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Blázquez, José M. "Participatory worlds : audience participation in fictional worlds." Thesis, University of Nottingham, 2018. http://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/53599/.
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Consumer participation in the production of information, knowledge and culture has become increasingly popular in the last three decades. Although these participatory practices have been successfully incorporated into business models in many sectors, media and entertainment industries are still quite reluctant to invite audiences to create canonical content for their storyworlds. Media conglomerates hold a firm grip over their intellectual property and only allow selected parties to participate in the production of official content for their franchises. In contrast, participatory worlds are fictional worlds which allow audiences to contribute with canonical additions to their expansion. In participatory worlds, audience members are welcome to contribute to the content production chain and/or decision-making processes, having the chance to become contributors and co-authors of the texts. This thesis critically examines participatory worlds with the aim of understanding what they are and how they operate within the industrial context. This research introduces two models of participatory worlds, the ‘sandpit’ and ‘spin-off’ models, based on the location and medium where audience participation takes place, primary or ancillary works, and uses one case study to illustrate each of these: the massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) Lord of the Craft (2011- ) and Grantville Gazette (2003- ), an e-zine rooted in the 1632 Universe. These case studies are compared with commodities produced and systems employed by media conglomerates in the management and canonical expansion of their fictional worlds in order to establish similarities and differences among them and determine where participatory worlds stand in respect to the media and entertainment industries. The concept of ‘intervention’ is introduced to define the capabilities that audience members are given to contribute canonically and make an impact in a storyworld. This thesis explores the factors which determine the degree of ‘intervention’ given to participants in participatory worlds by examining two further case studies, the web drama Beckinfield (2010-2013) and the TV show Bar Karma (2011), in addition to the aforementioned. The comparison of the four case studies reveals different approaches to audience participation within these practices.
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Boulter, Joe. "The fictional worlds of John Cowper Powys." Thesis, University of Oxford, 1999. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.310001.
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Kelly, John C. (John Christopher) Carleton University Dissertation English. "Fictional worlds: ontology in Gilbert Sorrentino's Mulligan Stew." Ottawa, 1992.
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Alexander, Ezra. "Transmedial Migration : Properties of Fictional Characters Adapted into Actual Behavior." Thesis, Stockholms universitet, Engelska institutionen, 2013. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:su:diva-92768.
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Research in the field of fictional and possible worlds examines the real and its hypothetical counterparts. The interaction between the actual and the fictional is a cause of debate within this field, and includes questions concerning the ontological status of fictional characters and their relation to reality. The following discussion will engage current positions in this debate. These include questions of reference regarding the correlation between fictional characters and actual personalities. Studying the transmedial migration of character properties from fictional worlds into the actual world engages with the possible as dependent on the actual, as well as the influence fiction can have on reality, by demonstrating how individual characters are perceived as packages of properties, some of which we identify and recognize as adaptable to our own behavior. Transmedial migration requires compatibility between different media. Accordingly, it is explained through the direct correspondence of fictional properties to actual properties, and the indirect correspondence of fictional characters to actual people. I am claiming that an interaction can be observed between different media, such as fictional worlds and the actual world, with particular emphasis on the example of fictional characters and their properties. In order to comprehend this we need a robust framework and the model that I am proposing here comprises the essential elements for such a framework. The transmedial migration of character properties from a textual medium, such as a Sherlock Holmes story, into the physical, social medium of the actual world is the action of adapting a fictional character’s package of properties into an actual person’s behavior. The agency of actual people in adapting fictional character properties to their corporal, social actions is what constitutes transmedial migration. This is a specific example of behavioral learning that recognizes certain behavior by the means of a label or trademark that is acquired from a fictional character. It is conceivable that any number of behavioral attributes, such as attitudes or habits, could be scientifically proven to have transmedially migrated by means of experimentation. Nevertheless, culturally and socially, it is only the definite identification of such character properties that substantiates my argument of transmedial migration through adaptation.
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Derek, Gingrich. "Unrecoverable Past and Uncertain Present: Speculative Drama’s Fictional Worlds and Nonclassical Scientific Thought." Thesis, Université d'Ottawa / University of Ottawa, 2014. http://hdl.handle.net/10393/31507.
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The growing accessibility of quantum mechanics and chaos theory over the past eighty years has opened a new mode of world-creating for dramatists. An increasingly large collection of plays organize their fictional worlds around such scientific concepts as quantum uncertainty and chaotic determinism. This trend is especially noticeable within dramatic texts that emphasize a fictional, not material or metafictional, engagement. These plays construct fictional worlds that reflect the increasingly strange actual world. The dominant theoretical approaches to fictional worlds unfairly treat these plays as primarily metafictional texts, when these texts construct fictional experiences to speculate about everyday ramifications of living in a post-quantum mechanics world. This thesis argues that these texts are best understood as examples of speculative fiction drama, and they speculate about the changes to our understanding of reality implied by contemporary scientific discoveries. Looking at three plays as exemplary case studies—John Mighton’s Possible Worlds (1990), Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia (1993), and Tony Kushner’s Homebody/Kabul (2001)—this thesis demonstrates that speculative fiction theories can be adapted into fictional worlds analysis, allowing us to analyze these plays as fiction-making texts that offer nonclassical aesthetic experiences. In doing so, this thesis contributes to speculative fiction studies, fictional worlds studies, and the dynamic interdisciplinary dialogue between aesthetic and scientific discourses.
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Van, der Merwe Philippus Wolrad. "Fictional worlds and focalisation in works by Hermann Hesse and E.L. Doctorow / Philippus Wolrad van der Merwe." Thesis, North-West University, 2011. http://hdl.handle.net/10394/6957.
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The main focus of this study concerns the contribution of focalisation to the creation of fictional worlds through the combination of the “building blocks” of a fictional world, namely the central focalising and focalised character(s), focalised social contexts, events and spaces, in Hermann Hesse’s Demian (1919), Narziß und Goldmund (1930), E.L. Doctorow’s Welcome to Hard Times (1960) and Homer & Langley (2009). The relationship between the focalisers and their social contexts influence their human, subjective perspectives and represented perceptions of their textual actual worlds. Focalisation is constructive in the synergistic relationship between the “building blocks” that leads to the creation of fictional worlds.
Chapter 2 discusses the theoretical basis of the thesis which is formed by the concepts of M. Ryan, L. Doležel, R. Ronen and T.G. Pavel with regard to possible worlds and fictional worlds. G. Genette’s and M. Bal’s theories provide the foundation of this study with regard to this concept as regards focalisation. Chapter 3 contextualises focalisation and fictional worlds as possible worlds in Hesse’s and Doctorow’s fiction and as such constitutes part of a twofold basis for the following analyses and comparisons. Four textual analyses of the individual novels by Hesse and Doctorow then follow. In the textual analysis of Demian the notions of M. Bal, M. Ryan and A. Nünning provide a theoretical basis that is specifically relevant for the argument that through his consciousness the individual, Emil Sinclair, creates the fictional world, i.e. by “transforming” textual actual world components into individualised fictional world ones. The views of Viktor Frankl, feminist activists against prostitution such as M. Farley, M.A. Baldwin and C.A. MacKinnon as well as the views of Talcott Parsons (in conjunction with those of G.M. Platt and N.J. Smelser) offer a theoretical underpinning for the analysis of the social context as the product of the mindset in the community in Doctorow’s Welcome to Hard Times and the mindset of the focaliser, Blue, that concurs with the mindset of the community. Focalised events are considered as psychologically credible and as contributing to the fictional world in Hesse’s Narziß und Goldmund. In this textual analysis the theoretical points of departure were based on theories proposed by D. Cohn, M. Ryan and S. Chatman. Concepts advanced by J. Lothe, J. Lotman, H. Lefebvre, L. Doležel, N. Wolterstorff and D. Coste comprise the theoretical basis of the analysis of social spaces in Doctorow’s Homer & Langley. Chapter 8 consists of comparative analyses of the said focalised “building blocks” of Hesse’s and Doctorow’s novels.
