Breast-baring occurs in fifth century Attic tragedy in a variety of situations, but almost always within a mournful context. Many connotations of the naked breast—vulnerability, womanhood, motherhood, and voluntary humiliation—can be evoked. Breast-baring can be a precursor of the death of the woman who exposes herself or of the death of the person to whom she makes the gesture. The most commonly represented context is the supplication of a son by a mother, a topos which finds its origin in Hecuba’s supplication of Hector (Il. 22.79-89). As a consistent failure, breast-baring during supplication reinforces the idea, commonly held in the society of the time, that female power is inferior to male power. The motivations for the gesture will be examined both within the respective literary contexts and within the society of the period. / Classics and World Languages / MA (Classical Studies)

This study focuses on the investigation and deconstruction of the phenomena of the South African dystopian society, as reflected in the novels of Lauren Beukes and films by Neill Blomkamp. The characteristics and signifiers of a uniquely South African dystopian society are established and investigated through a posthuman lens. The theoretical framework of this study is principally concerned with the critical posthuman writings of Rosi Braidotti, Donna Haraway and, to a lesser extent, Cary Wolfe. Feminism and post-colonialism, and their influences on posthuman theory, are applied as the secondary theoretical framework, in this study. The study is practice led, with the study of the literature serving as mutually informative to the execution of a body of work centred on the dystopian theme. The paintings are intended to be metonyms for the wide range of manifestations of social decline evident in contemporary South African narratives. / Arts and Music / M.A. (Visual Arts)

Le présent travail enrichit la thématologie à un double niveau, à la fois par une réflexion méthodologique sur les différents modes de manifestation du thème, et par une meilleure connaissance d'un "mythe" littéraire précis, celui de sainte Marie-Madeleine, dont la vitalité ne laisse aucun doute, tant dans la fréquence de l'utilisation du personnage depuis deux mille ans, que dans l'originalité des interprétations, malgré d'inévitables redites et banalités. <p>Sur la base d'une analyse minutieuse des différentes composantes du thème magdaléen dans la littérature franco-belge d'expression française après 1814, et des incarnations féminines qui s'en dégagent, cette thèse définit les contours du visage de la Madeleine de ces deux derniers siècles, et démontre la raison fondamentale de la permanence de la figure évangélique à travers les siècles :sa rencontre immédiate, et constante, avec le motif de la Femme dans la civilisation judéo-chrétienne. / Doctorat en philosophie et lettres, Orientation langue et littérature / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

Archaeologists rely heavily on pottery data to make inferences about the past. Although a critical component of such inferences is knowing how the pots were used, archaeologists at present cannot reconstruct accurately pottery function. This research provides the means whereby actual pottery use can be determined from traces that remain on pots. The study focuses on an analysis of nearly 200 vessels collected in the Kalinga village of Guina-ang. Traces, in the form of organic residues, attrition, and carbon deposits, are linked to pottery use activities observed in Kalinga households. The analysis of organic residue focuses on fatty acids absorbed into the vessel wall; samples are taken from Kalinga cooking pots and several types of food. It is found that rice cooking pots can be discriminated from vegetable/meat cooking pots, though individual plant species cannot be distinguished in the latter. In several cases, however, there is conclusive evidence for meat cooking. An analysis of Kalinga "archaeological" sherds was also performed to look at fatty acid preservation. A pottery attrition analysis, similar to the study of lithic use-wear, is also performed on Kalinga pottery. The objective is to understand the general principles in the formation of an attritional trace. Nine areas on Kalinga cooking vessels are found to have attritional patches. The two forms of Kalinga cooking vessels could be discriminated based on attrition. Carbon deposits reflect what was cooked, how it was heated, and some general activities of cooking. Interior carbon deposits result from the charring of food and is governed by the source of heat, intensity of heat, and the presence of moisture. The processes that govern the different types of exterior soot are difficult to identify and several experiments are performed. It is found that soot deposition is controlled by wood type, temperature of the ceramic surface, and the presence of moisture. This research demonstrates that archaeologists can begin looking at organic residues, attrition and carbon deposits to infer how their vessels were used in the past.

This thesis is a contribution to the ongoing debate over standards of criticism for the novel in Africa. After reviewing the three main approaches, the 'Afro-centric', the 'Euro-centric ' and the 'syncretic', and highlighting their shortcomings, I hope to demonstrate that if the devices of point of view ' are used properly they may provide a valuable tool for a useful reading of the novels. Point of view is seen as a holistic device and not, as Lubbock and others suggest, a question of 'the relationship of the narrator to the story'. The views of Boris Uspensky, Gerard Genette and Susan Lanser on this subject are modified to suit the eclectic and comparative designs of the study. Point of view is thus seen as the means through which a given device operates in a specific context, what it reveals, and how it relates to other textual elements. Four main categories are proposed, namely the dramatized, the inward, the multiple and the communal perspectives. These categories demonstrate the flexibility of method which point of view allows and they show how novels from different backgrounds may be examined under one 'convention' without depriving such novels of their originality. Twenty novels by British, American and African novelists are subsequently divided into these four categories and each of the novels is described, allowing them to define one another. The communal perspective is found to be a unique feature of the five African novels examined in the last three chapters. These novels require the reader to modify his opinions about point of view, for the novelists seem to speak on behalf of their communities. The communal pose thus becomes a literary device. It is a device which manifests itself in the case of the novels of Chinua Achebe, Ayi Kwei Armah and Gabriel Okara through the skilful use of character, language and setting. The reader who comes to the novels with the conviction that character is a paradigm of traits will need to bear in mind that traits in these novels are what are normally known as characters in other novels and that in the novels, therefore, characterisation is largely transferred from the individual person to the communal personality. This is the contribution these African novelists have made to world fiction. It is nevertheless shown that this distinct feature need not deny a common ground from which the critic of the African novel can define the novels' themes and methods and that ultimately the isolation which the three main approaches seem to recommend is neither desirable, nor is it helpful as a way of making the reader aware of the form and content of the novels.

