The preface, "Against Buses: Charles Baxter and the Contemporary Epiphany" deals with the epiphany as a potential ending to short stories. Baxter holds that epiphanies are trite and without purpose in today's fiction. I argue that Baxter's view, while not without merit, is limiting. Beginning with James Joyce and Katherine Anne Porter and moving to my own work, I discuss how some epiphanies, particularly false ones, can enhance rather than detract from excellent fiction. Five short stories make up the remainder of this thesis: "Dedication," "Taking it with You," "Transition to Flowers," "Profile in Courage," and "Henderson Street Bazaar."

ABSTRACT Learning through epiphanies, especially those not born out of dire crises, can be exciting, hugely satisfying, and life-validating ways to augment the significance of a lesson. In a moment of clarity, they have the ability to transform knowledge into wisdom, to provide a sense of interconnectedness within the grander scheme, and to contribute instant resolutions to persistent dilemmas seemingly irresolvable by less extraordinary means. This study involves a hermeneutic phenomenological investigation of epiphanies as they occur in lived experience. Its primary goal was to address the question, “What does it mean to have an epiphany?” Using data collected from 16 first-person, retroactive accounts of the experience, an analysis strategy using six spectra of contrasting dimensions was used to highlight the importance of the interplay between various characteristics of epiphanies. A significant finding of the study is that there is no such thing as an archetypical epiphany. Nevertheless, we can still recognize the phenomenon as a coherent entity mainly because there is agreement about many of its characteristics in the moment that it happens. Having an epiphany involves inductively rearranging patterns of deductively organized information with personally, and sometimes universally significant results. These may include dramatic shifts of perspectives, impulses that lead us to action on important matters, and occasionally whole-scale transformations of identity. Enhancing formal education settings to facilitate the experience can renew one’s passion for learning by making lessons more personally meaningful. In order to reap the benefits of the experience, we must hold space for the creative and introspective pursuits that allow them to happen. However, a challenge for facilitators of epiphanies involves learning how to direct the result of an epiphany to an intended outcome, such as a curricular goal. / Thesis (Master, Education) -- Queen's University, 2009-09-16 08:21:56.269

The purpose of this inquiry is to investigate the relatively under-researched and under- developed nature of positive change and transformation that is sudden and abrupt, as defined by the term epiphany. A review of the literature across the disciplines of sociology, literary studies, education and psychology pertaining to epiphanies revealed a modest and disparate body of knowledge. As yet only two studies to date have developed and tested a conceptual framework describing and explaining epiphanies, both situated in the theoretical perspectives of developmental, clinical, cognitive and behavioural psychology. Due to the sparseness of the epiphanic literature, a thorough review was undertaken, producing a set of six core characteristics, which were tested and interpreted from a self-identity existential perspective. Existential philosophy and psychology provide an understanding of human experiences based on personal meaning and the essential realities of the human condition. In order to encapsulate an existential theory of knowledge, a narrative approach to methodology was employed to collect, analyse and interpret participants' epiphanies, from which three main conclusions were drawn. Firstly, an epiphany is a profound illumination of the inauthentic and authentic modes of self-identity, which provide the impetus for a more honest and courageous encounter with the conditions of existence. Secondly, the participants' life-stories illustrate that an epiphany is a valid experience as indicated by support for the set of six core characteristics developed from the literature. Lastly, an epiphany is an intentional experience made significant and enduring by the ascription of personal meaning.

The purpose of this inquiry is to investigate the relatively under-researched and under- developed nature of positive change and transformation that is sudden and abrupt, as defined by the term epiphany. A review of the literature across the disciplines of sociology, literary studies, education and psychology pertaining to epiphanies revealed a modest and disparate body of knowledge. As yet only two studies to date have developed and tested a conceptual framework describing and explaining epiphanies, both situated in the theoretical perspectives of developmental, clinical, cognitive and behavioural psychology. Due to the sparseness of the epiphanic literature, a thorough review was undertaken, producing a set of six core characteristics, which were tested and interpreted from a self-identity existential perspective. Existential philosophy and psychology provide an understanding of human experiences based on personal meaning and the essential realities of the human condition. In order to encapsulate an existential theory of knowledge, a narrative approach to methodology was employed to collect, analyse and interpret participants' epiphanies, from which three main conclusions were drawn. Firstly, an epiphany is a profound illumination of the inauthentic and authentic modes of self-identity, which provide the impetus for a more honest and courageous encounter with the conditions of existence. Secondly, the participants' life-stories illustrate that an epiphany is a valid experience as indicated by support for the set of six core characteristics developed from the literature. Lastly, an epiphany is an intentional experience made significant and enduring by the ascription of personal meaning.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Technology, Sydney, 2005.

