237 research outputs found
From Persephone to Pan: D. H. Lawrence's mythopoeic vision of the integrated personality with special emphasis on the short fiction and other writings in the early nineteen twenties
This doctoral thesis was published in printed form in 1987. It was digitized from paper copy in 2013. Unfortunately on some pages the digitizaion process has not been complete, i.e there are some minor typographic erros on some pages.Siirretty Doriast
Power
"In 2018, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) was, by most measures, more powerful than at any other time in its history and had become one of the most powerful countries in the world. Its economy faced serious challenges, including from the ongoing ‘trade war’ with the US, but still ranked as the world’s second largest. Its Belt and Road Initiative, meanwhile, continued to carve paths of influence and economic integration across several continents. A deft combination of policy, investment, and entrepreneurship has also turned the PRC into a global ‘techno-power’. It aims, with a good chance of success, at becoming a global science and technology leader by 2049 – one hundred years from the founding of the PRC.
In surveying the various ways in which the Party-state wields its hard, soft, and sharp power, the China Story Yearbook: Power offers readers a sense of the diversity of power at work both in China and abroad. Citizens of the PRC have long negotiated the state’s influence; increasingly, diaspora communities and other actors are now being subject to its might. As with previous editions in the series, we place important developments in historical context, and adopt a cross-disciplinary approach: it is our view that economy and politics cannot be divorced from culture, history, and society. The Yearbook provides accessible analysis of the main events and trends of the year and is an essential tool for understanding China’s growing power and influence around the world.
Theatre for Development as a Participatory Development Process in Uganda: A Critical Analysis of Contemporary Practices
In Uganda, relative to its neighbouring countries such as Kenya and Tanzania, the practice of Theatre for Development (henceforth TfD) has been considered quite problematic. Within the arts fraternity in Uganda, there have been critics who hold that TfD exists and is practiced in Uganda on one hand, while on the other there are those who argue that TfD does not exist as a distinct form of practice in Uganda. Those who dispute the existence of TfD in Uganda say that TfD is just a commercial label coined by people who want to take advantage of the large amounts of money from donors. These rivalling critical positions compelled me to postulate that TfD practice in Uganda could be embroiled in neoliberal tendencies where the funding factor shapes the nature of practice.
Consequently, this thesis sets out to examine the nature of TfD practice in Uganda keeping in focus the basic principles that underpin its practice such as participation, giving voice, community ownership, dialogue, time and sustainability as the critical framework. Alongside these principles, the thesis kept in view the forces or processes which influence the TfD process such as postcolonialism/, power related dynamics, the politics of funding and global capitalism among others. The thesis focused on analysing how the above principles and forces have played out in projects by local and international practitioners in Uganda. It also made an effort to reflect on the nature of TfD practice in Uganda by drawing from my own practical experiences in a child rights TfD project.
Looking at the work by local practitioners such as IATM, and Rafiki Theatre Company, this thesis discovered that TfD practice in Uganda has been hindered by the high-handed role of international development funders who determine the issues which the projects address. Through the work of international practitioners such as Jane Plastow and Katie McQuaid, it was however, discovered that implementing the ideal TfD process espousing the empowerment participation or the bottom up model in Uganda is not completely difficult to achieve. Their work offered a fundamental challenge to local practices in that the facilitators made a good effort to observe closely the core principles of effective practice such as participation, giving voice, balancing the dynamics of power and sustainability, something local practitioners need to emulate. However, the discussion in the thesis indicates that the work by international practitioners was not devoid of the influence of the forces that normally threaten effective practice such as the facilitator-participant power dynamics, issues related to project funding and postcolonial and neo-colonial inclinations.The Commonwealth Scholarship Commission and the Unesco/Keizo Obuchi Fellowship for Younger Researcher
Television and the myth of the western hero.
