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Human society comes in contact with the physical environment in two ways: Through economic appropriation of physical resources and through the symbolic appropriation of nature. The two 'ways' interact via the various interpreters of nature, who as they define nature create cognitive means for the appropriation of physical resources. / Using the theory of social networks of power the thesis examines the above interplay of economic appropriation and symbolic manipulation of the physical environment from the Stone Age to the Hellenistic times in a series of civilisations in Eurasia. It reasons that as we move from the Stone Age to pristine civilisations we encounter two phenomena: first, a process of variation in nature's interpretation due to social stratification. Second, interpretation of nature becomes the subject matter of elite groups, the literati, firmly attached to political elites. Yet, with the advent of the Axial Age nature's interpreters become increasingly autonomous and use metaphors of nature as means to reflect on political and social issues of the day. In turn, as we can see in the case of ancient Greece, various political elites start to use particular readings of nature to consolidate their ideological position vis-a-vis their rivals. Thus, Axial Age ideologies about nature move from passive interpreters of what exists to dynamic advocates of what should exist. / Thus, the wisdom of the major schools of political ecology is contested in four major issues: First, there has never been a single reading of nature, but many co-existing in geographical and social proximity. Secondly, there is no specific time when nature lost its sacredness. Instead, we detect a steady withdrawal of the divine from the physical environment starting with the emergence of reflecting thinking. Thirdly, the development of nature's symbolic attributes lies not only in its relationship to politics, but also on the internal dynamics, strength and weakness, of the discourse in itself as well as on the organisational capabilities of particular schools of thought. Lastly, economic exploitation as such does not depend on specific readings of nature. Rather, it depends on technological advances, the nexus of political and ideological social networks of power.

The purpose of my study is to explore the early history of the Colwood Golf and Country Club as a way of understanding one aspect of settler colonialism – that is to study how certain tracts of Indigenous land were transformed into a rigidly controlled space where the natural environment was manipulated to exclude certain undesirable plants and non-human creatures, just as the social environment restricted access to a self-defined elite with prescribed cultural norms including behaviour, language, and protocols. Established in 1913, the Colwood Club became an important sporting space for upper-class individuals, and through its organisation, rules, by-laws, and entry process, the Colwood Club was fashioned as an exclusive space in Victoria’s sporting culture and remained so into the 1930s. Through formal and informal measures, the Club’s leadership and membership erected and strengthened various barriers that kept various individuals from joining based on their class, character, gender, race, and religion, among other criteria. Because of these measures, the Club’s property, which included a golf course and a clubhouse, became a restricted and controlled space in which a select number of individuals could enjoy the privileges that the Club offered. By doing a microhistory of the early years of the Colwood Golf and Country Club, I explore both the restrictive measures put in place by the Club and certain cultural concepts that influenced the decisions to make the Club an exclusive space, and demonstrate how this reflected larger trends in Victoria’s upper-class society. / Graduate

Traditional historical writing focuses on the cause and effect of human action, assuming that it is the historian's responsibility to recount the ebbs and flows of human progress. In the process of laying hold of the past as a narrative of human action, historical writing has developed the tendency to marginalise nature and undermine its power to influence the historical narrative. My investigation explores the fantastic in historical fantasy as a means of resisting historical writing's anthropocentrism. Historical fantasy uses fantastical elements to create counterfactual and alternative historical realities that have the potential to resist and undermine history's anthropocentric norm. My thesis examines four contemporary young adult historical fantasy trilogies that reimagine key turning points in history such as industrialisation, the American frontier, European imperialism, and World War I. They share the theme of retrieving and subverting anthropocentric discourses in the history of human development and thereby creating space for nature's presence and agency. My study finds that the fantastic is an effective means of subverting historical writing's anthropocentrism. But it also uncovers ambiguities and contradictions in historical fantasy's ecological revisionism, pointing to the idea that despite the fantastic's capacity for subversion, historical representations of nature cannot be separated from considerations of human identity and survival.

My thesis examines Thomas Hobbes's attempt to develop a mathematical account of nature. I argue that Hobbes's conception of how we should think quantitatively about the world was deeply indebted to the ideas of his ancient and medieval predecessors. These ideas were often amenable to Hobbes's vision of a demonstrative, geometrically-based science. However, he was forced to adapt the ancient and medieval models to the demands of his own thoroughgoing materialism. This hybrid resulted in a distinctive, if only partially successful, approach to the problems of the new mechanical philosophy.

