Thesis (MA)--Stellenbosch University, 2012. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The stereotypical figure of the femme fatale as irresistible seductress, who inevitably brings about death, is well known. This figure is nevertheless strangely absent from Afrikaans literature. This is what makes the appearance of the character of Nicolette in André Brink’s novel, The Ambassador (1963), so remarkable. Not only is she a complex femme fatale, she also adds a new dimension to the cliché. The striking similarities between Nicolette and Kathe, the female protagonist in Henri-Pierre Roché’s novel Jules et Jim (1953), justify a comparative study between these two novels. Although both of them bring about death, it seems that the presence of these femme fatale characters has positive rather than negative consequences. Contrary to the stereotypical evil temptress, Nicolette and Kathe are more natural, spontaneous and unpredictable – apparently free from the constricting qualities of the bloodthirsty femme fatale. In this comparative study, the image of the femme fatale is investigated through the close examination of its role and function in Jules et Jim and The Ambassador. By examining the philosopher René Girard’s theories on mimetic desire, violence and sacrifice as well as Georges Bataille’s ideas on eroticism and death, the nature of the femme fatale in these two novels is analysed in order to determine to what extent the image of the femme fatale as negative archetype could be reconsidered. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Die stereotipiese figuur van die femme fatale as onweerstaanbare verleidster wat noodwendig die dood teweegbring, is alombekend. Tog blyk daar 'n opvallende afwesigheid van dié gevaarlike karakter in die Afrikaanse letterkunde te wees. Dit is waarom die verskyning van die karakter van Nicolette in André P. Brink se roman, Die Ambassadeur (1963), so merkwaardig is. Nie net is Nicolette 'n komplekse femme fatale karakter nie, maar bring sy ook 'n nuwe dimensie tot die geykte stereotipe. Dit is dan veral die treffende ooreenkoms tussen Nicolette en Kathe, die vroulike protagonis in Henri-Pierre Roché se roman Jules et Jim (1953), wat 'n vergelykende studie tussen hierdie twee romans regverdig. Alhoewel albei die dood teweegbring, blyk dit dat die teenwoordigheid van hierdie femme fatale karakters eerder positiewe as negatiewe gevolge het. Anders as die stereotipiese bose verleidster, is Nicolette en Kathe meer natuurlik, spontaan en onvoorspelbaar – oënskynlik vry van die beperkende eienskappe van die bloeddorstige femme fatale. In hierdie vergelykende studie word die beeld van die femme fatale ondersoek deur die rol en funksie daarvan in Jules et Jim en Die Ambassadeur in diepte te bestudeer. Deur die filosoof René Girard se teorieë oor mimetiese begeerte, geweld en offergawe asook Georges Bataille se idees oor erotisme en die dood te ondersoek, word die aard van die femme fatale in hierdie twee romans vergelykend ontleed om sodoende te bepaal tot watter mate die beeld van die femme fatale as negatiewe argetipe heroorweeg kan word. / RESUME: La figure stéréotypée de la femme fatale comme séductrice irrésistible et malfaisante qui entraîne inévitablement la mort, est bien connue. Néanmoins, nous constatons une absence frappante de cette figure dans la littérature de langue afrikaans. Voilà ce qui rend d’autant plus remarquable et surprenante l’apparence du personnage de Nicolette dans le roman L’Ambassadeur d’André Brink (1963). Non seulement est-elle une femme fatale complexe, mais Nicolette apporte aussi une nouvelle dimension à la figure rebattue. Ce sont surtout les similarités évidentes entre Nicolette et Kathe, la protagoniste féminine du roman Jules et Jim d’Henri-Pierre Roché (1953), qui justifient une étude comparée de ces deux romans. Bien que ces deux personnages féminins provoquent la mort d’un homme, il semblerait que la présence de ces femmes fatales ait des conséquences positives plutôt que négatives. Contrairement au stéréotype de la séductrice maléfique, les personnages de Kathe et de Nicolette sont plus naturels, spontanés et imprévisibles – apparemment libres de toute étiquette restrictive attribuée à la femme fatale assoiffée de sang. Dans cette étude comparée nous nous pencherons sur l’image de la femme fatale en examinant son rôle et sa fonction dans les romans Jules et Jim d’Henri-Pierre Roché et L’Ambassadeur d’André Brink. En considérant les théories sur le désir mimétique, la violence et le sacrifice que propose René Girard ainsi que les idées de Georges Bataille sur l’érotisme, nous essayons enfin d’établir dans quelle mesure on pourrait reconsidérer la définition étriquée de la femme fatale comme archétype négatif.

