Following his 1924 break with the Paris avant-garde, Francis Picabia (1879-1953) decamped to the French Riviera and soon began work on his radically new Transparency paintings. This series, which occupied Picabia from approximately 1928 to 1933, drew on classical imagery of biblical and mythological subjects, layering disparate human forms and natural motifs in sensuous compositions remarkable for their ambiguous pictorial space and sinuous lines. The Transparencies' resistance to narrative or allegory--notwithstanding their apparent clarity of reference--parallels the paintings' evasion of formal interpretation in spite of their classical beauty; both of these characteristics have made Picabia's Transparencies one of his most inscrutable and misunderstood bodies of work. To avoid treating the Transparencies as a non sequitur or as a conservative abandonment of earlier modernist goals, it is important to understand the sources of the concepts underpinning these works but originating in Picabia's earlier Cubist and Dada periods. Dimensionality, appropriation, figuration, and a rigorous commitment to individualism are all themes from Picabia's acclaimed work in the 1910s and early 1920s that continue into the Transparencies. Particularly relevant are the multivalent interpretations of the spatial fourth dimension--scientific, philosophical, and occult--that Picabia had first encountered in the context of Cubism and the Stieglitz Circle and, later, in his friend Marcel Duchamp's optical experiments. In the Transparencies Picabia's layered outlines both deny linear perspective and suggest projections of interior worlds. In 1936, Picabia affirmed his interest in the fourth dimension, referring specifically to the Transparencies' superimposition at the time he signed Charles Sirató's "Manifeste Dimensioniste." Picabia's visual synthesis of decades of avant-garde concerns in the Transparencies appealed to the American expatriate writer Gertrude Stein, who became one of Picabia's closest friends and confidantes in the early 1930s after she saw his recent paintings. Stein's commentary on Picabia's work and their friendship in "The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas" and "Everybody's Autobiography" reveals the painter's impact on Stein at a turning point in her career, but also elucidates their shared search for new verbal and visual expressions of the human figure and higher dimensionality. / text

The purpose of this study was to examine how adult students in a reading class offered in a college-affiliated ESL program responded to The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald, 1925; GG, afterwards) in small group book discussion sessions over eight weeks, and how they perceived their reading and discussing experiences. Analysis of students' literary responses demonstrated students' strategies in constructing textual meaning and transformation of their meaning-making strategies across time. Students in this study made sense of the text by making connections between the textual world and the text, themselves, and the world around them. Students also brought into discussion their reading experiences and a critical approach to the text. The percentage of comments devoted to each response category illustrated the changes in the focus of discussion and meaning making strategies across time. Taking up the novel, initially students spent more time discussing the historical context of the text and formulating connections with themselves and the world. Students were self-conscious about their reading difficulties. Further along in their reading, as they derived more information from the text, their discussion became more text-centered. Inferential comments and emotional reactions became more frequent elements in discussion, and talk about the reading experience itself and contextual information about the text diminished. Perceptions expressed about their reading experience of the literary text in their second language were predominantly about the enjoyment of reading and challenges and rewards in terms of: 1) language challenges, 2) culture challenges, and 3) literary challenges. Analysis of students' perceptions of their experiences in literary discussion as they read GG revealed their enjoyment of discussions and appreciation of how literary discussion had enriched their interpretation of the novel by providing opportunities for: 1) checking up on the textual information, 2) exchanging opinions, and 3) building a sense of learning community. / text

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This thesis explored the 1941 docent-training course for members of the Junior League held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The research focused on understanding what place this philanthropic organization held in the American art museum at that time. This course at the Metropolitan Museum of Art was formed as an attempt to teach Junior League members to become trainers of docents and volunteers in their own communities. Additionally, I looked into the background of the museum staff members Francis Henry Taylor and Roberta Murray Fansler Alford Capers and the Junior League member Helen T. Findlay. Utilizing historical research methods, four augments were formed regarding why this docent-training course occurred; (a) the new leadership and structure in the museum facilitating those training, (b) the collaborative work of Helen T. Findlay and Francis Henry Taylor and their passion towards art education for all audiences, (c) the Junior League’s continued commitment to community involvement, and (d) the fundamental need women had for involvement outside the home. The research concludes with a reflection toward the difficulties and hardships that accompany conducting historical research into the women of art education including non-traditional forms of historical documentation. / text

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Cette étude porte sur le rôle important dévolu à l'écriture oblique dans l'œuvre de Francis Ponge, à travers les notions d'ironie et d'humour. En s'appuyant à la fois sur les nombreuses déclarations de l'auteur concernant l'importance de ces notions dans son œuvre et sur les recherches les plus actuelles qui tentent de cerner ces catégories complexes et embarrassantes, on définit l'ironie non comme simple figure d'inversion mais comme fait rhétorique englobant une multitude de pratiques discursives. Plus précisément, on l'envisage comme un phénomène polyphonique et intertextuel dont la spécificité réside d'une part dans sa dimension critique et, d'autre part, dans son ambiguïté énonciative. L'humour est quant à lui envisagé comme jeu contestataire inscrit dans l'ordre de la langue. Dès lors, ironie et humour peuvent être considérés comme deux formes, différentes et complémentaires, de métadiscours critique qui couvrent tout le champ de la poétique pongienne : rhétorique, esthétique et éthique. La première partie s'attache à dégager les conditions et la constitution d'une posture ironique à partir des textes antérieurs à la poétique du parti pris, souvent négligés par la critique mais qui se révèlent essentiels en ce qu'ils problématisent les enjeux et les intuitions de la poétique pongienne. La deuxième partie est consacrée aux stratégies discursives à l'œuvre dans les textes, envisagées aussi bien en termes de figures et procédés que comme dispositifs textuels d'ensemble, lesquels ouvrent la voie vers une esthétique de l'ironie. Enfin, la troisième partie est consacrée au projet politique et moral qui sous-tend l'œuvre de Ponge et tente de cerner l'ironie et l'humour comme manifestations de la position éthique de l'auteur.

