The Legend, the Madman, and the Prophet is a memoir about fathers and sons, about the experience of being a son of a man of the Rocky Mountains, a legend grown old. The narrative centers around my struggle with the fact that my father had grown old and sick while I was still young, and my consequent search for other fathers, employing two primary examples—a martial-arts instructor from my high-school years who was later exposed as a pedophile, and the eccentric figure of my ex-girlfriend’s wealthy and traditional Egyptian-American father. The memoir relates the story of my father’s impact on my perception of manhood, my own experience with depression in the wake of his death, and the story of a spiritual search he began in me, which led me from my boyhood Mormonism toward eventual conversion to Islam. This is a story about fathers and sons, about what it means to lose a father, to want a father, and to learn to be a father to myself.

A largely overlooked chapter of American history is the struggle of Mexican Americans to achieve equal civil rights and humane working conditions. Although much ink has been spilled on the struggle of African-Americans to achieve civil rights and throw off the yoke of racial oppression, little attention is paid to the similar struggle carried out by Mexican Americans and the similarities and differences between them. It has been my desire to shed light on this forgotten story, because it is still relevant in the current political climate, given the explosive growth of Latinos in the United States today (50 million), their increasingly important role in presidential elections, and given their struggle for comprehensive immigration reform. What Mexican Americans have contributed to America is present in almost every facet of American life. Their presence in this country pre-dates the expansion of the United States from the Atlantic (Florida) to the Pacific (California) and is evident in national holidays, festivals, and our favorite restaurants. However, I have to admit that I was completely unaware of Mexican American history and the Chicano Movement of the 1960s prior to taking on this project. The only things that I knew about Mexican Americans ended around the Texas Revolution in 1836 and the little I learned about my Chávez in my American Religious History class. This thesis has succeeded in correcting stereotypes that I previously held about not only the Mexican American community, but also the critical role that religion played in one of its most important and iconic figures. Religion has been always been an important component of life in America. Christianity has contributed to the way that government in the United States was formed and in the moral values that Americans consider important in leadership. Religion has been the driving force behind many of the most groundbreaking and momentous shifts in this nation from the abolition of slavery to the African American Civil Rights Movement. The Farm Worker’s struggle and larger Chicano Civil Rights Movement are no exception. César Chávez stood out not only as the leader of a secular movement, but a moral guiding light for Mexican Americans within this movement. Chávez's popular legacy within the Mexican American community exalts him as a moral and political leader, but scholarship has until recently painted him and the movement he championed in a secular light. This thesis hopes to help correct this imbalance.

This is an interpretive study of the life of the Prophet Muhammad as it is artistically depicted in the repertoire (especially the narrative ballads) of fifty-one contemporary Egyptian maddahin (singers of eulogies in honour of the Prophet Muhammad, sing. maddah). The elements of this repertoire, as diverse as narrative ballads, classical odes, Qur'an chanting, and the melodies of the secular songs of well-known Egyptian singers, do not exist as discrete units but rather as a lively tawlifa (blend)--to use a common term in Colloquial Egyptian Arabic (CEA). This study is about blends where discrete units lose their borderlines and leak into one another, about phenomena which are "betwixt and between" the perceived scholarly categories which confidently delineate boundaries between elite and popular Islam, the historical and the legendary Muhammad, the sacred and the profane, orality and writing, standard and colloquial Arabic. / In order to understand the process which marks the making of the people's Muhammad, the study deals with the sources and the contents of the repertoire of the Egyptian maddahin. The performance of these singers as well as their interaction with the audience are also considered. The "legendary" material in this repertoire is attested as historical by many authoritative and well-recognized "orthodox" authors of the past. Classical Arabic, classical poetic forms, philosophical notions, long believed to be the exclusive possessions of the learned, are freely utilized in the ballads and popular songs under study. The people's Muhammad appears as both a commanding figure, empowered by the supernatural, and a touchingly vulnerable human being; God's ascetic messenger and a man who savours life's lawful pleasures; an eloquent speaker who utters Qur'an-like terse Arabic and a lovingly familiar figure who also uses local patois. Bipolarity, beloved of many scholars, is seriously challenged by the art of the Egyptian maddahin. A renewed effort has to be made to discover more valid categories which will take into account the intermediary combinations (Mischbildungen) characteristic of that art.

