School of Culture and Communication - Theses
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Item"I lost the world where I belonged. Now I don't belong anywhere": writing Third Culture experiences( 2007)In 1990 the Hubble Telescope was launched into outer space, and for the first time, human beings were able to see the universe more clearly. It was also the year that I started to understand myself in relation to the rest of the world. I have always felt like an outsider because I left my country of origin when I was an infant. However, 1990 was the year that my family began moving from country to country more frequently. I eventually lost my ability to identify with my first culture. I was thirteen and I became a Third Culture Kid. I am now a Third Culture Adult (or Adult Third Culture Kid). This thesis explores the writing of Third Culture experiences. I have chosen to discuss Isabel Allende’s work because, as a diplomat’s daughter, she has lived in Latin America, Europe, and the Middle East during her childhood (Allende 2003: 106-109). Specifically, I will discuss her memoir of her first culture, My Invented Country (2003) and her novel, The House of the Spirits (1985). I will discuss Allende’s writing in relation to what Julia Kristeva calls “the stranger within”, by which she means the uncanny within the self that Sigmund Freud also calls the unheimlich or “unhomely” (Kristeva 1991: 191). Allende’s writing, particularly The House of the Spirits, which is full of magical images, is an example of the uncanny stranger within as it might be expressed through storytelling. I will discuss Allende’s writing in relation to Jerome Bruner’s storied self because Allende’s stories are undoubtedly affected by her Third Culture self. Lastly, I will discuss my own writing in relation to the Third Culture experience. I will also relate all of these things to David C. Pollock and Ruth E. Van Reken’s discussion of the experience, its challenges and benefits, and its defining link to the life of the Global Nomad.
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ItemThe mediatization of Malcolm X( 2010)In the aftermath of the end of Cold War, the ideological restructuring that took place fundamentally affected the representation of one of the African American public figures of the 1970’s that was portrayed as deviant by the media and yet up that until that enjoyed time relative obscurity: Malcolm X. After the Spike Lee biopic, interest in his figure was rekindled albeit in an entirely new direction after the Watts Riots of 1992. Due to this shift, a cultural commodification of his figure undermined the subversiveness of his message and two decades later, there is still need for an extensive discussion to re-conceptualize the subtle reinforcement of hegemonic structures in the mediatization process and address the political context in the commodification of Malcolm X. In that vein. this article applies the notion of mediatization of the figure of Malcolm X on film and television as analyzed through the lens of cultural commodification.
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ItemPerformance studies as a discipline?: a Foucauldian approach to theory and practice( 1993)This thesis has three major purposes: firstly, to describe and analyse the institutional power/knowledge relations operating in the constitution of the academic ‘discipline’ of performance/theatre studies. I deploy Michel Foucault’s conceptions of ‘discursive formation’, ‘discursive practice’, and ‘power/knowledge’; in an attempt to demonstrate the ways in which the academy distinctively articulates the discipline. The second purpose of the thesis is to map and critique specific conceptions of the ‘discipline’s’ epistemological profile, through an examination of the discursive practice of theatre at the University of Melbourne from the mid-fifties to the present. Third, I go on to prioritize a specific performance oriented articulation of the field’s epistemological profile, based on an interdisciplinary pedagogy. I describe the techniques, methods and theoretical justifications for such an articulation of the discipline by offering a critical account of The Killing Eye project - a multi-media performance which deals with the topic of serial murder - which was initiated in the context of a third year performance studies course. I conclude with an analysis of the academy’s institutional enablements and constraints in the areas of theatre practice and pedagogy.
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ItemHugh Ramsay: a consideration of his life and work( 1966)Hugh Ramsay was born on 25th May, 1877, in Glasgow, the fourth son of John and Margaret Ramsay (nee Thomson). John Ramsay appears to have followed various occupations before this time. According to D. S. Adam he served an apprenticeship as a carpenter and cabinet-maker in Shotts, Lanarkshire; in June, 1896, at the time of his marriage in Stane, Lanarkshire, he gave his occupation as ‘commission agent’; and at the time of Hugh’s birth in Glasgow he gave his occupation as ‘Die Sinker and Engraver’. Two considerations, mentioned by Adam and Mrs. Lennie, a niece of John Ramsay, might well have influenced Ramsay in his decision to emigrate: according to Adam, Margaret Ramsay was in poor health, and the doctor advised a change of climate; Mrs. Lennie, on the other hand, states that John Ramsay was attracted to Australia by the business opportunities he say there. On 5th March, 1878, John Ramsay with his wife and four sons sailed on the ‘Loch Sunart’ for Melbourne, Arriving on 7th June, 1878. The family lived at first in King Street, West Melbourne, moving in 1881 to Williams Road, Prahran, in 1885 to Erica Street, Windsor, and finally, in 1888, to Essendon. Here, according to a neighbor, the Ramsays lived in a terrace house in Bayview Terrace before moving into the substantial new home, “Clydebank”, in Vida Street. (From Chapter 1)
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ItemThe development of pessimism in the works of Mark Twain( 1976)The tendency towards pessimism in the 19th century novel is one of the most fascinating of the broad movements in literature, largely because its manifestations are so varied. The later novels of Dickens and Madam Bovary and Crime and Punishment would seem to have little in common and yet, like so many other novels of the period from about 1850 to the First World War, they are marked by a sense of the waste of human potential, a sombreness and narrowing in what life has to offer. We naturally feel that there must have been something in the age itself which inclined those who recorded it towards a pessimistic outlook. Yet how we are to comment on this general tendency is a difficult matter. I feel that little of value can be achieved by identifying general qualities of the age and looking back to find their influence on a variety of writers, at least not by those whose primary interest is literature and not history, however closely the two are linked in this perspective. Rather, certain qualities of the late 19th and early 20th centuries can perhaps be suggested by studying the careers of particular writers and noting the ways in which their impressions and judgments about life and their