Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Feminine fantasy'

Literature is an important part of the curriculum of Swedish secondary school and The Lost Hero by Rick Riordan is a popular novel among teenagers in Stockholm. This creates an opportunity to look closer at the novel, and to investigate the narrative’s discussion of the female, and in this particular case, its depictions of the female characters. This essay will show that by reading the novel with a feminist approach, inspired by the work of Luce Irigaray, the narrative reveals cultural aspects that might work well as a ground for discussions in the classroom.                       This essay considers how the narrative allows for opportunities of female resistance. Without replacing the male on the frontier of adventure, and without betraying their femininity, the female characters of the novel manage to change the power dynamic of how they are perceived. The female protagonist, Piper, works as a gatekeeper for the female resistance, and eliminates – for the cause – unbeneficial female behaviours.                       A feminist approach is beneficial to the diversity that is expected in Swedish secondary school. In addition to already existing research on Riordan’s work, this essay helps justify why The Lost Hero is a good literary alternative for the classroom.

This essay will examine the youth novel Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone by J.K. Rowling. The aim of this essay is to find tendencies of how the novel favours non-stereotypical male behaviour and characteristics. Using gender criticism, the novel and its most central male characters are analysed to highlight their gender characteristics. Symbols and metaphors constitute a part of the analysis for a more comprehensive examination. The results of this essay show that the male characters are divided into two factions, the good side and the evil side. It is evident that the male characters on the evil side are characterised by stereotypical male gender behaviour and the male characters on the good side tend to show a lack of stereotypical masculine traits. The Fantasy genre, which dictates a strong good versus evil storyline, extends this polarisation. The stereotypical male gender roles are therefore opposed and non-stereotypical male behaviour is promoted in the narration by favouring male vulnerability and ridiculing stereotypical masculine traits.

This thesis compares modern children’s fantasy literature with older texts, particularly Grimms’ fairy tales. The focus is on tropes from fairy tales and myths that devalue women and femininity. In looking at these tropes, this thesis examines how they are used in modern fiction; whether they are subverted to show a more empowering vision of femininity or simply replicated in a more modern guise. Whereas other approaches in this area have addressed the representation of gender in an isolated fashion, this study adopts an intersectional approach, examining the way that different axes of oppression work together to maintain the patriarchal hegemony of powerful, white, heterosexual men. As intersectional theory has pointed out, mainstream feminism has tended to focus only on the needs and rights of more privileged women, who are themselves complicit in the oppression of their more marginalised “sisters”. Intersectional feminism, in contrast, seeks to dismantle the entire system of interlinked oppressions, rather than allowing some women to benefit from it to the detriment of others. The intersectional issues around feminism that this thesis addresses include race, disability, class, and sexuality. There is also an emphasis on female solidarity, which is championed as an effective strategy to weaken the hold of patriarchy and subvert it in its aim to “divide and conquer”. It is this intersectional approach to children’s fantasy literature that is seen as the thesis’s main contribution to knowledge. The primary texts under examination are mainly from the United Kingdom, but also include works from the United States, Australia, and Germany. All of them were originally published between 1980 and 2013. The thesis explores heroism, beauty, magic, and gender performance in these works, showing how such themes can be dealt with in ways that are either reactionary and detrimental or progressive and empowering.

Literature uses dance to reveal underlying messages of fantasy through the themes of the central narrative of female characters. Examining the original texts with respect to their varying adaptations for film and stage, performance literature reveals how directors relate a three-dimensional story to an audience from a two-dimensional world. Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Red Shoes” shows an underlying semiotic code where transitioning from the black and white of reality to the red of fantasy is only accomplished through dancing. Oscar Wilde’s Salome displays an eroticization of the exotic solo-improvised dance that provides a semblance of control for the main character. The story of Giselle reveals a meta narrative describing the desire and plight of the professional dancer. Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, in contrast, provides a world in which dance as a fantasy element cannot exist. Examining the physical elements of these works of literature elucidates the use of dance as a lens that lets the performance become speech.

In this essay I will investigate the representations of gender in the unexplored field of fantasy miniature wargames. Focusing on a few publications by the largest producers of these games, namely Games Workshop, Privateer Press and Wyrd Miniatures, I intend to shed light on the views of gender that permeate their productions. Drawing parallels to research conducted on gender in the field of video games, I intend to investigate their similarities to the representations that exist in the field of fantasy miniature wargames. Through these links I will investigate areas such as the literary representation of gender, the visual representation of gender in the miniatures and images produced, and also the simulations and manifestations of gender in the rules of the games. These representations have the power to shape our perception of the world around us, especially as some of these games' target audience are young adults. Identifying these messages is important for further studies in the field and will be a first step to understanding how the miniature wargame can affect our behaviors and attitudes.

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Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - CAPES
This research analyses and discusses the female character in the movie Phantom of the Paradise (Brian De Palma, 1974) through the feminist and gender debates of the American society in the 1970’s. In this sense, it directs the look at the protagonist Phoenix (Jessica Harper) in order to reveal how changes in social and cultural fields of the time converged and contributed to the construction of the female character in this work. Through the movie analysis, the purpose is to understand the character’s metamorphosis, wavering from a well-behaved girl to a femme fatale. This research is justified by the need to understand how the american filmmaker Brian De Palma, constantly accused of misogyny for movies such as Dressed to Kill (1980), Blow Out (1981), Body Double (1984), envisioned the female protagonist during the immersion years of the Second-Wave Feminism and the foundation of the Feminist Film Theory (1975). At the same time, as the director tends to appropriate published stories to create new scripts, identifying the web of knitted references in Phantom of the Paradise is essential for understanding all female and male characters in the movie
Esta pesquisa analisa e discute a personagem feminina no filme Fantasma do Paraíso (Phantom of the Paradise, Brian De Palma, 1974) a partir dos debates feministas e de gênero da sociedade americana na década de 1970. Nesse percurso, direciona-se o olhar para a protagonista Phoenix (Jéssica Harper) para desvendar de que modo as mudanças nos campos social e cultural da época convergiram e contribuíram para a construção do papel feminino nessa obra. Por meio da análise fílmica, objetiva-se entender as metamorfoses da personagem, que vai da moça bem-comportada à femme fatale. Esta investigação se justifica pela necessidade de compreender como o cineasta estadunidense Brian De Palma, constantemente acusado de misoginia por filmes como Vestida para Matar (Dressed to Kill, 1980), Blow Out (1981), Dublê de Corpo (Body Double, 1984), idealizou a protagonista feminina no período de imersão da Segunda Onda Feminista e da fundação da Teoria Feminista do Cinema (1975). Em paralelo, como o diretor tem por característica a apropriação de outras histórias para construção de novos roteiros, identificar a teia de referências tricotada em Fantasma do Paraíso é imprescindível para compreensão de todos os personagens femininos e masculinos no filme.

Orientador: María Dolores Aybar Ramírez
Banca: Karin Volobuef
Banca: Maira Angélica Pandolfi
Resumo: O presente trabalho apresenta uma reflexão acerca da configuração das personagens fantásticas femininas nas três seguintes obras: "Ojos Verdes" (1861), de Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer; "Mi vida con la ola" (1949-50), de Octavio Paz e "Historia del lagarto que tenía la costumbre de cenar a sus mujeres" (1993), de Eduardo Galeano. Tendo em vista a perspectiva dos estudos mitocríticos que contemplam o aspecto ancestral do feminino maléfico, observa-se o modo como se produzem as manifestações da mulher fatal, vinculada ao feminino terrível e às águas nas literaturas de diferentes épocas. Analisa-se, assim, a representação simbólica que denominamos mulher-sereia, imagem que, repleta da carga mítica, se apresenta nos três contos construindo a figura arquetípica de mulher sedutora e atraente, mas causadora de danos, perigosa e por vezes, fatal. Atenta-se, ainda, para a questão do gênero literário nos referidos contos, analisando sua construção através da personagem feminina, enquanto representação do fenômeno insólito que aparece nas narrativas
Abstract: This work presents a reflection about the configuration of fantastic female characters in the following three works: "Ojos Verdes" (1981), by Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer, "Mi vida con la ola" (1949-50), by Octavio Paz and "Historia del lagarto que tenía la costumbre de cenar a sus mujeres" (1993), by Eduardo Galeano. In view of the mythcritical studies prospect that comtemplates the malefic female ancestral aspect, observe the way that they produce the manifestations of the femme fatale, linked to the terrible female and to the waters in different times. Thus analized a symbolic representation that we call mermaid-woman, a image that, full of mythical load, presents in these three tales on contours of the archetypal figure of seductive and attractive woman, but damage causer, dangerous and sometimes, deadly. Also, attentive to the literary genre issue in these tales analyzing its construction through the female character, as an unusual phenomenon representation in the narratives
Mestre

