Includes vita. / Title from PDF of title page. / Document formatted into pages; contains 190 pages. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of South Florida, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references. / Text (Electronic thesis) in PDF format. / ABSTRACT: Modernism is characterized by alienation from one's self and the processes by which one's self gets constructed. Organizational development (OD) is an activity that attempts to address the experience of work and to transform the historical alienation. OD practitioners are often optimistic that this transformation is possible and even is happening in the day-to-day work of OD. A group of critics, mostly academics, are skeptical about whether any real transformation is possible, arguing that OD practices are misguided extensions of modernism. In one thread of the OD literature, authors build an argument for the centrality of issues of identity in achieving this transformation. Proponents of this perspective argue that dialogic processes of reflection and co-construction are vital to participating in the production of one's self. In this study, I used participant-observation and interview approaches to investigate the ways OD consultants make sense of their work. / ABSTRACT: These approaches are managed through a perspective I call "first person," which aligns them with the dialogic principles of immediacy of presence; emergent, unanticipated consequences; collaborative orientation; vulnerability; and genuineness and authenticity. I found among the OD consultants a shared value for dialogue, an appreciation for people who are engaged, a preoccupation with identity boundaries, a commitment to the greater good, an understanding of the personal benefits they receive from their work, and a concern for fear among their clients and in themselves. Many OD consultants have chosen their roles as independent or internal consultants to escape from modern constructions of identity prevalent in organizations. OD consulting is a practice situated among multiple interests, creating complex tensions of identity and action for OD consultants. OD work itself requires consultants to be reflexive about their own and others' processes of identity construction. / ABSTRACT: OD consultants, when contrasted to critics of OD, show a tendency toward what Mikhail Bakhtin calls dialogue rather than dialectic. A dialogic orientation allows the OD consultants to work more productively on shaping the transition to postmodern consciousness. Reflexivity and self-participation are central to the success of an OD consultant. Education and professional groups should support greater understanding, inquiry, and practice of reflexivity and self-participation. / System requirements: World Wide Web browser and PDF reader. / Mode of access: World Wide Web.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2000. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 23-24). Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (M. Phil.)--University of Hong Kong, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 130-135).

Thesis (M.S.)--North Carolina State University. / Includes vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 33-39).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2000. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 23-24). Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (M.A.)--Florida State University, 2003. / Advisor: Dr. Elizabeth Stuckey-French, Florida State University, Department of English. Title and description from dissertation home page (viewed Sept. 24, 2003). Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis--M. Phil., University of Hong Kong, 1985. / Photocopy of typeccript.

Many have written about the theme of interconnection in George Eliots Middlemarch, where individual lives and fates are woven into the larger life of the community, but few have written about this theme in relation to The Mayor of Casterbridge, Thomas Hardys fictional and historical depiction of Dorchester and the larger area of Wessex. Hardys novel about the life and death of a man of character, is a complex and psychological characterization, but it also is representative of a particular province during a time of rapid change in community structure, just as Middlemarch is. I would like to suggest that it is through the complex characterizations of the outsider and outcast from the community that Eliot and Hardy reinforce the theme of interconnection. My aim will be to highlight this point through an examination of Nicholas Bulstrode, the Middlemarch banker with a shady past, and Michael Henchard, the Casterbridge mayor with skeletons of his own, illustrating the integral role these two characters play in reinforcing the authors themes of interconnection and disconnection within their novels. Although Henchard is the main character of Casterbridge and Bulstrode a minor character in Middlemarch, both characters are integral to the notion of the outsider within the enclosed Victorian community. I will develop this idea by first looking at the role community plays in each characters concept of self. Then I will look at the degree to which these characters are a part of their communities and the point at which this connection begins to unravel. Finally, I will examine the role introspection plays in revealing to each man his lack of connection, not only to his community, but also to himself, thus illustrating the Victorian concept of interconnection and interdependence as a vital part of selfhood and perhaps of survival.

Dissonance exists in efforts to communicate about suffering and despair. Showcasing common societal flawed reactions to despair begs for discourse to create a more communicatively healthy response. Attempting to communicate the suffering of others and feeling like I was failing at that goal led to my own suffering. Using writing as a method of personal healing created an intersection of personal narratives of suffering and victim’s narratives (which can arguable only allow for the co-opting of the story and narcissism). Grappling with the limits of writing to heal provided a lens to see the victim’s narratives in such a way that created self-reflexivity. Rather than equating the suffering of the victim’s to my own, which I absolutely do not do, instead I found potential answers to despair in the post-Holocaust theologians. This dissertation is an experiment in trying to communicate suffering and meaning in a post-Holocaust world where my story and the survivors stories both have similarities of theological despair, an ethic of defiance, and most certainly a refusal to be changed by the world.

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