Joe Sacco and Chester Brown are two artists who emerged out of a vibrant tradition of autobiographical comics in the eighties and nineties. This paper argues that Sacco's Palestine and Brown's Louis Riel announce a new way of writing the self rejuvenating the autobiographical genre in comic books which has been lamented for having become overused and excessively solipsistic. Sacco's flamboyant expressionism opposes Brown's aesthetic of silence. Brown's silence is configured so that it is not an absence of speech, but a suppression of it in which attention is continually being drawn to the unspoken. A close analysis of Sacco and Brown's comics reveals the different ways in which their complementary aesthetics construct different subject positions for the reader. Sacco simulates a sense of being there and uses his subjectivity as a vehicle for drawing a reader in, while Brown's Louis Riel collapses these distinctions between absence and presence such that there is no point of entry into the work with which a reader can sustain illusory bonds of identification.

In response to the anthropological literature on old age and ageing that remains largely isolated from more contemporary anthropological theory, this thesis re-focuses anthropological attention on the experiences of ageing. Towards this end, I examine the way macro- (history, politics, economics) and micro-level processes (social relations, intergenerational relations, local contexts, individual histories) intersect to frame the cultural construction of old age, personal experiences of "being old", and the self. A central point of intersection between these processes comes from the recent history of social transformation in my fieldsite, Dodworth, a former coal-mining village. Since the late 1980s, this is an area that has been grappling with the rupturing effects of the closure of the coal-mining industry. Attending to these conditions and how they inform the everyday reality and the experiences of ageing and of the self are critical concerns in this thesis. My approach to the ageing self is one that privileges narrativity and temporality as key constitutive elements and which considers the potentially different position of older people in relation to time and to the self. Growing older is a complicated mixture of bodily and social change, and negotiating these shifts has crucial implications for one's sense of self and subjectivity. While "old age" is a category which is readily used in daily discourse and living, what old age is and who is old nevertheless resists anchoring. What old age, being old and ageing meant to my research participants are key questions in order to understand the experience of growing older in Dodworth. Throughout the thesis, I focus on the dialectics of interpersonal interactions in order to speak meaningfully about how the experience of old age is organised and constructed. Emerging in tandem with these issues is another major topic of this thesis: social memory. Talk in Dodworth about places, absences, and relations continually brought the past and present together and was involved in how a sense of self is created. What emerged was a three-dimensionality of memory, an individual and collective way of placing oneself and others in relation to spatial aspects of the villagescape.

Šiuo tyrimu siekta atsakyti į klausimą, ar priklausomų nuo narkotinių medžiagų asmenų autobiografiniai prisiminimai reabilitacijos metu skiriasi nuo nepriklausomų savo konkretumu, dominuojančiais kontekstais bei subjektyviu vertinimu. Tikslui pasiekti buvo atliekamas pusiau struktūruotas interviu individualiai su 16 Vilniaus priklausomybės ligų centro ilgalaikės reabilitacijos skyriuje esančių nuo priklausomybės narkotikais besigydančių asmenų bei 15 sveikų panašaus amžiaus vyrų. Priklausomų asmenų amžiaus vidurkis buvo 26,56 metai (SD=2,73), o kontrolinės grupės amžiaus vidurkis – 24,06 (SD=1,75). Iš viso buvo surinkti 186 prisiminimai, kurie kiekvienas buvo nepriklausomų vertintojų užkoduotas pagal parengtą kodavimo schemą. Kodavimo schema buvo sudaryta iš keturių kontekstų kategorijų, joje taip pat buvo prašoma įvertinti prisiminimų konkretumą/ neapibrėžtumą, taisyklių laikymąsi. Klinikinės ir kontrolinės grupės buvo lyginamos pagal polinkį atgaminti neapibrėžtus bei konkrečius prisiminimus, polinkį juos vertinti neigiamai arba teigiamai, dominuojančius kontekstus. Abiejų grupių papasakoti ankstyvieji prisiminimai buvo lyginami pagal jų subjektyvų vertinimą bei išsiskiriančius kontekstus. Neapibrėžtumo/ konkretumo savybė buvo lyginama tarp grupių pateiktų prisiminimų į emocinius raktinius žodžius. Iš šių prisiminimų taipogi buvo siekiama išskirti dominuojančius kontekstus, palyginti jų subjektyvų vertinimą bei patikrinti kitas jų ypatybes. Nustatyta, jog priklausomų asmenų... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / This study was conducted to answer the question weather the specificity, dominating contexts or subjective valency of autobiographical memories of drug addicted men during rehabilitation process differ from the ones of non addicted individuals. For this purpose the half structured interview was made with 16 drug addicted patients in Vilnius Center for Addictive Disorders in long-term rehabilitation department and with 15 non addicted men of the same age. Averagely drug addicted men were 26.56 years old (SD=2.73). The mean age of control group was 24.06 (SD=1,75) years. 186 memories were collected. Independent experts coded these memories using the coding scheme. The coding scheme was made of 4 contexts groups, memories’ specificity/ over-generality assessment, assessment weather they are according to instructions or not. The clinical and the control groups were compared according to the tendencies to remember more specific memories; according to more positive or negative memory assessment tendencies and the tendencies to remember the particular things, themes. The early memories of both groups were compared according to subjective emotional assessment and the contexts dominating. Also the specificity/ over-generality feature of the memories recalled to the key words was compared between the two groups. Also it was important to distinguish dominant contexts, compared to their subjective assessment, and verify the other of their characteristics. It was found that drug addicted... [to full text]

