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This thesis examines the exotic performances and representations of Icelanders and 'the North' (borealism) in both contemporary mediums and daily life focusing on their practice within intricate power-relations and transnational folkloric encounters. It sets forth theory in understanding the dynamics, agency and ironies involved with performing one's identity and folklore and a corresponding methodology of fieldwork and audio-visual documentation. It looks at the representation of the North through the produced and widespread images of Icelanders. It sheds light on the dynamics behind these representations and the coalescence of personal experience; everyday cultural expression; modes of commodification; and folkloric contexts from which many of these images emerge. The primary case study is an ethnography of Icelandic expatriates in Europe and North America that explores the roles of identity and folk culture in transcultural performances. In approaching the questions of differentiation and the folklore of dislocation everyday practices such as oral narrative and food traditions are studied as an arena of the negotiation and performance of identity. Interlinking theoretical and methodological concerns the thesis brings to bear how expressive culture and performance may corrode the strategies of boundary making and marginalisation re-enforced by exotic imagery by tactical re-appropriation. Finally the thesis explores the concept of ironic, as opposed to 'authentic', identities.

This dissertation attempts a new reading of the earliest of the Ming-dynasty texts known as huaben - prosimetric short stories written in a vernacularized idiom that imitate the narrative mode of oral storytelling - by exploring a mode of reading sensitive to the unique demands of their peculiar narrative structure and composition. Noting how mainstream scholarly conceptions of the huaben and their potential relationship to genuine oral storytelling traditions have been limited by the textual bias of literary studies, it introduces theoretical breakthroughs from folklore and oral narrative studies that recognize the distinctive ways in which oral narrative dynamics can be reproduced in print as textual rhetoric for users who know how to reconstruct the context of performance as a mode of reading. It also incorporates case studies from the author’s own fieldwork on the contemporary northern Chinese storytelling genre known as pingshu, a vital and adaptive tradition of oral performance, which are offered as comparative analogues. After demonstrating both the existence of textual bias and its effect on the relevant scholarship, the body chapters identify common features of performance narratives in print and demonstrate how a sensitivity to those features impacts our understanding of the huaben as well as of crucial vernacular and performance-proximate texts that came before them. Chapter Two introduces the “performance arena,” i.e., a communicative frame that invites readers to receive a textual narrative according to the interpretive rules of a performance tradition. It demonstrates how several early (13 -14th c.) texts crucial to the stylistic development of the huaben employ a performance arena to invite reception of narrative as a mimetic experience within a “populated” space in order to enable the re-experience of tradition. Chapter Three indexes a select few formulaic expressions from the earliest huaben text we have, the Dream at Qiantang, and argues that they were read metonymically, the way oral formulae are received - that is, as symbolic shorthand for greater complexes of meaning that reside outside the singular text. Chapter Four integrates observations from the first two chapters in a close reading of a textual concordance: the 1550 chantefable Tale of Yunmen and its direct descendant, Adept Li Crosses Yunmen Pass Alone, a huaben from 1627. In that concordance it identifies a relationship of participatory form to tradition-oriented content which invites a distinct mode of reading, one which figures the act of narrative reception not as a dissociative, critical encounter with new information, but as the re-experiencing of narrative content as a real, known constituent of the reader’s lifeworld. Analogic examples from contemporary pingshu performance, including a case study of three contemporary performances of Story of the Stone (Hongloumeng) as Beijing pingshu, a review of oral formulae in pingshu as multi-layered linguistic and paralinguistic elements, and a close reading of the first two editions of a multi-media printed pingshu book series demonstrate the perennial existence of “reading as reliving” in modern eras, note how oral storytelling traditions appropriate literary cachet as a source of performative authority, and exemplify forms of oral and literary hybridity that consistently appear within oral-proximate textual ecosystems. The dissertation concludes that the early huaben make more communicative demands on their implied reader than literary scholars had previously thought, as they shift between registers and invoke spaces, scenes, and character types via a set of habits that strongly resemble those of oral narrative habits that strongly resemble those of oral storytelling performance. Moreover, having recovered the mode of reading necessary to meet those demand, it shows how fundamentally it can change our understanding of how the early huaben make meaning. This upends a mainstream scholarly conception of the huaben as a genre that moved from simple to complex, proves the existence of deep hybridities in the huaben collections, and demonstrates how the “transmedial reach” of the early huaben, unlocked by the unique competence of “reading as reliving,” is yet another example of oral performance communities harnessing new media technologies to make text do more than contemporary scholars think it can.