The analyses and comparisons argue that focalising characters “filter” their actual worlds and “transform” them through their individualistic and subjective representations, as actual people do. Even if characters are “non-actual individuals” their mindsets or physical, social and mental properties (Margolin, 1989:4) are like those of actual people, i.e. “psychologically credible”. Ryan (1991:45) identifies “psychological credibility” or “a plausible portrayal of human psychology” as an “accessibility relation”, i.e. one that allows the mental properties of a fictional character to be accessible from and possible for the actual world. The interaction between a focalising character and his social context that affects his consciousness and focalisation is comparable to the interaction between a hypothetical actual person and his social world, that would also influence his mindset and how he communicates about the actual world. Perspectives of characters such as Sinclair, Blue, Goldmund and Homer Collyer are recognisable to hypothetical actual world readers as psychologically credible. In the light of Bal’s (1990:9) argument that the whole text content is related to the (focalising) character(s), one could say that the elements of a textual actual world become, as it were, focalised “building blocks” of the fictional world.
The central finding is that focalisation contributes to the creation of fictional worlds. The relationship between a fictional world and the actual one becomes apparent in literary texts through focalisation that transforms the textual actual world and its elements, i.e. the central (self-focalising) character, the social context, events and space(s), through a focaliser’s consciousness. The focaliser’s consciousness in Hesse’s and Doctorow’s fiction is marked by psychological credibility. A fictional world is comparable to the actual world with regard to other accessibility relations that Ryan (cf. 1991:31-47) identifies, but focalisation specifically allows a fictional world to become possible in actual world terms by creating credibility of this kind. A fictional world is plausible not in mimetic terms, as a factual text presents itself to be, but in possible terms, i.e. through the comparability of human psychology in fictional worlds and the actual world. Focalisation significantly contributes to the creation of a fictional world through the interaction between psychologically credible subjectivity and the imaginary level of the text on which the textual actual world obtains human value through focalisation. A fictional world is, in this sense, a possible world and, in fact, comes about through being a possible world.Thesis (Ph.D. (Applied Language and Literary Studies))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2011.
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Boyne, Martin R. "Rebuilding words, constructing worlds : a stylistic analysis of lexical and syntactic creativity and their role in fictional-world creation in Russell Hoban's Riddley Walker." Thesis, Lancaster University, 2012. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.655730.
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Russell Hoban's 1980 novel Riddley Walker is most obviously characterised by distinctive orthography, yet it also contains a high degree of lexical and syntactic creativity. This study explores the nature and extent of that creativity, illustrating that, while much of the novel is written in standard English, in the area of the lexicon there is a range of neologisms, including derivations, original coinages, and reanalysed forms; in the area of syntax, the novel contains a number of standard and nonstandard sentence types, with several participial and verbless sentences and many instances of parataxis. The principal contention of this thesis is that the combined effects of lexical and syntactic creativity help to project a fictional world that relies heavily on eroded and subsequently restructured forms of standard English, as well as being influenced by spoken language to a greater extent than by written. A range of theoretical and methodological approaches in stylistics is employed to analyse and explain the language of the novel. In addition to traditional methods of analysing fiction, the study uses corpus methods to generate hypotheses and substantiate findings, supported throughout by collocational analysis. The theoretical core of the study is located in cognitive stylistics: deictic shift theory, schema theory, conceptual blending, contextual frame theory, and fictional-world theory more broadly are all assessed in order to determine how appropriate they are for an analysis of the role of the novel's language in projecting the fictional world. The study proposes a model of dual-world lexical reference to explain how reanalysed lexical forms place readers between the actual world and the world of the text when interpreting such forms. While syntax cannot be analysed using the same framework, the findings in the lexicon are extended to syntax to show that the two types of creativity are mutually reinforcing. Ultimately, readers construct the fictional world through negotiating meaning on both the lexical and the syntactic levels by means of the linguistic distinctiveness of the novel.
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Caldwell, Kyrie Eleison Hartsough. "Fake the dawn : digital game mechanics and the construction of gender in fictional worlds." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2016. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/106745.
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Thesis: S.M. in Comparative Media Studies and Writing, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Humanities, Graduate Program in Science Writing, 2016.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. "September 2016."
Includes bibliographical references (pages 93-105).
This thesis considers the ways in which digital game mechanics (interactive inputs) contribute to games' worldbuilding. In particular, this work is concerned with the replication and reinforcement of problematic gender roles through game mechanics that express positive ("warm") interactions between characters, namely healing, protection, and building relationships. The method used has been adapted from structural analysis via literary theory, as informed by game studies, media studies methodologies, and feminist epistemologies. Game mechanics are analyzed both across and within primary texts (consisting of Japanese-developed games from the action and role-playing genres) in relation to characters' representation. Through this analysis, I found that characters who are women and girls are often associated with physical weakness, nature-based magic, and nurturing (or absent) personalities, whereas characters who are men and boys often protect women through physical combat, heal through medical means, and keep an emotional distance from others. Relationships built through game mechanics rely on one-sided agency and potential that renders lovers and friends as characters who exist to support the player character in achieving the primary goals of the game. Through these findings, I conclude that even warm interactions in games carry negative, even potentially violent and oppressive, representations and that there is thusly a need for design interventions on the mechanical level to mitigate violence in game worlds and the reinforcement of negative real world stereotypes.
by Kyrie Eleison Hartsough Caldwell.
S.M. in Comparative Media Studies and Writing
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Brason, Eloise. "Embedded Madness: Mad Narrators and Possible Worlds." Thesis, Stockholms universitet, Engelska institutionen, 2019. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:su:diva-170451.
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Madness has long been a popular theme for literature, featuring as a trope of horror, mystery, tragedy and comedy genres in varying degrees of amplitude. The topic has provided a significant access point for analysing historical, socio-political and cultural issues as it addresses controversial themes of alienation and criminality as well as philosophical theories of perception and consciousness. As a result, studies on the representation of madness in literature have been dominated by historical approaches that focus directly on social, political, philosophical and psychoanalytical interpretive models. Comparatively little has been done to analyse madness in literature from a narratological perspective. It is for this reason that I will conduct a narratological study on the impact of madness on narrative and fictional world structures. I am specifically interested in the way in which madness can be embedded across multiple levels of the narrative and the effect that this has on readers’ imaginative and interpretive processes. Close readings of Chuck Palahniuk’s Fight Club (1996) Bret Easton-Ellis’ American Psycho (1991) and John Banville’s The Book of Evidence (1989) will uncover some of the techniques that are used to embed madness into the textual and imaginative structures of a narrative, and will demonstrate how this works to deceive and challenge the reader. I will demonstrate the need for an expansion of terms within the narratological model that can cope specifically with the theme of madness.
