Up until the 19th century, religion was used as a way of legitimizing slavery in America. With the rise of the civil rights movement religion seems to have played a quite different role. This essay aims to explore the role of religion in the ideologies of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X. The speeches, writings and actions of these two men have been analysed in hope that the result will contribute to the larger study of American civil rights history. This essay proposes that both Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X infused their political message with religious ideas and that they leaned on religion for support and inspiration. By analysing the discourse headed by King and X it becomes clear that in direct contrast to how religion was used during slavery, religion was used as a way of legitimizing equality (and in some cases black superiority) between races during the civil rights movement.

This dissertation argues that a number of works of Canadian fiction usually designated as modernist fit more properly into the category of “late modernism”: a category that has only recently begun to emerge as a bridge between post-war modernism and emergent postmodernism. These works are aligned by their use of abstract, absurdist, or surrealist narrative structures and consequently by their refusal to adhere to conventional strictures of social realism. Because of this refusal, literary critics have identified the late-modernist emphasis on narrative form as necessarily ahistorical or apolitical. Conversely, I argue, these works are socially and politically engaged with the historical contexts and material conditions of their inception, composition, and consequent reception. I argue herein that the works of Sheila Watson, Elizabeth Smart, Malcolm Lowry, and John Glassco tend towards non-representational narrative forms, and in doing so, they engage in modes of cultural critique. These critiques are focused by a negotiation of what has been multiply identified as a “contradiction” in modernist art: while on the one hand the texts break with traditional forms of social-realist narrative out of a need to find new forms of expression in an effort to rebel against conservative, bourgeois sensibilities, on the other hand they are always produced from within the self-same socio-political economy that they critique. Whether this position is identified as a “modernist double bind” (following Willmott) or a “central paradox” of modernism (following Eysteinsson), I have argued that each author negotiates these internal contradictions through the integration of autobiographical material into their writing. In reading these works as part of a unified late-modernist narrative tradition, this dissertation aims to destabilize critical and popular understandings of mid-century Canadian prose and argue for an alternate reading of artistic interpretation of the twentieth-century Canadian condition. Such a reading challenges current canon formation because it destabilizes traditional critical accounts of these texts as instances of eccentric expression or singular moments of genius. Instead, we are asked to consider seriously the tendency for play with subjectivity and autobiographical material as an interpretive strategy to express the mid-century, post-war condition.

Zugl.: München, Zentralinst. für Kunstgeschichte, Diss., 2004

Thesis (M.S.)--Rochester Institute of Technology, 1993. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 68-69).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2008. / Title from first page of PDF file. Includes bibliographical references (p. 188-193).

Texte remanié de: Th. doct.--Litt. comparée--Paris 3, 2000. Titre de soutenance : L'autre, le temps et la mort dans trois fictions du milieu du XXe siècle : "El jardín de senderos que se bifurcan", 1941, de J. L. Borges, "Under the volcano", 1947, de Malcolm Lowry, "Le rivage des Syrtes", 1951, de Julien Gracq : la question de la fiction. / Bibliogr. p. 343-358. Index.

Thesis (M.M.S.)--Carleton University, 1999. / Also available in electronic format on the Internet.

Thesis (M. A.)--Florida State University, 2005. / Advisor: Christopher Shinn, Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Dept. of English. Title and description from dissertation home page (viewed Feb. 6, 2006). Document formatted into pages; contains vii, 81 pages. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Illinois State University, 1997. / Title from title page screen, viewed June 5, 2006. Dissertation Committee: James C. Palmer, Edward R. Hines (co-chairs), John R. McCarthy, Anita Lupo. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 81-84) and abstract. Also available in print.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2006. / Title from title screen (site viewed on Sep. 12, 2006). PDF text of dissertation: xiii, [140] p. : ill. ; 0.42Mb. UMI publication number: AAT 3208112. Includes bibliographical references. Also available in microfilm and microfiche format.