This thesis analyses the function of the provincial town in the novels of Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821-1881) and George Eliot (1819-1880). It demonstrates that the small town, far from being a neutral backdrop to their narratives, functions as a sociological space in which to appropriate or challenge the discourses of modernity with which Dostoevsky and Eliot were explicitly preoccupied. The first chapter examines how their provincial communities negotiate biblical narrative in a world in which, thanks to nineteenth-century attempts to historicise the Bible, an acceptance of the Bible's authoritative status is no longer a given. The instability of language itself is then interrogated in my second chapter, which shows that the transition from denotative, referential meaning to connotative, abstract forms causes ethical and narrative tension within the world of the novel, and which explores the aesthetics and ethics of gossip in the provincial town and novel. The third chapter details what becomes of the nineteenth-century discourse of heroism when characters seek to enact it in a provincial setting, showing that the environment of the provincial town proves hostile to heroic ambition, whilst the fourth argues that the provincial application of professional discourse (particularly that of medicine and the law) is critiqued and perfected by these authors. Through the analysis of this discourse, it is shown that Eliot and Dostoevsky's treatment of provincialism is ambivalent. As urban intellectuals who did not consent to inhabit the provincial milieu they depict, they in many respects censure the world they describe. However, this censure is not absolute, and through their chosen setting, as well as their chosen genre of the novel, they provide ethical instruction for their readers, then and now. Ethics, for them, are best tested in community, and explored in narrative.

Paleokarst deposits from the Oligo-Miocene of northern Florida preserve undescribed herpetofaunal remains that fill important temporal and geographic gaps in our understanding of Cenozoic lizard evolution. Here I describe and discuss the non-anguimorph lizard diversity of the Brooksville 2 (Ar2) and Miller (He1) local faunas to test for patterns of regional and latitudinal provincialism in the contemporary North American record. Collectively, the sites are significant for documenting 1) extralimital occurrences of the tropical clades Anolis and Corytophaninae, 2) a substantial temporal range extension of the modern southeastern endemic Rhineuridae, 3) the earliest record of eublepharid gekkotans from North America, and 4) the early Miocene arrival of “cnemidophorine” teiids from South America. This work complements recent studies of older, Eocene lizards by others and lends paleontological support to aspects of the tropical conservatism hypothesis: lineages now confined to the tropics were present at higher latitudes when megathermal climates were more extensive.

Submitted by Aline Batista (alinehb.ufpel@gmail.com) on 2015-11-25T14:09:03Z No. of bitstreams: 2 Payador, pampa e guitarra.pdf: 2180223 bytes, checksum: ec2cc31f5ff81efa96384b61d63c6f07 (MD5) license_rdf: 23148 bytes, checksum: 9da0b6dfac957114c6a7714714b86306 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Aline Batista (alinehb.ufpel@gmail.com) on 2015-11-25T16:06:12Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 2 Payador, pampa e guitarra.pdf: 2180223 bytes, checksum: ec2cc31f5ff81efa96384b61d63c6f07 (MD5) license_rdf: 23148 bytes, checksum: 9da0b6dfac957114c6a7714714b86306 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2015-11-25T16:08:11Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 Payador, pampa e guitarra.pdf: 2180223 bytes, checksum: ec2cc31f5ff81efa96384b61d63c6f07 (MD5) license_rdf: 23148 bytes, checksum: 9da0b6dfac957114c6a7714714b86306 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015-07-22 / Sem bolsa / A presente pesquisa discute sobre a produção poético-musical do Rio Grande do Sul a partir das perspectivas de intertextualidade e interdisciplinaridade presentes nas nove composições que integram o LP (Long Play – disco de vinil) Payador, Pampa e Guitarra, de Noel Guarany e Jayme Caetano Braun. Dentre as produções apresentadas no LP, encontram-se canções, payadas e poemas. A temática do disco propõe uma aproximação cultural/ideológica entre gaúchos brasileiros e gauchos uruguaios e argentinos. Dentro desse contexto de entrecruzamento de fronteiras, é possível perceber que seu conteúdo ultrapassa os limites relacionados à cor local e ao regional. Além disso, essa é uma obra que surge num momento cultural em que havia poucas publicações de livros de poemas, e os poetas encontravam na música, na canção, um espaço de prestígio na sociedade para as suas publicações. Esse fenômeno não ocorreu somente no âmbito regional sul-rio-grandense, mas em todo Brasil e na América Latina. Na literatura brasileira há uma tradição com a oralidade, e os gêneros orais adquirem papel de importância no cenário regional do Rio Grande do Sul. Além do mais, Payador, Pampa e Guitarra integra o cenário que marca a passagem do estilo musical regional, passando a produzir canções mais engajadas com a reflexão sobre a formação cultural do povo gaúcho e platino. / The present paper aims at discussing the poetical-musical production in Rio Grande do Sul based on the intertexuality and interdisciplinarity perspectives in the nine compositions that are part of the LP (Long Play) Payador, Pampa and Guitar, by Noel Guarany and Jayme Caetano Braun. Among the productions presented on the LP it is found songs, payadas and poems. The thematic of the record proposes the cultural/ideological unit between Brazilian gaúchos and Uruguayan and Argentinian gauchos. In this context of crossing frontiers it is possible to realize that its content surpasses the limits related to local and regional colour. Also, this is a work that arises in a cultural moment in which there were few publication of poem books, and the poets found in music and songs, a space of prestige in society for their publications. Such phenomenon did not occur in Rio Grande do Sul only, but all over Brazil and Latin America. In the Brazilian literature there is a tradition with the orality and, the oral genres have an important role in Rio Grande do Sul’s regional scenery. In addition, Payador, Pampa and Guitar integrates the scenery that highlights the existence of the regional musical style, with the production of songs more dedicated to the reflexion on the cultural formation of the gaúcho and platino people.