The eighteenth-century British novel derived its purpose, structure, and theory of characterization from the life-history, in the form of biography or autobiography. In eighteenth-century Britain both the novel and the life-history emerged in recognizably modern forms. Like the life-history, the novel maintained as its purpose the Horatian maxim that art should both instruct and entertain. Moreover, the novel and the life-history shared the same structure, as each novel purported to be the biography or autobiography of the title character of the work. Finally, the novel and the life-history adopted the same theories of characterization for the major as well as minor characters within the works.However, life-writing was at this time in a period of transition from the static to the dynamic theory of characterization. This transition came as a result of a significant change in the view of the source of personality. In the static life-history the central subject, as well as the minor figures, possessed an innate, unchanging personality. Thus when Plutarch wrote of Alexander or of Julius Caesar, these figures were depicted as men born to greatness. However, each was imperfect, possessing in the Aristotelian sense a tragic flaw. In the main this theory was significant because it placed no value on what was later to be considered so important in the development of personality-the individual's experiential life.In direct contrast to the static theory, the dynamic view of personality was the result of Cartesian and Lockean psychology which saw personality as the direct result of not the innate but instead the experiential processes. The experiences of the central character, rather than exemplifying innate qualities, now were seen as shaping and delineating that personality. The application of this new theory to both the modern novel and life-history produced a central character or characters growing according to the dynamic theory, though the minor characters remained "type" characters in accordance with the static theory.Therefore, the sources of the British eighteenth-century novel lay both in the dynamic biographies and autobiographies of the Restoration and Eighteenth Century and in the classical life-writers beginning with Plutarch and Josephus, as well. In this study the primary classical works analyzed are Josephus, the portrait of Herod in the Jewish Antiquities and his own in The Life; Plutarch's "Julius Caesar" and Suetonius' "Julius Caesar"; St. Augustine's Confessions; Dante's Vita Nuova; and the transitional Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini. The adoption of the new dynamic theory is illustrated in two life-histories: Colley Cibber's Apology and Samuel Johnson's Life of Savage.The application of the dynamic theory to eighteenth-century autobiographical novels is exemplified by Samuel Richardson's Pamela and Tobias G. Smollett's Roderick Random. Though there was a complex psychological portrait of Richardson's Pamela Andrews, with a number of moral digressions, there were little character development and few digressions in Smollett's novel.A far more complex treatment of the theories of personality occurred in Laurence Sterne's Tristram Shandy. As narrator Tristram centered the work upon the four.crucial accidents that had formed his personality, and on those other three dynamic characters who were connected with these misfortunes--the Shandy brothers and Parson Yorick. In contrast, minor characters such as Dr. Slop were drawn according to the static theory. The digressions within the work were encased within a comic-satiric framework. Thus the two theories of personality--static and dynamic--which informed eighteenth-century life-writing served also as the principal source for characterization in the eighteenth-century British autobiographical novel.

