This thesis is about a problem of interest to reading theorists, psychological anthropologists and cultural studies researchers alike: why we find some narratives, plots, and images compelling and what this phenomenon can tell us about the cultural bases of human motivation. Gesturing to the interdependence of emotion, cognition, and motivation, the notion of the '(dis)positioned self' is proposed as a conceptual tool by which to address how motivation is both acquired and expressed in the way the self as 'feeling-mind' reads, that is, negotiates an interpretation of the signifying systems of a text to render it personally meaningful. (Dis)position allows us to overcome the sociocultural determinism of French structuralist and some poststructuralist reductions of the self to a precipitate of cultural constructs by reconceptualizing the interpreting self as an embodied, affective agent who employs unconscious knowledge that itself draws on another form of sociality. On this account, reading performance is culturally informed action and interpretations are motivated. Emotion is introduced as symptomatic of the intrapsychic investments which mediate how readers internalize cultural knowledge. The thesis looks at three soundings from social discourse--Janice Radway's Reading the Romance; The Singing Detective, a contemporary metafictional text; and the literature and group therapy practices associated with the codependency movement--in order to examine how presuppositions about emotion and the psychical reality of fantasy appear in cultural representations of the 'ill self as reader' while being fundamental to psychological notions of the self upon which healing practices themselves depend for their efficacy.

When we think of “law” in a popular sense, we think of “rules” or the institutions that make or enforce those rules (legislatures, the police, courts, etc.). But where do these rules come from and what makes them legal rules? Put differently, does a rule’s status as a legal rule mean that it is sealed off from the influence of other systems of human knowledge and inquiry (like the humanities)? There are many possible answers to these questions, but the one that I am concerned to examine in my work arises from narrative, which is one of the most fundamental modes of human expression. By keeping narratives at a distance or delay, law loses (and has indeed lost) some of its essential humanity. My project is, then, an attempt to explain the relationship between law and narrative, and—in the end—to suggest ways to rehumanize law by reconnecting it to its narrative roots and certain cognates in the humanities. To do this, I retell dozens of law-stories within a theoretical framework derived from literary, legal, and political theory.

This thesis examines the literary representations of feminist and nationalist struggles in the Middle East particularly in Lebanon and Palestine. It aims to explore the simultaneous articulation of these two pivotal concerns in contemporary Arabic literature written by Arab women, from the 1960s to the present. One of the primary goals of this thesis is to explore how contemporary feminist literature reflects the effects of national crises in the Middle East on women’s status. To this end, this thesis reads closely a number of the novels of two contemporary Arab women writers: Ghādah al‐Sammān and Sah|ar Khalīfah whose work engages in this literary interrelationship of nationalist and feminist struggles in Lebanon and Palestine, respectively. Through the close analyses of these authors’ novels, this thesis explores how, in their response to the political turmoil in the Middle East, contemporary Arab women writers render reality in creative forms: al‐Sammān cries for freedom by exploiting literary existentialism to reflect the human struggle against the backdrop of the Lebanese civil war, while Khalīfah employs critical realism in her portrayal of the human pain during the Palestinian‐Israeli conflict. This thesis argues that both writers challenge long‐established literary traditions by advancing these themes in new artistic styles: literary existentialism and realism, and, therefore, considers this a manifestation of the avant‐gardism of both writers for they move the writings of Levantine women to a higher level by adding these literary forms to the repertoire of contemporary Arab women’s literature. The contribution of this thesis lies in its investigation of the innovative literary styles of these two authors and their place in the writings of contemporary Arab women. Thus, this thesis aims to remedy the neglect of the writings of these authors by presenting close analyses of some of the works of al‐Sammān and Khalīfah with a view to understanding their use of literary existentialism and critical realism.

The present thesis focuses on the critical dialogues on the literary canon developed between 1970 and 2000 in the United States as a crucial juncture for the consolidation of the notion of canon as a scholarly subject matter within the field of literary studies. By taking stock of the abundance of scholarly contributions on the literary canon produced at this time, this thesis pursues two aims: first, it initiates a process of systematisation of the scholarly material on the canon produced during the last thirty years of the twentieth century; second, it focuses on a selection of particularly influential works that have furthered the understanding of specific aspects of the notion of canon. Two introductory chapters outline respectively the historical and the theoretical background of this research. Chapter One explores the historical framework within which the canon started to receive increasing critical attention inside and outside U.S. academia. In particular, it observes how the historical and cultural phenomenon known as the Culture Wars came to bear upon the way in which the notion of canon was perceived and treated by critics and scholars. Early and later examples of canonical criticism are juxtaposed so as to argue that the absorption of debates about the definition of national cultural heritage within U.S. academia influenced the terms in which the canon was being discussed, privileging oppositional rhetorical strategies over the more moderate tones of early theoretical approaches. Chapter Two draws on Jan Gorak’s work in The Making of The Modern Canon: Genesis and Crisis of a Literary Idea (1991) to explore the history of the concept of canon and of its associations with the diverging attitudes adopted by critics in relation to the canon in the period in exam. The second part of this thesis constitutes of three case studies that illustrate the significance for our understanding of the concepts of canon, canonicity and canon formation, of three texts published in the 1990s by Harold Bloom, John Guillory and Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Each chapter observes how these studies contributed to clarify the relationship between the idea of canon and that of tradition, between canon and ideology and, finally, between the canon and the anthology, respectively. Chapter Three locates Bloom’s The Western Canon: The Books and Schools of Ages (1994) in relation to his earlier theory of the anxiety of influence and argues that Bloom’s account of canon formation relies on his definition of tradition as the agonistic struggle between poets and their predecessors. Chapter Four is a close reading of John Guillory’s Cultural Capital: The Problem of Literary Canon Formation (1993) and explores the political ideology underlying its selective use of the work of Pierre Bourdieu, Antonio Gramsci and T.S.Eliot. Finally, Chapter Five engages with Henry Louis Gates, Jr.’s attempt to establish a canon of African American Literature through his role as editor of the Norton Anthology of African American Literature (1996).

