Thesis (MPhil (Ancient Studies))--University of Stellenbosch, 2011. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The aim of this thesis is to explore the purpose of monster figures by investigating the relationship between these creatures and the cultures in which they are generated. It focuses specifically on the human-animal hybrid monsters in the mythology, literature and art of ancient Greece. It attempts to answer the question of the purpose of these monsters by looking specifically at the nature of manhorse monsters and the ways in which their dichotomous internal and external composition challenged the cultural taxonomy of ancient Greece. It also looks at the function of monsters in a ritual context and how the Theseus myth, as initiation myth, and the Minotaur, as hybrid monster, conforms to the expectations of ritual monsters. The investigation starts by considering the history and uses of the term “monster” in an attempt to arrive at a reasonable definition of monstrosity. In aid of this definition, attention is also given to themes that recur when considering monster beings. This provides a basis from which the hybrid monsters of ancient Greece, the centaur and Minotaur in particular, can be considered. The next section of the thesis looks into the attitudes to animals prevalent in ancient Greece. The cultural value of certain animal types and even certain body parts have to be taken account, and the degree to which these can be traced to the nature and actions of the hybrid monster has to be considered. The main argument is divided in two sections. The first deals with the centaur as challenger to Greek cultural taxonomy. The centaur serves as an eminent example of how human-animal hybrid monsters combine the familiar and the foreign, the Self and the Other into a single complex being. The nature of this monster is examined with special reference to the ways in which the centaur, as proponent of chaos and wilderness, stands in juxtaposition to the ideals of Greek civilisation. The second section consists of an enquiry into the purpose of the hybrid monster and considers the Minotaur’s role as a facilitator of transformation. The focus is directed towards the ritual function of monsters and the ways in which monsters aid change and renewal both in individuals and in communities. By considering the Theseus-myth and the role of the Minotaur in the coming-of-age of the Attic hero as well as the city of Athens itself, the ritual theory is given application in ancient Greece. The conclusion of this thesis is that hybrid monsters, as manifestations of the internal dichotomy of man and the tenuous relationship between order and chaos, played a critical role in the personal and communal definition of man in ancient Greece. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Die doelstelling van hierdie tesis is om die sin van monsters te ondersoek deur te kyk na die verhouding wat bestaan tussen hierdie wesens en die gemeenskappe waarbinne hulle hul ontstaan het. Die tesis fokus spesifiek op die mens-dier hibriede monster in die mitologie, literatuur en kuns van antieke Griekeland. Dit probeer om tot ‘n slotsom te kom oor die bestaansrede van monsters deur te kyk na die aard van die man-perd monster. Hierdie wese se tweeledige samestelling – met betrekking tot beide sy interne en eksterne komposisie – het ‘n wesenlike bedreiging ingehou vir die kulturele taksonomie van die antieke Grieke. Die tesis kyk ook na die rol, van monsters in die konteks van rituele gebeure. Die mite van Theseus as ‘n mite met rituele verbintenisse, en die Minotaurus as hibriede monster, word dan oorweeg om te bepaal wat die ooreenstemming is met die verwagtinge wat daargestel is vir rituele monsters. Ten einde ‘n redelike definisie van monsteragtigheid daar te stel, begin die ondersoek deur oorweging te skenk aan die geskiedenis en die gebruike van die woord “monster”. Ter ondersteuning van hierdie definisie word daar ook aandag geskenk aan sekere temas wat herhaaldelik opduik wanneer monsters ter sprake kom. Dit skep ‘n basis vir die ondersoek na die hibriede monsters van antieke Griekeland, en meer spesifiek na die kentaurus en die Minotaurus. Die tesis oorweeg ook die houding van die antieke Griekse beskawing teenoor diere. Die kulturele waarde van sekere soorte diere, en selfs seker ledemate van diere, moet in ag geneem word wanneer die hibriede monsterfiguur behandel word. Aandag moet geskenk word aan die maniere waarop die assosiasies wat die Grieke met diere gehad het, oorgedra word na die aard en handelinge van die monsterfiguur. Die hoofargument van die tesis word in twee dele uiteengesit. Die eerste gedeelte behandel die kentaurus as uitdager van die kulturele taksonomie van die antieke Grieke. Die kentaurus dien as ‘n uitstekende voorbeeld van die manier waarop die mens-dier monster dit wat bekend is en dit wat vreemd is, die Self en die Ander, kombineer in een komplekse wese. Die aard van hierdie wese word ondersoek met spesifieke verwysing na die maniere waarop die kentaurus, as voorstander van die ongetemde en van chaos, in teenstelling staan teenoor die ideale van die Griekse beskawing. Die tweede gedeelte vors die doel van die hibriede monster na en oorweeg die Minotaurus se rol as bevorderaar van transformasie. Hier word gefokus op die rol van die monster in ’n rituele konteks en die maniere waarop monsters verandering en vernuwing teweegbring in enkelinge sowel as in gemeenskappe. Hierdie teorie word van toepassing gemaak op antieke Griekeland deur die mite van Theseus en die rol van die Minotaurus te oorweeg binne die konteks van die proses van inburgering wat beide die held en sy stad, Athene, ondergaan. Die gevolgtrekking van hierdie tesis is dat hibriede monsters, as uitbeeldings van die interne tweeledigheid van die mens sowel as van die tenger verband tussen orde en chaos in die wêreld, ‘n noodsaaklike rol gespeel het in die persoonlike en sosiale definisie van die individu in antieke Griekeland.

