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This thesis demonstrates that Doctor Strange comics incorporate established tropes of the fantastic canon while also incorporating postmodern techniques that modernize the genre. Strange's debut series, Strange Tales, begins this development of stylistic changes, but it still relies heavily on standard uses of the fantastic. The 2015 series, Doctor Strange, builds on the evolution of the fantastic apparent in its predecessor while evidencing an even stronger presence of the postmodern. Such use of postmodern strategies disrupts the suspension of disbelief on which popular fantasy often relies. To show this disruption and its effects, this thesis examines Strange Tales and Doctor Strange (2015) as they relate to the fantastic cornerstones of Tolkien's The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings and Rowling's Harry Potter series. It begins by defining the genre of fantasy and the tenets of postmodernism, then it combines these definitions to explain the new genre of postmodern fantasy, or post-fantasy, which Doctor Strange comics develop. To show how these comics evolve the fantasy genre through applications of postmodernism, this thesis examines their use of otherworldliness and supernaturalism, as well as their characterization and narrative strategies, examining how these facets subvert our expectations of fantasy texts. / Master of Arts / This thesis analyzes the ways in which Doctor Strange comics use common features of popular fantastic texts while also drawing attention to them in ways traditional fantasy does not. In doing so, these comics create an environment for the reader which entertains through the use of fantastic devices but disrupts the escapist tendencies frequently encouraged by fantastic texts. Specifically, this thesis examines Doctor Strange’s 1963 debut in Stan Lee and Steve Ditko’s Strange Tales and the contemporary series Doctor Strange, begun in 2015, in comparison with Tolkien’s The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings and J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series. In doing so, this thesis aims to show what tropes Doctor Strange comics borrow from these popular texts and how they change such tropes to revitalize the fantastic genre. The first chapter defines important terms and genres used throughout the thesis, including postmodernism, fantasy, and post-fantasy. The following chapters explore the changed ways in which Doctor Strange comics present expected features of the fantastic genre, specifically otherworldliness, the supernatural, character tropes of the hero and the villain, and narrative conventions. Each chapter also the effects these changes have on the comics as a whole and how these effects ultimately develop the fantastic by disrupting our expectations of it.

This paper explores the relationality between Modernism and Postmodernism as well as between literature and theory by examining the works of two writers: master novelist William Faulkner, and high priest of Postmodernism, Jean Baudrillard. Specifically, this paper examines Faulkner's eleventh novel—the oft-neglected If I Forget Thee, Jerusalem—as a proto-postmodern text which, when examined by the light of Baudrillard's theory of simulacra and simulations, informs the transition from Modernism to Postmodernism. This paper treats each author's work as a lens through which to view the other. The result is both a re-vision of Faulkner's social philosophy and a re-examination of the epistemic break that separates Faulkner's philosophy from that of Baudrillard. / Master of Arts

published_or_final_version / Literary and Cultural Studies / Master / Master of Arts

