An allergy and Novelists of the past, historians of the present

University of Technology, Sydney. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences.This thesis is comprised of a creative extract: Local History and Case Histories and an exegesis: Novelists of the Past, Historians of the Present. The creative extract is part of a much longer project, called an allergy, a multi-generic self-reflexive historiographical metafictional novel which explores ideas of history and fiction, memory and imagination, truth and identity across a number of genres, narratives, periods and voices. That history and fiction share many similarities is an idea well-established by both historians, critics and novelists, from Lionel Gossman and Hayden White to Richard Jenkins and E. L. Doctorow. The fiction–history debate has also stood at the heart of Australian literary history and Australian history itself, coming to a head during the ‘history’– and ‘culture wars’ declared by then-Prime Minister John Howard shortly after his election in 1996. These wars coincided with the so-called ‘memoir boom’ in which personal autobiographical narratives and first-person, present-tense fiction rose in popularity among a reading public hungry for ‘authentic’ stories, often by once-marginalised voices. Yet despite historian Mark McKenna calling for a dialogue between historians and novelists, the discussion seemed as vehement and vituperative as those surrounding the history– and culture wars. The creative extract offers my own parody of the memoir popular during the 1990s, and explores issues of race, authenticity, history, truth and identity, issues that were raised in cases like the controversy over Kate Grenville’s The Secret River, reaching back to the Koolmatrie and Demidenko affairs. I use these controversies as a springboard to examine in the exegesis that follows questions regarding issues fiction and fictional truth, imaginative empathy and creative freedom, appropriation and attribution, national and individual identity, especially in the context of Australia’s long and ignoble history of literary hoaxing. The exegesis examines the textual defences and broader contextual and moral criticisms in both controversies, analysing the rhetorical devices and narrative conventions common to fiction and history; it relates these problems and possibilities for negotiating them creatively and ethically to an allergy. The conceptual rationale for this thesis is embedded in the work in every possible way. My overall argument is not so much that history and fiction, truth and reality, memory and unreliability are now blurred — for this is an argument that has been made numerous times before — but that the act of retrieving truth, identity, authenticity or memory constitutes a re-imagining of the very elements it seeks to interrogate creatively and critically. The reader is ultimately positioned as an active creator of the text. The exegesis is followed by a short Appendix which contains a sample of a different section of an allergy by way of demonstrating this; while this section it is not offered for examination it showcases my deliberate merging of the boundaries of the scholarly and the creative

Dotazioni culturali d’eccellenza

Le città medie della regione PACA (Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur), nel confrontarsi con la forte attrattività turistica della Costa Azzurra e del Principato di Monaco e con la presenza della città di rango metropolitano di Marsiglia, hanno investito sin dal secondo dopoguerra in una direzione alternativa di sviluppo puntando su dotazioni culturali d’eccellenza, facendo sistema tra loro (centri urbani relativamente vicini con distanze medie di circa 100 km) e configurando un “distretto culturale” che, superando la dimensione locale e regionale, riesce a competere ad un livello internazionale. Accanto alla valorizzazione della propria identità, del patrimonio culturale e delle peculiarità del paesaggio provenzale, le azioni sono state dirette verso la promozione di attività culturali legate in particolare allo spettacolo ed alla creatività artistica, gestite secondo un principio di offerta diversificata: la presenza di tali eventi culturali, tra cui diversi Festival, richiede strutture in grado di soddisfare una richiesta di livello internazionale che, dedicate alle manifestazioni per un breve periodo, rimangono comunque patrimonio di rango elevato delle città medie per il resto dell’anno, contribuendo ad innalzare la qualità dell’offerta in termini di dotazioni e servizi ad elevate prestazioni e capacità. Nell’evento la città media si trasforma in città capitale, accoglie attrezzature e funzioni di rango corrispondente, e l’offerta differenziata potenzia la competitività di sistema delle città. Un modello di sviluppo che utilizza anche la produzione di attività culturali offre opportunità di riequilibrio di territori che sono o rischiano di venire emarginati dalle principali direttrici di sviluppo economico, o che soccombono nella concorrenza con altre realtà più attrattive sul capitalismo industriale o finanziario

Our Mediterranean Africa

La Goulette is one of the 19 zones of Grand Tunis, the most densely populated metropolis of Tunisia with almost two and a half million of citizens. La Goulette, built up around the canal that connects the lagoon to the sea, has hosted the most prominent Italian community that settled in Tunis. In 1893, the construction of the port of Tunis attracted in La Goulette numerous traders: dockworkers and small merchants settled here, in particular mechanics and auto parts dealers, of Sardinian and Sicilian origin. To the precariousness of houses also corresponded a disordered urban design. The landscape that thus originated was extraordinarily similar to landscapes that can be found in the Sicilian coasts, in proximity of ports, of small towns and fisherman’s villages. The neighborhood was symbolically named Petite Sicile, as Sicily mirrored herself in these spontaneous forms of architecture, in the thick intertwining of houses and social relationships, in the way of living “in the streets” of children and, of course, in the food

La rigenerazione del porto e del centro storico di Trapani: l’impatto sulla città e il territorio

