Traditionally Latin prose letters have been classified in one of two ways: often they are seen as historical documents to be mined for political, historical and social information; otherwise they are viewed as literature, to be read with a consideration of the role of rhetoric and persuasion. These letters are only rarely approached as letters, and classical scholars have only just begun to discover the benefits of applying epistolary theory to these texts. My thesis examines epistolary exchange within the context of Roman power relations, offering a new interpretation of the correspondences between the most powerful political figure in a given period and one from among the senatorial class. Cicero, Pliny the Younger, Fronto and Symmachus each conducted an epistolary exchange with a powerful figure with whom he hoped to gain influence, and despite the significant differences between them in terms of political and social circumstances, each uses his letters in similar ways to that end. I approach these texts, never before treated together in a comparative study, with a consideration of epistolarity, ‘the use of the letter’s formal properties to create meaning’, a concept developed by J. G. Altman (1982). These properties are identified and examined by means of detailed stylistic analysis of the Latin text. The act of writing a letter is an act of self-definition; the sender constructs a self defined necessarily in relation to a particular addressee. Thus the letter also affords a sender the opportunity to define the You, to whom he addresses himself. In the context of power relations in Roman politics, the letter then becomes a flexible tool of self-fashioning, by which a senator may attempt to influence the emperor.

This study sought to determine female college and university athletic directors' perceptions of position power according to selected job-related characteristics, through development and use of a nineteen-item survey instrument. The study was conducted during the 1991-1992 academic year and consisted of an initial study to determine content validity of the survey instrument, followed by construct validity and reliability determination utilizing a pilot study group of twenty female intercollegiate athletic directors.

Hok-bun Ku. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1994. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves [194-201]). / List of Tables --- p.i / List of Illustrations --- p.i / Abstract --- p.ii / Acknowledgement --- p.iv / Chapter Chapter One: --- Introduction --Bringing the Peasants Back In --- p.1 / Chapter I. --- Sister Ling's Story --- p.1 / Chapter II. --- Where are the Peasants --- p.3 / Chapter III. --- "Back to the Village, Search for the Peasants" --- p.8 / Chapter IV. --- Summary of the Thesis --- p.14 / Chapter Chapter Two: --- Understanding the Local Politics of Rural China --- p.16 / Chapter I. --- State-Society in Communist China --- p.17 / Chapter II. --- State and Its Agents --- p.19 / Chapter III. --- Socialist Clientelism in Rural China --- p.23 / Chapter IV. --- Everyday Forms of Resistance in Village --- p.28 / Chapter V. --- The Changing Village Politics under Deng --- p.33 / Chapter Chapter Three: --- Legacy of the Past --Ku Village under Mao --- p.40 / Chapter I. --- Setting of Ku Village --- p.42 / Chapter II. --- Reconstructing the Old Political Economy --- p.45 / Chapter III. --- Socialist Clientelism in Ku Village --- p.54 / Chapter IV. --- Conclusion --- p.70 / Chapter Chapter Four: --- The Ku Village in Transformation (I) --The Retreat of the State --- p.77 / Chapter I. --- Reconstructing the Rural Administrative Organization --- p.78 / Chapter II. --- Local Response to the Political Reform --- p.82 / Chapter III. --- Paralysis of Village Organs --- p.88 / Chapter IV. --- Conclusion --- p.98 / Chapter Chapter Five: --- The Ku Village in Transformation (II) --The Source of Peasant Power --- p.103 / Chapter I. --- The Responsibility System and Land Redistribution in Ku Village --- p.105 / Chapter II. --- Political Economy of Shatian Shaddock Plantation --- p.112 / Chapter III. --- Conclusion --- p.125 / Chapter Chapter Six: --- Everyday Forms of Struggle in the Ku Village --- p.130 / Chapter I. --- Everyday Forms of Resistance I --Defensive Action --- p.132 / Chapter II. --- Everyday Forms of Resistance I -- Offensive Action --- p.147 / Chapter III. --- Everyday Struggle of the Village Cadres --- p.156 / Chapter IV. --- Conclusion --- p.161 / Chapter Chapter Seven: --- Conclusion -- From Socialist Clientelism to Household Individualism --- p.164 / Chapter I. --- The Erosion of Patron-Client Bonds --- p.165 / Chapter II. --- Household Individualism -an Atomistic Community --- p.170 / Chapter III. --- Everyday Forms of Resistance as the Way of Peasant Life --- p.172 / Chapter IV. --- Rethinking Village Politics in Dengist China --- p.174 / Appendix A. List of Interviewees --- p.179 / Appendix B. Glossary --- p.180 / Appendix C. Note on Measures --- p.183 / Appendix D. Photos --- p.184 / Appendix E. Maps --- p.193 / Bibliography

Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong. / Bibliography: leaves 77-78.

