Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Inheritance of loss'

Kyoto University (京都大学)
0048
新制・課程博士
博士(農学)
甲第11890号
農博第1528号
新制||農||920(附属図書館)
学位論文||H17||N4091(農学部図書室)
23670
UT51-2005-N724
京都大学大学院農学研究科農学専攻
(主査)教授 米森 敬三, 教授 矢澤 進, 教授 内海 成
学位規則第4条第1項該当

This is an essay about Indian English and especially its presentaion in the novels The Inheritance of Loss and The White Tiger. The focus is on the lexical presentation in the novels. There is also a presentation of the concept Indian English.

Active Caspase 6 associates with the neuropathological hallmarks of sporadic Alzheimer disease (SAD), indirectly increases amyloid beta (A-Beta) and cleaves Tau and other cytoskeleton proteins. Given the similar neuropathology of SAD and familial AD (FAD), my objective is to assess if FAD-associated amyloid precursor protein (APP) mutations activate Caspase 6 in human neurons. Human neurons were transfected with a bigenic vector expressing enhanced green florescent protein (EGFP) and either wild type APP, the Swedish or London mutations. Normally diffuse EGFP beads in neurons over-expressing APP or APP mutants in an A-Beta independent manner and appears to co-localize with beaded Tau and Ubiquitin. Additionally, the number of EGFP-positive APP or APP mutant-transfected neurons decreases with time in culture and undergoes A-Beta dependent cell death. Treatment with a caspase 6 inhibitor or dominant negative Caspase 6 attenuates EGFP beading, EGFP-positive neuronal dropout and cell death. Therefore, FAD-mutants and APP over-expression activate Caspase 6 in human neurons resulting in morphological changes and A-Beta dependent cell death that may contribute to the neuropathological features of FAD.
La forme active de la Caspase 6 est impliquée dans les effets neuropathologiques typiques de la forme sporadique de la maladie d'Alzheimer (SAD) en augmentant indirectement la production du peptide amyloïde-bêta (A-Beta) et en clivant Tau ainsi que d'autres protéines du cyotoskelette. Compte tenu des neuropathologies similaires de SAD et de la forme familiale de la maladie d'Alzheimer (FAD), mon objectif était de déterminer si les mutations de la protéine précurseur de l'amyloïde (APP) associées à FAD, activent la Caspase 6 dans les neurones humains. Les neurones humains ont été transfectés avec un vecteur bigénique exprimant la protéine fluorescente verte (EGFP; Enhanced Green Fluorescent Protein) et soit l'APP sauvage ou sa forme mutée associée a FAD soit la mutation Suédoise ou la mutation de Londre. Normalement présente sous forme diffuse dan le neurone, l'EGFP forme des agrégats dan les neurites del cellules qui sur experiment en présence de l'APP sauvage ou les mutants. La protein Tau et d'Ubiquitine semble se co-localiser avec les agrégations EGFP. Notons que cette accumulation ne dépend pas de la présence de A-Beta. De plus, le nombre de neurones exprimant une forme ou l'autre d'APP où EGFP est visible diminue et il y a augmentation de la mort cellulaire chez ces cellules liée à la présence de A-Beta. Le traitement avec l'inhibiteur de la Caspase 6 ou un mutant dominant négatif de la Caspase 6 atténue la formation d'agrégats d'EGFP, la diminution du nombre de neurones positifs à l'EGFP et la mort cellulaire. Par conséquent, les mutants FAD activent la caspase 6 dans les neurones humains et mènent à des changements de morpholo

