The article outlines recent trends in popular writing in Swahili in Kenya and Tanzania, the research being mainly based on titles published after the year 2000, by both well-known writers and newcomers. The author also generalises on some basic social and cultural factors accountable for the present state of popular literature in both countries.

Critics of animal rights often deride the movement’s proponents for having a sentimental, juvenile misconception of what animals really are, an argument bolstered by the fact that few twenty-first-century Americans besides those engaged in the industries of animal exploitation have any prolonged contact with real animals other than their pets. Until the first decades of the twentieth century, however, American cities teemed with diverse animal residents and workers, and a rapidly increasing percentage of humans grew in their conviction that these animal neighbors should be extended considerations and rights. Shifting ideas about these animals’ roles within United States society were captured in a number of new bestselling literary genres centered around “realistic” depictions of animal characters. Because animals are often conceptualized as a “contrast class” to humanity—a fundamental “Other” by which humans establish what qualities make themselves distinct and (typically) superior—analyzing these texts and their circulation within nineteenth-century culture reveals how Americans understood authority and systems of governance, and in particular how they modeled an ideal American manhood nourished by animal bodies. What forms of exploitation and control were permissible in a man’s treatment of his animals often reflected other power dynamics within society, and so these texts also provide insight into issues of class, race, and gender. Although the historical trajectory of popular culture depictions of realistic animals shows a general increase in compassion, egalitarianism, and the extension of rights, the successful removal of much animal exploitation from visibility has allowed that exploitation to grow in spite of the increasing popular sentiment to the contrary. / English

This thesis examines artistic and literary images of murderous women in popular print published in sixteenth and seventeenth-century England. The construction of murderous women in criminal narratives, published between 1558 and 1625 in pamphlet, ballad, and play form, is examined in the context of contemporary historical records and cultural discourse. Chapter One features a literature review of the topic in recent scholarship. Chapter Two, comprised of two subsections, discusses representations of early modern women in contemporary literature and criminal archives. The subsections in Chapter Two examine early modern treatises, sermons, and essays concerning the nature of women, the roles and responsibilities of wives and mothers, and debates about marriage, as well as a review of women tried for murder in the Middlesex assize courts between 1558 and 1625. Chapter Three, comprised of four subsections, engages in critical readings of approximately 52 pamphlets, ballads, and plays published in the same period. Individual subsections discuss how traitorous wives, murderous mothers, women who murder in their communities, and punishment and redemption are represented in the narratives. Woodcut illustrations printed in these texts are also examined, and their iconographic contributions to the construction of bad women is discussed. Women who murder in these texts are represented as consummately evil creatures capable of inflicting terrible harm to their families and communities, and are consistently discovered, captured, and executed by their communities for their heinous crimes. Murderous women in early modern popular literature also provided a means for contemporary men and women to explore, confront, and share in the depths of sin, while anticipating their own spiritual salvation. Pamphlets, plays, and broadsides related bawdy, graphic, and violent stories that allow modern readers a glimpse of the popular culture and mental world of Renaissance England.

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published_or_final_version / Chinese / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

