Lincoln: Reformer or Revolutionary? An Analysis of Lincoln\u27s Legacy as Compared to the Political Ideals of the Amerian Revolution

Despite the fact that his greatest legacies departed from American traditions, Abraham Lincoln coveted the political ideals espoused by the Founding Fathers. As president, Lincoln inherited the unprecedented challenges that resulted from decades of politicians tabling the insoluble problem of slavery. He operated within the realms of constitutionally allocated authority to meet those challenges. Where the Constitution provided no direction, Lincoln developed solutions that more closely resembled the political philosophies of the American Revolution than any of his political opponents\u27 alternative solutions. The unprecedented circumstances he faced not only enabled Lincoln to reconcile the right to freedom as described in the Declaration of Independence to the Constitution, but they also made such reconciliation necessary. Lincoln\u27s efforts to secure freedom for all American citizens with that amendment epitomize one of the firmest movements forward in American civil rights history. His successors\u27 efforts to do the same for the right to equality fell short of that success. Although noble in purpose, the Fourteenth Amendment failed to achieve its intended purpose and inadvertently altered the American political system from the Union Lincoln strove to preserve. The unintended effects of the Fourteenth Amendment marked a strong departure from the political philosophies of Abraham Lincoln and of the Founding Fathers

"Well-Dispos'd Savages": Elite Masculinity in Eighteenth-Century British Literature

Writers in eighteenth-century Britain catered to, and helped create, public fascination with the brazen, sometimes illicit, often violent exploits of elite and aristocratic men. Literary critics have seen this elite male figure as part of an outmoded order superseded over the course of the century by the rising British middle class. Debauched aristocratic characters are often reformed over the course of eighteenth-century narratives, reflecting a larger societal shift in values towards polite restraint. As expressed in my dissertation's title phrase, however, many of the period's writers develop elite male characters whose behaviors and self-presentation blur those very boundaries between oppositional categories, like savagery and civilization, on which both Enlightenment theories of human progress and polite culture's prescriptions for decorum were presumed to rest. Through an examination of this paradoxical figure in novelistic, dramatic, and autobiographical literature, my dissertation demonstrates that the oft-repeated reform-of-the-rake narrative calls attention to obstacles and resistance to the ascendancy of a middle-class culture, not to the inevitability of its rise. Each chapter centers on a site that is accessible to a larger public only through literary or dramatic accounts, including the club, the elite school, the court, and the overseas estate. Chapter One, "`Our imperial reign': Addison, Steele, Gay and the London Mohocks," examines writings about a gang of rakish gentlemen rumored to prowl the streets of Augustan London. Chapter Two, "Schools for Scandal: Elite Education and Eighteenth-Century Narrative," uncovers a relationship between key mid-century novels and a longstanding debate about elite schooling. The final two chapters trace the influence of late-eighteenth-century discourses of liberty and sensibility on constructions of elite masculinity. Chapter Three, "Command Performance: Boswell's Libertine Diplomacy," focuses on the journals and travelogues of James Boswell, a self-professed libertine who strove, with mixed results, to restrain his appetite for power and pleasure. Chapter Four, "A `strong transition of place': Cultural Encounter and the reform plot in Sydney Owenson's The Wild Irish Girl," offers a new framework in which to read the genre of the national tale by shifting the critical lens from the novel's Anglo-Irish marriage plot to a parallel plot of intersecting and competing masculinities

The effect of dual inoculation (Seimatosporium species with/without GTD fungi) on lesion length (symptom expression) in Sauvignon Blanc vines

