This thesis explores the role of lament and praise in the respective theological approaches of Walter Brueggemann and David Ford for the purpose of examining how Christian faith transforms human response to suffering. The first three chapters trace Brueggemann’s engagement with Israel’s lament psalms, beginning with his observation that their typical dual form mirrors the collective shape of Israel’s psalter as well as all biblical faith. Influential interactions with sociology eventually lead Brueggemann to propose faith not simply as response to God’s faithfulness, but rather through rhetorical tension maintained between conflicts perceived in aspects of scripture such as praise and lament. We critique this view of irresolvable textual tension for leaving Brueggemann with an unresolved understanding of divine fidelity which obscures biblical expectation that God will respond faithfully to human lament. The fourth and fifth chapters concern David Ford’s consistent engagement with praise and subsequently, Christian joy. His early collaborative scholarship proposes praise as the result of faith in who God is through the suffering person and work of Jesus Christ. Nevertheless, continued ethical concerns lead Ford to identify Christian faith as an inextricable relationship between joy and responsibility resulting from “facing” Christ’s life and suffering death. We critique Ford for failing to clarify how such “facing” is made possible through who God is in Christ, rendering faith merely the result of human expression of Christ’s example, and thus obscuring any real reason for praise amidst suffering. Beyond a synthesis of Brueggemann and Ford’s respective approaches to lament and praise, the final chapter argues that a trinitarian approach to Christ’s atonement is necessary to propose how God confronts both suffering and sin thereby producing faithful human response amidst persistent evil. We conclude by arguing that a trinitarian understanding of praise cannot be proposed apart from either who God is in Christ’s atonement or how the atoning Christ is humanly faithful in lament.

This book is a monograph about Anna Świrszczyńska’s poetry. It may be described as one woman’s attempt to read another woman’s literary work by taking into account established canons as well as the tools of feminist literary analysis. Part One begins with a discussion of Świrszczyńska’s biography (Chapter One). It then moves on to an overview of critical (mainly male) reactions to Świrszczyńska’s work (Chapter Two), with special regard to Czesław Miłosz’s contribution to its interpretation and popularization (Chapter Three). In Part Two there are three principal discussions: 1) of Anna Świrszczyńska’s early work Wiersze i proza [Poems and Prose] (1936), in which the poet develops her specific female view of European art and culture as disintegrated into incongruent fragments. Her premonition of the apocalypse, which is soon to be fulfilled in the events of World War II, finds its expression in the poet’s desperate attempts to unite the fragments of a shattered culture into individualized versions of myths (Chapter Four); 2) of the collection Budowałam barykadę [Building the Barricade] (1974), in which what is most crucial to the poet (biographically and poetically) is expressed – the encounter with human suffering in an inhuman world. Following this, her poetic view of the mortal body exposed to suffering under an empty sky becomes a well established motif in her work (Chapter Five); 3) of the collection Jestem baba (1972), in which Świrszczyńska introduces into poetry, by making the non-poetical “baba” her lyric heroine, the “outlawed feminine” and, as a result, revolutionizes the language of poetry and poetic representation, which leads in turn to liberating herself from the hegemony of the totalizing male gaze. In this way her anti-world is created (Chapter Six). The “world” is understood here as a male term – one might say that Świrszczyńska creates a “woman’s anti-world” as a place where the woman herself has to regain the right to name things according to her own terms.

While many riddles exist in the Anglo-Saxon Exeter Book containing female characters, both as actual human females and personified objects and aspects of nature, few scholars have discussed how the anthropomorphized “females” of the riddles challenge and broaden more conventional portrayals of what it meant to be “female” in Anglo-Saxon literature. True understanding of these riddles, however, comes only with this broader view of female, a view including a mixture of ferocity and nobility of purpose and character very reminiscent of the valkyrie (OE wælcyrige), a figure mentioned only slightly in Anglo-Saxon literature, but one who deserves more prominence, particularly when evaluating the riddles of the Exeter Book and two poems textually close to the riddles, The Wife's Lament and Wulf and Eadwacer, the only two poems with a female voice in the entire Old English corpus. Riddles represent culture from a unique angle. Because of their heavy dependence upon metaphor as a vehicle or disguise for the true subject of the riddle, the poet must employ a metaphor with similar characteristics to the true riddle subject, or the tenor of the riddle. As the riddle progresses, similarities between the vehicle and the tenor are listed for the reader. Within these similarities lie the common ground between the two objects, but the riddle changes course at some point and presents a characteristic the vehicle and tenor do not have in common, which creates a gap. This gap of similarities must be wide enough for the true solution to appear, but not so wide so that the reader cannot hope to solve the mental puzzle. Because many of the riddles of the Exeter Book involve women and portrayal of objects as “female,” it is important to analyze the use of “female” as a vehicle to see what similarities arise.

