Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, San Diego, 2002. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 240-248).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Oregon, 2004. / Typescript. Includes vita and abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 226-232). Also available for download via the World Wide Web; free to University of Oregon users.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Florida State University, 2004. / Advisor: Dr. Eric Walker, Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Department of English. Title and description from dissertation home page (viewed June 17, 2004). Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--West Virginia University, 2001. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains iv, 341 p. Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 317-341).

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George Heriot's, Travels Through The Canadas, Containing a Description of the Picturesque Scenery on some of the Rivers and Lakes; with an account of the Productions, Commerce, and Inhabitants of those Provinces to which is Subjoined a Comparative View of the Manners and Customs of Several of the Indian Nations of North and South America, was first published in London in 1805. Presenting the Canadas in a documentary and picturesque mode, Heriot's Travels since its publication has been valued as an important source of data and information. It has thus participated in and formed part of the received notions concerning Canada and its peoples in the 19th century. My thesis explores how Heriot's Travels constructs and represents Upper and Lower Canada and the diverse inhabitants of these regions. I argue that the text and its illustrations far from providing an objective description, in fact give form to contemporaneous perceptions and values and to aesthetic criteria that had colonialist implications. In particular the thesis examines how the visual material within the publication functions to reinforce or contradict the text's agenda. My contention is that Heriot's aims are much broader than those to which he admitted. For his readers the representation of Canada was tied to prospects of vast expansionist possibilities for British capital, technology, commodities and systems of knowledge. The unacknowledged aims of the book, as elaborated in my thesis were: to confirm the superiority of British rule in comparison to the earlier French administration in Canada; to define the British by a comparison to others, thus marking out existing inhabitants, specifically the French Canadians and First Nations peoples, as simple, indolent and inferior; to tame and commodity Canada through the use of the picturesque, thus ordering and civilizing the landscape for a British audience and would-be immigrants; and, finally, to reinforce Britain's economic claims in British North America. As in other travel writing of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Heriot employs in his representation of Canada the discursive languages of science, taxonomy, technology and ethnology. The picturesque descriptions in text and image work in conjunction with these and serve to demonstrate the role of art and aesthetics in maintaining an established order, and in asserting its classificatory regimes and exclusions. iii

The present study focusses on the description and analysis of the religious beliefs and practices of a central Taiwanese spirit-writing cult or "phoenix hall" (luantang). A phoenix hall is a voluntary religious association of congregational character centring upon communication with the gods by means of the divinatory technique of "spirit-writing" (fuluan). While spirit-writing can be and is used as an oracle for the solving of believers' personal problems, its more high-profile application is for the writing of so-called "morality books" (shanshu), i.e., books of religious instruction and moral exhortation. Spirit-writing cults are nowadays the most important sources of such works. Much attention has been given to morality books as mirrors of the social concerns of their times, but comparatively little work has been done on the groups that produce them and the meaning these works have for them. An adequate understanding of the meanings and functions of morality books, however, is impossible without some knowledge of the religious groups that produce them and the role played by morality books in their beliefs and practices. It is the objective of this thesis to provide a detailed description and analysis of one such group, the "Temple of the Martial Sage, Hall of Enlightened Orthodoxy" (Wumiao Mingzheng Tang), a phoenix hall in the city of Taizhong that was founded in 1976 and has played a significant role in the modern development of the shanshu genre through the active and varied publications programme of its publishing arm, the Phoenix Friend Magazine Society. The study utilizes data extracted from the Hall's published writings as well as interview, observation, and questionnaire data collected during an eight month period of field research in Taizhong. Part I provides a macrohistorical overview of the development of spirit-writing cults on the Chinese mainland (chapter 1) and on Taiwan (chapter 2) since the nineteenth century, leading up to the case-example's microhistory (chapter 3). Part II is devoted to an account of the beliefs and practices of the Wumiao Mingzheng Tang, including descriptions and analyses of its organization, deities, ritual activities, concepts of moral cultivation, and of the body of morality book literature it has produced over the years. The appendix contains samples of the cult's morality book and scriptural literature, as well as of various liturgical texts.

