1,721,102 research outputs found
Book Review: As for Sinclair Ross
Full text linkLong admired by academics and fellow writers for his finely wrought portraits of small-town prairie life in Canada between the wars, and of the restless, complex, desiring souls contained within and by this landscape, Sinclair Ross was an intensely private man who nevertheless craved a wider popular audience for his work. It is thus somewhat ironic that his greatest public notoriety should have come as a result of his posthumous outing by Keath Fraser in As for Me and My Body (1997), a memoir documenting Fraser\u27s twenty-seven-year friendship with the author that was affectionately written but rather salaciously reviewed. Even this news was more rapaciously received by the growing coterie of Ross scholars than by the general public, providing as it did a wave of newly minted Canadian queer theorists (myself included) with the confirmation they needed in disclosing the veiled operations of subversive sexuality in Ross\u27s fiction. It is to David Stouck\u27s credit, in this meticulously researched biography, that he neither shies away from nor overplays Ross\u27s sexual identity, pointing out, through a close reading of the author\u27s texts rather than a cataloguing of his tricks (although there is some of this), that Ross\u27s bisexuality finds fictional expression in the triangulated relationships that recur throughout his best-known works
Narrative Technique in Sinclair Ross' As For Me and My House
Full text linkSinclair Ross' As For Me and My House has been read alternately as a regional, realist novel, and as a symbolic one. The difficulties for the reader that arise from this contradiction perhaps suggests that the narrative is imperfectly handled by Ross. The author strains at the limits of the epistolary or diaristic convention by making the reader usually "forget" that s/he is reading a diary. The novel appears to be a realist work of fiction, but there are many details -- and omissions -- which stretch the limits of realism, and which suggest a symbolic aspect that exists at the expense of realism. Mrs. Bentley, as narrator, may or may not be unreliable: there is, simply, no way of telling whether lucidity or obtuseness is the keynote of her character. The ambiguity of the novel is such that the reader can speculate endlessly, with little help or direction from the author
Space, Self and Place in the Novels of Sinclair Ross
No full textThis study is an examination of the concepts of space, place and self, as I have applied them, in the works of Sinclair Ross. Having defined the meaning of these concepts in the Introduction, I show in Chapter One why space becomes a void waiting to engulf the lives of Ross's characters. I also suggest that a dichotomy exists within the context of these concepts between the world of the male and the world of the female that affects the way Ross's characters respond to space. In Chapter Two, I argue that Ross does not allow his female characters to establish a sense of self and place that would enable them to deal with the surrounding space (with specific reference to Mrs. Bentley in As For Me and My House). In Chapter Three, I explain how the men in Ross's work succeed, or, in the case of Philip Bentley in As For Me and My House, do not succeed, to structure and shape the physical space surrounding them by means of their identity and sense of place in life. For the purpose of facilitating my documentation of Ross's novels and the short stories, I shall use the following parenthetical abbreviations to denote the titles of the works, once they have been cited in the text of the thesis: As For Me and My House (AMMH), The Well (TW), Whir of Gold (WaG), Sawbones Memorial (SM), The Lamp at Noon and Other Stories (LN), and The Race and Other Stories by Sinclair Ross (TR).Master of Arts (MA
Dream and fantasy in the work of Sinclair Ross
No full textThis thesis studies the meaning and importance of fantasy and dream in the work of Sinclair Ross. By first reviewing existing criticism on Ross's work and then illustrating how this criticism may act as the basis for further investigation, I will show the manner in which fantasy and dream help order theme and figurative language in his fiction.
Criticism has concerned itself mainly with Ross as a realistic prairie writer; his short stories and novels have won recognition for their accurate portrayals of Canadian rural life during the Great Depression.
The vivid descriptions of the environment, with its sun, dust and wind, are often the critical context for an evaluation of theme or characterization. While this approach correctly identifies an important aspect of Ross's work, it has not gone on to other equally important areas. The manner in which this critical emphasis grew to be, and still remains, the accepted approach to Ross's work will be the subject of discussion for the first part of this study. After the critical background has been established, specific matters of technique and theme will be examined. Alienation, the process which acts as the catalyst for behavior for so many of Ross's characters, is dealt with in detail because of its.importance to plot and theme. Three distinct kinds or levels of alienation are identified in so far as they represent Ross's portrayal of man's perception of himself.
