Research has shown that the benefits of having a populace literate in science are great. Even if citizens are not literate in basic science, it is important that citizens still appreciate science and those with expertise in the field for many reasons. Recent research suggests that the United States (U.S.) has lower levels of science literacy than it should. Evidence may also suggest that many U.S. citizens are not appreciative of science. Overall, little research has been conducted on what may predict science literacy and science appreciation which is the aim of this research. Specifically, I have examined socio-personal variables, beliefs, thought paradigms, and various demographic variables that may be predictive of science literacy and science appreciation. Results indicated that scriptural literalism, religiosity, and magical ideation were predictive of low levels of science literacy. In addition, predictors of low levels of science appreciation included scriptural literalism and magical ideation. Implications of the findings are discussed.

This study examines the effect that divided or unified government, in the United States of America, has on the delegation of trade authority to the President. Using a qualitative analysis approach, I examine competing views and formulate an independent opinion based on the peoples’ preferences and evaluation of the principles of America’s Constitutionalism. I conclude that overemphasis on the impact of divided government is misleading because trade issues provide the primary mechanism which determines the implementation of America’s trade policies, and the principles of Constitutionalism are valuable guidelines. Blended with the discussion is the awareness of an American ethos which challenges formulation of trade agreements in an era of increased globalization.

This study examines the effect that divided or unified government, in the United States of America, has on the delegation of trade authority to the President. Using a qualitative analysis approach, I examine competing views and formulate an independent opinion based on the peoples’ preferences and evaluation of the principles of America’s Constitutionalism. I conclude that overemphasis on the impact of divided government is misleading because trade issues provide the primary mechanism which determines the implementation of America’s trade policies, and the principles of Constitutionalism are valuable guidelines. Blended with the discussion is the awareness of an American ethos which challenges formulation of trade agreements in an era of increased globalization.

Some of the attributes of a perfect being (e.g. first cause, necessary being, intelligent creator) are established on the basis of theological arguments such as the cosmological and the teleological. At the deepest level, these theological arguments are based on principles of rational psychology such as simplicity and sufficient reason. Moreover, belief that the perfect being is the moral omnipotent God is an act of trust and thus based on the rational psychology of trust. Theists in the Abrahamic tradition subscribe to first cause/necessary being/intelligent creator theology and must therefore remain faithful to any psychological principles (simplicity, sufficient reason, trust) that are the rational grounds for believing in the existence of their God. But such faithfulness results in a deep tension within Judeo-Christian theism. For example, a Christian theist who believes in the Trinity must at the same time remain faithful to the principle of simplicity that rejects the Trinity. Because simplicity is the rational basis for the deeply cherished attributes of the Christian God (first cause/necessary being/intelligent creator), it is argued that faithfulness to psychological principles such as simplicity discipline Christian theistic belief, in particular the belief in the Trinity. Examples of this nature offer a framework for a similar disciplining of Islamic hermeneutics on the basis of rational psychology. Muslim interpreters tend not to systematically engage in the philosophy of religion, and for this reason do not explicitly articulate the psychological principles that gave them their theistic Muslim identity. As a result, they deviate from such principles when it comes time to interpret the original sources of Islam (Quran and Sunna). Consistency is one of the demands of rationality, and it is inconsistent to assume principles in arriving at a theistic Muslim identity and then subsequently fail to apply those principles consistently to the task of textual interpretation.

Requiem for the Last Kaiser by the Cameroonian playwright Bate Besong, is a play characterised by singular translational challenges. These challenges range from the presence of many different languages in the text to the use of humour and intratextual references taken from a various range of sources such as the Bible, world history and politics, etc. In our 21st century world, where translation has been described as the language of Europe by Umberto Eco, Africa’s literary treasures should be given a wider readership by means of translation, starting with French, to introduce the writer’s work to French-speaking Cameroonians and from there to other Francophones. The aim of this research was to determine in what way multilingualism in the play could affect its translation and, secondly, how to translate the various multilingual utterances. The focus was put on the rendition of the play’s multilingual elements in a language or languages understandable to a French-speaking readership while keeping the author’s initial intention in mind. This was done firstly by gathering relevant knowledge on theatre as well as literary and theatrical translation, and on the other hand on literary multilingualism and multilingual translation. Subsequently, 28 text segments including multilingual utterances were extracted from the source text, analysed using a combination of the functionalist approach and hermeneutics, and translated. Several translation strategies and procedures were used, among which literalism was particularly successful. It was found that these could not be generalised and that translation choices should be made for each individual utterance. The play impacts on the literary, sociolinguistic, political, and sociological domains, as it dates from the 1990s, a period of Cameroonian history marked by popular uprisings and the struggle for democracy. Attempting a partial translation of Requiem for the Last Kaiser was a means of contributing to the field of multilingual theatre translation, sharing the richness of Bate Besong’s literary work and giving Cameroonian literature in English the port of access it needs since it has not yet attained the recognition it surely deserves. / Dissertation (MA)--University of Pretoria, 2013. / gm2014 / Modern European Languages / unrestricted

