The study is an examination of the quest motif as it occurs in the Tarot and two dramatic works, King Lear and Marlowe's Dr. Faustus. The development of the quester is traced from his naivete, through a series of trials, to the consummation of his quest.The hero's quest is essentially to achieve an integration of polar opposites: light and dark, good and evil, the conscious and unconscious. Both the Fool of the Tarot and Lear seem to achieve that harmony, and, thus, I treat the Tarot and King Lear in separate sections of the first chapter. I begin with the Tarot also because of its enormous suggestiveness for elucidating the quests of Lear and Faustus. The archetypal nature of the quest is ultimately what unites the three works, and the Tarot provides a repository for the symbols and primordial images that inform quest literature.The second chapter deals with Dr. Faustus. Unlike the Fool and Lear, Faustus never seems to attain the hero's vision of light and harmony (however, the conclusion is ambiguous); indeed, he inverts the quest to its diabolical opposite and becomes the trickster in league with the demonic forces that form the negative corollary to the hero. Faustus' quest is the coexisting opposite of Lear's and the Fool's, and, as such, is the other pole that must be seen to experience the whole.

Drawing upon my eleven-month ethnographic fieldwork in two business organisations in Bangkok, Thailand, this thesis explores Thai women office workers consumption of makeup and clothes at work. What emerges from this thesis is that a claim to beauty as a reason for which women are engaged in the consumption of makeup and clothes is not always valid. Grounded in theoretical discussions and empirical findings, I argue that the women s consumption of makeup and clothes is not always in the pursuit of beauty, but rather the pursuit of looking good. While beauty is perceived as an innate quality of the body, looking good entails the materialisation of the outer body through consumption practices in an attempt to achieve an ideal look. I introduce a concept of looking good practices. Looking good practices demonstrate the ways in which women office workers exert agency in mobilising their outer bodies to achieve an appropriate appearance at work. I argue that looking good practices entail a process of social learning. The women office workers learn to look good through the process by which they look at other women, participate in the practices shared amongst themselves, negotiate the meanings of appropriateness and reify such meanings through their consumption of makeup and clothes. By sharing meanings and practices, the women office workers inevitably participate in looking good practices, which, I argue, are social practices. My research also demonstrates how, through their engagement in the consumption of makeup and clothes, the women office workers aestheticise their bodies to be situated in the aesthetic workplace.

From beginning to end, the epistle of 1 Peter is concerned with responding to the conflict in which the Anatolian readers have presently become involved. Nevertheless, throughout the history of Petrine scholarship the nature of this problem has generated significant disagreement. Within the most recent discussion, however, a general consensus has been reached. Virtually all commentators now tend to agree that this conflict is a kind of unofficial, local hostility which arose sporadically out of the disdain from the general populace and which was expressed primarily through discrimination and verbal abuse. Ultimately, though, this position rests on a number of undemonstrated contentions which have never been examined through comprehensive and detailed socio-historical inquiry. The present study is intended to take up the question afresh and to thereby rectify the significant missteps through which the topic has been previously approached. Our purpose is to determine the nature of suffering in 1 Peter by situating the letter against the backdrop of conflict management in first-century CE Asia Minor. To do so, we seek to understand the different means by which conflict was dealt with in Roman Anatolia and how the persecutions of 1 Peter fit into this larger context. Part of this goal is to examine how conflict affected different social groups within the community as a way of determining the various forms of suffering to which specific members may have been prone. Therefore, our efforts consist of an attempt to differentiate the readers’ troubling experiences by providing a detailed “social profile” of the letter’s recipients and to contextualize the conflict situation by locating the problem and its subsequent resolution strategies within the world of first-century CE Asia Minor

This thesis aims to explain how British naval power was sustained in the Indian Ocean during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. To improve efficiency and economy, the Admiralty had to reorganise the management of shore support services, as well as to rationalise the bases available to the navy to meet the enemy it faced. The basic proposal of this thesis is that British naval power was projected overseas by the Admiralty's effective reconciliation of two competing demands, the naval demand for strategic deployment and the domestic demand for reform. The thesis argues that British naval power in the Indian Ocean was increased by the acquisition of the Cape of Good Hope and Trincomalee and the naval bases built at these locations. The removal of the navy from complete dependence on the East India Company for support services was part of a long term policy of increasing Admiralty control of facilities in the east. In 1793 Bombay was the main naval base but Madras quickly became another hub supporting naval activities in the east. Other locations were considered. Calcutta was used and investigations were made into developing Penang as a navy base before Trincomalee became part of Britain’s long-term naval infrastructure. At the Cape a separate naval command was given responsibility for part of the Indian Ocean. Following the capture of Mauritius in 1810 this island was used temporarily as a forward support base. Admiralty control of the naval support services delivered to the squadrons at the Cape and in the East Indies was dramatically improved by the appointment overseas of resident commissioners from 1809. This resulted from the implementation of the recommendations of the Commission of Naval Revision, first suggested by the Commissioners on Fees in 1788. Resident commissioners ensured Admiralty instructions and policies were implemented and executed, resulting in improved efficiency and reduced costs.