Thesis (M.S.)--Boston Universit
Rethinking mythology in Greek museums through contemporary culture
This thesis investigates the character with which Greek mythology, one of the most durable manifestations of ancient Greek heritage, survives in the perception of contemporary Greeks, and the role that Greek museums do and could play in this. The starting point for this investigation is the appraisal of Greek mythology as an ideological creation of ancient Greece that bears pan-human and diachronie intellectual and cultural potency and, as such, constitutes a significant interpretative tool for the contemporary Greek individual. More specifically, this thesis reconsiders the relationships between Greek mythology, Greek museums and Greek people, using as a bridge contemporary Greek art. It does so in three main chapters, which investigate and analyze different parameters of this nexus of relationships. Greek mythology’s adaptations by contemporary Greek society are also explored in an attempt to establish the dominant contemporary meanings of Greek mythology. Then, the relation of a specific cultural manifestation of contemporary Greek society, that of contemporary art, to Greek mythology is extensively analyzed through a series of interviews that were conducted exclusively for this thesis. In these interviews, contemporary Greek musicians, authors and visual artists speak of the position that Greek mythology possess (or does not possess) in their artistic expression, and discuss the intellectual and cultural significance that Greek myths retain for contemporary society and people. From these investigations, two antithetic poles emerge. On the one hand, there is the trivializing way in which Greek society deals with its myths through their exploitation, for example, for commercial or nationalist purposes. On the other hand, there is the sensitivity with which my interviewees pored over Greek myths, enabling them to emerge full of dynamism, and illuminating them as ever-active negotiators of life and human nature. Thus, contemporary art is identified as a powerful conveyor of mythology’s potency for the contemporary individual. Next, the position of Greek archaeological museums, as major official institutions that do, or could, represent and safeguard Greek mythology is explored and critically assessed. It emerges that Greek museums are rather unconcerned with Greek mythology’s representation and communication and thus, confirm that Greek mythology is a dead and irrelevant representative of a glorious, yet remote and strange, ancient civilization
Walter Pater: a study in literary method
SIGLEAvailable from British Library Document Supply Centre- DSC:D41455/82 / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreGBUnited Kingdo
The ascension of the Messiah : an inquiry into the ascension and exaltation of Jesus in Lukan Christology.
Available from British Library Document Supply Centre-DSC:DXN007239 / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreSIGLEGBUnited Kingdo
Time and the quest for knowledge in the poetry of William Blake: a discussion of Tiriel, the Book of Urizen, the Song of Los and the Four Zoas
The physical appearances and specific behaviour of
the characters in Tiriel , even the subtly ironical choice
of names, suggest Blake's persistent opposition to the
prevalent materialist-determinist philosophy of his day
and to any form of dogmatism. This opposition accounts
for the imaginative assimilation of originally unrelated
literary material within a new symbolic context. Human
misery does not originate from innate limitations or from
a primordial fall from Divine Grace. It is caused by the
immanent phenomenon of legalism in thought,, ethics and
aesthetics. Physical, intellectual and emotional
oppression deformation and corruption begin in childhood
and are primarily perpetrated and perpetuated by repressive
methods of education. Har and Tiriel are self-centred
promulgators and, together with the other members of their
family, warped products of Natural Law and Natural Religion.
Tiriel's quest demonstrates that an increase in empirical
knowledge is not necessarily accompanied by spiritual
progress, nor does it improve the human condition. The
complex vagueness of aspects of the poem contributes
toward a more definite shaping of Blake's thought and
symbolism in his later 'prophecies.'
