<p>My twofold aim with this essay is, firstly, to examine the ideas about art expressed in the novel The Picture of Dorian Gray by the Victorian author Oscar Wilde. Secondly, I analyse how Oscar Wilde has implemented the philosophy of aestheticism throughout his novel. I achieve this by discussing the novel from the perspectives of the arts of painting, acting and literature. I examine the ideas expressed through the three main characters Dorian Gray, Basil Hallward and Lord Henry Wotton. I give occurrences of alliteration, epigrams and theatrical traits of the novel as examples of how the novel in itself is a beautiful work of art. With this essay I wish to highlight the need for all types of art mentioned in The Picture of Dorian Gray to be included in any discussion about art in the novel. My thesis statement is that the philosophy of aestheticism is promoted throughout the novel. This philosophy states that art should only be seen as something beautiful. Art should not be expected to teach its audience any moral lessons. The over-all conclusion is that it is indeed the philosophy of aestheticism that is promoted in The Picture of Dorian Gray, and the ideal of male beauty in particular.</p>

Thèse de doctorat : ETUDES ANGLAISES : Metz : 1997. / 1997METZ015L. 396 ref.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Oregon, 2003. / Typescript. Includes vita and abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 223-244). Also available for download via the World Wide Web; free to University of Oregon users.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Hong Kong, 1987.

"Of That Transfigured World" identifies a generally unremarked upon mode of nineteenth-century literature that intermingles realism and fantasy in order to address epistemological problems. I contend that works of Charles Dickens, Charlotte and Emily Brontë, Walter Pater, and Oscar Wilde maintain a realist core overlaid by fantastic elements that come from the language used to characterize the core narrative or from metatexts or paratexts (such as stories that characters tell). The fantastic in this way becomes a mode of interpretation in texts concerned with the problems of representation and the ability of literature to produce knowledge. Paradoxically, each of these authors relies on the fantastic in order to reach the kinds of meaning nineteenth-century realism strives for. My critical framework is derived from the two interrelated discourses of sacred space theology and cultural geography, focusing primarily on the terms topos and chora which I figure as parallel to realism and fantasy. These terms, gleaned from Aristotle and Plato, function to express two interweaving concepts of space that together construct our sense of place. Topos, as defined by Belden C. Lane, refers to "a mere location, a measurable, quantifiable point, neutral and indifferent" whereas chora refers to place as "an energizing force, suggestive to the imagination, drawing intimate connections to everything else in our lives." In the narratives I examine, meaning is constructed via the fantastic interpretations (chora) of realistically portrayed events (topos). The writers I engage with use this dynamic to strategically address pressing epistemological concerns relating to the purpose of art and its relationship to truth. My dissertation examines the works of Dickens, the Brontës, Pater, and Wilde through the lens of this conceptual framework, focusing on how the language that each of these writers uses overlays chora on top of topos. In essence each of these writers uses imaginative language to transfigure the worlds they describe for specific purposes. For Dickens these fantastic hermeneutics allow him to transfigure world into one where the "familiar" becomes "romantic," where moral connections are clear, and which encourages the moral imagination necessary for empathy to take root. Charlotte and Emily Brontës's transfigurations highlight the subjectivity inherent in representation. For Pater, that transfigured world is aesthetic experience and the way our understanding of the "actual world" of topos is shaped by it. Oscar Wilde's transfigured world is by far the most radical, for in the end that transfigured world ceases to be artificial, as Wilde disrupts the separation between reality and artifice. "Of That Transfigured World" argues for a closer understanding of the hermeneutic and epistemological workings of several major British authors. My dissertation offers a paradigm through which to view these writers that connects them to the on-going Victorian discourses of realism while also pointing to the critical sophistication of their positions in seeking to relate truth to art. My identification of the tensions between what I term topos and chora in these works illuminates the relationship between the creation of meaning and the hermeneutics used to direct the reader to that particular meaning. It further points to the important, yet sometimes troubling, role that imagination plays in the epistemologies at the center of that crowning Victorian achievement, the Realist novel.

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The present project draws on recent work in philosophy--primarily that of Alain Badiou--in order to re-conceptualize the concepts of "citizen," "citizenship" and "nation." I aim to recuperate the notion of universal citizenship and reframe the immigration debate in the U.S. by proposing a conception of citizenship that does not rely on identity or state recognition. I define the citizen as a collective subject made up of anyone who in a given juridico-political situation transforms that situation on the basis of an affirmation of equality. I propose that citizenship, to the extent that it transforms the basic organizational coordinates of a situation, is itself on the border of legality/illegality. In chapter one, I theorize universal citizenship as an egalitarian democratic act foundational of a new order and, drawing on Habermas (1995) and Hobsbawm (1992), identify in the French Revolution two articulations of the relationship between citizenship and nation: one that sees nation as pre-existing and determining citizenship, and another that takes citizenship to be constitutive of nation. I argue that these conceptions still underpin competing understandings of politics today, especially with regard to the role of identity in politics. In chapter two, I analyze the confluence between the criminalization of undocumented immigration in the U.S. and neoliberal governmentality. I argue that a politics thought from the perspective of the undocumented immigrant also points to the necessity of affirming a political logic over economic imperatives. I claim that the 2006 immigrant rights protests in the U.S. can be understood as instances of universal citizenship to the extent that they included undocumented people and thus challenged a statist distinction foundational of U.S. political order: the difference between citizen and non-citizen as regulating access to the legal right to act politically. In the last chapter, I read Oscar Zeta Acosta's The Revolt of the Cockroach People as proposing a generic, and thus non-identitarian and universalistic, conception of the political collective in the very category of "cockroach." I highlight the ways in which it resonates with the revolutionary idea of nation identified by Hobsbawm and Habermas.

This thesis explores the evolution, growth and sudden decline of the East Washington community, located in East Point, Georgia. This African-American community was strategically created in 1912, when the city council passed its first residential segregation ordinance. This research uses oral histories and other documents to analyze the survival techniques that enabled East Washington to endure the turmoil of Jim Crow racial segregation from its 1912 inception to its 1962 transformation due to urban renewal. First, it identifies the people who chose to migrate to this area, where they came from and what enticed them to settle in East Point. Second, it discusses the network of institutions that they built and depended upon, including businesses, schools and churches, in order to maintain their largely autonomous community. Finally, it illuminates East Washington’s demise through urban renewal.

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