Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, Dept. of Comparative Literature, 2006. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 67-04, Section: A, page: 1325. Adviser: Fedwa Malti-Douglas. "Title from dissertation home page (viewed June 19, 2007)."

<p>My research concerns intertwined issues of religio-political legitimacy and panegyric poetry during the Safavid dynasty (r. 1501 ? 1722). I explore ways that ideology and dominance were enacted and reproduced through the Safavid panegyrics in qa??deh and masnav? form. This research specifically examines how court poets responded to Safavid ideology for legitimizing kingship. Panegyric poetry has been one of the chief forms of political propaganda in praise of rulers and other holders of political authority from pre-Islamic times until modern days. Panegyric poems, especially qa??deh and masnav?, were the production of a court system and they were dominantly produced when a king was in power. By considering the nature of panegyric, as written for receiving a reward, the poets? portrayal of kings is traditionally ?assumed? to be the closest to the kings? self-image. The Safavid Persian panegyric, especially the qa??deh form, has heretofore received little scholarly attention. Scholars have usually investigated the literary value of this poetic genre and dismissed the role it could play in the promotion of Muslim rulers. This dissertation explores the ways in which religio-political legitimacy was produced and transmitted through the qa??deh and masnav? forms during the Safavid period and emphasizes the significance of investigating the panegyric genre of poetry not only from a literary perspective, but through a historical lens. While other cultural materials of the time emphasized the role of Safavid kings in the propagation of Twelver Shi`ism and portrayed the kings in a subservient position to the Shi`i Imams, I demonstrate that the Safavid court poetry highlighted the idea of ?sacred? in Sufi discourses and in notions that invoke pre-Islamic forms of Persian kingship to legitimize the Safavid rulership. From the time of Shah `Abb?s I (r. 1588 ? d. 1629), these two forms of representation were established more profoundly in Safavid panegyrics and stood in contrast to traditional notions of Shi`ism that were predominant in other cultural materials that issued in the name of the Safavid rulers. This dissertation, on the one hand, serves historians of the Safavid period, who investigate the Safavid courts and ideology in kingship. It demonstrates how the poets worked differently from the other sources through which the legitimization of the Safavid kingship was established. On the other hand, my study serves scholars of religion, who study Safavid religious treatises in order to shed light on the development of Shi?ism, Sufism, and other religious traditions of the time. By demonstrating the differences between the representation of a Shi`i Safavid king in cultural materials of the time and panegyrics, my research invites these scholars to examine non-religious sources more extensively to investigate Safavid ideology because these sources give a sense of how the religio-political ideology of the kings was perceived among the public and how it developed through time.

Pour cette thèse de recherche, nous nous sommes intéréssés aux relations intergroupes dans la perspective du partage et du transfert des connaissances au travail. Au Canada, le monde du travail est en bouleversement en raison de pénuries de main-d'oeuvre anticipées résultant des nombreux départs à la retraite des travailleurs expérimentés et du nombre insuffisant de jeunes travailleurs pour les remplacer. Dans ce contexte, il est plausible de penser que le transfert des connaissances puisse potentiellement réduire voire éviter des pertes de mémoire organisationnelle. Ainsi, cette thèse de maîtrise aborde une thématique nouvelle et pertinente, soit la dimension identitaire dans son lien avec le partage et le transfert des connaissances dans un milieu de travail de plus en plus marqué par la diversité des âges et donc des générations. Les résultats obtenus entendent faire avancer les connaissances quant aux applications de la Théorie de l'identité sociale aux groupes basés sur l'âge.

Examining the perception of literary decline in Greek, Latin, Arabic, and Persian, this study unearths an enduring taboo, one little changed by place and time, against verbal creation too readily sacrificing “nature” and “truth” to artifice and phantasy. The fading of the taboo after the nineteenth century, when “Decadent” yields to a non-normative name for the present (“Modern”), is without precedent. Demonstrating the opprobrium’s enduring nature, this study compares for the first time four literary traditions’ confrontations with a “Decadence” whose similarities have been conjectured since philology’s “golden age.” Chapter I examines two ancient polemics against decline, the tableaux of decay painted by the Avestan liturgical texts and the Attic Greek thinkers before new attitudes towards verbal creation. A similar tableau emerges in Roman reactions to post-Augustan eloquentia’s “decline,” as the analysis of Tacitus in chapter II demonstrates. Chapter III gives voice to non-specialist Imperial reactions to the “decline” heralded by the Second Sophistic, analyzing Plutarch’s and Marcus Aurelius’s rejections of verbal art. Chapter IV considers the effort to regulate artifice within the rhetorical tradition, examining the two great Hellenistic and Imperial authorities (Demetrius and Quintilian). Chapter V finds the prohibition unbroken in the earliest Arabic debate over suqāṭ (“Decadence”). Al-Āmidī’s Muwāzana is a summary statement of the rejection of verbal creation too enamored of facticity. Conversely, chapter VI looks to post-Classical Persian voices enshrining this very conception of verbal creation. Suhrawardī, Mullā Ṣadrā, and Ṣāʾib call for a language reflective of little other than wahm (“imagination”) and himma (“desire”). Chapter VII examines “Decadence” in Greek and Arabic post-Classical fiction. The erosion of μῦθος by ψυχή as the banal desire of non-heroic protagonists eclipses action, as phantasy, shown through the pathetic fallacy, irradiates out into the world, supports critics’ contention: Imperiousness of imagination goes with the genera dicendi’s loosening and the pull of language from the inhuman towards personal fancy. “Decadence” in fiction reflects a literature democratized, one mirroring (petty-) bourgeois interests. This is, argues chapter VIII, a premonition of Modernity: With Gutenberg and Calvin, with an unprecedented accessibility and banality of letters, the taboo against subjectivism and facticity recedes. / Comparative Literature

