This thesis centers on Kurt Schwitters’s Merz Barn (1947-1948), exploring the relationship between nature and the Merz principles of formung (forming) and entformung (un-forming) within the context of this late work. The Merz Barn, the last of Schwitters’s Merzbauten, has yet to receive the extensive level of research accorded to its famous Hannover predecessor, resulting in an underdeveloped grasp of the project as a whole within Merzbau scholarship. The present study considers Schwitters’s increasing orientation towards nature as a model for artistic creation to elicit an understanding of the ways in which his paradoxical Merz formula, “Formen heißt entformeln,” evolved during his period of exile. I contend that Schwitters employed the organic processes of natural growth and decay to realize the principles of formung and entformung in his Merz Barn. Furthermore, the sculptural interior underscores the dialectical exchange between forming and un-forming, highlighting the liminal space between the opposing processes.

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The majority of empirical literature on refugee identity and homeland attachment focuses on single exile trajectories: one migratory movement out of the homeland and possibly repatriation. It largely neglects more complex experiences of exile and their implications. Double-exile, a second fleeing of one’s homeland after repatriation, adds complexity to our conventional understanding of refugee perceptions of home and identity. This study explores double-exile experiences of the Rwandan Hutu refugee population of Dzaleka refugee camp to examine its impacts on notions of home and identity construction. This ethnographic study found that the Rwandan Hutu refugees have a unique relationship to home and identity. Double-exile ended their sense of belonging to Rwandan society. Thus causing a break in the conventional longing for home and deterritorializing their identity. These impacts are apparent through the juxtaposition of study participants’ notions of home and their experiences of return and double-exile, a lack of connection or desire to return to Rwanda, and an absence of pride in their Rwandan identity and cultural practices. These findings suggest that more importance must be placed on the role of pre-flight experience of refugees as an integral element to their construction of notions of home. It also indicates that, contrary to more conventional exile trajectories where refugee identity is derived from a historical consciousness, double-exile refugees construct identity through a present-focus.

The aims and objectives of this investigation were to find whether non-Jews or non-exiles related with the early post-exilic Jewish community in their religious life and communal living according to Ezra and Nehemiah; to discern the nature of such relationship; to discover the basis on which this relationship was sustained; and to examine the text of Ezra-Nehemiah and see whether Ezra and Nehemiah exhibits exclusivity in their dealing with non-Jews or non-exiles as supposed by others (cf Williamson 1987:83). The inquiry reveals that the author(s) or editor(s) of the books of Ezra and Nehemiah re-interpreted certain passages from the Pentateuch in a peculiar way to support the exclusive religious and social reforms of Ezra and Nehemiah. Consequently, two viewpoints emerged from the text of Ezra and Nehemiah concerning non-exiles. The one is exclusive and the other is inclusive. The researcher contended that the inclusive perspective is the appropriate approach toward non-Jews as evidenced in the spirit of the Abrahamic and Mosaic covenants as well as in the Deuteronomic-Deuteronomistic history. In other words, the Abrahamic covenant and certain passages from the Pentateuch and from the Deuteronomic-Deuteronomistic history provide a framework for a religious and communal relationship between the Israelites and or Jews and foreigners. / Dissertation (MTh (Old Testament Studies))--University of Pretoria, 2005. / Old Testament Studies / unrestricted

The present research investigates relationships between group marginalization and hostility. In particular, I focus on the experiences of small, contained groups that are intentionally rejected by multiple out-group others. An integrative framework is proposed that attempts to explain how group processes influence (a) coping with threatened psychological needs following marginalization, (b) affective states, (c) cognitions regarding the marginalization and its source, and ultimately (d) hostile behavior. Study 1 describes a unique paradigm that effectively manipulates interpersonal rejection. Study 2 then implements this paradigm to empirically test relationships between the components of the integrative framework and examine differences among included and rejected individuals and groups. Results reveal partial support for the framework, particularly in regard to the impact of group marginalization on psychological needs and hostile affect, cognitions, and behaviors. Implications for natural groups such as terrorist cells, school cliques, and gangs are considered.

