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In my work I deal with the personality of Clement of Rome and with the importance of his work. Firstly, I express my opinion about the date of Clement's activity, so I am able to put Clement into the historical context of early Christianity. Then, on the basis of both survey of the previous research and my own analysis I am trying to solve the question, who Clement was - with main interest in the question of his origin. The work also aims on classifying Clement's place in the development of Christian tradition. Thus I deal with the question of Clement's relationship to apostole Paul and his teaching and the problem of Clement's work and activity as the most important member of third generation of Christians. In the end, I am using the results to create a draft of the situation of Christianity in Clement's era and to propose questions suitable for future research.

A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Humanities, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy / The aim of this thesis is to consider a concept of trauma which may offer support for the contemporary interest in and practice of painting. Jacques Lacan’s (1959-1960) structural and abstract articulations of trauma as das Ding is the central framework for the trajectory and form of the research and writing in this thesis. Lacan’s seminar on das Ding develops the notion that philosophical and social functions of art are aimed at structuring the traumatic and tragic sphere of experience. Das Ding is a hypothetical construct that resonates with Kant’s epistemological, moral and aesthetic philosophy. Primarily, I see the historical framework of das Ding as foregrounding a certain ‘ethics’ in my approach to painting and its interpretation. Kant’s own emphasis on the communicability art may offer is key to this thesis. His focus is not on interpretation as an act eliciting direct meaning from representations in art, but frames the potential for humane interaction: for how a consideration of the perception of beauty and the form of the cognitions that arise in private and public spheres may lay the groundwork for thinking about communicability in general. Through the lens of das Ding, I suggest that an emphasis on aspects of non objective, non-communicable elements of making and experiencing painting is a viable way of contemplating both its pleasures and, often, its more painful effects. I contend that the displacement of meaning enabled by conceptualising the structural implications of trauma, in theory and in the practice of painting, may sustain a quiet yet significant social position in the wider sphere of intellectual activity and pursuits. / GR2018

The decorative and the textual have a complex and uneasy entanglement within the history and practice of modernist art. Sometimes celebrated as critical modernist strategies, sometimes denigrated or repressed as the opposite of Art, the decorative and the textual were understood as "foreign" forms that variously endangered, or, in turn, invigorated the power of art. My creative practice, which includes installation, painting, photography, text and an exhibition catalogue, exploits and explores this decorative and textual instability within modernist art practice. In my work, (visual) codes conventionally associated with the fields of writing and pattern, are re-examined and problematised by placing them within the context of visual art. When writing and pattern become the subject of painting there is an intriguing oscillation, complication and dialogue between the spaces and codes of reading and seeing, writing and pattern, the decorative and the abstract. The thesis also explores the decorative and textual instability within modernism by analysing some key contradictory moments in aesthetic thought and arts practice. In the writings of Clement Greenberg, a "decorative" painting is deemed the highest achievement of modernist abstract painting but to arrive at this goal, the decorative must be used against itself. In Frank Stella's early abstract paintings, decorative patterns structure the work, and yet the artist and his commentators only see the work as a kind of pure, abstract painting. In Lawrence Weiner's statement-sculptures, the terse, laconic text, that nominates materials and processes, is thought to be a "direct" form of art information that would remain unchanged even in reproduction. But as Weiner's work is reproduced in journals and magazines, this "direct" form of art is complicated through a variety of reproductive forms - documentary photographs, transcription errors and differences in the visual format and typography of the text. In these key moments of contradiction, concepts such as the decorative and the textual, that have often been regarded as peripheral to visual art, will be shown to have central significance in analysing its specific qualities.

Universiẗat, Diplomarbeit, 2004--Innsbruck.

