On assiste en Géorgie, entre 1989 et 1994, à deux conflits civils couplés d’une violence politique majeure. L’Ossétie du Sud et l’Abkhazie, soit deux des trois régions dotées d’un statut autonome à l’intérieur de la Géorgie pendant la période soviétique, sont le théâtre de ces conflits. Les affrontements violents sont par ailleurs évités dans le cas de l’Adjarie, cette troisième région dotée d’un statut autonome. Les raisons de cette relative paix adjar ne sont pas évidentes à saisir à prime abord, surtout lorsqu’on observe la situation chaotique dans laquelle se trouve la Géorgie au moment de la chute de l’URSS. Il apparaît ainsi adéquat de se pencher plus spécifiquement sur l’Adjarie, en tant que région de la Géorgie, qui a certes entretenu de fortes tensions avec l’État géorgien nouvellement indépendant, mais sans pour autant que ces tensions politiques ne basculent en un conflit ouvert. Étant donné la similarité qui caractérise les territoires de l’Abkhazie et de l’Adjarie, les arguments géopolitiques ou encore les arguments concernant les structures institutionnelles n’apportent qu’une explication partielle. C’est plutôt un argument identitaire mettant de l’avant la relation entre les groupes qui apparaît déterminant pour expliquer l’absence de conflit en Adjarie. / Between 1989 and 1994, two civil conflicts occurred in Georgia together with major political violence. South Ossetia and Abkhazia, two of the three regions with autonomous status within Soviet Georgia, are the scene of these conflicts. Clashes are otherwise avoided in the case of Adjaria, the third region with an autonomous status. The reasons of this relative adjar peace are not obvious at first glance, especially when considering the chaotic situation in which Georgia is at the time of the USSR collapse. It seems appropriate then to further address the Georgian region of Adjaria, a region that certainly has experienced strong tensions with the newly independent Georgian state, although without turning into an open conflict. Because of the similarity between Abkhazia and Adjaria, the geopolitical arguments, or those concerning institutional structures, can only provide a partial explanation. It is rather an argument based on identity and putting forward relations between groups that appears to be determinant to explain the absence of conflict in Adjaria.

This dissertation examines theatre and film in Ireland between 1988 and 2005, focusing on the plays of Sebastian Barry and Marina Carr, as well as a select group of films from this period. Employing a method of analysis that couples close-readings with attention to socio-cultural context, aesthetic form, and issues of representation, the dissertation demonstrates how theatre and film work to complicate conventional Irish historical narratives and thereby encourages a reassessment of contemporary constructs of Irish identity. The introduction provides a contextual framework for significant contemporaneous social, cultural and economic changes in Ireland, and includes a case study of ‘The Spire,’ a monument unveiled on Dublin’s central boulevard in 2003, which I argue is the architectural metonym for the transitional nature of Celtic Tiger Ireland. The case study explores the aesthetics of the monument, as well as the politicised public debate that ensued, and thereby provides a snapshot of issues relevant to the readings pursued in dissertation’s remaining chapters. The discussion of Sebastian Barry’s ‘family plays’ reveals the playwright’s effort to refuse traditional binary conceptions of identity and to proffer, instead, a dramatic landscape that similarly refuses to allow conflict to dominate. Barry’s use of a non-conflictual dramatic form supports his narrative interest in compassion and peaceful resolution, and provides a model for living with otherness that could prove useful in an increasingly diverse and globalised Ireland. Marina Carr’s plays share Barry’s desire to represent aspects of Irish character anew, but they also dramatise how cultural transitions are difficult and never linear, and how the conventional pull of memory and the past has a residual presence in the ‘new’ Ireland. Taken together, these chapters reveal Barry’s hopefulness as an antidote to Carr’s tragic endings. The final chapter provides close readings of several ‘Celtic Tiger’ films, arguing that the representation of landscape is the key lens through which Irish film communicates shifting images of Irish identity. A cycle of films from the first years of the new millennium ekes out a space for new modes of representation through a critical dialogue with major tropes in Irish film history.

本研究旨在藉由2008年馬英九當選「中華民國第十二屆民選總統」後電視新聞相關報導內容的敘事分析，探討其試圖傳達的意義、形象，以了解電視新聞媒體對廣大閱聽眾「說了什麼」及「如何說」馬英九之神話故事，藉此歸納出新聞媒介「造神運動」的過程。 Barthes (1972)指出，神話系統可劃分為一級語言系統與隱含意識形態的二級神話系統。本研究循此從古代神話進而論述媒體神話、電視新聞神話於兩階層不同深度的意義，並根據Chatman (1978 )敘事理論和考量電視新聞之媒體特質將電視新聞神話第一層分為故事內容與敘事手法，以敘事分析之研究方法分析馬英九相關電視新聞。 研究結果發現，馬英九新聞故事多描述其個人形象塑造、兩岸與經濟政策、520就職典禮相關事宜及內閣人事等情節，並不時突顯其領導才能、公共議題與政見、政黨代表因素、政治風格、本土化特質、個性與個人背景等特色，且多報導其於公共流行文化領域之內容。其敘事手法則多以全景、長景與中景鏡頭拍攝，且記者多使用非干擾性旁白聲調述說新聞故事，而聽覺的後製效果應用較少。 資料分析亦顯示馬英九新聞故事暗示之意識形態可分為人民認為優秀總統應具備的條件與期許、兩岸關係爭議、親美思想以及新時代來臨等四類，此亦反映台灣社會價值觀、國際與政治情勢以及人民對新政府的期待。 / The research aims at exploring the meaning and individual image presented in Ma Ying-Jiu’s television reporting after his election of R.O.C president in 2008. By means of narrative analysis, the study is expected to understand the TV news media “what to tell” and “how to tell” the mythical news story of Ma Ying-Jiu, and to generalize the “Mythmaking Movement” process. As Barthes (1972) points out, myth is a second-order system constructed of linguistic system and ideological myth system. Based on the structure, this research discusses two orders of “myth” from ancient myth to media and television news myth respectively. Besides, with the concerns of television features, the linguistic system of TV news myth can be further divided into narrative “content” and “techniques” according to narrative theory proposed by Seymour Chatman. Results of this analysis indicate that, in terms of news plots, Ma Ying-Jiu’s TV news stories can be classified into the following categories such as individual image presentation, cross-Strait relations and economic policy, 520 inauguration ceremony and government personnel. For the role traits part, news stories are generally focused on Ma’s leadership, public issue, political party and style, localization, personality, and personal background. Even more, the sphere of public and popular is the most used setting in Ma’s news story according to this analysis. As for the technique, the full, long and medium shot and non-interrupted reporting tone are regularly used, while the other postproductions are not. In respect of ideology, Ma’s television reporting reflects four categories as follows: condition and expect of an outstanding president, cross-Strait controversy, pro-America thinking, and the coming of new epoch.

