Thesis Abstract The aim of this thesis is to compare the production history and reception of Brian Friel's Dancing at Lughnasa, arguably one of his most famous and successful plays, in Irish and Czech contexts. Following its triumphant premiere at the Abbey Theatre in 1990 directed by Patrick Mason, the production transferred to London and Broadway, where it garnered further critical acclaim and several prestigious awards. The first Czech production, directed by Jan Burian, opened at Divadlo na Vinohradech in Prague in 1993, and over the course of the next twenty years it was staged another eight times on Czech professional - mostly regional stages. The opening chapter of the thesis focuses on the analysis of Dancing at Lughnasa using the method of close reading, as well as consulting secondary literature. The following chapter is divided into two parts, the first of them attempting to outline the background of the play by focusing on the events of the 1930s in Ireland. The second part is concerned with the context of writing Dancing at Lughnasa. Chapters four and five comprise the main body of the thesis and deal with the description of the five most significant productions in Ireland and the Czech Republic. These chapters focus on the context, the directors' concept, the acting and the critical acclaim....

This thesis aims to make a significant contribution to our understanding of the history of biblical criticism in the seventeenth century. Its central objective is to put forward a new interpretation of the work of the Oratorian scholar Richard Simon. It does so by placing Simon's work, above all his Histoire critique du Vieux Testament (1678), in the context of the great increase in critical study of the text of the Bible that occurred after 1620. The problems and questions that confronted European scholars at this time were profound, as new manuscript discoveries combined with existing learned and polemical debates in such a way that scholars were forced reconsider their opinions on the history and text of the Old Testament. Rather than study these works solely in the discrete tradition of the history of scholarship, however, this thesis shows why they have to be considered in the context of the print culture that made their production possible, the confessional divisions that shaped and deepened the significance of their philological arguments, and the intellectual cooperation, exchange, and disagreement that determined how contemporaries understood them. The results of this research contribute to existing scholarship in several significant ways, of which four stand out for special emphasis. First, through extensive archival research it markedly revises our current understanding of the work of Jean Morin, Louis Cappel, Johannes Buxtorf II, and Richard Simon. Second, it shows that the history of biblical criticism must consider the work of Catholic scholars in the same level of detail as Protestant scholars. Third, it breaks the link between innovative philological and historical work and radical theological or political thought. Fourth, it calls into doubt the current consensus that seventeenth-century scholarly life is best understood through the concept of the international and inter-confessional 'Republic of Letters'.

“The post-apartheid Left is a group of people whose values and visions go way beyond apartheid, in fact, go right back to the 19th century Europe, in the final analysis, and perhaps even earlier, to people like Marx and Engels and so on, to a vision of an industrial and even post-industrial world, in which human beings would live in harmony without exploitation, without oppression, and not merely without racial exploitation, in other words also without class exploitation, without gender oppression and so on.” - Dr Neville Alexander, May 1997.

By focusing on the “nature” of mapping, this thesis falls under the category of critical cartography closely associated with the work of Brian Harley in the 1980s and early 1990s. As such the purpose of this research is to highlight the historical context of British maps, map-making and map-reading in relation to West Africa between 1749 and 1841. I argue that maps lie near the heart of Britain’s interactions with West Africa though their appearance, construction and use evolved dramatically during this period. By beginning this study with a prominent French example (Jean Baptiste Bourguignon d’Anville’s 1749 “Afrique”) I show how British map-makers adapted cartography from France for their own purposes before circumstances encouraged the development of new materials. Because of the limited opportunities to make enquiries in the region and the relatively few people involved in affecting change to the map’s content, this thesis highlights the episodes and manufactured narratives which feature in the chronology of evolving cartographies. This study concludes with the failure of the 1841 Niger Expedition, when Britain’s humanitarian agenda saw the attempted establishment of a model farm on banks of the Niger River and the negotiation of anti-slave trade treaties with nearby Africans. The cartography and geographical knowledge which supported this scheme is in stark contrast with what existed in the mid-eighteenth century. More than simply illustrating geographical and ethnographical information though, these maps helped inform Britons about themselves and I argue that much of what occurs here features prominently in national discourses about identity, civilization and the justification of British efforts to improve Africa.

The modern supply chain is long, complex, interconnected and global, and plays a fundamental role in business competitiveness. These conditions, along with various supply chain management trends in recent years have increased risks in supply chains which threaten supply chain performance. Greater impact, especially on cost, from an increased threat of supply disruptions is one area of particular concern. Companies today are struggling to find effective means to manage this increased risk and avoid adverse financial impacts. An approach to managing supply disruption risk in supply chains based on the minimization of the total cost of ownership (TCO) of the supply chain is explored in this thesis. Insights are provided into an appropriate view of supply chain risk and a general four step risk management process to guide the design and evaluation of a new risk management tool based on such an approach. A prototype of the new total cost-based, modeling and simulation tool was created in partnership with ProModel Corporation and a government contractor that requested to remain anonymous. A preliminary assessment of the effectiveness of this tool in minimizing TCO and providing an interface useable by non-modelers is provided. This study also reviews and compares a sample set of current supply chain risk management methods and tools and compares them with the new tool for relevance in aiding users in managing supply disruption risk. Based on literature findings and preliminary feedback from pilot contextual demonstrations of the tool, the total cost approach to risk modeling appears promising, although the execution needs to be improved with further enhancements made to the prototype tool. In this preliminary study and evaluation, sufficient evidence is not available to determine that the new prototype tool is any more effective than other currently available risk management tools to provide necessary information to make supply chain risk management decisions that minimize TCO of a supply chain. Suggestions for further development of the tool, especially for improvement of the total cost approach, are provided as well as a preliminary evaluation procedure and survey instruments for a more robust evaluation of the new tool.

