Weber's contribution to the study of social action has been a major influence upon the development of modern sociology but aspects of his approach have been obscured by the process of translation, commentary and evaluation - and in this respect the work of Parsons and to a lesser extent Schutz has been significant. Hence this study aims (a) to clarify the nature of Webens Theory of Action and (b) to determine its contemporary value in comparison with the extension of his ideas by Parsons and Schutz. We examine the interpretation, advanced particularly by Parsons, that Weber's approach to the study of action changed as he became increasingly concerned with the nature of sociological inquiry, and, thereby, moved beyond the problems of historical method. On the basis of a detailed examination of Weber's theoretical and methodological arguments we reject the idea of a break in his thinking about historical and sociological research and this has important implications for some accepted views-on Weber's conception of objectivity, ideal type concepts and understanding. Parsons set out to extend Weber from the perspective of a natural science of society, but his claim to identify a convergence between Durkheim, Pareto and Weber into the Voluntaristic Theory of Action is rejected and the criticisms, which his development of some aspects of Weberts approach have experienced, are sufficient to cast doubts upon the-validity of his General Theory. Schutz formulated a phenomenological critique of Weber's categories of interpretive sociology and sought to establish a philosophically more secure basis for the study of action but, we suggest, his assumptions about the everyday world, allied to his evaluation of Weber's approach, led him to propose an impracticable methodology. Finally, we argue that the contemporary relevance of Weber's Theory of Action can be seen from the way many of the problems involved in the study of action, some of which were identified by the development of the phenomenological perspective, can be solved by recourse to his approach.

In this thesis I investigate the nature of noir subjectivity, and the degree to which it can be described as heroic. To investigate these issues, I have chosen to illustrate my argument by analysing my novel, Viper, and two films that renew the noir cycle at different socio-political crossroads in America: in 1958, Alfred Hitchcock???s late noir, Vertigo, and in 1974, Frances Ford Coppola???s neo-noir, The Conversation. Because these texts present an extreme theorisation of deception in terms of the assembling and erasure of subjective identity, they will serve as a basis to explore the question of noir subjectivity. In proceeding thus, I argue in the dissertation that film noir???s most innovative borrowing can be described as a monstrous stitching together of incompatible parts???the real and the imaginary, the past and the present, the living and the dead???which accounts for a cut both between, and within, the image. It is this prosthetic approach to representation that takes the noir mode beyond its existential, individualist limits, and accounts for the subjective wound in noir: the heroic conflict between the singular and the multiple. In my analytic procedure then, I extend the idea of monstrosity beyond its current boundaries in contemporary theory. I do this by fusing Marie H??l??ne Huet???s conception of the monstrous imagination, which is a theory of art, with Gilles Deleuze???s powers of the false, which belongs to a philosophy of time. I posit a dialogic exchange across these analyses and my novel to suggest that the cinematic cut not only accounts for what Deleuze has termed the time-image but also is symptomatic of the chronic wounding of the riven noir hero. These analyses suggest that, while sustaining the aura of authorship through technical innovation and stylistic mastery, film noir serves paradoxically to challenge the mastery of the model designated as masculine. In my novel I continue to deal with the issues raised in the dissertation, through a rearticulation of a subjectivity that irrevocably alters its relation to representation in its affinity with the image, its serial movement through interstitial space, and its novel powers of falsification.

No description available.

No description available.

Although this work was commissioned for the purpose of celebrating Alfred Hospital’s first one hundred years, I have made no effort to cover all of those years. I have set out: 1. To isolate the historical precedents for current hospital procedures and in particular to explore the relationship between Alfred Hospital and the State Government. This task was burdened by the scarcity of early hospital records and of research in related fields of charitable and social welfare - which emphasizes the value of rescuing the hospital’s fast vanishing past from oblivion. 2. By attention to human relationships (that constantly inconsistent element in all institutional affairs) to evoke those unique qualities which distinguish Alfred Hospital from other similar hospitals. 3. To convey what the Alfred meant to the greatest number of people associated with it. 4. To provide a useful source of reference.

Thesis (M.T.S.)--Catholic Theological Union of Chicago, 1989. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 85-88).

Thesis (D.M.A.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2007. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 68-06, Section: A, page: 2239. Adviser: Donna Buchanan. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 217-231) Available on microfilm from Pro Quest Information and Learning.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--McMaster University, 2006. / Supervisor: John C. Robertson, Jr. Includes bibliographical references (p. 313-323).

Zugl.: Tübingen, Univ., Diss., 2004 / Hergestellt on demand

RWTH, Diss.--Aachen, 2006.