While poetry has historically been connected with rhetoric, few rhetoricians have studied contemporary poetry. Jeffery Walker suggests that this is because contemporary poetry, unlike classical poetry, no longer addresses all socio-economic levels of society but has become insular and self-referential (329). He criticizes that poetry no longer cuts vertically across one culture's hierarchy. I agree that poetry no longer addresses all segments of society, but I argue that this doesn't mean poetry is no longer rhetorical. Contemporary poetry now operates horizontally to unite the cultural elite of many national and ethnic groups by appealing to their identity as poetry readers. Using the identification theories of Kenneth Burke and Naomi Marin, the rhetoric in contemporary poetry becomes more apparent. As an example of how contemporary poetry creates identification among the literary elite, I examine the work of Aleš Debeljak—a former Yugoslavian Slovene poet who must define his national identity while appealing to a transnational community of poetry readers. Debeljak's poetry demonstrates the sophisticated work poetry does to create identify and identification.

No description available.

In this thesis I explore the ways in which my artistic, political, and personal values led me to propose Naomi Wallace’s THE TRESTLE AT POPE LICK CREEK as my thesis in order to both reflect and enact what I believe in and also to respond to the dearth of those principles within the Theater Department. I address how those same ethics subsequently informed every facet of my direction of and programming around the play. Through the dual lenses of activating my values and my technical growth as a director, I analyze the “what” and “how” of my work on TRESTLE, the “what” being the artistic substance of what I was aiming to create and the “how” being my methods of engaging in the work. Ultimately, I assess the major takeaways from my experiences in Temple’s MFA program in Theater Directing overall, highlighting the major lessons I will take with me into my career. / Theater

L’étude de la représentation des lieux, du territoire, notamment dans les romans, occupe une place de plus en plus marquée au sein de la recherche universitaire, l’espace menant à une compréhension accrue de l’univers diégétique. La littérature des Premières Nations du Québec étant cependant peu analysée de ce point de vue, le présent mémoire vise à montrer la pertinence d’une étude de la représentation des lieux et du territoire dans les romans autochtones Ourse bleue de l’auteure crie Virginia Pésémapéo Bordeleau ainsi que Kuessipan de l’auteure innue Naomi Fontaine. Pour ce faire, le mémoire se sépare en trois parties. La première, dédiée aux diverses théories retenues, pose les assises de l’analyse textuelle à venir. Les notions de topos et de chôra d’Augustin Berque, de hauts-lieux de Mario Bédard, de figures spatiales de Christiane Lahaie et de Fernando Lambert, lesquelles servent à mieux cerner la nature du lieu, y sont détaillées. La seconde se penche sur l’œuvre de Pésémapéo Bordeleau en s’attardant successivement aux figures de la route, des communautés autochtones, des cours d’eau et de la forêt, du territoire cri. Ce chapitre met en lumière une prégnance d’éléments topographiques, de même qu’une quête identitaire de la protagoniste fortement ancrée dans le territoire de ses ancêtres. La dernière se consacre à l’analyse de l’œuvre de Fontaine et s’applique à décrire le même type de figures. Une chorésie se dessine, les personnages innus ayant été transformés au contact de l’harmonie sylvestre, laissant entrevoir le caractère essentiel de la forêt et des pratiques ancestrales qui y sont associées. Cette étude de la représentation des lieux diégétiques dans deux romans autochtones permet de cerner l’importance majeure qu’occupe le territoire au sein des récits, des pérégrinations des divers personnages, cris ou innus. De fait, cette figure spatiale éveille les sens par sa beauté prenante, convie à l’introspection, à la réflexion, fait ressurgir la culture et les traditions ancestrales. Plus important encore : elle conduit les divers personnages à se questionner quant à leur identité et favorise l’accomplissement de soi.

En genusteoretisk stickprovskontroll. Uppsatsen genomlyser Camilla Grebes Älskaren från huvudkontoret ur ett genusteoretiskt perspektiv med focus på Luce Irigaray teorier. Inledningsvis presenteras Luce Irigaray övergripande och hennes arbete ställs i relation till Simone de Beauvoirs. Irigarays teorier om maskulint och feminint subjekt gås igenom och teoridelen avslutas med ett destillat av teorierna här kallat; typiska drag. Utifrån dessa typiska drag analyseras delar, utvalda med heuristisk metod, av Camilla Grebes roman Älskaren från huvudkontoret från 2015. I analysen diskuteras utöver undersökningen och de presenterade teorierna även paralleller till Janice Radways Kvinnor läser romantik: om samspelet mellan text och kontext. Resultaten av undersökningen och slutsatsen diskuteras och ifrågasätts. / <p>--</p>

