This thesis examines narrative strategies and the representation of trauma in Toni Morrison's trilogy consisting of Beloved, Jazz and Paradise. Morrison's novels illustrate the black experience in the US throughout history; the trilogy begins in the 1870's with Beloved and continues through 1920's in Jazz to 1970's in Paradise. The main focus of this thesis is the exploration of the narrative strategies in the connection to trauma in order to showcase how Morrison manipulates the narrative to draw attention to the unheard traumatic experiences of black people, and consequently criticises the racist master narrative. Beloved depicts the immediate impact of slavery, and the following two novels expose how the underlining traumatic effects of slavery are reproduced long after its abolishment. Selected theoretical approaches to narrative and trauma are introduced in the first chapter. Mieke Bal's approach to narrative, combined with Henry Louis Gates Jr.'s African- American literary theory described in The Signifying Monkey, provides the basis for the analysis of the use of voice, narrative structure, retroversion, and repetition in the trilogy. The postcolonial view of trauma, informed mostly by Judith L. Herman's Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence from Abuse to Political Terror, is...

<p>The term magical realism traces back to the German art critic Franz Roh, who in the early twentieth century applied it to (visual) art expressing the wondrousness of life. However, this definition has been eclipsed over time. Reorienting critical attention back to magical realism as the art of portraying wonder and wondering, I explore the magical realist novels of contemporary African American and Asian American women writers. Specifically, I examine Toni Morrison’s <em>Paradise</em> (1997), Jesmyn Ward’s <em>Sing, Unburied, Sing</em> (2017), Karen Tei Yamashita’s <em>Through the Arc of the Rain Forest</em> (1990), and Ruth Ozeki’s <em>A Tale for the Time Being</em> (2013). In wonder, all frames of reference at hand suddenly become inadequate. Simultaneously, the subject’s interest is heightened. As such, the act/experience of wondering may lead to humility and respect, the two attitudes at the base of any ethically flourishing life—a life that flourishes <em>with</em> others. For this reason, the Asian American woman writer and peace activist Maxine Hong Kingston espoused wondering. Affiliated with groups marginalized within the US, like Kingston my writers also promote wonder. I examine how these writers, through compelling use of both content and form, guide their readers toward a particular kind of wondering: wondering with an awareness of how the act/experience might lead to ethical flourishing.</p>

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This thesis aims to examine how the philosophy of Arcadia is portrayed compared to three paintings from Nationalmuseums exhibition Arkadien: ett förlorat paradis? Firstly, the essay creates a frame for what Arcadia should look like and communicate by analyzing three established Arcadia-motifs with the same title, Et in Arcadia ego by Nicolas Poussin from 1638 and 1627, and Guercino from ca 1620. The framework shows that Arcadia contains three dominating themes, which are the presence of antiquity, the pastoral ideal and the presence of Death. The framework also shows that Arcadia aims to have a clear communication with the viewer by using direct symbols and double linguistic messages. Secondly, the essay compares Poussins and Guercino's Arcadia with Nationalmuseums Claude Lorrains Landskap med Argus som vaktar Io (ca 1644–1645), Francois Només (1593-ca 1645) Trojas brand med Aeneas och Anchises flykt (u.å) and Thomas Blanchets Kleobis och Biton (1650). The results are that Nationalmuseum has a different view of Arcadia compared to Poussin and Guercino, and uses it as an elastic concept, which can categorize paintings that don't fully communicate Arcadia's original thoughts and ideas as truthfully Arcadia-motifs.

