VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
The Mask as a Literary Trope between Decadence and Modernism

This dissertation is a study of the mask as literary trope in European literature between 1890 and 1914. Through a comparative analysis of literary and dramatic works, and through a juxtaposition to works of visual art produced in the period, I illustrate how the mask takes numerous shapes and configurations as it is treated as a synecdoche, a metonymy, as a figure of antithesis. I show how, in spite of the mask’s changeability, it continues to echo the same concerns and to function as an image of death and rebirth. Moreover, I argue that the mask can be considered an uncanny phenomenon because of its flexibility as a signifier, as a “symbol that takes over the full functions of the thing it symbolizes” (Freud 1919, 244) and thus as an image of ambiguity and unintelligibility. I begin by pointing out the importance of masks in visual arts and in the philosophical and dramatic discourse of the period. I explain how the mask assumes in these years a new significance as a form of portraiture and how it is associated with the idea of fragment; I summarize the notion of masks in Nietzsche and examine how the mask relates to the concept of “uncanny” as formulated by Freud. I then show how several writers use masks to approach the matter of a conscious and unconscious self, constructing texts that parallel, and often prefigure the Freudian approach. In addition, I explain how the use of masks merges with sensibilities that are developing at the time, such as the notion of aestheticism, the fear of and fascination with the exotic, the assimilation of Darwinist theories, the notion of degeneration and of a declining phase in Western civilization. The analyses leads to the conclusions that, in all these texts, the mask becomes a trope for a potentially threatening alterity. The act of recognizing one’s mask coincides with a process of self knowledge, and is linked to the awareness of an uncomfortable resemblance with a dangerous, often “exotic” Other which is reflected in the repressed component of one’s self, but which is also an image of estrangement felt by the individual in a time of rapid change.

Keywords: Masks
Decadence
Advisor: Huenen, Roland Le
Italian Internet Terminology: A Corpus Based Approach to Banalised Language

The present study offers strong evidence that the World Wide Web is a unique domain of use that can be categorized as a banalised context based on certain defining criteria. Italian Internet Terminology is worthy of investigation because of its unprecedented extent and rich context of use. The goal of chapter one is to make a case for the utility of a corpus-based study, explain the primary theoretical underpinnings of the study, which I base on the concept of central meaning linked to the compositionality of elements, and give important historical and sociological motivations for such a study . In chapter two, I explain how term are selected and discarded, how my corpus is created, and how it proves suitable and representative of this lexical domain. In the third chapter, I elucidate the classificatory system I employ which allows me to view the lexical items in grammatical context. To gain a better understanding of the conceptual system of the terms studied, I introduce another important analytical framework: qualia structures. In chapter four, the analysis of the morphosyntactic and semantic character of the terminology allows for greater insight into the processes and pattering of denomination of Internet terminology. To conclude this study, I show that Italian Internet terminology is a banalised language governed by a systematic set of morpho-syntactic rules in which Italian selects, uses, and lexicalizes terms based on core units of meaning.

Keywords: Lexicology
Italian
Internet
Corpus Studies
Advisor: Marcel, Danesi
"It's Better to be Bad than Stupid": An Exploratory Study on Resistance and Denial of Special Education Discourses in the Narratives of Street Youth

This dissertation study examined and gave voice to the experiences of a group of street involved youth, those who had received special education support and services during their school years. They are not spoken about in the literature. Special education is complex, diverse, and encompasses many exceptional pupils for whom services and supports are provided in the school system. Many street youth belong to this group with exceptionalities such as learning disability, mild intellectual disability or behaviour. Using narrative analysis and structuration theory frameworks, the life history narratives of fifteen street youth who were in special education classes were co-constructed and analysed. In addition, a survey question gathered how many new in-takes at a drop-in for street youth self-identify as youth who were in special education. Furthermore, data was gathered from service providers in education and social services through semi-structured interviews and two focus groups. Youth participants considered citizenship in special education as exclusionary and actively resisted it because of the social connotations such as ‘being stupid’ which were attached to it. Youth emphasized that teachers and support staff seemed unaware of the complex environmental factors that impacted on their ability to be successful in school. They reported that once they were formally identified and placed in special education, they were put in a holding pattern that often did not lead to graduation. Special education was focused on classifications according to deficit discourses rather than engaging these students in learning or in having their identified learning needs met. Although study participants dropped out of school a number of times, they kept returning either to complete secondary school or enroll in college, mostly without special education designation and supports. Service providers, educators and special services staff should mentor such youth, provide opportunities for addressing learning problems, and deliver quality instruction for students with identified learning difficulties and needs. There is a dearth of alternative and transitional post-secondary programs to meet the specific needs of these students.