Recent empirical evidence supports the theoretical stance that fiction provides vicarious experiences of imagined spaces and situations that can help shape our perceptions of the real world, our social others, and the self. The implications for this are especially interesting for adolescents, as their brains undergo a restructuring during puberty, making them more responsive to change in executive function and social cognition. Few scholars have yet addressed how texts instruct young readers in how to use their developing cognition to assess characters' emotions and behavior, and how fiction can potentially affect these readers' cognitive and emotional development. This thesis analyzes the concept that potential adolescent readers can engage with a novel's characters' thoughts and behaviors by using their improving cognitive abilities to transmute what is on the page into real-life coping strategies. This phenomenon is especially compelling when considering the potential impact empowered female characters could have on adolescent girl readers, since their malleable brain around puberty makes them more receptive to accepting ideas - such as a person's gender not being a limitation. I examine what the primary texts themselves offer to potential readers, and analyze certain aspects of the texts that could be linked to potential readers' cognitive and affective engagement. The primary texts I have chosen are Tamora Pierce's two narrative quartets (The Song of the Lioness and Protector of the Small) that deal with characters from the fictional land of Tortall, as they focus closely on female characters in fantasy realms who are breaking gendered stereotypes by training to become knights. Pierce's books are representative of this adolescent feminist fantasy. I extrapolate that findings from this thesis will be applicable to other kinds of adolescent feminist fantasy texts; namely, that adolescent feminist fantasy fiction can beneficially change potential readers behavior and cognition.

When Ursula K. LeGuin revisited the world of Earthsea with Tehanu (1990), her return to an established classic of the fantasy genre came with a powerful desire to revisit its construction and reinterpret its assumptions from a female perspective. Drawn to the side of her dying former tutor, protagonist Tenar is repeatedly posed with the question of what to do with his lore books, which could never offer to her what they had his conventionally male students. Even if this time-honored tradition excludes her, however, Tenar cannot bring herself to discard or abandon the books, for all that they seem "nothing to her, big leather boxes full of paper." Traveling on foot, forced often to flee for her life and pack light, she feels compelled to carry these book on her back. For Tenar, the tomes are a considerably "heavy burden," and, given the context in which this novel appears, this female protagonist's struggle with the weight of traditional, respected patriarchal male text is particularly significant. In LeGuin's fantasy, the image of Tenar traversing her story with Ogion's great "lore-books" strapped to her back is emblematic of the struggle many authors have faced in negotiating the received texts and tropes of their generic inheritance in order to create female-centered fantasy. Indeed, the transformation of Ogion's great lore-books into Tenar's conflicted baggage literalizes what many other texts have more figuratively confronted. My dissertation, "A Noted Departure: Metafiction and Feminist Revision within a Tradition of Fantasy Writing," considers the compelling frequency of such self-conscious textual moments in female-centered fantasy of the 80s and 90s and argues for their importance as a writing strategy that challenges the assumptions of more formulaic fantasy texts and tropes, especially those that inform expectations about roles for women. Examining this moment in which the legacy of a revisionist feminist impulse converges with a post-modern, post-structural metafictional critique of traditional narrative forms and the ideologies they encode, my dissertation sheds light on many critically ignored self-conscious fantasy texts which feature heroines whose critical, textual negotiations bring readers to reconsider the nature of fantasy and the danger and wonder, the limits and liberty, of fictional representation. Taken together, as important and largely overlooked entries in a genre which thrives on the tension between tradition and innovation, these works represent a significant transitional moment in the fantasy genre, bridging the gap between a relatively limited female presence and a more contemporary diversity. My first chapter, "Doing the "Not Done": Wrede's 'Improper' Princess and her Whimsical Revision of Fairy-Tale Expectation and Convention," demonstrates the fluid link between the established tradition of feminist fairy tale revision and the self-critical generic departure my dissertation presents as an important literary moment in the fantasy genre. As the archive my dissertation constitutes might be understood as the answer to Angela Carter's frustrated plea that we must "move beyond revision," this chapter acknowledges the fairy tale's potency as a purveyor of romantic archetypes and, thereby, of cultural precepts for young women in a reading of The Enchanted Forest Chronicles (1990-5). In threading seemingly simple and conventional plotlines together with unexpected and innovative departures, Wrede upsets narrative expectation and undercuts generic convention, particularly those associated with the 'princess' trope. Achieving her critical commentary on the commonplaces of the genre by first invoking the traditional before establishing a heroine who positions herself against it, Wrede's plot also reveals the importance of textual negotiation and interpretation, and this chapter underscores the generative relationship this kind of critical interplay bears on the need for new plots and narrative options. Chapter two, "'In Search of 'Something New': Metafiction as Critical and Creative Discourse" offers a sustained discussion of the theoretical work of metafiction. Opening with an examination of the historical precedent of feminist metafiction and its desire to create an alternative tradition to a limited masculinist tradition in the 60s, 70s and early 80s, I demonstrate how aptly feminist metafiction aligns with a fantasist's impulse to challenge the same constraints within genre. Examining how metafiction can function as a critical and creative narrative strategy within a generic context, I adapt the conceptions of theorists such as Roland Barthes, Jean Genette, Gayle Greene, Amie A. Doughty, and Brian Stonehill to an understanding of how metafiction functions in fantasy. "Plotting Change, Imagining Alternatives: Metafiction as Revision in Feminist Fantasy," argues that while thematic or plot-based investigations into feminist fantasy are useful, understanding the way in which generic push-back occurs requires closer attention to the writing strategies which articulate such artistic feats and aesthetic negotiations. This third chapter examines several significant but critically ignored fantasy works which demonstrate how writers of this period signal their departure from generic tradition through key metafictional moments in which a heroine herself invokes text or turns, within her own story, to a text that exists within her own world. Alanna of Trebond in The Song of the Lioness series (1983, 84, 86, 88), Daikin of The Farthest Away Mountain (1976), and Talia in The Heralds of Valdemaar series ("Arrows Trilogy," 1987-88) all experience transformative and liberatory adventures that afford a break with tradition that is drawn along lines of both gender and narrative. Thus, texts occupy a central role in these adventures, providing opportunities to investigate the cultural role they play and the tensions they surface between providing inspiration and motivation on the one hand and limitations that must be overcome on the other. As revisionist quest-narratives which are also deeply internal feminist Bildungsroman, the frequently close relationship between heroine and text in these works is deeply telling; such metafictional moments allow their adventures to advance not only plot or individual story, but a critical conversation about the literary conventions and cultural traditions which condition their representation. In calling attention to the critical work of these metafictional moments, I reveal that the most fruitful feminist fantasy criticism must not be only about plot, but the possibility of plot. Indeed, as these heroines become legends themselves, their narratives not only deconstruct traditional discourses, engaging with the need to re-write tradition, to counter narrative expectation and convention with the creation of new stories; they also more collectively re-mythologize. In creating new stories and new patterns of storytelling, this chapter reveals how these writers do not just expose the cultural power of tradition and myth and critique the representation of women within them, but counter its absences and suppressions with their own mythopoesis. Taken together, such a wealth of significant but critically ignored examples demonstrates how writers employ metafiction as a strategy to enact criticism and imagine alternatives in the fantasy genre, particularly in terms of expanding narrative possibilities for heroines. My fourth chapter, "Convention Undone: UnLunDun's Unchosen Heroine and Narrative (Re)Vision," examines China Miéville's UnLunDun (2007) as a deliberate response to a tradition of fantasy writing, lampooning, in particular, the portal-quest fantasy. Revealing narrative adherence to traditional patterns as false and hollow, and those who trust them uncritically as foolishly naïve, Miéville reminds readers of the importance of innovation, of critical interaction with narrative tradition, and the unfinished nature of both narrative and identity. In a tour-de-force of a self-and-genre-conscious metafictionality, Miéville explores the pit-falls of expectation and the potential which comes from the creation of an alternative narrative--and with it, an alternative heroine in Deeba, whose journey works both with and against the perspective traditions of 'The Book' (a talking tome whose authority proves less than accurate). Ultimately, I argue that Deeba's quest and her transformation into a celebrated, unchosen heroine reveals the degree to which success lies in making the old useful again, and the narrative she reshapes is a vivid illustration of both what it means to revise or reimagine and the necessity of such a critical process. In a world of fragments and the discarded, this book speaks to the genre at large, asking what might be constructed from the inherited baggage of traditional understandings, and what can be done in spite of their limitations and previously established identities or functions. Commonly engaged in the construction of questioning, questing stories, the writers I study have crafted pioneering, uncertain heroines who act out a self-conscious awareness that presses against the genre's limits. As these writers must struggle with the loaded material they wish to weave into new story shapes, so, too, do their fictional creations meditate upon the way in which their journey or character diverges from the expected. These are heroines in the making, heroines whose identities are not fixed easily in text but who must constitute it through an engagement with texts both familiar and new. As books which are also about books, as stories which take story as explicit subject matter, these works feature textual negotiation as a necessary critical process at the level of plot. Moreover, in presenting such metafictions as a critical, questioning comparison to a traditional norm, generic expectation, or narrative inheritance experienced as limited or confining, these works also shed light on the possibility of alternative plots and call special attention to the kinds of artistic and ideological negotiations necessary for such stories to be told in our own realistic worlds as well as in our fantasies. Thus, my dissertation highlights the importance of a writer's impulse to reflect and revise the tradition in which they participate and underscores the creative and critical potential of furthering dialogue between texts and conventions. As my readings demonstrate, the fascination fantasy holds as an enduring art form may well be contingent upon the genre's potential for self-conscious interplay and its protean capacity to refigure narration as a meaningful form of discourse.

