This dissertation explores literary-theoretical constructions arising from the consideration of certain non-narrative linguistic strategies and applies them to dance analysis. My intent is not only to provide new, functional tools for dance scholars and writers, but also to alter the theoretical terms themselves: by employing literary critical language beyond its original purpose, I hope to locate the limits of that language as it applies to dance. Moreover, I strive to identify the ways moving bodies complicate concepts normally applied to static and disembodied text. In this way my research moves in two directions: adding a specific theoretical lens to the dance-writing toolbox, and, in turn, using dance to sharpen and focus that lens. I have chosen two theoretical constructs--Julia Kristeva's explication of the semiotic aspect of language and her characterization of the abject--because of the ways they address the unsayable through body, repetition, and rhythm. Kristeva's texts, Desire in Language (1981) and Powers of Horror (1982), provide the dissertation's primary theoretical frameworks. The first text puts forth key concepts about heterogeneous meaning within her conceptualization of the semiotic; the second addresses meaning that exceeds language, and the self, and arises out of the abject (a crisis of the subject when confronted with a breakdown of boundaries between self and other). Both concepts are relevant to dance, emerging from the materiality/substance of language rather than from language as a phantom structure that ideas are placed into. This dissertation grapples with how dance strives to express that which exceeds "paraphrasable" meaning from three vantage points: 1) the assessment of the critical reception of historic choreography (Paul Taylor's Big Bertha) that plays simple narrative against the horror of the unknown; 2) an examination of participants' communications during the choreographic process of innovative choreographer, Gabrielle Lamb, and how research material was transformed during that process; 3) the documentation of my own struggle to express the unsayable during the creation of a hybrid dance/textual piece. These perspectives require different analytic strategies: 1) the casting of an artwork's meaning in historical and cultural contexts, 2) the parsing of the language used to communicate meaning between participants during the creative process, 3) the self-chronicling and reflective analysis of meaning-making during the conception and execution of a hybrid work. My objective is to show how Kristeva's theoretical constructs play out in different types of dance analysis and how the lack of a certain strain of theoretical language in dance discourse has left a hole where discussion might profitably ensue. I seek to use Kristeva's texts and post/modern techniques of the body to offer a multi-layered and technically invested understanding of dance rather than an aphoristic and imagistic one: one that substitutes multiple, specific bodies and their actions for a single idealized institution of the beautiful. / Dance

Made available in DSpace on 2016-03-15T19:45:56Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Edmundo Gomes Junior.pdf: 1012907 bytes, checksum: d9fc3f62b706eeff0f0b3921bc082da9 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2013-12-12 / Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie / This essay aims to analyze the film Stranger Than Fiction (2006), directed by Marc Foster, following of the concept of intertextuality, created by Julia Kristeva. It presents a survey of the literary works mentioned in the film and their effects on film narrative, in order to discuss how intertextuality enables the production of meaning. For this analysis the origin of this concept is researched, confronting the dialogism of Mikhail Bakhtin with Kristeva's texts. Kristeva also developed the concepts of ambivalence and transposition, terms that are used later on by other authors. During the analysis it was possible to see through the intertexts in the film the Prometheus theme repeated in the nature of fictional creation, where creator face decay, the similarities between the representations of mentors in fiction in relation with the epic hero's journey, as the use of ecphrasis as an anticipation of the outcome of the story and the formation of the identity of the characters work through dialogue. / Este trabalho tem como objetivo analisar o filme Mais estranho que a ficção (2006), dirigido por Marc Foster, no viés do conceito de intertextualidade, criado por Julia Kristeva. É apresentada uma pesquisa sobre as obras literárias citadas na película e seus efeitos na narrativa fílmica, visando assim discutir de que modo a intertextualidade propicia a produção de sentido. Para essa análise foi levantada a origem desse conceito, confrontando o dialogismo de Mikhail Bakhtin com os textos de Kristeva. A autora elaborou, além da intertextualidade, os conceitos de ambivalência e transposição, termos que são empregados posteriormente por outros autores. Durante a análise foi possível notar, através dos intertextos presentes no filme, a natureza prometaica da criação ficcional, onde criadores enfrentam a decadência, as semelhanças entre as representações dos mestres na ficção em relação à jornada do herói épico, a utilização da écfrase como antecipação do desfecho da estória e a formação da identidade das personagens da obra através do diálogo.

Thesis Abstract The present thesis offers to read six plays by three contemporary British playwrights - Sarah Kane's Crave (1997) and 4.48 Psychosis (1999), Caryl Churchill's The Skriker (1994) and Far Away (2000), and Tim Crouch's ENGLAND (2007) and The Author (2009) through the lens of Julia Kristeva's essay on abjection, Powers of Horror (1982). Kristeva theorizes abjection as that which retains some resemblance to the subject or object, but is neither - or no longer belongs to the subject. Being confronted with the abject is unpleasant because it is threatening for the subject. It contains all that is habitually removed from life and does not belong in the symbolic order - corpses and excrements. Likewise, the maternal body needs to become abject for the infant to realize its own borders and bodily integrity. Kristeva proposes that the abject finds its way back into the symbolic order through literature, and reads a number of writers as being concerned with the abject. In the theatre, as well as in the visual arts, abjection has been a useful theoretical starting point, despite the fact that it is seen by a number of critics as something which cannot truly be grasped, and as resisting description and verbal imposition. Each playwright and each play includes a different aspect of the abject. Central to...

