Dissertationen zum Thema „Postmodernism (Literature) Deconstruction“

Thesis (M.A.)--Cleveland State University, 2009.
Abstract. Title from PDF t.p. (viewed on Sept. 8, 2009). Includes bibliographical references (p. 93-95). Available online via the OhioLINK ETD Center and also available in print.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Illinois State University, 1998.
Title from title page screen, viewed July 6, 2006. Dissertation Committee: Maurice Scharton (chair), Bruce Hawkins, Janice Neuleib. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 251-260) and abstract. Also available in print.

Thesis (MDram)--Stellenbosch University, 2003.
ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The productions of Breyten Breytenbach's dramas created unprecedented (negative) reaction amongst the audience members. The themes and the representation of these themes through the use of language and images caused the alienation of many audience members. One of the main causes of alienation was the problem the audience had in understanding the text. The two Afrikaans dramas, Boklied and Die Toneelstuk will be placed in the postmodern theatrical tradition to give a methodology for the reading of the texts. The study also examines the nature of intertextuality to show how the use of intertextuality helps to create meaning. The theatrical productions bring the texts to life and therefore the study will also refer to the productions of these texts. The experience of a postmodern theatre piece does not imply that no meaning can be attributed to language and action. The attribution of meaning in production and texts like Boklied and Die Toneelstuk is not always based on the use oflanguage. The audience/reader of these texts becomes the cocreators of meaning. This study tries to show a range of interpretations and possible meanings of these texts.
AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Die dramas van Breyten Breytenbach het met die produksie daarvan ongekende en negatiewe reaksie onder die Afrikaanse gehore ontlok. Die temas en die uitbeelding van hierdie temas in produksie en in die taal wat Breytenbach gebruik het, het tot vervreemding by die gehoor gelei. Een van die hoofredes vir die vervreemding by die gehoor was dat hulle probleme gehad het om die teks te verstaan. Die twee Afrikaanse dramas, Boklied en Die Toneelstuk word in hierdie tesis binne die postmoderne teaterstroom geplaas om aan te toon hoe dié tipe teatertekste gelees kan word. Die studie ondersoek ook die aard van intertekstuele verwysings in die dramas- om aan te toon hoe hierdie verwysings help met die skepping van betekenis by die kyker/leser van hierdie tekste. Die geskrewe dramateks kan eers ten volle in die lewe geroep word in die produksie van die teks en daarom word daar in die bespreking van die tekste ook na die opvoerings verwys. Die belewing van 'n postmoderne teaterstuk beteken nie dat daar nie betekenis aan aksie en taal toegeskryf kan word nie. Die toeskrywing van betekenis is, in gevalle soos die produksies van Boklied en Die Toneelstuk, nie altyd tekstueel gebaseer nie. Die toeskouer/leser van hierdie tekste is medeskepper van betekenis. Die studie poog om die vele moontlikhede van interpretasie en die betekenis van hierdie tekste uit te lig.

A kind of poetry that tries to understand contemporary social and philosophical issues as much as behaviors by rewriting in a poetic language the video artwork of some of the main representatives of modernism and postmodernism. Such poetry is deprived of confessional hues, any personal reference has to be ascribed to a mirroring effect by which the single person empathically absorbs and projects what is conveyed, be it stemming directly from the historical time of the artwork's making and inherited, or alive at the time of its actual viewing. By following a restructuring process started at the beginning of the twentieth century, the writing analyzes possible ways to outline developments or to underline breaking points. Poetry is seen as an active medium within the formation of societies characterized as it is by its highly introspective power, not restricted to the individual but open to all beings perceived as members of one entity.

