My thesis journey was initially motivated by an interest in the individual’s search for God, the self and the other (neighbour, men/women and enemy) as represented in the play texts. This call for a personal relationship with the ‘other’ highlights the individual’s feelings of unease and strangeness at a time when, one might argue, the majority belittles the role of religion, in support of scientific discoveries and human rights. Here, the French philosopher René Girard - whose anthropological and scientific interest in violence, religion and human culture has shaped my research - argues that the progress of humankind would not have become a reality without what he terms sacrifice. Here, I should confirm that the main influence on the early steps of finding my research topic were Peter Shaffer, Slavoj Žižek, Julia Kristeva and Mikhail Bakhtin rather than Rene Girard. This thesis explores several interconnected relationships, the most important of which is between humour and violence or forms of ‘sacrifice’ in the plays of six British playwrights – Peter Barnes and Peter Shaffer, Howard Barker and Sarah Kane as well as Caryl Churchill and David Rudkin. It is this strange relationship which leads me later on to uncover and explore the representations of the stranger, the victim/iser and the foreigner in their works. The return of the stranger – the dead, the ashes of victims of extreme violence, the ghosts, the prisoners and the children - is inseparable from the search for individuality in a world ruled by the gods of war, money and dark humour. My research findings are viewed in the light of two narratives: the first is to do with the upper world and the second is to do with the lower as defined by Bakhtin’s idea of the carnival and the culture of folk humour in the Middle Ages. The upper is serious, official, exclusive and authoritative whereas the second is festive, comic, mythical and popular. It is hard to describe the relationship between these narratives as simply oppositional (some say iconoclastic) because they are coexistent and rely on one another. At this point, the different professional and ideological positions of the playwrights are important aspects in arriving at an understanding of the ways they collapse the borders between humour and terror, the banquet and the battle, carnivals and trials, the parade and economic exploitation, clownery and politics. Though these playwrights are not preachers or reformers, they challenge our easy laughter and our role as we witness the risen from the dead, those in the flames or in the future signalling to us to halt our participation and face responsibility for the victims.

Guatemala City is a city of contrasts, a city that meshes beauty and affliction. The beauty is reflected in the landscape and its people; affliction, however, is woven throughout Guatemalan history and expressed through the collective woundedness of Guatemalan society. After more than five hundred years of colonialism and coloniality, and twenty-four years after the signing of the peace accords between the army and the revolutionary movement in 1996, Guatemalans still carry their collective woundedness into all areas of personal and public life. For that reason, this dissertation responds to the question, what will a practical theology of peacebuilding look like in Guatemala City in response to the collective woundedness of Guatemalan society? In order to respond to the question presented above, I use the paradigms of practical theology, liberation theology, and mimetic theory in dialogue with each other to provide a relevant, contextual, and liberative response. In the search for an answer, I interviewed fourteen grassroots leaders from the CMT Guatemala network, and I explored their faith practices in relation to the Guatemalan collective woundedness. The process follows three steps. Firstly, I provide a description of the Guatemalan context, and the theory-laden practices of the interviewed grassroots leaders. Secondly, I framed the dissertation within contextual theology in order to develop a practical theology of liberation that is contextually relevant and cross-contextually applicable. Finally, the theory-laden practices that the interviews and focus groups called forth helped me propose a practical theology of liberation that responds to the Guatemalan collective woundedness through the ethics of what I call Human Catechism. Human Catechism is a term conceived in community, though proposed for the first time in this dissertation. Human Catechism begins with the ethics of love. It is the process of developing faith practices that help us reimagine each other’s humanity in the midst of global sacrificial theology. In this dissertation, I propose that Human Catechism is a practical theology of peacebuilding and liberation that seeks to heal the collective woundedness of not only the Guatemalan context, but also other environments around the world. This dissertation contributes in three ways to the field of practical theology. Firstly, it applies René Girard’s mimetic theory to field of practical theology. Secondly, it provides a tool that could be used for contextual analysis. I developed interdependent categories for contextual analysis that can easily be translated to other developing countries of the global south. Finally, it contributes at the local level empowering grassroots leaders to begin conversations that will allow them to decolonise their faith practices, and hermeneutics. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2020. / Practical Theology / PhD / Unrestricted

A collection of short stories exploring patterns that play out in people's lives and relationships.

