{"id":{"repo_id":"vcu","oai_identifier":"oai:scholarscompass.vcu.edu:etd-1176"},"canonical_url":"https://search.dev.ndltd.org/etd/vcu/oai:scholarscompass.vcu.edu:etd-1176","repository":{"repo_id":"vcu","name":"Virginia Commonwealth University","base_url":"https://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/do/oai/"},"display":{"title":"Signifying Ruins: The Wreck and Rebirth of Modernity, Language, and Representation","abstract":"This study explores formal and thematic representations of ruins in twentieth century literary texts, including James Joyce’s Ulysses, T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land, Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children, and Adrienne Rich’s “Diving into the Wreck.” Analyzing these texts and concepts of ruins in the theoretical work of Jacques Derrida, Walter Benjamin, and Julia Kristeva, I argue that ruins underscore the arbitrariness—and, thus, the fragility—of symbolic systems of signification. Ruins, by virtue of their fragmentation, invite nostalgic projections of totality only to betray totality as an illusion. Thus, the imagination of wholeness that the ruin incites allows—only to disallow—meaning. Modernity and language also initiate an allegorical process by which representation is made possible and impossible. Proclaiming an alliance (based on a contrast) between the past and the present, signifiers and signifieds, modernity and language likewise betray that representation, by invoking a radical alterity, is ruined from inception.","abstract_html":"This study explores formal and thematic representations of ruins in twentieth century literary texts, including James Joyce’s Ulysses, T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land, Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children, and Adrienne Rich’s “Diving into the Wreck.” Analyzing these texts and concepts of ruins in the theoretical work of Jacques Derrida, Walter Benjamin, and Julia Kristeva, I argue that ruins underscore the arbitrariness—and, thus, the fragility—of symbolic systems of signification. Ruins, by virtue of their fragmentation, invite nostalgic projections of totality only to betray totality as an illusion. Thus, the imagination of wholeness that the ruin incites allows—only to disallow—meaning. Modernity and language also initiate an allegorical process by which representation is made possible and impossible. Proclaiming an alliance (based on a contrast) between the past and the present, signifiers and signifieds, modernity and language likewise betray that representation, by invoking a radical alterity, is ruined from inception.","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Farley, Audrey"],"institution":null,"degree_name":"Master of Arts","degree_level":"Thesis","degree_discipline":"English","degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":["Marcel Cornis-Pope"],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2011,"date_issued":"2011-04-21T07:00:00Z","date_published":"2011-04-21T07:00:00Z","updated_at":"2026-07-24T05:53:26Z","subjects":["modernity","language","representation","ruins","benjamin","derrida","kristeva","cixous","signification","signiify","subject","object","mother","other","psychoanalytic","deconstruction","novel","text","Arts and Humanities","English Language and Literature"],"languages":[],"rights":["© The Author"],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["https://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/etd/177"],"render_values":[{"text":"https://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/etd/177","href":"https://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/etd/177","code":true}]}]},"links":{"outbound_url":"https://doi.org/10.25772/PV01-0V83","outbound_label":"DOI","outbound_source":"dc:identifier"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor","label":"Contributor","values":["Marcel Cornis-Pope"]},{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Farley, Audrey"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date.available","label":"Dc Date Available","values":["2016-05-02T07:00:00Z"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_discipline","label":"Discipline","values":["English"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_level","label":"Degree Level","values":["Thesis"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_name","label":"Degree Name","values":["Master of Arts"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["modernity","language","representation","ruins","benjamin","derrida","kristeva","cixous","signification","signiify","subject","object","mother","other","psychoanalytic","deconstruction","novel","text","Arts and Humanities","English Language and Literature"]}]},{"id":"language_rights","label":"Language and Rights","entries":[{"key":"dc:rights","label":"Dc Rights","values":["© The Author"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["https://doi.org/10.25772/PV01-0V83","https://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/etd/177"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description.abstract","label":"Abstract","values":["This study explores formal and thematic representations of ruins in twentieth century literary texts, including James Joyce’s Ulysses, T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land, Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children, and Adrienne Rich’s “Diving into the Wreck.” Analyzing these texts and concepts of ruins in the theoretical work of Jacques Derrida, Walter Benjamin, and Julia Kristeva, I argue that ruins underscore the arbitrariness—and, thus, the fragility—of symbolic systems of signification. Ruins, by virtue of their fragmentation, invite nostalgic projections of totality only to betray totality as an illusion. Thus, the imagination of wholeness that the ruin incites allows—only to disallow—meaning. Modernity and language also initiate an allegorical process by which representation is made possible and impossible. Proclaiming an alliance (based on a contrast) between the past and the present, signifiers and signifieds, modernity and language likewise betray that representation, by invoking a radical alterity, is ruined from inception."]},{"key":"dc:title","label":"Title","values":["Signifying Ruins: The Wreck and Rebirth of Modernity, Language, and Representation"]}]}],"canonical_facts":{"dc:contributor":["Marcel Cornis-Pope"],"dc:creator":["Farley, Audrey"],"dc:date.available":["2016-05-02T07:00:00Z"],"dc:description.abstract":["This study explores formal and thematic representations of ruins in twentieth century literary texts, including James Joyce’s Ulysses, T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land, Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children, and Adrienne Rich’s “Diving into the Wreck.” Analyzing these texts and concepts of ruins in the theoretical work of Jacques Derrida, Walter Benjamin, and Julia Kristeva, I argue that ruins underscore the arbitrariness—and, thus, the fragility—of symbolic systems of signification. Ruins, by virtue of their fragmentation, invite nostalgic projections of totality only to betray totality as an illusion. Thus, the imagination of wholeness that the ruin incites allows—only to disallow—meaning. Modernity and language also initiate an allegorical process by which representation is made possible and impossible. Proclaiming an alliance (based on a contrast) between the past and the present, signifiers and signifieds, modernity and language likewise betray that representation, by invoking a radical alterity, is ruined from inception."],"dc:identifier":["https://doi.org/10.25772/PV01-0V83","https://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/etd/177"],"dc:rights":["© The Author"],"dc:subject":["modernity","language","representation","ruins","benjamin","derrida","kristeva","cixous","signification","signiify","subject","object","mother","other","psychoanalytic","deconstruction","novel","text","Arts and Humanities","English Language and Literature"],"dc:title":["Signifying Ruins: The Wreck and Rebirth of Modernity, Language, and Representation"],"thesis:degree_discipline":["English"],"thesis:degree_level":["Thesis"],"thesis:degree_name":["Master of Arts"]},"updated_at":"2026-07-24T05:53:26Z"}