This integrating essay is based on an Aristotelian-Thomism in exploring ethical decisionmaking and corporate governance mechanisms to address issues of corporate deviant behaviour, and ultimately, human flourishing. Eight (8) peer-reviewed journal articles analyse the causes of moral failings of corporate governance and ethical decision-making mechanisms, and propose to address these ethical deficits: (1) Virtue Theory as a Dynamic Theory of Business proposes a meta-theory of business that links the concepts of virtues, the common good, and the dynamic economy, (2) A Communitarian Model of Business: A Natural Law Perspective offers a communitarian view of business in defining the business organisation as one that incorporates its social purpose that acknowledges the primacy of people over profits, (3) Corporate Governance: An Ethical Perspective makes the distinction between ethical and legal compliance approaches to corporate governance in arguing the necessity and importance of the former approach as a basis for an effective legal compliance culture, (4) Striking a Balance between Rules and Principles-Based Approaches for Effective Governance: A Risks-Based Approach highlights the drawbacks of an excessively heavy reliance on rules-based approaches to corporate governance, (5) Ethical Decision-Making: A Case for the Triple Font Theory offers a comprehensive, systematic, practical approach to ethical decisionmaking that attempts to integrate virtue ethics into act-oriented normative ethical theories, (6) Reconciling Situational Social Psychology with Virtue Ethics attempts to reconcile the virtue ethicssituational social psychology debate, (7) Slippery when Wet: The Real Risk in Business identifies factors that contribute to corporate deviant behaviour from both an individual and organisational perspectives, and (8) An Aristotelian-Thomistic Approach to Management Practice argues that an Aristotelian-Thomistic humanism better promotes human dignity as it corrects the dysfunctional aspects and ethical deficits than its utilitarian naturalistic humanism counterpart. The failure to integrate an Aristotelian-Thomistic understanding of the virtues and natural law ethical principles of subsidiarity, solidarity, human dignity, and the common good into business practice threatens the stability and survival of the firm since they are required to correct the dysfunctional aspects and ethical deficits of certain aspects of market behaviour.

"The legal drama – a staple of American popular culture – has evolved as one of the "masculine" genres in the gendered landscape of television culture. A type of workplace drama focusing on professional settings historically dominated by men, it traditionally dramatizes "a world where men played the only important parts and where male bonding and inter-male conflict were dominant elements in the narrative," to adapt Kenneth MacKinnon’s general observations about "masculine" tv (69). Yet the gendering of the (traditional) legal drama goes well beyond the ubiquity of male characters: It is deeply ingrained in the figuration of the lawyer that classic instances of the genre established..." / "Der vorliegende Beitrag ist die pre-print Version. Bitte nutzen Sie für Zitate die Seitenzahl der Original-Version." (siehe Quellenangabe)

This thesis attempts to demonstrate how Reverend and Professor Hubert Herring’s dedication to Congregationalism motivated him to advocate for the autonomy of Latin American nations through the pursuit of non-interventionist policies, an approach the U.S. government ultimately adopted when it best suited its interests during World War II.

