<p> The primary objective of this thesis project is to investigate Woolf's narrative construction of consciousness and its enactment of resistance against the clinical model of cognitive normativity, using <i>Mrs. Dalloway. </i> This objective is part of an effort to identify the ways in which Woolf's writing can be used, foundationally, to challenge the contemporary language of clinical diagnosis, as it functions to maintain power imbalances and serves as a mechanism of the rigid policing of normativity. It is also intended to support the suggestion that Woolf's novels and essays make a valuable contribution, when advanced by theory&mdash;including disability theory, to scientific conversations on the mind. One major benefit is that doing so encourages border-crossing between disciplines and views. More specifically, this project examines the ways in which <i>Mrs. Dalloway</i> resists the compulsory practice of categorizing and dividing the mind. The novel, I assert, supports an alternative narrative treatment, not of the mind but, of the normative social forces that police it. It allows and encourages readers to reframe stigmatizing, divisive, and power-based categories of cognitive difference and to resist the scientific tendency to dismiss pertinent philosophical and theoretical treatments of consciousness that are viable in literature. The critical portion of the project is concerned with the way in which <i> Mrs. Dalloway</i> addresses consciousness and challenges medical authority. Its implications urge the formation of an investigative alliance between Woolf's work and psychology that will undermine the power differential, call attention to and dismantle the stigma of "mental illness," and propel clinical treatment into new diagnostic practices.</p>

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2008. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 69-05, Section: A, page: 1799. Advisers: Antoinette Burton; Robert Markley. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 192-220) Available on microfilm from Pro Quest Information and Learning.

<p> As a struggling single mother separated from her dissolute husband, the poet Charlotte Smith (1749-1806) began writing novels as a way to make money for her family. The exploding book market of late eighteenth-century Britain teemed with booksellers and publishers&mdash;some anxious to hustle works to press, some seeking quality works to build their reputation&mdash;and Smith entered this male-centric realm with na&iuml;vet&eacute;, shaky confidence, and growing desperation. Guided by a literary mentor to the reputable London publishing firm of Thomas Cadell, Sr., Smith entered a business relationship that would see her through the publication and later editions of two translated novels, three original novels, the two-volume poem <i>The Emigrants, </i> and a subscription and an expanded edition of her celebrated poetry and essay collection, <i>Elegiac Sonnets.</i> Most of the letters Smith wrote to Cadell have never been published; the majority of them were discovered just as Judith Phillips Stanton was taking her <i>Collected Letters of Charlotte Smith</i> (2003) to press. This scholarly edition includes every known letter that Smith wrote to Cadell before his retirement, when his son and assistant redubbed it Cadell &amp; Davies. Compiled from university, public, and private libraries in Britain, the U.S., and New Zealand, these annotated letters offer an intimate portrait of Smith as entrepreneurial author, desperate businesswoman, and careworn single mother of nine children in an era of revolutionary (and counter-revolutionary) fervor, Empire building.</p>

<p> My dissertation &ldquo;Seventy Years of Swearing upon Eric the Skull: Genre and Gender in Selected Works by Detection Club Writers Dorothy L. Sayers and Agatha Christie&rdquo; shows how the texts produced by Detection Club members Dorothy L. Sayers and Agatha Christie challenge assumptions about the value and role of popular genre fiction and demonstrate how the detective novel engages pressing social issues related to gender in modern Great Britain. Sayers and Christie addressed serious concerns of gender in relation to topics including war and an emerging market economy in inter-war Britain; however, because they were doing so in genre fiction, their insights have not been fully explored. The popularity of detective fiction, according to critics, has resulted in a lack of criticism and a distrust of the popular. Christie, more so than Sayers, has been ignored by critics because of her popularity and the formulaic nature of her fiction. Glenwood Irons claims that Christie's popularity is responsible for the &ldquo;general ignorance of the sheer volume of detective fiction written by women&rdquo; (xi), while Alison Light theorizes that the dearth of Christie criticism, because of her popularity, is &ldquo;an absence which the growth of 'genre' studies of popular fiction has yet to address&rdquo; (64). My goal is to understand how Sayers and Christie responded to modern issues through their writing and to set their writing in context with contemporary concerns in inter-war Britain. I advocate for a reexamination of Sayers and Christie that goes beyond their popularity as writers of genre fiction and analyzes the ways in which their fiction incorporates modern concerns.</p>