Thesis (Ph. D. in Religion)--Vanderbilt University, May 2006. / Title from title screen. Includes bibliographical references.

In just a few years, cancel culture has become the topic on everyone's lips. It's an exciting, but also to a certain extent a treacherous phenomenon that has etched into our society, both online and offline. It moves quickly and is constantly changing, but where does it come from, and what drives it?  In this study, I map out how cancel and call-out culture are constructed by conducting a research overview. The theoretical framework consists of theories about the scapegoat mechanism, the public sphere, and digital activism. The material consists of 33 peer-reviewed articles.  The results show that research has been conducted across several research areas, with the majority of the articles falling under the field of media and communication studies. There are divided opinions about the impact of cancel culture on the public debate. Some scholars define cancel and call-out culture on one hand as political tools that promote public debate and that can help access fundamental problems such as racism and sexism. On the other hand, the phenomena are defined as threats to democracy as the resurrection that arises when these phenomena are exercised can draw attention away from more important and more acute societal issues. Furthermore, the results show that cancel culture depends on a cross-platform engagement. Since the majority of the articles examine Twitter, this indicates that more studies need to be conducted to fully understand how cancel culture works.

Thesis (MA (VA)(Visual Arts))--University of Stellenbosch, 2008. / This investigation draws on theories of sacrifice to explore Wim Botha’s sculpture Premonition of War: Scapegoat in relation to nationalist and patriarchal thought. Since the artist deals with myth, his approach is discussed in terms of Barthes’ formulation of myth as a meta-language. It is maintained that Botha is using a meta-mythical language to deconstruct the narratives he deals with. Sacrifice is seen as an act that binds communities together but that also separates them from threats (Nancy Jay 1992:17). It is argued that the crucifix has been used as symbol of sacrifice to denote immortality, and that this over-emphasis of continuity has been to the detriment of those that do not fall within the boundaries of the “same” as defined by white men. The incorporation and exclusion of the feminine into male structures are discussed, as well as the role that institutionalised religious thought has played in South African Nationalism. An interpretation of Scapegoat using Freud and Žižek seems to point to the necessary compromise made by the Church with the dualisms it has created between its definitions of good and evil. Nietzsche’s conception of sacrifice as a system of debt when applied to the Scapegoat also seems to point to a contradiction inherent within it, since Botha’s inversion puts into question the idea of a gift given outside of a creditor/debtor system. The burnt appearance of the Scapegoat appears to indicate that the attempt to sacrifice the act of sacrifice is futile, since sacrifice eternally returns. However, the “pure gift”, or don pur that Derrida writes of, seems to point to a way beyond dialectics, towards a morality freed from duty.

Cette thèse porte sur la question de la rémunération des dirigeants de grandes sociétés cotées et, de manière plus précise, sur les problèmes de justification posés par certains montants et pratiques de rémunération. L’enjeu est d’étudier l’origine et la signification de la controverse publique sur le sujet en la mettant en rapport avec le modèle économique libéral qui dit que le « prix » du dirigeant est un simple prix de marché, soit le produit d’une confrontation entre une offre et une demande de travail managérial de haut niveau. En cela, notre objectif n’est pas de porter un jugement ou une simple évaluation sur la rémunération des dirigeants, mais de comprendre comment et en quoi la controverse étudiée fait problème, comment et en quoi elle interroge, en miroir, la nature et le fonctionnement des sociétés libérales. La démarche est donc « compréhensive », au sens où il s’agit de prendre appui sur le discours des acteurs de la controverse pour « déconstruire » un modèle de justification en apparence élémentaire, qui est aussi l’expression de l’idéologie dominante. / This thesis addresses the question of CEO compensation in large publicly-held firms and, more precisely, the problems of justification that arise with certain amounts and practices of compensation. The objective is to analyze the origin and meaning of the public controversy sparked by the subject by relating it to the liberal economic model according to which the “price” of CEOs is simply a market price, that is, the result of the confrontation between supply and demand of top-level managerial labor. As such, our objective is not to produce a judgment or a mere evaluation of CEO compensation, but rather to understand how and why the controversy generates a problem, or how and why it questions, reflexively, the nature and functioning of liberal societies. The approach is therefore “interpretative,” in the sense that it is based on the discourse of the actors involved in the controversy in order to “deconstruct” an apparently elementary model of justification, that is also the expression of the dominant ideology.