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This study examines the impact of rapid and multi-faceted change (both domestically and inter-nationally over the past four decades) on the Dutch Reformed Church. 2 February 1990 is taken as a water shed date in the history of South-Africa: a speech in parliament of former president FW de Klerk put South-Africa on a course of fundamental change in all spheres of society. The research problem deals with loss the Afrikaans community experiences as a result of societal change. The result of change and loss is long-lasting, collective grief. Grief is defined as the nor-mal, spontaneous reaction to change and loss. Unresolved grief and nostalgia saps a lot of energy and tends to turn a congregation’s attention to itself, thereby contradicting the sound reformed ecclesiology. There is no appropriate practical theological theory to help congregations address unresolved grief. Change, loss and grief are made focus points for theological reflection and empirical study. The guiding hypothesis states that efforts to build up the local church are more likely to succeed, once the “black holes” of unaddressed grief have been dealt with by a collective and on-going process of mourning. Mourning is defined as an intentional and courageous process of letting go of different losses. It is hard work, but the result of deliberate mourning is growth – and eventually a more appropriate, new identity. Unresolved grief causes congregations to get stuck in survival mode, in stead of reaching out to the nations with the gospel of Jesus Christ. Mourning is an antidote (Hamman 2005:35). The research model of G Heitink (1993) is employed to generate fresh practical theological thinking on the research problem: that congregations fail to live according to their missional identity. The hermeneutical cycle explores the “new” practical theology in the framework of a post-Einstein epistemology, as well as the theory of building up the local church in the framework of an ecosystemic meta-theory. The hermeneutical cycle is concluded with the study of contemporary theories of loss, grief and mourning. The empirical cycle reports the results of a qualitative empirical study in three local congregations of the Northern Synod of the Dutch Reformed Church. A rich description is given of 31 respondents’ experience of loss and grief in the new South-Africa. It is established that unresolved grief indeed impacts negatively on efforts to build up the local church. The strategic cycle searches for practical theological wisdom and for a theory that can guide congregations to more productive responses to change and loss. The research boils down to twelve strategic suggestions for local congregations on how to make collective mourning a normal and on-going part of their ministry. The study concludes with the hypothesis that practical theology can serve the church by developing a theory that integrates intentional mourning and grief work as a necessary and normal aspect of ministry. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2011. / Practical Theology / unrestricted

Contrairement à la lamentation rituelle, les lamentations tragiques sont réalisées dans un large éventail de situations. En effet, elles peuvent avoir lieu avant l’événement déploré, porter sur d’autres malheurs qu’un décès, ou encore lamenter le sort de la personne même qui mène la lamentation. Cette variété de contextes est vraisemblablement à l’origine de la grande diversité de formes et de contenus des lamentations que l’on trouve dans le corpus tragique. De quelle façon les tragédiens modifient-ils la forme traditionnelle de la lamentation ? Ces modifications dépendent-elles d’éléments contextuels particuliers ? Pour répondre à ces questions, j’examinerai trois passages : Cassandre dans l’Agamemnon d’Eschyle, Créon dans l’Antigone de Sophocle et Polymestor dans l’Hécube d’Euripide. Ces trois lamentations ont lieu dans des contextes très différents, notamment en ce qui concerne l’identité du lamentant (genre, âge, statut social, ethnicité) et la relation que celui-ci entretient avec le Chœur. De surcroît, elles ont été composées par des auteurs et à des dates différentes, ce qui permettra de prendre en compte l’évolution de la forme au cours du Vème siècle avant J.-C. L’analyse suggère que la forme de la lamentation du personnage s’adapte surtout à son ethnicité et à son genre, tandis que la participation du Chœur dépend directement de sa relation avec le lamentant. Parfois, la stylistique est également influencée par le style propre à l’auteur ou par la date de composition de la pièce. Quant au contenu, les thèmes abordés sont principalement déterminés par la position et la fonction du passage dans la tragédie. Puisque les fonctions d’une lamentation tragique sont différentes de celles d’une lamentation rituelle, le modèle de la lamentation funèbre est insuffisant pour guider à lui seul l’analyse du contenu d’une lamentation tragique. / Unlike ritual laments, tragic laments take place in a wide range of situations. Some are made over troubles other than an actual death, over events that have not happened yet, or over the mourner himself. This seems to be why we find such a huge diversity of both forms and contents of laments within the tragic corpus. How do the tragic poets modify the traditional form of the lament? Do these changes depend on specific contextual elements? In order to answer these questions, I will examine three laments: Cassandra’s in Aeschylus’ Agamemnon, Creon’s in Sophocles’ Antigone and Polymestor’s in Euripides’ Hecuba. These three passages show major contextual discrepancies, especially when it comes to the identity of the mourner (gender, age, social status, ethnicity) and their relationship to the Chorus. Moreover, they were composed by different authors at different times, which accounts for the evolution of the literary form during the 5th century B.C. These contextual differences allow us to identify specific ties between the context and the lament itself. The form of the actor’s part depends mostly on the mourner’s ethnicity and gender, while the Chorus’ part suits its relationship with the mourner. The stylistics of the lament may also result from the author’s personal preferences or from the date of composition. As for the content, it is heavily determined by the position and the function of the passage within the play. As the functions of a tragic lament differ from those of a ritual lament, the model given by ritual lament cannot serve as the only basis for the analysis of a tragic lament’s content.