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In this MA-thesis, I investigate the usage of musical terminology in the study of modern, post-metric poetry. I present the theoretical field «musico-literary studies», and point to some examples of inconsistent vocabulary in the critical debate on musicalized poetry. I also examine the effectiveness of the musical analogy in the analysis of poetic texts, and put this to the test in three textual analyses: «Some soldier wrote» by Ursula Andkjær Olsen, «Absentia animi» by Gunnar Ekelöf and Solaris korrigert by Øyvind Rimbereid. The thesis concludes that the musical analogy and the use of a musical vocabulary should be used with some care. Although it can often highlight interesting compositional and even thematic aspects of poetic texts, the analogy only becomes fully functional when the text is structured by the same principles as the musical form in question.

There is no abstract available for this thesis.

The Functions and the Ordering of Conditional `If Clauses' in English---A Genre AnalysisPrevious research studies are in agreement that the canonical order for English if conditionals is sentence-initial rather than final. However, earlier findings regarding the distribution of the ordering between initial and final if-conditionals represent only those patterns specific to the limited number of genres examined. This corpus linguistic study is based on a research approach which includes a larger sampling pool and a selection of representative genres as well as detailed statistical and content analyses. It examines the variations in the distributional patterns between initial and final if-clauses within each individual genre and across different genres. The findings of this study suggest that if-conditionals have significantly different distributional pattern across genres. In contrast to the consensus view in current literature that initial if-clause rather than final is the dominant clause order, in 3 of the genres examined in this study (Letters to the Editor, Recipes and Sports News) final if-clauses occur more frequently than initial. In addition, in 3 other genres (News Reportage, Science Fiction and Romance Fiction) these two clause types are equally distributed. This study thus identifies genre as a significant factor influencing sentential if-conditional placement.The study also argues that in addition to the expression of topic and focus discourse relations, the ordering of the conditional and consequence clauses is often used to convey specific pragmatic effects and to perform functions related to genre-specific needs, including social politeness and showing power deixis, hedging or strengthening a proposition. / Department of English

The objective of this study is to investigate the picture book as a form of communication. The investigation comprises both a theoretical and a practical approach. An extensive literature survey was undertaken, publishers interviewed and visits undertaken to process and printing houses to establish the methods and approaches that are currently employed to produce a picture book. The theoretical formulation forms the background and motivation to the practical aspect of the study. The practical component entails the actual conceptualization, design, illustration and publication of a picture book. The possibilities and constraints imposed on the illustrator, comprising all the elements that influence and shape the communication process, are presented and discussed - firstly in theory and then in direct reference to the picture book which is bei:1g illustrated. The theoretical and practical components of this study combine to show up the picture book as a unique art and literary form. The manner in which successful communication is achieved through the effective utilization of all the processes and elements that combine to form the picture book is demonstrated. This study emphasizes that the illustrator should get to know and use all possibilities and restrictions to their full advantage to create an effective, unique interpretation and expression in picture book form. / Thesis (MA (Beeldende Kunste))--PU for CHE

The objective of this study is to investigate the picture book as a form of communication. The investigation comprises both a theoretical and a practical approach. An extensive literature survey was undertaken, publishers interviewed and visits undertaken to process and printing houses to establish the methods and approaches that are currently employed to produce a picture book. The theoretical formulation forms the background and motivation to the practical aspect of the study. The practical component entails the actual conceptualization, design, illustration and publication of a picture book. The possibilities and constraints imposed on the illustrator, comprising all the elements that influence and shape the communication process, are presented and discussed - firstly in theory and then in direct reference to the picture book which is bei:1g illustrated. The theoretical and practical components of this study combine to show up the picture book as a unique art and literary form. The manner in which successful communication is achieved through the effective utilization of all the processes and elements that combine to form the picture book is demonstrated. This study emphasizes that the illustrator should get to know and use all possibilities and restrictions to their full advantage to create an effective, unique interpretation and expression in picture book form. / Thesis (MA (Beeldende Kunste))--PU for CHE