This essay examines the inherent instability present in Diana Wynne Jones’ 1986 novel Howl’s Moving Castle. I suggest that in relying on the ambiguity of the story and the setting, Jones creates not only a more complex universe, but allows the characters to be multidimensional -- both literally and figuratively -- without having any stable selves. Using deconstruction as a (non-existent) foundation for my analysis, I contend that the strength of the story is in the looseness of it. Thus, by using a Derridean approach with added Cixousian feminist elements and a heap of Kristevian intertextuality, I further argue that Jones invites the reader to embrace the ambiguity of identity by closely analyzing the conflicting behaviours of the two main characters in the novel, Sophie Hatter and Wizard Howl. In conclusion, I argue that Diana Wynne Jones through subverting classic fairy tale tropes in an ingenious way, suggests that there is no such thing as a final finished growing person and that there is comfort to be found in embracing this incompleteness.

艾薩卡•丹尼森 (Isak Dinesen) 的回憶錄《遠離非洲》(Out of Africa) 記載了她在英屬非洲殖民地──肯亞停留長達 17 年的心路歷程。在居留肯亞期間，丹尼森經營農場，並嘗試融入當地生活。然而，最後由於大自然災難衝擊，導致農場經營失敗，迫使她離去這個她賴以印證、再造自我的異地天堂。失意之餘，她在 1942 年重返丹麥，將這 17 年的經歷在回憶錄中娓娓道來。 本論文以雅克 • 德希達 (Jacques Derrida)「悅納異己」(hospitality) 的理論探討丹尼森的「虛構自我」(fictional I)──凱倫 • 布莉克森 (Karen Blixen) 在異地與他者相處的細節。她以客人的姿態進入肯亞，卻以農場主人的身份停留 17 年。由於身份的尷尬與模糊，使她自始至終都必須在罪惡感與焦慮中掙扎。這樣的模糊身份也直接影響了她身為農場主人所展現的待客之道。她一方面希望給予當地人「無條件待客之道」(unconditional hospitality)，但另一方面又礙於殖民情境下的種種因素，迫使她不得不實行「有條件待客之道」(conditional hospitality)。布莉克森的模糊身份、處在異地的心境，以及與他者相處的細節都和這兩種待客之道的更迭交替息息相關。 布莉克森的農場是個「交會區」(contact zone)，充滿不同文化的衝突與交融，也隱約存在著殖民情境下的階級氛圍。在此交會區中，布莉克森與農場上的當地人皆努力將其轉化為「安全地帶」(safe house)，以農場的合諧為最終目標，企圖弭平因文化差異而造成的緊張與衝突。在對於流亡白人的接待上，布莉克森又試圖將其轉化為德希達式的「新城市」(New City)，開放接受流亡到肯亞的白人。雖然最後「安全地帶」與「新城市」的理想都因農場經營的失敗告終，布莉克森的努力仍具有其價值；而理解殖民情境下種種理想的不可能性，也成為她旅行後的成長。 / Isak Dinesen’s Out of Africa, written in the beginning of the 20th century, is one of the modernist travel narratives which manifest the white settlers’ experiences in a foreign land. Dinesen spent 17 years of her prime time in Kenya, searching for a life answer only to find its ungraspability in the end. She returned to Denmark in 1942—a defeated homecoming—and rearranged her exotic experiences in the structure of a tragedy, a five-act play, and “telling a play” in front of her readers (Trousdale 171). With Jacques Derrida’s theory of hospitality, this thesis aims to trace how Blixen’s days in Kenya is characterized by her struggles over her own ambiguous identities as both the guest of the country and the host of the farm. As her stay in Kenya and her running of the farm are under the control of the colonial law, she hopes to compensate it with the unconditional hospitality to the Natives. However, under the colonial context, the hospitality she practices is constantly rendered conditional due to the possible problems dwelling in this “contact zone” (Pratt 6). Instead of focusing only on her possible imperial attempts in Kenya, this thesis hopes to explore more aspects of her role by tracing her interactions with the Natives. Although her farm is rifled with diverse cultural conflicts, Blixen strives to turn the contact zone into a “safe house,” a social space where all the members try to ignore the hierarchical system rooted prior to their encounters. She also tries to change it into a Derridian New City to welcome the white wanderers, and practice the two imperatives of hospitality in harmony. This ideal New City is an embodied projection of Blixen’s life pursuit as a colonial Odysseus, yet her struggles prove to be futile in the end. Dinesen’s act of writing—rearranging the memories in an elegiac tone—records her illusion in the beginning and her disillusionment in the end of the travel. Narcissistic as her ideal may seem, her efforts of bridging the cultural gaps and integrating with the native land cannot be ignored.