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This thesis explores the notion of ‘experimental voice’ in avant-garde performance, in the way it transgresses conventional forms of vocal expression as a means of both extending and enhancing the expressive capabilities of the voice, and reframing the social and political contexts in which these voices are heard. I examine these avant-garde voices in relation to three different liminal contexts in which the voice plays a central role: in ritual vocal expressions, such as Greek lament and Māori karanga, where the voice forms a bridge between the living and the dead; in electroacoustic music and film, where the voice is dissociated from its source body and can be heard to resound somewhere between human and machine; and from a psychoanalytic perspective, where the voice may bring to consciousness the repressed fears and desires of the unconscious. The liminal phase of ritual performance is a time of inherent possibility, where the usual social structures are inverted or subverted, but the liminal is ultimately temporary and conservative. Victor Turner suggests the concept of the ‘liminoid’ as a more transgressive alternative to the liminal, allowing for permanent and lasting social change. It may be in the liminoid realm of avant-garde performance that voices can be reimagined inside the frame of performance, as a means of exploring new forms of expression in life. This thesis comes out of my own experience as a performer and is informed both by theoretical discourse and practical experimentation in the theatre. Exploring the voice as a liminal, transgressive force requires analysis from an experiential perspective.

There is no consensus regarding the interpretation of the "Spirit like a dove" comparison in Jesus' baptism (Mk 1:10). Although scholars have proposed at least fifty different interpretations of the dove comparison, no study appears to have considered Isaiah's three dove texts as the background for the Markan dove (cf. Is 38:14; 59:11; 60:8). This neglect is surprising considering the abundance of Isaianic allusions in Mark's Prologue (Mk 1:1-15), and the growing awareness that Isaiah is the hermeneutical key for both the Markan Prologue and Jesus' baptism within it. Indeed, Mark connects the dove image inseparably to the Spirit's "descent" from heaven, which alludes to Yahweh's descent in a New Exodus deliverance in Isaiah 63:19 [MT]. Furthermore, each Isaianic dove text uses the same simile, "like a dove" or "like doves," which appears in Mark 1:10, and shares the theme of lament and restoration which fits the context of Mark's baptism account. This study therefore argues that the dove image in Mark 1:10 is a symbol which evokes metonymically Isaiah's three dove texts. So the Spirit is "like a dove" not because any quality of the Spirit resembles that of a dove, but because the dove recalls the Isaianic theme of lament and restoration associated with doves in this Scriptural tradition. After discussing the Markan dove in terms of simile, symbol, and metonymy, the study examines the Isaianic dove texts in the MT and LXX and argues that they form a single motif. Next, later Jewish references to the Isaianic dove texts are considered, while an Appendix examines further dove references in Jewish and Greco-Roman literature. Finally, the study argues that the Markan dove coheres in function with the Isaianic dove motif and symbolizes the Spirit's effect upon and through Jesus by evoking metonymically the Isaianic dove texts.