The diploma thesis Milan Kundera and Intertextuality deals with aspects of relations between the texts in his novels. The first part outlines the intertextuality, theory of the novel and the approaches of some literary theorists towards this issue. The second half of the thesis analyzes the intertextuality in Kundera's works in various forms, mainly based on the themes of dreams and physicality. The greatest emphasis is placed on examining the legacy of Kafka in the context of Kundera's works, particularly in the novels The Joke and The Book of Laughter and Forgetting. Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

In this bachelor’s essay, I examine the importance of place in Marguerite Duras’ The Lover from 1984. By using an ecocritical approach I find that the concepts of “culture” and “nature”, or “human” and “environment”, are made undistinguished. I also find that colonialism is highly present, and the novel accords to the theories of the overlapping literary fields of ecocriticism and postcolonialism. Ecocritical postcolonialism maintains that non-white people have historically been likened to animals and thus have a similar relationship with colonisers as humans have with the non-human. In addition, I apply Michail Bachtin’s concept of the chronotope to the novel and conclude that the Mekong River, the Cholen district, the mother’s home, the desert, and France are the most significant chronotopes. They all represent time in some way – usually in the form of cultural history or the protagonist’s lifetime – and each one plays into the novel’s overarching views of colonialism and nature.

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This project seeks to make a contribution to contemporary theories of affect by putting the work of theorists Brian Massumi, Sara Ahmed, Jane Bennett, and Donovan Schaefer in conversation with the Russian philosopher Mikhail Bakhtin. At the same time, it relies on these theorists’ conceptualizations of embodied affect to explore the role of the body in Bakhtin’s understanding of selfhood and freedom. In particular, I show how Bakhtin’s incorporation of aesthetics into processes of self-creation and relationality adds to scholarship on interpersonal affective dynamics; sociocultural economies of affect; ethically potent experiences of wonder and generous behaviors; and religious impulses. Further, I demonstrate that the principles of dialogism and polyphony can be conveyed through cinematic means, and argue that Bakhtin’s concept of carnival can inform analyses of sensory impact of cinema, revealing its potential to challenge politics and ideologies on an embodied and affective plane. Finally, I argue that Bakhtinian polyphony is the aesthetic modality proper to cultivation and manifestation of ethics of generosity, whereby sensations of awe, wonder, and curiosity stimulate attentive and open-minded engagement with the world.

In this paper, I study the bodies in Mare Kandre’s two novels Bestiarium (1999) and Xavier (2002), with the help of Mikhail Bakhtin’s theories of the grotesque. I examine the worldview that is portrayed in the novels – focusing on the attitude towards death – and seek answers to the following questions: how do the human bodies look and how do they relate to their surroundings? What does the way they are portrayed say about the world the novels portray? And what role does laughter play in the novels? I also examine the similarity between a grotesque body, and a gothic monster. As a result, I find that one body may exist both in life and death at the same time, that the bodies can merge together, and that the boundaries between body and world may be exceeded. I also find the grotesque abilities of the body not to be threatening, but filled with possibilities. Here, even monsters are not harmful. / I den här uppsatsen undersöker jag kropparna i Mare Kandres två romaner Bestiarium (1999) och Xavier (2002), med utgångspunkt i Michail Bachtins teorier om det groteska. Jag söker svar på hur hans begrepp kan öka förståelsen för den värld som målas upp i romanerna, med ett fokus på inställningen till döden. Jag ställer mig frågor om hur de mänskliga kropparna ser ut och hur de förhåller sig till resten av världen, vad sättet de gestaltas på säger om romanvärlden och vilken roll skrattet spelar i romanerna. Jag undersöker också likheten mellan groteska kroppar och gotiska monster. I min analys visar jag att kropparna i Mare Kandres romaner kan befinna sig både i livet och döden samtidigt, att de ständigt är i rörelse och kan uppgå i varandra. Dessutom kan gränsen mellan kropp och värld upplösas. Jag visar också på att den glädje som kännetecknade medeltidens grotesk bara kan förnimmas, men att de groteska kropparna trots det besitter positiva möjligheter. Inte ens monster måste här besegras, då de inte utgör något hot.

