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The Global ETD Search service is a free service for researchers
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Our metadata is collected from universities around the world. If you manage a university/consortium/country archive and want to be added, details can be found on the NDLTD website.
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Showing 21 to 29 of 29 (0.088 seconds)Spelling suggestions: "subject:"copular fiction"" "subject:"apopular fiction""
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In the shadow of the night : the gendered subtext of Anne Rice’s Vampire ChroniclesHoosain, Shakira 08 December 2011 (has links)
Anne Rice writes popular fiction. She is best known for her iconic Vampire Chronicles series. This thesis focuses on the first three volumes of this series: Interview with the Vampire (1976), The Vampire Lestat (1985), and The Queen of the Damned (1988). The main objective of this thesis is to show that whilst Rice's novels often seem very liberal, an examination of her subtext reveals a conservative message. This message helps entrench socio-cultural and political hegemonies because it does not challenge the status quo. In order to see how these conservative leanings are entrenched by Rice, this thesis examines archetypes of the female and the Feminine. Louis is male, but can be viewed as a Feminine character because of his meek subservience to Lestat (the protagonist of the series). Claudia is their daughter, but she is also a woman trapped in a child's body. Claudia seems to have great intellectual freedom, but she is trapped within her body and cannot mature. Gabrielle is Lestat‟s mother. When Gabrielle becomes a vampire, Rice tries to empower Gabrielle by androgynizing her character. However, we find that this androgyny is not empowering because Gabrielle returns to her role as a mother. Akasha is the ancient queen and source of vampirism. She wants to bring about a radical, gynocentric world by killing most men. But subtextually, Akasha‟s defeat represents the defeat of feminism in favour of patriarchy. Despite the seemingly liberal nature of the texts, subtextually there is a trend towards negating the power these characters carry in the text. To explore the flux between the text and the subtext, an array of post-modern reading tools and theoretical approaches have been used. The primary reading strategies include a close reading of the novels, informed by Feminist perspectives, together with other reading strategies such as, Queer Theory, Marxism, deconstruction and the role of the Fantastic. Little academic study has been devoted to Rice‟s work. Her work shows deep philosophical and artistic integrity which lends an elegance and beauty to her texts, but this is undermined by the conservative undertones of her work. / Dissertation (MA)--University of Pretoria, 2011. / English / unrestricted
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Feelgood på folkbiblioteket : En kvalitativ intervjustudie med sex bibliotekarier 2023 / Feelgood and the public library : A qualitative interview study with six librarians 2023Meissner, Karin January 2023 (has links)
Abstract Introduction. The aim of this study is to investigate the role of a relatively new genre in popular literature in Sweden called "feelgood". Feelgood, as literary genre, has quickly risen to become a beloved and frequently borrowed genre among readers. However, there is a lack of knowledge regarding how the feelgood genre is perceived and handled by public libraries. Method. Six semi-structured interviews were conducted with librarians at public libraries. The interviewees reside in different parts of Sweden and the video communication platform Zoom was used to facilitate the enquire. Analysis. The data gathered from the interviews were transcribed and analyzed using a qualitative content method. It was also compared in relation to earlier studies. The theoretical approach was retrieved from Catherine Sheldrick Ross seven models of reading and Magnus Persson’s myth elements of literature and reading. Results. The results show that feelgood as literary genre is indeed noticed and discussed among the study’s informants. The thoughts and attitudes among the librarians differ but can generally be perceived as positive. Several of Ross and Persson’s theoretical models were applicable to the arguments put forward by the informants. Conclusion. The study concludes that the feelgood genre in literature is mostly well-received among the participants. However, there are some implications of inconsistencies in rhetoric and practice. The genre is considered both a hindrance and an opportunity. Reductions in public library budgets may possibly alter the way the feelgood genre is approached and handled. The result of the study is in many ways consistent with earlier studies conducted on other genre literature. This is a two year master’s thesis in Library and Information Science.
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Indonesia's New Order, 1966-1998: Its Social and Intellectual OriginsKarsono, Sony 25 September 2013 (has links)
No description available.