Submitted by Geandra Rodrigues (geandrar@gmail.com) on 2017-12-21T14:13:49Z No. of bitstreams: 1 rondinelelaurindofelipe.pdf: 1200337 bytes, checksum: da137656ee8feb3ba4057779cd03d3cc (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Adriana Oliveira (adriana.oliveira@ufjf.edu.br) on 2017-12-22T12:10:07Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 rondinelelaurindofelipe.pdf: 1200337 bytes, checksum: da137656ee8feb3ba4057779cd03d3cc (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-12-22T12:10:07Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 rondinelelaurindofelipe.pdf: 1200337 bytes, checksum: da137656ee8feb3ba4057779cd03d3cc (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-08-01 / O tema desta pesquisa é a noção de cristianismo no diálogo entre René Girard e Gianni Vattimo. Para tanto, argumenta-se que a ideia central que vincula os dois autores é a compreensão de cristianismo como kénosis (enfraquecimento). Aborda-se essa noção levando em conta a teoria girardiana do sagrado natural. A ideia de sagrado é estruturante, pois, a partir dele, sabe-se que o religioso funda-se na violência humana. O homem é governado por um desejo de apropriação mimética, o que conduz a rivalidades. A violência quando se exasperava nas sociedades primitivas gerava conflitos de tal ordem que se fazia necessário o sacrifício para conter a crise que ameaçava extirpar todo grupo. Do sacrifício expiatório nascia o sagrado que se sustentava nas formas de ritos, interditos e rememoração do sacrifício. O cristianismo, interpretado por Girard e Vattimo, revela e denuncia esse mecanismo fazedor de vítimas, indicando que a vítima é inocente. Portanto, para falar de kénosis e secularização, Vattimo recorre a essa ideia de perda dos elementos do sagrado. Com a dissolução do sagrado, o cristianismo aparece em sua forma enfraquecida (kénosis), sendo a caritas um modo de rejeitar a violência humana. / The theme of this dissertation is the notion of Christianity in the intersection of ideas between René Girard and Gianni Vattimo, focusing on the central idea connecting both authors, which is Christianity as kénosis (weakening). This notion is approached considering Girard's theory about the natural sacred. The idea of sacred is keypoint, because it is the way by which the religious experience is founded on the human violence. Men are guided by a desire for mimetic appropriation, which leads to rivalries. When violence became intense among the primitive societies, it triggered so much disturbance that sacrifice was required to keep the crisis under control in order to avoid the extinction of the whole group. The sacred was born from the expiatory sacrifice, expressing the rites, the interdicts and the remembrance of the sacrifice. Christianity, according to Girard's and Vattimo's perspective, reveals and condemns this process that breeds victims, pointing out that the victim is innocent. Therefore, in order to discuss kénosis and secularization, Vattimo uses this idea of a dicrease in the elements of sacred. With the sacred in dissolution, Christianity assumes its weakened form (kénosis), and caritas becomes a way of rejecting the human violence.

