Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Contemporary short stories'

This thesis examines the development of female subjectivities as presented in the short stories of women writers who started writing In Arabic in the second half of the 20th century in Egypt and the Levant (represented by Lebanon, Syria and Palestine), Iraq and the Gulf (represented by United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia) and North Africa (represented by Morocco and Tunisia). My theoretical approach draws on the theories of subjectivity elaborated by Michel Foucault, Simone de Beauvoir and other critical re-elaborations of Foucauldian concepts by several feminist theorists. This thesis aims at filling some of the lacunae in the available studies of Arab women literary achievements, which tend to be scarce, geographically limited, and concentrated on few famous names, dealing mostly with the novel and history of literature. Therefore the geographical area covered is extensive, showing the cultural, social and political variety of Arab countries against its mass media image of a monolithic whole. Whenever possible the authors have been selected among the younger, little known or translated women writers. The focus on the short story rather than the novel provides an insight into a dynamic area of Arab women's literary production which is widely understudied. Selecting subjectivity enables the study to move from the phase of history of literature to a deeper critical appreciation of women's literary achievements. Moreover subjectivity allows one to meet and hear the voices of female subjects with differences, opinions, sexualities, and so forth, and hence overcomes the many stereotypes diffused by mass media about 'Muslim women', transformed into a homogeneous, ahistorical and universalised category.

The past decade has been an exciting time for American fiction in general and Southern Appalachian fiction in particular. Rock Big and Sing Loud by Tamara Baxter is a significant addition to this surge of new writing. Writing truly about the world of eastern Tennessee Baxter also writes about the world at large, about humanity. Her narratives can make you laugh or break your heart, and sometimes they do both at once. She has given us the stories of some of the most afflicted and addicted, the most failed and failing, individuals on the planet, and also some of the strongest and most enduring people we are ever likely to meet. These stories take us to places we did not expect to go, and just when we think we have seen what is strangest, most absurd, most alien and outrageous, we recognize something of ourselves. - Robert Morgan, author of Gap Creek and Brave Enemies
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This practice-as-research project discusses modes, processes and aesthetics of contemporary dramaturgy, as practiced in experimental theatre and dance works in Europe from the 1990s onwards. In order to do this, the project draws particularly on discourses around ‘drama’ and suggests that the term can be redefined and usefully rehabilitated for both analysis and the creation of experimental performances. More specifically, this project defines drama (deriving from the Greek dro=act) as stage action, and dramaturgy (deriving from the Greek drama + ergo= work) as a practice that works endlessly for the creation of this drama/action on stage and is therefore always connected with it. In order to approach the newly proposed notion of ‘experimental drama’, this research uses the six main dramatic elements offered by Aristotle in his Poetics: plot, character, language, thought, the visual and music. Furthermore, it adds a seventh element: the spectator and contemporary understandings around the conditions of spectatorship. It then offers an analysis of dramaturgical processes and aesthetics of experimental stage works through these elements. Given that this is a practice-as-research project, it is accordingly multi-modal and offers its perspectives on dramaturgy and experimental drama through both critical and performance texts, documentation traces (photographs and video recordings) of artistic practice – all present in this thesis – and a live event; all these modes complement each other and move constantly between the stage and the page to proceed with the research’s inquiries. The current thesis has borrowed the dramaturgical structure of two artistic projects, created within the frame of this research practice, to generate its writings. The introductory parts of this text place the work within the discourse on practice-as-research and discuss the project’s proposal for an analysis of contemporary dramaturgy through drama. The Short (Research) Stories that follow analyze experimental works, created both within the frame of this research practice and outside it, by other artists, following the Aristotelian model. The element of spectatorship intervenes in this analysis instead of standing separately in the thesis. The project’s closing live event returns from the page to the stage to continue and add to discussions around central issues of the work, in its various distinct modes.

