Portion of Thesis (Ph. D.)--Johns Hopkins University, 1932. / Vita. "Reprinted from ELH, a journal of English literary history, vol. I, no. 3, December, 1934"--P. 250.

M.A. / The fact that God (Yahweh) is often depicted in the Old Testament as violent is a problem. Especially for us who come to the text as modern readers. Even though our society is full of violent acts, there is a general remorse towards violence. A small book like Nahum is filled with violence and introduces Yahweh at an early stage as a “vengeful God”. It then goes further and describes the fall of Nineveh and the Assyrians in a graphic manner. This vengeful and violent God was central to the problem of this dissertation. The problem was: How should the violence in the current form of Nahum be interpreted and how should it be understood in a modern context. This study will make use of dual methodology due to the fact that the text of Nahum was rooted in a concrete social and historical situation. Firstly the social and historical circumstances is studied and used to interpret the text. To understand the problem in a modern context the second part of the dual methodology will come into play. This will look at the ideology that is ingrained in the rhetoric of the text. The question will be asked whether Yahweh is as violent as He is described or whether His description in Nahum could be a construct of society and ideology. Proposals for new readings of Nahum and new metaphors and constructs for God is then suggested.

Texte remanié de: Thesis (Ph. D.)--Jewish history--New York--New York university, 2000. / Bibliogr. p. 171-179.

Notre recherche a comme sujet la comparaison du texte de la Septante avec le texte massorétique du livre de Naoum. La recherche se divise en quatre parties. La première analyse et décrit le mode de traduction et expose, pour la Vorlage hébraïque les conclusions qui en découlent. La deuxième partie offre la reconstruction de la Vorlage du livre entier. La troisième et la quatrième partie se limitent à trois versets sélectionnés et les examinent du point de vue de la critique textuelle et de la critique littéraire. En définitive, cette recherche donne des éclaircissements sur l’histoire du texte de Naoum, sur l’histoire de sa transmission ainsi que celle de sa réception et (re)lecture à l’époque hellénistique. Partant, les résultats contribuent à la reconstitution de l’histoire des écrits prophétiques de la Bible hébraïque. / The present examination is about the comparison of the translation of the Septuagint with the Masoretic text of the book of Nahum. The investigation consists of four parts. The first focuses on the translation technique and the conclusions to be drawn with respect to the Hebrew Vorlage. The second offers a reconstruction of the Vorlage of the Septuagint of the whole book of Nahum. The third and the fourth parts are dealing with three selected verses, discussing them with regard to text-critical and literary-critical questions. This study not only gives new insights into the history of the textof the book of Nahum and it’s transmission, but also into the reception and (re)lecture of the text in the Hellenistic period. The results contribute to the reconstruction of the history of Hebrew prophetical literature.

This dissertation examines the role of scientific and medical disciplines in the construction of homosexuality in Mexico, and how non-normative gender and sexual subjects engaged in political activism, body modifications, and aesthetic production to challenge the pathologizing discourses reinforced by the increasing authority of the biomedical sciences. Chapter 1 examines the role of photography as a medical instrument in the first documented sex-reassignment treatment in the Western Hemisphere performed by Mexican physician and sexologist Rafael Sandoval Camacho in the early 1950s, and how his patient Marta Olmos, Mexico’s first transsexual woman, embraced photojournalism as a medium to document, archive, and validate her identity as a woman. In chapter 2, I examine the popular phenomenon of publishing photographs of erotized trans sex workers known as Mujercitos during the 1970s in Alarma!, Mexico’s most influential crime tabloid magazine, and how these marginalized subjects appropriated biomedical technologies like “sex hormones” intended to regulate gender and sexual deviance to construct bodily identities that challenged the medical and criminological positions on the essentialist natures of gender expression, sexual desire, and the sexed body. Chapter 3 examines the early gay narrative of Luis Zapata and José Rafael Calva that emerged in conjunction to Mexico’s Homosexual Liberation Movement in the late 1970s. My analysis demonstrates how Zapata’s El vampiro de la colonia Roma [Adonis García: A Picaresque Novel] (1979), and Calva’s Utopía gay [Gay Utopia] (1983) present sharp critiques shared by Mexico’s homosexual liberation groups on the growing authority of disciplines like psychiatry, psychoanalysis, and biomedicine in pathologizing homosexuality. Chapter 4 examines the changing understandings of homosexuality, homosexual desire, and the homosexual body during the HIV/AIDS crisis through the work of Julio Galán, Nahum B. Zenil, and art collective Taller Documentación Visual. My analysis presents the role of the HIV virus not as an explicit visual reference but rather as an elusive, spectral, and dangerous entity that is identifiable through the aesthetic and formal composition of the artists’ works, best exemplified by the references to condoms as physical and symbolic devices in the mediation of gay sexual contact and desire. This dissertation demonstrates the critical roles of biomedicine, criminology, sexology, and psychiatry in regulating diverse forms of Mexican homosexualities, while simultaneously functioning as liminal disciplines strategically adopted by homosexual subjects to redefine, shape, and validate their desired bodily, sexual, and subjective identities.