Thesis (MA (English))--University of Stellenbosch, 2009.
ENGLISH ABSTRACT: During the past century, for a variety of reasons, more people have been crossing national and cultural borders than ever before. This, along with constantly developing communication technology, has seen to it that clear-cut distinctions, divisions and borders are no longer as easily definable as they once were. This process, now commonly referred to as ‘globalisation,’ has led to a rising trend of ‘multiculturalism’ and ‘cultural hybridity,’ terms often connected with celebratory views of our postmodern, postcolonial world as a colourful melting pot of cultures. However, what these celebratory views conveniently avoid recognising, is that the increasing occurrence of hybridity places a growing number of people in a painful space inbetween identities where they are “neither just this/nor just that” (Dayal 47), “neither the One… nor the Other… but something else besides” (Bhabha Commitment 41). Perhaps in an effort to combat this ignorance, a new breed of authors – who have experienced the rigours of migration first-hand – are giving voice to this pain-infused space on the periphery of cultures and identities through a developing genre of transcultural literature. This literature typically deals with issues of identity closely related to globalisation and multiculturalism. In my thesis I will be looking at three such novels: Jamal Mahjoub’s The Drift Latitudes, Kiran Desai’s Inheritance of Loss, and Caryl Phillips’ A Distant Shore. These authors move away from an idealistic, celebratory view of hybridity as the effortless blending of cultures to a somewhat disenchanted approach to hybridity as a complex negotiation of split subjectivity in an ever-fracturing world. All three novels lend themselves to a psychoanalytic reading, with subjects who imagine themselves to be unitary, but end up having to face their repressed fractured subjectivity in a moment of crisis. The psychoanalytic model of the split between the conscious and the unconscious, then, resonates well with the postcolonial model of the intrinsically fractured hybrid identity. However, while psychoanalysis focuses on internal processes, postcolonialism focuses on external processes. Therefore, I will be making use of a blend of psychoanalytic and postcolonial concepts to analyse and access discursive meanings in the texts. More specifically, I will use Homi Bhabha’s concept of ‘hybridity’, Freud’s concept of the ‘uncanny’, and Zygmunt Bauman’s concept of ‘the stranger’ as distinctive, yet interconnected conceptual lenses through which to view all three of these transcultural novels.
AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: In die afgelope eeu het meer mense as ooit vantevore, om ‘n verskeidenheid redes, lands- en kultuurgrense oorgesteek. Tesame met die voortdurende vooruitgang van kommunikasietegnologie, het dit tot gevolg dat afgebakende grense, skeidings en verskille nie meer so maklik definieerbaar is as wat hulle eens was nie. Hierdie proses, waarna in die algemeen verwys word as ‘globalisering’, het gelei tot die groeiende neiging van ‘multikulturalisme’ en ‘kulturele hibriditeit’. Dit is terminologie wat dikwels in verband gebring word met feestelike beskouings van ons postmoderne, post-koloniale wêreld as ‘n kleurryke smeltkroes van kulture. Wat hierdie feestelike beskouings egter gerieflikheidshalwe verkies om te ignoreer, is die feit dat die toenemende voorkoms van hibriditeit ‘n groeiende aantal mense in ‘n pynlike posisie tussen identiteite plaas waar hulle nòg vis nòg vlees (“neither just this/nor just that” [Dayal 47]), nòg die Een… nòg die Ander is… maar eerder iets anders buiten.. (“neither the One… nor the Other… but something else besides” [Bhabha Commitment 41]). Miskien in ‘n poging om hierdie onkunde die hoof te bied, is ‘n nuwe geslag skrywers – wat die eise van migrasie eerstehands ervaar het – besig om met ‘n ontwikkelende genre van transkulturele literatuur ‘n stem te gee aan hierdie pynlike ‘plek’ op die periferie van kulture en identiteite. Hierdie literatuur handel tipies oor die kwessies van identiteit wat nou verwant is aan globalisering en multikulturalisme. In my tesis kyk ek na drie sulke romans: Jamal Mahjoub se The Drift Latitudes, Kiran Desai se Inheritance os Loss en Caryl Phillips se A Distant Shore. Hierdie skrywers beweeg weg van die idealistiese, feestelike beskouing van hibriditeit as die moeitelose vermenging van kulture na ‘n meer realistiese uitbeelding van hibriditeit as ‘n ingewikkelde vergestalting van verdeelde subjektiwiteite in ‘n verbrokkelende wêreld. Al drie romans leen hulle tot die lees daarvan uit ‘n psigo-analitiese oogpunt, met karakters wat hulself as eenvormig beskou, maar uiteindelik in ‘n krisis-oomblik te staan kom voor die werklikheid van hul onderdrukte verbrokkelde subjektiwiteit. Die psigo-analitiese model van die breuk tussen die bewuste en die onbewuste weerklink welluidend in die post-koloniale model van die intrinsiek verbrokkelde hibriede identiteit. Terwyl psigo-analise egter op interne prosesse toegespits is, fokus post-kolonialisme op eksterne prosesse. Derhalwe gebruik ek ‘n vermenging van psigo-analitiese en post-koloniale konsepte om uiteenlopende betekenisse in die onderskeie tekste te analiseer en hulle toeganklik te maak. Meer spesifiek gebruik ek Homi Bhabha se konsep van hibriditeit, Freud se konsep van die ‘geheimsinnige / onheilspellende’ en Zygmunt Bauman se konsep van ‘die vreemdeling’ as kenmerkende, maar steeds onderling verwante konseptuele lense waardeur aldrie transkulturele romans beskou word.

