Moral skeptics sometimes argue that science is at odds with morality. These arguments sometimes privilege scientific explanations of moral belief at the expense of objective moral knowledge. More specifically, since morality is (arguably) a biological adaptation involving belief, Richard Joyce and Sharon Street doubt the justification and objective truth of moral belief, respectively. This thesis defends objective normative facts from this empirical problem. Reasons for moral skepticism are not compatible with arguments against objective normativity. Put simply, without objective normativity, skeptics have no ultimate reason to doubt anything in particular, moral or otherwise. So, on pain of incoherence, moral skeptics should doubt the truth, rather than the objective normativity, of moral belief. / Graduate / 0422

Avhandlingens överordnade syfte är att utforska möjligheterna för ett integrerat forskningsperspektiv på mäns våld samt exemplifiera hur sådan forskning kan bedrivas. Det konkreta syftet är att öka kunskapen om hur våldsamma mäns barndomsupplevelser, socialisation, maskulinitetskonstruktion och emotioner kan relateras till deras våld mot andra män, mot sig själva och mot kvinnor samt till hur terapeutiska interventioner mot våld kan analyseras och utvecklas i korrespondens med denna kunskap. Med vetenskapsteoretiska utgångspunkter hämtade från den kritiska realismen och ekologiska metoder relaterar studien forskning från olika skolbildningar till varandra; - psykologisk: om barndomserfarenheter och socialisation, socialpsykologisk: om emotioner och interaktion samt sociologisk: om social klass, könsmaktsstrukturer och hegemonisk maskulinitet. Detta genomförs för att kunna få tillgång till kunskap om hur olika faktorer samverkar vid mäns våld. I studie I och II studerades möjligheterna att undersöka de sociala banden mellan terapeut/terapi och klient inom terapeutiska behandlingar mot våld. I studie I operationaliserades indikatorer på emotionerna stolthet och skam och i studie II testades dessa på terapeuter inom en KBT-orienterad terapi. I studie III undersöktes män i olika maskulinitetspositioner, där urvalet för den ena gruppen hämtades ur populationen män dömda till terapi för våld och missbruk och den andra ur populationen män som organiserat arbetade för jämlikhet och mot våld mot kvinnor. I studien jämfördes de båda gruppernas förhållningssätt till faktorer som i tidigare forskning relaterats till våld och våld mot kvinnor. I studie IV undersöktes våldsdömda mäns karriärer fram till deras nuvarande position som våldsbejakande kriminella i avsikt att öka kunskapen om det samspel mellan faktorer som i olika situationer leder fram till deras våld mot andra män, sig själva och kvinnor. Samtliga empiriska studier använde kvalitativa metoder för datainsamling och analys. I studie IV användes individuella intervjuer och biografisk analys, I studie II och III användes gruppintervjuer samt deduktiv innehållsanalys. I studie I, den teoretiska reviewartikeln, utgjorde sociologisk, socialpsykologisk och psykologisk teoribildning empiri. Avhandlingen visar att det finns fler fördelar är nackdelar med ett nivåövergripande perspektiv. Nivåintegrerande studier försvåras av att de kräver en komplex metodologi för att kunna hantera samverkan mellan faktorer bakom våld på olika nivåer men ger å andra sidan en mer holistisk förståelse av fenomenet i fråga. Resultaten visar att integrerande perspektiv kan minska risken för ekologiska felslut och ökar förståelsen av komplex samverkan mellan faktorer bakom mäns våld, något som kan komma att bidra till kunskapsutvecklingen inom våldsterapiområdet. Den teoretiska reviewartikeln (studie I) exemplifierade hur teoretiskt och metodologiskt driven forskning om sociala band kan göras pragmatiskt tillämpbar av terapeuter inom våldbehandlingar. Den tillämpade studien av en KBT-terapi (studie II) gav exempel på hur operationaliserade indikatorer på stolthet och skam kan användas praktiskt för att bestämma kvalitén på det sociala bandet mellan terapeut och klient. Den studerade KBT-terapin innehöll som förväntat både skam- och stolthetskapande moment vilket utgör värdefulla utgångspunkter för vidare forskning. Jämförelsen mellan män i idealtypiskt motsatta maskulinitetspositioner (studie III) visade att både gruppen av män som arbetar mot våld mot kvinnor och männen dömda till behandling mot våld, bär på ambivalenta attityder gentemot våld och våld mot kvinnor. Jämförelsen visade vidare att gruppernas maskulinitetskonstruktioner och attityder till våld korresponderar med grupperingarnas olika tillgång till ekonomiska, sociala och kulturella resurser. Den biografiskt fokuserade kvalitativa studien av män i våldsbehandling (studie IV) undersökte explorativt hur karriären fram till våldskriminell kan se ut och hur barndomsupplevelser, socialisation, maskulinitet och emotioner hos enskilda våldsverkande män kan tänkas ha samverkat med varandra när våld äger rum. Resultaten visade att de män som vittnar om utsatthet för allvarligt våld i barndomen är mer skambenägna och vid kränkningar från andra tenderar att omedvetet och utan föregående känslor av skam direkt reagera med aggressioner och våld mot båda könen. Övriga män var visserligen skambenägna men beskrev en mer kontrollerad våldsreaktion. Två män som blivit brutalt fysiskt mobbade i grundskolan, berättade om ett mer kontrollerat våld. En preliminär hypotes är att männen kan ha lärt sig att kognitivt, för att undslippa fortsatt mobbing, ta kontrollen över processen där skamkänslor ersätts med aggressioner. Föräldrarnas personliga problem tillsammans med deras bristande sociala kontroll och omsorg antogs ha ett samband med flera av männens skolproblem, deras umgänge med avvikande ungdomar, deras senare svårigheter med att kunna försörja sig med konventionella medel samt deras våldskarriärer. / This dissertation’s objective is to explore the possibilities of an integrated research perspective on male violence and exemplify how such research can be conducted. The specific objective is to increase awareness of how men’s childhood experiences, socialization, masculinity and emotions are related to their violence against other men, against themselves and against women (Paper III and IV) and how therapeutic interventions against violence can be analyzed and developed in correspondence with this knowledge (Paper I and II). The research was conducted through qualitative studies. The data collection methods comprised a theoretical review (Paper I), group-interviews (Papers II and III) and interviews (Paper IV). Altogether, 25 men participated in the studies. Qualitative content analysis was used to analyze the group-interviews (Paper II and III) and biographical analysis wasused to when analyzing the mens life-histories (Paper IV). The findings showed that an integrative perspective can reduce the risk of ecological fallacies and develop the understanding of the complex interaction between the factors behind men’s violence. These findings may also contribute to the development of violence therapies. The theoretical review article (Study I) exemplifies how the theoretical and methodological driven research on social bonds can be adjusted to treatment against male violence. The applied study on a CBT-therapy (Study II) exemplifies how operationalized indicators of pride and shame can be used to determine the quality of the social bonds between therapist and client. The comparison between two groups of men in two opposite masculinity positions (Study III) shows that both groups are carrying ambivalent attitudes towards violence and violence against women. Nevertheless the group’s masculinity constructions and attitudes towards violence correspond with their access to economic, social, political and cultural resources. The biographical focused qualitative study of men in violence treatment (Study IV) shows that the men who have been subjected to severe violence in their childhood are more shame-prone and tend to bypass shame with aggressions and violence. The other men generally describe their violent reaction as controlled. The findings point to the general conclusion that the further development of the understanding of men’s violence, and the development of effective therapies against violence are depending on our ability to integrate research from different scientific perspectives.

