Dirty Modernism: Ecological Objects In American Poetry, Michael D. Sloane

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This dissertation examines how early-to-mid twentieth century American poetry is preoccupied with objects that unsettle the divide between nature and culture. Given the entanglement of these two domains, I argue that American modernism is “dirty.” This designation leads me to sketch what I call “dirty modernism,” which includes the registers of waste, energy, animality, raciality, and the sensual. Reading these registers, I turn to what I call “ecological objects,” or representations of how nature and culture come together, which includes trash, natural resources, inanimals, and tools. Through an ecocritical mode of analysis, I introduce dirty modernism with the Baroness Elsa …

Literature In The Archive Of Terror: Badiou, Blanchot, Beckett, Christopher Langlois

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This dissertation conjoins the two most dominant trends in the secondary criticism of Samuel Beckett today: the philosophical and historicist approaches to his work. It explores how the Reign of Terror that erupted during the French Revolution acts as a traumatic catalyst for key developments in modernist literature and continental philosophy of which the philosophical writing of Alain Badiou, the literary-critical writing of Maurice Blanchot, and the literary-narrative writing of Beckett are perhaps the most exemplary expressions. The overarching thesis that this dissertation defends is that Beckett’s post-war prose work in The Unnamable and Texts for Nothing is overshadowed by …

The Ha-Ha Holocaust: Exploring Levity Amidst The Ruins And Beyond In Testimony, Literature And Film, Aviva Atlani

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ABSTRACT

Jewish humour sheds a crude light on the social, political, and historical realities of the Holocaust. Paradoxically, contentiously, doses of levity during this period were very much a reality, and even a psychological necessity. The purpose of my thesis is to explore the historical, social, and political ramifications of such laughter provoking manifestations. In doing so, the nuances are highlighted which are found within the laughter of the ghettos, the transit camps, and the concentration camps. Furthermore, some of these jokes, and their subsequent variations, reappear within the discourse of children of survivors. The dissertation explores how some of …

Paisaje Después De La Tormenta, Randol Perez Salas

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Esta tesis diserta sobre el peso que tuvo la frustración del proyecto nacionalista civilizatorio en Cuba y Puerto Rico sobre los enunciados y las formas que portaron varias de sus novelas a finales del siglo XIX. La relación de esa novelística con la desintegración de los imperios y sus colonias, no ha sido estudiada suficientemente. Algunos críticos han logrado esclarecer aquellos juicios y valores que flotan en la superficie de los textos, pero han ignorado los modos en que, desde la expresión misma, los escritores articulan sus argumentos y cifran su doloroso pesimismo. A través de las novelas Mi tío …