O presente trabalho tem por objetivo a análise da evolução da semiótica da cultura na obra de estudioso da cultura e literatura, crítico e filósofo russo Iúri Lótman por meio de traduções e dos comentários concernentes aos seus ensaios, escritos em diferentes épocas e dedicados aos principais conceitos da semiótica da cultura, tais como o fenômeno da cultura e os seus processos dinâmicos, o fenômeno da arte, o problema do texto, a memória cultural e a semiosfera. A obra de Lótman enquanto semioticista é inseparável do contexto histórico dos estudos da literatura, linguística, semiótica, cultura tanto na Rússia, quanto no Ocidente. Entre os seus precursores russos estão os escritores e os filósofos do século XIX e, no século XX, os simbolistas, os futuristas e os formalistas. A essência da semiótica da cultura lotmaniana começou a se formar no âmbito da Escola Semiótica de Tártu- Moscou e com a base na tradição dos estudos linguísticos, já nos trabalhos posteriores ela adquiriu um caráter mais filosófico, ao lidar com a imprevisibilidade dos processos culturais universais. Definimos ainda os pontos de coerência entre as ideias de Lótman e a obra dos estruturalistas e pós-estruturalistas franceses, além de Mikhail Bakhtin e Umberto Eco. / The present work aims at analyzing the development of semiotics of culture in the work of Russian culture and literature scholar, critic and philosopher Yuri Lotman through translation and commentary of his essays, written at different periods and dedicated to the core concepts of semiotics of culture, such as culture phenomenon and its dynamic processes, the phenomenon of art, the problem of the text, the cultural memory and semiosphere. Lotman`s work as a semiotician is inseparable from the historical context of the literature, linguistics, semiotics and culture studies both in Russia and the West. Among his precursors are Russian writers and philosophers of the nineteenth and twentiethcentury, the symbolists, futurists and formalists. The essence of Lotman`s semiotics of culture began to form in the Tartu-Moscow Semiotic School on the basis of language studies tradition, though in later works he developed a more philosophical approach, dealing with the unpredictability of universal cultural processes. Further, we point out the connection between Lotman\'s ideas and work of French structuralists and poststructuralists, Mikhail Bakhtin and Umberto Eco.

Adapting the concept of the ”popular cultural memory” and its necessary “context knowledge” established by Karin Kukkonen, this bachelor thesis seeks to examine how this memory is “at work” and expresses itself in contemporary fiction, by doing an intertextual reading of the swedish author Amanda Svensson's debut Hey Dolly. Within the intertextual structures of Hey Dolly the reader encounters allusions and references that address almost everything from contemporary popular culture to established authors in the swedish canon, mainly as means for the characters to help them express their emotions and thoughts, by “choosing” from already available content of popular culture to use and modify. The intertextuality alluding to the popular cultural memory does at the same time address the concept of the ideal reader throughout the novel. This ideal reader is addressed by the narrator as one of those “in the know”, as competent enough to see this “popular cultural memory” at work in the novel by “getting” these intertextual allusions and references. Thus any (real) reader has to be equipped with the same expertise of popular culture as the narrator in order to fully understand this intertextuality. The intertextual practices of Hey Dolly should be understood as traits used by the author to express and implicate her/his awareness of the texts “surroundings”, traits indeed found even in the name of Hey Dolly's main protagonist, symptomatically influenced from contemporary, western American commercial culture. Given the premiss where this intertextual framework relies on a heavily contemporary influenced popular cultural context, it potentially would run the risk of not being understood, should future popular culture contexts operate under different premisses. In this regard the high cultural canon memory would have to be regarded as being more stable and “reliable” than the popular cultural memory, as the norms for the canon are more fixed and rarely negotiated.  Arguing that this intertextual reading of Hey Dolly is of an immense value and significant for understanding how the Zeitgeist operates and should be approached, this thesis is still based on the premiss where the intertextual reading of Hey Dolly has largely been nonexistent when looking at how Hey Dolly has been received. Instead in the swedish media we find a consistent dominance of how its reception has been read from almost exclusively a gendered point of view, where Hey Dolly is seen and regarded as the forthcoming of a new representation of the girl/woman ideal. The intertextual reading of Hey Dolly would instead be regarded as “secondary” at best, where the story by itself is self sufficient, even if the reader lacks the necessary context knowledge of how this ”popular cultural memory” is at work in the text.