This thesis examines three genres of the oral heritage of the Neo-Aramaic-speaking Jewish community of Zakho, Kurdistan: the proverb, the enriched biblical narrative, and the folktale. During the past three decades, there has been a renewed interest in research on Neo-Aramaic, and a substantial growth of research in the field has been seen. However, the contemporary study of Neo-Aramaic has been focused almost exclusively on linguistic description and analysis. Content-based aspects of the study of the language and its cultures have received very little attention. This thesis is a first step towards filling this gap. The introduction to the thesis provides background information about the Jewish community of Zakho and about the Neo-Aramaic subgroup to which the Jewish Zakho dialect belongs, North-Eastern Neo-Aramaic (NENA). It then gives a brief review of relevant aspects of the study of folklore, before providing a description of the database of audio recordings upon which this thesis is based. The first chapter presents several approaches to the study of the proverb (paremiology). It is argued that an important component for the understanding and analysis of proverbs, one that is often overlooked, is the context of each proverb. The second chapter analyses an example of the genre of enriched biblical narrative through the lens of a concept taken from the field of thematology: the motifeme - a small meaning-bearing contextual-structural unit of the narrative. It demonstrates the non-linear historical development of the sequence of motifemes in the narrative analysed here, a feature which is particularly typical of Jewish narratives. The folktale is a genre central to the formation and maintenance of the Jewish Zakho communal identity, and the third chapter contains a detailed analysis of one particular folktale. The folktale chosen for analysis in this chapter features a cross-culturally uncommon motif: the motif of magical gender transformation. The NENA materials contained in this thesis are transcribed and translated into English. They are drawn from a database of recordings of members of the Zakho community living now mainly in Jerusalem, and were collected in the course of fieldwork undertaken by the author.

This study posits that a deconstructive socio-historical reading of Ruth will elicit aspects of ancient Israelite women’s agency which can then be used to inspire greater socio-economic agency amongst poor rural women today. While it is difficult to establish the date of Ruth with any precision, the study argues that the book was first written to legitimise David’s kingship and then used as a polemic against Ezra-Nehemiah’s intermarriage policies some 550 years later. Accordingly, it discusses the socio-economic conditions pertaining to both periods, namely the early monarchic and the early post-exilic periods. The study shows that Israel began as a loosely organized tribal confederation, which lacked a structured political system, in the pre-monarchic period, and that far-reaching changes ensued upon the institution of the monarchy. During the monarchic period, the political structure of the land was increasingly centralised around the king. Despite the political changes, and variances within the mode of production, the family remained the basic economic production unit throughout Israel’s history. Similarly, Israelite society remained patriarchal in nature, and women derived their identity and economic wellbeing from the men in their lives. Women did not have any economic rights per se; their rights, if any, were secured and safeguarded by the men to whom they belonged. Furthermore, land was the most important economic commodity but Israelite law deprived the majority of women of the opportunity to own land. These factors disenfranchised and impoverished women, particularly childless widows. Within this context, Naomi and Ruth devised strategies which subverted the oppressive patriarchal structures of their time and overcame their socio-economic distress. The principles underlying their actions may be used to encourage poor rural women to develop greater socio-economic agency today. / Thesis (M.Th.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2012.

No description available.

The conclusion of this thesis brings an understanding of the deeper meaning of the book of Ruth and its role in the lives of God's followers. The application of the tools of narrative analysis clearly showed that on the background of Naomi and Ruth's deeply human story unfolds another one. It is the story of the Lord who is invisibly directing events and human destinies to present and reveal the work and mission of his Messiah to the whole mankind. The main characters in the story provide an eloquent example of faith to follow and in a very plastic way imply the role of the Redeemer. Thus the story builds up faith of people in the Lord and prepares them to recognize and accept his Messiah. And this may be the mission and function of the book of Ruth in the biblical canon. Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

This dissertation addresses the phenomenon of 'radical commodities'-commercial products which advance an oppositional politics. Examples of such include the products of Rage Against The Machine, a 'revolutionary' rock band; Michael Moore, a best-selling author and award-winning documentary filmmaker; Naomi Klein, a journalist and author of the international bestseller No Logo; The Body Shop, a multinational manufacturer and retailer of 'natural' cosmetics and toiletries; Freitag, a company which manufactures bags, wallets and other fashionable accessories from recycled materials, and; the Adbusters Media Foundation, publisher of Adbusters magazine and producer of Blackspot shoes. Radical commodities are fundamentally paradoxical objects whose apparent ethic would appear to be at odds with the fact that they are commodities. This dissertation asks: can a commodity-object legitimately serve as a vehicle for social and political critique? It is reasoned that the problem of radical commodities is principally structural. Marx's seminal writings on the commodity accordingly represent the logical point of departure. The Marxian analysis illuminates not only the commodity-structure, but also the political problematic which emerges from that structure-for Marx, the commodity is a mechanism of exploitation. From an orthodox Marxist perspective, the idea of a radical commodity would therefore be most contradictory, or indeed impossible. It is argued, however, that the Marxian analysis is inconclusive. This dissertation traces a genealogy of analyses of the commodity, which variously advance or diverge from the orthodox Marxist position. From a perspective of the consumption of commodity-objects, the radical commodity would appear to be possible. Yet, the relationship between the commodity-structure and the capitalist ideology runs deep. The question of the radical commodity is therefore markedly more complex than it might initially appear. With regard to the ideological consequence of the commodity-structure, however, certain streams of post-Marxist analysis are themselves problematic, for they ultimately short-circuit historical critique and destabilise the very possibility of politics. In contrast, this dissertation seeks to reaffirm a place for politics and, in so doing, to establish the theoretical possibility of radical commodities. To contend that the idea of a radical commodity is not fundamentally contradictory, however, says nothing of the political potency of such objects. These are undoubtedly complex objects, whose peculiarities cannot be ascertained by abstract theorisation alone. For this reason, this dissertation also employs empirical analyses of a number of radical commodities. In sum, it is argued that the sphere of commodities should be admitted as a possible site for the expression or implementation of a radical politics, and thus that radical commodities should be understood as a legitimate vehicle for social and political critique, but that such objects are by no means free from contradiction, and that the political efficacy of these products is anything but guaranteed.