This scrapbook of biographical sketches serves as an exhibition of portraits in the elementary school principalship through experiencing a gallery of leadership interviews. Perspectives have been framed in compositions that represent the practical realist, the idealist, and at times even a surrealistic perspective of the elementary principal. Critical incidents were shared from individual participants representing catalysts for momentous change; themes of personal realizations, barriers to effectiveness, and challenges in the career of an administrator also contributed as dominant elements of the final work. A qualitative research method employing interviews explored the variation of colorful experiences that 23 elementary administrators encountered over the tenure of their careers. Each interview file was imported into the NUD*IST program. These files were then systematically coded and analyzed. The thick and rich descriptions provided opportunities for professionals to identify with the comments from practitioners and therefore established the applicability of the study. During a time when the entire nation is engaged in adjusting to the impact of a single catastrophic event, it is appropriate to stop and address the little explored regions of the routines that daily exert constraints on time, and shape consciously or unconsciously how principals are affected as a result of their career choice of administration. This study might be of interest to institutions that prepare instructional leaders for elementary school principalship. It could also assist superintendents and supervisors in public education by making them aware of what they might contribute to the success of their students by establishing an ideal relationship with their principals combining latitude, trust, and support. Finally, it could serve to validate or confront practitioners as they resolve issues of their own practice though vicariously experiencing the events and situations shared by their colleagues and peers.

In this exploration, I examine how autoethnographers create connections and community through the metaphor of the undead in their various forms. Autoethnography allows us to write and speak about our anxieties, our impolite private issues, and what frightens us at home and at work, including aging, guilt, mortality, shame, and lost love. Through autoethnography, we connect the seen and the invisible, the known and the unknown, the understood and the unexplained, mystery and science. It provides us the opportunity to reenchant the world. Most importantly, autoethnographic writing provides us the opportunity to recognize that our fears are not ours alone but are a basis upon which we can all connect.

This collection is representative of the studies I have completed during my time in the MFA program. Poetry workshops and seminars on prosody, translation, fragmentation, and constraint-based writing have contributed to the creation of this project. Thematically, my work is largely concerned with identity, the relationship between the external world and internal experiences, and perception. It attempts to capture something of the epiphanic, those rare moments when the ordinary becomes ineffable.

<p>Thomas Pynchon’s <em>V.</em> is often criticized for its preoccupation with meaninglessness and the  inability to make sense of ‘who’ or ‘what’ <em>V</em>. is about. The failure to make sense of <em>V</em>. is thematized within the novel particularly during the sacred moments or epiphanies which critics describe as ‘bizarre’, ‘disturbing’ or ‘unsettling’. These sacred moments raise issues that cannot be answered by traditional tools. Yet, critics and readers have responded to the novel with readings that reinscribe conventional modes of making sense and show a resistance to the inadequacy of traditional tools. This dissertation examines how Pynchon undermines modernist notions of the sacred moment as “moments of vision” which yield a higher knowledge or revelation. I argue that the sacred moments in <em>V</em>. allude to George Bataille’s notion of waste within a restricted and general economy. The violence of the sacred moments in <em>V</em>. are examined in relation to waste, sacrifice, the erotic, the inanimate, sovereignty and laughter. I conclude that rather than bringing about death, entropy and apocalyptic endings, the epiphanies’ violence and wasteful expenditure reveal the power structures at work in the literary use of the sacred. Paradoxically, the necessary existence of wasteful expenditure increases sense-making and offers the critic/reader the possibility of confronting waste, “the accursed share”.</p>

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