This study examines six texts o f the 12[sup th] and 13[sup th] centuries for the fantastic mode. It first refutes the critical assertion that the fantastic could not exist in medieval literature, but also establishes that most of the casually denominated "fantastic" is not. For the genuine fantastic, both in general and in its medieval appearances, questions of reality are at most peripheral. Rather the fantastic mode encodes itself in the narrative structure, creating ambiguity and openness. The structural approach frees the discussion o f the fantastic from theories predicated upon issues of thematics, reality-based analysis, and didactic categorizations o f supernatural objects. The first two chapters synthesize those elements from modern works of fantastic theory, (re)deflning the fantastic based upon a semiotic approach. The introduction concentrates on the need to reexamine the corpus of critical works addressing the fantastic. Chapter 1 summarizes the theoretical discussion in order to adjust the definition of "fantastic" as a critical term according to a more pre-Renaissance view of reality. Chapter 2 proposes the parallel worlds model as a structural model for the identification of the fantastic mode in texts where the supernatural is evident, with an emphasis on fantastic space as an intermediary locale between worlds. The last four chapters apply the parallel worlds model to a selected corpus of six narratives. While the structures of these texts vary in length, the fantastic is consistently manifested in a pattern that alternates between the real world, fantastic space and the otherworld. The open-ended structure of five narratives indicates that journeys to the otherworld are rarely accomplished with a high degree of completion, and therefore the narrative program remains incomplete. The conclusion is a defense of the fantastic within medieval French literature, concentrating on how the supernatural creates /otherness/, fantastic space and openness in the narrative program. The fantastic as a powerful but elusive force within Old French romance narratives often shifts to the merveilleioc in the end. The parallel worlds model, when used in conjunction with other theories for identifying the fantastic, is a structural method that emphasizes openness as a characteristic of the fantastic within medieval romance narratives. / Arts, Faculty of / French, Hispanic, and Italian Studies, Department of / Graduate

The purpose of this project was to examine the perceptions of junior faculty members as they relate to roles and expectations related to the tenure process. The study utilized a mixed methods approach to gain a multifaceted perspective of this complex process. I employed a quantitative and qualitative survey to explore junior faculty perceptions regarding roles related to promotion and tenure policies. In addition, I conducted fantasy theme analysis (FTA) to explore the organizational rhetoric related to these policies. Findings from the study illustrate the continued presence of the "publish or perish" paradigm, as well as issues related to role conflict within the context of organizational rhetoric.

This study is a comparative analysis of the personality characteristics of a sample of World of Warcraft players (n = 147) and a large normative sample (n = 20,993). The 120-item International Personality Item Pool, based on the five factor model, is used. Independent t-tests were conducted and statistical significance was found for some factors; however, the effect sizes were small, indicating a limited practical difference between the two groups.

Cette thèse s’articule autour de trois volets. Tout d’abord, la genèse de concept du trauma, ses effets cliniques, puis son abord psychanalytique, et enfin la conduite à tenir face à ces sujets souffrants depuis leur rencontre raté avec l’éventualité de la mort. C’est ce paradoxe, cette énigme qui fait appel à la psychanalyse pour essayer d’appréhender ce qui conduit un sujet souffrant à consulter un psychanalyste. Les catastrophes ont toujours marqué la vie des hommes. Par leur effet de surprise, et lorsqu’elles épargnent la vie du sujet, elles le laissent sous l’emprise de l’effroi y inscrivant la trace du réel de la mort. Cette rencontre blesse l’appareil psychique. Elle y fait effraction, lève le fantasme d’immortalité et y introduit l’image de la scène traumatique que FREUD nomme un « corps étranger interne ». Etranger car la mort est inconnue de l’inconscient. C’est à FREUD que revient le mérite de mettre en lumière le concept de traumatisme psychique. Le concept de trauma devient la pierre angulaire de la doctrine psychanalytique. Il l’a traverse et demeure au centre de ses travaux, la menant progressivement à prendre forme. Du traumatisme sexuel par séduction réelle, il devient fantasmatique naissant d’une mise en scène imaginaire. C’est à partir de ce concept de trauma que FREUD concevra la théorie des névroses. Puis le premier conflit mondial et le cataclysme de la guerre vinrent confronter l’humanité à l’effroi de la rencontre de la mort. Ainsi la doctrine freudienne ne va pas cesser de s’enrichir jusqu’au départ du Maître de Vienne fuyant la barbarie pour Londres, où il publiera « L’Homme Moïse et la religion monothéiste » en y reprenant le concept du trauma dans sa totalité, donnant un nouvel éclairage à la psychanalyse. / This thesis opens around a three fold questionnaire. Firstly, the genesis of the concept of traumatic, its clinical effects, then its psychoanalytic approach and finally, the actions taken against these individuals suffering from their failed encounter with eventual death. It is this paradox, this puzzle that the psychoanalysis uses to try and learn what drives a suffering individual to consult a psychoanalyst.Catastrophe has always marked the lives of men. By their effect of surprise and when theysave the lives of individuals, thus leaving at trace of the reality of terror and death. This encounter injures the psyche. It breaks the fantasy of immortality introducing the image of the traumatic science, wich FREUD named « an internal foreign body ». Strange, because death is not known to the unconscious. Freud merits the discovery of the concept of traumatic psyche. The concept of the trauma becomes the corner stone of psychoanalytic approach. Progressively this approach took form all along his work and research. The sexual traumatism by real seduction becomes fantasmatic born of a built up of imagination. From this trauma, the concept of the theory of neurosis was developped by FREUD. The doctrine of Freud does not stop developping until the Master of Vienna flees to London where he publishes « Moses and the monotheism » putting together a synthesis oh his ideas in its totality, giving a new light on psychoanalyst.