Les historiens du Droit ont longtemps fait peu de cas du droit civil de la Révolution française qualifié péjorativement de droit intermédiaire. Mais depuis le bicentenaire de la Révolution française, ils ont révisé leur appréciation et davantage mis en exergue la modernité de cette législation que l’on peut désormais considérer comme une anticipation du droit contemporain de la famille. Cette thèse est une contribution à cette œuvre de réhabilitation. Le droit des successions de l’ancien régime était caractérisé par l’inégalité de ses règles. La proclamation de l’égalité civile dans la Déclaration des droits de l’homme et du citoyen de 1789 impliquait une refonte complète de cette matière. Les deux premières assemblées, la Constituante et la Législative n’avaient fait qu’entamer ce travail en supprimant les inégalités les plus manifestes, les privilèges d’aînesse et de masculinité, ce qui fut l’occasion de discussions sur le droit de tester. Ce fut la Convention qui réalisa les réformes les plus considérables et les plus célèbres à l’apogée de la Révolution, au moment où les tensions idéologiques étaient exacerbées. Un premier projet de Code civil fut discuté mais n’aboutit pas. En attendant la rédaction d’un second projet amendé, il fut résolu de mettre en application quelques parties du premier sur des questions qui semblaient particulièrement urgentes. C’est ainsi que des « articles d’appendice » du premier Code, furent mis en application au moyen de deux lois. La première est celle du 12 brumaire an II sur les droits des enfants naturels qui étaient essentiellement des droits successoraux, la seconde est la loi du 17 nivôse an II, sur la dévolution successorale et l’égalité des partages.Leur caractéristique commune était d’introduire la rétroactivité dans le règlement des successions ouvertes depuis le 14 juillet 1789, date symbolique de l’avènement de la liberté, pour hâter la mise en application des principes nouveaux. Cet effet rétroactif fut ensuite violemment critiqué, dès que la situation politique se retourna avec l’élimination des Robespierristes. De nombreuses plaintes affluèrent pour montrer les graves inconvénients pratiques de cette situation. Les législateurs postérieurs revinrent sur cet effet au moyen de lois qui s’échelonnent du 9 fructidor an III au 3 vendémiaire an IV. Les rédacteurs du Code civil maintinrent le principe d’égalité dans la famille fondée sur le mariage. Mais en ce qui concerne les enfants nés hors mariage, le code de 1804 consacre les solutions les plus dures qu’il était possible d’imaginer à leur encontre. Il n’est plus question d’égalité même tempérée. La situation de ces enfants ne fut améliorée que très lentement pendant 150 ans. Ce mouvement s’est néanmoins accéléré à partir de 1972 pour aboutir à la situation actuelle
Law historians have long ignored the civil law of the French Revolution, pejoratively termed as “intermediate right”. But since the bicentennial of the French Revolution, they have revised their appreciation and highlighted the modernity of this legislation that can now be considered as an anticipation of the contemporary law of the family. This thesis is a contribution to this rehabilitation work.The inheritance law of the old regime was characterized by the inequality of hits rules. The proclamation of civil equality in the Declaration of the Rights of Man of 1789 implied a complete overhaul of this subject. The first two assemblies, the Constituent Assembly and the Legislative Assembly, had only begun this work, removing the most obvious inequalities, the privileges of aeness and masculinity, which was the occasion for discussions on the right to test. It was the Convention that carried out the most important reforms at the height of the Revolution, at a time when ideological tensions were exacerbated. A first draft of the Civil Code was discussed but did not succeed.Pending the drafting of a second amended draft, it was resolved to implement some parts of the first, on matters which seemed particularly urgent. Thus, “appendix articles” of the first Code were implemented by means of two laws. The first is that of 12 Brumaire year II on the rights of natural children, which were essentially inheritance rights. The second is the law of 17 Nivôse year II, on the devolution of inheritance and the equality of shares.Their common feature was to introduce retroactivity into the settlement of estates opened since July 14, 1789, the symbolic date of the advent of freedom, to hasten the implementation of the new principles. . This retroactive effect was then violently criticized , as soon as the political situation tuned around with the elimination of the Robespierrists. Many complaints poured out to show the serious practical inconvenience of this situation.The later legislators returned to this effect, by means of laws which extended from the 9th Fructidor year III, to the 3rd Vendemiaire year IV. The drafters of the Civil Code maintained the principle of equality in the family based on the marriage. But with regard to the children born out of the wedlock, the Code of 1804 devotes the harshest solutions that could be imagined against them. It is no longer a question of even moderate equality. The situation of these children was only very slowly improved for 150 years. However, this movement accelerated from 1972 onwards to current situation

