The study of children's literature from the South Asian diaspora has been mostly overlooked by postcolonial studies, cultural studies and children's literature studies alike. This thesis responds to this academic oversight and it is not only the first study to solely explore the diasporic experience presented in these novels, but also opens up an area of research which has great cross-disciplinary potential. At the centre of this thesis is the argument that existing theories of identity negotiation offer only partial explanations of how young, second generation individuals negotiate their cultural identities, and that children's literature, by contrast, illuminates an alternative means of identity formation. There is no definitive cultural identity model which focuses solely on how post-migrant generations, including foreign-born migrant children, negotiate their cultural identities. Yet the fiction this thesis examines demands the need for precisely such a model. Drawing on the works of Homi Bhabha, A vtar Brah and Stuart Hall, the model that emerges from the fiction is best identified as what I have termed: Overlapping Space. Engaging with a wide range of postcolonial, cultural and sociological theorists, the study focuses on novels published since 2000 and identifies how they offer a model of Overlapping Space identity formation. Engaging with Bali Rai's What's Your Problem? and Kavita Daswani's Indie Girl the thesis begins by identifying how issues of race and racism are still prevalent to contemporary concerns. Developing these concerns, the study draws on Marina Budhos's Ask Me No Questions and Mitali Perkins's First Daughter: Extreme American Makeover to investigate how media influences post-9/l1 have affected young peoples' cultural self-identities. Shifting the focus from imposed 'home'land cultural alienation to self-imposed 'homeland' cultural estrangement through abjection, the study identifies the psychological effects of visiting ancestral homelands as depicted in Vineeta Vijayaraghavan's Motherland and Mitali Perkins' Monsoon Summer in order to demonstrate the experience of emotional situational ethnicity through unexpected enculturations. Continuing with the discussion of emotional situational ethnicity, using Narinder Dhami's novelization Bend it Like Beckham and Baljinder K. Mahal's The Pocket Guide to Being an Indian Girl, this thesis explores how young second generation members of the South Asian diaspora navigate between 'peer' and 'parent' zones and analyses the significant role that subcultures can play in the approval of 'transgression'. Lastly, by focussing on Tanuja Desai Hidier's Born Confused and Bali Rai's The Last Taboo, this thesis continues its exploration in 'transgressive' behaviours and analyses the dating and interracial relationship cultural concerns presented in these two novels. By exploring these themes, issues and concerns, this study ultimately foregrounds each text's potential for bibliotherapy and demonstrates that, as well as making significant contributions to literature and cultural studies, these novels serve an important social function as well. Consequently, via the universalising bibliotherapeutic function of these novels, this thesis ultimately argues that these novels not only foreground and legitimise Overlapping Space identities but actively help build these identities as well.

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This thesis traces the seventy-five year development of the cultural icon Superman across media, from his initial appearance in Action Comics in 1938 through to the 2013 film Man of Steel. It unpicks received critical understandings of Superman by comparing secondary interpretations of his history and evolution to primary evidence provided by Superman stories themselves. In so doing, it identifies how Superman's meaning has evolved across the seven decades of his existence and reveals the role played by popular perceptions and critical interpretations in shaping his significance. In particular, I critique the concept of social and political Relevance which has, in the past four decades, established itself as a prominent model according to which popular narratives, including those featuring Superman, are evaluated. Comparing the claims made by scholars and historians to my own readings, I argue that the Relevance discourse has led critics and commentators to erroneously claim that Superman and the stories featuring him either serve as expressions of America's cultural development or are irrelevant fantasies that and bear little relation to Real Life concerns. I evaluate these perceptions in detail through my four main chapters. Chapter One analyses the assertion that Superman began as an exponent of Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal, and suggests that this reading has little basis in evidence from the early comics themselves. Consequently, I argue that the New Deal interpretation is likely a retrospective account that only partially engages with Superman's contemporaneous significances. Chapter Two interrogates the perception that, between his initial appearance and the end of the 1950s, Superman developed into a socially and politically conservative figure, and analyses this interpretation in relation to the concept of ideology. I propose that, while there is some evidence of conservative ideological intent in the character's stories, this accounts for only a small aspect of his broader meaning and appeal. Chapter Three investigates the commonly presumed contrast between comic book stories from Superman's supposedly fanciful"Silver Age" period of the 1950s and 1960s, and the more relevant narratives of the 1970s and 1980s. Here, I argue that texts from these supposedly distinct periods have more in common than historians and commentators acknowledge, leading me to propose that academic understandings of Relevance should be reworked to accommodate a range of different narrative types. In Chapter Four, I propose that current perceptions of Superman's significance commonly centre upon his status as an idealistic figure who transcends the contingencies, compromises, and imperfections that characterise Real life. I suggest that this perception stems from Richard Donner's attempt to mythologise the character in his 1978 film Superman: The Movie, and the re-emphasis that Donner's interpretation has received in subsequent iterations of the character. Finally, in my Conclusion, I discuss Man of Steel, a film that seeks to change audience perceptions of Superman and which has provoked controversy by challenging the idealistic representation of the character popularised by Superman: The Movie. Through this analysis, I consider the implications of this controversy for Superman's future, in particular for perceptions of his Relevance, as well as what the debate surrounding the film and Superman more generally reveals to us about the concept of Relevance itself.