The focus of the present research work is the contemporary American short stories that bring up issues of compulsory norm and the conflict between marginalized characters and their environment. This research was based on those short stories that seemed to represent the idea of being "different" in the most complex and multilayered way, and its goal was to unfold new aspects of the conflict between "normal" and "abnormal"/"different". Variations of norm as well as diversity within the marginalized raise a number of questions about the reasons for their inability to coexist peacefully. The close reading and the analysis of the selected stories show that all the conflicts in them, in one way or another, repeat similar patterns and lead to the same root of the problem of misunderstanding, which is fear. To be more precise, all the cases of hate towards "different" characters can be explained by the hater's explicit or implicit fear of death in its various forms: inability to procreate one's own kind, cultural or personal self-identity loss, actual life threat in the form of a reminder of possible physical harm and death. Most often it would be the case where shame and fear of death overlap in a very complex way. In general, the cases of characters' otherness fall into three major groups. The nature of the alienation for each of these groups is described and analyzed in three separate chapters. Prejudice and stereotypes are playing a great role in formation of fears and insecurities which need to be dismantled in order to make peaceful coexistence possible. This work concludes with pointing out the crucial role of taking an approach of representation of various perspectives and diversification of voices in creative writing, academia and media in the context of multicultural society.

.This thesis explores the translation of verbal irony, particularly in the translations of Spanish and Catalan contemporary short stories. Verbal irony is a common phenomenon in communication, and yet it has not received enough attention in translation studies. Furthermore, not all theoretical frameworks agree on the same conception of irony. Having examined data of a corpus in Spanish and Catalan to shed some light upon the mechanisms of irony and the problems arising from its translation, I mainly address the following issues: a) What different types of ironic cues are there? b) How can these cues be explained within existing theories? c) How is irony translated in the translated text? d) What problems do different types of irony pose for the translation of irony? The complex nature of irony requires an interdisciplinary approach that places textual features in their communicative and social contexts. For this reason, Chapters 2 to 4 review theories from different fields in order to establish the main characteristics of verbal irony, while Chapter 5 focuses on translation issues. Irony is often achieved, as my analysis reveals, through a certain set of cues or conventional linguistic strategies that signal the speaker's ironic attitude. These, of course, are not inherently ironic because they ultimately need an appropriate context to be interpreted as ironic. Ironic cues can be graphological, grammatical, semantic and pragmatic devices as well as figurative language. Chapters 5 to 10 study how these cues are explained within existing theories, how they are translated and the problems that arise from their translation. Translators have to be aware of differences in linguistic conventions and cultural contextual sources. The lack of understanding of the mechanisms of irony is one of the main problems for the translator. The translation parameters and procedures that I offer are guidelines to the translation of verbal irony in literary texts from Catalan and Spanish into English. Last but not least, my thesis also contributes to the appreciation of a particular type of literature, that is, Spanish and Catalan short stories.

