Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Literature-strong'

This thesis considers the use of Young Adult Chicana Literature in the classroom to help young Chicanas work through their process of finding their identities. It begins by making the case that Chicana identities are complex because of their intersectional borderland positioning between Mexican and U.S. American cultures, which makes the identity formation process more difficult for them than others. By relating these complex issues facing young Chicanas to literature that is more relevant to them and their struggles, it is argued that teachers can help ease some of the tensions that exist within their students and help them work more easily through the identity issues they may be facing. This text engages in an analysis of two pieces of Young Adult Chicana Literature, Sandra Cisneros’ The House on Mango Street and Isabel Quintero’s Gabi, A Girl in Pieces, through the critical lens of autohistoria-teoría to argue that because the forms of these novels follow this pattern of theorizing through experience and reflection, they can be of critical assistance in helping young Chicanas work through their own experiences and issues. Finally, this thesis moves into my own autohistoria-teoría in which I reflect on my own experiences with the identity formation process and how recognition of myself in literature played a critical role in my own process, and how the overwhelming lack of this type of literature stunted my identity formation process.

This dissertation joins a vibrant conversation in the social sciences about the challenging nature of care labor as well as feminist discussions about the role of the daughter in Victorian culture. It explores the literary presence of the middle class managing daughter in the Victorian home. Collectively, the novels in this study articulate social anxieties about the unclear and unstable role of daughters in the family, the physically and emotionally challenging work they, and all women, do, and the struggle for daughters to find a place in a family hierarchy, which is often structured not by effort or affection, but by proscribed traditional roles, which do not easily adapt to managing daughters, even if they are the ones holding the family together. The managing daughter is a problem not accounted for in any conventional domestic structure or ideology so there is no role, no clear set of responsibilities and no boundaries that could, and arguably should, define her obligations, offer her opportunities for empowerment, or set necessary limits on the broad cultural mandate she has to comfort and care others. The extremes she is often pushed to reveals the stresses and hidden conflicts for authority and autonomy inherent in domestic labor without the iconic angel in the house rhetoric that so often masks the difficulties of domestic life for women. She gains no authority or stability no matter how loving or even how necessary she is to a family because there simply is no position in the parental family structure for her. The managing daughter thus reveals a deep crack in the structure of the traditional Victorian family by showing that it often cannot accommodate, protect, or validate a loving non-traditional family member because it values traditional hierarchies over emotion or effort. Yet, in doing so, it also suggests that if it is position not passion that matters, then as long as a woman assumes the right position in the family then deep emotional connections to others are not necessary for her to care competently for others.

This thesis concerns the function of fiction in the creation of an historical myth and the uses that that myth is put to in a number of periods and differing régimes. Its case study is the popular myth of August the Strong (1670-1733), Elector of Saxony and King of Poland, as a man of extraordinary sexual prowess and the ruler over a magnificent, but frivolous, court in Dresden. It examines the origins of this myth in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century, and its development up to the twenty-first century in German history writing, fiction, art, and media. The image August created for himself in the art, literature, and festivities of his court as an ideal ruler of extremely broad cultural and intellectual interests and high political ambitions and abilities linked him closely with eighteenth-century notions of galanterie. This narrowed the scope of his image later, especially as nineteenth-century historians selected fictional sources and interpreted them as historical sources to present August as an immoral political failure. Although nineteenth-century popular writers exhibited a more varied response to August’s historical role, the negative historiography continued to resonate in later history writing. Ironically, the myth of August the Strong represented an opportunity in the GDR in creating and fostering a sense of identity, first as a socialist state with historical and cultural links to the east, and then by examining Prusso-Saxon history as a uniquely (East) German issue. Finally, the thesis examines the practice of historical re-enactment as it is currently employed in a number of variations on German TV and in literature, and its impact on historical knowledge. The thesis concludes that, while narrative forms are necessary to history and fiction, and fiction is a necessary part of presenting history, inconsistent combinations of the two can undermine the projects of both.