Uppsatsen undersöker och jämför den tematiska och språkliga gestaltningen av den instabila identiteten i Johannes Anyurus roman En storm kom från paradiset och Sami Saids roman Väldigt sällan fin. De frågeställningar som behandlas är: Hur gestaltas den postkoloniala identitetens problematik i de båda romanerna? Hur tematiseras den instabila identiteten? Hur kan språket synliggöra en instabil identitet? För att undersöka den tematiska gestaltningen av det instabila subjektet utgår analysen från postkoloniala teorier vars grund finns i den poststrukturalistiska synen på verkligheten som en konstruktion styrd av makt och språk. Flera postkoloniala teoretiker utgår också från psykoanalytikern Jacques Lacans spegelteori i analysen av hur identiteten skapas i ett postkolonialt sammanhang. I diskussionen av det instabila subjektets språkliga gestaltning utgår uppsatsen från psykoanalytikern och litteraturvetaren Julia Kristevas teori om utanförskap som det poetiska språkets grund samt dess uttryck i vår tids skönlitteratur.

This thesis comprises detailed readings of nine early-modern plays featuring female witches in an attempt to recover an understanding of how they were represented on the early-modern stage and what they meant to their first audiences. Drawing on twentieth-century theories of subjectivity, it offers an avenue for the explanation of moments of misogyny in the plays and identifies an unconscious communal anxiety which was revealed and perpetuated by the stage representation of the witch. Although we cannot fully recapture the experience of an audience of 400 years ago, this study attempts to do so in order to place the plays in the context of anxieties detectable in the period. By reading the plays in reference to theatrical conditions, this thesis identifies moments when the drama enlisted the subjectivity of the audience and the witch was constructed as uncanny. Such an approach contributes to the debate on the ages of actors performing certain female characters and suggests potential staging approaches for future performances.

<p>The purpose of this essay is to investigate the melancholic, poetic language in Bübins unge (Bübin´s brat) by Mare Kandre (1962 – 2005). In my opinion the novel, which is about a teenage ritual, also gives an imaginary arena for archaic and unmentionable experiences of the libido. It is therefore a witness to the truth of the subjects complex mind. To my assistance I have Julia Kristeva´s theory on the abjection, the successful melancholia and her concepts of the outsider and the catharsis. The method I use in my investigation is an interpretation, which is both an analytic and a hermeneutic process, i.e. a deconstructive, analytic operation based on a theory on the language and the subject and a construing, hermeneutic movement. In my pursuit I investigate structures, which make the intermittent fragmented language readable and coherent. From this point of view I study words and effects (sensations) that relate to the contrast semiotic-symbolic in Bübins unge, and disentangle energy of the affect.</p><p>Mare Kandre, Bübins unge (1987). Julia Kristeva, Pouvoirs de l´horreur (1980) and Soleil noir (1987).</p>

This thesis focuses on the reading of fiction written by contemporary French women authors, namely Julia Kristeva, Marie Darrieussecq and Monique Wittig, establishing the reader as an active and engaged actor in meaning creation. The reader enters into dialogue with the text, the author, the narrator(s) and the characters, carving out an imaginative readerly space in fiction. The main aim of this thesis is to examine how this space comes into being, and what tools are needed for its exploration. Concepts from three main theoretical fields are used to set the parameters for this readerly space: reception studies, intertextuality, and theories of the other. As was observed by Elizabeth Fallaize, reception studies and women’s writing have not been meaningfully combined. This thesis responds to this gap in research, simultaneously expanding our interpretations of the texts by looking at the multitude of intertextual links that can be established, and at the way reading influences our relations to the other. The Introduction examines the above-mentioned three theoretical areas, alongside elements such as the tasks of the reader, the materiality of the book, and the impact of reading groups. Chapter One examines two of Kristeva’s most recent works of fiction — Meurtre à Byzance and Thérèse mon amour — studying the mise en abyme of reading and writing, the issues that can arise from extensive intertextual links and autobiographical projections, and introducing concepts such as the reading Carmel and the text as Trojan Horse. Chapter Two explores the Darrieussecq-ien aesthetic universe, starting with a consideration of the four different types of intertextuality identified in Darrieussecq’s fiction. Darrieussecq’s work with language is analysed, before introducing the concept of the fiction of honesty. The fiction of honesty allows us to explore the relationship of trust between the reader and the narrator, while an analysis of the inscriptions of time offers a better understanding of the chronologies of the reading process. Chapter Three investigates Wittig’s works, focusing on her linguistic innovations, rewriting of myths and foundational stories, extensive use of sensorial writing, and links established between fiction and socio-political activism. Chapter Four considers the media reception of the three authors, introducing resources that are not easily accessible to Anglophone audiences. The Conclusion offers an overview of the findings of this thesis, before opening onto further avenues for research.

