This dissertation examines Friedrich Nietzsche's theory of culture. Nietzsche held that all beliefs were arbitrary and culturally contingent; cultures were distinct, organic, homogeneous entities, whose values were mutually incommensurable. I trace the origins of this theory to Nietzsche's experience as a philologist; but I claim that, in deriving his theory from historical data, Nietzsche drew false conclusions. As a mature philosopher, Nietzsche developed a somewhat more subtle theory, according to which cultures functioned like the underlying rules of a game. Thus any cultural world-view was arbitrary, but served as a necessary precondition for thought and communication. I argue that Nietzsche's mature theory led to contradictions and depended upon false inferences which he drew from history. Several of Nietzsche's doctrines including perspectivism, the Eternal Return, and the Overman depend upon his mature theory of culture. A similar theory underlies the work of two representative followers of Nietzsche, Leo Strauss and Jacques Derrida; and I discuss its consequences for their work. I then propose an alternative theory which explains the phenomenon of historical diversity without invoking Nietzsche's picture of reified cultures. Instead of imagining cultures as organic wholes, this alternative paradigm views the cultural background of any person as a heterogeneous collection of ideas and prejudices, often derived from diverse sources. Thus "cultures" are simply ways of categorizing people according to similarities in their backgrounds; and we belong simultaneously to numerous overlapping cultures. This paradigm, I argue, provides support for pluralist and democratic cultural ideals which Nietzsche and his followers have repudiated. Finally, I trace Nietzsche's reasons for criticizing humanistic scholarship to his theory of culture; and I defend humanism on the basis of my alternative paradigm.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Universität des Saarlandes, 1977. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 178-194).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Illinois State University, 2006. / Title from title page screen, viewed on May 2, 2007. Dissertation Committee: Torri Thompson (chair), Ronald Strickland, Hilary Justice. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 182-191) and abstract. Also available in print.

This project begins by asking why so many realist novels of the Victorian period also exhibit tropes borrowed from the eighteenth-century gothic romance—its locales, characters, and thematics. While theorizations of realism and of the gothic are plentiful, most studies consider them to be essentially opposed, and so few attempts have been made to explain why they frequently coexist within the same work, or what each figural mode might lend to the other. This dissertation addresses this deficit by arguing that gothic hauntings interpolated into realist fictions figure socio-economic traumas, the result of uneasy, uneven historical change. Realism's disinterested, empiricist epistemology made it ideal for examining relationships between individuals and social processes, especially the marketplace and public institutions against and through which the modern subject is defined. The gothic's emphases on hidden forces and motives, therefore, became the ideal vehicle for novelists to express anxieties surrounding the operation of these social and economic processes, especially the fear that they are somehow rigged or malevolent. The gothic mode is by definition historiographical, and its haunting returns stage conflicts between the values of a despotic past and those of an ostensibly enlightened present. Realism, often understood as the investigation of social reality, also develops within its narrative a causal model of history. This is required for the sequence of events it narrates to be understandable in their proper contexts and indeed for whole meaning(s) to emerge out of the sum of disparate incidents depicted. Gothic materialist texts, therefore, are obsessed with time and its changes and especially how aspects of competing forms of bureaucracy and modes of capital and exchange determine and confront the modern subject.

Leo Strauss resurrected a life-approach of the ancient Greeks and reformulated it as an alternative to the existentialism of his age that grew out of a radicalized historicism. He attempted to resuscitate the tenability of a universal grounded in nature (nature understood in a comprehensive experiential sense not delimited to the physical, sensibly-perceived world alone) that was historically malleable. Through reengagement with Plato and Socrates and by addressing the basic premises built into the thought of Friedrich Nietzsche and Martin Heidegger, Strauss resurrected poetry (art, or the mythos) that Enlightenment thinkers had discarded, and displayed its reasonableness on a par with the modern scientific approach as an animating informer of life. He thereby placed philosophy in a place subservient to poetry/the mythos, as had the ancients.

Vi lever i en tid där städer växer och utvecklas. Mycket byggs och stadsplaneringen blir allt viktigare. Den bebyggda miljön utgör en stor del av städernas innehåll. Trots det föreligger ingen ständig öppen debatt med omfattande deltagande och där alla röster hörs. Syftet med den här uppsatsen är att analysera kring varför arkitekturen ser ut som den gör och om det har någon koppling till historien. Intentionen är också att ta reda på vilken roll medborgaren har i arkitekturplanering och vad som görs för att skapa goda medborgardialoger. Studien genomfördes med en kvalitativ metod där resultatet består av semi-strukturerade intervjuer samt en genomgång av relevant litteratur. Resultatet visar att funktionalismens ideal har etsats sig fast inom arkitektyrket och att det verkar svårt att bryta sig loss. Det innefattar även synen på historiserande arkitektur som ofta förkastas. Byggregler och ekonomi spelar också roll. När det gäller medborgardialoger så är vissa av respondenterna av den uppfattningen att man inte bör lyssna särskilt mycket på medborgarna och att det räcker med de samråd som sker enligt lag, medan andra gärna skulle se en bättre kontakt med allmänheten. Gemensamt verkar de flesta respondenter ha att arkitekturen i Sverige idag är monoton och enkelspårig.

