416 research outputs found
Performative Metafiction: Lemony Snicket, Daniel Handler and The End of <i>A Series of Unfortunate Events</i>
No full textIn "Performative Metafiction: Lemony Snicket, Daniel Handler, and The End of A Series of Unfortunate Events," Sara Austin looks at the metafictional aspect of Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, with particular emphasis on the series' final volume, The End. She explores the occasional uneasy relationship between the series narrator and "author," Lemony Snicket, and the actual author, Daniel Handler. Handler's entirely pseudonymous role in the publishing process creates a tension within the series' narrative authority, raising issues that, often, adults do not trust children to understand. The popularity of the series, particularly in the United States, belies assumptions that children will neither understand nor enjoy books that raise more questions about the plot and characters than they answer, or that utterly fail to offer the "happily-ever-after" convention that so dominates the worlds of children's publishing
Pathogen - a multiplayer FPS in unity.
No full textCollege of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences; Art, Animation, and Game Design Department; Advisor: Mr. Vinny Argentina; Date: April 22, 2019; Pages: 71 p
Ground access to domestic airports : the creation of a federal program to streamline enhancement and modernization projects
No full textThesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, 2003.Includes bibliographical references (p. 103-106).This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections.With few exceptions, airport ground access tends to be an issue that is overlooked by airlines, airport operators, and metropolitan planning organizations. Given the current structure of federal aviation and surface transportation funding, little incentive is provided for these organizations to develop a comprehensive intermodal outlook towards airport access projects. Given the concurrent reauthorization during the next legislative session of several major pieces of authorizing legislation involving domestic transportation projects, including TEA-21 (surface transportation) and AIR-21 (aviation and airports), it would be the ideal time to implement a program for airport ground access projects that bridges these areas. Under such an intermodal system, a solitary federal office, such as the Office of Intermodalism, would become both a central repository for technical guidance, as well as a central source of regulation and interpretation of federal law. In addition, a mixture of local and federal funds should be used to encourage cooperation between the various entities involved with a ground access project, such as the airport owner/operator, regional transit operator, metropolitan planning organization, and the state highway authority. The proposed authorizing legislation would allow an airport operator to levy a Passenger Facility Charge (PFC) beyond current regulatory limits, subject to the approval of the Office of Intermodalism. Further, new categorized surface transportation funds would be authorized, which could be used by the Office of Intermodalism as a match to PFC funding. The remaining funding would be provided by local sources.by Daniel Austin Horowitz.S.M
Pathogen - a multiplayer FPS in Unity.
No full textCollege of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences; Art, Animation and Game Design Department; Advisor: Mr. Vinny Argentina; Date: April 22, 2019; Pages: 71 p
Barthes, Bakhtin, Structuralism: A Reassessment
No full textPhDThe thesis is a comparative analysis of the shared ideas and concerns in the works of
Mikhail Bakhtin and Roland Barthes from the point of view of differences between
French and Slavic literary structuralisms. Its background argument is that the
structuralism developed in the later works of the Russian Formalists and by Prague
Structuralists and Soviet Semioticians is more historically and socially oriented than its
French version, defining the structure of a literary work as a system of all of its
elements and effects (even those that take us outside of the text, like literary tradition
and historical and political circumstances). In this sense, Bakhtin can be seen as a part
of the Slavic structuralist tradition (and not opposed to it as is often claimed), and
Barthes (seen throughout his career) is on the whole perhaps closer to the Slavic
structuralism than he is to the French.
The particular problems discussed are those of the relationship between
literature and ideology, the notions of intertextuality, heteroglossia, dialogism and
polyphony and the differences between them, and the role of the author.
Barthes and Bakhtin shared a lifelong interest in the role of ideology in literature
and the influence of authoritarian language or myth on culture in general and the literary
text in particular. They looked for ways in which the deadening effect of the
mythological (epic, monological) thought and word can be counteracted through
literature, and different versions of what Kristeva termed 'intertextuality' played an
important part in their treatment of the subject. They also both discussed the role of the
author and their voice in the literary text, and the question of their power over the text,
its characters (Bakhtin) and the reader (Barthes).
The main thread of Barthes and Bakhtin's thought focuses on the problem of
counteracting authoritarian language through literature, and the solutions they proposed
can fruitfully be seen in the light of Slavic structuralism's notions of literary structure
Symphony No. 1 Op. 19, “Fantasia” for orchestra and choir
No full textThis thesis consists of an original composition by the author. The full score is included
The public voices of Daniel Defoe
No full textThis is a study of Daniel Defoe's political rhetoric and polemical strategies
between the years 1697 and 1717. It explores and analyses a representative selection
of what may be termed Defoe's `public voices'. In its broadest definition, these public
voices are understood to be the opinions expressed and the rhetorical stances taken by
Defoe in those pieces of his writing which directly or indirectly relate to the sphere of
official, governmental and national discourse and activity. In the most basic sense,
this thesis attempts to highlight and explain the way in which the language, imagery
and concerns of Defoe's publications were shaped by the events and attitudes of the
historical moment at which they were produced. In the process, this study re-situates,
and thus necessarily re-evaluates, the voices and apparent meanings of some of
Defoe's better known texts, while offering extensive investigations of the rhetorical
strategies of publications which have previously been neglected by Defoe scholars.