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Thesis (MA)--University of Stellenbosch, 2002. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: In this thesis it is argued that the age-old philosophical "Problem of the Self' can benefit by being approached from the perspective of a relatively recent science, namely that of Complexity Theory. With this in mind the conceptual features of this theory is highlighted and summarised. Furthermore, the argument is made that the predominantly dualistic approach to the self that is characteristic of the Western Philosophical tradition serves to hinder, rather than edify, our understanding of the phenomenon. The benefits posed by approaching the self as an emergent property of a complex system is elaborated upon, principally with the help of work done by Sigmund Freud, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, and Paul Cilliers. The aim is to develop a materialistic conception of the self that is plausible in terms of current empirical information and resists the temptation see the self as one or other metaphysical entity within the brain, without "reducing" the self to a crude materialism. The final chapter attempts to formulate a possible foil against the accusation of crude materialism by emphasising that the self is part of a greater system that includes the mental apparatus and its environment (conceived as culture). In accordance with Dawkins's theory the medium of interaction in this system is conceived of as memes and the self is then conceived of as a meme-complex, with culture as a medium for memetransference. The conclusion drawn from this is that the self should be studied through narrative, which provides an approach to the self that is material without being crudely physicalistic. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: In hierdie tesis word daar aangevoer dat die relatiewe jong wetenskap van Kompleksiteitsteorie 'n nuttige bydra kan lewer tot die eeue-oue filosofiese "Probleem van die Self'. Met die oog hierop word die konseptueie kenmerke van hierdie teorie na vore gebring en opgesom. Die argument word gemaak dat die meerendeels dualistiese benadering van die Westerse filosofiese tradisie tot die self ons verstaan van die fenomeen belemmer eerder as om dit te bemiddel. Die voordele van dié nuwe benadering, wat die self sien as 'n ontluikende (emergent) eienskap van In komplekses sisteem, word bespreek met verwysing na veral die werke van Sigmund Freud, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett en Paul Cilliers. Daar word beoog om In verstaan van die self te ontwikkel wat kontemporêre empiriese insigte in ag neem en wat die versoeking weerstaan om ongeoorloofde metafisiese eienskappe aan die self toe te ken. Terselfdetyd word daar gepoog om geensins die uniekheid van die self te "reduseer" na 'n kru materialisme nie. In die finale hoofstuk word daar gepoog om 'n teenargument vir die voorsiene beswaar van kru materialisme te ontwikkel. Dit word gedoen deur te benadruk dat die self gesien word as deel van 'n groter, komplekse sisteem, wat die masjienerie van denke en die omgewing (wat as kultuur gekonseptualiseer word) insluit. Insgelyks, in die teorie van Dawkins word die medium van interaksie in hierdie sisteem gesien as "memes", waar die self dan n meme-kompleks vorm, en kultuur die medium van meme-oordrag is. Daar word tot die konklusie gekom dat die self op 'n narratiewe manier bestudeer behoort te word, wat dan 'n benadering tot die self voorsien wat materialisties is, sonder om kru fisikalisties te wees.

Clement of Alexandria, active in the second half of the second century AD, is one of the first Christian authors to explain and defend the nascent religion in the terms of Greek philosophy and in relation to Greek paideia. His major work, the Stromateis, is a lengthy commentary on the true gnosis of the Christian faith, with no apparent overarching structure or organisational principle, replete with quotations from biblical, Jewish, Greek 'gnostic' and Christian works of all genres. This thesis seeks to read this complex and erudite text in conversation with what has been termed the ‘Second Sophistic’, the efflorescence of elite Greek literature under the Roman empire. We will examine the the text as a performance of authorial persona, competing in the agonistic marketplace of Greek paideia. Clement presents himself as a philosophical teacher in a diadoche from the apostles, arrogating to himself a kind of apostolic authority which appeals to both philosophical notions of intellectual credibility and Christian notions of the authentic handing down of tradition. We will also examine how the work engages key thematic concerns of the period, particularly discourses of intellectual eclecticism and ethnicity, challenging both Greek and Roman forms of hegemony to create a space for Christian identity. Lastly, this thesis will critically examine the Stromateis' intertextual relationship with the Homeric epics; the Iliad and the Odyssey are used as a testing ground for Christian self-positioning in relation to Greek culture as a whole. As we trace this variable relationship, we will also see the cross-fertilisation of reading strategies between Homer and the bible; these developing complex allegorical methods not only presage the rise of Neoplatonism, but also lay the foundations for changes in cultural authority which accompany the Christianisaton of the Roman empire in the centuries after Clement.

This thesis is concerned with the finite element analysis and the a posteriori error estimation for eigenvalue problems for general operator pencils on two-dimensional manifolds. A specific application of the presented theory is the computation of corner singularities. Engineers use the knowledge of the so-called singularity exponents to predict the onset and the propagation of cracks. All results of this thesis are explained for two model problems, the Laplace and the linear elasticity problem, and verified by numerous numerical results.

Zugl.: Revised and amplified version of doctoral diss., Marquette University (Milwaukee, Wis.), 2007. / Bibliogr.: p. [195]-215.