This dissertation of limited scope traces the attempts by Gorbachev (1985-1991) to reform an economic, political and social system which was in a state of terminal decline. The origins of its demise, it is argued, lay in the ossified command economy inherited from Stalin. The enormous damage inflicted on Soviet agriculture during collectivisation in the 1930s~ when millions of productive peasants died, proved to be a fatal blow to that sector. Tlms, Gorbachev followed a two-fold strategy ofrefonn. Glasnost (openness) was introduced to allow constructive debate on economic and social matters. Despite a hesitant beginning, the right to criticise allowed the emergence of more radical campaigners, such as Yeltsin who demanded greater democracy. Significantly, the revival of ethnic nationalist demands in the republics led to disintegration. Perestroika (restructuring) was intended to modernise and boost living standards. The economy faltered but the market was not yet in place / History / M.A. (History)

Thesis (M.A.)--University of South Africa, 2002.

The non-fiction introduction to The Wyvern’s Tale: A Thought Experiment in Bakhtinian Dual Chronotope Occupation documents the evolution of the novel, The Wyvern’s Tale, from the ideas that inspired it to its current incarnation as a full-length novel intended for an adult audience. It comprises an explanation of the novel’s main concept, Bakhtinian dual chronotope occupation, as well as an idea-focused account of the creative-writing process. Detailed in the introduction’s theoretical premise is the relationship between Mikhail Bakhtin’s theories of chronotope and the carnivalesque and the ideal of the divided union in Chalcedonian Christology. This relationship revolves around the state of existing in two time-spaces at once. The novel, The Wyvern’s Tale, explores this dual existence imaginatively using the setting of parallel worlds – the every-day world and a fictional world called Wyvern – as well as a protagonist, who functions in the fictional world as a Christ-figure. Particular thematic emphasis is placed on differing perceptions of truth and reality, and on the transformative power of costumes. The novel’s outcome, dependent on the reader’s decision as to whether dual chronotope occupation is possible or impossible, is respectively either hopeful or tragic. It attempts to reflect the outcome of the life and death of Christ depending on whether his co-existence as God and man was real or imagined.

本研究旨在從俄國學者Mikhail Bakhtin（1895-1975）狂歡節語言與身體論述的觀點探討「抵抗如何可能？」的問題，並且以台灣當代女性主義小說家李昂於1999年出版的《自傳の小說》為主要的案例，重新思索和說明語言／意義的民主化（democratization）意涵與可能性。 有別於過去論述分析雖然言明語言／意義與政治社會之間並非單向的因果關係，而是相互影響、建構的辯證關係，但在實際進行案例分析時，卻較少著墨於語言如何「由下而上地」對象徵秩序進行意義的顛覆，本研究以Bakhtin對狂歡節語言與身體論述的說明，依序對抵抗的意涵、抵抗的可能性以及抵抗如何在文本中呈現，提出理論性的再詮釋。本研究發現，Bakhtin對於抵抗的想像，乃是一種在傳播／溝通與對話中，藉由特定語言形式而動員的意識形態鬥爭。積極而言，抵抗旨在透過言說主體的表述建構自己的意義系統；消極而言，抵抗至少具有解構他人意義系統的政治意圖。 然而，由於Bakhtin在狂歡節研究中，並未確實回應他企圖探討的「抵抗如何可能？」的問題。因此，本研究融入Laclau與Mouffe的「接合實踐」、Butler的「論述行動」與「身體展演」，從「形式層面」推敲Bakhtin在「眾聲喧嘩」對話模式中所暗示的政治機會，並對「抵抗如何可能？」提出具體的政治方案，包括：眾聲喧嘩的文本空間、對話與敵對關係中的再意義化、諧擬的身體展演、策略性的本質主義。本研究並且藉由對李昂情慾書寫中的抵抗策略進行「書寫形式的意識形態分析」，具體說明「抵抗如何可能？」的理論／概念架構。 本研究發現，李昂的情慾書寫呈現出「歷史書寫的性別化」與「性別論述的狂歡化」這兩個主要的特性。藉此，李昂一方面揭露了父權意識形態的意義生產邏輯，另一方面也藉由批判父權意識形態建構另類的意義系統或敵對／反對論述。從這點回過頭來再詮釋「抵抗如何可能？」的問題，本研究認為抵抗的可能性可說是在眾聲喧嘩或「弱敘事性」的文本空間中，藉由「接合實踐」動員由下而上的「論述行動」，並以「策略性的本質主義」此一政治方案建構霸權化論述的意識形態鬥爭過程；而「身體論述」所誇大展演出的敵對關係，則是最具渲染力也最為具體的例說。

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-28T18:23:30Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Andrea Pereira.pdf: 2197765 bytes, checksum: b3d54e7cc19905af4ca1a84b8694c8a8 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2007-05-24 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / This research aims to investigate some identitary discourses of a confessional university in the Greater ABC Region, by means of the dialogical analysis/theory of M. Bakhtin and his Circle. The analysis corpora are constituted of two documents of the university: The Methodist University Pedagogical Project: period 2003-2007 (PP-UMESP 2003/2007) and the Director Plan: period 1993-1996 (PD 1993/1996). In Bakhtin and his Circle (1979/2003; 1929/1997; 1929/1995; 1926/1997), the dialogism principle, that allows the identification of the other in the verbal language, will serve as the main theoretical foundation. The bakhtinian notions of verbal interaction, reported discourse, of text, of discourse genre and of voices contribute even more to the study of the dialogical character of the verbal discourse. Going along with the current philosophical basis of language of the Russian Bakhtinian