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published_or_final_version / Comparative Literature / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

The administration of initiation rites by an ecstatic specialist, now known to western scholarship by the general designation of ‘shaman’, has proven to be one of humanity’s oldest, most widespread, and continuous magico-religious traditions. At the heart of their initiatory rituals lay an ordeal – a metaphysical journey - almost ubiquitously brought on by the effects of a life-changing hallucinogenic drug experience. To guide their initiates, these shaman worked with a repertoire of locally acquired instruments, costumes, dances, and ecstasy-inducing substances. Among past Mediterranean cultures, Semitic and Indo-European, these sorts of initiation rites were vital to society’s spiritual well-being. It was, however, the mystery schools of antiquity – organizations founded upon conserving the secrets of plant-lore, astrology, theurgy and mystical philosophy – which satisfied the role of the shaman in Greco-Roman society. The rites they delivered to the common individual were a form of ritualized ecstasy and they provided an orderly context for religiously-oriented intoxication. In the eastern Mediterranean, these ecstatic cults were most often held in honour of a great mother goddess and her perennially dying-and-rising consort. The goddess’ religious dramas enacted in cultic ritual stressed the importance of fasting, drumming, trance-inducing music, self-mutilation, and a non-alcoholic ritual intoxication. Far and wide the dying consort worshiped by these cults was a god of vegetation, ecstasy, revelation, and salvation; by ingesting his body initiates underwent a profound mystical experience. From what limited information has survived from antiquity, it appears that the rites practiced in the eastern mystery cults were in essence traditional shamanic ordeals remodeled to suit the psychological needs of Mediterranean civilization’s marginalized people. This paper argues that the myths of this vegetable god, so-called ‘the Divine Bridegroom,’ particularly in manifestation of the Phrygian Attis and the Greek Dionysus, is deeply rooted in the life-cycle, cultivation, treatment, consumption of a tree-born hallucinogenic mushroom, Amanita muscaria. The use of this mushroom is alive and well today among Finno-Ugric shaman and this paper explores their practices as one branch of Eurasian shamanism running parallel to, albeit in a different time, the rites of the Phrygian goddess. Using extant literary and linguistic evidence, I compare the initiatory cults long-assimilated into post-agricultural Mediterranean civilization with the hallucinogen-wielding shaman of the Russian steppe, emphasizing them both as facets of a prehistoric and pan-human magico-religious archetype.

This dissertation examines the ecumenical relationship between the Roman Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion and the necessity for a symbolic cognitive and narrative conversion in both communions. Drawing upon Karl Rahner's theology of symbol, this dissertation argues that such a cognitive and narrative conversion is determined by the interpretation and appropriation of God's mystery as the origin and goal of Christian activity and belief. As such, there is a demand for a second naïveté in both communions, whereby, the methods employed by ecumenical dialogue extend beyond the logic of criticism and seek to embrace a postcritical logic of symbol. / McAnulty College and Graduate School of Liberal Arts; / Theology / PhD; / Dissertation;

This thesis explores the relationship between time, gender and moments of conflict in the Mystery Plays. Examining a range of encounters between male and female characters in the plays, I propose that characters’ differing and subjective experiences of time are often at the heart of their conflict. Time, moreover, provides a new methodology with which to understand the ways in which both gender and narrative operate within the plays. In doing so, I chart a number of conflicts staged between characters in plays concerned with biblical narratives which signify transition or rupture: the Incarnation; the Flood; and the slaughter of the Bethlehem Innocents. Engaging with established critical approaches towards medieval models of supersession and typology, as well as recent works in the field of Jewish Studies concerning the medieval Christian preoccupation with what it asserted was a superseded, yet nevertheless ‘present’ Jewish past, I interrogate the ways in which such models are subverted when placed into dialogue with characters whose world-view supports alternative readings of time. First, I provide a reading of Joseph’s age and error in the N-Town Joseph’s Doubt as a meeting of ‘Old’ and ‘New’ theologies. I argue that Joseph’s journey from disbelief in Mary’s virgin pregnancy to eventual acceptance performs as a primarily linear conversion narrative, whilst also proposing that, as a medieval performance of a New Testament time, the N-Town Marian plays’ engagements with multiple levels of time work to complicate models of temporal, supersessionary linearity. I then examine Noah and his wife in the Chester and York Flood plays as participating in very different understandings of time from each other. While Noah adheres to a supersessionary understanding of the Flood which demands a full erasure of the past in order to begin the world anew, his Wife engages with temporal models that promote collapse between medieval and Old Testament times and command the explosive ability to performatively recall the past into the present. Finally, I engage with Serres’ model of topological time in examining the highly complex, multi-linked times operating in the Towneley play Herod the Great. Here, I examine how the play amplifies the ways in which its biblical sources work to bring together events from the Old and New Testaments in processes of prophecy and validation, whilst also asking whether characters such as Herod and the mothers defending their children from him may be said to command agency over their time. In bringing together theories of time, gender, antisemitism and periodization, I not only nuance the ways in which moments of conflict between the mystery plays’ male and female biblical characters are analysed, but also highlight the complex ways in which the late medieval producers and audiences of the mystery plays were themselves encouraged to question, experience, read and understand time.

