This evaluation study was conducted to determine whether or not the Theological Education by Extension (TEE) Programme, of the Anglican Church of Kenya (ACK) is a suitable means of training lay church workers for pastoral ministry. The research was carried out to asses the TEE Programme already in progress. As the Anglican Church of Kenya continues to grow, there is need for training of church workers, using a cost effective programme, without compromising the quality of the church workers. The research sampled five out of the twenty-nine ACK Dioceses, in which the TEE Programme is vibrant. In the five dioceses, the research further sampled lay leaders already in the church ministry. The research took the form of cycles in which implementation stages were conducted. The result of the research was interpreted to draw the conclusion of the purpose of evaluation of the programme. / Open Distance Learning / M. Ed. (Open and Distance Learning

In this study I apply social constructionism as propounded by Vivian Burr (1998) to show that although J. K. Rowling uses stereotypes in the Harry Potter series as a reflection of how gender is constructed across a wide range of societal institutions in contemporary Britain, she created complex characters who on an individual level subvert social constructs and thereby offers her readers alternatives to culturally defined concepts of gender. I explore the all-pervasive social phenomenon of gender and examine how it is constructed in present-day Britain and reflected in the series (bearing in mind that the first book was published in 1997 and the last one in 2007). My analysis of female and male characters in the books, and their interpersonal relationships, shows that Rowling's often tricky portrayal of femininities and masculinities gives us an honest view of teenagers’ lives and contemporary gender relations in an ever-changing, complex world. / English Studies / M. A. (English)

The aim of this study is to explore the importance of love in its various manifestations in the lives of the Harry Potter characters and its power to consequently influence the paths that they eventually choose to walk. Love is investigated as the reason behind the choice between good and evil as well as paradoxically both a fortifying as well as a destructive force. Furthermore, it attempts to examine the importance that love plays in the healthy or dysfunctional development of the characters. Numerous philosophies and theories that span two different eras will form the theoretical framework of this research paper. There will be a constant interplay between the theories and the main text, that is, the seven Harry Potter books that together represent the Harry Potter series. Additionally, the author‟s opinion acquired from invaluable fan interviews will be utilized in order to improve the understanding of the characters motivations. The introduction is a brief explanation of key terms and theories that are essential to the exploration of love in the Harry Potter series. The study comprises five chapters. The first three chapters are concerned with the three main manifestations of love represented in the series, namely; parental love, friendship and romance respectively. Chapter Four focuses on the adaptation of the novels into movies and the subsequent result that this has on the depiction of love. Chapter Five highlights the finding of the study conducted. / English Studies / M.A. (English)

This dissertation considers the contextualising in African settings of three themes addressed in youth literature of the Baptist International Publications Services (IPS). It utilises a critical methodology developed from Kraft's (1979) ten principles of communication to analyse the efforts to contextualise the themes of salvation, the Christian family and witchcraft. Chapter one discusses contextualisation and presents a critical methodology based on Kraft's ( 1979) principles of communication. Chapter two is an historical background study of the International Publications Services. Chapters three, four and five use the critical methodology developed in chapter one to examine the themes of salvation, the Christian family and witchcraft respectively, as found in IPS youth literature. Chapter six is an analysis and conclusion of the study with suggestions for further research. / Missiology / M.Th.

The master's thesis Witchcraft and Inquisition in literal and historical context of "El Crótalon" offers a look at displays od the Witchcraft in the literature of first half of the 16th century with special attention on classical Greek and Roman literal models. Furthermore, the thesis analyzes the influence of Erasmus'work and impact of the Reformation movement on intelectual panorama as well as on the popular opinion; it concentrates on the evolution of Witchcraft and its growing influence over the social life. It also studies how the changing caracter of the Witchcraft reflected in the literal activity of its times. Second part of the thesis is dedicated to religious aspects of the Witchcraft, its connection with heretical movements and persecutions by the Inquisition.

To open a different perspective on the still-discussed difference between Christian religion and magic is the task of this work. In order to reach the end successfully, that is, the fourth part of this thesis, which deals with the principle of sanctity in the Catholic Church, it was necessary to first develop the following three blocks. 1) Religious-anthropological analysis of magic ? in this part we summarize basic anthropological views on magic according to the individual researchers J.G. Frazer, E.B. Taylor, R.R. Marett, B. Malinowski, and E. de Martino. The subject of this section was the analysis of animism and the inner power of creation. 2) Magic as a part of religion ? in which we analysed the content of the concept of magic, the area where it came from, and how it was perceived in the environment of the Mediterranean European culture of ancient Rome, and how magic was discredited in the ancient "pagan" and Christian environment. 3) The interest of the sages in the phenomenon of magic ? has created a space for the issue of the magic of "barbaric" tribes, whose faith traditions have become a legitimate part of the Catholic faith. This section has also developed a "story of overly" peculiar magic adepts of the "restored" Renaissance Platonic Academy, in which M. Ficino and P. della Mirandola worked. We paid more attention to their life stories and work, for they themselves stood at the birth of an "institutional" association in the area of a sort of "applied" magism in the form of esoteric neoplatonism, hermetism, and theururgy. At this point we also found the historical model of the later Czech hermetic society Universalia, which we mentioned at the end of the work. 4) Ex opere operato et ex opere operantis ? it represents the peak of our work, opening a whole new discussion in the critique of magic and religion. Magic and Christian religion have a common root, they co-exist side by side, complement each other, and even blend in some areas of universal piety as conditions of one and the same Catholic faith.

