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This research paper focuses on a specific period in western art history. The eighteenth and ninteenth centuries held fascination for the author as it marked the beginnings of modern science, a time when the artist and scientist collaborated in a mythical search for a key to unlock the mysterious realm to the unknown. The artist/scientist set on course to discover a new frontier thought to be buried somewhere in woman's body.The paper has been formulated into three chapters. The author has examined how the representation of the body of woman was reduced to a stereotype in both art and science. By examining eight images, she has sought to expose the subjective nature of the artists/anatomists' investigation during this period in history and reveal how art and science formed a complicit alliance in the misrepresentation of the body of woman. Her body became the site and the chosen medium for the projected fears and phantasies of the male imaginary / Master of Arts (Hons)

Bibliography: leaves 358-383.

Imagine a lilly pond. Each lilly floating independently. The individual lilly is framed by the water that surrounds it. The lilly pond becomes apparent by the presence and absence of lillies. This thesis is a compilation of diverse floating articles. Not everything has been covered. I hope that the gaps revealed illuminate the edges of the work. Different writing styles have been adopted in an attempt to get closer to the complexity and ephemerality of the research -- research that has taken place in the dancing body. In presenting the written material this way, I wish to take the reader on a journey -- an experiential journey into the dance -- one that is 'like' the dance rather than an extracted description of it. I hope that the reader will 'come to their senses' and feel the materiality of the dance as I have studied it and known it in my body and with-in the bodies of the other two dancers. The framework for the research in the body has been the integration of the histories collected in our bodies -- practices, trainings, country and culture -- all of which continue to slip and slide, continually re-forming themselves and re-inventing the dancing and not-dancing bodies that we are. / Master of Arts (Hons)

Prepositions are a source of error for English-speakers learning Spanish throughout many years of study. Other than contrasts of por and para, very little emphasis is given to the semantics of prepositions in current SLA practices. However, a preposition in either Spanish or English may have several meanings associated with it which a native speaker would know and use. Since prepositions in both languages have multiple meanings which do not entirely equate to the most similar preposition in the other language, at times there is a match (equivalency) and at other times there is a mismatch between the two languages. English-speaking learners of Spanish may attempt to equate the prepositions across languages if unaware of the differences in spatial relations coded by the prepositions in the two languages. / This dissertation examines the prepositions en, a, and de in consideration of the subset of spatial relations that they form within the Spanish language, their primary meanings, and the semantic network of meanings associated with them. By using illustrations and explanations of spatial relations for the three Spanish prepositions as determined by Whitley, explanations of the system provided by Bull, semantic descriptions provided by the Diccionario de la Real Academia Espanola and the Diccionario de Construccion y Regimen de la Lengua Castellana, and by applying the model of principled polysemy for analyzing English prepositions proposed by Tyler and Evans, the current work provides a thorough description of en, a, and de from a cognitive perspective, that is, in terms of the concepts they convey. In order to provide a more complete analysis for the learner and educator, this work also includes a very brief description of grammaticalized usages of these prepositions. / From the detailed examination of en, a, and de, this work concludes with a summary of the various potential spatial configurations of the entities (trajector and landmark) in a relation conveyed by these prepositions, a summary of their network of senses, and some suggestions for application of this knowledge in the classroom. While approaches to vocabulary acquisition are many and varied, knowledge of the potential spatial configurations conveyed by en, a, and de may facilitate and hasten what is often a lengthy process of acquisition.

This dissertation is a variationist account of two non-standard relative clause (RC) structures in Spanish: resumptive pronouns (RPs) and prepositional-phrase (PP) chopping. Previous typological studies considered RP explanations based on difficulty of processing (Hawkins, 1994), while Spanish-specific quantitative studies proposed a number of factors regarding the relationship between the RC and its antecedent (Silva-Corvalan, 1996; Bentivoglio, 2003; Samper et al., 2003). To my knowledge, there are no previous studies of PP-chopping in Spanish RCs, and the only study of a Romance language, Portuguese, suggests that RPs and PP-chopping stand in complementary distribution (Tarallo, 1986). I argue that the factors favoring RP presence vary according to the syntactic position relativized, and that oblique RPs and PP-chopping are processes independent from each other. / Early in the development of variationist methodology, Labov (1972) had pointed out the difficulties in studying syntactic variables; in particular, their low frequency, compared to phonological variables. RP-containing RCs in Spanish are very infrequent: they represent only 14.5 per cent of the total number of RCs in my data. In order to study the occurrence of RPs in subject, direct object (DO), and oblique RCs separately and extensively, I gathered data from two different sources: (1) twenty-six hour-long sociolinguistic interviews of native speakers of the Lima (Peru) Spanish dialect; and (2) data from twelve hours of sessions of the Peruvian Congress. / Since 70 per cent of the proposed factors did not equally affect the presence of RPs in subject, DO, and oblique RCs, this study suggests that RP occurrence is favored by different factors depending on the syntactic function relativized within the RC. However, some factors are common to the three syntactic positions relativized, in particular, sentential antecedent, a factor that was omitted in most of the previous studies. In addition, the results show that there is a subject-specific type of RP that performs the pragmatic function of contrast. With regard to PP-chopping in oblique RCs, the results suggest that, unlike Brazilian Portuguese, this strategy is not in complementary distribution with RPs, but rather obeys factors related to the characteristics of the RC antecedents. / This study contributes to the understanding of non-standard RC structures in Spanish, and supports the general variationist assumption (Labov, 1972) that linguistic variation can hardly ever be explained by a single factor. Regarding RPs, this study presents evidence against implicational universal proposals like Comrie's (1981) and Hawkins.s (1994), suggesting that language-specific constraints must not be overlooked. With respect to PP-chopping, this is the first study of such a phenomenon in Spanish, and it shows that PP-chopping is favored by different factors than those shown to be valid for Portuguese, and that it is a structure completely independent from RP occurrence.

