The theoretic part of the thesis is focused on definition of particular types of tourism, especially of the tourism with religious motives and pilgrimage trips. It also includes institutions that help to promote religious monuments in the Czech Republic. The practical part is engaged in the most important pilgrimage sites in Bohemia and Moravia, their promotion and the difference between the pilgrims and tourists.

The aim of this paper is to present the St. James Ways as an important product of modern tourism and focus on the pilgrim routes, specifically on the route Vía de la Plata, which will be analyzed from the cyclist point of view. The first part of this paper deals with the definition of the pilgrimage tourism, describes some of the most interesting pilgrim places, presents the history of the pilgrimage. The following chapter presents the main statistic data about tourism in Spain, information about the St. James Ways, including their history and development and the forms of promotion in general. The next part explains the historic and religion background, presents the practical information, and forms of promotion of the Vía de la Plata, simultaneously analyzes the focus on the cyclist as a specific tourist segment. The last part deals with the official pilgrimage statistic data and confirms the increasing interest in the St. James Ways. Substantial are the results of the survey, representing how the cycling segment is interested in this form of modern tourism.

This thesis will consider the question of the intended audience of Jippensha Ikku’s十返舎一九, ōraimono (educational book) Togakushi Zenkō-ji ōrai 戸隠善光寺往来(1822) as preface to an annotated translation completed using free online xylographic editions. Published in the midst of rising literacy rates and a boom in religious pilgrimages, this work would have been popular among women of the late Edo era. Analysis of the ōraimono genre will reveal that this work, was intended as a practical guidebook for Zenkō-ji pilgrimages rather than for use as a classroom textbook. An experienced traveler guides a dutiful son and mother from Edo (Tōkyō) along the Nakasendō and Hokkoku Kaidō roads to Zenkō-ji Temple and Togakushi Shrine in Shinano Province (Nagano). The mother character in Togakushi Zenkō-ji ōrai, though not the direct recipient of the expert traveler’s knowlege, will be revealed as a sort of hidden protagonist central to the entire narrative. Lastly, I will attempt to settle disputed publishing information, arguing that Nishimiya Shinroku 西宮新六was the first publisher and Moriya Jihei 森屋治兵衛printed subsequent editions. Serious in tone, this work demonstrates Ikku’s versatility as a departure from his famous slapstick travelogue, Tōkaidōchū Hizakurige (Shank’s Mare).

The reflection of childhood in Baroque miracles This Master's thesis aims to capture the reflection of childhood in miraculously answered prayers of the Baroque era. It works with a representative sample of cases, which was collected from several diverse Czech and Moravian pilgrimage sites (Karlov in Prague, Church of Our Lady Victorious with the statue of Infant Jesus of Prague, Hájek, Sázava, Chlum sv. Máří, Chrudim, Dobruška, Svatý Kopeček u Olomouce, and Křtiny). The sample thus comprises children coming from various environments and social strata. The records referring to miraculous answers to prayer are taken from manuscripts as well as from printed books of the period related to religious pilgrimages. The individual chapters outline the main aspects of Baroque-era children's lives found therein. The thesis first analyses issues associated with the birth of new life - the infertility of married couples, miscarriages, or complications during pregnancy, giving birth and childbed. A significant part of the thesis is given over to childhood illnesses - an extremely serious issue of the early modern era. Attention is also paid to diverse accidents and injuries of children. In addition, matters concerning adolescent and adult offspring are presented (the world of work duties, various wrongdoings, problems...

The purpose of my study is to explore the stories of the ethical tensions K-12 educational administrators navigate when implementing high-stakes assessment policy in a culture of measurement during testing season. Some educational leaders, in particular K-12 school and district administrators, struggle with the tensions existing between their own personal belief systems, organizational dilemmas, and the requirements of enacting high-stakes assessment policies. Using narrative inquiry as method, I collected and analyzed four school administrators selected who expressed frustration with enacting high-stakes assessment policies. The participants include a middle principal, a middle school assistant principal, a high school assistant principal, and a middle school testing administrator. Through their stories, I raise questions about the purpose of high-stakes assessment and the impact of policies at the implementation level and the impact of policies on the daily practices of school administrators. I illustrate how school administrators negotiate these tensions or have resigned themselves to accept what they cannot change. The findings include the reallocation of capital and human resources during testing season and the abundant loss of instructional time. Additional findings comprise of the juxtaposition between compliance and agency school administrators’ experience, and the nuanced ways schools and districts work to game the system of accountability. Findings also involve how educational leaders work within the boundaries of high-stakes assessment, and at times, find small spaces to resist high-stakes assessment implementation. The study shines light on how they accept the differences between their own personal ethics and the requirements of their jobs. Implications include the need for more scholarship surrounding the allocation and reallocation of resources in public schools during testing season, and the impact high-stakes assessment implementation has on vulnerable populations of students, especially students with disabilities, and students who are English language learners. The participants' stories revealed aspects of high-stakes assessment policy implementation, which impact the lives of students and educators that have not been explored in great depth. I argue for centering ethical leadership and the need for training and socializing school leaders to be social justice advocates for their students even while they are also implicated in systems of accountability. Finally, I also present the inquiry as a pilgrimage metaphor as journey toward not only understanding how school leaders grappled with ethical dilemmas associated with implementing high-stakes assessment in a culture of measurement during testing season, but also a journey to understand my place, as a school administrator, in this ethical conundrum.

