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This study examines the political theory of modernity as it appears in the work of contemporary Latin American writers and thinkers (pensadores). It is designed to help bridge the gap that separates the North American and European dialogue on modernity from the parallel dialogue on modernity currently flourishing in Latin America. The dialogues are brought together in two ways. First, the theory of modernity, which is still often thought to apply only or primarily to the developed world, is subjected to the challenge of the Latin American political and cultural context. Many features of the theory are found to apply equally well to both cultures, and these features provide the basis for the second "bridging" of the two dialogues, in which some of the most interesting Latin American responses to the problems of modernity are brought to the attention of North American and European political scholars. After reviewing the problem of modernity in some depth, the work of Jose Ortega y Gasset is presented both as a link to German philosophical thought and as a pattern for subsequent discussion of modernity in the Spanish-speaking world. Ortega's uniquely Latin way of understanding modernity is then compared to other philosophical approaches, and placed within the context of political literature in Latin America. Literature is shown to be a uniquely suitable forum for conveying Ortega's approach to modernity because it expresses in itself the central role of arts and culture in his political thought. The balance of the study focuses on the works of three contemporary Latin American authors: Octavio Paz of Mexico, Gabriel Garcia Marquez of Colombia, and Mario Vargas Llosa of Peru. Each author's major works are placed within the context of the model Latin American response to modernity inspired by Ortega and analyzed for significant contributions to the discussion of modernity. Their most important insights center around the need to assimilate the value of tradition in a new approach to modernity by means of some form of democratic dialogue combined with critical appreciation for the cultural uniqueness of nations.

A whole class of people is largely missing in contemporary Anglophone literary studies: readers. This dissertation argues that readers matter to our understanding of literature and merit study as an independent object of analysis. I make the case for the value of studying readers through ethnographic analysis of reading communities across four contemporary organizations that claim to use literary reading and discussion for a particular social end. Changing Lives Through Literature (CLTL) is an alternative-sentencing program that claims to use literary reading and discussion to reform criminal offenders. Reflection Point is a professional training organization that claims to use literary reading and discussion to improve workplace productivity. The Reader is a charitable organization that claims to use literary reading and discussion to support people’s mental health. And Reese’s Book Club (RBC) is a media company that claims to use literary reading and discussion to empower women. By studying these communities of readers — by analyzing, as I call it, “literature in action” — we develop a clearer picture of literature as a social object. Neither, in absolute terms, autonomously resistant nor instrumentally reducible, literary texts are material forms with context-dependent yet medium-specific effects that are activated in particular contexts of reception. Literature is not simply whatever people do with it. However, at a time when literary scholars are making claims for the social value of literary forms even as “serious” literary reading seems to be becoming ever-more socially marginal, it is important to develop an understanding of how literature has effects and how literature is valued by readers now, if we are to make more substantiated claims about its social status and function. Through ethnographic research of these four reading communities, I show how readers — engaging with an aesthetically and generically broad range of literary texts — put literature to use in ways that diverge from the stated aims of their organizations and that complicate common assumptions about literature’s social value.

