Edges of the mind : psychic margins and the modernist aesthetic in Vernon Lee, Evelyn Underhill, May Sinclair, Dion Fortune and Jane Harrison.

PhDThe question 'Where does she begin and I end, asked in Virginia Woolf's The Years, voices a modernist concern with the limits of self-identity and related questions of egoism and altruism. In this thesis I argue that this concern is informed by a pre-history of thinking about selfhood, psychic boundaries and the spiritual mainly ignored by readings of modernism which map the psyche via psychoanalysis, or Freud's 'discovery of the unconscious'. Our thinking about the self has become colonised by the literary doctrines of better known canonical figures of the modernist period, generating a way of thinking about the limits of the psyche which is both literally and metaphorically circumscribed. A reading of more eccentric discourses explicitly engaged in negotiating the boundaries of individuality can provide a history of the psychic underpinnings to the modernist conception of the self. The representation of marginal states of consciousness, or epiphanic moments, is crucial to the literature of modernism: interpretation of these altered states, or edges, can be refigured through readings of Vernon Lee, Evelyn Underhill, May Sinclair, Dion Fortune and Jane Harrison: five women writing between 1880-1930 for whom pre-Freudian forms of dissolution and challenge to self-unity are palpably present in the form of telepathy, subliminal selves, oceanic consciousness and internal multiplicity. In addition to writing non-fictional texts which variously explore the psychological, philosophical, ethical, spiritual and occult implications of the modernist position, each of these women, excepting the classical scholar Jane Harrison, also wrote fiction. The aesthetic questions of modernism dovetail into the theoretical arguments of the writers in this thesis, inviting a different reading of its psychological sub-text and to suggest that where 'stream-of-consciousness' is stylistically indispensable, the 'oceanic', as counterpart, thematically haunts the modernist aestheti

Memorial landscapes: a phenomenology of grief

Roadside memorials are rebel spaces situated outside normative locations for sites of commemoration. The lived experience of grief opens the gaze of the inquirer toward the poesis of death and traces of sorrow found in the most ordinary of landscapes. A place that initially appears commonplace becomes, under a phenomenological gaze, a location that provides revelatory insights into the relationship between people and landscape. Grounded in the existential phenomenological methodology of Max van Manen (1990), themes emerging from this inquiry into the relationship between grief, death, and landscape align with existential lifeworld themes of spatiality, corporeality, temporality, and relationality. These in turn evolve into a series of experiential strategies of utility to landscape architects interested in expressing the lived experience of grief, death, and landscape in commemorative sites. The experience of reenchantment is advanced as an overarching theme within the inquiry. In the first instance, reenchantment is directed towards the restoration of the lived world following the experience of traumatic death. Reenchantment is also directed towards the development of an expanded field of knowledge that acknowledges the importance of experience in designing memorial landscapes. Finally, reenchantment refers to the reciprocal relationship between people and landscape. Grief brings attention to the redemptive capacity of landscape in the wake of tragic death. Memorial landscapes demonstrate extensive phenomenological breadth -- existing as physical region, an imaginary space of depth and darkness, and a cosmological location of lightness and unification. This spatial complexity allows the commemorative site to host fluctuating conditions within the lifeworld of the bereaved and to provide potentially significant experiences for casual visitors to a given site. Mind, body, and spirit are invited to enter into a state of intertwining -- ecstatic, redemptive, or otherwise -- within the reenchanted memorial landscape

Secular relics: Narrative objects and material biography in the museums of Darwin, Elgar & Holmes

This thesis investigates objects considered to be significant through their association with historically noteworthy persons and how these objects are displayed. Such objects and their related cultural practices are regularly compared to relics. However, this has not been tested in the existing literature on the subject. If these objects and their display are analogous to relic practice how can this be explained in the modern museum? If this analogy holds then the presence of the biographical object in modern museum display is anomalous. Are they simply anachronisms, or can they be understood in terms of the period from which their modern display emerged? These objects and their display are indicative of a particular relationship to material culture and to the figures with which they are associated, that has persisted into the twenty-first century. This thesis considers these objects and their display as a cultural practice. It establishes their historical context and interrogates the relic analogy. It focuses on the objects and museums of a scientist (Charles Darwin), a composer (Edward Elgar) and a fictional detective (Sherlock Holmes) rather than the literary subjects which dominate existing literature. The narrative objects in these museums tell stories of their association with their subject through their display, in doing so they become a material form of biography. The particularities of objects, subject, display and location observed in these biographical museums provides the material through which to question the whole phenomenon.This thesis argues that the construction and communication of these objects’ association with their subject, by their museums, can encourage the perception of their relic-like connection with a particular past. The museum visually narrates and authenticates its objects, apparently preserving the traces of their subject’s life. In turn, this simulates the subject’s presence encouraging empathetic engagement with the subject and their objects. This enables the objects in the biographical museum to be viewed as both relic-like and as products of modernity

Rhetorics of identity from Shakespeare to Milton

This thesis deals primarily with Renaissance tragedy and with Milton's Paradise Lost. It is structured around three main Sections each of which identifies a dominant theme in the drama/poetry of the period 1580-1670 and considers the way in which it is utilised in order to express or represent what was arguably the most pressing concern of the age - the concept of individual identity, or 'selfhood'. Section One takes as its theme 'death', or more specifically 'death scenes'. It considers the way in which the battle for what I have chosen to term 'directional control' in the death scenes of both playhouse and scaffold shapes the symbiotic relationship between the two, and can be viewed as a vital component in the rhetoric of identity which emerges from plays such as Shakespeare's Macbeth, Othello, Antony and Cleopatra, Webster's Duchess of Malfi, and scaffold texts of the period. Section Two deals with the remaining Shakespearean mature tragedies - Hamlet and King Lear - as well as with Marlowe's Dr Faustus. It takes as its focal point the viability - or otherwise - of the 'interiorised contexts' which such plays construct. This Section contends that these (relative) microcosmic interiors are, in fact, limited by the 'absolute' of death. The third and final Section of the thesis consequently addresses the implications, for the contextualised self, of removing this limiting factor. The text which lends itself most naturally to this is Paradise Lost, and Section Three concludes by placing Milton's epic alongside a small selection of contemporaneous poetry by Traherne

