Writing Nature in Hebrew Literature: An Ecofeminist Reading

Nature in literature is often seen as a given, either a simple backdrop, or a means to reflect back some aspect of character, plot or theme. Yet, ecofeminists show, the construction of nature put forward by the literary hegemony has an effect on the way in which we conceptualise both our relationship with the natural world, and our relationships with one another. Indeed, the oppression of the human ’other’ and the domination of the natural ‘other’ have their origins in the very same source, and work to reinforce, legitimise and naturalise one another. In this thesis, I analyse Hebrew literature, putting nature at the forefront. In doing so, I extract three competing but supposedly complementary modes of viewing nature by the Zionist hegemony: as ‘barren wilderness’, as a ‘lover’ or ‘bride’, and as a ‘mother’. Paying attention to the gendered associations implicit in all three of these modes, I use Karen Warren’s ‘Logic of Domination’ as a conceptual key to investigate the interplay between gender, nation and nature in modern Hebrew literature. In doing so, I uncover an underlying tension in the threefold Zionist reading of nature, one which threatens to undermine the very model of the man-nature relationship that it creates. The Zionists wished to rescue the land from its perceived state of abandonment, barrenness, and abuse via their mastery and cultivation of it, to redeem it through ‘conquest of the wilderness’. Yet in doing so, I argue, they did not truly redeem nature from its fallen state, but simply re-imprisoned it in new chains of their own making: those of the hegemonic Zionist discourse. Nature for and of itself was not truly seen, but merely co-opted to serve the ‘redemption’ of the Jewish nation. Reading Meir Shalev’s The Blue Mountain (Roman Rusi) and other texts through an ecofeminist lens, I investigate the workings of this layered discourse, and its implications both for nature and for Zionism’s other ‘others’.Wolfson Postgraduate Scholarship in the Humanitie

The movement for the reformation of manners, 1688-1715

Previously unused manuscript sources and printed sources form the basis for an examination of the motivations, tactics and interactions with existing institutions of the participants in the movement for reformation of manners. Their providential and patriarchal beliefs are highlighted within the 1688 to 1715 period, whose climate of uncertainty and fear were crucial to sharpening the reformers' sense of urgency to achieve a more effective enforcement of secular laws against immorality and profaneness and thus ensure England's survival against foreign and domestic enemies. Founding members of the First Society for Reformation of Manners in London are identified, as well as their allies among the Anglican religious societies and elsewhere. Opposition to the ad hoc reforming societies from the capital's judicial establishment is analysed. The movement's efforts against sexual immoralities, swearing and cursing, and Sabbath-breaking are catalogued, together with attempts to suppress Bartholomew Fair and London's homosexual population. Sermons preached to reformers of manners in London are catalogued and studied for the reformers' views on magistracy, the community and the family. The final chapter examines opinions about the movement held by civil authorities, the Anglican leadership and champions of the High Church party, since reformation of manners became an element in the 'rage of party' in church and state. The conclusion places the movement for reformation of manners as one strand composing 'country ideology', a pervasive historical attitude in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries decrying any unbalancing of the constitution of the commonweal whether by immoralities, hypocrisy or political expediency.Previously unused manuscript sources and printed sources form the basis for an examination of the motivations, tactics and interactions with existing institutions of the participants in the movement for reformation of manners. Their providential and patriarchal beliefs are highlighted within the 1688 to 1715 period, whose climate of uncertainty and fear were crucial to sharpening the reformers' sense of urgency to achieve a more effective enforcement of secular laws against immorality and profaneness and thus ensure England's survival against foreign and domestic enemies. Founding members of the First Society for Reformation of Manners in London are identified, as well as their allies among the Anglican religious societies and elsewhere. Opposition to the ad hoc reforming societies from the capital's judicial establishment is analysed. The movement's efforts against sexual immoralities, swearing and cursing, and Sabbath-breaking are catalogued, together with attempts to suppress Bartholomew Fair and London's homosexual population. Sermons preached to reformers of manners in London are catalogued and studied for the reformers' views on magistracy, the community and the family. The final chapter examines opinions about the movement held by civil authorities, the Anglican leadership and champions of the High Church party, since reformation of manners became an element in the 'rage of party' in church and state. The conclusion places the movement for reformation of manners as one strand composing 'country ideology', a pervasive historical attitude in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries decrying any unbalancing of the constitution of the commonweal whether by immoralities, hypocrisy or political expediency

Thou Shalt Forget

What is ‘cultural oblivion’ and ‘psychological colonialism’, and how are they affecting the capacity of Indigenous Peoples in Canada to actively resist systematic and territorial oppression by the state? Following a decade-long research project, this new book by Pierrot Ross-Tremblay examines the production of oblivion among his own community, the Essipiunnuat [or, ‘People of the Brook Shells River’] and the relationship between a colonial imperative to forget. The book illustrates how the ‘cultural oblivion’ of vulnerable minority communities is a critical human rights issue but also asks us to reflect upon both the role of the state and the local elite in creating and warping our perception and understanding of history

