Thesis (M.A.)--University of North Carolina at Greensboro, 2005. / Title from PDF title page screen. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1996. / Typescript. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 247-268).

Undergraduate honors paper--Mount Holyoke College, 2007. Dept. of English. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 102-104).

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Wyoming, 2008. / Title from PDF title page (viewed on Nov. 11, 2009). Includes bibliographical references (p. 143-146).

Thesis (MA (English))--University of Stellenbosch, 2010. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The concept of the city has evolved over time with generations of city dwellers. The rapid advance of technology has promoted globalisation, which has brought about increased familiarity with diverse cultures, but has also exposed issues of marginalisation among communities in cities. In order to approach a more comprehensive understanding of the complexity of the “open” postmodern view of the city it is essential to consider the relevant literature that grapples with issues of human identity and appropriation in the city. This dissertation examines narrative perspectives in the literary works of four postmodern writers: Jonathan Safran Foer, Neil Gaiman, China Miéville, and Lauren Beukes. References to underlying philosophical viewpoints, various perceptions, both “real” and fictional, were incorporated in the discussion. Close attention is paid to the correlation between the novel and the city, and to what extent the city itself can be viewed as a narrative – since, within a postmodern approach, fictional narratives may form discourses that represent, and in a fashion constitute, the city, while subjects at the same time form themselves in terms of their environment. Fiction becomes an invaluable tool for exploring the cityscape and commenting on contemporary issues. In conclusion, the urbanised human subject may be said to play a vital role in establishing the concept of the city, both in “real” culture and in fictional narrative. The representation of the contemporary South African urban milieu in the discussed literature serves to confirm the relevance of local as well as global influences. To justify multiple perspectives on the city consequently means to grant each individual viewpoint validity. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Die konsep van die stad het deur die jare ontwikkel saam met geslagte van stadsbewoners. Die vinnige vooruitgang van tegnologie het globalisasie bevorder, wat op sy beurt weer bewustheid van diverse kulture bevorder het, maar ook kwessies blootgelê het rondom marginalisasie in stadsgemeenskappe. Ten einde ‘n meer omvattende begrip van die kompleksiteit van die “oop” postmoderne perspektief op die stad daar te stel, is dit belangrik om te kyk na die relevante literatuur wat bemoeienis maak met kwessies van menslike identiteit en eienaarskap in die stad. Hierdie dissertasie het gekyk na vertellerperspektiewe in die literêre werke van vier postmoderne skrywers: Jonathan Safran Foer, Neil Gaiman, China Miéville, en Lauren Beukes. Met verwysing na onderliggende filosofiese gesigspunte is verskeie persepsies, gegrond op die werklikheid sowel as fiktief, in die bespreking ingesluit. Daar is aandag gegee aan die verband tussen die roman en die stad, en in watter mate die stad self as ‘n teks beskou kan word, aangesien die teks volgens ‘n postmoderne aanslag die stad kan “representeer” en “laat ontstaan”, terwyl menslike subjekte hulself terselfdertyd vorm in terme van hul omgewing. Fiksie word dus ‘n waardevolle werktuig vir waarneming van en kommentaar lewer op komtemporêre sake. Ten slotte kan gesê word dat die verstedelikte menslike subjek ‘n belangrike rol speel in die bevestiging van die stad as konsep, beide in reële kultuur en in fiktiewe vertelling. Die verteenwoordiging van die kontemporêre Suid-Afrikaanse stedelike milieu in die bespreekte tekste bevestig die relevansie van lokale sowel as internasionale invloede. Om veelvuldige perspektiewe op die stad gelyk te beregtig beteken gevolglik dat elke individuele gesigspunt geldig is.