<p>The aim with this essay is to compare strong girls in classic and modern literature and see how the differences in expectations on these girls are reflected in literature. This study is done with the aid of historical, feminist and new criticism.</p>

Jorge Luis Borges's story "El Zahir" describes a moment where the protagonist finds rest from his monomania by reworking one of the central texts in Old Germanic myth, the story of Sigurd and Brynhild. The approach taken here by the protagonist is the paradigm used in this thesis for understanding Borges's own strong readings of Old Germanic literature, specifically Old Scandinavian texts. In chapter one, a brief outline of the myth of Sigurd and Brynhild, with a particular emphasis on Gram, the sword that lied between them, is provided and juxtaposed with Borges's own family history, focusing on the family's storied military past. This image of the sword as the symbol for the north and its relation to Borges's family and political interests is sustained throughout the thesis. Chapter two is a survey of the various facets of Borges's literary output that were influenced by Nordic myth and literary styles: first, literary criticism, second, poetry and prose, and third, translation. The survey shows that Borges's engagement with the north began early and was maintained throughout his life. Likewise, after working through seven works from disparate periods it becomes clear that Borges is not merely introducing the Spanish speaking world to Old Scandinavian texts, but, in the same fashion as the protagonist in "El Zahir," subsuming them in a way that is uniquely Borgesian. The third chapter follows the same approach as the survey but focuses on Borges's short stories, specifically two short stories from his collection entitled Libro de Arena: "Ulrica" and "Undr." Many of the conclusions that emerged in the survey are further validated in the analysis of these two stories, but with greater emphasis on how they relate to Borges's later years, and the themes that begin to surround his preparation for death. The concluding chapter summarizes the findings of the previous three chapters by way of a close reading of Borges's tombstone. Each aspect of the stone is connected to Old Germanic myth and how that symbolized the eventual consummation of his joy: the sword that kept him separated from love was eventually lifted, as it was for Ulrica and Javier in "Ulrica."

During the late 1970s and 1980s, feminist critics like Janice Radway began to reconsider so-called women’s genres, like romance novels and soap operas and melodramas, in order to address the forms of subversion and expressions of agency they provided female audiences. However, in spite of greater willingness to consider the progressive potential in romance narratives, there has been little such consideration given to stories of romance for the fighting female character—defined as a protagonist who uses violence, via her body or weapons, to save herself and others. The fighting female has received a good deal of attention from critics like Yvonne Tasker, Sherrie Inness, Rikke Schubart, and Phillipa Gates because she enacts transgressive forms of femininity. However, the typical response has been to ignore the intimate or romantic relationships she has with men or to critique them based on the assumption that such hetero-relationships automatically limit her agency and attenuate her representation as a feminist-friendly heroine. This view presumes that female empowerment opposes or can only be imagined outside the dominant cultural narratives that generally organize women’s lives around their hetero-relationships—whether sexual or platonic, familial or vocational. As I argue, some fighting female relationship narratives merit our attention because they reveal a new cache of plausible empowered female identities that women negotiate through their intimacies and romances with men. These negotiations, in turn, enable innovative representations of male-female relationships that challenge long-standing cultural scripts about the nature of dominance and subordination in such relationships. Combining cultural analysis with close readings of key popular American film and television texts since the 1980s, my dissertation argues that certain fighting female relationship themes question regressive conventions in male-female intimacies and reveal potentially progressive ideologies regarding female agency in mass culture. In essence, certain fighting female relationship narratives project feminist-friendly love fantasies that reassure audiences of the desirability of empowered women while also imagining egalitarian intimacies that further empower women.

This thesis discusses Langston Hughes’ poetry and details the African-American experience in a discriminatory society which was an essential theme of the Harlem Renaissance. The Harlem Renaissance was a cultural and artistic movement which enriched American life. Hughes’ body of work covers the entire range of the human experience, especially the experience of ordinary people. He believed that the role of the artist was to cover and illuminate every aspect of people’s lives. Part of this expansive philosophy towards art included giving a voice to African-American women and men who experienced both racist and patriarchal oppression.