Abstract Genre separation has been common for childrens and youth fiction in Swedish public libraries, but genrefication for adults is still under lively discussion. Fantasy literature is a good example of fiction that has actually been separated for children, young people and adults for about 30 years. It therefore serves as a good example in a study about fictional genre separations. The aim of this study is to investigate how librarians determine the genre of fantasy books, how they organize fantasy sections in libraries and how they argue about genre separation and subgenres of fantasy literature. The method used in this study is qualitative interviews with six librarians with responsibility for fantasy sections at six different large and medium-sized public libraries in Sweden. Gabriel Naudés ideas of how to arrange books in a library was used as a theoretical framework to analyse the empirical material. The results of this study show that there are a variety of ways to organize a fantasy section in a public library. It shows that genre separation for fantasy literature is still developing in the public libraries surveyed. It also shows that fantasy literature in its classical form is relatively easy to genrefy, while subgenres are a little bit more difficult. In addition, it appears that the argumentation about genre separations shows a mostly positive attitude towards these, and that these separations are a good tool for readers to find books. Finally, it shows that the user-friendly perspective is strong in the libraries surveyed, and that well-thought-out fantasy sections and genre separations increase interest in the literature that is highlighted.

No description available.

This paper will detail the making of The Marked, exploring from concept to completion, with special focus on creating a dystopian, science fiction, film with an element of fantasy. I will begin by examining my inspirations. Next, I will explore preproduction, examining screenwriting, casting, location scouting, production, and preparation. Part three will look at production, focusing on directing, production design, cinematography, and on-set operations. Part four will examine post production, including, editing, color correction, sound design, and music. Each element of production will be evaluated to determine if they helped successfully create a believable, dystopian, fantasy story for the viewer. I will also be examining whether the themes I originally sought to explore come across in the film.

Two children, Dan and Una, sit in the woods and listen to a story of Britain's early history told to them by Sir Richard, a spirit conjured from the past for this instructive purpose. In this tale, Sir Richard gains treasure by defeating the "devils" that terrorize a village of African people. In many ways, this framed narrative sets up the expected hierarchy found in children's literature wherein the adult actively narrates a story and the child silently listens and learns. However, the children of Rudyard Kipling's Puck of Pook's Hill do something else--they question and challenge. At the end of the story, Dan declares, "I don't believe they were Devils" and backs up his disbelief by drawing on other books he has read. While much scholarship on children's literature reads child characters through the lens of adult desire and finds them voiceless and empty, I seek out moments wherein these imagined children, like Dan and Una, challenge adult dissemination of knowledge. Building upon recent scholarship that sees the child less as a straightforward projection of desire and more complexly as a site for conflicting ideologies and tensions, my dissertation enters into the critical conversation concerning the figure of the child and suggests a fresh, new approach to reading adult-child relations in children's literature. Urging readers to focus on the ways in which fantasy literature imagines and represents child characters' relationships to language--as readers, authors, storytellers, and questioners--I argue that whether deliberately or unselfconsciously these works imagine a child capable of interacting with language in order to seize power and thus unsettle the force of adult desire. Even as the characters themselves remain the products of adult creation, the relationship to language they model for their implied readers transcends a simple one-to-one correlation of adult authorial desire and a child reader's internalization. Each of my four chapters focuses on a pair of authors: Sarah Fielding and Mary Martha Sherwood, Lewis Carroll and George MacDonald, Frederika Macdonald and Frances Hodgson Burnett, and Rudyard Kipling and E. Nesbit. Instead of mere escapism and fancy, these portraits of childhood address debates surrounding the emerging genre of the novel, religious censorship, educational legislation, imperial ideology, medical discourses, and textbook publication. By juxtaposing these novels in pairs alongside these significant historical contexts, my project brings the child's voice, which we often ignore, to the surface. Like Dan and his declaration of disbelief, the readers imagined by these important works of fantasy refuse to sit in silence and instead play with words to question, create, and challenge.

