20 research outputs found
The language of incipient opposition: the discourse of the party of democratic socialism in German politics 1989-1995
No full textThis work explores how the PDS, as legal successor to the SED and thus to a party emanating from a Marxist tradition, has sought discursively to deal with the task of adapting to the demands of the all-German polity and of establishing a place for itself on the far left of the German political spectrum. Leaning heavily on the work of the critical linguists whose central interest was in exploring the relationship between language and ideology, this study starts from the premise that language and ideology inform one another dialectically: language is constitutive of ideology. As establishing and maintaining dominant ideologies and/or honing or adapting these in accordance with external exigencies is central to politics, the relationship between language and politics (and language and history) is likewise a dialectical one. A particular focus is upon the attempts of PDS party leaders and ideologues to establish a mediating, 'super-discourse' capable of smoothing over the high-level of intra-party factionalisation and of legitimising the PDS as broadly as possible in the political establishment. Opposition is a thematic leitmotiv: the PDS's historiographic portrayal of the SED's and its own relationship to opposition movements in the GDR and the Wendezeit is examined, as is the high-level of intra-party opposition and the linguistic staging of the inner-party polemic on whether the PDS's self-styled, extra- system, oppositional role will allow its inclusion in conventional governmental alliances. In addition, aspects of the language of the vociferous political opposition engendered and encountered by the PDS are also considered
Crackin' the code of post-race: post-1980s novels and post-race discourses
No full textDissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Centro de Comunicação e Expressão, Programa de Pós-Graduação em Inglês: Estudos Linguísticos e Literários, Florianópolis, 2013.Abstract : The last decades has seen a shift in racial thought in the U.S. The discourses vary from the statement that the U.S. has moved beyond race to the post-racial neoliberalist discourse in which 'essential' identities are fragments of a social past and its continuance has the function of renewing race and racism. As these discourses gain ground in the U.S. society, the issue of fighting racism becomes more slippery. The present investigation analyzes the meanings attached to the rebirth of novels that deals with the concept of passing for white in this period and its relation with the fragmentation of the color line. More specifically, the aim of this dissertation is to unveil the forms through which No Telephone to Heaven, Caucasia, and The Girl Who Fell from the Sky respond to the discourses of racial liberalism and Critical Realism. Drawing upon Santiago?s concept of in-betweenness and Butler's concept of performativity, this dissertation sought to analyze the novels chosen as rich sources of insight about the changing racial thought in the U.S.As últimas décadas registraram uma mudança no pensamento racial nos Estados Unidos. Os discursos variam da afirmação de que os Estados Unidos transcendeu a questão racial ao discurso neoliberalista pós-racial que considera identidades 'essenciais' como fragmentos de um passado social e sua continuação apenas renova os conceitos de raça e racismo. A medida que esses discursos se tornam dominantes nos Estados Unidos, a questão do combate ao racismo se torna mais incerta. A presente investigação analisa os significados ligados ao reaparecimento de romances que lidam com o conceito de 'passar por branco' neste período e sua relação com a fragmentação da ?color line?. Mais especificamente, o objetivo deste estudo é investigar a forma que No Telephone to Heaven, Caucasia, and The Girl Who Fell from the Sky respondem aos discursos de liberalismo racial e Realismo Crítico. Com base no conceito de ?entre-lugar? de Santiago e o conceito de performatividade de Butler, esta tese procurou analisar as novelas escolhidas como fontes ricas de compreensão do pensamento racial nos Estados Unidos
Representations of Voodoo : the history and influence of Haitian Vodou within the cultural productions of Britain and America since 1850
No full textThis thesis is the first major investigation into the representations of Vodou
within the cultural productions of Britain and America. It also opens up
opportunities for further research to be undertaken in the representations of
Vodou, Haiti and the culture and religions of other Caribbean countries.
This thesis explores the representations of 'Voodoo,' the widely accepted and
recognised term for the re-imagined religion, in Britain and America since 1850.
