This dissertation discusses the Edo-period Japanese translation, adaptation, and theoretical analysis of Chinese popular fiction and drama between 1680 and 1815. I focus on the ways in which Japanese encounters with fiction and drama written in the unfamiliar “vernacular” engendered reinterpretations of Japan’s cultural relationship to China. Whereas this relationship had previously centered largely on the Confucian classics and their ongoing interpretation in Japan, I argue that the introduction of vernacular texts enabled new modes of visualizing China’s position as a locus of textual and cultural authority. I connect the increasingly formalized study of vernacular texts to a discourse on temporality and linguistic change, and demonstrate the degree to which engagement with late imperial Chinese fiction and drama led to the reformulation of definitions of culture, literature, and language. By dramatically widening the range of materials and texts that could be used to construct a vision of China, the introduction of vernacular fiction and drama encouraged Edo-period philologists and fiction connoisseurs to reconceptualize both the criteria for judging textual competence, and the position of their own writing with respect to China. Rather than focusing on eighteenth-century efforts to efface traces of China’s cultural imprint on Japan, I seek to complicate accounts of the development of Japanese literature by exploring the oeuvres of philosophers, philologists, and fiction writers who attempted to theorize areas of convergence between Chinese and Japanese literary production. The study is divided into four chapters. Chapter One introduces the major themes of the dissertation as a whole and analyzes the rhetoric surrounding both the introduction of Chinese vernacular texts and subsequent attempts at reifying their study as an independent academic discipline. Chapter Two develops these themes further through an analysis of three eighteenth-century explorations of aesthetics, genre, and literary translation. In Chapters Three and Four, I examine a group of anomalous “reverse translations” of Japanese fiction and drama into the language and structure of vernacular Chinese fiction—using these largely overlooked texts to map out networks of literary contact and discuss the hermeneutics underlying eighteenth-century Japanese engagement with vernacular Chinese fiction and drama. / East Asian Languages and Civilizations

This dissertation studies the construction of the marital bond and its dissolution with respect to the normative stipulations of the shari'a, social and moral constructions, and the cultural formations during late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth-century Istanbul. Through the examination of court cases, estate inventories, and contemporary chronicles, I demonstrate the strategies and practices that perpetrated possible patterns in the matrimonial union. Although Islamic law allowed for and encouraged the spouses to reconcile marriage-related negotiations outside of court, the amount of registered marital disputes indicates the central role of the court for spouses in establishing conciliatory grounds. This study explores in particular the consensual and purposeful use of the shari'a courts by women. The examination of the sicils from three different courts in intra muros Istanbul has shown that women were adamant about formalizing the consequence of marriage, divorce and property related discordances hoping to secure their future interests. The dissertation essentially introduces the largely overlooked issue of the specialization of courts in this period and presents specifically the Dāvud Pasha court’s concentration on marriage and family-related disputes. By focusing on local practices and particularities through a case-by-case methodology, the study delivers a portrayal of Ottoman urban marriage structure within the context of the socio-legal and economic dynamics of the period. Given that the formal registry of marriage contracts and divorce settlements was not legally enforced until the early twentieth century, the extensive practice of registration in court could be interpreted as the preliminary steps to the formalization and codification of the marital union. I offer a likely reading of women’s experiences with respect to marriage and property ownership suggesting that the predominant marriage pattern observed in the segment of the population that used the court was companionate. By analyzing quantitative data and archival material, I demonstrate women’s visibility in the public sphere through their significantly increased use of courts, proactive utilization of social networks, and strategic activities vis-a-vis marriage and divorce to depict a portrayal of the late eighteenth-century Istanbul family.