Mestrado em Estudos Ingleses
This work focuses on and responds to selected short stories by contemporary South African women writers, namely Bessie Head, Sindiwe Magona and Farida Karodia. My readings will foreground the way these writers draw attention to the "ordinary" in contrast to the "spectacle" as defined by the writer and critic Njabulo Ndebele in South African Liferature and Culture: Rediscovery of the Ordinary (1991), as well as show how a pattern of both postcolonial and feminist issues and concerns are introduced and developed in the stories. The engagement with issues of relevance to the future of South Africa reveals the challenging content and the need to approach the past as imperative to the dismantling of oppressive structures. The shift away from the powerful binarisms of the past to the addressing of the voids and absences, to a great extent, allows for valuable reflection and re-evaluation. Bessie Head's Tales of Tenderness and Power (1989) is a collection of short fiction ranging from the 60's to the 80's and written both in South Africa and in Botswana. Her work, from as early as the 1960's, echoes contemporary concerns related to the break up of family life, the upsurge of violence, a corrupt political leadership and a broadening or inclusive definition of humanity. In the next chapter we read Living, Loving and Lying wake at Nighf (1992) by Sindiwe Magona. This collection of short stories follows up on the work of Bessie Head both in the issues of women's position in their communities, most specifically that of the black woman, and the undeniable stress on hope for the future. Interwoven are problematic issues of contemporary South African society linked to a wide range of social, economic and political aspects. She points to the empowerment of women and to the relevance of constructing the present by never allowing the past to fade from memory. In Farida Karodia's Against an African Sky and other stories (1 995) we once again return to the importance of coming to terms with the past. Her settings and characters are intended to present the South African community in all its multivaried shades, beliefs and backgrounds. The differences between human beings, even if problematic, allow tolerance as well as critique and in that they display their richness. In their transgressive nature the characters of these short stories more often than not urge for active engagement with others in the communicative matrix that may shape present and future relationships.
Este estudo refere-se aos contos de autoras Sul-africanas contemporâneas nomeadamente Bessie Head, Sindiwe Magona e Farida Karodia. Esta leitura concentra-se, em parte, no conceito de "quotidiano" contrapondo este conceito ao de "espectáculo" nos termos definidos pelo escritor e crítico literário Njabulo Ndebele na sua obra Soufh African Liferafure and Culfure: Rediscovery of fhe Ordinary (1991). A perspectiva póscolonial e feminista reveste-se de grande relevância neste trabalho dado que integram a dinâmica destes textos. Adoptando uma perspectiva de conexão com temas relevantes no plano do futuro da África do Sul, estes textos revelam o seu carácter de desafio, sob ponto de vista temático, e ainda uma abordagem tendo como ponto de partida a reflexão sobre o passado demonstrando eficazmente que este se reveste de uma importância inestimável, pois ao ser reavaliado, permite maior consciência e maior conhecimento necessário ao desmantelamento de estruturas opressivas enraizadas na sociedade. Depreende-se assim uma perspectiva não redutora, nem imprisionada nas posições binárias características do passado, antes se revela um quadro de reflexão e reavaliação fundamentado na abordagem das ausências e silêncios de inúmeras vozes. 0s contos da Bessie Head: Tales of Tenderness and Power (1989) foram escritos nas decadas de 1960 a 1980 quer na África do Sul quer no Botswana. Não obstante alguns textos datarem dos anos 60 estes revestem-se de uma extraordinaria visão das preocupações mais pertinentes na África do Sul hoje. Assim estabelece-se uma preocupação constante com os problemas da dissolução da vida familiar, da violência, da corrução ao nivel politico e denota-se um conceito abrangente de humanidade. No capitulo seguinte encontramos os contos de Sindiwe Magona Living, Loving and Lying Awake at Night (1992). A complexidade da posiq2io da mulher, de modo particular da mulher negra, na comunidade e a inegável esperança no futuro constituem pontos de ligação com temáticas abordadas tambem por Bessie Head. 0s factores de natureza politica, económica e social encontram-se invariavelmente presentes nos referidos contos. Apontam assim para o poder da mulher e para a construção do presente sem no entanto permitir o esquecimento das atrocidades do passado. Relativamente ao capítulo subsequente constitui um voltar a problematica da memória como essential na reconstrução e redefinição no presente e no futuro. 0s contos de Farida Karodia encontram-se no volume entitulado Against an African Sky and other stories (1995). As histórias apresentam personagens inseridas ou não nas suas comunidades ou multiplicidade de comunidades com as suas várias cores, crenças e experiências passadas. As diferenças entre as pessoas, se bem que problemáticas, permitem uma reeducação na qua1 é admitida a critica mas tambem e exigida a tolerância e é nessa vertente que encontramos a sua riqueza. A natureza transgressora das personagens presentes nestes contos determinam a necessidade de uma interacção activa com o outro de modo que a comunicação e o diálogo possam definir as relações humanas no presente e no futuro.

This thesis comprises a collection of short stories entitled Everything Beautiful is Far Away, supported by a commentary which explores ideas of self within the short story and locates my creative writing practice within the field of contemporary short fiction and theories of autobiography. The collection Everything Beautiful is Far Away is made up of eleven stories that experiment with a variety of forms, from rhyming flash fiction to the novella, and fairy tale to psychotherapy, and as a substantial example of original creative practice stands as the main body of my thesis. The accompanying critical element is divided into three chapters, the first offering a survey of the aesthetic intentions underpinning the collection, as well as an introduction to the concepts of embedded autobiography and estrangement and establishment of the context in which my enquiry uses such terms. Chapter Two deals primarily with the notion of embedded autobiography and its manifestation within my own short stories, taking in the theories of Karen Horney, Celia Hunt, Ronald Sukenick and elements of psychoanalysis, (Freudian, Lacanian) whilst also considering the writings of Raymond Carver, Ian McEwan and Jean-Paul Sartre. The third and final chapter raises further questions about the concept of the Self in short fiction with specific reference to my own creative practice, the notion of transferring a story from the imagination to the page and the evolution of the project from novel to collection of short fictions.