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Bell, Sunanta Wannasin. "Spatialization of fictional worlds and interpretive controversies in the Satanic Verses, Midnight's Children and Shame." Thesis, University of Nottingham, 2005. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.430249.
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Nykänen, Elise [Verfasser]. "Worlds within and without : presenting fictional minds in Marja-Liisa Vartio´s narrative prose / Elise Nykänen." Gießen : Universitätsbibliothek, 2017. http://d-nb.info/1128593750/34.
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Fyffe, Laurie. "Political Theatre Post 911: The Age of Verbatim, of Testimony, & of Learning from Fictional Worlds." Thesis, University of Ottawa (Canada), 2010. http://hdl.handle.net/10393/28842.
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The first decade of the 21st century has been marked by a surge of political writing for the stage. Plays written in response to the events surrounding September 11, 2001 reveal an unprecedented level of theatrical experimentation directed specifically at describing the social, religious, and political forces that continue to rransform our post 9/11 world.
These experiments have encompassed verbatim theatre; theatre based on real events and people, transcripts, speeches, and photographic evidence. They encompass the theatre of testimony where verbatim techniques are combined with first person narratives based on personal experience. These innovations also include theatre that employs fictionality to create possible worlds where transformations occur, and where the playwright has created a unique site for problem solving.
Through text analysis of David Hare's Stuff Happens, Judith Thompson's Palace of the End, Heather Raffo's 9 Parts of Desire, and Tony Kushner's Homebody Kabul, this study will chart the course of these experiments, highlight the innovations, and assess their implications for political theatre.
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Yu, Chen-Wei. "Perception and its objects in time : narrative dynamics and the existence of Ursula K. Le Guin's fictional worlds." Thesis, University of Warwick, 2006. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.443627.
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Crous, Andre Johan. "A certain idea of reality : possible worlds in the films of Michael Winterbottom." Thesis, Stellenbosch : University of Stellenbosch, 2011. http://hdl.handle.net/10019.1/6512.
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Thesis (PhD)--University of Stellenbosch, 2011.ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This dissertation investigates the notion of realism and in particular its applicability to the visual and narrative strategies employed in eight of Michael Winterbottom’s films. Realism is a term that has strong ties to the reality of the viewer, but this reality that governs the conventions for making a judgment on a work’s realism is in constant flux. Likewise, on the side of the film’s production, any number of tactics may be deployed to increase the viewer’s sense of realism and the research undertaken here looks at a variety of approaches to the creation and assessment of realism in a film. Many of the films discussed here are depictions of past events and the tension between the realistic reconstruction of the past and the necessary artifice that is inherent in such representations are studied in the light of the theories of possible and fictional worlds. Possible worlds are constituted by states of affairs that would be possible in the actual world; in the same way, realistic representations reflect the possibilities of the actual world without necessarily being an identical copy of reality. David Lewis’s concept of counterparts plays an important role in the analysis of filmic components, especially when these components are representations of actual entities. In addition to a consideration of counterparts, this dissertation will also look at the role of the “fictional operator” which facilitates discussion about fictional truths. While the fictional operator creates counterparts of actually existing entities and films remain always already fictional, the actual world retains an important role in fiction. In postmodern cinema the viewer is encouraged to use knowledge obtained from other worlds – either actual or imaginary – so as to enhance appreciation (analytical as much as emotional) of the film even more. The concept of realism has been thoroughly problematised, but many strategies continue to connect the events of the fiction either with the “real” world or with other worlds that rival the importance of the “real” world. It is suggested that the so-called “real” world used to measure realism can refer to any world outside the realm of the particular fiction. Realism can be a product of a visual style as well as the particular development of a narrative and in both cases the viewer measures the conditions against her own experience of other worlds. The world of the film is a fictional reality that is sometimes a representation of the actual world, but the relationship between the two worlds can never be completely transparent, in spite of the efforts that many filmmakers have made in this respect.
AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: In hierdie proefskrif word die idee van realisme bestudeer deur veral te let op die term se toepaslikheid op die visuele en narratiewe strategieë wat agt van Michael Winterbottom se films op verskillende maniere aanwend. Realisme is gekoppel aan die kyker se werklikheid, maar hierdie werklikheid wat die konvensies bepaal vir enige uitspraak oor ʼn werk se realisme is gedurig aan die verander. Op soortgelyke wyse kan ʼn film enige aantal taktieke gebruik om by te dra tot die kyker se indruk van realisme en die navorsing wat hier onderneem is kyk na ʼn verskeidenheid benaderings tot die skepping en assessering van realisme in ʼn film. Talle van die voorbeelde wat hier bespreek word is uitbeeldings van gebeure uit die verlede en die spanning tussen ʼn realistiese herskepping en die noodwendige kunsmatigheid wat daarmee saamgaan sal toegelig word deur die teorieë van moontlike wêrelde en wêrelde van fiksie (fictional worlds). Moontlike wêrelde bestaan uit stande van sake wat in die aktuele wêreld moontlik is; op dieselfde wyse weerspieël ʼn realistiese uitbeelding die moontlikhede van die aktuele wêreld sonder om noodwendig ʼn identiese afbeelding van die werklikheid te wees. David Lewis se konsep van ewebeelde (counterparts) speel ʼn groot rol in die ontleding van hierdie films se onderdele, veral wanneer die ewebeelde voorstellings van werklike entiteite is. Behalwe vir ewebeelde, sal hierdie proefskrif ook kyk na die rol van fiksie-operators (fictional operators) wat die gesprek oor fiktiewe waarhede heelwat makliker sal maak. Hoewel die fiksie-operators ewebeelde skep van entiteite wat werklik bestaan en films uiteraard altyd reeds fiktief is, kan die rol van die aktuele wêreld in fiksie nie ontken word nie. In postmoderne films word die kyker juis aangemoedig om haar kennis te gebruik wat sy uit ander wêrelde – hetsy aktueel of denkbeeldig – opgedoen het en sodoende die film (op ʼn analitiese en ʼn emosionele vlak) meer te waardeer. Selfs al is die konsep van realisme reeds behoorlik geproblematiseer, is daar steeds baie strategieë om die gebeure van die fiksie te verbind met die “regte” wêreld of met ander wêrelde wat die belang van die “regte” wêreld ondermyn. Ek stel voor dat die sogenaamde “regte” wêreld wat gebruik word om realisme te meet eindelik kan verwys na enige wêreld buite die onmiddellike fiksie; realisme kan die produk van ʼn visuele styl of die ontwikkeling van die verhaal wees en in albei gevalle meet die kyker die toestande aan haar eiesoortige ervaring van ander wêrelde. Die wêreld van die film is ʼn fiktiewe werklikheid wat soms ʼn voorstelling van die aktuele wêreld is, maar die verwantskap tussen die twee wêrelde kan nooit heeltemal deursigtig wees nie, ten spyte van talle pogings wat filmmakers al in hierdie opsig aangewend het.
