<p>This study focuses on two incarnations of the Cenci legend: Percy Bysshe Shelley’s 1819 verse drama <em>The Cenci</em> and George Elliott Clarke and James Rolfe’s 1998 chamber opera <em>Beatrice Chancy</em>. Shelley composed <em>The Cenci</em> after he discovered an Italian manuscript recounting the life of Beatrice Cenci who, after being raped by her father, plotted the murder of the debauched patriarch and was subsequently executed for parricide. Nearly two centuries later, Clarke and Rolfe created <em>Beatrice Chancy</em>, an Africadianized adaptation of the Cenci legend inspired by Shelley’s play. This study investigates they way in which multiple performance genres re-embody history in order to contest collective memory and reconfigure concepts of nationhood and citizenship. It examines the principles of nineteenth-century closet drama and the way in which Shelley's play questions systems of despotic, patriarchal power by raising issues of speech and silence, public and private. This is followed by a consideration of how Clarke and Rolfe's transcultural adaptation uncovers similar issues in Canadian history, where discourses of domestic abuse come to reflect public constructs of citizenship. Particularly this study examines how, through the immediacy of operatic performance and the powerful voice of the diva, <em>Beatrice Chancy</em> contests Canada’s systematic silencing of a violent history of slavery and oppression.</p> / Master of Arts (MA)

<p>It might be time for critics of early Canadian literature to avoid avoiding blackness in early Canada in their work. This dissertation<em> </em>takes up the recurrent pattern of displacement that emerges in critical studies that recall or rediscover early Canada. It attends in particular to the displacements and subordinations of Canadian blackness, particularly those conspicuously avoided by critics or rendered conspicuously absent by authors in the literatures of Upper Canada during the height of the Underground Railroad era, between 1830 and 1860. Not only is blackness in Upper Canada concealed, omitted, derided, and caricatured, but these representational formulas shape the hegemonic common-sense of what Antonio Gramsci terms “the national popular.” I argue that canonical texts contain accounts of early Canadian blackness from the national popular and subsequent criticisms of them produce an attitude and a history that excises blackness when literary and cultural critics examine the complexities of early Canada. Informed by Stuart Hall’s concept of the “floating signifier,” I draw the tropes of blackness out from behind the backdrop of early Canadian texts and into the foreground of Canadian literary and cultural criticism as well as critical race studies; in turn, this theoretical model helps me to explain what cultural work “undefined and indefinable” blackness did in early Canada and in contemporary imaginings of it (Clarke <em>Odysseys</em>, 16). Working out this paradox in John Richardson’s <em>Wacousta </em>and <em>The Canadian Brothers</em>, Susanna Moodie’s <em>Roughing It in the Bush</em>, and Catharine Parr Traill’s <em>The Canadian Settlers Guide</em>, my three chapters examine how these Upper Canadian authors display as much as hide the crucial roles of blackness in the formation of Canada and Canadian national identity.</p> / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

<p>This dissertation draws on a broad range of postcolonial literature in order to explore literary representations of environmentalism in the global South. Although this project draws heavily on the particular environmental histories of different nations and geographic regions, I am also interested in areas of overlap. In this study I do two interrlated and simultaneous things that I hope will refine postcolonial ecocriticism. The first involves a broadening of the definition of 'environment,' informed by the environmental justice movment, in ways that make it more applicable and accountable to people's lived lives. This expanded definition of the environment includes those spaces where people live and work. Such a redefinition, I argue, is a crucial counter-measure to ecocriticism's Anglo-American focus, where traditional American environmental values of conservation, preservation, and the cult of the wilderness prevail. The second intervention involves using ecocriticism alongside this expanded notion of the environment to unearth the everyday environmentalisms at work in postcolonial literature that may go unnoticed through traditional ecocritical approaches. I argue that this everyday approach successfully avoids some of the common hurdles in postcolonial ecocriticism. These hurdles include debates over the origins of environmental thought, questions about the link between affluence and environmental consciousness, and the contentious space of animals in