Why they kill : criminal etiologies in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, R.L. Stevenson's Strange case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, and Oscar Wilde's The picture of Dorian Gray

Mémoire numérisé par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal.[À l'origine dans / Was originally part of : Thèses et mémoires - FAS - Département d'études anglaises

Republican learning: John Toland and the crisis of Christian culture, 1696-1722

This book explores the life, thought and political commitments of the free-thinker John Toland (1670-1722). Studying both his private archive and published works, it illustrates how Toland moved in both subversive and elite political circles in England and abroad. It explores the connections between his republican political thought and his irreligious belief about Christian doctrine, the ecclesiastical establishment and divine revelation, arguing that far from being a marginal and insignificant figure, Toland counted queens, princes and government ministers as his friends and political associates. In particular his intimate relationship with the Electress Sophia of Hanover saw him act as a court philosopher, but also as a powerful publicist for the Hanoverian succession. The book argues that Toland shaped the republican tradition after the Glorious Revolution into a practical and politically viable programme, focused not on destroying the monarchy, but on reforming public religion and the Church of England. The book also examines how Toland used his social intimacy with a wide circle of men and women (ranging from Prince Eugene of Savoy to Robert Harley) to distribute his ideas in private. It explores the connections between Toland's erudition and print culture, arguing that his intellectual project was aimed at compromising the authority of Christian 'knowledge' as much as the political power of the Church. Overall the book illustrates how Toland's ideas and influence impacted upon English political life between the 1690s and the 1720s. It forms an excellent study on a fascinating character in early modern history, scholars and enthusiasts of the period will find it extremely valuable

L'Estrange His Life: Public and Persona in the Life and Career of Sir Roger L'Estrange, 1616-1704

The subject of this dissertation is the life and career of Roger L'Estrange, who was a licenser of Books and Surveyor of the Press for Charles II, as well as a royalist pamphleteer. It seeks to answer the question of how conceptions of public and private changed in late seventeenth century England be examining the career of L'Estrange, which involved him in many of the major pamphlet campaigns of the Restoration period. It argues that there was no stable "public sphere" in seventeenth century England, one that clearly marked it off from a private sphere of domesticity. It argues that the classical notion of office, in which reciprocal obligation and duty were paramount, was the basic presupposition of public but also private life, and that the very ubiquity of ideals of office holding made it semantically impossible to distinguish a stable public realm from a private one. Furthermore, the dissertation also argues that the presupposition of officium not only provided the basis for understanding relationships between persons but also of individual identity in seventeenth century England. It argues that L'Estrange saw his own identity in terms of the offices he performed, and that his individual identity was shaped by the antique notion of persona--of a mask that one wears, when performing a role--than to modern notions of individual identity. Lastly, it will argue that people in seventeenth century England still understood their world in terms of offices, but that changes in the way they understood office, visible in L'Estrange's writings, helped prepare the way for the reception of more modern ideas about public and private spheres that would eventually come to fruition in the nineteenth century

Concepts of folly in English Renaissance literature : with particular reference to Shakespeare and Jonson

Chapter 1 considers Barclay's 'Ship of Fools' in relation to other folly literature in English, particularly Lydgate's 'Order of Fools', Skelton's 'Bowge of Courte', and 'Cocke Lorrel's Bote'. Motifs, allegories and the woodcuts of the text are discussed and some are included in an Illustrations section. Chapter 2 discusses Erasmian folly looking back to the Neoplatonic writings of Nicholas of Cusa, and to the debt Erasmian exegeses owe to Origen. Erasmus' own philosophical and theological views are examined, particularly as they are found in his 'Enchiridion', and in the influence of Thomas à Kempis' 'Imitation of Christ'. A close textual analysis of the 'Moriae Encomium' is undertaken in this light. Chapter 3 defines the lateral boundaries of folly, where it blends into madness. In the context of Renaissance psychology sixteenth century medical works are analysed, including Boorde's 'Breviary of Healthe', Barrough's 'Method of Physicke' and Elyot's 'Castel of Helth'. Blurring between madness and sin, the negative judgments on the mad as demon-possessed, and the biblical models from which such judgments largely arose give alternative perspectives on madness and its relation to folly. Chapters 4-6 look at three Shakespearean comedies showing the development of a primarily Erasmian view of folly. This moves from overt references in 'Love's Labour's Lost' to natural folly, the folly of love and theological folly, through carnivalesque aspects of folly and madness in 'Twelfth Night', to an embedded notion of folly which influences and affects the darker comedy of 'Measure for Measure'. Chapter 7 considers satires of Hall, Marston and Guilpin, and looks at Jonson's Humour plays in this context. 'Volpone' and 'Epicoene', and 'The Alchemist' and 'Bartholomew Fair' are discussed in pairs, showing the softening of Jonson's attitude to folly, and his increasing representation of Erasmian folly reaching its full expression in 'Bartholomew Fair'