Une étude comparative entre deux auteurs aussi dissemblables que Pascal et Baudelaire s’annonce comme une entreprise risquée et se heurte à des obstacles apparemment infranchissables. Cette tentative relèverait-elle donc de l’exercice de style gratuit ou du paradoxe séduisant mais fragile ? Il semble, cependant, au regard de nombreux commentateurs, que des liens subtils unissent, au delà des divergences éclatantes, les deux univers littéraires. Ils présentent, en effet, des affinités réelles, puisées dans un fonds commun de tradition janséniste et développent des thèmes similaires centrés sur la misère et la grandeur de l’homme, l’importance de la chute originelle, les échecs qui en découlent dans la quête du bonheur, de la justice et de la vérité, les limites de la raison et la désespérance d’une condition humaine que l’absence de Dieu prive de sens. Certes, ces postulats analogues n’entraînent nullement, chez nos deux auteurs, des choix existentiels identiques, mais ils éclairent indiscutablement leur style et leur démarche. Si le vécu de la foi, la plénitude de la grâce illuminent les écrits pascaliens, l’œuvre baudelairienne ne laisse-t-elle pas poindre, par delà le péché, la révolte et la mort, une espérance diffuse, aux contours indécis mais aux accents incontestables ? Sans prétendre apporter une réponse définitive à ces délicates questions, le présent essai ambitionne modestement de raviver l’intérêt d’un passionnant et troublant face-à-face entre deux écrivains emblématiques que les styles, les préoccupations et les époques rendent à la fois si éloignés et si proches l’un de l’autre. / A comparative study of two authors as dissimilar as Pascal and Baudelaire is a daring undertaking, coming up, as it does, against apparently insuperable obstacles. Could one say then that this endeavour is simply a matter of an unwarranted exercise in style or of an appealing yet fragile paradox ? Notwithstanding, in the view of many commentators, it seems that subtle links unite the two literary universes, beyond manifest differences. They present, indeed, real affinities, that are drawn from a common fund of traditionaly Jansenist ideas and develop similar themes centred on the wretchedness and the grandeur of Man, on the importance of the Fall, on the failures which flow from original sin in Man’s search for happiness, justice and truth, on the limits of reason and the desperation of the human condition which the absence of God deprives of meaning. Certainly, these similar basic premises do in no way entail in the two authors identical existential choices, but they unquestionably shed light on their style and their reasoning. If the real life experience of faith and the plenitude of grace illumine Pascal’s writings, the faint outlines and the indisputable undertones of a diffuse hope, beyond sin, revolt and death, emerge from Baudelaire’s work. Without claiming to bring a definitive answer to these delicate questions, the present essay has the modest ambition of rekindling interest in a passionate, yet unsettling encounter between two emblematic writers, whose styles, concerns and centuries render them so distant from, yet so close to each other.

La pensée de Confucius se centre sur le Ren. Pour beaucoup de sinologues, le Lun-yu n'est rien d'autre qu'un traité d'éthique et de morale. D'autres, y voient le développement d'une vision esthétique du monde. Mais de ces deux concepts, y en a-t-il un qui soit plus fondamental que l'autre dans l'élaboration et la structure de la pensée confucéenne? Ma recherche commencera par une étude approfondie de certains textes originaux du Lun-Yu où apparaît plus clairement la sensibilité esthétique de Confucius, et sur lesquels je me propose de m'appuyer pour montrer comment l'esthétique peut s'offrir comme une clef de compréhension de toute l'oeuvre de Confucius et de toute sa pensée. Nous espérons que le fruit de ce travail permettra de faire progresser la compréhension mutuelle Est-Ouest en même temps que la fécondité du dialogue interculturel. / The thought of Confucius centers on Ren. For many sinologists, Lun-yu is not but a treaty of ethics and morality. For others, they see the development of an aesthetic vision of the world. But, the key to understand Confucius' thought is in the Sense of Moral or in the Sense of Beauty? My research will begin with a study of certain original texts of the Lun-Yu where appear more apparently the aesthetic sensibility of Confucius, and on which I propose that the Sense of Beauty can present itself as a key of understanding of all work of Confucius and all its thought. I hope that the fruit of this study will allow to make develop mutual understanding East-West at the same time as the fecundity of intercultural dialogue