Brian John Hooper. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2000. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 118-149). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / Preface --- p.iv / Introduction --- p.vi / Chapter Chapter One: --- """The Matrix and Fusion in Hong Kong Anglophone Literature""" --- p.1 / Chapter Chapter Two: --- """The Matrix and its Malcontents in Acheson's Flagrant Harbour´ح" --- p.39 / Chapter Chapter Three: --- """Lee's Running Dog´ح" --- p.65 / Chapter Chapter Four: --- """Mo's Signifying Monkey King""" --- p.76 / Conclusion --- p.106 / Bibliography --- p.109

In 1834, Belinsky melodramatically proclaimed, “We have no literature”. He was far from alone; similar sentiments are echoed in numerous critical essays and articles of the 1820s and 30s. These dire assessments of the state of Russian literature reflect the urgent concern the question of national identity had become to intellectuals of the period in the first few decades of the nineteenth century. In the wake of its victory in the Napoleonic War, Russia had won considerable military and political power in Europe. Culturally, however, there was a palpable sense of insecurity vis-a-vis Western Europe. Critics and writers bemoaned the derivative nature of Russian literature, calling for the creation of a national literature that would reflect the unique essence of the Russian national character. The means by which a sense of Russianness or “narodnost’” could be created in literature would become a central concern and topic of debate for writers and critics of the first four decades of the nineteenth century. Folklore was thought to be one way of producing the desired narodnost’. Based on German Romantic theories of nationalism, particularly those of Herder, it was argued that the “folk poetry” of the simple people retained a pure form of the national spirit untainted by foreign influence. It was to this folk poetry that many writers turned in their attempts to create a national literature. There were attempts to create works that imitated folk ballads, songs, and fairy tales as well as incorporating folkloric elements in larger literary works. This period also saw the early efforts to collect authentic examples of folklore from among the people - Pushkin ranks among these early collectors as well as Kireevsky. The practice of introducing elements of folklore into high literature was more complicated, however, than the theory would have one believe. Rather than being the unadulterated voice of the Russian nation taken directly from the people, the “folklore” that appeared in literary texts during this period was more often than not an amalgamation of many influences from both high and low literature and both foreign and native sources. Indeed, it would probably be more productive to think of the folkloric elements of literary texts in this period as being more representations of folklore than as “authentic” folklore. In this dissertation I will examine how writers, through the figure of their various narrators, interact with the folk material of their narratives. My analysis will focus on Alexander Pushkin, Nikolai Gogol and Vladimir Dal. My emphasis will be on analyzing how narrators situate themselves in relation to the folk elements of the text and how their attitudes dramatize the various issues and problems that arise from the gentry writer’s encounter with the cultural other represented by the folk. In my exploration of folklore in Pushkin’s works, I trace the development of his relationship with folklore from one of the earliest of his works, Ruslan and Liudmila, through the middle years of his career, represented by Eugene Onegin, where he makes his most explicit statement about Russian national identity. I conclude with a consideration of his fairytales, which were written towards the end of his artistic career. Through these works, I trace the shift of Pushkin’s narrator’s stance from a position of relative distance from the folkloric elements of his narrative toward a greater sense of identification with his folkloric material. The chapter on Gogol is devoted to the first volume of his Evenings on a Farm Near Dikan’ka. My focus will be on how the figure of the author is splintered and diluted as editor Rudy Panko presents the reader with stories he heard from storytellers in his village, who in turn, heard their stories from still other storytellers, leading to series of nested storytellers. I will also examine how these various storytellers display an array of attitudes toward their folk narratives and how these relationships are enacted in the text. My final chapter is devoted to Vladimir Dahl and his First Five collection of folk tales. I will consider the significance of Dahl’s ideas about the centrality of the language of the common Russian people for the construction of a national identity and how these ideas found expression in his folk tales. As with the other chapters, my focus will be on the figure of the narrator and how his attitudes toward the folkloric elements of his tales form an image of Russian national identity. I hope to show through these explorations how the writer’s engagement with folklore contributed to the image of the Russia and the construction of Russian national identity in nineteenth century literature.

