Thesis (MA (Afrikaans and Dutch))—University of Stellenbosch, 2007. / This study investigates the way in which the representation of history and of the "other" coheres with the construction of the identity of the characters in Eilande (2002) by Dan Sleigh and Pelican Bay (2002) by Nelleke Noordervliet. Initially the research contextualises the authors and their novels by means of a short biographical introduction on the two authors and their different oeuvre’s, as well as an outline of the reception history of the two chosen postcolonial novels. The theoretical background which follows, gives a review on postcolonial literature in general and, more specific, in the Netherlands and South Africa respectively. Different perspectives on representation of the history and the representation of the "other" are provided, with specific attention to the relationship between hybridity, syncretism and identity. These theoretical insights form the basis for the analysis of the two novels, where the relationships and differences between these two postcolonial texts are highlighted. The conclusion is that Eilande and Pelican Bay could be seen as, firstly postcolonial, as both novels provide criticism on the colonial order in different ways and, secondly, were published during a period which followed the colonial era. Hybridity is an important term in this study, with reference to the forming of identity of some of the prominent characters. The conclusion is that the term dynamic cultural hybridity could be used in discussions about postcolonial mixed identities. Although both novels use techniques to give a voice to voiceless marginal subjects, shortcomings in their portrayal as fully-fledged characters do, however, exist. Both novels also have as an ultimate objective to prove that it is impossible to know history and the "other" and that no one truth exists. The motif of islands which appears frequently in both novels is related to aspects like identity, exile and alienation. In conclusion it is not only apparent how strongly the different characters in the novels are formed by their socio-historical contexts, but also from the approach of the authors in their contemporary criticism on oppressing systems like the VOC and/or slavery.

Thesis (MA (Afrikaans and Dutch))--University of Stellenbosch, 2010. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Autobiography is a growing, but elusive literary genre. However, when texts are read as autobiographical – and thus as a form of self-representation – the theme of identity provides the reader with an interesting and useful method by which to approach it. In this study, two Afrikaans autobiographical texts are approached in a comparative manner, with the aim being to examine the writers’ representations of themselves. The texts studied are ’n Wonderlike geweld (2005) by Elsa Joubert, and ’n Ander tongval (2005) by Antjie Krog. Besides the autobiographical nature of these texts, the comparison is also based on: the writers’ status in the Afrikaans literary system, similarities beween them and their backgrounds, and the corresponding publication dates. The theoretical basis from where the concepts autobiography and identity are viewed is explained briefly. The emphasis falls on autobiography as a hybrid genre, that is defined mainly by how it is read. The use of identity as a reading strategy is suggested, with identity being understood as an unstable construction that changes constantly, depending on the context in which it is constructed. Consequently, the different identities according to which Joubert and Krog reveal themselves to the reader and the autobiographical forms through which they achieve this, are examined and discussed in separate chapters. Specific emphasis is placed on how they convey the spirit of the time and on the influence of the context in which the texts are published. Finally, the differences and similarities in the writers’ representation of themselves are summarised. In the end it emerges that the reading strategy focused on identity provides the reader with a useful approach to the study of texts in the autobiographical genre, since it is possible to successfully apply it to two texts with diverse autobiographical qualities. Furthermore, it becomes clear that the structure and style of these texts mirror the writer’s approach to identity to a great extent. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Outobiografie is ’n groeiende, maar onpeilbare literêre genre. Wanneer tekste as outobiografies – en dus as ’n vorm van self-representasie – benader word, bied die tema van identiteit egter ’n interessante en nuttige invalshoek. In hierdie studie word twee Afrikaanse outobiografiese tekste vergelykend benader, met die doel om die skrywers se voorstellings van hul identiteit daarin te ondersoek. Die twee tekste wat gebruik word, is ’n Wonderlike geweld (2005) van Elsa Joubert, en ’n Ander tongval (2005) van Antjie Krog. Benewens die outobiografiese aard van die tekste, sluit die basis vir vergelyking ook die skrywers se status binne die Afrikaanse literêre sisteem, ooreenkomste tussen hulle en hul agtergronde, en die ooreenstemmende publikasiedatums in. Die teoretiese basis vanwaar die begrippe outobiografie en identiteit beskou word, word kortliks uiteengesit. Die klem val op outobiografie as ’n hibridiese genre wat veral gedefinieer word op grond van hoe ’n mens dit lees. Die gebruik van identiteit word dan as ’n lees-strategie voorgestel, met identiteit wat verstaan word as ’n onstabiele konstruksie wat konstant verander op grond van die konteks waarbinne dit gekonstrueer word. Die verskillende identiteite waarvolgens Joubert en Krog hulself aan die leser openbaar en die outobiografiese vorme wat hulle hiervoor gebruik, word dan ondersoek en bespreek in twee afsonderlike hoofstukke. Spesifieke klem word gelê op die tydsgees wat vasgevang word en die invloed wat die konteks waarbinne die tekste gepubliseer word, het. Uiteindelik word die verskille en ooreenkomste in die skrywers se voorstellings van hulself saamgevat. Ten slotte blyk dit dat die lees-strategie wat fokus op identiteit ’n nuttige invalshoek bied vir die studie van tekste binne die outobiografiese genre, aangesien dit met vrug op twee tekste met uiteenlopende outobiografiese eienskappe toegepas kan word. Verder word dit ook duidelik dat die struktuur en styl van die tekste in ’n groot mate die skrywer daarvan se benadering tot identiteit weerspieël.

