Academic literature on the topic 'Borderland culture'

This thesis explores the conceptualisation of subjectivity, the past and language in the work of one particular English novelist and critic, A. S. Byatt. In doing so, it examines significant points of overlap between Byatt's fiction and criticism, on the one hand, and, on the other, the discourses that have contributed to their formation. Whilst Byatt's work is inflected by recent critical examinations of the three concepts, this thesis is less concerned with how it reflects prevailing notions of subjectivity, the past and language, than with its participation in an ongoing examination of each. Although I do investigate the interplay between Byatt's fiction and criticism, my focus is on how this is played out in Byatt's fictional texts, in particular the novels. The Introduction offers a brief summary of other criticism on Byatt's work summarises the recent definitions of 'text' and broader discussions of postmodernism that have impacted on my approach to her fiction, and proposes a reading of these texts that accounts for their ambivalence. In Chapter One, I focus on the reconfiguration of subjectivity in Byatt's writing, particularly as it relates to textuality. Chapter Two explores the relationship between present and past in Byatt's fiction that is partly enacted through the texts' own engagement with past literatures, in particular nineteenth-century literature, and the related issues of historiography, linearity and memory that these texts investigate. Language, in particular Byatt's interest in its relation to 'things', is the focus of the third and final chapter of this thesis. Throughout each of the chapters is an exploration of Byatt's engagement or reexamination of a persistent 'thread of two' in Western discourse. Although each chapter focuses on one of the three concepts, each also explores the issues that arise from the conjunction of 'two things' in these fictions: text and subject, present and past, language and the world. Related to this is my consideration of how Byatt's fiction is characterised by a number of contradictory impetuses. Of particular interest is the ambivalence that arises from Byatt's partial engagement with recent critical theory - not only because it reflects larger cultural and discursive movements, but also because it contributes to a productive forging of new forms of fiction that combine an awareness of the concerns of literary and cultural criticism with a desire to evoke pleasure in the texts.

This thesis explores the role of political culture in the secession of two Virginia counties: Augusta and Rockbridge. These two counties, which in 1850 were staunchly loyal to the Union, shifted loyalties late in the secession crisis of 1860 and 1861. Comparing local reactions to national politics with local views on the nature and unity of political communities more generally moves the decision to secede in April 1861 into clearer focus. Specifically, comparing regional attitudes towards the sectional controversies surrounding Virginia's constitution with the national debates on slavery in the territories reveals a general concern with the unity of political communities, and the common interests and values needed to sustain such communities. In the context of cross-cutting borderlands between eastern and western Virginia and the northern and southern United States, these sectional questions took on important significance. Political decision-making in this region emerged from a combination of widely-circulating views on the nature of government in this borderland setting. By placing the Valley's secession within these contexts, this thesis argues that Augusta and Rockbridge seceded when they did because events in the North persuaded them that the moral and political character of white northerners had become suspect relative to the question of slavery.<br>Master of Arts

Thesis (M. Arch.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture, 2004.<br>Pages 83-85 blank.<br>Includes bibliographical references (p. 80-81).<br>The proposal seeks to develop and foster new understandings of this border through using built form as a vehicle for re-orienting, disorienting our physical and psychological understandings of borders. The physical intervention creates a release from the current condition which the fence embodies, that of separation, and contradiction. Through transgressing the fence physically and programmatically, one is temporarily freed of this tension, thereby accessing the fence through a different perspective. The resulting transgression is a new territory, perhaps a hybrid of the two. The building choreographs one's movement across the changes in the landscape, thereby revealing of the multiple readings of the fence. At points the boundary seemingly disappears, where at other times one is confronted with the wall as an artifact, a ruin that dominates the landscape. A point of passage is created through excavating underneath the fence; an artificial landscape is carved away in reference to the existing valleys, which already cut across the border. The fence becomes suspended, revealing the irony and frailty of its construction both literally and symbolically. Performance as program creates a venue for the transgression, which takes place. It is an instrument to allow for a alternate dialogue between the two countries. "The border wall has no architectural program, yet it generates intense activity. Crudely built, it is loaded with complex symbolism, more construct than construction... [and] reveals the power of an abstraction to create human environments. "--Teddy Cruz.<br>Sabrina Schmidt-Wetekam.<br>M.Arch.