<p> This dissertation is an attempt to apply the motif of exile to the church in Canada today and employ biblical resources to guide the church in its engagement with Canadian culture. At one time the church held a place at the centre of Canadian life and contributed to the formation of national culture. As the nation has evolved, the role of the church has shifted significantly. The advent of secularization and a post-Christian, postmodern culture has moved the church from the centre to the margins of Canadian society. The proposal offered here is that this move can be understood as a form of exile. Exile is a rich motif in the history of the Christian faith. Our ancestors in the faith, the nation of Israel, were exiled by foreign nations. The Old Testament is, in many respects, a witness to that experience. Second Temple Jews continued to live under the authority of foreign powers and they also produced literature that testifies to their own sense of remaining in and responding to exile. The early church also understood itself as living in theological exile. The literature of the New Testament demonstrates how the first Christians sought to live faithfully while yet separated from their true, eschatological home. An understanding of exile in these texts and the theological approach that they offer can inform the church in Canada today as it also seeks to live faithfully in its particular contemporary context. This study seeks to engage the biblical materials with a view to applying their exilic wisdom to the life of the Canadian Church today. While the sociological demise of the church in Canada is now part of its historic narrative, exile can offer the contemporary church a paradigm for theological re-orientation, even as it did for Israel and the early church. Thus, adopting an exilic outlook and various aspects of a practical theology of exile can equip the Church in Canada with hope as it faces the challenges of its current circumstances.</p> / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

No description available.

No description available.

In 1997, on average every 40 to 45 hours criminals either shot or killed a victim in the City of Richmond, Virginia. This resulted in 122 firearm homicides in that year alone. This gun-related violent crime epidemic so terrorized law-abiding citizens that many of them became hostages in their own homes. In response to this horrific social problem, Project Exile was developed in late 1997. Project Exile is a multi-level (federal, state, and local) law enforcement effort aimed at the amelioration of Richmond's high per-capita rate of gun violence and gun homicide. Through the Richmond U.S. Attorney's Office, Project Exile takes advantage of stiffer bond rules and sentencing guidelines in federal court, where all cases involving felons with guns, guns and drugs, and guns and domestic violence are prosecuted. Although Project Exile has received extensive television and print media coverage, it has not caught the attention of the academic world. This dissertation begins to fill this research gap by combining Kingdon's (1995) Multiple Streams model with Sabatier's (1999) Advocacy Coalition Framework to develop a "Specific Collins Classification and Elaboration Model" and a "Generic Collins Classification and Elaboration Model" that will be used to analyze the formation and implementation of Project Exile. The three purposes of this research will be: 1. To elaborate and analyze Kingdon's and Sabatier's frameworks as a means for understanding Project Exile 2. To draw on these two frameworks to create both Specific and Generic new "Collins Models: to assist in furthering a deeper understanding of this case study as well as similar policy subsystems. 3. To explain the genesis and development of Project Exile. The most salient result of this research is that it shows the disparate ways in which variables, taken from the work of Kingdon, Sabatier, and the Project Exile case, fit in Schroeder's (2001) operationalization of the Political Economic framework. In addition, this research shows how both Kingdon and Sabatier compensate for the respective limitations of the other when the two of them are combined into one model. / Ph. D.