In a survey of the endophytic fungal diversity associated with grapevines symptomatic or asymptomatic for grapevine trunk-diseases (GTDs) carried out in Marlborough, New Zealand in 2018, several fungal pathogens were isolated. Among these, members of the Botryosphaeriaceae family, Neofusicoccum parvum (from symptomatic vines) and Diplodia seriata (from both symptomatic and asymptomatic vines) were recovered. These pathogens are considered latent and virulent GTDs. Additionally, two Seimatosporium species, S. vitis and S. lichenicola, were recovered for the first time associated with GTD fungi in New Zealand vines. Both species were isolated from symptomatic and asymptomatic tissues, but their role as pathogens and interaction within GTD complexes is unclear. This study investigated the interaction between these Seimatosporium spp. and N. parvum or D. seriata in the GTD complex and the effect on symptom expression. The outcomes of in planta dual inoculation experiments between Seimatosporium spp. and N. parvum or D. seriata isolated from the same wood cankers were evaluated. Detached Sauvignon blanc grapevine green shoots and two-year-old woody stems of potted grapevines were wounded and co-inoculated with mycelial colonised agar discs of S. vitis or S. lichenicola and N. parvum or D. seriata. Controls consisted of each fungal species inoculated alone. After 2 weeks for detached shoots and 4 months for attached shoots, lesion length and colonisation distance by re-isolation were assessed. In both assays, there were differences in the lesion lengths and pathogen movement for co inoculation of both Seimatosporium spp. with N. parvum. In contrast, co-inoculation of either Seimatosporium spp. with D. seriata did not develop a lesion, although D. seriata were recovered at a distance of 5 cm upward and downward from the inoculation point. No lesions developed with D. seriata, S. vitis, or S. lichenicola inoculation alone. Our finding confirm that Seimatosporium spp. are involved in the GTD complex

Effects of even-aged timber harvest on herbaceous vegetation richness in southern Missouri forests

Abstract only availableFor centuries American forests have been exploited for timber and other commodities, often with unforeseen long-term detrimental effects. As areas are cleared, the natural diversity of the forest is altered. Development of ecologically sustainable management practices is essential. Initiated in 1989, the Missouri Ozark Forest Ecosystem Project (MOFEP) is a landscape experiment designed to examine forest management impacts on multiple ecosystem attributes for large sites. In the summer of 2008, we investigated the impacts of previous clearcuts on the species richness of herbaceous and woody plants in the southeast Missouri Ozarks, within the MOFEP study sites. We determined species richness within 1-m2 representative plots randomly chosen throughout each of three even-aged management sites and one no harvest control site. We hope to better understand the effects of clearcutting on forest herbaceous plant diversity by comparing the species richness on harvested sites with that on no-harvest sites.Missouri Ozark Forest Ecosystem Projec

Geographies of colour: Practices and performances of repair

PhDDespite its historical associations with excess and contamination, colour is increasingly being used as a popular transformative tool to revitalise bodies and spaces. In this thesis, I examine the variety of ways that colour is mobilised in the pursuit of repair. Traditional approaches used to explain feelings emerging from exposure to particular colours are overwhelmingly positivist, dominated by the biological and psychological sciences and present conflicting results. In contrast, my research is grounded in an ethnographic, geographical approach that examines colour from the scale of the city, the neighbourhood and the body, allowing for a more carefully considered, qualitative exploration between colour, human experience and space. Beginning with the scale of the city, the first part of this thesis concerns colour in the architectural imagination, examining the claims made by architects and artists working on the design of regeneration projects in London. Analysing the vitalist discourses embedded in the claims circulating around the use of colour, I examine how colour is perceived to perform repair amongst practitioners, with respect to the range of architectural imaginations of urban vitality. The second focus of this thesis is placed the neighbourhood level, framed within the politics of localism that seeks to empower communities. Focusing on the Dulux Let’s Colour project, a scheme that donates paint to local communities to revitalise grey spaces, I examine the politics of nominated spaces ‘in need’ of colour and draw on my participation in an active community painting initiative, colouring a disused bingo hall in Barking, East London. Lastly, my investigation hones in to explore the relationship between colour, the body and emotion. Investigating the proliferation of new ludic colour experiences, such as colour runs, I explore the complexity of how emotional responses to colour in these events are orchestrated and experienced. From the perception of colour’s therapeutic repair of bodies in the hospital, to the urban and social repair performed through local painting initiatives, my research critically examines how the contingent and affective chromatic materiality of our urban environment emerges in the claims, knowledge production and practices of colour in urban culture, architecture and health.AHRC and the Leverhulme Trade Charities Trus