Keywords: street youth
special education
narratives
resistance
Advisor: Hulchanski, J. David
Spiritualité et réalisme merveilleux dans la littérature caribéenne francophone: la (re)construction d'une identité

Si pour les ethnographes les mythes sont essentiels à la survie de toute société, cela pose problème quand on considère la Caraïbe et la rupture de l’esclavage. Une étude de la littérature antillaise réaliste merveilleuse nous montre que si les romans sont imprégnés par la spiritualité et le folklore, nous n’y trouvons aucun mythe des origines. Comment une société peut-elle subsister sans ces éléments fondamentaux ? Combinant une approche mythocritique à une mythanalyse des oeuvres d’auteurs antillais contemporains, nous émettons cette hypothèse : en s’inspirant de multiples héritages, ils se constituent une identité par la reconstruction de mythes spécifiquement antillais. Vu l’absence de romans antillais contemporains dans les études du magical realism et du réalisme merveilleux, notre première partie explore ce dernier concept pour en proposer une nouvelle catégorisation : le réalisme mystique. Notre deuxième partie examine les principes narratifs des romans en se demandant comment les auteurs parviennent à concilier un double héritage oralité/écriture et à sauvegarder leur identité. Notre dernière partie illustre enfin comment, par l’utilisation de schémas mythique spécifiques et un recentrement sur l’île natale, les textes mettent en place sa (re)mythisation.Cette étude permet la mise à jour de nouveaux paradigmes dans la littérature antillaise contemporaine. Elle montre comment le réalisme mystique est une modalité rattachée au magical realism qui, combinant réalisme historico ethnographique et folklore local, s’applique spécifiquement à la région des Antilles. Dépassant l’impossibilité théorique de transition de l’oralité vers l’écriture, nous révélons aussi que l’utilisation de l’ « oraliture » par les écrivains et le rôle de « guerriers de l’imaginaire » associé à certains d’entre eux propose une harmonisation oralité/écriture de même qu’une sauvegarde identitaire. Enfin, nous voyons qu’un certain nombre de romans réalistes mystiques proposent, outre une mise à distance de l’Afrique et de la France, un nouveau mythe originel centré sur la traversée de l’océan et un passage matriciel par la cale des négriers. Nous voyons également comment, loin de territoires d’acculturation comme les plantations, les auteurs développent une restructuration mythique de l’espace, notamment par une mise en valeur de la nature primordiale devenue propice à une renaissance identitaire.

Keywords: Marvellous Realism
French Caribbean Literature
Spirituality
Identity
Advisor: Tcheuyap, Alexie
Attenuation of Circadian Dysfunction Improves Sleep, Mood and Neuropsychometric Performance

