No description available.

The development of literary journalism has, in part, been a reaction to the strictures on employing the writer's own voice in conventional journalism. A number of students of the genre have identified voice as a characteristic of literary journalism, but voice has not been viewed—or used—as an important object of critical investigation. The neglect of voice is due partly to its confusion with point-of-view but mainly, this thesis argues, to an overriding emphasis on the analysis of the use of fictional techniques by writers of literary journalism. Tom Wolfe argued famously in The New Journalism that four techniques distinguished the work of literary journalists: the writing of scenes, the capturing of dialog, the use of third-person point-of-view, and the reporting of “status” details. Subsequent students of literary journalism have tended to focus on the use of those techniques in the works they analyze. This study of Tracy Kidder's work illuminates the gradual maturation of technique in one of the most successful practitioners of literary journalism. Kidder's voice developed over the course of a writing career that had, at the time of this writing, produced seven books. From a halting first-person narrative to a narrative that employed the first person rarely and unobtrusively, Kidder moved in this third and subsequent books until his last to an authoritative voice that permitted him to deepen his narratives and explore the broader implications that resonated in the particular subjects he chose. Close examination of his books also reveals a voice that, in many places, employs in description and characterization a metaphoric imagination generally associated with the poet rather than the journalist. Most readings of Kidder's work have focused on his achievement in exhaustively researching a subject, in rendering scenes with accurate dialog and vivid description, in portraying characters in rich detail, and in adopting points-of-view that offer illuminating perspectives. This study denigrates none of that achievement but contends that the analysis of his narrative voice leads to both increased understanding of journalistic technique and richer readings of the individual works.

No description available.

This thesis examines the work of David Bowie and its main theme is identity construction. Bowie was the first male pop star to project a succession of personae and his vocal styles, stage performances, lyrical method and videos are analysed in the light of his redefinitions of himself for public consumption. Bowie's guiding aesthetic was that of collage and his indebtedness to a variety of extra-musical sources, most significantly from literature and the theatre, is discussed. The theses eschews traditional narrative approaches which have been used to discuss individuals within pop, and deals with its subject matter thematically. The thesis describes the context in which Bowie's work is set and discusses the commercial constraints on his art, the relationship between the work and pop ideology, and the struggle between his public and private selves. The interaction between iconography and fandom is shown as playing a crucial role in determining his importance, and this analysis draws on my findings from correspondence with Bowie fans. Bowie's protean art has demanded a multi-disciplinary analytical approach and the thesis discusses the usefulness of musicology, semiotics, subcultural theory and Postmodernist thinking. The thesis suggests a way of explaining individuals in pop through a theoretical equilibrium between text and context.

No description available.

No description available.

Any consideration of the theme of ‘house and home’ leads into discussion on three different levels of discourse. First of all, houses have biographical and historical significance; they are, after all, real places in which real lives are lived. Secondly, home is an ideologically loaded noun, a bastion of value which is inextricably entwined with the notion of the pure woman. Thirdly, in literature, houses are metaphorical places. This thesis is primarily a study of those metaphorical places. It explores representations of ‘house’ and ‘home’ in late Victorian women's poetry. However, it also takes account of the biographical, historical and ideological significance of the house, looking at factors which may have helped to shape each poet's representations of ‘house and home’. The house occupies an ambiguous position in the poetry of the later Victorian period. It is variously imagined as a haunted house, a ruin, an empty house of echoes, and a prison of isolation and despair. At times, the house is a recognisable domestic place (the private house), at others, it is turned into a place of art or poetry, a new aesthetic ‘home’ for the female imagination. In some poems the house is a focus for nostalgia and homesickness. Yet it is also often a place which must be left behind. What unites the poets I have studied is the fact that the houses they inhabit in their work are never entirely their own and they are rarely entirely at home in them. Home is less roomy as a concept. It tends to carry religious or ideological connotations and is usually represented as a place of duty and responsibility. It also comes to mean the final resting place: the grave. Thus house and home, which are not identical terms, are freighted with different meanings. It is the mismatch of these two terms, the tension between them, which I explore in this thesis.

This thesis is a study of the boria, a popular form of Malay theatrical entertainment. In it I attempt to distinguish significant elements in the boria and analyse them in the context of modern Malaysia. Central to the study is a description and analysis of the boria as a drama form today, with particular concentration on characters, stories, songs and music, together with the mechanics of performance. An attempt is made by considering the themes, performers and audience, to investigate boria in the society where it is best developed, that is, in the Malay society of Penang. This involves setting the boria in its historical, political and socio-cultural context. It further requires placing it in the wider perspectives of Malaysian national policies for cultural development and the scholarly study of the performing arts of South-East Asia.

No description available.

No description available.