Typescript. Bibliography: in v. 3.

The autobiographical nature of my work deals with the space between the innocence of childhood and the wisdom of adulthood. I explore the complexities of personal experience, old and new landscapes and the scar tissue of memory. The work deals with beginnings and departures, relationships and conflict of power and vulnerability in the quest to make sense of life. My work connects with moments of childhood that I try to retain as a touchstone for authentic experience. The images are derived from personal and familial experiences, moving through to the universal to tell the human tale, using the human body as a metaphor. The body becomes the subject matter for expressing ideas about our universal and personal concerns. I explore the gulf between the real and the unreal through examining themes such as identity, vulnerability, anxiety, fear, alienation, abandonment, loss, corruption of innocence, love and death within a contemporary urban framework. These emotions are played out against the backdrop of daily domesticity and reflect the physical reality of the world around us, often exposing the contrast between the orderly veneer of our daily lives and our emotional reality. My work methodology uses narrative found in books, films, fairy tales or fables to explore the conflicting emotions which structure human identity and interaction. I use the stories as a way of approaching ideas or emotions and exploiting the story as a focus of cultural knowledge. In the search for emotional truth I draw parallels between my art practice and the search for authenticity within the theatre. My work is an attempt to explain my own creative process in relation to the artists who have influenced me, my childhood, its rich tradition of storytelling and my passion for theatre and literature as well as a search for meaning in my own relationships and life's journey. This is conveyed through a series of paintings and works on paper.

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Dynasties of Demons: Cannibalism from Lu Xun to Yu Hua focuses on the issue of representations of the body in modern Chinese fiction. My interest concerns the relationship, or correspondence between "textual" bodies and the physical "realities" they are meant to represent, particularly where those representations involve the body as a discursive site for the intersection of state ideology and the individual. The relationship between the body and the state has been a question of profound significance for modern Chinese literati dating back to the late Qing, but it was Lu Xun who, with the publication of his short story "Kuangren riji" (Diary of a Madman), in 1918, initiated the literaty discourse on China's "apparent penchant for cannibalizing its own people. In the first chapter of my dissertation I discuss L u Xun's fiction by exploring two distinct, though not mutually exclusive issues: (1) his diagnosis of China's debilitating "spiritual illness," which he characterized as being cannibalistic; (2) his highly inventive, counter-intuitive narrative strategy for critiquing traditional Chinese culture without contributing to or stimulating his reader's prurient interests in violent spectacle. To my knowledge I am the first critic of modern Chinese literature to write about Lu Xun's erasure of the spectacle body. In Chapters II, III and IV, I discuss the writers Han Shaogong, Mo Yan, and Yu Hua, respectively, to illustrate that sixty years after Lu Xun's madman first "wrote" the prophetic words, chi ren A (eat people), a number of post-Mao writers took up their pens to announce that the human feast did not end with Confucianism; on the contrary, with the advent of Maoism the feasting began in earnest. Each of these post-Mao writers approaches the issue of China's "spiritual dysfunction" from quite different perspectives, which I have characterized in the following way: Han Shaogong (Atavism); Mo Yan (Ambivalent-Nostalgia); and Yu Hua (Deconstruction). As becomes evident through my analysis of selected texts, despite their very significant differences (personal, geographic, stylistic) all three writers come to oddly similar conclusions that are, in and of themselves, not dissimilar to the conclusion arrived at by Lu Xun's madman.

Antoni Gaudi was the architect of the Sagrada Familia from 1883 to 1926. Over this period of time he prepared the overall design and supervised the construction of the Nativity facade. One of Gaudi's main design objectives was to include tubular bells in the tall slender towers. It has been said that through his sound studies for these bells, Gaudi developed his musical sentiments most fully. Through the sound of bells, accompanied by song, he imagined a festive environment around the temple. These considerations might be seen as reflecting the overall spirit of the time, as Catalonia was in effect experiencing a cultural rebirth known as the Renaixenca . Originating with the call of the poets, this time of exuberant growth for Catalonia was one that was built upon the rebirth of language. As a result, language through poetry continued to be celebrated throughout the century, particularly through annual poetic contests called the Jocs Florals. This paper studies the facade of the Nativity as a expression of this culturally exuberant time by exploring how the Jocs Florals, and poetry in general, may have played a role in shaping its form and sound. The study also acknowledges the fact that Gaudi's inspiration for his design was derived from symbolism associated with the Catholic liturgy. The result is architecture that might be described as a union of religious and cultural symbolism, yet ultimately its festive expression is a poetic one. As such, the Sagrada Familia might be described as a celebration that is a call to gathering.