own times converge. Although a comparative study of a number of writers, with this point of view in mind, would represent a fuller working out of my interest, I feel that it would be quite inappropriate to the length of this thesis and I am confining myself to a study of Mark Twain. Twain is a figure of exceptionally wide significance in relation to the issue of pessimism as a general tendency in the 19th century. In part, this is because of the explicitness with which Twain expresses his growing pessimism. In this he resembles Tolstoy, for by the end of their careers both writers had reached a position of explicit, cosmic pessimism; a position registered particularly forcefully by their readers because it seems, at least superficially, to contrast sharply with their best known works - Anna Karenina and Huckleberry Finn - which are particularly beloved by all readers for their rendering of some of the simplest and most deeply felt of life's pleasures and values. But in what his pessimism reveals about the times in which he lived Twain is of more direct significance than Tolstoy. For although his later years were marked by exceptional difficulties and sorrows in his personal life, it is not in terms of private suffering that he develops his pessimistic outlook, but in terms of his beliefs about nature and society. (From Introduction)
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ItemVikingälamningar: den nordiska påverkan på de olika språken i Storbritannien( 1994)From English abstract: This study is my investigation into the effects of the Scandinavian languages on English, and to a lesser extent, on the other languages of Great Britain. It is not meant to be an exhaustive work: rather its aim is to consider the influence which the Nordic languages have exerted on the languages of Britain and Ireland at various times in history, and to note the similarities and differences by which the languages were affected. The greatest influence on English occurred during the Viking period, when England was invaded and settled by hordes of Danes and Norwegians. As Old Norse and Old English were mutually comprehensible languages, a great deal of ‘language mixing’ took place, with Old English adopting many Old Norse words into its vocabulary. Since the languages were so similar, however, with many words identical in both languages, it is often hard to determine the extent of the language borrowing. I have categorised the Old English borrowings from Scandinavian into various groups of influence. Often the English adopted Scandinavian words needles sly; in these cases the Norse words either replaced the native ones, or were kept to form synonyms. Sometimes a distinction developed over time between two words which originally had the same meaning. Often such 'Word pairs did not endure into standard English, and are best preserved in the northern dialects of England, and in Lowland Scots. Sometimes, owing to the similarity of the languages in question, an English word underwent a subtle change in meaning, keeping its English form but becoming semantically closer to the Scandinavian word. Many words were evidently borrowed to describe things with which the English people had not previously come into contact: the sailing expertise of the Vikings accounts for a large borrowed nautical vocabulary, much of which did not survive. Terms relating to battle, and conversely, to law and order were adopted, although most of these were later replaced by Norman expressions. A great many words which were, however, taken into the Anglo-Saxon vocabulary were so called 'homely' words; and these common, everyday words are the ones which have lasted to form a core of the basic English vocabulary. These can be used to illustrate the close degree of intermingling which must have taken place between the Anglo Saxons and Vikings, people who shared a common German heritage. Many of the words were given English inflections, and are thus hard to distinguish from the native vocabulary. The linguistic effect of the Norsemen was not restricted to loanwords. The Anglo Saxons borrowed the Norse pronouns 'they', 'them' and 'their'; and many prepositions, if not directly borrowed from the invaders, probably owe their existence to being reinforced by their language. Many grammatical peculiarities attributable to the Scandinavians survive in the various dialects, particularly those of the Danelaw. Even the elimination of grammatical inflexions has been thought to have been traced to the Norsemen. Since the two peoples did not need to become bilingual in order to understand each other, it is natural to assume that they conversed in a kind of pidgin, which stripped the language of its grammatical complexities. Many Norse elements can also be found in place names dating from this time all over Britain, and the Nordic suffix '-son', found in so many English surnames, is a perpetual reminder of the Viking presence. The influence of the Viking languages was not confined to English, but its effect on the other languages was decidedly less. The Celtic languages differed so markedly from the Germanic ones that the integration of Norse words which were decidedly foreign was not nearly so smooth. In Wales the Norse influence is restricted almost exclusively to place names, but in the Gaelic of Ireland, Scotland and Man, where the Vikings settled for centuries, their legacy is easily discernible. Most noticeable is the impact on the languages of the Orkney and Shetland Isles: although Norn died out a few centuries ago, many words survive in local dialect, and the Islanders are proud of their Scandinavian heritage. Scandinavian loanwords from later times are scarcer, and their sphere of influence much reduced. Literary borrowings were popular in the Romantic period, and several technical terms have entered the English language at a later date, but these are not common. Later borrowings are often restricted to describing Scandinavian concepts. The Scandinavian languages in America may at first be thought to form a parallel case to the earlier Norse in England, but this is shown not to be the case. Since the languages had become so different, most Scandinavians were forced to learn English to survive in America, and although English borrowings are common in 'American-Swedish' and, American-Norwegian', the reverse is not true. English loanwords' are, indeed, numerous in all the Scandinavian languages today, and now it is English which exerts a great influence on all its northern cousins. That this has not always been the case, however, and that the consequences of the Scandinavian invasion are still felt in the English language and its neighbours is shown by my investigation: Den nordiska paverkan pa de olika spdiken i Storbritannien.
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ItemThe National Gallery School of Victoria, 1870 to 1890( 1975)It would be a temptation to see the development of art education in Melbourne in terms of a logically related progression of events, but this would be a simplification of what was really a much more haphazard process. In fact, I shall argue that the mixed beginnings and ambiguities do not find any comfortable resolution until the reign of George Frederick Folingsby, after 1882.