The representation of the witch in French literature has evolved considerably over the centuries. While originally portrayed as a benevolent and caring healer in works by Marie de France, Chrétien de Troyes, and the anonymous author of Amadas et Ydoine , the witch eventually underwent a dramatic and unfortunate transformation. By the fifteenth century, authors began to portray her as a malevolent and dangerous agent of the Christian Devil. Martin Le Franc, Pierre de Ronsard, Joachim du Bellay, François Rabelais, and Pierre Corneille all created evil witch figures that corresponded with this new definition. It was not until the eighteenth century, through the works of Voltaire and the Encyclopédistes, that the rehabilitation of the witch began. By the twentieth century, Anne Hébert, Jean-Paul Sartre, Maryse Condé, and Sebastiano Vassalli began to rewrite the witch character by engaging in a process of demystification and by demonstrating that the "witch" was really just a victim of the society in which she lived. These authors humanized their witch figures by concentrating on the victimization of their witch protagonists and by exposing the ways in which their fictional societies unjustly created identities for their witch protagonists that were based on false judgments and rumors. Hébert attacks Sigmund Freud's association of the witch and the hysteric, Sartre utilizes his witches to expose many of his existential ideals, Condé highlights the role that racism played in witchcraft, and Vassalli strives to rewrite history by telling the story from the point of view of his witch character. Each twentieth-century author provides a story that deconstructs the very nature of the witch as this had been constructed over time, and shows how witches expose the problems associated with understanding one's place in the world in both their individual and their social dimensions. The witch, for these authors, challenges dominant norms and reveals how much our identities are influenced by our interactions with other individuals. And, because the witches in each text are marginal beings, they expose the repressiveness of their particular environments and the idiosyncrasies of their cultures. In all these ways, or so these 20 th -century authors contend, we as modern readers, can relate to their situations and learn from their stories.

xv, 186 p. : ill. (some col.) / This dissertation analyzes issues of race, ethnicity, and identity in American comics and visual culture, and identifies important areas for alternative means to cultural authority located at the intersections of verbal and visual representation. The symbolic qualities that communicate ethnicity and give ethnicity meaning in American culture are illuminated in new ways when studied within the context of the highly symbolic medium of comics. Creators of comics are able to utilize iconic qualities, among other unique formal qualities of the medium, to construct new visual narratives around ethnicity and identity, which require new and multidisciplinary perspectives for comprehending their communicative complexity. This dissertation synthesizes cultural and critical analysis in combination with formal analysis in an effort to further advance the understanding of comics and their social implications in regard to race and ethnic identity. Much like film scholars in the 1960s, comics scholars in the United States currently are in the process of establishing a core of methodological and theoretical approaches, including Lacanian theories of the image, the comic mapping of symbolic order, the recognition of self in undetailed faces, comics closure, and the implications of the comics gutter. Drawing upon these ideas and additional perspectives offered by scholars of film and literary studies, such as the relationship between ethnicity and the symbolic, the scopophilic gaze, and filmic suture, I analyze the following visual texts: Henry Kiyama's The Four Immigrants Manga, Gene Yang's American Born Chinese, and Anna Deavere Smith's Twilight: Los Angeles. The dissertation also performs a multimedia analysis of the current ascendency of geek culture, its relationship to the comics medium, and the geek protagonist as an expression of simulated ethnicity. Ultimately, the unique insights offered by the study of comics concerning principles of ethnic iconicity and identity have far reaching implications for scholars of visual and verbal culture in other mediums as well. / Committee in charge: Daniel Wojcik, Chairperson; Dr. Priscilla P. Ovalle, Member; Dr. Benjamin D. Saunders, Member; Dr. Doug Blandy, Outside Member