This thesis is concerned with the rise of independent booksellers in China since the late 2000s. Drawing on the findings of a qualitative study I conducted with 55 independent booksellers between 2014 and 2015, I argue that independent bookselling in China is an economic activity politicized, and the emergence and development of independent booksellers has been a process shaped by both economic and socio-political factors stemming from both inside and outside the book industry. Studying independent bookselling, a significant change in the Chinese book industry in recent years, my thesis advances our understanding of the transformation of the book industry in China. The notion of ‘politicization’ provides a useful analytical framework for understanding bookselling and publishing in parallel contexts. Finally, by elucidating the distinctive relationship between the evolution of the book industry and some wider social, political and economic processes in China, my thesis adds to the political economy of the media industry in non-Western societies and contributes to the de-Westernization of this long-dominant and yet problematic approach to the study of the media and media industries.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2008. / Title from first page of PDF file. Includes bibliographical references (p. 195-210).

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Akron, School of Communication, 2009. / "August, 2009." Title from electronic thesis title page (viewed 10/14/2009) Advisor, Mary Triece; Committee members, Therese Lueck, Carolyn Anderson; School Director, Carolyn Anderson; Dean of the College, James Lynn; Dean of the Graduate School, George R. Newkome. Includes bibliographical references.

L’objectif de cette thèse qui se situe dans un contexte franco-mexicain est d’étudier à travers deux quotidiens dits de « référence », Le Monde et Reforma ainsi que deux agences de presse, l’AFP et Notimex, la mobilisation des sources identifiées et des sources anonymes dans la production de l’information journalistique pendant la couverture des campagnes présidentielles en France (2007) et au Mexique (2006). Ces deux périodes représentent pour chaque pays un moment fort de leur histoire politique contemporaine. Pour la France, alors que la droite est toujours au pouvoir, la possibilité du retour de la gauche passe par la candidature d’une femme, ce qui est une première. Pour le Mexique, les élections présidentielles latino-américaines précédentes confirmant un virage à gauche dans la région, les sondages donnent gagnante pour la première fois la gauche mexicaine.Reprenant l’approche sociologique de Georg Simmel, nous analysons ici la production informative comme un processus d’interaction complexe entre les journalistes et leurs sources. Pour ce faire, nous avons exploité un corpus constitué de comptes-rendus et de dépêches d’agence, ainsi que d’entretiens semi-directifs réalisés auprès des journalistes. À partir d’une analyse de contenu à la fois horizontale et verticale, nous avons croisé diverses variables pouvant faire ressortir les divergences et les convergences, ainsi que les constantes et les variantes relevées au long de la période retenue. / In a French-Mexican context, the main purpose of this thesis is to study across two major daily newspapers, Le Monde and Reforma and two news agencies AFP and Notimex, the use of identified and anonymous sources via their coverage of presidential campaigns in France (2007) and Mexico (2006). These two periods in both countries were a highlight moment in their contemporary political history. In France, for the first time, a woman represented a major left French party in a presidential contest. In Latin America the earlier presidential elections confirm a left turn in the region and the polls were indicating for the first time, the Mexican left as a winner. By revisiting Simmel’s sociological approach, newsmaking is analyzed as a complex interaction between journalists and their sources. The survey is limited to articles and the coverage of each newspaper and agency and interviews with journalists. The study of textual information and media production was organized and analyzed in order to compare various actors and their related newspaper coverage. The study is achieved by cross-comparing differences and similarities in the discourse, and constants and variables over time.

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