What too many literary historians have overlooked is that Richard Wright continued to produce important works long after his departure for Paris, especially in the genre of nonfiction. My purpose is to show that the last half of his career stands up to the passage of time and to any comparison to his earlier work, of which it is a culmination. / I have chosen a chronological progression for this study, beginning with a biographical sketch in Chapter One and proceeding in subsequent chapters through his successive books after he went to Paris. Near the end of his life Wright advocated a militarization of society, whereby undeveloped countries could "project immediately into the twentieth century." I develop this perspective through a critical analysis of the following books: Black Power, Pagan Spain, The Color Curtain, and White Man, Listen!. I show how each book stands as a separate artistic entity. This material constitutes chapters two through five. / In Chapter Six I analyze Wright's last novel, The Long Dream, and show that because the critics rejected his nonfiction, Wright felt compelled to return to the fiction that had made him famous. I also argue, however, that in this last novel, Wright re-analyzes the major idea he had introduced in his nonfiction. / To limit Wright's achievements to two or three books is a grave disservice to academic scholarship as well as to Wright and Afro-American culture. Therefore I argue that we must study Wright's later works as well as his political activism in Paris if we are to gain a complete understanding of such a complex and fascinating writer. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 49-06, Section: A, page: 1455. / Major Professor: William T. Lhamon, Jr. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1988.

This study provides critical insight into the long neglected contribution of black American women to the autobiographical genre. Although other works are mentioned, this scholarly endeavor is an analysis of the themes and structuring devices embodied in the autobiographies of four black women: Maya Angelou, Gwendolyn Brooks, Lorraine Hansberry, and Zora Neale Hurston. / The introductory chapters examines variously formulated definitions and other elements, including style, ascribed to the genre of autobiography. It also considers the concepts of truth and falsity, the female autobiographical tradition, and the black autobiographical tradition. / The selected autobiographies are analyzed in individual chapters. Angelou's four books--I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Gather Together in My Name, Singin' and Swingin' and Gettin' Merry Like Christmas, and The Heart of a Woman--Brooks's Report from Part One, Hansberry's To Be Young, Gifted and Black, and Hurston's Dust Tracks on a Road reveal common technical/organizational devices. Most essential to the black woman autobiographer is the question for personal identity. Other themes include the importance of education, the value of the work ethic, an expressed attitude towards religious devotion, and the connection between art and social responsibility. In addition, an examination of the structuring devices shows a unanimous use of the fragmented narrative, whose digressions, anecdotes, and family portraits form distinct thematic units. Also, these life stories evince either a "life-as-journey" pattern of development (both literal and metaphorical) based on repeated movement or a "life-as-stability" pattern with the self staying in one place and forging an identity there. Language, too, in all its manifestations, helps to establish a textual self at the center of the autobiographical act. Overall, these black women's autobiographies, in addition to giving voice to women, reveal what it means to be human in a society that denies humanity, growth, and fulfillment. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 49-06, Section: A, page: 1456. / Major Professor: Fred L. Standley. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1988.

The conflict between body and mind, dust and deity, is a well-established theme which appears in a variety of guises in Byron's poetry. One recurring element in the body of Byron's work that reflects this dichotomy is the phenomenon of time, which can be viewed as both an objective power and subjective experience. This study examines the thematic importance of the many facets of time to Byron's poetry, asserting time's destructive power over the dust as well as the deity's power over time, the mind's power to alter or transcend time. / Chapter One provides background information about time, emphasizing its importance to humanity's exploration of ourselves and our world. Time was becoming a much more intrusive force in human life during Byron's era, as rapid change and developing studies in history, philosophy, and science were undermining uniform notions of time and expanding the role of the individual mind. Chapter Two examines biographical information presenting an overwhelming picture of Byron as a man contending with time in its many finite forms and infinite implications. Chapter Three begins the exploration of the poetry, focusing on time as an objective, external power of destruction. In Chapter Four, the focus turns from time as an agent to the human mind as it acts upon time. Chapter Five discusses the intersections of time and eternity, as finite dust strives for the infinite. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 56-08, Section: A, page: 3141. / Major Professor: Eric Walker. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1995.