Syftet med arbetet var att utröna värdegrundsdiskurser i fantasylitteraturerna Korpringarna, Engelsforstrilogin och Krönikor från Röda klostret. Genom att granska de valda romanernas didaktiska potential ämnade studien även att styrka användningen av fantasylitteratur i undervisning på gymnasiet. De teorier som valdes för arbetet är intersektionalitet och didaktisk potential. Didaktisk potential och närläsning valdes som metoder för textanalys för att dels utröna romanernas explicita och implicita ideologier, dels för att kunna analysera materialet utan att behöva ta hänsyn till texternas yttre faktorer. Resultatet visade att de tre främst förekommande värdegrundsdiskurserna i det analyserade materialet är demokrati, allas människors lika värde och mänskliga rättigheter. Utifrån romanernas explicita och implicita ideologier analyserades även böckernas didaktiska potential. Studien visade att fantasy som litteraturdidaktiskt material har stor potential och lämpar sig väl som utgångspunkt för värdegrundsarbete i gymnasieskolan

The aim of this study was to explore the attitude towards using the fantasy genre while teaching literature among Swedish teachers, students and a librarian. Furthermore, the main focus was to see if the fantasy genre could contribute to the students’ cognitive and emotional development, as well as explore if using the fantasy genre could have beneficial outcomes for the students, in order for them to reach the aims of the curriculum, in the different levels of Swedish. The methods used were semi-structured interviews with three upper secondary Swedish teachers and one librarian and 47 questionnaires to students from three different classes, in the South of Sweden. The interview questions and the questioners were analyzed taking into account current research within the area, and further based on my own experience. The compiled results showed that the responding teachers and the librarian could all see positive outcomes of using the genre. 50 percent of the students would have liked to see more fantasy in their education and 50 percent had no such desire. All the interviewees thought that fantasy had a positive effect on the students’ cognitive and emotional development. The teachers also thought that using the genre in their teaching could help the students reach the aims of the curriculum, which was something 50 percent of the students noticed as well.

In this thesis, I examine three works of modern German fantasy fiction for young adults, their common grounding in the Romantic aesthetic framework and in particular the Romantic notion of creativity, and the implication of their unique fantasy fiction paradigm in our modern day. The novels are Michael Ende’s The Neverending Story (1979), Inkheart (2003) by Cornelia Funke and The City of Dreaming Books (2006) by Walter Moers. They represent a Germany-specific narrative paradigm which can be seen in the protagonist readers’ transformation from mere readers into storymakers/storytellers, and in the conflict between a book-loving hero and antagonists who are against literature. The protagonists embody the Romantic notion of creativity that involves the sublimation of a poet’s crisis into an exploration of the self. The mundane is infused with fantasy, thereby elevating reality to an idealised state. These Romantic storytelling readers act as tricksters, a fairy tale archetype that shares similarities with the figure of the Romantic poet. I employ the theoretical frameworks of German Romanticism, Frankfurt School critical theory, and postmodern models, including those by Deleuze and Guattari. I argue for a modern version of the trickster archetype which explains how a complacent, passive reader becomes an active storyteller. / Graduate

This study intends to highlight and explain the development, in the Renaissance, of a category of fictions characterized by their comical improbability and their - more or less serious - claim to convey a philosophical content. Based on a corpus of six Italian and French “philosophical fantasies” (Alberti’s Momus, Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso, Folengo’s Baldo, Rabelais’s works, Ronsard’s “seasonal hymns”, and Philippe d’Alcripe’s Nouvelle Fabrique), our study aims at defining this category, and showing how a fictional pattern, initially borrowed by Italian humanists from Lucian of Samosata, has been adapted to new philosophical stakes and controversies. Our last six chapters are devoted to case studies. The five previous ones explore, from a theoretical perspective, the status of incredible fictions in the horatian, platonic and aristotelian poetics: far from being systematically regarded as lies, or considered as artistic failures, they benefit from the high value granted to fictional invention and to the intellectual impact of astonishment. However, their relationship to the allegorical tradition is complex: while they constantly refer to it, they resist to the allegorizers’s investigation. This ambiguity is specific to the products of creative fantasy which, in Renaissance philosophy, is a strongly ambivalent faculty of the soul. / This study intends to highlight and explain the development, in the Renaissance, of a category of fictions characterized by their comical improbability and their - more or less serious - claim to convey a philosophical content. Based on a corpus of six Italian and French “philosophical fantasies” (Alberti’s Momus, Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso, Folengo’s Baldo, Rabelais’s works, Ronsard’s “seasonal hymns”, and Philippe d’Alcripe’s Nouvelle Fabrique), our study aims at defining this category, and showing how a fictional pattern, initially borrowed by Italian humanists from Lucian of Samosata, has been adapted to new philosophical stakes and controversies. Our last six chapters are devoted to case studies. The five previous ones explore, from a theoretical perspective, the status of incredible fictions in the horatian, platonic and aristotelian poetics: far from being systematically regarded as lies, or considered as artistic failures, they benefit from the high value granted to fictional invention and to the intellectual impact of astonishment. However, their relationship to the allegorical tradition is complex: while they constantly refer to it, they resist to the allegorizers’s investigation. This ambiguity is specific to the products of creative fantasy which, in Renaissance philosophy, is a strongly ambivalent faculty of the soul.