When Ursula K. LeGuin revisited the world of Earthsea with Tehanu (1990), her return to an established classic of the fantasy genre came with a powerful desire to revisit its construction and reinterpret its assumptions from a female perspective. Drawn to the side of her dying former tutor, protagonist Tenar is repeatedly posed with the question of what to do with his lore books, which could never offer to her what they had his conventionally male students. Even if this time-honored tradition excludes her, however, Tenar cannot bring herself to discard or abandon the books, for all that they seem "nothing to her, big leather boxes full of paper." Traveling on foot, forced often to flee for her life and pack light, she feels compelled to carry these book on her back. For Tenar, the tomes are a considerably "heavy burden," and, given the context in which this novel appears, this female protagonist's struggle with the weight of traditional, respected patriarchal male text is particularly significant. In LeGuin's fantasy, the image of Tenar traversing her story with Ogion's great "lore-books" strapped to her back is emblematic of the struggle many authors have faced in negotiating the received texts and tropes of their generic inheritance in order to create female-centered fantasy. Indeed, the transformation of Ogion's great lore-books into Tenar's conflicted baggage literalizes what many other texts have more figuratively confronted. My dissertation, "A Noted Departure: Metafiction and Feminist Revision within a Tradition of Fantasy Writing," considers the compelling frequency of such self-conscious textual moments in female-centered fantasy of the 80s and 90s and argues for their importance as a writing strategy that challenges the assumptions of more formulaic fantasy texts and tropes, especially those that inform expectations about roles for women. Examining this moment in which the legacy of a revisionist feminist impulse converges with a post-modern, post-structural metafictional critique of traditional narrative forms and the ideologies they encode, my dissertation sheds light on many critically ignored self-conscious fantasy texts which feature heroines whose critical, textual negotiations bring readers to reconsider the nature of fantasy and the danger and wonder, the limits and liberty, of fictional representation. Taken together, as important and largely overlooked entries in a genre which thrives on the tension between tradition and innovation, these works represent a significant transitional moment in the fantasy genre, bridging the gap between a relatively limited female presence and a more contemporary diversity. My first chapter, "Doing the "Not Done": Wrede's 'Improper' Princess and her Whimsical Revision of Fairy-Tale Expectation and Convention," demonstrates the fluid link between the established tradition of feminist fairy tale revision and the self-critical generic departure my dissertation presents as an important literary moment in the fantasy genre. As the archive my dissertation constitutes might be understood as the answer to Angela Carter's frustrated plea that we must "move beyond revision," this chapter acknowledges the fairy tale's potency as a purveyor of romantic archetypes and, thereby, of cultural precepts for young women in a reading of The Enchanted Forest Chronicles (1990-5). In threading seemingly simple and conventional plotlines together with unexpected and innovative departures, Wrede upsets narrative expectation and undercuts generic convention, particularly those associated with the 'princess' trope. Achieving her critical commentary on the commonplaces of the genre by first invoking the traditional before establishing a heroine who positions herself against it, Wrede's plot also reveals the importance of textual negotiation and interpretation, and this chapter underscores the generative relationship this kind of critical interplay bears on the need for new plots and narrative options. Chapter two, "'In Search of 'Something New': Metafiction as Critical and Creative Discourse" offers a sustained discussion of the theoretical work of metafiction. Opening with an examination of the historical precedent of feminist metafiction and its desire to create an alternative tradition to a limited masculinist tradition in the 60s, 70s and early 80s, I demonstrate how aptly feminist metafiction aligns with a fantasist's impulse to challenge the same constraints within genre. Examining how metafiction can function as a critical and creative narrative strategy within a generic context, I adapt the conceptions of theorists such as Roland Barthes, Jean Genette, Gayle Greene, Amie A. Doughty, and Brian Stonehill to an understanding of how metafiction functions in fantasy. "Plotting Change, Imagining Alternatives: Metafiction as Revision in Feminist Fantasy," argues that while thematic or plot-based investigations into feminist fantasy are useful, understanding the way in which generic push-back occurs requires closer attention to the writing strategies which articulate such artistic feats and aesthetic negotiations. This third chapter examines several significant but critically ignored fantasy works which demonstrate how writers of this period signal their departure from generic tradition through key metafictional moments in which a heroine herself invokes text or turns, within her own story, to a text that exists within her own world. Alanna of Trebond in The Song of the Lioness series (1983, 84, 86, 88), Daikin of The Farthest Away Mountain (1976), and Talia in The Heralds of Valdemaar series ("Arrows Trilogy," 1987-88) all experience transformative and liberatory adventures that afford a break with tradition that is drawn along lines of both gender and narrative. Thus, texts occupy a central role in these adventures, providing opportunities to investigate the cultural role they play and the tensions they surface between providing inspiration and motivation on the one hand and limitations that must be overcome on the other. As revisionist quest-narratives which are also deeply