Coping during stress has been a very researched topic within the field of religion and religious psychology. During the Syrian civil war, female journalist Waad al- Khateab decided to film her experience as part of the opposition which turned into the documentary film For Sama. The aim of this study has been to analyze how coping is portrayed in the documentary film. The research questions for this study are the following: How is Waad Al-Khateabs coping process portrayed in her story and documentary film For Sama? How can the portrayal of Waad Al-Khateabs coping process be understood through religious coping theory? The method for this study has been qualitative narrative analysis, while Pargament’s (1997) coping theory has been applied on the material as well. The result of the study showed that Waad’s copingprocess primarily changes due to her new role as a wife and a mother. Her coping process could be understood through religious coping theory in different ways. Not knowing the future was mentally stressful for her, and religion was a part of the coping process while other strategies were also involved.

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I interpret Civil War romanticism by looking at well-known archetypal characters such as the knight, the Puritan, and the Christ figure. I argue that sectional reunion occurred, in part, because Americans shared a common celebration of the Christian/chivalrous hero expressed through stories about the lives and personalities of leading figures of the Civil War. Western traditions like Christianity and its medieval warrior code, chivalry, conditioned Americans to seek heroes who conformed to a certain pattern that resembled the knightly ideal. Chivalry did not crowd-out other forms of masculine behavior, but during the nineteenth century, the British century, Americans had not yet created a man in their own image. That would come later with the twentieth century’s most favored man: the cowboy. Americans created Robert E. Lee as a knight figure resembling Western heroes such as King Arthur. Unlike the more controversial Confederate notables Stonewall Jackson and Jefferson Davis, the Lee figure offered Americans the genteel, Christ-like, hero who could be made to represent all of white America. Davis was too defiantly unreconstructed to ever affect much sectional agreement, and Jackson simply could not be made to fit the chivalrous pattern. Thus, Lee allowed southerners to identify themselves as uniquely chivalrous and honorable compared to the modern North. At the same time, the Lee figure provided northerners the opportunity to romanticize a charming, orderly, Old South while rejecting the violent, narrow-minded, states' rights South best symbolized by Davis. I prefer to interpret commentary about the Civil War as storytelling and do not use terms such as the Lost Cause or Civil War memory. High-ranking officers, the common solider, and those who never participated in the Civil War each told stories about it. Due to the large number of stories told, certain common themes became evident in American interpretations of the Civil War era. Common stories include: Lee at Appomattox, Jackson's unmerciful marches against Union forces, and Davis (almost) eluding capture dressed as a woman. Taken together the sub-stories reveal much about the grand narrative of the Civil War, and how Americans, though succeeding to a great extent, failed to completely reunite.

This study traces the history of the 28th Texas Cavalry by using a traditional narrative style augmented by a quantitative approach. Compiled service records, United States census records, state tax rolls, muster rolls, and casualty lists were used to construct a database containing a record for each soldier of the 28th. Statistical analysis revealed the overwhelming southern origins of the regiment, the greater proportion of older and married men compared to other regiments, and a close resemblance to the people of their home region in terms of occupations, slaveholding and wealthholding.

This thesis examines America’s response to civil war, dispossession, and humanitarian disaster in Sudan from the end of the Cold War up until the second Darfur uprising. While the number of scholarly works examining the overall conflict and humanitarian crisis are immense, less has been written in regard to America’s foreign policy in Sudan. The contemporary nature of the crisis and dearth of historical analysis does make establishing trends difficult; but recent works suggest a U.S. policy that is ill informed and therefore ineffectual in halting both the conflict and crisis in Sudan. However, contrary to this opinion, the evidence may demonstrate that United States policy, rather than a series of misjudgments or being simply ineffectual, has been more systematic, informed and purposeful. This thesis argues that while the United States wished for peace in Sudan, the historical evidence suggests that the path taken by the United States knowingly prolonged the suffering of millions of Sudanese. Furthermore, American policy makers have entrusted peace in Darfur and in other disparate regions of Sudan, as well as along the newly formed borders with South Sudan, to the National Congress Party (NCP) a regime Congress has labeled untrustworthy and despotic. The bulk of the research used in this examination covered the period from 1989- 2008. However, the independence achieved by the Republic of South Sudan in the summer of 2011 is taken into account in the final analysis of the thesis. The secondary sources both cited and considered for the thesis were substantial; these included academic articles, studies, and texts published over several decades in several related fields of study germane to the thesis topic. While a wide range of primary sources were used, the thesis relied heavily on United States Congressional records from 1989-2008 for analysis.

This thesis examines the way in which the United States formulated its policy toward Greece during the Greek civil war (1943-1949). It asserts that U.S. intervention in Greece was based on circumstantial evidence and the assumption of Soviet global intentions, rather than on dispatches from the field which consistently reported from 1943-1946 that the Soviets were not involved in that country’s affairs. It also maintains that the post-Truman Doctrine American policy in Greece was in essence, a continuation of British policy there from 1943-1946, which meant to impose an unpopular government on the people of Greece, and tolerated unlawful violence of the extreme Greek right-wing

This study examines the evolution of the popular images of John Brown and Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson. It begins by analyzing the historiography of each man. The second and third chapters are biographies of each man. The fourth, fifth, and sixth chapters examine the popular images of the two men in print media, visual media, and monuments. This thesis concludes with appendices which contain reproductions of songs, photographs, and paintings referred to in the chapters. This study finds that the myth of the Lost Cause has kept Thomas Jackson's popular image consistently positive and heroic since his death in 1863. At the same time, this myth has contributed to an ever-changing image of Brown, though other issues, such as race and terrorism, have played significant roles as well. Brown has at various times been considered a madman, a saint, and merely a product of his times. Because the Lost Cause continues to pervade popular memory of the Civil War, Jackson's image is unlikely to change quickly. Because race and the fear of terrorism continue to pervade American society, Brown's image is likely to remain controversial.

This study examines adult education in Civil War Richmond from January 1861 to April 1865. Drawing on a range of sources (including newspapers, magazines, letters and diaries, reports, school catalogs, and published and unpublished personal narratives), it explores the types and availability of adult education activities and the impact that these activities had on influencing the mind, emotions, and attitudes of the residents. The analysis reveals that for four years, Richmond, the Capital of the Confederacy, endured severe hardships and tragedies of war: overcrowdedness, disease, wounded and sick soldiers, food shortages, high inflationary rates, crime, sanitation deficiencies, and weakened socio-educational institutions. Despite these deplorable conditions, the examination reveals that educative systems of organizations, groups, and individuals offered the opportunity and means for personal development and growth. The study presents and tracks the educational activities of organizations like churches, amusement centers, colleges, evening schools, military, and voluntary groups to determine the type and theme of their activities for educational purposes, such as personal development, leisure, and recreation. The study examines and tracks such activities as higher education, industrial training, religious education, college-preparatory education, military training, informal education, and educational leisure and recreation, such as reading and listening to and singing music. The study concludes that wartime conditions had minimal affect on the type and availability of adult education. Based on the number and types of educational activities and participants engaged in such activities, the study concludes that adult education had influenced and contributed to the lives of the majority of Richmonders, including the thousands of soldiers convalescing in the city's hospitals. Whatever the educative system, the study finds that the people of Richmond, under tremendous stress and despondency improved themselves individually and collectively. Thus, Civil War Richmond's adult education experience is about educative systems that gave people knowledge, comfort, and hope under extreme deprivation and deplorable conditions. / Ph. D.

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