Originally presented as the author's thesis, Uniwersytet Gdański, 1971. / Summaries in English and Russian. Includes bibliographical references and index.

Originally issued as thesis, University of California. / Bibliography: p. [64].

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Detroit, 1954. / "June 1954." Includes bibliographical references (p. 66-69).

Originally issued as thesis, University of California. / Bibliography: p. [64].

Originally presented as the author's thesis, Uniwersytet Gdański, 1971. / Summaries in English and Russian. Includes bibliographical references and index.

Abstract of Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Illinois, 1924. / Vita.

Thesis (doctoral)--Tampereen yliopisto, 1998. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 258-281) and index.

Inaug.-Diss.--Breslau. / At head of title: Deutsche Philologie. "Die folgende Untersuchung ... will eine Lücke füllen die in der Reihe der Arbeiten Über den Einfluss Walter Scotts auf den deutschen Roman ... besteht." Vita. Bibliography: p. [82-82]

This study investigates the subject of illusionism in contemporary American fiction. A recurrent yet under-examined theme, the history of stage magic in the U.S. suggests how an earlier age domesticated the seeming sorcery of market capitalism, credit, limitless self-(re)making, and ethnic vanishing. Such conditions provide antecedents and analogues for the writing of fiction in a world of digitalized knowledge, work, identity, and financialization. Self-reflexively illusionist fiction today represents itself ambivalently as magical entertainment. Is its function to mesmerize audiences or alert them to ideological sleight-of-hand? If the enchantments of literary art screen the machinations of power, how do novelists preserve fiction's capacity to inspire wonder, affective experience, and ethical commitment? Chapter One argues that Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian presents illusionism as integral to imperialism and commodification, as well as to its own artistry. McCarthy indicates the instrumentalization of aesthetics under late capitalism yet seeks through moments of enchantment to transcend it. Chapter Two shows that in Mr. Vertigo by Paul Auster and In the Lake of the Woods by Tim O'Brien, fiction’s "magic" lies in transcending social differences and inspiring empathy, but that the historical residue of racism in American illusionism obstructs the effort to imagine otherness. Both novels reframe the worth of fiction as therapeutic. Chapter Three argues that the figure of Harry Houdini embodies literature's status as primarily entertainment, inspiring wonder rather than critique. Michael Chabon's Kavalier & Clay celebrates escapistry, but seeks through Houdini to restore a utopian dimension to entertainment. / 2017-11-04T00:00:00Z

Georges Duby and Michelle Perrot’s work, Histoire des femmes en Occident, Antoine Prost and Gérard Vincent’s work A History of Private Life as well as Chantal Antier’s work Les Femmes dans la Grande Guerre and Carol Mann’s work Femmes dans la Guerre, show that women have been largely ignored in the annals written about the twentieth century. This period was one marked by two World Wars, which had an enormous impact on women, especially in terms of their roles in society. These events resulted in women moving from the home to the world of work. These writers acknowledge that women in the twentieth century were mostly excluded from history. In contrast to others who have written about this time, these writers consider women and their roles in society and how these roles have changed as a consequence of the historical events of the time. Marie-Paul Armand was a popular writer of French fiction. At first glance her novels seem to be enjoyable historical, romantic fiction for readers who enjoy sentimental love stories. However on closer examination one can see that she rigorously researched the period in which her novels are set. These novels reconstitute the reality of women’s lives during the twentieth century. In her first award-winning novel La poussière des corons, Armand depicted the life of her main character, Madeleine, through the various stages of a woman’s life from her birth at the turn of the century, early childhood, adolescence during the First World War until old age in the 1960s. This novel mirrors the life of a woman in working class French mining society from the beginning of the twentieth century until the fifties and sixties when Western women underwent an unprecedented metamorphosis of their role. These novels would appeal to a wider readership than works by Historians with the same subject matter.