This study explores various youth empowerment programs for young people aging out of foster care in the U.S. Youth Empowerment Programs (YEPs) are interventions that encourage youth to make meaningful decisions about program design, implementation, and/or evaluation. This dissertation employed three methods to contribute to the evidence-base on the effect of YEPs for youth aging out of foster care: a qualitative historical study, a comprehensive literature review, and a quantitative cross-sectional survey that utilized a contemporaneous comparison group. The historical study examined the different program aspects of the Children's Aid Society (CAS) to see if there were any empowering parts. CAS was the precursor to the modern day foster care system in the U.S. The study found that much of the programming that occurred in the Boys Lodging Houses in New York City could be classified as youth-led or youth-informed. Specifically, the children's bank, lending library, and military cadet companies provide detailed examples of youth participating in meaningful programmatic decision-making. Other program aspects in the boys lodging houses could be classified as youth dominated or anarchical. The child placement process was found to be disempowering. There was very little evidence of younger children and girls engaging in programmatic decision-making. The literature review included four studies from 2,631 potentially relevant titles and abstracts. Three of the four studies were qualitative and no randomized controlled trials were found, thus meta-analysis was not possible. The review found that the state of the evidence of the effectiveness of YEPs for youth aging out of foster care is sparse and methodologically weak. All four studies found that YEP participation improved various youth development outcomes. One study reported three iatrogenic effects for a subset of youth. The cross-sectional survey examined the level of psychological empowerment of 193 foster care alumni (ages 18-25) who did (n= 99) and did not (n=94) participate in at least one YEP in Florida. Those who participated in a YEP experienced significantly higher perceived control (B = .25, p =.007), motivation to influence their environments (B = .30, SE B =.09, p =.001), self-efficacy for socio-political skills, and participatory behavior (B = .586, SE B= .136, p =.000), than non-YEP participants even when controlling for age at program entry, gender, race, time in foster care, number of placements, and Pinellas County location. Findings from this dissertation suggest that youth empowerment is possible in child welfare and might be beneficial. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

Although Foucault did not address the question of the animal, he asserted the assessment of whether a new politics of truth can be constituted as "the essential political problem" (1980, p. 134). Though the "essential political problem" may be considered as it relates to the politics of truth about animals, a Foucaultian perspective does not allow a prediction in response, other than the recognition that change may occur. What is understood to be "true" about animals may change if the relationships between events that exist at a given time ("conditions") require the emergence of a different way of knowing. This Foucaultian critique of thought about animals examines "truth" about animals as an historical contingency, variable according to the conditions that have allowed its production. This project contributes to the development of a theoretical context of the politics of truth about animals. The politics of truth about animals is understood to be the push and pull of knowledge generated and perpetuated about them, together with concurrent power apparatuses in support of that knowledge as well as the ever present resistance to that power. By applying and extending Foucault's theory of power -that is, that knowledge is a carrier of power, power is a perpetuator of knowledge, and all power relations have resistances - this work employs Foucault's archaeological method to uncover dominant and subjugated discourses about animals and to describe power-knowledge associated with statements about animals that are understood to convey true things. This project describes the changeable nature of "truth" about animals and, necessarily, the politics of it, since the politics of truth is understood to be propelled by whichever knowledge and associated power are then dominant. Statements in "error" are also examined as resistance to power-knowledge about animals. The project describes subjugated discourses about animals that have been understood in various times and places to have truth-telling powers or, at least, to have been understood as "error," which provided points of resistance to the dominant discourse. It describes the partial derivation of discourse about animals by examining dominant discourses (e.g., the discourse of law and the discourse of lines) and subjugated discourses (e.g., animals are not personal property, karmic discourse, transmigration of souls discourse, rational animal discourse). Additionally, it describes like disperse statements among different referents (i.e., slave, animal, woman) that comprise various discursive formations that have been understood at various times to have truth-telling power about different referents. Subjugated discourse sometimes emerges as new "truth," though no such prediction can be made. To illustrate the point, the project describes the emergence of the new academic field related to the question of the animal, which resurrects or draws from some subjugated discourse (e.g., animals are not personal property).

Bibliography: leaves [282]-290.