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Arauz, Valéria Angélica Ribeiro. "Indivisíveis, intangíveis, impossíveis : mundos ficcionais em I nostri antenati, de Italo Calvino /." Araraquara : [s.n.], 2009. http://hdl.handle.net/11449/102374.
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Orientador: Maria Lúcia Outeiro FernandesBanca: Adriana Iozzi Klein
Banca: Maria Gloria Cusumano Mazzi
Banca: Rejane Cristina Rocha
Banca: Hilário Antonio Amaral
Resumo: Este trabalho tem como objetivo empreender uma análise sobre a construção dos mundos ficcionais da trilogia I nostri antenati, composta pelos romances Il visconte dimezzato (1952), Il barone rampante (1957) e Il cavaliere inesistente (1959) de Italo Calvino, considerando esses romances como um marco para as escolhas estéticas que acompanhariam esse autor por toda a sua produção ao longo do século XX. Essa leitura está apoiada em três pontos, ou seja, a atuação discursiva de cada um dos narradores; o diálogo estabelecido entre os romances e outros textos literários; e o lugar dessas três narrativas no contexto da produção de Calvino. As três personagens singulares que povoam esses mundos são: um visconde simetricamente dividido, o qual passa a viver entre opostos inclusive no seu trato com a linguagem; um jovem barão, que de cima das copas das árvores acompanha e participa dos destinos da humanidade e até mesmo das mudanças no campo da literatura no final do século XVIII; e um cavaleiro que, apesar de ser o melhor dentre os paladinos do exército francês não é nada além de uma armadura vazia, sustentada por um conjunto de regras e instituições presentes no imaginário das novelas de cavalaria. Assim, as narrativas se propõem a tratar dos antepassados do homem contemporâneo, questionando as posturas positivistas e racionalistas do período conhecido como modernidade, além de serem textos cujos narradores se percebem como elementos de mundos ficcionais singulares e refletem sobre o ato de narrar. Considera-se ainda fundamental o papel do leitor como co-construtor de sentido, responsável enquanto instância discursiva pela existência de uma série infinita de interpretações iniciada pela leitura. Finalmente, entende-se que esses três romances pertencem ao início de uma mudança na escritura de Calvino, que passa a oferecer uma discussão sobre o lugar do homem... (Resumo completo, clicar acesso eletrônico abaixo)
Abstract: This work has the aim of making an analysis of the construction of the fictional worlds of I nostri antenati trilogy, comprised by Italo Calvino's novels Il visconte dimezzato (1952), Il barone rampante (1957) and Il cavaliere inesistente (1959). It considers those novels as a landmark to the aesthetic choices that would follow the author along his work during the 20th century. This reading is supported by three points, which are the discourse of each narrator; the dialogue established between the novels and some other literary texts; and the position of these three novels in the context of Calvino's works. The three singular characters who inhabit these worlds are a symmetrically divided viscount, who starts to live between oppositions, including his way of dealing with language; an young baron, who is on the top of the trees and who follows and participates in the destiny of mankind and even in the changes on literary issues at the end of the 18th century; and a knight who, though he is the best among French army paladins, is nothing beside an empty piece of armor, supported by a framework of rules and institutions that is related to the cavalry novels imaginary. Thus, these narratives propose to discuss the ancestors of contemporary men, by questioning the positivist and rationalist positions of the period known as modernity, moreover they are texts whose narrators see themselves as some singular fictional world components and they reflect about the narrative act itself. We also consider fundamental the rule of the reader as a meaning cobuilder, a discursive instance who is responsible for the existence of an infinite series of interpretations, started on the reading act. We finally understand these three novels as inserted in the beginning of the changing in Calvino's writing, when he starts to discuss the place of mankind in the face of the challenges presented to it after... (Complete abstract click electronic access below)
Doutor
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Arauz, Valéria Angélica Ribeiro [UNESP]. "Indivisíveis, intangíveis, impossíveis: mundos ficcionais em I nostri antenati, de Italo Calvino." Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP), 2009. http://hdl.handle.net/11449/102374.
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Este trabalho tem como objetivo empreender uma análise sobre a construção dos mundos ficcionais da trilogia I nostri antenati, composta pelos romances Il visconte dimezzato (1952), Il barone rampante (1957) e Il cavaliere inesistente (1959) de Italo Calvino, considerando esses romances como um marco para as escolhas estéticas que acompanhariam esse autor por toda a sua produção ao longo do século XX. Essa leitura está apoiada em três pontos, ou seja, a atuação discursiva de cada um dos narradores; o diálogo estabelecido entre os romances e outros textos literários; e o lugar dessas três narrativas no contexto da produção de Calvino. As três personagens singulares que povoam esses mundos são: um visconde simetricamente dividido, o qual passa a viver entre opostos inclusive no seu trato com a linguagem; um jovem barão, que de cima das copas das árvores acompanha e participa dos destinos da humanidade e até mesmo das mudanças no campo da literatura no final do século XVIII; e um cavaleiro que, apesar de ser o melhor dentre os paladinos do exército francês não é nada além de uma armadura vazia, sustentada por um conjunto de regras e instituições presentes no imaginário das novelas de cavalaria. Assim, as narrativas se propõem a tratar dos antepassados do homem contemporâneo, questionando as posturas positivistas e racionalistas do período conhecido como modernidade, além de serem textos cujos narradores se percebem como elementos de mundos ficcionais singulares e refletem sobre o ato de narrar. Considera-se ainda fundamental o papel do leitor como co-construtor de sentido, responsável enquanto instância discursiva pela existência de uma série infinita de interpretações iniciada pela leitura. Finalmente, entende-se que esses três romances pertencem ao início de uma mudança na escritura de Calvino, que passa a oferecer uma discussão sobre o lugar do homem...
This work has the aim of making an analysis of the construction of the fictional worlds of I nostri antenati trilogy, comprised by Italo Calvino’s novels Il visconte dimezzato (1952), Il barone rampante (1957) and Il cavaliere inesistente (1959). It considers those novels as a landmark to the aesthetic choices that would follow the author along his work during the 20th century. This reading is supported by three points, which are the discourse of each narrator; the dialogue established between the novels and some other literary texts; and the position of these three novels in the context of Calvino’s works. The three singular characters who inhabit these worlds are a symmetrically divided viscount, who starts to live between oppositions, including his way of dealing with language; an young baron, who is on the top of the trees and who follows and participates in the destiny of mankind and even in the changes on literary issues at the end of the 18th century; and a knight who, though he is the best among French army paladins, is nothing beside an empty piece of armor, supported by a framework of rules and institutions that is related to the cavalry novels imaginary. Thus, these narratives propose to discuss the ancestors of contemporary men, by questioning the positivist and rationalist positions of the period known as modernity, moreover they are texts whose narrators see themselves as some singular fictional world components and they reflect about the narrative act itself. We also consider fundamental the rule of the reader as a meaning cobuilder, a discursive instance who is responsible for the existence of an infinite series of interpretations, started on the reading act. We finally understand these three novels as inserted in the beginning of the changing in Calvino’s writing, when he starts to discuss the place of mankind in the face of the challenges presented to it after... (Complete abstract click electronic access below)
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Bédard-Goulet, Sara. "Lecture et réparation psychique : le potentiel thérapeutique du dispositif littéraire." Thèse, Toulouse 2, 2012. http://hdl.handle.net/1866/9067.