Thesis (DPhil (Philosophy))--University of Stellenbosch, 2005. / The purpose of this thesis twofold: first, to develop an account of modernity as a “loss of the world” which also entails the “death” of the human as a meaningful philosophical, political or moral category, and second, to explore the possibility of recovering a sense of the world in us and with it, a sense of what it means to be human. This argument is developed by way of a sustained engagement with the work of Friedrich Nietzsche and Hannah Arendt, whose analogous critiques of modernity centre on the problem of the connection between humanity and worldliness. My argument consists of three parts, each of which spans two chapters. Part one of the thesis sets out the most important aspects of Nietzsche’s and Arendt’s respective critiques of modernity. Chapter one focuses on modernity as a rupture of a philosophical, political and religious tradition within which existence in the world could be experienced as unquestionably meaningful. Following arguments developed by Nietzsche and Arendt, chapter two establishes that the loss of this tradition results in a general crisis of meaning, evaluation and authority that can be designated as “modern nihilism”. The second part of the thesis deals with what may be called the “anthropological grounds” of the critique of modernity developed in part one. To this end, chapter three focuses on Nietzsche’s portrayal of the human as “the as-yet undetermined animal” who is neither the manifestation of a subjective essence nor the product of his own hands, but who only exists in the unresolved tension between indeterminacy and determination. This is followed in chapter four by an inquiry into Arendt’s conception of “the human condition”, which in turn points to the conditionality of being human. What is clearly demonstrated in both cases is that, in so far as the predicament of modernity is incarnate in modern human beings themselves, any attempt at overcoming this predicament would somehow have to involve re-thinking or transcending our present-day humanity. The third part of the thesis examines the way in which the reconceptualisation of the human as advocated by Nietzsche and Arendt transforms our understanding of “world”. The more specific aim here is to demonstrate that both thinkers conceive of a reconciliation between self and world as a form of redemption. In chapter five I explore their respective attempts to resurrect the capacity for judgement in the aftermath of the death of God as the first step in this redemptive project, before turning to a more in-depth inquiry into the “soteriology” at work in Nietzsche’s and Arendt’s thinking in chapter six. This inquiry ultimately makes clear that there is a conflict between the Nietzschean conception of redemption as amor fati (love of fate) and Arendt’s notion of redemption as amor mundi (love of the world). I conclude the thesis by arguing that what is at stake here are two conflicting notions of reconciliation: a worldly – or political – notion of reconciliation (Arendt), and a much more radical, philosophical notion of reconciliation (Nietzsche), which ultimately does away with any boundary between self and world. However, my final conclusion is not that we face an inevitable choice between these two alternatives, but rather that the struggle between these two dispositions is necessary for an understanding of what it means to be human as well as for the world in which our humanity is formed.