Spojením oblastí marketingového výzkumu a analýzy spokojenosti klientů v bankovním sektoru vznikla práce se jménem "Analýza bankovních služeb pomocí metody mystery shopping". Práce je spojením teoretického úvodu a praktické části rozdělěné do dvou oblastí, jimiž jsou dotazování bankovních klientů a mystery shopping provedený na pobočkách bank. Cílem práce je zjistění míst nižší spokojenosti bankovních klientů a navrhnutí opatření vedoucích k zvýšení této spokojenosti.

This thesis deals with the mystery shopping, which is described from a theoretical and practical point of view. For its application in practice has been chosen area of Czech mobile operators. Telecommunications market in the Czech Republic points to a highly competitive environment. The aim of the work will be understanding and comparison of the advantages offered services and customer access levels for O2, T-Mobile and Vodafone in terms of three different clients (pensioners, students and entrepreneurs). As a result, this work should provide recommendations on what type of customer should each operator to focus the media with regard to perceived competitive advantage, and on what segment would in turn be incorporated into the future.

The thesis is focused on the research method of Mystery Shopping, used for anonymous and impartial evaluation of service quality and customer service. In the theoretical part I will examine how and why the method is used, what is the procedure for its application and how the results are then interpreted. An important part is the ethical codes that are specific to this method. In the practical part I will use theoretical areas of knowledge which will then be applied into practice. In the selected company measures of the level of customer service are examined with the just-mentioned method. After the research I was able to reveal the company's management strengths and weaknesses in customer care, and advise them on which areas should be addressed in the next period. I also suggested ways to optimize methods for the mystery shopping company to give better information about the company's management level customer service to stores.

Tundra is a murder mystery/coming-of-age novel about a fifteen-year-old boy named Ethan and his high school biology teacher, Pam, who come together over a mysterious text-based video game and unwittingly use it to resolve an unsolved murder from 1994. The novel is largely interested in bodies—their perplexities, pleasures, and limitations—as well as what it means to “come of age” as a queer person in a time and place where queer folks are denied so many markers of adulthood—marriage, families, oftentimes job and housing security. This is also a book about the myriad of ways in which technology enables us to pursue modes of connection and intimacy outside of the limitations of both our bodies and repressive social strictures. This thesis contains the first seven chapters of the novel, constituting Part One.

THE GREATEST IS LOVE is a collection of ten short stories showing the painful manifestations of romantic relationships in the lives of contemporary American characters from many walks of life. As in the stories of D.H. Lawrence, these characters are often driven towards what may be bad for them, finding that love overrides their rational thoughts. In “The Mechanic” a woman whose legal career has left her isolated becomes irresistibly attracted to her friend’s ex-husband. Three stories center on one character, Charles, whose early failures both in college and at work lead him to become a detective, only to be tempted to betray his new calling by a woman who leads him astray. As in Italo Calvino’s Difficult Loves, the stories in THE GREATEST IS LOVE combine the pain and comedy of passion. Even when it is challenging, love offers characters irresistible glimmers of hope.