Auszug: Mit Hilfe des Begriffspaares Middat ha-din - Middat ha-rahamim erörterten die Rabbinen nach allgemeiner Auffassung das Problem von Gottes Gerechtigkeit und Gottes Barmherzigkeit. Zwar hat die mit diesem Begriffspaar angesprochene Thematik in der Literatur schon vielerlei Darstellungen erfahren, ohne daß jedoch das eigentliche Problem dieser Termini selbst je wirklich ins Bewußtsein erhoben wurde - diesem Ziele sollen die folgenden Ausführungen dienen. [...]

Auszug: Die Geschichte der Prophetie im Judentum oder in Israel ist so alt und vielgestaltig wie die israelitisch-jüdische Kultur selbst.Eine Geschichte der jüdischen Prophetie ist zugleich eine Geschichte der jüdischen Theologie, jede Zeit hatte ihre eigenen Vorstellungen vom Wesen und Auftrag der Propheten. Konstant geblieben ist jedoch das Bedürfnis der Menschen nach Männern (und Frauen), die einen direkten und unvermittelten Kontakt zur Gottheit haben, um ihren Zeitgenossen mit Autorität den Willen Gottes mitteilen zu können. Alleine so ist es verständlich, warum den dezidierten Äußerungen vieler talmudischer Gelehrter vom Ende der Prophetie kein dauerhafter Erfolg beschieden war - trotz des kanonischen Ansehens des Talmud bei den späteren Generationen.Denn "die Zerstörung des ersten Tempels ist nach Auffassung vieler Rabbinen der Zeitpunkt, an dem der heilige Geist sich von Israel entfernte. [...]

The main purpose of this study is to examine and to evaluate the reception of Stefan Zweig and his works in Russia, as well as the perception of Russia by Stefan Zweig recorded in his recollections of his trip to Russia in 1928, when he took part in the festivities dedicated to the hundredth anniversary of Leo Tolstoy's birth. I will also analyze the meeting and the correspondence between Zweig and Gorky, as well as the correspondence between Zweig and Romain Rolland, in which the two of them shared their views on Soviet Russia. The study concurs that Zweig was one of the most popular and widely translated authors in the world. Russia, as well as the former Soviet Union, was and is part of that world. The main body of Zweig's works was translated into Russian. However, it was later revealed that Zweig's works were translated on a selective basis. His last and most outstanding non-fictional work, his autobiography Die Welt von Gestern, for instance, had never appeared as a whole in the Soviet Union. The struggle of the translator with the authorities in the former Soviet Union to get the book published will be also a topic for discussion.

The thesis lends support to the functionalist theory of Konrad Zweigert and Heinz Kötz that legal systems converge on results but diverge on means. We apply the Mexican and the Canadian legal systems to a hypothetical discrimination case. This work shows that, although the Mexican and the Canadian legal systems have different legal principles, different concepts of discrimination and different means of choosing the appropriate forum, law and remedy, both jurisdictions produce the same result: the protection of the equalization of opportunities human right of people of vulnerable social groups by compensating individuals for rights which have been infringed.

This dissertation is a study of three short story cycles which are representative of the genre in the Americas: Miguel Street (1959) by V.S. Naipaul, Los Funerales de Mama Grande (1962) by Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Bloodline (1968) by Ernest Gaines. I analyze each of these cycles in depth concentrating on the structure, the order of the stories, and unifying elements such as characters, themes, internal symbolism, place, language and events, in order to demonstrate that these short story collections are indeed short story cycles. I examine these cycles in light of the two themes or factors out of which the modern cycle originates: desire for selfhood versus desire for community and desire for change versus desire to remain the same or even to go back. I believe that the modern short story cycle relates in some ways the dynamic duality of a desire or acceptation of individuality, selfhood, independence, versus the desire for a lost, denied, ideal (utopia) community. The cycle and more specifically the cycles from the South, Hispanic America and the Caribbean reflect the need for individuals to assert their selfhoods but also the need to challenge an imposed mass identity in order to form a new collective identity based on revived and revised inherited myths. The concept of change, evolution, transition in the community, is maybe not inherent to all short story cycles; however, I believe it is a key factor in cycles of the American South, Latin America and the Caribbean. These three regions have many common traits not only in literature, but also in their history, and especially in a reforging of their own national/regional identity. All three cycles focus on a transitional period in the history of their nation which is derived from the postcolonial experience.

My dissertation, under the direction of Dr Pius Ngandu Nkashama explores the spread of African rhetorical tropes in the Atlantic world. Building on Henry Louis Gates theory of Signifying, I use the West African God of fate Èsù and the West African cultural figure of the griot as cultural referents for the persistence of African tropes in the New World and their subsequent dissemination throughout the Atlantic world. Analyzing those two West African referents and their connections to New World cultures such as Afro-Brazilian capoeira angola, hip hop and African-American poetry, I attempt to demonstrate the centrality of the trope of Signifying in the Black Atlantic world through the analysis of related concepts and through close textual analysis. Strategic dissimulation, deception and double-entendre appear as fundamental strategic rhetorical tricks that are shared both by African and Afro-Diasporic populations. I present those rhetorical tricks as both part of an African cultural continuum and an incorporation and response to oppression and exploitation of African people worldwide. In the diverse forms I analyze, I am more specifically interested in the contact between orality and the culture of writing, in black intertextuality, in the circulation of Signifying in the Atlantic world, as well as the historical dimension of this trope in particular as it relates to myth formation. The introduction to this work explores the imperialist framework which has determined relations between Western nations and Africa for at least four hundred years, up until the present period. The in depth analysis of the mechanisms of imperialism and colonialism in the work of authors such as Edward Said, Albert Memmi and Frantz Fanon constitutes the back bone of this introduction. The first chapter focuses on the West African figures of Èsù and the griot as cultural referents for the New World. I describe the place these figures occupy in their respective societies and isolate common features such as mediation, ambiguity, liminality as basis for the rest of my analysis. The second chapter is focused on the New World human manifestations of the West African principles described in chapter one. I describe first the Afro-Brazilian martial art of capoeira angola, then focus on the African American verse tradition and finally describe hip hop culture, and rap in particular. The capoeirista, the African American poet and the rapper all appear as New World embodiment of the West African griot. The third and final chapter is dedicated to the analysis of poems and songs from our New World cultural forms. I focus more specifically on Henry Louis Gates concept of Signifying, in particular in the tension between orality and the culture of writing present within this trope. I also look at black intertextuality through Signifying revisions. Finally, I focus my analysis on myth formation in those different forms.

