In this paper, I will detail the process that went into the making of my thesis film, Out of True. The areas I will cover include Writing, Directing, Production Design, Cinematography, Editing, Sound, as well as Technology and Workflow. Special emphasis will be given to Directing and the new directing style I experimented with in an effort to create not only believable but engaging performances. I will then assess the success of this experiment through the use of audience questionnaires.

Redemptive-historical preaching has incredible value to strengthen the preacher's arsenal, but its more radical proponents often resort to unyielding exclusivism, labeling non-conformist sermons as sub-Christian or worse. These exclusivistic leanings inevitably result in an unintended castigation of many faithful preachers throughout church history. Even a preacher like Martin Luther, with a near-universal reputation for Christ-centeredness, is unable to survive this redemptive-historical gauntlet unscathed. This dissertation contends that Martin Luther’s preaching fails to satisfy redemptive-historical standards for Christ-centered preaching, thereby suggesting those standards may be too narrow. The law-gospel paradigm in Luther's Christ-centered homiletic may function as a corrective to the potential overreach among redemptive-historical exclusivists. Certain criteria suggest Luther’s preaching fails to satisfy redemptive-historical standards. Bryan Chapell offers a succinct and well-tested litmus test for redemptive-historical sermons in his important work, Christ-Centered Preaching. Chapell outlines three types of non-redemptive sermons, aptly labeled "Deadly Be's:" (1) "Be Like" messages, which urge hearers to follow a Bible character's example, (2) "Be Good" sermons, which call hearers to obedience, and (3) "Be Disciplined" messages, which compel hearers towards greater diligence. Chapell's "Deadly Be's" will be used to measure Luther's redemptive-historical compliance. Chapter 1 introduces the main research problem and the thesis. Chapter 2 further introduces redemptive-historical preaching and its potential for exclusivism. Chapter 3 establishes Martin Luther as a potential corrective to the exclusivistic leanings of redemptive-historical preaching. Chapter 4 explores Luther's homiletical distinctives, with particular attention given to his law-gospel paradigm. Chapter 5 analyzes four sermons of the early Luther. Chapter 6 analyzes six sermons from Luther’s preaching in mid-career. Chapter 7 investigates six sermons from Luther’s preaching in his final years. Chapter 8 summarizes the basic principles gleaned from Luther's practices in an attempt to present a homiletical methodology for preaching Christ more effectively. Chapter 9 summarizes the main research problem and the effectiveness of Luther's preaching as a potential corrective. In many ways, his preaching both spawned and saved the Reformation. Those who desire to preach Christ more effectively should seriously reckon with his unique contribution to homiletics.

<p>Syftet med denna C-uppsats är (1) att finna en teoretisk modell kring begreppet sekt och (2) att utifrån denna modell undersöka vilka sektliknande drag Amish uppvisar i ett avgränsat material.</p>

Syftet med denna C-uppsats är (1) att finna en teoretisk modell kring begreppet sekt och (2) att utifrån denna modell undersöka vilka sektliknande drag Amish uppvisar i ett avgränsat material.

Christianity is not anti-intellectual; however, there is a distinct quality of anti-intellectualism in the rhetoric of the Christian Right. This thesis explores the ways in which rhetors in the Christian Right encourage anti-intellectual sentiment without explicitly claiming to be against intellectualism. I argue that the Christian Right makes these anti-intellectual arguments by invoking the tropes and topoi of populism, anti-evolution, and common sense. I analyze how Pat Robertson, as a representative of the Christian Right, used the stock argument, or topos, of populism in his 1986 speech, in which he announced his intention to run for President. I argue that while Robertson used the generic argumentative framework of populism, which is "anti-elitist," he shifted the meaning of the word "elitist" from a wealthy person to an intellectual person. This formed a trope, or turn in argument. Next, I consider the Christian Right's argument against the teaching of evolution. I analyze William J. Bryan's argument in the Scopes Trial, a defining moment in the creation-evolution debate. I show that Bryan used the topos of creationism, which included the loci of quality and order, to condemn the teaching of evolution, arguing that it would be better to not have education at all than for students to be taught something that contradicts the Bible. Finally, I consider how both Ronald Reagan and Sarah Palin used the topos of common sense. Reagan used this topos to create a metaphorical narrative that was to be accepted as reality, or common sense. Sarah Palin, then, used the common sense narrative that Reagan had created to support her views. By calling her ideas "common sense" and frequently referencing Reagan, her rhetoric gives the illusion that good governing is simple, thus removing the space for an intellectual in public life.