The Problem Investigated: This thesis is conceived as: [1] a work of scholarship and exegesis [2] an examination of more recent scientific works which use similar metaphors or concepts, eg. Cooperation, that are central to Kropotkin's thinking. As a work of scholarship and exegesis this thesis is an attempt to present the many areas/dimensions of Kropotkin's philosophy and thinking in a systematic way. I do not believe that this has been attempted previously in any language. Although his political, social and economic theories have generated a substantial secondary literature, Kropotkin's scientific works and philosophy of science, with the exception of his famous book, Mutual Aid, have received virtually no attention. In consequence of this the emphasis of this work will be upon his scientific writings. However, his political writings will also be examined as well as related to his broad scientific outlook. In addition to evaluating Kropotkin's scientific works in relation to his period I also discuss them in relation to contemporary debates. Although not strictly true, the second half of this thesis is not a work of historical scholarship but an attempt to bring together the ideas of scientists that in one way or another support a Kropotkinesque characterisation of natural processes. Although Kropotkin is often rightly regarded as a founder of modern environmentalism, this is difficult to substantiate from his purely political and social writings. Thus I will attempt to present the core concepts of Kropotkin's anarchism in a coherent and succinct way with an emphasis upon showing how they relate to contemporary debates and perspectives within the environmental movement. The Procedures Followed: The thesis will be introduced biographically. This seemed the best way to introduce Kropotkin's works to the reader and place them in relation to one another and in their historical context. Thus the primary purpose of this historical section is to contextualise the great diversity of works by Kropotkin. As I do not have a science background, but also for reasons of clarity, the remainder of the analysis shall be based upon the least technical and most accessible scientific literature in the various disciplines investigated. I will begin by systematically collecting, cataloguing and analysing both Kropotkin's works as well as the secondary literature and then proceed to make some overall sense of them and then relate them to contemporary debates upon process and organisation in nature and society. The General Results Obtained: My research has revealed a large body of scientific work by Kropotkin. My analysis of them shows that he had a deep understanding of the role of mutualism, symbiosis, dynamism, group and social behaviour etc., in relation to physical and biological processes. His ideas, although necessarily containing errors, are broadly, as well as in many detailed aspects, consistent with the findings of professional, though often unorthodox, scientists of the present day. The main faults of Kropotkin's approach was a fundamental failure to appreciate the role of territories and hierarchies in animal groups and his excessive progressivism. My research also reveals how Kropotkin's social vision, although somewhat utopian, can be sympathetically interpreted in terms of modern environmentalist perspectives. The Major Conclusions Reached: Kropotkin's diverse works in science and social theory when presented systematically reveals that he is a philosopher of considerable interest in respect to both contemporary and historical debates concerning sociality and its influence upon the evolution of life on Earth.

This dissertation argues that edifying dialogue is an appropriate and satisfying component of historically critical biography. It has been a part of biography. The edifying and critical intent is traced through pre-modern biography to demonstrate that this was the case in the Hebrew, Greek, Roman, Early Christian and Medieval eras. Key authors examined include the author(s) of the Pentateuch, the Gospel writers and the authors of the Biblical epistles, Herodotus, Polybius, Livy, Plutarch, Tacitus, Athanasius, Jerome, Sulpicius Severus, and John Capgrave. It can be a part of biography even given the challenges of contemporary theory posed by the extreme positions of positivism and postmodernism (or their chastened re-formulations). Important authors discussed in this section include Arthur Marwick, Keith Jenkins, David Harlan and Peter Novick. It is a part of some biographies meant for a particular audience (such as feminist works). And hopefully it will be increasingly looked upon as the preferred way of writing biography. My dissertation follows these stages. I begin with what biography has been and argue that the Greek and Roman historians believed that the intent of biography was critical and edifying. In fact, critical and edifying intent is notable also in Biblical and medieval biographies. The next section argues that edifying discourse is compatible with both traditional and postmodern theories of history-writing. The third section of the dissertation moves from theoretical considerations to the work of two notable Christian historians, George Marsden and Harry Stout. I note that these two scholars in particular are, in theory, open to my argument but that they can hesitate to engage in edifying discourse in biography. Finally, I briefly examine a few authors who write edifying and critical biography. Toril Moi, Carolyn Heilbrun, and the Bollandists are discussed in this section.

