No description available.

No description available.

Thesis (MPhil)--University of Stellenbosch, 2000. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This study is concerned with the possibility and characterisation of poststructural ethics and the ethics of general theories. It contains a review of selected readings on Modernity and provides a "snapshot" of an ethical system that is essentially rule based and privileges rationality. Some of the problems with such a system, such as inflexibility, tolerance based on superiority and force and the privileging of male gender is explored. It proceeds by perusing some literature on postmodernity as an open ethical system in which values are free floating and lists of rules are constantly produced and disregarded in a dizzying ethical free for all in which "anything goes". No value is considered more worthwhile than personal survival. As a starting point for reading Modernity and postmodernity together, Levinas introduces a radical perspective on ethics that can be read as a condemnation of postmodern morality. He relates an ethics in which the survival of the "other" is more important than the survival of the self. However, he does not ground the metaphysics of such a privilege in rationality or knowledge and hence does not turn it into an ethical rule, but rather, subtly shifts the responsibility for the other person to an ultimate responsibility for the Other as God. This radical responsibility is rejected by deconstruction which does not reject either postmodernity or Modernity but is an attempt to think through the limits of rule-orientated rationality, free-play and mystical metaphysics to produce an ethical awareness that has a sensitivity for the complexity of context. Through the notion of "writing", the peculiarities it displays and the objections it attracts, Derrida seeks to establish a uniquely ethical writing that is both a stable manifestation of ethics and a dynamic engagement with those subject to it. With these readings in the background the thesis attempts to provide a framework for poststructural ethics. It is an ethics based in the notion of friendship but does not ground itself in any guarantees. It re-evaluates rationality in terms of a sublime struggle for meaning and truth. This sublime struggle offers a unique perspective on political debates that strive towards responsible development for multicultural societies and also on a sociological approach to law and the ability to dispense justice without undue prejudice. The main contention of the thesis is that although poststructuralism does not suppose a grounding metaphysics in either rationality or responsibility towards God it cannot be satisfied with the self-indulgent nihilism of an "anything goes" postmodernism. Thus, it depends on the notion of a "complex system" that "self-organises" and produces limits through spontaneous connections. Through the working of deconstruction complex systems can take on a more human manifestation as friendships flourish and decay through the interaction of faces. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Hierdie studie is gemoeid met die moontlikheid en karakterisering van poststrukturele etiek en die etiek van algemene teorië. Dit bevat In geselekteerde oorsig van Moderniteit en verskaf In "kiekie" van In etiese sisteem wat essentieël op reëls gebasseer is en rationaliteit privilegieer. Sommige probleme met so In sisteem, soos byvoorbeeld onbuigsaamheid, verdraagsaamheid gegrond in superioriteit, geweld en die privilegieering van manlikheid, word ondersoek. Die studie sit voort deur sommige literatuur oor postmoderniteit as In oop etiese sisteem onder oë te neem. So In sisteem veronderstel vryvloeiende waardes en lyste van reëls wat gedurig geproduseer en geabandoneer word in In duisligwekkende etiese vryspel wat beskryf kan word as "anything goes". Geen waarde word hoër geag as persoonlike oorlewing nie. As die beginpunt van In lesing wat Moderniteit en postmoderniteit met mekaar in verband bring verskaf Levinas In radikale perspektief op etiek wat verdoemend staan teenoor die moraliteit van postmoderniteit. Hy beskryf In etiek waarin die oorlewing van die "ander" meer belangrik geag word as die oorlewing van die self. Hy grond egter nie die metafisieka van so In voorreg in rationaliteit of kennis nie, en lê dit dus nie neer as In etiese reël nie, maar verskuif eerder op subtitle wyse verantwoordelikheid vir die ander persoon na In uiteindelike verantwoordelikheid vir die Ander as God. Laasgenoemde radikale verantwoordelikheid word deur dekonstruksie verwerp in In poging om postmoderniteit en Moderniteit saam te snoer en die limiete van reël-georiënteerde rationaliteit, vry-spel en mistiese metafisieka deur te dink. Hierdeur word 'n etiese gewaarwording geproduseer wat sensitiviteit vir die kompleksiteite van konteks vertoon. Deur die nosie van "skryf', die eienaardighede en teenkanting daaraan verbonde, is Derrida op soek na die neerlegging van In unike etiese skryf wat beide In stabille manifestasie van etiek is en 'n dinamiese betrokkenheid by die wat daaraan onderhewig staan. Met hierdie leeswerk in die agtergrond poog die tesis om 'n raamwerk vir poststrukturele etiek daar te stel. Dit is In etiek wat as basis die nosie van vriendskap aanvaar sonder om enige waarborge uit te deel. Rationaliteit word gere-evalueer in terme van In sublime stryd vir betekenis en waarheid. Hierdie sublime stryd bring 'n unieke perspektief na politieke debatte wat volhoubare ontwikkeling in multikulturele samelewings ten doel het en vir In sosiologiese benadering tot die reg en regsvaardigheid. Alhoewel poststrukturele etiek nie In metanarratief veronderstel, soos die etiek van Moderniteit, nie kan dit egter ook nie tevrede wees met die destabiliserende nihilisme van 'n "anything goes" postmodernisme nie. Poststrukturele etiek steun dus swaar op die idee van 'n "komplekse sisteem" wat self-organiseer en llrniette stel deur middel van spontane konneksievorming. Deur die werking van dekonstruksie kan so In komplekse sisteem ook in meer menslike terme verwoord word as vriendskappe wat groei en vergaan in die interaksie tussen "gesigte".

