Cette recherche porte sur la définition des mécanismes qui ont amené à la mise en place du système proto-urbain en Mésopotamie du Nord au début du 4ème millénaire. Grâce à l'analyse de l'assemblage céramique et des ateliers de potiers de Tell Feres al-Sharqi, des chaînes opératoires traditionnelles ont été identifiées en tant que marqueurs de l'identité technique des artisans et des relations sous-jacentes aux systèmes de production entre l'Obeid récent, le LC1 et le LC2. La pertinence chrono-culturelle des dynamiques de compétition et coopération entre les différents groupes de producteurs - mises en lumière grâce à l'évolution des chaînes opératoires céramiques et à leur répartition spatiale a été vérifiée sur la base des transformations des habitats, des architectures et des provinces céramiques. L'émergence des institutions proto-urbaines apparaît ainsi comme l'effet d'une transition entre un système obeidien, où de grandes maisonnées encadraient une production à base familiale dans des réseaux hétérarchiques mésa-régionaux, à une organisation lignagère des activités céramiques et des pratiques redistributives. L'essor des premières productions en série (telles les Coba bols), l'apparition éphémère d'une architecture proprement monumentale et l'introduction du tour pour des récipients fins constituent des étapes du parcours par lequel de grands lignages se structurent en institutions hiérarchiques proto-urbaines et instaurent, vers le début du 4ème millénaire, une forte homogénéisation de la culture matérielle dans tout le monde nord­-mésopotamien, entre le Levant septentrional, la Mésopotamie centrale, le Zagros et le Caucase du Sud. / This study focuses on defining the mechanisms that led to the proto-urban system in the early 4th millennium northern Mesopotamia. Through the analysis of the ceramic assemblage and pottery workshops of Tell Feres al-Sharqi, traditional chaînes opératoires have been identified as markers of the technical identity of the craftsmen, as well as of the relationships underlying Late Ubaid, LC1 and LC2 production systems. Cooperation and competition dynamics amongst different groups of producers have been highlighted through a synchronic and diachronic study of the ceramic chaînes opératoires and of their spatial distribution. Then, the chrono-cultural rhythms of this process have been verified on the basis of the evolution of architectural traditions and ceramic provinces in northern Mesopotamia. The emergence of proto-urban institutions appears as the effect of a transition between the Ubaid system -where large families arranged a domestic-based production in meso-regional heterarchical networks -to a lineage organization of ceramic activities and redistributive practices. The spread of the first serial productions (such as Coba bowls), the ephemeral appearance of a truly monumental architecture and the introduction of the potter's wheel for some rare refined vessels are some hallmarks on the path whereby major lineages became hierarchical and centralized proto-urban institutions. Thus, they had a central role in the early 4th millennium B.C. material-cultural homogenization throughout northern Mesopotamian world, between northern Levant, central Mesopotamia, Zagros and southern Caucasus.

The following contribution interweaves culturalanthropological and media studies approaches to analyze the concept of 'community' in a phenomenon of the new media, the socalled 'milblogs.' These communities use the blogosphere to create and distribute a master arrative about the relationship of American civil society with its military and, thus, about how segments of American society attempt to come to terms with the War on Terror. The contribution emphasizes the interaction of bloggers with their audience in the narrative process of imagining, proclaiming, and nurturing such communities.

This is a book about contemporary American(ized) narratives and the audiences they call into being. It brings together eight very diverse case studies covering and investigating a wide range of media, genres, and modes to ask how contemporary 'texts' encourage 'imagined communities' of readers/viewers that operate as 'public spheres' of social and political deliberation, self-fashioning, and debate. In asking this question, the contributions collected in this volume shift perspectives in a number of ways: They question the boundary between the audiences of (often popular and broadly circulating) narratives on the one side and national public spheres on the other; they thus encourage rereading the transnational mobility of American(ized) narratives not simply as a phenomenon of popular culture but as an indicator of emerging transnational public spheres; and they invite us to look closely at the narrative dynamics with which these texts operate their audiences as public spheres.