Trapani ha avviato un processo di profondo rinnovamento che in un breve arco di tempo ha visto la riqualificazione del porto, del centro storico e della città, riverberandosi anche sul suo territorio. Il processo ha preso avvio in occasione dello svolgimento nel porto di Trapani delle regate dell’America’s Cup nel 2005/06, per proseguire e radicarsi nel territorio grazie ad una programmazione integrata tra più soggetti della pubblica amministrazione, alla capacità di attrarre investimenti esogeni e al coinvolgimento dei privati e della popolazione locale. Trama portante delle politiche messe in atto è stata l’identità di Trapani come città portuale: gli interventi di trasformazione ne hanno valorizzato il patrimonio, rigenerato i caratteri e potenziato l’attrattività.At the beginning of the twenty-first century Trapani has started a process of radical renewal of the port, the old town and the city, which was also transferred in its territory. The process began with the opportunity of the America's Cup in 2005/06 in the port of Trapani; this renewal process has continued in the territory thanks integrated planning, the synergy between more public actors, the ability to attract investment and the involvement of private and local residents. The identity of Trapani as a port-city has characterized all operations: the interventions of transformation have enhanced the heritage, rebuilt the characters and improved attractiveness

Pique-niquer in Paris

Una antica tradizione rinnova il rapporto tra Parigi e i suoi abitanti: l’uso sociale e pubblico di prati, giardini, scalinate, sponde dei canali e lungofiume per consumare, con estrema nonchalance, il rito del picnic. Pique-niquer è un verbo francese che abbina piquer (prendere, rubacchiare, spilluzzicare) con nique (piccola cosa di poco valore). La città gli tributa generosamente i suoi spazi pubblici dove si riversano coppie, gruppi, famiglie, attrezzati di tutto punto per godere di un pranzo o soltanto di uno spuntino all’aperto, immersi tra i panorami urbani più suggestivi.An old tradition renews the relationship existing between Paris and her inhabitants: the social and public use of lawns, gardens, stairways and riverfronts to hold, with extreme nonchalance, the ceremony of picnicking. Pique-niquer (to picnic), is a French verb made up of two words: piquer (to pick, to nick, to nibble) and nique (small little thing seemingly of no value). The City has generously dedicated many public areas to picnicking

Effect of sports vision exercise on visual perception and reading performance in 7- to 10-year-old developmental dyslexic children

The presented study was aimed at identifying for the first time the influence of sports vision exercises on fundamental motor skills and cognitive skills of 7- to 10-year-old developmental dyslexic Persian children. A pretest - posttest quasi-experimental study was conducted. The statistical population of this study was 7- to 10-year-old dyslexic children referring to two centres of learning disorder in the city of Isfahan. Twenty two of these children were selected using available and purposive sampling from the statistical population and were randomly assigned into two groups of experimental and control. The former (experimental group) participated in sports vision exercise courses for 12 weeks (3 one hr sessions per week) and the latter (control group) continued their routine daily activities during the exercise. Before the beginning and at the end of the exercise, Gardner’s test of visual perception test - revised and Dehkhoda’s reading skills test was administered to both groups. The results showed that the sports vision exercises increases motor skills, visual perceptual skills and reading skills in developmental dyslexic children. Based on the results of the presented study it was concluded that sports vision exercises can be used for fundamental and cognitive skills of developmental dyslexic children

Dropout reasons in Iranian youth roller skaters

The main drop-out reasons from the sport of roller skating amongst Iranian youth skaters has been examined. A questionnaire with 53 items (adopted from Enoksen, 2011) representing seven subscales namely: training factors and facilities, executive factors and team, education and work obligations, motivational aspects, social-cultural environment, choice of other sport activities and interests and economic factors was especially developed for this research. Responses were measured on a Likert scale ranging from “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree” in relation to each statement. In all 112 skaters predominantly male (mean age 17.1, SD = 1.63) with a mean = 5.43 years of experience (SD = 2.92) that had discontinued in the past two years completed the questionnaire. Results of one sample t-tests showed that all factors expect “social-cultural environment” are significant indicators for drop out from skating with “economical factors” scoring the highest ranking. Correlational analysis showed that younger participants agree more strongly that “executive factors and team” and “education and work obligations” were the best predictors of drop out. Those with fewer years of experience considered “training factors and facilities”, “motivational aspects and social and cultural environment” as more likely reasons for quitting. Implications of the findings are discus

Pengaruh Indol-3-butiric-acid Dan Thidiazuron Terhadap Multiplikasi Tunas Nenas (Ananas Comosus (L) Merr) CV. Smooth Cayyene Secara in Vitro

Pineapple (Ananas comosus L.) is one of the most potential fruit crop cultivating in Indonesia. However, it is difficult to meet the demand for planting materials using the conventional propagation techniques due to production inefficiency. This research aim to know the influence solid medium of Murashige and Skoog (MS) composed of Indol-3-Butiric Acid and Thidiazuron, upon pineapple Var Smooth Cayenne shoot multiplication response. Shoot multiplication using a factorial complete random design. The first is a 3-level IBA concentration (0.3 ppm, 0.6 ppm, 0.9 ppm), a 3-level TDZ concentration (0.2 ppm, 0.4 ppm, 0.6 ppm). The finding shows that MS richly composed IBA and TDZ with low concentration gives 100% shoot the fastest periodic appearance (two weeks after incubation). Varians analysis finding shows that there is no interaction between IBA and TDZ.Low IBA concentration gives the higest quantity of shoot 9.32 (5.60 data transformation) at 5 week after incubation, at the end of the analysis tends to give the higest shoot 11.17 (6.18 data transformation) even though it is statistically not slighty difference. The highest TDZ concentration (0,6 ppm) give a few number of roots 0.89 (2,65 data transformation) and the lowes shoots leaf 3.84 (4.04 data transformation). The higher the TDZ is, the more nodal may appear