Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Toronto, 1993. / Includes bibliographical references.

As a theme of my diploma thesis I have choosen an Artis´t book.I have choosen this subject becouse of different reasons. One of these is that this vast theme has not properly inguired yet. My work is devided into three parts. Theoretical, applied and practical. In the first part I try to define the vast phenomenon of artis´t book itself. I have choosen the art-historical point of view. Furthermore I wrote abaut how this subject has developed in course of time. I have faund some key artists for whome the artist book was and is still the main subject. In the applied part of my diploma thesis I look at the difficulties which could occured in the course of the making this kind of book. So I write abaut graphic technics and so on. The third part-actually the main part is the object of artis´t book itself. I have choosen poems inspired by landscape, which I accompained by abstract motives inspired by poems. The photographical document of my work is in theoretcal part as a suplement.

Current literary history mainly highlights humanistic travel publications written in the Czech language. Voyages in the foreign languages are staying in the background of the literary field or unfortunately are even neglected in spite of the fact that their cognitive function is not weakened. Submitted thesis is trying to break or disturb this way of observing at least and at the same time attempts to intergrate the German-written work by the Czech traveller into the Czech literary tradition. Jiří Tektander from Jablonné, the author of the voyage, wrote down his experiences and remarks of the diplomatic mission, which had been delegated to Persian Shah Abbas the Great by Rudolph II. in 1602. Tektander became the first Czech man who visited and described Persian Empire and Armenia. He was the only one from Rudolph´s Ministers who survived the long course in three arranged expeditions. At that time our analysed work was very popular and was also published twice. In spite of its popularity, the revolutionary year and the events happened after the beginning of the November 1620 was unfortunately fatal for that work and it was almost neglected. The aim of this thesis is a kind of revival of the Tektander´s vovage and also it is an attempt to include this work in the imaginary refined humanistic literature. This thesis is trying to map the trace of the Emperor´s delegation, explore visited locations, also compare remarked facts with the reality and finally insert to the historical context.

No description available.

Bibliotherapy—the use of books to facilitate the recovery of people in distress from an emotional disturbance—has a history of nurturing metacognition to achieve a cathartic expression by verbal and nonverbal means. The support of a community with shared traumatic experiences, such as incarceration, can help sustain the benefits of bibliotherapy. This exploratory qualitative research study is focuses on a digital book club consisting of men and women with criminal conviction histories (CCH), along with the ways in which a work of fiction could promote self-reflection and resilience necessary for self-rehabilitation. Post-Incarceration Syndrome (PICS) is the leading cause of recidivism among both males and females in the United States, many of whom may have other mental disorders as well. Among those with PICS, incarceration transcends a physical location and becomes a state of mind: mental incarceration. The study’s participants were people who had served over one year of time in a minimum- to maximum-security or federal prison, and who had agreed to participate in an optional four-week digital book club focused on a selected work of fiction. This study contributes to the body of literature surrounding self-rehabilitation and social change by informing administrators, faculty, and staff involved in correctional education that a digital book club could be a viable means of self-empowerment for a person with a CCH, post-incarceration.

No description available.

During the early part of the eighteenth century, the growth of the book trades depended upon a series of technological advances. With each innovation, new forms of printed material, such as newspapers, essays, novels, and biographies became available and in many cases, extremely popular. Cultural perceptions of popularity among the growing body of readers, however, immediately relegated most of these new forms to a subaltern status. As the new readers became new writers, subcultures developed around each new form, which then changed the perceived social status of both the members of the subculture and the textual form. Even though printed materials has often been seen as simple commodities, reading subcultures of the eighteenth century had the power to redefine the social meaning of a given textual form and they often did so because in changing the status of the text they could also alter their own status. The members of these various subcultures used their associated textual form as a means to redefine their own identity as well as the social status of the text itself. Each of the varieties of publications gained or lost social status based upon their association with particular subcultures. In this way, the formation of textual subcultures provided a conduit through which individuals could create, maintain, and renegotiate personal identity. By examining the creation of specific textual subcultures in conjunction with shifts in technology, my work offers a new, empirically supported model for understanding the precise relationship between reading and identity formation at the moment when modern, market-based culture came into existence. Challenging the interpretive tradition established by Ian Watt in the 1950s, I formulate a dynamic model of identity creation based upon the perception of technological membership. Because Watt's focus, as well as those of many succeeding critics, was upon a single genre rather than upon individuals' interaction with new print mediums, the current understanding of eighteenth-century identity is a progressively static model of reading which cannot be applied beyond that specific historical period. My work directly challenges current ideas of subculture formation and the inherent bonds between members by establishing how writers negotiated their own self-perceptions through authorial participation and, ultimately, defined their own social status. By determining how people created their own cultural identities through associations with forms of printed material and evolving technologies, my work reconsiders previous interpretations of literary history based upon economic class formation and prompts re-evaluations of basic critical literary terms, such as `literature,' `popular,' and `aesthetic worth.' With a new model for understanding identity formation in market culture, my research offers models extending beyond the eighteenth century and informing current debates about textual cultures. In recent years, the mass digitization of printed material has prompted announcements of both the death of the book and a decrease in mass literacy; yet, online communication, particularly social networking sites such as Facebook or Twitter, has grown dramatically. Computer technology, in this respect, is no more than another phase of printing innovations, which itself is fostering the creation of new reading subcultures.