À partir de l’étude de deux romans européens et de deux des Amériques, la présente thèse de doctorat examine la manière dont la maladie contagieuse sert de métaphore à la crise. Elle poursuit un triple objectif. Au niveau individuel, on démontre le rôle actif de chacun face à la maladie, puisque tant les médecins que les malades font appel à l’inventivité afin de lutter contre le fléau. Au niveau social, on prouve que la contagion sert d’argument pour stigmatiser et discriminer l’Autre que l’on considère comme menaçant. Au niveau politique, on souligne l’importance d’un compromis individuel et collectif dans la gestion des risques car les fictions illustrent les effets catastrophiques lorsque les États sont incapables d’assurer la protection de la santé des populations (vols, pillages, recherche prétendue de coupables et mise à mort des innocents). / The aim of this doctoral thesis is to examine how the contagious disease serves as a metaphor to the crises by comparing two novels from Europe and two from North and South America. It pursues a triple objective. First, we demonstrate, at the individual level, that each person plays an active role when confronted with a disease, both doctors and patients fight against the plague through inventiveness and resourcefulness. Second, we prove, at a social level that contagion can be used as an argument to stigmatize and to discriminate those who are considering threatening. At a political level, we emphasize the importance of individual and collective compromises when facing the risk. The novels illustrate the catastrophic consequences when states are unable to manage risk and to protect populations from danger. Some of these consequences might be: thefts, looting, scapegoat designation and killing innocent people.

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - CAPES / We will analyse O grande mentecapto: relato das aventuras e desventuras de Viramundo e de suas inenarráveis peregrinações (1979), the second novel of the “mineiro” writer Fernando Sabino. We considered the work as neopicaresque, such as the theoretical approach of González (1994), and we had in mind that it is a comical genre of literature as well and to apply for a popular setting of main character: the roguery, in the Brazilian literature, usually is followed by the chimerical idealism of Don Quijote (1605; 1615), by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra. Far beyond of the comical and quixotic adventures, the anti-hero of the novel reverberate as well the tragic face of his intertextual model, because Geraldo Viramundo, “mineiro” walker, will be arrested, interned in psychiatric asylums and including murdered by the crowd, in a public lynching, being a scapegoat, just like Jesus Christ. The violence that the main character is submitted in the plot will be analysed, second the modern jurisprudence, through Michel Foucault (1975), and in an anthropologic and religious level, via René Girard (1972; 1975). The way of analysis will consider still the Brazilian representations – specially the Tiradentes – and the universal ones of the novel (more precisely the Christian elaboration of the main character) and the study will conclude that, in a national point of view, O grande mentecapto is pessimistic, but from the human and universal point of view, it propitiate us, in the chimerical space of the future, a possible escape of the violences that operates the mechanisms of the social coercion. / Analisaremos O grande mentecapto: relato das aventuras e desventuras de Viramundo e de suas inenarráveis peregrinações (1979), o segundo romance do escritor mineiro Fernando Sabino. Ao considerarmos a obra como neopicaresca, segundo o aporte teórico de Mário González (1994), tivemos em mente que ela também é um gênero cômico de literatura e concorre para uma configuração popular de protagonista: o pícaro, em nossas letras, costuma vir acompanhado do idealismo utópico do Don Quijote (1605; 1615), de Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra. Para além das cômicas e quixotescas aventuras, o anti-herói do romance também reverbera a face trágica de seus modelos intertextuais, pois Geraldo Viramundo, andarilho mineiro, será preso, internado em manicômios e até assassinado por uma multidão, em um linchamento público, constituindo-se um bode expiatório, à semelhança de Jesus Cristo. A violência a que o protagonista é submetido no enredo será analisada, segundo a jurisprudência moderna, através de Michel Foucault (1975), e num nível antropológico e religioso, via René Girard (1972; 1985). O percurso de análise considerará ainda as representações brasileiras – especialmente a de Tiradentes – e universais da obra (mais precisamente a elaboração cristã do protagonista) e concluirá que, de um ponto de vista nacional, O grande mentecapto apresenta uma visão pessimista, mas que, do ponto de vista humano e universal, propicia-nos, no espaço utópico do porvir, uma possível libertação das violências que operam os mecanismos de coerção social.