The study should be seen as an attempt to examine how a group of selected muslims from seven different cities in Sweden relate to Lars Vilks’s drawings of the prophet Muhammed (also called the roundabout dog) and if they feel that their attitude towards the drawings has changed during the seven years that have passed since the first drawing was published in the newspaper Närkes Allehanda in 2007. To understand these selected muslims’ approach, experiences and feelings in regards to the drawings I examine in what aspect they find the drawings provocative. I also examine what consequences Vilks’s roundabout dog-project might have had  for individual muslims in Sweden. The result portrays their individual reactions, experiences, feelings, views and thoughts on Vilks’s roundabout dog-project. The answers from the informants have been analyzed and discussed based on hermeneutic research theory. The informants own recount and the following analysis the study contributes to the understanding of the facts behind the perceived provocation of the images of the prophet Muhammad.

Univ., Diss.--Oxford, 2002.

abstract: “The Mystery of Light” is the first movement of a yet to be completed larger work titled ...to melt into the sun for chamber choir and percussion quartet. The text of the work is an excerpt from Kahlil Gibran’s masterpiece, The Prophet. This book tells the story of a prophet-like man, Almustafa, who, before embarking on the journey back to his native land, stops in the city of Orphalese, where the townspeople, having known him for many years, entreat him to share his wisdom before he departs. The seeress, Almitra, urges him, “speak to us and give us of your truth.” Almustafa proceeds to philosophize on a range of topics including love, laws, pain, friendship, children, time, beauty, and self-knowledge. Just before his farewell to the people of Orphalese, he speaks of death, saying that it is not something to be feared, but rather, embraced as a necessary and beautiful part of life. This interconnectedness of the life and death process, of which Almustafa speaks, is the subject of “The Mystery of Light.” Almitra’s aforementioned request returns directly and indirectly throughout the movement as a reference to humanity’s undying desire to understand the great mysteries of our own mortal condition. The choir shifts throughout the movement between the three following perspectives: 1) that of people who live in fear, whose anxious whispers grow into shouts of horror as they are faced with the threat of death, 2) that of people who share Almitra’s inquisitiveness and are inspired with wonder by the secret of death and 3) that of the prophet, as he speaks words of comfort and wisdom to those who look, either in terror or wonder, upon the face of death. My hope with this music is to share the comforting words which Gibran has spoken through the character, Almustafa, so that, as they have done for me, these words may provide comfort to those who will stand trembling in the presence of life’s most inevitable consequence. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Music 2020

Vilket instrument använder sig låtskrivare av - när de skriver musik? På vilka sätt reflekterar det resultatet? Kan man se en flagrant likhet mellan instrument och låt? Jag har i detta arbete fördjupat mig i om man kan höra skillnad på hur låtskrivandet ter sig beroende på vilket instrument man väljer att skriva på. Jag har aldrig sett mig som en musiker med allenast ett instrument. Jag har således alltid skrivit musik på olika instrument på olika sätt och har därför forskat om man kan höra några skiljaktigheter. Jag har använt mig av piano, gitarr och synthesizer. Jag tyckte att det var lättast att skriva på gitarr eftersom det har jag gjort mest av. Det är lätt att komma på ackordsföljder som man har spelat innan. På piano och synthesizer kommer man på ett ackompanjemang och spelar in i Logic. Därefter loopar man och sedan är det svårt att hitta på något nytt.