[Preface]:In 1862 Grahamstown acquired the dignity, pride and responsibility of full municipal status by its own Act of Incorporation. Ibis Act marked the consolidation of Grahamstown's era of local government by its vigorous and far-sighted Municipal Board of Commissioners, which was established in 1837 and has been examined in depth in K.S. Hunt's thesis on Grahamstown municipal government up to 1862. Clearly, the year 1862 is the logical beginning for a further study of Grahamstown's changing position in the Eastern Cape and its development in the practice of local government during the crucial decades of the 1860's and 1870's. But the choice of 1882 to mark the end of this thesis is in some ways arbitrary. 1882 does not appear to be a turning point, a year of major significance in either the history of Grahamstown or of the Colony as a whole. Besides the convenient time-span of twenty years, there are various factors which, taken together, explain why 1882 is a useful date of demarcation from which to take stock and review Grahamstown's economic, political, social and municipal position after two vital decades in its history. In the civic sphere,the opening of Grahamstown's Town Hall made tangible,in solid Victorian design,a long held ambition of the City Councillors. Buildings, in Victorian attitudes, throughout the British Empire, were regarded as very important civic symbols. One can learn much of Grahamstown Victorian attitudes from the lengthy process of attaining a Town Hall. A much more elaborate ceremony surrounded the opening of the Jubilee Tower, an occasion for assessing the influence of Grahamstown's Settler heritage on the development of the town. Municipal problems concerning finance, water and "native" locations remained thorny questions as they had throughout the period 1862-32. Generally 1882 was a year of transition for Grahamstown and the Colony as a whole. Economically it appeared to start prosperously but 1882 actually marked the beginning of a severe depression which lasted until 1386. It is important to consider how Grahamstown’s economic development relates to the overall economic picture of the Cape Colony at this juncture. Though ostrich feather prices remained high in 1882, the ensuing depression was caused partly by the rapid overexpansion of the industry but most important of all, by a reaction to an inflated era of confidence during the diamond boom years of the 1870's and their consequent easy Bank credit plus intense speculation. Politically 1882 also appeared a year of transition. How to maintain the uneasy peace after the Basuto war remained a constant challenge to Scanlen's ministry. The beginnings of active party conflict in the workings of responsible government were evident only in embryo. The rapid growth of the Afrikaner Bond was to change this. Specifically in relation to the practice of local government in the Cape Colony, the General Municipal Act No. 45 was passed during the Parliamentary session of 1882, enabling any town to seek incorporation. The query is raised as to how far the modus vivendi of the Grahamstown municipality helped frame the clauses of this general Municipal enabling Act. For these various reasons, as well as the additional one that twenty years was found to offer a manageable research unit, 1882 has been decided on as the limit of this thesis. This thesis aims, through a careful examination of Grahamstown's economic, political but particularly civic development, to determine and trace the nature of the Grahamstown community's response to the challenge of the gradual isolation of the 1860's and 1870's. Grahamstown's civic history provides fascinating insights into the structure of the entire community and its attitudes and values. Study has been made of the following major primary sources for the history of Grahamstown 1862-1882: the Grahamstown Municipality records, complete except for incoming letters and housed in the Cape Archives, und the Grahamstown newspapers for the period. The most prolific as well us the most valuable newspaper source of the period is The Grahamstown Journal, a newspaper with a tradition firmly bound up with the formulation of frontier as well as Grahamstown thought, kingpin of the network built up by the successors of Robert Godlonton, the "architect of frontier opinion". It has to be treated with caution as a source because of this very bias. The Council Minutes themselves, meticulously recorded in the Town Clerk's copperplate Victorian script, are scrupulously objective, recording blandly proposers, seconders and fates of motions. What might appear the bare bones of a detailed study of the municipal records yet reflects the economic climate of the town, political opinions, class and race attitudes, civic pride, concepts of public health and charity. The newspapers are a vital addition to the Municipal records themselves. The weekly meetings received faithful, accurate and very copious coverage from press-representatives present at every ordinary meeting. Indeed these reports give a vivid immediacy to the meetings and reveal opinions, pressure groups and lines of conflict within the Council, on issues important and trivial. These, at times lively and enlivening, sometimes stormy meetings, are reported with an authenticity which makes one suspect that often words of speeches were given verbatim - personalities of the Councillors certainly emerge distinctly. Full newspaper coverage is also given to the meetings of the Albany Divisional Council. The annual reports of the Civil Commissioners and Resident Magistrates, which appear in the Parliamentary Blue Books of the period, provide some valuable economic comment on the vicissitudes of life in the eastern frontier districts from 1862-1882. Such information builds useful background for a study of Grahamstown's economic and social development. Efforts have been made to locate probable sources of family papers of one of the most influential Grahamstown families of the period, the Wood family, but to no avail. If any exist they would without doubt have given interesting insight into the business connections of leading Grahamstown men and possibly given an indication of how far civic and political connections linked with religious and family influences in Victorian Grahamstown. Jim's Journal, manuscript in Cory Library, is a record of letters sent home to England by James Butler, while on a visit to the Cape,1876-79 for his health. He provides illuminating glimpses into the day to day life of Grahamstown from a Quaker viewpoint. Taken together, these sources provide considerable insights into the life and times of Grahamstown in the second half of the nineteenth Century. A municipal study examines an area in its totality: it encompasses a study of minutiae within the context of general trends. This fact alone suggests that there are many sources on the history of Grahamstown which have not yet been discovered, but this assessment is submitted on the basis of a thorough study of those which are currently available.

