The purpose of this document is to examine the Spanish folk elements used in original compositions for the harp written by the Spanish composers Jesus Guridi, Gerardo Gombau and Victorino Echevarria. The document demonstrates that the harp is particularly suitable to convey the essence of the rhythmic, harmonic and melodic elements of traditional Spanish folk music. Spanish composers, particularly Jesus Guridi (Viejo Zortzico) Gerardo Gombau (Apunte Betico) and Victorino Echevarria (Capricho Andaluz), adapted elements of Spanish folk music such as cante jondo to create original nationalistic music that is idiomatic for the harp, resulting in effective concert pieces for the instrument's repertoire. The first chapter is devoted to the arrival and development of the harp in Spain. The second chapter discusses a history of the harp department at the Real Conservatorio Superior de Musica of Madrid which was established in 1830. This chapter also includes biographical and historical information about harp professors that taught there and the role that this conservatory played in developing distinctive Spanish compositions for the modern harp. Chapter three will discuss the harpists who inspired twenty-century Spanish composers. The subsequent three chapters will cover Jesus Guridi's, Gerardo Gombaus and Victorino Echevarria's lives, influences, and an analysis of their harp compositions: Viejo Zortzico , Apunte Betico and Capricho Andaluz respectively, highlight the Spanish folk elements used, and how composers incorporated these elements into their compositions to create a distinctive sound and fascinating show pieces for the concert harpist.

This critical English translation of the article on the jinn from the 14th-century zoological work, Ḥayāt al-Ḥayawān al-Kubrā written by the Egyptian al-Damīrī is presented with two primary objectives in mind. The first is to investigate al-Damīrīs sources and scholarship in the context of the Mamlūk period--an era which yielded a profusion of encyclopaedic works covering a wide range of topics. The second goal of this translation and analysis is to reflect on the religious and social significance of the jinn in medieval Islam. An appendix giving biographical data on persons mentioned by al-Damīrī is included. There is also a list of place names and a glossary.

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<p> Trickster humor is ubiquitous. Every society has some version of trickster and each society tells the stories of trickster over and over again to both enlighten and entertain. This thesis argues that trickster humor plays a fundamental role in helping society adapt by challenging social norms. Because trickster stories are humorous they are entertaining, because they critique social behaviors they are instructive. Tricksters break social rules, leaving society to remake them. This thesis examines the works of American Humorists Tom Robbins and Edward Abbey, particularly <i>Still Life with Woodpecker </i> and <i>The Monkey Wrench Gang</i>, arguing that these authors are contemporary trickster figures whose work not only entertains their audience but through their rule breaking offers them new possibilities in dealing with the unresolved conflicts American society is wrestling with in the last quarter of the twentieth century and beyond.</p>

This study conducted among the Quichuas of Otavalo (Ecuador) explores the concept of llaqui (depressive experiences) and investigates the Western psychiatric and medical diagnoses of 50 patients suffering from this Quichua illness category. It was found that in the Quichua theory, illness is primarily attributed to nature spirits or malignant spirits under human control and modulated by the experience of intense emotions like fear, anger, and sadness. Clinical evaluation (including Zung's depression scale) indicates that patients labelled llaqui are suffering from mental disorders and physical diseases. Eighty-two percent of patients made the DSM III-R criteria for depressive disorders; 44% for somatoform disorders; and 40% for anxiety disorders. Some 80% of them were also suffering from infectious and parasitic diseases. It is important for health practitioners working with this population to become familiar with this illness belief system and to known the relationship between llaqui and mental disorders, because it should improve the quality of medical care.

<p> This auto ethnography examines how a timid young boy grew up to become a confident music composer and how he developed a method of auto ethnographic songwriting. Through a process of systematic narrative inquiry and hermeneutic analysis, the study uncovers personal insights in self-awareness and in compositional technique. The study examines how the author reacted to personal and professional failures, regained emotional equilibrium through creative expression, and developed a method of transforming spoken text into complete songs. The study also considers how educational practices and cultural expectations in the late twentieth century American affected the composer's musical upbringing and sense of belonging. Additionally, the study recounts how the composer trained his own mind and body to perceive tempo and syncopation in order to compensate for a lack of an innate sense of rhythm. The study illuminates the transforming effect that acts of creativity had on this individual's belief system and how they helped him sustain his enthusiasm for life.</p>

