The abolition of the Atlantic slave trade was a long struggle in British Parliament between the slave trade defenders and the abolitionists. The Act of 1807 officially abolished the Atlantic slave trade, eighteen years after the initial abolition proposal to Parliament. William Wilberforce was a member of a committee that worked towards the abolition of the slave trade and the eventual emancipation of slavery. He also was a member of Parliament. Indeed, Wilberforce is most remembered for his committed perseverance on behalf of abolition. A literature review will describe the existing scholarship pertaining to the British antislavery movement and William Wilberforce. The literature review will also reveal that current scholarship does not specifically rhetorically analyze the first official proposal for abolition, presented by William Wilberforce on May 12, 1789. The analysis presented will identify how Wilberforce foregrounded the cultural norms of eighteenth century British culture and how he used refutative ironies to break apart the opposition's arguments against total abolition of the slave trade. Finally, evaluation of the analysis will support the hypotheses that William Wilberforce's May 12, 1789 proposal for the abolition of the Atlantic slave trade was the inception of debate and discussion on the abolition of the slave trade in Parliament. / Graduation date: 1993

In this thesis, I argue for anti-colonial constructions of the non-Aboriginal self. I take as my starting point that members of the invader/settler society in Australia must place them/ourselves in “an embodied awareness of ‘being in Indigenous sovereignty’” (Nicholl, 2004: 17) and name them/ourselves accordingly. An anti-colonial construction of non-Aboriginality formed within the locus of Aboriginal Sovereignty undermines the potency of ‘post-colonial’ processes of identity formation, which privilege the colonialist centre, and the concomitant marginalised position of Indigenous people. Thus, an anti-colonial construction of non-Aboriginality constitutes a radical recentring for processes of identity construction within invader/settler societies. This work responds to critical whiteness studies and post-colonial discourses of ‘belonging’. I acknowledge both whiteness studies and work on invader/settler belongings have gained traction in recent years as a means to problematise the whiteness of the settler/invader group and the legitimacy of their/our belongings. However, I argue they continue to operate within colonialist paradigms and perpetuate (neo)colonial power relations. In this thesis, I argue anti-colonial constructions of non-Aboriginality are constructed in dialogue with Aboriginal people. I conceive non-Aboriginality as a political identity that rejects ‘race’ and ‘colour’ as markers for identity. ‘Non-Aboriginality’ enables members of invader/settler societies to articulate support for Aboriginal Sovereignty and Aboriginal claims for social justice and human rights.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 1999. / Title from electronic submission form. Vita. Abstract. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.A.)--Wheaton College Graduate School, Wheaton, IL, 2004. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 102-107).

Thesis (M.A.)--Wheaton College Graduate School, 2004. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 102-107).

Thesis (M.A.)--Wheaton College Graduate School, Wheaton, IL, 2004. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 102-107).

This study examines the paradoxical and at the same time interesting relationship between Christian religion and the system of slavery in the American historical context. Through the use of Kenneth Burke’s concept and theory of Perception by Incongruity as a theoretical and conceptual framework, this study examines Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Frederick Douglass’ The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave. In the view of this study, Perception by Incongruity, as a theoretical and conceptual tool has the literary and the rhetorical resources to unmask the ironies and paradoxes involved in slave holding religion and religion holding slaves. The principal research question of the present study seeks to probe the usability of the Christian faith by slave owners to dominate and pacify the slaves, and the instrumentalisation by the slaves of the Christian faith as a liberatory and emancipatory belief. Perception by Incongruity enriches the present study in so far as it unmasks the incongruity and paradox of masters and slaves sharing the same definition of God and faith and still remaining in their conflictual positions of masters and slaves. Since this study is a study in literature, the methods of literature study and textual analysis are deployed in examining the primary texts, Uncle Tom’s Cabin and The Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave. A multiplicity of secondary texts; in form of critical and empirical literature; are used throughout this study to support observations, arguments and conclusions that are advanced by the study. Summatively, this study observes and concludes that religion, in this case Christianity occupies a perceptively incongruous position where it is suable by people in conflicting situations. Further, where domination, power and capitalism as an economic system meet, religion belongs in the mind and the eye of the beholders who seeks to use it to justify and defend their particular interests and positions. / English Studies / M.A. (English Studies)