The history of the Caribbean and Haiti is examined before considering the
influence that the religion of Haitian Vodou has had on cultural production.
Through a historical perspective the thesis will consider the evolution of Vodou
during the horrors of slavery. The historiographic representations form the basis
of the productions and are explored to contextualise Vodou in the British and
American imagination. All genres of literature are examined, from the first
mention of Vodou in the eighteenth century through to the present day. This is
followed by an examination of the cultural reproductions of Vodou in film,
animation, theatre and television to explore the diversity of the representations.
The wider societal influences are considered throughout this work to
contextualise the productions of 'Voodoo'.
This thesis argues that the cultural reproductions of Vodou since 1850 have not
changed greatly, despite various efforts to redress the misrepresentations, they
remain rooted in colonialism. It will argue that many of the cultural productions
are reliant on previous representations. They do not in the majority introduce
authenticity, instead opting for the more sensational approach. Many of the
representations will be shown to be derogatory to the religion, culture and people
of Haiti and the diaspora. This is despite Vodou as a religion having survived,
gained strength and continuing to thrive in the twenty-first century
Bernard Brodie and the bomb: at the birth of the bipolar world
No full textBernard Brodie (1910-1978) was a leading 20th century theorist and philosopher of war. A key architect of American nuclear strategy, Brodie was one of the first civilian defense intellectuals to cross over into the military world. This thesis explores Brodie’s evolution as a theorist and his response to the technological innovations that transformed warfare from World War II to the Vietnam War. It situates his theoretical development within the classical theories of Carl von Clausewitz (1780-1831), as Brodie came to be known as “America’s Clausewitz.” While his first influential works focused on naval strategy, his most lasting impact came within the field of nuclear strategic thinking. Brodie helped conceptualize America’s strategy of deterrence, later taking into account America’s loss of nuclear monopoly, the advent of thermonuclear weapons, and proliferation of intercontinental ballistic missiles. Brodie’s strategic and philosophical response to the nuclear age led to his life-long effort to reconcile Clausewitz’s theories of war, which were a direct response to the strategic innovations of the Napoleonic era, to the new challenges of the nuclear age. While today’s world is much changed from the bipolar international order of the Cold War period, contemporary efforts to apply Clausewitzian concepts to today’s conflicts suggests that much can be learned from a similar endeavor by the previous generation as its strategic thinkers struggled to imagine new ways to maintain order in their era of unprecedented nuclear danger.acceptedVersionei tietoa saavutettavuudest
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The holiday: Britishness and British film
No full textThe representation of the supposed free space of the holiday by a medium of mass entertainment offers a highly condensed image that demands analysis. In my thesis I question the ways in which the holiday film constructs a sense of Britishness based around the idea of community that is shaped and pressured by forces at different historical moments. Modern capitalist society offers us a structure where the holiday is presented to us as the ultimate contrast from work. It is commodified, and we choose to enter into this ideology, take our break, and return to work, refreshed. The holiday also offers a particular type of freedom, which distinguishes it from other forms of leisure. It can be considered as more of an ‘event’ than a weekend break from work, for instance. The emergence of the holiday as a form of mass entertainment for the working class appears to coincide with the birth of cinema in the same respect. By studying the holiday film I try to reveal what it tells us about British culture, the nation and British life, and how cinema audiences may have engaged with and responded to these texts
O conceito de modernidade nos escritos primeiros de Kierkegaard: uma análise semântico-contextual