The aim of this research is to investigate the functions of ceramic vessels from two well-defined contexts at Tell Ahmar that have been dated to the Middle Bronze Age II (c. 1800-1600 BC). In addition, correlations between socioeconomic activities and ceramic production at a local and regional level are further investigated. Since there is no one-to-one relation between vessel type and vessel function, the research adopts a multi-dimensional approach formed by the following hierarchical investigations. Firstly, a ceramic typology for the Middle Bronze Age pottery from Tell Ahmar, the first to be undertaken, is constructed to provide a working platform for further analyses. Secondly, interpretations of vessel functions are made based on the techno-morphological implications of vessel use. Moreover, since the ceramic assemblage under investigation represents the systemic inventory of artefacts in use in the rooms at the time of the site abandonment, function of the rooms and relative associations with the composition of the ceramic room assemblage at Tell Ahmar are investigated. In addition, comparative analysis from Northern Mesopotamian and Syrian sites are used in conjunction to suggest functional activities for the defined vessel shapes at Tell Ahmar. Inferences of vessel function are finally supported by the results of ceramic residue analysis and by epigraphic and iconographic evidence of vessel use. Functional activities (i.e. transport, storage and processing) are further discussed in order to make socioeconomic inferences at both local and regional levels. This analysis indicated that one of the major activities at Tell Ahmar was associated with long-distance transport and storage, while for those shapes characterised by a perforated base, an association with beer production is suggested. At a regional level, a general similarity of vessel shapes is noted, this being stronger among the Euphrates River Valley sites than in Inner Syria or in the Khabur Valley. However, when these similarities are examined in detail, ceramic production indicates some local distinctions. These variations, which are not associated with any ancient political boundaries, may be explained in terms of local preferences and requirements that emerged within long-distance flourishing relationships established during this period.

Master of Arts / Department of Communications Studies / Timothy R. Steffensmeier / The military operates through a system of gender and sexuality hierarchies that privilege masculinity and heterosexuality as the ideal category of service member. This symbolic national institution is also conceptually tied to notions of citizenship. For marginalized groups, gaining the ability to freely enlist in the military represents a benchmark toward achieving full and equal status as political subjects. Such has been the case for the mainstream lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender rights movement. For much of the past century, military discourses have aided in rhetorically constructing homosexual identities as pathological, deviant, and unfit to serve in the armed forces. A recent shift in this rhetoric from Department of Defense (DoD) officials, which contributed to a repeal of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, calls into question how changing discourses about gay and lesbian service members rhetorically construct queer citizenship. To answer this question, theories of gender and sexuality performance, corporeal rhetoric, and critical security discourse inform an analysis of the Report of the Comprehensive Review of the Issues Associated with a Repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”, a DoD document assessing potential risks to the military upon repeal. The analysis reveals that despite assertions made in the document that open service by gay men and lesbians poses minimal threat, this claim is ultimately grounded in the presumption that institutional hegemony adequately constrains performative possibilities for LGB identity articulation.

Thesis advisor: Penelope Ismay / In this thesis, I examine the history of the U.S. military’s stance on homosexual and bisexual service personnel and the political and cultural influences that changed this stance. Even though the military held a largely anti-homosexual attitude for much of its history, it was only during the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s that the military declared itself as antigay. At the same time, the American public attempted to address the epidemic in terms of both public health and civil rights. The public chose to protect the gay community’s civil rights, so the military had to follow suit. President Bill Clinton created “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” as a compromise between the alleged military needs and pubic demands. Paradoxically, this policy actually increased discharges of homosexual personnel, cost the military financially, and bred fear and isolation within homosexual service members. And it was the exposure of these injustices that led to its repeal. / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2017. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Departmental Honors. / Discipline: History.

The purpose of this qualitative study was to examine the connection between principal leadership practices and the perceptions of how teachers reported the practices that influence teaching and learning. The interview method was used to collect the data for this study. The TELL TN survey is currently used to collect data in public schools throughout the state of Tennessee. This survey is used to obtain data on different aspects of education including school leadership. The TELL TN survey informed my interview questions in order to gain more in-depth data and to gain a greater understanding of the results. Teachers from different Middle Tennessee schools and who serve different grade levels were interviewed. These interviews were focused on leadership practices of school principals and what they perceived to aid in their teaching and therefore aid in student learning. The overarching themes that were uncovered included support, autonomy, and sincerity.

