In 1942, Algerian writer Albert Camus published a philosophical essay called The Myth of Sisyphus along with a fictional counterpart, The Stranger, wherein he presumed the human condition to be an absurd one. This, Camus claimed, was the result of the absence of a god, and consequently of any meaning beyond life itself. Without a god, without an entity greater than man, man has no higher purpose than himself and he himself is inevitably transient. As such, man, so long as he lives, is cursed with the inability to create or partake in anything lasting. The absurd is life without a tomorrow, a life of futility. As one of the main precursors of this view of life and of the human experience, Camus mentioned Herman Melville and Captain Ahab’s chase for the white whale - Moby Dick. Now, as will be indicated in the following, the most common critical position holds that the white whale of Moby-Dick, Melville’s magnum opus, is to be interpreted as a symbol of God, and thus Ahab’s chase is tragic by virtue of its impossibility for success. As such, the tragedy is entailed by the futility vis-à-vis its impermanence. However, the ambiguity of Moby-Dick allows for the possibility of several alternative interpretations as to the role of the whale: for instance that of the devil, evil incarnate or merely a "dumb brute". As such, Ahab’s quest might as well be the pursuit of a creature which understands nothing of vengeance, thus rendering his objective equally, if not more fruitless, than the pursuit of a god.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Oregon, 2002. / Typescript. Includes vita and abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 246-250). Also available for download via the World Wide Web; free to University of Oregon users.

Pastoraat aan die Afrika-mens is a Masters' thesis, which explores the hypotheses and finds that an African life and worIdview must consciously be taken into account in pastoral care to Christians with an African life and worldview in order to improve effective care. The practical-theological model of Heitink is being used as research method. This entails the following: Hermeneutically 1. To show from Scripture as basis some perspectives on the research concepts 'pastoral care' and 'life and worldview'. Empirically 2. To describe the main aspects of an African life and worldview. 3. To determine the extent to which an African life and worldview still influence the thought and life of believers in Mamelodi. Strategically 4. To determine which aspects of an African life and worldview are relevant for pastoral care, 5. To formulate guidelines for pastoral care concerning Christians who are having an African life and worldview. Especially exegesis about Moses and Paul shows that life and worldview must be taken into consideration in pastoral care. The religion phenomenological approach to religious consciousness by the Dutch scholar Johan Herman Bavinck serves as basis to describe an African life and worldview in terms of totality, norm, higher powers, need of salvation and life between activity and passivity. The socio-cultural category of space is added. Empirical research among seven ecclesiastical congregations in Mamelodi points to the fact that an African life and worldview still has an effect on the Iives of Christians. Pastoraat aan die Afrika-mens give guidelines for pastoral care, after looking at some 'emic' en 'etic' contributions regarding African-ness in pastoral care. The departure of a psycho-sociocuItural hermeneutic approach to African life and worldview as well as a Word-based holistic approach to the pastoral conversation is promoted. / Thesis (Th.M. (Practical Theology))--Potchefstroom University for Christian Higher Education, 2003

No description available.

