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Item Not to exact a full look at the worst : (mis)representations of state-sanctioned violence in New Zealand poetry : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English at Massey University, Manawatu, New Zealand(Massey University, 2025-11-26) McLean, RobertThis thesis examines how local poetry written between the First World War and the early twenty-first century has represented state-sanctioned violence done in Aotearoa New Zealand and on the state’s behalf overseas. Although this period is marked by the emergence and consolidation of a distinct New Zealand literature and the New Zealand state’s deliberate involvement in major overseas conflicts, surprisingly few poems directly represent such violence. This thesis identifies and analyses poems written in English by Māori, Pacific, and Pākehā poets that do represent state-sanctioned violence: Donald H. Lea’s “Gold Stripe” from Stand Down! (1917); Allen Curnow’s Island and Time (1941); Kendrick Smithyman’s “Vignettes of the Māori Wars” from Flying to Palmerston (1968); Māori Battalion: A Poetic Sequence (2001) by Alistair Te Ariki Campbell; and Captain Cook in the Underworld (2002) by Robert Sullivan. I use a form of mimetic close reading to examine their sources, spatial and temporal renderings, attribution of agency, prosody and modes of representation, construal of legitimacy, and violence’s uses and effects. I determine how poetry’s conventions, licenses, limitations, and omissions have helped or hindered naming, understanding, and owning Aotearoa New Zealand’s state-sanctioned violence in these five poetic works. The evidence from this poetic archive testifies to a radical disjunction between state-sanctioned violence’s historical realities and how these examples of New Zealand poetry have represented of it. They have largely failed to give voice to what poet Geoffrey Hill called “the world’s real cries” by refusing to address directly the social, political, and legal sources of state-sanctioned violence’s meaningfulness and legitimisation.Item Resistance, healing and empowerment through autobiographical therapeutic performance–– 愛，媽媽 (Love, Mum) : a solo matrilineal memoir and autoethnographic inquiry on Chinese womanhood and ‘The good woman’ ideal : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Creative Writing at Massey University, New Zealand. EMBARGOED until 30 July 2027.(Massey University, 2024) Lam, Cynthia Hiu YingMy research is an autoethnographic inquiry that employs creative and critical methodologies to examine the question: How does the process of writing and performing one’s life experiences and trauma act as a form of resistance to the dominant ‘good woman’ narrative, leading to personal healing, empowerment and transformation? Through the creation of my one-woman show, 愛，媽媽 (Love, Mum), a matrilineal memoir about three generations of Chinese women, I investigate how the creative process involving the writing, rehearsing and performance of my play can become a form of resistance and counter-storying against the dominant ‘good woman’ narrative, leading to personal healing and empowerment. I begin by discussing the historical context of the virtuous Chinese woman, and present research by scholars who demonstrate that depression in women contains a gendered lens, resulting from the socio-cultural pressures of living up to the ‘good woman’ ideal. My analysis uses the methodological framework of autobiographical/autoethnographic therapeutic performance (ATP). This is a method that focuses on the working through of personal traumatic material through writing and performance. My research utilises a transdisciplinary praxis, combining both arts-based and psychoanalytic theories and practice related to trauma recovery and the healing processes of ATP. My investigation is autoethnographic and deeply personal as my own life experience and creative process is used to answer my research question, as well as shining a light on the socio-cultural structures we live in. Employing a mixture of creative practice, personal reflection, theoretical examination, and a close reading of my play script and performance, I demonstrate how the creative process I went through has led to a form of personal healing and transformation, with the potential to impact and engage with the wider community.Item Painting from the Holocaust's barbaric periphery : a personal journey : an exegesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Fine Arts Massey University, Wellington, New Zealand(Massey University, 2021) Forster, MichelanneThis exegesis examines my personal response to the Holocaust through the medium of expressionist painting. I identify myself as the daughter of a Holocaust survivor, and an immigrant to New Zealand. I discuss the concepts of “post-memory”, “vicarious past” and “intergenerational trauma” and question the moral right to make art out of other people's suffering. I discuss the tensions inherent in living and working in New Zealand, a country at a far geographical and cultural remove from the Holocaust, and reflect on how this affects my work in terms of memory, imagination, and style. I demonstrate the way Jewish artists Chaim Soutine, Marc Chagall, Charlotte Solomon, Abraham Rattner, and Hyman Bloom influenced my search for a personal painting language. I link my practice to other Jewish immigrant artists who fled Europe during the Nazi regime, and site