Thesis (MPhil (Ancient Studies)--University of Stellenbosch, 2006. / The time between the Middle and New Kingdoms in Ancient Egypt is known as the Second Intermediate Period. It was the time during which Egypt, for the first time in its history, lost autonomy and the inhabitants of Egypt became the vassals of the Hyksos, a name transcribed by Manetho, a historian of the third century BCE as 'shepherd kings', but which actually designated 'princes of foreign lands'. The term 'Hyksos' at first referred to the rulers only, but later became the accepted word to indicate the rulers, the people themselves and everything pertaining to them. The Hyksos were not a homogenous race, but were a conglomerate of peoples from the Near East. For centuries people from the east had been filtering into Egypt. Transhumants and nomads came in search of pasture for their animals and elected to stay. Others were employed by the Egyptian administration as ship-builders and mining engineers or as workers in the copper and turquoise mines in the Sinai. These workers were all settled in the Delta, the hub of mining and shipbuilding activities. Others were slaves who were dispersed all over Egypt as workers in households and on farms. Despite Egypt's best efforts to keep out Asiatics who wanted to enter the country of their own volition, their fortresses on the border between Egypt and Sinai proved ineffective, especially when the Egyptian administration faltered and collapsed during the Seventeenth Dynasty. It is still a point debated by historians whether a strong military force from the East overran Egypt in c.1658 BCE or whether the transition from Egyptian rule to Hyksos rule was a gradual and comparatively peaceful process. There is evidence that the Hyksos were supported by many Egyptians who collaborated with the Hyksos and who even served in the Hyksos administration which lasted from c. 1658 – 1550 BCE. However, the vassal princes in Upper Egypt saw the Hyksos as usurpers and amassed forces to expel the enemy. This they achieved in c. 1550 BCE, after which it was possible to once again unite Upper and Lower Egypt. This thesis probes the rule of the Hyksos and the influence they might have had on Egyptian culture. Part One (chapters 2-7) deals with the Hyksos per se: their origin, their rise to power, their rule, and how they were expelled. Part Two (chapters 8-12) investigates the Hyksos culture and has a close look at their architecture, arts and crafts, burial practices, warfare and weapons, and religion. Part Three (chapter 13) examines the influence the Hyksos might have had on Egyptian culture, with special attention to architecture, burial practices, arts and crafts, warfare and weapons, and religion. Chapter 14 rounds off the thesis and comes to the conclusion that the Hyksos made very little impact on the Egyptian culture in general, but contributed greatly to Egypt's development in warfare and weapons, and also for a period exerted some influence on religious practices, especially in the Delta. Finally, the Hyksos contributed to Egypt's altered world vision by forcing them to shed their complacency, which in turn opened the way to expansionism in countries in the Near East.

This thesis looks at some of the intellectual and educational relations between Scotland and the Netherlands in the period 1680-1730. Although the importance of such an exchange has been a long acknowledged fact, an overview has hitherto been lacking. By charting the extent and the nature of the Scottish student community at the four main universities in the United Provinces - Leiden, Franeker, Groningen and Utrecht - the thesis aims to provide as full a picture of the Scots' experience of Dutch education as the available resources will allow. At the same time, it re-examines the well-known idea that the United Provinces provided a model or example for Scotland and the notion that there such a thing as a specifically Dutch root to the Scottish Enlightenment. The thesis is divided in two parts. The first offers the most complete study of the Scottish student community in the Netherlands so far undertaken. Based on the hard figures provided by the matriculation lists of the Dutch universities and the private accounts of Scottish students, both the number of students and their personal experiences are described and analysed. The infrastructure and mechanics of the resultant community are subsequently established as being very specific to the Scots and prone to change over time. The exchange in ideas is analysed by looking at both the different curricula of the Dutch universities and the Scotto-Dutch book trade. These studies lead to a number of revelations, most notably that universities other than Leiden had a lasting influence on the Scots and that this influence was not always as 'modern'as has hitherto been thought. In the second part, two case studies of famous 'Dutch' Scots, William Carstares and Charles Mackie, are used to illustrate and test these claims.

