By examining Jim Thompson’s novels, published between 1952-1955–The Killer Inside Me, A Hell of a Woman, After Dark, My Sweet, and Savage Night–this essay interrogates the relationship created between the narrator and the reader, how the narrator–and Thompson in turn–highlights certain societal flaws, emphasizing how ethical consequence is born out of the attempt to attain freedom from one’s cultural circumstance–both in terms of economic restraint and mental health status. Through this, Thompson implies that the reader is trapped in similar economic and ethical predispositions. The reader is often left questioning what they might have done, or been able to do, in similar circumstances. This creates a larger frame by which Thompson implies that the reader is trapped in similar economic and ethical pre-dispositions as his narrators. He highlights societal flaws, demonstrating how the pursuit of freedom of one’s cultural circumstance bears ethical consequence. / Includes bibliography. / Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2018. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

No description available.

This thesis is an examination of the Gothic elements present in a selection of works by Canadian playwright Judith Thompson. The Gothic genre is marked by continual flux and adaptation, ensuring that its ability to inspire terror, as well as its relevance as a form of cultural critique, remains undiminished. Gothic texts seek to uncover the anxieties and uncertainties that societies would prefer to repress, and then forcing a confrontation with those elements. Frequently this pattern of repression and return takes the form of various kinds of hauntings, as well as the monstrous. As this emphasis on the “return of the repressed” would suggest, psychoanalysis will figure prominently in my analysis of Thompson’s work and is woven throughout the four chapters. Chapter One concentrates on establishing a working definition of the Gothic, its history and development, and the three subcategories of the genre that I will be focusing on in the subsequent chapters: the postmodern Gothic, the feminist Gothic and the Canadian Gothic. All three Gothic subgenres share their affinity for translating late twentieth-century anxieties into the language of the Gothic. They also share a resistance to closure or solutions of any kind, even if such solutions would seem to be advantageous to the author’s putative ideological stance. The works by Thompson I have chosen evidence her preoccupation with postmodern, feminist and contemporary Canadian concerns. She expresses these concerns in a unique style that blends contemporary literary techniques with the more timeless elements of the Gothic tradition.

This thesis is an examination of the Gothic elements present in a selection of works by Canadian playwright Judith Thompson. The Gothic genre is marked by continual flux and adaptation, ensuring that its ability to inspire terror, as well as its relevance as a form of cultural critique, remains undiminished. Gothic texts seek to uncover the anxieties and uncertainties that societies would prefer to repress, and then forcing a confrontation with those elements. Frequently this pattern of repression and return takes the form of various kinds of hauntings, as well as the monstrous. As this emphasis on the “return of the repressed” would suggest, psychoanalysis will figure prominently in my analysis of Thompson’s work and is woven throughout the four chapters. Chapter One concentrates on establishing a working definition of the Gothic, its history and development, and the three subcategories of the genre that I will be focusing on in the subsequent chapters: the postmodern Gothic, the feminist Gothic and the Canadian Gothic. All three Gothic subgenres share their affinity for translating late twentieth-century anxieties into the language of the Gothic. They also share a resistance to closure or solutions of any kind, even if such solutions would seem to be advantageous to the author’s putative ideological stance. The works by Thompson I have chosen evidence her preoccupation with postmodern, feminist and contemporary Canadian concerns. She expresses these concerns in a unique style that blends contemporary literary techniques with the more timeless elements of the Gothic tradition.

Thesis (M.M.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1966. / eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references.

No description available.

Thesis (D. Min.)--Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary, 1994. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 143-150).