myself in what Sidra DeKovan Ezrahi calls the “barbaric periphery” of the Shoah (Ezrahi qtd. in Katz-Freidman 119).Item Portraits of people and places of developing countries : a literary analysis of the public faces of development as presented in popular literature : case study: A Small Place (1988) by Jamaica Kincaid : a thesis presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Masters of Philosophy in Development Studies at Massey University(Massey University, 2006) Faloon-Cavander, Jacinda,The literature that keeps me awake at night, containing written images that impress a certain public face of development, is the topic and exploration of this thesis. That the general public still lack in understanding regarding matters of development is key to carrying out this literature analysis. Images of the developing world are everywhere, and as such, an example of non-technical, non-industry specific creative writing is chosen for examination to highlight this point. The short, punctuating and controversial 'essay' A Small Place, by Caribbean author Jamaica Kincaid, is the case study for this thesis. The literature review is in four parts presenting the idea of public faces of development, the importance of interdisciplinary study combining literature with the humanities, an view of the underpinning contemporary themes of development - focusing on foundations of belief as opposed to physical conditions of development situations, and an introduction to Jamaica Kincaid and issues in Caribbean women's literature. Through the example of this case study, that takes its shape from close observations of the text, I conclude that popular literature has not only a literary place in ethnographic discussions, but an important historical and scientific place that helps the general reader to identify the difference between truth and fallacy represented in the various public faces of development.Item The lyric "I" and the anti-confessionalism of Frederick Seidel : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English at Massey University, Manawatū, New Zealand(Massey University, 2019) Upperton, Tomothy LawrenceThis thesis investigates the anti-Confessionalist status of the lyric “I” in the poetry of Frederick Seidel and in a collection of my own poems. Seidel’s use of autobiographical details, including his own name, in his poems has been treated by critics as an invitation to identify the lyric “I” with the poet himself. His poetry has been discussed by both his admirers and his detractors in a Confessional context. To his admirers, Seidel extends the Confessional poetry tradition in exciting ways, breaking new taboos as he incorporates details from his glamorous, privileged lifestyle into his poems. To his detractors, he is a retrograde reactionary, stale and derivative. I argue that although Seidel uses Confessional strategies, and owes obvious debts to Confessional poets, his poetry is fundamentally outward rather than inward looking; it is a poetry of cultural critique, and not of personal revelation. This outward looking focus also distinguishes Seidel’s poetry from various post-avant poetics that, in their own sophisticated ways, are as concerned with the subjective, lyric “I” as Confessional poetry is. I argue that in Frederick Seidel’s poetry, the lyric “I” is of interest insofar as it provides a means of cultural critique—a way of interrogating the complicity of the individual in its engagement with capitalism in its various aspects. In the poems that comprise the creative component of my thesis, the influence of Seidel is evident in their tone, their outward focus, and their limited interest in the lyric “I.” I have attempted in these poems to get beyond the absorption with the self that I perceive to be a besetting quality in much contemporary mainstream poetry. The various post-avant poetics explored in my research seem in their own ways deeply invested in the lyric “I.” Seidel’s poems offered other possibilities, other ways of representing the subject in the world, and of critiquing that world, that I could use in my own poems.Item Precarious girls : gender, class, and the New Zealand short story : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Creative Writing at Massey University, Manawatu, New Zealand(Massey University, 2019) Allan, TiffanyThis thesis seeks to explore experiences of precarity in New Zealand fiction through an analysis of short fiction by Tracey Slaughter and Alice Tawhai, and my own collection of short stories. The critical component of this thesis explores intersections of identity such as gender and culture that influence and at times compound experiences of precarity. Results of these intersections in the fiction of Slaughter and Tawhai are the decrease in hope and feelings of self worth for characters and subsequent acceptance of unequal and at times abusive relationships for women in the precariat, including a lowered perception of rights for these characters. Slaughter and Tawhai also portray the differing levels of power characters wield in differing settings, showing that differing intersections of identity can fluctuate in power depending on the social environment. My own fiction also explores experiences of precarity. Some of these stories explore in particular the experience of community within the precariat as an enabling and comforting device, and experiences of precarity for rural women, in particular the gender roles expected for