New Zealand Works for Contrabassoon

The contrabassoon is seldom thought of as a solo instrument. Throughout the long history of contraregister double-reed instruments the assumed role has been to provide a foundation for the wind chord, along the same line as the double bass does for the strings. Due to the scale of these instruments - close to six metres in acoustic length, to reach the subcontra B flat’’, an octave below the bassoon’s lowest note, B flat’ - they have always been difficult and expensive to build, difficult to play, and often unsatisfactory in evenness of scale and dynamic range, and thus instruments and performers are relatively rare. Given this bleak outlook it is unusual to find a number of works written for solo contrabassoon by New Zealand composers. This exegesis considers the development of contra-register double-reed instruments both internationally and within New Zealand, and studies five works by New Zealand composers for solo contrabassoon, illuminating what it was that led them to compose for an instrument that has been described as the 'step-child' or 'Cinderella' of both the wind chord and instrument makers

A developmental case study : implementing the theory of realistic mathematics education with low attainers

The research documented in this report had a twofold purpose. Firstly, it was to design and implement an intervention based on the theory of Realistic Mathematics Education (RME) aimed at improving the mathematical understanding of learners in two Grade 8 remedial mathematics classes, by revisiting the key number concepts of place value, fractions and decimals. In doing so, a second purpose was to investigate the viability and emerging characteristics of an intervention based on the theory of RME in such a setting (i.e. with low attainers to revisit key number concepts). Pending the realisation of these immediate outcomes, more distant outcomes in subsequent research would be: that learners' understanding and academic performance in mathematics improves and to develop a local instruction theory in using the RME theory to revisit the concepts of place value, fractions and decimals with low attaining learners in order to improve their understanding in this regard. Grade 8 low attainers were selected as the target group for this research as a result of the pending implementation of Mathematical Literacy as a compulsory subject for all learners, possibly from 2006. Currently in South Africa, learners who are not meeting the required standard by the end of their Grade 9 year are able to elect not to take mathematics through Grades 10, 11 and 12. When the new Further Education and Training (FET) policy is implemented, this will no longer be the case. All learners, who do not elect to take mathematics as a subject, will have to take Mathematical Literacy as a compulsory subject throughout Grades 10, 11 and 12. Although less detailed and abstract than the subject mathematics, the Mathematical Literacy curriculum still requires learners to have an understanding of key number concepts and also contains a substantial amount of algebra. As Grade 8 is when learners start working with algebra more formally, and is also their first year at secondary school, it was decided that this would be an appropriate year to try and diagnose and remediate problems in learners' understanding of the key number concepts, if and where possible. The intention was that this would then equip learners with a more appropriate structure of conceptualised knowledge of the above-mentioned concepts on which they could further construct their understanding of algebra. The study was carried out at a local urban high school in South Africa and the research design of this study was informed by two development research approaches (van den Akker&Plomp, 1993; Gravemeijer, 1994). Also, the study was only implemented with a small number of participants, within a bounded setting and without the intention to generalise the results. It was therefore regarded as a development case study. The results appear to indicate that it is viable to apply the theory of RME with low attaining Grade 8 learners in order to revisit the key number concepts of place value, fractions and decimals. Copyright 2004, University of Pretoria. All rights reserved. The copyright in this work vests in the University of Pretoria. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the University of Pretoria. Please cite as follows: Barnes, HE 2004, A developmental case study : implementing the theory of realistic mathematics education with low attainers, MEd dissertation, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, viewed yymmdd Dissertation (MEd (Curriculum design))--University of Pretoria, 2005.Curriculum Studiesunrestricte

Understanding Teachers' Perspectives on the Purpose and Importance of Science Education

