Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago. / "Bibliographie": p. v-x. Includes bibliographical references and index. Also issued online.

Texte remanié de: Ph. D. dissertation--Philadelphia--University of Pennsylvania, 1993. / Bibliogr. p. 221-244. Index.

Texte remanié de: Diss.--Fachbereich Orientalistik--Universität Hamburg, 1985. / Textes en égyptien ancien translittéré suivis d'une traduction allemande.

Th. d'habilitation--Zurich. / Bibliogr. p. 468-507. Index.

This thesis presents the written documentation and evaluation of the development of the original play Bananapocalypse from conception to realized production at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. I wrote this play to exist as a unique, live theatrical experience that utilizes the theatre audience in ways that other media, such as television and film, simply cannot, but doing so in a potent and purposeful way connected to the play's plot and ideas. In doing so, I wrote a play that existed to primarily be a comedy, using its humor to reflect on our society and satirically to poke holes in our national identity. Chapter One is a detailed exploration of the play's origins, plot and character creation, goals of the production, and script development through its selection as part of the 2010-2011 Season. Chapter Two discusses the production process, following the play's continuing evolution as it was brought to the stage in collaboration with a director, actors, and designers. Chapter Three focuses entirely on the audience, detailing their reactions to the play in performance. Chapter Four serves as my evaluation of the process, the performance, and the audience reaction, discovering what these aspects and my journey says about the play and how it needs to further develop. The final chapter is the production draft of the full play script. Recording of original music is included in supplementary material.

During and after the First World War, English-language poets employed various ironic techniques to address war's dark absurdities. These methods, I argue, have various degrees of efficacy, depending upon the ethics of the poetry's approach to its reading audience. I judge these ethical discourses according to a poem's willingness to include its readers in the process of poetic construction, through a shared ironic connection. My central ethical test is Immanuel Kant's categorical imperative and Jurgen Habermas's conception of discourse ethics. I argue that without a sense of care and duty toward the reading other (figured in open-ended ironies over dogmatic rhetorics), there can be no social responsibility or reformation, thus testing modernist assumptions about the political usefulness of poetry. I begin with the trench poets Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen, whose sarcastic and satirical ironies are constructed upon a problematic consequentialist ethos. Despite our sympathy for the poets' tragic positions as soldiers, their poems' rhetoric is ultimately coercive rather than politically progressive. It negates the social good it intends by nearly mimicking the unilateral rhetoric that gave rise to the war. The next chapter concerns Ezra Pound's Hugh Selwyn Mauberley and T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land, fundamental modernist poems defining the postwar Anglo-American era. In contrast to the trench poets, I argue these two poems at their best manage to create an irony of free play, inviting the audience's participation in meaning-making through the irony of self-parody. Traditional ethical critiques of these poets' troubling politics, I argue, do not negate the discourse ethics present in these texts. The final three chapters follow the wartime and postwar ironies of the American poets William Carlos Williams, Marianne Moore, and Wallace Stevens. Williams, a medical doctor, makes use of the ironic grotesque in his poems to offer the voice of poetry to the disenfranchised, including individuals with disabilities. Moore, a modernist and early feminist, pairs her poems to decenter poetic authority, depicting possible ethical poetic conversations. Finally, Stevens's democratic, pragmatic ethics appears within poetry that continually invites its readers to fill in gaps of meaning about the war and beyond.