Mood and cognition, along with numerous other physiological processes, are under circadian regulation. The synthesis and secretion rhythm of the pineal hormone melatonin is under the direct regulation of the central circadian pacemaker and the secretion rhythm of melatonin can be used to assess circadian alterations. In this thesis, it was demonstrated that low levels of endogenous nocturnal melatonin was associated with subsyndromal depression and alterations in sleep architecture. Studies in individuals with endogenous circadian rhythm disorder, with and without comorbid depressive symptoms, revealed that individuals with depressive symptoms had a greater phase delay in melatonin profiles as compared to individuals without depressive symptoms. Furthermore, in the same study, exogenous melatonin administered to induce phase advances significantly improved depression scores and sleep initiation. In addition to endogenous circadian disruption, circadian rhythms can also be disrupted by repeated atypical alterations in environmental time cues. In mammals, light is the strongest environmental cue that can modulate circadian rhythms. Recent studies suggest that circadian response to photic stimuli is preferentially sensitive to short wavelengths in the range of 450-480 nm. Using an animal model it was demonstrated that filtering a 10 nm bandwidth between 470-480 nm from polychromatic white light prevents nocturnal light exposure induced disruptions in melatonin and corticosterone secretion as well as central and peripheral clock gene expression. These findings were further investigated in humans and revealed that filtering short wavelengths below 480 nm attenuates 12 h nocturnal light exposure induced suppression of melatonin secretion, increased cortisol secretion and disrupted peripheral clock gene expression. Furthermore, attenuation of these changes was associated with improvements in mood, alertness and vigilance at a time close to the endogenous circadian wake drive. However, filtering short wavelengths below 460 nm or reducing the optical transmission by up to 30% below 480 nm did not attenuate the disruptive effects of nocturnal light exposure on physiological and behavioural variables. Overall, the results presented in this thesis support the role of circadian dysfunction in neuropsychometric impairment and presents evidence supporting spectral modulation as a promising approach to attenuate light-mediated chronodisruption.

Keywords: Circadian Rhythms
Sleep Physiology/Medicine
Neuroendocrinology
Mood and Cognition
Advisor: Casper, Robert
Controlling the Emergence of Hematopoietic Progenitor Cells from Pluripotent Stem Cells

Embryogenesis occurs within a complex and dynamic cellular environment that influences cell fate decisions. Pluripotent stem cells (PSCs) are a valuable tool for research into disease models as well as a resource for cell therapy due to their capacity to self-renew and differentiate into all cell types. Mimicking aspects of the embryonic microenvironment in vitro impacts the resultant functional cells. The aim of this work was to develop a controlled and scaleable process for the generation of hematopoietic progenitor cells (HPCs) from embryonic stem cells (ESCs). We demonstrated with bioreactor-grown embryoid bodies (EBs) that increased HPC generation can be elicited by decreasing the oxygen tension by a mechanism where vascular endothelial growth factor receptor 2 (VEGFR2) activation is controlled through competition with the ligand decoy VEGFR1. This is important as it demonstrates the inherent responsiveness of the developing hematopoietic system to external forces and influences. We also established a serum-free system that facilitates directed differentiation, determining 5 ng/ml bone morphogenetic protein-4 (BMP4) with 50 ng/ml thrombopoietin (TPO) could generate 292 ± 42 colony forming cells (CFC)/5 x 10^4 cells with early VEGF treatment (25 ng/ml, day 0-5). We also controlled aggregate size influencing relative endogenous and exogenous growth factor signaling and modulating mesodermal differentiation; CFC output was optimal when initialized with 100 cell aggregates. For the first time, we demonstrated efficacy of local growth factor delivery by producing HPCs with gelatin microparticles (MP). Overall, these design components generate HPCs in a controlled and reproducible manner using a serum-free bioprocess that couples size controlled aggregates containing gelatin MPs for localized growth factor release of BMP4 and TPO with hypoxia to induce endogenous VEGF production. These strategies provide a tunable platform for developing cell therapies and high density growth, within a bioreactor system, can be facilitated by hydrogel encapsulation of the aggregates.

