https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/30430 2026-06-12T18:29:16Z 2026-06-12T18:29:16Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/105596 2023-01-26T10:18:13Z 1996-01-01T00:00:00Z

Title: The Euro-Mediterranean partnership from a socio-economic perspective Abstract: The Mediterranean region today is faced with some very serious problems. The constantly widening economic and technological gap between the countries of its northern and southern shores, the continuous increase in poverty and unemployment in the southern and eastern region resulting in mass migration to Europe, and the upsurge in movements featuring religious, ethnic and nationalist violence, are all factors which contribute to an unstable environment. At no other time than at present have the Mediterranean states committed themselves so wholeheartedly to tackle these problems. Fernand Braudel once wrote "the Mediterranean has no unity but that created by the movements of men, the relationships they imply, and the routes they follow." Although Braudel was referring to land and sea routes as a means of communication, the same can be said today for political routes. To this day, the Mediterranean states are still trying to chart the best routes for the future of the region. Description: B.A. (Hons)(Melit.)

1996-01-01T00:00:00Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/105594 2023-01-26T10:16:01Z 1996-01-01T00:00:00Z

Title: Tourism in the Mediterranean : a comparative study : Spain, Greece, Turkey, Malta Abstract: This report presents a profile on tourism within selected countries in the Mediterranean region. It identifies the performance as well as the environment and policies that influenced tourism development of these countries in the nineties and before. The countries in discussion are Malta, Spain, Greece and Turkey. Priority is given to the Mediterranean area of the larger countries. In the case of Spain, discussions are focused mainly on the mainland coast including Costa Brava, Costa del Sol, Costa Blanca and the Balearics, since these are the regions which form part of the Mediterranean Sea and where tourism plays an extremely important part of the region's economic development. The western and southern parts of Turkey account for the main tourist arrivals in the country. As for Greece, it is mainly the islands in general which will be given more importance because tourism figures have features more prominently here than on the mainland. Chapter one deals with a rather general historical background of tourism in the Mediterranean. Here the Mediterranean features as a vital part of international tourism. It also includes physical attractions which have influenced travel patterns to this region for decades. Special reference is given to each separate country's historical tourism development as I feel it is very important to have a background knowledge of past tourism patterns and policies, if one is to understand what is going on today. Chapter two follows with a discussion on the impacts of tourism on the economy. Two important aspects, regionalisation and seasonality are also incorporated within this chapter as these often present obstacles in calculating the aggregate economic benefits for most Mediterranean countries over a period of time. Public and private investment successes or failures are included reflecting the rather unbalanced system regarding investment projects among the countries in discussion. Bigger issues, ie, international relations, the role of government in promoting tourism, and the relationship between tourism and politics, are tackled in the third chapter. Despite increasing political tension in Europe and particularly in the Mediterranean itself, tourism has hardly ever been perceived from a political perspective. The link between tourism and politics might be regarded by some as far-fetched and unrealistic. However statistics do prove that certain arguments can be applied. This need not necessarily mean for example that tourism in Malta in the eighties experienced a loss in arrivals for a certain period solely because of political tension at the time. However I feel it is possible to present certain arguments which tie politics to tourism trends, no matter how questionable or debatable these arguments might seem. Finally in chapter Four, the environment is given much importance as most of it is being sacrificed to make way for a volatile tourist industry. Description: B.A. (Hons)(Melit.)

1996-01-01T00:00:00Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/101533 2022-09-07T10:01:49Z 1996-01-01T00:00:00Z

Title: Trade and port activity in Malta, 1750-1800 Abstract: Much has been written locally about the long sojourn of the Knights of St John on the island of Malta. Besides, several unpublished M.A. theses concerning their rule have also been accepted by the Department of History of the University of Malta. Historians have been interested mainly in the internal and external affairs of the Order, foreign relations, including the activities of the corsairs based on Malta, fortifications, town planning and public works, as well as the social life of the time as revealed mainly in the Inquisitorial archives. Throughout this literature there is one noticeable omission - the role of maritime and mercantile activity in the economic sphere in and around the Grand Harbour, apart from corsairing and Carmel Vassallo's recent research now in the press. 1 The present study is an attempt to focus attention on this missing aspect so vital in Maltese history. These last few years have witnessed the compilation of some well researched books on some of the individual towns and villages in Malta. Two such books 'Birgu: A Maltese Maritime City 2 and 'The Malta Grand Harbour and its Dockyard 13 are very informative in this respect. They relate how the history of the particular area under review, including that of the people inhabiting it, was essentially intertwined with that of the harbour and its hinterland. The city of Birgu enjoyed prosperity all along the years of the sojourn of the Knights of St John in Malta, due to the nearby location of the Order's arsenal, a hive of movement and activity by craftsmen, seamen, and slaves. other publications are more concerned with the ecclesiastical and social character of the area rather than with the economic situation. [...] Description: PH.D.HISTORY

1996-01-01T00:00:00Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/101454 2024-10-31T09:57:09Z 1996-01-01T00:00:00Z

Title: A thematic-semiotic comparison of five 'Wuthering Heights' film adaptations Abstract: This dissertation seeks to redress the balance in favour of Wuthering Heights film adaptations by considering their reviewers' unsupported accusation of infidelity in terms of the films' relative success in recreating Bronte's major themes in predominantly visual images. Each of the four chapters is a detailed thematic study, based on close observation of corresponding film sequences juxtaposed to the novel's equivalents. The first chapter assesses the Linden-Barret thematic concept of film adaptation by analyzing Bronte's religious theme and her theme of human depravity in the respective light of the Cohen paradox of deconstructive fidelity and the Battestin-Armour dyad of analogical autonomy. The first chapter establishes also a semiotic methodology of thematic companson by analyzing Bronte's bird-theme through the application of Metz's metonymic/metaphoric taxonomy of connoted signification. The second and third chapters analyze respectively whether Wuthering Heights film adaptations succeed in unveiling visual analogies on the Metzian connotative level for (a) Bronte's landscape characterization and the frost/fire paradoxism infusing her central love-theme and (b) the equally crucial theme of 'fantastic hesitation' underlying Bronte's interplay of homodiegetic narrations. The fourth chapter dissects in Metzian semiotic terms the musical scores and sound-effects codes of Wuthering Heights film adaptations to determine whether they succeed in echoing thematically the novel's essential 'wuthering'. The conclusion examines the prospects of Wuthering Heights on screen by assessing (a) some filmically undeveloped aspects of key Brontean avian incidents and (b) Bronte' s implied incest motif which is usually ignored in filmic recreations of the Catherine-Heathcliff relationship. For the purpose of this exercise, the film versions of Wuthering Heights directed by William Wyler, Luis Bufiuel, Robert Fuest, Yoshishige Yoshida and Peter Kosminsky have been chosen as sources for comparative analyses. What such analyses reveal is that, while the Wuthering Heights films directed by Bufiuel, Yoshida and Kosminsky are more consistently analogous thematically to Bronte' s text than their Wyler and Fuest equivalents, even the latter have their enviable moments of undoubted Brontean significance. Description: PH.D.ENGLISH

1996-01-01T00:00:00Z