AFRIKAANS: Hoewel die begrip "karikatuur" dikwels genoem word wanneer kritici die aanwesigheid van die satire, parodie en ironie in Etienne Leroux se romans bespreek, word dit nêrens omskryf of ontleed nie. Trouens, daar het tot op datum geen uitvoerige studie oor die karikatuur in die Afrikaanse letterkunde verskyn nie. Hierdie proefskrif is daarop afgestem om teoretiese helderheid te verkry oor wat ‘n karikatuur is, hoe dit as kunsgreep ontwikkel het, en hoe dit in die Leroux-kritiek neerslag gevind het. Die vertekening van bestaande modelle het reeds by primitiewe mense voorgekom en die ontwikkeling daarvan kan ook in die Antieke, die Middeleeue, die Renaissance en tot op hede nagespeur word. Hierdie vertekening het geskied deur ‘n verskeidenheid van tegnieke waarvan oordrywing, onderstelling, verwringing en vermenging die belangrikste is. Die "lag" in die een of ander vorm is altyd aanwesig in die karikatuur, hoewel dit soms afgeskaal kan wees tot ‘n blote grimmige gryns omdat die karikatuur ook tragiese, groteske en selfs grusame dimensies kan besit. Die beskouings van Mikhaïl Bakhtin, die Russiese literêre teoretikus, dien as vertrekpunt vir hierdie studie. Die begrip "karnaval" is die grondslag van die kollektiewe volkskultuur wat Bakhtin se teorie onderlê en die word ook behandel. Dit wys op die inherente behoefte by die mens om die bestaande orde om te keer en ook die vermoë om ‘n humoristiese alternatief van die konvensionele te skep. Studies oor die implementering van die karikatuur in die werk van vier erkende satiriese skrywers, belig die funksies, kwaliteit en aard van karikatuurskepping in die literatuur. Leroux se gebruik van karikature toon 'n noue ooreenkoms met die van bogenoemde skrywers. Dit behels dat die karikatuur dikwels 'n bestanddeel van satire is; dat daar naspeurbare verbande tussen die visuele en die literêre karikatuur bestaan; dat die tegnieke van vertekening en oordrywing essensieel aan die karikatuur is; dat dit bestaande aanvaarde grense en norme oorboord gooi en deurbreek; en dat korrekte begrip van 'n karikatuur by die leser tot 'n herinterpretasie van die werklikheid lei. Ontledings van die karikatuur in twee Leroux-romans, naamlik Die mugu en Sewe dae by die Silbersteins, het getoon dat die doel daarmee is om die hedendaagse samelewing as vals en kunsmatig aan die kaak te stel, maar ook om die Mens se swakhede en vergrype bloot te lê. Die mugu word as 'n karikatuur van die tradisionele ridderroman, soos dit veral rondom die hoofkarakter Gysbrecht Edelhart uitkristalliseer, in oënskou geneem. Dit ontbreek Gysbrecht aan die kenmerkende heroïese daadkragtigheid van die geïdealiseerde ridder. As 'n karikatuur van die ridder word Gysbrecht 'n anti-held, 'n verworde ridder in 'n verworde wêreld. In Sewe dae by die Silbersteins sluit Leroux aan by die middeleeuse karikatuurgenre, Die Dans van die Dood. Die idee van 'n reidans met die Dood as sentrale figuur om die lewendes oor die drumpel van die lewe na die dood te lei, word ook in genoemde roman aangetref met lady Mandrake as die doodsfiguur. Die oorblywende Leroux-romans sou in verdere studies op soortgelyke wyse ondersoek kon word. ENGLISH: Although the concept "caricature" is often mentioned by critics in their studies on satire, parody and irony in the novels of Etienne Leroux, definitions and analyses of and discussions on the concept are critically absent. In fact, to date no comprehensive study on caricature has appeared in the field of Afrikaans literature. This thesis aims to achieve theoretical lucidity on the exact nature of caricature, the origin and development of caricature in art, and the expression of caricature in Leroux's literature. The distortion of existing models was already found in primitive societies and the development thereof can be traced through Antiquity, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance and up to the present time. Distortion then comprised a wide variety of techniques the most important being exaggeration, understatement, and the contortion and intermingling of features. Laughter in one form or another is always present in caricature, although it may be scaled down to a mere grimace as caricature can also have tragic, grotesque and even gruesome dimensions. The views of Mikhaïl Bakhtin, the Russian literary theorist, serve as a point of departure in this study. The concept of the 11 carnival 11 is fundamental to the folk culture on which Bakhtin bases his theory and this is comprehensively discussed. This concept illustrates the inherent need in humans to overturn the conventional order and their ability to create a humoristic alternative to the norm. Studies on the implementation of caricature in the works of four known authors of satire enlighten the functions, qualities and nature of caricature in literature. Leroux's use of caricature shows a close resemblance to that of the above-mentioned authors. It embraces caricature as a component of satire; determines ascertainable connections between visual and literary caricature; claims that distortion and overstatement are essential elements of caricature; and finds that caricature incurses and discards existing and accepted norms and boundaries. Where the reader comprehends a caricature correctly it inevitably leads to a reinterpretation of reality. Analyses of two Leroux novels, Die mugu and Sewe dae by die Silbersteins indicate that caricature is used in satirical writing to reveal the present-day society as false and artificial, but also to expose the weaknesses and transgressions of Man. Die mugu is examined as a caricature of the traditional romance of chivalry with the main character Gysbrecht Edelhart, as central figure. Gysbrecht lacks the typical heroic chivalry and forcefulness of the idealized knight. As a caricaturized knight he becomes an anti-hero a perverted knight within a perverse society. Leroux implements The Dance of Death, a medieval genre of caricature, in Sewe dae by die Silbersteins. In the novel the idea of Death escorting the living over the threshold of life into death culminates in the figure of Lady Mandrake. The remaining Leroux novels could possibly be analysed in the same way in future studies. / Thesis (DLitt)--University of Pretoria, 2013. / Afrikaans / unrestricted