The daughter of a Mohawk chief and an English immigrant, Pauline Johnson had an unusual childhood which exposed her to Shakespeare and Byron, as well as to her Mohawk grandfather's ancient stories. Her writing reflected her parents' optimism and belief that her dual heritage was the beginning of a new world in which native values and abilities would be integrated as important contributions to Canadian society as a whole. For nearly seventeen years Johnson toured Canada, the United States, and England, reciting her own poetry and adding her own humorous observations. Aware that her special draw to her audiences was her native heritage, Johnson assumed the stage persona of "The Mohawk Princess," and wore a buckskin dress, moccasins, a bearclaw necklace, and other accouterments as she recited angry poems protesting white treatment of native peoples. In the second half of her performance, however, she changed into an evening gown, thereby subverting her audience's expectation of the stereotyped identity, "Indian." Although her performances succeeded in disrupting, for an evening, the dominant colonial discourse, she was ultimately co-opted as a sentimental trope and today is often dismissed as a serious writer. However, such dismissal overlooks the fact that Pauline Johnson was the first and only native writer to make her living from her writing. During the four years between her retirement from the recital platform and her death in 1913, she produced more than 80 short stories that appeared in national magazines. This dissertation examines examples of the colonial discourse of her contemporaries and Johnson's response to such discourse for clues to her current near-exclusion from the Native American literary canon.

The dissertation confronts these dual questions: What theory of rhetoric would serve a multicultural democracy? How might such a theory be taught in a first-year composition program? I argue that democratic negotiations are rhetorical, as groups vie to control definitions of themselves, each other, and the "proper" relationships among people, and that rhetoric shapes what people consider to be "knowledge" and "truth." Because hidden ideologies influence the rhetoric people find convincing, people need methods for reflecting critically on their own locations. I argue that one method of developing this reflection is to seek to understand the positions of oppressed peoples, as those positions may reveal assumptions embedded in dominant rhetorical patterns. I also argue that a rhetoric for democracy must be committed to action, not just self-reflection and analysis. I call my theory "strong rhetoric." In the remainder of the dissertation I consider how to apply strong rhetoric in pedagogical contexts, and I perform the kind of self-reflection that strong rhetoric demands by noting how my own contexts have influenced my theory. In chapter two I contemplate the role of a teacher in a democratic classroom and offer "liberation morality"--the critique of inequitable distributions of power--as a strategy to convince students of the value of strong rhetoric. In chapter three I critique four curricula designed to teach civic rhetoric, and I argue that teachers must present ideology as more than partisan politics, advocate action as the goal of rhetoric, discuss the limits of democracy defined as a public forum, and treat students as knowledge-makers and citizens. In chapter four, I discuss my involvement in the the University of Arizona's curriculum revision and make explicit that research and revision are integral to strong rhetoric. I also argue that a pedagogy for strong rhetoric must confront the tensions of establishing the classroom as "community." In chapter five I show how teaching assistants at the University of Arizona translated complex rhetorical concepts into essay assignments. Recognizing that teachers need to simplify strong rhetoric to present it in a one-semester course, I model the analysis teachers might use to determine which elements of strong rhetoric to teach.

