<p> The dissertation consists of an extended critical essay entitled &ldquo;&lsquo;Character&rsquo;-izing Hysterical Realism: Postmodernism, 9/11, and the Realistic Aesthetic&rdquo; and original fiction in the form of a novella, The Believing Game. The critical essay contextualizes the development of the subgenre of hysterical realism in the literary fiction of the 1990s and examines its regression in the years following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. I suggest that hysterical realism can be partly understood as a hybrid of realism and postmodernism and a &ldquo;bridge&rdquo; from postmodernism to a new, still-emerging post-postmodern fiction. The Believing Game, set in a Midwestern college town, examines the challenges, fears, and desires of a young woman on the verge of falling into disillusionment. In her struggle to maintain self-confidence in the face of various personal crises, the main character may represent the general plight of twenty-something millennials. The novella deals prominently with themes such as faith, desire, love, and the tension between personal independence and social expectation.</p>

<p> This dissertation consists of a critical essay and a collection of short fiction. The essay discusses how testing the structures of authority is a central component in the signature novels of Jack Kerouac and John Barth. This is visible in both narrative structure and content. As the road becomes the embodiment of Kerouac&rsquo;s rebellion against a social order that ultimately leads to a disintegration of the family, stories that highlight their own artificiality become Barth&rsquo;s protest against a literature exhausted by its realist devices. In content (Kerouac) and in form (Barth), both authors seek redemption&mdash;a new purpose. But behind every failure stands the figure of the Father/Author. Several themes unite the five stories that form the collection, the most prominent being the male protagonist&rsquo;s struggle for purpose in a chaotic, hostile, and grotesque world to which he feels no connection. The stories use dark humor and, at times, fantasy against a realistic background to capture a feeling more than a type of character: a sense of lostness, of wandering without direction in a world where the road is the purpose and running away or being silent is a way of being. </p><p> The collection is tied together and framed by a series of email conversations between a fictional character and the fictional construct of the author, Seth Johnson. Seth is nearing the end of his last semester in an English graduate program and will be returning to work in South Texas, and his old logging buddy, Don Bush, is eager for his friend to join him once again on the oil rigs.</p><p>

<p> Humor is an ever-present aspect of American Literature, and, in particular, short fiction. While the construction of the comedic has been studied and broken down into its constituent parts, the reasons for its application are less studied and understood. This dissertation examines the application of humor and the comedic in the works of American writers: Raymond Carver, Flannery O&rsquo;Connor, George Saunders, and Denis Johnson in order to gain understanding about the decision to include humor in a variety of their works. The goal of the critical introduction portion of <i>Pieces</i> is to illustrate the use of comedy as a means of creating engagement in works of short fiction, which may be less engaging as a matter of plot or character, and then to come to a conclusion about the decisions these authors make about humor while writing. The creative portion of <i>Pieces</i> is a collection of short fiction, which attempts to illustrate the same comedic application. </p><p>

<p> This study examines the autonomy of art as a governing principle in the artistic practice of Filipino poets in English. The Western modernist ideal of art for art&rsquo;s sake was transplanted to the Philippines via the educational system implemented during the American occupation in the early twentieth century. As appropriated in colonial Philippines, what is historically regarded as a form of artistic resistance to the capitalist and rapidly industrializing society of the West is traditionally read as a withdrawal of participation by colonial and postcolonial literary writers from the political realm. The writer who subscribes to art for art&rsquo;s sake supposedly fetishizes form <i> in itself</i> and simply has no stake in lived realities and no role in the production of a national literature. <i>Authoring Autonomy</i> interrogates the division between aesthetics and politics that occurs when the autonomy of art is presumed to be incompatible with the work of social transformation. It accounts for the potential and limits of autonomy as a form of critical intervention through studying the work of three Filipino poets: Jos&eacute; Garcia Villa, Edith Tiempo, and Jose F. Lacaba. Drawing from the work of critics who have problematized the politics of aesthetic autonomy, including Theodor Adorno and Roberto Schwarz, this study examines how Filipino poets have authored autonomy in ways that comply with, disturb, or resist the status quo. It also includes a poetics essay and a collection of poetry, which articulate, both critically and creatively, my poetic practice as informed by my understanding of how autonomy is authored in ways that are cognizant of postcolonial conditions and anxieties.</p>

Orientador: Luís Antônio Francisco de Souza / Banca: Pedro Ângelo Pagni / Banca: Rodolfo Arruda Leite de Barros / Banca: José Geraldo Alberto Bertoncini Poker / Banca: Alessandra Teixeira / Resumo: Neste trabalho pretendeu-se uma discussão a respeito do que Foucault compreende por processos de subjetivação para a constituição do sujeito contemporâneo, procurando conceber a escrita sob um novo viés, qual seja, a possibilidade de ser entendida também como uma técnica de si que permita aos sujeitos comporem suas subjetividades. Na experimentação da forma de se conceber os textos literários, sob a perspectiva teórico-metodológica de Michel Foucault, realizou-se uma leitura dos escritos de Clarice Lispector de forma a esquadrinhar em suas palavras a possibilidade da escrita ser mais do que uma técnica de governamento, mas uma prática de composição de subjetividades. É no espaço da autora de criação literária, de reinvenção da escrita que a hipótese desse trabalho se encontra, buscando enxergar a escrita como processo de subjetivação e de prática de si que autorize que esse sujeito encontre seu espaço de liberdade, resistindo aos poderes disciplinares e biopolíticos de nossa sociedade atual. / Abstract: In this work we intend to discuss what Foucault understands by subjectivation processes for the constitution of the contemporary subject, trying to conceive writing under a new bias, that is, the possibility of being understood also as a technique of self that allows subjects to compose their subjectivities. In the experimentation in the form of conceiving the literary texts, under the theoretical-methodological perspective of Michel Foucault, a reading of the writings of Clarice Lispector was realized in order to scan in his words the possibility of the writing to be more than a technique of governing, but a practice of composition of subjectivities. It is in the space of the author of literary creation, of reinvention of writing that the hypothesis of this work is found, seeking to see writing as a process of subjectivation and self-practice that allows this subject to find his space of freedom, resisting the disciplinary and biopolitical powers of our current society. / Doutor

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Victoria (Canada), 2001. / Adviser: John H. Esling. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Florida State University, 2003. / Advisor: Dr. Joann Gardner, Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Dept. of English. Title and description from dissertation home page (viewed Oct. 7, 2003). Includes bibliographical references.

This thesis is an account of my three sites-in-endotics, each project resulting in a participatory artwork: Thaw (2012), Northern Venetians (2013) and The Recollective (2015). I base these projects upon the writings of Georges Perec (1936-82). Perec saw endotics as a form of quotidian studies characterised by an internal perspective: everyday situations should be described from the vantage point of those already immersed in them, not from the position of an outsider. Hence the participatory character of these works. Through these projects, the participants explore their spatial practices as they engage in a collective writing. In this thesis I write my own spatial practice, describing my construction of the frameworks that enable the participants to tell their stories. My methodology outlines the theoretical and practical approaches I adopt, and explains my reasons for doing so. My literature review contextualises them. My case studies offer a reflective account of my practice based research. I conclude by returning to the potential usefulness of an endotic approach. Research Questions What are the ways in which I can use Perec’s endotic writings to construct a participatory art practice exploring everyday situations? Can we talk of participants as being the meaningful co-authors of an artwork? How do multilayered narratives portray the participants’ spatial practices?

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2007. / Full text release at OhioLINK's ETD Center delayed at author's request

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Indiana University of Pennsylvania. / Includes bibliographical references.