The present work analyses the fiction of the post-Soviet Russian writers, Vladimir Sorokin, Vladimir Tuchkov and Aleksandr Khurgin against the background of the notion of post-Soviet Russian postmodernism. In doing so, it investigates the usefulness and accuracy of this very notion, proposing that of ‘post-Soviet neo-modernism’ instead. Common critical approaches to post-Soviet Russian literature as being postmodern are questioned through an examination of the concept of postmodernism in its interrelated historical, social, and philosophical dimensions, and of its utility and adequacy in the Russian cultural context. In addition, it is proposed that the humorous and grotesque nature of certain post-Soviet works can be viewed as a creatively critical engagement with both the past, i.e. Soviet ideology, and the present, the socially tumultuous post-Soviet years. Russian modernism, while sharing typologically and literary-historically a number of key characteristics with Western modernism, was particularly motivated by a turning to the cultural repository of Russia’s past, and a metaphysical yearning for universal meaning transcending the perceived fragmentation of the tangible modern world. Continuing the older Russian tradition of resisting rationalism, and impressed by the sense of realist aesthetics failing the writer in the task of representing a world that eluded rational comprehension, modernists tended to subordinate artistic concerns to their esoteric convictions. Without appreciation of this spiritual dimension, semantic intention in Russian modernist fiction may escape a reader used to the conventions of realist fiction. It is suggested that contemporary Russian fiction as embodied in certain works by Sorokin, Tuchkov and Khurgin, while stylistically exhibiting a number of features commonly regarded as postmodern, such as parody, pastiche, playfulness, carnivalisation, the grotesque, intertextuality and self-consciousness, seems to resume modernism’s tendency to seek meaning and value for human existence in the transcendent realm, as well as in the cultural, in particular literary, treasures of the past. The closeness of such segments of post-Soviet fiction and modernism in this regard is, it is argued, ultimately contrary to the spirit of postmodernism and its relativistic and particularistic worldview. Hence the suggested conceptualisation of post-Soviet Russian fiction as ‘neo-modernist’.

Les poésies concrète, visuelle, sonore, apparues au début des années 1950 dans une vingtaine de pays du monde, dont l’Allemagne, la Suisse et l’Autriche, et les pièces radiophoniques expérimentales ont, jusqu’à présent, été perçues comme jeux formels avec le matériau verbal épargnant à leurs auteurs une prise de position politique par rapport au réel. Face à la réception réductrice du concept sartrien de « littérature engagée », les poétiques expérimentales apparaissent comme « désengagées ». Or, les auteurs invoquent la portée politique de leur déconstruction de poétiques traditionnelles, de normes linguistiques et de modes de pensée de la culture occidentale. Les formes d’écriture expérimentale ne seraient-elles pas alors des choix politiques au sens où elles ébranlent des visions et expériences du monde? Cette mise à distance du réel provoquerait ce que Rancière appelle la « subjectivation politique », c'est-à-dire l’émancipation du citoyen par rapport à son identité sociale figée par des manières de dire et de penser. Montrant l’intention politique immanente à certains choix poétiques cette étude aborde la notion d’engagement sous un angle poétologique
Concrete, visual and sound poetry, as well as experimental radio plays, appearing in the early 1950s in Germany, Switzerland and Austria specifically, have until now been perceived as formal games with language, sparing their authors from taking any political position with regards to reality. Given this narrow understanding of the sartrian concept of “engaged literature”, experimental poetry hence appeared as “disengaged.” And yet, authors insist on the deconstruction of traditional poetry, of linguistic norms and of the Occidental vision of culture. As a consequence, shouldn’t we also understand experimental literary forms as political in the sense that they shatter our traditional vision and experience of the world? The distance taken from reality leads to what Rancière calls “political subjectivity”, by which he means the emancipation of the individual from a fixed social identity through news ways of saying and thinking. Analyzing the political intention inherent to specific poetical choices, this study offers a poetic approach of literary political engagement

The following paper will deal with the actantial place of memory and history in the works of Ge Fei, a so-called avant-garde writer in China. Analyzing his three major novels published in the nineteen-nineties, as well as an earlier short story, the paper will discuss how Ge Fei renegotiates the status and place of the literary subject as configured through the act of writing, and its close relationship with the medium of memory and history. Contrary to the prevailing opinion, the avant-garde experiment in Ge Fei's works does not intimate the dissipation of the subject, but rather assists in reconfiguring it in an entirely new and dynamic conceptualization. Instead of a figural e/End and vulgarization of literature in the nineties, Ge Fei's experimentation with the acts of writing and reading, as well as his play with language, open up new possibilities for the writing of new literatures in contemporary China.