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Ce travail de recherche s’intéresse au potentiel thérapeutique de la lecture et vise à mieux comprendre le fonctionnement du dispositif littéraire, notamment dans son interaction avec le lecteur. En nous appuyant sur la théorie des mondes parallèles, nous faisons l’hypothèse que l’œuvre littéraire induit une simulation de la vie psychique du lecteur. Par le biais du canal sémiotique qu’est le texte et selon des dispositifs de représentation, le lecteur ressaisit le sens des mots et s’approprie le récit. En tant qu’expérience esthétique, la lecture littéraire fait appel au vécu du lecteur et engage ses émotions autrement que tout autre type de discours. Le geste de la lecture sous-entend déjà une certaine subjectivité du lecteur et nous pouvons donc, dès lors que nous nous intéressons de plus près à l’interaction entre texte et lecteur, concevoir une utilisation thérapeutique de la littérature. En proposant l’œuvre littéraire comme support de développement psychique, nous avons conçu, animé et évalué un atelier thérapeutique de lecture et d’écriture dans trois structures en santé mentale, à Toulouse et à Montréal. Destiné à un public souffrant de psychose, cet atelier s’appuie sur les principes de l’art-thérapie et vient concrétiser l’aspect (re)constructeur de la lecture littéraire inscrite dans notre réflexion théorique. Nos observations, d’une part, interrogent la perspective théorique littéraire, la fonction attribuée à l’œuvre et l’activité du lecteur et, d’autre part, débouchent sur des propositions thérapeutiques pour un atelier de lecture et d’écriture en milieu psychiatrique.This research is interested in the therapeutic potential of literary reading and looks for a better understanding of the literary device, particularly in its interaction with the reader. Basing our work on fictional worlds theory, we make the hypothesis that literary work induces a simulation of the reader’s psychic life. Using the semiotic channel of the text and according to representation devices, the reader seizes the words’ sense and adapts the story for himself. As an aesthetic experience, literary reading calls for the reader’s past experiences and engages his emotions in a different way than any other type of discourse. The gesture of reading already implies a certain subjectivity for the reader and we can therefore, as we take a closer interest to text-reader interaction, imagine a therapeutic use of literature. Proposing literary work as a support for psychic development, we have designed, ran and evaluated therapeutic reading and writing sessions in three mental health infrastructures, in Toulouse and Montreal. Destined to a psychotic audience, these reading sessions are based on art therapy principles and concretize the (re)constructive aspect of literary reading within our theoritical reflection. On one hand, our observations challenge the literary studies perspective, the function of the literary work and the activity of the reader and, on the other hand, they lead on therapeutic propositions for reading and writing sessions in a psychiatric context.
Réalisé en cotutelle internationale avec l'Université de Toulouse II-Le Mirail
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Lee, Joyce Glover. "The Fictional World of Rolando Hinojosa." Thesis, University of North Texas, 1993. https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc277858/.
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Rolando Hinojosa's Klail Citv Death Trip Series purports to give a picture of life in the Texas Rio Grande Valley from roughly the 1930s to the present. Much of Hinojosa's attention is directed toward the tensions that characterize relations between the mexicano and Anglo cultures. Hinojosa's novel sequence in large part documents the ever-increasing acculturation and assimilation of the mexicano into Anglo society.
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Mihm, Gesa Doris 1969. "Shojo and beyond: Depiction of the world of women in fictional works of Banana Yoshimoto." Thesis, The University of Arizona, 1998. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/278656.
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This thesis discusses six fictional works by Banana Yoshimoto (Tsugumi, Kitchen, Moonlight Shadow, N. P., Kanashii Yokan, Amrita) in light of their depiction of different areas of societal change in Japan such as feminism, the dissolution of the nuclear family, the focus on the individual instead of society and contemporary literary tendencies such as postmodern ideas. Yoshimoto describes her characters' feeling of instability and of being lost in a world of rapid social change. Her stories often start in a postmodern setting and with characters who resemble those of shojo manga, and then turn to depict (quite un-postmodern) the individual's search for the own identity and meaning in life. Interestingly, the new meanings her protagonists find and the new bonds they form are based on modern concepts which include a redefinition of the family and of gender roles as well as spiritual connections which have their roots in traditional Japanese religion.
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Singh, Ravinder Sher. "Journey to another world in the works of Nirmal Verma /." Thesis, Connect to this title online; UW restricted, 2001. http://hdl.handle.net/1773/11097.
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Salih, Iqbal Mahdi. "War in Virginia Woolf's fictional and non-fictional works." Thesis, Bangor University, 2015. https://research.bangor.ac.uk/portal/en/theses/war-in-virginia-woolfs-fictional-and-nonfictional-works(627e97b1-18c0-42cc-9286-3913cf7409d9).html.
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This thesis argues that Virginia Woolf can be seen as essentially a ‗war-writer‘; the impact on her imagination, evident in both her fiction and non-fictional writing, of the First World War was profound. However, the sense of insecurity and anxiety which the war instills in Woolf, present directly in her portrayal of the tragedies of Jacob Flanders (Jacob‟s Room), Septimus Warren Smith (Mrs. Dalloway), and Andrew Ramsay (To the Lighthouse), never really goes away. The insecurities of 1930s, in particular the Spanish Civil War, in which her nephew Julian Bell was killed, are also present in Woolf‘s writing and the fear of a new war means that her anxieties, vulnerability of Civilisation, continue until her death by suicide in 1941. One could indeed argue that Woolf was herself a victim of war. The thesis argues that fundamental aspects of Woolf‘s writing are related to the presence throughout her adult life of the threat of War: her continued concern with gender has its roots in her seeing the First War and the likelihood of future conflict as being due to the prevailing dominance of masculinity, of ‗subconscious Hitlerism‘; the post-1918 sense of insecurity of values, of what was ‗real‘, demands from her a new mode of narrative. In other words, her famous urging of novelists to ‗look within‘ has its origins in her sense of the outer world of the Post-War years as insecure and ‗unreal‘ and that sense of unreality continues through the 1930s, as evident in her non-fiction. This study consists of four chapters. It opens with an introduction that concentrates on the Bloomsbury Group, its attitudes towards the state, politics and war; it shows also Woolf‘s pacifist views towards war. In the First and Second chapters Virginia Woolf‘s response to the First World War and its aftermath is discussed, including discussion of the social effects of the war, new social attitudes in the post-war period and how Woolf responds to the war and its impact in her novels, essays, diaries and letters. The war itself is dealt with through analysing four of Woolf‘s novels written in the post war period: Jacob‟s Room, Mrs. Dalloway, To the Lighthouse and The Waves. Like Virginia Woolf herself, the characters of these novels suffer the horror of the war and its consequences, a suffering that can be seen in Woolf‘s combatant and non-combatant characters.