These stories explore contemporary people who find their lives taking a shape they fear. These people often try to cling to their old life, control a loved one who is changing, or seek an escape. Their aspirations are often higher than where they land. Their situation resembles the writer’s situation in attempting to shape the lives of characters: they attempt to control what often cannot be controlled.

Previous research on the role that culture plays in reader response to literature generally has not been based on clear operational definitions of the term "culture." More often than not, researchers appear to be using the term synonymously with the reader's race, nationality, or social class, rather than including specific anthropological explanations. Moreover, there has been no research reported that isolates and then studies individual readers' cultural backgrounds as influences on their responses to American regional literature; and, while there have been some studies reported that use ethnographic methodology to examine how cultural context or setting affects response, there has been no reported ethnographic research that focuses on the influences of readers' cultural backgrounds and the cultures depicted in texts.
Ed. D.

The stories in this collection reflect the absurdities of contemporary American family life, and the particularly distressing economic conditions of the present moment. These stories often employ absurdist elements. Because of the personal history that informs my work, realism does not seem an appropriate form for me. My oldest son, in whom my emotional well-being is heavily invested, is autistic. He is not “normal"? in a way that others would understand as “normal."? Parenting a child with special needs changes the way a marriage operates, deforming it. The personal experience that drives these stories often seems fantastical even to me. I don’t write about my personal experiences, but I write about the impressions that those experiences make upon me. In this way, my work is descriptive rather than didactic.
Master of Fine Arts

This dissertation, which examines the literary representation of childhood trauma, is held together by three threads of inquiry. Firstly, I examine the stylistic devices through which three contemporary African writers – NoViolet Bulawayo, Uwem Akpan, and Mia Couto – engage with the subject of childhood trauma in five of their short stories: “Hitting Budapest”; “My Parents’ Bedroom” and “Fattening for Gabon”; and “The Day Mabata-bata Exploded” and “The Bird-Dreaming Baobab,” respectively. In each of these narratives, the use of ingén(u)s in the form of child narrators and/or focalisers instantiates a degree of structural irony, premised on the cognitive discrepancy between the protagonists’ perceptions and those of the implied reader. This structural irony then serves to underscore the reality that, though in a general sense the precise nature of traumatic experience cannot be directly communicated in language, this is exacerbated in the case of children, because children’s physical and psychological frameworks are underdeveloped. Consequently, children’s exposure to trauma and atrocity results in disruptions of both personal and communal notions of safety and security which are even more severe than those experienced by adults. Secondly, I analyse the political, cultural and economic factors which give rise to the traumatic incidents depicted in the stories, and the child characters’ interpretations and responses to these exigencies. Notions of subjectivity and intersubjectivity, identity and community, victimhood and survival, agency and disempowerment are discussed here in relation to the context of postcolonial Africa and the contemporary realities of chronic poverty, genocide, child-trafficking, the aftermath of civil war, and the legacies of colonialism and racism. Thirdly, this dissertation inspects the areas of congruence and divergence between trauma theory, literary scholarship on trauma narratives, and literary attempts to represent atrocity and trauma despite what is widely held to be the inadequacy of language – and therefore representation – to this task. There are certain differences between the three authors’ depictions of children’s experiences of trauma, despite the fact that the texts all grapple with the aporetic nature of trauma and the paradox of representing the unrepresentable. To this end, they utilise various strategies – temporal disjunctions and fragmentations, silences and lacunae, elements of the fantastical and surreal, magical realism, and instances of abjection and dissociation – to gesture towards the inexpressible, or that which is incommensurable with language. I argue that, ultimately, it is the endings of these stories which suggest the unrepresentable nature of trauma. Traumatic experience poses a challenge to representational conventions and, in its resistance, encourages a realisation that new ways of writing and speaking about trauma in the African continent, particularly with regards to children, are needed.
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This dissertation is a collection of four long short stories about contemporary Americans written in the mode of psychological realism. “Bare Knuckles” depicts the struggles of a young man trying to “make it” in the world of illegal boxing. “ZOSO” focuses on the breakdown of an upper-middleclass family forced to move from the rustbelt to the “New South.” In “Dusted,” a man ill-equipped to navigate through the adult world turns to substance abuse and violence as a “way out.” “Sugar Skulls” explores the fascination with death in the punk rock world.

