This thesis investigates the construction of identity in relation to an other. It considers three writers who, working at moments when the nature of selfhood was an urgent issue, conduct profound and original enquiries into the question of self- construction, and seeks both to reassess their contributions to this debate, and, in bringing their preoccupations and methods to bear upon each other, to open up new ways of approaching and reading their work. Considering a range of socio-cultural and religious forms of otherness -- the cannibal, the witch, the Jew, the aristocrat, the woman, the divine -- it embraces material from a number of important modem critical fields, and suggests how these topics might be combined to offer a coherent statement about the enduring issue of s elf- fashioning. The thesis seeks to map out a trajectory of decreasing investment in external communities, and an increasing perception of the self as a source and agent in the construction of identity. Looking in turn at the work of Montaigne, Proust and Woolf, it argues that where the Essais construct complex orders which appropriate the other to reinforce the identity of the self, Proust and Woolf increasingly, although gradually, and by no means always successfully, attempt to negotiate a less precisely- engaged relationship between other and self, and to assign the other a less constitutive role in the realization and expression of identity. The thesis also considers more briefly contexts in which this trajectory is reversed. To the extent that they examine modernist subjectivity, Proust and Woolf articulate an anxiety about the separation of self and world which leads to an attempted recuperation of the integrated orders depicted by Montaigne.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Rutgers University, 2009. / "Graduate Program in Literatures in English." Includes bibliographical references (p. 269-295).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Rutgers University, 2008. / "Graduate Program in Literatures in English." Includes bibliographical references (p. 176-188).

This thesis compares contemporary anglophone and francophone rewritings of traditional fairy tales for adults. Examining material dating from the 1990s to the present, including novels, novellas, short stories, comics, televisual and filmic adaptations, this thesis argues that while the revisions studied share similar themes and have comparable aims, the methods for inducing wonder (where wonder is defined as the effect produced by the text rather than simply its magical contents) are diametrically opposed, and it is this opposition that characterises the difference between the two types of rewriting. While they all engage with the hybridity of the fairy-tale genre, the anglophone works studied tend to question traditional narratives by keeping the fantasy setting, while francophone works debunk the tales not only in relation to questions of content, but also aesthetics. Through theoretical, historical, and cultural contextualisation, along with close readings of the texts, this thesis aims to demonstrate the existence of this francophone/anglophone divide and to explain how and why the authors in each tradition tend to adopt such different views while rewriting similar material. This division is the guiding thread of the thesis and also functions as a springboard to explore other concepts such as genre hybridity, reader-response, and feminism. The thesis is divided into two parts; the first three chapters work as an in-depth literature review: after examining, in chapters one and two, the historical and contemporary cultural field in which these works were created, chapter three examines theories of fantasy and genre hybridity. The second part of the thesis consists of textual studies and comparisons between francophone and anglophone material and is built on three different approaches. The first (chapter four) looks at selected texts in relation to questions of form, studying the process of world building and world creation enacted when authors combine and rewrite several fairy tales in a single narrative world. The second (chapter five) is a thematic approach which investigates the interactions between femininity, the monstrous, and the wondrous in contemporary tales of animal brides. Finally, chapter six compares rewritings of the tale of ‘Bluebeard’ with a comparison hinged on the representation of the forbidden room and its contents: Bluebeard’s cabinet of wonder is one that he holds sacred, one where he sublimates his wives’ corpses, and it is the catalyst of wonder, terror, and awe. The three contextual chapters and the three text-based studies work towards tracing the tangible existence of the division postulated between francophone and anglophone texts, but also the similarities that exist between the two cultural fields and their roles in the renewal of the fairy-tale genre.

This project is a literature-focused investigation of age-related discourse in the Modernist texts of James Joyce, Jean Rhys, and George Orwell. This study locates anxiety about ageing as a consistent trope of Modernist literature in reaction to the shifting and uncertain landscape of the period. Despite the meaningful differences in perspective, gender, nationality, and chronological placement of these authors within the spectrum of the Modernist period, each foregrounds age anxiety as a central theme and tension in their works. Incorporating dread around ageing in distinct manners, these authors expose the irreconcilable disconnect between a cultural call for newness and the inevitable ageing of the authors themselves. This study highlights the largely unexamined motif of age anxiety in the work of Modernism’s most esteemed and compelling authors.

