's optimistic idealism and transcendentalism and documents his changing attitude toward key Emersonian concepts. Melville questions and interprets Emerson's ideas of self-reliance and subjectivity and explores in detail Emerson's way of seeing nature and the world. Since Emerson's epistemology and ontology are epitomized in the images of "eye" and "star," Melville utilizes these images to express his response to and interpretation of Emerson. In this process he suggests the ways in which both men were geniuses of their times and possessed "a correspondent coloring." As generations of critics have noticed, Emerson's influence on Melville's work is prominent and pervasive, but it is also, at times implicit and ambiguous. In my reading of the novels, I explore the way in which Melville at once acknowledges Emerson's influence and calls a number of his crucial concepts into question. Central here are Emerson's theories of seeing and reading, problems of perception and interpretation. Though Melville agrees with Emerson's idea of the world as "an open book" or a text, he is suspicious of reading that book, for, as Melville understands it, nature is indecipherable or inscrutable. As a creative reader and a creative writer, Melville devotes his career to an attempt to write the great American work that Emerson had called for in the "American Scholar." Each of the novels I examine embodies Melville's careful and close reading and critical interpretation of Emerson and his works. Since Melville recognized Emerson as an "uncommon man" and a "great man," he was attracted to his ideas and his works. However, as his career developed, he became more and more aware of what he had called Emerson's "gaping flaw," and that flaw for Melville involved Emerson's influence on the current literary culture as well as Emerson's ideas as such. By the time of The Confidence-Man he had lost his faith in Emerson and the literary world he had come to represent.

<p> This thesis examines concepts of control, alternation, and deletion (CTRL, ALT, DELETE) through the poetic process. By examining some of the specific poems presented here, one can see the effects of literary and social critics including Michel Foucault, Hart Crane, and Adrienne Rich on my poetry. Thematically, structurally, and linguistically, the poems in this thesis address contemporary concerns and ask the reader to face the challenges of postmillennial life with creativity, empathy, and humor.</p>

This dissertation is about shifts in narrative conventions. During the nineteenth century, at the height of industrial capitalism, certain rhetorical conventions were established in migration discourse, which were borrowed from neoclassical economics. Europeans who emigrated to the colonies sought a better life, the prospect of land, and better opportunities. Others who faced religious or political persecution experienced immigration as a condition of exile. In both cases, however, the migrants' reasons for coming and going were borrowed from neoclassical economics. More recently, the rhetoric of 'intentionality' and 'place' can be seen as shifting in stories told by international labor migrants. As the demands of temporary work contracts rapidly change, the where, when, and why of international migration becomes problematic in comparison with the rhetoric of neoclassical liberalism. This dissertation argues that the economics of flexibility and the flexible organization of work hinders the production of future-oriented narratives that inscribe economic rationalism, planning, and individual intention. 'Broken storylines' are examined in three sites: the stories told by temporary labor migrants, the planning structures of multinational corporations (managing the international transfer of employees), and the policies designed by state immigration bureaus (designing visa programs for the entry of skilled laborers). In each case, rational technologies are shown to be short-lasting and/or ineffective. Research was conducted among temporary labor migrants living in Australia and the United States between 2001 and 2005. The theoretical framework for the thesis is borrowed from Max Weber's comparative sociology of economic actions, which stresses the importance of state regulatory mechanisms to the predictability of economic behavior and the construction of substantive rationality. Following the deregulation of state regimes in the 1970s and the 1980s, I argue that a lack of economic stability hampers the production of new ideological narratives by economic institutions. Notably, a deconstructionist approach is adopted whereby historical narratives are viewed as inherently unstable. Tools of analysis are borrowed from literary criticism. The project contributes to the theorization of the relationship between historical narratives and the operations of state market capitalism. It also argues against the claims being made about the rise of a new transnational capitalist class.