The primary purpose of this study is to demonstrate the importance of Howells as the leader of the movement toward realism in American drama, both by revealing in a critical analysis of his plays the presence of the same familiar realistic elements so evident in his novels, and also by showing the extent of his influence upon later dramatists.

Numerous investigations with college students have found that mild depressives perceive environmental contingencies more accurately than do nondepressives. The present study explores this 'depressive realism' phenomenon in a hospitalized sample.

The purpose of this study was to find the type of stories in which the children in the first and second grades were most interested. The writer wanted to determine whether or not there was a preference for fantastic or realistic stories in these grades, whether or not boys preferred one type of stories and girls another, and whether or not age and intelligence entered in as determining factors.

Realism, the uncanny, the figure, empathy, humanism, sculpture, feet, architecture, photography, oscillation, tin, installation, material, form, Herzog, projection, tactility, subject, haptics, sensibility, wax, portraits, space, embodied perception, rendering, duplication, thing, object, fragment, body, gaze, clay, god, man.

This thesis contains what I consider to be the best of my work over the course of my three years in the MFA program at Virginia Commonwealth University, and it is meant to demonstrate my range of ability as a creative writer. Included are a portion of my unfinished novel, Twelve Hearts of Clay, as well as a few of my favorite short stories. "Calluses," my foray into experimental writing, is perhaps the most completed piece in the collection, having found publication in the October 2010 issue of Blue Crow Magazine, an Australian literary journal. "Dead Baby Jokes," the short short piece included here, was also published, in Front Porch Flash Fiction, a local anthology from Sink/Swim Press. "An Epic Masterpiece, TBD" veers into the realm of the absurd and "Grace" is my attempt at straightforward realism. "The Dragon's Daughter" is a modern retelling of a medieval folktale. I see the novel, Twelve Hearts of Clay as the heart of the thesis. The concept for the novel came to me slowly, and over the course of a number of drafts, beginning in the Fall of 2010 in Dr. Cokal's Novel Writing Workshop. I've included the first fifty pages in sequence, and then I jump forward in the narrative to events coming down the line. Included are four modern fairy tales that will mark the four different sections of the novel and also serve as a fantastic versions of the main characters' histories and backstories. My novel and many of the stories included here place the magical world of myth and folktale right alongside the realistic world we know and see daily, and elements of each world can seep into the other. These stories are meant to draw on the reader's pre-existing understanding of narrative as a way of processing the world, something I think we learn in the form of childhood stories and fairy tales. The novel's themes and concepts of art, troubled romance, constructed identities, fairy tales and folklore are all reflected in the short stories. Each story takes a single theme and explores it outside of the context of the novel, which is, I believe, a result of the way I've been working, switching back and forth between the novel and stories, depending on which project was frustrating me the least at that moment, but ruminating always on the same questions and concerns.