thought, some theoretical discursive notions of the French school, elaborated by D. Maingueneau (2004; 1998/2001/ 1987/1997) the enunciative shift, the deictic elements of person, space and time, the designation types and the enunciative vocation and by J. Authier-Revuz (1998) it is hereby highlighted the study of the autonimical modalizations are also mobilized to form the theoretical construct and the analytical tools of our research corpora. The concepts of argumentative operators and of deontic modals, such as those of Koch (1992; 1987), will be used by us from the dialogical perspective of the discourse for the examination of the data. The gathering and the study of the documents extraverbal context call our attention to the presence of three discourses: the ones of the market, the pedagogy and the religion. The examination of the data on the linguistic and enunciative levels gives room to the concrete exotopy, which, on its turn, helps us, as authors of this study, to come to interpretations in two directions: The first one agrees, partly, with the position that some Sociology theoreticians adopt, which leads them to understand that the Brazilian confessional universities discourse as a marketing strategy. The second one considers the socio-historical aspects that appear in both of the analyzed documents and that characterize the religious discourse in as far as it is peculiar to the Methodist tradition. The final results point to an important presence of the market oriented discourse as the other that builds the identity of the Confessional University hereby, object of this investigation. This project, in what it allows us to study language as work, finds its place in the research line Language and Work, of the Program of Applied Linguistics and Language Studies (LAEL - Programa de Lingüística Aplicada e Estudos da Linguagem), of the PUC/SP (Pontific Catholic University/São Paulo) / Esta pesquisa se propõe a investigar alguns discursos identitários de uma universidade confessional da Região do Grande ABC, por meio da teoria/análise dialógica de M. Bakhtin e seu Círculo. Constituem os corpora de análise dois documentos da universidade: o Projeto Pedagógico Universidade Metodista de São Paulo: gestão 2003-2007 (PP-UMESP 2003/2007) e o Plano Diretor: quadriênio 1993-1996 (PD 1993/1996). Em Bakhtin e seu Círculo (1979/2003; 1929/1997; 1929/1995; 1926/1997), o princípio do dialogismo, que permite identificar o outro na linguagem verbal, servirá como principal fundamento teórico. As noções bakhtinianas de interação verbal, de discurso relatado, de texto, de gênero do discurso e de vozes contribuem ainda para o estudo do caráter dialógico do discurso verbal. Combinando com a base filosófica da linguagem da corrente russa bakhtiniana, algumas noções teóricas discursivas de linha francesa trabalhadas por D. Maingueneau (2004; 1998/2001; 1987/1997) são destacadas: a embreagem enunciativa, os elementos dêiticos de pessoa, espaço e tempo, os tipos de designação e a vocação enunciativa. A pesquisa de J. Authier-Revuz (1998) sobre as modalizações autonímicas, também inserida na vertente da análise do discurso, é mobilizada para compor o construto teórico e o instrumental de análise dos corpora de nossa pesquisa. Os conceitos de operadores argumentativos e de modalizadores deônticos, tal como trabalhados por Koch (1992; 1987), serão por nós utilizados da perspectiva dialógica do discurso para o exame dos dados. O levantamento e o estudo do contexto extraverbal dos documentos chamam a nossa atenção para a presença de três discursos: o mercadológico, o pedagógico e o religioso. A partir do exame dos dados nos níveis lingüístico e enunciativo, a exotopia concreta, que nos beneficia como autores deste estudo, nos permite fazer interpretações em duas direções. A primeira concorda, em parte, com o posicionamento que alguns teóricos da Sociologia adotam de compreender o discurso das universidades confessionais brasileiras como uma estratégia de marketing. A segunda busca levar em consideração alguns aspectos sócio-históricos que circulam nos dois documentos analisados e que caracterizam o discurso religioso cristão mais amplo. Os resultados finais apontam para uma presença marcante do discurso mercadológico como o outro que constrói a identidade da Universidade Confessional aqui investigada. Este projeto, possibilitando-nos estudar a linguagem como trabalho, insere-se na linha de pesquisa Linguagem e Trabalho, do Programa de Lingüística Aplicada e Estudos da Linguagem (LAEL), da PUC/SP

