Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Honours B. A. in the Department of Bantu Languages of the University of Zululand, South Africa, 1981. / The aim of this paper is to bring forth the educational value of folk tales as well as the relationship that existed between grandmothers and grandchildren. Education is an old phenomenon amongst Zulus. It existed long before the white man came with a formal type of school.

Thesis--Wisconsin. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 453-459).

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1970. / eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis--Munich. / Vita. Bibliography: p. 281-295.

Thesis (doctoral)--Universität Zürich. / Bibliography: p. [i]-xii.

Thesis (D. Min.)--Trinity Lutheran Seminary, 1982. / Includes bibliographical references.

<p>Along with pilgrimage rituals vrata-s (a form of religious vow) are one of the major forms of religious observance in popular Hinduism. Details of how these vows should be practised, who may observe them and the merit that they confer are described in many of the Pura~as (compendia of Hindu religious lore, ritual practices, philosophy, myth, geneologies and so forth written in Sanskrit between c. 400 and 1400 A.D.).</p> <p>In this thesis my aim has been to provide an explicit picture of the nature and function of these vrata-s within the Purānic context. In the first section I have traced the meaning of the term 'vrata' from its earliest usage in the Rgveda to its usage in the Puranas where it became identified with a religious observance involving fasting, pūjā (worship), and dāna (the giving of gifts) directed to a deity in return for religious merit, a favour (e.g., sons), or as a form of expiation. In the next section of the thesis a selection of vrata-s from four Puranas have been described. These vrata-s are then analyzed according to nine categories, including deity to whom the vrata is to be directed, ritual requirements of the vratee, and the purpose for which the vrata is to be undertaken.</p> <p>In the process of researching this thesis certain prevalent ideas about the Purānic vrata-s found in secondary literature, such as the idea that these vrata-s are mainly directed to women or that low as well as high caste Hindus had equal privelege to observe them, were found to be misconceptions. A reason for the existence of these misconceptions is the tendency on the part of some writers to confuse sastric vrata-s (those sanctioned in the sacred texts) with popular or 'Folk' (laukika) vrata-s (those given less treatment or none at all in the texts).</p> <p>This thesis has also addressed the controversy over whether vrata-s represent a popularization of Vedic religion or a 'Brahmanization' of popular religious practice. It was determined that the texts themselves do not provide conclusive evidence for either position. Rather, all one can say is that the vrata-s incorporate elements of both Vedic or 'Brahmanic' and non-Vedic thought and practices and that this kind of fusion is itself a characteristic of the Puran.a literature.</p> / Master of Arts (MA)

This dissertation examines streaming media both as a technological innovation and cultural practice that co-configures audience and industry. Strategies and tactics provide a theoretical framework for understanding streaming media. Streaming is theorized as a tactic; wherein audiences momentarily buck against the strategic logic of media conglomerates and copyright regimes. However, streaming, concomitantly, is an audience tactic and a strategic logic of an emergent streaming industry. This results in the blurring between first and third party and sanctioned and unsanctioned streaming. In this dissertation, I parse out what are the nascent streaming logics within this burgeoning industry and how they constitutively shape and re-shape audiences and traditional broadcasting logics. Five typologies of streaming serve as conceptual tools for deepening our understanding of streaming media and technology. The first is streaming as a recent technological advancement, divided into software and hardware categories. The second conceptual framework is a typology of streaming that divides streaming into first and third party sanctioned and unsanctioned streaming. The third is streaming as an emergent industry. The fourth is streaming as a discourse, and the final typology divides streaming based on geography as transnational streaming, national streaming, and diasporic streaming. All of these classifications lay the groundwork for the further conceptualization of this important and emergent socio-technical practice.

Recuperating Composition’s lore in postdisciplinarity in order to illustrate the polyvalent, multidirectional positionality of our practices, this study argues that Composition’s lore, as it functions in a community of practice, helps locate and address various challenges with the cultural displacement that burgeoning scholars experience as they critically negotiate their practices within the expectations of the academy. Bridging the communities of writing teachers in classrooms and writing centers in a demonstration of institutional polyvalence, this ethnographic study’s participants suggest the reflexive influence of postdisciplinary lore in the cultivation of authority and practitioner identity. As one point of access to this cultural negotiation, the transmission and application of myth contextualizes lore as cultural phenomena affecting both professional and pedagogical development in graduate student teachers and tutors. This study concludes that the reflexivity offered in postdisciplinary sites of cultural engagement encourages a negotiated, recursive power relation between the institution and the practitioner, thus creating multiple, malleable sites of authority and agency within disciplinary culture.

Inaug.-Diss.--Tübingen. / Lebenslauf. Published also without thesis note. "Literature ... ": p. vii-viii.