No abstract available. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of Natal, Durban, 1994.

This thesis aims to address the Greek attitude to their dream experience in the classical period, as it was conceived in theories and engaged with in dream practices. The emphasis is on the relationship between these elements and the wider cultural frames which surrounded them, in order both to illustrate the manner in which culture influences the conception of dreams, and also to use dreams themselves as a mirror to reflect parts of Greek culture. As a study it has been heavily shaped by the approaches to dreams developed by anthropologists, outlined in Chapter 2, who have emphasised the importance of studying dreams intra-culturally. In Chapter 3 I analyse the language that the Greeks used to express their dreaming experience, drawing from it the important way in which language was both determined by, and determined, the Greeks' understanding of the phenomenon. This forms a base for engaging with dream theories in Chapter 4, both the implicit allusions in literature and explicit explanations proposed by philosophers and medical writers. I then explore the theories at work within Greek culture via dreams as we see them active in the lived religion of the polis: I examine in Chapter 5 the dedications set up by individuals on account of spontaneous dreams, and in Chapter 6 the practice of incubation. I then turn to examine specific relationships: in Chapter 7, the association of dreams with status, i.e. the possibility that powerful people would have equally powerful dreams; in Chapter 8, dreams and gender, assessing the possibility that women considered their dreams to be more important than their male counterparts. In Chapter 9, I position dreams within the context of the other divinatory practices of the period, which allows us to see the unique ways in which dream practices functioned in comparison to the other divinatory forms.

The thesis deals with Andrés Molina Enriquez's pro-miscegenation theory. Molina (1868-1940), a Spencirian evolutionist who believed race struggle is history's driving force, departs from the premise that Mexico will not be a cohesive, progressive nation until all Mexicans become Mestizos - i.e., the product of racial intermingling between Spaniards and Indians. Thus, the analysis of this theory is the main objective of the thesis. In order to analyse Molina's theory within its historical context, however, the preliminary section of the thesis briefly describes the thoughts of those Mexican intellectuals who had previously proclaimed ethnic homogeneity -via miscegenation- the key to national stability and development. Similarly, the last part of the thesis presents the ideas of some of Molina's successors, those who were in favor of miscegenation - not only a racial one but also a cultural one - in postrevolutionary Mexico. The first and last parts of the thesis allow us to see pro-miscegenation as a current of the Mexican intelligentsia's quest for national identity. The central part of it - the one devoted to Molina's theory, undoubtedly the most important and sophisticated contribution in the field - gives us a general picture of the contradictory nature of this current of thought. Even though it is clear that a pervasive miscegenation made ever more Mexican intellectuals endorse the idea that Mestizos are the real people of Mexico. The analysis of Molina's writings shows that he attempted to predict the supremacy of Mestizos with a theoretical framework that leads him to the opposite direction. Indeed, no matter how much he twisted it, Spencerian evolutionism did not serve him (or his contemporary pro-miscegenationists) to prove white-racism wrong. The conclusion is that Molina, as most of his fellow "Mestizophilia" supporters, chose to hail the ethnic group that represented an ever-growing majority of the Mexican population, and tried to build a scientific theory to prove the supremacy of that group. But in doing so he had to use the only methodological tools he had learned at the positivist schools of Porfirian Mexico. The result is a contradictory theory that, nevertheless, sheds light on the path to national identity in Mexico.

Classic Maya civilization which flourished A.D. 250- 900 fell from causes unknown. This study traces the evidences and interpretations of those who sought to explain the downfall. Discussion begins with treatment of the ideas of pre-archaeological travellers to the region and then shifts to the twentieth century. Themes of internal collapse are explored, first focusing on such catastrophes as earthquakes and epidemics, followed by an examination of Maya gricultural technology and its possible failure. The fifth chapter, on internal violence and external influences as causes of Maya collapse, analyzes theories of peasant revolt, wars between autonomous Maya city-states., and the strong possibility of outright invasion by other aboriginal peoples.

This thesis begins by examining the factors that have resulted in the dependent nature of Canada's political and economic structure, and proceeds to examine how this has contributed to the cultural amorphousness of English Canadian identity. The hegemonic authority of American and trans-national interests, established and maintained in the cultural sphere through the extensive monopoly of the distribution of cultural and media products, perpetuates the amorphousness of English Canadian culture through the appropriation of Canadian space by the international image industry. Such categorization of Canadian space reflects and perpetuates the imaginary representation of Canada within the dominant ideology as an indistinct and amorphous entity, and comes to usurp the materiality that constructs the lived identities of English Canadians.