The thesis examines the novels of Anglo-American author Russell Hoban (1923-) and Japanese author Murakami Haruki [Chinese characters] (1949-) as Menippean satires. The Introduction defines the Menippean satire and considers possible sources for this genre as found in the works of Hoban and Murakami. Parts I and II examine several novels by Hoban and by Murakami respectively, demonstrating how their works conform to the conventions of the Menippean satire. In examining Murakami's fiction, Part II also considers possible antecedents in Japanese literature for tropes and topoi that appear Menippean in the light of Western genre theory; there is a special emphasis on Murakami's most recent work, [Chinese characters] Nejimakidori kuronikuru (1994-6, The Wind-up Bird Chronicles). The Conclusion examines why these two authors write Menippean satires. No claim is made that either author has chosen this genre in deliberate imitation of classical or Renaissance models. Rather, from the standpoint of cultural history, the thesis argues that the Menippean satire—or at least a form of postmodernist novel with notable affinities to the Menippean satire—has re-emerged as a genre for our times. Drawing on examples from the fiction of Murakami and Hoban, the conclusion demonstrates that central features of this genre—fantasy, crudity, philosophical dialogues, inserted genres, invented languages, and the descent into hell—are particularly appropriate for the fictional treatment of life in a postmodern world. Moreover, these features are serviceable not only in a Western context. Murakami Haruki, despite his Japanese cultural background and his avowed intention to write about Japan, relies on many of the same generic strategies as does Russell Hoban.

Doctor of Philosophy / This thesis presents a study of the cyclotomic BMW algebras, introduced by Haring-Oldenburg as a generalization of the BMW (Birman-Murakami-Wenzl) algebras related to the cyclotomic Hecke algebras of type G(k,1,n) (also known as Ariki-Koike algebras) and type B knot theory involving affine/cylindrical tangles. The motivation behind the definition of the BMW algebras may be traced back to an important problem in knot theory; namely, that of classifying knots (and links) up to isotopy. The algebraic definition of the BMW algebras uses generators and relations originally inspired by the Kauffman link invariant. They are intimately connected with the Artin braid group of type A, Iwahori-Hecke algebras of type A, and with many diagram algebras, such as the Brauer and Temperley-Lieb algebras. Geometrically, the BMW algebra is isomorphic to the Kauffman Tangle algebra. The representations and the cellularity of the BMW algebra have now been extensively studied in the literature. These algebras also feature in the theory of quantum groups, statistical mechanics, and topological quantum field theory. In view of these relationships between the BMW algebras and several objects of "type A", several authors have since naturally generalized the BMW algberas for other types of Artin groups. Motivated by knot theory associated with the Artin braid group of type B, Haring-Oldenburg introduced the cyclotomic BMW algebras B_n^k as a generalization of the BMW algebras such that the Ariki-Koike algebra h_{n,k} is a quotient of B_n^k, in the same way the Iwahori-Hecke algebra of type A is a quotient of the BMW algebra. In this thesis, we investigate the structure of these algebras and show they have a topological realization as a certain cylindrical analogue of the Kauffman Tangle algebra. In particular, they are shown to be R-free of rank k^n (2n-1)!! and bases that may be explicitly described both algebraically and diagrammatically in terms of cylindrical tangles are obtained. Unlike the BMW and Ariki-Koike algebras, one must impose extra so-called "admissibility conditions" on the parameters of the ground ring in order for these results to hold. This is due to potential torsion caused by the polynomial relation of order k imposed on one of the generators of B_n^k. It turns out that the representation theory of B_2^k is crucial in determining these conditions precisely. The representation theory of B_2^k is analysed in detail in a joint preprint with Wilcox in [45] (http://arxiv.org/abs/math/0611518). The admissibility conditions and a universal ground ring with admissible parameters are given explicitly in Chapter 3. The admissibility conditions are also closely related to the existence of a non-degenerate Markov trace function of B_n^k which is then used together with the cyclotomic Brauer algebras in the linear independency arguments contained in Chapter 4. Furthermore, in Chapter 5, we prove the cyclotomic BMW algebras are cellular, in the sense of Graham and Lehrer. The proof uses the cellularity of the Ariki-Koike algebras (Graham-Lehrer [16] and Dipper-James-Mathas [8]) and an appropriate "lifting" of a cellular basis of the Ariki-Koike algebras into B_n^k, which is compatible with a certain anti-involution of B_n^k. When k = 1, the results in this thesis specialize to those previously established for the BMW algebras by Morton-Wasserman [30], Enyang [9], and Xi [47]. REMARKS: During the writing of this thesis, Goodman and Hauschild-Mosley also attempt similar arguments to establish the freeness and diagram algebra results mentioned above. However, they withdrew their preprints ([14] and [15]), due to issues with their generic ground ring crucial to their linear independence arguments. A similar strategy to that proposed in [14], together with different trace maps and the study of rings with admissible parameters in Chapter 3, is used in establishing linear independency of our basis in Chapter 4. Since the submission of this thesis, new versions of these preprints have been released in which Goodman and Hauschild-Mosley use alternative topological and Jones basic construction theory type arguments to establish freeness of B_n^k and an isomorphism with the cyclotomic Kauffman Tangle algebra. However, they require their ground rings to be an integral domain with parameters satisfying the (slightly stronger) admissibility conditions introduced by Wilcox and the author in [45]. Also, under these conditions, Goodman has obtained cellularity results. Rui and Xu have also obtained freeness and cellularity results when k is odd, and later Rui and Si for general k, under the assumption that \delta is invertible and using another stronger condition called "u-admissibility". The methods and arguments employed are strongly influenced by those used by Ariki, Mathas and Rui [3] for the cyclotomic Nazarov-Wenzl algebras and involve the construction of seminormal representations; their preprints have recently been released on the arXiv. It should also be noted there are slight differences between the definitions of cyclotomic BMW algebras and ground rings used, as explained partly above. Furthermore, Goodman and Rui-Si-Xu use a weaker definition of cellularity, to bypass a problem discovered in their original proofs relating to the anti-involution axiom of the original Graham-Lehrer definition. This Ph.D. thesis, completed at the University of Sydney, was submitted September 2007 and passed December 2007.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--West Virginia University, 2006. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains iv, 228 p. Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 219-228).