L'objet principal de cette thèse est d'étudier les postures du refus de plusieurs écrivains contemporains envers l'écriture, le texte et le livre et leur propension à la négation. Après Rimbaud et Kafka, touchés par des pulsions négatives, des écrivains contemporains ont amplifié leur mal et ont choisi d'être radicalement absents du panthéon littéraire à un moment particulier de leur parcours artistique. De leur négation se dégagent de troublantes formes d'absence et des agraphies irrévocables encore non élucidées par l'histoire de la littérature. Ces écrivains négatifs sont des bartlebys, comme les désigne Enrique Vila-Matas dans Bartleby et compagnie. La figure de Bartleby, issue de la nouvelle de Herman Melville, symbolise une alliance d'oubli, de refus, de parfaite renonciation et d'absence, une attirance vers le néant dont l'expression rejoint celle des écrivains négatifs. En effet, le scribe Bartleby se refuse à écrire. Il répond à chaque sollicitation « I would prefer not to» ; il s'emmure peu à peu comme si, par une écriture niée et refusée à la fois, l'univers se dérobait devant lui jusqu'au néant. Installé dans l'évidence du silence et de la tentation de l'oubli, apathique et indifférent, Bartleby sombre dans le labyrinthe de sa propre négation. Il meurt silencieux à la fin de la nouvelle. Avec ce Bartleby étudié, nous le verrons, par Agamben, Deleuze, Blanchot, etc., s'édifie la pertinence d'un mythe fondateur des écrivains négatifs contemporains. À partir de la figure de Melville, interprétée comme une réflexion sur l'écriture, notre analyse évalue les raisons de leur congé de la littérature, la qualité de leur silence, la force troublante de leur immobilité, car les bartlebys accèdent à une sorte de « vérité » dans la négation de l'écriture. Leur volonté de ne plus écrire est d'autant plus remarquable que les bartlebys contemporains sont des écrivains avant tout et non des écrivains ratés. Leurs publications ou leur expérience littéraire leur a valu éloge ou reconnaissance de leurs pairs. Le processus créatif et les stratégies de l'écriture leur sont familiers. Tout comme Bartleby, ils ont cessé d'écrire ou ont délaissé, aidés de leur refus et de leur volonté d'absence, les valeurs propres à l'écriture et la littérature leur apparaît comme un repoussoir. Nous analyserons une partie significative de l'oeuvre de l'écrivain catalan Enrique Vila-Matas, qui a permis dans ses ouvrages de suivre les traces des bartlebys dans la littérature contemporaine occidentale. Cette exploration nous amènera à considérer un effet-bartleby dans cette même littérature contemporaine. Dans l'approche théorique de notre thèse, nous identifierons tout d'abord la dimension esthétique de ces écrivains du refus, sortes de fantômes de la littérature contemporaine. D'une part, nous cernerons selon quels critères ils prolongent l'ombre du Bartleby a scrivener de Melville. D'autre part, nous chercherons comment les bartlebys invoquent un imaginaire tourné vers l'inspiration et ayant renoncé aux formes. Nous nous risquerons en premier lieu sur le versant d'une écriture intrinsèquement porteuse d'espérance, puis nous aborderons le manque d'issues constaté par les bartlebys, ainsi que le caractère d'échec qu'ils confèrent à l'écriture face à la vie. Nous considérerons ensuite les raisons propres à la littérature dans le mouvement de sa négation. L'histoire littéraire montre en effet la constitution d'un processus interne de dévalorisation qui semble le moteur des thèmes et le ressort narratif de la littérature contemporaine. Cette dévalorisation est porteuse de tensions négatives intenses dont nous analyserons les répercussions sur le renoncement des écrivains négatifs. Corollairement, l'évolution de la fonction d'auteur vers une image et un rôle éloignés dans la représentation met également à mal une certaine éthique de la création en littérature. Au centre des pulsions négatives, nous entendons distinguer particulièrement les formes de l'absence propres à plusieurs écrivains négatifs. Elles montrent les ressorts multiples de la négation et se situent au-delà des limites admises de la littérature; leur expression n'est pas sans implication sur la littérature et nous chercherons dans leur matérialisation l'énigme de l'effacement des écrivains négatifs. Enfin, nous montrerons où s'élaborent leurs modes de confrontation (avec l'écriture, avec soi-même, avec le monde, avec l'institution littéraire, etc.) et comment ils indiquent aussi la nécessité d'une écriture préoccupée de sens afin de remédier à leur propre déchirement. Ce faisant, nous traiterons des carences de l'écriture et des tourments de ces créateurs littéraires. Nous nous attacherons particulièrement à comprendre les motivations du silence de l'écrivain suisse Robert Walser. Son silence de vingt-trois ans dans un asile, son étonnante spécificité littéraire, son rapport littéraire au vécu, l'utilisation de la glose comme ressort narratif, sa conception littéraire de la promenade, la création de son territoire du crayon et l'écriture dissimulée de ses microgrammes constituent un espace de négation particulièrement riche et stable, une forme novatrice de la clandestinité et du renoncement à la littérature. ______________________________________________________________________________ MOTS-CLÉS DE L’AUTEUR : Bartleby, Herman Melville, Enrique Vila-Matas, Robert Walser, écriture, négation, Littérature contemporaine, Dévalorisation, Refus, Absence, Silence.