Listening to Birth asserts that structures of power reproduce themselves by instituting particular modes of listening and sound production. Situating my research within feminist sound studies, I argue that meanings conjured around the audible, material bodies of women were carefully crafted by elites in antiquity, in order to construct gendered ideologies of kingship, civilisation, and nature. I examine these power dynamics as expressed in mythic and magical texts and iconographies, dating from the Bronze Age to later Roman antiquity. Throughout the thesis, I examine the development of symbolic systems and narrative tropes that linked mining and metallurgy with reproduction and vocality. My analysis emphasises how the invention of nature was accomplished, in part, through a metallurgical reclassification of the voices and sexualities of women as indiscrete phenomena: womb, mouth, and voice were elided with mining and smelting to form a unified semantic realm. I argue that this invention of ‘vulvar vocality’ reclassified female sounds as illicit, providing a plaform for the removal of women from the public sphere. I attempt to connect the gendered discourse found in myths and magical rituals to the political and economic domain of state-craft, to demonstrate the importance of hegemonic mythopoeic control of audible female reproduction for establishing ideologies of colonisation and extraction. I link analyses of texts and iconographies from the Bronze Age Mesopotamians, Hittites, Canaanites, Minoans, and Egyptians to later materials from the Iron Age Greeks, Israelites, and Romans—my goal is to demonstrate both the ubiquity and the continual reproduction of metallurgical ideology across the ancient world. I also present my preliminary research into the lasting impact that antique notions of vulvar vocality had on later state-craft. I begin to trace the preservation and elaboration of antique metallurgical literature by Byzantine and Islamic scholars, who in turn exerted strong influence on the Ottomans and late medieval and early modern Europeans. I outline future work to investigate the exponential rise of entrepreneurial metallurgy in late medieval and early modern Europe, arguing that this metallurgical discourse provided symbolic re-enforcement for the rapidly-accelerating mining and metal trade that formed the core of European colonial expansion. I suggest that vulvar vocality was central to early modern metallurgical, demonological, and colonial discourse, and that specific female vocalities and silences were purposefully crafted into the colonial project in order to forcibly redefine women, along with the lands and children stolen from them, as mere natural resources.

Cette thèse est un comparatisme religieux entre les pentecôtistes et les nganga à Libreville (Gabon). Autour de l’imaginaire du malheur, mis en exergue par l’expression endogène du «sang de l’iguane», nos spécialistes de l’infortune proposent sur le marché des religions, des traitements pour atteindre le salut. Pour rendre compte de la Weltanschauung librevilloise, les conceptions du corps, de la santé et de la maladie ont été interrogées. Cela a permis de mettre en évidence les « destructeurs » du corps, c'est-à-dire la démocratisation de la sorcellerie et la politique du ventre, mais également les pratiques religieuses utilisées pour combattre le «sang de l’iguane». Cette étude souligne aussi les théories profanes de la maladie et leur impact sur la réinterprétation des «maladies des Blancs» et celles des «Noirs». Ici, le corps est hybride, car les sources du « sang de l’iguane » et les techniques pour le combattre dérivent du mélange des imaginaires, fruit de la rencontre coloniale. / In order to understand what is the Weltanschauung of the body and its imaginery, the health and healing habitus process, we have made a survey among the medecine men and the pentecotists and the laymen. It appears that most of them suffer of the so-called "iguana's blood". Thus, we have found the causes of those who are destroying the bodies and who are responsible of "iguana's blood” and how to fight them. The dissertation is about the folk comprehension of disease and how it is divided in the city of Libreville: into “diseases of whites” and “diseases of blacks”. The specialists of misfortune propose some treatments of the body on the religious market in order to achieve healing and prosperity of any kind. The body is seen in Libreville as a hybrid, since the causes of "iguana's blood" and the tools needed to fight it, are found in the representations of both cultures of the postcolonial world.

This thesis describes the development of codification of criminal law in Czech history. At first I described theory of comparative law, further follows the historical development of criminal law since the beginnings of the Czech state. After that I compared individual criminal codes based on division between general and special part. In special part I focused on the scheme of division of criminal offences into sections. At the end I compared adjustment of several criminal offenses in penal codes. This part contains four criminal offences (murder, theft, high treason and crime of witchcraft), which interfere with many areas of human life.

<p>This dissertation focuses on gender-related terms as well as adjectives and demonstratives in connection with these terms used in texts from the period 1670–1720. The material in the study has been drawn from both English and American sources and comes from three text categories: depositions, examinations and journals. Two of these text categories represent authentic and speech-related language use (depositions and examinations), whereas the third (journals) is representative of a non-speech-related, non-fictional text category. While previous studies of gender-related terms have primarily investigated fictional material, this study focuses on text categories which have received little attention so far. </p><p>The overarching research question addressed in this study concerns the use and distribution of gender-related terms, especially with regard to referent gender. Data analyses are both quantitative and qualitative, and several linguistic and extra-linguistic factors are taken into account, such as the semantic domain to which the individual gender-related term belongs, region of origin and referent gender. Adjectives and demonstratives collocating with the gender-related terms are also investigated, as previous research has shown that referent gender has an impact on the use of adjectives as well.</p><p>The results show that the use of gender-related terms is influenced by both region of origin and referent gender. It is suggested that this is due in part to the difference in nature between Early Modern English society and the early American colonies, and in part due to the social roles which men and women had. Referent gender also has an impact on the type of adjectives used in connection with gender-related terms: adjectives collocating with gender-related terms denoting men have positive connotations to a larger extent than do adjectives collocating with their female counterparts; meanwhile, gender-related terms denoting women tend to collocate with negative adjectives. </p>