Revision of author's doctoral thesis, 1988. / Includes bibliographical references.

Abstract In many parts of the world, theatre has been used to educate, socialise, indoctrinate and raise consciousness. In contemporary Africa, theatre practitioners have lamented the fragmentation of human life and the erosion of peace as a result of human rights abuses, income inequality, poverty, lack of access to services, crime and wars. The aim of this paper is to examine how African theatre practitioners have used theatre as a cultural tool to create awareness and educate their audiences about the need for peaceful co-existence in their communities. The discussions examine selected plays and applied theatre projects from West and southern Africa. They conclude in the finding that the applied theatre form is more effective than conventional literary theatre in promoting peace education and local development initiatives in Africa.

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Thesis (Ph.D.)--Boston University / A scholarly treatise on art, written by an American artist in the first half of the nineteenth century, and almost completely ignored in the history of American art and thought, provided the original incentive for the study of Washington Allston as critic. An additional incentive derived from the paradox of a reputation which was phenomenal in the artist's lifetime, but which had deteriorated almost to a nullity by the end of the century in which he lived. An examination of the reputation and influence of Allston as critic, and an effort to trace the development of his thought, involved a scrutiny of biographical material available in legal documents, manuscript notes, correspondence, memorabilia, biographies and biographical sketches; references to the artist in newspapers, magazines and literary works; an examination of American criticism; and the history of criticism and of American thought, with particular reference to the developments in New England. [TRUNCATED]

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Boston University. / The purpose of this study is twofold: first, the collection and discussion of neglected bibliographical material in order to demonstrate the availability of Arnold's writings to the American public and to show that Arnold's works were more widely reviewed and read before 1870 than has been realized; and second, to discuss Arnold's influence-on an acerbated post-Civil War cultural \ debate, a debate which, in turn, affected his reputation. Clough might easily have advanced Arnold's reception in America, but both in his article for the North American Review and in his.letters to C. E. Norton he attempted to·keep Arnold's poetry from making its way. Nevertheless, most other reviews of Arnold were favorable; a volume of his poetry was published before the Civil War and individual poems appeared in popular anthologies; reviews of his criticism frequently started with praise of Arnold as a poet; most American critics placed him among the three major living English poets; both young and old American men of letters were familiar with his verse. A major factor in the initial reception of his literary criticism was Arnold's reputation as a poet [TRUNCATED]

This thesis demonstrates the development of F.R. Leavis's critical vocabulary through an examination of his critical practice. The social and political dimension of his critical orientation is examined by means of a reading of his own early pamphlets and articles; and of Q.D. Leavis's Fiction and the Reading Public (1932). This chapter indicates the nature of Leavis's approach to literature and criticism. An analysis of Leavis's preliminary considerations on poetry illustrates the gradual advancement of his critical terminology under the influence of T.S. Eliot. The judgements produced are examined and their value and reasoning are accounted for. Leavis's work on the novel is examined, showing how the critical terminology was transferred from criticism of the poetry to criticism of the novel. The source and function of Leavis's categories of 'tradition' and 'morality' are analysed. The ensuing critical judgements are assessed to show how and why such judgements were of ambiguous value. Leavis's study of Lawrence demonstrates centrally the advantages and disadvantages of Leavis's critical method. A discussion of the 'two cultures' debate illustrates Leavis's continuing polemical engagements and how this affects his critical priorities. Finally, an examination of Leavis's later work on Dickens and T.S. Eliot shows how Leavis's critical vocabulary matured a metaphysical, almost 'religious', dimension in its striving to maintain a connection between his concepts of 'art' and 'life'. Throughout this thesis, Leavis's criticism is examined by means of a rehearsal of his major arguments. This is combined with a discussion and assessment of the integrity of and sources for those arguments and an analysis of their resultant literary judgements. The thesis presents an objective account of the nature and function of Leavis's critical vocabulary, with a demonstration of its sources and an assessment of its achievements.

This thesis aims to investigate how works by Anglophone, Francophone and Hispanophone Caribbean writers circulate in translation. The texts under study include allographic translations as well as cases of self-translation. Caribbean texts and their translations are analysed through the prism of the threshold, which offers a multi-faceted entry point into key themes and aspects of Caribbean literature as well as into translational strategies. When discovering the Caribbean in and through translation, readers experience the crossing of multiple thresholds, be they topographical, cultural, linguistic or imaginary. The dual nature of the threshold, which both opens into and signals a limit, heralds movement and continuity on the one hand, but also invokes potential resistance on the other hand. Departing from the semiotic approach adopted by Genette in his seminal study on paratexts as ‘thresholds of interpretation’, this work seeks to examine thresholds as strategic sites of negotiation for translators. Their visibility, in particular, is associated with forms of trespassing that tease out the concepts of authority and originality. When it comes to Caribbean writing, thresholds are presented as ambiguous sites of opaque revelations, a view that contrasts with a more traditional understanding of paratext as a space aiming towards (absolute) clarification of the text. Rather, liminality is presented as favouring acts of subversion whereby Caribbean writing emerges as a literature that manifests constant (re)appropriations and generates renewed (af)filiations for the region. Problematic crossings are also explored to reveal that thresholds act as enclaves of cultural resistance where Caribbean literature is concerned. Here, Caribbean untranslatabilities are investigated as a feature of the region’s fragmentary nature, which, once turned into a poetics of translation based on reciprocal hospitality, offers possible routes of access to a pan-Caribbean cultural memory. Further analysis of translational paratexts as sites of reparation not only seeks to dislocate classics such as Césaire’s Cahier away from corrective manipulations of the text, it also aims to relocate Caribbean writing within a tradition of transculturation and creolization. Here, acts of self-translation expose the importance of self-legitimacy for those Caribbean writers who decide to adopt a bilingual approach to their writing, and raises the issue of whether or not any form of Caribbean writing that circulates on a global scale ultimately becomes a product of translation. The last sections of the thesis argue in favour of alternative models of circulation for Caribbean literature, in which translation is conceived as a series of archipelagic crossings that generates new coordinates for transoceanic solidarities. In turn, re-thinking translation from the perspective of Caribbean ecologies allows us to present a translocal approach to cultural circulation.

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No description available.

The purpose of this study was to document the literacy practices of three 5-7 year old boys who were in the formative stage of formal schooling. The study took place in the British Virgin Islands, a group of 60 or so islands, cays, and islets located in the Caribbean. I examined these boys’ literacy practices in three contexts — home, community and school. Through observations, interviews and samplings of conversations at home, I found that school literacy dominated all three contexts and was used similarly in all three contexts. Additionally, parents were consciously reinforcing school literacy in the home. The three boys were reading, writing, speaking and listening at their expected grade level and appeared to be steadily progressing. Religion appeared to play an important role in supporting the children’s literacy development, consistent with the country’s Christian heritage. As previous research in other contexts (e.g., Marsh, 2003) has shown, home and community literacy practices remain largely unrecognized and untapped at school. / Education, Faculty of / Language and Literacy Education (LLED), Department of / Graduate