This thesis presents my personal view of the art and the world around us. Primary issue is the understanding of life and art as a journey and an infinite search. Based on this perspective, the specific topics like art, forms and means of expression, symbolism, concept of a journey, time and work of different artists are being surveyed both generally and specifically. Through the survey of those topics, connections and coherences are being found. This thesis also consists of an analysis of my own art work (painting) and my didactic praxis together with a subject of didactics. The elements of contemplation penetrate the entire thesis.

The object of this thesis is to analyze the presence of the pedagogical ekphrastic elements in the novel The Story of The Predestined Pilgrim and his Brother Reprobate by Father Alexandre de Gusmmão. In the past this novel has been an obscure masterpiece outside the circle of those who study early Portuguese language works. In the last half century there has been a crescendo of the study of this novel as more scholars have taken an interest in the pilgrimage motif and in particular using this novel in comparative literature. A monumental contribution to bring this novel out of obscurity is the recent publication of its English translation by Christopher C. Lund. His efforts make this work more accessible to students and scholars who will become enlightened by its contents. His English translation has been used exclusively and is the enabling factor for this study of pedagogical ekphrastic elements contained in the novel. Pilgrimage is a frequent motif in seventeenth-century literature. His pilgrimage is the narrative of two polar opposite brothers whose journeys take them to six cities. As they traverse these cities, the brothers make choices that lead them to their final destinations of Jerusalem, the symbol of heaven, and Babylon, which depicts hell. Gusmmão emphasizes early on that their choices will cause them to be separated forever. Ekphrases are used to enrich and capture the reader's attention to the teachings of Gusmmão through the choices placed before each brother. Gusmmão employs whit, charm, characterization, ekphrases, vignettes, and allegory, with the poignant pedagogical objective to cause the reader to decide if he or she is a predestined or a reprobate and would be satisfied with the inevitable outcomes. I review the socio-historic presence of the Jesuits in Brazil as well as their remarkable pedagogical influence. Ekphrasis is studied as to its origins and its longevity throughout the centuries and how scholars have defined ekphrasis. The essence of this thesis is the extraction and examination of two hundred and forty-one ekphrastic passages from the novel and the analysis of their pedagogical value along with their pictorial elements. It is important to note that the findings of this study loudly affirm Gusmão's use of pedagogical ekphrastic elements as they were detected abundantly in all but ten of the sixty-three chapters included in his novel. The literary richness created by Gusmão's use of ekphrasis so predominantly throughout his novel is indicative of his stature as a pedagogical literary master.

In this essay I want to see if using theories of practical knowledge can deepen the understanding of the tradition of Pilgrimage in the 4th century. I have selected three of the most known and well preserved travelogue texts: Egeria's travels, Jeromé s Epitaphium Paulae and Itinerarium Burdigalense. In this essay I will use the theories of practical knowledge to analyse expression of emotions, corporeality and spatiality. I will use a qualitative-inductive method and a hermeneutic method and also a comparative method to compare the expression.

<p>This thesis examines how American icons, such as Jim Morrison, become the focus of "secular" religious followings. Morrison died in Paris, France, in 1971. His grave site, in Paris, attracts thousands of visitors each year. As the lead singer of 1960s era band, The Doors, Morrison achieved extraordinary fame. Tiring of his rock star status, Morrison moved to Paris in 1971, where he died under mysterious circumstances at age 27.</p> <p>After his death, Morrison remained a focus of popular biographies and films; many attributed mythic qualities to the dead singer. The continued interest in the celebrity of Morrison, following his death, generated much popularity among a new generation of fans.</p> <p>The motivation for visiting the Morrison grave, in Paris, is not only the music of Morrison or the Doors. Rather, fans gather in Paris each year to remember Morrison as cultural hero and the values he represents: freedom and rebellion against authority.</p> <p>An ethnography in Paris completed during the anniversary of his death, July 3, supplements an analysis of the subculture surrounding Morrison. A wider conclusion concerning the purpose of dead celebrity followings, in contemporary society, is a final focus.</p> / Master of Arts (MA)

This dissertation concerns the legacy of the Nazi forced enlistment during World War II and focuses more precisely on the case of Alsace/Moselle. Many of these French men, enlisted by force from 1942 in the German army, were sent to the Eastern Front and experienced Soviet prison camps. The aim of this thesis is to examine how knowledge and memories about forced enlistment and Soviet captivity have been remembered, commemorated, communicated and passed on since the Alsatian/Mosellan POWs (Prisoners of War) carried the tokens of enemies or traitors when reintegrating their motherland, France. Four strategies dealing with the experiences of forced enlistment and of internment in Soviet prison camps are examined. I present how the first and most common strategy, i.e. avoidance, is contributing to an individual and collective construction of silence. Then I argue that a second strategy, the constitution of families of remembrance, is helping them to articulate and narrate their experiences (third strategy). The fourth strategy is the organisation of pilgrimages (emic term) to the former prison camp of Tambov, where the majority of the Alsatian/Mosellan POWs were gathered during the war. This last strategy actualises the issue of the transmission of the war experiences given that pilgrimages bring together three to four generations. Through fieldwork observations of the journeys I show how the pilgrims engage with a sense of the past. They remember and reassess the meaning of the past in terms of the social, cultural and political needs of the present. The importance of place and the aspect of self-in-place are thoughtfully analysed in order to highlight the process of passing on the memory of Tambov. I conclude by arguing that the agents of remembrance interviewed for the purpose of this thesis are engaged in turning the tangible and intangible legacies of World War II into heritage. This is done by releasing the legacy of forced enlistment and internment in Soviet prison camp from the private/familial sphere and inscribing it in the public sphere. Yet, the agency of the former POWs and their descendants shows how to let pass a past “that does not want to pass” in a contemporary European context.