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This Woman's Work: The Sociopolitical Activism of Bebe Moore CampbellHarwell, Raena Jamila January 2011 (has links)
In November 2006, award-winning novelist, Bebe Moore Campbell died at the age of 56 after a short battle with brain cancer. Although the author was widely-known and acclaimed for her first novel, Your Blues Ain't Like Mine (1992) there had been no serious study of her life, nor her literary and activist work. This dissertation examines Campbell's activism in two periods: as a student at the University of Pittsburgh during the 1960s Black Student Movement, and later as a mental health advocate near the end of her life in 2006. It also analyzes Campbell's first and final novels, Your Blues Ain't Like Mine and 72 Hour Hold (2005) and the direct relationship between her novels and her activist work. Oral history interview, primary source document analysis, and textual analysis of the two novels, were employed to examine and reconstruct Campbell's activist activities, approaches, intentions and impact in both her work as a student activist at the University of Pittsburgh and her work as a mental health advocate and spokesperson for the National Alliance for Mental Illness. A key idea considered is the impact of her early activism and consciousness on her later activism, writing, and advocacy. I describe the subject's activism within the Black Action Society from 1967-1971 and her negotiation of the black nationalist ideologies espoused during the 1960s. Campbell's first novel Your Blues Ain't Like Mine and is correlated to her emerging political consciousness (specific to race and gender) and the concern for racial violence during the Black Liberation period. The examination of recurrent themes in Your Blues reveals a direct relationship to Campbell's activism at the University of Pittsburgh. I also document Campbell's later involvement in the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), her role as a national spokesperson, and the local activism that sparked the birth of the NAMI Urban-Los Angeles chapter, serving black and Latino communities (1999-2006). Campbell's final novel, 72 Hour Hold, is examined closely for its socio-political commentary and emphasis on mental health disparities, coping with mental illness, and advocacy in black communities. Campbell utilized recurring signature themes within each novel to theorize and connect popular audiences with African American historical memory and current sociopolitical issues. Drawing from social movement theories, I contend that Campbell's activism, writing, and intellectual development reflect the process of frame alignment. That is, through writing and other activist practices she effectively amplifies, extends, and transforms sociopolitical concerns specific to African American communities, effectively engaging a broad range of readers and constituents. By elucidating Campbell's formal and informal leadership roles within two social movement organizations and her deliberate use of writing as an activist tool, I conclude that in both activist periods Campbell's effective use of resources, personal charisma, and mobilizing strategies aided in grassroots/local and institutional change. This biographical and critical study of the sociopolitical activism of Bebe Moore Campbell establishes the necessity for scholarly examination of African American women writers marketed to popular audiences and expands the study of African American women's contemporary activism, health activism, and black student activism. / African American Studies
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Science fiction in the public library : essence and selectionBrewis, William Loftie-Eaton 06 1900 (has links)
The selection of science fiction was researched to determine how science fiction should be evaluated and selected in the context of the public library.
The first sub-problem to be researched concerned the cultural, societal and literary origins of this genre, after which its distinct phases of development were studied as well as the characteristic essence of science fiction which would affect its selection per se, specifically whether conventional literary criteria are suitable for the evaluation of items of science fiction during selection.
The next sub-problem focused on, was whether theory can explain the process of fiction selection, The succeeding sub-problem was to empirically Study current practice in science fiction selection. Survey research was conducted amongst selected major urban/regional public library services in the USA.
Final research results indicated that science fiction is a sophisticated, multi-textured genre which differs significantly from fellow popular genres, Science fiction is viewed by some critics as being on the cusp of post-modernism, a significant body of work in contemporary literature, and a supreme expression of late capitalism. Research further showed that no satisfactory evaluative criteria exist. It was also established that theory of fiction selection is not always capable of explaining or guiding the process of fiction selection. There is no model for the selection of science fiction. Finn guiding principles for science fiction selection could be formulated by the aid of this study.
The study concluded with a specially-designed model for the selection of science fiction (including a scorecard with specially-compiled criteria for evaluating items), as well as a suggested core collection. A structured approach should be followed by the science fiction selector. The guiding principles and core collection which were formulated in this study, the set of special criteria as well as the model, together demonstrate that the selection of science fiction can be structured, controlled and guided within established parameters. / Information Science / D. Lit. et Phil. (Information Science)
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Science fiction in the public library : essence and selectionBrewis, William Loftie-Eaton 06 1900 (has links)
The selection of science fiction was researched to determine how science fiction should be evaluated and selected in the context of the public library.
The first sub-problem to be researched concerned the cultural, societal and literary origins of this genre, after which its distinct phases of development were studied as well as the characteristic essence of science fiction which would affect its selection per se, specifically whether conventional literary criteria are suitable for the evaluation of items of science fiction during selection.
The next sub-problem focused on, was whether theory can explain the process of fiction selection, The succeeding sub-problem was to empirically Study current practice in science fiction selection. Survey research was conducted amongst selected major urban/regional public library services in the USA.
Final research results indicated that science fiction is a sophisticated, multi-textured genre which differs significantly from fellow popular genres, Science fiction is viewed by some critics as being on the cusp of post-modernism, a significant body of work in contemporary literature, and a supreme expression of late capitalism. Research further showed that no satisfactory evaluative criteria exist. It was also established that theory of fiction selection is not always capable of explaining or guiding the process of fiction selection. There is no model for the selection of science fiction. Finn guiding principles for science fiction selection could be formulated by the aid of this study.
