title: Illuminated cities: transgression and transcendence in urban Scottish literature

authors: Oliver, Fiona Margaret

abstract: Canonical representation and critical appraisal of urban Scottish literature before the publication of Alasdair Gray’s Lanark, in 1981, emphasizes its innate realism. This realist reading pays attention to surfaces and objective identities, rather than subjective depths and transgressive or transcendent possibilities. It inevitably encounters areas of lack, absence and failure. This thesis proposes that the Scottish representation of the city, as in other literatures, is inextricable from its perception and subjectification. This thesis explores a number of non-realist readings and attempts to open up the realist surfaces. These opening strategies are prompted by the phenomenological and intertextual readings demanded by the works of Alexander Trocchi. Trocchi can be considered the linchpin in a body of urban literature that is concerned with transgressive modes of self-realization. From his pivotal position a line of inheritance may be drawn back to the male-authored urban visions of James Thomson and John Davidson, and forward to Irvine Welsh.

In the ‘metaphysical’ readings suggested in this thesis, the narrative delineates a quest for transcendence, catalysed by the protagonist’s recognition of lack at a realist level and his desire for meaning within metaphysical or psychological depth. Thus, the city may represent a real place and ask for a realist reading, but it also functions as the controlling metaphor for concerns pertaining to personal identity. The city is a psychogeographical terrain that embodies an interplay between reality and the ideal. In the abject topos of the city, however, the dialectic of transcendence does not move toward totality of vision, or unity of identity. Negative and transgressive modes such as rupture and division are recuperated to engender a conception of transcendence based on ‘becoming’ and movement, rather than on a place or state of being.

The principle aim of this thesis is to address a shortfall in analytical criticism on the body of Scottish urban literature. It traces the representation of the city from nineteenth-century social and religious tracts, poetry and fantasy texts and suggests that such works are more appropriate forerunners to the modern urban Scottish novel than the sentimental and lightly humorous novels and stories of the so-called ‘urban kailyard’. The tenets propounded in these early works are developed in a theme-driven analysis of Scottish canonical twentieth-century urban novels. Revisionary readings and recontextualization of these works, based on modernist and Continental literary and philosophical paradigms, aim to reappraise a hitherto disregarded tradition out of which has developed the recent flourishing of late twentieth-century Scottish writing.

text: Illuminated cities: transgression and transcendence in urban Scottish literature Canonical representation and critical appraisal of urban Scottish literature before the publication of Alasdair Gray’s Lanark, in 1981, emphasizes its innate realism. This realist reading pays attention to surfaces and objective identities, rather than subjective depths and transgressive or transcendent possibilities. It inevitably encounters areas of lack, absence and failure. This thesis proposes that the Scottish representation of the city, as in other literatures, is inextricable from its perception and subjectification. This thesis explores a number of non-realist readings and attempts to open up the realist surfaces. These opening strategies are prompted by the phenomenological and intertextual readings demanded by the works of Alexander Trocchi. Trocchi can be considered the linchpin in a body of urban literature that is concerned with transgressive modes of self-realization. From his pivotal position a line of inheritance may be drawn back to the male-authored urban visions of James Thomson and John Davidson, and forward to Irvine Welsh.

In the ‘metaphysical’ readings suggested in this thesis, the narrative delineates a quest for transcendence, catalysed by the protagonist’s recognition of lack at a realist level and his desire for meaning within metaphysical or psychological depth. Thus, the city may represent a real place and ask for a realist reading, but it also functions as the controlling metaphor for concerns pertaining to personal identity. The city is a psychogeographical terrain that embodies an interplay between reality and the ideal. In the abject topos of the city, however, the dialectic of transcendence does not move toward totality of vision, or unity of identity. Negative and transgressive modes such as rupture and division are recuperated to engender a conception of transcendence based on ‘becoming’ and movement, rather than on a place or state of being.

