Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, 1998. / "May 1998." eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 221-225).

Thesis--Florida State University. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 88-92).

Thesis--University of California, 1969. / eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Bibliography: leaves 482-498.

Zugl.: Zürich, Univ., Diss., 2008

Thesis (M.A.)--Villanova University, 2006. / English Dept. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M. Div.)--Emmanuel School of Religion, 2005. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 61-64).

Thesis (Ed.D.)--Boston University / PLEASE NOTE: Boston University Libraries did not receive an Authorization To Manage form for this thesis or dissertation. It is therefore not openly accessible, though it may be available by request. If you are the author or principal advisor of this work and would like to request open access for it, please contact us at open-help@bu.edu. Thank you. / George Ellsworth Johnson, a modest, well-educated man, was an educator and recreation administrator whose professional and intellectual life spanned the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. He was the first faculty member in the Play and Recreation program at Harvard University's Graduate School of Education. His ideas about play and education have never before been fully discussed in published literature addressing the history of play, play theory, and recreation. Johnson believed that play has an important role in the education of children. He believed in equal rights and opportunities for girls and women in sports and play. He visited America's southwest to study the recreational practices of Native Americans. Johnson was critical of popular play theories, yet never produced a coherent, scientifically-based theory of his own. His beliefs and ideas reflect the teachings of Plato, William James, and John Dewey. What is important about Johnson is not his just his critique of play theory, but his dedication to promoting play opportunities as a public trust consistent with democratic ideals. Johnson argued that of what children need to be taught, democratic ideals and civic virtue are better learned through play. The playground is no less important than the classroom as the place for moral training. In Johnson's view, play is immensely important to all human life; it is essential to the physical and mental development of children. The play values cherished by Johnson might well prompt those entrusted with play and recreation today to rethink the fundamental values of their work. Why there has been so little attention to Johnson in the written histories of play in America, given his contributions, is hard to explain. Although he was exposed to the racist political and philosophical thought commonly accepted by the NeoDarwinists, he never accepted the racist theories of his day. This study concerns the contributions of one of the pioneers of the American playground movement. / 2031-01-01

As a man of letters with an exceptionally extensive and diverse output, Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) has invited consideration from a variety of angles. The present study offers a 'reading' of Johnson as a framer of distinctions. His distinction-making activity is viewed as a capital feature of the oeuvre, characterizing it across almost its entire range, a very substantial body of evidence is adduced in support of this reading. Broken up by distinction-type, the mass of evidence sorts itself out into seventeen different categories themselves grouped under seven 'thematic' heads. The organization of the inquiry on taxonomic lines is intended both to throw into relief the multiform character of Johnson's distinction-making praxis (something not heretofore remarked) and also to provide a comprehensive, systematic and easily 'readable' account of it. That the evidence testifying to Johnson's distinction-making turned out to be so voluminous could not but occasion the thought that it might be an involuntary activity, a 'drive' grounded in the very 'set' of his psyche which comes in consequence to be viewed as in some sort 'formed for distinction-making'. This thought evolved into the thesis that the present study undertakes to defend, in doing which it becomes a psychocritical investigation inscribed within the theoretical frame of psychological stylistics whose aim is to make inferences and advance hypotheses about the build and workings of a mind from an analysis of the linguistic and stylistic data it generates.

This dissertation considers the supportive and complementary relation between Mark Johnson’s embodied realism and Bruce Lee’s Jeet Kune Do as a philosophical practice. In exploring this relationship, the emphasis on one’s embodiment condition and its relationship with metaphor and self-expression are the primary focus. First, this work involves providing an introduction to and an exploration of Johnson’s understanding of embodiment and his pragmatic realism with its foundation in metaphorical expression. Second, Bruce Lee’s Jeet Kune Do serves as a kind of exemplification and possible case of effective metaphorical development founded upon a desire for metaphorical-based self-expression of a combat philosophy of embodiment. Third, an analysis of the convergence between the use of metaphor-based embodiment in Lee’s and Johnson’s philosophies is considered. In this respect, both views serve to promote communication and evolution of self-expression as a consequence of certain metaphors. In the final area of analysis, Peirce’s phenomenology offers an understanding of how Lee’s and Johnson’s metaphor-based embodiment provides a fuller context and awareness of the phenomena of embodiment.

English Studies / M.A. (English)