Thèse numérisée par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal

This dissertation attempts to compare and contrast the functions of cultural memory and myth in both Heaney and Krog's work. By doing so, I look at what it means for both writers to work within a culture or tradition, and how they both mediate their religious or racial identity within a fractured and divided society. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2007.

P. Dirgėlos ,,Karalystė“ atspindi istorinio romano virsmus. Procesų cikliškumas (praeities sugrįžimas į dabartį) valstybės istorijoje, vieno proceso ar reiškinio priklausomybė nuo kito – tai P. Dirgėlos literatūrinių vaizdų ir mąstymo esmė. „Karalystę“ galima suvokti kaip dialoginę mito ir istorijos struktūrą, o steigiamą Karalystės erdvę – kaip mitoistorinę realybę. ,,Karalystėje“ pristatyta simbolinės realybės struktūra iš esmės sutampa su mitinės, istorinės, socialinės ar kitokios realybės struktūromis. Pasirinktas tik vienas iš daugelio šiam veikalui reikšmingų jo simbolinės tvarkos epicentrų: mitinė jūra ir iš jos kylantis mitinis jūrinės Lietuvos valstybės vaizdas. Darbo tikslas yra įvardyti mitinę jūrinės (Lietuvos) valstybės realybę ir aptarti jos santykį su kitomis simbolinėmis struktūromis Petro Dirgėlos romane ,,Karalystė“. Rašant darbą buvo remiamasi šiuolaikinėmis mito teorijomis, hermeneutiniu ir psichoanalitiniu mito realybės interpretavimu, istoriniu kultūriniu literatūros aiškinimu, istorijos ir literatūros subjekto struktūros samprata J. Lacano ir kitų autorių veikaluose. / P. Dirgėla’s „Kingdom” reflects the conversions of a historical novel. P. Dirgėla’s literary images and basis of thinking is related with cyclical processes in the history of the state (when the past returns to the present) as well as the interdependence of processes or phenomenon’s. „The Kingdom”can be understood as the interactive structure of myth and history and the set up of the Kingdom’s space as mitohistorical reality. The symbolic structure of reality presented in the „Kingdom” largely coherent with the mythical, historical, social or other structures of reality. There was selected only one of the most significant works of the symbolic epicenter of the procedure: a mythical marine and the rising image of Lithuania as mythical marine state. The aim of this paper is to identify the reality of Lithuania as the mythical marine state and discuss its relationship with other symbolic structures in P. Dirgėla’s novel „The Kingdom”. The writing of the work is based on modern theories of myth, hermeneutical and psychoanalytical interpretation of myth reality, historical and cultural interpretation of literature as well as on the concept of history and literature body structure which is found in J. Lacan and other author’s works.

Recently, expert testimony in sexual assault trials shifted from an emphasis on Rape Trauma Syndrome (RTS) to Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and experts have tied these diagnoses either loosely or tightly to the victim’s condition following sexual assault. In the current study, 326 jury-eligible adults completed a survey on Amazon Mechanical Turk in which they read a synopsis of a sexual assault trial and an expert testimony with either RTS, PTSD or neither; along with either no, loose, or tight links made between the diagnosis and the victim’s condition. There was no main effect of diagnosis label but testimony linkage did have an effect on verdicts. Women gave more guilty verdicts due to their lower levels of Rape Myth Acceptance (RMA), and the effect of gender partially depended on RMA. Implications for how expert testimony can affect defendants’ and plaintiffs’ credibility are discussed.

Die Poetik des Alltags des russischen Schriftstellers Anton Čechov fasziniert bereits über ein Jahrhundert die Leser weltweit. Dieser Faszination liegt nicht zuletzt der griechische Mythos zugrunde, ein Kulturerbe, das die Denkweise unserer Gesellschaft tief greifend beeinflusst hat. Die antiken Gottheiten und Helden wie Apollo, Dionysos, Pythia, Narziss werden in Čechovs wenig untersuchtem Frühwerk zu Menschen des Alltags. Diese Projektion ist eine parodie- und travestiehafte Modifikation der mythischen Elementarstrukturen. In dieser Verschmelzung des Mythischen mit dem Alltäglichen wird Čechov zum Nachfolger insbesondere des antiken Dramatikers Epicharm. Methodisch basiert meine Analyse auf dem Begriffspaar von „Wiedergebrauchs-Rede“ und „Verbrauchs-Rede“ des Rhetorikers Heinrich Lausberg: Čechov erzählt die prominenten Mythen so wieder, dass sie zwar ihre Erhabenheit verlieren, ihre untergründige Kraft jedoch beibehalten und so das Selbstbild des modernen Menschen bereichern. / The poetics of everyday life of the Russian author Anton Cechov has fascinated the readers worldwide since more than a century. This fascination is based – not least – on the Greek myth, a cultural heritage, which has deeply influenced the ways of thinking of our society. The antique divinities and heroes as Apollo, Dionysos, Pythia, Narziss become people of everyday life in Cechov´s less examined early work. This projection is a parody-like and travesty-like modification of the mythical elementary structures. In this fusion of the myth with everyday life, Cechov becomes a successor of particularly the antique dramatist Epicharm. Methodically, my analysis bases on both the terms of “re-applying speech” and “consuming speech” of the rhetorician Heinrich Lausberg: Cechov tells the prominent myths in such a way, that they do lose their dignity, however, keep their fundamental power and so enrich the self-perception of modern people.