Portions of The Book of Urizen may be read as satire
directed against the philosophic premises of seventeenth
and eighteenth-century rationalism in general, and of
Locke's theory of knowledge,. in particular. Theme,,
structure and symbolism of the poem reflect this opposition
and implicitly affirm Blake's own idealist metaphysics
of reality. Abstracted from Eternity, Urizen's
monolithic world has no extrinsic cause. It is a
projection of his limited self-awareness. However, his
solipsism fails to resolve the persistent contradiction
between ideality and reality, thought and thing, subject
and object. Los imposes temporal order and physical
form on Urizen's disorganised thoughts. The limited
anthropomorphic universe, produced by this intervention
is a prison for mind and body, thought and desire. Henceforth, sensation and reflection determine the will to act. Man has rendered himself dependent on the fictitious
'substance' of matter, and on an equally mysterious remote
deity. Both are only known by their 'accidents.' Natural
science and Natural Religion are their respective rationalised
form of worship. Both the pursuits of knowledge
and of happiness require the suspension of desire.
In The Song of Los Blake adopts a supra-historical
perspective. Representative personages from biblical
history, the history of religions generally,, philosophy
and science are associated by their common failure to sustain their visionary powers. Blake incorporates into
his poetic typology of decline,, structural elements
derived from biblical, classical and modern conceptions
of history without adopting their respective philosophical
backgrounds. The notion of scientific progress
and the advance of civilisation, concurrent with linear
historical process, are dismissed. The achievements of
empirical science, organised religion and autocratic
government--synonymous with intellectual and physical
oppression--kindle Orcls "thought creating fires."
Despite its apocalyptic connotations, his violent outburst
is of a highly ambivalent nature.
The Four Zoas adumbrates the spiritual history of
mankind. The poem is also a complex epic phenomenology
of the human mind. Eden is an aspect of ideal reality
where natural and human organisms are identified, and
where life is sustained by loving self-sacrifice. After
the Han's Fall elemental uproar reflects the mind's
regression to the level of a perturbed oceanic consciousness
which can no longer integrate the dissociated phenomena
of the generative world into a living human form,
thriving on love and understanding. Nature is transformed
into a self-engendering monster. The human mind is
englobed by the illusion of reality conceived as external
and material, and by a fatalistic view of temporal process.
Nevertheless, both misconceptions impose a degree of
stability and order on the anarchic forces released by
the cosmic catastrophe.
Man's Fall is due to the dissociation of reason and
affection. "Mental forms" are externalised and idolised.
Eventually, under Urizen's control, imaginative energy
in forced into rigid geometric form and regular motion.
The beautiful illusion of the pseudo-Platonic "Mundane
Shell" reflects the essential structure of Urizen's
intelligence. however, it does not provide a lasting
solution to the human dilemma. after the Fall. After the
collapse of his creation, Urizen explores his alien
environment by empirical means. he is a prisoner of his
own restricted conception of reality.
Unexpectedly, in Night VII(a), the Spectre of Urthona
and Los are transformed into labourers of the Apocalypse.
Regenoration starts with the annihilation of 'self.' Aware
of his responsibilities, Los builds Golgonoozat the city
of art. Emulating Christ's self-sacrifice, visionary
activity is a form of self-denial. Time becomes a function
of imaginative creativity. The imaginative world created
by Los incorporates visionary time and space. Natural
existence is realised as being endowed with regenerative
qualities. Los no longer rejects Orc but sublimates his
energies. Orc's destructive powers become an integral
aspect Of the Last Judgment.
Throughout Night VIII the providential and redemptive
character of mortal life is stressed. Plunging into "the
river of space" is a baptismal, if painful, experience.
Although guided by Divine Providence, individual man has
to work for his own salvation. In Night IX prophetic and
apocalyptic views are fused as Los acts in a temporal
context when tearing down the material, social and metaphysical
barriers to vision erected by Urizen. The
symbolism of Revelation is employed to adumbrate the
artist's ultimate task in history. History is not beyond
human control. Submission to the "Divine Vision" is an
active ethical achievement capable of generating a powerful
social dynamic, rather than tentatively removing it.
Tyranny is overthrown because once the visionary poet has
revealed its deceptions, mankind follows his example and
removes it physically. This optimistic vision of the Last
Judgment is an affirmation of the poet's absolute faith
in the power of inspired vision to regenerate and humanize
all aspects of life in this world
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