Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Supernatural in history'

History
M.A.
Spiritualism was a popular cultural movement that flourished in the late-19th century across the United States and eventually Europe. While there were many facets of its philosophy, the primary conviction behind Spiritualism was that spirits of the dead could communicate with the living through human mediums. Although this basic definition of Spiritualism is virtually uncontested in contemporary scholarship, the cultural causes of the movement remain a highly debated topic. Historians have proposed a variety of theories for Spiritualism's inception, but none have yet to explore the economic motivations behind the movement. Spiritualism was, in fact, a vital commercial enterprise that spurred entrepreneurial and consumption opportunities for thousands of nascent capitalists. During the movement's prime, a host of Spiritualist merchandise was mass produced and marketed, including talking boards, spirit photographs, séances, and planchettes. Together, these products were produced and consumed in what became an "economy of the supernatural"--a thriving industry based on the desire to communicate with deceased humans. Through analysis of product advertisements and opinions raised about the issue found in mass media, this thesis will demonstrate that economic motivation was behind every aspect of Spiritualist practice. No part of the movement was left untouched by the desire for financial gain. Furthermore, this thesis argues that while various cultural forces influencing Spiritualism would diminish over time, the movement was able to sustain itself through the development of an economy of supernatural products and services, many of which continue to be produced to this very day.
Temple University--Theses

Thesis advisor: Frederick G. Lawrence
Whose Kingdom Shall Have No End: Christ and History in Friedrich Schleiermacher's Glaubenslehre and Christliche Sittenlehre By: Kevin M. Vander Schel Advisor: Frederick G. Lawrence The present study offers an investigation into the relationship between the influence of Christ and the development of human history in the dogmatic writings of Friedrich Schleiermacher. In contrast to the lingering caricature of Schleiermacher as pioneering a liberal theology of subjective feeling, this study portrays his work as an innovative theological proposal uniting a strong christological emphasis with a unique understanding of historical development. In the face of the dominant opposition between the schools of Rationalism and Supernaturalism in the Protestant theology of his own time, Schleiermacher worked out an alternative historically-conscious theological approach. His dogmatic writings consider the Christian church as a distinctive historical community proceeding from the originative redemptive influence of Christ. This initial appearance of Christ the Redeemer in history he regards as something relatively supernatural, an event irreducible to previous circumstances that introduces a new and higher manner of human living. Yet after this remarkable beginning, he describes Christ's originative influence as entirely mediated by historical and natural means. Schleiermacher thus envisions Christ's influence in human history as a gradual transformation from within. His dogmatic theology describes the emergence of the Reign of God, a development that does not oppose or interrupt natural and historical development but works in and through it to bring the created world to its completion. Schleiermacher indicates this dynamic in his dogmatic theology through the descriptive motif of the supernatural-becoming-natural. This study examines this theme both in Schleiermacher's well-known Christian Faith, or Glaubenslehre, and also in his unfinished and still partially unpublished lectures on Christian Ethics (Christliche Sittenlehre). This study comprises six chapters and is divided into three parts. The first part considers two aspects of the historical context underlying Schleiermacher's dogmatic theology. Chapter one considers the dispute between the theological schools of Rationalism and Supranaturalism in early nineteenth-century Protestant theology and describes Schleiermacher's own approach as offering a distinct alternative to these two options. Chapter two treats Schleiermacher's role in establishing the theological faculty at the newly founded University of Berlin and his conception of theology as a historically-conscious and positive science that borrows from other university disciplines and employs them in service of its Christian conviction. Schleiermacher's presentation of this theological method, in his Brief Outline, informs the later dogmatic work of his Glaubenslehre and Christliche Sittenlehre. Part two considers Schleiermacher's treatment of the influence of Christ in history in his Glaubenslehre. Chapter three presents the formal aspects of this theme in the work's introduction and in the reflections upon the general relationship of God and world in its first part. Writing in conscious distinction from the Rationalist and Supranaturalist schools, Schleiermacher describes the higher influence of Christ through the descriptive strategy of the supernatural-becoming-natural. Chapter four describes the material development of this theme in the work's second part. The higher influence of Christ, which continues in the Spirit, produces the new collective life in the church as a community of grace, set apart from the sinful world and destined to spread over the entire human race. The progression of this new life coincides with the emergence and growth of the Reign of God. Part three treats Schleiermacher's reflections on the historical influence of Christ in his unpublished lectures on Christliche Sittenlehre. Chapter five considers this theme in the formal arrangement of this work, once again operating under the descriptive motif of the supernatural-becoming-natural. The Christliche Sittenlehre treats the distinctively Christian action that results from the higher influence of Christ, which becomes manifest in threefold form: first, as presentational action (darstellendes Handeln) that reflects the enduring blessedness of fellowship with Christ; then, in two modes of effective action, as purifying (reinigendes) and propagative (verbreitendes). Chapter six then considers the material development of these three kinds of Christian action. Schleiermacher's treatment of these three modes of Christian action depicts the increasing permeation and elevation of human historical action through the influence of Christ and the Spirit. In similar fashion to the Glaubenslehre, then, Schleiermacher's Christliche Sittenlehre portrays the new life originating in Christ as the completion and perfection of human action in the emerging reality of the Reign of God
Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2012
Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences
Discipline: Theology

