The Bible serves as a source for Celestina, but biblical references and reminiscences in the text do not derive from the Scriptures themselves, but from secondary and even tertiary sources. These represent the typical medium of access to the Bible of laymen and, in the case of Celestina, of a very specific group of laymen: university members, which formed the original audience of the work and shared a same way of reading it. Therefore, biblical intertextuality in Celestina is defined by the relation of university members to these sources. When analysed from the perspective of university readers, Celestina becomes a pseudo-contemplative work to which the principles of visual mental representation of affective meditation apply. If read making use of these principles, the didactic and moralising message of the preliminary texts is confirmed and Celestina reveals itself as an admonitory tale against carnal love. Moreover, it appears as a counterfeit sentimental romance, concretely, a reply to "Cárcel de amor", to contemporary love habits and to courtly customs. In addition, reading Celestina from the perspective of an university audience offers a new view on the misuse of biblical references. Instead of being representative of a heterodox attitude toward the Scriptures, these function as a condemnation of the bad use of auctoritates in dialectic contexts. As a result, Celestina can be related to a reformist current in the university world, which was particularly critical to Scholasticism and its teaching methodology. In this sense, Celestina aligns itself with Humanism and, specifically with Christian Humanism. Finally, analysing Celestina from the point of view of university readers explains why a work, which had been originally conceived as a didactic and moralising text, was criticised in the sixteenth century for being inmmoral: audience and times had changed.

Belief in prophetic inspiration and the possibility of discerning the future was a cornerstone of medieval conceptions of history and of God’s workings within that history. But prophecy’s significance for the Middle Ages is due as much to the multiplicity of its meanings as to its role as an engine of history. Prophetia was described in terms ranging from prediction and historiography to singing and teaching. This thesis examines the attempts of medieval thinkers to wrestle with these ambiguities. The nature and implications of prophetic inspiration were a crucial area of contention during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, as scholastic theologians, with their particular techniques and standards of rationality, attempted to make systematic sense of inspired speech and knowledge. These attempts reveal a great deal about medieval structures of knowledge, and about theological reflections on the Church’s place in history. The stakes were high: ‘prophecy’ not only was the subject of Old Testament exegesis, but also, in its various forms, was often the basis of authority for exegetes and theologians themselves, as well as for preachers, visionaries, saints, and even writers of secular works. Those who claimed the mantle of the prophet came just as easily from inside the institutional structures as from outside. Theologians began legitimating a moderate form of inspiration that justified their own work through ordinary activities such as teaching and preaching, while trying to keep at bay perceived threats from powerful assertions of prophetic authority, such as Islam, female visionaries, and schismatic and apocalyptic Franciscans. This study argues that, as theologians sought to determine the limits of prophetic privilege, and to shape prophecy for their own purposes, they actually opened space for claims of divine insight to proliferate in those ordinary activities, and in a way that went beyond their control.

Studien tar avstamp i en kvalitetsgranskningsrapport från Skolinspektionen som visar på att arbetet med naturvetenskap i förskolan är bristfälligt på en fjärdedel av de förskolor som undersökts i granskningen samt att det naturvetenskapliga arbete som sker ofta är begränsat till vissa fält, så som djur och natur. I relation till denna rapport bygger studien också på tidigare forskning inom bland annat det förskoledidaktiska fältet med fokus på naturvetenskap och barns möten med olika fysikaliska fenomen. Studiens syfte är att ta reda på hur ofta barn möter fysikaliska fenomen i sin vardag med utgångspunkt i olika verb som förekommer inom fysik samt att synliggöra hur olika performativa agenter intra-agerar med varandra och hur potentiellt meningsskapande tillfällen om fysikaliska fenomen uppstår. Analysen av empirin utgår från en posthumanistisk teoribildning i form av agentisk realism, som ”plattar ut” och jämställer människa och material. Studien har en etnografisk ansats med kvalitativa och kvantitativa element och genomfördes med deltagande observationer och dokumenterades dels med en statistisk avprickningslista och dels med fältanteckningar och kompletterande fotografering. Resultaten visar att barnen på olika sätt kommer i kontakt med fysikaliska fenomen i vardagen, genom deras lek med olika material, vilket kan förstås som materiellt-diskursiva intra-aktioner. I dessa intra-aktioner uppstår tillfällen för potentiellt meningsskapande kring fysikaliska fenomen.

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Mémoire numérisé par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal. / Pour respecter les droits d'auteur, la version électronique de cette thèse ou ce mémoire a été dépouillée, le cas échéant, de ses documents visuels et audio-visuels. La version intégrale de la thèse ou du mémoire a été déposée au Service de la gestion des documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal.

Jugendfeier or Jugendweihe, the youth ‘rite of passage’ ritual has been ideologically re-and-de-contextualised by various movements throughout the last 150 years of German history. It is most commonly associated with the communist German Democratic Republic where it was used as a state initiation ritual for the foundation of ‘socialist personalities.’ This thesis focuses on Jugendfeier the ‘youth celebration’ ceremony as performed by the German Humanist Association (Humanistischer Verband Deutschlands) in Berlin. Jugendweihe originated in the mid-nineteenth century as an alternative to Catholic First Communion and Protestant Confirmation. In the former East Germany between 1956 and 1989 more than seven million students aged thirteen to fourteen undertook the ritual. Significantly, it is claimed that in present-day Germany more than 100,000 students annually take part in the ritual throughout post-socialist Germany in one form or another. This thesis highlights the often contradictory nature of Jugendweihe by examining its historical development and continuation in post-socialist Germany. It contrasts the official views of Jugendweihe in the eyes of its organisers and supporters, as well as the unofficial opinions of its participants in the GDR and in contemporary Berlin. It is often assumed that with the fall of the Berlin Wall, the East German regime along with its culture, politics, economy, rituals and everyday way of life would likewise fade away. This thesis reconstructs the history of Jugendweihe from its Christian origins, details its implementation as a state-ritual in the GDR, and engages with the German Humanist Association’s adaption of Jugendfeier in reunified Berlin. A study of such a contested ritual sheds light on larger discussions concerning identity, community, theories on ritual, and perceptions of secularisation and humanism. By studying the practices of a largely ‘atheist’ group that rejects religion, it challenges what constitutes collective and individual notions of religiosity and secularity.

