This thesis presents a theoretical and historical account of how artists have responded to politics of democracy since the late-1980s. Three questions guide the direction of this analysis. Firstly: why, during its apparent apotheosis in recent years, have numerous artists critiqued democracy as the political, critical and aesthetic frame within which to identify their work? Secondly: how have artists undertaken this critique? Thirdly, and most importantly: what aesthetic and political discourses have artists proposed in lieu of the democracy that they critique? Particular case studies of art from Europe help us to address these questions, for Europe has been an important crucible for vociferous, and often fraught, arguments about democracy in recent aesthetic, philosophical and political discourses. The first chapter of this thesis rigorously contextualises these discourses in relation to historical mobilisations of democracy since the Iron Curtain??s collapse. Relying on writings by Pat Simpson, Slavoj ??i??ek, Alain Badiou and Mario Tronti, I chart the significant imbrications of political ideology, philosophy and what I call ??aesthetics of democratisation?? from the end of European communism, through the democratisations of postcommunism to the militarised democratisations of Iraq and Afghanistan after 2001. Notions of democracy shift and change during this period, becoming what ??i??ek calls a problematic ??transcendental guarantee?? of assumed values and self-legitimation. These shifting values in turn propel the concurrent critiques of democracy that are the subjects of the five subsequent chapters: Ilya Kabakov??s ??total?? installations; Neue Slowenische Kunst??s mimicry of the nation-state during the 1990s; Thomas Hirschhorn??s large-scale works from the late-1990s onwards; Christoph B??chel and Gianni Motti??s collaborative ventures; and the co-operative practices of Dan and Lia Perjovschi. Through examination of the artists?? installations and voluminous writings, and based primarily on archival research and interviews, this thesis examines how their aesthetic politics emerge from the remobilisation of nonconformist art histories, through self-instituted contexts and alternative models for art production, exhibition and interpretation. These models, I argue, counter our usual understandings of art practice and its politics in Europe. They cumulatively assert ??postsocialist aesthetics?? as an impertinent, yet urgent, prism through which to analyse contemporary art.

Zugl.: Freiburg, Universiẗat, Diss., 2008.

abstract: The focus of this in-depth study is to look at the gestation, performance history, and reception of Giacomo Puccini's evening of three one-act operas called Il Trittico and differentiate the particular components, Il Tabarro, Suor Angelica, and Gianni Schicchi to analyze them for their individual stylistic elements of Italian Opera. These were the styles of verismo, pathos and sentimentality, and opera buffa. As substantiated by written criticism, the audience and the critics did not fully comprehend the hidden meaning behind the individual works of Il Trittico. Puccini, enigmatically, had chosen to present one last glimpse of outmoded Italian operatic traditions. In order to evaluate Il Trittico's importance in the history of Italian opera, this study will first review the musically changing landscape in Italy during the early to mid-nineteenth century, then the second part of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth-century when German, French, and eventually Russian music were starting to influence audience taste. Puccini who, over the course of his compositional life, absorbed and incorporated these different styles realized that long held Italian operatic tradition had reached a fork in the road. One path would ensure Italian composers a place in this new order and the other a stagnant dead end. Even though Puccini's triptych garnered primarily negative reviews, the basis for this negativity was the perception that Il Trittico had broken with the historically traditional Italian musical styles. Though the present study acknowledges that break to a degree, it will also present a historically based rationale for the deviation, one left largely unnoticed by Puccini's critics. In the end, this author plans to realize their symbolic importance as a farewell to three uniquely Italian styles and a departure point for a new operatic tradition. Looking forward to the centenary of the work, this author seeks to illuminate how Puccini reached the pinnacle of firmly rooted genres of Italian opera. Ultimately this might help to unravel the enigma of Il Trittico while it continues to secure its rightful place as one of the masterpieces of the Puccini canon. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Music 2015