This study provides a new account of the evolution of the eighteenth-century British novel by reading it as a response to contemporary interest in, and self-consciousness about, print communication. During the eighteenth century, print went from being a marginal technology to being one with an increasingly wide circulation and a diverse range of applications. The pervasive adoption of print generated anxiety about its positive and negative effects, prompting a series of responses from writers. Examining the work of five British novelists from across the long eighteenth century, this dissertation investigates the influence of eighteenth-century philosophical thinking about human understanding and social interaction on the assumptions that these novelists made about the way their work would be received. In particular, this thesis explores the ways in which these novelists respond to contemporary philosophical ideas about the cognitive functions of the imagination by experimenting with the form of their work in order to generate new kinds of reception. But this study also shows that, while these five novelists drew on the tenets of eighteenth-century moral philosophy, their work exposed a number of the limitations of that philosophy by putting it into practice. Each chapter in this study focuses on a different aspect of the intersection of mediation and imagination. Chapter One considers the ways in which Locke's understanding of probability informed Richardson's attempts to promote specific affective reading practices with his epistolary fictions and editorial commentary. Chapter Two reads Sterne's manipulations of the material page in Tristram Shandy as an attempt to expose the limitations of print communication and to suggest new ways of reading that could overcome those limitations. Chapter Three examines the writing of Smith, Kames, Mackenzie, Reeve and Godwin in order to illustrate both the promise and the danger that these authors attribute to imaginative sympathy and to the reading practices that promote sympathetic reactions. Chapter Four explores Scott's experiments with a form of fiction that could collapse the distance between writing and orality in order to force readers to reevaluate the complex relationship of sound and writing in the establishment of communities in an age of print.

For years, scholars have focused on the serious narrative of Samuel Johnson’s Rasselas and have been unable to reconcile the episodes of ironic humor within the larger serious narrative. By reading Rasselas as an imitation of Ecclesiastes rather than an Oriental tale, critics can begin to identify the humor in Rasselas through the embellishment of the story of Ecclesiastes. The failures of the character Koheleth in Ecclesiastes become the genesis for the failures of Rasselas and his companions; however, the failures of Rasselas and more elaborate and comedic. How Johnson embellishes these failures to create humorous irony in Rasselas becomes clearer for the reader through this new categorization of genre, which can hopefully unite the two opposing views of criticism surrounding this book.

Laurence Sterne’s The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, has been noted as an unconventional eighteenth-century novel and it has long been considered unadaptable and unfilmable. In the last decade, however, two popular adaptations of Tristram Shandy have appeared in new media forms: Martin Rowson’s 1996 graphic novel and Michael Winterbottom’s 2005 film. Since Sterne’s text denies the kind of transfer typical of literary adaptations, Rowson and Winterbottom adapt the conceptual elements. Through adaptation and media theory, this thesis defines the Shandean elements of Sterne’s novel and locates the qualities of the text retained in adaptation. Rowson and Winterbottom adapt the conceptual properties of Tristram Shandy, ‘the spirit of the text,’ into two distinct mediums. In an exploration of the conventions of each medium, this thesis argues that the adaptations of Tristram Shandy are true to its spirit, and both successfully adapt the unadaptable novel.

The New England Planters were the largest wave of Protestant migration into Nova Scotia prior to the American Revolution. Sponsored by the British government, they represent an attempt to make Nova Scotia a securely British colony in the wake of the Seven Years’ War and the Acadian deportation. Examining the experiences of several families, this thesis argues that the Planters, despite taking up lands in Nova Scotia, remained unsettled. The migration was staggered over a number of years, and Planters maintained close ties with New England. However, the Planters were unable to recreate New England culture completely. Increasing numbers of settlers from the British Isles and revolutionary suspicion marked out Planter Nova Scotia as a separate space, despite the close ties that individual Planters maintained with their homelands. The Revolution forced Planters to choose, but until then many existed between the worlds of Nova Scotia and New England.

