Thesis (M.S.W.)--Smith College School for Social Work, Northampton, Mass., 2009. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 56-58).

Stemming from the interdisciplinary questions, "what is the self?" and "what occurs in the absence of the self' this study sheds light on key areas of interest to both clinical psychologists and cognitive scientists. Following a review of self-literature across several disciplines, it is concluded that the fracturing or absence of the self may relate to certain psychopathologies. The present study used oral autobiographical narrative and a self-report inventory of psychopathology to explore this relationship in 43 college students. By examining these questions from a bottom-up perspective, this study expands upon existing literature regarding quantitative linguistic analysis of narrative in addition to providing key empirical data for the interdisciplinary study of psychopathology. Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count software and the Brief Symptom Inventory were used to categorize word use in autobiographical narratives and recent psychological distress. Linear regression with forward modeling was used to explore linguistic factors from the narratives that related to specific types of psychopathology. Results suggested that increased use of positive feeling words (e.g., happy, joy, love) in autobiographical narratives predicted an increased overall severity of distress, with other emotional, cognitive, and pronoun-based word usage predicting specific forms of psychopathology.

Darbe sociokultūriniu požiūriu nagrinėjami skirtingų žanrų Tomo Venclovos tekstai, dėmesį kreipiant į subjekto identiteto raišką. “Aš naratyvą” suprantant kaip pasakojimą arba pasakojimus, padedančius individui ir kitiems refleksyviai suvokti jo tapatumą, lyginama subjekto tapatybės raiška eseistikoje ir publicistikoje bei poezijoje, gilinamasi, kaip kultūrinė bei literatūrinė “Aš tapatybė” perimama, integruojama ir veikia verčiamuose tekstuose. Subjekto identiteto raiška stebima laiko perspektyvoje to paties žanro tekstuose bei lyginama, kokie yra subjekto identitetų santykiai (panašumai, skirtumai, neatitikimai) skirtingo žanro tekstuose. Lyginant vertimo tekstą su originalais, išryškėja dvikryptis kultūrinio ir literatūrinio identiteto per���mimo procesas, leidžiantis įvardinti perimamus literatūrinius ir kultūrinius modelius. Subjekto identitetas eseistikoje labai stiprus ir aiškiai suvoktas. Jis nuosekliai palaikomas ir patvirtinamas, nepaisant jo prieštaringumo supančios aplinkos atžvilgiu. Poezijos subjekto „Aš naratyvas“ kinta laiko perspektyvoje, chronologiniu požiūriu vėlesniuose eilėraščiuose ryškus subjekto nebesugebėjimas įsitvirtinti laike ir erdvėje bei užmegzti ryšius su pasaulio objektais, kas yra pagrindinė tapatybės išlaikymo ir patvirtinimo sąlyga. Skirtingi „Aš naratyvai“ kuria prieštaringą, daugialypę, tačiau unikalią „Aš tapatybę“. / Work analyses different genres of T. Venclova‘s texts from sociocultural point of view, paying attention to the expression of subject’s identity. Understanding “narrative of the self” as narration or narrations, which helps individual and the rest reflexively realize its sameness, expression of subject’s identity is compared in essays and views on political issues, on societal and cultural developments, going deep into how cultural and literary “narrative of the self” getting intercepted, integrated and acts in translations of the texts. Expression of subjects identity is observed in prospect of the time in the texts of the same genre and it is compared what are the terms of the subject’s identities (likeness, difference, inadequacy) in the texts of the different genres. Translation of the text compared with originals, shows up bidirectional process of succession of cultural and literary identity, which lets designate successive literary and cultural models. Subject’s identity in essays is very strong and clearly seized. It’s sequaciously upholded and affirmed, despite its discrepancy from the point of surrounding environment. Subject’s of the poetry narrative of the self changes in prospect of the time, in chronologically later verses subject’s incapacity to make lodgement in time and expanse and to get in touch with world’s objects is clear, and that is the main condition of identity‘s sustention and acknowledgement. Divers narrative of the self composes controversial... [to full text]

Through a study of the work of three important writers, this thesis engages with the traumatic memories of the second half of the twentieth century in Czechoslovakia in order to highlight the value of literature in widening critical understandings of the continuing legacy of this complex era, which was dominated by totalitarian regimes under the Communist governments which gained control after the upheaval of the Second World War. Whilst these years were not unilaterally traumatic, many lives were dramatically affected by border closures and by the experience of living under a regime that maintained control through methods including confiscation of property, surveillance, arbitrary imprisonment, show trials, and executions. Many of the stories of this era could not be published openly because of censorship, and the persecution of intellectuals led to a wave of emigration, during which a number of writers moved to France. Using theories of trauma, exile, illness, and of self and other, this thesis opens up a dialogue between the work of three writers who engage, albeit from very different perspectives, with this little-explored intersection between Czech and French. The first chapter explores Daniela Hodrová's translated Prague trilogy as a first-hand witness to her nation's dispossession and as a form of resistance to the deletion of memory. The second chapter considers the painful transgenerational legacy of the era as it plays out in the work of bilingual writer Jean-Gaspard Páleníček. Chapter Three considers the ways in which the Prague novels of established French author Sylvie Germain negotiate the fine line between an appropriation of the stories of the other and a moral responsibility to bear witness. By bringing these authors together for the first time and locating their work within French Studies, my work foregrounds the need for Western criticism to pay attention to other valuable voices who can contribute to our understandings of the traumatic experience that has shaped modern history.