No full textTese (doutorado) - Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Centro de Filosofia e Ciências Humanas. Programa de Pós-Graduação Interdisciplinar em Ciências HumanasTrata-se nesta tese de explorar, a partir de uma leitura semântico-contextual, os primeiros textos, tanto os publicados quanto os não publicados, produzidos pelo teólogo e filósofo dinamarquês Søren Aabye Kierkegaard (1813-1855), os quais têm como questão central a assunção da modernidade. Com efeito, argumento mais especificamente que por mais que Kierkegaard não tenha desenvolvido uma clara articulação do conceito propriamente dito de modernidade, sua compreensão do fenômeno da modernidade, não obstante, revela-se das mais claras, assim como das mais importantes e mais frutíferas em termos de uma abordagem crítica desse objeto, o que o torna, consequentemente, uma das vozes incontornáveis em termos da articulação da consciência da modernidade no século XIX. Assim, de maneira a explicitar tal conceito nesses escritos, recorro a um instrumental heurístico ou exegético formulado a partir da obra de dois teóricos os quais, já à luz do século XX, tiveram a questão da modernidade como centro de suas preocupações, a saber, Marcel Gauchet e Reinhart Koselleck. A partir destes, pois, analiso a chegada da modernidade tal qual retratada nos escritos primeiros de Kierkegaard precisamente enquanto momento em que as sociedades, no caso a dinamarquesa da primeira metade do século XIX, passavam a se desligar do passado com vistas a se deixarem requisitar pelo futuro.The present thesis has as its goal the exploration, based on a semantic-contextual interpretation, of the first works, both published and unpublished, written by the Danish theologian and philosopher Søren Aabye Kierkegaard (1813-1855), which have as their central subject the assumption of modernity. Indeed, my argument is that notwithstanding the lack of a clear articulation of the concept of modernity, Kierkegaard came to a very profound and engaging understanding of the phenomenon of modernity, an understanding which makes of him one of the most important voices in the XIXth century in terms of the articulation of the consciousness of modernity. In this sense, in order to unearth Kierkegaard's concept of modernity, I make use of concepts developed in the XXth century by two thinkers who both had as their main concerns the very question of modernity, that is, Marcel Gauchet and Reinhart Koselleck. Thus, using such concepts as heuristic tools, I analise the the arrival of modernity such as portrayed in Kierkagaard's first works as precisely the moment when societies, in this case the Danish society from the first half of the XIXth century, started to unbound themselves from the past in order to be engaged from the future
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Itinerant narratives: travel, identity and literary form in Abdulrazak Gurnah’s fiction
No full textThis study offers the first full-length single-author analysis of the fictional work of Abdulrazak Gurnah. Born in Zanzibar in 1948 and relocated to England at the age of eighteen, Gurnah has published seven novels so far, spanning from 1987 to 2005. A combination of lesser known works and critically acclaimed novels such as the Booker Prize shortlisted Paradise (1994), Gurnah’s oeuvre provides a fruitful terrain for an investigation of the complex dynamics by which the tropes of travel and identity intersect with the deployment and transformation of various literary forms. While there is a small but growing number of critical articles and book chapters discussing Gurnah’s work, there has been no in depth analysis of his fiction to date. Contrary to most of the work published on him so far, this study attempts to follow the development of Gurnah’s aesthetic by demonstrating the ways it is informed by his experience of exile and by the recent history of Zanzibar and East Africa. Furthermore, it will also consider how his experience as an academic and as a renowned critic in the field of postcolonial literature might also account for the ways in which his fiction often deals with the recovery of suppressed voices and histories. Drawing on a number of different cultural theorists such as Edward Said, James Clifford, and Caren Kaplan as well as on Gurnah’s critical work, this study provides a focussed approach to the thematics of dislocation and subject formation which are central to Gurnah’s literary oeuvre. The insistence on a historically oriented approach eschews a homogenisation of the experience of exile and allows the identification of specific traits characterising his works. The development of the notion of 'itinerancy', in conjunction with the expansion of anthropologist Victor Turner’s concept of liminality, will help to explicate the emphasis in Gurnah’s texts on threshold subjects and sites which question fixed notions of identity, citizenship and history. The intertwined concepts of itinerancy and liminality will also help to address the issue of literary form, to understand the ways in which the usage of specific literary genres or narratives adopted by Gurnah in his novels is connected to the development of his particular aesthetic. The bildungsroman, pilgrimage narrative, homecoming journey and historiographic metafiction are in turn deployed and transformed by the writer to accommodate the representation of different forms of displacement as well as the recounting of alternative versions of the past. The chapters making up this thesis take Gurnah’s novels in chronological order and demonstrate the need to consider this relatively neglected writer as a key figure in contemporary literature