On March 7 1963, some bombs exploded at a few military barracks in Québec. These blasts announced the start of a campaign mounted by the Front de libération du Québec (FLQ). The founders of Parti Pris responded in intellectual solidarity with the FLQ’s motives by publishing their first issue in October. By 1968, Parti Pris ceased publication. After the October Crisis in 1970, the FLQ was widely discredited. Although many Partipristes and Felquistes dispersed into more generalized circles of local activism and party politics, they defined, informed, and mobilized a new generation of Québécois towards national liberation between 1963 and 1970. During their time of influence, Partipristes and Felquistes consistently pointed to a Catholic morality in Québec that revered passivity as a root cause and symptom of their colonial oppression. Some historians have suggested they were aberrant apostles of rupture with Québec’s history and traditions. This sort of reading finds some basis in declamations of the radicals themselves. But this thesis argues that both Parti Pris and the FLQ were developments of, and not definitive breaks with, Québec’s Catholic tradition. By analyzing the writings of Partipristes Paul Chamberland, André Major, and Pierre Maheu alongside those of Felquistes Pierre Vallières and Francis Simard, it claims that no historical appreciation of their lives and generation can sidestep the Catholicism that shaped them as individuals and the social milieu to which they responded. / Thesis (Master, History) -- Queen's University, 2012-09-27 02:23:23.413

This thesis is an attempt to summarise the extent of the current knowledge concerning the development of the harpsichord in England. This knowledge is derived partly from documentary sources, partly from a review of the modern writers who have treated the subject, but mostly from careful examination, measurement and recording of the surviving instruments. The work is divided into two main parts, of which Part I treats the English harpsichord before the time of Kirkman. The first eleven pages are given over to a brief summary of the instruments before the time of Tabel, the maker to whom Kirkman was apprenticed. Tabel's one surviving harpsichord receives a more detailed treatment as does a double manual harpsichord by another of his apprentices, John Wilbrook. The surviving harpsichords by Joseph Mahoon are also examined, and it is noted that it is quite likely that two harpsichords by Francis Coston are still extant. Patents and other inventions of this period are also treated, and the section ends with an overall survey of the development until the time of Kirkman. The author traces no particular theme in the period until the last quarter of the seventeenth century, influence from Italy, and the Low Countries being found alongside elements of entirely native practice. It is noted however, that probably by the last quarter of the century English makers were beginning to make double manual instruments in imitation of the Flemish harpsichords of the time, but this took place alongside the development of a school of makers producing simple single manual harpsichords with 2.8ft choirs only. These harpsichords also contain elements of continental practice with the use of English case styles, native woods and a particular type of diagonal bracing. These instruments are so similar that they might be called the English school of the period. At the beginning of the eighteenth century this school began to develop double manual harpsichords in the same case style, but also drawing on aspects of design probably introduced to this country by immigrant workmen such as Tisseran. It was at the turn of the century that the dogleg 8ft register was probably first introduced to England. It was to hold sway in all double manual English harpsichords for the next one hundred years. In part II, the work of Kirkman is examined closely. It is noted that the layout of the string band for the 8ft choirs is the same in all Kirkman harpsichords regardless of the presence of a 4ft choir or a lute stop. It is also demonstrated that there was an interesting change in length of the Kirkman harpsichord from 96.75" in 1745 down to about 92.5" in the early 1760s and then increasing back to around 94" in the late 1780s. This change in length was accompanied by a change in the length of the FF string from 71" down to about 68" and then back to about 70". No explanation for this can be offered. Other aspects receiving detailed treatment in this section are the structure of the instruments, the types of roses, the signing of the nameboards (a change in the order of the wording is noted between 1758 and 1760), keyboards, jacks, slides, stringing, voicing etc. There are sections on the other instruments by Kirkman, the Changeable Harpsichord, marquetried harpsichords, Queen Charlotte's harpsichord, the instruments by Faulkner, and a comparison with Shudi harpsichords of the period. The section is terminated by a summary of the patents on musical instruments of the period and a summary of the overall development in the period 1730-1800. The thesis is complemented by a number of Appendices. Of these, the first is a detailed look at the life and times of Kirkman, revealing him to have been a man of some substance and resource. Having acquired a good grounding in his work from Tabel, and having married Tabel's widow when on the threshold of his career, he soon made enough money to start speculating and lending money so that by the 1770s he probably spent little time in harpsichord making and gave himself to pecuniary matters. Other Appendices complement this first appendix, giving further details of such matters as Kirkman's friends, relatives, property, legal dealings and domestic matters. One appendix is given to a report on the way in which the harpsichords seen during the survey have been measured and recorded. Finally, there are nine tables, giving general data on the harpsichords up until the time of Kirkman, surviving harpsichords from the period 1744-1800, chronological development of English furniture styles, a chronological table of events in the development of the harpsichord from 1439-1800, and more specific details and dimensions of Kirkman harpsichords. The thesis ends with some 75 illustrations all of which are original.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, San Diego, 1998. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaf 262).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Catholic University of America, 1940. / "Essay on the sources": p. 189-195.