No / This paper considers the situation of people with dementia who are living in long-term care from two rarely-applied theoretical perspectives. The first, Agamben’s theory of biopolitical life versus bare life, demonstrates that the situation of people with dementia living in care homes or hospitals approximates to that of prisoners, internees and refugees, deprived of full citizenship or biopolitical life. In popular imagery people with dementia are frequently referred to, first in terms of numbers, as a ‘rising tide’, in a way that has historically been used to justify discrimination and social exclusion. In many, care environments it is, moreover, still the case that people with dementia are reduced to a condition of ‘bare life’ only: given little choice, having few rights, lacking freedom of movement, and subjected to almost constant surveillance. In other contexts, such treatment is known to cause or exacerbate many of the problems which – following a biomedical model – are constructed as ‘symptoms of dementia’, such as disorientation in time and space, sleep disturbance, hallucinations and repetitive movement. The second body of theory is Bakhtin’s work on cultural resistance. This demonstrates that many of the so-called ‘challenging behaviours’ manifested by people with dementia, can better be understood as coping, sense-making and self-determining strategies adopted in order to survive within prevailing organisational cultures. Based on a series of studies carried out in intermediate and long-term care since 2009, the paper draws on a range of narrative and film-based examples to demonstrate the ‘courage, humour, fortitude and cunning’ with which, as Walter Benjamin noted, the oppressed have always met the conditions of their oppression. In the process, ‘challenging behaviour’ is given political and ideological meaning, as protest, perpetrated by people who are struggling against extreme odds to be reinstated as full citizens. / Conference website: http://www.aginggraz2017.com/conference-schedule

This dissertation attempts a Bakhtinian analysis of the polyphonic dialogue between Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now, Karel Schoeman's Na die Geliefde Land and Jason Xenopoulos' Promised Land. Specific Bakthinian concepts are employed to determine whether the films are "apt" adaptations of the literary texts; how the stylistically hybrid texts engage in conversation with different movements, genres and trends; how the polyphonic conversations between different texts and discourses, such as literature and film, or colonialism and postcolonialism, can provide insight into the variety of discourses, textual and ideological, of a postcolonial, post-apartheid South Africa; and how identity crises experienced by key characters can be explained using the notions of hybridity, "The Marginal Man" and liminality. All four texts have key characters that experience identity crises that spring from cultural hybridity; their cultural hybridity has the potential to either render them marginally stagnant or lead them to liminally active participation within their imagined communities. This dissertation argues that even though there are major differences between the films and the literary texts they are based upon, they are relevant to a specific target audience and therefore enrich the ur-texts. Salient characteristics of realism, symbolism, impressionism, modernism, postmodernism, postcolonialism and the apocalyptic dialogise one another within the four texts, thereby liberating the texts from one authorial reading. The dialogue between the discourses of literature and film supplement an understanding of the dialogue between war, imperialism, colonialism, postcolonialism and the Will to Power. / Thesis (M.A. (Applied Language and Literary Studies))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2006

The purpose of the present dissertation is to study the elaborations of the initiation myth in contemporary Italian author Alessandro Baricco. The theoretical and methodological framework consists mainly of Mircea Eliade’s phenomenological theory of initiation. It is argued that the categories of space and time are interdepent in religious thought and should thus be studied as a unit, through the notion of the chronotope. The dissertation therefore proposes to introduce the concept of the chronotope of initiation as an operative tool, the intersection of the theories of Eliade and Mikhail Bakhtin, for the literary subgenre of the initiation novel. A hermeneutical analysis of the novels Oceano mare, Emmaus and Mr Gwyn demonstrates that the initiation myth is present in all three novels. The symbolism of death and rebirth is coherently enacted as a movement via the categories cosmos-chaos-cosmos, for which the author uses the symbolism of the earth to define cosmos (regularity and structure) and water symbolism for the regenerating chaos (dissolution and renewal). The different chapters of analysis accentuate the interaction of space and time within the different phases of the initiation pattern: the profane, the threshold, the sacred, the centre (the place where the actual ritual is enacted) and the return, which are all defined as chronotopes. The analysis shows that although the chronotope of initiation – the concept intending the fusion of the temporal event of ritual at the spatial centre – assumes different forms throughout the corpus, its function remains unmodified, with its purpose being the creation of ontological change. In its inherent structure, the chronotope of initiation unites antithetical spatial and temporal characteristics. Spatially it unites infinite and dissolving chaotic space with the constitutive envelope or sacred vertical centre, and temporally it brings together the ultimative ontological change at a fixed, historical moment with the eternal, sacred, time opened by ritual, representing the coincidentia oppositorum of the sacred. The analysis also shows that the so-called “portraits of the ineffable”, present in all three novels, reflect the same qualities. As immanent works of art, they function as thresholds into the infinite. From a chronological perspective, the dissertation shows a modification of the initiation pattern in Baricco’s writing: from the classical form in Oceano mare, via a more realistic application in Emmaus, to the most elaborate, meta-literary adaption in Mr Gwyn. Nevertheless, the use of the pattern and its thematic coherence reveals that Baricco consciously elaborates on the pattern to suit the contemporary context.