postcolonial thought and literature. By beginning with an examination of the ways in which people interact with their own local environments, I am able to explore environmental thought and action on the ground and can begin theorizing there. What is revealed through these analyses is that this expanded definition of environmentalism and this new ecocritical approach open the door to viewing environmentality as a common and foundational feature of postcolonial literature. My chapters explore various facets of these everyday environmentalisms, including ecofeminist perspectives, anthropocentric versus biocentric representations of the environment, urban space, and finally the idea of going back to the land. The issues that I explore throughout these chapters include legacies of colonialism, globalization, racism and speceism, ecolocial/ecocritical imperialism, and postcoloniality.</p> / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

<p>In my dissertation, I advance an interpretive perspective that emerges from the politics of the Mad Movement (also known as the Psychiatric Consumer/Survivor/Ex-patient Movement). This movement began in the 1970s in response to patient abuses in the psychiatric system and continues today in various forms. I argue that literary studies, which often reads madness in the reductive terms of psychiatric diagnosis or which renders madness as metaphor, would benefit from mad perspectives; likewise, literary studies has much to offer the nascent field of Mad(ness) Studies in terms of methods for locating the discursive conditions of madness’ emergence. Drawing on Foucault’s work on madness and biopolitics; poststructuralist feminism; Disability Studies; and Mad Movement writings, I concentrate on texts which narrate intersecting experiences of madness, resistance, community and identity: Mary Jane Ward’s The Snake Pit (1947), Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar (1963), Susanna Kaysen’s Girl, Interrupted (1994), Claire Allen’s Poppy Shakespeare (2007), Liz Kettle’s Broken Biscuits (2007), Bobby Baker’s Diary Drawings: Mental Illness and Me (2010), Persimmon Blackbridge’s Prozac Highway (2000), Joan Riley’s The Unbelonging (1985) and Helen Oyeyemi’s The Icarus Girl (2004). I further explore mad reading practices through my reading of a blog project I conducted for research purposes in which people with experience of the mental health system reviewed depictions of madness and mental health treatment in literature, film, popular culture and news media. In reading through a mad perspective, I postulate some of the material and ideological effects that establishing mad reading practices and communities might have. I consider how madness is gendered, and how it intersects with other aspects of embodiment such as race, class and sexuality; how narratives of madness elucidate the relationship between psychiatry and colonialism, patriarchy, eugenics and neoliberalism; and how they invite us to question the limits of reason, truth and subjectivity.</p> / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Yes / As of April 2020, the IMF categorised seven African countries as being in debt distress, whilst identifying twelve more that were at high risk of becoming distress. It is no longer a secret that considered immutable and eternally binding, debt by the global south (i.e., poor developing African countries) has become a tool for imperial powers in the post-colonial world to enforce and perpetuate their dominance over the global south. This is despite serious global crises that emerge from, and/or were caused by the rich countries of the global north; specifically, the negative effects of the global financial crisis of 2008, devastating impact of Covid-19 pandemic, and impact of Russia-Ukraine war on the African economies and contribution to these debt vulnerabilities. Yet, the rich countries of the global north have insisted on these poor countries to continue financing their debts. The paper considers how African countries could legally cancel the repayment of the debts by relying on the principles of international law (such as pacta sunt servanda, limit to legal obligation to pay, force majeure, State of Necessity or rebus sic stantibus) and States’ declarations to commitment to sustainable development agenda (such as the European Union’s response to the adoption of the 2030 Agenda featured in its Commission’s 2016 Communication) could be used as justifying grounds for cancellation of Africa debts. The paper draws on international law and development in the light of dependency and postcolonial theories and employs the human rights-based approach, interdisciplinary and critical-analytical perspective and using qualitative empirical evidence from rich countries and institutions of the global north and poor developing countries of the global south for analysis.