Even with the repeal of the 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' (DADT) policy, the U.S. Army has seen increased cases of sexual harassment; sexual assault; and discrimination of gay, lesbian, and bisexual (GLB) service members by other service members. Despite this trend, few studies have explored the experiences of victims of sexual harassment and sexual assault of GLB recruits before, during, and after the repeal of the DADT policy. Using the bystander effect as the theoretical construct, the purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore the experiences and interactions with a sample of 11 drill sergeants (DSs) who witnessed GLB discrimination in order to gain insight on strategies to prevent sexual harassment and discrimination against GLB recruits. Interview data were inductively coded and subjected to a thematic analysis procedure. Key findings indicate that participants perceived a general support for GLB inclusion into the basic combat training environment, and participants were unaware of the high number of discharges of service members from the U.S. Army during the implementation of the DADT policy. Another important finding is that participants were supportive of GLB scenario-based training. Finally, the bystander effect was found to be the main reason participants failed to intervene when instances of discriminatory or abusive behavior was observed. Implications for positive social change can be realized in the U.S. Army through promoting awareness of GLB discrimination, its impact, and how DSs can lead the effort in preventing this sort of behavior against the GLB recruits. A key recommendation is for the U.S. Army to explore implementing scenario-based training for all recruits as part of this effort.

The Bronco Chase and arrest of O.J. Simpson for the murder of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend, Ronald Goldman, and his subsequent criminal trial became one of the most captivating, mass-mediated events of the last decade of the twentieth century. Simpson's iconic celebrity status and his race as an African-American inflamed the notoriety of the crime. An insatiable spectatorial desire for Simpson and narratives concerning his alleged involvement in the Brentwood murders engulfed the American public and American culture for thirty-two months. An excessive scrutiny of his identity by the media, law and order professionals and the populace generated a racially charged discursive cacophony. The memoir Simpson published during his remand to raise funds for his defense expenses, I Want to Tell You: My Response to Your Letters, Your Messages, Your Questions, allows for a productive critical study of everyday rhetoric and the commodity fetishism of celebrity. Released in late January 1995, during the first week of the prosecution�s opening statements in the criminal trial, I Want to Tell You was Simpson's first public comment following the nationally televised reading of his suicide note and his spectacular arrest on June 17, 1994. The intercalation of Simpson�s narrative utterance with 108 of the more than three hundred thousand letters he received from June to December 1994 as Los Angeles County Jail inmate 4013970 is a practical manifestation of the use value and exchange value of fame. The reciprocity of the epistolic, the phatic demands of address, the etiquette of fan mail and hate mail, the gift of the written text, vulnerable and resonant, reveal an adherence to the symbiotic dynamic of the celebrity-fan, writer-reader, dyadic relation and its currency. Plying his trade as idol of consumption, as spectacle, as genre, Simpson capitalised on the cultural condition of his name and his face as objects of desire. The racialised flesh of Simpson's African-American male body became a site and a sight for narrative and inscription within a pay-per-view marketplace of reification, prosopopoeia, gazeability and criminality.

The orthogonal, or rectangular, grid plan arose out of a need to organize the sprawling cities of Ancient Greece. To one particularly enigmatic figure in history, this problem was met with a blueprint and a philosophy. The ancient city-planner known as Hippodamus of Miletus (c. 480-408 BCE) was more of a philosopher than an architect, but his erudite connections and his idealistic theories provided him with numerous opportunities to experiment with the design that has come to bear his name. According to Aristotle, he was commissioned by the city of Athens to redesign its port-city, the Piraeus, and it is likely that he later followed a Pan-Hellenic expedition to an Italic colony known as Thurii (Thourioi). Strabo argues that the architect was also present at the restructuring of the city of Rhodes; however there is some debate on this issue. Hippodamus’ blueprint for a planned, districted city soon came to define the Greek polis in the Classical period, culminating with Olynthus in the Chalcidice, but his ideas were by no means unique to his own mind. There are precedents for the grid plan not only within the large, administrative empires of the Near East, but also within the Greek colonies of the Mediterranean, whose own histories span at least two centuries before Hippodamus’ lifetime. Since the 19th century, when Hippodamus received his title as the ‘Father of Urban Planning’, confusion and mistranslations have plagued the discipline, casting doubt on nearly every facet of Greek urbanism. Although he could not have invented the orthogonal grid plan, as Aristotle claims, it may prove far more effective to focus instead on Hippodamus’ philosophy and to give voice to where he himself excelled: the theoretical side to city planning. / Graduate / 0999 / 0579 / 0324 / aidanbk@uvic.ca