vii, 157 p. / In the second half of the nineteenth century, the Aesthetic Movement in England coalesced literary and visual arts in unprecedented ways. While the writers associated with the Aesthetic Movement reflected on visual art through the exercise of criticism, their encounters with painting, portraiture, and sculpture also led to the articulation of a problem. That problem centers on the fascination with the attentive look, or the physical act of seeing in a specialized way for an extended period of time that can result in a transformation in the mind of the observer. In this dissertation, I consider how Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Henry James, and Oscar Wilde utilize the attentive look in their poetry, fiction, and drama, respectively. As I argue in this dissertation, the writers associated with the Aesthetic Movement approach and treat attention as a new tool for self-creation and self-development. As these writers generally attempt to transcend both the dullness and repetitiveness associated with modern forms of industrialized labor as well as to create an antidote for the endless distractions affiliated with the modern urban environment, they also develop or interrogate systems for training and regulating the senses. What these writers present as a seemingly spontaneous attentive engagement with art and beauty they also sell to the public as a specialized form of perception and experience that can only be achieved through training or, more specifically, through an attentive reading of their works. While these writers attempt to subvert institutional authority, whether in the form of the Royal Academy or the Oxford University system, they also generate new forms of authority and knowledge. Even though the Aesthetic Movement is not a homogeneous set of texts and art works, the Aesthetic Movement can be characterized in terms of its utilization of attentiveness as a way to both understand and create modern subjectivity. / Committee in charge: Dr. Forest Pyle， Chair； Dr. Sangita Gopal， Member； Dr. Linda Kintz， Member； Dr. Kenneth Calhoon， Outside Member

xiii, 322 p. : col. ill. / Before Spain encountered the Americas, it first encountered the sea. This dissertation explores the roots of that encounter by examining perceptions of the sea in late medieval Castile-Leon reflected in art, literature, and law. It analyzes the changing attitudes of the Castilians towards the sea through an examination of its perceived place in their world, underscoring the complexity of Castilian attitudes toward the dangers and opportunities presented by the marine environment. Conceptual separation and union serve as the two foundational concepts employed for the analysis of evidence from each of the three genres under examination. Each genre highlights in various ways either the strong contrast drawn between land and sea or their seeming union conceptually. These complexities are manifest in a broad variety of sources, from collections of miracle tales to fifteenth century romances. Analysis of legal distinctions between land and sea reveal significant differences in perception regarding the nature of each environment and the rights and responsibilities of Castilians acting in either. Findings include that artistic sources reveal that a fearful attitude toward the sea accentuated by helplessness before its power dominated thirteenth century imagery, contrasting with the greater unity of land and sea reflected in miniatures from fifteenth century sources. A similar pattern of separation and union emerges in the literary evidence, where fear of the loss of agency when traveling at sea in early sources gives way to fifteenth century examples that praise its value. A comparison of the laws contained in the Siete Partidas with the late medieval records of the Cortes of Castile-Leon reveals that while the Castilian monarchs tended to consider the sea as firmly outside of their realm throughout the majority of the period of this study, strategic necessity led to an inexorable growth in the importance of the sea in the affairs of the kingdom generally. Together, the evidence supports the conclusion that by the mid-fourteenth century the view of the sea as other, typical of all early Castilian sources, gave way to a fifteenth century perspective that welcomed it in many respects, laying the foundation for the development of a great maritime empire. / Committee in charge: Lisa Wolverton, Chairperson; Robert Haskett, Member; David Luebke, Member; David Wacks, Outside Member

ix, 213 p. / The attacks on the United States of September 11, 2001, prompted scholars in a variety of fields, such as history, philosophy and literature, to re-examine the topic of terrorism, including the emergence of terrorism in West Germany in the 1960s and 1970s. The challenges that arise when dealing with the topic of terrorism derive in part from a lack of consensus on a definition for terrorists and terrorist attacks. One element that I found in my research is that there is a connection between terrorism and communication. This dissertation examines that connection in Volker Schlöndorff's filmDie Stille nach dem Schuss Gregor Schnitzler's film Was tun wenn's brennt Leander Scholz's novel Rosenfestand Ulrike Edschmid's biographical narrativesFrau mit Waffe: Zwei Geschichten aus terroristischen Zeitenin the context of Speech Act Theory. The films and texts show how West German terrorism is represented as a form of communication, through which fictional terrorists are trying to accomplish the impossible statement "I hereby persuade you." The act of persuasion has an element of freedom, because one can either be persuaded or not. However, the terrorists represented in the works mentioned above want to eliminate the element of choice and force the interlocutor to be persuaded. In order to achieve this they introduce violence, which in turn causes them to be labeled as terrorists. The more they try to use violence to achieve their goals, the more they cement their condemnation as terrorists. This dissertation frames its investigation within ideas about performative speech acts, concepts of power, violence, identity and discussions about "terrorist" narratives in German literature and film. / Committee in charge: Susan C. Anderson， Chairperson； Alexander Mathäs， Member； Dorothee Ostmeier， Member； Bonnie Mann， Outside Member