在重視集體智慧、重視服務、且需要因應環境快速變遷的年代，傳統的系統開發方法論雖然有其不可磨滅的價值，但已經顯露出其不足之處。為了順應時代的潮流，方法論必須指引企業去聆聽大眾的心聲，以期確保系統提供優質的服務，方法論也必須指引資訊人員運用有異於以往的手法與步驟，與其他部門和大眾共同合作，來持續不斷地維護系統，使得系統得以注入新的生命力而不斷演進。 為了提出一套不斷吸納使用者的新需求來規劃系統演進的功能需求分析方法論，本研究以哲學詮釋學為基礎，並佐以軟體工程相關文獻，將持續吸納新需求來促進系統演進的抽象概念，化為具體可執行的步驟。本需求分析方法論是針對使用者提議的需求進行初步分析與確認，可分為兩個主要部分：需求形成流程、與衝突處理流程。需求形成流程是分析使用者所提出之功能性需求的主要方式，其中包含了提出新需求、分析新需求在商業活動與科技層次的影響、估計新需求的成本效益來決定是否實作、排序實作的優先權、並且了解新功能的釋出時間的期望。而衝突解決流程是為了解決各方人馬的歧見所造成的爭端，衝突解決的方式包含了自行協商、第三方中間人介入協調、以及高層決策小組的裁決。 為了讓企業外界的大眾提議新需求，本研究發展了一套以部落格為基礎的新需求提議工具，讓網友可在部落格上提出自己對新功能的想法。此外，為了協助企業判斷新需求是否會觸發衝突解決流程，本研究根據哲學詮釋學，將使用案例（Use cases）加以延伸修改，提出一套後設模型，並輔以知識本體，據此來提出一套規則，讓本工具能自動偵測新需求與系統既有設計之間是否有所抵觸，而規則亦可進一步應用在新需求間的衝突上。 為了初步瞭解本研究所提之方法論與工具的優缺點，本研究與中時電子報和民視購物網合作，來試用此方法論與工具。透過試用之後的訪談得知，本方法論與工具有其價值，而也獲得了不少寶貴的試用意見。最後，本研究根據試用的諸多意見，對方法論與工具的改善上，提出了具體的改良作法與方向。 / Nowadays, companies have to respect collective knowledge and improve service quality for adapt their rapidly changing environment. Traditional systems development methodologies may be still valuable but have shortcomings. To accommodate customer-driven trend, new methodologies must guide enterprises to listen to customers for ensuring high-quality system services. New methodologies also have to guide developers to carry out cross-department and customer-centered collaboration in new ways for maintaining systems cyclically. This research proposes a user requirements analysis methodology according on philosophical hermeneutics and software engineering literature. The proposed methodology includes requirements formation and conflict resolution. Requirements formation process involves new user requirement proposition, commercial and technical impact analysis, cost benefit estimation, coding prioritization, and new version release scheduling. Conflict resolution process involves negotiation, mediation, and arbitration. Besides the proposed methodology, this research also develops a blog-based tool for collecting user requirements on Internet. This research extends and modifies use cases diagram and use philosophical hermeneutics as a foundation to propose a meta-model. This research also proposes a set of rules for conflict detection. Base on the proposed meta-model, ontologies, and the proposed rules, the blog-based tool can automatically detect conflicts between new requirements and existing design. These proposed rules also can apply to detect conflicts among new requirements. An online newspaper company and an online shopping mall try to use this methodology and the blog-based tool. In the interviews, they confirm this methodology’s and tool’s values and give several suggestions for improving the methodology and the tool. Finally, this research discusses the improvements and future research directions according to these suggestions.

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This thesis focuses on the ancient reception of the Categories of Aristotle, a work which served continuously, from late antiquity into the early modern period (Frede 1987), as the student’s introduction to philosophy.  There had previously been no comprehensive study of the reception of the Categories during the age of the first philosophical commentaries (c. 80 BC to AD 220). In this study, I have collected, assigned, and analyzed the relevant fragments of commentary belonging to this period, including some that were previously undocumented or inexplicit in the source texts, and sought to establish and characterize the influence of the early commentators’ activity on the subsequent Peripatetic tradition. In particular, I trace the early evolution of criticism and defense of the text through competing accounts of its aim (skopos), which would ultimately lead Stoic and Platonic philosophers to a partial acceptance of the Categories and frame its role in the later Neo-Platonic curriculum.