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In this thesis I analyze and problematize Francis Fukuyama's position on posthumanism, largely expressed in his 2002 book Our Posthuman Future. In it he warns against the likely negative outcome of a potential biotechnological revolution, which could enable easy access to interfering with human genome via practices such as genetic modification or human cloning. Fukuyama's major assumption is that all members of society must meet some limited standards of humanity in order to be equal, because if people acquire different levels of artificially altered "human natures," the outcome will be stratification, irrecuperable inequality and perhaps even class warfare. For this reason, Fukuyama calls for a pre-emptive regulation of genetic manipulation so as to avoid a "posthuman future." I contrast this theory with a selection of transhumanist and feminist theorists as well as with examples from fiction, namely the trilogy Lilith's Brood (1987-1989) by Octavia Butler and the novel Never Let Me Go (2005) by Kazuo Ishiguro. Drawing on these sources I conclude that Fukuyama's position is harmfully exclusionary and divisive; and also counter- productive in the sense that in his pursuit of securing freedom and equality he renders potential posthuman subjects fundamentally inferior, thus principally defeating his...

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This dissertation explores the role and significance of the ancient Greek myth of Prometheus in Western philosophy from Antiquity to today. Paying particular attention to its moral and existential meanings, an analysis of this in-depth investigation produces an overview of the exceptional array of the myth’s functions and themes. It demonstrates that the most significant functions of the Prometheus myth are its social, epistemic, ontological and moral functions and that the myth’s most significant themes are fire, rebellion, creation, human nature and ambiguity. The dissertation argues that this analysis brings to light meaningful information on two sides of a reference to the Prometheus myth: it reveals the nature, functions, themes and connotations of the myth, while information about these functions and themes provides access to fundamental meanings, moral statements and ontological concepts of the studied author. Based on its findings this work claims that, as in history, first, the Prometheus myth will still be meaningful in philosophy today; and second, that the analysis of the myth’s functions and themes will provide access to essential ideas underlying contemporary references to the myth. To prove the validity of these claims this thesis examines the contemporary debate on ‘human enhancement’. Advocates as well as opponents of enhancement make use of the Prometheus myth in order to support their arguments. Employing the acquired knowledge about the myth’s functions and themes, the dissertation analyses the references encountered. The results of this analysis confirm that the Prometheus myth still has a significant role in a contemporary philosophical context. They improve our understanding of the philosophical argument, ontological framework and ethics of the debate’s participants; and thus demonstrate that the information about the Prometheus myth acquired in this thesis is a useful means to reveal fundamental ideas and conceptualisations underlying contemporary (and possibly future) references to the myth.

