This thesis is about Thomas Jefferson Bowen (1814 - 1875), a Baptist missionary of the Foreign Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention, United States. Bowen worked in Africa and tried to work with slaves in Brazil. These facts made Bowen a missionary ahead of his time. He had a different perspective and attitude to Africa and Africans. His book Central Africa, his personal letters, his articles, his life, show that he was deeply involved with the idea that Africa could be much more than only a good place to purchase slaves. His whole missionary life was expended in a project to train blacks to work in Africa as missionaries and teachers. What made Bowen a different missionary from his fellows in his time was the fact that he was able to understand and respect the culture of the people with whom he was involved. He could see and appreciate the structures of the African society and he planned a development project from the African perspective. He was a missionary who believed that the Western society was not appropriate for Africa. Africa had to find its own way. He was different because he believed that missionaries have to speak the language of the people and should not force the native people to learn English as a "holy" language. We present this work as a tribute to this missionary whose life and relationship with blacks can be seen as an example of respect and understanding of the culture of a people. / Thesis (M.Th.)-University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 1998.

This dissertation seeks to identify, contextualize, and explain the achievement of late modernist novelists. Late modernism represents a significant, under-examined chapter in the development of the twentieth-century novel. Unlike the majority of their peers in the decades after modernism’s height, novelists such as Henry Green, Ivy Compton-Burnett, and Elizabeth Bowen—and the best-known, Samuel Beckett—continue to innovate in prose rather than returning to realism. Unlike their predecessors, late modernists move towards doubt, eschewing the sometimes ultimately redemptive ethos of high modernism. They do so without the insistence of later postmodernists, however, or their playful mood. The result is something new, strange, and “in between.” The aims of this study are to specify the nature of late modernist style, place it in its aesthetic and historical context, and explain its significance. Each chapter is a close reading of key works by one writer: each novelist uses different techniques to add to the late modernist aesthetic, but they all move in the same direction. The first chapter explores Henry Green’s work, analyzing the textual omissions and narrative construction that make his novels so evasive. In Compton-Burnett’s case, the focus is on how dialogue creates a constantly shifting moral world in which nothing can be taken for granted. The chapter on Beckett explores repetition, both as a microscopic stylistic tool and an organizing device that prevents the text from reaching conclusion. In examining Bowen, the centre is how her syntax circles continually around various kinds of “nothingness” and self-reflexively suggests ways to explore it. This study arranges late modernist novelists in a new continuum alongside Samuel Beckett, with the result that Beckett seems less a unique genius, and the other late modernist writers seem less eccentric and more profoundly challenging. They all seek ways to go on writing when doing so seems impossible. Late modernists bring something new to the novel. Through the smallest stylistic gestures, their works make and unmake themselves, refusing to allow the reader finality. They avoid the aesthetic and philosophical associations of either consolation or utter uncertainty; late modernists matter by refusing to matter in a familiar way.

This dissertation seeks to identify, contextualize, and explain the achievement of late modernist novelists. Late modernism represents a significant, under-examined chapter in the development of the twentieth-century novel. Unlike the majority of their peers in the decades after modernism’s height, novelists such as Henry Green, Ivy Compton-Burnett, and Elizabeth Bowen—and the best-known, Samuel Beckett—continue to innovate in prose rather than returning to realism. Unlike their predecessors, late modernists move towards doubt, eschewing the sometimes ultimately redemptive ethos of high modernism. They do so without the insistence of later postmodernists, however, or their playful mood. The result is something new, strange, and “in between.” The aims of this study are to specify the nature of late modernist style, place it in its aesthetic and historical context, and explain its significance. Each chapter is a close reading of key works by one writer: each novelist uses different techniques to add to the late modernist aesthetic, but they all move in the same direction. The first chapter explores Henry Green’s work, analyzing the textual omissions and narrative construction that make his novels so evasive. In Compton-Burnett’s case, the focus is on how dialogue creates a constantly shifting moral world in which nothing can be taken for granted. The chapter on Beckett explores repetition, both as a microscopic stylistic tool and an organizing device that prevents the text from reaching conclusion. In examining Bowen, the centre is how her syntax circles continually around various kinds of “nothingness” and self-reflexively suggests ways to explore it. This study arranges late modernist novelists in a new continuum alongside Samuel Beckett, with the result that Beckett seems less a unique genius, and the other late modernist writers seem less eccentric and more profoundly challenging. They all seek ways to go on writing when doing so seems impossible. Late modernists bring something new to the novel. Through the smallest stylistic gestures, their works make and unmake themselves, refusing to allow the reader finality. They avoid the aesthetic and philosophical associations of either consolation or utter uncertainty; late modernists matter by refusing to matter in a familiar way.