Jury Président : Gilles Bibeau Directeur : Patrice Brodeur Membre du jury : Harith Al-Dabbagh Examinateur externe : Dominique Avon / À l’égard du lien entre le religieux et le politique, le XIXe siècle a été marqué par le rétablissement de grandes questions et par la mise en oeuvre de sujets innovateurs dans la pensée égyptienne par les grandes figures de al-Nahḍah (Renaissance), alors que le XXe siècle a été empreint d’une forte polarisation entre les courants du réformisme musulman, de l´islamisme holiste activiste et du libéralisme humaniste musulman. Maintenant, qu’en est-il des prises de position adoptées par les intellectuels égyptiens contemporains (2011-2015) à ce sujet ? Quelles sont leurs principales expressions de la conception de l’État au prisme de ce lien ? En quoi ces orientations courantes reflètent-elles des continuités, des évolutions ou des ruptures dans la conception de l’État par rapport à la pensée égyptienne moderne (1805-2010) ? Pour pouvoir donner des pistes de réponses à ces questions, les principaux travaux et interventions de 22 intellectuels seront étudiés et analysés, et ce, autour de la conception de l’espace public, de la source de légitimité et de la légifération, toujours au prisme du lien entre le religieux et le politique. Il s’agit principalement d’intellectuels qui, malgré leurs apports et leur influence sur la scène intellectuelle égyptienne actuelle, sont quasi absents de la littérature, surtout française et anglaise. Et c’est par le biais d´une approche interdisciplinaire, appliquée et critique que leurs discours seront examinés. / With respect to the relationship between the religious and the political, the 19th century was marked by the resituating within Egyptian thought of innovative questions and subjects by the great figures of the Al-Nahdah (Renaissance), while the 20th century was characterized by a pronounced polarization between Muslim reformism, activist holistic Islamism and Muslim humanistic liberalism. What of the positions of contemporary Egyptian intellectuals (2011-2015) in this regard? What are their primary expressions of conceiving the state through the prism of the relationship under discussion? How do these current approaches reflect continuities, evolutions or ruptures in conceiving the state with regard to modern Egyptian thought (1805-2010)? To propose avenues for answering these questions, the principal works and other contributions of 22 intellectuals will be studied and analyzed taking into consideration the conception of public space, of the State’s source of legitimacy and legislation, again viewed through the prism of the relationship between the religious and the political. Most of these intellectuals are virtually absent from the literature – especially the French and English – despite their contributions and their influence on the contemporary Egyptian intellectual scene. Their discourses will be examined using an interdisciplinary, applied and critical approach.

This study describes the diachronic development of modality in South African English (henceforth SAfE) from the early 19th century up to its contemporary state (1820s to 1990s) in the registers of letters, news, fiction/narrative and non-fiction, on the basis of the theoretical framework of socio historical linguistics and the empirical approach of corpus linguistics. Both quantitative and qualitative analyses are conducted for modal and quasi-modal verbs, by means of the newly compiled historical corpus of SAfE and ICE-SA (with the addition of Afrikaans corpora for comparison). The study explores general frequency changes, register-internal changes and macro- and micro semantic changes, with the focus of the main semantic analysis more strongly on the obligation and necessity cluster1. A set of parameters is compiled for analysing the strength of obligation in the modals must and should, and the quasi-modal HAVE to, and is applied in the micro semantic analyses. The findings are compared with the trends for modality in other native English’s, such as American, British and Australian English (cf. e.g. Mair & Leech, 2006; Collins, 2009a; Leech, 2011), in an attempt to present a complete and comprehensive description of SAfE modality, as opposed to the traditional approach of focusing on peculiar features. It is reported that the trends of modality in SAfE correspond to those of other native varieties in some cases, but do not correspond in others. The modals of SAfE for example have declined more and the quasi-modals have increased less over the 20th century than in other native varieties of English. One particular case, in which SAfE is reported to be unique among other varieties, is the quantitative and qualitative trends for must, which has some implications for the manifestation of the democratisation process. Must in SAfE has not declined significantly over