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For this phenomenological study, thirteen participants from two private universities, located in the western region of the United States shared their lived experiences of being a college student who does not request accommodations. The author used recursive analysis to analyze qualitative data from semistructured interviews. Initial codes were combined to create interconnected families of codes. A second level of analysis resulted in seven spaces in which participants described their lived experiences. Findings suggest participants experience various tensions, ranging from incompatible options to competing perspectives, as they negotiate their identify and environment. including the principle of opportunity cost. Recommendations for college administrators and faculty, including Universal Design in higher education are included.

Modern economic theory of self-interest alleges that in their economic relations people always behave in a way that maximises their utility. The idea whether human beings were solely self-interested has a long history as it can be seen from the writings of Greek philosophers and the Church fathers. Among Greek philosophers there were those who argued that human beings were naturally self-interested (Aristotle) and those who maintained that human beings were communal by nature (Plato, Stoics and the Pythagoreans). The later position was adopted by the Church fathers as they condemned self-interest as the sin of avarice and greed. The justification of self-interest in human and political activities was part and parcel of the economic and political early modernists, as it can be seen in the works of Mandeville, Hobbes, Hume and Adam Smith. In the writings of these thinkers, the flourishing of wealth depended on individual freedom to pursue their self-interests. In this regard, selfinterest became the sole source of motivation in the behaviour of homo economicus. A persistent motif in late modern economic discourse on self-interest is based on the idea that people think and act on the basis of that which is to their self-interest. It is mainly for this reason that late modern economic thinkers maintain that society would prosper when people are left alone to pursue their self-interests. Late modern economic theory of utility maximisation alleges that individuals act only after calculating costs and benefits. The argument of this thesis, based on the commonalities between African humanism and process philosophical anthropology, is that self-interest is antithetical to communal life as advocated in the ethic of Ubuntu. One who acts solely on the basis of maximising his or her utility would inevitably deprive others of a humane existence. A holistic metaphysical outlook based on the relatedness and interrelatedness of everything that exists as we find it in African humanism and process philosophical anthropology implies that the individual exists in internal relations with everything else. We should go beyond selfinterest by giving primacy to a holistic ethic. / Systematic Theology & Theological Ethics / D. Div. (Theological Ethics)

This thesis deploys Homi Bhabha's perspective of postcolonial literary theory as a critical procedure to examine particular instances of fiction, as well as reportage on Botswana. Its unifying interest is to pinpoint the shifting nature or reality of Botswana and, by extension, of African identities. To that end, I use Bhabha's concept of liminality to inform the work of writers such as Unity Dow, Alexander McCall Smith, and instances of reportage (by Rupert Isaacson and Caitlin Davies), from the 1990s to date. The aims of the thesis are, among other things, to establish the extent to which Homi Bhabha's appropriation of the term liminality (which derives from Victor Turner's notion of limen for inbetweenness), and its application in the postcolonial context inflects the reading of the above works whose main motifs include the following: a contestation of any views which privilege one culture above another, challenging a jingoistic rootedness in one culture, and promoting an awareness of the existence of several, interlocking or even clashing realities which finally produce multiple meanings, values and identities. In short, it is proposed that identity is not a given but rather a product of a lived reality and therefore a social construct, something always in process. The thesis begins by theorizing liminality in Chapter 1 within the context of Homi Bhabha's understanding and interrogation of the colonial discourse. This is followed by the contextualization of liminality through the reading of, firstly, the fiction of Unity Dow in Chapters 2 and 3, and then the "detective" fiction of Alexander McCall Smith in Chapters 4 and 5. In the discussion of these works, I also touch on instances of reportage which relate to the lives of the authors. In the case of Smith's "detective" fiction, for example, reportage refers to his incorporation of actual historical events and personages whose impact, I argue, suggests the liminality of culture. In Chapter 6, the idea of reportage varies slightly to denote works of fiction in which there is a great deal of historical fact. Thus Rupert Isaacson's The Healing Land: A Kalahari Journey and Caitlin Davies' Place of Reeds are treated as works of reportage in line with Truman Capote's application of that term. What comes out most evidently in this study is the shifting idea of (Botswana/African) identity. It should be noted that rather than present an all-embracing account of the fiction on Botswana, the study only looks at the selected examples of writing and reportage. / University of South Africa National Research Foundation / English Studies / D. Litt. et Phil. (English)