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The commandment to honour one's father and mother is not limited to honouring parents while they are living. In Zulu culture, for both the traditionalist and Christian Zulu, honouring parents, whether alive or dead, is to relate to them with great respect. Unfortunately, this respect for the ancestors has been misunderstood by many and labeled as "worship" or, more recently, as "veneration". Affixing a religious connotation ("worship", etc.) to the relationship led to the expectation that Zulu Christians would reject their ancestors and all the rites and practices associated with them. In spite of injunctions from the Church, a marked shift is occurring among Zulu Christians as many reincorporate their ancestors into their family process. This dissertation, an exploratory study, addresses this process of reincorporation by offering a new, non-religious interpretation of the relationship. Historically, the Zulu have sought and welcomed the presence of the ancestors during stressful family transitions such as marriage, birth, puberty and death. If the Church focused on the increased anxiety and destabilization associated with these family transitions, new insights could be gained into the functional importance of the ancestors (as anxiety binders) in the family process. The application of Bowen theory, a new paradigm for practical theology, to the research data provides new perspectives and understanding into the functional importance of the ancestors for Zulu families. Central to Bowen theory is the concept of the family as an emotional unit that includes all generations, including the ancestors. This concept correlates closely with the Zulu understanding of kinship. The concepts of multigenerational transmission process and triangulation in Bowen theory offer effective theoretical bases for interpreting the ongoing relationship Zulu families have with their ancestors. This dissertation critiques certain Church practices and offers a practical theological response that can inform and enrich the Church's pastoral care. By developing a practical theology of relationships'one informed by Bowen theory, Scripture and the traditions of the Church'the Church can assist Zulu Christians pastorally as they reincorporate their ancestors into their family process. / Practical Theology / D. Th. (Practical Theology)

The commandment to honour one's father and mother is not limited to honouring parents while they are living. In Zulu culture, for both the traditionalist and Christian Zulu, honouring parents, whether alive or dead, is to relate to them with great respect. Unfortunately, this respect for the ancestors has been misunderstood by many and labeled as "worship" or, more recently, as "veneration". Affixing a religious connotation ("worship", etc.) to the relationship led to the expectation that Zulu Christians would reject their ancestors and all the rites and practices associated with them. In spite of injunctions from the Church, a marked shift is occurring among Zulu Christians as many reincorporate their ancestors into their family process. This dissertation, an exploratory study, addresses this process of reincorporation by offering a new, non-religious interpretation of the relationship. Historically, the Zulu have sought and welcomed the presence of the ancestors during stressful family transitions such as marriage, birth, puberty and death. If the Church focused on the increased anxiety and destabilization associated with these family transitions, new insights could be gained into the functional importance of the ancestors (as anxiety binders) in the family process. The application of Bowen theory, a new paradigm for practical theology, to the research data provides new perspectives and understanding into the functional importance of the ancestors for Zulu families. Central to Bowen theory is the concept of the family as an emotional unit that includes all generations, including the ancestors. This concept correlates closely with the Zulu understanding of kinship. The concepts of multigenerational transmission process and triangulation in Bowen theory offer effective theoretical bases for interpreting the ongoing relationship Zulu families have with their ancestors. This dissertation critiques certain Church practices and offers a practical theological response that can inform and enrich the Church's pastoral care. By developing a practical theology of relationships'one informed by Bowen theory, Scripture and the traditions of the Church'the Church can assist Zulu Christians pastorally as they reincorporate their ancestors into their family process. / Philosophy, Practical and Systematic Theology / D. Th. (Practical Theology)

Cette thèse traite de l’étude des objets reliés au codage de Bowen-Series du flot géodésiquepour des surfaces hyperboliques de volume fini. On démontre d’abord que le billard géodésiqueassocié à domaine fondamental even corners d’un groupe fuchsien cofini est conjuguéà une bijection du tore, appelée codage étendu, dont l’un des facteurs est la transformationde Bowen-Series. L’intérêt principal de cette conjugaison est qu’elle ne fait toujours intervenirqu’un nombre fini d’objets. On retrouve ensuite des résultats classiques sur le codage deBowen-Series : il est orbite-équivalent au groupe, ses points périodiques sont denses, et ses orbitespériodiques sont en bijection avec les classes d’équivalence d’hyperboliques primitifs dugroupe ; ce qui permet finalement de relier sa fonction zeta de Ruelle à la fonction zeta de Selberg.Les preuves de ces résultats s’appuient sur un lemme combinatoire qui abstrait la propriétéd’orbite-équivalence à des familles de relations qui peuvent être définies sur tout ensemble surlequel agit le groupe. Il est aussi possible de conjuguer le codage étendu à un sous-shift detype fini, sauf pour un ensemble dénombrable de points. Enfin, on prouve que les distributionspropres pour la valeur propre 1 de l’opérateur de transfert sont les distributions de Helgason defonctions propres du laplacien sur la surface, puis que l’on peut associer à toute telle distributionpropre une fonction propre non triviale de l’opérateur de transfert et que ce procédé admet uninverse dans certains cas. / This thesis focuses on the study of the objects linked to the Bowen-Series coding of the geodesicflow for hyperbolic surfaces of finite volume. It is first proved that the geodesic billiardassociated with an even corners fundamental domain for a cofinite fuchsian group is conjugatedwith a bijection of the torus, called extended coding, one factor of which is the Bowen-Seriestransform. The sharpest property of that conjugacy is that it always only involves a finite numberof objects. Some classical results about the Bowen-Series coding are then rediscovered : itis orbit-equivalent with the group, its periodic points are dense, and its periodic orbits are inbijection with conjugacy classes of primitive hyperbolic isometries ; which eventually links itsRuelle zeta function to the Selberg zeta function. The proofs of those results use a combinatoriallemma that abstracts the orbit-equivalence property to families of relations that can be definedon every set on which the group acts. The extended coding is also proved to be conjugated witha subshift of finite type, except for a countable set of points. Finally, it is shown that eigendistributionsof the transfer operator for the eigenvalue 1 are the Helgason boundary values ofeigenfunction of laplacian on the surface, plus that one can associate to each such eigendistributiona non-trivial eigenfunction of the transfer operator and that this process has a reciprocalin some cases.