O grande tempo revela o potencial inesgotável da voz conceitual, ensaística, ficcional, a vitalidade inerente, que reitera e transcende o próprio contexto de produção, que reitera e transcende o próprio berço investigavo, sobre o qual concentra o teórico suas divagações filosófico-conceituais. Assim, neste estudo, regressa ao campo estético-literário, o visionário alcance dos pressupostos teóricos de Mikhail Bakhtin, uma vez inovadores no romance, agora, também, excêntricos no campo da poesia. Imbuídos dessa perspectiva, de tendência evolutiva e renovadora, através de uma releitura dos princípios bakhtinianos, da dialogia, da polifonia e dos gêneros discursivos, postos em diálogo com a renovação formal, deflagrada pelo Modernismo Brasileiro, observaremos, sobretudo, a percepção de características comuns que promovam, enfim, o feliz encontro entre a prosa e a poesia, na promoção das vozes do verso. Em seguida, ao centro da escuta, por intermédio de poetas e da própria poesia, o chamado da voz que se desprende da criação, para melhor poder avaliar os meandros da composição, ou, ainda, que, de dentro, reflete o próprio método, ou, ainda, que, totalmente de fora do ambiente criativo, na condição de crítico experimentado do texto literário, reflita acerca do trabalho da arte, do fazer poético, inspiração de todo-o-dia, impasse subjetivo, entre recusa e aceitação, o ‘eu-outro’ da escritura. Só, então, partiremos, aquecidos, para a escuta polifônica, em poesias representativas: vozes da rua, entre cantigas e risos, as nebulosas recordações d’ Evocação do Recife e Cunhantã, de Manuel Bandeira; vozes beirando ao asfalto, na relutância insistente, núcleo tenso e dramático d’O operário no mar, distensão vociferante de Caso do vestido, de Carlos Drummond de Andrade; vozes da roça, na fluidez da pedra, d´Morte e vida severina, de João Cabral de Melo Neto. Por fim, via abertura estética do Modernismo Brasileiro, sinalizaremos, com Mikhail Bakhtin, a legitimidade de um novo gênero literário, então nomeado ‘poesia polifônica’, núcleo tenso e dramático, a ressonância lírica da multidão que fala, clama e protesta, a voz poética, na vida, submersa! - Toc-toc, ao chamado do ‘outro’, o ‘eu’ do discurso, mais especificamente, Bakhtin, via Bandeira-Drummond-Cabral. / The great time reveals the inexhaustible potential of the conceptual, essayistic, and fictional voice, the inherent vitality, which reiterates and transcends the very context of production, which reifies and transcends the researcher's own cradle, on which the philosopher-centered theorist concentrates. Thus, in this study, he returns to the aestheticliterary field, the visionary reach of the theoretical presuppositions of Mikhail Bakhtin, once innovative in the novel, now, also, eccentric in poetry. Imbued with this perspective, with an evolutionary and renewing tendency, through a re-reading of Bakhtin's principles, dialogue, polyphony and discursive genres, put in dialogue with the formal renewal, triggered by Brazilian Modernism, we will observe above all the perception of common characteristics to promote, finally, the happy encounter between prose and poetry, in promoting the voices of verse. Then, to the center of listening, through poets and poetry itself, the call of the voice that comes from creation, in order to be able to better evaluate the intricacies of composition, or even, from within, reflects the method itself, who, totally outside the creative environment, as experienced critic of the literary text, reflects on the work of art, of poetic making, of all-day inspiration, of subjective impasse, between refusal and acceptance, the 'other-self 'of writing. Only then will we leave, heated, for polyphonic listening, in representative poetry: street voices, between songs and laughter, the nebulous memories of Manuel Bandeira, of Evocação do Recife and Cunhantã; voices bordering on the asphalt, in the insistent reluctance, tense and dramatic nucleus of the worker at sea, vociferous distension of the Caso do Vestido, by Carlos Drummond de Andrade; voices of the countryside, in the fluidity of the stone, of Morte e Vida Severina, by João Cabral de Melo Neto. Finally, through the aesthetic opening of Brazilian Modernism, we will signal, with Mikhail Bakhtin, the legitimacy of a new literary genre, then called 'polyphonic poetry', a tense and dramatic nucleus, the lyrical resonance of the multitude that speaks, cries out and protests, poetic, in life, submerged! - Toc-toc, to the call of the 'other', the 'I' of the speech, more specifically, Bakhtin, via Bandeira-Drummond- Cabral.