The principle aim of this thesis is to address a shortfall in analytical criticism on the body of Scottish urban literature. It traces the representation of the city from nineteenth-century social and religious tracts, poetry and fantasy texts and suggests that such works are more appropriate forerunners to the modern urban Scottish novel than the sentimental and lightly humorous novels and stories of the so-called ‘urban kailyard’. The tenets propounded in these early works are developed in a theme-driven analysis of Scottish canonical twentieth-century urban novels. Revisionary readings and recontextualization of these works, based on modernist and Continental literary and philosophical paradigms, aim to reappraise a hitherto disregarded tradition out of which has developed the recent flourishing of late twentieth-century Scottish writing.

year: 2000

title: Learning a concept-based document similarity measure

authors: Huang, Lan

subjects: content analysis

abstract: Document similarity measures are crucial components of many text-analysis tasks, including information retrieval, document classification, and document clustering. Conventional measures are brittle: They estimate the surface overlap between documents based on the words they mention and ignore deeper semantic connections. We propose a new measure that assesses similarity at both the lexical and semantic levels, and learns from human judgments how to combine them by using machine-learning techniques. Experiments show that the new measure produces values for documents that are more consistent with people's judgments than people are with each other. We also use it to classify and cluster large document sets covering different genres and topics, and find that it improves both classification and clustering performance.

text: Learning a concept-based document similarity measure Document similarity measures are crucial components of many text-analysis tasks, including information retrieval, document classification, and document clustering. Conventional measures are brittle: They estimate the surface overlap between documents based on the words they mention and ignore deeper semantic connections. We propose a new measure that assesses similarity at both the lexical and semantic levels, and learns from human judgments how to combine them by using machine-learning techniques. Experiments show that the new measure produces values for documents that are more consistent with people's judgments than people are with each other. We also use it to classify and cluster large document sets covering different genres and topics, and find that it improves both classification and clustering performance.

year: 2012

title: Bilingual behaviour checklists: initiating a student, teacher and parent partnership in behaviour management.

authors: Glynn, Ted

subjects: bilingual education

abstract: Three bilingual (Maori and English) behavioural checklists formed part of a project designed to facilitate student, teacher and whanau collaboration in overcoming behavioural difficulties experienced by Maori students, (Hei Awhina Matua). The checklists assessed rankings by 163 students, 21 teachers and 96 whanau members of (1) contexts in which problem behaviours occur, (2) specific problem behaviours and (3) specific most valued behaviours. Data were gathered in three schools: a mainstream intermediate school with a Māori medium syndicate of three classes, a rural Kura Kaupapa Maori (Maori-controlled total immersion school) and a bilingual contributing primary school. While the three schools differed markedly in location, size, and in the proportion of Maori students enrolled, the rankings of settings and behaviours by students, teachers and whanau in each school were highly similar. The paper discusses how these data contributed to the design and development of the Hei Awhina Matua video and training manual, and provided a first step towards a collaborative student teacher and parent partnership in the management of student behaviour.

text: Bilingual behaviour checklists: initiating a student, teacher and parent partnership in behaviour management. Three bilingual (Maori and English) behavioural checklists formed part of a project designed to facilitate student, teacher and whanau collaboration in overcoming behavioural difficulties experienced by Maori students, (Hei Awhina Matua). The checklists assessed rankings by 163 students, 21 teachers and 96 whanau members of (1) contexts in which problem behaviours occur, (2) specific problem behaviours and (3) specific most valued behaviours. Data were gathered in three schools: a mainstream intermediate school with a Māori medium syndicate of three classes, a rural Kura Kaupapa Maori (Maori-controlled total immersion school) and a bilingual contributing primary school. While the three schools differed markedly in location, size, and in the proportion of Maori students enrolled, the rankings of settings and behaviours by students, teachers and whanau in each school were highly similar. The paper discusses how these data contributed to the design and development of the Hei Awhina Matua video and training manual, and provided a first step towards a collaborative student teacher and parent partnership in the management of student behaviour.

year: 2001