Thesis (Th. M.)--Dallas Theological Seminary, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves [116]-124).

Thesis (M. Div.)--Grace Theological Seminary, 1986. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 68-73).

This dissertation examines the representation of ascetic renunciation in early modern drama, focusing in particular on the way asceticism functions as a tool of political agency. This study argues that the act of renunciation is essentially performative and public, directed outward to an audience whose responses the performer hopes to shape or direct. The specific political significance of ascetic acts varies according to the status and social position of those who perform and receive them, potentially functioning as a discourse both of resistance and of control. In early modern England, traditional asceticism's association with heterodox catholicism lent it an extra-normative and subversive quality that found utility in acts of resistance. However, ascetic or renunciatory discourse could also be utilized in the exercise of power by monarchs, both as a discourse of legitimation and as an act of public image construction. To help explain this flexibility, this study utilizes the sociolinguistic theories of M.M. Bakhtin, V.N. Voloshinov, and Pierre Bourdieu, all of whom offer models for interpreting language in shifting contexts and across discursive fields. The introduction defines asceticism as performative and potentially political, before tracing some of the relevant historical developments of asceticism from the Middle Ages to the sixteenth century. Chapter One analyzes the representation of asceticism in Shakespeare's Measure for Measure, focusing in particular on the character of Isabella, whose celibate vows place her in conflict with mechanisms of power. Chapter Two examines the literary representation of asceticism in both medieval and early modern contexts by reading Shakespeare and Fletcher's The Two Noble Kinsmen in relation to its Chaucerian source material, The Knight's Tale. Chapter Three shifts to an examination of ascetic postures and discourse by monarchs, considering first The Escorial, Philip II's monastic palace, and then moving to a reading of Elizabeth I's translation of the renunciatory Consolation of Philosophy by Boethius. Chapter Four further pursues this intersection of kingship and asceticism with an analysis of ascetic discourse in Shakespeare's Henry V. The conclusion considers areas for further analysis of asceticism in early modern literature, including revenge tragedy and Milton's Paradise Lost.

The past century has seen striking changes in family formation in Ireland. Family dynamics are fundamental aspects of social change, but they have been neglected by social research in Ireland since the 1970s. This thesis draws on already available national data to study movements into marriage and parenthood in detail and thereby improve our understanding of family dynamics. The research focuses, in the main, on the 1926 to 1991 census period; a period characterised by the transition from high rates of nonmarriage and large family sizes to more standard European levels. The study primarily addresses the class dimension of family formation. Social class remains a strong predictor of marriage and fertility patterns. The study first maps the long-standing trend of higher rates of non-marriage and higher rates of marital fertility in the poorer sections of Irish society. The fertility levels of the class categories experiencing economic marginalisation have remained high so that the burden of dependency is heaviest among working class and farming families. Fertility decline was, however, evident in all socio-economic groups. Secondly, the thesis provides the first serious examination of quantitative evidence to assess the hypothesis that high rates of marital fertility act as a marriage deterrent. Despite the availability of more effective fertility controls, marriage plans continue to be influenced by the size of the prospective family. The results highlight the importance of economic resources as a prerequisite to marriage. Economic rationality is not, however, the only driving force. Thirdly, the thesis investigates the degree to which changes in family formation were related to changes in the composition of Irish society. A standardisation exercise isolating the effects of population structure revealed that class compositional changes cannot account for changes in male fertility rates over the course of the twentieth century but, were important in understanding declining rates of celibacy.

This thesis attempts to answer the question of how a framework for a contemporary Australian male spirituality might be formulated. It provides a theoretical base for constructing a spirituality for Australian men that would prove more relevant than the religious patriarchal framework that many men have traditionally experienced. The study makes use of the potentially positive impact on men's spirituality, and that of Australian men in particular, of three of the most significant revolutions affecting contemporary society - the feminist, environmental and embodiment movements. A critical examination is first made of the many strands of the contemporary Men's Movement and the spiritualities associated with them to gain an overall view of the state of men's spirituality today. From this overview, a new philosophical and religious stance is developed, spiritual virism. This may be defined as a sacred worldview by and for men, which, informed by feminist spiritual principles and perspectives, results in a range of redefined personal and collective spiritualities for men in relation to the Sacred. As a result, men are challenged to work actively for the deconstruction of religious patriarchy with a view to the liberation of both men and women. Spiritual virism, in turn, defines the methodology employed throughout the thesis. It is a critical analytical methodology drawn from the disciplines of academic spirituality and feminist theory. It entails the deconstruction of life-denying forms of patriarchal religious attitudes and the construction of more life-giving forms of spirituality. As experience is central in both spiritual and feminist research, personal texts, involving my own spiritual experience expressed in my paintings and in autobiographical commentaries on them, are the prime starting points in this analysis. Discursive discourse, involving more abstract methodology, follows. The deconstruction of the traditional patriarchal understanding of the Sacred in Western Christianity is undertaken first. The construction of more life-giving images of the Sacred, drawn from parallel paradigms in feminist thealogy and earth-based religion, follows. The results are that men may find a positive re-imaging of the Sacred in non-gendered forms such as the Source or the Great Cycle of Life, or in gendered forms such as the god, radically reinterpreted, and especially in the feminine Sacred, the Goddess. Evolving contemporary perceptions of the place of the environment in spirituality, such as ecofeminism, deep ecology, the new science and ecotheology, are employed to help construct more positive spiritual practices for men with respect to nature, the earth and the cosmos. This follows a deconstruction of traditional patriarchal understandings of them within society and Western Christianity. Insights such as the Sacred embodied in the unfolding cosmos, in the living earth and in the web of all life, lead men to a more contemplative, less exploitative attitude to the world around them. Thirdly, having deconstructed the traditional patriarchal attitude of Western Christianity to the male body, the positive impact of contemporary embodiment theory and practice on a spirituality for men is sought. Implications are drawn from feminist understandings of the sacrality of the female body, from Christian embodiment theology and from the practices of body-honouring religions. A more body/earth-centred spirituality, which is non-dualistic and respects the sacredness of the body and sexuality, emerges. A unified spiritual framework draws together and integrates the positive insights of each of these studies. In seeking the application of this generic male spirituality to the Australian context, this framework is brought into dialogue with contemporary approaches to Australian spirituality. The result is a way of formulating an Australian men's spirituality from the perspective of An Australian Man in Search of an Embodied Spirituality, the title of my thesis. This spirituality is rooted in the land of Australia, where the body of the Australian man is seen as sacred and embodied within the sacred body of the Australian land. A sacred Australian mythos is explored to personalise this embodiment. This images the masculine Sacred, the god, as embodied within the man, who both move within the all-encompassing female Sacred, the Goddess, embodied within the land of Australia.

Thesis (M.A.)--Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, 2007. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 129-146).

Thesis (M.A.)--Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, 2007. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 129-146).

Thesis (J.C.L.)--Catholic University of America, 1991. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 77-80).

Thesis (J.C.L.)--Catholic University of America, 1991. / This is an electronic reproduction of TREN, #029-0231. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 77-80).

Thesis (M.A.)--Western Conservative Baptist Seminary, 1988. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 53-59).