Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2004. / Supervisor: Vance R. Holloway. Vita. Includes bibliographical references. Also available from UMI.

Thesis (D.A.)--Illinois State University, 1996. / Title from title page screen, viewed May 26, 2006. Dissertation Committee: Stanley W. Renner (chair), Ronald Strickland, William W. Morgan, Jr. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 140-146) and abstract. Also available in print.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--McMaster University, 2004. / Advisor: James King. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 270-280). Also available via World Wide Web.

Thesis (M.A.)--Georgia State University, 2007. / Title from file title page. Christopher Kocela, committee chair; Paul J. Voss, Calvin Thomas, committee members. Electronic text (96 p.) : digital, PDF file. Description based on contents viewed Oct. 16, 2007. Includes bibliographical references (p. 89-96).

Thesis (M.A.)--Montana State University--Bozeman, 2007. / Typescript. Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Linda Karell. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 90-94).

The phrase “glimpsing the balance between earth and sky” in the thesis title is taken from Jeanette Winterson’s Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit. In this novel, the central character Jeanette believes she has glimpsed the possibility that human relationships can find their mirror in the relationship with God, as she understands the divine Other. This glimpse has set her wandering, trying to find such a balance. This examination of four selected novels by Jeanette Winterson and John Irving shows that for Irving, “glimpsing the balance” means in part, giving voice to a strongly “Christian” view of humankind and human nature but in an age where the prevailing intellectual worldview is strongly sceptical of any Grand Narrative. The “voice” expressed in Irving’s work has to be situated, like Winterson’s, as one among many possibilities. Irving’s voice is itself masked as different, other/Other, freakish, in the narrative worlds he creates. Through his use of grotesque comedy as a vehicle for deeper philosophical concerns, Irving asks us: What after all in the postmodern world is the main show? This thesis argues that if Winterson and Irving are testing or re-presenting a Christian worldview in a postmodern context, than they are asking whether Christianity is capable of assimilating and rising above the worst circumstances the world, writer, and life can throw at it. In Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, Winterson tells a story of “forbidden love”, posed as a direct challenge to the prevailing way of knowing in her character’s community. In Gut Symmetries, she expands this challenge by employing the insights of quantum physics to make sense of the complexities raised by a triangular love relationship. Irving offers the story of Owen in A Prayer for Owen Meany as the kind of story which might possibly make a believer out of him; in short, that he would have to be a witness to some kind of miracle, something utterly inexplicable. In A Son of the Circus Irving narrates the quest for identity undertaken by an Indian doctor who is in every way a Displaced Person – the condition, he implies, of anyone who purports to find their piece of the truth. The theoretical concerns of the postmodern project are examined through Lawrence Cahoone’s argument that postmodern writing offers criticism of: presence, origin, unity and transcendence through an analytical strategy of constitutive otherness. In each of their texts, Irving and Winterson are seen to use these four critical elements and to offer a postmodern strategy of re-presenting meaning through “constitutive otherness”. Both writers also employ a strategy of historiographic metafiction (as defined by Linda Hutcheon) as a means of constructing and re-presenting their narrated stories. Postmodern paradox is compatible with what could be called a Christian plan for living, if the latter is in turn given an appropriate 1990s interpretation. The selected novels by Winterson and Irving are offered as contemporary evidence for this view. This thesis argues that the connection between postmodernism and other worldviews, particularly Christianity, is found in both projects’ process of making meanings through encounters with an other/Other.

This thesis seeks to map out the development of literary modernism in the 1930s and 1980s People's Republic of China (PRC). Despite the long temporal halt, these two periods are innately and historically related to each other. Much as Chinese literary modernism was a literary legacy of Western modernism, its decades-long development provided it with the conditions for a second life. When it reemerged in the 1980s, it bore unique national characteristics that, in turn, enriched the realm of global modernism. In short, the distinct historical and national context of the twentieth century China dictated that Chinese literary modernism could not be a mechanical reproduction of its Western counterpart. The importation and translation of Western modernist creative and critical works, together with the modernist practices of modern Chinese intellectuals, contributed to the formation and rise of modernist literature in the 1930s, as well as its revival in the 1980s PRC. Structurally, this thesis identifies three localities of global modernism in the works and literary theory of Fei Ming, Mu Dan, and Wang Zengqi. It argues that these writers' modernist practices and distinct writing styles not only represented the characteristics of Chinese literary modernism, but also added diversities to modernist literature in the global context. Methodologically, I pair the Chinese modernists with their Western counterparts, including Virginia Woolf and T.S. Eliot. This comparison helps to find similarities between modernist works across time and place, and to identify the unique features of Chinese literary modernism. In practice, when studying the three modernists' first encounters with literary modernism in Republican China, as well as their respective experience in the PRC, I seek to (i) present three modes of initiation of literary modernism at the beginning of the twentieth century; (ii) trace the development of literary modernism both in the republican era and its revival in the PRC; (iii) show the process of Chinese literary modernism growing its distinct characteristics and evidence its second life. In short, Chinese modernists' participation in the building of global modernism and their contributions to the enrichment of literary modernism in the global context are two foci of my thesis. In the final analysis, this thesis engages research on Chinese literary postmodernism. No matter the literary movement's status in the PRC, then and now, how and why it differs from the development of postmodernism in Western literature and culture are valuable research questions.

