"The purpose of this paper is to trace the origin and progress of the Sunday-school movement and its influence on the development of children's literature. The procedure followed in this paper has been to identify, read and analyze all available material on the subject of the Sunday-school movement--its origin, its founder, Robert Raikes, and its progress in England and America. The authors who wrote for children during this period were studied carefully--their backgrounds and lives and their interests in the movement. Lastly, all available children's books written by these authors were read or examined critically"--Introduction. / Typescript. / "August, 1953." / "Submitted to the Graduate Council of Florida State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science." / Advisor: Agnes Gregory, Professor Directing Paper. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 80-82).

This dissertation project employs both ethnographic and textual research to study the role of rational coherence and paradox in Javanese Muslims’ theological understandings and political positionings. My research site is the Javanese city of Yogyakarta known for its mixture of traditionalist or Sufi and modernist Muslim reform organizations. The project intervenes in two distinct scholarly debates concerning the everyday practice of Islam and the social ties it engenders and brings them into a new synthesis: 1) debates around the paradigm of Islam as a coherent discursive tradition and the meaning of coherence, given the complexity, ambivalence, and fragmentation of Muslims’ everyday lives; and 2) studies of the relation and meaning of traditionalism and modernism as distinct orientations, embedded in larger movements of global Islamic reform, and responding to political pressures on Muslims to position themselves as moderate. It focuses on discourses and practices around memory as a node where questions of coherence and ideological belonging intersect. Both traditionalists and modernists remember their history, claiming stewardship over their past, or preserving and commemorating it to bring about a desired present and future; but the politics of commemoration diverge widely as traditionalists and modernists, in their memory practices, navigate multiple, conflicting demands and diverging epistemologies and ideologies. The study seeks to highlight how memory is mobilized to make claims of legitimate knowledge and power; how different kinds of discursive or ritual traditions around memory are legible as identity markers of particular religious and ideological orientations, especially traditionalism and modernism; and how the juxtaposition of conflicting epistemologies and ontologies is negotiated and understood within and between these different orientations.

Abstract This thesis primarily deals with rituals and the specific objects related to the rituals. The rituals in question are the once in a life time event of the Hindu cremation ceremony, and perpendicular to that, the everyday rituals which constitutes daily life. Through an existential and ontological theoretical exploration the bridge, doorway, step and Lota (vernacular Indian pottery) become the signified objects which are arranged to form the existential theatre. Which presents a reincarnation of architecture: a hybrid pedestrian bridge with cremation infrastructure. Furthermore parallel theories of rationality and irrationality, solid and void, boundaries, the structure of time and nothingness, are explored to theoretically contextualize the semiotics of the architecture. The siting of the existential theatre is at the beginning of the Ganges River, formed by various head rivers, in Rishikesh, India. Rishikesh is at center of intersections of religious mythology, commercialism, touristism, a holy pilgrimage site, popular culture and a growing local community. It is only within this context can the existential theatre can exist, as the multiplicity of cultural intersections allows for a composite arrangement of various significations. Spatial, cultural and ritual typologies are revealed when using Learning from Las Vegas as a ruler to measure Rishikesh. These typologies are then employed into the scheme. The Hindu ritual of cremation is an age old tradition with the sole purpose of liberating the soul from its physical form. So it may then be reincarnated into another form. This process is governed by the law of Karma. An in-depth analysis is done of each stage of the ritual to highlight spaces within which architecture can facilitate, efficiently and sustainably, but not alter the process. The meaning behind each stage is used to sequentially signify components of the scheme. The first informal form of the existential theatre is witnessed due to natural occurrences and proximities of the once in a life time ritual of cremation along with everyday pedestrian rituals; this thesis is a formalization of these naturally occurring elements. The charrette process proved to be praxis of the existential and ontological theoretical inquiry; as well as a metaphor for the ritual of cremation. This was done through the abstraction of an everyday object, the incense stick. The charrette process produced the architectural tools with which to design the scheme with. The resulting architecture of the existential theatre is informed by the ceremonial cremation procession and is paralleled with every day rituals. The ultimate aim of my project is to facilitate the Hindu Cremation Ritual, in a respectful and sustainable manner while asking and suggesting answers to existential questions. / MN (2016)

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