The life and works of Osbert of Clare
No full textOsbert of Clare was an English monastic writer, whose works extended from
the mid-1120s to the mid-1150s. His Latin hagiography reflects a deep admiration for
Anglo-Saxon saints and spirituality, while his letters provide a personal perspective
on his turbulent career. As prior of Westminster Abbey, Osbert of Clare worked to
strengthen the rights and prestige of his monastery. His production of forged or
altered charters makes him one of England's most prolific medieval forgers. At times
his passion for reform put him at odds with his abbots, and he was sent into exile
under both Abbot Herbert (1121-c.1136) and Abbot Gervase (1138-c.1157). Also
Osbert, as one of the first proponents of the Immaculate Conception of Mary, wrote
about the feast, worked to legitimize its celebration, and provided us with the only
significant narration of its introduction to England.
This thesis is divided into two sections. The first section is principally
historical and the second is principally literary. In the first section, I provide an
overview of Osbert of Clare's career and examine in greater detail two of his most
significant undertaking: his promotion of Westminster Abbey and his attempted
canonization of Edward the Confessor. In the second section, I give a philological
study of Osbert Latin style and examine themes that nm throughout his writings, such
as virginity, exile and kingship. Osbert's promotion of the feast of the Immaculate
Conception is included in the second section of the thesis because of its ties to the
themes of virginity and femininity within his writings. There are also two appendices:
the first is a survey of the extant manuscripts of Osbert's writings, and the second is
an edition of Osbert's unpublished Life of St Ethelbert from Gotha,
Forschungsbibliothek MS Memb. i. 8l
The television work of Alfred Hitchcock
No full textThe thesis uses close textual analysis to study and evaluate the television work of Alfred Hitchcock. The corpus consists of the twenty shows personally directed by Hitchcock, including his appearances before and after those shows. In response to most previous writing, which tends to compare the programmes with Hitchcock’s films (often unfairly) the thesis emphasises them as products of television. Programmes are evaluated on the basis of their perceived success as television- if they harness conditions related to television production and integrate them with narrative themes or to create meaning. Hitchcock is considered to be the major creative force in each programme.
Chapter One provides a variety of important contexts including a brief history of US television of the 1950s, key literature on Hitchcock and analyses of contemporaneous programmes not directed by Hitchcock. The textual analysis chapters (2-8) consider aesthetic or thematic programme aspects. Chapter Two studies the various roles played by Hitchcock’s appearances as series host. Chapter Three considers the impact of censorship on programmes frequently dealing with murder, violence and insanity. Chapter Four analyses Hitchcock’s implementation of varieties of voice-over narration, a common device in short dramatic forms. Chapter Five studies Hitchcock’s use of point-of-view shots, particularly in relation to their role in the delivery of the narrative twist. Chapter Six considers the key Hitchcock theme of detachment from the world. Chapter Seven looks at moments from the programmes which demonstrate how aesthetic is influenced by television production conditions.
Hitchcock created a number of television masterpieces. His achievements in television are in many ways comparable in quality and consistency to his theatrical films. Even when considered in the context of other 1950s US anthology dramas, the Hitchcock-directed programmes are superior on many levels. Elements of his film style were highly suited to television production. Many of his greatest achievements embrace and harness television production conditions in their presentation strategies to create an integration of style and meaning
John's apologetic christology : legitimation and development in Johannine christology.
No full textSIGLEAvailable from British Library Document Supply Centre-DSC:DXN017253 / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreGBUnited Kingdo