Failed Feminism?: Ursula K. Le Guin’s novel Tehanu

The purpose of this essay is to show that Ursula K. LeGuin’s fantasy novel Tehanu instead of breaking away from traditional gender roles maintains them, despite the novel’s promises of change. I begin by showing the places where the possibilities of change are indicated, and then I use feminist criticism to show that there is no change in the gender roles.

I have examined the gender roles in Tehanu, by taking a closer look at the characters and the roles they have in the plot. Numerous critics claim that this novel is Le Guin’s attempt to revise her earlier, more traditional fantasy novels in the Earthsea trilogy, and that Tehanu works as a feminist reaction to the Earthsea trilogy. However, even though Le Guin makes the traditional patriarchal gender roles apparent to the unaware reader, the protagonists have internalised the patriarchal values of their society when the novel closes, which may be fairly disappointing to the reader who brings feminist awareness to the reading of novel. The women are depicted as caregivers, and the men are portrayed as the decision-makers. The gender roles are as traditional as they can be with Ged as the man who is capable to read the wizard’s books, with Tehanu who stays with her family and does not leave with the dragons, and with Tenar as the woman who takes care of the household.

This research project investigates images from the contemporary Australian mid-life psyche, exploring the contribution to individual transformation made through the creation of, and reflective engagement with, personal imagery. Asking the question: 'What do contemporary Australian mid-life males consider to be a rich and sustaining inner life?' This project documents the visual images, descriptions, and reflections of a group of five participants, discussing the individuals' experiences of aesthetic self-inquiry with reference to divergent theories of psychology, art therapy and philosophy of aesthetics.

This research aims to make evident the importance of films serving as a relevant arena for political struggles within a society, struggles that concern highly important concepts such as the nation and the state. This goal is accomplished by building upon the theory of cinematic nationhood and using the method of relational constructivism combined with insight from Lacanian psychoanalytic theory. The research regards films as forms of communication as well as forms of fantasy. The case this research focuses on is Romania. The case was selected because for a certain period of time the myths of nation and state had been strongly embedded-or nested-- within the social contexts-or commonplaces--specific to Marxism, namely work, equality, and the bourgeois enemy, followed by a swift and radical social discourse change that triggered changes within the topography of commonplaces. The films analyzed represent these changes in order to understand the specific ways in which the myth of nation and state are reflected within films produced during radical economic, social, and political transformations. This research reveals that, despite the social, economic, and political upheavals from the pre- to post-transition eras, the underlying national structure of fantasy remained remarkably unchanged, while the nation and the state changed their social relevance with changes in their position occupied within the structure of fantasy.

In recent years, the young adult genre has become increasingly popular and is experiencing a "second golden age.” It might be expected in such novels, when written by women and featuring gifted female heroines, to find some kind of a feminist message. Indeed, the heroines are often perceived as strong and capable. However, they fall in line with several old gender stereotypes. The three novels chosen for this study are: A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas, Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard and An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir. I will show that women, although perceived as strong and capable on the surface, often conform to stereotypes. In order to do this I analyse how women are portrayed from different perspectives. Women are often perceived as passive in romantic situations, and objectified through the normative male gaze. It is interesting that also in novels written by women for women, the male gaze is prominent. Through this the female reader gains the desire to be objectified, implicitly from the narrative, which is something that works against women’s empowerment in society. Furthermore, the female protagonists rarely, or never, threaten patriarchy in any way and generally work toward reinstating patriarchy which is perceived as the only sensible option. Women in power, who do threaten patriarchy, are portrayed as sadistic witches.

The world today is globalized like never before and with countries becoming more multicultural it is important to strive towards an intercultural society. This essay aims to answer the question “In what ways can one teach representation in the intercultural classroom through fantasy literature?”. That is, to illustrate and exemplify how one can use fantasy literature in the English classroom to give students intercultural knowledge through discussions on representation and intersectionality. The discussions in the essay are based in the democratic values stated in the Swedish course curriculum for upper secondary school (Gy11) in relation to the theoretical background. With examples from the book Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor, the essay breaches both difficult and sensitive subjects that can be discussed to make certain issues less alien for the reader. Cultural diversity is magical and it is important that students get the right tools to form deep relationships across cultural borders, and the fantasy genre is a great tool to use in the classroom to lessen these bridges between different cultures since the genre creates an arena for intercultural meetings where ‘the other’ is in focus, which reduces the alienating aspect of different cultures and identities.

In this essay, I make a queer feminist analysis of Mats Strandberg’s and Sara Bergmark Elfgren’s teenage novel ”Cirkeln”, which is about six teenage girls who learn that they are witches with a mission to save the world from demons. Using Judith Butler's theories, I examine the norms of sex/gender, ethnicity, class and sexuality found in the text and how these standards are created. I also analyze whether, and if so how, these standards may change when the magical elements enter the text. I also discuss the fact that older Gothic novels with magical elements often have been regarded as queer through history.

This thesis examines the production process for "Camp, Vamp and Femme Fatale," performed at the University of North Texas in April of 1997. The first chapter applies Henry Jenkins's theory of textual poaching to the authors' and cast's reappropriation of cultural narratives about female vampires. The chapter goes on to survey the narrative, cinematic and critical work on women as vampires. As many of the texts were developed as part of the fantasy role-playing game Vampire: The Masquerade, this chapter also surveys how fantasy role-playing develops unpublished texts that can make fruitful ground for performance studies. The second chapter examines the rehearsal and production process in comparison to the work of Glenda Dickerson and other feminist directors.

Syftet med denna studie är att utforska den manliga och kvinnliga blicken i George R.R. Martins fantasinovell, A Game of Thrones (1996). Jag föreslår att skillnader i hur den manliga och kvinnliga blicken betraktar sitt objekt, kan avslöjas genom kritisk analys av kvinnliga huvudkaraktären Sansa Stark. Vidare menar jag att patriarkala strukturer kan synliggöras genom analys av manliga blickar som riktas mot den kvinnliga karaktären. Min analys av Martins fantasinovell har genomförts med hjälp av ett teoretiskt ramverk baserat på framförallt Laura Mulveys artikel Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema (1975) och Rachel S. Grates tes ”Love at First Sight? Jane Austen and the Transformative Male Gaze” (2015). Min analys visar att det finns skillnader i hur den kvinnliga och manliga blicken betraktar i sitt objekt. Den kvinnliga blicken tenderar exempelvis att vara mer mångfacetterad i sin värdering av ett objekt. Vidare visar analysen att de manliga blickarna avslöjar patriarkala strukturer.

