Languages

International Journal of Education and Social Science Research

2015

This thesis examines narrating as a widespread mode of performance in Australian contemporary theatre. The examination focuses on the forms narrators in contemporary Australian theatre take, arguing that they split into two distinct figures: one that supports the representation of dramatic action and the hierarchies that such a model demands, and a very different, non-dramatic figure that disrupts cause and effect storytelling through description and presentation. This figure unsettles the pairings that sit at the heart of drama: showing and telling, acting and non-acting and character and voice, creating space where narratives emerge out of this disruption.

An analysis of the method in which intended meaning of traditional printed comics has adapted to construct a similar intent, utilising the parameters of Madefire's Motion Books.

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2018

This thesis builds on cognitive stylistics, humour studies and psychological approaches to literature, film and television to explore how the stylistic features of comic novels and short stories may shape readers’ experience of comedy. I suggest that our responses to written humorous narratives are triggered by two types of stylistic cue: those which lead to amusement and stabilise our experience of comedy, and those which destabilise it by evoking non-humorous emotions associated with experiencing narrative worlds generally. When presented simultaneously, those cues can trigger complex humorous responses in which amusement is experienced alongside other, often negative, emotions. In order to investigate how textual elements can influence our emotional experience of humorous narratives, this thesis examines the ways in which stylistic cues affect some of the main experiential features of the narrative worlds of comedy: the moods evoked by the world, our relationships with characters, and our reactions to plot events. Following on from the Introduction and the Literature Review (Chapters 1 and 2), Chapter 3 explores the ways in which stylistic cues may evoke various moods by establishing, reinforcing and disrupting our expectations. Chapter 4 focuses on the role of characterisation in humorous narratives, concentrating on those cues which encourage us to laugh at narrative characters, and those which evoke other, non-humorous responses to them. In Chapter 5, I consider how the presentation of story events affects our experience of humorous plots. I discuss the cues which add humour to the presentation of otherwise problematic events, as well as those which combine humour with more uncomfortable emotions that stem from our reactions to story structures. Chapter 6, finally, provides a summary of the argument and of the contribution to knowledge made by this thesis. My exploration of the non-humorous side of experiencing narrative comedy offers a key contribution to the study of humorous narratives. By investigating humour as part of a wider narrative world, this thesis moves beyond the analysis of amusing language and towards addressing the complexity of the creation and experience of humour in a narrative world. The interdisciplinary, stylistic-psychological approach adopted here allows for hypotheses to be made not only about the emotional experience of humour in comic novels and short stories, but also about the affective side of narrative comprehension more generally.

2003

Rouge, 2004

Raymond Bellour's essay on Ritwik Ghatak’s The Cloud-Capped Star (Meghe Dhaka Tara, 1960)

2023