Le grand projet à l’origine de la réalisation de cette thèse est de proposer une nouvelle manière de comprendre la nature instable et décloisonnée du pop art, ce courant pictural presque sorti de l’histoire de l’art pour s’ériger en signe diffus de la culture populaire.Les enjeux plus conceptuels, qu’il dissimule derrière une imagerie devenue familière, sont pourtant d’une importance capitale pour la reconfiguration de la définition contemporaine de l’œuvre d’art. Toujours entre surface et profondeur, l’image pop se développe insidieusement.Le concept de « coïncidence des opposés », hérité d’une tradition théologico-philosophique dont Nicolas De Cues est le dépositaire le plus illustre, nous servira d’outil opératoire pour tenter de comprendre les implications sémantiques liées à la nature glissante de cet espace artistique aux contours flous. L’instabilité de ses frontières s’exprime d’abord par la proximité entre « art » et « non-art ». Elle s’illustre ensuite et surtout par le développement d’une multitude de microstructures internes reproduisant le même schéma conceptuel de « coïncidence des opposés ». Nous utiliserons alors, pour faciliter notre approche philosophique le concept d’ « ambivalences instables ».Trois grands moments jalonneront notre enquête. Ils seront synthétisés par les trois notions suivantes : « le paradoxe de la destruction créatrice », « la littéralité anti-littérale », et « la désacralisation hyper-sacralisée ». / The aim of this PhD project is to propose a new way of understanding the profoundly unstable and essentially decompartmentalized nature of pop art, this pictorial stream which is almost going beyond the scope of art history to elevate itself to be a vague symbol of popular culture.However, its familiar image hides more conceptual matters of dispute which are of crucial importance when it comes to reconfiguring the contemporary definition of a work of art. Always between surface and depth, pop imagery is developing insidiously.The “coincidence of opposites” concept, inherited from a theological-philosophical tradition, with Nicolas De Cues as its most famous depositary, will be used as an operating tool in our attempt to understand the semantic implications bound to the changing nature of this artistic space, the limits of which are still clearly blurry. This fuzziness of its frontiers appears first and foremost through the proximity between “art” and “non-art”, and then, most of all, through the development of a multitude of internal microstructures mimicking the pattern of the “coincidence of opposites” concept. In order to facilitate the philosophical flexibility of our approach, we will therefore use the concept of “unstable ambivalences”. Three milestones mark our investigation. They are summarized by the three following notions: “the creative destruction paradox”,”anti-literal literalism” and ”hyper-sacralized desecration”.

The Gender Role Stress paradigm asserts that individuals experience distress when they cannot or do not want to live up to the roles prescribed to their gender, and this stress is related to Gender Role Ideology. Within American Christian culture, gender roles are socialized and shaped according to tradition and the Bible. To investigate the intersection of these factors, Christian adults will respond to questionnaires about their Gender Role Ideology, Gender Role Stress, and religiosity. Significant positive correlational relationships between Gender Role Ideology and Gender Role Stress, between religiosity and Gender Role Ideology, and between religiosity and Gender Role Stress are expected for both men and women. However, Gender Role Ideology is expected to partially mediate any relationship found between religiosity and Gender Role Stress. This will imply that for Christian individuals, religiosity and Christianity are related to Gender Role Stress but this relationship is dependent on an individual’s beliefs about gender roles. Implications and further directions are discussed, including spiritual gender role negotiation and the sanctification paradigm.