Esta pesquisa tem como objetivo apresentar o desenvolvimento do trabalho artísticopedagógico- teatral de Maria Osipovna Knebel (1898 - 1985). Focamo-nos na criação e no desdobramento de sua filosofia pedagógica, bem como analisamos e discutimos o monólogo interior. No Primeiro Capítulo, enfatizamos a relação de Knebel com Mikhail Tchekhov (1891 - 1965) e os caminhos que levaram-na a seguir a carreira teatral. Dentro desse contexto, fazemos uma breve análise sobre o trabalho improvisacional tchekhoviano e sua influência sobre a formação da diretorapedagoga. Em um salto, vamos da primeira classe de Knebel para o convite de Konstantin Stanislavski (1863 - 1938) para que ela fosse sua ajudante no Estúdio Operístico-Dramático. Procuramos situar a relação política e artística desenvolvida nesse local, dando relevância à renovação do \"sistema\" feita por Stanislavski. Igualmente, buscamos colocar em foco a questão da \'análise do papel durante a ação\', mais conhecida como análise ativa. Nesse ponto, verticalizamo-nos na prospecção pela inteligência e nos études. O Segundo Capítulo também está dividido em duas partes. Em um primeiro momento, discutimos o segundo plano na direção de Vladmir Ivanovitch Nemirovitch-Dantchenko (1858 - 1943). Procuramos salientar a irradiação do pensamento no trabalho ator-personagem e a maneira que esse elemento pode ser corporificado pelo intérprete no trabalho criativo da cena; principalmente no que tange aos momentos de silêncio da obra teatral. Esmiuçamos a visão crítica e o aprendizado sobre questões de direção que Knebel aponta em Nemirovitch-Dantchenko, na condução de Os Courantes do Kremlin de Nicolai F. Pagodin (1900 - 1962), em 1940. Pensando na ação prática da pedagogia knebeliana, levantamos o desenvolvimento de seu trabalho na GITIS (Academia Russa de Artes Cênicas), com apontamentos e referência ao Teatro Central da Criança de Moscou. Expomos a relação aberta de sua pedagogia com Aleksei Dmitrievitch Popov (1892 -- 1961) na verticalização sobre a necessidade de perceber primeiro a experiência no mundo e, posteriormente, traduzi-las sensível, crítica e artisticamente na composição cênica. Sempre numa condução pedagógica libertária e holística. No Terceiro Capítulo discutimos o conceito de monólogo e solilóquio, monólogo interior e fluxo de consciência, tendo como base os conceitos e terminologias da literatura e, posteriormente, do teatro. Ainda sobre o monólogo interior, debatemos a sua importância com os demais elementos do \"sistema\" e sua conjugação no trabalho de Knebel como diretora-pedagoga. Procuramos examinar as relações da criação do monólogo interior e a formação do pensamento na criação, segundo as teorias de Lev Semenivitch Vigotski (1896 - 1934), apontado para as questões sociais, políticas, culturais, ideológicas no desenvolvimento da obra teatral / This research has as objective to present the development of the artisticpedagogical- theatrical of Maria Osipovna Knebel (1898 - 1985). We focused on the creation and deployment of her Pedagogical Philosophy, as well as analyzed and discussed the inner monologue. On the first Chapter, we\'ve had focused on the relationship between Michael Chekhov (1891 - 1965) and on the ways that took her to follow the theatrical career. Inside this context, we did a brief analysis about the improvisational Chechovian and its influence on the Director-Pedagogue\'s formation. Taking a leap, we go from Keble\'s first class to the invitation from Konstantin Stanislavsky (1863 - 1938) for her to be his assistant of the Opera-Dramatic Studio. We\'ve tried to put the political artistic relationship developed in this scenario, giving relevancy to the system\'s renovation done by Stanislavski. Equally, we tried to put the \'analysis of the role during the action\' in focus, more known as active analysis. At this point, we deepen in the prospecting from the intelligence and etudes. The Second Chapter is also divided in two parts. At first, we have discussed the second plan, at the Vladímir Ivânovitch Nemirovich-Danchenko´s direction (1858 - 1943). We have tried to accentuate the radiation of the thinking on the work actor-character and on the way that its element could be internalized by the actor on the scene´s creative work; mainly about the theatrical work moments of silence. We went deep on the critical view and learning about the direction that Knebel point in Nemirovitch- Danchenko, on the conduction of Kremlin Courante by Nicolai F. Pagodin (1900 - 1962) in 1940. Thinking of the practical action of the knebelian pedagogy, we put together it work development at GITIS (Russian Academy of Theatre Arts), with notes and references to the Central Children\'s Theatre. We exposed the open relation on her pedagogy with Alexei Dmitrievich Popov (1892 - 1961), deepen about the necessity on notice, first the experience inside the world and after it, translate it in a sensible-critic-artistic way on the scenic composition. Always in a pedagogical emancipating and holistic leading way. On the Third Chapter we discussed the monologue and soliloquy concept, inner monologue and conscience flow, taking the concepts and literature´s terminologies and, after from the theater. Still on the inner monologue, we discussed its importance with other elements from the \"system\" and its conjugation on Keble\'s work as the director-pedagogue. We´ve tried to look over the relationships on the inner monologue´s creation and on the formation of the thought in the creation process, according to Lev Semyonovich Vygotsky\'s theory (1896 - 1934), pointing to social, politics and ideological on the development of the theatrical piece