Approved for public release, distribution is unlimited / Ethnicity, sectarianism and economic instability are fundamental variables of internal security threats to Pakistan. Religious extremism has created an unenviable image of Pakistan in the eyes of the rest of the world and has affected the country adversely. At the same time inter-provincial grievances could potentially cause serious damage to the federation. Despite recent economic recovery and sound macro policies, the absence of genuine socio-economic development has provided ethno-sectarian elements and regional forces grounds to exploit and weaken Pakistan internally. This paper argues that ethno-sectarian problems are major security threats to Pakistan and will remain a huge impediment to the goals of economic prosperity. Interdependence of these multifaceted threats and their overall impact on internal security is the focus of this analysis. Pakistan needs to address these national security threats and find a viable solution in a reasonable timeframe to find its rightful place in the community of modern nations. The immediate requirement is to introduce political, economic and education reforms and take bold initiatives to obviate present and future threats. This paper recommends three-pronged strategy to counter ethnosectarian threats to Pakistan: halt then reverse present trends, enforce rule of law and lastly introduce fresh incentives for socio-economic development. / Lieutenant Colonel, Pakistan Army

Finland is officially a bilingual country, with Finnish and Swedish as national languages. FinlandSwedes constitute about 6% of the population. This study treats Finland Swedish in relation to Swedish in Sweden, on the one hand, and, onthe other hand, to Finnish. The main question is whether Finland Swedish should be regarded asa variety on a par with regional varieties in Sweden, which presupposes a common written standard, or as a more independent standard language. A corpus of 289 school essays written by compulsory- and upper-secondary-school students inFinland has been compared with school essays written by Swedes in Sweden. The number of provincial features in the essays provide a quantitative measure of the regional and age-related variation among the students. The purpose of the study is to determine whether the two groups of students are developing inthe same direction, toward a common supra-regional standard language in which provincialismsare rare. My hypothesis has been that the Finland-Swedish essays will reflect a different standardlanguage than in Sweden, which would imply that several of the so-called provincialisms belongto an implicit Finland-Swedish written standard. The results indicate that the upper-secondary students, just as in Sweden, use fewer provincialfeatures than do compulsory school students. Students from bilingual municipalities use more Finlandisms than do their cohorts who reside in more Swedish-speaking environments. In generalthese Finlandisms are more closely related to Finnish than to dialects of Swedish, which meansthat the provincialisms of the Finland-Swedish students are in many cases different in nature fromthose of their Swedish counterparts in Sweden. A comparison between Finland-Swedish studentsand Swedish students in Sweden indicates that the students in Finland use more provincialisms, onthe one hand, and, on the other hand, continue to use them at the upper-secondary level as well,which is rare among Swedish students in Sweden. The conclusion is that in a certain sense Finland Swedish can be regarded as an independentstandard language developed out of the interplay with its own dialects and with Finnish. However,regionally varied influence from Sweden, combined with active language-preservation measuresin cooperation with Swedish language planning bodies in Sweden, ensures that Finlandisms, especially in professional expository prose, are normally few in number and can be regarded as negligible, even by Swedish readers in Sweden.