This project analyzes representations and self-representations of Mestizas living in areas of the Deep South that lack a significant Latino presence. Incorporating a range of media, I take a comparative approach to Southern cultural narratives and propose a re-reading of these works through an examination of identity formation and cultural negotiation. By centering the Southern Mestiza, this dissertation advances concepts of intersectionality to address the role of region, as well as race and gender, in the representation and experiences of women often overlooked in Southern and U.S. Latino studies. The Introductory chapter summarizes the theoretical framework for the study, including feminist and postcolonial theories, Southern and Latina/o literary theories, and concepts of mestizaje and tropicalization that are vital to critical understandings of hybrid identities within U.S. cultural narratives. Chapter One is a comparative analysis of Kate Chopins The Awakening and Margaret A. Grahams Mercy Me. These novels explicate the processes of cultural negotiation for white Southern women defining themselves against Mestiza characters. Chapter Two analyzes constructions of Mestizas in Southern-set drama, film, and television and compares the various strategies of identity formation for white female protagonists in literature and popular culture. Chapter Three explores the role of the Mestiza in Cynthia Shearers transnational and multicultural South. The Celestial Jukebox provides a realistic view of the contemporary South and also critiques the marginalization of Mestizas in hegemonic cultural narratives. Chapter Four analyzes the revolutionary writings of two Southern Mestizas authors who are reclaiming a presence in the South: Lorraine López and Judith Ortiz Cofer. These authors model forms of cultural negotiation in writings that require readers to actively engage in the transformative process. The Conclusion articulates the process of interconnected cultural encounters demonstrated in the primary texts, and concludes by incorporating theories that embrace multiculturalism through personal consciousness-raising and a commitment to de-hierarchized communities.

We are still feeling the effects of the Second World War sixty-seven years after its conclusion. Much of post-war thinking has attempted to sort through the roots of the totalitarian ideology that developed in Europe and caused such massive destruction. Marxist and Frankfurt School critics have demonstrated that the roots of Fascism go deeper in the West than the twentieth century and are part and parcel of the Wests combination of technology and myth. Additionally, Post-Colonial critics have pointed out that the horrors of this war were also perpetrated throughout Europes colonial endeavors and have undertaken the task of deconstructing the ideology of European colonial powers. However, such criticism is both accurate and incomplete. Western civilization is not simply built upon ideology but also contains a long tradition of rational philosophy and self-criticism. In the West, Plato helped formulate an early poetics that was used in education to form and shape the soul and thus the community. In the twentieth century, the Germany philosopher Martin Heidegger modified Platos vision, showing how a people is formed through their culture and given their destiny. Plato and Heideggers poetics can be applied to the work of the Roman poet Virgil. Through his Aeneid, Virgil establishes a tradition of forming an exemplum of empire. In his exemplum of empire, Virgil presents a hero, prophecies that support the empire, and a sympathic but nonetheless demonized Other. Following Virgils lead, Dante Alighieri, Edmund Spenser, and Ezra Pound have sculpted their epics as imperial exempla. Each of these poets includes the Virgilian formula of a hero, prophecies, and an Other. At the same time, each poet develops a work that is not bound by imperialism but transcends its prejudice.

The thesis lends support to the functionalist theory of Konrad Zweigert and Heinz Kötz that legal systems converge on results but diverge on means. We apply the Mexican and the Canadian legal systems to a hypothetical discrimination case. This work shows that, although the Mexican and the Canadian legal systems have different legal principles, different concepts of discrimination and different means of choosing the appropriate forum, law and remedy, both jurisdictions produce the same result: the protection of the equalization of opportunities human right of people of vulnerable social groups by compensating individuals for rights which have been infringed.

In this dissertation I examine the reciprocal relationship between voters and political parties in coalitional democracies in three essays. First, I investigate how voters alter their perceptions of political parties in response to their participation in coalition cabinets. I argue that voters view coalition participation as broad and wide-ranging policy compromise and update their perceptions of the policy positions of cabinet participants accordingly. I find that voters perceive coalition partners as more similar than parties that are not currently coalesced, all else equal. In the following essay, I examine the electoral repercussions of this shift in perceptions by proposing a model of voting that considers coalition policy-making. I argue that voters will equate the policy compromise they perceive in the cabinet with a failure to rigorously pursue the policies they were promised and that voters who perceive compromise will punish the incumbent. The data reveals that this perception may cost incumbent cabinets about 2.5% of their vote share. Finally, I move from the electorate to the legislature to investigate if and how these perceptions condition legislative behavior. The previous essays suggest that coalition parties have substantial motivation to differentiate themselves from their partners in cabinet when voters perceive them as becoming more similar. I test this argument by examining partisan behavior in legislative review. The data show that coalition partners who are perceived as more similar are more likely to amend one another’s legislation.