Through the ages satirists have exposed and ridiculed certain malpractices in society in their texts. They have often done so in a language filled with irony and exaggeration. For the purpose of this dissertation I wish to focus on three texts by Marlene van Niekerk, the eminent Afrikaans author, and analyse the way in which she uses satire to comment particularly on contemporary South African society and address issues such as violence, the 2010 World Cup, corruption and violence against women and children. The three texts under discussion are the two lengthy poems, ―Suid Afrika and ―Brief aan president Motlanthe [―Letter to President Motlanthe] and her play Die kortstondige raklewe van Anastacia W [The brief shelf-life of Anastacia W]. She bases her writings on real life incidents and events written about in the newspapers and these clippings serve as intertexts for her critique of society.

In North America, race and racialization can be seen as products of domination that are (re)produced and perpetuated through the mechanisms of racial interpellation. This concept refers to the fact that identity and subjectivity are imposed on racialized subjects through institutions and practices such as racial profiling. In this sense, literature on race, racialization, and resistance in North America reveals that racial profiling is a key issue in the region even if a façade of post-racialism trumps the existence of ongoing injustices, inequalities, and limitations of freedom faced by racialized minorities. In this respect, this research emphasizes that language, representations and practices are at the core of this issue as components of dynamics of racial interpellation. This research also acknowledges the existence of endless struggles for respect among racialized minorities, specifically Arabs and Muslims in North America. These struggles seek to allow racialized subjects to be seen as members of a society in which race and differences are not the underlying concern. Since humour (satire) has historically been recognized as a tool of disruption of dominant discourses, in this research we ask: how do comedians issued from racialized minorities face these struggles? With ongoing atrocities faced by racialized minorities, in this paper, I seek to reflect on how the intersection of race and comedy can be used to negotiate (accept, tolerate, and resist) the reproduction of racialized subjects. I focus on the way political satire faces Althusserian ideological interpellation (later translated to racial interpellation by Frantz Fanon). Can the latter be resisted or challenged through humour? This thesis argues that when race and comedy intersect it allows comedians to voice challenges often faced by racialized communities in order to resist an existing reality and create new meanings. As Frantz Fanon once mentioned: “Each generation must, out of relative obscurity, discover its mission, fulfill it, or betray it”. Is the fight against racialization part of the mission that popular comedians of minority communities have given to themselves?

A note from Pfau Library: We stumbled across this long-buried piece of underwater basket-weaving research during our digitization project and are now proud to present it to the world and the audience it deserves. The Journal of Irreproducible Results is doubtless disappointed they didn't get hold of it first. The origins of this monument of scholarship are unclear. It may been produced by an education professor as a model thesis structure for his grad students to follow, or it may be the work of a librarian with too much time on their hands one long hot summer in the late 1980's. So the identity of author Ima Pfoul must remain a mystery for now.