La littérature est une source d'où jaillissent les flots intarissables du paradoxe ; c'est dans cet entrelacement de dichotomies que nous nous sommes immergées pour percevoir l'unité sous-jacente derrière l'oxymore que constitue le titre de notre thèse : " une poétique de l'abjection dans la littérature gothique américaine postmoderne. " Si nous nous sommes tournées vers Stephen King, Peter Straub et Chuck Palahniuk et avons mis l'accent sur trois de leurs œuvres précises, notre démonstration se veut être transposable à l'ensemble de leurs écrits. Nous nous sommes interrogées sur la nature de l'abjection et sur sa prééminence dans une société américaine portant le sceau du puritanisme. Marqués par le Romantisme et le Gothique anglais, nos auteurs ont su donner aux thématiques caractérisant ces mouvements une voie nouvelle. Situer nos œuvres dans la lignée du gothique postmoderne nous permet d'osciller sur le paradigme de l'excès et de l'incomplétude, de la déconstruction et de l'unité. Le thème de la fragmentation apparaît comme l'un des fils d'Ariane permettant aux auteurs de tisser autour des lecteurs leur toile arachnéenne. Ce démantèlement qui affecte à la fois la dimension narrative et thématique des récits contribue à leur effet patchwork et subversif, nous liant à notre problématique postmoderne. Les paradoxes engendrés par nos récits leur donnent leur force et expliquent leur fascination sur le public. Nos pérégrinations menant à l'ouverture des différentes portes de l'interprétation révèlent que l'abjection devient source d'une nouvelle esthétique. Le laid peut véhiculer de la beauté et du sublime. L'harmonie qui existe dans le monde de la déchéance qui nous est dépeint explique l'emprise hypnotique de la littérature de l'abjection sur le lecteur. Source de poétique, celle-ci procure un plaisir de la lecture quasi jouissif pour ceux qui se laissent transporter par la magie créatrice de nos auteurs.

Vernon Lee est une femme de lettres d'origine britannique, dont l'œuvre éclectique est située dans le contexte historique et socio-culturel de l'Angleterre victorienne de la fin-de-siècle dite "décadente" (1880-1914). La problématique de cette thèse est axée autour de deux fils conducteurs : d'une part, le regard que Vernon Lee porte sur la société de son époque, et d'autre part, son intérêt pour les récentes découvertes dans le domaine des Sciences humaines. Les années 1890 représentent une ère de transition entre le Romantisme et le Modernisme. On peut donc parler d'héritage romantique en ce qui concerne l'inspiration et l'imaginaire des écrivains victoriens de la fin du XIXème siècle. La littérature de la Décadence privilégie les thèmes mythiques, en particulier le mythe de la Femme fatale. L'esthétisme et l'éthique sont au cœur de l'œuvre de Vernon Lee. Écrivain et témoin de son époque, elle utilise son écriture pour défendre la condition féminine. C'est avant tout une écriture avant-gardiste, orientée vers le Modernisme. En effet, les récentes découvertes scientifiques (notamment la linguistique, la psychologie et la psychanalyse) influencent son écriture, lui permettant d'accéder au mieux à l'intériorité de ses personnages.

As the title of this essay suggests, Paul Auster’s 2003 novel Oracle Night is studied with regard to what is here considered to be a search for a way out of estrangement. This search, as narrated from the point of view of the protagonist, is followed by a certain recognition of the limits of human existence – which may be essentially meaningless but is nevertheless portrayed as an intentional state of being, not least through the act of writing as a means of subjectification. Thus, the novel is read with a special focus on the thematic representation of writing and human subjectivity. These overarching themes may be approached with reference to two different philosophies or theoretical positions – postmodernism and existentialism. The purpose of the essay is to study the extent to which Oracle Night may be understood in terms of an existentialist (reconstructive) critique of, or challenge to, a postmodernist (deconstructive) perspective. In order to follow this line of inquiry, the analytic method rests on narrative thematics. This kind of narratological study answers the question what Auster’s novel is about and in what ways the theoretical perspectives in question are expressed in the novel. Thematic motifs are examined within the frame of a six-step model of narrative units. These units are based on Carsten Springer’s (2001) elaboration on the theme of identity crisis in Auster’s fiction and made it possible to put different motifs into a context and convey the point of view of the text in a systematic way.

