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This dissertation offers a new interpretation of the metaphysics of two seventeenth-century women philosophers – Margaret Cavendish (1623–1673) and Anne Conway (1631–1679) – and brings to light an unnoticed tradition in seventeenth-century philosophy. I argue that both Cavendish and Conway can be understood as panpsychist-materialist monists: despite their other differences, they agree that there is one kind of substance in nature or creation, and that the single sort of substance always displays material features and mental capacities. Further, I propose that Cavendish and Conway are joined by the physician Francis Glisson (1597–1677) and the poet John Milton (1608–1674) as examples of a distinct panpsychist-materialist tendency in early modern England. ‘Panpsychist-materialist monism’ may at first seem too clunky to serve as the moniker of a movement, but it earns its keep by accurately capturing three elements of the figures’ systems that, when studied together as a group of related commitments, reveal the philosophical significance of each person’s views. My reading therefore bears on the project of interpreting Cavendish and Conway on their own terms and changes the way their context should be understood. Moreover, to the extent that contemporary philosophers of mind draw on philosophers from history in the formulation of their current views, the work presented in this dissertation stands to make a difference in present-day philosophy as well.

Mémoire numérisé par la Direction des bibliothèques de l'Université de Montréal.

Titre de l'écran-titre (visionné le 29 juin 2023) / Ce mémoire de maîtrise porte sur l'interaction des langages littéraires et visuels dans le contexte du livre d'artiste. Il examine l'effet de la présentation d'un texte de non-fiction sous forme de livre d'artiste afin de déterminer si l'expérience de lecture résultante représente mieux la singularité d'une expérience humaine précise. Le ventre des galets constitue la première partie du mémoire. Il s'agit d'un récit de non-fiction portant sur un voyage en Irlande et sur le deuil d'un parent, le tout présenté sous forme de livre d'artiste. Le texte en fragments est séparé en carnets et entrecroisé de reproductions d'aquarelles réalisées au fil de l'écriture. Le récit imprimé et relié est contenu dans un boîtier réalisé à la main et l'objet est essentiel à l'expérience de lecture. La deuxième partie du mémoire, à travers l'analyse du livre d'artiste de Margaret Atwood et Charles Pachter The Illustrated Journals of Susanna Moodie, étudie le rapport entre le texte et l'image et l'effet émergeant du mélange des deux. L'analyse est précédée d'une démarche de clarification de deux domaines - l'écriture du réel et le livre d'artiste - afin de comprendre les caractéristiques clés de chaque discipline. La troisième partie de ce mémoire est un retour sur la démarche créative : l'écriture, la réécriture, la construction et la reconstruction du récit et du livre objet. Elle examine également les défis connexes à l'écriture du réel, plus précisément à l'écriture du deuil. / This master's thesis explores the interaction of literary and visual languages within artist's books. It examines the impact of presenting a nonfiction text as an artist's book in order to determine if the reading experience evokes more effectively the singularity of a specific human experience. Le ventre des galets is the first part of this master's thesis. It is a nonfiction narrative about a trip to Ireland and about the grieving process for a parent. Presented in fragments, the text is intertwined with a visual narrative consisting of reproductions of watercolour paintings realized during the writing of the narrative. The book is printed and bound and is contained in a handmade case; the object is essential to the reading experience. The second part of the thesis is an analysis of the artist's book by Margaret Atwood and Charles Pachter, The Illustrated Journals of Susanna Moodie, focusing on the relationship between words and images and the effect that the combination creates. The analysis is preceded by a survey of two fields - nonfiction writing and the artist's book - to clarify each field and better understand the key characteristics of each. The third part of this thesis is an observation of my own creative process: writing, rewriting, constructing, and reconstructing of the nonfiction narrative and the book as an object. This section also touches on the challenges associated with the writing of nonfiction, specifically as it relates to revisiting and writing about grief.

In this thesis, I explore the careers and songs of Florence Price and Margaret Bonds—two African American female composers who were part of the Chicago Renaissance. Price and Bonds were members of extensive, often informal, networks of Black women that fostered creativity and forged paths to success for Black female musicians during this era. Building on the work of Black feminist scholar Patricia Hill Collins, I contend that these efforts reflect Black feminist principles of Black women working together to create supportive environments, uplift one another, and foster resistance. I further argue that Black women's agency enabled the careers of Price and Bonds and that elements of Black feminism are not only present in their professional relationships, but also in their songs. Initially, I discuss how the background of the Harlem and Chicago Renaissances and racial uplift ideology shaped these women's artistic environment. I then examine how Bonds and Price incorporated, updated, and expanded versions of these ideals in their music and careers. Drawing on the scholarship of Rae Linda Brown, Angela Davis, and Tammy L. Kernodle, I analyze Price's "Song to the Dark Virgin," "Sympathy," and "Don't You Tell Me No" and Bonds's "Dream Variation," "Note on Commercial Theater," and "No Good Man" through a Black feminist lens. I contend that although Price and Bonds depicted harsh realities of Black women's experiences, they also celebrated Black women's resistance in spite of intersectional oppression. Ultimately, analyzing Black feminism in these composer's careers and songs opens a path for further exploration of how Black women's agency can facilitate activism through art.