This thesis is about a problem of interest to reading theorists, psychological anthropologists and cultural studies researchers alike: why we find some narratives, plots, and images compelling and what this phenomenon can tell us about the cultural bases of human motivation. Gesturing to the interdependence of emotion, cognition, and motivation, the notion of the '(dis)positioned self' is proposed as a conceptual tool by which to address how motivation is both acquired and expressed in the way the self as 'feeling-mind' reads, that is, negotiates an interpretation of the signifying systems of a text to render it personally meaningful. (Dis)position allows us to overcome the sociocultural determinism of French structuralist and some poststructuralist reductions of the self to a precipitate of cultural constructs by reconceptualizing the interpreting self as an embodied, affective agent who employs unconscious knowledge that itself draws on another form of sociality. On this account, reading performance is culturally informed action and interpretations are motivated. Emotion is introduced as symptomatic of the intrapsychic investments which mediate how readers internalize cultural knowledge. The thesis looks at three soundings from social discourse--Janice Radway's Reading the Romance; The Singing Detective, a contemporary metafictional text; and the literature and group therapy practices associated with the codependency movement--in order to examine how presuppositions about emotion and the psychical reality of fantasy appear in cultural representations of the 'ill self as reader' while being fundamental to psychological notions of the self upon which healing practices themselves depend for their efficacy.

The global phenomenon known as the Hallyu, or the Korean Wave, has brought Korean pop culture to every corner of the Internet. In this paper, I discuss the impact Hallyu has had in France specifically and examine the online subculture of female-created fanfiction that has arisen from it. I postulate that, for a French woman, the act of participating in fandom and/or writing slash fanfiction about Korean pop idols constitutes a political act of rebellion against the patriarchy and gender norms, even if the fan herself is unaware of it.

In making a distinction between secondary and fractured worlds, we can begin to determine the possibilities that fantasy literature, as a wider subject, holds for female characters and for feminine themes. These two areas of fantasy represent very different possibilities for women and the feminine, as a result of their approaches towards the presentation of ideology and authority. These approaches find their root most clearly in the creation of a story’s place and time, a fact I will explore through the lens of Mikhail Bakhtin’s notion of the “chronotope.” For, though both high fantasy and the fantastic question the real, representing, as Rosemary Jackson writes, a “dissatisfaction with what ‘is,’” they undermine the structure of that reality to very different degrees, with one mode seeking out a stabilizing transcendence, while the other revels in an ambiguous immanence. The creative response to this critical exploration will both imaginatively reflect on and practically test the initial questions posed and arguments made, in an effort to more personally understand how each tradition does or does not make room for women and the feminine.

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O presente trabalho apresenta uma reflexão acerca da configuração das personagens fantásticas femininas nas três seguintes obras: “Ojos Verdes” (1861), de Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer; “Mi vida con la ola” (1949-50), de Octavio Paz e “Historia del lagarto que tenía la costumbre de cenar a sus mujeres” (1993), de Eduardo Galeano. Tendo em vista a perspectiva dos estudos mitocríticos que contemplam o aspecto ancestral do feminino maléfico, observa-se o modo como se produzem as manifestações da mulher fatal, vinculada ao feminino terrível e às águas nas literaturas de diferentes épocas. Analisa-se, assim, a representação simbólica que denominamos mulher-sereia, imagem que, repleta da carga mítica, se apresenta nos três contos construindo a figura arquetípica de mulher sedutora e atraente, mas causadora de danos, perigosa e por vezes, fatal. Atenta-se, ainda, para a questão do gênero literário nos referidos contos, analisando sua construção através da personagem feminina, enquanto representação do fenômeno insólito que aparece nas narrativas
This work presents a reflection about the configuration of fantastic female characters in the following three works: “Ojos Verdes” (1981), by Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer, “Mi vida con la ola” (1949-50), by Octavio Paz and “Historia del lagarto que tenía la costumbre de cenar a sus mujeres” (1993), by Eduardo Galeano. In view of the mythcritical studies prospect that comtemplates the malefic female ancestral aspect, observe the way that they produce the manifestations of the femme fatale, linked to the terrible female and to the waters in different times. Thus analized a symbolic representation that we call mermaid-woman, a image that, full of mythical load, presents in these three tales on contours of the archetypal figure of seductive and attractive woman, but damage causer, dangerous and sometimes, deadly. Also, attentive to the literary genre issue in these tales analyzing its construction through the female character, as an unusual phenomenon representation in the narratives

I denna text vill jag, som undertiteln skvallrar, prata om att passa in i samhället eller hitta hem utanför. Arbetet har den enkla strukturen att det börjar med att prata om hinder man kan ha för att ”passa in”, såsom att inte klara prestations-pressen man känner från en osynlig makt, eller helt enkelt av att bryta från normen (här med fokus på att vara bög eller queer). Vidare via min och andras historier kring att ha sitt psyke eller sina känslor som en grundläggande parameter i sitt konstnärskap, och går sen avslutningsvis ut i några andra alternativa vägar att hitta hem utanför; drag och frivillig enkelhet.  Varsågod.
Dinosaurs, dragons, weapons, spaceships, aliens, fire, monsters, dangerous animals. Never interested me. That's why they interest me. Through intuitive sculpting, stories about my traumas, lusts and needs are formed, and about the society they exist in. I can see a tension towards the boy I never was/the man I never became, and a longing after to now approach him om my own terms. The sculptures are crooked, weak, broken, naive and weird, and in this becomes a vital space where that is allowed. The pieces are standing with the underdogs. In a movement upwards.​

High Fantasy is extremely popular, with publication and sales of High Fantasy titles outnumbering Science Fiction for thirty years, yet Fantasy is less respected by reviewers of the Speculative Fiction genre. One reason for this is that High Fantasy often fails to adequately address culturally or politically significant issues. Respected Science Fiction writers, such as Octavia Butler, on the other hand, use the issues such as discrimination and persecution on the basis of race and gender. In my exegesis I explore the ways in which High Fantasy has explored the problems of discrimination and persecution. In my novel, The T'En Exiles, I create a world populated by differently abled races. The ' ordinary ' people resent and fear the gifted people, who are less numerous and marginalised. Among the gifted there are those who are aware of mystical powers and those who can manipulate them; because of this a strict hierarchy has evolved. There is also a divide between the genders because the power of the females is expressed differently to that of the males. In The T'En Exiles I use the device of cognitive estrangement, a technique common in both Fantasy and Science Fiction, to examine discrimination and persecution. In particular in terms of how it affects individuals. In the exegesis I examine the ways in which issues of discrimination and persecution are dealt with in contemporary High Fantasy and Science Fiction, and the ways in which a more comprehensive and sensitive treatment of these issues in High Fantasy can address some concerns about the marginalisation of the sub-genre.

High Fantasy is extremely popular, with publication and sales of High Fantasy titles outnumbering Science Fiction for thirty years, yet Fantasy is less respected by reviewers of the Speculative Fiction genre. One reason for this is that High Fantasy often fails to adequately address culturally or politically significant issues. Respected Science Fiction writers, such as Octavia Butler, on the other hand, use the issues such as discrimination and persecution on the basis of race and gender. In my exegesis I explore the ways in which High Fantasy has explored the problems of discrimination and persecution. In my novel, The T'En Exiles, I create a world populated by differently abled races. The ' ordinary ' people resent and fear the gifted people, who are less numerous and marginalised. Among the gifted there are those who are aware of mystical powers and those who can manipulate them; because of this a strict hierarchy has evolved. There is also a divide between the genders because the power of the females is expressed differently to that of the males. In The T'En Exiles I use the device of cognitive estrangement, a technique common in both Fantasy and Science Fiction, to examine discrimination and persecution. In particular in terms of how it affects individuals. In the exegesis I examine the ways in which issues of discrimination and persecution are dealt with in contemporary High Fantasy and Science Fiction, and the ways in which a more comprehensive and sensitive treatment of these issues in High Fantasy can address some concerns about the marginalisation of the sub-genre.

