This thesis is dedicated to establishing ways in which the image of Calderon was perceived and constructed by the thinkers of the Enlightenment, of both conservative and reformist convictions, as part of their efforts to create and impose their own understanding of what Spanish national identity is or should be like. / The thesis concentrates on the writings of several of the most important intellectuals of the XVIII century who took part in the heated debate as to the value of Calderon's work: Blas Nasarre y Ferriz, Tomas Erauso y Zabaleta, Nicolas Fernandez de Moratin, Cristobal Romea y Tapia, Jose Clavijo y Fajardo and Francisco Mariano Nipho. / The first two chapters of the thesis deal with the way by which the image of Calderon has been used in order to support certain ideological convictions, in particular, a certain way of understanding Spanish national identity. Chapter three examines the polemics itself, from its beginning in 1749 until the mid-sixties of the XVIII century. A brief section of conclusions closes the thesis, followed by a selected bibliography.

'"Transcolonial Circuits': Historical Fiction and National Identities in Ireland, Scotland, and Canada" explores the intersections between gender, canon-formation, and literary genre in order to argue that English- and French-Canadian historical fiction was influenced, both in form and content, by the precedent-setting fictions o f Scotland and Ireland in the early nineteenth century. Conceived in the spirit o f Katie Trumpener's Bardic Nationalism: The Romantic Novel and the British Empire (1997), this dissertation extends Trumpener's examination of nineteenth-century British and Canadian romantic fiction by exploring in greater detail the flow of ideas and literary techniques between Ireland, Scotland, and English and French Canada. It does so in order to revise critical understandings of the formal and thematic origins and development of Canadian historical fiction from the nineteenth century to the present. Chapter One functions as a series of literary snapshots that examine historically the critical and popular reception of novels by Maria Edgeworth and Sydney Owenson in Ireland, Sir Walter Scott in Scotland, John Richardson, William Kirby, and Jean Mcllwraith in English Canada, and Philippe Aubert de Gaspe and Napoleon Bourassa in French Canada. I pay particular attention to the issues o f gender and political ideology as inseparable from the history of the novel itself. In Chapter Two, by focussing on the travel trope, I examine in detail how Irish, Scottish, and Canadian writers transformed the investigative journeys of Samuel Johnson and Arthur Young into journeys of resistance to the dictates of the metropolis. Chapter Three focuses on the complications of marriage as a metaphor o f intercultural union. It pays particular attention to the intersections between gender, sexuality, and colonial identity. The Conclusion extends the concerns raised in the thesis about the relationship between historical writing and national identity to the late-twentieth-century Canadian context, by examining the adaptation of literary and historiographical conventions to the medium of television in the CBC/SRC television series Canada: A People's History, which aired in 2001-02.

The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the process of manipulation of the image of the Golden Age playwright Pedro Calderon de la Barca (1600--1681) during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Intellectuals of all political stripes sought to impose their own agendas by advancing both conservative and reformist convictions as they used the figure of Calderon to their own advantage in the creation of a 'Spanish national identity' for the time. / The research conducted here focuses on the writings of various thinkers of the rival ideologies over the two centuries mentioned above. What this demonstrates most cogently is how, first, the appropriation of Calderon's image always played an essential role in the political debate about 'national identity,' and, secondly, how the dramatist's image was increasingly identified with the values and parameters of conservative ideology. / The first chapter deals with the origins of the debate about the idea of a 'national identity' during the eighteenth century, and analyses in detail the ideological duality and division which characterized this debate as well as its strongly political background. The next two chapters examine respectively the writings of Bohl de Faber and Menendez Pelayo, both of whom took on key roles in the debate. The interpretation provided in these two chapters leads to the conclusion that, by the nineteenth century, Calderon's image was strongly identified with conservative ideology. The thesis ends with some final conclusions, followed by a select bibliography.

The embryonic ideas for this thesis began to form in two seminars I attended in 2000 while studying for a Masters at the University of Chicago. The first of these, W. J. T. Mitchell's 'Verbal and Visual Landscapes', must be given credit for introducing me to a short essay by Martin Heidegger entitled 'Die Kunst und der Raum' ('Art and Space'), which got me thinking about the 'special character' of space (Heidegger 1973: 4). In addition, Professor Mitchell's specific approach to landscape, that it should be considered as a verb rather than a noun, made me consider the ontological implications of the relationship between space and power that is witnessed both in and through landscape when approached as 'a process by which social and subjective identities are formed' (Mitchell 1994: 1).

This thesis examines the identity of the students at the Montreal Hoshuko and the factors that affect the way in which they identify themselves as Japanese, drawing upon a framework of political economy and concepts of globalization and transnationalism. It also explores how Japanese identity is changing in this globalized world. The fieldwork demonstrates that the identity of the Hoshuko students is somewhat commoditized based on Japanese popular culture such as Pokemon. It suggests that increasing communication and contact with external forces has changed and will further change the way Japanese people understand their own culture, identity, and themselves. It is argued that identities are not fixed or frozen in time; rather, they should be understood as flexible and a process shaped by history, a given context, and multiple external factors, and that a more fluid understanding of Japanese culture and identity is needed in a globalized, transnationalized world.