A la fragmentación de la comunidad de la enseñanza y el aprendizaje de español se suma la ausencia de una metodología científica que analice la calidad de las actividades educativas y culturales que se realizan en este ámbito académico. De esta forma no se valora su margen de mejora, su impacto ni su pertinencia reales. Propongo en esta investigación un modelo de planificación, ejecución y evaluación cualitativa y cuantitativa que permita conocer el grado de excelencia en la gestión y la satisfacción de sus participantes y destinatarios. El ámbito en el que se ha llevado a cabo esta propuesta ha sido la Enseñanza Superior de la República Popular China, donde he trabajado siete años. Entre 2017 y 2020 he cofundado con mis alumnos y coordinado la iniciativa colectiva Puente con el objetivo de demostrar que los estudios hispánicos tienen el potencial de reducir el desconocimiento cultural y la falta de comunicación e integración de la comunidad educativa, y plantear una serie de objetivos en común. Las redes sociales, la difusión de la narrativa oral china y una actitud comunicativa han servido como elementos unificadores para la celebración de cinco actividades a nivel nacional con un fin didáctico, académico y divulgativo. La meta propuesta supone una innovación y un complemento a la enseñanza reglada en el análisis del complejo contexto previo local más allá del aula. Tanto la metodología utilizada como los resultados obtenidos pueden resultar de utilidad para futuros estudios vinculados con la organización de eventos de enseñanza y aprendizaje no solo de español, sino también de otras lenguas y en otros entornos educativos. Y, en especial, tienen el potencial de promover el acercamiento y el entendimiento ante el creciente clima de tensión internacional.

A personal narrative intervention package was used to teach macrostructure within participant-generated personal narratives. The effects of the personal narrative intervention package were assessed using a combined single-subject, multiple-baseline, and an A-B-A-B design across four adults with ASD and ID. During the initial baseline phase, participants included few macrostructure elements in their personal narratives. When the intervention package was introduced, there was an immediate increase in the number of macrostructure components included in participant-generated personal narratives. A withdrawal of the intervention yielded results similar to those of baseline. Following the reintroduction of the intervention, macrostructure scores immediately increased back to levels similar to those of the initial intervention. The skills taught to participants were maintained across three weeks post-intervention, however, generalization was not demonstrated. This personal narrative intervention package allowed adults with ASD and ID to share personal stories and more meaningful social experiences with others. Implications for practice and future research are discussed.

My dissertation seeks to explore the experiences, existing narratives, and the role of intertwined stories of the Roma/Gypsy community in Bodvalenke, in the economically and socially most underprivileged region of Hungary. Bodvalenke is a unique place, where contemporary painters of Roma/Gypsy origin have created large murals on the back walls of the houses in the frame of a permanent outdoor exhibition. In the visual storytelling of these murals about the Roma/Gypsy mythology, past and present uniquely work together, entwined with oral narratives and everyday stories in the village. My research examines the nature of storytelling in Bodvalenke in its many layers and performances, and analyzes its effects as well as probing the relationships between the stories told by the Romani people and stories circulated by others about Roma/Gypsy peoples in Hungary and Europe.

The purpose of this study was to ascertain what factors enable some gay, lesbian,bisexual, and queer (GLBQ) students to persist in college whereas a significant number leave. Specifically, the research question that framed this study was "What factors in a gay, lesbian, bisexual, and queer person’s life history enable him or her to persist through higher education and successfully obtain an undergraduate degree?"A life history methodology (Bertaux, 1981; Cole, 2001; Denzin, 1989; Goodson,2001; Goodson & Sikes, 2001; Hatch & Wisniewski, 1995) was used to capture the lived experiences of 3 female and 3 male postsecondary students who self-identified as GLBQ and were on target to successfully complete their bachelor's degree within one academic year. Additionally, participants were asked to identify where they believed they reside on frequently cited queer identity development models (Cass, 1984; Coleman, 1982; Lipkin, 1999; Troiden, 1989).A grounded-theory approach to data analysis (Strauss & Corbin, 1990) wasutilized in order to identify the factors that help or hinder a GLBQ postsecondarystudent's academic progression.Ten common themes or factors were found to exist among the participants. Thesewere: (1) high behavioral expectations during childhood and adolescence; (2) a strong family connection; (3) strong work ethic; (4) high educational expectations; (5) guardian acceptance; (6) involvement in GLBQ activities on campus; (7) sexuality as a component of the whole person; (8) self-confidence and autonomy; (9) ability to deal with life’s obstacles while taking care of themselves and continuing forward; and (10) tendency toward planning and the possession of a post-graduation course of action. Recommendations for future research and implications for practice are presented.

The current study is a comparison of the oral narrative abilities of children from different social classes and different learning environments. Participants included 45 third grade students from three schools: a suburban public school, an urban charter school, and an urban public school. The majority of the students from the suburban public school are from the middle or upper class, while most of the students from the urban charter and urban public schools are from poverty. All participants were administered a language screening and received a numerical score, which was then compared to the age-based criterion scores. Each child either passed or failed the screening; those who failed were referred to the school’s speech-language pathologist for further language assessment. Two children with low scores, two with scores in the middle, and two with high scores on the language screening from each school participated in an oral narrative barrier activity. To complete this task, each child was given a picture with a title and was separated by a physical barrier from the researcher. The children created narratives about the picture, which were recorded and later transcribed by the researcher. Several quantitative and qualitative components of the narratives were analyzed. The children’s narratives were then compared within and across school settings. Findings revealed that results of the language screening did not necessarily predict narrative performance; children from poverty tended to use more conjunctions than children from the middle class; and children from the middle class tended to use more diverse vocabulary than children from poverty. Implications of this study are included.