L’objectif de ma thèse est de montrer la grande originalité de l’œuvre de Jean-Louis Dubut de Laforest et de rendre accessibles au lecteur contemporain ses orientations idéologiques et ses choix esthétiques.L’appartenance de ses romans à une littérature dite « populaire » s’explique par le primat qu’ils ac-cordent à l’action et surtout par les modalités de leur diffusion : un grand nombre d’entre eux ont en effet d’abord été publiés sous la forme de romans-feuilletons dans la presse à grand tirage de son époque. Cependant, chacune de ses créations est profondément ancrée dans un environnement historique que l’auteur reflète, commente et sur lequel il cherche à peser au moyen de l’invention narrative, en vertu d’une ambition sociale plusieurs fois exprimée. Une partie de mon travail consiste donc également à mettre au jour le contexte social et politique de la période de rédaction des romans, entre 1880 et 1902, en m’appuyant essentiellement sur des travaux d’historiens.Après une présentation détaillée des quelque quatre-vingts volumes qui composent l’œuvre de Jean-Louis Dubut de Laforest, il s’agit donc d’étudier son ensemble en privilégiant des axes thématiques où les choix de l’auteur sont particulièrement sensibles. Les motifs étudiés dans la seconde partie donnent leur titre aux différents chapitres : la condition féminine, la prostitution, l’homosexualité, l’antisémitisme, la presse, les relations entre science et religion, l’action politique, les syndicats et mutuelles, l’anarchisme et l’utopie, et le souvenir de la guerre de 1870. Le dernier chapitre envisage la réception de cette œuvre monumentale et le statut du lecteur dans l’ensemble des romans. / The aim of my thesis is to show the great originality of Jean-Louis Dubut de Laforest’s literary work and to make accessible his ideological convictions and aesthetic choices to the contemporary reader.The inscription of his novels in the so-called popular literature can be explained by the importance given to the action and mostly by the means of their distribution: a great number of them were first published in serial form in the popular press of his time. However, each of his creations is deeply rooted in its historical background, which is reflected in it and commented on by the author who tries to influence his era through the narrative invention by virtue of his social ambition so frequently expressed. Therefore, a part of my study consists in analyzing the social and political context of the period corresponding to the writing of the novels, between 1880 and 1902, by using history researches. After a detailed presentation of the some eighty volumes of which is composed Jean-Louis Dubut de Laforest’s work, the matter is to study the whole by privileging certain thematic axes where the author’s choices are particularly meaningful. The motifs which are examined in the second part of the study give the name of the different chapters : women’s condition, prostitution, homosexuality, anti-Semitism, the press, science and religion relationship, political action, trade unions and mutual benefit societies, anarchism and Utopia, and the memory of the Franco-Prussian War. The last chapter deals with the reception of this monumental work and the reader’s status in the novels.

A passagem do século XIX para o século XX acarretou muitas dúvidas e incertezas no pensamento e na cultura ocidentais. A crise do positivismo, que impulsionou os literatos e os intelectuais a se questionarem sobre o conceito de real, gerou um nítido conflito entre tudo aquilo que remetia ao racional e à ciência em contraposição a um renovado tipo de subjetivismo e de relativismo, definindo, assim, uma nova abordagem da literatura e das artes na primeira metade do século XX. Neste trabalho é feita uma análise do papel da imprensa e do intelectual no final do século XIX, para depois retomá-la no período no qual se insere a obra de Pirandello. Estuda-se, ainda, a presença estrangeira nos periódicos italianos e o conceito de literatura popular e cultura de massa que estão intrinsecamente ligados à função do intelectual e sua relação com o povo/nação. Pirandello é um escritor que tem a maior parte de sua produção literária publicada no início do século XX, a qual vai desde obras em dialeto siciliano, nas quais são trabalhados os aspectos mais regionais - como tradições e costumes rurais e folclóricos, crenças populares e místicas e, por isso, de certa forma mais populares, até obras que atingem uma complexidade narrativa comparadas a grandes clássicos literários nacionais e europeus. Nesta pesquisa será apresentada de que forma se dá o comprometimento do intelectual e do artista Pirandello com a sociedade daquele período e de que modo algumas questões subjetivas do autor também influem em sua obra. Como base e modelo que guiará toda a discussão deste trabalho, apresentamos, ainda, uma análise de Il fu Mattia Pascal (1904), uma das obras mais representativas da modernidade europeia e na qual se encontram os elementos principais da poética e da filosofia do autor que, além de resgatar algumas técnicas do romance-folhetim francês, as emprega na publicação seriada desta obra, traduzindo toda a crise da modernidade e resgatando, mesmo que de maneira atenuada, alguns aspectos do romance popular. / The passage between the XIX and the XX centuries brought a lot of doubts and uncertainties in the occidental thought and culture. The positivism crisis, which forced the men of letter and the intellectuals to debate the concept of real, generated a sharp conflict between everything which concerned the logical and the science and a renewed kind of subjectivism and relativism, defining in this manner a new approach to arts and literature at the first half of XX century. This work presents an analysis about the press and the literate man at the end of the XX century, to be introduced again during the period in which Pirandello is set in. Moreover is studied the foreign presence in the italian magazines and the concepts of popular literature and mass culture which are strictly connected to the intellectuals function and his relationship with the population/nation. Pirandello is a writer whose literary productions was published at the beginning of the XX century and it goes from sicilian dialect works, in which more characteristic and regional aspects can be found such as popular and folkloristic customs and traditions, popular and mystic lores and therefore more popular, to works where a complex narrative is involved until reaching a national and european level. The aim of this research is to show the compromise between the artist Pirandello and the society of that period and in what way a few personal issues of the author influence his opus. To enlighten the whole discussion is introduced an analysis of Il fu Mattia Pascal (1904) - one of the most representative works of european modernity - in which can be found characteristic elements of Pirandellos poetry and philosophy. Pirandello revives some tecniques from the french roman-feuilleton and employs them in a serial publication of this play that, beyond traslating the whole crisis of modernity, partially rescues some aspects of the popular novel.