Fientliga företagsförvärv har under en lång tid varit en del av den globala finansmarknaden och är numera inte främmande för de svenska aktörerna. Ett företagsförvärv blir fientligt när bolagets styrelse råder aktieägarna att avslå det framlagda budet. Är budet intressant för aktieägarna, som ofta strävar efter att maximera sin kapitalvinst, kan det dock lätt uppstå en intressekonflikt inom bolaget då styrelsen, till skillnad från aktieägarna, är snarare intresserad av att behålla sin makt och anställning. Detta kan resultera i att styrelsen blir frestad att vidta åtgärder för att förhindra uppköpet.   I samband med fientliga uppköpserbjudanden har det på den amerikanska aktiemarknaden utarbetats en rad försvarsåtgärder som kan vidtas av bolagsstyrelsen i syfte att försvåra eller förhindra ett företagsförvärv. På den svenska aktiemarknaden är vidtagande av åtgärder som har till syfte att förhindra eller försvåra att ett uppköpserbjudande framläggs eller genomförs icke tillåtna enligt 5 kap. 1 §             lagen om offentliga uppköpserbjudanden på aktiemarknaden (LUA). Motiveringen till detta förbud framkommer i bland annat Aktiemarknadsnämndens uttalande AMN 2005:47:”ett offentligt erbjudande anses vara en angelägenhet mellan målbolagets aktieägare och budgivaren, varför målbolagets styrelse inte ska tillåtas försämra förutsättningarna för att ett erbjudande lämnats”. Av denna anledning har styrelsen i ett målbolag som är ett aktiebolag en relativt svag position, då den beslutsfattande makten är hos de enskilda aktieägarna vid exempelvis antagandet av ett framlagt bud och hos bolagsstämman avseende vidtagande av eventuella försvarsmetoder. Dock har det genom AMN:s uttalanden framkommit i en rad praktiska fall att målbolagets styrelse hittat möjligheter att agera och i viss mån kringgå förbudet.   Uppsatsen är en komparativ studie med den svenska och amerikanska rättregleringen i fokus. Paralleller och samband dras även mellan det svenska, europeiska och engelska systemet. Syftet med arbetet är att undersöka svenska företagsledningarnas möjligheter och handlingsutrymme vid tillämpning av internationella försvarsmetoder för att avvärja ett oönskat uppköpserbjudande. I uppsatsen undersöks även de åtgärder som kan vidtas i ett preventivt syfte.   Möjligheten till genomförandet av ett bolagsuppköp är ett nyckelmoment för skapandet av en effektiv värdepappersmarknad där svaga bolag upphör att existera och starka bolag har utvecklings- och tillväxtmöjligheter. Att avgöra vad som stämmer överens med god sed kan dock bli problematiskt, då regleringen på området är oerhört spridd och i viss mån inkoherent. Trots dessa svårigheter har det i praktiken genomförts ett antal företagsuppköp som har visat på att tillämpningen av försvarmetoder är i viss utsträckning möjlig om den går att motivera genom att bolagets eller/och aktieägarnas intressen tillgodoses. Enligt aktiebolagslagen (ABL) är föremålet för aktiebolagets verksamhet att ge vinst till fördelning för aktieägarna. Samtidigt är aktieägarnas förtroende centralt för väl fungerande värdepappersmarknader. En mer omfattande rätt för bolagsstyrelsen i målbolaget att fatta beslut om försvarsåtgärder skulle kunna skada dessa grundläggande ändamål med ABL och den börsrättsliga regleringen. På så sätt skulle en betydligt större makt hos bolagsstyrelsen kunna ha en skadlig effekt, då det är aktieägarnas vinster och förtroende som bör prioriteras. Genom att analysera samspelet mellan de bolagsrättsliga och börsrättsliga principerna och relevanta praktiska avgöranden går det att se att den nationella regleringen är konstruerad på bästa möjliga sätt för att upprätthålla en god sed på den svenska finansmarknaden, trots sina potentiella brister i sammanhanget. / Hostile takeovers have for a long time been a part of the global financial market and are nowadays not an unknown phenomenon on the Swedish stock market. A takeover attempt becomes hostile when the board of directors of the target advises the shareholders to reject the submitted bid. That particular situation can, however, easily become the reason for conflict of interests within the company. The bid can be valuable for the shareholders, who primarily seek ways to maximize their profit at the same time, as the members of the board of directors desire to keep their employment and position within the company. The board can therefore as a result be willing to take action in order to prevent the takeover.   During the mid-20th century, due to a takeover-wave, the American stock market developed a series of defence measures that could be used by the board in order to impede or prevent an acquisition. However, measures that are intended to prevent or impede a takeover offer are prohibited on the Swedish stock market under Ch. 5 § 1 in the Act on Public Takeover Offers. The justification for this prohibition is found in, inter alia, the Swedish Securities Council's (Aktiemarknadsnämnden) statement AMN 2005: 47 where they indicated that a public offer is considered to be a matter between the target company's shareholders and the bidder, why the offeree company should not be allowed to impair the prerequisites for an offer submitted. For this reason, management has a relatively weak position in Swedish corporations, since the decision-making power is not with the board but with the separate shareholders when it comes to accepting a potential bid or the shareholders’ meeting of the corporation when a decision must be made if measures should be enact in order to prevent a bid. However, the boards of directors in some target companies have found opportunities to act and to some extent circumvent the ban posed in the Act on Public Takeover Offers.   The thesis is a comparative study with Swedish and American legal regulations in focus. Parallels are also drawn between the Swedish, European and English systems. The aim is to investigate the ability of the board of directors in Swedish corporations to use different defence methods to fend off an unwanted takeover bid. The paper also examines the measures that can be taken before the bid and as a result have a preventive function.   The possibility of implementing a company takeover is a key element for the creation of an efficient financial market in which weak companies cease to exist and strong companies have development and growth potential. A determination on what actions can be consistent with good practice can be problematic, since the regulations in this area are extremely widespread and somewhat incoherent. Despite these difficulties, the legal practice in this area has shown that the application of the defence methods is to some extent possible if the board of directors focus on supporting the will to defend the company and / or shareholder interests. To give the board of directors extended powers could have a detrimental effect on profits and trust. By analysing the interaction between the principles in company law and securities law as well as some relevant decisions by the Swedish Securities Council, it is possible to see that the Swedish national regulation is designed in the best possible way to maintain good practices on the Swedish stock market despite some shortcomings.