The purpose of this study is to investigate Sarah and Ruth – the matriarchs and women of The Old Testament – as women in a world dominated by men, and the issue in this study is about what contextual symbolism and function Sarah and Ruth have with the starting point from their contextual roles and status in a world of patriarchs. The method of this study is the hermeneutic attempt to create an interpretive community combined with descriptions from religious texts and research. This study comes to the conclusion that the biblical women Sarah and Ruth in their chosenness have the gift and values of timelessness sprung from virtues of faithful love, smartness, firmness, pride and loyalty in a world where men, for good and for worse, set the boundaries but women suffer the consequences.

Perceived predation risk alters animals’ behavior. This shift in behavior often comes at the cost of attaining resources. Generally, African elephants (Loxodonta africana) experience little predation pressure; however, the risk of predation by lions (Panthera leo) increases other prey species are less abundant. In elephant herds, related females and their offspring travel together in family groups, led by the eldest female. Response to predation pressure was examined by playing lion calls to the population of 437 elephants at the Main Camp Section of Addo Elephant National Park (AENP) in South Africa. Unfamiliar lion calls from a single male and two males, static, and running water were played from a remote speaker to elephants at waterholes. These trials were recorded by video. Behaviors of elephants were then extracted from video into focal observations of thirty second segments before, during and after a sound was played. I analyzed these data using parametric t-tests and non-parametric randomization tests. When no sound was played, elephants did not alter their behavior. Water elicited low levels of distress behaviors. Elephants behaved in a threatened or annoyed manner toward static. Elephants changed their behavior more in response to lion calls than to the controls, namely by decreasing drinking and increasing walking and distress behaviors. I also examined how individuals differed in their responses to the lion calls based on a number of demographic factors. Adult and subadult females performed more social behaviors after lion calls when the matriarch was absent than when she was present. Furthermore, when group size was larger and more calves were present, females decreased drinking and increased time exhibiting distress behaviors. Based on this and other studies it can be concluded that elephants of different demographics perceived similar levels of elevated risk when hearing lion calls. Landscape of fear models are useful for assessing habitat use by prey species in response to real and perceived predation risk. The present study corroborates findings from a study in East Africa that elephants perceive threat from lions based on calls alone and appear to distinguish levels of threat by the number of lions calling.

The story of Sarah and Hagar has been treated as one of the foundational stories for the nation of Israel. Yet, Paul, in one deft allegory, will attempt to overturn centuries of theological and historical interpretation. Against other interpretations, I argue that Paul’s untraditional uniting of Hagar, Sinai, and the present Jerusalem together was accomplished through the interpretive key provided in 4:23: the one who comes from a slave has been born because of the flesh, and the one who comes from a free woman has been born through the promise. Paul no longer reads the story of Sarah and Hagar through a lens of separation based on physical realities, but rather through the lens of promise and flesh, as helpfully stated in 4:23. Ishmael was not “cast out” because of his sinfulness or supposed ethnic deficiencies, but rather because he was born “κατὰ σάρκα” and not “δι᾽ ἐπαγγελίας.” These comparative realities are not introduced here in the allegory for the first time; rather, Paul has been building these comparisons as his primary argument since the foundational 2:15-21. This dissertation, therefore, not only interprets the allegory in consideration of the lens of 4:23, but seeks to set the argument within both the thematic and schematic content of Galatians. While the first chapter summarizes and categorizes the typical interpretations of the difficult Galatians 4:21-5:1, the second chapter seeks to critique these approaches to the allegory. The value of applying Paul’s interpretive lens (Gal 4:23) to the allegory is argued for in the third chapter. By using the hermeneutical lens of 4:23, many of the allegory’s difficulties are eased, and the meaning and import of the allegory is clarified. The fourth chapter seeks to set the allegory within the epistle, both thematically and schematically, centering the main propositio around Paul’s remarks to Peter in Galatians 2:15-21. Finally, the last chapter looks at some limited applications of the thesis to OT hermeneutics, specifically in literal and allegorical readings of the Sarah/Hagar incident.

Stereotypes and myths are created by media to simplify and mystify reality. The two are used to form negative stereotypical images that are used as tools of social oppression in today’s white patriarchy. This essay will focus on how Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye depicts black womanhood and motherhood and resists the reductive images of black women through the narrative technique. In the text we find the stereotypical images of the Mammy and the Matriarch in the character Pauline "Polly" Breedlove, both simplifying and mystifying black motherhood but also condescending towards African-American family constellations. The text resists these images by making readers inhabit Polly who at first fits in to the two archetypes, only to then give us additional information and use an engaging narrative technique that invites the reader to decide if Polly really is the Mammy and the Matriarch.

