Full Text Available
Note: Clicking the button above will open the full text document at the original institutional repository in a new window.
Memes, magic and the making of meaning in re-visioning fantasy for young adults
Thesis (DLitt)--University of Pretoria, 2012.
Saved in:
| Other Authors: | |
|---|---|
| Format: | Thesis |
| Published: |
University of Pretoria
2013
|
| Subjects: | |
| Tags: |
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
|
| _version_ | 1867613573250809856 |
|---|---|
| access_status_str | Open Access |
| author2 | Medalie, David |
| author_browse | Medalie, David |
| author_facet | Medalie, David |
| collection | Thesis |
| dc_rights_str_mv | © 2012 University of Pretoria. All rights reserved. The copyright in this work vests in the University of Pretoria. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the University of Pretoria. D13/4/694/ |
| description | Thesis (DLitt)--University of Pretoria, 2012. |
| format | Thesis |
| id | oai:repository.up.ac.za:2263/30914 |
| institution | University of Pretoria (South Africa) |
| last_indexed | 2026-06-10T12:38:17.431Z |
| license_str | Other — see source repository |
| provenance_str_mv | Harvested via OAI-PMH from UPSpace — University of Pretoria Institutional Repository |
| publishDate | 2013 |
| publishDateRange | 2013 |
| publishDateSort | 2013 |
| publisher | University of Pretoria |
| publisherStr | University of Pretoria |
| record_format | dspace |
| source_str | UPSpace — University of Pretoria Institutional Repository |
| spelling | oai:repository.up.ac.za:2263/30914 Memes, magic and the making of meaning in re-visioning fantasy for young adults Medalie, David Wessels, J.A. (Andries) Brown, Molly UCTD Thesis (DLitt)--University of Pretoria, 2012. This thesis suggests that by reading certain innovative and even metafictional works of fantasy young adult readers may gain access to a flexible yet safe narrative space in which to confront the psychosocial crises attendant on coming of age and thereby begin the process of shaping adult identity. In exploring this possible link between reading and identity formation, particular aspects of young adult fantasy are read against what has been established as the discursive field of young adulthood and young adult literature including the work of developmental psychologists, literary critics and evolutionary philosophers in an attempt to insert the author‟s individual critical perceptions into „a network of relations between storytellers, the participants whose experiences they recount, and the larger environment embedding those experiences, including the setting provided by the opportunity of storytelling itself‟ (David Herman, 2003a:184). Since this is a large and contentious area of exploration, the study does not so much attempt to arrive at a definitive conclusion as to offer a series of loosely interlocking explorations of adolescent fantasy in relation to four key themes or what evolutionary psychologists such as Kate Distin (2005) refer to as meme constellations. Thus the first chapter of this thesis focuses on how characteristically postmodern techniques can allow works of young adult fantasy to complicate awareness of issues of time, space and causality; the second considers the way in which prevalent memes involving witches and witchcraft can be imaginatively re-visioned to highlight issues of gender; the third considers fantastic representations of ethnicity and how fiction can contribute to the postcolonial recovery of subordinated cultural memes; and the final chapter focuses on retellings of Arthurian myth and how metafictional techniques may be used to encourage a divided and thus more aware mode of reading by foregrounding the constructed nature of story itself. By suggesting ways in which fiction can promote complex interactions between young readers and adult authors, this study also hopes to show that Jacqueline Rose‟s ([1984] 1994:1) argument that children‟s literature is fundamentally flawed, having been corrupted by „the impossible relation between adult and child‟ needs to be revisited in the light of new theoretical constructions of both the dynamics of power and the experience of reading itself. English DLitt Unrestricted 2013-09-09T07:51:05Z 2013-06-27 2013-09-09T07:51:05Z 2013-04-03 2012 2013-06-15 Thesis Brown, M 2012, Memes, magic and the making of meaning in re-visioning fantasy for young adults, DLitt Thesis, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, viewed yymmdd <http://hdl.handle.net/2263/30914> D13/4/694/ag DLitt http://hdl.handle.net/2263/30914 http://upetd.up.ac.za/thesis/available/etd-06152013-094011/ © 2012 University of Pretoria. All rights reserved. The copyright in this work vests in the University of Pretoria. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the University of Pretoria. D13/4/694/ application/pdf University of Pretoria |
| spellingShingle | UCTD Memes, magic and the making of meaning in re-visioning fantasy for young adults |
| title | Memes, magic and the making of meaning in re-visioning fantasy for young adults |
| title_full | Memes, magic and the making of meaning in re-visioning fantasy for young adults |
| title_fullStr | Memes, magic and the making of meaning in re-visioning fantasy for young adults |
| title_full_unstemmed | Memes, magic and the making of meaning in re-visioning fantasy for young adults |
| title_short | Memes, magic and the making of meaning in re-visioning fantasy for young adults |
| title_sort | memes magic and the making of meaning in re visioning fantasy for young adults |
| topic | UCTD |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/2263/30914 http://upetd.up.ac.za/thesis/available/etd-06152013-094011/ |