Throughout British decadent literature, authors creatively experiment with religion. While part of this experimentation is a matter of how authors represent religious subjects or syncretized religious traditions, a much more foundational level of this experimentation seeks to redefine “the religious” altogether. Collectively, the authors in this study seek to redefine “religion” as focused around community, ritual, and aestheticism over creed or dogma. This new definition resonates with the way many twentieth-century sociologist, theologians, and psychoanalytic theorists have discussed the nature and role of religion in Western society, and I rely on these thinkers throughout my methodology. Also central to my methodology is my suggestion that the primary lens through which critics often read British decadence is the lens of experimentation and redefinition. It has been well established that British decadents creatively experimented with their representations of gender and sexuality, their use of genre, and their incorporation of Western philosophy, yet their treatment of religion—specifically the Western religious traditions which appear in their works—has been largely unexamined. This project argues that the British decadent authors’ creative treatment of religion is central to their works and to their broader experimental project. In my first chapter, I suggest that the experimental work that Pater does with philosophy, art theory, and genre has its roots in the experimental work he does with religion. Pater espouses a syncretic approach to religion which sees Christianity as the most recent, and most evolved, link in a series of conversant religious and philosophical traditions. At the same time, he opposes the institutionalization of religion as well as any violence that might take place in its name. In my second chapter, I claim that Oscar Wilde’s destabilization of language—separating words from their denotative meanings—lays the groundwork for his separation of religious ideology from the aesthetic and communal elements of religion. My third chapter argues that decadent religion, as imagined by Pater and Wilde, was not always easily integrated into religious life. I suggest that the sadomasochistic imagery seen throughout some of Francis Thompson’s works signifies a larger conflict between his attraction to decadence and his devotion to Catholicism. In the final chapter, I consider Vernon Lee, a woman writer who spent much of her life in Continental Europe. I claim that her position on the fringes of British, male, decadent society allowed her a unique vantage point, from which she repeatedly examined the decadent religious project even as she valued a secular, moral humanism over that project.

AbstractTitle: Private or public? A study of the content in the celebrity blog and the readers'comments. (Privat eller offentlig? En studie av kändisbloggens innehåll och läsarnaskommentarer)Number of pages: 36 (37 including enclosure)Author: Karoline FrankTutor: Else NygrenCourse: Media and Communication studies CPeriod: Fall semester 2009University: Uppsala UniversityAim: The aim of this study is to examine the boundary between the private and the public asit is expressed in a number of blogs written by Swedish celebrities.Material/Method: Qualitative textual analysis of four blogs written by Swedishcelebrities.The total amount of analyzed blog posts were 120, since 30 posts from each of theblogs were selected. Also the comments on the blog posts, given by the blog readers wereexamined.Main results: The examined blogs written by celebrities contain both issues that can beconsidered as private and public. The celebrities write about their families, especially theirchildren but, also about their partners as well as they write about things such as movies orrestaurants that they recommend. They also express their emotions relatively often. Only twoof the celebrities wrote something that can be considered to associate with their professionbut, only in one blog post each. Also, two of the celebrities made a treatment against media.Keywords: celebrities, blogs, private, public, Thompson, Giddens, qualitative analysis,comments

In Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson, the city of Las Vegasrepresents a country that is torn between the flippant capitalism and the dream ofprogress on the one hand, and the need to come closer to your own humanity on theother. Critics have had much interest in the novel and Thompson’s personal relation toit, although they have not treated the dynamic of zoomorphism that informs therelationship between man and animal of the whole novel and how the animal representdifferent values depending on circumstance. This essay provides a new approach to theideas of animalism and to Thompson’s relation to it, and the analysis examines thenovel’s representation of the relation between society, man and animal and how it canbe connected to contemporary 1972 political and personal relations. This essay’s aim isto investigate how the novel through a Bakhtinian carnival reading, together withaforementioned concept of zoomorphism, handles the issue of the underlyinganimalistic tendencies of humans and how those tendencies can represent differentthings depending on context.First, I begin with a description of the concepts and theories of significance that shall beof use in the analysis, mainly that of the Bakhtinian concept of the carnival and to alesser extent Wendy Doniger’s take on zoomorphism, which will then be connectedwith instances in the novel that handles the issue of man and animal coexistence.