"This thesis proposes to investigate the theory posed by Comer Vann Howard in 'The Strange Career of Jim Crow.' Woodward claims that complete physical segregation of Negroes was not legally established in the Southern states until the turn of the century. He further contends the period from Reconstruction until the 1890s was an era when Negroes participated in many activities with whites. This work investigates Woodward's theory in its applicability to Texas between 1874 and 1898. The study begins with redemption, which came to Texas in 1874 with the election of the first Democratic governor since the Civil War. The concluding year of 1896 was chosen because the last Negro to serve in the Texas Legislature ended his term that year."-- leaf [i].

A new technique to qualitatively measure distortion in dynamically controlled audio systems using non-stationary noise sequences is explored and compared to traditional methods based upon stationary test signals. This technique can easily be adapted to give a qualitative measure of distortion as a function of the perceived Sound Pressure Level (SPL).

This thesis works to establish a literary theory and cultural studies as a theoretical lens with which we can view harmful emerging pop culture phenomena like the so-called alt right. The premise is supposed in three parts, with the first being a simple introduction to the Pepe character and how he is grounded in literary studies through a comparison of Sherlock Holmes and his early fandom. The second part is a survey of the legacy of Jim Crow and I present the evidence that Pepe is very much Crow’s spiritual successor in their shared preoccupation with white anxiety. The third is a discussion of language in which I bridge the use of memes as language with how that language effectively communicates. Ultimately, Pepe the Frog is able to tap into the pop culture collective through a democratizing of language facilitated by digital spaces on the internet, and his proliferation is made readily viral by the racist language he speaks through ala Jim Crow era anxieties.

<p>Syftet med denna litteraturstudie är att finna samhälleliga och historiska kontexter som sammanbinder Peoples Temple, Heavens Gate och Soltempelorden. Definitioner och beskrivningar av sekter, manipulativa sekter och karismatiska ledare presenteras. Fokus ligger på vilka likheter och skillnader som finns i deras uppbyggnad och tro, hur samhället såg ut när dessa sekter uppstod och om man kan finna några gemensamma nämnare när det gäller självmorden, alternativt morden.</p><p>Peoples Temple, Heavens Gate och Soltempelorden har alla något gemensamt. De iscensatte tre av historiens största religiösa tragedier genom tiderna. Alla tre sekterna lämnade jordens yta genom att medlemmarna tillsammans med ledarna begick självmord för att komma till en bättre värld.</p><p>Alla tre sekternas självmord kantades av samhällets motstånd och det finns historiska incidenter som kan ha att göra med grundandet av dessa grupper. Det är viktigt att man ser till de historiska och sociala faktorerna för att kunna förstå hur en sekt utvecklas på ett visst sätt och hur deras verksamhet har kunnat leda fram till ett kollektivt självmord.</p>

Syftet med denna litteraturstudie är att finna samhälleliga och historiska kontexter som sammanbinder Peoples Temple, Heavens Gate och Soltempelorden. Definitioner och beskrivningar av sekter, manipulativa sekter och karismatiska ledare presenteras. Fokus ligger på vilka likheter och skillnader som finns i deras uppbyggnad och tro, hur samhället såg ut när dessa sekter uppstod och om man kan finna några gemensamma nämnare när det gäller självmorden, alternativt morden. Peoples Temple, Heavens Gate och Soltempelorden har alla något gemensamt. De iscensatte tre av historiens största religiösa tragedier genom tiderna. Alla tre sekterna lämnade jordens yta genom att medlemmarna tillsammans med ledarna begick självmord för att komma till en bättre värld. Alla tre sekternas självmord kantades av samhällets motstånd och det finns historiska incidenter som kan ha att göra med grundandet av dessa grupper. Det är viktigt att man ser till de historiska och sociala faktorerna för att kunna förstå hur en sekt utvecklas på ett visst sätt och hur deras verksamhet har kunnat leda fram till ett kollektivt självmord.

The ways in which white Americans understand the racial landscape and their own racial identities are not well understood. Through the lens of the racial past, in this study I investigate how memory operates within the white racial frame, the dominant white-centric worldview, to uphold systemic racism and to maintain whites’ collective and individual identities. Through a narrative analysis of original in-depth interviews conducted with 44 ordinary white southerners – lifetime residents of Greensboro, North Carolina – who lived through the legal segregation and civil rights eras, this research demonstrates the interviewees’ contemporary investment in positive notions of the white self and white society. The respondents' autobiographical narratives of life during legal segregation, a time of overt white supremacy, are typified by nostalgia for a childhood era of safety, security, and "good" race relations. Interviewees' narratives of the civil rights era, including nonviolent student sit-in protests for which Greensboro is known and school desegregation, have themes of disruption, danger, and white victimization. Overall, respondents portray Jim Crow segregation as a calm and peaceful time and the civil rights era as chaotic and harmful to whites, at the same time as they acknowledge, to a limited extent, the unfairness of Jim Crow's blatant racial inequalities. In this work I propose the concepts white victimology, white protectionism, and white moral identity. I argue that white victimology – whites' perception, largely imagined, of their own racial victimization – is a major ideological and emotional facet of the white racial frame, whereby whites dismiss the historical and contemporary reality of white racism. My analysis demonstrates that white victimology is a primary way in which whites assert themselves, individually and collectively, as racial innocents and "good" people. In this work I also conceptualize the dynamic of white protectionism, explanatory and rhetorical ways in which whites "rescue" white acquaintances and family members from potential accusations of racism. Ultimately, I argue that whites' investment in perpetuating white dominance and upholding the white racial frame occurs through white moral identity-making, myriad active and subtle ways that whites continue to construct themselves positively and construct people of color, especially black Americans, negatively.