Keywords: embryonic stem cells
hematopoiesis
hypoxia
serum-free
BMP4
VEGF
mouse
Advisor: Zandstra, Peter W.
Digestive Tracts: Early Modern Discourses of Digestion

This project explores early modern conceptualizations of the body, offering a cultural history of the belly. I apply the tools of literary, historico-cultural, and discourse analysis to textual depictions of the digestive organs and the processes of digestion they perform. Concentrating particularly on the nexus of body, culture, and language, and continuously foregrounding the material underpinnings of linguistic expression, I argue that representations of the digestive organs serve to naturalize ideology and that digestion is itself an apt metaphor for the processes by which ideology is internalized. In my first chapter, I argue that the stomach is a central site through which hierarchies of gender are expressed and assimilated. I analyze Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew in the context of early modern cultural metaphors associated with the stomach and in the context of medical theories of digestion, according to which hotter male digestion is superior to colder female digestion. Drawing upon Marx’s economic theory and his less-noted physiological rhetoric, in Chapter Two I trace how increasing commodity exchange and concomitant changes to social relations are reflected in, and promoted by, a paradigm shift in medical interpretations of the physiological functions of the liver. Chapter Three offers a more detailed and literary analysis of this process, demonstrating how Spenser’s allegory of the body in Book Two of The Faerie Queene participates directly in the ideological work necessary for the transition to capitalism by naturalizing the consumption and production of commodities driving it. The focus of Chapter Four is on the use of bodily metaphors of excretion in colonialist propaganda to legitimate the enforced migration of those described as England’s “excrements” to the colonies. Influenced by Norbert Elias’s theory of the “civilizing process,” I read these metaphors in light of altering social attitudes towards literal excrement, and I demonstrate how representations of the body’s excretory organs in Phineas Fletcher’s The Purple Island mirror the social processes of the “civilization” and discipline of self, nation, and Other.

Keywords: digestion
early modern
body
gender
economics
colonialism
Advisor: Nyquist, Mary
Theories of the Fantastic: Postmodernism, Game Theory, and Modern Physics

ABSTRACT “Theories of the Fantastic: Postmodernism, Game Theory, and Modern Physics” Karen Pike Degree: Doctor of Philosophy (2010) Centre for Comparative Literature University of Toronto This dissertation examines the fantastic mode of narrative as it appears in postmodern texts in a variety of media including literature, television, and film. By analyzing the kinds of changes which the fantastic mode has undergone in order to accommodate postmodern concerns, this project attempts to answer both how and why the fantastic has maintained its popularity and effectiveness. The first chapter seeks to define the fantastic mode by tracing the history of its definition from the early twentieth century up until the present. In doing so, it revisits the contributions of such analysts as Vax, Caillois, Todorov, and Freud. The second chapter discusses the changes to conventions demanded by postmodern discursive strategies, many of which include a back-and-forth movement between equally valid interpretations of the text. A discussion of Armin Ayren’s “Der Brandstifter,” a comparison of a recurring X-Files sub-plot to Bram Stoker’s Dracula, and an analysis of an intentionally self-reflexive episode of The X-Files demonstrate these changes. The third chapter introduces game theory as a way of understanding the back-and-forth movement typical of the fantastic mode. Hanns Heinz Ewers’s “Die Spinne” is used to illustrate the psychoanalytical aspect of this movement. The next chapter compares and contrasts three vampire films, The Addiction, Lair of the White Worm, and Nadja, in order to demonstrate how the degree to which this back-and-forth movement is present is an indicator of how successfully the fantastic effect emerges. The fifth chapter introduces modern physics as another mode for understanding the presence of the fantastic mode in the postmodern era. The analysis of House of Leaves in the final chapter illustrates how postmodern theory, game theory, and physics all work together to explain the fantastic’s effectiveness. This dissertation’s aim is to explain how and why a mode once defined as a specific nineteenth-century phenomenon keeps reinventing itself and re-emerging to continue to frighten and entertain us.

