Film and Media Studies Commons^™

Narratives Of Canadian Identity At The Ultimate Fighting Championship, Jared V. Walters

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The purpose of this dissertation was to examine the use of representations and symbols of Canadian identity within the event coverage produced by the Ultimate Fighting Championship Corporation, in the context of its two key events, Ultimate Fighting Championship, and Fight Night, produced in Canada. To establish the historical context in which the sport developed in Canada, a narrative historiography of the political and legal struggles that led to the legalization and increasing popularity of Mixed Martial Arts, and the UFCC’s version of the sport, in particular. This first major part of the dissertation is contained in Study 1. The …

Critiquing The New Autonomy Of Immaterial Labour: An Analysis Of Work In The Artificial Intelligence Industry, James Steinhoff

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Karl Marx theorized capitalism as a relation between labour, capital and machines. For Marx, capital, the process of self-augmenting value appropriated from human labour, is inherently driven by competition to replace labour in production with machines. Marx goes as far as to describe machines as capital’s “most powerful weapon” for suppressing working class revolt. Marx, however, could not have predicted the computing machines – such as artificial intelligence – which now form the basis for an increasingly cybernetic capital. Since Marx’s time, many Marxist thinkers have sought to apply or update his approach to the cybernetic era. The influential post-operaismo …

The Amphibian, Melioristic Agenda For Dividuals: Tropological Oscillations Versus Tropological Settlements, Donatas Sinkunas

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Some people often identify themselves too strongly with one particular belief system. Others, throughout their lives, travel from one belief system to another without necessarily weaving their experiences and gained bodies of knowledge in a complementary manner. This thesis discusses different frequencies and principles of this sort of settlements or oscillations. I argue that it is impossible to believe in perfectly purist ideologies that would not deviate from their putative, pre-established, holistic inner order. Through multiple literary, cinematic, and philosophical examples it is shown that people are of dividual (not individual) nature. That is to say, potentially we contain multiple …

Imaginaire De La Fin, Icônes, Esthétique. (Ir)Représenter La Post-Apocalypse Dans La Bande Dessinée Et Le Cinéma Du Génocide Tutsi., Alain Agnessan

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Cette étude sur la bande dessinée et le cinéma du génocide tutsi s’écarte de l’analyse désormais canonique des politiques mémorielles et pratiques testimoniales pour en investir le parti pris post-apocalyptique . Elle s’agence en deux volets, ou, plutôt, en deux lieux de regard. Envisageant l’imaginaire de la fin qui s’est constitué autour du génocide tutsi, le premier volet de l’étude s’attelle à décrire une scène « cross-traumatic » ou transtraumatique, appelée génoscape, sur laquelle la pensée, les images et les discours critiques lient le destin éthique, esthétique et épistémique du génocide tutsi à celui de la Shoah. Cette démarche …

Dead Men Walking: An Analysis Of Working-Class Masculinity In Post-2008 Hollywood Film, Ryan Schroeder

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Working-class masculinity has lost its steam. Since 2008, a sub-genre of Hollywood films has emerged that depicts the current crisis, and imminent demise, of working-class masculinity in the United States. The 2008 financial crisis has had devastating effects on the American economy, and particularly the working-class, whose precarious economic position has only been exacerbated under neoliberalism. These effects have become the thematic focus of a fringe genre of films, which show how the destabilization of the American economy has incited greater instability in gender relations, and has had an acute impact on working-class men. This thesis proceeds by analyzing how …

Trauma, Creativity, And Bearing Witness Through Art: Marian Kołodziej's Labyrinth, Alyssa Logie

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The mid-2000s brought rise to significant shifts in the field of trauma studies, most notably the suggestion that a survivor’s trauma can have meaning when it is shared with others through creative representation and storytelling. Despite these critical changes in the field, there is a dearth of research outside of clinical art therapy that examines the role of creativity in the processes of working through past traumas for survivors, and in the processes of bearing witness to the trauma of others.

In an effort to address these issues, I use a framework of relational psychoanalysis and feminist philosophy to explore …

'Calling Out From Some Old Familiar Shrine': Living Archivism And Age Performativity In Bob Dylan's Late Period, Matthew Lipson

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The release of Bob Dylan’s 30^th studio album in 1997, Time Out of Mind, marked an unlikely and triumphant return to critical acclaim following years of personal and creative decline. From this point onward, Dylan would maintain a quality of output comparable to his 1960s catalogue and unprecedented among artists in the twilight of their career. The proceeding albums, from “Love and Theft” (2001) to Triplicate (2017) would present Dylan as a living archive of traditional American genres – an intersection through which rock and roll, blues, bluegrass, and vocal jazz would pass. The notion of Dylan as …

Resistant Vulnerability In The Marvel Cinematic Universe's Captain America, Kristen Allison

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Established in 2008 with the release of Iron Man, the Marvel Cinematic Universe has become a ubiquitous transmedia sensation. Its uniquely interwoven narrative provides auspicious grounds for scholarly consideration. The franchise conscientiously presents larger-than-life superheroes as complex and incredibly emotional individuals who form profound interpersonal relationships with one another. This thesis explores Sarah Hagelin’s concept of resistant vulnerability, which she defines as a “shared human experience,” as it manifests in the substantial relationships that Steve Rogers (Captain America) cultivates throughout the Captain America narrative (11). This project focuses on Steve’s relationships with the following characters: Agent Peggy Carter, Natasha …