Thesis (M.S.)--University of Central Florida, 2008. / Adviser: Allyn MacLean Stearman. Includes bibliographical references (p. 98-103).

Freiburg (Breisgau), Universiẗat, Diss., 2002.

The purpose of this thesis is to analyse how the books The Case for God and 12 Steps to a Compassionate Life by the historian Karen Armstrong has been discussed and debated in swedish mass media. Very few academics in the discipline of the history of religions has had such a broad public success as Karen Armstrong, and it is therefore important to acknowledge how major themes and issues in her writings are discussed on the public arena. With the aid of reception theory developed by Hans Robert Jauss and by Stuart Hall, I present three conclusions about the mass media reception of The Case for God and 12 Steps to a Compassionate Life. First of all, I show that the reception of the two books by Armstrong is dependent on differences in expectations and experiences, and that it is possible to spot and acknowledge these differences in the actual texts that make up the reception. Second, I give evidence to how central binary constructions in the arguments put forward by Armstrong are used and developed upon in the reception. Third, I demonstrate how differences in perceptions about Karen Armstrong as a person plays a major part in the reception, and that Armstrong herself is an active part in the construction of her own media image.

This project is framed by a dilemma: representations of teaching practice are critical in teacher education, and yet the representations we rely on dangerously oversimplify teaching. My central questions emerge from this dilemma. In telling stories about teaching, how messy can the story be before it becomes unintelligible? Why does messiness matter and what does it produce for teachers-to-be? After examining both canonical accounts of teacher knowledge and emergent research that is productively disrupting the field, I draw on the work of Karen Barad to help me imagine both a new way of telling teaching stories, what I call diffractive storytelling, and a new way of thinking about their use in teacher education. In particular, I take up Barad’s concept of apparatus to consider what knowing is made possible by traditional teacher stories, what knowing is foreclosed, and what these possibilities and limitations mean for teacher education. Finally, I turn to other apparatuses at work in teacher education, especially standardized assessments such as edTPA, the new performance-based assessment of teacher readiness being implemented across the country. I argue that attending carefully to the apparatus-ness of the instruments used in teacher preparation allows us to contest the naturalization of narrow conceptions of teaching practice and sustains the paradox of holding to standards while resisting standardization.

<p>The starting point of this paper is an ecofeminist claim, namely anthropocentrism has been androcentric. My purpose will be to discuss and explain this statement.</p>

The starting point of this paper is an ecofeminist claim, namely anthropocentrism has been androcentric. My purpose will be to discuss and explain this statement.

Thesis (M.P.H.)--Georgia State University, 2009. / Title from file title page. Kymberle L. Sterling, committee chair; Ike S. Okosun, Russ Toal, committee members. Description based on contents viewed Nov. 10, 2009. Includes bibliographical references (p. 28-29).

Female intervention in government happened from time to time in Chinese history. The women involved were usually either ambitious individuals who made use of favourable opportunities to seize political power or daughters of powerful families whose marriages into the Imperial House were arranged in order to insure the power of their male relatives. In tracing the background of these women, we find that the former type often came from a non-Chinese or lower-class family while the latter type were usually Chinese and invariably had an aristocratic background. Although coming from different backgrounds these ladies shared the common characteristic that they were contented with the position they had as Empress or Empress Dowager. The further ambition of themselves ascending to the throne never occurred to them. The cases of female intervention during the Tang period were rather different from the above stereotypes. They were a succession of ambitious female members of the Imperial family who tried to follow in the footsteps of Empress Wu in order to rule the country both in name and in fact. Though none of them did succeed, their ambition and struggle was one of the major factors that influenced the political history of the first half of the eighth century. / Arts, Faculty of / Asian Studies, Department of / Graduate

No description available.

No description available.