Thesis (D. Min.)--Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, South Hamilton, MA, 2003. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 194-200).

Thesis (Th. M.)--Calvin Theological Seminary, 2002. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 96-101).

JOHN PIPER: THE MAKING OF A CHRISTIAN HEDONIST Justin Gerald Taylor, Ph.D. The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 2015 Chair: Dr. Michael A. G. Haykin This dissertation on noted pastor and author John Piper (1946- ) constitutes an early effort in the field of intellectual biography, tracing four key influences--in roughly chronological order--upon Piper's life and theology. Those with primary influence in Piper's formative years were his parents, William S. H. Piper (1919-2007) and Ruth Mohn Piper (1918-1974), who exhibited a unique combination of joyful fundamentalism. Piper's next major influence was C. S. Lewis (1898-1963), discovered during his undergraduate studies at Wheaton College, who introduced him to romantic rationalism. Piper's first teacher at Fuller Seminary was Daniel P. Fuller (1925- ), a hermeneutics professor who planted the seeds of Christian hedonism and who gave him a love for exegetical biblicism. It was during these seminary days and into his time of doctoral study that Piper discovered Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758), whose affectional Calvinism would go on to shape Piper's theology more than anyone else. Piper's three primary venues of ministerial vocation--teaching, preaching, and writing--are all examined to reveal the ways in which each of these influencers played various roles in Piper's development of Christian hedonism and his distinct contribution to a theology of the Christian life. The dissertation concludes with two applications of the foregoing analysis, exploring how Piper uses Scripture and how he appropriates church history for pastoral ends. Also included is a comprehensive bibliography of Piper's published works (1971-2015).

Rachel Calof's Story. Jewish Homesteader on the Northern Plains (Ed. J. Sanford Rikoon, Indiana University Press, 1995) is a first-person memoir of homesteading in North Dakota from 1894-1917, based on Rachel Calof's Yiddish manuscript. I traced this text from inception to publication, especially the translation and editing process, comparing a new translation of the Yiddish manuscript with the English publication. Since the differences proved significant, my research investigated issues of oral history transmission and collaboration. In light of new scholarship in autobiography theory, particularly Paul Eakin's "proximate collaborative autobiography," I consider Rachel Calof's Story a hybrid text, integrating both oral histories and written texts to portray a more complete picture of homestead life. Rachel's son, Jacob, compiled the English version for publication, bringing a comprehensive knowledge of her life, and yet complicating objectivity because he was, indeed, her son. Recent scholarship in women's and western studies focuses on situational context; investigation of diversity supplements an increasingly multi-faceted picture. Contemporary scholarship in immigrant literature emphasizes ambivalence rather than assimilation and changed how I considered the Calof story. I apply the Personal Narratives Group's conceptualization of context, narrator-interpreter relations and multiple connotations of "truths." The oral nature of the Yiddish language is also considered as influencing the translation. I analyze specific themes at length: Rachel Calof's physical environment of home, prairie and transitional spaces; the rhetoric of frontier settlement; home in physical and religious terms; and finally, Americanization as an editorial emphasis which reduced ethnic and religious distinctions. Other multi-authored works, including those of Anne Frank, Laura Ingalls Wilder and Black Elk, reveal parallel collaborative tensions. Neither generational nor gender differences entirely explain alterations families and ethnographers make in editing transmitted works. Barbara Myerhoff's concept of the "third voice" particularly influenced my understanding the dialogic nature of manuscripts and oral histories. Finally, I question whether publishers and audiences are complicit in the demand for success stories even at the expense of stifling an author's voice. The English publication of Rachel Calof's Story was polished and unaccented; the original Yiddish manuscript was a stream of consciousness that might not have been published.

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