This thesis explores the afterlife of Raymond Carver in relation to a number of important writers and artists that claim Carver as an influence and who are working within countries or cultures that have recently made, or are in the process of making, the transition from embedded liberalism to neoliberalism. This project argues that while Carver's influence has been conventionally limited to what critic A.O. Scott calls 'a briefly fashionable school of experimental fiction', in recent years his writing has come to represent a 'return' to a more 'real' form of literature, one that, his advocates would argue, is more 'authentic' than other kinds of recent writing. Carver's 'authenticity' is closely tied to the idea that his fiction is a response to his own working-class experience and is seen to be more broadly synecdochic of the socioeconomic struggles faced by many other Americans during this period. Given the cultural and aesthetic differences between Carver's life and work, and those studied in the main chapters of this thesis - Jay McInerney, Haruki Murakami and Alejandro González Iñárritu - I argue that Carver's afterlife is best viewed as being a social phenomenon, born out of the social relations, historical circumstances and economic forms that resulted from the US's move to neoliberalism in the late-1970s. My introduction historicizes this transition and argues that while Carver may have struggled to make productive sense of his socioeconomic circumstance, it affected his life in very pointed and particular ways, trapping him between the conventional American dream of individual freedom and equal opportunity and the reality of inequality and social immobility. For those who claim Carver as an influence, his fiction represents a zone where the difference between hegemonic narratives and lived experience is explored and embodies a model of how to negotiate, for better or worse, the complex and shifting foundations of this recent political transition. My introduction then continues to argue that of equal importance to Carver's afterlife is the fact that, in his late-writing in particular, Carver's work represents a 'retreat' from the shortterm, competition-based notions of neoliberal labour towards a non-incorporated residual alternative that has particular artisanal tenets associated with craftsmanship. Carver's texts operate beyond their initial cultural and historical moment by becoming distinctive sites of resistance to the hegemonic norms of late-capitalism. In this way, I argue, Carver's 'authenticity' combines with a consolatory craftsmanship to become a coping mechanism that offers other writers and artists working in neoliberalism a way of navigating a world which seems to exceed the frame of conceptual mapping. By working through a series of short case studies on Stuart Evers, Denis Johnson and Ray Lawrence, and then moving on to more detailed explorations in my three central chapters, this thesis will consider how this is the case in relation to a number of important artists who claim Carver as an influence. Chapter one utilises my archival research to historicize the relationship between Carver and McInerney and argues that Carver's pedagogy pushed McInerney towards the idea that the writing process is connected to residual narratives of American craft. It also contends that many of the orthodox ideas that Carver held about literature proved particularly enabling for McInerney's novel Brightness Falls, which, through parody and satire, signals a retreat from postmodern experimentation towards a more 'Carveresque' realism. Chapter two similarly chronicles Carver's relationship with Murakami and argues that, for Murakami, Carver's fiction is an important example of writing that explores the difference between hegemonic narratives and lived experience. The chapter moves on to argue that what some critics view as Carver's reformed post-alcoholic fiction helped facilitate Murakami's own unorthodox spiritual response to the twin tragedies of the Kobe earthquake and Tokyo gas attack in 1995. Chapter three proceeds on slightly different lines in that it considers Iñárritu's Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) and argues that while Iñárritu uses Carver as the foundation for his film, the film is particularly interesting because it is, itself, a study of Carver's afterlife. My final chapter suggests that while there is merit in viewing Carver as an 'authentic' artist (a kind of model for negotiating neoliberal culture), the totality of that solution is more ambivalent than his advocates might initially suggest.