Student Number : 9803321X - MA Dissertation - School of Literature and Language Studies - Faculty of Humanities / The primary aim of this dissertation is to trace the ways in which Yvonne Vera’s final two novels, Butterfly Burning and The Stone Virgins, provide a discursive space for the enunciation of subaltern histories, which have been silenced in dominant socio-political discourse. I argue that it is through the deployment of ‘poetic language’ that Vera’s prose is able to negotiate the voicing of these suppressed narratives. In exploring these questions, I endeavour to locate Vera’s texts within the theoretical debates in postcolonial scholarship which question the ethical limitations of representing oppressed subjects in the Third World, as articulated by Gayatri Spivak, in particular. Following Spivak’s claim that subalternity is effaced in hegemonic discourse, I focus on the ways in which Vera’s inventive prose works to bring the figure of the subaltern back into signification. In order to elucidate how this dynamic operates in both novels, I employ Julia Kristeva’s psycholinguistic theory of ‘poetic language’. I argue that Kristeva’s understanding of literary practice as a transgressive modality, which is able to unsettle the silencing mechanisms of dominant monologic discourse, critically illuminates the subversive value of Vera’s fictional style for marginalised subaltern narratives.

In the period following the May 1968 protests, French women began to create theatre that highlighted women’s struggles. This study explores the dual influence of Antonin Artaud and Bertolt Brecht on plays by Hélène Cixous, Simone Benmussa, and the Théâtre du Soleil led by Ariane Mnouchkine. Artaud argued that theatre should become a transformative experience through an explosion of sensory stimuli: music, light, noise, and imagery. Conversely, Brecht wanted to use theatre to revolutionize society and theorized that by maintaining historical and emotional distance between the audience and the play, spectators would be encouraged to think critically about the its significance and be compelled to action. The female playwrights and directors studied created powerful theatre by combining these ideas in a manner mimicking Julia Kristeva’s notion of subject formation. Kristeva proposes that the human subject is never stable. Instead, it oscillates between the non-discursive, emotion-filled state she labels the semiotic and the more language- and logic-propelled symbolic register. These two realms are in constant tension as the semiotic disrupts the logic of the symbolic and in turn, the symbolic strives to regulate the semiotic impulses. In this study, I argue that the ideas of Artaud are aligned with the semiotic while those of Brecht resemble the symbolic. In the plays examined, the non-linguistic elements of the design and mise-en-scène engage with the didactic aims of the playwrights and directors, causing the spectator to connect emotionally with the story while simultaneously reflecting on its real-world signification.

This dissertation examines Goethe’s portrayal of femininity in Die Wahlver-wandtschaften and how his depiction of all three central female characters relates to feminine ideals that were promoted through the theoretical gender debate of the late 1700s in Germany and Western Europe. I analyze Charlotte’s, Luciane’s, and Ottilie’s actions and interactions in various triadic character constellations in order to offer new insights into Goethe’s portrayal of femininity. In so doing, I argue that Goethe’s depiction of Charlotte holds the key to understanding how far Die Wahlverwandtschaften functions as (critical) commentary on the late Enlightenment gender discourse. I maintain that the actions and interactions of these three women show them as at times ‘unfit’ and/or unwilling to meet feminine ideals promoted in the late Enlightenment. I apply central concepts of Julia Kristeva’s psychoanalytic theory from the 1970s and 1980s as analytical tools to examine how far Goethe’s Wahlverwandt-schaften can be viewed as a critique of the norms and expectations commonly expressed in the late Enlightenment. I primarily focus on Kristeva’s concepts of subjectivity formation, semiotic and symbolic modalities, abjection, and her theorizing of motherhood. Kristeva’s emphasis on the pivotal role of the maternal function in the child’s identity formation and her representation of femininity as alterity allow me to explore the significance of Charlotte’s prevalence among the characters and to approach Goethe’s ambiguous and complex portrayal of unsteady, constantly shifting, and interrelated models of femininity in Charlotte, Luciane, and Ottilie as a narrative experiment in which he tests the viability of such models within the surrounding social discourse. In the main body of this dissertation, I begin by concentrating on Charlotte’s partnerships with men, and then I focus on her maternal role in relation to Luciane, Ottilie, and Otto. By making Charlotte the ‘epicenter’ of this investigation, I explore how far Goethe shapes her, Luciane, and Ottilie as characters who transgress late Enlightenment gender boundaries and thus deviate from what were considered ‘feminine ideals’ in order to underscore the arbitrary and contradictory nature of the prevalent social order.