INTRODUÇÃO: Co-infecção HPV / HIV altera história natural das infecções por HPV, aumentando o risco de verrugas e neoplasias malignas do trato ano-genital. Há, no entanto, escassez de estudos de coorte envolvendo HPV no pênis dessa população. MÉTODOS: Estudo longitudinal, não probabilístico, com 144 homens de 18 e 70 anos de idade, sendo 72 HIV positivos e 72 HIV soronegativos, parceiros de mulheres com patologia associada a infecção pelo HPV. O estudo foi conduzido numa clínica pública de doenças de transmissão sexual em São Paulo (CRT-DST/AIDS), entre fevereiro de 2004 a março de 2005. Os participantes do estudo foram acompanhados por 180 dias para avaliar a persistência, a aquisição e a eliminação do DNA de HPV nos esfregaços penianos por meio da PCR. Este estudo também visou: Correlacionar os aspectos clínicos das lesões genitais com a histologia e a presença de DNA HPV; Comparar a aquisição, persistência, eliminação e ausência da infecção pelo HPV com a carga viral plasmática do HIV, contagem de células T CD4 e uso de terapia anti-retroviral (HAART). RESULTADOS: Não houve associação estatisticamente significativa nos dois grupos em relação a persistência, eliminação, aquisição ou mesmo ausência de HPV durante o seguimento. O grupo HIV positivo apresentou uma maior freqüência dos tipos oncogênicos de HPV em relação ao grupo HIV negativo (P = 0,041), além de uma maior freqüência de múltiplos tipos de HPV durante o seguimento de 180 dias (P = 0,049). As maiores taxas de aquisição e persistência de HPV foram observadas entre portadores de alta carga de HIV, baixo número de células T CD4, e não usuários de HAART. Aqueles em terapia anti-retroviral, com menos cópias de HIV e alto nível de T CD4 apresentaram maiores taxas de eliminação e ausência de HPV. CONCLUSÕES: Homens de ambos grupos podem ser considerados de alto risco, não tendo sido observada diferença na persistência, aquisição e a eliminação de DNA de HPV. Os homens HIV positivos apresentaram uma maior freqüência de infecção múltipla de HPV bem como os tipos mais freqüentes foram os oncogênicos em relação aos HIV negativos durante o seguimento. Os tipos de HPV 16, 6 e 84 foram os mais freqüentes nos homens soropositivos ao HIV, enquanto naqueles HIV negativos, predominaram os tipos de HPV 6, 51 e 84. As lesões clínicas e aceto-brancas observadas nos 2 grupos apresentaram as mesmas características histológicas, sendo coilocitose e papilomatose as mais significativas nas lesões clínicas quando comparada às lesões aceto-brancas. Nas lesões verrucosas, apenas um tipo de HPV foi observado, predominando o tipo 6 ou 11. Em torno de 23% das lesões aceto-brancas eram HPV negativas, sendo que nas positivas predominou o HPV 6. Homens soropositivos ao HIV que estavam usando HAART, com carga viral do HIV alta e contagem de células T CD4 baixa apresentaram maiores taxas de aquisição e persistência da infecção pelo HPV. Entretanto, os que não xvi estavam em terapia anti-retroviral, com carga baixa de HIV e contagem de células T CD4 alta apresentaram maiores taxas de eliminação e ausência de infecção pelo HPV. / BACKGROUND: Co-infection with HPV and HIV modifies its natural history and increases the risk of warts and neoplasia development in the anogenital tract. Cohort studies to address HPV infection in the penis are scarce, mainly in HIV infected individuals. METHODS: A longitudinal study, non-probabilistic, was conducted with 144 men of 18 to 70 years old including 72 HIV-positive and 72 HIV-negative, partners of women with HPV-associated disease. The study was conducted between February 2004 and March 2005 at a large sexually transmitted clinic in São Paulo (CRT-DST/Aids). Men were followed for 180 days to determine persistence, acquisition and clearance of HPV DNA in penile swabs using PCR. In addition, we aimed to correlate the clinical features of genital lesions with histology and the presence of HPV DNA, compare the acquisition, persistence, clearance and absence of HPV infection with plasma HIV viral load, CD4 T-cell count and use of HAART. RESULTS: Both groups showed no significant differences regarding persistence, clearance, acquisition and/or absence of HPV during follow-up. Penile smears of HIV-positive men showed a higher frequency of oncogenic types in relation to the HIV-negative (P = 0.041), as well as a higher frequency of multiple HPV types (P = 0.049). Significantly higher HPV DNA acquisition and persistence rates were observed among HIV-positive men not submitted to HAART, with higher HIV loads and lower CD4+ cells count. Among those men using anti-retroviral therapy, lower viral loads and higher T cell counts, higher rates of clearance and HPV DNA absence were observed. CONCLUSIONS: This male population altogether is considered to be at high risk of HPV DNA infection, which may be the reason why no differences in HPV acquisition, persistence and clearance were observed. HIV-positive men had a higher frequency of multiple HPV infection and the most frequent were oncogenic types. HPV types 16, 6 and 84 were the most frequently found in HIV-positive men, while in HIV-negative men, HPV types 6, 51 and 84 prevailed. Clinical and aceto-white lesions presented the same histological features in both HIV seropositive and -negative men. Koilocytosis and papillomatosis were the most significant histological features found in clinical lesions when compared to the aceto-white lesions. In condylomas, only one type of HPV was present, often HPV 6 or 11. About 23% of aceto-white lesions had no HPV DNA; in HPV-positive lesions, the predominant type was HPV 6. Higher rates of acquisition and persistence of HPV infection occurred in men who were using HAART, with high HIV viral load and low count of CD4. In contrast, those not under anti-retroviral therapy, had low HIV load and high CD4 T cells levels showed higher rates of clearance of HPV infection.