The central tenet of the study is that language and madness are bound together, language both including madness and perpetuating the exclusion of madness as 'other'. The first chapter considers the representation of madness in Atwood's novels The Edible Woman, Surfacing and Alias Grace from the perspective ofFoucauldian and Kristevan theories oflanguage and madness. Alias Grace becomes the focus in the second chapter. Here the syntax of madness is traced during Grace's stay in the mental asylum. Language, madness and sexuality are revealed as a palimpsest written on Grace's body. The final chapter looks at Grace's incarceration in the penitentiary and her dealings with the psychologist Dr. Simon Jordan where Grace's narrative tightly threads language and madness together. Underlying each chapter is a concern with how language and madness are in permanent interaction and opposition writing themselves onto society and onto Grace. / English Studies / M.A. (English)

Since the middle of the twentieth century, American dance artists have presented complicated images of American identity to world audiences, as dance companies traveled abroad under the auspices of the US State Department. This dissertation uses oral history interviews, archival research, and performance analysis to investigate how dancers navigated their status as official American ambassadors in the Cold War and the years following the 2001 terrorist attacks in the US. Dance companies worked and performed in international sites, enacting messages of American democratic superiority, while individual dancers re-interpreted the contours of American identity through personal encounters with local artists and arts practices. The dancers’ memories of government-sponsored tours re-insert the American artist into American diplomatic history, prompting a reconsideration of dancers not just as diplomatic tools working to persuade global audiences, but as creative thinkers re-imagining what it means to be American. This dissertation begins in the late 1950s, as the State Department began discussing appropriate dance companies to send to the Soviet Union, as part of the performing arts initiatives that began in 1954 under the direction of President Dwight Eisenhower. The dissertation concludes by examining more recent dance in diplomacy programs initiated in 2003, coinciding with the US invasion of Iraq. My analysis considers New York City Ballet’s 1962 tour of the Soviet Union, where the company performed programs that included George Balanchine’s Serenade (1934), Agon (1957), and Western Symphony (1954), and Jerome Robbins’ Interplay (1945) during the heightened global anxieties of the Cuban Missile Crisis. My analysis of Ailey’s 1967 tour of nine African countries focuses primarily on Revelations (1960), which closed every program on the tour. Moving into the twenty-first century, I analyze A Slipping Glimpse (2007), a collaboration between Margaret Jenkins Dance Company and Tansuree Shankar Dance Company, which began as a US State Department-sponsored 2003 residency in Kolkata. To explore each tour, I consider government goals documented in archived minutes from artist selection panels; dancers’ memories of the tours, which I collected in personal interviews conducted between 2007 and 2009; and performance analysis of the pieces that traveled on each tour. / text

Drowning is a frequent mode of death for female literary characters because of the strong symbolic relationship between female sexuality and water. Drowning has long been a punishment for sexually transgressive women in literature. In the introduction, Chapter 1, I describe the drowning paradigm and analyze drowning scenes in several pre-twentieth century works to establish the tradition which twentieth-century women writers begin to transcend. In Chapter 2, I discuss three of Kate Chopin's works which include drownings, demonstrating her transition from traditional drowning themes in At Fault and “Desiree's Baby” to the drowning in The Awakening, which prefigures the survival of protagonists in later works. I discuss one of these in Chapter 3: Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God. Although Janie must rely on her husband to save her from the flood, she survives, though her husband does not. In Chapter 4, I discuss two stories by Eudora Welty, “Moon Lake” and “The Wide Net.” In “Moon Lake,” Easter nearly drowns as a corollary to her adolescent sexual awakening. Although her resuscitation is a brutal simulation of a rape, Easter survives. “The Wide Net” is a comic story that winks at the drowning woman tradition, showing a young bride who pretends to drown in order to recapture the affections of her husband. Chapter 5 analyzes a set of works by Margaret Atwood. Lady Oracle includes another faked drowning, while “The Whirlpool Rapids” and “Walking on Water” feature a protagonist who feels invulnerable after her near-drowning. The Blind Assassin includes substantial drowning imagery. Chapter 6 discusses current trends in near-drowning fiction, focusing on the river rafting adventure stories of Pam Houston.