Thesis (Ph.D.) - James Cook University, 2004. / Typescript (photocopy). Bibliography : leaves 250-283. Also available in an electronic version via the Internet.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Baylor University, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 161-166).

This thesis explores how selected "decadent-dandyist" writers of late 19^th century France at once exemplify and subvert the self's act of shaping and imprinting its own selfhood upon the world: a model in which an autonomous, discrete artist-self freely creates, and in which both reader/audience and artistic "subjects" are treated as raw canvas and denied agency of their own. Storytellers like Barbey D'Aurevilly, Villiers de l'Isle-Adam, J.K. Huysmans, and Remy de Gourmont create not only hyper-artificial, cloistered, "auto-telic" (to use Charles Taylor's term) textual worlds (e.g. Huysmans' theïbade raffinée) but also hyper-artificial selves: presenting themselves and their often autobiographical protagonists as dandy-artists for whom artistic creation is an extension of self-creation. Central to this thesis is the 19^th century figure of the dandy - he who, to quote D'Aurevilly, "[causes] surprise in others, and [has] the proud satisfaction of never showing any oneself." Appropriating the divine power of self-fashioning, the dandy transforms the chaos of existence into a clear narrative over which he alone exerts control, denying that he himself is subject to the control of the world. In my thesis, I first explore the cultural and economic roots of this understanding of the autonomous dandyist-artist in the light of wider tensions in 19^th century Paris. I then explore selected "decadent-dandyist" texts through close reading, focusing on the theological implications of our authors' treatment of narrative, character, setting, and language: showing how our writers cast doubt on both the possibility and morality "autonomous" creation on theological grounds. Finally, I ask how constructive theologians might learn from our authors' condemnation of "dandyist" storytelling to create a new Christian aesthetics for the novel: proposing elements of an alternate, "kenotic" novel, in which self-projection gives way to "self-giving", a model based not on power and ego but rather on love.

The argument of the thesis is that the literary forms of Thomas Merton's prose writings embody theological claims he makes elsewhere at the level of content. Specifically, the five chapters of the thesis show that Merton not only writes about the themes of self-denial, simplification, observing the 'thereness' of the world, and (in two distinct ways) apprehending God in darkness and obscurity, but that he also enacts those themes in the way he writes prose. The thesis offers an original and significant contribution to three main fields of enquiry. Firstly, when analysing Merton's prose I employ methods espoused by New Formalist literary critics, but I apply their reading strategies to the theological dimensions of literary form. Secondly, my work builds upon claims made by theologians of form about the link between literary genres or forms and issues surrounding, for instance, the character of God, but it does so in a novel way, by employing New Formalist close reading strategies. Thirdly, the thesis offers a new method of enquiry for Thomas Merton Studies, by performing the first extended literary-critical account of his prose. In sum, the thesis opens up new theoretical territory for Formalism, new specific material for the theology of form, and a new methodology for Merton Studies. Besides the introductory and concluding chapters, all of the chapters of the thesis are structured in the same way. Each includes an expositional section in which I quote from Merton's thoughts on, for example, self-denial, and a literary-critical section, in which I read the forms of Merton's prose in terms of the content-claims already outlined. The goal of this methodology is, at every stage, to show that Merton enacts his own theologically-rooted content claims in the forms of his prose.

This thesis explores the relationship between feminists' use of inclusive language for the Trinity and their hermeneutical method in order to determine the viability of their method for theological construction. Chapter 1 describes the theological tradition out of which the feminist critique emerges, noting the intratextual approach that characterizes the hermeneutics of communication and the extratextual approach that distinguishes feminist socio-pragmatic hermeneutics. Chapter 2 elucidates the search for authorial intention and provides a criterion by which to evaluate the feminist hermeneutic. Chapter 3 analyzes feminist socio-pragmatic hermeneutics against the background of a hermeneutics of communication and the normativity of the Scriptures for theological reflection. Chapter 4 demonstrates how the intratextual approach, invariably, yields a truly biblical understanding of the Trinitarian name. Chapter 5 delineates the biblical-theological implications of the study.

Thesis (M.A.)--Baylor University, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 117-120).

Thesis (Th. M.)--Dallas Theological Seminary, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 69-71).

Thesis (Th. M.)--Dallas Theological Seminary, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves [69]-71).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 1999. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 207-214).

Thesis (Th. M.)--Dallas Theological Seminary, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 69-71).