No description available.

xiv, 234 p. : ill. / The twentieth-century project of American rhetorician Kenneth Burke, grounded in a magic-based theory of language, reveals a path to the origins of what I am going to call occult invention. The occult, which I define as a symbol set of natural terms derived from supernatural terms, employs a method of heuresis based on a metaphor-like process I call analogic extension. Traditional invention fell from use shortly after the Liberal Arts reforms of Peter Ramus, around 1550. Occult invention emerged nearly simultaneously, when Early Modern British authors began using occult symbols as tropes in what I refer to as the Occult Mode. I use six of these authors--George Chapman, William Shakespeare, John Donne, Abraham Cowley, John Dryden, and Jonathan Swift--as examples of how occult invention arises. In appropriating occult symbolism, authors in the Occult Mode began using the invention methods of the occult arts of magic, alchemy, astrology, and cabala to derive new meanings, transform language, develop characters and plots, and reorient social perspectives. As we learn in tracking Burke's project, occult invention combines the principles of Aristotle's rhetoric and metaphysics with the techniques and principles of the occult arts. Occult invention fell from use around the end of the eighteenth century, but its rhetorical influence reemerged through the work of Burke. In this study I seek to contextualize and explicate some of the literary sources and rhetorical implications of occult invention as an emergent field for further research. / Committee in charge: Dianne Dugaw， Co-Chairperson； John T. Gage， Co-Chairperson； Kenneth Calhoon， Member； Steven Shankman， Member； Jeffrey Librett，Outside Member

xiv, 485 p. / The organizing principle of this dissertation is that Las Casas's most famous work, the Brevisima relacion , is primarily an intricately reasoned legal argument against the excesses of early Spanish colonialism rather than a fiery polemical diatribe by the "first human rights activist." Contrary to such anachronistic (though enduringly popular) characterization, this study employs a historical perspective to view this influential text as belonging to the genres of the early modern juridical tradition. Accordingly, this investigation begins by examining the historical matrix of fifteenth-century and early sixteenth-century Spain to properly contextualize Las Casas's early life and certain initial colonial institutions of the Spanish Indies. Similarly, his juridical expertise is firmly rooted in an explication of his contemporaneous formation in canon law and theology. From these foundational strands of his life and work, his maturing juridical voice spoke most decisively in certain of the major debates among Spanish jurists, theologians, and politicians--as well as in the Brevísima relación --in the wake of the Iberian "discovery" of what was for all concerned a physical as well as philosophical "New World." The combined focus of subsequent chapters elucidates the fundamentally juridical dimensions of the text, beginning with the specific context accompanying its genesis in 1542 until its publication a decade later. The treatise's legal character as an official publication based on various evidentiary sources is further revealed by the text's triple function--to inform, to denounce, and to petition, which in turn corresponds to the genres of relaciones, denuncias , and peticiones of the civil juridical tradition. The Brevísima relación 's content unveils far more than this; the epistemological rationale and analytic framework are intimately linked to canonistic, Thomistic, and biblical genres of the ecclesial juridical tradition. Continuing this historical investigation, the concluding chapter demonstrates anew the fundamental grounding of Las Casas's approach in the vibrant first generations of juristic discourse of the so-called Spanish colonial era. His multifaceted juridical voice was distinctively encoded in a powerful melding of civil and ecclesial legal traditions. This dissertation intends to communicate this voice intelligibly with the proper accents of the past. / Committee in charge: Dr. Robert Haskett, Chairperson; Dr. Carlos Aguirre, Member; Dr. Stephanie Wood, Member; Dr. David Luebke, Member; Dr. Stephen Shoemaker, Outside Member

