This thesis concerns the cultural meanings of zar spirit possession in Hofriyat, a Northern Sudanese village. It begins with an interpretive analysis of the Hofriyati everyday world, showing village kinship, marriage, and prevalent customs such as female circumcision to be informed by a common idiom: "interiority" or relative enclosure. In Part II it proceeds to discuss, in terms of that idiom, contexts in which the possession idiom might be invoked: who claims to be possessed, and under what conditions. Here it emerges that zar possession plays an important role in the negotiation and renegotiation of meaning by "rephrasing" interpersonal conflict, symbolically restructuring certain life experiences for the Hofriyati, and effecting realignments of kin relations and social positions in ways deemed favorable to the possessed. Next comes a comparison of the zar propitiation ritual and the local wedding ceremony, in which zar is seen to operate as a meta-cultural text, a comment upon the realities of everyday life and the informative idiom of village culture. This idea is carried forward into Part III, where the system of zar beliefs and spirit manifestations is discussed in its own right. Here possession is viewed as an esthetic form and ' potential messages to be derived from the identities and associations of the spirits are considered. In sum, this thesis is an attempt to describe Hofriyati cultural meanings — the logic of everyday life, its negotiation through acknowledgement of possession affliction, and its secondary or meta-cultural elaboration in ritual and in the system of zar beliefs. It draws principally upon the works of symbolic anthropologists such as Geertz, Turner, and Crapanzano, and upon the insights of Paul Ricoeur for theoretical guidance. However, the "theory of Hofriyati culture" which emerges in the dissertation is understood to be the result of interactions between the researcher and her Hofriyati informants. The thesis is an interpretation, a special sort of negotiated meaning. / Arts, Faculty of / Anthropology, Department of / Graduate

Interpretation of Maya social organization through material remains has long been a subject of speculation. The gap between data and interpretation inevitably involves the concerns and conditions of the society producing such interpretive discourse, and diverging interests and modes of analysis continue to result in alternative and often conflicting interpretations of ancient Maya society, often involving suppositions of systemic weakness that led to the collapse of its centralized or dynastic authorities in the ninth century. Currently central in such interpretations is the role of inscribed stone seats, erected by "subsidiary" or non-royal members of Maya society in "subsidiary" districts or suburbs of the major Maya polity of Copan. At issue are the problematic interpretations of these seats that have been constructed to support a particular construct of Maya sociopolitical organization and an inherent weakness that would have doomed it to collapse. This thesis explains the premises of this current interpretation and examines the Copan seats from several alternate viewpoints and methodologies. Formulation of a comprehensive dataset of actual Maya seats and representations of seats in sculpture, ceramic, and hieroglyphic contexts demonstrates that the Copan seats fit comfortably within Maya epigraphic, stylistic and iconographic conventions rather than representing a revolutionary challenge to dynastic authority. Through analyses of form and construction, locational context, varieties of decoration, and content of inscriptions, this thesis shows that such hierarchically-privileged seats-of-authority, which are found in residential complexes of very different socio-economic status, not only in Copan but throughout the Maya region in Classic times, better support a model of factional competition than of autocratic dynastic authority. These seats appear to have been designed to construct the social position of their occupants in relation to subordinate members of their own factions, to other faction leaders with whom they were in competition, and to the ruler as both head of the polity and leader of the royal faction. Indeed, discursive notions of the seat and seating were central to ancient Maya concepts of patriarchal authority. Further, since such factional competition may be shown to characterize Maya social organization since Late Pre-Classic times, the inscribed Copan seats provide no insights as to the causes of the so-called "Maya Collapse." / Arts, Faculty of / Art History, Visual Art and Theory, Department of / Graduate

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This study aimed to assess the character in Recent American fiction. It concludes that writers of Negro literature have been quick to see the effectiveness of the use of Negro religious beliefs and practices in giving reality and substance to their racial pictures. Black men have to live in a white man's world. As a whole, contemporary American fiction gives a panorimic view of Negroes of almost every section.

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Cheuk, Ka Kin. / Thesis submitted in: November 2008. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves [238]-252). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / Abstract --- p.i / Acknowledgement --- p.iii / List of Figures --- p.vii / Chapter 1. --- Introduction --- p.1 / Researches on South Asians in Hong Kong Studies --- p.1 / Indian Overseas and Transnational Network --- p.5 / The Sikhs in Local and Transnational Contexts --- p.10 / Methodology --- p.18 / Organization of the Thesis --- p.25 / Chapter 2. --- Who are the Sikhs? --- p.28 / The History of Sikhism: An Evolution of Sikh Descent --- p.28 / The Philosophical Doctrines and Its Contemporary Impact --- p.35 / Conclusion --- p.41 / Chapter 3. --- "Migration, Settlement, and Remigration" --- p.44 / Patterns of Sikh Migration to Hong Kong: An Overview --- p.44 / An Extensive Mobility of the Sikhs in Today´ةs Hong Kong --- p.54 / Conclusion --- p.77 / Chapter 4. --- Local Life (1): Communal Worship and Cultural Persistence --- p.80 / The Sikh Temple in Hong Kong: Fieldsite Specification --- p.81 / The Rhythm of Temple Activities --- p.87 / The Persistent Cultural Practices in the Sikh Temple --- p.97 / Conclusion --- p.106 / Chapter 5. --- Local Life (2): Temple and Social Relationships --- p.108 / Social Participations in the Sikh Temple --- p.109 / "Different Roles, Different Social Identities" --- p.116 / Forming Communities and Establishing Networks --- p.129 / Conclusion --- p.149 / Chapter 6. --- Individual Identity and Imposed Reality --- p.151 / Why Do You Wear a Turban? --- p.152 / Intermingling of Fervor and Ambivalence in the Sikh Identities --- p.161 / Interpersonal Relationships with the Hong Kong Chinese --- p.168 / Conclusion --- p.175 / Chapter 7. --- Transnational Connections --- p.178 / Rejuvenating the Joint Family Linkage --- p.180 / The Significance of the Joint Family in the Global Context --- p.197 / "Wedding, Land, and New Houses" --- p.210 / Conclusion --- p.220 / Chapter 8. --- Conclusion --- p.222 / How are they related? --- p.223 / Rethinking Transnational Anthropology and Multi-sited Ethnography --- p.228 / Afterthoughts on Studying the Sikhs in Hong Kong and Beyond --- p.231 / Appendix: Glossary --- p.233 / Bibliography --- p.237

蔣宏達. / Parallel title from added title page. / Thesis (Ph.D.) Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2015. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 353-366). / Jiang Hongda.

Graduation date: 1997