Thesis (M.A.B.S.)--International Christian Graduate University School of Theology, 1987. / Includes bibliographical references.

Notable in Jackie Kay’s Trumpet, a story about a jazz musician that all his adult life pretended to be a man, is the many voices that bring their stories to the novel. The voices give life to Joss Moody, who recently passed away, by telling stories of and about him. This essay concerns gender and identity in the light of narration: how stories can be considered the basis of existence. Drawing from five statements regarding narratology and the theories on identity of Judith Butler I will present my claim that all that is needed to create one’s identity are stories that are told. Joss Moody’s life moves beyond binary thinking and in consequence his story and the discussion of it will do so as well. This essay deals with Joss’s family, Millie and Colman, and their stories in the aftermath of Joss’s death as well as journalist Sophie Stones who wants to create her own story of Joss’s life to sell. Together they all bring their perspective on ideas of narration and identity.

<p>Notable in Jackie Kay’s <em>Trumpet</em>, a story about a jazz musician that all his adult life pretended to be a man, is the many voices that bring their stories to the novel. The voices give life to Joss Moody, who recently passed away, by telling stories of and about him. This essay concerns gender and identity in the light of narration: how stories can be considered the basis of existence. Drawing from five statements regarding narratology and the theories on identity of Judith Butler I will present my claim that all that is needed to create one’s identity are stories that are told. Joss Moody’s life moves beyond binary thinking and in consequence his story and the discussion of it will do so as well. This essay deals with Joss’s family, Millie and Colman, and their stories in the aftermath of Joss’s death as well as journalist Sophie Stones who wants to create her own story of Joss’s life to sell. Together they all bring their perspective on ideas of narration and identity.</p>

In the postwar era of the United States, as military-industrial chemicals leak into airways, waterways, and foodways in unprecedented plumes and cancer clusters, comic art forms generate diverse environmental imaginations. Though historically disparaged as disposable ephemera, comics provide unique access to environmental expression in this critical period. This dissertation analyzes the formal registers of two independent newspaper strips and four graphic cancer narratives for an aesthetics of equity: a set of verbal-visual moves that chart awareness of environmental devastation as determined by privilege and power. The iconicity of the drawn body--its lines, shape, and movement--grapples with complex legacies of environmental harm and exclusion. Maps of environmental risk perception generated through game board motifs, collages, and icon repetition rely on the capacity of sequential art to engage readers in recognizing and analyzing postwar risk. In form and theme, an aesthetics of equity in comics deploys environmental knowledges subordinated and sharpened by interlocking social inequities. This aesthetics revises the elisions and assumptions of mainstream environmentalisms. Ultimately, comics demand a literacy particularly well suited to environmental justice (EJ) ecocriticsm. The dissertation comprises three chapters of analysis. The first examines competing environmental discourses in Alison Bechdel's Dykes to Watch Out For (1982-2008). This newspaper strip coincides exactly with the start of the contemporary EJ movement. In examining three character arcs across a quarter of a century, I track the emergence of EJ discourse in Bechdel's distinctly lesbian environmental imagination. The second chapter examines the heteronormative limits of the EJ story arc in Jackie Ormes' midcentury romance strip Torchy in Heartbeats (1953-4). Published weekly in the Comic Section of the Black newspaper the Pittsburgh Courier, Torchy chronicles its eponymous heroine's quest to end environmental racism in the fictional small town of Southville. Torchy's affect and body language revise romance genre conventions and expose sexism and racism as intersecting environmental oppressions. The third chapter examines transcoporeal exchange in four contemporary graphic cancer narratives from the early 21st century. This chapter examines the extent to which graphic cancer narratives "move out," to use Diane Herndl's phrase, to form coalitions with disparate environmental communities. / 2015-10-17

Jackie Chan has had a long and consistently successful career in the entertainment industry, becoming the most universally recognized Chinese performer, second only perhaps, to Bruce Lee. His rags-to-riches path to stardom has been well documented and oft quoted. At a time when all the up-and-coming martial arts actors felt the pressure to be carbon copies of Bruce Lee, Chan made his mark on the screen by making his persona everything that Lee?s wasn?t. With 1978?s Snake in the Eagle?s Shadow and Drunken Master, Chan?s revolutionary comic and realistic persona was firmly established with audiences. Throughout the 80s and 90s, Chan remained undeniably the biggest star in the East, demonstrating wild popularity in not only Asia, but throughout Europe and Africa as well. After several failed attempts at breaking into the American market, Chan finally achieved success with 1998?s Rush Hour. Unfortunately, success in the West has come with strict limitations placed on the characters he has been allowed to play. These limitations most often manifest themselves in the sexuality and morality of the characters, as well as the dramatic opportunities available to Chan within the films. In order to keep Chan?s vast filmography ? which has recently seen him sign on to his 100th leading role ? I have separated it into three distinct stages. The first stage of his career begins with his groundbreaking turn in Snake in the Eagle?s Shadow and ends with his last Asian film before successfully breaking into Hollywood, 1998?s Who am I?. From this point on, his career takes two distinct paths: the path in Hollywood, beginning with Rush Hour, and the path in Asia, which begins with 1999?s Gorgeous. Each stage features distinct characteristics and trends with rare digression. I will provide examples from a selection of films within each stage of his career in order to clarify the traits and characteristics of the roles he has taken in each one. The purpose of this thesis is twofold. First and foremost, it will reveal the extent to which Chan faces negative stereotyping in the United States by clearly offering the contrasting positive representations he is able to achieve overseas. The second aim, which has naturally arisen from the workings of the first, is a critical look at a career that has found its actor bored with the kinds of films that have brought him worldwide fame.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Hong Kong, 1998. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 59-61). Also available in print.

