Jeff Vandermeer’s Southern Reach series has been a talking point for many ecocritical papers exploring themes of Anthropocene, uncanny, and hyperobjects. Despite the plethora of themes being investigated concerning climate change in Southern Reach, an important aspect, the climate change bureaucracy of the Southern Reach agency, is glossed over. This agency is responsible for containing Area X as well as understanding it. By primarily looking at Max Weber’s notions of bureaucracy and Jale Tosun’s and Michael Howelett’s discussion on public bureaucracy facing climate change, this thesis explores why the bureaucratic system of the Southern Reach fails to deal with climate change and, more importantly, claims that a rational bureaucratic administrative system is not equipped to deal with environmental changes of Area X because it defies the epistemological capacity of rational bureaucracy.

The permissible use of defensive force is a central tenet of the traditional legal and philosophical justification for war and its practice. Just War Theory holds a nation’s right to resist aggressive attack with defensive force as the clearest example of a just cause for war. Just War Theory also stipulates norms for warfare derived from a conception of defensive force asserted to be consistent with the moral reality of war. Recently, these aspects of Just War Theory have been criticized. David Rodin has challenged the status of national defense as an uncontroversial just cause. Jeff McMahan has charged that Just War Theory’s norms that govern warfare are inconsistent with the norms of permissive defensive force. In this thesis I defend the status of national defense as a clear case of a just cause. However, my defense may require revision of Just War Theory’s norms that govern warfare.

This thesis starts from the observation that, while it is common for commentators to divide postmodern fiction into two general fields – one experimental and anti-mimetic, the other cautiously mimetic, there remains a fairly significant field of postmodern texts that use largely mimetic approaches but represent worlds that are categorically distinct from actuality. This third group is even more pronounced if popular culture and “commercial” fiction, in particular sf and fantasy, are taken into account. Additionally, the third category has the interesting characteristic that the texts within this group very often generate unusual loyalty among its fans. Based on a renewed investigation of the main genre critics in postmodern fiction, the first chapter suggests a tripartite division of postmodern fiction, into formalist, metamimetic, and transreferetial texts. These are provisionally circumscribed by their reference worlds: formalist fiction attempts to derail its own capacity for presenting a world; metamimetic fiction presents mediated versions of worlds closely reminiscent of actuality; and transreferential fiction sets its narrative in worlds that are experienced as such, but are clearly distinct from actuality. If transreferential fiction deals with alternate worlds, it also very often relies on the reader’s immersion in the fictional world to provide unique, often subversive, fictional experiences. This process can be identified as the exploration of the fictional world, and it is very often guided so as to be experienced as a virtual reality of sorts. If transreferential texts are experienced as interactive in this sense, it is likely that they convey experiences and insights in ways different from either of the other two strands of postmodern fiction. In order to investigate the interactive experience provided by these texts, an extended conceptual and analytical set is proposed, rooted primarily in Ricoeurian hermeutics and possible-worlds theory. These two main theoretical approaches approximately correspond to the temporal and the spatial dimensions of texts, respectively. Much of the power of these texts rooted in the care they take to guide the reader through their fictional worlds and the experiences offered by the narrative, often at the hand of fictioninternal ‘guides’. These theoretical approaches are supplement by sf theoretical research and by Aleid Fokkema’s study of postmodern character. Chapters 3, 4, and 5 apply the theoretical toolset to three paradigmatic transreferential texts: sf New Wave author M John Harrison’s Viriconium sequence; Gibson’s Sprawl trilogy; and Jeff Noon’s Vurt and Pollen, texts that have much in common with cyberpunk but which make much more extensive use of formalist techniques. Each chapter has a slightly different main focus, matching the text in question, respectively: aesthetic parameters and worldcreation strategies of transreferential fiction; close “guidance” of the reader and extrapolation; and virtual reality and identity games. The final chapter presents the findings from the research conducted in the initial study. The findings stem from the central insight that transreferential texts deploy a powerful suit of mimetic strategies to maximise immersion, but simultaneously introduce a variety of interactive strategies. Transreferential fiction balances immersion against interactivity, often by selectively maximising the mimesis of some elements while allowing others to be presented through formalist strategies, which requires a reading mode that is simultaneously immersive and open to challenging propositions. A significant implication of this for critical studies – both literary and sf – is that the Barthesian formalist reading model is insufficient to deal with transreferential texts. Rather, texts like these demand a layered reading approach which facilitates immersion on a first reading and supplements it critically on a second. The final chapter further considers how widely and in what forms the themes and strategies found in the preceding chapters recur in other texts from the proposed transreferential supergenre, including sf, magic realist and limitpostmodernist texts. / Thesis (PhD (English))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2013.