Taking its direction from seminal works in the field of play theory, this dissertation examines ludic elements in the textual practices and intellectual community of the Union of Real Art (Ob”edinenie real’nogo iskusstva or OBeRIu). I use the concept of play to elucidate how the group used literature as an unconventional medium for the pursuit of special forms of knowledge and to explore the intimate genre of performance that shaped the association’s collective identity as a group of writers and thinkers. The four chapters that comprise this dissertation each examine one facet of how play shaped the OBeRIu’s shared literary practice. In the first chapter, I contrast the performative strategies of the OBeRIu members (or the oberiuty) with those of the Russian Futurists, demonstrating that the OBeRIu approach to spectacle possesses an ‘existential’ dimension that is quite alien to that of Futurism. I argue that Futurist performance is best characterized by what Hans-Georg Gadamer has called “aesthetic differentiation,” a hermeneutic tradition that foregrounds the autonomy of the artwork while ignoring its rootedness in broader spheres of cultural activity. In contrast, the members of the OBeRIu (the oberiuty), were engaged in what some theorists have called deep play: they showed little interest in the épatage tradition practices by the Futurists and drew no meaningful distinction between art and life.I suggest that performative strategies of the oberiuty can be productively interpreted according to Gadamer’s concept of “self-presentation,” a notion that proves immensely useful for understanding not only the group’s theater, but their written work as well. In my second chapter, I show how the OBeRIu’s playful approach to writing was underscored by their commitment to an epistemic understanding of literature: they believed that literary pursuits constitute a unique form of knowledge. I suggest that the texts produced by the oberity frustrate the boundary that supposedly distinguishes poetry and philosophy. I demonstrate how even a playfully ‘absurd’ text such as Daniil Kharms’s “Blue Notebook No. 10” can be read as a work of philosophy—in this case as a kind of performative refutation of Kantian metaphysics. I suggest that the epistemic register of OBeRIu literature can be likened to what Roger Caillois has called games of ilinx—their texts induce a kind of cognitive vertigo that pushes readers towards forms of knowledge that cannot be properly conceptualized. As a form of epistemic play, OBeRIu texts open onto the world even as they exist ‘beyond’ it, inviting readers to appreciate in poetry what Gadamer called “the joy of knowledge.” In the third chapter of this dissertation I argue that the commitment of the oberiuty to an epistemic understanding of literary art places them squarely at odds with premises fundamental to the theories of Russian Formalism. Indeed, I demonstrate how the OBeRIu as a group deliberately problematize the Formalist concept of literariness. I demonstrate that the poetic episteme of the group took direction from Russian Orthodox theology, particularly the concept of the eikon. The epistemic nature of OBeRIu ‘nonsense’ precludes interpreting their texts as exercises in Shklovskian estrangement. Instead, I suggest that Gadamer’s notion of recognition is invaluable for understanding the work of the oberiuty. Their literary work articulates something and in doing so adds to our understanding of the world. In the final chapter I consider the community of chinari, which constituted a kind of intimate ‘inner circle’ for the OBeRIu that was both more private and longer lived than the Union of Real Art itself. I suggest that the chinari circle can be understood as part of a discernible line of extra-institutional play communities in the history of Russian letters that began with the Arzamas Society of Obscure People. I argue that play was the raison d’être of the chinari community and largely defined the sense they had of themselves as an intellectual community. Considering closely Leonid Lipavsky’s Conversations, a more or less authentic record of the group’s discussions between 1933 and 1934, I suggest that the group used the speech genre of bullshit quite productively—it was both a fun way to explore ideas and, more importantly, a phenomenally effective way to foster their collective bond.