Este trabalho tem como objetivo estudar a escrita autoficcional de Caio Fernando Abreu (1948-1996) segundo as concepções, respectivamente, dos teóricos franceses Serge Doubrovsky e Vincent Colonna, destacando-a e diferenciando-a de uma escrita pretensamente autobiográfica, segundo a concepção do também francês Philippe Lejeune. Se para Doubrovsky a escrita autoficcional é identificável pela condição do homonimato entre autor-narrador-personagem, para Colonna tal condição não se faz necessária para a identificação dessa escrita. Desse modo, no caso da autoficção segundo Colonna, para identificação da autoficção de Caio F., propõe-se o critério da sobreposição de textos com base nos paratextos genettianos. Procura-se, assim, estabelecer as bases diferenciais de uma escrita autoficcional que congrega em sua estrutura fatos reais e ficcionais elaborados pela linguagem, em contraposição a uma escrita dita autobiográfica baseada num pretenso pacto de verdade, entendendo ser a autoficção a forma de escrita amplamente praticada por Caio F. Para demonstração dessa escrita autoficcional, promove-se a análise e interpretação de textos significativos de Caio F., neles identificando as estruturas que os tornam autênticas autoficções.
This work aims to study the autofictional writings of Caio Fernando Abreu (1948-1996) according to the French scholars Serge Doubrovsky and Vincent Colonna, emphasizing and differentiating it from a supposedly autobiographic writing and also according to Philippe Lejeune. If, according to Doubrovsky, autofictional writing is recognizable by the requisite of homonimity author-narrator-character, to Colonna such requirement is not necessary. According to the latter, to identify Caio F.s autofiction, one must adopt the criteria of superposition of texts, based on Genets concept of paratext. Therefore, our goal is to establish the differential basis of an autofictional writing which creates in its structures of real and fictional facts elaborated by the language, as opposed to a writing considered autobiographic based on a intended pact of truth. Consequently, autofiction is the way of writing widely practiced by Caio F. In order to demonstrate this autofictional writing, we analyse and interprete Caios most important texts, identifying in them the structures that make them genuine autofictions.

Este trabalho analisa os contos e textos autobiográficos de João Antônio (1937- 1996) nos quais as figuras paternas exercem papel decisivo para os protagonistas. A análise literária parte da identificação de elementos fundamentais do texto de ficção (tais como narrador, personagens e ação) e de como eles se articulam e interagem. As interpretações combinam elementos da crítica literária, da historiografia, de pesquisas bibliográfica e biográfica, apontando ainda para questões da sociologia e da psicanálise. O estudo parte das reflexões de Antonio Candido, crítico que formulou conceitos importantes para o autor em foco, para a crítica literária e para a linha de pesquisa que relaciona literatura e sociedade. As análises conduzem a questões sobre a trajetória dos personagens ficcionais, sobre o conceito de malandragem, sobre o conto na obra de João Antônio e sobre as relações entre biografia e literatura na vida do autor.
This thesis analyses João Antonios short stories and autobiographical narratives where father figures are crucial and intimately related to main characters. The critical work identifies essential elements of fiction (such as narrator, characters and plot) and the way they interact. Our research is based upon Antonio Candidos essays on João Antônio and on literature and society. The effort of interpretation combines literary criticism, history of literature, biographical approach and bibliographic research, also including psychoanalysis and sociological theoretical references. The interpretations lead to conclusions about the journey of the main characters, the concept of trickery (malandragem), the short story form in João Antonio and the relationship between life and work of this Brazilian writer.

