Thesis advisor: David Gill / The idea that mankind's history is one of regress rather than of progress has been seen as central to the classical outlook on life. Bury and others have gone so far as to state that the idea of Progress in its modern sense could not have even occurred to the Greeks. This is perhaps too extreme, but it does reflect an important point: if regression over time was not the only idea for the Greeks, it was at least the dominant one. No story in classical literature reflects this idea more clearly than the Myth of the Ages. The earliest extant version of the story comes in Hesiod's Works and Days (c. 700 B.C.), after which it appears dozens of times throughout ancient literature. The myth in its standard form tells that the history of mankind takes the form of four ages, each represented by a metal: the first is a happy and virtuous Golden Age; the next is a less perfect Silver Age, followed by a warlike (and even worse) Bronze Age; and the last, the most impious and wretched of all, is the current Iron Age. The early Hesiodic version uses this framework merely as a means to show man that he has fallen from divine favor and is left with a life of hardship that he must deal with through honest work and reverence for the gods. As other authors pick up the myth, alluding to it in genres as diverse as philosophy, theology, humor, and panegyric, the story changes in several ways. Each author of course uses it for his own purposes and alters it accordingly. In addition the Myth of the Ages undergoes an overall change: after Hesiod authors such as Aratus, Ovid, Seneca, and Maximus use the myth as a means to pair material progress with moral regression. These authors do not merely tell a story; they present a model, a simple and pre-civilized way of living that they see as vastly superior to modern “advanced” society. These authors look at the results of technological progress and see only negatives; for them the ship and the sword have brought nothing but greed and violence. They present a simple and virtuous Golden Age that lacks the fruits of civilization and a wretched and bloodied Iron Age that is flooded by them. The implication is clear: mankind has fallen from a life of primeval bliss at its own hands as a direct result of technological and societal advances. This becomes the dominant message of the Myth of the Ages, so much so that by the time of the Romans the myth had become little more than a literary cliché for criticizing civilization. / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2004. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Classical Studies. / Discipline: College Honors Program.

Thesis advisor: Philip O'Leary / This paper takes the opportunity to examine some of the lesser known roots the fictional world, Middle Earth, and its accompanying mythology, both created by J.R.R. Tolkien. It is concerned with tracing the elements of Celtic myth and legend that appear to have influenced Tolkien’s work. While he is ambiguous on the subject – flatly denying Celtic influences in one letter, while stating that his stories of Elves are rather Celtic – consulting the text yields a world rife with Celtic underpinnings. This paper makes no claims that such Celtic elements are the only myths Tolkien borrowed from, but attempts to give a compelling case that they some of the elements Tolkien used when creating Middle Earth and, consequently, are worthy of being introduced into the discussion of Tolkien’s extraordinary mythology. / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2010. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: English Honors Program. / Discipline: English.

Thesis advisor: Richard Kearney / This work addresses an important phenomenon in the contemporary philosophy of narrative and coins it as a term. Trigger-narratives denote myth-like stories that ignite certain mass social participation. Juxtapose to five well-established philosophical concepts of narrative this work demonstrates that while trigger-narratives share formal characteristics with all, they fail to be meaningfully and comprehensively subsumed under any. I use three protagonists as comparative case studies to illustrate trigger-narratives: Rosa Parks (US), Mouhammed Bouazizi (Tunisia) and Daphne Leef (Israel). The sociopolitical reaction to trigger-narratives exceeds them in content and in size. Yet, these protagonists continue to serve as catalysts and perennial symbols of the transformative events that follow their protesting acts. Trigger-narratives are not lived-narratives. They do not disclose what Arendt’s refers to as a unique who or MacIntyre’s unity of a human life. They do not answer the ownmost rhythm of Heidegger’s Being-toward-death or operate like Ricoeur’s or Kearney’s concepts of testimony. The protagonist perspective is rarely heard or seriously considered. Unlike historical narratives trigger-narratives are not the product of research. They form quickly and in their aftermath they resist change. Trigger-narrative protagonists draw their power from being portrayed as context-less, weak and uncalculated while historical leaders draw power from descriptions of authority, skill, and deliberation. Trigger-narratives have the effect and/or aspiration of metanarratives. They aim at a new order. However, they spring from articulated singular accounts rather than form an all-encompassing tacit sub-current narrative. Adding a sixth sociological concept of narrative I refer to issue-narratives. Trigger-narratives congeal around an issue. But they instill a far greater expectation for change. I conclude that: 1. trigger narratives are closest to fiction 2. They operate through a condensation of Ricoeur’s mimetic cycle configuring and refiguring reality in a rapid rotation that ossifies them into a mobilizing form, and that 3. Interpreting trigger-narratives through the perspective of world-creating myths illuminates many of their typical characteristics in a unifying, comprehensive manner. The study points to two new research directions: 1. trigger-narratives’ aftermath operations (specifically rituals and newly erected institutions).2. Further interdisciplinary cooperation between contemporary political philosophy of narrative and the sociological methodology of frame-analysis. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2016. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Philosophy.