Each panelist has chosen an artifact (or type, genre, etc.) from the recent past and interrogated its role as an influence on contemporary popular culture, working to show the linkage between then and now. This type of work is underappreciated and we would like to attempt to show how informing ourselves on popular culture past can make us better critics in the present. Our hope is to inspire others to take up that cause as well. In that spirit, we would like to encourage people to come prepared to discuss ideas and share their own work in a workshop type environment.

The fantastic stands as an important part of Chinese culture. It is in fact through its literature that it has been made possible for us to enjoy this heritage. With the study of fantastic tales and anomaly accounts, this thesis tackles the problem of rationalism in relation with supernatural. It attempts to understand the mechanisms of the intermingling of the concepts of fiction and history, through the comparison of Chinese historical and fictional texts, as well as parallels between China and Europe. It will also deal with the concepts of nature, in both the perspectives of China and Europe, and the Enlightenment.

This thesis analyzes eight specific Swedish medieval ballads that contain supernatural transformation and hybridity for how they depict gender in late medieval and early modern contexts. Using literature as a historical resource and a micro-historical approach, this thesis applies gender theory, intersectional approaches, and monster theory to its reading of these ballads. Through this analysis, this thesis has found that transformation in these ballads highlights what it meant to be human in the late medieval and early modern periods, by contrasting and defining humanness through the tension of being a hybrid. And inevitably, discussions of the body during these periods involved having a gendered body. While these stories define what was human and what was not, they discuss and negotiate late medieval and early modern conceptions of masculinity and femininity. Additionally, the conflicts in these stories introduce real-life issues such as power, violence, and social roles. Characters in these ballads negotiate gender and social roles by subverting and upholding societal power structures. A woman acts independently and marries a snake against her family’s wishes. Wives use magic to upend the social hierarchy usurp their husbands’ authority. Father’s roles as protectors are both questioned and underlined in stories of their failures. This thesis concludes that late medieval and early modern audiences had many different understandings of gender, and these audiences used supernatural transformation ballads as a means of communicating complex and contradictory elements of identity and gender during this period.

A fictional novel utilizing third person limited narration from the perspective of the primary character, Ilya Kollide, who narrates the story as though it were happening in his head as it occurred, with frequent embellishments. He has come to live near an old mansion on the Trans-Siberian Railroad, named Neimasaurus, to find an antiquated, dusty world of faded aristocracy. Temporarily orphaned at the age sixteen by the recent death of his parents, he has traveled four thousand miles to live with his last living relative, an uncle named Demetri, whom he has never met. The year is 1990, only this is not a world where the rule of the Tsar was supplanted by the Soviet Union. Instead, it is a logical exploration of what Russia might resemble, had communism never taken root. While the fantastical may or may not occur, depending upon how the reader chooses to interpret the point of view of the narrator, the setting in and of itself is not meant to be fantastical. Ilya discovers that all the servants who work there are deaf, as is his uncle and his own now deceased parents, whom he carries around in an urn after mixing their ashes together. While working at the great estate of the Neimasaurus family, Ilya discovers a surprising numbers of stories and people who both parallel his own experiences and serve as allegorical warnings toward his future mistakes in life. He becomes obsessed with the idea that he is to blame for his parents' death and sets out on a quest to bring redemption to the wounded inhabitants of the estate, only to discover that not everyone wants to be helped. In fact, they want him dead. They see him as an allegory, just as he sees them. To the young man Shoji Yamano, Ilya represents everything he was, and can no longer be. As such a reflection, he resolves to shatter Ilya like a mirror. The novel charts Ilya's personal growth from a neurotic wreck, incapable of normal interaction with people, to a young man capable of not just self-sacrifice, but an understanding of what it actually means to literally sacrifice himself for the well-being of someone he barely knows. He learns to value time spent with others rather than dwelling within a narcissistic and lonely fantasy world.?
M.F.A.
Masters
English
Arts and Humanities
Creative Writing

