Thesis (M.A.)--Eastern Illinois University, 1995. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 77-83).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2005. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 219-226).

Thesis (M.A.) in Liberal Studies--University of Maine, 2003. / Includes vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 172-175).

Bibliography: leaves 58-62. / To meet the requirements for the Master of Fine Art degree at the University of Cape Town my intention was to develop a series of sculptural assemblages which address a sense of subjective or poetic reality, using symbolically resonant found and fabricated objects. The body of work is to be understood as a sculptural parallel to (but not illustrative of) Magical Realist literature, in which arcane phenomena are incorporated into a narrative in order to achieve just such a sense of subjective reality.

The American Dream and Other Fiction is a collection of four magical realism short stories focusing on the idea of revealing the human condition through the ridiculous. Although the four stories are written independently of each other, they all carry the similar motif of entrapment. This collection also remarks on the growing absurdity of American capitalism and political correctness. The critical introduction analyzes techniques of verisimilitude in magical realism by traditional authors as well as the techniques of more contemporary magical realists. The collection focuses specifically on the techniques of frontloading and authoritative voice.

No description available.

This dissertation proposes a theory of architectural representation based on a close examination of Carlo Scarpa's drawing practices at the Brion cemetery located in San Vito d'Altivole, Italy. Informed by the literary practice of magic-realism and Massimo Bontempelli's thoughts on the ontology of the real, it projects Scarpa's drawing practices into larger questions of theory that parallel and intersect Giambattista Vico's philosophy of knowledge as making. Architectural drawing is understood herein as a practice that belongs in the realm of magic. In theorizing on the intersection between magic and architectural representation, this dissertation focuses in the twentieth century, where magic in its original sense had seemingly become an obsolete tradition. Magic-realism acts as the contemporary theoretical framework to investigate the question. Such a framework is relevant because the movement acknowledged the perennial gap between how reality is defined and what reality really is. The movement intensified the notion that reality is not given but must be constructed, and its point of departure in the modern world is not something extraordinary, but that which circumvolves everyday life. Structured in nine chapters that investigate a very specific set of drawings, Scarpa's way of working emerges through a very close reading of minimal events that become the locus for the theory proposed here. Architectural drawing understood as place of ambiguous realities offers a unique approach to architects' imagination. Such realities, however, are not a product of aleatory allegories, but they emerge within an immersive and witty approach to the work and the world. / Ph. D.

This thesis contains what I consider to be the best of my work over the course of my three years in the MFA program at Virginia Commonwealth University, and it is meant to demonstrate my range of ability as a creative writer. Included are a portion of my unfinished novel, Twelve Hearts of Clay, as well as a few of my favorite short stories. "Calluses," my foray into experimental writing, is perhaps the most completed piece in the collection, having found publication in the October 2010 issue of Blue Crow Magazine, an Australian literary journal. "Dead Baby Jokes," the short short piece included here, was also published, in Front Porch Flash Fiction, a local anthology from Sink/Swim Press. "An Epic Masterpiece, TBD" veers into the realm of the absurd and "Grace" is my attempt at straightforward realism. "The Dragon's Daughter" is a modern retelling of a medieval folktale. I see the novel, Twelve Hearts of Clay as the heart of the thesis. The concept for the novel came to me slowly, and over the course of a number of drafts, beginning in the Fall of 2010 in Dr. Cokal's Novel Writing Workshop. I've included the first fifty pages in sequence, and then I jump forward in the narrative to events coming down the line. Included are four modern fairy tales that will mark the four different sections of the novel and also serve as a fantastic versions of the main characters' histories and backstories. My novel and many of the stories included here place the magical world of myth and folktale right alongside the realistic world we know and see daily, and elements of each world can seep into the other. These stories are meant to draw on the reader's pre-existing understanding of narrative as a way of processing the world, something I think we learn in the form of childhood stories and fairy tales. The novel's themes and concepts of art, troubled romance, constructed identities, fairy tales and folklore are all reflected in the short stories. Each story takes a single theme and explores it outside of the context of the novel, which is, I believe, a result of the way I've been working, switching back and forth between the novel and stories, depending on which project was frustrating me the least at that moment, but ruminating always on the same questions and concerns.

1 Abstract The thesis examines the relationship of the literary phenomena magical realism and postmodernism. The starting point of the thesis is the statement that both the terms embody various common features (ideological, thematic). The author targets the definition of both styles and their genealogical delimitation in the first part. In the second part, the author relates these two terms to the particular work - the novel The History of Danish Dreams of the danish author Peter Høeg. It is possible to find demonstrable principles of both magical realism and postmodernism in this wider prose. The author of this thesis illustrates principles and themes with examples from the novel and the interpretations.

Scattered Sandpipers is a Young Adult novel excerpt. Seventeen-year-old Bee, lost her mother two years ago in a car crash. As she denies and represses her grief, strange and magical things begin to happen.