La thèse propose moins un inventaire des films du cinéma libanais que le relevé et l’analyse de formes cinématographiques et de pratiques artistiques contemporaines répondant aux drames, aux incertitudes, aux crises identitaires et aux amnésies forcées entraînées durablement par la guerre civile (1975-1990). à partir de la notion d’ « images d’après », on étudie la crise de la représentation qui affecte tant les modes de narration, les discours, la figuration que les formes individuelles et collectives de la mémoire et de l’histoire. de ce « nœud de tensions » découle un art de l’effritement du langage, de l’espace, du temps. une temporalité sismique problématise et brise la linéarité et la factualité, bouleversant les catégories du réel et de l’imaginaire, du documentaire et de la fiction. ce processus est d’abord questionné à travers le lyrisme et la distanciation critique de cinéastes comme borhane alaouié, maroun bagdadi et jocelyne saab, puis à travers le travail de la génération des joana hadjithomas et khalil joreige, lamia joreige, jayce salloum, mohamed soueid, akram zaatari : outre le recours fictionnel et figuratif à une temporalité spectrale conduisant ghassan salhab à faire surgir le fantastique, les créations artistiques libanaises d’après-guerre inventent et explorent une syntaxe et des matériaux esthétiques complexes capables de recréer et renouer des liens authentiques avec le réel. les œuvres d’après-guerre qui sont étudiées traduisent une pratique créatrice discursive et poétique caractérisée par l’utilisation de divers supports médiatiques, et dont la dynamique a pour source et pour effet de penser les événements traumatiques et de les historiciser. / The thesis proposes less of an inventory of lebanese films, but more so it aims to collect and analyze the cinematographic forms and contemporary artistic practices that respond to tragedies, uncertainties, identity crises, and forced amnesia resulting from the incessant civil war (1975-1990.) using the notion of ‘images in the aftermath,’ the thesis explores the crisis of representation that impacts the modes of storytelling, addressing of speech, and figuration, as well as individual and collective forms of memory and history. from this ‘knot of tensions’ stems an art of erosion of language, space, and time. a seismic temporality problematizes and breaks the linear and factual, which shakes the core of categories that are linked to the real and the imaginary, documentary and fiction. this process is at firsthand questioned with lyricism and critical distancing by filmmakers such as borhane alaouié, maroun bagdadi, and jocelyne saab, then through the works of a generation including joana hadjithomas and khalil joreige, lamia joreige, jayce salloum, mohamed soueid, and akram zaatari. in addition to the fictional and figurative use of a spectral temporality leading artists such as ghassan salhab to exploit the fantastic, the lebanese artistic creations of the post-war era invent and explore a new syntax and complex aesthetic tools capable of recreating and renewing authentic ties with the real. the post-war works that are observed and studied transliterate a creative and discursive practice that is poetic, and characterized with the use of various media whose dynamics invoke the ability to think of, and apprehend, the traumatic events that may then be historicized.