This study is centered on the social question as addressed and defined by Ernst Troeltsch (1865--1923) and by Max Weber (1864--1920); it pertains mainly to the rise of religious modernity and its conditions of possibility; based on a comparative analysis of the socio1ogy of religion of Troeltsch and Weber, it deals with the question how religious modernity has to be thought from a sociological perspective. / Along with modern historical science and scientific rationality in general, the social question challenged religion in the nineteenth century; this study brings out the originality of Troeltsch's vision of a modernity compatible with belief in the future of religion. / Motivated by the debate on the social question, Troeltsch's concern was the social foundations of the Christian doctrine in its relation to secular domains of activity, and this calls for a new outlook on the issue of the relation between religion and culture. / Eventually, the comparative approach of the sociological thought of Weber and Troeltsch pursued in the present work, while providing new insight into Weber's views on religion, brings about a better understanding of Troeltsch as a theologian and a philosopher of religion.

Note: / This thesis examines the manner in which Yeats developed the dancer as a literary symbol and discusses the meanings the symbol acquired as a result of that development. There is a chapter on historical background to the dance and another on what Yeats meant by symbol. The operation of the dancer is examined in detail in the following early poems: "Who Goes with Fergus?" "The Man Who Dreamed of Faeryland" and "The Host of the Air." The development is examined in some later poems, such as "Michael Robartes and the Dancer" and others to establish the nature of the change leading toward the dancer's humanisation and toward its acquiring additional meaning because of its assocaition with other symbols, for example, tree and dragon: waht yeats called The Great Procession. "Among School Children" is examined in detail as an example of the operation of the completed symbol. [...]

The New York State politicians, notably members of Congress such as Irving Ives, Herbert Lehman, Samuel Dickstein, Emanuel Celler and Jacob Javits, were very involved in the immigration debates for the period from 1945 to 1953. By their interventions, they emerged as fiery supporters of a liberalization of American immigration policy. A willingness to satisfy a multiethnic electorate largely explains their position. But these individuals, mostly defenders of President Truman's foreign policy, also believed in this cold war context that an attenuation of restrictionism in immigration would provide numerous advantages to the nation. If their attitude seems dictated by considerations that were both pragmatic and idealistic, it generated non-negligible results. Thus, the granting of a quota to India in 1946, the act on the war brides in 1945, as well as the legislation affecting the refugees in 1950, were among the measures mainly ascribable to the activities of these politicians.

In this thesis I set out WB Yeats' s conception of Irish national identity as a non-essentialist, inclusive, and imaginative construct. I do so against the backdrop of Edward Said's construction of Yeats, within the field of postcolonial theory, as a poet of decolonization who stops short of imagining Ireland's full political liberation from colonial rule. I propound that, on the contrary, Yeats does imagine full liberation in proposing his Doctrine of the Mask as a method for the creation of what, I argue, is an emphatically 'postcolonial' national identity. What this identity entails is elucidated by an examination of key issues of 'nation-ness' explored by various theorists, particularly Benedict Anderson; the historical contextualization of Yeats in the Ireland of his times; and a close reading of particularly Yeats's two major 'occult' works: Per Amica Si/entia Lunae and A Vision. Overall, I make several important contributions to 'postcolonial' Yeats scholarship - a far from exhausted field of study. Firstly, I demonstrate that the incorporation of the modernist Yeats's 'occult' dimension - a dimension disparaged and dismissed by Said - into Said's construction of Yeats as a 'postcolonial' figure serves to bolster rather than undermine this construction. Secondly, I demonstrate that, while Said claims Frantz Fanon goes further than Yeats in imagining full liberation in the colonial context, there are in fact striking parallels between Fanon's narrative of liberation in particularly The Wretched a/the Earth and Yeats's 'occult' works, particularly A Vision. The comparison with Fanon, I show, underlines that Yeats does indeed imagine full liberation, especially at the level of Irish national identity. Thirdly, I demonstrate the link, heretofore unnoted by Yeats critics, between Matthew Amold' s defining of the Irish as racially inferior and Yeats's liberationist discourse in Per Amica Silentia Lunae and A Vision. I show that Yeats subversively mobilises Arnold's terms to debunk Amold and buttress a distinctly Yeatsian conception of Irish national identity. Lastly, I highlight the 'Yeatsian' complexion of the contemporary South African context, arguing that the consideration ofYeats's conception of Irish national identity may assist South Africans in forging a nonessentialist, inclusive national identity and national unity. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, 2008.

This thesis proposes that Yeats found in certain conventions of the Noh drama a realization and defense of his idea of unity of culture, which his Noh-like Four Plays for Dancers illustrates. Yeats' use of recurrent imagery in the dance plays expresses his belief in a unity of culture defined and evoked by an image and stems in part from the pattern of images he discovered in the Pound-Fenollosa translations of the Noh. The imagery of the poetic text reappears in symbolic visual designs or is coordinated with music and dance in the production of the plays. The importance of the spoken word above all determined the basis of the association of arts with which Yeats characterized unity of culture and shaped his adaptation and occasional misconception of the staging techniques of the Noh. A common love of vivid, allusive words joined the audience for whom the dance plays were written. When Yeats stated that they were modelled on the audience of the Noh, his perception was colored, as usual, by his own priorities and experience.

Yeats's depiction of political violence is examined through a reading of the political poetry centred on "Easter 1916," "Nineteen Hundred and Nineteen," and "Meditations in Time of Civil War," each of these bearing a title emphasizing the poem's historicality, each representing one of the violent epochs in modern Ireland. By studying the dramatized narrative persona utilized by Yeats--a persona constituting the ideological and societal contexts of the poem, and effecting, through the choice of perspective, the selection of historical materials--the particular contents of Yeats's history-making are brought into focus. Yeats was both a romantic poet uneasy with the political component of verse, and an Irish nationalist for whom these events were essential ingredients of his life's work. In these poems we find the collision of Yeats's own conflicting ideals about poetry, politics, and history; a collision which produces a complex portrayal of Irish political violence.

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This thesis examined the movements of Rufus King's Federal division during a portion of the Second Manassas Campaign. With an emphasis on the role of John Gibbon's brigade, this study concentrated on the battle fought on the evening of August 28, 1862 near Groveton, Virginia between King's division and two Confederate divisions under Stonewall Jackson. Events leading up to file battle, poor cooperation between the Union generals and the faulty deployment by Jackson were stressed, as was the severity of the fighting.The withdrawal of King's division following the battle was portrayed as an important strategic error which allowed the two wings of the Confederate army to unite the following day. Although the Union troops fought Jackson's larger force to a draw, poor leadership by the Union generals resulted in tide loss of the advantages gained by the fighting. The Battle at Brawner Farm was an important event in the campaign, although it has generally been overlooked by historians.

The Crying of the Blood is a collection of short stories with the two characters Mariah and Mary, born one hundred years apart, who deal with the challenges of life dealt them. Through descriptive language and the strong presence of place and setting, the author explores the under-girding strength of human nature in dealing with the external and internal pressures of the various forms of war and its aftermath. By examining the effects of the human condition through inherited and acquired traits passed to succeeding descendents of the characters, the author exposes the foibles of human nature. People live a specific way and repeat patterns of thinking and choosing without knowing why or stopping to consider the ensuing results of their actions. The collection of stories reveals the dark shadows of the Civil War that continue to shape the Southern culture and also the enduring strength and charm of the people and their traditions.This collection of stories is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either a figment of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Resemblances to actual people, settings, and events are purely coincidental. / Department of English