Imam Musa al-Sadr (1347 AH, 1928 CE), is an Iranian Shi'i Imam with Lebanese ancestry. He became the leader of the Shi'i community in Lebanon in 1959 after the death of the local leader. He lived in Lebanon for about nineteen years before his sudden disappearance during an official visit to Libya in 1978. His stay in Lebanon marked a major transformation in the political, social, religious, and economic life of the Shi'i community. It also marked a major change in the history of Lebanon and the Lebanese as a whole. His work and accomplishments touched all the Lebanese no matter what religion, region, or political affiliation they belonged to. This dissertation will discuss and analyze the life of Imam Musa, as he was known by his followers; his numerous writings, speeches, and manifestos; the contributions he made to the advancement of the Shi'i community in Lebanon. It will also analyze his appeal for Muslim unity around the world and religious tolerance between the various religious communities in Lebanon. Finally this dissertation will look at the legacy he left and the future of the Shi'ah in Lebanon. This study is divided into four chapters. The first chapter is about the Shi'i community in Lebanon, its history, numbers and political and socio-economic status at the time of Imam Musa's arrival to Lebanon. The second chapter looks at the life of Imam Musa al-Sadr, his accomplishments, the changes he was able to affect for and within the Shi'i community, and his untimely disappearance in 1978. Chapter two also discusses the Imam by looking at him from three different points of view: the man, his political thought and his role as a religious reformer. "Imam Musa: The man" is a personal look at the Imam and views of people who lived and dealt with him throughout the nineteen years he spent in Lebanon. "Imam Musa: His Political Thought" discusses his dealings with the Lebanese government, the Christian parties, the Leftist Muslim parties and the Palestinians. "Imam Musa: Religious Reformer" analyzes his views on religion and relations between religions. As a reformer Imam Musa advocated unity between Muslims around the world, a more active role for women in Islamic society, and tolerance for other religions. The third chapter analyzes Imam Musa's literary output (books, speeches, and manifestos) during his tenure in Lebanon. These will be analyzed in their relation to Imam Musa's life and accomplishments in Lebanon. The fourth chapter looks at the legacy of the Imam, the fate of the Shi'i community since his disappearance, and the future of the community in Lebanon.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, Dept. of Eurasian Studies and Near Eastern Languages and Cultures, 2007. / Title from PDF t.p. (viewed Nov. 19, 2008). Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 68-02, Section: A, page: 0695. Adviser: Christopher I. Beckwith.

Thesis (Th.M.)--Dallas Theological Seminary, 2008. / Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves [53]-61).

<p> This dissertation examines the theme of strangeness in Arabic and Latin American literature between 1880 and 1920. Through analytical readings of novels and other prose fiction of the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, I show the salience of strangeness, alienation and estrangement as motifs in these works. In the first chapter of the dissertation, I examine earlier works of prose to provide context. In the second chapter, I focus on strangeness as manifested through sexual transgression. Finally, in the last chapter, I analyze narratives of physical estrangement, such as travel, urban alienation, and disconnect from nature. </p><p> In analyzing strangeness, I show its close relationship with modernity. Indeed, alienation is a hallmark of modernity, rising from a disconnect with one&rsquo;s society and physical environment. Alienation and estrangement are also metaphorical ways of addressing the relationship with the Other, especially if that Other is a colonizer or ex-colonizer. Strangeness is therefore expressive of problematics of national identity, at a time of budding decolonization and post-colonial nation-building. </p><p> Finally, this dissertation shows how the early prose literature of the turn of the twentieth century, in Latin America and in the Arab world, has expressed essential anxieties of modernity, and set the course for the canonical works of the later twentieth century.</p><p>