The relationship between ballet and fairy tale is by no means a new or unique discovery—to either dance history or literary studies. However, aside from relatively brief mentions of ballets as examples of fairy-tale adaptation, ballet's relevance to fairy-tale studies has been somewhat undervalued. While scholars often relegate ballet to a smaller part in fairy tale's influence through the performing arts, fairy-tale ballet deserves to have its own, independent academic conversation because ballet contributes uniquely to both fairy-tale history and canon. Ballet can be credited with both giving new life to an old tale and creating a brand new one through an amalgamation of formalistic fairy-tale motifs and figures—particularly when it comes to female figures. Through an analysis of nineteenth-century Romanticism, fairy-tale form, and the narratives created by three of the most famous fairy bride ballets--La Sylphide, Giselle, and Swan Lake--we can distinguish how Romantic ballet affects fairy-tale studies because of the special conditions this "feminized" art placed on narrative and character. The pervasion of the fairy bride character and motif in ballet indicates a potentially unique tale type, and these three fairy brides together reveal a different dimension to our view of female fairy-tale characters by actively shaping their own stories according to Romantic values that place them outside of traditional fairy-tale roles. Thus, fairy-tale ballets significantly substantiate Romantic imagination beyond the bounds of literary form, and therefore both emphasize and nuance the fairy-tale female paradigm by making unique contributions to the fairy-tale canon.

Fisher of Men tells the story of an ancient and secretive group of supernatural balance keepers. When God goes missing, it is up to them to locate him before the armies of Heaven and Hell lay siege to the earth, but they have their own problems. When knowledge of a secret weapon surfaces, they are tasked to find it and destroy it before it falls into the hands of either side. The secret weapon is Charitie Newman, a young woman from rural Indiana who moved to New Orleans with her sister. Charitie has special abilities that have no limits, and after her sister is brutally murdered, she agrees to join forces with the group in order to find God--and her sister's murderer.

The thesis consists of the novel The Fox and the Mirror and an accompanying exegesis. The novel is an historical fantasy set in a world based on early medieval (12-13th century) Japan. The main characters are a young female shaman, Hatsu, and a young warrior’s assistant, Sada, who is a Buddhist believer. When Hatsu’s village and shrine are destroyed by warriors and her summoning mirror is stolen, she is abandoned by her kami . To experience the kami’s presence again, she must follow the thief and retrieve the mirror before it can be used to resurrect an ancient evil. Sada must capture Hatsu and bring her back to his lord, or his family will suffer. Yet he is entranced by Hatsu and feels guilt at the destruction of her village. He must choose whether to abandon his former life and stay with Hatsu, or betray her. In the novel I have tried to invoke the feel of a place and time where the supernatural is as real as the physical world; I also try to imagine how a religion as alien to Japanese native beliefs as Buddhism became a part of that country’s spiritual culture. In the exegesis I reflect upon how I used various kinds of history, both written and unwritten, to build the world, characters and narratives of The Fox and the Mirror, and thereby explore some ways in which historical fantasy, as a sub-genre of historical fiction, is capable of presenting an ‘authentic’ view of the past, in spite of its non-realistic nature. I identify three main ways historical fantasy writers can provide an authentic view of the past: by using telling details from an historical era; by incorporating documented events and persons into the story; and by portraying the world as people in the past believed it to be. Historical fantasy is different from realistic historical fiction in that it can more easily incorporate elements belonging to shared cultural heritage, such as beliefs regarding the dead and the supernatural. This characteristic involves writers in research using material that involves other ways of knowing the past—in particular the expressions of belief such as religion, popular customs, folk tales, and oral history. With the broadening of our historiological perspectives in the postmodern climate, historical fantasy based on non-documentary forms of history may come to be seen as another way of knowing the past.