Thesis (MA)--University of Stellenbosch, 2001. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This study examines the socio-cultural issues in the praise poems of three Xhosa chiefs, namely, Nkosi Whyte Lent Mbali Maqoma of the amaJingqi, Nkosi Doyle Mpuhle Jongilanga of Dushane of Ndlambe and Nkosi Sipho Mangindi Burns-Ncamashe of amaGwali of Tshiwo. What comes out clear in the poems of these chiefs is that they experienced power problems after and before 1994. Their poetry protests about these political influences and calls for the restoration of the dignity of the chieftancy. The socio-cultural aspects of the praise poems of each chief are devoted to a chapter: Nkosi Whyte Lent Mbali Maqoma in Chapter 2, Nkosi Doyle Mpuhle Jongilanga in Chapter 3, and Nkosi Sipho Mangindi Burns-Ncamashe in Chapter 4. Attention is paid to each chiefs genealogy, praise names, names of oxen because of traditional significance in the life of the chief, the chiefs mother, and place names which have historical importance in the life of the chief. As part of the theoretical framework of praise poetry, praise poetry theory is handled in Chapter 1 of the study. It is concluded in Chapter 5 that Xhosa paramount chiefs still play and will playa crucial socio-cultural role in their communities. They are not only concerned about being custodians of culture but also with the development of their nations. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Hierdie studie ondersoek sosio-kulturele vraagstukke in die prysgedigte van drie Xhosa opperhoofde, naamlik opperhoof Whyte Lent Mbali Maqoma van die amaJingqi, opperhoof Doyle Mpuhle Jongilanga van die Dushane groep van die Ndlambe en opperhoof Sipho Mangindi Burns-Ncamashe van die amaGwali groep van die Tshiwo. Die beeld wat na vore kom na aanleiding van 'n analise van die opperhoofde se prysgedigte dat hulle 'n magsprobleem ondervind het sowel voor as na 1994. Deur hulle poesie teken hulle protes aan oor bepaalde politieke invloede en hulle doen 'n beroep daarop dat die waardigheid van die hoofmanskap herstel word. Die sosio-kulturele vraagstukke wat na vore kom in die prysgedigte van elke opperhoof word behandel in individuele hoofstukke. Hoofstuk 2 ondersoek die prysgedigte van opperhoof Whyte Lent Mbali Maqoma, Hoofstuk 3 die prysgedigte van opperhoof Doyle Mpuhle Jongilanga, en Hoofstuk 4, die prysgedigte van opperhoof Sipho Mangindi Burns- Ncamashe. Aandag word gegee aan die genealogie van elke opperhoof, prysgroetvorme, die name van beeste, op grond van hulle tradisionele betekenis in die lewe van 'n hoofman, die opperhoof se moeder, asook plekname wat 'n historiese belang het in die lewe van die opperhoof. As deel van die teoretiese raamwerk vir die studie word die teorie van die prysgedig behandel in Hoofstuk 1. Hoofstuk 5 gee 'n samevatting van die belangrikste aspekte van die studie en motiveer die gevolgtrekking dat opperhoofde steeds 'n essenstele sosio-kulturele rol speel en ook in die toekoms sal speel in hulle gemeenskappe. Hulle is nie slegs die bewakers van die kultuurwaardes van hulle gemeenskappe nie, maar is ook fundamenteel betrokke by die ontwikkeling van hulle gemeenskappe. / ISISHWANKATHELO Olu luphando ngemiba yentlalo nenkcubeko kwizibongo zeenkosi zamaXhosa ezintathu, uNkosi uWhyte Lent Mbali Maqoma wamaJingqi, uNkosi uDoyle Mpuhle Jongilanga wemiDushane kaNdlambe noNkosi uSipho Mangindi Burns-Ncamashe wamaGwali kaTshiwo. Into evela ngokucacileyo kwizibongo ezingezi nkosi kukuba ngaphambili komnyaka we-1994 nasemva kwawo zifumene ubunzima ekulawuleni abantu bazo. Kwezi zibongo ukukhalaza ngokuphazamisa kwezopolithiko kulawulo Iwazo nelizwi lokubuyiselwa kwesidima sobukhosi kuvela ngokuthe gca. Iveliswa kwisahluko ngasinye imiba ephathelele kwezentlalo nenkcubeko evela kwizibongo zenkosi nganye: uNkosi Whyte Lent Mbali Maqoma kwisahluko 2, uNkosi Doyle Mpuhle Jongilanga kwisahluko 3, noNkosi uSipho Mangindi Burns-Ncamashe kwisahluko 4. Kuqwalaselwe umlibo wenkosi nganye, izikhahlelo zayo, amagama eenkomo ezinentsingiselo kwinkosi leyo, unina wenkosi namagama eendawo ezinentsingiselo kubomi benkosi nganye. Isikhokhelo esiyithiyori yezibongo sinikwe kwisahluko 1 solu phando. Kwisahluko 5 kuphethwa ngokuba iinkosi zamaXhosa zisenenxaxheba enkulu kwaye zisaya kuhlala zinayo kwimiba yentlalo nenkcubeko yabantu bazo. Aziphelelanga nje ekubeni zigcine inkcubeko yoluntu koko zikwanoxanduva lokunyusa umgangatho wobomi babantu bazo.

Charles Dickens é um autor cujos méritos literários são, muitas vezes, obscurecidos por sua enorme popularidade, sendo seus livros relegados por muitos à categoria de mero entretenimento. O propósito deste trabalho é analisar na forma do romance como - apesar de temas e estilo que se apresentam como populares - o texto de Hard Times pode revelar um interessante e profundo diálogo entre literatura e sociedade. Sentimentalismo e melodrama são estudados como formas tipicamente dickensianas de representação dos conflitos e transformações sociais que afetaram o século XIX. / Charles Dickens has sometimes had his literary qualities darkened by his enormous popularity, and his books have been considered by many critics as nothing but entertainment. The objective of this work is to analyse how the form of the novel - in spite of its popular style and theme- promotes in Hard Times an interesting and profound dialogue between literature and society. Sentimentalism and melodrama are studied as typically Dickensian forms of representation of social changes and conflicts in the 19th Century.