This is an introduction for the thematic issue, "Print Culture in Croatia," at: http://www.hkdrustvo.hr/datoteke/162<br>This theoretical paper explores the theme of periphery and the borderlands and outlines the program for a new and transnational approach to the study of book culture in Croatia. Starting with a problem of fragmentation of Central European book histories, the essay argues how this could be turned into an opportunity to apply comprehensive and comparative approaches, using cultural area and comparing isomorphism of documentary practices rather than following the commonly used linguistic criteria (the national vernacular). European identity has been central to the Croatian construction of identity, and this can provide a broader framework for resolving the problem of how to construct a national history that acknowledges its status as boundary culture. If the European periphery is to claim its own cultural discourse, this will have to be through the controversial, ideological, and difficult task of cultural revision in which it will have to ex-territorialize itself and abandon a dream in which the national vernacular assumes a major function in language and society. This will not be possible without understanding the borderlands and an acceptance of its unique role in which dualities need to be accepted as an epistemology for boundary histories to assume significance within the dominant discourses of culture. In the dualities and multiplicities of the borderlands there arise counter-hegemonic interpretations, and the periphery can be validated by revealing the patterns of the center, connection to other traditions, and its own uniqueness at the same time. The thematic program for the study of Croatian print culture as boundary cultures is outlined as well.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Nevada, Reno, 2006.<br>"December 2006." Includes bibliographical references (leaves 72-75). Online version available on the World Wide Web. Library also has microfilm. Ann Arbor, Mich. : ProQuest Information and Learning Company, [2006]. 1 microfilm reel ; 35 mm.

As intolerance against Mexican Americans and Mexican migrants persists in the United States-- apparent in the passage of Arizona State Bill 1070, Arizona House Bill 2281, and multiple English-only laws-- Chicanas and Mexicanas continue to resist by sustaining relationships and knowledge through storytelling. This dissertation employs a floating borderlands framework to explore how Chicanas and Mexicanas in the United States-Mexico borderlands use storytelling in oral and written traditions to keep cultural and regional knowledge. Floating borderlands is an interdisciplinary framework that reveals survivance, that is, survival as an act of resistance, through cultural maintenance, agency, and creativity in lived experiences. Drawing upon concepts and research from disciplines that include Mexican American Studies, American Indian Studies, Gender and Women's Studies, and Education, floating borderlands reveals how storytelling helps Chicanas and Mexicanas maintain an understanding of home and homelands that facilitates resistance to obstacles such as racial and gender discrimination and challenges to their right to be in these spaces. This dissertation acknowledges multiple forms of knowledge keeping by Chicanas and Mexicanas throughout the last two centuries; recognizes intersectionality; and complicates or creates multiple layers in narratives of the U.S.-Mexico borderlands. This project is directly informed by narratives of Chicana and Mexicana life in the borderlands. It centers oral and written traditions, including my original poetry. Key words: Chicanas, Mexicanas, border, borderlands, floating borderlands, survivance, oral traditions, written traditions, home, homelands, migration, identity, cultural maintenance, poetry, story.

From 1861 to 1867 the diverse peoples—Indian, Hispano, and Anglo—of the Southwest borderlands struggled for survival and dominance in civil wars, quite apart from the Civil War of the Southern rebellion that raged in the eastern United States. Successful adaptation to the changing conditions in the borderlands required accommodation, compromise, and alliances as much as it did violent confrontation, martial prowess, and the capacity to wage war. The warrior cultures of each of the antagonistic groups bore many similarities, but each brought to the conflict its traditional means of fighting and adapted to the evolving political and social landscape. The martial traditions—tactics, logistics, weapons, martial customs, treatment of enemy captives—of the communities in conflict in order to demonstrate how the preparation and practice of warfare by the different ethnic groups set in motion actions that resulted in conflict and played a significant role in the causes and outcomes of the wars for the borderlands. At the beginning of the Civil War, Navajos, Apaches, and Comanches held the reins of power in the borderlands while sedentary, agrarian Indian communities, Hispanos, and Anglos struggled to maintain strongholds in fortified villages, outposts, and mining settlements. By 1867, the last of the volunteer soldiers of the Civil War era had mustered out of service, and Benito Juárez’s Republicans had driven out the French, executed Emperor Maximilian, and reclaimed Mexico. In the border states of Chihuahua and Sonora, Mexican Republican troops began relocating tribes and reestablishing settlements devastated by Apache raiders. In the newly-configured U.S. territories of Arizona and New Mexico, slavery as an economic and social system began to collapse, and a new social, political, and economic order arose, with Anglos and Hispanos at the top of the hierarchy and the raiding tribes at the bottom. The federal government exerted control over reservation-restricted Indians and defined new territorial boundaries. International relations had also changed. A more defined and restricted border between Mexico and the United States emerged from the war-torn borderlands while Hispano and Anglo citizens uneasily shared a new American political and economic model for survival in the Southwest.

Thesis (M.F.A)--Kent State University, 2006.<br>Title from PDF t.p. (viewed March 27, 2008). Advisor: Martin Ball. Keywords: American - Hungarian Video Installation, 1956 Hungarian Revolution, Budapest, Hungary, Documentary - Style Production Process, Fragmented Memories of Time and Place, American - Hungarian Struggles with Personal and Cultural Identities, Discourse about Mul.