A concept of underworld runs through many cultures. These realms of spirits and the dead generally share several key characteristics, despite their varied and separate traditions. The commonalities among these different mythological places make it possible to generalize certain characteristics as chthonic for descriptive and analytical purposes. The underworld has appeared widely in video games throughout their history. I argue that the remarkable prevalence reflects a formal relationship between the underworld and video games; specific elements in mythic underworlds comprise a chthonic poetics that resonates with video game worlds and affordances. Video games uniquely support the spatial, thematic, and narrative elements that characterize underworlds and the philosophical questions they engage. Embodiment binds these elements together; they are unintelligible without this core perspective. The body sits at the axis of experience in mythic underworlds like the one described by Dante in the Divine Comedy and in game worlds like the one in World of Warcraft. It provides the medium through which we can experience these simulations as worlds rather than mere information structures. Other formal elements give context and direction to that embodied experience, and exploring how these interact with embodiment can expand our understanding of chthonic embodiment and the experience of space in virtual worlds. Three primary forces acting on the agency, subjectivity and control of the body structure that experience, which in turn reflects the ways of being that emerge from chthonic contexts. By incorporating these forces into their gameplay and narrative structure, games provide more direct access to the mythic power associated with the underworld than previous media forms.

In order to explain some of the paradoxes and mysteries of the artist's cross cultural experience in Kiribati, he constructed an Artist's Book depicting through visuality, anecdote and reflection, his research process, engaging with current visual perceptions through negotiation with the past. In Kiribati previous encounters with Europeans and Islanders was dominated by English and I Kiribati with significant contributions by French missionaries. Each viewed the other through cultural filters of identity, which were informed by concepts of myth-historical, often heroic pasts, modified by contemporary purpose such as power, trade, evangelism or personal gain. The method of transmission of beliefs about the past differed fundamentally as the Europeans were predominately informed by writing and the I-Kiribati by orality and performance. The non-literary epistemology of the I Kiribati contributed to a cosmology of non-iconic symbols that defined belief systems and social structures. These symbols connected place and space with time, self and group identities. The research found that the all surrounding visual symbol system of sacred meeting house (maneaba), dwelling (bata) and canoe (waa and baurua)) could be partly understood as an ongoing struggle since Deep Time, between the forces of the Ocea n represented by Bakoa, The Shark, and that of the triumph of the coming onto the Land and its people (aba) represented by Tabakea, The Turtle. The performative outcome of this triumph and the spirit of identity (Te Katai ni Kiribati) it engenders is expressed primarily in the ubiquitous I Kiribati Dance. The Artists Book is inspired by the creative classic I Kiribati form of oratory known as Te Kuna, using a structure analogous to the symbolic forms of narrative of Oceanic Voyaging traditionally employed by the I Kiribati. Differences in visual perceptions across cultural interface are understood not only as having the potential for conflict but also as providing positive dynamic force by the interchange of understood differences. The project contributes specifically to the ethnography of English and I Kiribati, semiotic systems and visual epistemologies, indicating directions towards positive outcomes in cross-cultural encounters.

Nikos Kazantzakis� Captain Michales is a freedom fighter in nineteenth century Crete. Patrick White�s Voss is a German explorer in nineteenth century Australia. Two men struggling for achievement, their disparate social contexts united in the same fundamental search for meaning. This thesis makes comparison of these different struggles through thematic analysis of the texts, examining within the narratives the role of food, perceptions of body and soul, landscapes, gender relations, home-coming and religious experience. Themes from the novels are extracted and intertwined, within a range of theoretical frameworks: history, anthropology, science, literary and social theories, religion and politics; allowing close investigation of each novel�s social, political and historical particularities, as well as their underlying discussion of perennial human issues. These novels are each essentially explorations of the human experience. Read together, they highlight the commonest of human elements, most poignantly the need for communion; facilitating analysis of the individual and all our communities. Comparing the two novels also continues the process of each: examining the self both within and outside of the narratives, producing a new textual self, arising from both primary sources and the contextual breadth of such rewriting.

Thesis (M.A.)--Miami University, Dept. of Communication, 2005. / Title from first page of PDF document. Includes bibliographical references (p. 40-42).

Habilitationsschrift--Constance. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 189-193) and index.

Thesis (doctoral)--Université de Paris III, 1999. / Originally presented as the author's thesis (doctoral)--Université Paris III, Sorbonne Nouvelle. Includes errata. "Diffusion ANRT." Includes bibliographical references (p. [550]-573).

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