La problématique des successions internationales a, récemment, accédé à l’actualité en Russie après l’ouverture du pays et la libération des échanges privés internationaux. En effet, avec la disparition de l’URSS en 1991, les russes se sont vus ouvrir les frontières, avec la possibilité notamment de développer leur commerce dans une économie mondiale. Ce sont désormais l’ensemble des États qui connaissent une immigration, partagée entre une volonté d’enracinement dans le pays d’accueil, et sinon le désir de retour, du moins la volonté de faire profiter la famille restée dans l’État d’origine de leurs économies. Cette population immigrée souvent vieillit et meurt dans le pays d’accueil. Cette intensification de l’immigration nous montre la nécessité d'une réglementation russe et d’une application claire de cette réglementation dans le domaine des successions internationales. Les règles de conflit russes sont principalement régies par des dispositions de droit interne, car les rares Conventions internationales signées par la Fédération de Russie dans ce domaine sont intentionnellement de nature, soit régionale, soit bilatérale. Pour cette raison, les règles de droit international privé et les règles substantielles russes reflète la spécificité de son système social, économique et juridique. La présente thèse a pour objectif d’étudier ces règles de manière transversale sur toute la matière du droit russe des successions internationales. Les deux principaux axes de cette étude constituent d’une part, la détermination de la loi applicable aux successions internationales, et d’autre part, le domaine d’application de la loi successorale russe. Nous espérons que la thèse sera utile à tous les praticiens qui seront amenés à appliquer le droit international privé russe des successions
The international inheritance issues have recently gained importance in Russia, since the opening of the country and the liberalisation of private international exchanges. Indeed, since 1991, with the URSS disintegration, the Russian nationals began to have their borders open with the possibility to develop their trade in a global economy. As a known phenomenon in all the countries, the immigration is shared between the desire to set down roots in the host country, and unless there is a will to return, at least a desire to have their families left in the original country benefit from their savings. Most of the time, this immigrant population ages and dies in the host country. The rising immigration from and to Russian Federation, illustrates the need of a clear regulation and enforcement in the area of the international inheritance law. The Russian conflict-of-law rules are mainly governed by internal rules, because the few international conventions signed by Russia in this area are deliberately regional or bilateral. For this reason, the rules of Russian private international law and the internal rules reflect the specificity of its social, economic and legal system. This Ph.D. undertakes a global reflexion on the Russian rules of the international inheritance law area. The two main axis of this study are, on the one hand, the determination of the applicable law to the international inheritance and the exploration of the domain of the Russian law applicable to the international inheritance. The aim of this thesis is to bring support to the patricians called to apply the Russian international private law in the area of inheritance

La France est un pays laïc. Son système successoral aussi est d'identité laïque. La loi successorale s'applique à tous les français sans distinction de sexe et de religion. En revanche, le Liban est un pays multiconfessionnel. En matière des statuts personnels dont la succession fait partie, il est soumis aux règles religieuses et civiles. Pour les musulmans libanais, ces règles sont issues du Coran. En revanche, les chrétiens et les juifs libanais appliquent une loi laïque inspirée de l'ancien Code civil français. Face à cette situation, le principe de l'égalité de tous devant la loi- garantie par la constitution libanaise- est loin d'être respecté. Depuis longtemps, le droit français est une source d'inspiration du droit libanais. Tel est le cas du Code des contrats et des obligations libanais qui fut le fruit du travail du doyen JOSSERAND, ce Code étant toujours en vigueur au Liban. Dès lors, comment le législateur libanais peut-il moderniser et réformer les lois religieuses pour qu'elles soient en harmonie avec les autres lois du pays ? L'élaboration d'une loi successorale unique à la lumière du droit français serait-elle possible et souhaitable?
France is a lay country. Thus its laws governing system of estates upon death are ruled by the principle of identity. Such laws apply to all French nationals irrespective of sex and religion. On the contrary, Lebanon is a multi-religious country. As regards matters relating to transmission of property upon death, the lebanese are governed by their religious and civil laws. For a Lebanese Moslem such rules are comprised in the Koran. Christian and Jewish Lebanese are subject to a lay legal system which sprang from French civil code. As a result, the principle of equality- of all before the law- warranted by the Lebanese constitution-is far from respected. For a long while now, French law has been a source of inspiration for Lebanese law. For exemple, the Lebanese contracts and debts code which resulted from the work of Dean JOSSERAND, the said code being still law in Lebanon. This being so, how can the Lebanese law maker modernise and reform the religious laws to bring them in line with the other laws of the country ? Would the elaboration of a unified Lebanese law of transmission of property upon death in the light of French law be feasible ?