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-11T19:22:19Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2010-05-04Bitstream added on 2014-06-13T19:27:27Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 moro_aem_me_arafcl.pdf: 689150 bytes, checksum: bc19afe1f2e0933a1f9873451ec68d62 (MD5) / Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq) / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) / Nesta dissertação, buscamos compreender a produtividade das ideias do Círculo de Bakhtin no exame do diálogo e da interação entre o sistema de linguagem musical e o sistema de linguagem verbal. Analisamos formas de representação do discurso musical em contos de Machado de Assis (1839-1908). Para tanto, refletimos inicialmente sobre a relação de M. M. Bakhtin (1895-1975) com a música, o seu pensamento musical e sua importância teórica para a constituição da metodologia dialógica de análise da linguagem. Como são as ideias do Círculo sobre dialogismo, discurso direto, indireto e indireto livre, polifonia, modulação tonal e sinfonismo dialógico? A partir dessas ideias, como é possível analisar os alcances objetivos do pensamento musical de Machado de Assis em seus contos? Sendo assim, expomos e comentamos a estrutura, a organização e o funcionamento do material, da forma e do conteúdo do “som significativo” representado na linguagem verbal e musical. Por meio dessa concepção bakhtiniana, estudamos os alcances de continuidades e descontinuidades materiais, formais e semânticas do pensamento musical nas relações do sujeito com os elementos de linguagem musical e verbal. Desse modo, exploramos como o discurso musical de Machado de Assis foi percebido e tratado em perspectiva literária historiográfica e musicológica. Discorremos sobre como o sujeito, o tempo e o espaço aparecem refletidos, refratados e acomodados no diálogo da literatura com a música. Também examinamos como os temas do discurso musical machadiano são modulados no gênero conto e como eles são representados em esferas de atividades da cultura musical brasileira. Por fim, analisamos a posição dialógica do sujeito autor na enunciação do discurso musical e sua condução temática / In this dissertation, we have researched the productivity of ideas from “Bakhtin’s Circle” to the examination and understanding of “dialogue” and possible interactions between verbal and musical languages. By this way, we have analyzed Machado de Assis (1839-1908)’s musical discourse representation forms in his Brazilian short stories. So, at first, we have reflected about M. M. Bakhtin’s musical language relationships answering what your musical thought is like and showing its theoretical importance to the constitution of dialogical methodology on language analysis. In other words, what the ideas from the Circle about dialogism, reported direct and indirect and free indirect speech, polyphony, tonal modulation and dialogical symphonism are like? Starting from those ideas, how is possible to analyze material objective reaches of the Machado de Assis’s musical thought in his short stories? We have exposed and commented the material structure, the formal organization and the content semantic function of the “meaningful sound” represented in verbal and musical language. Through that bakhtinian conception, we have studied material reaches, formal and semantic continuities and descontinuities of musical thought in subject’s relationships with musical and verbal language elements. We have explored how Machado de Assis’s musical discourse was first perceived and treated by historiographic literary critic and musicology perspective. We have discoursed about how subject, time and space appear contemplated, refracted and suitable in literature’s dialogue with music. We have also examined how musical themes from machadian literary discourse are modulated by short story genre and how they are represented in Brazilian culture spheres of musical activities. Finally, we have analyzed the subject author's dialogic position, his musical discourse enunciation and his thematic conduction