The focus of this thesis is to identify teachers’ perspectives on the purpose and importance of science education. This focus is twofold. It is concerned with finding out what teachers understand the purpose of science education to be, that is, why they believe science is taught in schools and how learning science benefits students in their daily lives. It is also concerned with understanding how important science education is to teachers – how much teachers value science as a learning area, and how this value is reflected within their teaching practice. This work determines firstly teachers’ perceptions of science education practice. It examines how teachers perceive the science planning process; how much involvement and control they feel they have throughout the planning stage, including perceived control over teaching pedagogies and planning material. Simply put, how much do the teachers feel is up to them, and how much do they feel is mandated from management. Secondly, the work focuses on personal perspectives about science education. It seeks to examine teachers’ opinions and views on the purpose of science education, why science is taught and what they believe students stand to gain through science education. A major element of understanding teachers’ perspectives is to understand what importance teachers place on the teaching of science, specifically the nature of science – what does the nature of science (NoS) mean to them and how do they show this through planning and teaching? NoS is a key element of science education, recognised both internationally and within New Zealand, because it promotes scientifically-literate students. NoS is described as being a critical component of scientific literacy: understanding NoS through scientific practice develops scientific dispositions in students. This study is interested in gaining teachers’ understandings of NoS and the importance teachers place on NoS in relation to these global understandings. The data for this research was collected through interviews with four teachers in two different schools. The study offered the teachers the opportunity to explore their personal perspectives. The findings reveal teachers’ understanding of the science curriculum was underdeveloped. The teachers appear to lack understanding of the science curriculum area, including NoS, and this was reflected in their pedagogical approaches and planning. The analysis identified four key themes impacting on teachers’ level of understanding: limited science training and professional development, the low status of science education in primary schools, lack of knowledge and experience with current teaching approaches in science, and limited understanding about the purpose of science education. These themes are supported by research demonstrating that they are global and have been acknowledged for many years now. The first theme in this study was identified as the likely root cause of the existence of the other three themes. This finding reveals the nature of teacher training and professional development as a potentially fundamental and critical issue to address in science education. Further research is needed to confirm consistency in these results across New Zealand schools. If consistency is found, this outcome may then raise the issue to one of national importance for science education, demanding attention from government policy-makers, pre-service training institutions and professional development facilitators

Frameworks of representation: A design history of the District Six Museum in Cape Town

Philosophiae Doctor - PhDSince 1994, the District Six Museum, in constructing histories of forced removals from District Six, Cape Town, commenced as a post-apartheid memory project which evolved into a memorial museum. Design has been a central strategy claimed by the museum in its process of making memory work visible to its attendant publics evolving into a South African cultural brand. Co-design within the museum is aesthetically infused with sensitively curated exhibitions and a form of museumisation, across two tangible sites of engagement, which imparts a unique visual language. The term design became extraordinarily popular in contemporary Cape Town, where the city was - in 2014 -the World Design Capital. Yet at the same time as design was being inscribed into the public imaginary, it was simultaneously curiously undefined although influential in shifting representational aesthetics in the city. This research seeks to ask questions about this proliferation of interest in design and to examine this through a close reading of the work of the District Six Museum situated near District Six. In particular, micro and macro design elements are explored as socio-cultural practice in re-imagining community in the city that grew out of resistance and cultural networks. Various design strategies or frameworks of representation sought to stabilize and clarify individual and collective pasts enabling and supporting ex-residents to reinterpret space after loss, displacement and separation and re-enter their histories and the city. Post-apartheid museum design modes and methodologies applied by the District Six Museum as museumisation disrupts conventional historiographies in the fields of art, architectural and exhibition design, where the focus is placed on temporal chronologies, in a biographic mode profiling examples of works and designers/artists. Instead, the research contextualises the work of design as making in a more open sense, of exploring the very constructedness of the museum as a space of method, selection, process and representation thereby asking questions about this reified term design as method and practice. The designing ways of the District Six Museum contribute to understanding idioms mediated through design frameworks allowing for a departure from the limited ways design history has been written. Through an unlayering of projects, practices and an examination of archival case studies, exhibition curation, the adaptive reuse of buildings and through institutional rebranding my argument is that the particularities of the claims to design work at the District Six Museum provide a rich case for relating to other contemporaneous processes of making apartheid’s spatial practices visible as projects such as this claim community. Therefore seeking to demystify how this community museum ‘making’ has been fashioned through an investment in various design disciplines, forms and practices revealing the inherent complexity in doing so