This thesis is a textual analysis and discourse analysis that examines the social and programmatic construction of the videogame Minecraft by interrogating how code, design, and fan modifications limit and facilitate play in and outside the game. This thesis will argue that the constitution of gender--and subjectivity, more broadly--is reflected in the language, space, and bodies that shape the boundaries of the virtual world. What makes a player "cyborgian" when they embody a virtual avatar may have less to do the abstraction of agency into a computerized self and more to do with the way in which humans create and maintain conduits to exist between worlds that are both digital and material.

A presente tese tem como objetivo analisar figurações de Deus nos romances saramaguianos Manual de Pintura e Caligrafia, Levantado do Chão, Memorial do Convento, O Evangelho Segundo Jesus Cristo e Caim. Nos três primeiros, Deus não aparece como personagem, mas pelos comentários críticos, seja do narrador, seja das personagens, pode-se presumir a inexistência de Deus, que nada mais é que uma criação da mente humana. Nos dois últimos, Deus surge como uma personagem de ficção, com características que destoam daquelas que lhe são atribuídas pela tradição religiosa judaico-cristã, sendo dessacralizado, tendo como contrapartida a elevação do homem a único senhor de seu próprio destino. / This thesis aims to analyze God\'s figurations in the Saramago\'s novels Manual of Painting and Calligraphy, Raised from the Ground, Baltasar and Blimunda, The Gospel According to Jesus Christ and Cain. In the first three, God doesn\'t appear as character, but for the critical comments, belong to the narrator, belong to the characters, it can be supposed the inexistence of God, that it is nothing else that a creation of the human mind. In the last two, God appears as a fiction character, with characteristics that differ from those characteristics that Jewish-Christian religion tradition attribute to him, stopping being a sacred being, having as compensation the elevation of the man to only master of his own destiny.