Keywords: fantastic
postmodern
game theory
modern physics
quantum theory
Advisor: Hutcheon, Linda
The Theatrical Pendulum: Paths of Innovation in the European Stage

This dissertation examines the renovation of the modernist stage, from the beginning of the twentieth century to the late 1930s, via a retrieval of three artistic forms that had marginal importance in the commercial theatre of the nineteenth century. These three paths are the tradition of the commedia dell’arte, puppetry and marionettes, and, finally, what I denominate mysterium, following Elinor Fuch’s terminology in The Death of Character. This dissertation covers the temporal span of the first three decades of the twentieth century and, at the same time, analyzes modernist theatre in connection with the history of Western drama since the consolidation of the bourgeois institution of theatre around the late eighteenth century. The Theatrical Pendulum: Paths of Innovation in the Modernist Stage studies the renovation of the bourgeois institution of theatre by means of the rediscovery of artistic forms previously relegated to a peripheral status in the capitalist system of artistic production and distribution. In their dramatic works, Nikolai Evreinov, Josef and Karel Čapek, Massimo Bontempelli, and Federico García Lorca present fictional actors, playwrights and directors who resist the fact that their work be evaluated as just another commodity. These dramatists collaborate with the commercial stage of their time, instead of adopting the radical stance that characterized avant-garde movements such as Italian futurism and Dadaism. Yet they also question the illusionist fourth wall separating stage and audience in order to denounce the subjection of the modernist artist to the expectations of bourgeois spectators. Jan Mukařovský’s concept of practical function in art is central to understanding the didactic nature of the dramatic texts studied in this dissertation. By claiming the importance of Mukařovský’s phenomenological structuralism, I propose a new reading of the theoretical legacy of the Prague School in conjunction with recent contributions in the field of theatre studies by Elinor Fuchs, Martin Puchner and other scholars whose work will be discussed here.

Keywords: European theatre
Modernism
Garcia Lorca, Federico
Bontempelli, Massimo
Capek, Karel
Capek, Josef
Evreinov, Nikolai
Advisor: Ambros, Veronika
Poetry and Performance: Listening to a Multi-vocal Canada

Performances of poetry constitute significant cultural and literary events that challenge the representational limits and possibilities of transposing written words into live and recorded media. However, there has not been a comprehensive study of Canadian poetry that focuses specifically on performance. This dissertation undertakes a theorizing of performance that foregrounds mediation, audience, and presence (both readerly and writerly). The complex methodology combines theoretical approaches to reading (Linda Hutcheon on adaptation, Wolfgang Iser on the reader, and Roland Barthes on the materiality of writing) with poetics as theorized by Canadian poets (namely bpNichol, Steve McCaffery, Jan Zwicky, Robert Bringhurst) in order to argue that performances of poetry are responsive exchanges between performers and audiences. Importantly, the dissertation argues that performances of poetry call for a re-evaluation of reading as listening, thereby altering the interaction between audience and performance from passive to participatory. Arranged in four chapters, the dissertation examines a range of Canadian poets and performances: The Four Horsemen (Rafael Barreto-Rivera, Paul Dutton, Steve McCaffery, and bpNichol), dance adaptations of Michael Ondaatje’s poems, George Elliott Clarke’s poetic libretti, and Robert Bringhurst’s polyphonic poetry. Following the Introduction’s outlining of the term performance, Chapter One examines processes of recording and adapting avant-garde sound poetry, specifically in the sound and written poetry of Nichol and McCaffery. Chapter Two theorizes adaptation as a responsive reading practice in the context of dance adaptations of Ondaatje’s writing (Bruce McDonald’s Elimination Dance and Veronica Tennant’s Shadow Pleasures). In Chapter Three, Clarke’s jazz opera Québécité, with libretto by Clarke and music composed by D.D. Jackson, foregrounds a central argument of this dissertation: that multi-vocal poetics can, in fact, reconfigure multicultural politics. Chapter Four turns to polyphony as a textual representation of multi-vocality in the poetry of Robert Bringhurst. Through a close-listening to a musical poem by Jan Zwicky, the Conclusion points towards new critical directions in listening to Canadian poetry. Only in understanding how cultural and political performances are recorded, enacted and received both on and off the page can we listen, critically and actively, to our multi-voiced Canadian soundscapes.

Keywords: poetry
performance
multiculturalism
polyphony
sound poetry
listening
adaptation
jazz opera
audience
Advisor: Solecki, Sam