Dissertação de Mestrado em Estudos Ingleses apresentada à Universidade Aberta
Uma introdução que dá a conhecer o background literário de Jeanette Winterson introduz os tópicos e as teorias que subjazem à argumentação desenvolvida ao longo da dissertação. A anti-linearidade, a intertextualidade, o Pós-Modernismo ou a construção da identidade constituem vectores centrais na abordagem às obras da autora. A crítica literária parece responder em uníssono à questão que pretende categorizar a obra literária da autora. O Pós-Modernismo é uma estética recorrentemente associada a Winterson, nomeadamente pela exploração de questões que instauram a incerteza quanto a verdades universais, desconstruindo a ideia pré-concebida de ordem, jogando com expectativas, contextos, formas, associações e estruturas (supostamente) estáveis – narrativa; estilo; facto/ficção; história/literatura; tempo e espaço, ou género. Partindo de um pressuposto de que um texto não é constituído por uma unidade hermética e linear, mas que comunica com outros textos (no seu sentido mais lato) tal parece constituir a base de criação textual de Winterson, impondo, assim, toda uma dinâmica de análise dialógica/intertextual. Neste sentido, procurarei demonstrar como é que a intertextualidade e uma narrativa anti-linear lhe permitem desafiar convenções literárias, sublinhando a forma como legitimam a produção de sentidos e a definição de uma ou de várias identidades. Tentarei igualmente evidenciar de que modo a autora se apropria das tradições literárias masculinas para centralizar discursos marginais e promover a sua arte
Résumé- Une introduction qui nous donne à connaître le background littéraire de Jeanette Winterson introduit les sujets et les théories qui sous-tendent à l’argumentation développée tout au long de la dissertation. L’anti-linéarité, l’intertextualité, le Post-modernisme ou la construction de l’identité constituent les vecteurs principaux de l’étude des oeuvres de cet auteur. La critique littéraire semble répondre à unisson à la question qui prétend catégoriser l’oeuvre littéraire de cet auteur. Le post-modernisme est une esthétique habituellement associée à Winterson, nommément au travers de l’exploration des questions qui instaurent l’incertitude quant aux vérités universelles, détruisant l’idée reçue de l’ordre, jouant avec les attentes, contextes, formes, associations et structures (soi-disant) stables – narration; style; fait/fiction; histoire/littérature; temps et espace, ou genre. Partant du principe qu’un texte n’est pas construit à partir d’une unité hermétique et linéaire, mais qui communique avec d’autres textes (au sens large), tel semble constituer la base de la création textuelle de Winterson, imposant, ainsi, toute une dynamique d’analyse dialogique/intertextuelle. Je me propose donc de démontrer dans quelle mesure l’intertextualité et une narrative anti-linéaire lui permette de défier les conventions littéraires, soulignant la manière dont on légitime la production de sens et la définition de une ou plusieurs identités. Je tenterai également de mettre en évidence de quelle manière l’auteur s’approprie des traditions littéraires masculines afin de centraliser des discours marginaux et de promouvoir son art.
Abstract- An introduction establishing Jeanette Winterson’s literary background opens the debate of the main topics, as well as of the theories underlying the approaches developed along the chapters’ approaches; among them there are anti-linearity, intertextuality, postmodernism or the construction of an identity. Literary criticism seems to agree on the way of categorising the author’s work; postmodernism is commonly associated to Winterson’s writing, especially when issues establishing the uncertainty concerning universal truths are under analysis, deconstructing the traditional idea of order and playing with expectations, contexts, shapes, associations and structures supposedly stable – plot; style; fact/fiction; history/literature; time and space; or gender. Starting with the assumed idea that a text is not a linear and hermetic object, but that it communicates with other texts instead in the broadest sense, it seems to be the foreground of Winterson’s artistic creation, thus establishing a new dialogic/intertextual analysis dynamic. From this perspective I will try to demonstrate how intertextuality and an anti-linear narrative serve her purpose of challenging literary conventions, highlighting the way they allow the production of meanings and the definition of one or several identities. I will also undertake the task of showing how she appropriates what is regarded as masculine literary traditions in order to centralize marginal discourses and promote her art

This dissertation analyses a number of key themes in the work of postcolonial theorist and literary critic Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, and uses her ideas to argue for the usefulness of both deconstructive and postmodern thought in a postcolonial context generally, and in South Africa in particular. The early part of the thesis presents a brief overview of Spivak's work (Chapter 1) and discusses its relationship with Derridean deconstruction and what I have called "progressive postmodern thought". Chapter 2 explores in detail Spivak's use of theoretical concepts adapted from, or closely related to, deconstruction. Perhaps the most important of these is catachresis - the idea that all naming is in a sense false, and the words we use to conceptualise the world must be seen as "inadequate, yet necessary". The thesis looks at how Spivak foregrounds the methodological consequences of this insight in her own practice of constantly revisiting and rethinking her own conclusions, and also at the political consequences of recognising specific terms like "nation", "identity" or "woman" as catachrestic. Closely related to this area of Spivak's work are her idea of "strategic essentialism" and her adaptation of Derrida's concept of the pharmakon -- that which is simultaneously poison and medicine. Chapter 3 relates Spivak's work to three key areas of postmodern thought: alterity, and the ethics of the relationship between self and other; Lyotard's notions of the differand and the "unpresentable"; and aporia, or the ethical and political consequences of undecidability. I argue here that all of these emphases are potentially very useful in postcolonial studies, particularly in relation to the predicament - of the gendered subaltern, and that they help to define a progressive postmodern politics. The remainder of the dissertation discusses individual essays at greater length. Chapter 4 focuses in the main on "Can the Subaltern Speak?" (1988) and Spivak's arguments concerning the nature of subalternity and the politics of representation. Chapter 5 examines Spivak's engagement with French Feminism and her feminist critiques of mainstream deconstruction, arguing that Spivak's use of deconstruction undermines the opposition between linguistic and material forms of oppression and hence between theory and practice. Chapter 6 focuses on Spivak's reading of literary texts and raises issues concerning, inter alia, the production of the first world self at the expense of the third world other; the limits of both metropolitan theories and narratives of national liberation, democracy and development in relation to the experience of the gendered subaltern; reading the text of the subaltern body; the (impossible but necessary) ethical relationship between first world feminist and the subaltern in neocolonial space; rights and responsibility; the need to respect subaltern selfhood; and the possibility of what Spivak calls "learning from below". Finally, I look at the relevance of Spivak's thought to three areas of South African political and academic life: conflicts over representation within the local Women's movement; notions of national origin and national identity; and debates over deconstruction and the relationship between the academy and society.
Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 1998.