Le texte qui suit, malgré son libellé onomastique (le nom « John Cage »), son orientation disciplinaire (la « théorie littéraire ») et sa visée thématique (« la révision du commentaire critique »), se place d’emblée dans une posture d’écriture et de création. Il consiste à proposer comme point de départ l’identité de la forme textuelle et de sa dérivation métatextuelle, en d’autres mots : de la voix citée et analysée avec l’autre voix citante et analysante. Cette prémisse dérive elle-même d’une confrontation locale : les spécificités et les idiosyncrasies de la textualité mise en place par John Cage à partir des années quarante (partitions littéraires des recueils Silence et A Year from Monday, mésostiches de M et X, réécritures et « writing through » d’Empty Words…). En effet, l’examen par la théorie littéraire d’un corpus aussi disséminé et « néologique » que l’est celui de John Cage pousse son rédacteur à poser la question de sa propre écriture (« autoréflexivité ») et à rendre possible une réalisation artistique personnelle (« performativité »). C’est donc à travers la contingence d’une langue et d’une subjectivité au travail que la théorisation (textuelle) du texte cherche ici à s’élucider et à s’écrire. Le travail commence par installer les modalités à la fois circulaires et circulatoires de la théorie littéraire, une tension rhétorique et épistémologique qu’il identifie sous le nom d’« aporie autoréflexive » (le texte théorique est concerné par la question de lui-même). Il s’efforce ensuite d’analyser la nouveauté de l’œuvre littéraire cagienne, en empruntant un schéma dialectique et antagoniste : d’un côté, une « textualité-objet », originale et orthographique, de l’autre, une « textualité-sujet », disséminante et intertextuelle, anarchique et jubilatoire. Enfin, le texte propose la révision, la recomposition, la « réécriture » du commentaire critique sur les bases nouvelles d’une textologie autoréflexive et performative — une indiscipline d’écriture qui utilise sciemment les coordonnées linguistiques de son élocution (néologie, typographisme, procédés citationnels…) et qui fait place sans camouflage ou refoulement à la personnalité intertextuelle, contextuelle, métissée du rédacteur. Par l’entremise d’une sorte d’« exemplarité textuelle » (Cage), ce travail insiste pour une synthèse à la fois productive et expressive des voix analysées et analysantes dans les études littéraires. On verra que, par moments, cette proposition implique que le texte se marginalise. / The following text, despite its onomastic labelling (the name “John Cage”), its disciplinary orientation (“literary theory”), and its thematic aim (“the revision of the literary commentary”), positions itself as a writing and creative venture. It starts by stating the strict identity of texts and metatexts, in other words, of the quoted, analyzed voice, with the quoting, analyzing other voice. This premise derives from a specific confrontation: the specificities and idiosyncrasies of John Cage’s literary production since the late 1940s (the literary scores from the anthologies Silence and A Year from Monday, the mesostics from M and X, the rewritings and “Writing through’s” from Empty Words…). Indeed, the examination by literary theory of a body of work as disseminated and “neological” as John Cage’s encourages the literary critic or theoretician to ask the question of his own writing (“self-reflexivity”) and also to make possible an original artistic realization (“performativity”). It is therefore through the possibilities of a language and of a subjectivity at work that the (textual) theorization of texts tries herein to elucidate and to write itself. This work starts by setting up the modalities both circular and circulatory of literary theory—a rhetorical and epistemological tension that will be identified as the “self-reflexive aporia” (the theoretical text is primarily concerned by the question of itself). It then tries to analyze the novelty of Cage’s literary work, using a dialectical and antagonistic configuration: on one hand, an “objective textuality”, original and orthographical; on the other hand, a “subjective textuality”, disseminating and intertextual, anarchic and unrestrained. Finally, this text proposes the revision, recomposition and “rewriting” of the critical commentary on the basis of a new self-reflexive and performative textology. That is: a sort of undiscipline in writing that knowingly manoeuvres the linguistic coordinates of its elocution (neology, typographism, quotation processes…) and that does not try to conceal or repress the intertextual, contextual, heterogenous and disparate personality of its author. Through a sort of “textual exemplarity” (Cage), this work insists on a synthesis both productive and expressive between the voices analyzing and the voices being analyzed. We will see accordingly that this proposition implies, from time to time, that the text be marginalized. / Toutes les illustrations qui ponctuent cette thèse ont été réalisées par Chantal Poirier. Elles ont été insérées dans le texte selon un ordre méticuleusement aléatoire.