These poems deconstruct Mary Shelley's monster from a spiritually Chthonian, critically post-structuralist creative stance. But the process here is not simple disruption of the original discourse; this poetry cycle transforms the monster's traditional body, using what pieces are left from reception/vivisection to reconstruct, through gradual accretion, new authority for each new form, each new appendage.

Published also as Thesis (Ph. D.)--Johns Hopkins University, 1892. / "Bibliography of translations": p. xi-xii.

This report takes as its subject the Anglo-Saxon text of The Wonders of the East, a medieval liber monstrum which appears in three English manuscripts from the 11th and 12th centuries. It argues that Wonders is a uniquely English text, and that the use of the vernacular is an attempt to spread and validate English usage across various literary and scientific forms. The first section examines briefly the relationships between the three manuscripts, then turns to one in particular, British Library MS Cotton Tiberius B.v., for the remainder of the study. This first section will also detail the contents of each of the three manuscripts, and the various thematic and linguistic connections between them. The second section turns to the text and illustrations of Wonders, and will consider the use and significance of distinctly “English” vocabulary in describing foreign monsters. It will show that the use of vernacular neologisms to describe foreign spaces and monstrous creatures is an attempt to explore the potential uses of English, and was inspired by a political and cultural environment which encouraged the use of the vernacular in an attempt to grow a national identity. The third section examines a brief passage describing the wondrous creatures known as the donestre, and will show examine the anxieties revealed in the naming and renaming of these creatures. It then explores the relationship between the visual representation and textual description of the donestre, and the implications of the discrepancies therein, to our understanding of the text. The fourth section reads The Wonders of the East as a map. First, it unpacks the myriad potential meanings held within the medieval map; then, it examines the structural and thematic concerns of the text, and the ways in which those concerns work to literally map English onto the Eastern world. My final section considers the implications of my reading of Wonders. It shows that this reading, by acknowledging for the first time, the distinct “Englishness” of the text, opens up Wonders to further study from a number of theoretical and disciplinary viewpoint. / text

In this thesis, I explore the practices of English-speaking readers of shônen manga (Japanese comics written primarily for an audience of teenage boys). I concentrate on three series in particular: Hiromu Arakawa’s Fullmetal Alchemist (2001–2010), Tite Kubo’s Bleach (2001–ongoing), and Masashi Kishimoto’s Naruto (1999–ongoing). I argue that, although it may appear to be inherently imbued with (authorial) meaning, the shônen manga text emerges from a curious ‘alchemy’ through which the practices of readers transform the ‘raw’ materials provided by manga creators to produce a text that appears to have always been inherently meaningful in itself. I argue that this is always an impossible and monstrous transformation. In the first chapter, I introduce the monstrous combinations of words and pictures, panels and gutters known as shônen manga and argue for the importance of taking the practices of ‘ordinary’ (or, at least, non-scholarly) reading seriously. In the second chapter I explore the idea that reading is an ‘alchemy’ through which the disparate elements readers encounter on the page are transformed into a meaningful text. In the third chapter, I discuss the ways in which time and narrative are braided as readers assemble the disparate elements they encounter on the shônen manga page. In Chapter 4, I explore the visceral thrills of reading shônen manga, which are often expressed through notions of the awesome and the epic. Finally, in Chapter 5, I examine the ways in which a group of shônen manga readers known as ‘shippers’ find love and romance amidst the fighting in shônen manga and demonstrate the legitimacy of these readings by locating them in the material text through the concept of ‘canon’. By attending to reading as an embodied and material practice in this way, the thesis contributes to debates about the relationships between creators, texts and audiences and ongoing attempts to imagine new ways of being critical within cultural and literary studies. Within cultural geography, these kinds of attempts have often been aligned with what might broadly be described as nonrepresentational theories. As such, this thesis attempts to draw out the geographies through which manga texts are realised as manga texts at all.

This study is about how the research of monsters and contemporary artists who create monster-related work can help create monsters from my own imagination using the process of synthesis. In it I discuss how the monsters I created in my artwork tell a story. I also talk about how this study can be used to relate art to other fields of study such as English and History, and the idea of Visual Culture.

Thesis (MA(Visual Arts))-University of Pretoria, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references.

Published also as Thesis (Ph. D.)--Johns Hopkins University, 1892. / "Bibliography of translations": p. xi-xii.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, Department of History, June 2000. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (M.F.A.)--West Virginia University, 2000. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains iv, 17 p. : col. ill. Vita. Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 15).