This thesis is a study of the changing model of the local history museum in Ontario, Canada and the consequential changing interpretations of the past in these institutions. <br /><br /> Beginning in 1879, local history museums in Ontario developed largely from the energies of local historical societies bent on collecting the past. While science museums used taxonomy and classification to mirror the natural state of the world, history museums had no equivalent framework for organizing collections as real-world referents. Often organized without apparent design, by the early 20th century a deductive method was used to categorize and display history collections into functional groups based on manufacture and use. <br /><br /> By the mid-twentieth century an inductive approach for interpreting collections in exhibits was promoted to make these objects more meaningful and interesting to museum visitors, and to justify their collection. This approach relied on the recontextualization of the object through two methods: text-based, narrative exhibits; and verisimilitude, the recreation of the historical environment in which the artifact would have been originally used. These exhibit practices became part of the syllabus of history museum work as it professionalized during the mid-twentieth century, almost a full century after the science museum. In Ontario, recontextualizing artifacts eventually dominated the process of recreating the past at museums. Objects were consigned to placement within textual storylines in order to impart accurate meaning. At its most elaborate, artifacts were recontextualized into houses, and buildings into villages, wherein the public could fully immerse themselves in a tableau of the past. Throughout this process, the dynamic of recontextualization to enhance visitor experience subtlety shifted the historical artifact from its previous position in the museum as an autonomous relic of the past, to one subordinate to context. <br /><br /> Although presented as absolute, the narratives and reconstructions formed by these collecting and exhibiting practices were contingent on a multitude of shifting factors, such as accepted museum practice, physical, economic and human resources available to the museum operation, and prevailing beliefs about the past and community identity. This thesis exposes the wider field of museum practice in Ontario community history museums over a century while the case study of Doon Pioneer Village shows in detail the conditional qualities of historical reconstruction in museum exhibits and historical restoration.

The Song of Songs was the most commented upon biblical text in medieval Europe and became the cornerstone of the Western mystical tradition, but our knowledge of its use in Latin Christian communities before the time of Ambrose and Jerome is largely fragmentary. The thesis is a study of the use and interpretation of the Song in the Latin West during the period 250 – 380 CE, with a focus on the Tractatus de Epithalamio of Gregory of Elvira (c. 320-392), which is the earliest extant Song commentary composed in Latin. The research demonstrates that there was a robust tradition of Song exegesis in early Latin Christianity, although the mystical-affective interpretation that marks the later tradition is entirely absent. The poem is, rather, interpreted in an ecclesiological mode and is put in the service of communal selfdefinition. Gregory’s Tractatus, which I argue should be dated to 350-55, is a key source in recovering this largely lost tradition. The first part of the thesis traces in detail all of the citations of the Song in Latin Christian literature during the period in question, focusing on the writings of Cyprian of Carthage, Optatus of Milevis, Tyconius, Pacian of Barcelona, and Augustine. There emerge a cluster of passages from the Song that become key proof texts in ecclesiological controversies in North Africa and Spain. The second part engages problems in Gregorian scholarship, particularly issues pertaining to Gregory’s supposed direct knowledge and use of Origen’s writings. Scholars assert that his exegetical writings reflect the Origenist turn of the late fourth century. Using the tools of source criticism and theological analysis, I contest this hypothesis, demonstrating that the evidence of Origen’s influence has been greatly exaggerated and that the points of contact which do exist must be explained with reference to intermediary Latin sources. The third part sets the Tractatus de Epithalamio within its precise historical context and offers a close reading of the text, giving an account of its Christology, ecclesiology, and use of sources. The Tractatus, I argue, represents a ‘fusion’ of a distinctly Latin tradition of ecclesiological exegesis with a particularly Spanish mode of Christological reflection, which treats the enfleshment of the Word in the Incarnation and the embodiment of the risen Christ in the church as conceptually inseparable. Related historical problems, such as the chronology of Gregory’s career, are treated in appendices.

