During the eighteenth century, the dominant rhetorical and explanatory power of civic humanism was gradually challenged by the rise of a new organising language in political economy. Political economic thought permitted radically different descriptions of what laudable private and public behaviour might be: it proposed that self-interest was often more beneficial to society at large than public-mindedness; that luxury had its uses and might not be a threat to liberty and political integrity; that landownership was no particular guarantee of virtue or disinterest; and that there was nothing inherently superior about frugality and self-sufficiency. These new ideas about civil society formed the intellectual basis of a large body of verse written during the long eighteenth century (at mid-century in particular), in which poets engaged enthusiastically with political economic arguments and defences of commercial activity, and celebrated the wealth and plenty of Britain as a modern trading nation. The work of my thesis is to examine a contradiction in the way in which these political economic ideas were handled. Forward-looking and confident poetry on public themes did not develop pioneering forms to suit the modernity of its outlook: instead, poets articulated such themes in verse by appropriating and reframing traditional genres, which in some cases involved engaging with inherited moral values and philosophical preferences entirely at odds with the intellectual material in hand. This inventive kind of generic revision is the central interest of the thesis. It aims to describe a number of problematic meeting points between new political economic thought and handed-down poetic formulae, and it will focus attention on some of the ways in which poets manipulated the forms and tropes they inherited in order to manage – and make the most of – the resulting contradictions.

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In the Apartheid South Africa, repression and the heightening of the Blacks' struggle for political emancipation, prompted artists to challenge the system through their music, oral poetry and writing. Most produced works of protest in English to reach a wider audience. This led to the general misconception that literatures in the indigenous languages of South Africa were insensitive to the issues of those times. This study seeks firstly to put to rest such misconception by proving that there is Commitment in these literatures as exemplified in the poetry of S.F. Motlhake. Motlhake not only expresses protest against the political system of the time, but also questions some religious and socio-cultural practices and institutions among his people. The study also examines his selected works as genuine poetry, which does not sacrifice art on the altar of propaganda. / African Languages / M.A. (African Languages)

In this project, I examine the impact of early literary criticism, early literary history, and the history of knowledge on the perception of the laureateship as it was formulated at specific moments in the eighteenth century. Instead of accepting the assessments of Pope and Johnson, I reconstruct the contemporary impact of laureate writings and the writing that fashioned the view of the laureates we have inherited. I use an array of primary documents (from letters and journal entries to poems and non-fiction prose) to analyze the way the laureateship as a literary identity was constructed in several key moments: the debate over hack literature in the pamphlet wars surrounding Elkanah Settle’s The Empress of Morocco (1673), the defense of Colley Cibber and his subsequent attempt to use his expertise of theater in An Apology for the Life of Colley Cibber (1740), the consolidation of hack literature and state-sponsored poetry with the crowning of Colley Cibber as the King of the Dunces in Pope’s The Dunciad in Four Books (1742), the fashioning of Thomas Gray and William Mason as laureate rejecters in Mason’s Memoirs of the Life and Writings of William Whitehead (1788), Southey’s progressive work to abolish laureate task writing in his laureate odes 1813-1821, and, finally, in Wordsworth’s refusal to produce any laureate task writing during his tenure, 1843-1850. In each case, I explain how the construction of this office was central to the consolidation of literary history and to forging authorial identity in the same period. This differs from the conventional treatment of the laureates because I expose the history of the versions of literary history that have to date structured how scholars understand the laureate, and by doing so, reveal how the laureateship was used to create, legitimate and disseminate the model of literary history we still use today.