This thesis investigates how Victor Turner’s concept of ‘cultural performance’ can be used to explore and analyse the experience of film. Drawing on performance theory, hermeneutics, phenomenology and Bakhtin’s dialogism, Sections One and Two develop this investigation through a theoretic discussion which relates and yet distinguishes between three levels of ‘performance’ in film: filmmaking performance, performances as text and cultural performances. The theory is grounded within four films which were researched for this thesis: Once Were Warriors (Lee Tamahori, 1994), Rats in the Ranks (Bob Connolly and Robin Anderson,1996), beDevil (Tracey Moffatt, 1993) and Link-Up Diary (David MacDougall, 1987). Section Three undertakes the close analyses of the latter two films. These analyses address specific cultural performances that are performed ‘across’ cultures and which are concerned particularly with Australian society’s relationship with indigenous Australians. ¶ Section One locates Turner’s concept of ‘cultural performance’ within his wider theory of ‘social drama’ and introduces the three-tiered mode of analysis which is developed throughout this thesis. His concept of ‘liminality’ is also investigated in order to consider specific relationships between performances which take place in film and theatre. Performances which take place in film are located in this Section within the theatrical understanding of performance as ‘for an audience’. I describe this relationship between performances in film and theatre through Kristeva’s interpretation of Bakhtin’s concept of heteroglossia as intertextuality, especially through her distinction of a ‘transformative’ intertextuality. Three specific concepts from theatre and performance theory are interrogated for their relevance to film theory: 1. Brecht’s theory of ‘gest’, 2. ‘direct address to the audience’ in relation to the ‘gaze’ in film and 3. Rebecca Schneider’s conceptualisation of ‘the performance artist’. ¶ Using these three tropes of performance, Section Two develops a theory of performance in film. Besides Turner’s concept of ‘cultural performance’, this theory draws on aspects of several other substantial bodies of work. These works include Richard Schechner’s performance theory, Michael Taussig’s understanding of ‘mimesis’, Vivian Sobchack’s phenomenology of film, Paul Ricoeur’s theory of text ‘as meaningful action’, Gadamer’s concept of ‘meaningful play’, Bakhtin’s conceptualisation of a ‘dialogic’ text and Catherine Bell’s theory of ‘ritualised behaviour’. The two analyses in Section Three do not rigidly follow the three-tiered process of analysis which is developed in the previous two Sections. They rather focus on the films as sites for particular cultural performances which are specific for each film and which need for their description, different aspects of the theory that is offered through this thesis. These analyses especially draw on my interpretation of David MacDougall’s ‘transcultural cinema’ and Jodi Brook’s conceptualisation of a ‘gestural practice’ in film, which she positions both in terms of Brecht’s theatrical concept of ‘gest’ and Walter Benjamin’s concept of the ‘shock’ of modernity. ¶ The film analyses are of one fiction film, beDevil, and one non-fiction film, Link-Up Diary. Both films use audiovisual images of Aboriginal Australians as content. According the terms of this thesis, these people must also be considered as filmmakers. Although this role may constitute varying degrees of authority and power, a film analysis which considers the filmmaking roles of people whose images are present in the filmic text also allows a particular consideration of the social relationships which exist between people who ‘film’ and people who ‘are filmed’. My focus on the cultural performances of these two films allowed an even closer description of this relationship for two reasons. Firstly, both Moffatt and MacDougall respectively present their own images in the films. Secondly, my analyses of these films as cultural performance draw out and describe the different ways in which the two films address the same ‘social drama’: the relationship between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians. My analyses expose how a description of these differences in address can extend beyond the distinction between one film as ‘fiction’ and the other as ‘non-fiction’ towards a description of the different ways in which people relate to each other, at both the individual level and at the level of society, through the production and reception of a particular film. While locating these films as cultural performances within in particular sets of social relationships, my consideration of film in this thesis in terms of theatrical performance also enables a description of the experience of film which draws on the social experience of live theatre. The theory developed in this thesis and its application in the analyses of these two films suggest further areas of research which might look more closely at whether or not, or how much people draw from the social practices of live theatre as they live their lives with film – a signifying practice which has existed just over one hundred years.