This treatise focuses on four classical guitarist-composers who found their “American voices” and played key roles in the creation of a distinctive sound in contemporary American classical guitar music: Andrew York (b. 1958), Benjamin Verdery (b. 1955), Bryan Johanson (b. 1951), and David Leisner (b. 1953). Their work illuminates the quintessentially “American” guitar vocabulary that has become a common vernacular in American classical musical culture. These American guitarist-composers stand out in their generation for several reasons. First, each has found an instantly recognizable voice in performance and composition by forging meaningful bonds between the popular musical idioms of his American cultural background and the classical tradition. Second, each is recognized as a prolific composer in what this treatise dubs the “American classical guitar vernacular.” Third, their music represents the broad spectrum of stylistic approaches to this vernacular. Leisner and Johanson are closer to the art music (classical) end, while York and Verdery provide a more direct link to popular styles. Fourth, their personal success stories have legitimized the American classical guitar vernacular in classical composition and encouraged the development of similar styles within the broader international classical guitar community. The purpose of this study is two-fold. First, it examines the process by which American guitarists “find an American voice” within a chosen stylistic dialect. Second, it defines the specific musical vocabulary -- technical, interpretive, and aesthetic -- of the American guitar vernacular and studies the way it is integrated within the parameters of the classical style. To do so, it examines the lives and works of players who were among the first to embark on such a process within their professional community, setting their artistic perspectives within the broader context of American guitar culture. In a broader sense, this study explores how our relationships, collaborations, and perspectives as players both reflect the American experience and shape our national sound on the guitar. / text

Thesis (M.A.)--Brigham Young University, Dept. of Political Science.