L'œuvre de Rick Moody échappe à toute tentative de catégorisation générique, elle est à la croisée de styles qui s'entrechoquent et se heurtent pour donner naissance à une prose hétéroclite. Cette fiction protéiforme n'en demeure pas moins traversée par la répétition d'un motif invariant : l'accident. C'est le paradoxe de cette observation qui constitue le point de départ de cette thèse. Comment l'accident, dont le surgissement paraît toujours fulgurant, instantané et unique, peut-il se voir répété, décliné et transformé en un principe structurant qui préside à la composition de l'oeuvre de Rick Moody ? Pour répondre à cette question, il faut nécessairement changer le présupposé sur lequel repose la définition de l'accident pour qu'il ne soit plus seulement envisagé comme ce qui arrive de manière accidentelle mais pour que soit révélée également sa dimension essentielle. Cela revient à proposer l'hypothèse que l'accident est toujours déjà là, qu'il est ontologique. Ce changement de perspective, rendu possible par une manipulation temporelle, encourage, sur le plan de l'analyse littéraire, une étude de la temporalité de l'accident. Son surgissement induit plus largement la question de la représentation de la réalité tandis que sa répétition autorise son inscription dans une durée. Provoquant toujours une rupture, la temporalité de l'accident est double car elle a la possibilité à la fois de mettre un terme et de faire éclore un nouveau début. L'accident crée des formes et des cycles, il surgit, dure, détruit, mais aussi régénère.

Este trabalho visa a analisar e interpretar O ovo apunhalado, coletânea de contos de Caio Fernando Abreu, publicada em 1975, em sintonia com as cartas do escritor, a fim de investigar em que medida — e tendo em vista o conjunto da obra — se estabelecem diálogos com as diferentes representações sócio-culturais do seu tempo, em especial dos anos 70, fase assinalada pela conquista da notoriedade do ficcionista sul-riograndense no cenário da literatura brasileira. Os distintos modos de composição utilizados em O ovo apunhalado assinalam a postura de permanente contravenção à realidade objetiva e subjetiva, resultado de um jogo dialético com as vicissitudes históricas. Para tanto, os fundamentos teóricos de Theodor Adorno, Walter Benjamin, Georg Simmel, entre outros, contribuem para elucidar que as rupturas com a forma literária efetuam-se por uma não conformidade aos fenômenos histórico-sociais. As cartas, por sua vez, reiteram a contundência literária, diretamente relacionada à irreverência do escritor enquanto sujeito social. Evidencia-se que a estranheza da escritura de Caio Fernando Abreu em relação a padrões da literatura sul-rio-grandense e da literatura brasileira é concomitante à estranheza do sujeito social, o que se funda, sobretudo, numa postura anticonvencional originária de um sonho: o de que a realidade pudesse ser outra.
The present paper aims at analyzing and interpreting O ovo apunhalado, which is a collection of short stories by Caio Fernando Abreu, published in 1975, in synchrony with the writer’s letters, in order to investigate in what measure – and in view of his entire work - dialogues are established with the different social-cultural representation of his time, especially in the 1970’s, a phase which was designated for the conquest of the notoriety of this fictionist from Rio Grande do Sul in the Brazilian literature scene. The distinct ways used to compose O ovo apunhalado designate the posture of permanent contravention of the objective and subjective reality, result of a dialectic game with the historical vicissitudes. For in such a way, the theoretical beddings of Theodor Adorno, Walter Benjamin, Georg Simmel, among others, contribute to elucidate that the ruptures with the literary form are added by a non-conformity to the historical-social phenomena. The letters, in their turn, reiterate the literary force, directly related to the writer’s irreverence as a social subject. It is evident that the queerness of Caio Fernando Abreu’s writing in relation to the standards of Brazilian literature and the literature from Rio Grande do Sul is concomitant to the queerness of the social citizen, the one who relates, over all, to an anti-conventional posture which was originated from a dream: that the reality could be another one.