The quest for the contextual meaning of the life and teaching of the historical Jesus seems to be a perennial question. Given the religious, cultural and social situation in Korea as well as in Asia generally, any theological reflection should be both contextually relevant and faithful to the Gospels. This thesis attempts to articulate the Jongshin ('Spirit or Teaching') of the historical Jesus, the Master of Christianity, using the concept of mokmin ('to serve the people'), which comes from the intellectual heritage of the Korean people, as a hermeneutical key. In the endeavour to present a mokmin perception of the historical Jesus, it is necessary to respond to minjung theology in Korea. Developed in the 1970s and 1980s in Korea when people suffered under political oppression and economic exploitation, minjung theologians found the biblical basis for their theology of liberation in their description of the historical Jesus. They perceived Jesus' status as a minjung, who identified himself with the minjung and denied himself any leadership role among the minjung. This thesis argues that we should not confuse Jesus' being and the character of his ministry. Jesus was not a minjung, but a royal figure. The perception of Jesus' mission as a minjung movement or as a minjung revolt is also refuted. Jesus' mission is characterised by his mokmin praxis in that a royal figure sided with the lowest people in the society. The mokn1in praxis of Jesus is grasped in three aspects: solidarity with the poor min ('people'), awakening the social responsibility in Jesus' community and pedagogy of the oppressors, i.e., the Jewish religious leaders and the rich in the society. First, we observe that there should be no question about Jesus' mission for the poor min. Jesus broke the social and religious barriers in Judaism to reach out and side with the poor and suffering min, which is most dramatically demonstrated in his healing ministry. Jesus became the source of hope for the poor min by taking the initiative in releasing the han ('the accumulated grief') of the people. Secondly, Jesus envisioned a society in which no status distinction among its members exists and social justice is established. For this, Jesus selected the twelve disciples as representatives of the community and as transmitters of Jesus' Jungshin, and inculcated them to embody mokmin praxis. Thirdly, Jesus demonstrated his intention to be the pedagogue of the oppressors. Jesus consistently challenged the Jewish religious leaders and the rich members of the society to accept his teaching and side with him for mokmin praxis. We perceive that Jesus' mission as the pedagogue of the oppressors was even more radical than his gesture to side with the poor min, for the cost of Jesus' pedagogy of the oppressors was his life. What we attempt to demonstrate in the thesis is not only to present an authentic and contextual perception of the Jongshin of the historical Jesus but also to expose the failure of minjung theology to present a holistic image of the historical Jesus to the Korean people. (Its historical contribution in Korea to the democratisation movement in the 1970s and 1980s is beyond the scope of our discussion.) The theological significance of this study is that the perception of the historical Jesus as mokmin Jesus provides both a biblically faithful and a contextually relevant understanding of the historical Jesus. The broader theological implication of this study is linked with the concerted effort to discover Korean questions and, furthermore, to build a Korean and an Asian way of doing Christian theology.

This is the beginning of a historical novel set in 1960’s Little Rock, Arkansas. The main character, Elsie Robinson, is forced to come home from her life in New York because of the sudden death of her father. She stays to look after her mother. She then meets Freddie, a white man, who somehow feels completely comfortable in her black community. In a time when everything seems to be falling apart, Freddie is a beam of light. If only their relationship weren’t illegal.

The thesis focuses on how students learn history in the classroom, more precisely on their possibilities and difficulties in developing competence in the school subject of history. There is a particular emphasis on how they explain and understand historical processes and concepts within the subject of history. Participants are students of different grades, 8–19 years old. The purpose of the study is to explore how students learn history in concrete learning situations and my focus is on the types of knowledge students understand, learn, develop and use in comparison with what they are expected to learn.  This is done based on three fundamental and well-established principles of learning. To examine what kinds of knowledge students need I use three main types of knowledge: declarative content knowledge (facts and concepts), procedural knowledge (knowledge about how to do things) and self-regulatory knowledge (knowledge about how to regulate our memory, thought and learning). I also use concepts and insights from systemic functional linguistics (SFL) in order to explain why the students use language and communicate the way they do. The thesis shows that history is challenging for young students. Young students have difficulties with complex and abstract concepts in history as they treat concepts as facts. Older, more competent, students use concepts on a more abstract level and use different kinds of linguistic resources when formulating explanations of higher complexity, more similar to the way explanations in the domain of history are commonly written. The youngest students and some of the older students lacked factual knowledge, concept knowledge, domain specific self-regulatory knowledge and linguistic resources. Declarative content knowledge and facts are more important and more difficult for young students to understand, develop, organize and learn than previous scholars have shown empirically. Students’ abilities to understand facts and ideas in the context of a conceptual framework and to organize and structure facts with the help of concepts at different level of abstraction (conceptual understanding) are crucial. Students also need linguistic resources, both lexical knowledge and knowledge of text structures. Language is crucial both in the process of acquiring knowledge and in the process of communication. In the learning process, teaching is crucial, since individual students’ potential to develop competence depend on the potential of the teacher to discover and engage their preconceptions and arrange for learning in a way that give students the kind of knowledge they need.

Memento Mori and Other Stories follows historical characters straining against societal norms and pushing back against gender roles as they struggle for personal independence.

Master of Regional and Community Planning / Architecture / John W. Keller / Similar to their urban counterparts, rural communities consider preservation of a site based on their most vital economic features. With the growing minority and non-white cultures becoming more predominant in American society, so too has the culture and significance of historic events changed. More emphasis is now on the surrounding environment of those landmarks historically preserved rather than just the landmarks themselves. And in turn with the environment, more grants and awards are passed down to those sites and locations that provide more options to limiting excess space and energy while utilizing them to the fullest potential. Some conflicts still occur in relation to preserving historical integrity with development, but the total consensus is that historic preservation provides economic benefit more than loss.

Student Number : 0420532W - MA research report - School of Literature and Language Studies - Faculty of Humanities / In this Theoretical Introduction the reasons for the choice of the historical fiction genre for the creative component of this Research Report will become clear in relation to other notable examples of the genre, indeed the academic essay will revolve around primary concerns with regard to the narrative of historical fiction and the debates around the representation that the work engages. In the postscript to the academic essay the possible destination for publication will be considered, as well as a summation of the writing and revision process, and a rumination of the projected readership or audience. As the creative component will be submitted in partial form, the postscript to the theoretical introduction will extrapolate the rest of the project, so as to provide some sense of the intended eventual work. Finally a special thanks to Ashleigh Harris, whose untiring help and encouragement is deeply appreciated; and to my husband, Norman, whose concern and enormous patience has sustained this endeavour.