O objetivo deste trabalho foi interpretar posições de autoria, articuladas com a relação entre memória discursiva, mito e circulação das práticas letradas. Para isso, tomamos o efeito de separação entre Mito e verdade, para, de modo contrário, considerar como prática letrada a maneira pela qual as questões trazidas pelos Mitos se apresentam entre narrativas orais contadas por uma mulher não-alfabetizada. As bases teóricas são a Análise do Discurso francesa de Pêcheux (AD), a Psicanálise e as pesquisas sobre letramento, principalmente tal como conduzidas por Tfouni e colaboradores. Em relação à metodologia, seguimos o paradigma indiciário de análise proposto por Ginzburg. A partir desses referenciais, consideramos que há uma relação estreita entre a constituição mítica do dizer (a impossibilidade de nele marcar uma origem) e a função do recalque no interdiscurso (esquecimento número um, no sentido de Pêcheux) na estabilização e distribuição dos sentidos. Além disso, entendemos que as produções discursivas (orais e escritas) disponíveis numa sociedade letrada se interpenetram, mesmo que haja desníveis no seu poderio simbólico, por conta da heterogeneidade na distribuição dos sentidos sustentada pela interdição ideológica aos arquivos. A posição de autoria é uma das maneiras de se indiciar diversas alteridades presentes nessa distribuição do sentido que se articula em práticas letradas. Dentro dessa implicação estão formas de leitura do arquivo, que incluem produções de alfabetizados e não-alfabetizados. Concorde essa fundamentação teórica e pelo paradigma indiciário, foi analisado um corpus formado por trinta e quatro narrativas orais produzidas por uma mulher não-alfabetizada e moradora da periferia de Ribeirão Preto-SP, que foram gravadas e transcritas. Nelas, apontamos as marcas, indícios e gestos de interpretação utilizados pelo sujeito-narrador, considerando que o retorno ao já dito ocorre pela marcação de fronteiras com os discursos semanticamente estabilizados e que apontam graus de letramento de natureza vária. Dentre essas marcas, a análise das seqüências discursivas apresenta: 1- os processos de re-significação de narrativas já disponíveis na tradição oral; 2- a transmissão de saberes disponíveis na memória discursiva por meio de sua reformulação articulada às estratégias interpretativas em que o interdiscurso (arquivo) conflui para uma estabilidade do fio do discurso (intradiscurso); 3- as fronteiras discursivas marcadas pelas modalizações e por uma reflexão meta-discursiva que o sujeito-narrador sustenta ao longo do fio do discurso; 4- a articulação do efeito de fechamento de genéricos discursivos (máximas, provérbios, ditos populares) com o mito individual sustentado pelo recalque originário; e por fim, 5- a distribuição de sentidos por meio de formulações não marcadas pelo sujeito-narrador o que vai ao encontro de uma noção de escritura do sujeito (Derrida) e que rompe com a supremacia logocêntrica da escrita alfabética que monopoliza o conhecimento sobre a língua. Ao apostar na alteridade entre oralidade e escrita, portanto este trabalho se posiciona num esforço interpretativo de oposição à dicotomia entre as línguas de madeira e as práticas factuais de linguagem, dicotomia esta a que também se filia a cisão entre oralidade e escrita para enfrentar o monopólio do conhecimento cooptado pela escrita e possibilitar a circulação das práticas letradas (FAPESP). / The aim of this work is to interpret the positions of authorship articulated by the relation among discourse memory, myth and the circulation of literacy practices. We, therefore, take account of the effect of separation between myth and reality to, on the contrary, consider as literacy practice the way the questions brought up by myths occur in oral narratives told by an illiterate woman. The theoretical bases are the French Discourse Analysis by Pêcheux (AAD), Psychoanalysis and research on literacy, specially the works conducted by Tfouni and co-workers. With regard to methodology, we adopted the index paradigm of analysis proposed by Ginzburg. From these references on, we claim that there is a close connection between the mythic constitution of speech (the impossibility of finding its source) and the function of suppression in the interdiscourse (forgetfulness number one for Pêcheux) along the process of stabilization and distribution of meanings. Moreover, we understand that the discourse productions (oral and written) available in a literate society are intertwined, even though they present unlevelled symbolic empowerment due to their heterogeneity of semantic distribution sustained by ideological interdiction of files. The position of authorship is one of the ways to investigate the range of alterity of semantic distribution that takes place in literacy practices. Within this implication, there are the methods of reading the social files, all of which consist of productions from literate and illiterate subjects. Hence, according to such theoretical fundaments and the index paradigm, a corpus of thirty-four oral narratives produced by an illiterate woman, who lives in the outskirts of Ribeirão Preto, was recorded, translated and analysed. In these, we point out the marks, evidences and gestures of interpretation used by the subject-narrator, signalling that the return to the pre-constructs happens through her delimitation of boundaries towards speeches semantically crystallized from levels of literacy of different natures. By and large, the analysis of discourse sequences occurs as follows: 1 the processes of re-signification of narratives traditionally verified in oral context; 2 the transmission of knowledge present in the discourse memory through reformulation linked to interpretative strategies in which the interdiscourse converges to a certain stability of plot (intradiscourse); 3 the speech boundaries that are marked by stages of modalization and a reflection of meta-discourse, which is supported along the subjects speech; 4 the articulation of closure effect of discourse genres (axioms, proverbs, popular sayings) with the individual myth sustained by original suppression; to conclude, 5 the distribution of meanings through formulations not-marked by the subject-narrator that meets his notions of written register (Derrida) and yet dissipate the logocentric alphabetic writing supremacy that monopolises knowledge over language. Having bet on alterity between oral and written registers, thus this work proposes the interpretative effort of opposing to the dichotomy among wooden languages and factual language practices; dichotomy that also suggests the rupture between oral and written registers so as to face the knowledge monopoly formed by the written language allowing the circulation of literacy practices (FAPESP).