La thématique centrale de cette thèse, située à l’interface entre macroécologie et macroévolution, consiste en l’analyse des dynamiques spatio-temporelles de distribution des ammonites du Pliensbachien inf. de la Téthys de l’Ouest. Deux problématiques sont abordées : comment la similarité compositionnelle des assemblages décroît-elle avec la distance géographique? Quel est le lien entre la taille des aires de répartition des espèces et leur phylogénie, leur durée de vie, et leur position latitudinale?Grâce à une analyse des relations de SDD, nous montrons que plus l’environnement est homogène, plus les ammonites se dispersent librement ; et que leur dispersion sur de grandes distances n’est pas liée à leur morphologie, ce qui suggère qu’elle se faisait essentiellement via une dérive planctonique aux cours des stades juvéniles.Notre étude de l’étendue de la répartition des ammonites révèle que cette caractéristique n’est ni stable, ni propre à un clade. Son héritabilité phylogénétique dépend de la stabilité spatio-temporelle de l’environnement et varie selon l’estimateur de répartition et l’intervalle de temps considérés, et entre des espèces d’un même groupe contemporaines les unes des autres. De plus, l’étendue de répartition n’a pas d’effet sur la durée de vie des espèces. Cette absence de corrélation semble prévaloir chez les ammonoïdes, ce groupe étant connu pour présenter de grandes aires de répartition associées à des courtes durées de vie. Enfin, les étendues latitudinales des ammonites étudiées tendent à être maximales aux basses latitudes et augmentent des moyennes vers les hautes latitudes, conformément à la Règle de Rapoport. Ceci suggère qu’elles étaient vraisemblablement température-dépendantes et qu’un gradient de température des eaux existait au Pliensbachien inf. dans la province NW européenne. / The present work, which lies between macroecology and macroevolution, focuses on the spatio-temporal dynamics of early Pliensbachian ammonites of the western Tethys. Two main questions are addressed: how does inter-assemblage compositional similarity decrease with geographical distance? What is the relationship between species range size and phylogeny, species duration and latitudinal position?Ammonite dispersal dynamics are studied through a multi-scale Similarity Distance Decay analysis. We show that their long-distance dispersal is facilitated when the environment is more homogeneous and that it is not related to their morphology. This suggests that their long-distance dispersal occurred essentially through a passive planktonic drift during the first juvenile stages.We also show that ammonite geographical range size is neither stable, nor clade-specific. Indeed, its phylogenetic heritability depends on the spatio-temporal stability of the environment and it varies according to the range variable chosen, the temporal interval considered, and among contemporary species of the same group. Furthermore, the size of their geographical range has no effect on species duration. In fact, this lack of correlation seems to prevail among ammonoids, as this group is well-known for showing both large geographical distributions and short species durations. Finally, species latitudinal ranges tend to be maximal at low latitudes and to increase from middle to high latitudes during the early Pliensbachian, in accordance with the Rapoport’s rule. This suggests that these ammonites were probably temperature-dependent and that a latitudinal gradient of sea-surface temperature occurred in the NW European province during the early Pliensbachian.

The purpose of this thesis is to examine the artistry of the Swedish artist Gerda Wallander (1860–1926). Wallander’s artistry has until recently been overlooked in Swedish art history, it is therefore uncharted territory. Provincialism is used as the overall theoretical framework in this study. By applying provincialism as the overall theoretical framework, the study distinguishes between international, national, and personal characteristics in Wallander’s aesthetics. In order to rediscover her artistry, the following study analyzes her biography, exhibitions, works of art, as well as the media coverage of Wallander’s artistry. The applied method is based on network analysis inspired by Pierre Bourdieu, biographical method, picture analysis inspired by Jan-Gunnar Sjölin, and close reading. The study demonstrates that Wallander’s artistic career is divided in two different periods, 1883–1895 and 1909–1919. Wallander’s aesthetics is characterized as moderate progressive in both of these periods, as the study suggests that this artistic sensibility enables her to gain recognition as a professional artist within the Swedish art scene. In addition, Wallander specializes in cityscape-painting depicting Stockholm during the early 20th century in her second artistic period. This illustrates the provincial aspects of Wallander’s artistry, as she implements both international and national artistic influences into her art. Furthermore, this study suggests that Gerda Wallander’s way of depicting pre-modern Stockholm is her way of dealing with the new urban experience, which is an effect of the rapid transformation of the Swedish capital in the beginning of the 20th century. The study exposes the lack of knowledge of this field, namely the depiction of Stockholm in early Swedish 20th century art within the Swedish art history discipline.