This thesis starts from the observation that, while it is common for commentators to divide postmodern fiction into two general fields – one experimental and anti-mimetic, the other cautiously mimetic, there remains a fairly significant field of postmodern texts that use largely mimetic approaches but represent worlds that are categorically distinct from actuality. This third group is even more pronounced if popular culture and “commercial” fiction, in particular sf and fantasy, are taken into account. Additionally, the third category has the interesting characteristic that the texts within this group very often generate unusual loyalty among its fans. Based on a renewed investigation of the main genre critics in postmodern fiction, the first chapter suggests a tripartite division of postmodern fiction, into formalist, metamimetic, and transreferetial texts. These are provisionally circumscribed by their reference worlds: formalist fiction attempts to derail its own capacity for presenting a world; metamimetic fiction presents mediated versions of worlds closely reminiscent of actuality; and transreferential fiction sets its narrative in worlds that are experienced as such, but are clearly distinct from actuality. If transreferential fiction deals with alternate worlds, it also very often relies on the reader’s immersion in the fictional world to provide unique, often subversive, fictional experiences. This process can be identified as the exploration of the fictional world, and it is very often guided so as to be experienced as a virtual reality of sorts. If transreferential texts are experienced as interactive in this sense, it is likely that they convey experiences and insights in ways different from either of the other two strands of postmodern fiction. In order to investigate the interactive experience provided by these texts, an extended conceptual and analytical set is proposed, rooted primarily in Ricoeurian hermeutics and possible-worlds theory. These two main theoretical approaches approximately correspond to the temporal and the spatial dimensions of texts, respectively. Much of the power of these texts rooted in the care they take to guide the reader through their fictional worlds and the experiences offered by the narrative, often at the hand of fictioninternal ‘guides’. These theoretical approaches are supplement by sf theoretical research and by Aleid Fokkema’s study of postmodern character. Chapters 3, 4, and 5 apply the theoretical toolset to three paradigmatic transreferential texts: sf New Wave author M John Harrison’s Viriconium sequence; Gibson’s Sprawl trilogy; and Jeff Noon’s Vurt and Pollen, texts that have much in common with cyberpunk but which make much more extensive use of formalist techniques. Each chapter has a slightly different main focus, matching the text in question, respectively: aesthetic parameters and worldcreation strategies of transreferential fiction; close “guidance” of the reader and extrapolation; and virtual reality and identity games. The final chapter presents the findings from the research conducted in the initial study. The findings stem from the central insight that transreferential texts deploy a powerful suit of mimetic strategies to maximise immersion, but simultaneously introduce a variety of interactive strategies. Transreferential fiction balances immersion against interactivity, often by selectively maximising the mimesis of some elements while allowing others to be presented through formalist strategies, which requires a reading mode that is simultaneously immersive and open to challenging propositions. A significant implication of this for critical studies – both literary and sf – is that the Barthesian formalist reading model is insufficient to deal with transreferential texts. Rather, texts like these demand a layered reading approach which facilitates immersion on a first reading and supplements it critically on a second. The final chapter further considers how widely and in what forms the themes and strategies found in the preceding chapters recur in other texts from the proposed transreferential supergenre, including sf, magic realist and limitpostmodernist texts. / Thesis (PhD (English))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2013.