The appeal to immediacy of the Erfahrungshunger decades : a socio-historical clarification and diagnosis

Thèse numérisée par la Direction des bibliothèques de l'Université de Montréal

Social Sciences and Cultural Studies

This is a unique and groundbreaking collection of questions and answers coming from higher education institutions on diverse fields and across a wide spectrum of countries and cultures. It creates routes for further innovation, collaboration amidst the Sciences (both Natural and Social) and the Humanities and the private and the public sectors of society. The chapters speak across socio-cultural concerns, education, welfare and artistic sectors under the common desire for direct responses in more effective ways by means of interaction across societal structures

Thatcher's thrillers: British television thriller serials of the 1980s

Thatcher's Thrillers is a cultural-materialist account of the development of a television drama genre in Britain during the 1980s. The thesis initially addresses the fast-changing legislative context of television broadcasting during the Thatcher era and outlines developments in drama formats and programming during this period. It then explores the defining characteristics of the thriller genre as evidenced in a range of texts from different media (short stories, novels, films and television dramas), in order to identify 'abstract' elements of the genre. Centrally, the thesis examines the 1980s and early-1990s thliller serials themselves, arguing that these constitute one of the most significant forms of television drama during the period. The pre-eminence of a number of these programmes was recognised by the television industry: Edge of Darkness (1985), A Very British Coup (1987), Traffik (1989) and Prime Suspect (1991) all won the BAFTA award for Best Drama Series/Serial for their respective year of transmission. These and a number of other serials constitute an identifiable genre addressing issues of public concern (such as the power of the hidden British establishment, the growth of the nuclear threat and conflicts between large business corporations and ordinary citizens) and contemporary formations of subjecthood (through protagonists whose experiences profoundly alter their sense of personal identity). Individual chapters of the thesis are devoted to the most noteworthy of these programmes, exploring their aesthetic characteristics and cultural resonances. The thesis also examines the contributions of key individuals, including writers such as Troy Kennedy Martin, Alan Bleasdale, Lynda La Plante and Dennis Potter, who in different ways challenged conventional representations and redefined the form of television drama. The thesis addresses in conclusion the relationship between narrative and ideology in contemporary thriller serials, arguing that there emerges a set of responses critical of the new imperatives of Thatcherism

Sketches towards a theology of technology: theological confession in a technological age

This thesis will argue that information technology (IT) has given rise to a cultural mythology which offers a competing theological model to the model offered by kerygmatic Christian theology. The theological model advocated by IT culture regards human technical creativity and material culture to be the means by which ultimate concern can be mediated and satisfied. This model will be judged inauthentic, when theological authenticity is measured in terms of a theology’s ability to point beyond itself – to the transcendent and the infinite – as they symbol of that which is truly ultimate. This inauthentic ‘techno-theology’ purveyed by IT culture will be contrasted with a theology of technology, which seeks to engage technology hermeneutically by finding the meaning of technology at the nexus of its use and invention, and by judging the appropriateness of technology against the norm of the Christian kerygma. It is hoped that by contrasting techno-theology with a kerygmatic theology of technology, that an ethics of technological practices may be approached. The context for this thesis will be the contemporary information technology culture, running from roughly the mid 1980’s to the present, with specific attention given to the phenomenon of posthuman discourse to which this culture has contributed. Of the four types of information technology examined in this thesis (actual/realistic, idealised, imagined, and speculative), examples of actual IT will be taken from cybernetics research and computer science; examples of idealised IT will be taken from philosophical and theological treatments of virtual reality, cognitive science and artificial intelligence research; examples of imagined IT will be taken from science fiction literature and film; and examples of speculative IT will be taken from speculative science with a specific interest in posthumanism and radical life extension

‘Getting constructively lost:’ narratives of escapism in contemporary American fiction

The subject of this thesis is self-conscious escapism in a selection of contemporary American novels, chief among them works by Michael Chabon, Jonathan Lethem, Thomas Pynchon, Junot Diaz and Jennifer Egan. I explore the ways in which these texts interrogate the consequences of the act of escape into fictional worlds, exposing its dangers - among them social isolation and ontological confusion about one's relation to the written or unwritten world - while also considering its benefits, including relief from trauma, a sense of communal belonging, and insight into historical and social phenomena. Challenging established assumptions about escapism and escapist fiction, I argue that the core texts of this thesis represent escapism as an aesthetically legitimate pursuit, with complex philosophical and political implications. The thesis' first chapter offers close readings of these core texts' staging of escapism as an alternately redemptive and damning pursuit. It also situates the text's reevaluation of escapist fiction within broader discussions on the cultural and aesthetic value of popular narratives. The second chapter reflects on the significance of these texts' reliance on an explicit form of intertextuality, central to their conception of literary influence, and to the way they represent popular fiction as a source of communal belonging with the potential to transcend barriers of ethnicity and social status. Finally, the third chapter focuses on a narrative strategy I define as genenc contagion, by means of which many of my core texts represent the process by which characters become so addicted to fiction they are no longer able to distinguish it from reality. I conclude by situating my core texts m the broader contemporary landscape, arguing that their exploration of the dynamics of escapism casts new light on and deepens our understanding of the function and the implications of our engagement with fiction