Cette étude a pour objet de lire le thélogien anglicain, John Milbank à travers la thèse de surnaturel du théologien catholique français, Henri de Lubac. Dans sa thèse du surnaturel, de Lubac entend montrer qu’il n'y a aucune sphère purement naturelle indépendemment de la grâce de Dieu. Autrement dit, d’après cette thèse, la nature et le surnaturel constituent une unité organique. En fait, cette idée d’Henri de Lubac s’oppose à la notion néo-scolastique de natura pura, qui a été développée en vue de sauvegarder la gratuité de la grâce face à la crise Baianiste. La thèse du surnaturel a été appropriée par John Milbank et sa théologie peut être comprise comme une continuation de la thèse d’Henri de Lubac. Milbank s'approprie la thèse du surnaturel dans divers aspects de cette thèse. Cette thèse apparaît chez Milbank tantôt au niveau ontologique, tantôt au niveau éthique, tantôt au niveau ecclésial. Si l’idée du surnaturel de Lubac est organique (Balthasar), cette même thèse donne une cohérence au projet théologique de Milbank. Une originalité de l’appropriation milbankienne de la thèse du surnaturel consiste à la mise en rapport de l’idée du surnaturel avec le langage. Pour être plus précis, pour lui, le langage joue un rôle médiateur entre le materiel et le surnaturel. Bien que cette idée soit présente dans la théologie sacramentelle de de Lubac, Milbank développe cette théologie en élargissant cette idée à tous les domaines de la culture humaine. Autrement dit, la thèse du surnaturel rend possible la théologie de la culture chez Milbank. Mais ce qui est crucial, pour Milbank et de Lubac, c’est que l’Église elle-même doit être le véhicule de la création de la culture chrétienne
This study aims at reading Anglican theologian John Milbank through the lens of French Catholic theologian, Henri de Lubac’s central concept of the idea of the supernatural. Henri de Lubac’s so-called, surnaturel thesis means that there is no reserved realm, which neo-scholastic theologians call pure nature (natura pura), independent of God’s grace. This means that nature and the supernatural constitute an organic unity. Milbank appropriates de Lubac’s thesis through and through. De Lubac’s idea of the supernatural penetrates Milbank’s all theological reflection ranging from ontological issues to political ones. One important point in Milbank’s appropriation of de Lubac’s surnaturel thesis is that he emphasizes the relationship of the supernatural to human language. For him, human language itself is supernatural in character. This means that human culture, which is constituted by human language, is itself theologically constituted. In other words, there is no neutral culture, but cultures based on particular theological convictions. From this insight, Milbank emphasizes, with de Lubac, the necessity of Christian philosophy which will be the true basis of human culture. Crucial to Milbank’s theological project is the centrality of the Church in the establishment of Christian culture. For both Milbank and de Lubac, the Church is not a means for atemporal salvation, but itself the goal of salvation. The Church is to be the place of heavenly peace which the Eucharist represents. Milbank is convinced that only the Church has the power to counter the neo-liberal capitalist order that is based on the ontology of violence

La thèse de doctorat porte sur les résurgences du surnaturel dans le roman français depuis les années 1980 – un phénomène encore relativement peu étudié et dont ce travail propose une lecture à la fois morphologique, esthétique et socio-historique. Au carrefour entre les genres traditionnels du merveilleux, du fantastique ou du réalisme magique, le surnaturel s’invite dans de nombreux textes fictionnels, revendiquant un héritage littéraire certain, mais témoignant aussi de la nécessité de repenser ces outils théoriques qui peinent à appréhender ses contours mouvants, instables et pluriels. Anachronique et déconcertant, il remet aussi en cause le rapport de notre société à un rationalisme et un déterminisme en crise depuis plusieurs décennies, en donnant notamment corps à des imaginaires hantés par la magie, la spectralité ou le chamanisme. À travers l’étude des romans d’Antoine Volodine, de Sylvie Germain, d’Alain Fleischer, de Marie NDiaye et de Christian Garcin, ce travail cherche d’une part à mettre en valeur les formes singulières du surnaturel contemporain et leur ancrage générique ambivalent, d’autre part, à interroger les fonctions poétologiques particulières qui leur sont attribuées. Oscillant entre la tentation d’un réenchantement du monde et des effets de déstabilisation qui intranquillisent la représentation de notre temps, de l’histoire et de l’humain, ces romans déploient un espace complexe qui mêle intimement le réel et l’imaginaire et problématise les modalités de notre présence au monde – tant à l’intérieur de la diégèse qu’à des échelles narratologique et scripturale
This dissertation explores the resurgence of the supernatural in the French novel since the 1980s – a topic that has been little studied to date and whose morphological, aesthetic, and socio-historical forms are intended to constitute the core of analysis. At the interface between the established genres of the miraculous, the fantastic or the magical realism, the supernatural elements that recur in many fictional texts point to a certain literary heritage, but they cannot be fully grasped by these categories and thus invite us to reconsider them. Through the staging of magical, spectral and shamanistic imaginaries, they also question the relationship of our society to rationalism and determinism and its crisis of recent decades. With the analysis of selected novels by Antoine Volodine, Sylvie Germain, Alain Fleischer, Marie NDiaye and Christian Garcin, this work pursues a double goal. On the one hand, it seeks to illuminate the singularity of contemporary supernatural forms and their complex structures; on the other hand, it seeks to take a closer look at the poetological functions attributed to them. By oscillating between the temptation of reenchanting the world and a pronounced destabilizing function, these novels unfold an ambivalent space that intertwines reality and imagination and strongly problematizes the forms of our existence, both within the plot and at a narratological or even a stylistic level