There is a current wave of interest in pornography as a vehicle for queer, feminist and lesbian activism. Examples include Dirty Diaries: Twelve Shorts of Feminist Porn (Engberg, Sweden, 2009), the Pornfilmfestival Berlin (2006-) and the members-only Club LASH in Stockholm (1995-). Based on ethnographic fieldwork designed around these cases, the purpose of the thesis is to account for, historicize and understand this transnational film culture and its politics and ethics. The fieldwork consists of interviews, questionnaires and participant observation, including participation as one of the filmmakers in Dirty Diaries. The thesis studies queer, feminist and lesbian pornography as an interpretive community. Meanings produced in this interpretive community are discussed as involving embodied spectatorial processes, different practices of participation in the film culture and their location in specific situations and contexts of production, distribution and reception. The thesis highlights a collective political fantasy about a safe space for sexual empowerment as the defining feature of this interpretive community. The figure of safe space is central in the fieldwork material, as well as throughout the film culture’s political and aesthetic legacies, which include second wave feminist insistence on sexual consciousness-raising, as well as the heated debates referred to as the Sex Wars. The political and aesthetic heterogeneity of the film culture is discussed in terms of a tension between affirmation and critique (de Lauretis, 1985). It is argued that the film culture functions both as an intimate public (Berlant, 2008) and as a counter public (Warner, 2002). Analyzing research subjects’ accounts in terms of embodied spectatorship (Sobchack, 2004, Williams, 2008), the thesis examines how queer, feminist and lesbian pornography shapes the embodied subjectivities of participants in this interpretive community and potentially forms part of processes of sexual empowerment.

Researchers vary on their definitions of paraphilia. A difference exists between an individual possessing a paraphilia versus an individual possessing a paraphilic disorder. Hanson (2010) proposed a dimensional model of sexual deviance that includes a measure of intensity. However, research on sexual intensity has been lacking. A majority of existing research focuses on the potential risk factors of possessing a paraphilia or paraphilic disorder (e.g., criminality). There is less focus on whom in the population has the potential to develop a paraphilia; or which factors predict paraphilic behavior. The Big Five personality factors (openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism), obsessive-compulsive behavior, and sexual fantasy (exploratory, intimacy, impersonal, and sadomasochism) were used to predict paraphilic intensity using the Edwards Paraphilic Inventory (EPI). Surveys were placed on Amazon Mechanical Turk (n = 100), the Celebrity Feet in the Pose website (via https://celebrityfeetinthepose.com), and its social media (n = 163) to reach a total of 263 participants. Results indicated that obsessive-compulsive behavior, sadomasochism, and agreeableness significantly predicted the level of paraphilic intensity. Such findings support that paraphilic disorders are likely obsessive-compulsive in nature. Furthermore, agreeableness and paraphilic intensity were negatively correlated. This suggests that the lower the individual is in agreeableness, the higher the likelihood he or she falls on the paraphilic spectrum. Lastly, those who practice sadomasochistic roleplay in the bedroom are likely to report higher levels of paraphilic intensity. According to the United States sample, 1 out of every 10 participants reported some type of paraphilic activity. Individuals who participated in the survey from the website self-reported higher levels of paraphilic behavior than those who completed the survey from Amazon Mechanical Turk. In addition, these individuals are represented in more than one paraphilic category. It remains unclear how large of a role pleasure plays in an individual seeking therapeutic or pharmacological help with paraphilic disorders. Pedophilic disorder was not examined due to ethical concerns with the United States and other various countries. Future research should examine education level and sexual orientation as predictors of paraphilic intensity.

In this essay a conclusion about the way female characters are portrayed in fantasy novels will be attempted through an analysis of one selected female character from each selected novel. The works that have been chosen are; J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, Robert Jordan’s The Eye of the World and A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin. The analysis will be done with the help of examples and theories from both feministic criticism and gender studies. During the course of the discussion the background of the fantasy genre and goal of the scientific theories will be explained.The fantasy genre in itself allows its authors a chance to criticize the norms of our society, freed from the restraints of realism. The findings of this essay however, imply that some fantasy authors forsake this chance in order to more accurately emulate the medieval European society or in fact actively reinforce patriarchal norms.

Partiendo de los conceptos de figura y fondo, procedentes del campo de la teoría del arte, el trabajo investiga en primera instancia su posible aplicación al ámbito de lo cinematográfico, vinculándolos al discurso más amplio sobre la representación geométrica del espacio (perspectiva) entendida como forma simbólica de aprehensión de la realidad. Para ello, el trabajo interroga un género popular en el que se declinan de manera especialmente fructífera los temas de la figura y fondo como es el cine de monstruos gigantes, cuyo primer momento de esplendor gira entorno a los años 50 y 60 del siglo XX, era de apogeo y crisis de los modelos tradicionales de representación. En la segunda parte del trabajo, se plantean algunos interrogantes hermenéuticos alrededor del resurgimiento de la figura del monstruo gigante en la cultura audiovisual contemporánea, su función estética en el contexto digital y su conexión con las nuevas formas de representar la realidad en el género fantástico, así como la paralela –y aparentemente paradójica– conversión del gigante en signo íntimo para la conciencia del espectador.
Taking as a starting point the Figure/Background division as established in art theory, this work tries first to reframe it within the cinematographic studies, and to link it to wider aspects of geometric rendering of space (the Perspective System) as a symbolic form of apprehending reality. In order to do so, this work addresses a popular film genre where the Figure/Background issues are central: the giant monster movies that had their Golden Age in the 50’s and 60’, a time when traditional models of representation came to a crisis with the arrival of modern cinema. In the second part of this work, hermeneutic analysis is put into work to address the comeback of the giant monster in contemporary audiovisual culture, its aesthetic function in our digital era and its connection with new forms of representing reality in science fiction cinema, as well as the apparently paradoxical conversion of the giant monster in a sort of intimate sign for the viewer.

När finlandssvenska fantasyförfattaren Maria Turtschaninoffs roman Maresi – Krönikor från Röda klostret publicerades 2014 blev Turtschaninoff särskilt uppmärksammad för hennes skildring av kvinnlig vänskap. Maresi utspelar sig på en ö dit endast kvinnor är tillåtna och i ett kloster där kvinnorna dyrkar gudinnan Urmoderns tre ansikten. I frånvaron av män lever kvinnorna i ett isolerat matriarkat där deras relationer till varandra hamnar i förgrunden. I kandidatuppsatsen Urmoderns döttrar analyseras temat systerskap i Maresi ur ett feministiskt perspektiv med fokus på hur klostersamhällets isolation och tro påverkar kvinnornas relationer till varandra och deras syn på sig själva som kvinnor. Utifrån premissen att skildringar av systerskap och kvinnlig vänskap är bristfällig i litteraturen diskuteras också vikten av att skildra dessa, samt hur romanens genre skapar annorlunda förutsättningar för en intressant skildring av kvinnliga relationer.

This thesis explores how science fiction and fantasy retellings of the fairy tale "Beauty and the Beast" bring visionary insights to the fairy tale. Stories such as Tanith Lee's science fiction novella "Beauty" and Mercedes Lackey's fantasy novel The Fire Rose constitute living and developing incarnations of "Beauty and the Beast." To better explore the visionary leaps made by these stories, they are placed in contrast with one of the original recordings of the story by Madame Marie Le Prince de Beaumont and the 1991 Disney film version, Beauty and the Beast.