This thesis analyzes the role of Ukrainian mythological discourses in the formulation of Ukrainian national identity. The main purpose of the present thesis is to explore the interaction between mythological discourses, which are defined as sets of popular beliefs, presuppositions and the patterns of self-identification rooted in the consciousness of ethnic collectivities, and the process of national identity formation in post-Soviet Ukraine. The main focus of the thesis is on the ways of the use of Ukrainian mythological discourses by post-Soviet Ukraine&rsquo / s political and intellectual elite preoccupied with the task of implementing their nation-building project in Ukraine. This thesis consists of six chapters. Following the introductory first chapter, the second chapter explores the concept of &ldquo / myth&rdquo / in nationalism studies. The third, fourth and fifth chapters discuss the nation-building process of post-Soviet Ukraine by examining cultural, political and social aspects. The concluding chapter discusses the main findings of the thesis.

This thesis analyses the role of Newroz in the process of mobilization of the Kurds with the claim of separate identity in Turkey. It is claimed that Newroz is utilized as an ideological tool in order to construct/create Kurdish cultural or national unity. This function of Newroz is examined through two theoretical perspectives which are related to each other. On the one hand, Newroz is taken as a myth which has been used in the construction of Kurdish national identity. On the other hand, Newroz is considered as a tool for counter-hegemony against the hegemonic culture to create cultural unity among the Kurds. Through this analysis, a hegemonic process over/through a myth is revealed. It is claimed that the utilization of Newroz in mobilizing the Kurds resulted in a remarkable success, which gave rise to its turning out to be an ideological battlefield between Kurdish and Turkish nationalisms.

The dual usage of &171;reading&171; in the title evokes the nature of this study. This thesis will analyse the ways in which people &171;reading&171; (make sense of/produce) images of culture as they approach translated novels. Part of this analysis is the examination of what informs the &171;reading culture&171; of a given community; that is, the conditions in which readers and texts exist, or the ways in which readers are able to access texts. Understanding of the depictions of culture found in a novel is influenced by publicity and promotion, educational institutions, book stores, funding bodies and other links between the reading public and the production and sale of books. All of these parties act as &171;translators&171; of the text, making it available and comprehensible to readers. This thesis will make use of a set of contemporary Australian novels, each of which makes extensive use of Australianness and Australianisms throughout its narrative. The movement of these texts from their cultures of origin towards wider Australia, the United Kingdom and France will provide the major case studies. The thesis will assert that no text is accessed without some form of translation and that the reading positions established by translators are a powerful influence on the interpretations arrived at by readers. More than ever, in the contemporary reading environment, the influence of the press and other &171;translators&171; is significant to the ways in which texts are read, and to perceptions held by readers of the culture from which a novel originates.

Chinese propaganda nowadays is focused on producing soft-sell messages international consumption instead of hard-core propaganda of agitation. emphasis on "image design" as Jiang Zemin coined it, rather than on propagation of Communist ideals. This shift from the past is brought government's new publicity strategy masterminded by Deng Xiaoping. strategy Chinese media have been enlisted in the ideological construction national images. Image construction for the nation-state has become the Chinese government and its news media in terms of international communication. This shift is symbolic of the rapid changes taking place in China. I draw Andrew Wernick's notion of "promotional culture" (1991) to describe changes, and in particular, their impact on government publicity, domestic reporting, and international journalism in China. I argue that a form of "promotional culture" has made a positive impact on government publicity as much on international journalism in China. The shift of focus in propaganda more of a government initiative than a spontaneous pursuit of international journalism in China. The latter still practices government scripts rather creative in form and diversified in content as is domestic reporting. This examines government publicity materials and news media reports concerning Beijing's Olympic campaign to reveal this extension of promotional government publicity and its implications for Chinese journalism.

If, as author Toni Morrison believes, we tell stories about what we find most terrifying, then our cultural narratives suggest an overwhelming preoccupation with the murderous mother ??? the monster in our minds. This dissertation examines some of the most powerful and enduring stories told about the murderous mother and considers how these stories are shaped by the unconscious fears and fantasies that dominate the cultural psyche. Revolving around the idea of infanticide as an ???imaginary??? crime, this dissertation uncovers the psychoanalytic foundations of the obsessive telling and consumption of stories of maternal child-murder in Western culture and contends that infanticide narratives can be read as symptoms of psychocultural dis(-)ease. Underlying all stories about the murderous mother is an unconscious fear of infanticide and fantasy of maternal destructiveness that is repressed in the individual psyche. These fears and fantasies are expressed in our cultural narratives. Chapter 1 examines fairytales as the literary form that most clearly elaborates individual fears and psychic conflict and locates the phantasmic murderous mother within psychoanalytic narratives of individuation. Chapter 2 shows how individual fears and fantasies of maternal monstrosity are transferred to society and revealed in the myths through which our culture is transmitted. Chapters 3 and 4 focus on the particular neuroses of ancient Greek society and early modern culture and consider stories of the murderous mother that most powerfully reflect anxieties of maternal origin and fantasies of maternal power. Chapters 5 and 6 shift to a contemporary setting and consider stories that reveal, in differing ways, how the murderous mother haunts the cultural psyche. Examining a variety of texts and drawing material from a spectrum of disciplines, including law, literature, criminology, theology, philosophy, and medicine, this dissertation concludes that it is only by exposing the underpinnings of our cultural stories about the murderous mother that we can hope to break free from the unconscious attitudes that imprison us. Emerging from this study is an original and important theoretical framework concerning conceptualisations of infanticide, the ways in which we imagine maternal child-murder and the limits of that imagination, and how we might escape the murderous maternal monster buried deep in the labyrinths of the mind.