Notre sujet de thèse consiste en l’étude de l’exportation, la traduction et la réception critique du roman gothique en France au tournant du XIXe siècle (1789-1822). Alors que sur le plan politique, la France et l’Angleterre entretiennent des relations conflictuelles, notamment au moment de la Révolution, l’échange culturel entre les deux pays, lui, ne cesse, comme en témoigne le succès des traductions françaises de romans gothiques auprès du lectorat français. Après un avant-propos consacré à l’histoire de l’adjectif « gothique » et à la terminologie relative au roman gothique et au roman noir du tournant du XIXe siècle, la première partie de la thèse aborde le contexte historique, politique et littéraire au sein duquel le roman terrifiant connaît sa plus grande période de vogue. Nous cherchons ensuite à déterminer l’identité des traducteurs, leurs implications politiques dans le contexte de la Révolution française ainsi que le type de roman gothique en vogue pendant la Première République. La seconde partie de la thèse est consacrée au processus d’adaptation du roman gothique à la langue française et aux goûts du lectorat du tournant du XIXe siècle. Nous nous intéressons aux stratégies de traduction, d’adaptation et de publication des traductions françaises du roman gothique par le biais de l’analyse des critères de choix éditoriaux et des méthodes de traduction. A ces fins, nous nous focalisons sur les romans eux-mêmes en termes de description physique (format et volumes) et de paratexte (éléments de la page de titre, épigraphes, dédicaces, préfaces et illustrations). Cette seconde partie se termine avec une étude comparée centrée sur l’appropriation culturelle et politique des thèmes de l’architecture et du surnaturel dans les romans gothiques lors du passage à la langue française. Enfin, dans la troisième et dernière partie de la thèse, nous nous intéressons à l’influence du roman gothique sur la production romanesque française. Nous prenons d'abord en considération les pseudo- traductions et les imitations d’Ann Radcliffe, la figure de proue du gothique anglais, avant de nous concentrer sur les parodies du genre
Our thesis deals with the export, translation and critical reception of the Gothic novel in France at the turn of the nineteenth century (1789-1822). While politically, France and England maintain conflictual relations, especially at the time of the Revolution, the cultural exchange between the two countries never ceased, as evidenced by the success of French translations of Gothic novels. After a foreword devoted to the history of the adjective "Gothic" and the terminology relating to the Gothic novel and the “roman noir” at the turn of the nineteenth century, the first part of the thesis addresses the historical, political and literary context during the apex of the novel of terror. We then seek to determine the identity of translators, their political implications within the context of the French Revolution and the type of Gothic novel in vogue during the First Republic. The second part of the thesis is devoted to the process of adaptation of the Gothic novel to French language and readership of the turn of the nineteenth century. We look at the strategies of translation, adaptation and publication of the Gothic novel in French language through the analysis of the criteria of editorial choices and methods of translation. For these purposes, we focus on the novels themselves in terms of physical description (format and volumes) and paratext (elements of the title page, epigraphs, dedications, prefaces and illustrations). This second part ends with a comparative study centered on the translation process and more particularly on the cultural and political appropriation of the themes of architecture and the supernatural within Gothic novels. Finally, in the third and last part of the thesis, we seek to determine the influence of the Gothic novel on the French literary production. We first take into consideration pseudo-translations and imitations of the figurehead of English Gothic, Ann Radcliffe, before focusing on parodies of the genre

