This study is a historical examination of the attitude and behavior of Mark Twain (also known as Samuel Langhorne Clemens) in his relationship with his household servants during the Gilded Age (1870-1900) in Hartford, Connecticut. "Gilded Age" was coined by Twain in a satirical expose of the corrupt greed in business and politics. Twain suggested dishonesty was disguised beneath a thin golden veil of American propaganda. This period of self-elevation and lavish wealth was contrasted against a poor unskilled working class. Twain, who evolved from lower rungs of society to fortuned heights, makes an ideal study for hypocrisy. Serving as a symbol of the times, this investigation explores his ability to rise above or to succumb to the predisposed mentality of the day. Further, the same biases of class, race, and gender continue to be unresolved issues today in an inviolate hypocritical system of privilege, gilded by wording in a duplicitous Constitution.

In spite of the wealth of material on Mark 13:14 the phrase [greek characters] has not been syntactically exegeted sufficiently in respect to chapter 13, nor its place assessed in the formation of Mark's gospel. Our study demonstrates the fundamental significance of v.14 as the syntactical focal point of vv.5-13, that content, temporal indicators and link words are shaped syntactically in w.5-13 to peak at v.14, and that [greek characters] is uniquely to of v.4. A realization of this connection is the single indispensable clue unlocking eschatological notions in chapter 13. Further, by positing that v.14, coupled with v.26-27, produces a double focus in the chapter, we demonstrate its importance for vv.15-37. The advent of [greek characters] is the sign launching the end-time setting in motion an imminent parousia. This sign is connected with the Jerusalem temple's destruction by the Roman commander Titus in September 70 C.E. Titus is the referent in 13:14, though our contention is that originally in pre-Markan material in v.l4, the reference was to the crisis in 39-41 C.E. when the emperor Gaius Caligula attempted to erect an image of himself in the temple in Jerusalem. Mark obtained material from this episode and adapted it to indicate not the deified image of a Roman emperor but an individual abominator, Titus, who was [greek characters]. An examination of Josephus' War demonstrates that Judeans inhabiting the region after September 70 C.E. were in a position to flee according to 13:14b. Mark's Jewish Gentile community, located in Syria or one of the Transjordanian Hellenistic cities, must brace itself for a worsening period of turmoil in the light of the operational end-time sign in the temple in Jerusalem. The task of the community is to proclaim the gospel among the nations (13:10). Their final vindication will occur with the parousia of the Son of Man.

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This thesis elaborates a notion of Bergsonian personhood that is particularly well suited for understanding the corporate person. Personalists have contributed much to the study of personhood, but they also fail to fully embrace the image of the embodied person offered by Bergson, from which their work appears to emerge. My concern for freedom is part of what animates this study, but I am not framing a new theory of freedom. Rather, I am trying to bring a broader conception of what freedom means to bear on the subject of personhood. To this end, I present the work of Bergson. I distinguish the terms ‘self’ and ‘person,’ defending self as being more properly outlined by the subjective and fleeting nature of the individual. Then, I discuss Bergson’s connections to personalism, with particular attention to the tradition that grew out of Boston University at the turn of the 20th century. Finally, I give a Bergsonian account of personhood that emphasizes the self’s freedom of creative expression, richly connected to its environment, which is elaborated over time in a movement of becoming personal. I make the case that Bergson’s treatments of self and person greatly aid our investigations into personhood socially, legally, and philosophically.

abstract: In the early-twentieth-century United States, Jewish and European immigrant scholars, musicians, and composers dominated the academic, orchestral, film and popular music scenes. While some of these musicians immigrated voluntarily, others, having fled the genocide of the Holocaust, were forced into exile due to religious and political persecution. Musicians were often targeted by the Nazi regime for performing and advancing banned music, composing modernist works, or for their religious or political beliefs. The United States upheld strict, pre-World War Two immigration quotas and laws that limited relocation. Specialized rescue agencies arose to help these exiles settle in the United States. Meanwhile in 1924, American composer Mark Brunswick (1902-1971) moved to Europe and later studied with Nadia Boulanger. He found his niche among members of the Second Viennese School. Brunswick returned to the United States in 1938 and founded the National Committee for Refugee Musicians (NCRM), originally called the Placement Committee for German and Austrian Musicians, to aid in the relocation and job placement of at-risk musicians and their families during World War Two. This thesis briefly explores Brunswick’s life, and then more closely addresses the formation of the NCRM, its members, those who received aid, and partnering organizations. Finally, cases in point illustrate the varied ways in which the NCRM helped musicians in exile. Brunswick and the Committee played a major role in American musical history, yet no major studies have focused on them. With the NCRM’s assistance, many refugees thrived in and contributed to America’s musical landscape. By exploring letters, memoranda, and other unpublished archival documents, I will show how Brunswick and the NCRM affected U.S. musical life beginning in the 1930s. The positive effects of this germinal group endure today. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Music 2015