"Rum, Rome, and Rebellion: The Reform of Reform in the Political Fiction of the Gilded Age" examines a collection of American political novelists who were active during the mid- to late-nineteenth century. These writers were not only active in politics, they also used their experience in politics to compose realist fiction that typically contained a great deal of humor and satire. Despite their different backgrounds, each of these writers challenged the literary and political conventions of Romanticism, championing ironic detachment and cosmopolitanism. Although fiction about quotidian political life rarely achieves canonical status, such literature has always enjoyed a large readership, both in the nineteenth-century and in our own time. This dissertation attempts to untangle why we find (or don’t find) literature about quotidian political life entertaining and/or instructive, while also providing insight into this transitional period in American history. Each chapter concentrates on the fifty-year period between 1848 and 1898 from a different location, forming what are essentially four cross-sectional samples. This serves two interconnected purposes. One, it reorients the periodization of American literature and history away from 1865 by highlighting cultural continuities between the periods before and after the Civil War And two, it serves to highlight the integration of American literature, culture, and politics, with the broader, nineteenth-century Atlantic world, where the year 1865 carries less cultural significance. The first chapter begins in the nation's capital and examines the anti-populist liberalism of Henry Adams and John Hay. From Washington, we move north to New England where we encounter Henry James’s Bostonians. With the exception of Lionel Trilling, few major critics have championed James’s "middle period," which provides quasi-ethnographic sketches of political movements on both sides of the Atlantic. I reveal James’s long-standing fascination and engagement with the political analyses of Alexis de Tocqueville, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and his friend, Henry Adams. I show how the novel anticipates George Santayana’s notion of "the genteel tradition" which dominated northern American culture during this period. After examining two canonical figures, I turn my attention in a more southerly direction, to two lesser known authors. The first is Maria Ruiz de Burton, a Mexican writer from the Southwestern Borderlands who immigrated to the U.S. after the Mexican-American War. Ruiz de Burton has primarily been read as a proto-Chicana/o author, but I view her as a cosmopolitan whose observations about American culture and politics resemble those of James and Santayana. My last chapter is set in Louisiana, where we encounter and recover an eccentric, Spanish-Creole politician and author named Charles Gayarré and his 1856 novel The School for Politics, a satire of local machine politics. Largely forgotten today, Gayarré was connected to intellectual circles in both Europe and Latin America, and was acquainted with American writers like Herman Melville and Henry Adams. I relate The School for Politics with his later political novels in which anti-imperialism and a pluralistic plea for the tolerance of ethnic minorities also implicitly serve as an apology for racial segregation in the Jim Crow South.

Cette thèse de doctorat porte sur les implications de l’humour dans l’établissement du vivre ensemble au Québec. Je me penche tout particulièrement sur la production, le contenu et les effets des discours humoristiques dans le développement de certaines attitudes politiques à l’égard des communautés issues de la diversité culturelle et religieuse québécoise. L’ensemble de la recherche a été réalisé à travers la rédaction des trois articles, lesquels visent à mieux saisir la trajectoire empruntée par les messages humoristiques traitant de ces enjeux. Le premier article s’attarde sur les motivations et les procédés à travers lesquels les humoristes et les artisans de l’humour construisent leurs numéros. Cette partie de l’étude a pour objectif de comprendre les facteurs d’influence de création humoristique traitant des enjeux du vivre ensemble tels que perçus par les membres de l’industrie de l’humour au Québec. Grâce à la réalisation d’une vingtaine d’entrevues semi-dirigées, on constate que le premier et principal vecteur de création de numéros d’humour reste l’individu, l’humoriste lui-même. C’est avant tout ses points de vues, sa façon de comprendre et d’interpréter le vivre ensemble qui est mis de l’avant. Le reflet de la société que renvoie l’humoriste est toutefois sous l’influence des pressions qu’il perçoit de la part de l’auditoire. Ainsi, les créateurs d’humour, comme tant d’autres personnalités ou groupes de l’espace public, sont soumis à un contrat de communication, lequel demeure à l’esprit de bon nombre d’humoristes. Le second article propose une analyse de contenu de 76 vidéos humoristiques répertoriées sur la plate-forme de visionnement YouTube et abordant les questions du pluralisme. On y découvre que même si plus de 25 communautés culturelles et religieuses font l’objet de caricatures et de railleries, c’est la communauté arabo-musulmane qui représente la principale cible des humoristes, que ces derniers proviennent du groupe majoritaire ou des minorités. Le stéréotype liant islam et terrorisme est alors évoqué de façon récurrente. Le troisième et dernier article se penche sur les effets de l’humour sur l’alimentation des préjugés auprès des individus. Il s’agit d’une étude expérimentale réalisée auprès de quelques 216 personnes séparées en deux groupes : un groupe a été exposé à des numéros véhiculant des stéréotypes culturels et religieux, à l’égard des arabo-musulmans en particulier, l’autre groupe a été confronté à des prestations ne comportant pas ce genre de stéréotypes. D’une part, on n’observe aucun effet direct significatif, sans variable amplificatrice, entre les deux groupes, suggérant qu’il faut peut-être prendre en compte d’autres facteurs pouvant jouer un rôle. D’autre part, des impacts significatifs sont en effet observables en fonction de la participation religieuse. Ainsi, les effets de l’humour sont à l’évidence complexes à mesurer et il importe de prendre en considération des variables modératrices (moderated effects) afin d’en apprécier empiriquement les répercussions. En regard des différentes conclusions tirées dans mes trois recherches, il subsiste un écart entre la responsabilité ou les impacts des créations humoristiques tels que perçus par les humoristiques et ce que leurs numéros contiennent et les effets que ces derniers engendrent sur le terrain. / This dissertation focuses on the implications of humour in the establishment of the Quebecois concept of "le vivre ensemble" (that we could translate into social cohesion). In particular, I am looking at the role and effects of comedic speech in the development of political attitudes towards communities stemming from Quebec's cultural and religious diversity. All of the research was carried out through the writing of three articles, which aim to better understand the trajectory taken by humorous messages dealing with these kinds of issues. The first article focuses on the motivations and processes through which humorists and members of Quebec’s comedy industry construct their acts. The objective of this part of the study is to understand the influencing factors of the creative process dealing with the issues of the "vivre ensemble" as perceived by members of this industry. Based on about twenty semi-directed interviews, we can see that the first and main vector of comedy creation remains the individual, the stand-up comic themself. It is above all their points of view, their way of understanding the "vivre ensemble" that is put forward. The comedian’s thoughts on society are, however, influenced by the pressures they perceive from the audience. Thus, creators of comic communications, like so many other public figures or groups, are subject to a communication contract, which remains in the minds of many stand-up comics. The second article proposes a content analysis of 76 humorous videos listed on the YouTube viewing platform and addressing issues of pluralism. It reveals that although more than 25 cultural and religious communities are the subject of caricatures and taunting, it is the Arab-Muslim community that represents the main target of humoristic videos whether they come from the majority or minority group. The stereotype linking Islam and terrorism is then evoked repeatedly. The third and final article looks at the effects of humour on the feeding of prejudices among individuals. It is an experimental study carried out with some 216 people separated into two groups: one group was exposed to acts that conveys cultural and religious stereotypes, particularly towards Arab-Muslims, while the other group was confronted with performances that did not contain such stereotypes. On one hand, there were no significant direct effects, without controlling for intervening factors, between the two groups, suggesting that conditional factors may need to be taken into account. On the other hand, however, significant impacts are indeed observable depending on the religious participation of the audience. Clearly, the effects of humour are complex to measure and it is important to take into account moderated effects in order to empirically assess the impact.

