Digital Commons Network^™

Plurality Through Film: Subjectivity In Yoko Tawada's Das Nackte Auge, Anna M. Adams

Foreign Languages & Literatures ETDs

This thesis undertakes an examination of the subject formation of the nameless protagonist and first-person narrator of Yoko Tawada’s novel, Das nackte Auge. Situated and framed by poststructuralist theorists such as Judith Butler and Michel Foucault, this thesis argues that the protagonist’s plurality of subject positions is established through her encounters with film, particularly in relation to the French actress Catherine Deneuve, in a process that reveals the overlapping networks of social, historical, and political structures that intersect to express her subjectivity as formed under systemic racism and sexism. Tawada’s novel provides an opportunity to examine how the protagonist …

From Plato’S Cave To Edward Yang’S Cinema: An Examination Of Filmic Language And Its Noetic Potential, Ruochen Bo

Foreign Languages & Literatures ETDs

Following Jean-Louis Baudry’s incorporation of Plato’s cave allegory into the analysis of cinematic apparatus, my approach engages in a philological analysis of the films to show that various film languages embody the potential to compel the audience into thought reflection about transcultural, transhistorical philosophical issues. Through a close reading of two filmic texts by Edward Yang, Yi Yi (2000) and Terrorizers (1986), I will argue that certain overlooked Asian films, especially in the field of film philosophy, not only serve as artistic sites for intercultural, political and social examinations but also present thoughtful and dialectical engagement with philosophical and metaphysical …

Women Near Tv's White House: Power, Gender, And Race On Us Narrative Television, Teresa Caprioglio

Foreign Languages & Literatures ETDs

CBS’s drama Madam Secretary, USA’s miniseries Political Animals, and ABC’s drama Scandal all debuted between 2012-14, each with a female protagonist working closely with the executive branch in Washington-based political circles. Each displays, however, a different engagement with political activity and its relationship to personal life and relationships and to personal identity and presentation. By examining the configurations of gender and power in Madam Secretary and Political Animals, both of which portray female Secretaries of State, this thesis addresses the visual and behavioral expectations for TV women’s access to power and visibility as women and political actors, …

Learning To Read In The Theaetetus: The Recuperation Of Writing In Plato's Philosophy, Luke Lea

Foreign Languages & Literatures ETDs

In my thesis, I take up the popular question of the status of writing in Plato’s dialogues, but from a fresh perspective. Instead of approaching the question of writing head-on, I attend to the philosophical message about reading presented by two dialogues, the Phaedrus and the Theaetetus. My thesis offers interpretations of two individual dialogues whose emphasis on writing and reading as both literary themes and philosophical problems ensure that the overall meanings of these dialogues cannot be reached without attention to this subject.

Although I examine the dialogues in isolation, believing that the setting and characters unique to …

Drama As Dream: Sophoclean Tragedy And The Cult Of Asclepius, Molly C. Mata

Foreign Languages & Literatures ETDs

This thesis explores tragic drama as a corresponding ritual to the incubation ritual in the cult of Asclepius and theorizes that this ritual is psychologically cathartic and healing. I argue that in Ajax and Philoctetes, Sophocles marks this cathartic ritual through nosological language, setting, and social context. In my first chapter, I explore Sophocles’ use of the language of madness (mania) and illness (nosos) in Ajax to show the exacerbation of the audience’s psychological state. Next, I show that catharsis is achieved through the negotiation and subsequent burial of Ajax. In my second chapter, I argue that Sophocles uses both …

Negotiation And The Construction Of Intimacy In The Letters Between Fronto And Marcus Aurelius, Sarah C. Keith

Foreign Languages & Literatures ETDs

This project analyzes the letters between Marcus Cornelius Fronto and his student Marcus Aurelius as works of literature, rather than merely sites for historical mining. The letters, I argue, contain carefully constructed tropes of rhetoric and feature intentional polish that serve as opportunities for discussion about the virtues of philosophy and rhetoric during the Second Sophistic. Topics of discussions between both parties range between the imagery of sleep, and intimate spaces, like bedrooms, to substantive allusions to Plato’s philosophy and his dialogue Phaedrus. By looking beyond the identification of concrete names and dates to the literary, referential, and personal world …