<p>This study examines the reputation and influence of Ovid's Metamorphoses in Augustan England in order to show the persistence of the allegorical reading of the poem. Although the ultimate purpose of the study is to shed light on the interpretation of Restoration and eighteenth--century poetry, such a direct application of the metamorphic tradition to the reading of the verse cannot be undertaken before the critical position of the Metamorphoses in the intellectual and artistic milieu of the period has been determined. Because it is my contention that Ovid's poem continued to be read in the Augustan age in much the same way that it had been in the Renaissance, the study begins with an analysis of the relationship between classicism and Renaissance humanism and the way in which this relationship affected Restoration and early eighteenth century thought and writing. From there, the study briefly reviews the sixteenth and seventeenth century thought on the Metamorphoses and, then branches into Augustan criticism, prefaces, translations, editions and handbooks which discuss Ovid's poem and which are written by British authors and continental writers who influenced British thought. It has sometimes been assumed that the Metamorphoses died an early death in the Augustan age because of the travesties of the poem and because of Addison's seeming disavowal of allegorization; therefore, I have tried to correct this assessment by a comprehensive analysis of the materials of the period.</p> <p>The study shows that while the critics have been correct in their belief that science and antiquarianism, along with a certain hatred of heathenism and narrowly defined sexual mores, caused the popularity of the Metamorphoses to wane in the eighteenth century, the poem still held a considerable prestige among writers and artists until 1750. Garth's 1717 Preface to the Metamorphoses, from which authors borrow freely until Boyse's New Pantheon (1753), is the seminal essay on Ovid's poem for the early eighteenth century, and his allegorical reading of the poem and appreciation of Ovid's wit are representative attitudes toward the poem. By 1750, however, Ovid's classic began to be questioned by men like Spence because it deviated from the true picture of the heathen mythology, and, consequently, the Metamorphoses in the later eighteenth century become the sole realm of schoolboys. While historians like Banier and Boyse believe the Metamorphoses to be significant in the early century, by 1750 the historians, too, sought more authentic materials, but writers clung to Ovid as a poetical model and moral teacher at least until that time. Allegory justified the continued usage of Ovid artistically and morally, and ubiquitous use of the Metamorphoses in Augustan poetry testifies to its popularity and significance.</p> <p>A careful examination of the comments on the Metamorphoses indicates that the truths that critics may gather about the scientific progress of an age are not always applicable to the artistic situation of the times. Furthermore, to confirm a thesis, one must go beyond the mere perusal of a few works of the period. In the case of Ovid, Addison's disparaging comment on the allegorization in Ross's Mystagogus Poeticus has been taken as the damaging evidence against the allegorical iv reading of the Metamorphoses, whereas Addison intends his criticism mainly for "mystical" allegory. By a careful study of a number of eignteenth-century works a clearer and more valid picture emerges. The importance of such a study for literary purposes lies in its applicability to the poetry of the period, As I have tried to argue in the last chapter of this thesis, Ovidian matter is not a mere window-dressing for frivolous poems, but an integral part of the structure and meaning. By applying the moralized reading of the Metamorphoses to allusions in poems such as Astraea Redux or The Dunciad and to the metamorphic patterns in such poems as Claremont, The Fan and "Eloisa to Abelard", I have discovered in Augustan verse a moral texture which the well-read poets submerged in subtle allusions, not immediately apparent from a casual reading of the poems. Although travesties and burlesques of Ovid's Metamorphoses were published in the eighteenth century, his master work continued to be regarded a major poetic document, and even those poets who used his work for the purpose of travesty often did so to make a serious point.</p> / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

This study explores an African conception of Humanism as distinct from the European model and challenges the notion that Humanism is an entirely European construct. I argue that the ideological core of Humanism originated in ancient Kemet, the basis of which frames the African worldview. Furthermore, the theoretical framework provided by the African Humanistic paradigm serves as a model for structuring inter and intra group relations, for tackling notions of difference and issues of fundamentalism, for addressing socio-economic political concerns, and finally, to shift the currents of political rhetoric from one of jouissance to a more progressive and pragmatic stance. / African American Studies

The writer's problem as reported in this thesis is to make an analysis of certain curriculum principles in terms of five selected basic philosophic concepts: pragmatism, instrumentalism, humanism, rationalism, and idealism.