Bibliography: pages 336-354. / Tegniese en tematiese vernuwing, aansien én verguising van sy literêre werk, 'n opsienbare openbare lewe én dood - dit alles het bygedra dat Koos Prinsloo bykans 'n kultusfiguur geword het en dat sy skrywersloopbaan en literêre arbeid 'n uiters interessante, maar komplekse studieterrein is. Verskeie artikels en nagraadse studies oor uiteenlopende aspekte van Prinsloo se verhale is reeds voltooi, maar daar is nog geen sistematiese ondersoek gedoen oor die verhouding tussen feit en fiksie soos dit na vore kom in sy vier bundels nie. Met die skrywer se afsterwe in Maart 1994 is sy oeuvre afgesluit. Dit is dus vir die navorser moontlik om tot bepaalde gevolgtrekkings te kom ten opsigte van 'n volledige korpus tekste. Die werkswyse in hierdie studie is om Prinsloo se verhaalbundels in chronologiese volgorde te ontleed, te bepaal watter verhale outobiografiese merkers vertoon, na te gaan watter tegnieke die skrywer gebruik het om sy tekste te fiksionaliseer/defiksionaliseer, en wat die funksies en konsekwensies is van die byhaal van die "werklikheid" by die fiksionele. Die uitsprake van kritici word by elke bundel gegee, met die navorser se reaksie op die kritiek. As gevolg van die omvang van hierdie studie, word daar nie aandag gegee aan die (meer omvattende) verhouding tussen "feit" en "fiksie" in Prinsloo se oeuvre nie. Sodanige studie sal meebring dat die talryke dokumentêre verwysings in sy werk nagevors en die funksionaliteit daarvan bepaal word. Hierdie studie konsentreer net op die verhouding tussen die outobiografiese feit en fiksie in sy werk, maar verwys, waar nodig, na sommige van hierdie dokumente.

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Thesis (MDram)--Stellenbosch University, 2003. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The productions of Breyten Breytenbach's dramas created unprecedented (negative) reaction amongst the audience members. The themes and the representation of these themes through the use of language and images caused the alienation of many audience members. One of the main causes of alienation was the problem the audience had in understanding the text. The two Afrikaans dramas, Boklied and Die Toneelstuk will be placed in the postmodern theatrical tradition to give a methodology for the reading of the texts. The study also examines the nature of intertextuality to show how the use of intertextuality helps to create meaning. The theatrical productions bring the texts to life and therefore the study will also refer to the productions of these texts. The experience of a postmodern theatre piece does not imply that no meaning can be attributed to language and action. The attribution of meaning in production and texts like Boklied and Die Toneelstuk is not always based on the use oflanguage. The audience/reader of these texts becomes the cocreators of meaning. This study tries to show a range of interpretations and possible meanings of these texts. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Die dramas van Breyten Breytenbach het met die produksie daarvan ongekende en negatiewe reaksie onder die Afrikaanse gehore ontlok. Die temas en die uitbeelding van hierdie temas in produksie en in die taal wat Breytenbach gebruik het, het tot vervreemding by die gehoor gelei. Een van die hoofredes vir die vervreemding by die gehoor was dat hulle probleme gehad het om die teks te verstaan. Die twee Afrikaanse dramas, Boklied en Die Toneelstuk word in hierdie tesis binne die postmoderne teaterstroom geplaas om aan te toon hoe dié tipe teatertekste gelees kan word. Die studie ondersoek ook die aard van intertekstuele verwysings in die dramas- om aan te toon hoe hierdie verwysings help met die skepping van betekenis by die kyker/leser van hierdie tekste. Die geskrewe dramateks kan eers ten volle in die lewe geroep word in die produksie van die teks en daarom word daar in die bespreking van die tekste ook na die opvoerings verwys. Die belewing van 'n postmoderne teaterstuk beteken nie dat daar nie betekenis aan aksie en taal toegeskryf kan word nie. Die toeskrywing van betekenis is, in gevalle soos die produksies van Boklied en Die Toneelstuk, nie altyd tekstueel gebaseer nie. Die toeskouer/leser van hierdie tekste is medeskepper van betekenis. Die studie poog om die vele moontlikhede van interpretasie en die betekenis van hierdie tekste uit te lig.