This dissertation concerns the socio-cultural politics expressed in the performances of Matthew Barney, Steven Cohen, Marina Abramovic, and the ‘Pop’ artist Madonna. The contention is that these artists mirror and dramatize marginalization and seem to reflect a desire to resolve conflicts experienced between social and psychological identities in contemporary society. The premise of this study is that these performers engage in a ‘dialogue’ with viewers as a form of self-preservation and self-healing. The Performance artists’ measure of socio-cultural tensions suggests the merging of mass media entertainment, theatrical devices and other cultural practices such as fetishism and rituals involving altered states of consciousness, props and allusions to shamanism. An ancient modality of healing, such as shamanism, when appropriated by artists, seems to reflect an urgent phenomenological need of the individual within Western society for overcoming feelings of powerlessness as a type of therapeutic practice. The Performance artists’ Othering is acted out as a survival mechanism addressing and questioning the ‘degradation’ imposed on marginalized individuals who challenge the traditional notion of authentic identity and the ‘classic’ body. / Art History, Visual Arts and Musicology / M.A. (Visual Arts)

This thesis investigates how selected Zimbabwean female writers narrate HIV and AIDS. It argues that, generally, the prevailing images of women in Zimbabwean society and literature are incapacitating. Male authors have been portraying women in disempowering ways as loose, dangerous, weak and dependent on men. This unjust portrayal of women has been worsened by the prevalence of HIV and AIDS. Women have been depicted as vectors in the spread of HIV, thus perpetuating sexist ideologies. Presuming that women authors can do better in their depiction of female characters, this research investigates whether female authors differ in their representation of female characters in contexts of HIV and AIDS. The works critiqued are Virginia Phiri’s Desperate (2002), Sharai Mukonoweshuro’s Days of Silence (2000), Valerie Tagwira’s The Uncertainty of Hope (2006), Tendayi Westerhof’s Unlucky in Love (2005) and Lutanga Shaba’s Secrets of a Woman’s Soul (2006). The study further explores the extent to which Zimbabwe female authors sanction, conform, undermine, assess critically or do away with unconstructive images of women in contexts of HIV and AIDS. This study emphasized the possibility of literature to offer a platform for the liberation of women, or a counter- platform for reactionary politics. Predicated on the notion of gender and danger, the study questions whether female authors perpetuate the stereotypes of women’s roles as destructive, or whether some view ‘dangerous’ images of women in literature as liberating. Overall, this thesis argued that contrary to the postulation of female authors being similar in their understanding and depiction of the concept of gender and danger, they are not. It is at this juncture that this study breaks new ground by utilizing the concept of agency to show how different female writers interpret and narrate gender and danger in contexts of HIV and AIDS. This study applies the notion of agency as a means of evaluating the extent to which women employ nonconformist acts in order to undercut patriarchy and other oppressive socially constructed ideologies. / English Studies / (D. Litt et Phil. ( English Studies))