This thesis addresses a chapter titled Lienü zhuan, or Arrayed Traditions of Women from Fan Ye's (398-446) Hou Han shu, or Book of Later Han as starting point to challenge the prevailing image of early Chinese women as helpless victims of an oppressive Confucian society. The women represented therein behave as purposeful, active participants in the creation of Eastern Han social mores. Most remarkably, they can be interpreted as agents defining their social roles as wives and daughters. Chapter One focuses on the historiography of the Hou Han shu, generally, and the Lienü zhuan, in particular, and formulates some hypotheses about the extent of Fan Ye's own creative input in the process of compiling his Lienü zhuan. Chapter Two investigates previous scholarship on the genre of biographies of women and proposes a theoretical model for reading the biographies of women found in Hou Han shu based on notions of ritual discussed by Catherine Bell and by the collaboration between Seligman, Weller, Puett, and Simon. In order to gain further insight into the women represented in the text, Chapter Three analyzes the social, economic, and literary background of the seventeen women included in the text. These findings on the commonalities and differences in marital status, economic situation, political influence, literacy, and education are put to use in Chapter Four, which applies the ideas on ritualization to the social roles the women in Fan Ye's text perform as wives and daughters. The thesis ends with a partial translation of the Hou Han shu lienü zhuan chapter into English.<br>Cette thèse traite d'un chapitre intitulé Lienü zhuan, ou Traditions arranges des femmes, du livre de Fan Ye (398-446) Hou Han shu, ou le Livre de Han postérieur, comme point de départ utile pour défier l'image dominante des femmes de la Chine antique où elles sont perçues comme des victimes impuissantes d'une société confucéenne oppressive. Les femmes dépeintes dans ce texte adoptent une attitude déterminée, participant pleinement à la création des codes sociaux de la dynastie Han orientale. Fait remarquable, ces femmes définissent elles-mêmes leur rôle social en tant qu'épouses et filles. Le premier chapitre met l'emphase sur l'historiographie des Hou Han shu, en général, et le Lienü zhuan, en particulier. Il s'agit aussi d'émettre des hypothèses sur la démarche créative de Fan Ye dans sa compilation de biographies des femmes. Le deuxième chapitre s'attarde sur les études existantes concernant les biographies de femmes et suggère une approche théorique dans la lecture de ce genre littéraire dans Hou Han shu basée sur les notions de la ritualisation tel que discutées par Catherine Bell et par la collaboration de Seligman, Weller, Puett, et Simon. Le troisième chapitre analyse en profondeur le fond social, économique et littéraire des 17 femmes décrites dans le texte. Le quatrième chapitre met en évidence les différences et les similitudes entre le statut marital, la situation économique, l'influence politique, l'instruction aussi bien que l'éducation. Dans ce chapitre, on retrouve aussi les notions de rituel du rôle social des femmes en tant qu'épouses et filles. La thèse se termine par une traduction partielle en anglais du chapitre Hou Han shu lienü zhuan.

Thesis (M.A.)--Georgia State University, 2008.<br>Title from file title page. Pearl McHaney, committee chair; Stephen Dobranski, Nancy Chase, committee members. Electronic text (71 p.) : digital, PDF file. Description based on contents viewed July 2, 2008. Includes bibliographical references (p. 63-71).

This paper considers the influences of fate and free will in J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series. Current scholarship on the topic generally agrees that Rowling champions free will by allowing her characters learning opportunities through their choices. By using Friedrich Nietzsche’s philosophy on fate and free will and by more closely examining the Harry Potter texts, this paper demonstrates fate’s stronger presence in Rowling’s fictional world. Certain strong-willed characters rise above their peers’ fated states by embracing their personal fates and exercising their wills to create themselves within fated destinies. The paper also explores the possibility of an authority directing fate.

Donna J. Haraway ist eine US-amerikanische Biologin, Wissenschaftsphilosophin und Literaturwissenschaftlerin, die an den Departments History of Consciousness und Feminist Studies der University of California lehrte. In dieser Position hatte sie die erste explizit der Feministischen Theorie gewidmete Professur in den USA inne. Haraways Arbeiten bewegen sich in einem thematischen Schnittfeld von feministischer Erkenntniskritik, Cultural Studies, politischer Theorie und Biowissenschaften.

Donna J. Haraway ist eine US-amerikanische Biologin, Wissenschaftsphilosophin und Literaturwissenschaftlerin, die an den Departments History of Consciousness und Feminist Studies der University of California lehrte. In dieser Position hatte sie die erste explizit der Feministischen Theorie gewidmete Professur in den USA inne. Haraways Arbeiten bewegen sich in einem thematischen Schnittfeld von feministischer Erkenntniskritik, Cultural Studies, politischer Theorie und Biowissenschaften.