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Bell, Alice M. "The possible worlds of hypertext fiction." Thesis, University of Sheffield, 2006. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.434659.
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Matthews, Josephine A. "Artistry and authenticity : Zhao Shuli and his fictional world /." The Ohio State University, 1991. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1487687485808787.
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Lopez, Miguel Anthony. "New World Massive." PDXScholar, 2017. https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/open_access_etds/3675.
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A New World, At Last is set on a distant colony world, many thousands of years into the future.
The path there has not been direct or bloodless. The humans who colonized this New World are the descendants of an Earth that has suffered cataclysmic climate change, collapse, and a subsequent millennia-long reconstruction. They stand on the shoulders of giants, uncovering and exploiting the technology of the Old Earth in order to ensure that such a collapse, once discovered, can never happen again. These new people, Colonials, set about making the New World in the image of their own.
A scant hundred years after they settle the world, the Ecumene arrive.
The Ecumene are humans as well, our own descendants, refugees who packed onto massive, life-sustaining generation ships that left Old Earth, burning a slow and steady path towards distant, potentially habitable worlds. The journey for the Ecumene took nearly a thousand years; in this time, a cult of destiny and destination fomented aboard a ship they began to see as their ark. They follow The Path, the way to the promised land of the New World, known to their distant ancestors as their ultimate destination.
Due to the realities of space travel, time passed differently for the Ecumene than it did for the Colonials. What was a thousand year journey on the ship translates to a more than six thousand year period of time back on Earth. The massive gulf in time and experience makes for a difficult reunion between these two disparate relatives.
Tensions arise as the Colonial Administration attempts to process these sudden arrivals and to integrate them into their system to prevent a complete collapse of their nascent biome. They hold the revelatory memory of a world subjected to poor stewardship and shy away from continuing down that path again. They see themselves as outnumbered and unfairly burdened, the sudden caretakers of a vast population of the children of the humans who sent the Old Earth into a long, terrible dark age.
The bulk of A New World, At Last takes place thirty years after the arrival of the Ecumene ark, the Armstrong. A New World, At Last follows Edison Moss, the young son of a Colonial farmer ("agrineer"). Ed has recently discovered that he was adopted illegally; he is undocumented, from an unwanted class. In an act of rebellion, he leaves home on a quest of discovery, only to find that the answers he gets are not necessarily the answers to the questions he wanted to ask. His decade-long journey takes him from the heart of the colony to the frontier; along the way he befriends an agent of the Ecumene's more violent resistant group and becomes a participant in the movement.
A New World, At Last also follows the story of an artist contemporary with Ed's time. Victor James Custodio, famous sculptor and crafter of prosthetic bodies for the rulers of Earth, flees to the New World in a quest to outrun a fate that has been chasing him through all of his lives. Victor's story parallels Ed's in a sense as both are, ultimately, pilgrimages; attempts to ask and have answered that ultimate question: who am I, where do I belong, and what do I do about it?
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Stump, Christina M. "Leaves From Other Worlds." Bowling Green State University / OhioLINK, 2020. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu158618674890876.
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Mooney, Susan. "Drawing bridges : publicprivate worlds in Russian women's fiction." Thesis, McGill University, 1991. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=60561.
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This thesis questions how Russian women's identity is attached to the textual use of public/private spaces in contemporary literature by Russian women writers by drawing from feminist theories. I. Grekova and N. Baranskaia portray female protagonists in their everyday lives, public and private worlds overlapping. While these heroines create stable support systems with other women, male figures enter as interruptive forces in women's lives. Hospital settings in several works by Russian women allow comparisons between women's fictional hospital experiences and those of Muscovite women interviewed. In L. Petrushevskaia's stories, women protagonists' identities are linked to the uncertain quality of locale and the tenuous relationships which transpire in it. Russian women's identity expressed in fiction may change as the self-perceptions of a younger generation of Russian women writers evolve toward a new, gendered concept of self.
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O'Brien, Catherine Mary. "Women's fictional responses to the First World War: a comparative study of selected works by French and German writers." Thesis, University of Hull, 1993. http://hydra.hull.ac.uk/resources/hull:3120.
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Dreshfield, Anne C. ""All are finally fictions": Fan Fiction as Creative Empowerment Through the Re-Writing of "Reality"." Scholarship @ Claremont, 2013. http://scholarship.claremont.edu/scripps_theses/237.
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This paper examines online fan fiction communities as spaces for identity formation, collaborative creativity, and fan empowerment. Drawing on case studies of a LiveJournal fan fiction community, fan-written essays, possible world theory, and postmodern theories of the hyperreal and simulacrum, this paper argues that writing fan fiction is a definitive, postmodern act that explores the mutable boundaries of reality and fiction. It concludes that fans are no longer passive consumers of popular media—rather, they are engaged, powerful participants in the creation of celebrity representation that can, ultimately, alter reality.
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Branigan, Jacob. "The Better World Movement." VCU Scholars Compass, 2017. http://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/etd/4751.
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This thesis is a portion of a novel manuscript. The novel is tentatively titled The Better World Movement. These thirteen chapters introduce the reader to the main character, Smith Anderson, who is banished from his dream college after the first semester of his freshman year. Forced to start again at a different college, Smith becomes close with his roommates, meets a girl, and begins assisting an ethically ambiguous professor. When the professor implements troublesome social experiments on the student body, Smith and his friends must reconcile the mistakes of their pasts and decided what is best for the world as they know it—transparency, or improvement at great cost.
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Pfalzgraff, Ella. "The World Still Undiscovered." ScholarWorks@UNO, 2017. http://scholarworks.uno.edu/td/2352.
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“The World Still Undiscovered” explores a particular way of seeing the common setting, i.e., the so-called West, of all seven of the short stories contained therein, specifically responding to two ideas of the West: in America, that the West is somewhere you can go to find the freedom to grow up independent of the oppression of civilization; and in Canada, that the West is a place that is inherently deadly and therefore boxes people into small, narrow towns. Each of these stories resists that binary.
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Kneale, James Robert. "Lost in space? : readers' constructions of science fiction worlds." Thesis, University College London (University of London), 1996. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.309071.
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Raghunath, Riyukta. "Alternative realities : counterfactual historical fiction and possible worlds theory." Thesis, Sheffield Hallam University, 2017. http://shura.shu.ac.uk/19154/.