La thèse de doctorat Le conte insolite dans la littérature française du XXe siècle concerne la forme brève littéraire située aux confins du fantastique et du merveilleux et veut montrer qu’un nouveau type de récit court apparaît dans la littérature française du XXe siècle : c’est le conte insolite. L’appellation « conte insolite » n’est pas fréquente dans le discours critique littéraire mais la catégorie, elle-même, a intéressé plusieurs critiques et théoriciens, entre autres, M. Guiomar, J. -B. Renard et J. Goimard. Le but de la thèse consiste à saisir les traits définitoires des contes insolites et à proposer une définition de ce type particulier de récit court pratiqué par des auteurs comme G. Apollinaire, M. Aymé, G. -O. Châteaureynaud, P. Gripari, M. Schneider, J. Supervielle, B. Vian ou M. Yourcenar, pour ne citer que les noms les plus connus. La lecture et l’examen des contes et des nouvelles dits insolites et dont la classification reste ambiguë imposent deux questions : comment créer l’insolite et comme le lire ? La construction de l’univers insolite nécessite le choix de personnages, d’un temps et d’un espace particuliers. La perception du conte insolite, à son tour, demande au lecteur la connaissance des codes culturels et des règles du jeu intertextuel
The thesis The Uncanny Tale in the Twentieth Century French Literature concerns the category of short fiction oscillating between the fantastic and the marvellous and it points out the existence of a new type of tale in the twentieth century French literature. The term "uncanny tale” is in not frequent in critical discourse, though some theoreticians, like M. Guiomar, J. -B. Renard and J. Goimard, have been interested in the concept of the uncanny. The aim of this study is to characterize the essential features of the uncanny tale and advance a definition of the category on the basis of short fictions of G. Apollinaire, M. Aymé, G. -O. Châteaureynaud, P. Gripari, M. Schneider, J. Supervielle, B. Vian or M. Yourcenar, not to mention the most famous authors. Reading and examining the uncanny tale or short stories, which classification remains ambiguous, accentuate two aspects: how the uncanny is created and how it should be read. The formation of the uncanny universe consists of choosing its particular figures, time and space. The perception of this category is subject to the reader’s knowledge of culture codes and intertextuality of the uncanny tales

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

Dans les années 1880, les écrivains de la Percée moderne prônent une littérature réaliste, en phase avec son époque. Les femmes de lettres y ont une place prédominante, leurs pièces de théâtre, surtout, sont souvent couronnées de succès. Aujourd'hui encore, Anne Charlotte Leffler, Victoria Benedictsson et Selma Lagerlöf jouissent d'une réelle notoriété. Pourtant, leurs œuvres et leur statut ont sans cesse été remis en question. Comment comprendre dans ces conditions la présence du folklore dans des œuvres réalistes ? Tout en restant dans la sphère de l'irrationnel, ces écrivaines ont abordé des thèmes communs à leur époque découlant de leur expérience de femme, comme les lacunes de l'éducation sexuelle, l'impossibilité de suivre sa vocation, l'enfermement dans le mariage. L'emploi du surnaturel ne leur a-t-il pas permis de s'adapter à une norme et de pratiquer un genre littéraire, proche du conte, compatible avec l'idée que les critiques se faisaient des lettres féminines ? Certes, leur approche ne constitue pas un mouvement, encore moins une école, mais elle témoigne d'une tendance partagée à employer esthétiquement le surnaturel pour traiter les débats modernes sur les droits des femmes, frayant de la sorte un passage vers les thématiques du folkhem à venir, et inscrivant le folklore dans une vision utopique de la femme
In the 1880s, the writers of the Modern Breakthrough advocated a literature of realism attuned to their time. Female writers have a prominent place within this group and their plays were often successful. Even today, women like Anne Charlotte Leffler, Victoria Benedictsson and Selma Lagerlöf are recognized as major artists. Yet their works and status have been constantly questioned. How should the presence of folklore in realistic works be understood under these conditions? By referring to the specifically feminine problems of the gaps in sexual education, the impossibility of following one's vocation and confinement to marriage, through the creatures of Scandinavian folklore, the female writers remain in the sphere of the irrational. Does the use of the supernatural allow them to adapt to norms and practice a literary genre, close to fairy tales, compatible with the ideas that critics have of their gender? It is not a movement, let alone a school, but a tendency for some female writers to aesthetically assimilate the supernatural and modern debates on the rights of women, spawning a passage to the folkhem to come, and inscribing folklore within a feminine utopian vision