Thesis (DTh (Old and New Testament))--University of Stellenbosch, 2005. / In this study the very relevant theological-ethical question of social identity and intergroup conflict is looked at. This is done by reading the Book of Nahum multidimensionally as an “Oracles Concerning the Nations” text, and as part of the Book of the Twelve. The multidimensional methodology includes a combination of synchronic and diachronic reading strategies, the implementation of social identity theory and self-categorization theory, the focus on ideological-critical aspects and theological-ethical questioning. In the process of research the underlying dynamic of social identity construction of ancient Israel is uncovered and theological-ethically appropriated. In the first two chapters the problem of the global rise of extreme nationalism, racism and zenophobia is noted. The very diverse post-apartheid society of South Africa, as well as the post-nazi and post-unification German society is mentioned. The Book of Nahum, an Oracle “Concerning the Nations” text, is chosen as avenue for studying the dynamic underlying the construction of social identity in ancient Israel. It is suggested that while a one-dimensional reading strategy may lead to an exclusivist intepretation of Nahum that fosters a theological ethic of intolerance and hate, a multidimensional reading strategy leads to a theological ethic of liberation, responsibility and peace. Chapters 3 and 4 give a research overview of the study of ancient Israel’s identity as well as how the Book of Nahum is to be understood with regards to its dating, unity, stucture and historical situation. The research overview shows how incorporating social identity theory and self-categorization theory provides a better and more integrated perspective on social identity than what has been done up to now. The social psychology theories are summarized into five working premises. The background study of Nahum comes to the conclusion that Nahum should be read synchronically in its diachronical development from the pre-exilic Assyrian crisis with its polarized political inter-group conflicts to the exilic/post-exilic situation with its unique search for a new beginning, identity and hope. Chapters 5 and 6 contain the exegetical explication of the Book of Nahum. Nahum 1:9- 14;2:2-3:19 is interpreted as a pre-exilic construction of social identity. Nahum 1:2-8;2:1 is read as an exilic/post-exilic text. The inter-group dynamic between the Yahweh-Alone movement and the pro-Assyria party (pre-exilic) as well as the Deutero-Isaiah group with its theological opponents (exilic/post-exilic) are interpreted in terms of the five social identity premises. Although social identity construction in Nahum does follow the main premises of discrimination and prototypical ingroup favouring a surprising ambiguous undercurrent of self-criticism as apposed to ethnocentrism is discovered in both historical situations. Apart from the social identity, a strong movement towards liberation from oppression is present in the Book of Nahum. This underlying ambiguous dynamic of social identity construction and the liberatory rhetoric of Nahum is appropriated theolgical-ethically in Chapter 7. A theological-ethical model, which combines the role of identity in ethics, the concept of “natural law”, the responsibility ethics of Levinas and a focus on liberation, is suggested as a useful instrument for interpreting the theological-ethically uncomfortable Oracles Concerning the Nations texts. Chapter 8 summarizes the study and points out the research’s contribution towards Old Testament methodology (exegetical and ethical), Nahum studies as well as providing a possible theological-ethical solution to intergroup conflicts (religious, cultural, political etc.) from an Old Testament perspective.

Questa tesi si occupa di percorrere il percorso di evoluzione del King Lear attraverso due secoli e mezzo di adattamenti teatrali e riscritture. Prende in esame gli adattamenti di Nahum Tate, David Garrick, George Colman, John Philip Kemble, Edmund Kean e William Charles Macready. La tesi propone anche l’analisi del melodramma di W.T. Moncrieff nonché i burlesques di John Chalmers, Joseph Halford e C.J. Collins, e Frederick Marchant. / This doctoral thesis focuses on the evolution of the story of King Lear through two centuries and a half of theatrical history. The research is concentrated on the adaptations proposed by Nahum Tate, David Garrick, George Colman, John Philip Kemble, Edmund Kean and William Charles Macready. The analysis also takes into considerations some rewritings such as the melodrama written by W.T. Moncrieff and the burlesques produced by John Chalmers, Joseph Halford and C.J. Collins, and Frederick Marchant.