The dream about an earthly paradise, rediscovery of an original, absolutely harmonic paradisal life is, in Dostoevskij's opinion, one of the deepest and the most valuable dreams of the human heart. The spiritual course of any human being has its own history, it is born from thesis (babtism), goes through antithesis (crises) and finishes in synthesis (beauty). A man comes from the Eden Paradise and aims at heaven. So, a man in course of his spiritual life is in a real split into two paradises: the Eden Paradise from which he is coming from and the Kingdom of God where he is aiming at. The midpoint of the life course is accompanied by a crisis, that can also be described as separation from the the paradise. The characters of novels by Dostoevskij failed due to the fact, that they were not able to admit their presence between two "paradise states" and so their ideas about earthly paradise establishment were being corrupted. In our piece of work we are going to follow four trends: 1. Time corruption, incorrectly understood sense of history. The tendency to return back where a man came from, in an origenestic, cyclic interpretation of a comeback is apparent in a story The Dream of a Ridiculous Man. Another extreme shows marxism ideas going around Europe which deny both the importance and the sense of...

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / This dissertation analyzes the critique of charity and philanthropy implicit in Melville’s short fiction written for periodicals between 1853 and 1856. Melville utilized narrative and tone to conceal his opposition to prevailing ideologies and manipulated narrative structures to make the reader complicit in the problematic assumptions of a market economy. Integrating close readings with critical theory, I establish that Melville was challenging the new rhetoric of philanthropy that created a moral identity for wealthy men in industrial capitalist society. Through his short fiction, Melville exposed self-serving conduct and rationalizations when they masqueraded as civic-minded responses to the needs of the community. Melville was joining a public conversation about philanthropy and civic leadership in an American society that, in its pursuit of private wealth, he believed was losing touch with the democratic and civic ideals on which the nation had been founded. Melville’s objection was not with charitable giving; rather, he objected to its use as a diversion from honest reflection on one’s responsibilities to others.

Im interested in the topic of praying machine, because I want to analyze aspects of photography and its functions. It's known, that the reality is manipulated by photography. Bud we can also say, that the relationship between reality and photography is neutral in fact, that the manipulation is made by our interpretation of photography. The change of the reality can be realized just in the dialog between photography and reality. Can it be, that the mechanization change into the will? Does it prays praying mill or the buddhistic monk, who rotates the mill? When he believes into it, is it enough? Or is it enough if believes who watch the monk with his mill? ... The computers from he place A are "praying" the prayers from the place B. With Tomáš Javůrek we collaborated with Vladimír Veselý and Radek Lát to create the Game for re-articulation our reality on the base of the revision of our faith.