In this thesis, I explore the ongoing development of symbol use in three domains: pretend play, speech and gestures. In chapter 1, the specific behavioural manifestations of symbol use in these domains are identified and previous literature that has explored the cognitive underp…
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This dissertation examined the use of anti-realist aesthetics in the representation of history in postcolonial fiction produced in Latin America, the Caribbean, South India and Africa. More specifically, it focused on how postcolonial writers engage the issue of history, outside…
Since the fall of 2001, Afghanistan has been the subject of a number of narratives, including bestselling novels and memoirs as well as narrative films and documentaries. This dissertation examines the intersection of aesthetics and politics in cinematic representations of Afgha…
Informed by the ethical relation to the Other as articulated by the work of Emmanuel Levinas, Jacques Derrida, Alphonso Lingis, Giorgio Agamben, Judith Butler, and James Hatley, the dissertation emerges through a series of provocations put to me in the field by a Bosnian Serb so…
In Reading Violence I assemble an archive of representations that challenge the patriarchal scripts through which the gendered violence of community has been frequently normalized, forgotten or obscured in India and Pakistan. I examine fictional and historiographic representatio…
In this study, I attempt to explore the aesthetic frameworks through which Arabs and Muslims are mainly being culturally and politically promoted today. Through analyzing various artistic and visual works, I underline the political process of Other's identity constructions, whic…
This dissertation explores claims to community involved in the transnational struggles over representations of "Iran." Based on five years of ethnographic fieldwork in Southern California, online, and in Tehran, Iran, I studied several key performative sites where "Iran" is cons…
As the world is clearly facing a challenge of transition; an unprecedented state of interconnectedness, talking about foreign languages and cultures has been an interesting, but sometimes controversial, topic across college campuses. However, the concept of foreign cultures repr…
Our first impression of a building is most often formed, not from visiting the building, but vicariously, from seeing photographs of the building. On the basis of photographs, the theory and history of architecture is taught architectural awards are conferred, and public debates…
Drawing upon the work of Chandra Talpade Mohanty, this dissertation is born of a concern regarding the prevalence of criticism that presents essentializing analyses of work by minority writers; therefore, the primary aim of this research is to complicate readings of immigrant li…
This history of American Orientalism uses articulation theory to map the processes by which discourse around the representation of Arabs and Muslims moved from the symbolic to the material, resulting in public support for the 2003 War on Iraq. By tracing the circulation of image…
The post World War II era produced massive population migration from rural to urban areas in developing nations. While many studies have undertaken analyses of the large-scale social, economic, and political problems resulting from this rapid urbanization, few have examined the …
In the dissertation, I explore the translation, publishing, and marketing process of Arabic novels in English. My research examines how translations of Arabic novels are produced as a commodity within a globalized publishing industry and circulate in a highly-charged political c…
This thesis examines examples of character archetypes in films of modern war. War films throughout the history of the genre have relied on a particular characterization of the American soldier/warrior to garner support for various war efforts, and to create and maintain a myth o…
Throughout the course of celluloid making, the depiction of the homosexual character has experienced countless changes effectively creating a clearly identifiable evolution. Even before silent films became a lucrative genre, the reflection of the homosexual social experience was…
During the early 1990s a humanitarian intervention for famine in Somalia turned warlike and in influenced the decision by Western nations to not intervene in during the genocide in Rwanda. In the early 2000s the films Black Hawk Down (2001) and Hotel Rwanda (204) were made about…
Place is characteristically imbued with a multiplicity of meanings contingent on the specificities of the society, time and space in which place is perceived. It is essentially subjective, relational and differential. As such, virtual multiplicity is the main characteristic of p…
This dissertation explores a robust history of verbal, visual, and material images of tigers that has circulated in literary and popular culture from the pre-colonial through the postcolonial periods, particularly in texts from or about the South Asian subcontinent. I read repre…
This investigation focuses on two competing theories (historical institutionalism and social constructivism) and their explanatory value in regards to female political representation in Kazakhstan. Historical Institutionalism maintains that current institutional dynamics are con…