Abstract Not Provided / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Memories are often triggered by the presence of physical artifacts. When artifacts are replaced, the contemplation of a history attached to the artifacts tends to fade or even disappear. In an urban context, it often means that buildings and spaces which are the record of a culture are substituted with buildings and spaces that are disconnected from tradition in favor of a fast paced economy. China is the prime example of the largest and fastest urbanization over the past two decades. While it dramatically transformed most cities and suburban areas into modern urban organizations, large amounts of beautiful local architectures disappeared. This thesis proposes that architecture - no matter at what time is built - has the potential to embody a historic dimension and memories when seeking a symbiosis of traditional materials and modern technologies. The project here is a vehicle to seek memory to be evoked by the spatial scale and familiar materials without compromising modern requirements and conveniences. / 10 / Memories fade out when old things being replaced by new things. This is a common phenomenon that happens constantly in today's fast-paced world. Technological progress of construction increases the speed of urbanization, however, it erases good old memories in the same speed simultaneously. Take China as an example, the largest and fastest urbanization in the past two decades dramatically transformed most cities and suburban areas into modern appearances. Large amount of beautiful local architectures disappeared. This thesis explores ways to preserve those good memories through integrating traditional materials and modern technologies. Guests' memory will be evoked by experiencing the spatial scale and old materials while still having a modern lifestyle in a hotel.

The following thesis has attempted to investigate the possibilities of an architecture based in tradition and in innovation. An architecture that neither imitates nor mimics, but one that results from construction and the nature of materials used rather than from the application of decorative elements to disguise the structure of the building. The success of a project results from the architect's conceptual understanding of the traditions of the region in which the project exists, informed by local traditions yet not illustrating a revivalist form of vernacular construction. / Master of Architecture

Teilw. zugl.: Diss.

Zugl.: Oldenburg, Univ., Diss., 2005

Throughout its long history, the Brahmanical literary tradition has demonstrated a deep concern with gifting and, thus, provides valuable data on this important institution in pre-modern South Asia. Significantly, this long tradition of reflection on the gift culminates in a class of texts called dānanibandhas, which start to appear in the early twelfth century CE and continue to be composed in widespread areas of the subcontinent until roughly the beginning of British rule. These dānanibandhas draw together, organize, and comment upon a vast array of earlier scriptures on dāna (Sanskrit: gift/gifting) and, therefore, represent a grand attempt to synthesize all earlier Brahmanical thought on the subject. Consequently, they are invaluable sources for the understanding of orthodox Brahmanical theories of the gift during much of South Asian history. Despite their potential value to modern scholarship, however, none of these texts has been translated into any Western language or even properly edited. Thus, the state of these primary sources greatly hampers any scholarly attempts at their analysis. This dissertation constitutes a first and crucial step toward remedying this situation, for it comprises a critical edition and annotated translation of the Dānakāṇḍa (“Book on Gifting”), the fifth section of the encyclopedic Kṛtyakalpataru of Lakṣmīdhara and the earliest extant dānanibandha. As a complement to this philological work, a more general study of Brahmanical theories of the gift with special emphasis on the early dānanibandhas has been included. / text

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This dissertation examines the preservation of Chinese kunqu, one of China’s indigenous operatic genres, in recent years with a special focus on renowned writer Pai Hsien-yung’s new adaptation of classic kunqu play The Peony Pavilion (Mudan ting). I use this adaptation as a case study to demonstrate how the actual shape of a stage production can be determined by a producer’s choice between tradition and innovation. The contention between the two variables can be identified in the hundreds of years of kunqu history. The introduction provides a brief overview of the ascension of kunqu to its dominance as a national opera between late Ming and early Qing dynasties (late sixteenth century to early nineteenth century). The first two chapters analyze the downfall of this genre and its struggle for existence and development from mid-Qing through the turbulent twentieth century with particular emphasis on exploring the interplay between tradition and innovation. The next two chapters focus entirely on Pai Hsien-yung’s stage production of Peony and its wide distribution. The last chapter examines the latest kunqu production modes developed under the influence of Pai’s approach. Through this detailed analysis of Pai’s kunqu production and its impact, this research identifies one of the most prominent trends in kunqu preservation and development in the twenty-first century. It explores the dialectical approach adopted in this trend to handle the relationship between tradition and innovation, and the particular redefinition of audience construction. A renewed wave of kunqu preservation efforts within China during the past decade created a favourable environment for Pai’s productions. The success of his works has drawn new attention to the opera and eased kunqu crisis to a fairly large extent. The most significant contribution of Pai’s works to Chinese kunqu discourse can be seen from the expansion of audience base, particularly among the educated youth, and the increasingly varied and creative strategies for kunqu production and distribution. These changes have greatly transformed the overall Chinese kunqu scene, and ushered in a new era when new kunqu stage works are made into collages of intrinsic kunqu aesthetics and certain traditional artistic values. Pai’s ability to negotiate a space for kunqu amidst fierce competition against the many different forms of modern entertainment has restored people’s confidence in both kunqu and Chinese cultural traditions at large. Pai’s experience of finding a particular balance between tradition and innovation, between art and market, has contributed critically not only to the emergence of more hybridized kunqu productions, but also to the preservation and development of other forms of traditional Chinese performing arts genres in the age of globalization and commercialization.