Text in Afrikaans / Die verhaal wat hier vertel word is die van 'n jongeling wat sy ouerhuis verlaat om vir homself te sorg. Dit is die verhaal van die postmodernistiese wetenskaplike wat na 'n tydperk van modernistiese adolessensie moet afstand doen van die geborgenheid van sy kosmiese bestaan om 'n volwasse selfaangewesenheid nate streef. Maar wanneer hy homself (be)vind as die ek wat elke psigo-fisiese en rasioneel-empiriese werklikheid voorafgaan, is dit net om te ontdek dat hierdie ek nog ervaring nog wese is, dat hy hier niks anders (is) nie as 'n verwantskap van hierdie lewe met die dood. Om iets hiervan te begryp moet hy homself as 'n Lacaanse fallus aanskou. Hy is die beeld van die lewensvloed wat sy rol slegs in versluiering kan speel. Sy konstruksie verg altyd alreeds sy destruksie. Al wat (is) is sy masker, 'n persona, 'n vertolkte karakter waaraan die vertolking onttrek en 'n onbeslisbaarheid gepredikeer word · 'n bepaalde/bepalende dekonstruksie. / The story told here is one of a lad who leaves his parental home to take care of himself. It is the story of the postmodern scientist who after a period of modernistic adolescence must give up the safe security of his cosmic existence in the quest for an adult self reliance. But when he finds himself as the I who precedes every psychophysical and rational-empirical reality, it is only to discover that this I is neither experience nor being, that here he (is) nothing but the relationship of this life with death. In order to grasp something of this, he has to see himself as a Lacanian phallus.He is the image of the vital flow that can play its role only when veiled. His construction always already requires his destruction. What (is) is his mask, a persona, an interpreted character from whom the interpretation is being withdrawn and an undecidability predicated- a determinated/determinating deconstruction. / Psychology / D. Phil (Sielkunde)

Some scholars have formed a more expansive view of knowledge that moves beyond the cognitive notion of intellect. For example, emotional intelligence (EI) theory posits that human intelligence encompasses both cognitive and emotional competencies, providing a framework for the concept of contemplative practices in an endeavor to support an eclectic understanding of cognition. Contemplative practices may benefit graduate student disposition and inform areas of educator preparation through the use of emotional adeptness in higher education. The purpose of this study was to: (a) develop a self-report measure: Scale of Contemplative Practice in Higher Education (SCOPE); (b) address the issues of validity and reliability related to the SCOPE; and (c) expand the understanding of contemplative practices in the literature. Data collected from an extensive review of the literature, reference to personal experiences, and consultation with an expert panel were used to generate scale items. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were conducted to test the factor model. Analyses resulted in a 30-item factor model with strong reliabilities.

This thesis investigates whether beliefs acquired by way of prophecy are safe. By ‘prophecy’ I have in mind the presentation of the prophetic method as found in the Guide of the Perplexed, which was Moses Maimonides’ philosophical masterpiece. And by ‘safe’ I have in mind the work by Timothy Williamson on the safety condition for knowledge. Both authors have proven to be dominant forces on these respective topics. The significance of this investigation derives from the centrality of prophecy to the three monotheistic religions. My main goal in this thesis is to identify those safety risks associated with the prophetic method. In this manner I aim to undermine any presumption in favor of prophetic beliefs as a whole being safe. Importantly, this general conclusion does not entail of a specific prophetic belief p that p is unsafe. Additionally, the scope of these results is restricted to the model of prophecy found in the Guide. The thesis begins with a critical elucidation of Williamson’s extensive work on the safety condition for knowledge. Particular attention is paid to those issues related to method individuation and Williamson’s cumulative conception of bases. Matters concerning these two topics inform the reading of Maimonides on prophecy found in the second chapter. In particular, I argue that Maimonides should be read as defending a cumulative conception of prophecy. As I emphasize several times during the chapter, the epistemology of prophecy cannot be reduced to the epistemology of testimony since prophecy for Maimonides does not involve the transfer of a proposition from God to the prophet. The third chapter is devoted to identifying those elements of the prophetic method that involve room for error. I argue that while all belief-forming methods in a fallibilist epistemology contain room for error, some are riskier than others. Prophecy should be considered one of the riskier sort. The fourth and final chapter shifts attention to non-standard semantics for ‘knows,’ David Lewis’s in particular. I argue that the interaction between such semantics and the laws governing prophecy in Jewish law is problematic. In particular, I demonstrate that such semantics destabilize the prophetic phenomenon. As such, we must either choose invariantism and gain stability, or choose non-standard semantics for ‘knows’ and live with this lack of stability.