Advocates of middle grades reform in the United States argue that curriculum and instruction, as well as leadership, organization, and community relationships, should be informed by knowledge of the developmental characteristics of 10 to 15 year-olds within physical, social, emotional, psychological, cognitive, and moral domains. Noticeably absent from their conception of human development are spiritual developmental characteristics of young adolescents. This interdisciplinary research was a critical constructivist (Kincheloe, 2008) inquiry of the following question: What is the educational relevance of spiritual development in middle grades education? To study this question, critical historiographical research methods (Villaverde, Kincheloe, & Helyar, 2006) were used to interrogate the academic discourses of three fields related to the research question: (a) the middle grades concept; (b) spirituality as a developmental domain; and (c) holistic education. Foundational texts from these fields served as sources of data. I present the result of the data analyses as narratives on the paradigms that influenced the (hi)stories of these three academic fields. These narratives were analyzed for common epistemological and ontological perspectives. Amongst the paradigms of the three fields, three meta-paradigms are shared: Ecological Epistemology, Holistic Ontology, and Positivist Ontology. In addition, a discursive interrelationship within each field, a dynamic of paradox, was found between the three meta-paradigms. These results offer encouragement for the relevance of spiritual development as part of the middle grades concept, as they suggest that integration of knowledge of adolescent spiritual development is theoretically supported by commitments to caring relationships in schools and constructivist learning theory. The results also suggest a paradigm revolution (Kuhn, 1996) that might allow for a new discourse of possibility (Giroux, 1981) for spirituality in education. This dissertation research could serve as a basis for further research that focuses on how to integrate knowledge of adolescent spiritual development in public schools in the United States.

This thesis examines James Joyce’s Ulysses (1922) and early cinema (c. 1895-1920) through Merleau-Pontian phenomenology. Instead of arguing for lines of direct influence between specific films and particular parts of Ulysses, I show that Joyce’s text and selected early films and film genres exhibit parallel philosophies. Ulysses and early cinema share similar ideas on the embodied nature of perception, the close relationship between mind and body, the intermingling of the human and the mechanical, intersubjectivity, and the subject’s inherence in the world. All of these shared ideas are inherently phenomenological. My phenomenological position on the Joyce-and-cinema relationship is at odds with a popular strain of scholarship which cites impersonality, neutrality, and automatism as the key linking factors between early cinema and modernist literature (including Joyce). ‘Joyce-and-cinema’ studies is a relatively large, and growing, field; as is ‘modernism-and-cinema’ studies. As well as ploughing my own path through an already crowded area, I analyse the different trends present (both historically and currently) in each area of study. I also add to the scholarship on phenomenological film theory by analysing the work of phenomenologically inflected film-philosophers and suggesting some new ways in which Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology might be used in the analysis of films and literature. I provide close analyses of several episodes of Ulysses and pay particular attention to ‘Ithaca’, ‘Circe’, ‘Nausicaa’, and ‘Wandering Rocks’. Several of Charlie Chaplin’s Mutual films are analysed, as are a select number of films by George Méliès. I also look at other trick-films, Irish melodrama, panoramas, ‘phantom rides’, and local actuality films (especially Mitchell and Kenyon’s Living Dublin series). Proto-cinematic devices – the Mutoscope and stereoscope – are also included in my analyses.

Mémoire numérisé par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal.

Abstract The purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore perceptions of loss and grief experiences within religious rites and rituals vis-à-vis the context of counseling. Literature indicated the need for a better understanding of grief and loss experiences from bereaved individuals’ perspectives and the context within which loss and grief experiences occur (Dillenburger & Keenan, 2005; Stroebe, Hansson, Schut, & Stroebe, 2008). Participants for this study included 10 purposefully selected Catholic members from two Catholic Church parishes in Nigeria, Africa. All participants had experienced loss and grief, had participated in Catholic burial and funeral rites and rituals, and were 21 years or older. The main research question was: How do bereaved individuals perceive their grief experiences within the context of Catholic burial and funeral rites and rituals? Data collected to answer the research questions consisted of observations, semi-structured interviews, and documents. A cross-analysis approach was used that identified 63 themes, which were collapsed into 11 major themes. depicted in three areas; bereaved participants’ grief experiences, bereaved participants’ experiences of rites and rituals, and implications for counseling. The findings of this study indicated that loss of a relationship was a dominant preoccupation in grief and grieving process. Additional themes reflected by bereaved individuals’ grief and grieving experiences were; time and nature of death, religious rites and rituals, family and community support, family frictions, financial stressors, positive memories, belief system, finding meaning, ongoing traumatization, and counseling. Overall, the conclusion from this study was that three areas conceptualize loss and grief experiences: bereaved participants’ grief experiences, bereaved participants’ experiences of rites and rituals, and implications for counseling.