This dissertation offers an examination of Delany's critical trajectory from structuralism to poststructuralism and postmodernism across a gamut of genres from SF to sword-and-sorcery, pornography, autobiography and literary criticism. Delany's engagement with semiotics, Foucault and deconstruction form the theoretical focus, together with his own theories of how SF functions as a literary genre, and its standing and reception within the greater realm of literature. The impact of Delany as a gay, black SF writer is also examined against the backdrop of his varied output. I have used the term 'dislocation' to describe Delany's tackling of traditional subjects and genres, and opening them up to further possibilities through critical engagement. Lastly, Delany is also examined as a postmodern icon. A frequent participant in his own texts, as well using pseudonyms that have developed into fully-fledged characters, Delany has become a critical signifier in his own work.
English Studies
M. A. (English)

The medium is the message in the first place: the medium as presence, as the author. His contribution to the academic world is his academic Holographic Memoirs. His story, the author's memoirs, is a fictive-narrative discourse with an organic ubuntu open-endedness. The Hologram is both an autobiography, but also all the information at all places simultaneously – nonlocal in quantum physical terms - within an intense hallucinating dream: no illusion, but rather a HyperReality with all its Virtual Identities. The invention of tram hopping is the plot of the story. The plot is like an hourglass where the first part of the story is the emptying of the sand, the deconstruction of modernism, but while the top chamber runs empty and the bottom chamber fills up, so the deconstruction is simultaneously a dependent arising/(social) construction/ubuntuing to revival – the synagogal Shekinah presence of YAHWEH. The top chamber is the unreasonable Newtonian physics and the bottom chamber reasonable quantum physics. The metaphysics (before the physics) of the top chamber is poststructuralism and deconstruction, while the bottom chamber is the virtual Hebraic worldview that delutively merges ubuntu and Buddhism. The long narrow neck in the middle is the moonily narrative that lives us with psychology (Psycho-logic) lost in sociology (Social-physics). Hermeneutics is set forth in the same contrasting hourglass of the top chamber, the inherited tradition, emptying to what it should accomplish – (virtual) presence.
Philosophy and Systematic Theology
D. Th. (Systematic Theology)

The medium is the message in the first place: the medium as presence, as the author. His contribution to the academic world is his academic Holographic Memoirs. His story, the author's memoirs, is a fictive-narrative discourse with an organic ubuntu open-endedness. The Hologram is both an autobiography, but also all the information at all places simultaneously – nonlocal in quantum physical terms - within an intense hallucinating dream: no illusion, but rather a HyperReality with all its Virtual Identities. The invention of tram hopping is the plot of the story. The plot is like an hourglass where the first part of the story is the emptying of the sand, the deconstruction of modernism, but while the top chamber runs empty and the bottom chamber fills up, so the deconstruction is simultaneously a dependent arising/(social) construction/ubuntuing to revival – the synagogal Shekinah presence of YAHWEH. The top chamber is the unreasonable Newtonian physics and the bottom chamber reasonable quantum physics. The metaphysics (before the physics) of the top chamber is poststructuralism and deconstruction, while the bottom chamber is the virtual Hebraic worldview that delutively merges ubuntu and Buddhism. The long narrow neck in the middle is the moonily narrative that lives us with psychology (Psycho-logic) lost in sociology (Social-physics). Hermeneutics is set forth in the same contrasting hourglass of the top chamber, the inherited tradition, emptying to what it should accomplish – (virtual) presence.
Philosophy & Systematic Theology
D. Th. (Systematic Theology)