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Based upon the hybrid history and fiction narratives, as possibilities of reinterpreting the past, we proposed a research that aimed at establishing possible approximations among a series of historical short stories selected from the book Amores Insólitos de nuestra historia (2001), by María Rosa Lojo, with the most recent theoretical approach about the mediation contemporary historical novel, which reveals the mixture of a-critical modalities - the classical and the traditional - with deconstructionist aspects – historical novels of Latin American and historiographic metafictions. In the short stories, as well as in the novels of the most recent modality, we saw a hybrid plot that Fleck (2017) classifies as being a "mediator" between traditionalism and the Latin American criticism / deconstructionism. From the point of view of Lojo's past (2001), we intend to highlight the conquest and the settlement of America through her short narratives, which privileges the expression of excluded voices, as they are not considered by the hegemonic history perspective and which, in many fictional narratives, the Argentinean identity is portrayed under the perspective of the unusual love of female protagonists. This way, we reveal about the possible actions of literature in the face of this silencing, especially, when it comes to the female voice in historiographical reports, with emphasis on the perspectives of the past recorded in the annals of history and reinterpreted by fiction. The corpus that served as the basis for this study and analysis are compound of four short stories from the selected work, being: “La historia que Ruy Díaz no escribió” (p. 45-64), “El Maestro y la Reina de las Amazonas” (p. 127-145), “Amar a un hombre feo” (p. 191-213), and “Otra historia del Guerrero y de la Cautiva” (p. 215-245). Furthermore, as inserted in studies proposals of hybrid genres of history and fiction, carried by the Research Group "Reinterpreting the past in America: processes of reading, writing and translation of hybrid genres of history and fiction - pathways to decolonization", we highlight how the characters are represented on the historical extraction of Lojo's short stories, and, we point out at the mediating aspects that constitute these narratives. The theoretical basis that allowed us to establish the relationship between the hybrid historical novel and historical short tale are anchored in studies by Aínsa (1991), Menton (1993), Fernández Prieto (2003), Esteves (2010), Fleck (2011; 2017), among others.
Com base nas narrativas híbridas de história e ficção como possibilidades de releitura do passado, a pesquisa efetuada procurou estabelecer as aproximações possíveis entre uma série de contos históricos selecionados da obra Amores Insólitos de nuestra historia (2001), de María Rosa Lojo, com os pressupostos teóricos mais recentes sobre o gênero romance histórico contemporâneo de mediação, o qual revela a mescla de aspectos das modalidades acríticas – clássica e tradicional – com os aspectos daquelas mais desconstrucionistas – novos romances históricos latino-americanos e metaficções historiográficas. Nos contos, assim como nos romances da modalidade mais recente, vimos uma escrita híbrida que Fleck (2017) classifica como “mediadora” entre o tradicionalismo e o criticismo/desconstrucionismo latino-americano. Sob a ótica da releitura do passado de Lojo (2001), evidenciamos a conquista e povoação da América por meio de narrativas curtas que privilegiam a expressão das vozes excluídas, que não foram consideradas pela história hegemônica e que, em muitas narrativas ficcionais, são as protagonistas dos amores insólitos retratados na construção da própria identidade argentina. Dessa maneira, revelamos as possíveis ações da literatura frente a este silenciamento, principalmente, da voz feminina nos relatos historiográficos, com ênfase às perspectivas do passado registradas nos anais da história e ressignificadas pela ficção. O corpus que serviu de base para o estudo parte da análise de quatro contos da obra selecionada: “La historia que Ruy Díaz no escribió” (p. 45-64), “El Maestro y la Reina de las Amazonas” (p. 127-145), “Amar a un hombre feo” (p. 191-213) e “Otra historia del Guerrero y de la Cautiva” (p. 215-245). Desse modo, inseridos nas propostas dos estudos sobre gêneros híbridos de história e ficção, impulsionados pelo Grupo de Pesquisa “Ressignificações do passado na América: processos de leitura, escrita e tradução de gêneros híbridos de história e ficção – vias para a descolonização”, evidenciamos como se dá a representação das personagens de extração histórica na contística de Lojo e, especificamos os aspectos mediadores que constituem essas narrativas. Os pressupostos teóricos que nos permitiram estabelecer a relação entre os gêneros híbridos romance histórico e conto histórico estão ancorados em estudos de Aínsa (1991), Menton (1993), Fernández Prieto (2003), Esteves (2010), Fleck (2011; 2017), entre outros.