I denna uppsats analyseras spelen Howling Dogs och 16 Ways to Kill a Vampire at McDonalds ur ett narratologiskt perspektiv. Huvuddelen av analysen fokuserar på hur hypertextens mediala förhållanden påverkar relationen mellan spelaren och narrativet samt på förhållandet mellan berättare och lyssnarinstans. Analysen baserar sig på metoder med utgångspunkt i possible worlds theory, formulerat av Alice Bell. Uppsatsen exemplifierar hur man går till väga i analys av texter med ett starkt deiktiskt förhållande mellan texten och läsaren. Syftet är att undersöka existerande metoder och att förbättra dem, tillika en, möjligtvis naiv, förhoppning om att komma ett steg närmare ett större litteraturvetenskapligt intresse gällande vad spel kan tillföra litteraturvetenskapen. / This essay contains narratological analyses of the games Howling Dogs and 16 Ways to Kill a Vampire at McDonalds. The analyses are focused on the hypertext’s medial impact on the relations between user and narrative as well as narrator and narratee. The work is based on methods using possible worlds theory, created by theorists such as Alice Bell. A main purpose here is to further exemplify how to analyze texts having a deictic effect between themselves self and their readers. The purpose here is thus to test existing methods and further develop them. This purpose is also motivated by a, possibly naïve, hope of getting one step closer to a wider acknowledgement of how games can contribute to the subject of literature.

The terrorist attacks of 9/11 created a crisis of epic proportions for the airline industry. The attacks, on the heels of the first financial losses in four years, threatened the existence of many airlines. It was incumbent on the CEO to make sense and offer a plan to control the crisis and move forward. There were fewer audiences more attentive to this senemaking activity than the stockholders. On the cusp of the organization, shareholder management is a central job of CEOs in the 21st century. This study focuses on CEO presentations to shareholders for American, Delta and Frontier Airlines before during and after the events of 9/11. Using Close Textual Analysis as configured by Michael Leff, the time focused rhetorical analysis is extended to include slices of time. How CEOs use experienced time and interpreted time to gain stockholder confidence, control the crisis and create a shared vision of the future is the goal of this project. A longitudinal study across the years of 2001-2003, this dissertation considers how the organizational, leadership and personal goals of each of these airlines and their leaders are met through rhetorical configurations of time.

Ceramics has always existed on the fringes of craft and high art. The purpose of this thesis project is to elevate clay beyond the traditions of craft by examining the historical use of clay and the everyday object. My research looks specifically at works by Marcel Duchamp, Andy Warhol, Jeff Koons and Jasper Johns in order to examine the origin of displaying the massproduced object and reflecting upon it’s validity as high status art object. In this project I am also interested in infrastructural systems within modern architecture-- plumbing, wiring, heat ducts vents-- with a specific focus on systems lurking inside walls and how these function to influence architectural space. With the advent of modern plumbing, concealing these elements was adopted as the new standard and still exists today. Through the presentation of defamiliarized handmade objects, my exhibition presents the appearance of manufactured material through the serial manipulation of scale, surface and quantity. The result reveals a clay piece that renders the material unrecognizable providing the viewer with a new view on the object's tradition. / v, 47 leaves : ill. ; 29 cm

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Syftet med uppsatsen är att utforska en ofta förbisedd genre hos två av de första svenska modernisterna Sigrid Hjertén och Isaac Grünewald, nämligen de strandbilder konstnärsparet skapade i samband med sina sommarsemestrar i Danmark åren 1917–1918. Hur skildrar konstnärerna sitt bad och strandliv och avviker dessa bilder från konstnärernas övriga produktion från samma tidpunkt? Uppsatsens metod utgår från C.S. Peirces semiotiska begrepp ikon, index och symbol. Ett annat syfte är att ur ett kritiskt vithetsperspektiv studera om de valda verken, Blixten och Den gröna badvagnen av Isaac Grünewald samt Badscen och Komposition av Sigrid Hjertén, upprättar eller reproducerar vithet som norm? Resultatet visar att så sker, både i verk, titlar och texter. Resultatet visar även att strandbilderna följer samma mönster som konstnärernas övriga produktion. I uppsatsen presenteras en ny tolkning av symbolerna i vissa av Isaac Grünewalds verk mellan åren 1914–1919, baserad på inflytande från baltiska folksånger (daina) och det politiska läget i ett sönderfallande Tsarryssland. Inflytandet från läraren Henri Matisse samt konststilen expressionismen syns tydligt hos båda konstnärerna.

Thesis (M.Ed.)--Universiteit van Suid-Afrika, 2002.