Charlotte Brontë’s problematising of first-person narrative foregrounds the fluidity of the concept of identity and insists on its constructed nature. Brontë uses specific narrative techniques in The Professor, Jane Eyre and Villette to achieve this foregrounding, which leads to a complex and sophisticated exploration of the individual’s relationship to society, and how this influences the way individuals construct their identity. Each of these novels presents a different example of such self-construction through the characterisation of the first person narrator. Brontë’s questioning of the stability of the self encourages readers to be aware of such constructs. In my first chapter, I look closely at how narrative authority is parcelled out in Brontë’s nineteenth-century society, and what influence the conferring or withholding of such authority has on the construction of a narrative self. The next three chapters are devoted to discussion of specific examples of narrative self-construction in Brontë’s first-person novels, how her protagonists deal with narrative authority, and the difficulties inherent in speaking or writing with such authority for nineteenth-century women in particular. Individuals construct a sense of their self through telling stories. Brontë’s fiction asks the question, if “Literature cannot be the business of a woman’s life” is this tantamount to denying women the right to an arena for the construction of a self at all? What role do readers play in the construction of a narrative self for a writer? In the concluding chapter my aim is to open out my analysis of Brontë’s fiction by examining the idea of narrative as a place more generally for imaginative self-construction. I structure the chapter around J. Hillis Miller’s argument in On Literature that the role of reading and writing in this regard has irrevocably changed in the twenty-first century due to the influence and popularity of the on-line world.

When biological information about an individual is produced in healthcare or research settings, ethical questions may arise about whether the individual herself should be able to access it. This thesis argues that the individual’s identity-related interests warrant serious attention in framing and addressing these questions. Identity interests are largely neglected in bioethical, policy and legal debates about information access – except where information about genetic parentage is concerned. Even there, the relationship between information and identity, and the interests involved, remain unclear. This thesis seeks to fill this conceptual gap and challenge this exceptionalism. It does so by developing a normative account of the roles that a wide range of information about our health, bodies and biological relationships – ‘personal bioinformation’ – can play in the construction of our self-conceptions. This account is developed in two steps. First, building on existing philosophical theories of narrative self-constitution, this thesis proposes that personal bioinformation has a critical role to play in the construction of identity narratives that remain coherent and support us in navigating our embodied experiences. Secondly, drawing on empirical literature reporting individuals’ attitudes to receiving three categories of personal bioinformation (about donor conception, genetic disease susceptibility, and neuroimaging-based psychiatric diagnoses), the thesis seeks to illustrate, demonstrate the plausibility of, and to refine this theoretically-based proposition. From these foundations, it is argued that we can have strong identity-related interests in whether and how we are able to access bioinformation about ourselves. The practical implications of this conclusion are then explored. It is argued that identity interests are not reducible to other interests (for example, in health protection) commonly weighed in information disclosure decisions. They, therefore, warrant attention in their own right. An ethical framework is developed to guide delivery of this. This framework sets out the ethical responsibilities of those who hold bioinformation about us to respond to our identity interests in information disclosure practices and policies. The framework is informed by indications from the illustrative examples that our interests engaged as much by how bioinformation is communicated as whether it is disclosed. Moreover, these interests are not uniformly engaged by all bioinformation in all circumstances and there is potential for identity detriment as well as benefit. The ethical framework highlights the opportunities for and challenges of responding to identity interests and the scope and limits of potential disclosers’ responsibilities to do so. It also makes recommendations as to the principles and characteristics of identity-supporting disclosure practices.

Pendant de nombreuses années, Aharon Appelfeld, Philip Roth et Primo Levi entretiennent une sorte de « dialogue à distance », interrompu en 1987 par la mort de ce dernier. Notre travail vise à analyser les modalités à travers lesquelles la production de ces trois écrivains – marqués de manière plus ou moins « directe » par l’histoire de la deuxième guerre mondiale et la mémoire de la Shoah – complexifie, avant tout sur le plan fictionnel, une certaine conception du témoignage, dont les enjeux esthétiques sont loin d’être anodins. Certes, dans un premier temps il a été important de reconstituer la correspondance triangulaire entre Levi, Appelfeld et Roth ; bien que fondamentale, ce n’est pas la composante philologique de notre recherche que nous avons souhaité mettre en avant, mais plutôt la pertinence d’un rapprochement de corpus en apparence distants, et pourtant liés par des questionnements analogues. Il est évident que si la possibilité de consulter, donc de disposer de documents d’archive pour la plupart inédits et d’accéder à des échanges parfois publics – quoique destinés à un auditoire en quelque sorte « communautaire » – a été précieuse afin d’alimenter la réflexion, le fait de lier de manière trop manifeste les considérations au sujet des démarches (poétiques ou politiques) de nos trois auteurs à leur complicité intellectuelle et, le cas échéant, à leur amitié aurait pu minimiser la portée de certaines observations – et suggérer de faux rapports de cause à effet. / My doctoral thesis explores the relationship between literature and historical witnessing. By focusing on the works of Primo Levi, Aharon Appelfeld, and Philip Roth (authors who relate in very different ways the trauma of the Holocaust), my research aims at investigating the enmeshment of aesthetic and epistemological issues. My comparative exploration of these authors is motivated by and allows for a conceptual layering of the problem along three distinct research axes : (1) each author maintains a different degree of autobiographical involvement with the genocidal facts he evokes, ranging from maximum directness (Levi) to an oblique post hoc distance (Roth) ; (2) each author thematizes the problem by framing fictional situations in which characters have to cope with the plastic tension of narrative recollection ; (3) there is a twofold factual link between the three authors consisting in (a) explicit or covert intertextual quotations (e.g. Levi and Appelfeld become characters in Roth’s "Operation Shylock") and, more significantly, (b) an under-investigated circular correspondence in which each of them discusses at length the gains and losses of (literary) historical witnessing. The core of my project, therefore, is grounded in the long-distance conversation on the reworking of memories between Aharon Appelfeld, Philip Roth and Primo Levi – a three-way conversation that perforce ceased with Levi’s death in 1987.