This thesis analyses heroic women in contemporary popular culture, specifically within dystopic texts. Relying on the use of feminist theory to interrogate the texts of the corpus, a clear distinction will be drawn in the introduction between postfeminist discourse and rhetoric and Third Wave feminist intervention. The heroines of the novels Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (2009), Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters (2009), Jane Slayre (2010), The Life and Times of Martha Washington in the Twenty-First Century (1990-2007), and The Hunger Games trilogy (2008, 2009, 2010), will serve as the focus for an itnerrogation of female heroism, violence, and posthumanity. Each of the three chapters dedicated to textual analysis considers how the various heroines’ violence is mobilised, and how its representation works to reinscribe or resist patriarchal discourse. My argument is that the discourse which constructs violent women works as a form of violence in and of itself, to which the heroic female body is subjected. The focus on dystopic texts written between 1990 and 2010 serves as the basis for an analysis that seeks to consider how the heroine is a construction of the contemporary moment, and how popular culture and media are driving forces in the way in which postfeminism occupies a central role in the narrative surrounding strong, violent heroines. The range of sub-genres, contemporary Gothic, comic books, and young adult fiction, offer a broad field for interrogating this ubiquitous figure. Chapter one, ‘Spectres of Feminism: Postfeminism and the Zombie Apocalypse’ considers how the integration of posthuman monsters (zombies primarily but also vampires, sea monsters, and the she-wolf) manipulates the potential for agentic heroines such that their violence is reinscribed within heteronormative and Humanist frameworks. The matrimony plot so prevalent in the texts highlights how the active heroine’s violence is only permissible within the bounds of heteronormativity. Chapter two, ‘Violent Heroines, Comic Books and Systemic Violence’ considers the construction of the super heroine of the comic book genre and considers the way in which a racialised female body disrupts the norm and yet is still subjected to patriarchal strategies for containing representations of heroic women’s bodies and violence. The introduction of the cyborg as the posthuman enemy further emphasises how violence is mobilised in the postfeminist heroine as a means of sustaining patriarchal culture and anthropocentric normativity. The analysis in Chapter three, ‘Katniss Everdeen and The Hunger Games: Dystopia and Resistance to Neoliberal Demands,’ brings to light the potential for a heroine that disrupts the postfeminist model seen in the previous two chapters. Through an interrogation of the way in which the novels are critical of spectator culture and the romance plot, a space for resistance is opened up. The representation of a heroine who eschews the individualist notions of postfeminist heroism by privileging the formation of affective bonds, as well as embracing the posthuman condition rather than fighting against it, offers the potential for a Third Wave feminist protagonist. Considering, in the conclusion, the way in which heroines and viragos are represented in contemporary texts, whether they be fighting zombies, enemies of the state or the state itself, it is clear that the way in which women’s violence is often offered as a postfeminist depiction of women’s equality and power serves to reinscribe women within a patriarchal framework. For the late-capitalist, globalised culture, it is imperative to represent a postfeminist vision of women as powerful, independent and equal without actually challenging the socio-political structure. This dissertation identifies the ways in which postfeminist versions of heroic women are constructed and offer a possible alternative, one which coincides with a Third Wave feminist understanding of the heroine’s role in contemporary society.
Esta tesis toma como punto de partida el análisis de las mujeres heroicas en la cultura popular contemporánea, específicamente en los textos distópicos. Aplicando las teorías feministas al análisis de los textos, se hará una distinción clara entre el discurso postfeminista y la intervención del feminismo de Tercera Ola. Me centraré en las heroínas de las novelas Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (2009), Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters (2009), Jane Slayre (2010), The Life and Times of Martha Washington in the Twenty-First Century (1990-2007), y la trilogía de The Hunger Games (2008, 2009, 2010) para analizar la violencia y el heroísmo femeninos, así como el posthumanismo. Cada uno de los tres capítulos dedicados al análisis textual reflexiona sobre el modo en que se concibe la violencia de las distintas heroínas, y cómo su representación intenta reinscribir o resistir el discurso patriarcal. Mi argumento es que el discurso que construye a las mujeres violentas funciona como una forma de violencia en y por sí misma, a la que se somete el cuerpo heroico femenino. El estudio de textos distópicos escritos entre 1990 y 2010 sirve de base para un análisis que busca interrogar no sólo a la heroína como construcción del momento actual, sino también el modo en que la cultura popular y los medios constituyen agentes clave en el predominio que el postfeminismo ha conseguido dentro de la narrativa de heroínas fuertes y violentas. La variedad de sub-géneros (Gótico contemporáneo, cómics, y ficción juvenil) ofrece un campo amplio para el análisis de esta figura ubicua. Al considerar el modo en que las heroínas y viragos se representan en los textos contemporáneos queda claro que el modo en que la violencia de las mujeres se ofrece como instancia postfeminista de igualdad y empoderamiento de las mujeres funciona en realidad como re-inscripción de las mujeres dentro de un marco patriarcal. Esta tesis identifica las maneras en que se construyen las versiones postfeministas de las mujeres y ofrecer una posible alternativa, una que coincide con la visión del feminismo de Tercera Ola, acerca del papel de la heroína en la sociedad contemporánea.

Thesis (M.A.)--Georgia State University, 2007.
Title from file title page. Elizabeth West, committee chair; Layli Phillips, Kameelah Martin Samuel, committee members. Electronic text (52 p.) : digital, PDF file. Description based on contents viewed Jan. 30, 2008. Includes bibliographical references (p. 49-52).

This thesis consists of a novella, ‘One Night in Hong Kong’, and an essay, ‘Sexuality, Desire and the Ageing Female Body.’ The novella tells the story of an erotic affair between the female narrator and a man in a hotel room in the neon city of Hong Kong. Told in four parts, the story shifts in time, reflecting on earlier events in the narrator’s life and a trip she made to the Sicilian city of Catania in 1954. Older female protagonists and their sexuality are rarely depicted in contemporary Australian fiction. Where representations do exist, they act as ‘interventionist’ texts, rupturing dominant notions of ageing women’s sexuality as non-existent, diminished, or of little interest to mainstream readers. In the novella I experiment with writing an interventionist text, exploring a range of themes, including ‘invisibility’, ‘the ageing body’ and ‘sexual fantasy’. In the critical essay I analyse these themes from a theoretical perspective, and consider how scholarship provides insight into the ‘absence’ or gap in representations of ageing female sexuality in contemporary Australian fiction. The process and findings of my research informed and helped shape the development of the creative work. The thesis is underpinned by Julia Kristeva’s theory of ‘abjection’ in relation to the ageing female body, and Michel Foucault’s theory of disciplining discourses that describe how bodies are culturally trained and shaped by everyday routines, rules and expectations to produce ‘docile’ bodies. I also consider feminist analysis by Zoe Brennan and Sally Chivers on representations of ageing women in popular culture and literary production, and scholarship from the emerging field of social gerontology which argues that social constructionist theory has tended to focus almost exclusively on the discursively produced body at the expense of the material body. Finally the thesis investigates representations of ageing female sexuality in novels by three Western Australian writers: Elizabeth Jolley, Dorothy Hewett and Liz Byrski