No description available.

The well-known outcome of the 1988 federal election – a Conservative Party majority in Parliament and an effective “yes” to the question of whether or not the Free Trade Agreement between Canada and the United States was desired – tends to obscure the importance of the process by which a large non-party based opposition movement sought to cultivate and organize the public’s understanding of the election’s central premise. While the opposition movement failed to have Prime Minister Brian Mulroney removed from power, the discursive process that the movement both created and was the driving force behind, is key to understanding the historical context of the debate over free trade itself. This thesis will illustrate that there existed a discursive process amongst the efforts of the anti-free trade movement from 1985-1988 to cultivate, organize, and mobilize public opposition to Mulroney’s neo-liberal economic policies, through re-framing those objections into a larger and more deeply-rooted Canadian historical narrative. A discourse analysis was conducted using the various public education materials produced by major anti-free trade civil society organizations in Canada. The examination of that discourse revealed three major stages in the overall process: First, organizations relied heavily on classic paradigms of an anti-continentalist narrative to reinforce what was different between the two countries creating an us and them paradigm and building a case for Canadian exceptionalism. Second, there was an intensification of the us and them language into a more defined us versus them, or them against us, dichotomy. Third, the anti-free trade movement sought to effectively translate the previously established civic opposition into pragmatic political action in preparation for a national election campaign. The results show that there was an evolution in the ways members of the civil society opposition framed and evolved their arguments in order to turn their “issues” into more of a “crisis.” By employing (and expanding on) discursive tools used within that public narrative to generate fear of the other to validate illusions of self, and to construct believable threats to the collective, the more “micro” discussion over the growing pervasiveness of neo-liberalism took on a hyper-nationalistic and symbolic routine, one that mirrored the iconic political and electoral debates in 1891 and 1911, both of which had also been based upon the potential for free trade with the United States. Most of all, the evidence points to a popular opposition movement against free trade, which not only significantly pre-dated the official political opposition, but in some respects created its message and focus.

This thesis examines US protectionism in the 1980s from Canadian and American perspectives, and its role in Canada’s pursuit of the historic 1988 Canada-US Free Trade Agreement. It analyzes the perceived “threat” of protectionism and evaluates the agreement’s provisions against Canada’s goal of securing access to the US market. It contends that US protectionism was crucial in the Mulroney government’s decision to negotiate a bilateral agreement and was a contentious issue for the agreement’s critics. US sources, unexamined in existing historiography, confirm the increased threat of American protectionism, but emphasize a distinction between the threat and implementation of protectionist trade law. Although the agreement did not shield Canada from US trade remedies, Canada gained important presence in the trade dispute process. These conclusions are drawn from Canadian and American media and government documents, 1980s academic and think-tank commentary, legal documents, the memoirs and diaries of major players, and select archival sources.

This thesis examines US protectionism in the 1980s from Canadian and American perspectives, and its role in Canada’s pursuit of the historic 1988 Canada-US Free Trade Agreement. It analyzes the perceived “threat” of protectionism and evaluates the agreement’s provisions against Canada’s goal of securing access to the US market. It contends that US protectionism was crucial in the Mulroney government’s decision to negotiate a bilateral agreement and was a contentious issue for the agreement’s critics. US sources, unexamined in existing historiography, confirm the increased threat of American protectionism, but emphasize a distinction between the threat and implementation of protectionist trade law. Although the agreement did not shield Canada from US trade remedies, Canada gained important presence in the trade dispute process. These conclusions are drawn from Canadian and American media and government documents, 1980s academic and think-tank commentary, legal documents, the memoirs and diaries of major players, and select archival sources.

The well-known outcome of the 1988 federal election – a Conservative Party majority in Parliament and an effective “yes” to the question of whether or not the Free Trade Agreement between Canada and the United States was desired – tends to obscure the importance of the process by which a large non-party based opposition movement sought to cultivate and organize the public’s understanding of the election’s central premise. While the opposition movement failed to have Prime Minister Brian Mulroney removed from power, the discursive process that the movement both created and was the driving force behind, is key to understanding the historical context of the debate over free trade itself. This thesis will illustrate that there existed a discursive process amongst the efforts of the anti-free trade movement from 1985-1988 to cultivate, organize, and mobilize public opposition to Mulroney’s neo-liberal economic policies, through re-framing those objections into a larger and more deeply-rooted Canadian historical narrative. A discourse analysis was conducted using the various public education materials produced by major anti-free trade civil society organizations in Canada. The examination of that discourse revealed three major stages in the overall process: First, organizations relied heavily on classic paradigms of an anti-continentalist narrative to reinforce what was different between the two countries creating an us and them paradigm and building a case for Canadian exceptionalism. Second, there was an intensification of the us and them language into a more defined us versus them, or them against us, dichotomy. Third, the anti-free trade movement sought to effectively translate the previously established civic opposition into pragmatic political action in preparation for a national election campaign. The results show that there was an evolution in the ways members of the civil society opposition framed and evolved their arguments in order to turn their “issues” into more of a “crisis.” By employing (and expanding on) discursive tools used within that public narrative to generate fear of the other to validate illusions of self, and to construct believable threats to the collective, the more “micro” discussion over the growing pervasiveness of neo-liberalism took on a hyper-nationalistic and symbolic routine, one that mirrored the iconic political and electoral debates in 1891 and 1911, both of which had also been based upon the potential for free trade with the United States. Most of all, the evidence points to a popular opposition movement against free trade, which not only significantly pre-dated the official political opposition, but in some respects created its message and focus.