This study examines the paradoxical and at the same time interesting relationship between Christian religion and the system of slavery in the American historical context. Through the use of Kenneth Burke’s concept and theory of Perception by Incongruity as a theoretical and conceptual framework, this study examines Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Frederick Douglass’ The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave. In the view of this study, Perception by Incongruity, as a theoretical and conceptual tool has the literary and the rhetorical resources to unmask the ironies and paradoxes involved in slave holding religion and religion holding slaves. The principal research question of the present study seeks to probe the usability of the Christian faith by slave owners to dominate and pacify the slaves, and the instrumentalisation by the slaves of the Christian faith as a liberatory and emancipatory belief. Perception by Incongruity enriches the present study in so far as it unmasks the incongruity and paradox of masters and slaves sharing the same definition of God and faith and still remaining in their conflictual positions of masters and slaves. Since this study is a study in literature, the methods of literature study and textual analysis are deployed in examining the primary texts, Uncle Tom’s Cabin and The Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave. A multiplicity of secondary texts; in form of critical and empirical literature; are used throughout this study to support observations, arguments and conclusions that are advanced by the study. Summatively, this study observes and concludes that religion, in this case Christianity occupies a perceptively incongruous position where it is suable by people in conflicting situations. Further, where domination, power and capitalism as an economic system meet, religion belongs in the mind and the eye of the beholders who seeks to use it to justify and defend their particular interests and positions. / English Studies / M.A. (English Studies)

Thesis (M.S.)--Boston University / In the following thesis I have attempted to illustrate words of a hundred years ago with appropriate photographs of present-day remains of an era. The years covered in the major sections are 1831 to 1848; the subject is slavery and abolition in New England. The Liberator was the most renowned antislavery paper. Selections from it form the text of the major part of this thesis. Complete bound editions of The Liberator may be found in the Boston Public Library, Main Branch, Copley Square. With the permission of the Supervisor I was able to photograph portions of the paper.

This dissertation analyzes the narrative use of sound, the rhetorical appeal to be heard and the trope of listening in African American literature as well as Hollywood and international cinema. Contributing to the burgeoning fields of film sound and listening studies, Chapter One explores the relationship between the first experiments with synchronous sound recording technology and the construction of subjectivity along the lines of ethnicity, religion and gender in early talkies such as Al Jolson's The Jazz Singer and Alfred Hitchcock's Blackmail. Chapter Two surveys a range of abolitionist texts and select essays from the Civil Rights movement--particularly David Walker's Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World, Frederick Douglass's first autobiography Narrative of the Life and his novella "The Heroic Slave," W. E. B. Du Bois's The Souls of Black Folk and Richard Wright's White Man, Listen!--in order to review the role of listening across racial divides in the United States. Chapter Three analyzes the multiple ways in which listening functions for narrative purposes in Wright's best-selling novel, Native Son; and Chapter Four addresses the trouble with listening in Wright's posthumous novel A Father's Law and Hitchcock's first color film, Rope.Contributing to film studies, gender studies, and critical race theory, this thesis argues that the act of listening comes to function figuratively as a trope, signifying not only a means of recognition, interpellation and subjugation of an Other but also an instrument of justice; a matter of politics; a means of education; a potential remedy for alienation, while at the same time working as a tool of oppression; a formative act in familial and other social relations; a governing form of surveillance; an audial gaze, so to speak; a way to frighten, or more generally, evoke emotion; a part of the therapeutic process; an indication of trust or confidence; a manifestation of (sexual) desire; and, last but certainly not least, an age old form of entertainment forever transformed by sound technology of the industrial age.