During World War Two, 77 Japanese Canadians were uprooted from Saltspring Island, and eleven properties were taken from them and later liquidated. The largest belonged to Torazo Iwasaki, and was purchased by the agent for the Custodian of Enemy Property, Gavin Mouat. In contradiction to the widely held view that Japanese Canadians were stoic and accepting of the injustice they faced, a number of Japanese Canadian Saltspringers fiercely resisted what was being done to them. The Iwasaki family launched a court case against the government in 1967 that went all the way to the Supreme Court, and in the face of continued racism the Murakami family returned to Saltspring to rebuild their lives. This thesis investigates the position of the Japanese Canadians in the settler society on Saltspring and how racisms were manifested within it, the government’s decision to liquidate Japanese Canadian properties, and the resistance and resilience of some of the island’s Japanese Canadians. Racist politicians, including the MLA representing the island, were calling for the removal of Japanese Canadians from the west coast. They led the drive to ethnically cleanse British Columbia, but their success depended on the cooperation and acquiescence of many others. This microhistory explains how this process took place on Saltspring Island, while examining the larger story of the decision to liquidate and challenging the legality of the government’s actions. Seventy-five years after the uprooting, a frank acknowledgment of past injustices will be necessary for the full reconciliation of Japanese Canadian survivors and the Saltspring community. / Graduate / 2019-03-26 / 0334 0631

The thesis examines the novels of Anglo-American author Russell Hoban (1923-) and Japanese author Murakami Haruki [Chinese characters] (1949-) as Menippean satires. The Introduction defines the Menippean satire and considers possible sources for this genre as found in the works of Hoban and Murakami. Parts I and II examine several novels by Hoban and by Murakami respectively, demonstrating how their works conform to the conventions of the Menippean satire. In examining Murakami's fiction, Part II also considers possible antecedents in Japanese literature for tropes and topoi that appear Menippean in the light of Western genre theory; there is a special emphasis on Murakami's most recent work, [Chinese characters] Nejimakidori kuronikuru (1994-6, The Wind-up Bird Chronicles). The Conclusion examines why these two authors write Menippean satires. No claim is made that either author has chosen this genre in deliberate imitation of classical or Renaissance models. Rather, from the standpoint of cultural history, the thesis argues that the Menippean satire—or at least a form of postmodernist novel with notable affinities to the Menippean satire—has re-emerged as a genre for our times. Drawing on examples from the fiction of Murakami and Hoban, the conclusion demonstrates that central features of this genre—fantasy, crudity, philosophical dialogues, inserted genres, invented languages, and the descent into hell—are particularly appropriate for the fictional treatment of life in a postmodern world. Moreover, these features are serviceable not only in a Western context. Murakami Haruki, despite his Japanese cultural background and his avowed intention to write about Japan, relies on many of the same generic strategies as does Russell Hoban. / Arts, Faculty of / English, Department of / Graduate

Denna uppsats analyserar surrealismens influens i Haruki Murakamis framställning av sin skrivprocess. Uppsatsen identifierar de verktyg och instrument som används för skapande av surrealistiska berättelser med Andre Bretons Surrealistiska manifest som utgångspunkt. Fokus på surrealismens automatism, drömmen och hypnosen som teoretiskt ansats och metoderna Närläsning och Komparativ Metod i litteraturforskning utgör analysen. Analysen visar att författaren använder sig av surrealismen främst via automatiskt skrivande men motsäger sig genren i sina romaner. Trots detta präglas författarens roman Kafka på stranden av surrealismen med ”bilder” liksom fisk som faller från skyn. Analysen visar således även att avståndstagande ifrån surrealismen som genre i ens verk inte betyder att man inte är surrealist i sitt skapande.

When reading a translated book or a dubbed movie, one might come to wonder if the translation conveys the characters’ personality traits identically to that of the original, and while ‘identical’ may not be achievable, ‘equivalent’ rather may be within the scope of a translator’s capability. Translation between languages as vastly different as Swedish and Japanese, or English and Japanese are bound to face greater difficulties than for example Swedish and English. Japanese dialogue can highlight register and idiosyncratic speech patterns in particularly unique ways. This case study investigates how this is done and handled in both English and Swedish by analyzing the dialogue of the main protagonist Nakata Satoru in the novel Umibe no Kafka by Murakami Haruki. Thus, two questions arise: “What distinguishing elements of Nakata Satoru’s register and formality make his speech unique in the original Umibe no Kafuka?” and “How are the distinct characteristics in the dialogue of Nakata Satoru maintained – or lost in the Swedish and English translations of Umibe no Kafuka?”. In pursuit of an answer to these questions, the original copy of Umibe no Kafuka, the English translation (Kafka on the Shore), and the Swedish translation (Kafka på Stranden) were analyzed and all sentences spoken by Nakata in chapters 6,16 and 20 were recorded and compared to the ST – or source text. The study ultimately found that the distinct characteristics in Nakata’s speech were many times in the English and Swedish translations ignored and that Nakata’s soft spoken, understanding tone was often overlooked in order to allow for the translation to flow naturally.