¿Qué es el pensamiento débil? Lo primero que podemos decir es que bajo ese nombre es como generalmente se caracteriza a la propuesta filosófico-hermenéutica de Gianni Vattimo, autor que cuenta con una vasta obra ensayística, a lo largo de la cual expone y aclara los distintos elementos constitutivos con los cuales se articula su propuesta y precisa los alcances de la misma. Pero si, a modo de introducción, queremos hacer una breve –y muy general– caracterización de su planteamiento filosófico, podemos decir que el pensamiento débil es una propuesta filosófica edificante1 , que, partiendo de una concepción nihilista de la historia y una renuncia a las categorías fuertes de la tradición filosófica occidental, propone una ontología débil y un proyecto secular que plantea dar cabida a la diversidad y que, por lo mismo, previene contra las tentaciones de asumir nuevas formas de fundacionalismo, brindando así la clave para evitar la violencia que trae consigo toda estructura metafísica. Precisamente, en relación a éste último punto, podemos señalar la que quizá sea la característica más desafiante de este proyecto filosófico: Gianni Vattimo nos presenta su propuesta como un proyecto emancipador, en el sentido de que busca tener consecuencias prácticas – políticas– en relación a un problema de fondo que, a partir de su análisis teórico, se ve claramente surgir: el problema de la noción metafísica-representacionalista de la verdad y la violencia que se manifiesta a partir de ella.

Dentro de un cúmulo de características que podríamos detectar en la filosofía contemporánea sea quizá la crítica a la metafísica una de las más resaltantes. A partir de los textos de Friedrich Nietzsche en adelante parece ser que la filosofía se ha ido sintiendo más consciente de esta sospecha hacia la metafísica. Sospecha develada y desarrollada en las primeras décadas del siglo XX. Desde diversas escuelas filosóficas la metafísica recibió variadas críticas – aunque también tuvo arduos defensores. Podríamos contar entre los críticos a los neopositivistas, fenomenólogos, existencialistas, marxianos y hermeneutas.

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<p>The purpose of this dissertation is to study the fantastic in the tales of the Italian children’s author Gianni Rodari. This analysis is grounded in the hypothesis that the fantastic is primarily characterized by two <i>esthetic qualities</i>, play and lightness, both of which are manifested at different levels in these texts, as well as in the relation between children and adults.</p><p>As a background for the textual analysis in the present work, an introductory review is provided of previous research, followed by a historical and theoretical consideration of fantastical children’s literature, together with a study of Rodari’s own relation to the fantastic. For previous research, the results clearly indicate an arbitrary relationship to Rodari’s texts, such that the fantastic is admittedly recognized, but is often confused with the fairy-tale. However, the present review of the history of Italian fantastical literature for children indicates that Rodari is writing in a fantastical and humorous tradition that begins with <i>Pinocchio</i>, a tradition that is <i>inter alia </i>characterized by its ability to bridge the gap between children’s and adult literature. Based on theoretical definitions of the fairy-tale (Propp, Thompson, Lüthi) and the fantastic (Todorov, Rabkin, Jackson, Held), the present work presents its own model for the study of Rodari’s texts, which are also compared with the author’s own poetics,<i> The Grammar of Fantasy.</i></p><p>A narratological analysis of a tale with both a children’s and an adult version (in itself an example of <i>crosswriting</i>) demonstrates that the fantastic and the humoristic are given freer rein when Rodari is writing for children. This appears to be linked to his concept of the child as the ideal reader, a reader primarily defined by an open and unprejudiced attitude to literature, rather than by age <i>per se</i>. The dissertation’s study of play and lightness (lack of weight) clearly confirms the hypothesis that these elements are a major component of the fantastic in Rodari’s texts; the results nevertheless indicate that play dominates on the level of language, and lightness on that of content.</p><p>One of the most important results of this dissertation is that Rodari’s texts, in addition to possessing certain stylistic characteristics, do not demonstrate any deeper similarities to fairy tales. Instead, the author’s tales share numerous characteristics with the traditional concept of the fantastic such as a clear reaction to the supernatural element, and a particular interest in both the material nature of language and existential liminal regions. At the same time, the results indicate several specific characteristics that distinguish the fantastic in Rodari from that which is written for adults, such as its explicit grounding in the child’s everyday existence and imaginative world, as well as its backgrounding of frightening aspects, with prominence instead being given to playfulness.</p>