This dissertation examines lesbian and queer desire in texts in Catalan and Spanish written in Barcelona, Montevideo, and Buenos Aires from the 1960s to the present. In the texts, desire includes but is not limited to the erotic; it encompasses issues of queer textuality, relationality, and literary transmission. I focus on the works of three authors who have spent the majority of their lives in Barcelona. However, the city appears almost incidentally in their works; the genealogies that the authors trace are transnational. The texts combine literal movement (through exile or diaspora) and a metaphorical sense of being “out of place” that prompts writers to take refuge in writing. I demonstrate that despite depicting affinities beyond the family and nation, the works reveal the persistence of familial and national ties, albeit in spectral or queer ways. Rather than tracing continuous lines of descent that emphasise origins, the works are principally concerned with futurity and fragmentation, as in Michel Foucault’s reading of genealogy. Chapter One on Maria-Mercè Marçal’s La passió segons Renée Vivien (1994) traces a literary genealogy from Sappho to Renée Vivien in fin de siècle Paris to Marçal. The novel represents a merging of literary desire and erotic desire; Marçal’s search for symbolic mothers turns out to be a search for symbolic lovers that is oriented towards the present and future. In Chapter Two, I posit that in Cristina Peri Rossi’s La nave de los locos (1984) “happiness” consists of being open to chance and unpredictability unlike in conventional “happy” scripts in which a valuable life is believed to consist of (heterosexual) marriage, children, and property ownership. In Part II I argue that through fragmentation, allegory, and ambiguity, Peri Rossi’s El libro de mis primos (1969) contests authoritarian discourse without itself becoming a site of hegemonic meaning. In inviting the reader’s collaboration, it ensures authorial legacy. Part I of Chapter Three is an analysis of the temporality of obsession in Flavia Company’s Querida Nélida (1988). I propose that obsession and melancholia may point to a utopian future rather than signalling an entrapment in the past. My study of Melalcor (2000) in Part II suggests that queer forms of relationality that are not centred on procreation and monogamy offer ethical models of sociality. Part III focusses on Company’s return to biological family in Volver antes que ir (2012) and Por mis muertos (2014). The resurgence in these texts of family members who have died signals that just as the queer haunts the family, the family haunts the queer.

碩士
國立成功大學
外國語文學系碩博士班
100
This thesis aims to use a Derridean perspective to explore new postcolonial negotiations with respect to life aporias in Kiran Desai’s The Inheritance of Loss. Examining the genealogy of postcolonial literature, one can find that earlier postcolonial works were mainly focused on issues of anti-colonialism or colonizer-colonized hybridity. However, the new generation of postcolonial writers has veered to emerging problems of multi-transitional postcolonialism in the context of globalization. The postcolonial subjects in the late postcolonial age are thrown into more complicated and subtle cross-border flows—laden with the unresolved past and the unknown future. Life becomes aporetic. In The Inheritance of Loss, Desai successfully brings to view the necessities and difficulties of negotiating these new postcolonial life aporias. Therefore, this novel won her the laurel of the Man Booker Prize in 2006. Under an existent condition as what she depicts, negotiating the non-negotiable for all characters in the story becomes not just an impasse of meaning but also an unbearable duty of life. Derrida’s philosophy of negotiation addresses the idea of aporia, which I believe can help shed a new light on this postcolonial novel. According to Derrida, true aporia, by definition, signifies the impossible of responsibility, as the subject is haunted by the specters of infinite justice for which one cannot be assuaged without the expense of other others’ justice first. Negotiation per se is always enmeshed in aporia. One neither has the option to refuse negotiation nor complies with a social commandment without disrespecting or violating other ethics. Based on this non-negotiable duty, this thesis links the theme of inheritance in Desai’s novel with Derrida’s deconstructive negotiation in terms of violence, indifference and love. That is, how violence is used to against violence, how indifference is concomitant with a fundamental non-indifference, and finally how love is practiced in (and transgresses) the economy of love in Desai’s novel.