This thesis aims to reveal paradigms associated with the operation of Western architectural oligarchies. The research is an examination into "how" dominant architectural institutions and their figureheads are undermined through the subversive collaboration of younger, unrecognised architects. By appropriating theories found in Jacques Derrida's writings in philosophy, the thesis interprets the evolution of post World War II polemical architectural thinking as a series of political friendships. In order to provide evidence, the thesis involves the rewriting of a portion of modern architectural history, 1949-1987. Modern architectural history is rewritten as a series of three friendship partnerships which have been selected because of their subversive reaction to their respective establishments. They are English architects, Alison Smithson and Peter Smithson; South African born architect and planner, Denise Scott Brown and North American architect, Robert Venturi; and Greek architect, Elia Zenghelis and Dutch architect, Rem Koolhaas. Crucial to the undermining of their respective enemies is the friends' collaboration on subversive projects. These projects are built, unbuilt and literary. Warring publicly through the writing of seminal texts is a significant step towards undermining the dominance of their ideological opponents. It also appears that through the making of these projects, the unrecognised architects are able to convert themselves to being recognised as new figureheads. This thesis contends that as a consequence of the power within each of the three friendship partnerships, the architects are enabled to collaborate against the dominant ideology of their respective enemies and gain status. It also contends that a cycle of friendship and warring is the political system by which the institution of modern architecture has historically reengineered itself to suit the times.

This submission comes in two parts; the written dissertation, Contemporary art: the key issues, and the exhibition Melbourne - Moderne. When taken together they present a discourse on the conditions facing contemporary art practice and one artist’s response to these conditions in the context of Melbourne 2003-2007. (For complete abstract open document)

Zugl.: Bremen, Univ., Diss., 2007

Missing children is one of the horrors that we are confronted with in today's society. The case study method, a feminist co-search methodology, is used to give a missing child's mother the opportunity to tell and re-tell the painful story. During this co-search process the following aspects of doing ethics and pastoral care and counselling with the mother are constantly negotiated. The term "missing child" is defined and the relevance between the distinction of "missing children" and "run-away children" is discussed. Furthermore, this study explores the many diverse practices of narrative pastoral care and counselling with parents of missing children within an economically disadvantaged community. The conceptualisations regarding loss, hope and meaning-making and how these are utilised in the life of a missing child's mother is discussed. / Philosophy, Practical and Systematic Theology / M.Th.

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The present thesis interpretes Nicholas Onuf´s fundamental book World of Our Making. This text tries to evaluate Maja Zehfuss´ and Charlotte Epstein´s poststructuralist arguments against constructivist IR theory and tries to resolve the problem within a broader philosophical context. In the end it seeks to consider their argument against the inherent tension of Onuf´s constructivism and consequently suggest a possible solution.

This study postulates the existence of a notion of transcendence in immanence in the thought of Jacques Derrida. The deconstruction of, amongst others, Husserlian phenomenology and Saussurean structuralism, affords Derrida the opportunity of presenting a thought of contamination, haunting and impurity, which is a thought of transcendence in immanence. The hypothesis of a notion of transcendence in immanence in Derrida’s thought is refined by specifying it as temporal transcendence in immanence. Accordingly, the intimation of transcendence in immanence does not amount to the ontological acceptance of a separate transcendent realm. On the contrary, what appears is a monism: the infinite finitude of temporality. In conversation with the notion of temporal transcendence in immanence intimated in Derrida’s thought, this study proposes a notion of theological transcendence in immanence. Theological transcendence in immanence is presented as an inflected interpretive performance of salient themes from the tradition of Christian theology prior to the advent of modernity. From this perspective, all being is referred to God and finite creation is deemed to be a contingent, non-necessary participation, at an unquantifiable analogical remove, in the life and being of God. The notions of space, time and meaning that emerge from such a premise are subsequently explored, and brought into conversation with the corresponding notions in Derrida’s work. The study concludes by asking whether the conversation between the notions of temporal and theological transcendence in immanence can in any way be furthered, or whether the two positions should rather be regarded as irreconcilable, that is, as lying separatively transcendent to each other. In response, it is suggested that the notion of transcendence in immanence implies the attempt to relate juxtaposed positions after the fashion of transcendence in immanence. The possibility of temporal transcendence in immanence inhabiting theological transcendence in immanence after the fashion of transcendence in immanence is firstly considered and rejected. Thereupon, the reverse option, namely that of theological transcendence in immanence making use of temporal transcendence in immanence, iii while at the same time transcending it, is considered and judged to be a suitable provisional outcome of the conversation with Derrida. / Religious Studies and Arabic / D. Litt. et Phil. (Religious Studies)