Immersive Fictions: Modern Narrative, New Media, Mixed Reality presents an approach to narrative fiction that responds to the expanded role of virtual environments in contemporary life. Despite the growing number of daily activities mediated by digital technologies, the virtual is still widely characterized as the opposite of the real. The pervasiveness of this perspective is demonstrated in the frequent use of immersion metaphors to describe virtual environments. I argue that this practice perpetuates an ontological binary that obscures the ways in which the virtual enters and participates in a wired culture. Immersive Fictions reimagines the relationship between media and its users in this context in order to trace the circuits of interaction running across the supposed boundary between the virtual and real. Because the expectation that media-generated environments be "immersive" proceeds from the long tradition of describing a reader's experience of being "lost in a book," this dissertation takes the form of a comparative study of videogames and print literature and relies on an interdisciplinary approach combining new media studies and literary criticism. I demonstrate how print works such as Truman Capote's In Cold Blood and Mark Danielewski's House of Leaves and videogames such as Ubisoft's Prince of Persia: Sands of Time, Silicon Knight's Eternal Darkness, CyberConnect2's .hack//Infection position their audience not as vicarious visitors to non-actual worlds, but as book readers or game players. Their embodied engagement then becomes itself a site of the fiction as the conflicts animating these narratives are shown to be active in the material task and cultural significance of reading and play. As a result, I argue for a new understanding of "realism," exemplified by Infinity Ward's Modern Warfare series and Danny Ledonne's Super Columbine Massacre RPG!, which addresses the virtualities of fiction, not in terms of their representational or even immersive capacities, but with regard to how they situate their audience in the context of the social, political, and ethical forces bearing on their interactions with the virtual.

This paper discusses the themes and styles Marlene Streeruwitz uses to support a feminist perspective. The themes discussed are silence, motherhood, oppression, and the body. Streeruwitz's text brings the historical and contemporary silence of women to light and exposes personal and social oppression. By including aspects of women's lives, such as the role of mother, Streeruwitz provides a new literary perspective of women. This is further enhanced by the text's insight into the physical aspects of womanhood. Finally, Streeruwitz's writing style, which is characterized by minimalistic sentence structures and phrases, as well as unusual punctuation, endorses a form of writing that is more representative of women's experiences in opposition to the vast history of literature formed from the male's perspective in a patriarchal society.

In an attempt to widen interpretations, this study first explores the myths associated with Friedrich von Hardenberg, commonly known as Novalis, which have resulted in the neglect of material interpretations of his works. After an introduction to Hardenberg's theory of the Self and Karl Marx's theory of alienation, an analysis of Hardenberg's most widely read work, Heinrich von Afterdingen, demonstrates how Hardenberg was as concerned with the material and the social relations among human beings and their labor as he was with their spiritual endeavors. The self-development of Heinrich, the main character in Afterdingen, is chronicled in this study with special attention given to his material existence as well as the material existence of the people he encounters. This study demonstrates that Afterdingen can be read as a handbook for the development of the Self according to the theories of Hardenberg and Marx, in which the Self cannot favor the spiritual realm, or inner existence, at the expense of its material and social relations. Rather, these two spheres are both important for full self-development.

The literary works of Heinrich von Kleist (17771811) have long been an important influence on thinkers and writers interested and engaged in the German cultural tradition, particularly due to the enigmatic and highly problematic nature of his narrative approach. In recent years, however, there has been a notable surge of interest in Kleists works, which has led to the production of several articles, papers, and even entire conference panels dedicated to the investigation of his oeuvre from various angles. Why does Kleist still fascinate his readers so much, and what is it about his texts that allow for such a large and varied body of interpretation? In this thesis, I will argue that it is crucial to examine closely the interface of text and reader when analyzing Kleists novellas, specifically "Die Marquise von O" and "Das Erdbeben in Chili." I will then attempt to establish a link between Kleists unique reaction to the philosophical debates concerning epistemology and aesthetics that were taking place during his short lifetime and the experience of the reader when confronting Kleists texts. I will examine these questions first with the aid of narratology and reader-response theory, particularly by examining the issues of closure and focalization in the two narratives. Furthermore, I will illustrate how a narratological/reader-response approach to Kleists work can also inform a feminist critical approach and, likewise, how a feminist analysis can complement the former. In the final chapter, I will conduct a feminist analysis, focusing on both form and content in the two novellas to show how Kleists work both structurally and thematically challenges male Enlightenment values such as order and logic. These analyses ultimately illustrate how Kleist displaced the philosophical questions with which he was grappling into the realm of the text-reader interface, thus emulating and illuminating with this relationship the selfs quest for knowledge and meaning in the world.