碩士
國立成功大學
外國語文學系碩博士班
99
In this thesis, I aim to implement Emmanuel Levinas’ ethical discourse as a means of exploring the ethical subjects and their aporias in Kiran Desai’s The Inheritance of Loss. In this Man Booker Prize winning novel, Desai illustrates the “crumbling, isolated” human condition of a postcolonial “un-belongingness” under the framework of globalization. Looking at the modern-day aporia of inheriting an identity constructed of uncertainty, melancholy, anxiety and even indifference, we see how the question of subjectivity brings forth a need of interconnection with another in order to make sense of life in the era of globalization. Due to postmodernists’ attempt to create a new center through deconstructing the notion of center itself, people are forced to take on an uncanny form of “subject-less” subjectivity. Whereas postcolonial subjects struggle to accept their new hybridity, the idea of subjectivity itself is further disfigured due to the techno-capitalistic demands of globalization. In truth, the uncanniness of being a “stranger-at-home” prevails all. In The Inheritance of Loss, the nature of subjectivity may be perceived as ethical, instead of nihilistic or ontological, overrides language, class, race, and time. Supplementing postcolonial discourses, Levinasian notions of the face, the dwelling, and community provides us with a potential “being-with” resolution that bridges over the troubled waters of globalized postcolonial subjectivity.

碩士
東吳大學
英文學系
101
This thesis is concerned with the predicament of postcolonial identity in terms of the themes of race, class, and gender in Kiran Desai’s The Inheritance of Loss. It has always been an intractable issue for postcolonial subjects to seek for a fixed identity in the context of postcolonial and globalized period. In the novel, Desai utilizes her insightful observation to illustrate how the so-called civilization becomes a catalyst to trigger the natives’ sense of rootlessness and estrangement from their origins, and how their identity are shattered by the obsession with the myth of whiteness. This thesis is divided into five chapters, focusing on the predicament in constructing self-identity and subjectivity by viewing a coterie of western-oriented postcolonial subjects who are trapped between the Western and the native culture. In Chapter One, a brief introduction to the motivation of the thesis, the author and the summary of the novel, and the theories applied to the thesis will be given. The second chapter, by means of Fanon’s postcolonial psychoanalysis theory, aims at examining the predicament of searching for a white identity in the West by analyzing two leading characters, Judge Jemubhai and Biju. In Chapter Three, concept of “subalterns” derived from Spivak will be applied to examine the class conflicts between the privileged group and the underprivileged group both in India and the West. Then, in Chapter Four, the radical feminist thought, especially Kate Millett’s ideas, will be employed to scrutinize how patriarchy has conditioned women to be submissive and inferior to men. Besides, Spviak’s notion of “subaltern” will also be applied to examine how patriarchy and imperialism make the colored women become the double minority. The conclusion will reintegrate the themes of race, class and gender discussed in previous chapters.

碩士
淡江大學
英文學系碩士班
107
This thesis examines unstable cultural identity and how the western culture impacts the local culture in India in the postcolonial era in the novel, The Inheritance of Loss, which is written by Kiran Desai, who sets her novel in India in the postcolonial era when globalization unleash its influence around the world. Thus, in chapter one, this thesis concentrates on the impacts of western culture on the local Indian residents in Kalimpong and the Indians living abroad as illegal immigrants, and investigates the diasporic experiences of two protagonists, the judge and Biju, of two generations both encounter the cultural conflicts and racial discrimination. But their pursuing of wealth and reputation in western countries leads to the loss of their cultural identity. In chapter two, this thesis would like to show the longing for modernity in the postcolonial era and nationalism in India. In Kalimpong, where both the upper class and the lower class immerse in the western culture, neglecting the outside world which has already been in disorder. Although India recovers its political freedom, the social situation in north India is still in the unrest because of the chaotic relations between diverse ethnicities. Desai focuses on the GNLF movement conducted by the Nepalese, who suffer from inequality in India sovereignty. In the last chapter, this thesis explores one female protagonist, Sai. A sixteen-year-old girl, who is a hybridity of both Indian culture and western culture. This young girl does not mind the differences of class and culture, who thus becomes the character with the potential to cross the border between different classes, nations and cultures.