The study concluded with a specially-designed model for the selection of science fiction (including a scorecard with specially-compiled criteria for evaluating items), as well as a suggested core collection. A structured approach should be followed by the science fiction selector. The guiding principles and core collection which were formulated in this study, the set of special criteria as well as the model, together demonstrate that the selection of science fiction can be structured, controlled and guided within established parameters. / Information Science / D. Lit. et Phil. (Information Science)
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Narrating the "nation" : cultural production, political community and young Afrikaans readersDu Plessis, Irma 20 October 2004 (has links)
This study explores the relationship between literature and society against the background of the emergence in the 1930s and 1940s in South Africa of a form of Afrikaner nationalism that was spearheaded by members of the Afrikaner petty bourgeoisie and intelligentsia and a subsequent expansion in Afrikaans literary production. It addresses problems of explanation in Afrikaner nationalism by focusing attention on the question of culture, the field of imagination and the domain of everyday life. In particular, the study examines the Keurboslaan series - a series of schoolboy stories aimed at juvenile readers - by Stella Blakemore, and traces the production, circulation and critical reception of the twenty titles in the series. The first title in this series was published in 1941 and the series has been reprinted several times over a number of decades and as recently as 1997. Drawing on the work of Benedict Anderson, this study illuminates the link between the emergence of print capitalism and the production of popular fiction on the one hand and nationalism on the other. Whilst this is a link that is not often explored, an analysis of the Keurboslaan series illustrates that the study of popular fiction can illuminate the practices through which nationalism gains popular support. It is argued that the Keurboslaan series produced a narrative of the Afrikaner ‘nation’ in popular fiction, but that this narrative was not authenticated by the intelligentsia and petty bourgeoisie who were the driving forces behind Afrikaner nationalism and its contents. It is further argued that this ‘narrative of nation’ circulated alongside more official narratives of the ‘nation’ espoused in discourses of religion, science and literature published in Afrikaans. The narrative of ‘nation’ in Keurboslaan – whilst sharing many similarities with official narratives in other discourses – but also differs from those discourses in important respects. It is argued that the popular series was influential precisely because it imagined the Afrikaner ‘nation’ in very different ways and on different terms from those discourses. Moreover, the form in which this narrative was produced, that is popular youth literature, appealed to readers of Afrikaans who were in search of escapist fiction. For these readers, the Keurboslaan series helped to give shape to and created new possibilities for interpreting the world that they inhabited. Reading the school as a corollary of the ‘nation’, it is argued that the narrative of the nation in Keurboslaan series explores the boundaries between the self and the other and posits the self as a danger to the self, resulting in an emphasis on the need to discipline the self. This kind of analysis also creates the space for examining in what ways ideas and identities about ‘race’, gender, sexuality, class and ‘nation’ are constructed in the texts. Yet, the study maintains that whilst the Keurboslaan series contributed to creating a space in which a particular understanding of the self and the world becomes possible, and whereas the reader is not conceived of as a completely free agent that can derive simply any meaning from the text, the study and its theoretical underpinnings do not fully account for individual readers’ engagement with popular texts and the ways in which reading strategies and habits can generate different, ambiguous or inconclusive meanings for readers. It is suggested that a study of popular texts and Afrikaner nationalism employing theories of reading and the reader will complement this analysis. / Thesis (DLitt (Literary Theory))--University of Pretoria, 2004. / Afrikaans / unrestricted
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Tvůrčí dráha Petra Popesca v kontextu rumunské poválečné literatury / Literary Creation of Petru Popescu in Context of Romanian Post-war LiteratureHoráková, Jarmila January 2014 (has links)
During the communist era in Romania the literature and its authors had been under pressure of normative demands, which substantially restricted freedom of writing. The authors tried to escape the official socialist realism and restore the esthetic function of literature. In the introduction chapter of this work this evolution is described. One of the authors trying to restore the esthetic function of Romanian prose in the 60s was Petru Popescu inspired by the urban background and American literature. His novels express the emotions of the Romanian post-war young generation. Although being successful in his homeland he emmigrated to the USA in 1974, where he made a career as an English writing scenarist and novelist. Other chapters of this thesis describe his work from his poetic debut until his latest work. They reflect the changes in his choices of topics and narrative methods applying the F. K. Stanzel's literary theory. One of the chapters deals with general questions related to exile, writer's identity, selection of the languages and adaptation strategies. Key words: monograph, post-war literature, exile literature, communist regime, July Thesis, Ceaușescu's regime, bilingualism, popular fiction, narrator's role, fiction and non-fiction, adaptation, identity, creative nonfiction
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Confronting eternity : strange (im)mortalities, and states of undying in popular fiction.Bacon, Edwin Bruce January 2014 (has links)
When the meritless scrabble for the bauble of deity, they ironically set their human lives at the “pin’s fee” to which Shakespeare’s Hamlet refers. This thesis focuses on these undeserving individuals in premillennial and postmillennial fiction, who seek immortality at the expense of both their humanities, and their natural mortalities.
I will analyse an array of popular modern characters, paying particular attention to the precursors of immortal personages. I will inaugurate these analyses with an examination of fan favourite series
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