Det här arbetet diskuterar ett utforskande musikaliskt gestaltningsprojekt, Från botten av en brunn, som utgörs av fyra satser för klarinett, cello och modulärt synthesizersystem baserat på var sin person ur den japanska författaren Haruki Murakamis roman Kafka på stranden (Umibe no Kafuka, 海辺のカフカ) från 2002. Arbetet har utgått ifrån en metodisk bearbetning av romantexten med hjälp av grundad teori för att skapa både syntetiska och samplade klanger och komposition ur texten. Grundad teori togs ursprungligen fram inom sociologi för att forma ny kunskap ur kvalitativ data med hjälp av en rigorös process, där teoretisk känslighet stödjer och vägleder tolkningar. I mitt arbete har det här snarare handlat om estetisk sensibilitet som väglett mina tolkningar av texten, hjälpt mig att göra urval och omforma romanen till musik och framförande. / This work discusses an exploratory musical composition project, From the bottom of a Well, which consists of four movements for clarinet, cello, and modular synthesizer system, where each movement is based on each person from the Japanese author Haruki Murakami's novel Kafka on the beach (Umibe no Kafuka, 海辺のカフカ) from 2002. The work has been based on a methodical processing of the novel text with the help of grounded theory to create both synthetic and sampled sounds and composition from the text. Grounded theory was originally developed in sociology to shape new knowledge from qualitative data using a rigorous process, where theoretical sensitivity supports and guides interpretations. In my work, this has rather been about aesthetic sensibility that has guided my interpretations of the text, helped me to make selections, and to transform the novel into a music composition and a performance.

[pt] O presente trabalho se baseia na teoria dos defeitos equivalentes, também conhecida como teoria de Murakami, que permite a predição da vida-fadiga de materiais estruturais adotando o parâmetro (raiz quadrada de area), responsável por uma equivalência quantitativa entre heterogeneidades microestruturais (inclusões metalúrgicas) existentes na região de análise do material e descontinuidades mecânicas (furos) usinados nos corpos de prova. Neste contexto, a tese propõe novas equações, a partir da teoria de Murakami, para prever falhas por fadiga em carregamentos ultralongos (fadiga de altíssimo ciclo, VHCF) do aço DIN42CrMo4, de larga aplicação na fabricação de eixos virabrequins para unidades geradoras de usinas termoelétricas. Corpos de prova do aço DIN42CrMo4 foram usinados com furos de diâmetros variando entre 0,18 mm e 0,70 mm e ensaiados num regime de fadiga de altíssimo ciclo, variando o valor da amplitude de tensão do ensaio, para assim determinar em quais condições o material falha e obter a curva experimental S-N do aço DIN42CrMo4 na presença de diferentes tamanhos de defeitos (furos). Os resultados experimentais permitiram o desenvolvimento de equações em função do parâmetro e curvas de Wohler do material, em conformidade com diferentes descontinuidades mecânicas nos corpos de prova e resistências à fadiga do material. Consequentemente, se estabeleceu uma metodologia que permite uma correlação entre inclusões metalúrgicas, tensão aplicada e vida superlonga em fadiga de eixos virabrequins em serviço em usinas termoelétricas. / [en] The present work is based on the theory of equivalent defects, also known as Murakami s theory, which allows the prediction of the fatigue life of structural materials by adopting the parameter (square root of area), responsible for a quantitative equivalence between microstructural heterogeneities (metallurgical inclusions) existing in the region analysis of the material and mechanical discontinuities (holes) machined in the specimens. In this context, the thesis proposes new equations, based on Murakami s theory, to predict fatigue failures in ultralong loads (very high cycle fatigue, VHCF) of DIN42CrMo4 steel, widely used in the manufacture of crankshafts for generating units of thermoelectric power plants. DIN42CrMo4 steel specimens were machined with holes with diameters varying between 018 mm and 0.70 mm and tested in a very high cycle fatigue regime, varying the value of the test stress amplitude, to determine under what conditions the material failure and obtain the experimental S-N curve of DIN42CrMo4 steel in the presence of different sizes of defects (holes). The experimental results allowed the development of equations as a function of the parameter and Wohler curves of the material, in accordance with different mechanical discontinuities in the test specimens and resistance to fatigue of the material. Consequently, a methodology was established that allows a correlation between metallurgical inclusions, applied stress and super-long fatigue life of crankshafts in service in thermoelectric power plants.