As Moscas (Les Mouches, 1943) representa o início da carreira de Jean-Paul Sartre como dramaturgo e o de seu \"teatro de situações\". Do mesmo ano de O Ser e o Nada - obra-prima do existencialismo sartriano-, a peça é uma versão existencialista da lenda grega de Orestes. Este é o filho do rei Agamêmnon - comandante das tropas gregas na Guerra de Tróia - que, com a irmã Electra, se vinga dos assassinos de seu pai, Egisto e a rainha Clitemnestra, esposa de Agamêmnon e mãe deles. O episódio foi revisitado pelos três grandes poetas da tragédia clássica, Ésquilo, Sófocles e Eurípides. Em As Moscas Sartre transforma a vingança de Orestes em metáfora para os temas da liberdade e da má - fé e para a crítica à idéia tradicional de \"destino\" como em voga, no governo autoritário de Vichy, durante a Ocupação nazista da França (1940-44). Esse governo, apoiado pela hierarquia da Igreja Católica francesa, difundia uma ideologia \"religiosa\" de culpa e resignação diante da derrota militar frente a Hitler. A peça de Sartre pode, assim, ser lida como apologia ao movimento da Resistência antifascista dos franceses. Neste trabalho realizamos avaliação dos significados do mito em As Moscas. Considerando mas também indo além de seu sentido mais imediato de alegoria política, procuramos, à luz do ensaio clássico de Mircea Eliade de O Mito do Eterno Retorno, esclarecer as bases de um possível diálogo implícito da peça com o \"pensamento mítico\" universal, diálogo o qual é constituído por um movimento de crítica e de re-apropriação existencialista do valor \"arquetípico\" das narrativas míticas. O que se pretende mostrar é, sobretudo, que a peça de Sartre opera uma destruição e recriação do que Eliade chama de ontologia arcaica, estrutura de pensamento \"mítica\" porque calcada em arquétipos ou modelos transcendentes de significação e legitimação das ações e instituições humanas e do mundo em geral. A destruição se dá no contexto do ateísmo de Sartre e de sua crítica ao cristianismo; Sartre denuncia valores morais e religiosos ligados ao que chama de má- fé, tipo de conduta que, na situação específica de Vichy, trai a liberdade humana ao atrelar o poder e a história a certos arquétipos \"celestiais\" e deterministas. Por outro lado, a recriação se deve ao fato de As Moscas representar uma espécie de \"mito fundador\" da liberdade. Concluímos que, ao contrário do que seria de se esperar da perspectiva eliadiana, o existencialismo de As Moscas, anunciando a liberdade como horizonte fundamental da condição humana, não implica necessariamente o esvaziamento da possibilidade da experiência mítica, e sim sua renovação, já não como fuga - senão como revelação - da historicidade radical do homem. / The Flies (Les Mouches, 1943) represents the beginning of the dramaturgic career of Jean- Paul Sartre and of his \"theatre of situations\". Of the same year that Being and Nothingness - the masterpiece of Sartrian existentialism - this play is an existentialist version of Orestes\' Greek legend. Orestes is the king Agamemnon\'s son -the leader of Greek troops for the Trojan War - which, together with his sister Electra, takes revenge against their father\'s murderers, Aegisthus and Clytemnestra, Agamemnon\'s wife and their mother. The story was retold by the main Greek tragedians, Aesquylus, Sophocles and Euripides. In The Flies Sartre transforms Orestes\' revenge into a metaphor for the themes of liberty and bad faith, and into a critic against the traditional idea of \"destiny\", in the shape as it had a good run in the authoritarian govern of Vichy, during Nazi Occupation of France (1940-44). This government, supported by the French Catholic Church\'s hierarchy, disseminated a \"religious\" ideology of guilty and resignation for the defeat against Hitler. Sartre\'s play can, thus, be read as an apology for the anti- fascist Resistance of French people. In this work we study the significations of \"myth\" in The Flies. Considering but also going beyond its more immediate sense as a political allegory, we try, with the aid of Mircea Eliade\' classical essay The Myth of Eternal Return (1949), clarify the basis of a possible, implicit dialogue of the play with the universal \"mythical thought\", dialogue which is constituted by both a movement of critics and existentialist re-appropriation of \"arquetypical\" value of mythical narratives. We intend to show that Sartre\'s play operates some destruction and recreation of what Eliade calls \"archaic ontology\", structure of thought which is \"mythical\" once is based upon archetypes or transcendent models of meaning and legitimacy for human actions and institutions and of the World in general. The destruction happens in the context of Sartrian atheism and his critics of Christianity; Sartre denounces moral and religious values associated to what he calls \"bad faith\", a kind of conduct which, as in the specific situation of Vichy, betrays the human liberty tiding up the power and the History to certain deterministic, \"celestial\" arquetypes. On the other hand, the recreation is linked to the fact that The Flies represents a kind of \"founding myth\" of liberty. Our conclusion is that, in opposition to what would be expectable from Eliade\'s point of view, the existentialism of The Flies, announcing liberty as the fundamental horizon of the human condition, does not represent, necessarily, an impossibility of mythical experience, but its renovation, not as an escape from - but as a revelation of - the radical historicity of Man.