Herman Charles Bosman's Oom Schalk stories have made him one of the most popular writers in South Africa, and the rural Marico District in which the stories are set a popular tourist destination. This popularity is largely due to the storytelling figure of Oom Schalk, the likeable old boer raconteur, who tells the stories and ironically pokes fun at his Marico community. This image of Oom Schalk and the Oom Schalk stories is one which was created and nurtured by Lionel Abrahams who was almost single-handedly responsible for the collection and republication of many of these stories after Bosman's death. The image of Schalk, and therefore the intention of Bosman in creating this fictional narrator, as a benign figure has been contested by some literary critics and defended by others. The debate has revolved around the extent to which Bosman's use of irony in the stories addresses the explicitly racist attitudes of Schalk and the Marico community. Unfortunately the debates around irony have been hampered by a lack of attention to the nature and functioning of irony. In my introduction I look at the problems that many critics have in trying to define the diverse body of writing that Bosman produced and the way in which this has defined a particular critical approach to Bosman. In Chapter 1 I discuss how the history of publication of Bosman's Oom Schalk stories and literary criticism has defined an approach to these stories which is often inappropriate. I also discuss some of the literary critical implications of the recent recollection and republication of Bosman's work in The Anniversary Edition. In Chapter 2 I address the issue of irony in the Oom Schalk stories. I deal with the way in which irony is constructed in the Oom Schalk stories. This discussion includes an analysis of the narrative structure of the short stories and the way in which the figure of Oom Schalk is used to create different levels of irony. In Chapter 3 I examine some of the Oom Schalk stories in detail in order to demonstrate the way in which Bosman's deployment of irony produces an identifiable pattern which establishes a basis for a discussion of Bosman's ironic intent in writing these stories. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2003.

Pastoraat aan die Afrika-mens is a Masters' thesis, which explores the hypotheses and finds that an African life and worIdview must consciously be taken into account in pastoral care to Christians with an African life and worldview in order to improve effective care. The practical-theological model of Heitink is being used as research method. This entails the following: Hermeneutically 1. To show from Scripture as basis some perspectives on the research concepts 'pastoral care' and 'life and worldview'. Empirically 2. To describe the main aspects of an African life and worldview. 3. To determine the extent to which an African life and worldview still influence the thought and life of believers in Mamelodi. Strategically 4. To determine which aspects of an African life and worldview are relevant for pastoral care, 5. To formulate guidelines for pastoral care concerning Christians who are having an African life and worldview. Especially exegesis about Moses and Paul shows that life and worldview must be taken into consideration in pastoral care. The religion phenomenological approach to religious consciousness by the Dutch scholar Johan Herman Bavinck serves as basis to describe an African life and worldview in terms of totality, norm, higher powers, need of salvation and life between activity and passivity. The socio-cultural category of space is added. Empirical research among seven ecclesiastical congregations in Mamelodi points to the fact that an African life and worldview still has an effect on the Iives of Christians. Pastoraat aan die Afrika-mens give guidelines for pastoral care, after looking at some 'emic' en 'etic' contributions regarding African-ness in pastoral care. The departure of a psycho-sociocuItural hermeneutic approach to African life and worldview as well as a Word-based holistic approach to the pastoral conversation is promoted. / Thesis (Th.M. (Practical Theology))--Potchefstroom University for Christian Higher Education, 2003

No description available.

In order to study how science and archeology was exploited for political means during the Third Reich this thesis investigates the scientific institute Ahnenerbe, founded in 1935. The thesis is built up as a literature study combining literature sources from the time of the eventas well as research done around Ahnenerbe after the war. The purpose of the thesis is to examine the official and unofficial purposes of the organisation. It investigates how scholars viewed Ahnenerbe at the time, and after the war. It further examines the scientific value of the material published by the organisation, where there is a specific focus on the material covering Germanic Männerbunds.

Thesis (Th. M.)--Westminster Theological Seminary (Philadelphia, Pa.), 2007. / Includes vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 118-126).