This thesis is a genealogy which traces changes to the discourse of Australian citizenship. These changes were traced in the Australia Day (i.e., January 26) and January 27 editions of The Sydney Morning Herald (SMH) and The Sun Herald (SH) from 1946 – 2007. The dissertation used Foucault’s (1980; 1991a; 1991d; 1991e; 1998; 2002a; 2006b) genealogy supplemented with his archaeological method to provide an analysis of the discourse of Australian citizenship. The analysis was conducted by creating an archive of newspaper texts that related to Australian citizenship discourse. This archive represents the body of knowledge about citizenship as published in the specified print media and reflects the systems of thought that circulated the discourse at particular points in time. The archived newspaper texts related to Australian citizenship discourse contain traces of the social, political, cultural and economic beliefs and values of Australian citizens. The analysed texts were found in headlines, reports, editorials, opinion pieces, annotated photographs and letters to the editor that made-up the day-to-day history of the Australia Day editions. The texts that were produced in this narration in the SMH have provided data in the form of specific language use that defines the discourse of citizenship over the 62 year period. The language of these texts as reported in the print media represents the understandings of citizenship at particular times and also the discursive responses to contingent factors conditioning citizenship discourse including globalisation, localisation and neo-liberalism. The research links with Foucault’s (1980; 1991a; 1991d; 1991e; 1998; 2002a; 2006b) findings that the analysis of discourse is fundamental for understanding the nature of reality. This reality reported in this dissertation indicates a discourse that has changed and transformed over the analysed period of time. The discourse of citizenship has developed through the flow of rules and regulations that prohibit and permit what can and cannot be said, thought or spoken about citizenship at particular points in time. This form of normative thought, action and speech is culturally constructed and has been traced in the discourse through a mapping of specific language use related to understandings of citizenship. These types of knowledge constructions are artefacts of culture and reinforce existing power relations. This study has attempted to unmask these relations of power to question the rationality of the practices and experiences of Australian citizenship. The genealogical method allows for the distillation of citizenship discourse as a history of social and political truths as seen in the print media from 1946 – 2007. The genealogy of Australian citizenship presented in this dissertation lays bare the characteristic forms of power/knowledge manifested in the discourse over the post-World War Two period of Australian history to show systems of thought pertaining to citizenship. By doing so it shows that current citizenship practices are not the result of historical inevitabilities but rather the result of the interplay of contingencies. By emphasising citizenship in this way the thesis offers insights into how it can be refashioned to offer greater individual freedom through an understanding of the games of truth that are played throughout all levels of society. The manifestation of power/knowledge in the discourse is further evidence that citizens exist in relations of power. These manifestations produced five distinct thematic discursivities. I labelled them as, ‘The silencing of Aboriginal concerns 1946 – 1969, Authorised voices question the acceptance of poverty and racism 1969 – 1980, Relations of power between Aboriginal Australians and whites 1981 – 1988, Relations of power between Asian immigrants and whites 1989 – 1996, The struggle of cultural dominations 1997 – 2007’. In particular, a discontinuity was identified during the period Relations of power between Aboriginal Australians and whites 1981 – 1988. From this time in the discourse Indigenous Australians were permitted to criticise their treatment by whites. Subsequently this permission has become embedded in systems of thought. This thesis gives details of the products of the genealogical method related to the discourse of citizenship. It pinpoints the moments when individuals and social, cultural, economic and political groups played roles in the production, reproduction and transmission of truth from 1946 - 2007. Based on the products of the research it creates recommendations for minimising the potential dominations of social and political truths. It also suggests ways to re-think Australian citizenship to afford greater freedoms for individual thought, speech and action.

Chineseness at the crossroads examines how Chineseness is negotiated by diasporic Chinese women in Australia. I question the essentialist notions of Chineseness by deploying Homi Bhabha's theory of liminality. This concept of being neither here nor there helped me examine the women's ambiguous experiences of acceptance and rejection, within and across marginal and dominant Australian circles. My position disrupts the binaric frames that divide the old from the new, and the eastern from the western practices for cultural appropriation. It recognises instead the past and the present in the creation of new but familiar versions of Chineseness. I argue that essentialist norms are commuilicated through cultural semantics to inform how Chineseness is rehearsed. I assert that liminality exposes the power structures that inform these cultural semantics by disrupting the naturalised norms. I posit that the diasporic women's awareness of these interdependent processes enables them to question their practices and ideologies. I used an autoethnographic technique to collapse the divide between the researcher and the researched. It created a liminal space between the researcher and the researched. This subverted norms of the researcher as the archaeologist of knowledge by enabling the other women's narratives to tell their stories alongside mine. This methodological frame also serves as a prism to examine the intersections of gender, sexuality, family, relationships, language, education, class, age, and religion with Chineseness in the lives of the 39 Malaysian and Singaporean women interviewed. My results indicate that Chineseness is precarious and indeterminate, and specific to the particular moments of articulation at the crossroads of geopolitical and socioeconomic factors. The versions of Chineseness rehearsed are complexly influenced by the various cultural semantics that impact on the women's negotiations of who they are as diasporic Chinese women in Australia. I conclude with a discussion of how these results challenge current curriculum and pedagogical practices in English classrooms. I argue that a re-examination of these practices will contribute to a more inclusive Australia.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Tufts University, 2000. / Advisers: Sheila Emerson; Modhumita Roy. Submitted to the Dept. of English. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 229-249). Access restricted to members of the Tufts University community. Also available via the World Wide Web;

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Baylor University, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 308-332).

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2007. / The entire dissertation/thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file (which also appears in the research.pdf); a non-technical general description, or public abstract, appears in the public.pdf file. Title from title screen of research.pdf file (viewed on November 12, 2007) Includes bibliographical references.