La Tesis estudia el desarrollo de las lenguas vernáculas,el uso de la lengua y el arte de traducir en la tradición Humanista y en el Humanismo reformador europeo. En la primera parte se analiza el Humanismo renacentista y su contribución al desarrollo de las lenguas vernáculas en Europa. En la segunda parte se examina el uso concreto de la lengua y el modo de entender el arte de la traducción por parte del Humanismo reformador Europeo. El estudio de las aportaciones que se han producido al respecto, se lleva a cabo analizando las contribuciones que personajes relevantes de dicho periodo histórico han hecho: Erasmo, Lutero, Cisneros, Nebrija, Vives, Juan de Valdés y Luis de León, como notables representantes europeos del Humanismo reformador y excelentes estudiosos del uso de la lengua. A todos ellos les importó el uso de la lengua y el arte de la traducción. / The thesis studies the development of the vernacular languages, the use of the language and the art of translating in the Humanist tradition and in the European reformer Humanism. In the first part, the Humanism of the Renaissance and its contribution to the development of the vernacular languages in Europe have been analyzed. In the second part, the concrete use of the language and the way to understand the art of translating by the European reformer Humanism have been examined. The resulting study on the matter has been carried out analyzing the contributions that excellent thinkers of this historical period have done: Erasmo, Lutero, Cisneros, Nebrija, Vives, Juan de Valdés and Luis de León, as remarkable representatives of the European reformer Humanism and excellent experts on how to use the language and the art of translating.

Fifteenth-century diplomatic protocol required the city of Florence to send diplomats to congratulate both new and militarily victorious rulers. Diplomats on such missions poured praise on their triumphant allies and new rulers at friendly locations. However, political realities also meant that these diplomats would sometimes have to praise rulers whose accession or victory opposed Florentine interests. Moreover, different allies and enemies required different levels of praise. Jealous rulers compared the gifts, status, and oratory that they received from Florence to the Florentine entourages sent to their neighbors. Sending diplomats with too little or too much social status and eloquence could spell diplomatic disaster. Diplomats met these challenges by varying the style, structure, and content of their speeches. Far from formulaic pronouncements of goodwill, diplomatic orations varied from one speech to the next in order to meet the demands of the complex diplomatic world into which they fit. Contextualizing these orations reveals the subtle reservations of diplomats praising a hostile ruler, the insertion of specific citations to flatter specific audiences, and the changing intellectual and stylistic interests of humanists throughout the fifteenth century. This essay will examine the different shades of flattery practiced by Florentine diplomats and the contexts that explain these variations.

This thesis is built on the knowledge and experience I learned working with CURB and as a member of L.A. No More Jail, particularly in the ongoing fight against the Mira Loma gender responsive “Women’s Village” Jail expansion, which is part of a larger jail building boom on going in California right now. I write this thesis to engage in the reimagining of justice that abolitionist community organizers, formerly and currently incarcerated people and others who work to challenge the prison industrial complex have been envisioning for California.

In the following thesis, I argue that to contextualize Machiavelli’s republican thought in his Italian humanist heritage permits us to understand how Machiavelli reaches back not only to an Italian pre-humanist inheritance of liberty as freedom from servitude, but to a Stoic conception of agency which he inherits and shapes in that concept of liberty. While my analysis of Machiavelli and his humanist heritage is in fundamental agreement with that of Quentin Skinner in The Foundations of Modern Political Thought, it develops however the implications of two theses that Paul O. Kristeller outlines in his works on Italian humanism: the eclectic nature of humanist ideas and their rhetorical focus. From this I draw a slightly different picture of the humanist heritage and its polemics with Augustine, and from these an understanding about Stoic agency and how it is inherited and shaped in Machiavelli’s conception of the citizen and civic duties.

Que la question du développement soit une question qui intéresse la théologie est aujourd’hui une évidence pour les théologiens. Depuis le Concile Vatican II, à l’exception de Jean Paul I, les papes successifs ont consacré chacun une encyclique entière à la question du développement. Ces encycliques abordent le développement comme une question à la fois économique, politique, sociale et surtout théologique et morale. Notre thèse cherche à répondre à une question historique très pertinente pour la pensée théologique en ce qui concerne le développement : Comment le développement est-t-il devenu une question théologique ? Quel est le processus qui a permit au développement de prendre une place importante dans la théologie ? Nous avons fait une étude du document principal qui a permis à l'église d’entrer en dialogue avec le monde et ses problèmes : La Constitution pastorale sur l'église dans le monde de ce temps Gaudium et spes. Nous avons montré comment les Pères conciliaires ont pu, à partir de leur travail au Concile, mettre en marche une dynamique en faveur du développement et de là ont pu élaborer un enseignement théologique sur le développement. Le sujet qui a conditionné tout le débat sur le développement est l’homme et son bien-être, l’homme créé par Dieu et qui collabore avec Dieu pour achever sa création. Une approche à la fois historique et théologique nous a permis de donner à notre thème un contenu précis et à élaborer ce qu’on peut désigner comme une théologie du développement. / For most theologians today, it goes without saying that development is a theological question. Since after the second Vatican Council, with the exception of Pope John-Paul I, all the other popes published an encyclical letter on development. Each of these encyclicals treats development as economic, political, social and especially theological question. Our research is an attempt to respond to a very important historical question for theological thought: How did development become a theological question? What processes led to its becoming a current and important theological issue? To respond to the above questions, we studied the principal document through which the Church entered into dialogue with the world during the second Vatican Council: The Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the modern world Gaudium et spes. The council Fathers, in the said documents, gave development an elaborate theological treatment. All the debate on development in the Council was dominated by the consideration for man and his well-being; man created by God and called by him to continue collaborating with him in his work of creation. By using a historical and theological approach, we were able to give to our theme a reasonable elucidation. This method also helped us to elaborate what could be designated as a theology of development.