Esta pesquisa qualitativa promove reflexões sobre a prática pedagógica no ensino de literaturas de língua inglesa em cursos superiores de formação de professores, a partir de dados coletados da prática docente do próprio pesquisador e em diálogo com a perspectiva teórica dos novos letramentos. O viés metodológico adotado é o da autoetnografia, abordagem de análise de práticas sociais que se define no entrecruzamento da etnografia e da autobiografia. O estudo narra e analisa dois eventos pedagógicos que focalizam a interpretação de textos literários em inglês, a saber: a) uma prática de interpretação colaborativa em aulas presenciais; b) a construção de um espaço virtual e a formação de uma comunidade online dedicada à construção colaborativa de sentidos. A discussão teórica que acompanha a apresentação das práticas tem como norte o conceito de crítica e sua acomodação às teorias dos letramentos, as quais sublinham a dimensão social e ideológica das práticas pedagógicas e alinham-se com os objetivos de formação cidadã para a democracia em resposta aos desafios contemporâneos de construção de espaços sociais que acolham a convivência com a diferença e nutram a responsabilidade ética. A avaliação feita sobre o potencial pedagógico das práticas de interpretação colaborativa, presencias e virtuais, aponta para possibilidades concretas de desenvolvimento da criticidade em tais eventos; nos casos estudados, algumas dessas possibilidades foram realizadas. / This qualitative study gathers data from the researcher/professors own pedagogical practices to build up a discussion about teaching literatures in English in the context of teacher education undergraduate courses from the theoretical standpoint of the new literacies studies. It embodies the methodological principles of autoethnography through which the analysis of social practices intermingles with an autobiographic approach. It narrates and analyzes two pedagogical events which focus on the collaborative interpretation of literary texts in English: a) the practice of teaching through face-to-face collaborative interpretation; b) the development of virtual spaces and the formation of an online interpretive community devoted to meaning making. The theoretical discussion that takes place alongside the description of such events concentrates on the conceptualization of criticism/critique and the placement of such notions within the academic field of literacies studies, a current which highlights the social and ideological dimensions of pedagogical practices besides framing its objectives around the idea of citizenship education towards democracy as a response to contemporary challenges for building social spaces that may welcome living across differences and nurture ethical responsibility. Upon assessing the pedagogical potential of collaborative interpretive practices, virtual or otherwise, this study finds real possibilities for the development of critical thinking. In the examples analyzed herein some of those possibilities came true.

The story of Thomas Day’s attempt to educate a young girl according to the theories of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, with the aim of marrying her, has often been referred to as a footnote in Enlightenment history. However, the girl chosen by Day, Sabrina Sidney, has never been placed at the centre of any historical enquiry, nor has the experiment been explored in any depth. This study places Sabrina at its centre to investigate its impact on her and to examine the intellectual and societal debates that informed Thomas Day’s decision to educate a wife. This thesis argues that Sabrina Sidney was in a constant state of construction, which changed depending on a myriad of factors and that constructions of her were fluid and flexible. These constructions were both conscious and unconscious and crucially, they were created as much by Sabrina as by those around her. This research concludes that placing minor historical figures to the centre of historical enquiry fundamentally changes the histories of which they are a part and that it is possible to use a variety of sources to construct a rich and detailed biographical study that offers a new perspective on the English Enlightenment.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Rutgers University, 2009. / "Graduate Program in Literatures in English." Includes bibliographical references (p. 235-241).

This thesis proposes a comparative study of some imaginative responses to the Great War in English and French writing. The principal works discussed range from Peguy's anticipation of the war in his poem Eve (1913) to David Jones's recreative memory of it in his poem In Parenthesis (1937). The survey is limited to British and French works, and does not include American and colonial contributions, or the war-writings of other combatant countries. The thesis examines the various ways in which twelve authors - six English and six French - developed and expressed their individual response to the Great War. It is not based on an imaginary anthology of the dozen best war-writings. The twelve examples have been chosen to illustrate and cover as wide a range as possible of the ways the historical experience could be met and interpreted in literature. They include writings by civilians, and by commissioned and non-commissioned soldiers; narrative and discursive prose, essays, letters, and verse. The first chapter considers the war-writings of Rupert Brooke, H. G. Wells and T. E. Hulme; and the second chapter discusses the work of Charles Peguy, Henri Barbusse and Jacques Vache. Chapter 3 is concerned with three novels, by Jean Cocteau, Richard Aldington, and Proust. In the second half of the work, a chapter each is given to Wilfred Owen, Guillaume Apollinaire and David Jones. War-writings by definition include history, and even those most innocent of a propaganda intention are likely to betray an interpretation of history, as well as having some documentary value and, at a less visible level, enacting a private drama. The literature of the Great War, considered as a sub-genre, is the product both of shared and of individual, intimate experience. The purpose of this study has been to suggest the variety of possible literary responses to the Great War; to discover what these responses are likely to have in common, and thus to offer a sketch-map of the topography of the 1914-1918 war in English and French writing; and, by locating these works in a context of European literature as well as of world history, to allow each text discussed reciprocally to illuminate and criticise the others.

My thesis seeks to challenge the existing understanding of the relationship between Romanticism and Post-Modernism in order to put into question the traditional historiographical view of the division of literary history into a series of discrete epochs, each one consecutive to the passing away of the other. My methodology devolves upon a close reading and analysis of the work of three writers and philosophers: the philosopher Immanuel Kant, the 'Post-Modern' French feminist writer Helene Cixous and the 'Romantic' philosopher and poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Through my examination of the oeuvres of these three writers I seek to demonstrate that, in the domain of subjectivity, there is a strong commonality of approach to the question of the construction of the subject in despite of the gulf of time that separates them. In this way I demonstrate that the historiographical approach, which involves the fissuring of the works of writers and philosophers into discrete historical events, is fundamentally susceptible of being put into question.