Syftet med studien var att testa om det fanns åldersgruppsskillnader, könsskillnader, samt om ålder och kön hade interaktionseffekter när det gäller emotionell intelligens  och autobiografiskt minne mellan manliga (n=106) och kvinnliga (n=231)studenter på Örebro Universitet är från 18 till 45 år(n=299). Data samlades via emotionell intelligensens enkätformulär Andrew m.fl. (2010) och Waldfogel (1948) autobiografiska minnens test. Det fanns inga könsskillnader och åldersgruppsskillnader i total emotionell intelligens, men det fanns interaktion mellan kön och ålder det vill säga att ålder och kön hade effekter på varandra. Det fanns könsskillnader i totala autobiografiska minnen då flera kvinnor rapporterade autobiografiska minnen än män, men det fanns inga åldersgruppsskillnader. Ålder och kön hade inte effekter på varandra när det gäller autobiografiska minnen.  Det fanns inga skillnader mellan grupperna som rapporterade låg, medel och hög autobiografiskt minne och emotionell intelligens. / The purpose of this study was to test whether there were age differences, gender differences, and if the age and gender had interaction effect on each other when it comes to groups’ emotional intelligence and autobiographical memories. The participants were male (n = 106), women (n = 231) students at Örebro University who were from 18 to 45 years (n = 299). The students responded to emotional intelligence, short version of the Andrew et al. (2010) and Waldfogel (1948) autobiographical memories test. There were no gender differences and age differences in overall emotional intelligence, but there was an interaction between gender and age meaning that gender and age had effects on each other when it comes to students' emotional intelligences. There were gender differences in the overall autobiographical memories meaning that women reported several autobiographical memories than men in the study, but there were no age differences. Age and gender had no effects on each other in terms of autobiographical memories. There were no differences in autobiographical memories among those who reported low, medium and high emotional intelligence. There were no differences in emotional intelligence between those who reported low, medium and high autobiographical memories.

Research Doctorate - Doctor of Philosophy (Clinical Psychology) / Overgeneral autobiographical memory is thought to be a clinically meaningful phenomenon which is related to affect regulation, problem solving ability, and treatment outcome in clinical populations (see J. M. G. Williams et al., 2007, for review). Individuals with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) are thought to be particularly prone to developing an overgeneral style of memory due to their temperamental difficulties in controlling affect (J. M. G. Williams, 1996). However, research in this population has so far yielded inconsistent findings. In a series of three studies, this thesis addresses the question whether overgeneral memory is associated with BPD, as well as exploring the relationship between memory specificity, affect regulation, problem solving ability, and response to treatment in this population. Findings indicate that individuals with BPD display reduced autobiographical specificity relative to controls, however, this appears to be a reflection of differences in cognitive ability as IQ and education mediated the association between specificity and diagnosis. Reduced specificity was not associated with Borderline traits in a non-clinical sample. Results failed to confirm the hypothesis that autobiographical memory specificity would be related to affect regulation in individuals with BPD, although there was some indication that memory specificity is associated with reduced rates of deliberate self-harm. Specificity was related to problem solving performance in individuals with BPD, although this relationship did not extend to self-reported problem solving ability. Memory specificity also appeared to change significantly over the course of treatment in a year-long Dialectical Behavior Therapy program, however, there was little indication that change in memory specificity was associated with the observed improvement in symptomatology, affect regulation or problem solving ability. Lastly, an experimental study with university students found no relationship between memory specificity and affect dysregulation, although low specific students reported greater reductions in positive affect following a negative event than individuals with a specific style of autobiographical recall. The assimilation model is considered as a framework for conceptualising these results.

Zugl.: Graz, Univ., Habil.-Schr., 2006

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Sydney, 2007. / Title from title screen (viewed 25 March 2008). Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy to the Dept. of English, Faculty of Arts. Degree awarded 2007; thesis submitted 2006. Includes bibliographical references. Also available in print form.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 1997. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves [308]-338).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, Santa Cruz, 1987. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 180-203).