Master of Arts / Department of History / Heather L. McCrea / This thesis highlights the consequences of the 1980 US boycott of the Olympic Games in Moscow from the perspective of the Olympic boxers. Beginning with a review of scholarly work on the Olympics and their surrounding politics, I outline how the White House, under President Jimmy Carter, manipulated the United States Olympic Committee (USOC) into supporting a boycott. I conclude that the political actions of the Carter Administration affected an entire nation's participation in an Olympic event. Exploring the socio-political circumstances surrounding the 1980 US Olympic boycott, my study seeks to answer three questions: First, what political tactics did the Carter Administration use to implement a boycott designed to pressure Russia to withdraw troops from Afghanistan? Manipulation of the USOC and threats to cut funding pushed compliance with Carter's agenda. As a result, the Carter administration’s actions included using US boxer Muhammad Ali as a pawn in an effort to persuade athletes to support a boycott. Few athletes felt comfortable speaking out against such high-level political strategies. Historically, the US denounced any nation's attempt to use the Olympic Games to make a political statement; this was exemplified in the US’s decision to send black and Jewish athletes to the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin, despite the obvious dangers these athletes faced in the midst of the Nazi regime. As noted in the German press, allowing “wooly-haired niggers with protruding lips” to compete with Aryans was a disgrace. Second, what was the real reason Carter sought a boycott? The Carter Administration saw participation in the Moscow Games as “…signify[ing] an attitude of indifference toward the continuing occupation of Afghanistan by Soviet troops.” One possible explanation of the boycott, then, was to raise awareness about human rights atrocities within the Soviet Union and beyond during the Moscow Games. Perhaps the boycott was Carter’s desperate last effort to revive his presidential reputation after several instances of critical failure as President of the United States, including the Iranian-US hostage outrage (1979), the failed US hostage rescue attempt (1980), and economic inflation so extreme it contributed to a dramatic downward spiral in Carter’s re-election poll numbers. Third, what was the real impact of the 1980 Olympic boycott? How did athletes and coaches become victims of the IOC (International Olympic Committee) and the US government? For many of the prospective medalists, a boycott permanently slammed shut the only open window of opportunity and robbed them of potential fame and financial gain. My work shows that the 1980 boycott not only strained international relations, but also significantly altered the lives of the athletes, coaches, and teams beyond the 1980 Olympics.

I denna uppsats undersöker jag om metoden ”Friendly Eyes” utvecklad av Jackie Reardon är en metod som kan hjälpa mig överkomma mina mentala hinder så att jag kan bli en så bra musiker som möjligt och kan prestera mitt bästa när det gäller. Jag har gjort två onlinekurser; ”Discovery” och ”Experience” som handlar om koncentration och meditation. Dessa två pågår i 18 veckor tillsammans. Innan, under tiden och efter jag gjort dessa kurser spelar jag in fyra utdrag som är vanliga på provspelningar som jag tycker är svåra av olika anledningar. Jag spelar in dessa utdrag för att se och höra om mental träning kan förändra eller förbättra mitt spelande. / <p>Den klingande delen är arkiverad.</p>

Följande uppsats kommer att fokusera på relationen mellan Quentin Tarantino och blaxploitation, och syftet med uppsatsen är att undersöka huruvida Tarantino väljer att representera sina svarta kvinnliga huvudkaraktärer annorlunda i sina blaxploitation-influerade filmer Jackie Brown (1997) och Django Unchained (2012) i jämförelse med representationen av svarta kvinnliga huvudkaraktärer i två av de mest kända blaxploitationfilmerna från 1970-talet, Coffy (1973) och Foxy Brown (1974). Den grundläggande teorin för uppsatsen är den feministiska filmteorin, men andra texter som berör representationen av kvinnor och specifikt svarta kvinnor på film är lika väsentliga. Mitt tillvägagångssätt för att besvara uppsatsens frågeställningar är att genom närläsning av de utvalda filmerna samt deras respektive kvinnliga karaktärer, med understöd av relevant litteratur och teorier, göra en jämförande analys. Slutresultatet visar att Tarantino i och med filmen Jackie Brown lyckas utveckla den svarta och starka kvinnliga karaktären från blaxploitation dock utan att föra vidare undergenrens problematiska sexualisering av kvinnokroppen. Däremot lyckas han inte lika bra i samband med Django Unchained, där den kvinnliga, ofta hjälplösa, huvudkaraktären främst visas som antingen någonting vackert eller någon som plågas för andras njutning.

There are certain issues - such as violence, sexuality, politics and religion - which are problematic but have to be dealt with in society. In this dissertation types of controversial issues present in recent Afrikaans youth literature, the portrayal of those issues, and the ways in which solutions are offered for these issues are investigated. The argument follows from the assumption that the literature which the adolescent reads, has a directive value. Quite often the reader will choose to read material about a certain situation with which the reader is also faced in real life. It may be easy for the reader to identify with a character in similar circumstances or facing the same dilemma. Through the actions of the character, the reader can then explore certain avenues or possibilities which have the potential to be helpful in the solution of the problem or issue. For this dissertation research was done about certain controversial issues and related aspects in literature in general, which are then applied to three youth novels: Skilpoppe (1998) by Barrie Hough, Daar's vis in die punch (2002) by Jackie Nagtegaal and Nie vir kinders nie (2005) by Francois Bloemhof. These three texts were chosen because all three of them have generated public discussion, specifically in the media, about the presence of controversial issues. The results indicate the portrayal of the controversial issues to be unbiased and from a non-judgemental authoring perspective. The presence of the text internal corrective, which refers to the portrayal of a certain issue thereby giving it an outcome (positive or negative) or an alternative, is noticeable and is discussed in this dissertation. / Thesis (M.A. (Afrikaans and Dutch))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2007.