by Elaine Chiu-ling Yam. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1997. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 162-181). / Acknowledgments / Abstract / Chapter Chapter 1: --- Introduction - On Literature and Public Sphere --- p.1 / Chapter Chapter 2: --- Cultural Communication and Chinese Writers in Deng Era --- p.24 / Chapter Chapter 3: --- A Master of Irony - Wang Shuo's Wanzhu Literature --- p.42 / Chapter Chapter 4: --- A Race of Heroes - Mo Yan's Ideal Lifeworld --- p.77 / Chapter Chapter 5: --- In Search of the Self - Jia Pingwa's City of Decadence --- p.111 / Chapter Chapter 6: --- Conclusion - The Generation of Alternative Values --- p.144 / Bibliography --- p.162

This study, Social commitment in some Zulu literary works published during the apartheid era, was motivated by what was perceived as arrogant and superficial observations by a number of especially foreign-based critics, that all the literature in South Africa African-languages published during the apartheid period was children stuff, not worth the paper it was written on, and that it did not show any effort at commitment to, or at reflecting on the weighty social problems that civil society in South Africa had to bear. In response to such criticism, the study highlights aspects of social commitment in selected literary works, and it also sketches the committed approach as part of the African literary outlook. It traces commitment in oral traditional literature, where it appears that the great preoccupation of the oral society was that none of the achievements of the human spirit get lost. The proverbs clearly reflect on, and offer directives for, day-to-day problems, while myths represent reflections on the fate of man and the world. Folktales use common problems in life and family as the basis for the conflictual situations to be resolved. Izibongo (praise poems) declaim the heroic deeds of our leaders, trace our history, and demonstrate that, even in moments of glory, the needs of the people must be taken care of on pain of being negatively labelled with invectives that will reverberate through the centuries. In a brief survey on the early 20th century stages of South African literature in African languages (Zulu, Xhosa, S. Sotho) it was noted that our pioneer writers made a gigantic effort to experiment with genres, forms and contents, and, in the process, to reflect on the anxieties caused by the often bewildering encounter of Mrica with the west. Our early writers excel in creating poetry that amalgamates tradition and modernization, but in the narrative genres they seem to be able to be more genial and creative when they deal with historical material, possibly because they feel more at home with an inspiration that imitates the glorious praise poetry and are thus able to deal with the present in terms of past events, without upsetting critics or education authorities. Then the decades of the expected maturity arrived -from the 1960s to the 1990s, but the seeds of vibrant originality sown during the previous period were cruelly trampled over and squashed, possibly by both the apartheid-appointed censors and by the fear that they would object to any 'committed' writing and destine it for the dustbin. Fear, self-imposed censorship, and possibly more than a little laziness hampered vigorous developments of literatures that had appeared very promising at their emergence. Listed here are a number of works in Xhosa, Southern Sotho, Zulu and Shona. The contributions of English and Afrikaans works to South African literary development are also outlined. The fact that most works were meant for schools caused a further restraint on originality and creativity, although it should have spurred the authors on to do their very best, because through the schools they were moulding the future of the nation. But a number of authors were valiantly able to overcome the general self-defeating frustrations and to rise to the challenge of producing excellent material, outstanding in both form and content. Some such works are examined and exemplified in the thesis. One of I.S. Kubheka's novels, Ulaka LwabaNguni, is analysed to show the depth of the conflict between Africa and the west, between country and city life, between western schooled and traditionally educated people. The new ways could become a monster that swallows everything and everybody, specially if one is unable to keep the animal on the chain of ubuntu that allows only as much westernization of the mind as can go hand in hand with the greatest traditional values. Then follows the analysis of three historically based plays and one novel. History offers the opportunity of speaking about the present by describing the past. Msimang and Zondi do exactly this, and offer visions of today's social problems that become clearer when placed on the lips of people such as Mkabayi, Shaka, Cetshwayo, Bhambatha. Each of these works is a clarion call to wake up and be counted, because the new Africa is rising, both soulful and promising, full of expectations if one is able to overcome present day restrictions. The author of this research fervently hopes that this work will produce better understanding among the South African races, and give birth to an era of multilingualism and multiculturalism, where the differences are treatgd115 gifts rather than obstacles. The country is great, and its populations present an extraordinary wealth of life and experience, especially when all is viewed through the prism of the colours of the rainbow, generously reflected in the new South African flag. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of Natal, Durban, 2002.