internal feminist Bildungsroman, the frequently close relationship between heroine and text in these works is deeply telling; such metafictional moments allow their adventures to advance not only plot or individual story, but a critical conversation about the literary conventions and cultural traditions which condition their representation. In calling attention to the critical work of these metafictional moments, I reveal that the most fruitful feminist fantasy criticism must not be only about plot, but the possibility of plot. Indeed, as these heroines become legends themselves, their narratives not only deconstruct traditional discourses, engaging with the need to re-write tradition, to counter narrative expectation and convention with the creation of new stories; they also more collectively re-mythologize. In creating new stories and new patterns of storytelling, this chapter reveals how these writers do not just expose the cultural power of tradition and myth and critique the representation of women within them, but counter its absences and suppressions with their own mythopoesis. Taken together, such a wealth of significant but critically ignored examples demonstrates how writers employ metafiction as a strategy to enact criticism and imagine alternatives in the fantasy genre, particularly in terms of expanding narrative possibilities for heroines. My fourth chapter, "Convention Undone: UnLunDun's Unchosen Heroine and Narrative (Re)Vision," examines China Miéville's UnLunDun (2007) as a deliberate response to a tradition of fantasy writing, lampooning, in particular, the portal-quest fantasy. Revealing narrative adherence to traditional patterns as false and hollow, and those who trust them uncritically as foolishly naïve, Miéville reminds readers of the importance of innovation, of critical interaction with narrative tradition, and the unfinished nature of both narrative and identity. In a tour-de-force of a self-and-genre-conscious metafictionality, Miéville explores the pit-falls of expectation and the potential which comes from the creation of an alternative narrative--and with it, an alternative heroine in Deeba, whose journey works both with and against the perspective traditions of 'The Book' (a talking tome whose authority proves less than accurate). Ultimately, I argue that Deeba's quest and her transformation into a celebrated, unchosen heroine reveals the degree to which success lies in making the old useful again, and the narrative she reshapes is a vivid illustration of both what it means to revise or reimagine and the necessity of such a critical process. In a world of fragments and the discarded, this book speaks to the genre at large, asking what might be constructed from the inherited baggage of traditional understandings, and what can be done in spite of their limitations and previously established identities or functions. Commonly engaged in the construction of questioning, questing stories, the writers I study have crafted pioneering, uncertain heroines who act out a self-conscious awareness that presses against the genre's limits. As these writers must struggle with the loaded material they wish to weave into new story shapes, so, too, do their fictional creations meditate upon the way in which their journey or character diverges from the expected. These are heroines in the making, heroines whose identities are not fixed easily in text but who must constitute it through an engagement with texts both familiar and new. As books which are also about books, as stories which take story as explicit subject matter, these works feature textual negotiation as a necessary critical process at the level of plot. Moreover, in presenting such metafictions as a critical, questioning comparison to a traditional norm, generic expectation, or narrative inheritance experienced as limited or confining, these works also shed light on the possibility of alternative plots and call special attention to the kinds of artistic and ideological negotiations necessary for such stories to be told in our own realistic worlds as well as in our fantasies. Thus, my dissertation highlights the importance of a writer's impulse to reflect and revise the tradition in which they participate and underscores the creative and critical potential of furthering dialogue between texts and conventions. As my readings demonstrate, the fascination fantasy holds as an enduring art form may well be contingent upon the genre's potential for self-conscious interplay and its protean capacity to refigure narration as a meaningful form of discourse.

This study explores gender modeling specifically in avatar creation tools through the MMORPG Final Fantasy XIV. The design of systems is often limited by the experiences of those who build them. In the video game industry; this means that systems are often designed by white, cisgender, heterosexual men. This demographic does not represent the wealth of people who play games and are subjected to these systems. The needs of marginalized communities, especially queer communities, in terms of affordances and representation tend to be overlooked or forgotten. This issue is apparent in avatar creation tools which define the types of bodies and identities that are allowable in the world of the game. Using Brenda Laurel’s research driven design tactics, modifications to Final Fantasy XIV’s current system were realized through a paper prototype and constant input from a group of self-identifying queer players. Both the feedback from these queer players and the modifications made to the prototype were condensed into a series of suggestions for the creators of these tools. Ultimately, I discovered that there are three key features which vastly improve the affordances of character creators for queer players; the inclusion of pronoun identification, the identification of gender identity, and the separation of both of these options from the character’s physical appearance. Designers who implement these findings in their work will contribute to creating environments that support queer identities.