Thesis advisor: Nasser Behnegar / This study traces Nietzsche's understanding of the meaning of culture through his first three Untimely Observations. Its goal is to show that culture [Kultur] occupies a central place in these essays because Nietzsche thinks that the cultivation [Bildung] of humanity within enclosed and humanly created spiritual horizons can prevent the spiritual degeneration of mankind in modern times. The source of this degeneration lies in modern natural science and the scientific study of history. Taken together these two pillars of modern pedagogy erode human moral foundations and paralyze practical ambitions by teaching relativism in the form of what Nietzsche calls: "the doctrines of sovereign becoming, of the fluidity of all concepts, types, and species, [and] of the lack of any cardinal difference between human and animal." Since Nietzsche explicitly affirms the theoretical "truth" of these doctrines despite holding them to be "deadly" for mankind, the study focuses primarily on the cultural solution he proposes to the practical problem that relativism poses to the flourishing of a great people. Although this solution is a complex one which Nietzsche went on to refine and develop in almost all of his subsequent writings, its core consists of the cultivation, emergence, and activity of a rare type of individual he calls the "genius," the "true human being," and the "redeeming human being" in the Untimely Observations, and who is dubbed a "Caesarian breeder and cultural dynamo [Gewaltmenschen der Cultur]" in Beyond Good and Evil. This exceptional individual creates self-inspired works of philosophy and art that raise insulating walls around the collective mind of his people, restraining their longing for scientific and historical knowledge by satisfying or cultivating it [Bildung] with self-created metaphysical "truths" and "images [Bild]" of their past, future, and even of nature itself. When these truths and images are embraced by a people a spiritual horizon is established around them which they consider it bad taste to transcend, and inside this horizon lies a world of "creative morality [schöpferischen Moral]" and "metaphysical meaningfulness" that, under the best circumstances, cultivates healthy human life. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2013. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Political Science.

Orientadora: Karina Anhezini de Araújo / Banca: Jose Antonio Vasconcelos / Banca: Gabriel Giannattasio / Banca: Milton Carlos Costa / Banca: Hélio Rebello Cardoso Júnior / Resumo: Frank Ankersmit ainda é relativamente pouco conhecido no Brasil, mas na Holanda (seu país), em toda Europa e nos Estados Unidos, principalmente, ele é uma assumidade na área de teoria e filosofia da história. "Chegou" no Brasil através da, e graças à, repercussão de seus escritos pós-modernistas da década de 1980, traduzidos e publicados na revista Topoi em 2001. Esses escritos provocaram meu interesse em sua obra, e o desejo de investigá-la um pouco mais. Na medida em que fui também traduzindo, diversificando e aprofundando leituras, percebi que o pós-modernismo foi apenas um capítulo de sua jornada, e que uma história intelectual de Ankersmit deveria ir além, ampliar seu escopo. Esta tese se propõe a dar esse passo além, e a ler Ankersmit também a partir de outros embates, giros temáticos e conceitos por ele apresentados, desde a publicação de sua primeira obra em inglês, Narrative Logic (1983), até escritos mais recentes, em especial, Meaning, Truth and Reference in Historical Representation (2012). No interregno dessa pesquisa, outros "Ankersmites" emergiram, diferentes versões dele mesmo e de sua obra, precipitadas por algumas transições: do narrativismo para o representacionalismo; do pós-modernismo a um tipo de pós-pós-modernismo; do idealismo ao realismo histórico; movendo-se da linguagem para a experiência sublime, mas sem perder de vista o solo da representação; pensando a representação tanto no campo da política quanto no da historiografia. E, por fim... (Resumo completo, clicar acesso eletrônico abaixo) / Abstract: Frank Ankersmit still is a relatively new name in Brazil, although in The Kingdom of the Netherlands (his homeland), throughout Europe and in the United States of America, he is a prominent, well-known and respected theorist and philosopher of history. He arrived in Brazil through (and thanks to) the repercussion of his postmodern writings of the 1980s, translated and published in the journal of history Topoi in 2001. These writings incited my interest in his work in 2007, and gave me the desire to investigate further. Furthermore, insofar as I have been translating his texts, diversifying and deepening readings, I have realized that postmodernism was nothing but one chapter of his journey, and that an intellectual history of Ankersmit should go far beyond, enlarging its scope. This dissertation proposes to take this step even further, by reading Ankersmit also from other intellectual perspectives, debates and conceptual 'twists and turns' he has been thorough, from the publication of his first book in English, Narrative Logic (1983), to his more recent developments especially in Meaning, Truth and Reference in Historical Representation (2012). In the meantime, other 'Ankersmites' emerged, different versions of himself, precipitated by some transitions: from narrativism to representationalism; from postmodernism to post-postmodernist type of theory; from idealism back to historical realism; moving from language to (sublime) experience, but without losing sight of representation's firm soil; accounting for representation both in the field of politics and in historiography. And finally, trying to innovate the maximum and to repeat or vary the minimum of what he and others have said before, entangled by a longing for originality and distinction, a desire for authenticity, and a passion for (taking) historical writing... (Complete abstract click electronic access below) / Doutor

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This thesis examines certain important aspects of theatrical practice in earlymodern England, as they were manifested in Shakespeare's history plays and pageant literature produced for Queen Elizabeth 1 on procession. This study regards the events marked by these two literary forms as discrete though related theatrical formations, and seeks to examine and question the ways in which Shakespearean criticism and pageant analysis regard both genres as aesthetically equivalent as well as being cultural forms both characterised and linked by their valorisation of state authority. This thesis asserts that such a conceptualisation simplifies the nature of the plays and the pageants as material events, as well as the literature produced for these events. Instead, it argues that a closer examination of the human context in which pageants, processions and plays occurred, and in which the literature for them was performed, enables the construction of an alternative viewpoint. A reprocessing of primary and secondary material while prioritising the fact that a large proportion of audiences who witnessed the pageants, processions and plays were comprised of the common people of early modern England, allows for different perceptions of these cultural events. The presence of these common people has traditionally been either ignored or undervalued and, through a close examination of contemporary records, this thesis proceeds to argue that, as they were the targets of official, dominant ideology, their presence was significant.