The main objective of this research project is to analyse how the novels The God of Small Things (1997) by Arundhati Roy and The Inheritance of Loss (2006) by Kiran Desai can help readers and scholars construct an idea of India and of the Indian cultural identity. In order to develop this theory it is necessary to look into three aspects which are crucial to the building of knowledge on a nation, its culture and people and these are, national history, identity and cultural representation through different artistic production, including fictional narratives. Historical processes are the key to the unfolding of present circumstances and fundamental to the construction of a national identity that makes sense collectively. However, the perceptions of the past change according to philosophical and ideological trends, placing historical objectivity in the hands of its subjective counterpart. It is cultural theory and how it evolves in simultaneity with the world and its social, political, economic and technological development that in effect dictates the forms and expressions that give shape to societies, nations and identities. The function of narrative whether as text, visual arts, film, architecture, dance and other creative expressions of the self, is to tell a story. And every moment of every living being can be told in a story. History too is a story and though in the past it focused mostly on the grand deeds of the European nations, with postcolonialism new stories began to emerge, revealing a world of diversity and deconstructing traditional views of the shaping of the past and the power relations involved. However, this new approach to the historical, cultural and political dialectic was achieved through the effect of the postcolonial narrative which used Western forms and structures, such as the novel and the English language, to achieve its aim. This appropriation of language and form resulted in an inversion of power relations as a cultural metaphor. For the purpose of such a debate, the present dissertation focuses on the two novels by Roy and Desai and is divided into three main sections each of which deals with one approach to the thesis. The first chapter contains the historical approach, in the second I discuss postcolonial theory and the third analyses the relation between anthropology and fiction.
O objectivo principal deste projecto é de analisar como através dos romances The God of Small Things (1997) de Arundhati Roy e The Inheritance of Loss (2006) de Kiran Desai é possível construir uma ideia da Índia e da identidade cultural Indiana. O desenvolvimento desta teoria implica a análise e o estudo de três aspectos fundamentais para o conhecimento mais aprofundado de uma nação, a sua cultura, e as suas pessoas. São estes a história nacional, a identidade e a sua representação cultural através da produção artística, da qual as narrativas fazem parte. Os processos históricos são primordiais como chave para o desenrolar das circunstâncias presentes e fundamentais para a construção de uma identidade nacional com um sentido do colectivo. No entanto, percepções do passado mudam consoante as tendências filosóficas e ideológicas que as nações atravessam, colocando a objetividade histórica à mercê da sua contraparte subjectiva. Portanto, é a evolução da teoria cultural em sintonia com o desenvolvimento social, político, económico e tecnológico do mundo que determina as formas e expressões que definem as sociedades, as nações e as identidades. A função da narrativa enquanto texto, artes visuais, filme, arquitectura, dança ou outra manifestação cultural criativa, é o contar de uma história. A disciplina de história também conta uma história. E embora no passado a história ocidental focasse principalmente os grandes acontecimentos das nações Europeias, com o pós-colonialismo novas histórias surgiram revelando a importância de um mundo de diversidade, servindo para desconstruir visões estáticas da história e das relações de poder. Esta nova abordagem à dialética histórica, cultural e política foi conseguida através do efeito das narrativas pós-coloniais que fizeram uso de formas e estruturas ocidentais como o romance e a língua inglesa para atingir os seus objectivos e alcançar um público mais amplo. A apropriação da língua e da forma resultou numa inversão de poderes transformando-a em metáfora cultural. Este debate foca-se nos dois romances de Roy e Desai e está repartido por três secções principais, onde em cada uma é desenvolvido um dos ângulos de abordagem desta tese. O primeiro capítulo contém uma abordagem histórica, o segundo é uma discussão da teoria póscolonial e no terceiro é analisada a relação entre a antropologia e a ficção.

The available sources on the dependency action in South Africa do not mention the presence or absence of traditional values. This study was prompted by a simple curiosity to discover the traditional legal values of the dependency action for loss of support. Accordingly, the study critically examines the action of dependants for loss of support and other related losses in South Africa, Botswana and Lesotho from an African perspective. It then compares this to its application in Australia, a country that is known for its recognition and inclusion of indigenous Australian customary law. The study recommends that traditional values should be preserved in the records of the legal system, as it might stimulate a discussion, which could lead to the culmination of a single dependency action tailored to fit the whole nation and all its different cultures and religions.
Private Law

碩士
國立中正大學
外國文學所
97
Clare Savage, the protagonist in Abeng and No Telephone to Heaven, is raised in completely ignorance of her maternal culture and history. This is a thesis exploring Clare’s loss through distorted mother-daughter relationship. To explain Kitty’s inattentive mothering and silence, Clare must familiarize herself with the culture Kitty never shares. Jamaica becomes an available mother figure to fix Clare’s broken mother-daughter bound. By studying Jamaica culturally and historically, Clare resumes the hidden maternal inheritance. This paper is divided into three sections. The social and historical background is introduced in chapter one. How Clare’s maternal heritage is lost through the distorted mother-daughter relationship is explored in chapter two. Studies of Nancy Chodorow and Adrienne Rich are used to examine Miss Mattie and Kitty’s relationship. Psychoanalysis is applied to analyze Kitty and Clare’s mother-daughter bound. Clare targets three substitutions for her lost motherhood. Those are Black racial preference, London and Jamaica. Miss Winifred, Bobby and Harry/Harriet inspire Clare to reclaim her lost maternal inheritance irrespectively. Jamaica successfully replaces late Kitty to heal Clare. By re-studying Jamaica culturally and historically, Clare knows the root of her distorted mother-daughter bound. Resistance lost alone with silence is found. Clare’s hidden maternal inheritance is resumed.