the 20th century (as it has in other native varieties) and has become less face threatening, since uses with a median (weaker) degree of force are just as frequent as those with a higher degree of force by the 1990s (unlike in other native varieties, where must has become restricted to high-degree obligative contexts). Based on socio historical, as well as linguistic evidence (on both quantitative and qualitative levels), language contact with Afrikaans is posited as the main influence for the increased use of must in contexts that are not face threatening. Extrapolating from the semantic findings, some new insights are offered regarding the phase in which SAfE finds itself within Schneider’s (2003) model of the evolution of New English’s, and some support is offered for Bekker’s (2012:143) argument that “SAfE is ...the youngest of the colonial varieties of English”, especially in the Southern Hemisphere. Ultimately, this thesis offers a piece in the larger puzzle that is SAfE, both in terms of linguistic (textual) and socio historical (contextual) aspects. / PhD (English), North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2014

This study describes the diachronic development of modality in South African English (henceforth SAfE) from the early 19th century up to its contemporary state (1820s to 1990s) in the registers of letters, news, fiction/narrative and non-fiction, on the basis of the theoretical framework of socio historical linguistics and the empirical approach of corpus linguistics. Both quantitative and qualitative analyses are conducted for modal and quasi-modal verbs, by means of the newly compiled historical corpus of SAfE and ICE-SA (with the addition of Afrikaans corpora for comparison). The study explores general frequency changes, register-internal changes and macro- and micro semantic changes, with the focus of the main semantic analysis more strongly on the obligation and necessity cluster1. A set of parameters is compiled for analysing the strength of obligation in the modals must and should, and the quasi-modal HAVE to, and is applied in the micro semantic analyses. The findings are compared with the trends for modality in other native English’s, such as American, British and Australian English (cf. e.g. Mair & Leech, 2006; Collins, 2009a; Leech, 2011), in an attempt to present a complete and comprehensive description of SAfE modality, as opposed to the traditional approach of focusing on peculiar features. It is reported that the trends of modality in SAfE correspond to those of other native varieties in some cases, but do not correspond in others. The modals of SAfE for example have declined more and the quasi-modals have increased less over the 20th century than in other native varieties of English. One particular case, in which SAfE is reported to be unique among other varieties, is the quantitative and qualitative trends for must, which has some implications for the manifestation of the democratisation process. Must in SAfE has not declined significantly over the 20th century (as it has in other native varieties) and has become less face threatening, since uses with a median (weaker) degree of force are just as frequent as those with a higher degree of force by the 1990s (unlike in other native varieties, where must has become restricted to high-degree obligative contexts). Based on socio historical, as well as linguistic evidence (on both quantitative and qualitative levels), language contact with Afrikaans is posited as the main influence for the increased use of must in contexts that are not face threatening. Extrapolating from the semantic findings, some new insights are offered regarding the phase in which SAfE finds itself within Schneider’s (2003) model of the evolution of New English’s, and some support is offered for Bekker’s (2012:143) argument that “SAfE is ...the youngest of the colonial varieties of English”, especially in the Southern Hemisphere. Ultimately, this thesis offers a piece in the larger puzzle that is SAfE, both in terms of linguistic (textual) and socio historical (contextual) aspects. / PhD (English), North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2014

