Dissertation (Ph.D.)--The University of North Carolina at Greensboro, 2009. / Directed by Nancy Myers; submitted to the Dept. of English. Title from PDF t.p. (viewed May 7, 2010). Includes bibliographical references (p. 175-185).

Thesis (M.A.I.S.)--Oregon State University, 2008. / Printout. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 85-101). Also available on the World Wide Web.

Vampire and Vampirism have raised the interests of the public from 1700s. Vampire is being used as a lens to discuss social issues in the real world. However, it is seen that there are limited works discussing the situation of coloured communities. This project is to examine female vampire figures in select works and evaluate the extent to which those figures are able to represent an empowered image of women of colour. To achieve this aim, textual analysis will be used to examine classical vampire literature, such as Sheridan Le Fanu's "Carmilla" (1872/2003), Mary E. Wilkins Freeman's "Luella Miller" (1902/2014), Bram Stoker's Dracula (2007), Anne O'Brien Rice's Interview with the Vampire (1976/2010) and L. A. Banks's Minion (2003). There will be interdisciplinary reading of the social situation and behavior of the colored alongside with textual analysis of Jewelle Gomez's The Gilda Stories: A Novel (1991) and Octavia E. Butler's Fledgling: A Novel (2005). I will conclude that vampire literature has the ability and potentiality to reflect social behavior and environment of the coloured, especially coloured women. The contribution of this thesis is to demonstrate that reflecting the situation of the coloured can be a new area for vampire literature to explore in the future development and evolution of vampire literature as a genre. This is also breakthrough to the function of vampire literature as a genre because on top of appearing as entertainment and reflection of society, vampire literature is able to serve social function to empower and enlighten readers by raising their awareness to social issues that people are used to neglect.

This dissertation is a comparative analysis of the uses of tropes of marginality in American, Caribbean, British, and African fiction that engages with the aftermaths of the trans-Atlantic slave trade and slavery. This study begins by exploring the utility of the frame of Paul Gilroy's concept of the "black Atlantic" as a heuristic model for understanding encounters with slavery and the slave trade as phases of an emerging capitalist modernity. I suggest that, within this heuristic framework, marginality is always variable, contingent and changing. Several positions of marginality might even emerge in conflict with each other, since the ideological deployments of slavery in the U.S., the Caribbean, and in African countries are not always in concert. In fact, it is through the study of conflicts and tensions between such seemingly unified marginalities that their differences become discernible. As a result, the common theme in the texts I examine is the need to create communities of listeners who can discern the transformations of the colonising moment in the disparate sites of the diaspora. The practice of listening is a step in apprehending the forms of marginalisation and occlusions of the violence of colonisation that continue at different sites. In the five chapters of this dissertation, I read stories by Edgar Allan Poe and Herman Melville, and novels by Richard Wright, Toni Morrison, Caryl Phillips, Maryse Conde, Joseph Conrad, Ayi Kwei Armah, Amos Tutuola, Yaw Boateng, and Syl Cheney- Coker. I focus, particularly, on the use of animals, spatial boundaries, literacy, orality, and tropes of listening in the selected texts. I show that these authors use the opposition of visual and aural metaphors to draw attention to the limits of their characters' knowledge in order to highlight the situatedness of each character in processes of marginalisation that continue to unfold. Further, as much as these narratives excavate the afterlives of slavery, they are also engaged in the task of differentiating them in order to identify the necessary site-specific tasks of reparation or repair. / Arts, Faculty of / English, Department of / Graduate

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The diploma thesis deals with theme of racism and its narrative representation in art. It consists of three main parts. The first part of thesis defines racism and explains essential themes and concepts which bear on racism. It also briefly points out the historical development of racism. In the second part thesis deals with the narratology as theory of narrative. It explains what the story is and shows the main parts of each story - event, character, environment. In the third and last part of thesis, it focuses on analysis of selected film and literary stories where is rasism the important topic. It focuses on the way of picture the racism in narrative structure and its impact on characters and human society. That part describes storyline or characters related to racism.

This study was designed to answer the question: What are the similarities and differences between the portrayal of Mexican American females in realistic picture books published between 1998 and 2004 and such books published between 1990 and 1997? A content analysis was performed on 48 picture books published between 1998 and 2004 that feature Mexican American female characters, and the results were compared to a study of similar books published between 1990 and 1997. The study found that the portrayal of Mexican American females in the more recent time period is more authentic and less stereotypical than their portrayal in the earlier time period and that fewer Mexican American females are now depicted as submitting to gender subordination. However, the results show that the portrayal of Mexican American females in picture books does not yet fully reflect the nontraditional gender roles that these females often take on in contemporary society.

During the era of discrimination and disparity in Southern Africa, racial inequality silenced many black writers. It was the white authors that dominated the literary environment presenting their biased views on social and political concerns; the black authors standpoints were seen as unimportant and they were deemed inferior to the white authors. Consequently, it was particularly difficult for black writers to voice their experiences of living in a society riddled with oppression, prejudice and unequal opportunities. The purpose of this study is to critically compare selected texts by African authors Doris Lessing and Bessie Head, which depict the political and social struggles within Southern African society during the era of unequal opportunities. Lessing and Head’s works present incidents of life experiences in Southern Africa from two contrasting viewpoints. The selected texts explored are: The Grass is Singing and “The Old Chief Mshlanga” by Doris Lessing, a white author, in contrast and comparison to the texts: A Question of Power and “The Collector of Treasures” by Bessie Head, a coloured author. The research for this thesis is conducted from an ethnic literary perspective with careful consideration to critical race theory and cultural studies. From this perspective, the focus of the study is on the struggles that affected both the victim and perpetrator during the apartheid era as well as on the idea that those in power determined what was deemed acceptable and unacceptable, behaviourally and ideologically. Specifically, the plight experienced by the female characters living in a patriarchal society, and the segregation and racial inequality faced by the characters of colour is explored by analysing these characters’ influences, pressures and societal manipulations and constraints in the texts. Thus, this study will provide a more in-depth understanding of Southern African society during the apartheid era and the strategic use of literature to spotlight the subjugation and disparity.

Thesis (doctoral)--Universität Greifswald, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 269-292).

Thesis (doctoral)--Universität Greifswald, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 269-292).