The purpose of this dissertation is to study the fantastic in the tales of the Italian children’s author Gianni Rodari. This analysis is grounded in the hypothesis that the fantastic is primarily characterized by two esthetic qualities, play and lightness, both of which are manifested at different levels in these texts, as well as in the relation between children and adults. As a background for the textual analysis in the present work, an introductory review is provided of previous research, followed by a historical and theoretical consideration of fantastical children’s literature, together with a study of Rodari’s own relation to the fantastic. For previous research, the results clearly indicate an arbitrary relationship to Rodari’s texts, such that the fantastic is admittedly recognized, but is often confused with the fairy-tale. However, the present review of the history of Italian fantastical literature for children indicates that Rodari is writing in a fantastical and humorous tradition that begins with Pinocchio, a tradition that is inter alia characterized by its ability to bridge the gap between children’s and adult literature. Based on theoretical definitions of the fairy-tale (Propp, Thompson, Lüthi) and the fantastic (Todorov, Rabkin, Jackson, Held), the present work presents its own model for the study of Rodari’s texts, which are also compared with the author’s own poetics, The Grammar of Fantasy. A narratological analysis of a tale with both a children’s and an adult version (in itself an example of crosswriting) demonstrates that the fantastic and the humoristic are given freer rein when Rodari is writing for children. This appears to be linked to his concept of the child as the ideal reader, a reader primarily defined by an open and unprejudiced attitude to literature, rather than by age per se. The dissertation’s study of play and lightness (lack of weight) clearly confirms the hypothesis that these elements are a major component of the fantastic in Rodari’s texts; the results nevertheless indicate that play dominates on the level of language, and lightness on that of content. One of the most important results of this dissertation is that Rodari’s texts, in addition to possessing certain stylistic characteristics, do not demonstrate any deeper similarities to fairy tales. Instead, the author’s tales share numerous characteristics with the traditional concept of the fantastic such as a clear reaction to the supernatural element, and a particular interest in both the material nature of language and existential liminal regions. At the same time, the results indicate several specific characteristics that distinguish the fantastic in Rodari from that which is written for adults, such as its explicit grounding in the child’s everyday existence and imaginative world, as well as its backgrounding of frightening aspects, with prominence instead being given to playfulness.

La ricerca studia le riscritture delle opere di Gianni Rodari (1920-1980) in traduzione inglese attraverso la mediazione degli editori, critici letterari ma soprattutto dei traduttori tra il 1960 e il 2011. Nell’ambito degli studi sul contesto di produzione delle opere tradotte (Bassnett & Lefevere, 1998; Chesterman et al., 2000), la prima parte della ricerca presenta le caratteristiche traduttive della letteratura per l’infanzia attraverso un’analisi retrospettiva (Toury, 2012) utile a contestualizzare le opere di Rodari in inglese per il pubblico Anglo-Americano. La seconda parte illustra la mediazione linguistica dei traduttori in quattro di queste opere in inglese a partire dagli S-Universals (Chesterman, 2004). L’analisi delle traduzioni di Patrick Creagh (1965, 1971), Jack Zipes e Antony Shugaar (2008, 2011 rispettivamente), condotta attraverso le nove categorie traduttive proposte da J. L. Malone nel 1988, ha mostrato diversi gradi di addomesticamento ed estraniamento traduttivo (Venuti, 1995) a seconda dell’età del pubblico ricevente. Specificamente, le traduzioni addomesticanti si sono rivelate creative al punto da avvicinarsi all’intento narrativo di Rodari nei testi originali. La traduzione estraniante di Shugaar del 2011 ha mantenuto i riferimenti alla cultura italiana del testo rodariano, mostrando un cambiamento di pubblico ricevente dal testo fonte (pubblico giovane) al testo di arrivo (adulti). / The research investigates the extent to which Gianni Rodari’s (1920-1980) works changed in their English translations through the mediating presence of publishers, reviewers, and especially translators between the 1960s and 2011. With reference to the cultural context of production of translated works (Bassnett & Lefevere, 1998; Chesterman et al., 2000), translational patterns of children’s literature were firstly studied from a retrospective point of view (Toury, 2012) to contextualise Rodari’s books in English in the UK and the US. Secondly, the intervention of translators in four of these books was analysed within the mediation framework provided by S-Universals in translation (Chesterman, 2004). The discrete analysis of the translations by Patrick Creagh (1965, 1971), Jack Zipes and Antony Shugaar (2008, 2011 respectively), based on the nine translational trajections identified by J. L. Malone (1988), showed that the translators adopted different foreignising and domesticating strategies (Venuti, 1995) according to the intended public. More specifically, domesticating strategies presented a high degree of creativity in line with Rodari’s original narrative purpose, whereas Shugaar’s foreignising translation (2011) retained references to the Italian culture as in Rodari’s source text, marking a shift of audience from children to adults, from the Italian to the English target text.