Abstract : This thesis develops an ideological critique of selected works by Oliver Lange, Orson Scott Card, Mary Jane Engh, Paul Chamberland, Hubert Aquin, and Claude Jasmin in order to uncover how they use the politico-literary discourse of the paranoid style and its Manichean binary of Us versus Them within the contexts of the United States during the Cold War (and its on-going repercussions into the early 1970’s) and Québec during the Révolution tranquille (Quiet Revolution). The consequent ideologemes manifest narratives describing the fight of an oppressed group (Us) against a demonized hegemonic enemy (Them.) This comparative literature project includes political and historical analyses in order to situate the works in the socio-historical contexts of their production, and since the ideologies of a period may be imbedded (knowingly or not) by an author in a text. The United States and Québec were extremely different culturally, as well as politically, during the decades in question and the issues their populations had to face were often quite dissimilar. Yet it is precisely the interrogation of their dissimilarities that is central to my project of demonstrating, through the selected texts, how two different societies narrativise key predominant ideological anxieties and struggles using the same rhetoric and similar tropes of the paranoid syle and its Manichean ideologemes. / Résumé : Ce mémoire réalise une critique idéologique de textes littéraires produits par différents auteurs : Oliver Lange, Orson Scott Card, Mary Jane Engh, Paul Chamberland, Hubert Aquin et Claude Jasmin. Cette critique a pour but d'étudier comment ces textes utilisent le discours politico-littéraire du paranoid style (style paranoïaque) et le manichéanisme ( Us versus Them ou Eux ou Nous) qui lui est associé à l'intérieur du contexte sociohistorique des États-Unis au plus fort de la Guerre froide (et durant sa période plus chaude des années 1970) et du Québec au plus fort de la Révolution tranquille. Les idéologèmes qui en résultent façonnent des histoires décrivant le combat d'un groupe opprimé (Nous) contre un ennemi hégémonique et démonisé (Eux) Ce projet de littérature comparée fait appel à des analyses politiques et historiques pour situer les textes analysés dans leur contexte sociohistorique de production respectifs puisque les idéologies d'une époque peuvent être insérées (consciemment ou non) par un auteur dans un texte. Le Québec et les États-Unis étaient des sociétés extrêmement différentes culturellement et politiquement durant ces décennies et les problèmes auxquels elles devaient faire face étaient différents également. C'est l'exploration de ces différences qui est centrale à ma démonstration, à travers les textes sélectionnés, du processus par lequel deux sociétés différentes opposées à deux ennemis différents mettent en scène leurs principaux combats et anxiétés idéologiques en utilisant la même rhétorique et les même conventions reliées au style paranoïaque et à son Manichéanisme.

The colonial history of South Africa and its legacy of cultural and linguistic domination have resulted in a situation where the. literatures of the majority of South Africans were relegated to the margins of institutional, social and cultural life. Exclusion (of local writings) was the principal mode by which power was exercised within university English departments. It is within this context that this study posits lacunae and challenges for the reconstruction of the South African literature curriculum. Although various approaches have been used by English departments during this decade to include South African literature in the curriculum (pluralism, inter-disciplinary studies, alternate canon formation, canon rejection, eclecticism, elective programmes, etc.), the curriculum continues to repeat the established norms and values of colonial/apartheid society, it avoids confronting the ideological construction of traditional English literature and is a revamping or upgrading of the programmes offered during the colonial/apartheid era. The genealogical study uncovers the production, regulation, distribution, circulation and operation of statements, decentres discourse, and reveals how discourse is secondary to systems of power. Chapter Four explores both theoretical and methodological underpinnings for the reconstruction of the South African literature curriculum deriving from the critical educational approaches of Freire, Giroux and Apple, the discursive approach of Foucault and the post colonial reading strategies of Zavarzadeh and Morton. The teaching of South African literature would best be served by working within a critical paradigm, having as its objective the goals of critical educational studies. Chapter Four also includes a review of the curriculum in local practice through a curriculum impact study using empirical research based on the 1996 English literature syllabi of South African universities as well as the findings of the surveys conducted by Malan and Bosman in 1986 and Lindfors in 1992. Chapter Five posits recommendations for curriculum reconstruction with the main focus on the intervention of radical strategies that would lead to a new conflictual reading list. The objective is to put the canon under erasure by problematising the concept of literariness. Such an approach also reveals the power/ knowledge relations of culture, ideologies that dominate the discipline and the institutional arrangements of knowledge. / Curriculum and Instructional Studies / D.Ed. (Didactics)