Thesis (B.A.)--Bryn Mawr College. Dept. of History of Art, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references.

In 1919, J.W. Appiah, a Methodist catechist in the Gold Coast, sought the anointing of the Holy Spirit, and began to prophesy and pray for the sick. He and his followers were expelled from the Church, and formed both a new community and a denomination known as the Musama Disco Christo Church (MDCC). It has often been argued that African Independent Churches result as a reaction to Western domination of land or people, but it is shown that this was not the primary issue with the MDCC. The initial quest was for spiritual empowerment, which resulted in prophetic revelation and the formation of a church with distinctively African characteristics. Following Appiah's death, his son (Akaboha II) became the head of the growing church, which was affected by two contemporary developments. The first was the nationalist movement led by Nkrumah, which stimulated the MDCC to a mission of the spiritual liberation of Christianity from remaining Western elements. This was achieved through the innovation of rituals and practices based upon traditional African forms. The second was revivalist teaching brought to Ghana by Pentecostal evangelists, which the MDCC adopted as "instantaneous healing". Although the church continued to grow after the fall of Nkrumah and the death of Akaboha II, in the late 1980s it started to decline. This thesis argues that the innovation of African traditions resulted in a form of contextualization that was inflexible, so the church was unable to adapt to social change and has become less relevant. Former members are now seeking a more relevant charisma of the Holy Spirit in other churches. The illiterate members prefer the Pentecostal churches, and the educated younger generation are attracted to the newer Charismatic churches.

Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s Running Fence, begun 1972 and installed in 1976, and Niki de St. Phalle’s Queen Califia’s Magical Circle, dedicated 2003, in northern and southern California respectively, reexamine the ways landscape art historically shaped ideological constructs, lived experience, and cultural economics. Christo, Jeanne-Claude, and St. Phalle draw on well known representations of the frontier and American West from the nineteenth century including, antebellum landscapes such as Thomas Cole’s The Oxbow, 1836 and Emmanuel Leutze’s Westward the Course of Empire, 1862 as well as Reconstruction Era landscapes including Andrew Russell’s The Golden Spike, 1869 and John Gast’s American Progress, 1872. When Christo, Jeanne-Claude, and St. Phalle’s West Coast art are viewed together, questions about history and tradition, the relationship of economics to cultural production, and aesthetics informed by place and environment, emerge as salient. Through the artists’ interest in time, place, and environment, as well as sustained engagement with community, Running Fence and Queen Califia’s Magical Circle construct representations of the local and interpret the histories and cultures of Sonoma and Marin Counties and Escondido. Running Fence and Queen Califia’s Magical Circle critically engage with artistic convention, state construction, capitalism and cultural production, and the construction of race, gender, and sexuality. As art historian William Truettner explained historical representations of the western frontier as “national pictures,” so too Running Fence and Queen Califia’s Magical Circle reinterpret historical images of the American West through an emphasis on community and place rather than nation-building and nationalism.

Thesis (M.A. in Biblical Studies)--Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary, 2000. / Includes photocopy of The constitution of the Musama Disco Christo Church, compiled by M. Moses Jehu-Appiah [1959]. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 75-79).

Thesis (M.A. in Biblical Studies)--Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary, 2000. / Includes photocopy of The constitution of the Musama Disco Christo Church, compiled by M. Moses Jehu-Appiah [1959]. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 75-79).

Thesis (M.A. in Biblical Studies)--Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary, 2000. / Includes photocopy of The constitution of the Musama Disco Christo Church, compiled by M. Moses Jehu-Appiah [1959]. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 75-79).

Engagement with religion has recently become an important issue to development theoreticians, donors and practitioners. It is recognised that religion plays a key role in shaping moral frameworks and social identities, but little attention is paid to how this is played out in everyday life: the focus remains on ‘faith communities’ and ‘faith-based organisations’ as unified bodies. This thesis uses ethnographic methods to examine how members of two churches in rural Ghana are influenced by and engage with religion. Rather than viewing religion simply as (potentially) instrumental to development, it seeks to approach it in its own right. It challenges the rigidity of categories such as ‘physical/spiritual’ and ‘religious/non-religious’, and the notion of ‘faith communities’ as discrete, unified entities with coherent religious cosmologies. Insights from witchcraft studies and medical anthropology indicate that spiritual discourses are drawn on to negotiate hybrid and continuously changing modernities, and people tend to act pragmatically, combining and moving between discourses rather than fully espousing a particular ideology. Residents of the village studied appear to inhabit a world of different but interconnecting powers, which they are both, to some extent, subject to and able to marshal. These include God, secondary deities, juju, witchcraft, family authorities, traditional leaders, biomedicine and churches. Relationships with both spirits and humans are ambivalent and each of these powers can bring both blessings and harm. Religious experience is fluid, eclectic and pragmatic as people continually enter and exit groups and marshal different powers simultaneously to protect themselves from harm and procure blessings. Approaches by the development world seeking to engage with religion and to take seriously local people’s interests and viewpoints should thus be wary of oversimplification according to traditional Western social science categories, and be underpinned by an understanding of how religious discourses are interpreted and enacted in people’s everyday lives.