financial stability. Other stories explore the experience of precarity for those who are trying to escape this part of society, and the prevalence of mental illness in the precariat and ways characters use to cope with it or to feel safe. The last stories in this collection address family and community within the precariat, and the strong bonds created within the precariat to increase feelings of comfort and hope.Item Defining the layers : Seamus Heaney's metaphor of layers of colonisation in Ireland : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in English Literature at Massey University, New Zealand(Massey University, 2019) de Andrad, CamilleSeamus Heaney is arguably Ireland’s most notable poet. Receiving the Nobel prize for Literature in 1995, Heaney is recognised as one of Ireland’s most prominent writers. In particular, Heaney’s poems in the context of the Troubles have provided insight into why these events have occurred. He is, alongside Michael Longley, one of the foremost poets of the Troubles, and used his writing to try and understand the events of the time. Heaney grew up in Derry, Northern Ireland, and personally experienced the Troubles, however, the majority of his poetry which he wrote in context of this era, was written after he had moved to the Republic of Ireland. It is within the context of the Bog that Heaney searches for answers to the effects of colonisation on the Irish. Heaney explores the loss of culture as a result of colonisation by the British, but he also looks at how the Irish culture has evolved over the past two millennia. Within the poetry that he wrote during the Troubles, Heaney explores the concept of the Vikings’ culture of violence and retribution, suggesting that it lives on in the psyche of present-day Irish. In addition, his poems contemplate the hybridity of contemporary Irish culture, showing how the Irish, regardless of religion are one and the same, making the atrocities between sectarian groups pointless. Although Heaney was a Catholic Irish Nationalist, his vision for Ireland was one of an inclusive Ireland where all Irish were the same regardless of their religion. His exploration of religion and its creation of division of communities in Ireland is a major theme in his poems, and one which he links back to many of the ills of Irish history.Item Nietzschean types in The Brothers Karamazov : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in English at Massey University, New Zealand(Massey University, 2019) Durkin, PatrickNietzsche and Dostoevsky were contemporaries, and Nietzsche especially was known to admire Dostoevsky’s work. Both authors were interested in the study of the basis for human morality, and the search for a redirection of human morality; one in which the problems they saw with the current understanding of acceptable behaviour according to laws, religion and might is right, could be melded in with their own beliefs and struggles with their own mortality and morality. Although Nietzsche’s collection of essays The Genealogy of Morals, (1887) was written 7 years after Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov (1880), it is interesting to note that the main character types that Nietzsche believed created hierarchies that developed and sustained the morality of his time, appear in the form of the main characters in The Brothers Karamazov. This thesis will be looking at the The Brothers Karamazov through the different character ‘types’ and the resulting psychomachia of the three legitimate brothers, the older brothers Dmitri and Ivan, and especially that of Alyosha, the youngest brother. The thesis will focus on both elder brothers’ evolution of thought and action through the progress of the novel, and, importantly, on each brothers’ interactions with Alyosha and the turbulent state of mind they regularly leave their younger sibling in. The final chapter of the thesis will concentrate on Alyosha and his journey throughout the novel, from his parting of ways with Zosima to his talk with the young boys by the stone. This journey, I believe, will be the one that extracts the idea of Dostoevsky’s true morality seen in the novel.Item Once upon a time in the land of five rivers : a comparative analysis of translated Punjabi folk tale editions, from Flora Annie Steel's colonial collection to Shafi Aqeel's post-partition collection and beyond : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English Literature, Massey University, Manawatu Campus, New Zealand(Massey University, 2019) Fatima, NoorThis thesis offers a critical analysis of two different collections of Punjabi folk tales which were collected at different moments in Punjab’s history: Tales of the Punjab (1894), collected by Flora Annie Steel and, Popular Folk Tales of the Punjab (2008) collected by Shafi Aqeel and translated from Urdu into English by Ahmad Bashir. The study claims that the changes evident in collections of Punjabi folk tales published in the last hundred years reveal the different social, political and ideological assumptions of the collectors, translators and the audiences for whom they were disseminated. Each of these collections have one prior edition that differs in important ways from the later one. Steel’s edition was first published during the late-colonial era in India as Wide-awake Stories in 1884 and consisted of tales that she translated from Punjabi into English. Aqeel’s first edition was collected shortly after the partition