x, 237 p. / We have too frequently approached American World War II poetry with assumptions about modern poetry based on readings of the influential British Great War poets, failing to distinguish between WWI and WWII and between the British and American contexts. During the Second World War, the Holocaust and the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki obliterated the line many WWI poems reinforced between the soldier's battlefront and the civilian's homefront, authorizing for the first time both civilian and soldier perspectives. Conditions on the American homefront--widespread isolationist and anti-Semitic attitudes, America's late entry into the war, the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the Japanese internment, and the African American "Double V Campaign" to fight fascism overseas and racism at home--were just some of the volatile conditions poets in the US grappled with during WWII. In their poems, war shapes and threatens the identities of civilians and soldiers, women and men, African Americans and Jews, and verse form itself becomes a weapon against war's assault on identity. Charles Reznikoff, Muriel Rukeyser, Gwendolyn Brooks, and Richard Wilbur mobilize and challenge the authority of traditional poetic forms to defend the self against social, political, and physical assaults. The objective, free-verse testimony form of Reznikoff's long poem Holocaust (1975) registers his mistrust of lyric subjectivity and of the musical effects of traditional poetry. In Rukeyser's free-verse and traditional-verse forms, personal experiences and public history collide to create a unifying poetry during wartime. Brooks, like Rukeyser, posits poetry's ability to protect soldiers and civilians from war's threat to their identities. In Brooks's poems, however, only traditionally formal poems can withstand the war's destruction. Wilbur also employs conventional forms to control war's disorder. The individual speakers in his poems avoid becoming nameless war casualties by grounding themselves in military and literary history. Through a series of historically informed close readings, this dissertation illuminates a neglected period in the history of American poetry and argues that mid-century formalism challenges--not retreats from--twentieth-century atrocities. / Committee in charge: Karen Jackson Ford, Chairperson; John Gage, Member; Paul Peppis, Member; Cecilia Enjuto Rangel, Outside Member

x, 208 p. / In this dissertation "literariness" is defined not merely as a quality of form by which texts are evaluated as literary, but as an immanent and critical sensibility by which reading, writing, speaking, learning, and teaching subjects within the literary humanities engage language in its immediate aesthetic (and thus also historical and ethical) aspect. This reorientation seeks to address the literary academy's overwhelming archival focus, which risks eliding literary endeavor as an embodied undertaking that inevitably reflects the historical contingency of its enactment. Literary endeavor in higher education is thus understood as a performance by which subjects enact not only the effect of literary texts upon themselves but also the contingencies of their socio-economic, national, cultural, and personal contexts. Subjects' responses to literature are seen as implicit identity claims that, inevitably constituted of biases, can be evaluated through the lens of post-positivist realism in terms of their ethical and pragmatic usefulness. Framing this reoriented literariness in terms of its enactment in higher education literature classrooms, this dissertation addresses its pedagogical, methodological, and personal implications. The events of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) and the literature arising from it serve as a pivotal case study. The TRC Hearings, publically broadcast and pervasive in the national discourse of the time, enacted a scenario in which South Africans confronted the implications for personal and national identities of apartheid's racial abuses. The dissertation demonstrates through close reading and anecdotal evidence how J.M. Coetzee's Disgrace and Antjie Krog's Country of My Skull formally reactivate this scenario in the subject in the event of reading, while surveys of critical responses to these texts show how readers often resisted the texts' destabilizing effects. A critical account of the process that resulted in Telling, Eugene - a stage production in which U.S. military veterans tell their stories to their civilian communities - analyzes the idea of literariness in the U.S. and assesses its potential for socially engaged literary praxis. / Committee in charge: Linda Kintz, Chairperson; Suzanne Clark, Member; Michael Hames-Garcia, Member; John Schmor, Outside Member