NUNES, Simone Lopes Almeida. Seguindo Pinocchio: a ambientação, o feminino e a fuga na obra fílmica de Roberto Benigni como elementos de ressignificação da obra literária de Carlo Collodi. 2016. 165f. - Dissertação (Mestrado) – Universidade Federal do Ceará, Programa de Pós-Graduação em Estudos da Tradução, Fortaleza (CE), 2016.
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Le avventure di Pinocchio is a work that closely interacts with the translation because since its launch, in 1883, has been translated to several languages and adapted to different artistic forms. The work is considered a fiction and children`s narrative of great representation of Italian literature of the late nineteenth century, however, few speak about the relevant realistic aspects, that keep a close relation with the fictional elements (CAMBI, 1985; GUERINI, 2009), significant of a historical, economical and social period of many difficulties that marked the Italian post-unification, what makes Pinocchio a symbol of national identity (ASOR ROSA, 1985). Our research aims to verify how those realistic aspects, and significant of a specific Italian historical moment, were resignified into the Italian filmic adaptation Pinocchio, from Roberto Benigni, launched in 2002. The concept of resignification goes back to the resemantization concept, theorized by Lotman (1970), who defends that the artistic text, as language, has the function to produce new meanings. In fact, theorists from filmic adaptation, like Bazin (1977) and Cattrysse (2014; 1992) recognize the importance of movies as a text that brings their own interpretations and views of the literary work and, therefore, deserves to be understood in its own copyright and marketing particularities. In this perspective, we support our study in the Polysystem Theory of filmic adaptations, from Cattrysse (2014) to comprehend the movie as a product itself. Thus, the elements that are meaningful in the literary work as: the embience, the female figure and the escape; when translated into the filmic narrative will be resignified according to the copyright, marketing and acceptance requirements: the ambience, that in Collodi portrays the social denounce of poverty and hunger, in Benigni, portrays a historical moment, but without highlighting the social denounce; the female figure is restricted to the presence of Fata, in the literary work, Benigni, however, uses the room in the filmic narrative to insert the woman in the most diverse everyday activities, through figuration; the escape element, that permeates all the literary work, will be analyzed in what we define as the great escape, when Pinocchio receives the coins from Mangiafoco until its hanging; Colodi portrays it in a tough and violent way, characteristics of children`s tales of once, yet Benigni resignifies it, using realistic elements, but not so violent, whereas the contemporary children`s narrative tries to soften it.
Le avventure di Pinocchio é uma obra que dialoga intimamente com a tradução, pois desde o seu lançamento, em 1883, vem sendo traduzida para as mais diversas línguas, e adaptada para diferentes formas artísticas. A obra é considerada uma narrativa infantil e fantástica de grande representatividade da literatura italiana do final do século XIX, porém, poucos falam dos relevantes aspectos realísticos, que mantêm uma estreita relação com os elementos fantásticos (CAMBI, 1985; GUERINI, 2009), significativos de um período histórico, econômico e social de muitas dificuldades que marcaram a pós-unificação italiana, o que faz de Pinocchio um símbolo de identidade nacional (ASOR ROSA, 1985). A nossa pesquisa pretende verificar como esses aspectos realísticos, e significativos de um específico momento histórico italiano, foram ressignificados na adaptação fílmica italiana Pinocchio, de Roberto Benigni, lançado em 2002. O conceito de ressignificação remonta ao de ressemantização de Lotman (1982), o qual defende que o texto artístico, enquanto linguagem, tem a função de produzir novos significados. De fato, teóricos da adaptação fílmica como Bazin (1977) e Cattrysse (2014; 1992) reconhecem a importância do filme como um texto que traz suas próprias leituras e visões da obra literária, e, portanto, merece ser compreendido nas suas respectivas particularidades autorais e mercadológicas. Nessa perspectiva, apoiamo-nos na teoria dos polissistemas cinematográfico, de Cattrysse (2014), para compreender o filme como um produto em si. Sendo assim, elementos que são significativos na obra literária como: a ambientação, a figura feminina e a fuga; ao serem traduzidos para a narrativa fílmica serão ressignificados de acordo com as exigências autorais, mercadológicas e de recepção: a ambientação que em Collodi retrata uma denúncia social de pobreza e fome, em Benigni, ambienta um momento histórico, mas sem relevar a denúncia social; a figura feminina é restrita à presença da Fata, na obra literária, Benigni, porém, usa os espaços da narrativa fílmica para inserir a mulher nas mais diversas atividades cotidianas, através da figuração; e o elemento fuga, que permeia toda a obra, será analisado no que definimos a grande fuga, quando Pinocchio recebe as moedas do Mangiafoco até o enforcamento do boneco. Collodi retrata-a de forma dura e violenta, características dos contos infantis de outrora, já Benigni ressignifica-a, utilizando elementos realísticos, mas não tão violentos, já que a narrativa infantil contemporânea procura suavizá-la.

This thesis investigates the worldview of six rhetors of the far-right using the rhetorical method of fantasy theme analysis. The specific rhetors examined in this study are Peter J. Peters, Dan Gayman, Edward Fields, Fred Phelps, Jeny Falwell, and James Dobson. In order to understand the discourse of the six rhetors, five research questions were developed to guide the study: (1) What are the images portrayed of homosexuals and gay rights advocates in the fantasy themes of the rhetors examined in this study? (2) What are the images portrayed of Christians in the fantasy themes of the rhetors examined in this study? (3) How do the fantasy themes differ in extremity among the rhetors of the far-tight with regard to homosexuality and supporters of gay lights? (4) How do the fantasy themes of the rhetors work together to create a rhetolical vision for the far-light regarding homosexuality? (5) How do the collective fantasy themes of the far-right rhetors potentially influence actions against and aggression towards homosexuals? In order to answer these questions, a fantasy theme analysis was conducted on various artifacts of the six rhetors chosen for examination in this thesis. The analysis indicated that the fantasy themes of the rhetors work together to create a rhetorical vision in which a drama is played out. In this drama, homosexuals and supporters of gay rights are depicted as villains and fundamentalist Christians are characterized as heroes. Through the depictions of these characters and their actions the ultimate ideal of America as a country is provided. This ultimate ideal focuses on a setting where homosexuals do not exist and gay rights is not an issue. Through these fantasy themes the rhetors encourage America's patriots and fundamentalist Christians to remove homosexuals from society. In addition, the collective rhetorical vision of the six rhetors provides motives for aggressive actions against homosexuals, including acts of violence.

La bit lit, un genre littéraire très contemporain qui associe le récit amoureux et le récit vampirique et s'adresse principalement à un public adolescent féminin, a acquis une visibilité mondiale avec la parution de Twilight de Stephenie Meyer en 2005. Ce mouvement littéraire reprend l'un des thèmes les plus récurrents et centraux des histoires d'amour comme des histoires de vampires occidentales : la construction du féminin, la position attribuée à ce dernier, et ses interactions avec un univers majoritairement hostile et dangereux. Or, malgré des représentations très conservatrices, voire rétrogrades, le genre connaît un succès très important en particulier auprès des jeunes femmes. Il est donc indispensable de s'interroger sur cette apparente contradiction, qui amène des auteures exclusivement de sexe féminin et un lectorat très majoritairement féminin à écrire et lire des récits sentimentaux peu féministes. Pour ce faire, la présente étude se penche sur trois oeuvres de bit lit : Twilight de Stephenie Meyer, The Vampire Diaries de L. J. Smith et House of Night de P. C. et Kristin Cast. Elle s'appuie sur trois approches, les études culturelles et l'étude de la réception, la narratologie, puis les études de genre. Les influences littéraires qui nourrissent les romans, le mode de lecture qu'ils encouragent et les choix narratifs qu'ils déploient sont analysés afin de comprendre ce qu'ils mettent en scène : la rencontre entre le sujet féminin et une conception patriarcale du monde
Supernatural romance (or 'bit lit' in French) is a contemporary literary genre which associates sen-timental and vampiric stories and is primarily aimed at a female teenage audience. It acquired global visibility in 2005 with the publication of Stephenie Meyer's Twilight. This literary movement takes up one of the most recurring and central themes of Western love stories and vampire stories alike: the construction of the feminine, of its positioning and its interactions with an essentially hos-tile and dangerous environment. Despite very conservative and even reactionary representations, the genre has met a huge success among young women. It is thus necessary to question this ap-parent contradiction: why do exclusively female writers and mostly female readers write and read sentimental stories that can be qualified at best as 'hardly feminist'? To do so, the current study focuses on three supernatural romance series: Twilight by Stephenie Meyer, The Vampire Diaries by L. J. Smith and House of Night by P. C. and Kristin Cast. It relies on three approaches: cultural and reception studies, narratology and gender studies. The literary influences that inform the nov-els, the reading mode they incite and the narrative choices they unfold are analyzed in order to understand how they stage the encounter between the feminine subject and a patriarchal worldview