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The primary aim of my thesis is to offer a cognitive-narratological methodology with which to analyse counterfactual historical fiction. Counterfactual historical fiction is a genre that creates fictional worlds whose histories run contrary to the history of the actual world. I argue that Possible Worlds Theory is a suitable methodology with which to analyse this type of fiction because it is an ontologically centred theory that can be used to divide the worlds of a text into its various ontological domains and also explain their relation to the actual world. Ryan (1991) offers the most appropriate Possible Worlds framework with which to analyse any fiction. However, in its current form the theory does not sufficiently address the role of readers in its analysis of fiction. Given the close relationship between the actual world and the counterfactual world created by counterfactual historical fiction, I argue that a model to analyse such texts must go beyond categorising the worlds of texts by also theorising what readers do when they read this type of fiction. For this purpose, in my thesis I refine Ryan's Possible Worlds framework so that it can be used to more effectively analyse counterfactual historical fiction. In particular, I introduce an ontological domain which I am calling RK-worlds or reader knowledge worlds to label the domain that readers use to apprehend the counterfactual world presented by the text. I also offer two cognitive concepts – ontolological superimposition and reciprocal feedback – that support a Possible Worlds analysis of counterfactual historical fiction and model how readers process such fiction. In addition, I redefine counterpart theory, transworld identity, and essential properties to appropriately theorise the way readers make the epistemological link between a character and their corresponding actual world individual. The result is a fully fleshed out Possible Worlds model that addresses the reader's role by focusing on how they cognitively interact with the worlds built by counterfactual historical fiction. Finally, to demonstrate my model's dexterity, I apply it to three texts – Robert Harris' Fatherland (1992), Sarban's The Sound of his Horn (1952), and Stephen Fry's Making History (1996). I conclude that the Possible Worlds model that I have developed is rigorous and can be replicated to analyse all fiction in general and counterfactual historical fiction in particular.
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Schaub, Danielle. "Fragmented worlds: narrative strategies in Mavis Gallant's short fiction." Doctoral thesis, Universite Libre de Bruxelles, 1994. http://hdl.handle.net/2013/ULB-DIPOT:oai:dipot.ulb.ac.be:2013/212667.
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Pettersson, Ulf. "Textmedierade virtuella världar : Narration, perception och kognition." Doctoral thesis, Linnéuniversitetet, Institutionen för film och litteratur (IFL), 2013. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:lnu:diva-29606.
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This thesis synthezises theories from intermedia studies, semiotics, Gestalt psychology, cognitive linguistics, cognitive psychology, cognitive poetics, reader response criticism, narratology and possible worlds-theories adjusted to literary studies. The aim is to provide a transdisciplinary explanatory model of the transaction between text and reader during the reading process resulting in the reader experiencing a mental, virtual world. Departing from Mitchells statement that all media are mixed media, this thesis points to Peirce’s tricotomies of different types of signs and to the relation between representamen (sign), object and interpretant, which states that the interpretant can be developed into a more complex sign, for example from a symbolic to an iconic sign. This is explained in cognitive science by the fact that our perceptions are multimodal. We can easily connect sounds and symbolic signs to images. Our brain is highly active in finding structures and patterns, matching them with structures already stored in memory. Cognitive semantics holds that such structures and schematic mental images form the basis for our understanding of concepts. In cognitive linguistics Lakoff and Johnsons theories of conceptual metaphors show that our bodily experiences are fundamental in thought and language, and that abstract thought is concretized by a metaphorical system grounded in our bodily, spatial experiences. Cognitive science has shown that we build situation models based on what the text describes. These mental models are simultaneously influenced by the reader’s personal world knowledge and earlier experiences. Reader response-theorists emphasize the number of gaps that a text leaves to the reader to fill in, using scripts. Eye tracking research reveals that people use mental imaging both when they are re-describing a previously seen picture and when their re-description is based purely on verbal information about a picture. Mental spaces are small conceptual packets constructed as we think and talk. A story is built up by a large number of such spaces and the viewpoint and focus changes constantly. There are numerous possible combinations and relations of mental spaces. For the reader it is important to separate them as well as to connect them. Mental spaces can also be blended. In their integration network model Fauconnier and Turner describe four types of blending, where the structures of the input spaces are blended in different ways. A similar act of separation and fusion is needed dealing with different diegetic levels and focalizations, the question of who tells and who sees in the text. Ryan uses possible worlds-theories from modal logic to describe fictional worlds as both possible and parallel worlds. While fictional worlds are comparable to possible worlds if seen as mental constructions created within our actual world, they must also be treated as parallel worlds, with their own actual, reference world from which their own logic stems. As readers we must recenter ourselves into this fictional world to be able to deal with states of affairs that are logically impossible in our own actual world. The principle of minimal departure states that during our recentering, we only make the adjustments necessary due to explicit statements in the text.
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Hensley, Martin. "The Green World of Dystopian Fiction." TopSCHOLAR®, 2006. http://digitalcommons.wku.edu/theses/276.
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Northrop Frye was the first theorist to develop the green world archetype; Frye used the term to refer to a recurring motif in Shakespearean comedy. In several of Shakespeare's comedies, the protagonists leave the civilized world and venture into the green world, or nature, to escape from the irrational law of society, which is the case in such comedies as As You Like It and A Midsummer Night's Dream. Elements of the green world can also be found in Shakespearean tragedy, where the natural retreat serves as a temporary escape for the protagonists. Such a green world exists in three of the most well known examples of dystopian fiction: George Orwell's 1984, Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, and Yevgeny Zamyatin's We. In these three novels, the protagonists take flight from the repressive dystopia and journey into nature. In the green world, the protagonists attain individual freedom and identity and experience emotions, passions, beauty, the past, and the power of language. Each of these elements, which are associated with the green world, stand in opposition to the dystopian society's doctrine. The green world, then, becomes an escape, a place where the protagonists can temporarily live a free life away from the tyrannical powers of the dystopic society. The dystopian green world experience follows a pattern of flight, immersion, and departure. In the first segment, the protagonists flee from the oppressive society and into nature; in the second, they immerse themselves within the green world where they experience new sensations, emotions, and gain new insights and understanding; in the third, the protagonists depart the green world and return to the civilized world in order to confront it with the knowledge they have gained while immersed in the green world. This pattern can also be viewed as a symbolic cycle that moves from death to rebirth to death. The first death is the death-like stasis of the dystopia and of the protagonist, who is just a part of the whole and not truly an individual. The symbolic rebirth conies when the protagonists depart the green world as individuals with new know ledge and experiences. Lastly, the second symbolic, or sometimes literal death, comes when the protagonists confront the dystopia with their new knowledge, have that knowledge challenged by an agent of the dystopia, usually in the form of a trial, and, finally, are symbolically or literally destroyed by the dystopian agent.
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Maynes-Aminzade, Elizabeth. "Macrorealism: Fiction for a Networked World." Thesis, Harvard University, 2013. http://dissertations.umi.com/gsas.harvard:11157.
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Victorian novels were, generally speaking, big. But what forms did their bigness take? Why did a "macro" aesthetic prevail in the mid-nineteenth century? And why, after losing influence in the following century, has it returned in recent years? This dissertation identifies three distinct features - one spatial, one temporal, one intellectual - crucial to that aesthetic. Moreover, it explains why that kind of fiction, which I call macrorealism, has come into fashion at two different historical moments.
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Herzing, Melissa Jean. "The Internet World of Fan Fiction." VCU Scholars Compass, 2005. http://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/etd/1046.
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Fan fiction, the most popular creative outlet for fans, allows the amateur writer an opportunity to be published and receive immediate feedback from peers. As educators, we can learn from the fan communities as they participate in online activities, especially fan fiction. Students are more likely to embrace entertaining and creative assignments. And since much of the world is linked to the Internet in one way or another, we can allow students an opportunity to not only improve their writing skills, but also enhance their knowledge of the Internet and its capabilities. My study included online interviews with fan fiction writers and readers as well as the examination of fan fiction texts and websites. By exploring this relatively unknown genre of writing and reading, I believe teachers of composition can use fan fiction to their advantage by encouraging students to write creatively using subject matter that interests them in some way.
