The impetus for this thesis came from experience in the worlds of medicine, urgent and disturbing aspects of heath and people meeting to find ways through complex problems about them. The author facilitated policy making and dialogue between people from very different backgrounds for a number of years. The thesis is an engagement with ambiguous and contradictory human reactions to stress while being-in-the-middle of threat and differences of many kinds. These trigger both scapegoating and an urge to mate. The phenomenon is embodied in the symbol and ritual of the pharmakos. The aim of the thesis is to engage with the phenomenon of the pharmakos, in order to bring back its symbolism and practice to conscious attention in dealing with many demanding situations today. / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

This thesis examines the linkages between the verbal response to social stress, the ostracism of individuals from a social group, and the subsequent increased cohesion of the remaining members. To write the thesis, I utilized these printed references in the forms of scholarly research, journals, diaries, and interviews primarily from the Texas A&M Sterling Evans Library and the online journal resource JSTOR as well as a video documentary. Previous research into the genres of rumor, identity, and scapegoat accusations are explicated. Then, these approaches are applied to the rumors told by the Japanese-Americans who were removed from their homes and sent to internment camps in the United States during World War II. The internment camps were rife with scapegoat accusations between the internees whose once unified culture group was fissured along lines of loyalty to the United States or to Japan. These scapegoat accusations against fellow internees were an outlet for the stress exerted upon them by the American government that was not directly combatable. Even processes as complicated as changing social dynamics can be observed through the mechanisms of rumors and scapegoat accusations.

Thesis (M. Min.)--Calvary Theological Seminary, 1999. / "ʻăzāʹzēl" appears in Hebrew characters on t.p. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 53-56).

The aim of this essay was to determine 1. How Muslims were described in the Sweden Democrats official magazine and 2. What the purpose with their descriptions could be. The material, the SD-Courier was chosen due to it being an official magazine that was easily accessible. A hermeneutic method was used where each article selected was read several times to create a greater understanding for the material and the phenomenon within. Several articles, nine out of 485, mentioned Islam and Muslims. The description of Muslims and Islam was exclusively negative in that most authors and articles tried to describe Muslims and Islam as a threat. The threat ranged between a local threat, threatening Sweden as a whole and finally threatening the entire Western civilization. The reasons for the descriptions can be several. By creating stereotypes of Muslims as evil the Sweden Democrats create a stereotype of themselves as the “good guys”. By doing so they also create an opportunity for recruiting new members to the party. Another reason is the assignment of blame. Muslims become the scapegoat for problems in society which may lack obvious solutions.

In this dissertation, I develop a theory of rhetorical catharsis and apply this theory primarily to George W. Bush's rhetoric of the War on Terror in Iraq. Contrary to the standard Aristotelian perspective of catharsis as the "purging of pity and fear" that brings relief and resolution to an audience, I turn to Kenneth Burke's claim that catharsis is tied to the scapegoating process and argue that catharsis is the purging and projection of one's trauma to a victim who serves as the sacrificial vessel for one's pain. I thus redefine catharsis as the purging of trauma that plays a key role in catharsis and leads to the victimage and scapegoating of the Other in language and public life.To explore how rhetorical catharsis functions in language use, I analyze the concept of a rhetorical catharsis through literature, presidential rhetoric, and print media and show how catharsis operates in the rhetoric of war, particularly that of President Bush's war on terror in Iraq. In addition to Kenneth Burke, I draw on scholars such as Rene Girard, Deborah Willis, Terry Eagleton, Robert Ivie, Allen Carter, Robert McChesney, and Bartholomew Sparrow, among many others. I argue that communities experiencing tragedy use language to name people and entire nations as the scapegoat for their ills.By understanding how language makes possible the victimage and scapegoating of vasts groups of people and even entire nations in times of national trauma, I offer ways of speaking about trauma that may help redirect the violent impulse of catharsis.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1999. / Typescript. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M. Min.)--Calvary Theological Seminary, 1999. / "ʻăzāʹzēl" appears in Hebrew characters on t.p. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 53-56).

Thesis (M. Min.)--Calvary Theological Seminary, 1999. / "ʻăzāʹzēl" appears in Hebrew characters on t.p. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 53-56).

Thesis (M.A.)--Cincinnati Christian Seminary, 1986. / Typescript. Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (Leaves 121-125).

Despite its wide and unfortunate neglect (if it is even noticed at all), the fact that the date of Socrates' trial coincided with Athens's annual sacrificial festival (Thargelia) is of paramount significance for an interpretation not only of Plato's Apology but also of the historical trial itself. The argument presented here is that Socrates' prosecution and execution was, quite so, an expression of a sacrificial logic, which holds, mistakenly, that a single individual can be held responsible for a social crisis. The sacrificial narrative, then--a narrative implicitly put into play by that ominous trial date--would have located Socrates as the single source of the concomitant Athenian crises at play in the devastating aftermath of the Peloponnesian war. In fact, Plato's Apology can be, and perhaps must be, read as an elaboration on this sacrificial narrative. Yet, Plato turns the narrative on its head; by casting Socrates not only as the archetypal, "polluted" pharmakos but also as the willing scapegoat, Plato has Socrates enact a deadly confrontation between Socratic and Athenian values. Socrates' trial, this thesis argues, was not simply about crime and punishment; this was a trial about communal crisis and communal redemption. We must consider, then, not simply the trial of Socrates, but the sacrifice of Socrates