O objetivo deste estudo é fornecer uma análise dos dois principais movimentos dentro da ficção científica em língua inglesa vinculados ao pós-modernismo, a New Wave da década de 1960 e o Movimento Cyberpunk da década de 1980, estabelecendo comparações com a produção de ficção científica do mesmo período, dentro das Primeira e Segunda Ondas da Ficção Científica Brasileira. Questões de política literária serão sempre evocadas, como maneira de relativizar o peso teórico das discussões, tentando estabelecer que intenções, procedimentos e programas literários existem inseridos em contextos pessoais, sociais e mesmo nacionais. Essa abordagem é amparada pelo conceito do Campo de Poder, do sociólogo francês Pierre Bourdieu (1930-2002), e de diversos intérpretes de suas idéias. A partir dos trabalhos de críticos e teóricos como Clive Bloom, Scott McCracken, Ken Gelder, Michel de Certeau e Robert Scholes, este trabalho propõe que a ficção científica, como gênero literário de raízes populares, é capaz de exercer o papel de uma literatura que faz a crítica da modernidade, sem recorrer necessariamente aos aspectos formais associados à literatura pós-modernista, incluindo o texto fragmentário, a mistura de gêneros e códigos literários. A pesquisa conduz a uma reflexão a respeito da situação da ficção de gênero vis-à-vis a predileção da ficção pós-modernista pela metaficção e pelo experimentalismo. / The objective of this study is to provide an analysis of the two main literary movements in English-written science fiction associated to postmodernism, the New Wave of the 1960s and the Cyberpunk Movement of the 1980s, establishing comparisons with science fictional production of the same periods in the First and Second Waves of Brazilian science fiction. Issues of literary politics will be constantly considered, as a way to relativize the theoretical charge of the arguments, trying to establish that intentions, proceedings, and literary programs exist inserted in personal, social, and even national contexts. This approach is supported by the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieus concept of Field of Power, and also by a number of readers of his ideas. Taking from the works of critics and theoreticians such as Clive Bloom, Scott McCracken, Ken Gelder, Michel de Certeau, and Robert Scholes, this work claims that science fiction as a literary genre of popular roots can play out the role of a literature that performs a criticism of modernity without relying on those formal aspects associated with postmodernist literature, including fragmentary prose and the mixing of genres and literary codes. The research leads to a reflection concerning the situation of genre fiction vis-à-vis postmodernist fictions propensity for metafiction and experimentalism.

This master's thesis focuses on popular literature and its place on czech secondary schools with a research on how much this kind of literature is involved in the reading lists for the Maturita exam. Based on examples we will try to give some proposals not only for what literature lessons should look like and which questions should be answered by the students but we will also prepare worksheets for the Maturita exam where selected parts from works of popular literature will be used. As initial sources we will use basic dictionary works, guides for elementary and secondary schools, Trávníček's researches on reading and reading culture and also expert works concerning popular culture and literature for children and adolescents.

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