In the context of the above, an attempt is made to demonstrate that the poem
The True-Born Englishman (1701) was not only a response to xenophobic sentiments
prevalent in English society at the turn of the century but did, in fact, represent
Defoe's final, summative contribution to the standing army controversy of the late
1690s. On a similar note, this thesis aims to show that the verse satire Jure Divino
(1706) was the culmination of Defoe's involvement in the occasional conformity
controversy of the early 1700s and constituted on important element of his campaign
in favour of religious toleration. In addition, I argue that volume one of The Family
Instructor (1715) was Defoe's response to the Jacobite-inspired unrest of the years
1714-15 and, as such, represented an important political act. Finally, this study offers
an extensive investigation of one of Defoe's most problematic publications, An
Argument Proving that the Design of Employing and Tnobling Foreigners, Is a
Treasonable Conspiracy (1717). The pamphlet, I suggest, represented a highly ironic
attack on one of Defoe's old adversaries, John Toland, and only develops its full
rhetorical force if read in the context of the standing army controversy
Measurements of Structured Wave Profiles
No full textAuthor Institution: Sandia National LaboratoriesSlides presented at the 4th Annual Photonic Doppler Velocimetry (PDV) Workshop held at the University of Texas, Austin, Texas, November 5-6, 2009
Reading acts of narrative appropriation: four instances of fraudulent memoir
No full textPhDThis thesis examines acts of narrative appropriation, the telling of purportedly‘authentic’ life stories by those for whom the stories are not theirs to tell. This
misuse or subversion of genre - the discipline of historical writing and the category
of autobiography - becomes a means for cultural, social and political dissimulation,
and the analysis focuses both on the act: the event, trespass, or ‘theft’ of another’s
life story, and on the cultural meaning that this event reveals. These narrative acts
are approached theoretically through discussions of what it means to be an author, a
reader, and through the consideration of literary and social genre, category and form.
In exploring identities at particular risk of appropriation, this thesis shows how
fraudulent appropriated narratives affect our reading of the world, and in turn
influence our perception of already marginalized social groups. My primary
examples include prostitution ‘narratives’, Native North American ‘memoir,’ and
fraudulent Holocaust survivor ‘testimony,’ with each text providing decoded
evidence of ‘genre-bending’ exhibiting a social and political intent. These works
seek to be read as authentic personal narratives, as autobiography, and that is how
they have been presented to the reader. However, they are imposters – fictional tales
desiring the elevated status of historical authenticity and willing to bend the rules
and contracts of genre to achieve their end. Here the appearance of authenticity is
achieved through the use of cultural and social ‘myth,’ or perceptions of cultural
identity, and as such its fraudulent construction is first and foremost a social act,
with a social and economic motivation. As this thesis concludes, these texts are
most successful when their own political and social ideologies echo and confirm that
of the readership; when their subjects, the fraudulent ‘I’ at the center of the text is
also a performative elaboration of cultural belief
‘The Churchillian Paradigm and the “Other British Isles”: An Examination of Second World War Remembrance in Man, Orkney, and Jersey’
No full textThis dissertation studies Second World War ‘sites of memory’ in the islands of Jersey, Orkney and the Isle of Man, to determine if each island celebrates the war’s events as Britain does, or if they have charted their own mnemonic course. It builds on the work of Angus Calder, Malcolm Smith, and Mark Connelly, who have explored how popular conception of the Second World War in Britain has been structured around a certain set of commemorative motifs, most of which centre on Winston Churchill and the events of 1940. The British war narrative is now commonly referred to as the ‘Churchillian paradigm’ or ‘finest-hour myth’, and continues to be the driving force in commemoration and memorialization on the British mainland. The three islands in this study are culturally and historically distinct from Britain, and each has strong notions of its own ‘island identity’. Each also possesses a tangential and divisive domestic experience of war, one which is often minimized in the iconography of the Churchillian paradigm. Jersey was occupied by Nazi Germany from 1940 to 1945, Orkney was home to several thousand Italian POWs who built important infrastructure in the island, and the Isle of Man was home to 14,000 German, Finnish, Japanese, and Italian internees in what one critic has called ‘a bespattered page’ in the nation’s history. By examining ‘sites of memory’— museums, heritage sites, commemorations, celebrations, philately, and use of public space—this dissertation shows that each island simultaneously accepts and rejects elements of the finest-hour myth in their collective memory. Each island displays its unique (though often quite negative) heritage in order to differentiate itself from Britain, while at the same time allowing them, at certain events, to participate in celebration of Britain’s ‘greatest victory’. In this way, islands’ use ‘Britishness’ pragmatically, by basking in traditionally ‘British’ commemorative tropes, while at the same time deepening their own cultural and historical sovereignty
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