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Ce mémoire explore le rôle de la satire dans les quatre romans canadiens suivants : The apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz (1959) et Barney's version (1997) de Mordecai Richler ainsi que Why rock the boat (1961) et The underdogs (1979) de William Weintraub. Ayant pour objectif de démontrer que ces deux auteurs, qui se servent des approches satiriques contrastantes, sont des innovateurs dans la tradition satirique canadienne à cause de leur regard sur des préoccupations urbaines et minoritaires, cette étude examine dans un premier temps les aspects de la société montréalaise qui sont des objets de satire dans Why rock the boat et The apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz. Ensuite, ce mémoire étudie la façon dont ces auteurs mitigent leurs réponses au nationalisme québécois dans The underdogs et Barney's version afin de produire une vision satirique qui critique le mouvement souverainiste, mais s'avère sympathique à la langue et la culture des franco-québécois.

Includes bibliographical references (leaves 123-127) / This dissertation examines how three dystopian texts, namely Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, Jasper Fforde’s Shades of Grey and Veronica Roth’s Divergent trilogy, exhibit social conformity as a disciplinary mechanism of the ‘carceral’ – a notion introduced by poststructuralist thinker Michel Foucault. Employing poststructuralist discourse and deconstructive theory as a theoretical framework, the study investigates how each novel establishes its world as a successful carceral city that incorporates most, if not all, the elements of the incarceration system that Foucault highlights in Discipline and Punish. It establishes that the societies of the texts present potentially nightmarish future societies in which social and political “improvements” result in a seemingly better world, yet some essential part of human existence has been sacrificed. This study of these fictional worlds reflects on the carceral nature of modern society and highlights the problematic nature of the social and political practices to which individuals are expected to conform. Finally, in line with Foucault, it postulates that individuals need not be enclosed behind prison walls to be imprisoned; the very nature of our social systems imposes the restrictive power that incarcerates societies / English Studies / M.A. (English Studies)

The Internet, and Web 2.0 tools can empower audiences to actively participate in media creation. This allows the production of large quantities of content, both amateur and professional. Online memes, which are extensions of usually citizen-created viral content, are a recent and popular example of this. This thesis examines the participation of ordinary individuals in political culture online through humor creation. It focuses on citizen-made political humor memes as an example of engaged citizen discourse. The memes comprise of photographs of political figures altered either by captions or image editing software, and can be compared to more traditional mediums such as political cartoons, and 'green screens' used in filmmaking. Popular culture is often used as a 'common language' to communicate meanings in these texts. This thesis thus examines the relationship between political and popular culture. It also discusses the value of 'affinity spaces', which actively encourage users to participate in creating and sharing the humorous political texts. Some examples of the political humor memes include: the subversion of Vladimir Putin's power by poking fun at his masculine characteristics through acts similar to fanfiction, celebrating Barack Obama’s love of Star Wars, comparing a candid photograph of John McCain to fictional nonhuman creatures such as zombies using photomanipulation, and the wide variety of immediate responses to Osama bin Laden's death. This thesis argues that much of the idiosyncratic nature of the political humor memes comes from a motivation that lies in non-serious play, though they can potentially offer legitimate political criticism through the myths 'poached' from popular culture.