[pt] Dona Canô ficou conhecida nacionalmente como mãe dos cantores Caetano Veloso e Maria Bethânia. Mas a matriarca do Recôncavo Baiano (que teve outros seis filhos, sendo duas adotivas) tinha brilho próprio: na pequena Santo Amaro da Purificação, onde nasceu e viveu a maior parte dos seus 105 anos, transformou-se em uma liderança. Conseguiu melhorias para a cidade, ajudou os mais necessitados, recebeu políticos em sua casa, deu entrevistas, inspirou versos de músicas e colocou seu quintal no mapa cultural do país. Esta dissertação de mestrado tem o objetivo de traçar o perfil de Claudionor Vianna Telles Velloso, como um mosaico de lembranças, a partir, principalmente, de depoimentos de pessoas que conviveram com ela: filhos, netos, bisnetos, vizinhos em Santo Amaro e amigos. A construção do perfil de Dona Canô levou a reflexões sobre a figura das matriarcas, a memória e sua subjetividade, história e recordação. Para isso, foi fundamental recorrer a autores como Walter Benjamin, Jeanne Marie Gagnebin, Silviano Santiago, Didi-Huberman, entre outros. / [en] Dona Canô was known nationwide as Caetano Velloso s and Maria Bethânia s mother. But this matriarch from Recôncavo Baiano - she had other six children, two adopted - had a light of her own. In tiny Santo Amaro da Purificação, town where she was born and lived almost all of the 105 years of her life, Dona Canô turned into a community leader. Got improvements for the city, helped the ones more in need, received politicians in her home, gave interviews, inspired songs and put your backyard in the cultural map of Brasil. This master s thesis aims to draw Claudionor Vianna Telles Velloso s profile, as a mosaic of memories, based mainly on the testimonies of people who lived with her: children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, neighbors in Santo Amaro and friends. The construction of Dona Canô s profile led to reflexions about matriarchs figures, memory and its subjectivity, history and remembrance. To reach this goal, it was essencial to turn to authors such as Walter Benjamin, Jeanne Marie Gagnebin, Silviano Santiago, Didi-Huberman, among others.

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[pt] Ao longo do tempo, mulher e cultura de massa sempre foram identificadas. Andreas Huyssen aproximou-as ao mostrar a maneira como ambas foram capazes de ameaçar o mundo masculino e burguês do século XIX. Neste roteiro comentado, inspirado no livro Tantos Anos, de Maria Luíza de Queiroz e Rachel de Queiroz, no romance Memorial de Maria Moura, de Rachel de Queiroz, e na minissérie homônima, adaptada do romance e exibida pela TV Globo em 24 capítulos no ano de 1994, vemos - na forma de programa para a televisão - como a escritora Rachel de Queiroz, uma mulher que viveu muito, e sempre entre os intelectuais e poderosos de sua época, acabou por inspirar- se em sua própria vivência para criar aquela que viria a ser sua última heroína: Maria Moura. Levada à tela da televisão, a minissérie Memorial de Maria Moura, mesmo tendo sido (como é característico do meio) o resultado de um processo no qual a autoria é fragmentada, apresenta uma heroína que não perdeu a característica que mais a aproxima de sua criadora Rachel de Queiroz: a atração pelo poder. / [en] Throughout the times, women and mass culture have always been related to each other. Andreas Huyssen brought them together by showing the way they both threatened XIXth century`s masculine and bourgeois world. In this commented screenplay, based on the book Tantos Anos, by Maria Luíza de Queiroz and Rachel de Queiroz, the novel Memorial de Maria Moura, by Rachel de Queiroz, and its homonymous miniseries, adapted from the novel and aired by TV Globo in 24 episodes in the year of 1994, we can witness - in the form of a television show - the way how the writer Rachel de Queiroz, a woman who lived very long, and always among the powerful and intellectual people of her time, ended up being inspired by her own trajectory to create that who would become her last heroine: Maria Moura. Taken to television screen, the miniseries Memorial de Maria Moura, even when it was (which is a typical trait for this medium) the result of a process in which authorship is shattered, brings a heroine who didn`t lose the characteristic that approaches her the most to her creator: the attraction to power.