O presente trabalho busca uma análise e interpretação da obra teatral I giganti della montagna de Luigi Pirandello, discutindo a questão da fragmentação e da ruptura do sujeito consigo mesmo, considerando-as formas de duplicação temática e estrutural no texto dramático. Além disso, tenta mostrar as relações estabelecidas entre a narrativa e o drama, por intermédio da concepção de mito, colocada pelo autor. / This work aims at analyzing and interpreting Luigi Pirandello\'s play I giganti della montagna, discussing the problem of the subject\'s fragmentation and rupture, regarding these as forms of the play\'s thematic and structural duplication. In addition, the work attempts to illustrate the existing connections between narrative and drama, taking into account the author\'s conception of myth.

A presente tese tem como objetivo analisar figurações de Deus nos romances saramaguianos Manual de Pintura e Caligrafia, Levantado do Chão, Memorial do Convento, O Evangelho Segundo Jesus Cristo e Caim. Nos três primeiros, Deus não aparece como personagem, mas pelos comentários críticos, seja do narrador, seja das personagens, pode-se presumir a inexistência de Deus, que nada mais é que uma criação da mente humana. Nos dois últimos, Deus surge como uma personagem de ficção, com características que destoam daquelas que lhe são atribuídas pela tradição religiosa judaico-cristã, sendo dessacralizado, tendo como contrapartida a elevação do homem a único senhor de seu próprio destino. / This thesis aims to analyze God\'s figurations in the Saramago\'s novels Manual of Painting and Calligraphy, Raised from the Ground, Baltasar and Blimunda, The Gospel According to Jesus Christ and Cain. In the first three, God doesn\'t appear as character, but for the critical comments, belong to the narrator, belong to the characters, it can be supposed the inexistence of God, that it is nothing else that a creation of the human mind. In the last two, God appears as a fiction character, with characteristics that differ from those characteristics that Jewish-Christian religion tradition attribute to him, stopping being a sacred being, having as compensation the elevation of the man to only master of his own destiny.

The topic of this diploma thesis is the search for a feminine ideal in Gainsbourg's and Baudelaire's works. The image of an ideal woman is apparent in the works of both authors. In Gainsbourg's case, we partly dealt with the image in our bachelor thesis Lolita in Serge Gainsbourg's life and works. We try to follow up on the study. The first part of this thesis deals with Gainsbourg, especially his relationship with women. The second part treats of Baudelaire and his perception of a perfect woman. In the third part, we present selected Gainsbourg's texts, and on their basis we define the author's perception of the feminine beauty. Analogously, the fourth part deals with the analysis of Baudelaire's poetry. In the fifth part, we marginally mention also the works of other authors, where we can see a similar search for a feminine ideal. Keywords : Gainsbourg, Baudelaire, woman, ideal, myth