In this reading a notion of the human is developed through an engagement with the work of French philosopher Emanuel Levinas. The argument is that, with the help of Levinas, it is possible for the idea of the human to be understood anew, for the notion to be ‘resaid’. This resaying of the human is performed in a critical appropriation of the philosophical tradition: Levinas’s work is shown not to be a new variation of the complacent ideology of humanism; the idea of the human is instead interpreted to be the bearer of the very movement of critique. This movement is articulated in terms of a transcendence of a discursive ‘economy of violence’. Critique does not establish a permanent position outside of violence, but is a movement that must constantly be renewed. Here Levinas is offered as a modern thinker of particular relevance for contemporary discussions surrounding the nature both of the political and of Human Rights. In addition one finds a systematic analysis of the major works of Levinas, unraveling how a notion of the human develops from within his philosophy. Levinas’s thought is placed alongside philosophical figures of his time, such as Heidegger, Sartre, Bataille, Lévi-Strauss, Althusser, Foucault and Derrida, as well as more recent political thinkers, for example, Alain Badiou, Giorgio Agamben and Jacques Rancière.

Noam Chomsky, figure notoire du cognitivisme innéiste en psycholinguistique, est aussi un important penseur américain et activiste politique ayant écrit sur une multitude de sujets, issus de domaines variés : politique interne et étrangère des États-Unis, critique des médias de masse et enjeux sociaux liés aux droits de l’Homme, pour ne nommer que ceux-ci. Par contre, et malgré l’abondance de ses écrits à ce propos, Chomsky est, à ce jour, très peu étudié en philosophie de l’éducation : ce mémoire de maîtrise s’inscrit ainsi dans une perspective d’exploration, de définition et d’analyse de la pensée éducative chomskyenne, dans le but de présenter et réfléchir la portée possible d’une telle pensée dans l’axe philosophique des recherches en éducation. Devant la rareté, voire l’absence de recherches francophones et anglophones concernant notre objet d’étude, plus d’une centaine de livres, articles, entrevues et vidéos portant sur la philosophie chomskyenne et celle de grands penseurs humanistes, critiques ou opposés aux postulats chomskyens ont été retenus, lus et analysés dans le cadre de ce projet. Deux objectifs précis ont guidé ce mémoire : d’abord, présenter et analyser la pensée éducative chomskyenne en regard de ses fondements philosophiques et de ses ancrages intellectuels dans les traditions humaniste et critique en philosophie éducative, puis mettre en lumière l’unicité de cette pensée par rapport à ces traditions et à quelques courants opposés en éducation. Au terme de ce mémoire, nous espérons ainsi répondre aux questions suivantes : dans quelle mesure Chomsky s’inscrit-il dans les traditions humaniste et critique en éducation? Peut-il être considéré comme un héritier de la pensée de certains philosophes particuliers? En quoi sa pensée, relative à la philosophie de l’éducation, est-elle pertinente et innovante pour ce domaine fondamental? Et, finalement, quelles critiques pouvons-nous lui adresser? / Noam Chomsky, a notorious figure of nativist cognitivism in psycholinguistics, is also an important American thinker and political activist who writes on a variety of topics from various fields : internal and foreign policy of the United States, criticism of mass media and social issues related to human rights, to name a few. However, despite the abundance of his writings on this subject, Chomsky has been, to this day, rarely studied in philosophy of education: this thesis is thus part of an exploration perspective, definition and analysis of Chomsky's educational thought, in order to present and consider the possible scope of such thinking in the philosophical aspects of research in education. Considering the absence of academic French or English research on this object of study, more than a hundred books, articles, interviews and videos on the chomskyan educational philosophy and other great humanist, critical or opposed thinkers to chomskyan postulates have been selected, read and analyzed as part of this project. Two specific objectives guided this thesis : first, to present and analyze Chomsky's educational thought in terms of its philosophical influences and its anchoring in the intellectual humanist and critical traditions in educational philosophy, and to highlight the uniqueness of his thought in relation to these traditions and some opposing theories or points of view. At the end of this thesis, we hope to answer the following questions: to what extent Chomsky fits into humanistic and critical traditions in education? Can he be considered an heir to the thought of specific philosophers? How does his thoughts on philosophy of education are relevant and innovative in this fundamental field? And, finally, what critics can we address it?