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Abstract I used individual-based capture-mark-recapture data and genetic markers to gain understanding of the demographic and genetic processes operating in small and declining populations of two different species, the willow tit Parus montanus and the Siberian flying squirrel Pteromys volans. Both species have declined in Finland and the flying squirrel has been considered to be vulnerable. The willow tit study was conducted in northern Finland, near city of Oulu. The population size in the studied area has on average been stable during the past decade. Adult survival in the willow tit was high and fairly stable and was positively correlated with recruitment. Adult survival has been the most influential vital rate to the population growth rate. Local recruitment and immigration have high variation, inducing variation in the population growth rate. Female willow tits use extrapair copulations to maximise offspring heterozygosity. Heterozygous individuals are supposedly of higher quality than homozygous ones. I found weak negative association between individual homozygosity and recruitment probability. The flying squirrel populations have declined during the past ten years. Furthermore, adult survival has declined in one of the populations, most likely due to habitat loss and fragmentation that decrease the adult survival and limit dispersal. The flying squirrel populations were studied in western Finland. The flying squirrel densities in the studied areas are the highest in Finland and therefore these areas have been regarded as favourable for the flying squirrel. My results question this view. Microsatellite analyses strengthen the view of populations doing poorly, because the heterozygosities in all the populations and particularly in the most isolated one were rather low. High FST values indicate low dispersal even between adjacent populations. Following work should investigate the spatial variation in individual performance and the dispersal processes in these populations. For the flying squirrel it is vital to determine the size and quality of the patches that can support flying squirrels and the ones that apparently can not. Present estimates of survival and genetic diversity can be used to reconstruct a meaningful PVA and projections for these populations.

This thesis takes a novel, inter-disciplinary approach to an examination of the Markan evangelist’s portrayal of Jesus’ interface with Gentiles in a central section of his Gospel (Mk 4.35-9.29). As a framework to this section, Mark created a connected account of Jesus’ itinerary that included trips to perform miracles in the Gentile territories of Gerasa, Tyre, Bethsaida, the wider Decapolis and Caesarea Philippi. This thesis examines the role of these pericopae in the narrative as a whole and challenges the view that Mark’s geographical references were largely symbolic, rural and for the most part aimed at Jewish followers. The study scrutinizes Mark’s choice of geographical locations, systematically examines recent research on the religious milieu in these specific locations and brings this research into connection with the Gentile mission portrayed by Mark. The polytheistic and social environment in which Mark’s first century audience functioned has received little attention in recent scholarship and represents a lacuna in New Testament historical-critical research which this study addresses. A detailed exegesis of this section of the narrative concludes that Mark (a) deliberately redacts his text to place miracles in geographical regions where Gentiles predominate; (b) emphasizes obduracy and faithlessness on the part of Jewish officialdom and the Jewish disciples, in contrast to an implied understanding on the part of the Gentiles; (c) orchestrates a prolonged and sustained Jesus mission to the Gentiles as a precursor to his own community’s mission, to respond to their need for support and reassurance and (d) formulates his narrative to engage with his intended first century audience's Graeco-Roman religious and social worldview, inviting them to make comparison between the activities of Jesus and other contemporary miracle-performing men and polytheistic gods.

Legal regulation of franchising with respect to intellectual property protection aspects The aim of the submitted thesis is to analyse the phenomenon of franchising as an instrument of commercialisation of intellectual property rights, assessment of the importance of these rights to existence and functioning of the system, instruments of its protection as well as the dynamics of the relationship between the franchisor and the franchisees in relation to these rights. The work consists of four topical sections. The first one is focused on franchising in general terms. It emphasises the internal differentiation of the phenomenon and presents the basic types of franchise systems, we might come across. Subsequently it strives for theoretical definition of the term by means of comparison. The second section of the work is devoted to the term of intellectual property. This chapter is introduced by a brief classification of the rights subordinated to the term which is followed by a discussion on significance of these rights to franchise systems. Subsequently is the focal point moved to the issues of trademark law and know-how protection, which are, in my opinion, from the franchising standpoint crucial. The third section of the work deals with trademarks, without aspiring on comprehensiveness of the...

This dissertation looks at all works of Mark Twain's. concerning the boys Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, particularly those written after the completion of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884). These include the two published narratives, Tom Sawyer Abroad (1893) and "Tom Sawyer, Detective" (1896), and five fragments unpublished in Twain's lifetime, but recently issued by the University of California Press in the volumes of the Mark Twain Papers Mark Twain's Hannibal, Huck & Tom (ed. Walter Blair) and Mark Twain's Mysterious Stranger Manuscripts (ed. William M. Gibson). These five fragments are "Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer Among the Indians" (1884), "Tom Sawyer's Conspiracy" (1897-1899), "Doughface" (c. 1897), "Schoolhouse Hill" (1898), and "Tom Sawyer's Gang Plans a Naval Battle" (c. 1900). After completing Huckleberry Finn, Twain wrote or tried to write many more stories about Tom and Huck, continuing their adventures. Most of these were never finished, and the two that were completed and published are generally considered to be greatly inferior to the earlier novels about the boys. Despite their flaws, though, these later narratives do possess hitherto undetected significance and value. A major aspect of the later stories about the boys is Twain's deliberate and persistent attempt over a period of thirty years to have Tom Sawyer grow up from a thoughtless boy to a responsible adult. Twain's efforts to do this are visible in most of the later works, and the prominence of this attempted development demonstrates that Twain was vitally interested in the problems of maturity and becoming an adult. For him, childhood was not merely a nostalgic refuge from the problems and complexities of life, as scholars have tended to assume; rather, it was a time of often painful testing in preparation for the difficulties of adult life. In addition, the later Tom and Huck stories contain elements that both parallel and supplement Twain's better known works from this time. The differences and similarities between the narratives about the boys and his other works help to enhance our understanding of Twain's thinking on a number of subjects. Among these subjects are the Transcendent Figure, the "Matter of Hannibal," and the folly of romanticism. This dissertation, then, casts new light on hitherto obscure writings by Twain; it attempts to assess their value and illuminate aspects of Twain's thought that have not yet been the subject of close scrutiny. In particular, the willingness of Twain to grapple with issues of profound complexity is revealed in these works more clearly perhaps than anywhere else in his canon. / Arts, Faculty of / English, Department of / Graduate