Written in the tradition of American political suspense thrillers such as "Fail-Safe" and "Seven Days In May," "Bearclaw" uses their idealistic and nationalistic elements to tell a story of an American President eager to lead the world's peoples in a quest to achieve man's "highest destiny," the conquest of space. Believing that this common goal will cause mankind to come together in a spirit of brotherhood, he misreads the historical purpose of the United States and, in the end, refuses to recognize the obvious truths of human frailty and ambition even though he has been victimized by them. The Introduction is a brief survey of the sociopolitical and literary forces which combined to create the American political suspense thriller and an attempt to define its place in the literary canon.

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This project exhaustively examines the first element (theme) of each clause in Mark and in samples from other roughly contemporaneous Jewish writings. The comparative documents are divided into two categories, referential and non-referential narratives. Then statistical analyses (χ2 and t-test) are used to determine with which category of comparative documents Mark more closely aligns. The raw results of these hypothesis tests were equivocal, but their corresponding effect sizes (Cramer’s V and Cohen’s d, respectively) clearly demonstrate that Mark more closely resembles referential narrative, although the difference is small. / Thesis / Candidate in Philosophy

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Thesis (M.A.)--Marshall University, 2002. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains 179 p. Includes bibliographical references (p. 178-179).

Chapter One will introduce the central area of exploration of this study and establish the main terms of reference and guidelines of the research. Chapter Two will deal with the background and history of the project, and will include a discussion on creative writing as therapy in the context of a prison. Chapter Three will present a critical overview of the project's aims and results, as well as an account of the pedagogical methods employed. It will also analyse the work of three members of the writing group: Vusi Mthembu, Themba Vilakazi and Sibusiso Majola. Chapter Four will outline the socio-political context of my primary research material: a collection of poems written in prison by Bheki Mkhize, Sipho Mkhize and Bhek'themba Mbhele. It will also include a brief biographical account of the three writers, as well as an historical examination of the Seven Days War in Pietermaritzburg in the early nineties. Chapter Five will focus on the three writers' accounts of incarceration, the threat of violence in prison and their resistance through writing to the loss of identity. Chapter Six will deal with the issue of alterity, and the way that the writers represent issues of identity in their poetry, and create spaces of difference and distinction. It will also focus on intertextuality, and analyse the manner in which the writers negotiate the Western tradition of aesthetics in order to stake claim to their own spaces of difference in the prison. Chapter Seven will conclude the study, and will examine contemporary cultural studies theory with specific reference to South Africa. It will also include an overview of the proposition of the research, and elaborate the way forward for a popular culture embracing such findings. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2004.

This study explores the ways that acts of writing occur and become recognized as “writing” in a kindergarten classroom. Symbolic representations often aligning with the dominance of conventions come to be seen and named as writing as soon as children enter school, therefore influencing how one is seen and named in the classroom space as a “writer.” This often-narrow focus on what it means to be a writer leaves little room for teachers to acknowledge the various acts of writing that occur or might occur across space and time in a given classroom or in out of school contexts. With this naming of particular acts of writing, comes the exclusion of other acts. Drawing on a sociocultural framework with tenets of post structuralism, this case study uses a Foucauldian approach to shed light on the multiple powers/knowledges that are deployed in a classroom. Using ethnographic methods this work highlights the ways that children engage in acts of mark making both within and beyond the designated pedagogical space dedicated to writing. Data were gathered through participant observations, interviews, and the collection of artifacts across the first 4 months of school in a kindergarten classroom situated in a suburban district in the Midwest. The ongoing analysis of data across the study surfaced several discursive patterns suggesting that both the teacher and children were influenced by the larger discourse of accountability and compliance circulating in schools today. With an increased emphasis on early literacy standards and the ensuing accountability attached to such, this analysis has the potential to open up possibilities that may extend how writing might come to be seen and taught in classrooms, therefore influencing the kinds of writing and acts that might be seen as permissible.

Early in his career, Martin Luther twice published (1516 and 1518) prefaces for the anonymous German work, Eyn deutsch Theologia. In these prefaces, as well as in a number of letters, he repeatedly praised the work. His positive appraisal stemmed from his belief that the work replicated not only the foundational teachings of St. Paul, but was consonant with the Pauline interpretations of St. Augustine and Johannes Tauler. Young Luther found in these authors a consistent metaphor for Christian existence: dying and rising with Christ. This narrative enabled Christians to experience death and resurrection as a future hope, as well as a present existential reality within their lives. Young Luther believed that the varied narratives inherent in late medieval spirituality had placed Christ at the periphery of Christian spirituality rather than at its core. Consequently, he repeatedly sought to correct this misplacement and return Christ to the center of Christian life and piety. This dissertation examines this Pauline metaphor, the contemplative spirituality the young Luther built upon it, and the sixteenth-century reception of this spirituality. Chapter one introduces the project and offers a short survey of the literature on Luther's spirituality. Chapter two reviews contemplation in Scripture, then considers St. Paul's presentation of his metaphor. It also discusses how the contemplative writings of St. Augustine, Tauler, and the Frankfurter (the anonymous author of Eyn deutsch Theologia), made use of this Pauline metaphor. Chapters three and four consider Luther's creative employment of the Pauline narrative in five of his devotional works from 1519: Ein Sermon von der Betrachtung des heiligen Leidens Christi, Ein Sermon von der Bereitung zum Sterben, Ein Sermon von dem heiligen hochwürdigen Sakrament der Taufe, Ein Sermon vom Sakrament des Leichnams Christi und von den Brüderschaften, and Tessaradecas Consolatoria pro laborantibus et oneratis. In each case, Luther built upon existing devotional genres, yet altered their contents and/or form by importing the Pauline metaphor. Chapter five inquires into the sixteenth-century reception of these five devotional works. Paying particular attention to interpretative clues left in correspondence, commentaries, marginal notes and illustrations by a number of publishers and translators, it demonstrates that these persons not only perceived of these writings as contemplative devotional exercises, but chose to market them explicitly as such. It would seem that Luther's "theology of the cross" expressed itself in a corresponding spirituality of "death and resurrection." Although this spirituality entailed a specific contemplative progression, it was adaptable to the life circumstances of any Christian. This universality contributed to the popularity of Luther's early spiritual writings. Young Luther's narrative imagery along with the publishers' additional illustrations helped to revise spiritual practices and reshape Christian piety throughout the sixteenth century.

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