IMPLICATIONS OF JEWISH DIVORCES THAT BECAME CAUSES CÉLÈBRES: THE REFORM OF JEWISH STATUS AND JURIDICAL CENTRALIZATION Suzette Blom Advisor: University of Guelph, 2012 Professor William Cormack This dissertation examines the reform of Jewish status in France in the eighteenth century in connection with the monarchy's impetus to centralize juridical authority. In particular it focuses on how litigating divorces in sovereign courts affected Jewish civil status. This study suggests a new perspective on events leading up to the decrees of 1790 and 1791 that granted the Jews active citizenship and the legalization of divorce in 1792. It examines the extent of the role that making Jewish divorce subject to secular national courts played in the acceptance of Jews as citizens. It concludes that Jewish divorces which attracted public attention as causes célèbres enhanced the role of the Jews in the larger process of juridical centralization and added a new dimension to the construction of a French identity. It further concludes that the reform of Jewish status was part of the erosion of traditional religious values and the growth of ideals of individualism. The principal manifestation of this process was the attempt to develop a uniform legal code for both the public and private spheres. This change included calls for the dissolution of marriage which was prohibited in France for all groups other than Jews as a result of the influence of the Church. This analysis relies on published mémoires judicaires for Jewish divorces that became causes célèbres. These mémoires reflected the changing attitudes towards the patriarchal concept of authority symbolized by indissoluble marriage, the erosion of corporate autonomy for the Jews and the reform of Jewish status. This analysis also relies on the correspondence and memoires of sovereign administrators, reformers and Jewish leaders which reflected the divisiveness of political and social opinion regarding the restructuring of authority. Little study has been done on the litigation of Jewish divorce in sovereign courts as an aspect of juridical centralization. Yet the mémoires judicaire of the Peixotto and Levy cases provide excellent case studies of the evolution in attitudes toward divorce and the acceptance of Jews as French subjects. Although there has been considerable scholarship to support the idea that the events of the French Revolution were grounded on the developments and reforms of previous decades, this analysis demonstrates that juridical centralization played a more critical role than has previously been considered.

This thesis addresses the growing impulse towards establishing a public, national collection of Old Master pictures for Britain, located in London, in the last quarter of the eighteenth-century. It does so by identifying the importance of individual conceptualizations of what such a collection might mean for a nation, and how it might come to be realized for an imprecisely defined public. My thesis examines the shifting dynamics between private and public collections during the period of 1775 to 1800, repositioning notions of what constituted space for viewing and accessing art in a national context, and investigates just who participated in the ensuing dialogues about various uses of art for the nation. To this end, three case studies have been employed. The first examines the collection of pictures assembled by Sir Robert Walpole and their public legacy. The second explores the proposal for a national collection of art put forth by art dealer Noel Desenfans. The third examines the frustrated plans of Sir Joshua Reynolds for his collection of Old Master pictures. Through the respective lenses provided by the case studies, it is demonstrated that the envisioning of a national gallery for Britain pitched competing perspectives against each other, as different kinds of people jockeyed for cultural authority. The process of articulating and shaping these ambitions with an eye towards national benefit was only beginning to be explored, and negotiations of private ambitions and interests surrounding picture collections for the public was further complicated by factors of social class and profession. This thesis demonstrate that the boundaries of participation in matters concerning art for the nation were not fixed regarding Old Master pictures and the value placed on them in late eighteenth-century London. / Thesis (Ph.D, Art History) -- Queen's University, 2009-01-26 09:01:22.591

“Renewing Homeland and Place” explores the complex intertwining of evangelical Christianity and notions of place and homeland in Algonquian communities in southern New England during the eighteenth century. In particular, this dissertation examines the participation of Algonquian men and women in the Protestant evangelical revivals known generally as the “First Great Awakening,” the adoption of New Light beliefs and practices within Algonquian communities, and the ways in which the Christian faith shaped and informed Algonquian understandings of place and community, and the protection of their lands. Mohegan, Pequot, Niantic, Narragansett, and Montaukett people living in Connecticut, Rhode Island, and on Long Island (New York) struggled continually throughout the eighteenth century to protect their land, resources, and livelihoods from colonial encroachment and dispossession. Christianity provided many Algonquians with beliefs, practices, and rituals that renewed, rather than erased, the spiritual and sustaining values they attached to their lands and that strengthened, rather than diminished, the kinship ties and sense of community that linked their settlements together. Equally as significant, the adoption of Christian beliefs and practices brought to the surface the dynamic and contested nature of community and place, and the varying ways in which Algonquians responded to colonization. As a number of Algonquians attended formal schools, assumed roles as ministers and teachers within their own settlements and among the Haudenosaunee in New York, and formed their own churches, they disagreed within their communities over issues of land use and political authority, and between their communities over the best response to the infringements they continued to suffer. By the 1770s a number of Christian leaders began to consider relocation to Oneida lands in New York as a solution to the land loss and impoverishment they faced in New England. While many Algonquians left their coastal homelands for central New York in the 1780s to form the Christian community of Brotherton, a number of Christians remained behind, highlighting the varying paths of adaptation and survival that Natives tread by the end of the century. / Thesis (Ph.D, History) -- Queen's University, 2010-09-24 13:20:16.449

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