Symbolism is studied as a unifying force in the writer's work. His symbols fall into two general groups which represent the basic conflicting forces within man in regard to an imaginative restructuring of the environment. Symbols of life, movement, and action are shown as being balanced by the author with symbols of enclosure and stagnation.Arts, Faculty ofEnglish, Department ofGraduat
Closing Keynote Presentation: True North Conference, Timespan, Helmsdale.
No full textI made the closing presentation/performance lecture, for this event discussing an important aspect of my practice that has focussed on an investigation of Scottish Identity and a question of what the idea of 'The North' really constitutes.
Review from Tinslave...
"The conference ended with a brilliant exposition of the issues associated with documenting cultural expression, by Ross Sinclair. Ross managed this by pretty much performing his presentation, making a far better impact than a more conventional presentation."
TRUE NORTH CONFERENCE
RECORDING THE PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE
5-7 MARCH 2015, TIMESPAN, HELMSDALE, SCOTLAND
Documenting is an activity that makes us human, that constitutes our culture in the past, the present, and the future.
The True North conference is for everyone: it is for artists, historians, academics, curators, and researchers; for those with an interest in researching their family history or who like the smell of libraries and archives; and for everyone who blogs, tweets, and shares their story on Facebook, takes photos or makes films.
On Thursday evening, 5th March, we will welcome you to Timespan and Helmsdale with an informal reception and buffet, and an opportunity to meet with all those who have joined us for the conference. On Friday and Saturday we have two full days of presentations, conversations, explorations and more.
On the conference agenda:
Northern Frontiers, a talk by Lateral North presenting their recent publication An Atlas of Productivity, and launching their new touring project developed in collaboration with Timespan.
Archiving Matters a round table discussion on archiving values and practices with presentations by Lewis-based artist Jon MacLeod, Referendum Curator Amy Todman, artist Nicky Bird, and Timespan’s Archive Development Manager Jo Clemens.
A second round table discussion, Document People, focusing on the role of people when documenting. This session raises questions around the acts of collecting, and sharing, reminiscing and self-presentation and of documenting and of being documented. Speakers include genealogist Chris Halliday, social scientist Matt Sillars, artist Karlyn Sutherland and archaeologist Keir Strickland.
A series of 5 Minute Speakers with a variety of contributions chaired by Lisa Collinson that opens up a discussion around documentation in and across a variety of disciplines.
Presentations and Performances by Mini-Residency contributors: visual artist Hannah Imlach, journalist and arts writer Moira Jeffrey, visual artist Ruth MacLennan and Referendum Curator Amy Todman.
We will also offer Exploration Sessions, an opportunity to delve deeper into some of the projects at Timespan or to head out into Helmsdale and the surrounding area. Visit Timespan’s Virtual World with our partners Alan Miller and John McCaffery from St Andrews University. Learn more about our recent archive and collection development with Archive Development Manager, Jo Clements. Take a tour up the Strath of Kildonan with Heritage Officer Jacquie Aitken. Or find out about Northern Exchange, an exhibition by Roxane Permar and Susan Timmins, documenting Cold War legacies, with our Curator Frances Davis.
Several opportunities for networking, and evening entertainment.
All good things come to an end with True North Real Life, presentations by Peter Davidson, Author of the Idea of North who will remind us of the gaps in histories and the importance of missing information, and by artist
Ross Sinclair, reflecting on Real Life
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Image, symbol, and the life of the imaginaton in the works of Sinclair Ross
Full text linkUntil very recently, studies of the works of Sinclair
Ross have over-looked his literary artistry to focus on his
place among those writers whose time and place is the
Canadian prairie during the Depression, Ross’s importance
as a literary artist goes beyond this restricted time period.
His imagery and symbolism explicate a view of life which is
timeless. This thesis examines, in particular, the imagery
and symbolism of the horse and the wind as representative of
the polarized but co-existing elements of benevolence and
destruction in the world. In chapter one—a discussion of
Ross’s short stories about childhood—the horse, as symbol
of the creative, benevolent side of life, dominates. The
wind, symbol of destruction and malevolence, dominates the
lives of Ross’s adult characters, as shown in chapter two.
However, neither symbol can exist exclusive of the other. As
a result, the duality of Ross’s vision of life is shov/n more
fully by the interplay of the horse and wind symbols in the
novels discussed in chapter three. This study concludes with
an examination of the horse and wind symbolism in Ross’s final
novel which re-inforces and solidifies his view of the human
condition into a single image illustrating the co-existence
of the benevolent and malevolent elements of life
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
- …