The searches for the cultural spaces of early modern European beliefs in the supernatural have followed many trails. While more complete descriptions of these searches will emerge below, some common features of the picture of these historical inquiries can be briefly summarized. The division between "popular" and "elite" understanding of the supernatural is one such feature of these spaces. Works in the latter category generally focus on an intellectual history of the beliefs that warranted the supernatural; Stuart Clark's distinguished Thinking with Demons is an example of this genre. The second, more common, category is the study of popular manifestation of the supernatural in this period. Carlo Ginzburg's Night Battles and Robin Briggs's Witches and Neighbors illustrate this kind of study. A second feature, particular to the historical works focusing on popular beliefs, is the use of anthropological methods to inform these works. The final element of this historiography is a less common but powerful tool of analysis, geography. While historians have gained much insight using both these methods, my intent is to expand these results by using two separate sites of research: Normandy, France, and Kent, England. This work uses these sights and these methods to examine archival records of witchcraft trials from each site over the period 1560-1680. Using a tight geographical focus, qualitative and quantitative features of Norman and Kentish witchcraft are examined. The study ends with some comparisons and contrasts in the results of that research. The overall purpose of the work is to allow an examination of the broader underpinnings of the supernatural in this period.

"January 2004"
Includes bibliographical references (leaves 296-333)
viii, 333 leaves ; 30 cm.
Title page, contents and abstract only. The complete thesis in print form is available from the University Library.
An interpretative examination of one aspect of Greco-Roman social history, namely activities involving the supernatural in Palestine and Syria in the fourth century. Highlights the role that the supernatural could play in people's daily lives, and the intricate association of the preternatural with the social environment that accomodated it.
Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Adelaide, School of Humanities, Centre for European Studies and General Linguistics, Discipline of Classics, 2004

This dissertation is the first focused study of images of demons and how they were created and received at the turn of the Southern Song and Yuan periods of China. During these periods, China was in a state of dynastic crisis and transition, and the presence of foreign invaders, the rise of popular culture, the development of popular religion, as well as the advancement of commerce and transportation provided new materials and incentives for painting the supernatural grotesque. Given how widely represented they are in a variety of domains that include politics, literature, theater, and ritual, the Demon Queller Zhong Kui and his demons are good case studies for the effects of new social developments on representations of the supernatural grotesque. Through a careful iconological analysis of three of the earliest extant handscroll paintings that depict the mythical exorcist Zhong Kui travelling with his demonic entourage, this dissertation traces the iconographic sources and uncovers the multivalent cultural significances behind the way grotesque supernatural beings were imagined. Most studies of paintings depicting Zhong Kui focus narrowly on issues of connoisseurship, concentrate on the painter's intent, and prioritize political metaphors in the paintings. This study expands understanding of these images by contextualizing them within contemporary beliefs in the supernatural world, which are reconstructed through a heterodox array of thirteenth-century sources encompassing nuo exorcist rituals, physiognomy manuals, joke books, codes of law, and writings on weddings. This study also examines the psychological impact images of grotesque supernatural beings had on their pre-modern viewers by analyzing original translations of inscriptions written in response to these paintings. This study reveals that paintings depicting Zhong Kui are heavily influenced by religious, social, and cultural currents at the time, despite their better-known political readings; that images of demons share interesting iconographic traits with portrayals of humans of foreign origins and in abject conditions; that and that aside from provoking feelings of disgust and fear, demons served as comic relief and spectacles in paintings which had been largely interpreted as moralistic. This study fills a gap in Chinese demonology--which had focused largely on visual and textual sources before the Six Dynasties and after the Ming dynasty--by examining images of demonic creatures from the Song and Yuan periods. It enriches cross-cultural studies of monsters and the monstrous by offering an analysis of comparable Chinese examples. It contributes to studies of Song-Yuan painting by focusing on a category of images that have been understudied because they were at odds with literati taste. Finally, it adds to scholarship on Zhong Kui by offering new readings on three well-known paintings of the Demon Queller and synthesizing studies on him in literature, religion, and folklore.