Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 1998. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 292-314). Available also in a digital version from Dissertation Abstracts.

This thesis studies the human rights philosophy presented during the first productions of Shakespeare's plays, putting it in touch with that reflected in United Nations human rights law and the political theory of John Rawls. Its opening chapter discusses twentieth-century scholarship exemplary of the criticism relevant to human rights ideas in Shakespeare. The sixteenth-century historical context, so emphatically identified by historians with the institution of modern freedom, is kept in sight throughout, and provides, with the cultural context (especially the semantic context), the key to detailed explications, of four plays: King John, Much Ado About Nothing, Hamlet and All's Well That Ends Well. Interpreted by these means, the first two plays are seen to have enacted, at the time of their first performances, the religious strife that ironically gave birth both to the ideal of freedom of conscience and ideological complications restricting its implementation. The latter plays unfolded arguments concerning the relationship between epistemology and freedom of conscience. The questions addressed in these four plays range from the relationship between social stability, moral values, and the practicability of freedom of conscience to the criteria whereby coercion and abuse of freedom of conscience may be distinguished from legitimate exercise of freedom of expression. The characteristics of epistemologies enhancing the implementation of freedom of conscience and the educational process that promotes the moral attributes and social conditions necessary for the adoption of these are delineated. The freedom of conscience theory the plays proposed for those members of their first audiences attuned to its metaphoric language is remarkably thought-provoking as regards current challenges in human rights philosophy and law, and reinforces the argument that literature, and in particular theatre, have vital roles in social change and intellectual development.

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This critical explanatory mixed methods study examined elementary teachers’ perceptions regarding the inclusion of LGBTQ-themed literature in the curriculum. An electronic survey questionnaire and focus group sessions were used to collect both quantitative and qualitative data that described the perceived benefits and barriers of LGBTQ-themed literature and teachers’ level of interest in attending professional developing on this topic. The sample population for this study consisted of 100 participants. All 100 participants completed the electronic survey questionnaire, and a subset of 10 of the survey respondents participated in focus groups to explore further the perceived benefits and barriers relating to the inclusion of LGBTQ-themed literature. There were five key findings that emerged in relation to the research questions for this survey: (1) although teachers perceive parental backlash and insufficient training as the two most significant barriers preventing them from including LGBTQ-themed literature in their classroom, their beliefs and comfort levels surrounding LGBTQ individuals and topics are significant barriers as well; (2) participants felt there were many significant benefits that might result from the inclusion of LGBTQ-themed literature, including building an increased awareness of diversity among students and less bullying in regards to sexual orientation/gender expression; (3) participants felt that parents and administration have significant control over what teachers can teach in their classrooms, and that their autonomy and choice was straightjacketed by the demands of the parents and administrators; (4) participants were interested in attending professional development training focusing on the inclusion of LGBTQ-themed literature; and (5) Black respondents expressed more hesitation towards the inclusion of LGBTQ-themed literature as well as towards attending LGBTQ-themed professional development than other demographic subgroups. / Includes bibliography. / Dissertation (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2016. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

This dissertation argues that works of literature offer a valuable critical supplement to historical and legal accounts of colonial violence, due to the common investment of literary texts in thematizing moral complexity and complicity, and by drawing attention to intimate and social forms of harm that might otherwise go unaccounted for. Following the recent successful lawsuit against the British government by elderly Kenyans who survived torture in the 1950s, as well as recent historical scholarship on the colonial government's brutal counterinsurgency, I argue that the paradigmatic anticolonial event commonly referred to as the “Mau Mau” uprising has been reframed in terms of a series of grave human rights abuses. I examine the diverse ways in which the Mau Mau struggle has been figured in narrative fiction, focusing on works by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor, Marjorie Oludhe Macgoye, and the white supremacist Robert Ruark. The dissertation shows literary texts to be sites of distinct forms of knowledge concerning the harms of political violence. My readings demonstrate that fictions of Mau Mau have figured that crisis as both a crime that demands urgent redress and an event whose damage is permanent and irreparable, each text staging in distinct ways the structuring paradox of historical reparation as an impossible ethical demand that must nonetheless be insisted upon. I think of reparations claims as radical decolonizing demands, countering recent critiques of the “politics of reparations” as a liberal departure from properly emancipationist thinking.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2009. / Title from PDF title page (University of Texas Digital Repository, viewed on August 5, 2009). Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 377-408).