This thesis has two main objectives. First, it outlines a taxonomy of reflexive development practice, which aims at transcending the divide between modernism and postmodernism in the methodology of development economics. Second, the thesis examines the taxonomy in two countries at opposite ends of the development spectrum, Vanuatu and Singapore, attempting to show that the taxonomy provides insights for policymaking. The taxonomy is the principal contribution. It suggests an examination of external values and norms; an assessment of the importance of local context; a recognition that policies can worsen the problems that they try to solve; and the idea that theory and policy should be revised as circumstances change. The taxonomy is developed as a way of addressing the difficulties encountered by the modernist Washington Consensus on the one hand and postmodernism on the other. Some postmodernists have criticised modernists for trying to make universal statements based on findings specific to a particular time and context. A further criticism is that the modernist-type theorising exemplified by the Washington Consensus assumes too much certainty, putting excessive faith in the ‘expert’ outsider. Postmodernists, on the other hand, have often been criticised for being relativist or even being against theory itself. In extreme versions of postmodernism, the entire rejection of epistemological foundations allows no analysis or significant discussion. The taxonomy aims to steer away from the pitfalls of either tradition, emphasising in particular the unity of theory and practice and the need for analysis and policy advice to take account of both the objectivism of the outsider and the subjectivism of the insider. The thesis is divided into two parts. The first part discusses how the open systems approach of critical realism, John Maynard Keynes and the neo-Austrians aims to overcome the difficulties of modernism and postmodernism. It then examines some of the principal uses of the term reflexivity in the past century or so, suggesting that some of these uses are compatible with each other and with the idea of open systems. This section draws on the work of several economic methodologists and sociologists, including Karl Marx, Karl Mannheim, Pierre Bourdieu, Anthony Giddens and thinkers within the sociology of scientific knowledge. Next is a critical discussion of the Washington Consensus and its amended version, followed by the development of the taxonomy. Part two begins with a brief discussion of the nature of comparison within developing economies, before looking at the taxonomy in the context of Vanuatu and Singapore. Following the case-studies is an attempt to draw lessons from the experience of the two countries. Finally, the discussion is summarised and some conclusions established.

How do we perceive literature? In our times computer games and Internet have made us grow more comfortable to the usage of non linear storylines. But how does this apply to printed literature? In this essay, called “From a to b through d h and o. Non linear storytelling in our time” I have focused on nonlinear literature from different time periods and I have studied novels such as James Joyce’s Ulysses as well as works by William S. Burroughs, Italo Calvino, Laurence Stern and Julio Cortázar. What they all have in common is the ambition to explore the structure of literary language and the way it can be transformed. The area is vast and I will concentrate on only a few authors. These writers will show the diversity of my subject when I explore different styles and techniques such as the cup-up technique used by Burroughs and the interpretation of pictures as a foundation of telling a story, explored by Calvino. In order to do this, I have also studied modernism and postmodernism and the ways authors back then experimented with the written language. Finally I take a look at how the use of Internet and computers may affect the way books are written today and I try to answer the question whether nonlinear literature has a future in our highly technological times. After going through this literature I hope I will have offered a good picture of what nonlinear literature is and how I have applied its techniques to my own text “If dogs could speak”.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Florida State University, 2004. / Advisor: Dr. S.E. Gontarski, Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Humanities Program. Title and description from dissertation home page (viewed June 16, 2004). Includes bibliographical references.

The way we socialize today is radically different from how it was only twenty years ago. Since the arrival of the Internet more and more of what we know about the lives of our friends comes from text-based social networks, or blogs. This means that we all, more or less, have become authors of our own life stories and that the reality we live in have become fictionalized. In this paper I explore what effects this postmodern process of dissolving boundaries has had on the autobiographical genre, where the line between fiction and reality is traditionally stressed. By analysing Carina Rydberg’s (b. 1962) autobiographical novel Djävulsformeln (2000) I reveal how the autobiographical genre has evolved during the postmodernist era and how Philippe Lejeune’s autobiographical contract now commonly is replaced by a double contract (Poul Behrendt). This means that the contemporary autobiographical novel claims to be both a true story and made up, or, as Christian Lenemark calls it, true lies. To understand the mixed signals about whether the literary text is fiction or a true story the contemporary reader turns to the media and therefore authors more and more often choose to comment on and explain their works in interviews and articles to regain some control over how the text is perceived, thus overstepping the boundary of fiction. We have, as Lenemark puts it, a medialization of the role of the author. With the distinction between what is a depiction of reality and what is fiction, in a state of dissolution the traditional genre classifications have become dated. My claim is that the boundary between fiction and reality has imploded as an effect of the post- modern process and that readers today, like cultural consumers in general, look for "the real thing" but want a better reality than the one they get in real life. Traditional classifications like "autobiography", "reality" and "fiction" thereby no longer apply to contemporary literature.