Since the middle of the twentieth century, partly through the wide influence of Abraham Heschel’s work on the prophets and prophesy in Ancient Israel, an image of the prophet as an ‘outsider’ has emerged. This image contrasts, in critical ways, with an image of ‘the prophet’ that appears central in Spinoza’s Theologico-Political Treatise. Spinoza’s Treatise, however, is an inaugural text for the historical-critical study of prophesy in ancient Israel; and it casts a long shadow over Heschel’s view of prophesy. I identify three areas of tension between their images of prophets. The contrasts reveal that Heschel, and other twentieth century theorists of prophesy invest prophetic authority and authenticity in religious experience whose transformative power is a function of its ‘breaking through’ oppressive social/religious institutions and norms ‘from the outside.’ Spinoza, by contrast, accounts for prophetic authority via ‘immanence’: the location of prophets within a tradition of law and common ‘usage’ with the political institutions which they criticise and challenge. I argue, finally, that Spinoza’s image can accommodate the prophetic ‘outsider’ and rebel, and in a way that suggests that prophesy must now be conceived as encompassing social critique within the context of the arts.

This study is an examination of the cultural interaction that occurred between Native and European peoples in Illinois between 1795-1830. During this period many Native groups splintered into factions--nativists and accommodationists--that advocated opposing strategies for dealing with Euro-Americans. Nativists equated the use of Euro-American foodways and selected material culture items with a loss of traditional values while accommodationists adopted Euro-American faming methods, clothing styles, and foodways in an attempt to avoid removal west of the Mississippi River. Drawing upon historical and archaeological information recovered from Kickapoo and Potawatomi sites in Illinois, I argue that early nineteenth century nativist peoples in Illinois actively created and maintained a social identity expressed through continuity in Indigenous forms of subsistence, settlement, and artifact manufacture; the recycling of Euro-American metal artifacts into tools and ornaments that expressed a Native identity; and the use of selected Euro-American material culture items compatible with such an identity. Change did happen, but it occurred within a Native context and served Native needs.

Improved sales forecasts for individual products in retail stores can have a positive effect both environmentally and economically. Historically these forecasts have been done through a combination of statistical measurements and experience. However, with the increased computational power available in modern computers, there has been an interest in applying machine learning for this problem. The aim of this thesis was to utilize two years of sales data, yearly calendar events, and weather data to investigate which machine learning method could forecast sales the best. The investigated methods were XGBoost, ARIMAX, LSTM, and Facebook Prophet. Overall the XGBoost and LSTM models performed the best and had a lower mean absolute value and symmetric mean percentage absolute error compared to the other models. However, Facebook Prophet performed the best in regards to root mean squared error and mean absolute error during the holiday season, indicating that Facebook Prophet was the best model for the holidays. The LSTM model could however quickly adapt during the holiday season improved the performance. Furthermore, the inclusion of weather did not improve the models significantly, and in some cases, the results were worsened. Thus, the results are inconclusive but indicate that the best model is dependent on the time period and goal of the forecast. / Förbättrade försäljningsprognoser för individuella produkter inom detaljhandeln kan leda till både en miljömässig och ekonomisk förbättring. Historiskt sett har dessa utförts genom en kombination av statistiska metoder och erfarenhet. Med den ökade beräkningskraften hos dagens datorer har intresset för att applicera maskininlärning på dessa problem ökat. Målet med detta examensarbete är därför att undersöka vilken maskininlärningsmetod som kunde prognostisera försäljning bäst. De undersökta metoderna var XGBoost, ARIMAX, LSTM och Facebook Prophet. Generellt presterade XGBoost och LSTM modellerna bäst då dem hade ett lägre mean absolute value och symmetric mean percentage absolute error jämfört med de andra modellerna. Dock, gällande root mean squared error hade Facebook Prophet bättre resultat under högtider, vilket indikerade att Facebook Prophet var den bäst lämpade modellen för att förutspå försäljningen under högtider. Dock, kunde LSTM modellen snabbt anpassa sig och förbättrade estimeringarna. Inkluderingen av väderdata i modellerna resulterade inte i några markanta förbättringar och gav i vissa fall även försämringar. Övergripande, var resultaten tvetydiga men indikerar att den bästa modellen är beroende av prognosens tidsperiod och mål.