Portant sur la période de tensions politiques extrêmes 1937-1982, la thèse propose de considérer autrement le statut de la traduction à partir des œuvres d’Aragon, de Landolfi et de Nabokov, écrivains et traducteurs de Pouchkine. Discutant et prolongeant la pensée d’Henri Meschonnic, ce travail défend, à travers le cas exemplaire de ces écrivains-traducteurs, l’existence de liens étroits entre le contexte, l’écriture et la traduction. Après une présentation des trois circuits éditoriaux principaux de la période, le face à face entre le traducteur et les forces politiques est étudié. L’analyse du corpus de traduction permet de révéler la grande activité d’Aragon, de Landolfi et de Nabokov sur la période considérée. Il s’agit ensuite de réfléchir aux modalités des échanges éditoriaux Est-Ouest en s’intéressant notamment aux anthologies et aux retraductions. La question de l’historicité des traductions de Pouchkine conduit à revenir au contexte. L’étude révèle que les communistes comme les capitalistes refusent de prendre en compte véritablement l’expérience du mal absolu que résume le nom d’Auschwitz. En guise de réponse, le littéralisme, souvent affiché durant la Guerre froide, a eu l’ambition de prendre en compte la volonté de l’auteur disparu. Le choix de traduire Pouchkine entend également apporter une réponse à la division du monde. Pouchkine questionne le face à face dans ses œuvres, le poète russe affrontant ainsi la question du mal tout en proposant une écriture morale. La dernière partie de ce travail défend l’idée d’une continuité entre l’activité de traduction et l’œuvre des écrivains. Elle montre combien le nom, la figure, les œuvres de Pouchkine nourrissent le travail d’Aragon, de Landolfi et de Nabokov. Elle propose enfin de considérer d’une autre manière la prose poétique, la parodie et l’histoire littéraire. / Focusing on the extreme political tensions during the 1937-1982 time span, this work suggests that the status of translation can be considered from a different angle based on the works of Aragon, of Landolfi and of Nabokov, writers and translators of Pushkin. Studying the examples of those writers and translators, discussing and expanding upon the theory of Henri Meschonnic, this work defends the idea that close links exist between context, writing and translation. The three main translation circuits of the period are initially presented introducing the study of the confrontation between the translators and the political forces. A closer look at the corpus of translations shows the important activity of Aragon, Landolfi and Nabokov at that period. The third part of this work concentrates on the ways of editing translations of Russian literature in the West through the study of anthologies of translations and retranslations. The historical character of the translations of Pushkin’s works leads to reconsider their links to the context. The study reveals that Communists and Capitalists refused to actually take into account the Evil experience that the name “Auschwitz” summarizes. In response, on a literary level, literalism promoted by Aragon, Landolfi and Nabokov during the Cold War has for vocation the respect of the will of the deceased author. The decision to translate Pushkin also represents a reaction to the division of the world. The Russian poet questions the conflict in his works and does not refuse to confront the question of Evil through a literary style based on morals. The final section of this thesis promotes the idea of continuity between the translations and the other works of Aragon, of Landolfi and of Nabokov. It demonstrates to what extent the name, the figure and the works of Pushkin influenced those writers and translators. Finally, poetic prose, parody and literary history are reconsidered from an entirely new angle.

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While the Left Behind Corpus may be commended for being an effective tool for evangelism, the question arises of whether or not its themes engender a theology of extermination, indeed a creeping crusade; “creeping” in the sense of it being a movement of stealth and not one of high visibility – “crusade” in the sense of a militaristic movement, similar to that of the medieval crusades. I span my research across three artefacts in the LB Corpus in terms of its embedded interpretation, discourse and ideology; in fact three separate entities for explanatory purposes, but in effect they form a single entity of interaction and cross-production. I am therefore extending many niches of research and critical discourse to what I envisage as the wider context of the LB Corpus: its potential for social construction, and its enigmatic connections with other apocalyptic-driven and crusade-like movements. Based as it is on “consistent literalism,” the LB Corpus can only be countered by an exegetical approach that situates the foundational text for the Left Behind phenomenon, Revelation 7, in its historical setting, while taking cognisance of the particularities of early Christianity, with its Jewish heritage lived out in a Graeco-Roman environment. In offering an alternative reading, I take some cues from Vernon Robbins‟ socio-rhetorical approach and draw from perspectives of theorists across several disciplinary fields in pointing out anomalies in a consistent literalism driven interpretation of Revelation 7. / New Testament / Thesis (D.Litt. et Phil. (Biblical Studies))