Dissertação de mestrado em Língua, Literatura e Cultura Inglesas
The aim of this dissertation is to bring Lewis Carroll (1832 - 1898) to light as an important writer in the context of the development of Children’s Literature. The work researches both the specific background and the innovations that the author incorporated in his revolutionary Alice cycle: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There (1871), with regard both to the evolution of the concept of childhood and his representations of the feminine, which echo the beginning of a change in children’s and women’s role in society. Moving away from a crude realism, the tendency that characterized the early Victorian era, the author presents a fantastic style encompassing a language full of situational humour and word play, and a distinctive narrative episodic flow. In order to stimulate the child’s imagination, Carroll rewrites the more traditional forms of the fairy tale and the fable, namely through his unexpected introduction of challenging dialogues and allusive illustrations in his fantastic narratives. Additionally, he recurs to the dream element to suggest certain latent and underlying meanings that are present in most episodes and situations, intending to enhance an eventual crisis of identity in Alice and in the reader himself. The literary nonsense that characterizes the author’s writing thus allows two distinct levels of reading – the child’s and the adult’s. In the first, it is possible to see Carroll’s clear perception of the child as a sensitive being with a particular way of understanding the world. However, in the second, Carroll’s nonsense allows him to critically parody Victorian society and its strict values, without compromising his own social and professional position as a deacon and a mathematician at Oxford. Concerning the female figure in Alice, there is a prevalence of strong and independent representations; these are mostly severe and authoritarian characters who, when contextualized within the Victorian era, demonstrate a bold and critical subversion. Thus, questions of gender and the division between the public and domestic spheres are central aspects underlying his text, allowing Carroll to revisit female educational patterns, marital relationships and even notions of motherhood. These issues are closely connected with the central question of this study, which is the attempt to demonstrate Carroll’s unique form of representing fantasy and the fantastic: one that is initially intended to mirror freedom, as a value or practice opposed to repression, but which ultimately may also represent a form of repression. Carroll’s fantasy aims at representing a parallel world without rules, in order to confront the strict rules that exist in the real world, which signify repression. But, in the end, the reader concludes that a (mad) world without rules equally results in a repressing and unjust world, grounded in pure arbitrariness. The ways in which the author reinvented fantasy inspired modern children's literature and also other authors who demonstrated a particular interest in his style, such as James Joyce or Virginia Woolf. Likewise, he came to be a major influence in Surrealism and its artists, who indeed recognized him as their predecessor.
O objetivo principal desta dissertação é abordar o papel relevante que o escritor inglês Lewis Carroll (1832-1898) teve no desenvolvimento da chamada Literatura Infantil. O trabalho em questão pesquisa quer o contexto específico quer as inovações que o autor incorporou no seu revolucionário ciclo: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865) e Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There (1871), com relação à evolução do conceito de infância e à representação do feminino, que marcam o início de uma mudança no papel da criança e da mulher na sociedade. Distanciando-se do realismo cru, tendência que caracterizou a época Vitoriana, o autor apresenta o fantástico como um estilo que combina uma linguagem plena de humor situacional e um fluxo narrativo de cariz episódico. No sentido de estimular a imaginação da criança, Carroll reescreve as formas mais tradicionais do conto de fadas e da fábula, nomeadamente através da inesperada introdução de diálogos desafiantes e de ilustrações alusivas às suas narrativas. Além disso, ele recorre ao elemento do sonho para sugerir certos significados latentes e subjacentes aos episódios e situações, provavelmente com a intenção de questionar a identidade quer de Alice quer do próprio leitor. O absurdo literário (nonsense) que caracteriza a escrita do autor permite assim dois níveis distintos de leitura – o da criança e o do adulto. No primeiro, é possível constatar a perceção que Carroll tem da criança: um ser sensível e com uma maneira particular de entender o mundo. Todavia, no segundo, o absurdo de Carroll permite-lhe parodiar criticamente a sociedade vitoriana e os seus valores, sem comprometer a sua própria posição social e profissional, como diácono e matemático em Oxford. Relativamente à figura feminina em Alice, denota-se uma prevalência de representações fortes e independentes; personagens maioritariamente severas e autoritárias que, quando contextualizadas na era Vitoriana, demonstram uma subversão ousada e crítica. Assim, as questões de género e a separação entre as esferas pública e privada são aspetos centrais ao seu texto, permitindo a Carroll revisitar padrões educacionais femininos, relacionamentos conjugais e até noções de maternidade. Esta problematização está intimamente associada ao debate central deste estudo, que é a tentativa de demonstrar a forma única como Carroll representa a fantasia e o fantástico: inicialmente pretendendo espelhar a liberdade como um valor ou prática contrária à repressão, mas também como algo que em última instância pode representar a própria repressão. Por um lado, Carroll apresenta um mundo paralelo e sem regras, para poder confrontar as regras rígidas que existem no mundo real, as quais significam repressão. Mas, no final, o leitor conclui que um mundo (louco) sem regras também acaba por resultar num contexto repressivo e injusto, fundado numa arbitrariedade total. As formas através das quais o autor reinventou o fantástico inspiraram a literatura infantil moderna e também outros autores, os quais demonstraram um interesse particular no seu estilo, como James Joyce ou irginia Woolf. Da mesma forma, ele veio a ter uma grande influência no Surrealismo e nos seus artistas, muitos dos quais eventualmente o reconheceram como antecessor.

The research seeks to create an innovative hyper femme vision of enchantment within contemporary installation art by exploiting the magical and vicarious pleasure of perfume bottles. The study proposes that hedonistic and ‘conspicuous’ feminine content acts to incite prevailing socio-cultural ideas concerning appropriate expressions of sexuality. Through the creation of an explicitly feminine mode of enchantment the aim is to progress pluralistic perceptions of gender and tolerance of diversiform modes of sexualised expression. Parameters for the research were established through review of the practice of Jeff Koons, Sylvie Fleury, Mariko Mori and Pierre et Gilles. Surveyed as a collective, the work of these artists represents celebration of intimate concepts of desire predicated upon sexuality and identity. Consequently, they express a contemporary polemical aesthetic model for enchantment that builds upon a legacy of sybaritic practitioners within the arts. This is demonstrated through examination of the modes of rococo, pre-raphaelite, symbolist, aesthete and decadents, art nouveau and psychedelia, which explicate exuberant content and style. The research hypothesises is that the history of enchantment within art articulates sustained, occasionally cohesive and non-didactic counter- cultural activity. The research contends that the emergence of secular enchantments within contemporary art segues with current salient philosophical discourse, which likewise seeks to re-enchant a disenchanted world. An analysis of the genus of fantasy within fiction resulted in the contention of fantasy as desire incarnate, and therefore an apposite visceral mechanism for enchantment within art. The researched is conveyed in the installation La Galaxie de Joy, comprising a suite of feminised sculptures inset within a celestial milieu. Derived from perfume bottle designs and sampled from creative styles and relevant practitioners researched during the project, an aesthetic methodology called superstyle was developed. This articulates a commitment to camp tenets of excess, glamour, exaggeration and spectacle and manifests formally in sinuous curves, dramatic posturing, playful ornamentation and glittering or strikingly coloured surfaces. A heavenly milieu for enchantment was created incorporating decor elements such as a cloud-floor, stars, swathes of fabric, deep blue walls that melt into the floor, a luminous bubble-web centrepiece, antechamber, specialised theatrical lighting and pink blush colouring. The research project outcome is the exhibition installation that explicates an innovative and experiential paradigm for feminised enchantment within contemporary art. This has been achieved through employing the synaesthetic and affective power of perfume bottles in the practice to explore concepts of excess, intimacy, pleasure and desire in relation to gender and aesthetics. This research project contributes to the existing field of knowledge in three ways. First, through identification, analysis and documentation of a specific mode of enchantment that has emerged within contemporary art. I describe this phenomenon as a fiction of intimacy. Second, the project proposes an innovative thesis with reference to fantasy in the history of art. The tracing of a historical context revealed a continuum of artists whose practices flourished in opposition to prevailing academic and western cultural values and established that enchantment within art articulates a provocative and sustained counter culture. Third, and most significantly, this research contributes new knowledge through development of an innovative paradigm for enchantment in contemporary art, aimed at increasing diversity of sexual expression through installation practice.

It seems unwise to compare Eileen Chang and Alice Munro, because at first glance the urban traits of Chang's Shanghai and Hong Kong romances are dissimilar to the rural idiosyncrasies of Munro's southwestern Ontario stories. However, both the female writers describe in their fiction the women characters' romantic fantasies and their interrelationships with reality. In Chang's Romances, in the westernized and commercialized cosmopolitan set, a new age is coming, and the traditional patriarchal familial and moral systems are disintegrating. The women try to escape from frustrating circumstances through the rescue of romantic love and marriage. In Munro's fiction, the women attempt to get ride of their banal small-town cultures in order to search for freedom of imagination and expression through the medium of art, although at ; the center of their quest for selfhood is always their love and hate relationship with men. The women are in the dilemma of "female financial reality" and romantic love; they express their desires and fears through immoral and abnormal love relationships and vicarious escapades in their imagination; their interpretation of life and love is in reference to art in general, but such interpretation is full of disguise. Only in their unbound daydreams and imagination can they express their desires freely. Alice Munro and Eileen Chang's fictional worlds bespeak a sense of femininity.
Arts, Faculty of
English, Department of
Graduate

Bibliography: leaves vii-xxiii
xxiii, 342 leaves ; 30 cm.
Title page, contents and abstract only. The complete thesis in print form is available from the University Library.
Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Adelaide, Dept. of German, 1990