of India and Pakistan, as Punjabi Lok Kahaniyan in 1963 and consisted of tales he translated from Punjabi into Urdu. Taking as my starting point the extensive (often feminist) scholarship on the ideological functions of folk lore and tale-telling, I explore the assumptions affirmed or challenged in these collections. My particular focus is on the differences between Steel’s late nineteenth-century, female-edited, Western/colonial Indian collection and Aqeel’s post-partition, ‘native,’ male-edited, Islam-inflected Pakistani collection, keeping in mind the collectors’ sociohistorical and political backgrounds along with differences in their implied audiences. The first chapter considers the history of and motivations for folklore collection in nineteenth-century British India and the colonial folklorists who were involved in this activity, especially in the Punjab. The second chapter offers a discussion of Flora Annie Steel’s biographical background and her various writings in order to suggest how her position as a (ostensibly) feminist colonial Memsahib, along with the editorial supervision of Richard C. Temple, may have influenced her collection and translation of Punjabi tales. The chapter also discusses how, at the time, female collectors like Steel relied on the authority of men to secure the validity of their work, needing a male scholarly stamp of approval. The third chapter discusses the life and works of Shafi Aqeel and the differences between the two editions of the collection (one published in Urdu in 1963, the other in English almost fifty years later in 2008). My own translation of the Urdu version illuminates the extent to which the English translator of Popular Folk Tales of the Punjab, Ahmad Bashir, added yet another level of appropriation to what were originally oral tales from the Punjabi region. Chapter Four provides a comparative analysis of selected tales from each collection focusing on the differences evident between similar tales that appear in each collection and discusses the reasons behind the changes introduced. Building on this, my concluding chapter, makes claims about what is distinctive about each version of the tale and collection, and offers possible reasons for their differences. As a supplement to the thesis I have included my own translations of selected tales from Aqeel’s Urdu edition as an Appendix, along with a note detailing the principles followed in the preparation of these translations. I have also appended two scanned versions of one tale from Aqeel’s Urdu edition and its English version, my own translation of which is already in the appendix. Through the analysis of the historical, social, political, and authorial background of the collections, and the analysis of the prefaces and notes to these, my study concludes that each collector (and/or translator) has imposed their own particular set of assumptions and values on the tales they have chosen to collect. The differences I observe between the collections and editions are often subtle but sometimes startling. These differences, I argue, can be attributed to the historical moment in which they were collected/published, and the ideological/political persuasion of the collectors and their anticipation of readers’ expectations. Differences between the editions not only prove revealing about the workings of folktales but also about how the collection of these might reflect cultural and social shifts and understandings, particularly in the Punjab region of Pakistan.Item The world inverted : Chuck Palahniuk's fiction as a challenge to neoliberal capitalism : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English at Massey University, Albany, New Zealand(Massey University, 2020) Berry, LouisaIn 2019, neoliberal capitalism and its practices appear to be so well-established in Anglo-American countries as to be almost incontestable. Much academic discourse has focused on delineating the features of neoliberal capitalism and diagnosing the effect it has on its human subjects, with many theorists arguing that it produces subjects who are individualistic, competitive and isolated. This thesis aims to determine what role, if any, fiction can play in the wider project of challenging neoliberal capitalist subjectivities. More specifically, it asks: To what extent can the work of one contemporary writer, American author Chuck Palahniuk, challenge his reader’s understanding of their own society and even prompt a transformational impulse within them? This thesis analyses nine of Palahniuk’s novels through the lenses of Marxist theory and contemporary theories of neoliberal capitalism in order to consider how fiction can alter a reader’s understanding of their society. Looking beyond representational content alone, I argue that Palahniuk’s use of stylistic features such as hyperbole, metaphor, symbolism and satire work to unveil and exaggerate aspects of neoliberal capitalism to the reader that have become so normalised that they are often viewed as inevitable or ‘common sense.’ At the same time, inbuilt moments of existential crisis and ambiguous endings work to break through the reader’s routine assumptions as to what is inevitable or important and create moments of uncertainty and doubt about neoliberal capitalism. The thesis thus argues that any transformational impulse ignited in the reader by Palahniuk’s fiction is best understood as a result of the dialectic work of content and form in tandem.