The subject of this dissertation is the awareness of linguistic diversity in the Hebrew Bible—that is, the recognition evident in certain biblical texts that the world’s languages differ from one another. Given the frequent role of language in conceptions of identity, the biblical authors’ reflections on language are important to examine. Of the biblical texts that explicitly address the subject of linguistic diversity, some are specific, as in references to particular languages (e.g., “Aramaic”), while others refer to linguistic multiplicity generally, as in the Tower of Babel episode (Gen 11:1–9). Linguistic difference is also indicated implicitly, as when the speech of Laban in Gen 29–31 exhibits Aramaic-like features that emphasize his foreignness. Building on previous studies of limited scope, my approach is to collect and analyse the evidence for awareness of linguistic diversity in the biblical books comprehensively. Drawing on concepts from sociolinguistics, including style-switching, code-switching, and language ideology, I categorize such evidence and explain its significance with respect to its literary and historical contexts. I thus contribute to wider debates on the sociolinguistics of ancient Hebrew, the development of the concept of the “holy language” in Judaism, and the topic of linguistic diversity in the broader ancient Near East. I find that the notion of linguistic diversity is used in the Hebrew Bible to set up, and also to challenge, boundaries of various kinds, be they territorial, as in the Shibboleth test (Judg 12:5–6), ethnic, as with the Judaean-Ashdodite children (Neh 13:23–4), or theological, as in Jeremiah’s Aramaic oracle against idols (Jer 10:11). My analysis shows that references to linguistic diversity are concentrated in texts of the Achaemenid Persian period and later, reflecting changes in the sociolinguistic circumstances of Judaeans. Yet in all periods Israel and Judah’s encounters with the empires Assyria, Babylonia, and Persia influenced attitudes towards linguistic diversity, whether this influence be manifested in fear (Jer 5:15) or ridicule (Esth 8:9). Overall, linguistic difference is not the primary means by which the biblical authors distinguish Israel from the nations, nor do they attribute a unique religious function to their own language. / Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations

The objective for this dissertation is twofold: I first examine how the Israeli poet Rahel Bluvshtain-Sela (1890-1931) reclaimed the Hebrew language of the Bible in order to create a Modern Hebrew vernacular. I then evaluate Rahel's creative strategies in light of her contribution to Hebrew poetry and Israeli culture that has evolved since her death more than seventy years ago. My study focuses on the biblical intertextuality in Rahel's poems. In particular, I examine Rahel's creative use of biblical allusions, and the complex ways in which she reflects on and connects with historic memory. This strategy allowed the poet to express her intensely personal experiences in the present as they reflected on a new collectivity. By reclaiming the Hebrew language, which until her time was primarily associated with the religious sphere, this pioneering intellectual integrated the practical aspects of everyday life into both her language and her poetry. My dissertation work integrates hermeneutic literary analysis, as well as analyses of intertextuality, literary history, and translation to explore the relationship between ancient and modern Hebrew in Rahel's poetry. My project is complicated by the fact that I translate a poet who wrote in a fresh new language, one that had not been spoken colloquially for hundreds of years—indeed, Rahel herself was translating from ancient Hebrew into a developing new language. The first chapter of this dissertation is an introduction of my project as well as an overview of Rahel's status as a poet. The second chapter provides an intellectual biography of Rahel, introducing her life in light of her intellectual background and context. This chapter thus goes beyond traditional biographical readings of Ra hel that focus on her personal life, particularly her romantic relationships, and her illnesses and depressions, while removing her from the social context and community in which she lived—a community that she played a key role in creating through her poetry. For the third chapter, I selected poems from Rahel's work that serve as examples for the way in which the poet positioned biblical texts within the new context of the emerging state of Israel. The poems are grouped by sub-topics: (1) Personalities as Destinies—The Bible as the Intimate Other, (2) Writing the Land as Desire, and (3) Between Ideology as Identity and Sense of Self. In order to show Rahel's use of intertextuality with the biblical idiom and content, I introduce each of her poems in the original Hebrew, in English transliteration, and also provide my own translations. The biblical sources are identified, traced and cited at the beginning of each poem analysis. I then provide an extensive prose analysis of each poem in which I analyze the biblical allusions as palimpsestic references that are used to retain the trace of biblical history within a new Hebrew language. The analyses offer a literal interpretation of the poem interwoven with an explanatory discussion, focusing on the biblical themes and language that appear in each poem. Such detailed examination of the selected poems will present Rahel's personal and unique approach to the biblical text, an approach that grasps the Bible not only in a metaphoric way, but also with the intention to highlight collective memories. The final chapter focuses on the popular reception of Rah el's poetry, and is a mosaic reflecting Rahel's influence on the Hebrew language and culture. The section's pieces come from different areas of Israeli life: contemporary poetry, literature and songs, as well as from literary reviews, folklore/cultural features and political editorials in newspapers. The purpose of this look at snapshots of contemporary Hebrew language and Israeli culture will reveal the effectiveness of Ra hel's palimsestic writing strategies for the complex negotiations of personal, spatial and national identities.