Baseball was once seen as America's pastime, but somehow lost its way. Baseball was inherently American, and stood for more than a game. Yet a number of events caused baseball to fall from grace. Using Ernest Thayer's poem “Casey at the Bat: A Ballad of Republic Sung in the Year 1888” as a frame work, this project identifies three events that caused baseball's fall and three additional events that currently threaten the game, which will be evaluated according to Aristotle's doctrine of the mean. Understanding the game's past and present will help to develop a methodology to apply to threats of the game to ensure baseball's future.<br> To begin, this project identifies three events that originally caused baseball's fall: the Black Sox Scandal in the 1919 World Series, two franchises moving from New York to Los Angles, and the Labor Strike of 1994. Each event creates distance between the game of baseball and its idealized past. The first chapter also propels the following three chapters by viewing the current threats of the game as three imaginary pitches for Casey with the goal of attempting to change his original fate from the poem, in which he struck out.<br> Chapter II, Casey's first imaginary pitch, deals with the steroids crisis. The home run era helped to revitalize the game after the Labor Strike, but the success was short-lived. “The Mitchell Report” was first published on December 13, 2007. The report was the culmination of a 21-month investigation of anabolic steroid-use in baseball, and identified 89 MLB players linked to steroids. Although the records and statistics were put into question, the harshest result of this event was that it called into question the ethics of the baseball – with the ongoing suspicion and a lack of trust toward the game, baseball no longer fosters havens of trust. Additionally, the lack of an immediate response by the league showed a delayed reaction, one of deficiency. This is the first strike to Casey in the imaginary at bat.<br> Perhaps propelled by the Steroid Era, the next event that continues to threaten the game is the sabermetric movement, marked by the publication of Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game (Lewis, 2003). Sabermetrics in general attempt to provide new and more technologically driven metrics to better understand the game. Although learning more about the game is good, dismissing old statistics causes people to lose ground and connection to the past. The over-emphasis of sabermetrics shows excess, again causing Casey to swing too early and miss another pitch. The final event that threatens the game of baseball is the implementation of technology, namely instant replay, into the game, which occurred in 2008. The game of baseball assessed the successes of other sports’ uses of instant replay, withheld implementation over 20 years later than the NFL, and originally made modest additions to the game. The focus on the past helps to preserve tradition and helps to foster a good connection for the game in the present game. With the third pitch, Casey found the balance between deficiency and excess and hit a home run. The final chapter lists ongoing problems to each of the three events identified in Chapters II-IV, provides a detailed critique of progress as understood through Modernity, assesses the ways in which Aristotle’s doctrine of the mean can be used as a philosophical framework to deal with ethical issues, theorizes various uses of this methodology, and finally discusses the ways in which baseball can be preserved for the next century.<br> The afterward revisits the original poem of “Casey at the Bat” and provides an updated version, “Casey’s Hope.” / McAnulty College and Graduate School of Liberal Arts; / Communication and Rhetorical Studies / PhD; / Dissertation;

The most volatile area of contention in the discourse between a pure secularized world and the Church in contemporary times is located in the area of sexuality, marriage and family life. Modernist and liberal post enlightenment culture accuse the Church to be unchanging, and unreflective of modern ‘personal’ choices in the contested areas of human sexuality. Within the Church, there are voices also who call for ‘developments’ in such areas of doctrine. For over forty years, these conversation has taken on many shades of grey coming to a head with questions of discordancy and same sex unions among other pressing and related issues.<br> This dissertation aims to contribute to the ongoing conversation by attempting to clarify the foundational understanding of what constitutes the possibility of a development in doctrine or the lack of it. There are five chapters of this work devoted to this endeavor. In chapter one the encyclical tradition of a hundred years timeline, focused on questions of sexuality and family life are reviewed to establish a historical development in the magisterial position of the Church. Chapter two is devoted to John Paul II's Theology of the Body which is set up as the frame work upon which this project argues for what is perhaps the current magisterial position on the topic under discussion. In chapter three, a review is undertaken to explore questions about the natural law which forms a bedrock of Catholic argument in its moral theology and for cases of personal sexual ethics. A historical analysis is employed to see how the theory itself has evolved from its ancient origins, into scholasticism, and how it has been used in political jurisprudence. More importantly to its reemergence within the last century as the new natural law theory which seeks to establish the same argument purely from a philosophical aspect and without a theistic foundation. <br> Four theological voices are engaged in chapter four to try and locate what broadly contemporary and wider theological contexts have to say from an anthropological, feminist, and cultural context. In chapter five, the idea of development of doctrine is reviewed. The questions of discordancy and same sex unions are used as theoretical frame work to presenting how development in doctrine has the possibility of a shift or the impossibility their off. A hypothetical idea is borrowed from liturgical theology, using the idea of ‘matter’ and ‘form’ to explain essentials of Christian doctrine (also known as dogma) which remains unchanging as defined position. And the accidental aspects of Christian doctrine which is open to re-interpretation in the light of new cultures and new questions. The entire notion of doctrine rests on ‘Christian tradition’, therefore a question of tradition, and what is being traditioned across time is explored to clarify the process necessary for proper understanding of development. In conclusion, some pastoral recommendations are made based on current papal and magisterial documents as possible means of approaching newer questions raised by a secularized and post enlightenment world. / McAnulty College and Graduate School of Liberal Arts; / Theology / PhD; / Dissertation;