Le thème de la diaspora roumaine présente une importance majeure dans la recherche historiographique actuelle, étant donné que la préoccupation pour ce segment signifiant et toujours actif des Roumains a connu des évolutions récentes d'une valeur incontestable. Ainsi, du point de vue des investigations historiques, il devient très intéressant de retrouver les racines du véritable phénomène qui a été la création d'une identité de la diaspora roumaine, pour surprendre l'évolution de ce groupe, les relations à l'intérieur de cette communauté et avec les pays adoptifs, aussi bien que l'existence d'une vision partagée par l'exil. Vu que la période des Deux Europes, lorsque la faille entre l'occident et le bloc communiste a été souvent insurmontable, a marqué l'activité la plus notable de la diaspora roumaine et de l'Europe centrale et de l'est en général, une recherche compréhensive sur ce thème devient nécessaire. Une telle démarche a la capacité de compléter les analyses très complexes du communisme, entreprises du point de vue des aspects sociaux et politiques à l'intérieur de la Roumanie, ou bien visant la position de cet État sur la scène de la politique internationale pendant 1945 et 1989. Néanmoins, la dispersion de l'exil roumain pendant la période totalitaire a été immense, ce qui rend une recherche sur ce phénomène dans son ensemble non seulement difficile, mais aussi d'une telle manière trop générale et dénuée de profondeur. En revanche, pour nous, il a été essentiel de trouver et de justifier l'existence d'un noyau de la diaspora roumaine, bâti sur des fondements historiques et culturels indéniables et soutenu par une tradition profonde. Or, tenant compte des données consistantes identifiées, des biographies remarquables des grandes personnalités qui ont modelé la conception de la Roumanie moderne et sa culture et des messages puissants qui se sont fait entendre à une échelle continentale entre 1945 et 1989, c'est la France qui a émergé comme le véritable centre de l'exil représentatif pour une nation roumaine opprimée par le communisme, mais aussi lucide que toujours, au niveau de ses élites. Ayant restreint le thème de recherche à un espace et un segment précisément délimités, bien qu'extrêmement complexes, notre démarche a visé en permanence l'investigation des données qui puissent lui assurer un degré prononcé d'originalité. En effet, le thème de la diaspora roumaine réfugiée sur le territoire français n'a pas été individualisé en tant que sujet d'un ouvrage historiographique jusqu'à présent, ce qui a marqué une carence visible dans l'investigation exhaustive du phénomène très vaste de l'exil roumain. Pourtant, la disponibilité de plus en plus prégnante de matériaux de valeur sur la vie, l'activité et le message des personnalités qui ont fait partie de cette catégorie, comme les biographies, les archives personnelles et des institutions publiques et les ouvrages de synthèse sur des thèmes connexes, ouvre la voie vers une recherche de qualité et avec un caractère innovateur très bien justifié. L'utilisation de la langue française pour cette démarche s'avère une occasion fructueuse d'élargir la sphère de l'accès aux informations de première importance, provenant de l'espace-même où le groupe-cible de notre recherche a déroulé son activité. Ceci est important d'autant plus que la plupart des sources sur lesquelles s'appuie cette thèse se trouvent dans les grandes bibliothèques de France et d'autres pays occidentaux, tandis que les ouvrages et documents découverts en Roumanie complètent une vision d'ensemble sur ce triangle des relations entre la diaspora roumaine de France, perçue comme un groupe unitaire, son État adoptif et son pays d'origine. / The topic of the Romanian diaspora is of major importance in current historical research, given the fact that the level of preoccupation for this significant and constantly active segment of the Romanian population has recently witnessed a series of major events. Hence, from the perspective of historical research, it becomes chiefly necessary to retrace the roots of this veritable phenomenon, represented by the creation of an identity for the Romanian diaspora, in order to assess the evolution of this group, the relations within this community and with its adoptive countries, as well as the existence of a vision shared by the exile. Given the fact that the time of the Two Europes, when the break between the West and the communist bloc often proved to be impossible to overcome, marked the most notable activity of the Romanian diaspora and the one of East-Central Europe in general, it becomes necessary to undergo some thorough research in this regard. Such an endeavour has the ability to further the very complex analyses of communism, focusing on social and political aspects within Romania, or on the position of this state on the stage of international affairs between 1945 and 1989. Nevertheless, the dispersion of the Romanian exile during the totalitarian period was immense, which makes research on this phenomenon, taken as a whole, not only difficult, but also, to some extent, too general and superficial. On the other hand, for us, it was essential to find and justify the existence of a core of the Romanian diaspora, built on undeniable historical and cultural grounds and upheld by a long-lasting tradition. In fact, given the complex data identified, the remarkable biographies of prominent personalities who shaped modern Romanian thinking and its culture, as well as the powerful messages heard at a continental scale between 1945 and 1989, it is France that emerged as the true centre of an exile which became representative of a Romanian nation under communist oppression, but more self-aware than ever before, at the level of its elites. Having narrowed the research question to a clearly-defined, albeit extremely complex, space and segment, our endeavour was constantly focused on the analysis of information that would ensure a high degree of originality. In fact, the topic of the Romanian diaspora seeking refuge in France has not been the topic of any historical thesis so far, which has marked a visible lack in the analyses of the particularly broad phenomenon of the Romanian exile. Nevertheless, the availability of ever more prominent materials on the life, activity and message of those personalities that were part of this category, such as biographies, personal and public archives, as well as complex studies on relevant subjects, paves the way for quality and deeply innovative research. The use of the French language for this thesis becomes a fruitful opportunity which broadens the horizon of access to valuable information, from the very area where the target group of our research was active. This is significant all the more because the sources our thesis relies on can be found in major French libraries and those of other western countries, whilst the papers and documents discovered in Romania are meant to complete an overall picture of this triangle of relations between the Romanian diaspora in France - perceived as a united front -, its adoptive nation and its country of origin.