Saudi Cultural Missions Theses & Dissertations
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Item Restricted Environmental Injustices in Robinson Jeffers’s and Denise Levertov’s Ecopoetry(University of Birmingham, 2025) AlRowisan, Amal Ali M; Holmes, John; Zimbler, Jarad; Wood, SaraThis thesis explores critiques of environmental injustices in the poetry of Robinson Jeffers (1887-1962) and Denise Levertov (1923-1997). The anthropocentrism typical of American culture constantly imposes hierarchal division and underestimation of otherness which cause injustices to people and nonhumans. In urban, war, and natural environments, the poets investigate the impact of modernity, imperialism, and environmental degradation on changing environmental conditions and ecological wholeness. Jeffers and Levertov establish in their poetry a shared trajectory where they start with a description of injustices and their destructive impacts, progress towards a condemnation of the politics behind these injustices, and propose alternative ecological values. In their trajectories of critique across these three contexts, their poetry attempts to bridge the divide between the city and nature, between the Americans and the Vietnamese, and between humans and nonhumans. It provides a model for the reconstruction of anthropocentrism toward ecological relations of integrity. Their poetry reveals situations of the environmental ‘unconscious’ and attempts to draw a vision of environmental imagination and justice. Chapter 1 of the thesis registers Jeffers’s response to modernity. It explores his presentation of the city as a centre for accumulating change and corruption that separates man from nature. He presents the struggle of presence within the confinement of urbanization, mechanization, and rapid changes against human instinctual freedom and cultural values, a crisis he resists with his philosophy of Inhumanism. Instead, he urges a withdrawal to nature where he affirms in the landscape timeless and holistic values as contrasting models to human values. Chapter 2 investigates Levertov’s account of the Vietnam War as breeding violence and destruction to people's safety and emotional wellness. She presents victimization, loss, and emotional stasis which she supports with her political poetry of resistance. She encourages empathy, solidarity, and the need to maintain safety for others. Chapter 3 traces the poets’ presentations of exploitation, destruction, and cruelty to land and animals in their poetry. In the poems, both poets point out nonhuman forces that wrestle with humanity's injustices which they represent through myth and figuration. In their presentation of nonhumans, they highlight existing ideologies that underestimate nonhumans and seek in their poetry to affirm nonhuman agency and consciousness. In my investigation of their critique of injustices, my thesis draws on recent developments and turns of ecocriticism. It reframes the poets’ critiques through Environmental Justice theory, looking at human alienation in the city, the victimization of people in the Vietnam War, the exploitation of lands, and the cruelty to animals as environmental injustices. Under these thematic discussions, my thesis analyses the affective forces that emerge in response to injustices across these contexts. Jeffers’s presentation of the hopelessness of people in the city, Levertov’s depiction of the victimized emotions in Vietnam, and their presentation of nonhuman struggle in the degraded environments underscore the poets’ awareness of the notion of interdependency in the universe. The thesis also demonstrates the material forces of nonhumans that wrestle with human denial of them and affirm their existence instead. These recent developments in ecocriticism, which resonate with the poets’ critiques, elucidate the fundamental dynamics of existence and challenge the anthropocentric ideology that fosters such injustices.24 0Item Restricted What role do video games play in the process of radicalisation?(University of Leeds, 2024-09) Alarifi, Faris; White, SabrinaThis dissertation explores the potential role video games play in the process of radicalisation by focussing on how gaming mechanics, graphics, narratives, algorithms, and online communities might contribute to this process. The first chapter analyses how gaming mechanics and dynamics might facilitate the process of radicalisation by having extreme graphics and narratives developed into some video games. The second chapter explores how the YouTube recommendation algorithm might steer users who watch gaming-related content to real-life radical content. The final chapter delves into online gaming and communities and investigates the social aspect of gaming, where players might cross paths or be matched with radical players, and how extreme organisations are using these communities to their advantages. Although video games do not directly lead to radicalisation, they still have the potential to play a role in this process. Therefore, this dissertation argues that video games are not the root cause of radicalisation, but they might play a role in this process, and they might be one of the mediums extreme organisations employ to radicalise other individuals.22 0Item Restricted Bedouins and the Conflict Over the Caravan Routes: Rethinking Violence Along the Hajj and Trade Routes of Central Hijaz (1900-1914)(Saudi Digital Library, 2023-11-06) Alharthi, Shatha; Dailami, AhmedThis dissertation explores the meanings of violence that affected the caravan routes and endangered the security of their users, whether pilgrims or merchants. The prominent representation of this violence portrays it as a traditional practice committed by the Hijazi rural tribes (Bedouins). These acts were in search of money or retaliation against authority or the harsh environment of the Hijazi deserts. However, this work goes beyond this oversimplifying portrayal of Bedouin violence and examines it in all its intricacies. It shows that the Bedouins’ dominance over the caravan routes and their tax-free camel trade was no longer bearable by the various state-making projects beginning with the Ottoman centralisation reforms in Hijaz. Therefore, subduing these Bedouin tribes, controlling the Hajj and trade routes, and regulating the camel trade became paramount objectives for the architects of state formation in the region. In response to these efforts to monitor and reshape their livelihoods, Hijazi rural tribes utilised their supremacy over the deserts and the routes crossing them. They did so to create more appropriate conditions to negotiate these developments with the state. When these negotiations reached impasses, which happened frequently, they resorted to blocking the roads connecting Hijazi towns and threatening or robbing travellers. They aimed to compel the state to reconsider its policies. Therefore, these acts of violence were not mere means of sustenance but rather political strategies designed to negotiate the state-making projects and their repercussions on the Bedouins’ homeland and livelihoods. This reinterpretation emerged from an analysis of fifteen years of violence histories, spanning from 1900 to 1914, in Central Hijaz. This period witnessed three waves of violence aimed at addressing the tribes’ challenges and hardships. Despite shifts in power dynamics and state initiatives, violence during this era followed recurring patterns, surging during times of heightened tensions in Bedouin-state relations.11 0Item Restricted Towards An Analytical Framework for Significant Authoritarian Reform(0028-11-28) Alkindi, Abdulghani; Wilson, AngeliaThe overarching research question of this project is what criteria indicate significant authoritarian reform? This study introduces the theoretical model of hard superego society (HSS) to answer this question. This model assumes this type of society includes two criteria: systematic social hate and discrimination and the emergence of discriminatory authoritarian characters (DACs). Drawing upon these criteria, I suggest three models of superego society (1) models of societies in transition to soft superego societies, (2) moderate models of hard superego societies and (3) extreme models of hard superego societies. These theoretical criteria and models were influenced by the authoritarianism theories of the first-generation Frankfurt School thinkers, particularly Erich Fromm. It also depends heavily on Wilhelm Reich's approach, which links authoritarianism to discrimination, hate and violence. Given the academic limitations imposed by COVID-19, a study on hard superego society was done as a theoretical experiment using qualitative methods and desk-based research. The finding of this dissertation is that significant authoritarian reform would be indicated in changes in the discrimination and hate practiced by authoritarian welfare policy, education, families and authoritarian/discrimination religious organisations. Therefore, identifying nuances of different models of hard superego societies is profoundly important to better understand authoritarian reform. This research project reintroducing the FS's first generation's analytical framework of authoritarianism and Reich and Fromm's relationship between authoritarian character, discrimination, hate and violence48 0