Processes of transnational restructuring have significant, if complex, effects on local tradition. Turkey has been greatly effected by such transformations in the performative arenas of public culture which mediate between national and transnational spaces. These changes challenge Turks' notions of identity, giving way not only to concerns about the proper and most appropriate form of representation to advance as images of Turks and Turkey, but the need to negotiate among these varying identities (class, political, historical, aesthetic, professional, and gender) themselves. Domains of public culture often thought of as "traditional" such as folk dance and festival support the dynamics of middle-brow positioning vis-a-vis the global arena. Yet, while powerful, arenas of performance are also problematic when engaged as mediations on and representations of cultural identity. Because it exists only in the state of performance, dance poses particular difficulties to the effort to pin down meaning and intent. The practice of folk dance in Turkey, thus, is especially charged with debate. While folk dance is often assumed to present a virtual representation of the authentic spirit of Turkish culture, it is increasingly being conceived of as an arena capable of promoting further entree into global cultures of artistic expertise. Attempts to reformulate the practice of folk dance in terms of these goals have sparked intense debate. Tensions between people, including members of the state and participants, who support one position or the other reflect broader tensions of contemporary Turkish society.

The ballads examined here are from F. J. Child's The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, the authoritative collection of ballads. Though definitions of the ballad vary, most agree that the ballad is an orally transmitted folksong that tells a story. The Child ballad collection has stood a solitary monument from its publication (1882-1894). In it Child brought together from manuscripts and printed sources all of the extant English and Scottish ballads that he regarded as authentic. Though Child's work itself was groundbreaking, exploring territory marginal to the sort of academic study making up his official duties as professor of English at Harvard, his collection soon became canonical, subjected to critical study as a sub-genre. Perhaps because Child himself died before he could write his essay on what the ballads were and what they meant, since Child's death, much of the critical work has been an attempt to fill in what was left undone by Child, that is, defining the ballad and analyzing the criteria by which Child made his choices. In more recent times, critical studies of Child's works have applied psychoanalytic and feminist critiques to selected ballads. Yet, no previous work has examined the relationship of Child himself to his collection. This work sets out to view the Child collection in terms of literary critical theory, showing that Child's collecting is an act of Lacanian paternity whereby the collector, attracted especially by the bodies of the female characters, is moved to bring all the ballads under his dominion yet is subverted in his desire for dominion as female characters present themselves in terms of "bodytalk." Chapter one shows Child's collecting as Lacanian paternity. Chapter two focuses on the presentation of women's bodies in the ballads, The final chapter shows that the women characters in selected ballads speak according to what critic Jane Burns terms "bodytalk."

As a music-producing part of Europe between 1843--1957 Scandinavia is well known through composers such as Jean Sibelius (1865--1957), Carl Nielsen (1865--1931) and especially Edward Grieg (1843--1907). Grieg is still a national hero in his home country and was immensely popular during his lifetime in Europe as his piano music found its way into the homes of the average music lover. Sweden, the biggest Scandinavian country, has as rich a cultural heritage as Norway, a tremendous treasure of folk music, and a highly important political and historical influence over Scandinavia. Why didn't it have a composer during this time to put Sweden on the international landscape? In this dissertation, I will attempt to answer this question. I will compare Grieg with Wilhelm Stenhammar (1871--1927) who was a remarkable Swedish composer and pianist and the major composer of piano music in Sweden during this time. I will start by giving a brief history of Grieg's and Stenhammar's lives and careers as well as examples of how they expressed themselves through the piano. In chapter three and four, I will discuss facts and circumstances that have been to Sweden's disadvantage in developing a musical atmosphere that could have been seen in other countries as something typically Swedish.

<p> I wanted to see if there were points of overlap between the various accounts of creation found in folklore, philosophy and physics. In order to justify such a project, I initially considered literature from each of these disciplines regarding the necessity of interdisciplinary dialogue generally and specifically the need for both intuition and logic when considering how anything actually exists. Through my research and casual observation, I hypothesized that opposition seemed to be a universal characteristic of nature. I then looked at how each discipline has described fundamentally opposing pairs and created a list of primary features that those accounts had in common. Finally, I demonstrated (in my study <i>The Symmetry of God</i>) the utility of an interdisciplinary approach to myth by showing how science and philosophy can improve our understanding of myth and conversely how folklore (myth in particular) may suggest meaningful and potentially <i>revolutionary</i> relationships not yet considered by science.</p>