This dissertation, by applying the postulates of 20th century theories (of Mikhail Bakhtin, Northrop Frye, Roland Barthes, and Julia Kristeva) to the prose of Bronius Radzevičius, Ričardas Gavelis, and Jurgis Kunčinas, constructs a new way of reading Lithuanian novels of the last decades of the 20th century. It opens a discussion with the dominant Romantic attitude towards the novel and literary tradition in general, and argues that the selected novels show clear signs implying that the concept of tradition as “the continuing existence of literature” (Viktorija Daujutytė) or “the nation’s defensive wall” (Vytautas Kubilius) is incapable of understanding literature as a diversity of writings. Through the categories of writing and transgredience, an alternative way of reading the abovementioned authors is presented, one that finds the organizing principle of the aesthetic whole within the text—and the practice of writing that created it. This analytical perspective makes it clear that tradition is not a stable, language-external ideological dimension that regulates representation, but a storehouse of diverse writings located within the language itself. / Disertacijoje, taikant XX a. literatūros teorijų postulatus (Michailo Bachtino, Northropo Frye‘jaus, Rolando Barthes‘o, Julijos Kristevos) Broniaus Radzevičiaus, Ričardo Gavelio ir Jurgio Kunčino prozai, konstruojamas naujas paskutiniųjų XX a. dešimtmečių lietuvių romanų perskaitymo būdas. Diskutuojant su dominuojančia romantine romano ir literatūros tradicijos apskritai samprata, įrodinėjama, kad pasirinktų autorių romanuose galima įžvelgti aiškių ženklų, kurie suponuoja, jog tradicijos kaip „besitęsiančios literatūros būties“ (Viktorija Daujotytė) ar „tautinės gynybinės sienos“ (Vytautas Kubilius) samprata nėra pajėgi suvokti literatūros kaip rašymų įvairovės. Įvedus rašymo ir transgrediencijos kategorijas, pateikiamas alternatyvus minėtų autorių romanų perskaitymo būdas, kuris estetinę visumą organizuojančio principo ieško pačiame tekste ir jį kuriančioje rašymo praktikoje. Analizuojant romanus iš šios perspektyvos, išryškinama, kad tradicija yra ne stabilūs, kalbai išoriški idėjiniai matmenys, reguliuojantys reprezentaciją, o pačios kalbos viduje įsikūrusi įvairių rašymo būdų saugykla.

Disertacijoje, taikant XX a. literatūros teorijų postulatus (Michailo Bachtino, Northropo Frye‘jaus, Rolando Barthes‘o, Julijos Kristevos) Broniaus Radzevičiaus, Ričardo Gavelio ir Jurgio Kunčino prozai, konstruojamas naujas paskutiniųjų XX a. dešimtmečių lietuvių romanų perskaitymo būdas. Diskutuojant su dominuojančia romantine romano ir literatūros tradicijos apskritai samprata, įrodinėjama, kad pasirinktų autorių romanuose galima įžvelgti aiškių ženklų, kurie suponuoja, jog tradicijos kaip „besitęsiančios literatūros būties“ (Viktorija Daujotytė) ar „tautinės gynybinės sienos“ (Vytautas Kubilius) samprata nėra pajėgi suvokti literatūros kaip rašymų įvairovės. Įvedus rašymo ir transgrediencijos kategorijas, pateikiamas alternatyvus minėtų autorių romanų perskaitymo būdas, kuris estetinę visumą organizuojančio principo ieško pačiame tekste ir jį kuriančioje rašymo praktikoje. Analizuojant romanus iš šios perspektyvos, išryškinama, kad tradicija yra ne stabilūs, kalbai išoriški idėjiniai matmenys, reguliuojantys reprezentaciją, o pačios kalbos viduje įsikūrusi įvairių rašymo būdų saugykla. / This dissertation, by applying the postulates of 20th century theories (of Mikhail Bakhtin, Northrop Frye, Roland Barthes, and Julia Kristeva) to the prose of Bronius Radzevičius, Ričardas Gavelis, and Jurgis Kunčinas, constructs a new way of reading Lithuanian novels of the last decades of the 20th century. It opens a discussion with the dominant Romantic attitude towards the novel and literary tradition in general, and argues that the selected novels show clear signs implying that the concept of tradition as “the continuing existence of literature” (Viktorija Daujutytė) or “the nation’s defensive wall” (Vytautas Kubilius) is incapable of understanding literature as a diversity of writings. Through the categories of writing and transgredience, an alternative way of reading the abovementioned authors is presented, one that finds the organizing principle of the aesthetic whole within the text—and the practice of writing that created it. This analytical perspective makes it clear that tradition is not a stable, language-external ideological dimension that regulates representation, but a storehouse of diverse writings located within the language itself.