Hodges, Hugh

This study will focus on how immigrants from Sub Saharan African (SSA) countries use humour as a tool for integration and belonging (and ultimately citizenship) in Canada. My aim is to investigate, through a detailed analysis of popular culture productions from immigrant communities, the strategies and techniques of humour that immigrants employ as a mode of communication with fellow immigrants, their immediate host community and the governmental authorities of Canada. I am particularly interested in how African immigrants use their oral background and cultural memory in the production of jokes and other humour products as a way of interacting, first with fellow immigrants as the primary audience and recipients of the humour and, second, with Canadian society at large.

Using the 'Signifying' theory of Henry Louis Gates (1988) and Mikhail Bakhtin's (1968) concept of the "Carnivalesque" as the theoretical framework for this study, I argue that immigrants from SSA countries are using humour to question hegemonic regulations that portrays them as victims, while providing alternative narratives of themselves as subjects with human agency. I further postulate that immigrants are taking advantage of the policy of multiculturalism that exists in Canada in a positive manner as an enabler for their humour. In turn, they are using the humour produced to communicate and break down social barriers, while building bridges across communities and social strata. I bolster my arguments with a consideration of humour in three genres of popular culture – literature, standup comedy and film – to show how immigrants rely on their home culture to produce humour in an effort to find belonging in Canada as contributors rather than victims.

This thesis is the first work to examine SSA humour, produced by immigrants from these countries, in the context of their immigration and integration into Canada, and the first to present extended literary criticism of the works of immigrant writers, Tololwa Mollel, Yabome Gilpin-Jackson and Segun Akinlolu. This is also the first study on the comedy of Arthur Simeon, originally from Uganda and the film of Phina Brooks, originally from Nigeria. My analysis apprehends the immigrant voice in the writings and productions of these artists and places their works in conversation with Canadian literary/cultural criticism. Until now, there has been no study of the function of humour produced by African immigrants in Canada. It is my hope that this study will not only fill that gap, but also lay the groundwork for future study in this field that I believe holds a lot of socio-cultural promise, especially in the area of cohesive habitation amongst different ethnic groups.

This study aims to contribute to conversations on immigration and its impact on Canadian society as part of nation-building and national consciousness.

Author Keywords: African Stand up Comedy, Humour, Immigration, Multiculturalism, Popular Culture, Postcolonialism

The study sought to uncover the motivations influencing collectors when they buy recorded music. These motivations were analyzed through the lenses of environmental, economic, and cultural sustainability. Trent Radio Programmers were interviewed because of their frequent use of recorded music, sizable collections, and active participation in the local music scene. The study identified disconnects between artist, industry, and consumer motivations that hinder the achievement of a sustainable system. Environmental sustainability was not considered, while the artists' economic and cultural sustainability were. This finding translates to the idea that in the music industry, to strengthen cultural sustainability, economics must be supported, which requires environmental impact. This research has the potential to catalyze critical conversations about digital media, artist welfare, and the state of the music industry.

Author Keywords: College Radio, Cultural Sustainability, Economic Sustainability, Environmental Sustainability, Music Collecting

Independent music venues are important hubs of social activity and cultural

production around which local punk scenes are both physically and conceptually

organized. Through interactions with participants over extended periods of time, these

spaces become meaningful places that are imbued with the energy, history and memories

of local music scenes. When a venue is shut down, local punk scenes experience a

temporary disruption as participants struggle to begin the process of re-establishing a new

autonomous social space free from outsider interference. Therefore, moving from the

local, to the national, to the international, from the small and personal to the vast and

global, as well as from the physical to the virtual, this dissertation illustrates the actual,

everyday practices of local scenes across Canada, addressing the larger issue of the loss

of alternative music venues occurring on a global scale and the resulting impact on punk

scene participants. Through the use of ethnographic research methods such as participant

observation, photographic documentation, interviews and surveys, this dissertation

engages with contemporary punk scene participants in order to give voice to those often

ignored in grand narratives of punk history. As such, traditional concepts of punk as a

utopic countercultural space are challenged to reveal the complexity and diversity that

exists within contemporary local punk scenes, where participants often experience equal

amounts of cooperation, competition, tension and struggle. By choosing to engage with

contemporary experiences and interpretations of punk culture, this research addresses the

changing landscape of local scenes, as punk participants attempt to carve out spaces of

representation for themselves in an exceedingly mediated world.

Author Keywords: Canada, music venues, punk, scene, social space, subculture

Game texts present unique and dynamic opportunities for lability: how readers can make choices while reading that alter the narrative's nature or outcome. Labile decisions are neither simply correct nor incorrect--the reader renders judgement to produce a desired outcome. When encountering labile challenges, players employ an interpretive strategy to resolve them. Many game texts tell stories. Games anticipate readers' interpretive strategies to orchestrate a desired result in labile narratives and manipulate players into inhabiting an identity in a variety of different ways. This thesis examines how Fallout 3 does so with periodically opposable intentions, mainly applying an inconsistent moral orthodoxy via the player character's father, but occasionally exhibiting the series' nihilistic philosophy that disdains American exceptionalism, undermining the orthodoxy. This isolates and breaks down the interpretive communities the player inhabits to play the game.

Author Keywords: Exceptionalism, Identity, Lability, Morality, Narrative, Video Games