Most scholars would agree that Josiah’s death in the Book of Chronicles is negatively portrayed, especially as contrasted with his laudable Passover. But why should the king par excellence, according to 2 Kings, die such an ignominious death in the Chronicler’s portrayal? By applying a methodological framework derived from cultural trauma theory in its relation to social identity theory, this dissertation argues that the Chronicler’s negative recounting of Josiah’s death not only marks the initiation of cultural trauma for the Chronicler’s community but ends by encouraging the hopeful alleviation of the community’s enduring cultural trauma. In analysing the Chronicler’s markers of cultural trauma within the context of the social identities that appear in the genealogies and subsequent narratives in the book of Chronicles, the failure of Josiah can be most clearly seen in his seeking battle with Pharaoh Neco without seeking YHWH. Not only did Josiah fail to heed the word of God not to confront Neco, but his very disobedience initiates the cultural trauma experienced through the fall of Jerusalem and subsequent forced migration, which follows swiftly after the death of Josiah according to the Chronicler. In turn, the narrative of Josiah’s death is connected to the cultural trauma of the broader community primarily through the appearance of Jeremiah. The first reference of Jeremiah in the book of Chronicles has him issuing a lament in the wake of Josiah’s death (2 Chr 35:25), while Jeremiah’s final reference recounts the fulfilment of his prophecy of “seventy years” rest (2 Chr 36:21-22) signalling the end of forced migration in the wake of the fall of Jerusalem. At the same time, by examining the Chronicler’s markers of cultural trauma, this dissertation presents evidence that the Chronicler is seeking to recategorize the community within a superordinate identity of “all Israel” as a means to alleviate their cultural trauma that was initiated and symbolised by the death of Josiah. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

The book of Habakkuk is unique amongst the prophetic corpus for its dialogical format, in which an interchange takes place between YHWH and the prophet. Throughout the different sections, reference is made to antagonists both in Judah and Babylon, and it is not always clear which enemy is in view or how the two parties relate. Additionally, the shifts in literary types and overall themes throughout the work have raised the question of how the different sections relate to each other. Towards this end, this dissertation develops a model for discourse analysis of Biblical Hebrew within the framework of Systemic Functional Linguistics, which has a three-level model of meaning. The Mode component tracks the references to entities that create cohesion. The Field component examines what the various participants are doing, tracking process types, transitivity, and logical relations between clauses. The Tenor component looks at the speech roles and subjects used by different speakers. As much as possible, the individual data points within the three types of analysis are correlated with the others in order to discern patterns of usage. The analytical procedure is carried out on each pericope of the book separately, and then the results for each section are compared in order to determine how the successive speeches function as responses to each other, and to better understand development or change in the perspectives of the various speakers throughout. While the large amount of data compiled makes it difficult to summarize succinctly, in all three analytical categories throughout, differing configurations of the entities of the prophet, YHWH, the Chaldean, the nations, and the natural world show development regarding what holds discourses together, how they portray the actions and power relations, and what they arc discussing overall. When the introductory (1:2^l) and final (3:2-19) discourses of the prophet are compared, the mode, field, and tenor exhibit the following shifts, respectively: (1) a cohesive cluster of YHWH, the prophet, and evil things is replaced by a situation in which YHWH’s cohesive chain interacts with various extensions of his power and the natural world in addition to the prophet and the enemies of his people; (2) a transitivity configuration in which YHWH acts upon the prophet and various evil things act upon benevolent institutions is replaced by a configuration in which YHWH acts upon the earth, nations, the prophet (now in a positive way), and the enemies of the prophet; and (3) a discourse in which the prophet asks questions about YHWH’s passivity and makes statements about the rise of evil is succeeded by a discourse in which the prophet commands YHWH to execute his will, asks rhetorical questions about YHWH’s domination of the turbulent seas, and makes statements about YHWH, the natural world’s trembling response to YHWH, and the consequent emotional state of the prophet. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Thesis (M.F.A.)--Boston University