Historians have long been fascinated by the last decade of the nineteenth century. It was in these years that one of the great industrial reform movements arose, spearheaded in much of the West and South by the Populists. It was also a decade in which the nation fought its first foreign war in half a century and forcibly took possession of its first major overseas colonial possessions. Scholars have frequently attempted to discuss the two phenomena in conjunction, but their attempts thus far have been shallow and unsatisfactory. This study examines the Populists of the U.S. West in detail, with a special focus upon the years from 1898 to 1900. Within the first years of the decade, the Populists had developed a substantial following by demanding a reorganization of the national economy for the benefit of small-scale producers and laborers. By 1896, the party formed a vital component of the reform coalition that won most of the elected offices of the region. The Populists and their allies appeared poised to become a substantial force for change, but it was not to be. Wars---the first with Spain over Cuba, the second in the Philippines to quash an independence movement---shifted public attention to other matters. Western Populists and Democrats responded by extending their critique of concentrated wealth to foreign affairs, and they attributed the drive for empire to the demands of financiers and industrialists. Yet by attacking the American war efforts, they laid themselves open to charges of disloyalty. President McKinley and the western Republicans who followed him saw the opportunities provided by the conflicts. They declared that colonies would promote trade and promised that the wealth generated by this commerce would trickle down to all classes. To an even greater degree, they skillfully used the wars to rally support around the nation's soldiers and the "flag." And finally, western Republicans successfully labeled the Populists and Democrats who opposed the wars as traitors and "copperheads." In this way conservatives destroyed the most serious challenge to the American industrial order.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Program in Real Estate Development in Conjunction with the Center for Real Estate, 2009. / This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections. / Cataloged from student submitted PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 121). / The commercial real estate industry is currently in a state of turmoil, as access to capital markets is as constrained as consumer demand. Today many real estate development firms find themselves in difficult positions, with plummeting net operating income and upwardly mobile capitalization rates. Tail events - market events that were believed, based on statistics, to be rare occurrences - seem to be occurring with more and more regularity. With increasing uncertainty and market volatility, the question must be asked: how well can real estate developers predict returns? The purpose of this thesis is threefold: First, to determine whether real estate developers are accurately projecting real estate development returns; second, to determine where input assumption estimation errors are made in the ex ante proforma; and third, we undertake an analysis and application of Monte Carlo Simulation to ascertain whether, by providing practitioners another layer of transaction information, simulation is additive to the development return forecasting process. Through the careful analysis of both ex ante and ex post proformas of real estate development projects, this thesis is one of the first to show how well developers predict the outcomes of their projects. Our findings are rather surprising. We determine that ex ante and ex post real estate returns vary dramatically. On average expected development returns are shown to be 23.2%, while realized returns are only 9.4%. To understand this discrepancy we analyze each project proforma to identify where, during the valuation and development processes, developers made mistakes. / (cont.) Our findings suggest that developers are overly optimistic, especially when estimating hard costs, soft cost, and cashflow timing. The thesis results are consistent with the findings of a study by Dr. James Shilling, who analyzed the discrepancy between ex ante and ex post proforma returns for stabilized institutional properties. Shilling deduced that institutional investors are also misjudging returns, overestimating by an average of nearly 650 basis points. We also seek to augment and improve the valuation process employed by developers by applying Monte Carlo Simulation to discounted cashflow analysis. Applying Monte Carlo Simulation to the ex ante proforma of a real development transaction, we assess whether discounted cashflow analysis coupled with simulation provides an ex ante return that more closely approximates the realized ex post return. Again, our results are surprising. Among our findings, we learn that the simulation preparation process better informs a developer of sensitivities in input assumption variables for the transaction. However, industry data is not comprehensive, transparent, or available for a sufficiently long period of time to apply Monte Carlo Simulation. Despite the additional information provided by simulation, there remains the risk that a simulation proforma using incomplete data will yield inaccurate results. Due to the limited sample size used in our study we acknowledge that our results must be interpreted with some caution. However, we are hopeful that this initial effort to better understand and forecast development returns will encourage further study in this important area. / by Jason J. Foster and Bryan D. Lee. / S.M.

Ever since the environment and nonhumanity became major ethical topics, human-centered worldviews have been blamed for all that is morally wrong about our dealings with nature. Those who consider themselves nonanthropocentrists typically assume that the West’s anthropocentric axiologies and ontologies underlie all of the environmental degradations associated with our species. On the other hand, a handful of environmental philosophers argue that anthropocentrism is perfectly acceptable as a foundation for environmental ethics. According to Bryan Norton’s convergence hypothesis, "If reasonably interpreted and translated into appropriate policies, a nonanthropocentric ethic will advocate the same [environmental] policies as a suitably broad and long-sighted anthropocentrism" (Norton 2004:11). Norton notes that although adherents to either ism may disagree about the relative importance of the various reasons they have for advocating such policies, they nevertheless share an equal commitment to protecting the environment. Because any form of anthropocentrism must fundamentally favor humanity over nonhumanity, nonanthropocentrists are nevertheless concerned that such favoritism is "nothing more than the expression of an irrational bias" (Taylor 1981:215). They reason that only a nonanthropocentric ethic can guarantee that policies do not arbitrarily favor humans when their interests conflict with those of nonhumans. I argue that critics of convergence fail to appreciate that Norton’s hypothesis is limited to ideologies that he deems "reasonable" and "suitably broad and long-sighted," or else they misapprehend what these terms imply. When it comes to ethics, nonanthropocentrists and anthropocentrists alike vary along a continuum according to whether their overriding intuitions are more aligned with individualistic or collectivistic axiologies and their associated timescales. The most unreasonable, narrow, and short-sighted ideologies are those that are the most individualistic. It is at the collective end of the continuum that Norton’s proposed convergence takes place. I defend a version of anthropocentrism that I term ecological anthropocentrism.