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Oliveira, Antonio Eduardo de. "Colonialism in the fictional works of Joseph Conrad." reponame:Repositório Institucional da UFSC, 2013. https://repositorio.ufsc.br/handle/123456789/106167.
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Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Florianópolis, 1981.Made available in DSpace on 2013-12-05T19:28:53Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 321728.pdf: 3522951 bytes, checksum: e7232afdf1936a14d2a12d5ae304c893 (MD5)
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Best, Karen. "A FLOATING WORLD: STORIES." Master's thesis, University of Central Florida, 2010. http://digital.library.ucf.edu/cdm/ref/collection/ETD/id/2070.
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A Floating World is a collection of short stories inspired by fairy tales. Often set in worlds where the mundane and the fantastic come together, these stories explore moments of strangeness that slip beyond the bounds of realist fiction. Fantastical events intrude into mundane reality as characters attempt to reconcile the known with the unknowable.M.F.A.
Department of English
Arts and Humanities
Creative Writing MFA
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Canepari-Labib, Michela. "Word-worlds : the refusal of realism and the critique of identity in the fiction of Christine Brooke-Rose." Thesis, University of Sussex, 1999. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.266448.
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Dillon, Amanda. "'Prism, mirror, lens' : metafiction and narrative worlds in science fiction." Thesis, University of East Anglia, 2011. https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/39033/.
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Örnemark, Helena. "Language in the fictional world of lesbian and gay law enforcement characters." Thesis, University West, Department of Social and Behavioural Studies, 2007. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:hv:diva-1472.
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King, Jodey Corben. "The warrior's words : seeking the American soldier in non-fictional military literature." Thesis, Montana State University, 2004. http://etd.lib.montana.edu/etd/2004/king/KingJ04.pdf.
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Reu, Allison. "At the End of the World." ScholarWorks@UNO, 2014. http://scholarworks.uno.edu/td/1889.
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Jessee, Sharon A. "A monotony of fine weather imagined worlds in contemporary American fiction /." Access abstract and link to full text, 1986. http://0-wwwlib.umi.com.library.utulsa.edu/dissertations/fullcit/8616607.
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Francis, Kurt T. "Gothic Elements in Selected Fictional Works by Nathaniel Hawthorne." Thesis, North Texas State University, 1985. https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc503867/.
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Gothicism is the primary feature of Nathaniel Hawthorne's fiction, and it is his skill in elevating Gothicism to the level of high art which makes him a great artist. Gothic elements are divided into six categories: Objects, Beings, Mental States, Practices and Actions, Architecture and Places, and Nature. Some devices from these six categories are documented in three of Hawthorne's stories ("Young Goodman Brown," "The Minister's Black Veil," and "Ethan Brown") and three of his romances (The Scarlet Letter, The House of the Seven Gables, and The Marble Faun). The identification of 142 instances of Hawthorne's use of Gothic elements in the above works demonstrates that Hawthorne is fundamentally a Gothic writer.
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Chunjing, Liu. "Seeking identity between worlds: A study of selected Chinese American fiction." University of the Western Cape, 2011. http://hdl.handle.net/11394/5176.
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Magister Artium - MAThe literature of the Chinese diaspora in America is marked by a tension between ancestral Chinese traditional culture and the modernity of Western culture. This thesis explores diaspora theory, as elaborated by Stuart Hall, Homi Bhabha, Gabriel Sheffer and others to establish a framework for the analysis of key Chinese American literary works. Maxine Hong Kingston's seminal novel, The Woman Warrior (1975), will be analysed as an exemplary instance of diasporic identity, where the Chinese cultural heritage is reinterpreted and re-imagined from the point of view of an emancipated woman living in the West. A comparative analysis will be undertaken of Jade Snow Wong's The Fifth Chinese Daughter (1950) and Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club (1989) to identify links between the writers who have grappled with various forms of diasporic identity in their works. An important part of this analysis is the representation and adaptation of Chinese folklore and traditional tales in Chinese American literary works.
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Garbutt, Ian. "Asperger's syndrome and fiction : autistic worlds and those who build them." Thesis, University of Stirling, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/1893/26133.
Full textAbstract:
Do tangible, testable links exist between the autistic spectrum and creativity? How would such links work from the perspective of an author with Asperger's Syndrome? To what degree would autism mould the author's work, and how would it affect writing technique and style compared to neurotypical (non autistic spectrum authors)? Do these links provide a tangible advantage? Can an Asperger's author successfully engage a non-Asperger's readership? Has Asperger's become fashionable in fiction and if so what are the benefits/consequences? Can an “extraterrestrial stranded without an orientation manual”1 communicate ideas in a meaningful way to non-autistics? Asperger's Syndrome is a form of high functioning autism where those affected express a range of social, behavioural and perceptual traits which have no actual bearing on their level of intelligence. As an author with Asperger's my intention is to examine the degree to which my autism affects my writing technique and style compared to neurotypical (non autistic) creatives. Asperger's sufferers lack empathy and social skills, therefore creating situations a reader can empathise with is challenging. To an Asperger's other people are 'aliens'. If the characters and scenarios in my work are coloured by my difference, then it may be the difference itself which provides the hook for the reader. To what extent do Asperger's authors need to 'pretend to be normal' in order to engage a neurotypical reader, or to make their work generally marketable? Is there an argument that they shouldn't even try? With increasing diagnosis and better understanding of the autistic spectrum, the Asperger's limited but intense range of interests and ability to focus without human distraction might link in to creative excellence that has an appeal far beyond the boundaries of the autistic spectrum. The purpose of this thesis is to investigate whether claims of autistic links to creativity are more than heresay. I examine alleged positive evidence for these links, and see how this evidence ties in with my experience both as an Asperger's and an author, with particular regard to my decisions in crafting my novel The Ghost Land.
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Kawakami, Chiyoko. "The hybrid narrative world of Izumi Kyōka /." Thesis, Connect to this title online; UW restricted, 1996. http://hdl.handle.net/1773/6670.
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Housdon, Beth. ""The whole world in a book" : fact, fiction and the postmodern in Selected Works by E. L. Doctorow." Master's thesis, University of Cape Town, 2008. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/10819.
Full textAbstract:
Includes bibliographical references (leaves 135-143).This dissertation considers the manner in which the thematic and stylistic interests displayed in E. L. Doctorow's fiction derive from the postmodern context in which he works. Encapsulating the spirit of subversion so typical of postmodernism, Doctorow not only questions established modes of perception, but reinvigorates cultural and social traditions through the reformulation of customarily unchallenged norms and values. Departing from the conventions of traditional narrative, he emphasises the need for a continual critical interrogation and revision of absolutist grand narratives in order to achieve a more complex understanding of human experience. He grapples with concepts relating to the fluidity of meaning and the constructed nature of texts, deftly experimenting with narrative form in order to destabilise conventional perceptions of history, reality and representation.