碩士
國立臺灣師範大學
應用華語文學系
102
“Grouping of overseas Chinese” is the community organized by expatriates in host country based on their interests, beliefs, geo-relations, or blood-relations. The main purpose of the groups is to fulfill individual interest or accomplish group’s ideal. Besides,it also could build up good relations for expatriates and give them much attention. According to the statistics for 2012 from Overseas Chinese Affairs Commission, there are 5,233 overseas Chinese communities around the world in total, groups in United States accounts for up to 53.6 percent of all groupings. However, as immigration social structure and the adjustment of policy change community of overseas Chinese changes, generation inheritance problem especially come into view. Therefore, the main object of this study is youth groupings of overseas Chinese in Los Angeles County. And the purpose of this study is to research the following points: 1. To understand the establishment and development of the youth groupings of overseas Chinese in Los Angeles County. 2. To get an insight view of the needs of generation inheritance from every type of groupings of overseas Chinese in Los Angeles County. 3. To discover the limitations and constraints for the development of the youth groupings of overseas Chinese in Los Angeles County. 4. According to the result, provides strategies for solutions for relevant organizations. The author has interviewed five leaders of groupings of overseas Chinese in Los Angeles County, two experts, and also did a survey towards 122 youths of overseas Chinese in Los Angeles County. The author concluded the problems that those groupings face are as following: 1. Lack of methods to recruit new members. 2. Lack of motives for new members to extend or continue the period to stay in the groupings. 3. Lack of model for youth leader training. Base upon the above statements, the author suggests that: 1. The coping strategies of overseas Chinese affairs agencies are to counseling and propagating related publicity to youth groupings, learn success experiences and help other groupings’ operation, integrating resources to hold the whole overseas joint activities of youth organizations, design outreach activities to link volunteer youth culture camp, give assistance for youth of overseas Chinese to set up community and track the developments regularly. 2. The coping strategies of groupings of overseas Chinese are to break the language barrier, improve the content of activities, enhance the status of youths in the groupings and utilize network platform to convey resources and enhance contact.

Contemporary Canadian prairie women poets write about the mother figure to counter maternal suppression and the homogenization of maternal representations in literature. Critics, like Marianne Hirsch and Andrea O’Reilly, insist that mothers tell their own stories, yet many mothers are unable to. Daughter and mother stories, Jo Malin argues, overlap. The mother “becomes a subject, or rather an ‘intersubject’” in the text (2). Literary depictions of daughter-mother or mother-child intersubjectivities, however, are not confined to auto/biographical or fictional narratives. As a genre and potential site for representing maternal subjectivities, poetry continues to reside on the margins of motherhood studies and literary criticism. In the following chapters, I examine the writing strategies of selected poets and their representations of mothers specific to three transformative occasions: mourning mother-loss, becoming a mother, and reclaiming a maternal lineage. Several daughter-poets adapt the elegy to remember their deceased mothers and to maintain a connection with them. In accord with Tanis MacDonald and Priscila Uppal, these poets resist closure and interrogate the past. Moreover, they counter maternal absence and preserve her subjectivity in their texts. Similarly, a number of mother-poets begin constructing their mother-child (self-other) relationship prior to childbirth. Drawing on Lisa Guenther’s notions of “birth as a gift of the feminine other” and welcoming the stranger (49), as well as Emily Jeremiah’s link between “‘maternal’ mutuality” and writing and reading practices (“Trouble” 13), I investigate poetic strategies for negotiating and engaging with the “other,” the unborn/newborn and the reader. Other poets explore and interweave bits of stories, memories, dreams and inklings into their own motherlines, an identification with their matrilineage. Poetic discourse(s) reveal the limits of language, but also attest to the benefits of extra-linguistic qualities that poetry provides. The poets I study here make room for the interplay of language and what lies beyond language, engaging the reader and augmenting perceptions of the maternal subject. They offer new ways of signifying maternal subjectivities and relationships, and therefore contribute to the ongoing research into the ever-changing relations among maternal and cultural ideologies, mothering and feminisms, and regional women’s literatures.
May 2016