S'inscrivant dans le champ en construction de la géographie de l'art, cette thèse traite de l'œuvre artistique de Christo et de Jeanne-Claude connue du public par The Pont-Neuf Wrapped ou Surrounded Islands, par exemple. Elle investit la dimension spatiale de la production artistique et la dimension spatiale de la réception esthétique d'un objet d'art textile in situ outdoors. Elle met en œuvre pour ce faire, d'une part, des références conceptuelles aux théories de l'action telles qu'elles se développent en géographie depuis une dizaine d'années et, d'autre part, une approche phénoménologique telle qu'elle s'est imposée en géographie depuis une trentaine d'années. En travaillant les articulations entre objet textile, objet d'art et œuvre d'art, elle montre que la dimension spatiale de l'objet-lieu d'art, sa monumentalité physique et symbolique, n'est pas pensable indépendamment de la dimension spatiale de l'œuvre d'art, celle qui est construite dans l'action artistique. Elle montre, par ailleurs, que l'objet textile est utilisé par le spectateur dans une expérience esthétique qui n'est pas seulement visuelle mais tactile et dans le cadre de l'objet-lieu d'art. Cette relation entre espace et utilisation d'objet explique la transposition et l'interprétation géographique d'un appareil théorique issu de la psychanalyse transitionnelle pour qualifier la dimension spatiale de l'expérience esthétique de l'objet d'art. Cette thèse est donc très fortement inscrite dans la pluridisciplinarité : géographie, esthétique et psychanalyse. En mettant en avant les rapports entre terrain, image et action, en replaçant cette relation dans le champ de l'expérience et en la rendant homogène à l'expérience esthétique, cette thèse est par ailleurs conçue comme le fondement d'une réflexion sur les relations entre terrain et image en géographie.

This dissertation is a detailed analysis of the Epistle to the Colossians. The author uses rhetorical critical methods and recognizes that the New Testament epistles are greatly influenced by oratory. Also, the author demonstrates how rhetorical techniques assist Paul to express his thought that the central idea of Christianity - the divine nature and saving work of Christ - has unavoidable ethical implications. In the first chapter of his letter Paul cites Christological hymn; he uses Christological theme during the whole epistle; the apostle concludes his admonition with the Household code, in which social roles of the member of oikos are interpreted in relation to Christ. According to Paul's teaching in Colossians, the power of Christ has universal scope and, consequently, all aspects of human life, including everyday, societal relationships, must be brought into submission to Christ. / M.Th. (New Testament)

S'inscrivant dans le champ en construction de la géographie de l'art, cette thèse traite de l'œuvre artistique de Christo et de Jeanne-Claude connue du public par The Pont-Neuf Wrapped ou Surrounded Islands, par exemple. Elle investit la dimension spatiale de la production artistique et la dimension spatiale de la réception esthétique d'un objet d'art textile in situ outdoors. Elle met en œuvre pour ce faire, d'une part, des références conceptuelles aux théories de l'action telles qu'elles se développent en géographie depuis une dizaine d'années et, d'autre part, une approche phénoménologique telle qu'elle s'est imposée en géographie depuis une trentaine d'années. En travaillant les articulations entre objet textile, objet d'art et œuvre d'art, elle montre que la dimension spatiale de l'objet-lieu d'art, sa monumentalité physique et symbolique, n'est pas pensable indépendamment de la dimension spatiale de l'œuvre d'art, celle qui est construite dans l'action artistique. Elle montre, par ailleurs, que l'objet textile est utilisé par le spectateur dans une expérience esthétique qui n'est pas seulement visuelle mais tactile et dans le cadre de l'objet-lieu d'art. Cette relation entre espace et utilisation d'objet explique la transposition et l'interprétation géographique d'un appareil théorique issu de la psychanalyse transitionnelle pour qualifier la dimension spatiale de l'expérience esthétique de l'objet d'art. Cette thèse est donc très fortement inscrite dans la pluridisciplinarité : géographie, esthétique et psychanalyse. En mettant en avant les rapports entre terrain, image et action, en replaçant cette relation dans le champ de l'expérience et en la rendant homogène à l'expérience esthétique, cette thèse est par ailleurs conçue comme le fondement d'une réflexion sur les relations entre terrain et image en géographie.