Title from PDF of title page. / Document formatted into pages; contains 147 pages. / Thesis (M.A.)--University of South Florida, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references. / Text (Electronic thesis) in PDF format. / ABSTRACT: Blanche Armwood was a remarkable black woman activist, from Tampa, Florida, who devoted her life to improving the political, social, and economic status of blacks in the Jim Crow South. Local historians have kept Armwood's legacy alive by describing her achievements and by emphasizing her dedication to the African-American population during one of the most racist periods in American history. In their efforts to understand Armwood's career, scholars depend upon race as the primary category of analysis and focus mainly on the external forces that defined Armwood's world. They argue that she became resigned to her lot in life as a black woman, and consequently chose to accommodate rather than challenge the Southern racial system. This thesis offers an alternative interpretation of Armwood's activism. / ABSTRACT: It argues that Blanche Armwood rejected the white supremacist ideology of the Jim Crow South and insisted on equal opportunity and political equality for all African-Americans. This study examines how social variables such as race, gender, and class intersected in her life, shaping her world view and leadership style. It explores how Armwood's experiences as a southern, middle-class, black woman affected her racial ideology. Armwood left behind a powerful legacy of resistance against the second-class status that white America imposed on blacks during the nadir in African-American history. She contested the white South's perception of African-American women. In a world that associated them with Mammy and Jezebel stereotypes, Armwood insisted that African-American women deserved the same respect that society accorded white women. / ABSTRACT: Armwood fought for political equality, demanding that black women should have the right to vote and participate in the civic process as women and as African-Americans. In addition, she believed that the federal government had a responsibility to protect all its citizens and that every American was entitled to equal treatment before the law. Finally, Armwood&softsign;s racial uplift work revealed her faith in the cornerstone of the American creed, its promise of equal opportunity. She provided some blacks with the chance to move away from poverty and illiteracy to become respectable middle-class Americans. / System requirements: World Wide Web browser and PDF reader. / Mode of access: World Wide Web.

This thesis investigates the way "healing" may be seen to be represented and enacted by three recent New Zealand music theatre productions: Once Were Warriors, the Musical-Drama; The Whale Rider, On Stage; and Footprints/Tapuwae, a bicultural opera. This thesis addresses the ways each of these music theatre productions can be seen to dramatise ideologically informed notions of Maori cultural health through the encounter of Maori performance practices with American and European music theatre forms. Because the original colonial encounter between Maori and Pakeha was a wounding process, it may be possible that in order to construct a theatrical meeting between the "colonised" Maori and the "colonial" non-Maori, "healing" is an essential element by which to foster an idea of the post-colonial, bicultural togetherness of the nation. In all three productions, Maori song and dance forms are incorporated into a distinctive form of western music theatre: the American musical; the international spectacle; Wagnerian opera. Wagner's attempts to regenerate German culture through his music dramas can be compared to Maori renaissance idea(l)s of cultural "healing" through a "return" to Maori myths, traditions and song and dance.

The precision of machining systems is ever increasing in order to keep up with components’ accuracy requirements. At the same time product variants areincreasing and order quantities are decreasing, which introduces high demands on the capability of machining systems. The machining system is an interaction between the machine tool structure, the process and the control system and is defined in terms of capability by the positional, static, dynamic and thermal accuracy. So far, the control of the machining system, in terms of static and dynamic stability is process based which is often translated into sub-optimum process parameters and therefore low productivity.This thesis proposes a new approach for control of the machining systemwhich is based on the capability to control the structural properties of themachine tool and as a result, controlling the outcome of the machining process.The control of the structural properties is realized by carefully designed Joint Interface Modules (JIMS). These modules allow for control of the stiffness and damping of the structure, as a result of tuning the contact conditions on the interface of the JIM; this is performed by control of the pre-load on the interface,by treatment of the interface with damping enhancing materials, or both. The thesis consists of a presentation of the motivation behind this work, the theoretical basis on which the proposed concept is based and a part describing the experimental investigations carried out. Two prototype JIMs, one for a milling process and one for a turning process were used in the experimental investigations that constitute the case studies for examining the validity of the proposed concept and demonstrating its applicability in a real production environment. / <p>QC 20140611</p> / EU FP7 POPJIM