A research paper submitted to the Faculty of Humanities and the Social Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Masters of Arts. Johannesburg 2018
Amidst the ongoing socio-economic and political crisis in Zimbabwe, it has long been dangerous to publicly criticize or condemn the situation in ways that put the government in a bad light. However, humorous stories have provided a platform through which such issues may be engaged outside the censoring regime. In this research report I use humour theory and James Scott’s concepts of ‘hidden transcripts’ and ‘everyday forms of resistance’ to unpack how writers engage with the political and socio-economic crisis in Zimbabwe through the genre of the short story. The research paper shows that humour has been deployed as both a conscious strategy of subversion and an emancipatory tool at the same time. In the course of this endeavour, the research report also sheds light on how humour is coded as a coping mechanism in stressful or overwhelming situations allowing some respite amidst life challenges. The primary texts examined in the paper are An Elegy for Easterly (2009) by Petina Gappah and Laughing Now: Short Stories from Zimbabwe (2007) edited by Irene Staunton. The study comes to the conclusion that in as much as protest literature does not necessarily send people out in the streets in protest, the use of humour in these stories allows for certain modes of thinking and being which resist official narratives and other manifestations of power.
MT 2019

The thesis of this study revolves around the validity of Tshivenda literature as an authorative commentary on Mission Work in Venda. The value of literary works by selected Tshivenda writers is explored on three important directions: (a) as a source of information on the Vhavenda world-view which is an important aspect in the Vhavenda's understanding of the Missionary message; (b) as a source of challenge to missiology, and (c) as a source of basis for an in-depth contextual missiology. The well-meaning contributions of the German Missionaries is appreciated. Their influence through the spreading of Lutheranism and also in the birth of Tshivenda literature is clearly recognized. My task has not only been to see these positive contributions, but also to problematise and explore both the missionary instrumentality and the local responses that are reflected in the Tshivenda literature. Our first four chapters introduce the thesis, they cover political history of the Vhavenda which is fundamental in our understanding of their world-view and the early missionary works in Venda. Selected Tshivenda novels become the object of inquiry in the fifth chapter. The novels help us in our evaluation of Missionary Christianity. A wide variety of issues are contained in these novels which are significant in Mission work. The sixth chapter concentrates on selected Tshivenda short stories. In two of these short stories the issue of racism is highlighted. The seventh chapter looks into a few Tshivenda Poems. In two of these poems the Missionary-rejected name for God, Nwali, is heavily used. The last chapter contains the essential commentary of indigenous Tshivenda literature on Missionary Christianity as well as the implications for both global and local Missiology.
Missiology.
M.(Theology)

The thesis consists of two parts. The first, practical part presents a translation of short stories The Portobello Road (1956), The Curtain Blown by the Breeze (1961) and The Young Man Who Discovered the Secret of Life (2000) by the Scottish writer Muriel Spark. The texts represent various periods of Spark's writing career and offer a complex insight into her style and its various shades. The translation is succeeded by a study focusing on the life and work of Muriel Spark and mainly on an analysis of the key translation issues encountered in the process of translation. The key problems include the translation of Spark's specific literary language, the rendering of natural speech and the idiolects of the characters, the translation of names and other culture-specific facts. The theoretical part devoted to the translation analysis stresses the link between various translation theories and the work of a translator.

This MFA thesis, More Stories About Disappointment and TV, is a collection of short stories. I see them as being interconnected, if only in the loosest possible sense. I have certain ideas and themes that recur throughout my work, which I hope gives the stories a sense of cohesion without making the collection feel too monochromatic. The stories vary in narrative approach and point of view. My stories are character-driven literary fiction, to put it broadly, though they often incorporate characteristics of genre fiction. Some of them are more realistic than others, but they almost always have elements of the weird, the fabulist, and/or the absurd.