Bibliography: leaves 494-519. / ix, 519 leaves ; 30 cm. / Title page, contents and abstract only. The complete thesis in print form is available from the University Library. / Examines the influence of the medical profession on health policy in Australia. Case studies of policy struggles under Federal Labor governments since 1983 illustrate both the nature and scope of that influence. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Adelaide, Dept. of Politics and Dept. of Community Medicine, 1994

La situación de los jóvenes en la periferia de la existencia, en la población marginada de Colombia, se desenvuelve entre la violencia, la pobreza y la lucha mortal por mantenerse vivo. El relato de algunas de estas vidas en su red económica, política y social, es el objetivo y el centro de esta Tesis doctoral. ¿Cuáles son las relaciones de poder que engendran la marginación y el sicariato?. Para lograr ver con cierto rango de veracidad estas vidas, hemos ido a buscar los hilos y las relaciones de fuerzas que las producen. Nos hemos remontado al 1492, la conquista del Nuevo Mundo, ubicándonos en la discusión de Valladolid, entre Ginés de Sepúlveda y Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas (1550-1551). Allí encontramos una forma de poder que gesta la conquista y fija la colonización, ejercicios de violencia las dos. Violencia, que tiene como objetivo el dominio continuado mediante procesos de subjetivación: el poder pastoral, en lenguaje de Michel Foucault. En un segundo apartado, de la primera parte de la Tesis, estudiamos algunos autores que describen formas de poder, que han afectado el ejercicio de gobierno de las poblaciones y de las formas de consolidación de los Estados, incluso actualmente: Nicolás Maquiavelo, Thomas Hobbes, Carl Schmitt. A partir de estas exposiciones, nos adentramos en la vorágine colombiana, marcando como punto de entrada, las diferentes teorías sobre la guerra de Carl Von Clausewitz y Michel Foucault. En la segunda parte, Colombia un laboratorio del poder, hemos relatado los acontecimientos de algunas guerras en Colombia. Pero este relato se sitúa desde un lugar hermenéutico: el individuo marginado que mata, vive y sufre (en) la guerra; el mundo y la figura del joven sicario. Mostramos cómo las formas de poder en Colombia, se administran desde la violencia y son violentas en sí mismas. Cómo la máquina de guerra, atrapada por la guerra, crea discursos, capta instituciones, hace gobiernos y Estado. Cómo la guerra dejada a su potencia de matar, es productora de una forma social y de un sujeto elaborado desde ella: el sicario y su sociedad. Finalmente, en una tercera parte de conclusiones, proponemos una salida política y espiritual al potente aparato del matar: un sicario como no-sicario. El autor: Ricardo Barba Monsalve Licenciado en filosofía, Master en counselling. 25 años en contacto con el mundo de la marginación y la violencia en Colombia. Actualmente reside entre España y Colombia. / The situation of young people in the periphery of the existence, in the marginalized population of Colombia, develops between violence, poverty and death struggle to stay alive. The story of some of these lives in their economic, political and social networks is the purpose and focus of this doctoral thesis. Which are the power relations that engender marginalization and hired killing?. To approach with a certain degree of accuracy the study of these lives, we have to find the links and power relations that produce them. We have gone back to 1492, to the conquest of the New World, placing us in the Valladolid discussion, between Sepúlveda and Bartolomé de Las Casas (1550-1551). There we found a way to be able to start the conquest and set-up the colonization, both exercises of violence. Violence, which aims at continued dominance through subjectivity processes: them pastorate, in the language of Michel Foucault. In a second section of the first part of the thesis, we study some authors that describe forms of power, which have affected, even today, the exercise of government and the ways of consolidating the states, namely Niccolo Machiavelli, Thomas Hobbes Carl Schmitt. From these exposures, we enter the Colombian maelstrom, marking as starting point, the different war theories of Carl Von Clausewitz War and Michel Foucault. In the second part, Colombia a laboratory of power, we have related the events of some wars in Colombia. But this story is located in a hermeneutical perspective: the marginalized individual who kills, lives and suffers (in) the war, the world and the figure of the young hitman. We show how the forms of power in Colombia are managed through violence and are violent themselves. How the war machine, trapped by the war, generates speeches, captures institutions, and does governments and states. How the war left to its power to kill, is producing a social form and a subject drawn from it: the hitman and his society. Finally, in a third part of conclusions, we propose a political and spiritual alternative to the potent killing apparatus: a hitman as a non-assassin. The author: Ricardo Barba Monsalve. Graduate in Philosophy, MA in counseling. 25 years in contact with the world of marginalization and violence in Colombia. Currently resides between Spain and Colombia.

Thèse (M.A.)--Université Laval, 1999. / Comprend des réf. bibliogr.