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My thesis argues that Søren Kierkegaard provides a perspective on grief that validates emotional experience while offering the opportunity for transcendence beyond the immediacy of grief through the work of love in recollecting one who is dead. Conventional philosophical approaches offer an incomplete picture by focusing on grief either as exclusively emotional or exclusively moral. The alternative methodology of phenomenology serves to draw out common threads from the intensely subjective, inward experience of grief. Kierkegaard’s writings on the topics of grief, sorrow, and love for the dead reflect the complexity uncovered in the phenomenological analysis. Traditional interpretations of Kierkegaard’s call to love the dead focus on this love as a metaphor for how to love the living, while more recent scholarship identifies love for the dead as valuable in itself. Taking up this approach, I seek to provide a reading that takes seriously the emotional experience of loss and justifies the value of continued love for the dead consistent with the phenomenology of grief and Kierkegaard’s writings.

Saber-toothed remains have been found worldwide throughout the Cenozoic, until the end of the Pleistocene. One site from Alachua County, Florida preserves a diverse Miocene fauna, including the machairodontine Nimravides galiani (Felidae) and the saber-toothed Barbourofelis loveorum (Barbourofelidae). Both taxa roamed what would become the Love Bone Bed site during the Late Miocene (Late Clarendonian NALMA), ~ 9.5 Mya. Previous descriptions focused on crania; yet the large sample of postcrania remained undescribed. Hence, this project includes a detailed postcranial description of both taxa. Results show that N. galiani resembles extant felids, whereas B. loveorum resembles Smilodon fatalis, as well as ursids. Additionally, locomotion and hunting behavior (prey capture) was examined quantitatively to assess ecologic overlap (niche partitioning vs direct competition). N. galiani probably displayed terrestrial locomotion in open habitats, whereas B. loveorum likely inhabited the deciduous forest as an ambulatory opportunistic/ambush predator. Results support niche partitioning, rather than direct competition.

<p> This dissertation offers a reoriented perspective of church decline as discerned through a process of pastoral theological reflection. The conversation partners are: (1) statistical indicators of church decline; (2) case studies of church decline as described by congregational studies research; (3) church renewal materials; (4) elements of grief theory; and (5) theological and spiritual resources related to God's power and presence in weakness. Statistical indicators suggest that decline is still an issue for local churches today. In response to this ongoing situation of decline, myriads of renewal materials have been produced offering ways and means for the church in North America to be renewed. Unfortunately these materials, and the assumptions which undergird their proposals, can be detrimental to declining churches, and fail to address the actual experience of decline as revealed by the case studies. For this reason, this dissertation offers a reoriented perspective of decline. It is a perspective that affirms that even those churches suffering the effects of decline can experience intimacy with God, and participate in God's fruitfulness. This perspective affirms, in concert with grief theory, that declining churches will need to acknowledge and mourn their losses brought about by decline. It also asserts, however, that theological and spiritual resources are needed to support churches in this regard. To this end, two theological and spiritual polarities will be offered for the purpose of articulating the reorienting perspective. The first polarity involves the movement between decline and a focus upon God as the One who re-describes our experience of decline. The second polarity involves the movement between an avoidance of decline and a focus upon God as the One who is present with us in it. Ultimately both of these polarities are understood as being grounded in the movement between fear and love. This pastoral theological reflection upon church decline is offered as a means of bringing hope and encouragement to those churches struggling with decline. Decline is serious, but it can also be an occasion of experiencing a profound deepening of the church's relationship and ministry with God.</p> / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

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Denna studie undersöker den digitala sociala rörelsen som uppstod ur efterdyningarna av den så kallade GameStop-sagan på aktiemarknaden. Spelåterförsäljaren GameStop erhöll en grupp hängivna anhängare på det sociala mediet Reddit. Över tid utvecklades gruppen till en social rörelse som i sin tur utvecklade en känsla av kärlek för GameStop-varumärket. Rörelsen gör anspråk på traditionella finansinstitut och Wall Street för en rättvisare aktiemarknad. Studien ämnar analysera de faktorer som bidragit till att utveckla kärleken för varumärket, som i denna studie benämns Brand love. Genom att utgå från två teoretiska ramverk; Social rörelseteori samt Kollektiv handlingsteori utforskar studien de taktiker och beslut som legat bakom rörelsens handlingar. Med en kvalitativ innehållsanalys uppnår uppsatsen en narrativ analys som illustrerar centrala aspekter ur datainsamlingen från Reddit. Gemenskapen utvecklades från att vara en grupp av oorganiserade individer till en stark social rörelse. Deras repertoarer inkluderade att hålla fast vid GameStop-aktier och använda olika plattformar för att sprida information. Det framkom att GameStop-gemenskapen använde Reddit för att organisera sig, diskutera anspråk och strategier samt stärka sin kollektiva identitet. Språkbruket förhöll sig vara nedvärderande samt stötande och användes inte endast som en form av kommunikation utan även för att stärka tillhörighet. Analysen pekar på att kollektiv identitet och starka relationer var viktiga element för rörelsens utveckling av brand love. Denna forskning ger inblick i dynamiken bakom digitala gemenskaper, aktivism och hur det kan leda till varumärkesrelationer.

This Must Be the Place is a collection of short stories that take place in Massachusetts, America. Each story exists as a subtle celebration of the ordinary moments of our lives that softly, and gradually, shape us over time. This testament to the every-day is characterized by detailed, tender depictions of brief conversations, picnics in parks, afternoon car rides, and trips to the grocery store with past lovers. Although the narrators and other orbiting characters in the stories are all different, they are bound together by an insatiable curiosity and fascination with the world and the human condition. Inspired by works from authors such as Raymond Carver, Richard Brautigan, William Trevor, Carrie Fountain, and Andre Dubus, This Must Be the Place is a comment on how we, as people, are as defined by the decisions we do not make as the ones that we do. The characters in each piece confront choices and the invariable emotional consequences that will follow them, either temporarily or for the foreseeable future. These consequences propel the narratives, causing anxiety, uncertainty, and at times even excitement for all of those involved. Similarly, and perhaps more importantly, because of these consequences, the gears of the characters’ hearts shift, ever so slightly, in new, unexplored directions. As a whole, This Must Be the Place is about the understated importance embedded in every connection, misconnection, beginning, and ending.

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