Faculty of Humanities School of Social Sciences 9304636m kalombo@hse.pg.wits.ac.za / The objective of this study was to unveil the effectiveness of current strategies put in place to thwart the root causes of corruption and its damaging effects on economic growth and political development in the Gauteng Provincial Government. To achieve this purpose, this thesis looked at the incidence of political corruption in South Africa in general and Gauteng in particular, in an attempt to ascertain the implication of the political and historical legacy of corruption on democratic governance. This work is an attempt to raise awareness and understanding of the problem of corruption, more a step toward transparency and accountability. The research project is positioned within the qualitative paradigm at the preliminary stage to establish a historical background of political corruption. And within the quantitative research at the second stage that required establishing from the preliminary research a sizeable sample of (approximately 100) key individuals and people in the field of corruption to which detailed questionnaires were distributed. The main findings as shown from the Gauteng experience were that in Gauteng, cases of corruption were widespread in almost all departments where public servants exploited state structures and used them to extract benefits for their own gains. However, the departments the most vulnerable to corrupt practices were those of Housing, Safety and Security, Transport and Public Works, Education, Welfare, Local Government and Health. As discovered, areas such as affirmative action, tendering or the expanded provision of benefits (e.g. in Housing, Welfare or Education) are areas that are vulnerable to corruption and are all associated with transformation/democratization projects. However, the incidence of corruption in the province can be explained by Gauteng’s lack of a “traditional” culture base that may make leaders especially susceptible to acquisitive and individualistic forms of behaviour. As a result corruption impacts negatively on the political process by undermining the legitimacy of the state and economically by impeding developmental strategies, as “corruption leads to loss of much needed revenue and human talent for development, distorts priorities for public policy, and shifts scarce resources away from the public interest … Political instability, corruption, and underdevelopment are mutually reinforcing” (Elliot: 2001:926). vi In terms of anti-corruption measures, the study has found that Gauteng is on the right path, as anti-corruption measures applied in the province suit those applied at the national level, that in turn are in the same line with international practices. The study argues that while Gauteng anti-corruption measures have succeeded in reducing corruption levels, they have not stopped it, as new cases surface almost every week in the local press. Thus there is still room for improvement if the Gauteng government aims to succeed. The researcher has recommended that there is a need for common guidelines and coordination strategies amongst internal departmental anti-corruption units that have been established and the initiation in each department of its own monitoring and evaluation capacity. This means the build-up and the improvement of internal audits and controls by higher authority applicable to both officialdom and the business sector. Finally the study assumes that many other examples of strategies to fight corruption could be provided, however, the ones provided are sufficient to argue the point that in many cases the fight against corruption cannot proceed independently from the reform of the state. In many ways it is the same fight. The study’s major conclusions concern those general assumptions about the relationship between democracy and good governance, which characterize certain theories concerning the causation of corruption, need to be revised. Even the most authoritarian systems, as was apartheid, were able to control the levels of corruption and keep it at an economically viable level. To this end, other mechanisms such as accounting standards and audits and direct accountability of leadership in government need to be strengthened alongside with the protection of whistleblowers. But the end result is that several factors associated with these mechanisms have highlighted the fact that transparency and the resulting exposure have increased opportunities for graft. In more democratic and open societies, besides greater civic engagement, the chance of closer monitoring and exposure of corrupt officials and politicians is higher than in no democratic society. Freedom of the press and of association leads public interest groups to expose abuses of power. While democracy seems to decrease corruption, both variables interact strongly with the level of transition. Hence the needs for more research on the actual effect of democratization in government departments that will serve the cause of anti-corruption campaign better.

Thesis advisor: John Sallis / In comparing hermeneutic application to Aristotle's concept of phronêsis, Hans-Georg Gadamer insists that historical interpretation is not just a theoretical but also a practical task pertaining to human conduct as such. It is said to involve a similar level of self-understanding that acknowledges one's historical and linguistic situation, bearing strong connections to the intersubjective exercise of judgment and the development of freedom. This dissertation investigates these claims by presenting a detailed analysis of Gadamer's concepts of historical effect [Wirkungsgeschichte] and the reflective consciousness thereof [wirkungsgeschichtliches Bewusstsein]. I delineate Gadamer's position in part through engagement with contemporary debates and misunderstandings of his stance, and in part by setting it in contrast with several central figures who influenced his notions of tradition and freedom: Kant, Hegel, and Heidegger. This contrasting move helps on the one hand to reveal just how fruitful Gadamer's concepts are, and on the other to underscore that Gadamer enacts the very dialogical relation to tradition that he elucidates in his hermeneutics. On the basis of these developments, it is possible to see more clearly the ethical relevance Gadamer takes hermeneutics to have, and to grasp in particular the importance he places upon historical engagement within the humanities. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2012. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Philosophy.