Dans cette thèse, je propose une lecture renouvelée de l’itinéraire philosophique d’Hilary Putnam concernant la problématique du réalisme. Mon propos consiste essentiellement à défendre l’idée selon laquelle il y aurait beaucoup plus de continuité, voir une certaine permanence, dans la manière dont Putnam a envisagé la question du réalisme tout au long de sa carrière. Pour arriver à une telle interprétation de son oeuvre, j’ai essentiellement suivi deux filons. D’abord, dans un ouvrage du début des années 2000, Ethics without Ontology (2004), Putnam établit un parallèle entre sa conception de l’objectivité en philosophie des mathématiques et en éthique. Le deuxième filon vient d’une remarque qu’il fait, dans l’introduction du premier volume de ses Philosophical Papers (1975), affirmant que la forme de réalisme qu’il présupposait dans ses travaux des années 1960-1970 était la même que celle qu’il défendait en philosophie des mathématiques et qu’il souhaitait défendre ultérieurement en éthique. En suivant le premier filon, il est possible de mieux cerner la conception générale que se fait Putnam de l’objectivité, mais pour comprendre en quel sens une telle conception de l’objectivité n’est pas propre aux mathématiques, mais constitue en réalité une conception générale de l’objectivité, il faut suivre le second filon, selon lequel Putnam aurait endossé, durant les années 1960-1970, le même type de réalisme en philosophie des sciences et en éthique qu’en philosophie des mathématiques. Suivant cette voie, on se rend compte qu’il existe une similarité structurelle très forte entre le premier réalisme de Putnam et son réalisme interne. Après avoir établi la parenté entre le premier et le second réalisme de Putnam, je montre, en m’inspirant de commentaires du philosophe ainsi qu’en comparant le discours du réalisme interne au discours de son réalisme actuel (le réalisme naturel du commun des mortels), que, contrairement à l’interprétation répandue, il existe une grande unité au sein de sa conception du réalisme depuis les années 1960 à nos jours. Je termine la thèse en montrant comment mon interprétation renouvelée de l’itinéraire philosophique de Putnam permet de jeter un certain éclairage sur la forme de réalisme que Putnam souhaite défendre en éthique. / In this dissertation I propose a new reading of the philosophical itinerary of Hilary Putnam on the matter of realism. In essence, my purpose is to argue that there is much more continuity than is normally understood, and even a degree of permanence, in the way in which Putnam has viewed the question of realism throughout his career. To arrive at this interpretation of Putnam I essentially followed two veins in his work. First, in a volume published in the early 2000s entitled Ethics without Ontology (2004), Putnam establishes a parallel between his conception of objectivity in the philosophy of mathematics and in ethics. The second vein comes from a comment he made in the introduction to the first volume of his Philosophical Papers (1975) to the effect that the kind of realism he presupposed in his work of the 1960s and 70s was the same that he upheld in the philosophy of mathematics and wished to argue for at a later date in ethics. Following the first vein makes it possible to better grasp Putnam’s general conception of objectivity, but in order to understand how such a conception of objectivity is not unique to mathematics but is instead a general conception of objectivity one must follow the second vein. There, in the 1960s and 70s, Putnam adopted the same kind of realism in the philosophy of science and in ethics as he had in the philosophy of mathematics. Following this path, one realises that there exists a very strong structural similarity between Putnam’s first realism and his internal realism. After establishing this connection between Putnam’s first and second realism, I draw on Putnam’s remarks and compare the internal realism discourse to his current realism (the natural realism of ordinary people) to demonstrate, contrary to the prevalent interpretation, that there has been a great deal of consistency in his conception of realism from the 1960s to the present day. I conclude the dissertation by demonstrating how my new interpretation of Putnam’s philosophical itinerary makes it possible to shed light on the kind of realism he wishes to champion in ethics.

1 Abstract The thesis examines the relationship of the literary phenomena magical realism and postmodernism. The starting point of the thesis is the statement that both the terms embody various common features (ideological, thematic). The author targets the definition of both styles and their genealogical delimitation in the first part. In the second part, the author relates these two terms to the particular work - the novel The History of Danish Dreams of the danish author Peter Høeg. It is possible to find demonstrable principles of both magical realism and postmodernism in this wider prose. The author of this thesis illustrates principles and themes with examples from the novel and the interpretations.

Tony Tanner's book City of Words analyzes American literature from 1950-1970; in the chapter entitled "Everything Running Down" the theme of entropy, the second law of thermodynamics, is explored and revealed to be a common motif within many works of American literature. Tanner's analysis does not specifically address the presence of entropy within the genre of the American road narrative; when considering his analysis presented in "Everything Running Down" with Kris Lackey's analysis of American road narratives presented in his book RoadFrames, the presence of entropy and how it is applied within the American road narrative becomes apparent. Although Jack Kerouac's On the Road and Cormac McCarthy's The Road were published over sixty years apart from one another and are seemingly disparate texts, these two texts reveal the thematic use of entropy which connects them in an ongoing dialogue within the genre of the American road narrative.