Cette thèse essaie d’établir dans un premier temps que Mallarmé, Valéry et Reverdy accomplissent exemplairement la critique théorique des fondations romantiques (à la fois ontologiques et rhétoriques) de la littérature ; que cette critique conduit à une crise de légitimité, qui, sans donner lieu à une rupture violente avec la tradition (à la différence de ce qu’implique par exemple l'ethos dominant des avant-gardes), témoigne cependant d’une lucidité sans concession. On montre alors que cette lucidité s'inscrit dans l'écriture même des poèmes selon une poétique a-théologique et par le réinvestissement de formes (l’allégorie, l’écriture moraliste) susceptibles d'indiquer, contre la considération idolâtre d’une autonomie sans autre de l’œuvre, une transitivité rhétorique et non résolutoire de celle-ci. On explique ainsi que l'écroulement de la métaphysique romantique ouvre la voie, chez ces auteurs, à une reconnaissance de la discursivité de l'œuvre, à sa considération tout à la fois poétique et rhétorique. De cela on conclut à l’éviction d’un paradigme esthétique de la poésie et de ses implications indissociablement politiques et communicationnelles, au profit d’une reconnaissance des contingences rhétorique et factuelle du discours littéraire, celles-ci définissant, sans dogmatisme, une inquiétude humaniste. / This thesis first aims at establishing that Mallarmé, Valéry and Reverdy build up a strong theoretical criticism of Literature’s romantic foundations (which are both ontological and rhetorical); it also points out that this criticism leads to a legitimacy crisis. This crisis, though it does not express itself through a violent break from tradition (unlike the main ethos of the avant-garde), bears witness to an uncompromising sense of lucidity. We then demonstrate that this lucidity shapes the very writing of the poems through a-theological poetics and by reinvesting traditional forms (such as allegory or moralist writing) which can convey, though in a problematic way, a certain rhetorical transitivity. We thus throw light on the fact that the wrecking of romantic metaphysics makes these authors acknowledge the discursive nature of the poem, its poetical and rhetorical aspects. We finally conclude on the overcoming of both the aesthetic paradigm of literature and its political and communicational implications to the benefit of an acknowledgement of factual and rhetorical contingencies of the literary discourse. This defines, without any dogmatism, a humanistic disquiet.

TITLE: Přemysl Pitter's humanism and his contribution to the education of values at the primary school ABSTRACT: The aim of the thesis is to provide basic information about Přemysl Pitter's ideas, thoughts and activities. The theoretical part depicts mainly historical and biographical events to enable the understanding of the life values of Přemysl Pitter and the main context of his life. The practical part is based on a project that enables 5th grade elementary school students to penetrate into Pitter's life and to understand his life approach and values through their own experiences. We conclude with reflections from the project that students made sense of Přemysl Pitter's values and the historical events connected with his life, as well as Pitter's uniqueness and courage. On their own the pupils put the information together into a book, which is the output of their project. The aim of the thesis and the project has been accomplished. KEYWORDS: Přemysl Pitter, humanism, values education, project

The four novels Hyperion, The Fall ofHyperion, Endymionand The Rise of Endymionconstitute the Hyperion Cantosby the American science fiction writer Dan Simmons. Thisgalactic-empire,epic,science fictionnarrative containsa plethora ofliterary references. The dominant part comes from the nineteenth-century Romantic poet John Keats. The inclusion of passages from his poetry and letters is pursuedin my analysis.EmployingLubomír Doležel’scategorizations of intertextuality—“transposition,” “expansion,” and “displacement”—I seek to show how Keats’s writings and his persona constitute a privilegedintertext inSimmons’s tetralogyand I show its function.Simmons constructs subsidiary plots, some of which are drivenby Keats’s most well-known poetry. In consequence, some of the subplotscan be regarded as rewrites of Keats’s works.Although quotations of poetry have a tendency to direct the reader’s attention away from the main plot,slowing down the narrative,such passages in the narrativesevokeKeats’s philosophy of empathy, beauty andlove,which is fundamental for his humanism.ForKeats, the poet is a humanist, giving solace to mankind through his poetry. I argue that the complex intertextual relationships with regards toKeats’s poetryand biographyshow the way Simmons expresses humanism as a belief in man’s dignity and worth, and uses it as the basis for his epic narrative.

Perhaps due to its seemingly straightforward religious nature, the Second Nun's Cecelia Legend in The Canterbury Tales is often dismissed by scholars and readers alike. However, through analyzing Chaucer's earlier analogues, it becomes apparent that Chaucer has left out key pieces of the Life of Saint Cecelia. These omissions can be explained as attempts to illustrate the humanistic beliefs of both St. Augustine and Christine de Pizan. Further, the etymology of key words which appear in the "Second Nun's Prologue and Tale" help to reinforce the satire which Chaucer creates. Chaucer has deleted the humanism from the Saint Cecelia Legend in order to illustrate the potential for the corruption of female virtue.