Diss. : Philosophische Fakultät : Bonn : 1981. - Bibliogr. p. IX-XXXVII. -

Cette recherche-création jette un regard au niveau de la représentation religieuse contemporaine et ce qu'elle évoque encore de nos jours. Quel sens, et surtout quelle importance prennent le sacré et le profane dans les oeuvres d'art actuel ? Le développement par une archéologie d'un système signifiant relié au mythique en arts visuels me permet d'aborder l'iconographie religieuse de façon singulière, subjective et communicative dans mon processus de création. Ce qui était sacré autrefois au Québec ne l'est plus. Des artistes québécois ont su revendiquer leurs points de vue en 1948 par le manifeste artistique du Refus global. Désirant changer la mentalité de la société et la rigidité de la pensée, ces artistes contestataires ont provoqué des changements sociaux importants, comme la séparation de l'Église catholique et de l'État, ce qui a créé le Québec moderne. De cela découle le refus de l'autorité religieuse, ce qui a permis par la suite aux artistes de produire des oeuvres qui, à l'époque, auraient mal été admises. Mon travail se situe dans un mouvement d'art québécois en lien avec ce manifeste. Mes oeuvres ont comme objectif d'impliquer le spectateur-acteur dans une expérimentation privée. Ainsi, je veux charmer l'autre par une expérience esthétique, un échange physique et sensoriel. Je réalise des dispositifs, des installations et des projets picturaux qui détournent et invitent le participant à un jeu, une génuflexion, une prière, un signe de la croix... Une rencontre. Parfois, l'assemblage, le collage et la fusion d'images populaires (strates de culture) provenant des médias composent le champ pictural, d'autres fois, une installation qui présente la multiplication de statuettes sacrées transformées en objets utilitaires. Ce genre de proposition évoque encore des discours actuels tout en remémorant certains souvenirs. Je propose des projets qui utilisent des stéréotypes de l'art commercial et populaire afin de transposer un sujet qui est à la fois sacré et profane. Autrement dit, je produis dans l'intention de créer une ambiguïté, afin de détourner la lecture de l'oeuvre. Par le biais de projets critiques et d'archétypes religieux, j'amène à un questionnement, à une réflexion en superposant le vrai au faux et le faux au vrai. Cet exercice artistique sur l'Église et son patrimoine est développé à l'aide d'entrevues d'experts dans des domaines connexes à cette recherche et d'un approfondissement du sujet par les écrits anciens et actuels. Le sacré est un sujet amplement utilisé chez certains artistes d'aujourd'hui comme : Peter Fuss, Bert, Gregor Podgorski, Marc Quinn, Cosimo Cavallaro, Conrad Botes et le Québécois Jean-Marc Mathieu-Lajoie. Alors, on conviendra que le fait de participer au développement de nouvelles interprétations religieuses issues de la culture occidentale puisse m'intéresser grandement.

La pratique du leadership en milieu de travail repose sur diverses compétences que l’on peut associer aux savoirs, savoir-faire et savoir-être d’un gestionnaire dans sa fonction de diriger des individus dans un système organisationnel. Cette étude exploratoire s’intéresse au phénomène du savoir-être humaniste enraciné dans la pratique d’un leadership démocratique d’un gestionnaire qui se comporte dans son management quotidien en adoptant des attitudes et des comportements humanistes qui le prédisposent à porter attention aux personnes dans ses actions de leadership. Le cadre épistémologique de la science-action, où la théorie procède de la pratique, est un choix qui s’est imposé pour avoir accès aux théories d’usage d’un savoir-être humaniste de huit gestionnaires québécois volontaires qui sont à la fois les sujets et les cochercheurs d’une recherche coopérative. L’itinéraire d’exploration réflexive échelonné sur une période de 12 mois s’est découpé en deux phases. Une première phase a consisté à mettre en place une démarche praxéologique conduisant les gestionnaires à réfléchir sur et dans leur pratique d’un leadership démocratique, par l’écriture d’un récit de pratique et la tenue de cercles de dialogue. La cueillette de ces réflexions, données qualitatives de notre étude, nous a aidé à parvenir à une première identification des composantes d’un savoir-être humaniste, à l’aide d’un examen phénoménologique de ces réflexions selon une logique inductive et constructiviste. Lors d’une seconde phase, inspirée de la tradition du laboratoire de formation à des relations humaines plus authentiques, les gestionnaires ont été conviés à vivre une expérience réelle de pratique d’un leadership démocratique dans un contexte de nature et d’aventure. Cette phase a permis aux gestionnaires de poursuivre leur parcours d’exploration réflexive dans et sur l’action d’exercer un leadership démocratique afin d’approfondir la prise de conscience initiale de certaines composantes du savoir-être humaniste enraciné dans leur pratique. La poursuite de ces deux phases d’exploration réflexive a permis d’identifier, à l’aide de l’approche de catégories conceptualisantes dans une perspective de théorisation enracinée, 11 catégories qui constituent des composantes d’une théorie d’usage d’un savoir-être humaniste lié à l’exercice d’un leadership démocratique. À la fin de cet itinéraire, nous avons coconstruit un modèle intégré identifiant certaines caractéristiques d’un savoir-être humaniste enraciné dans la pratique d’un leadership démocratique. La démarche aura été pour les gestionnaires une quête spirituelle, une connexion à leur intériorité, afin d’explorer leur éthique managériale dans l’action. Leadership in the workplace depends on many attributes that can be associated with a manager's knowledge, skills and savoir-être (self-management skills) when managing individuals in an organizational context. This exploratory study focuses on the phenomena of individual savoir-être rooted in the practice of a manager's democratic leadership on a daily basis, by adopting attitudes and humanist behaviours that predispose attention to people under their leadership activities. The epistemological framework of action-science, within which theory preceding practice is an imposed choice to gain access to a usage theory of humanist savoir-être of eight volunteer managers from the province of Québec who are both subjects and researchers in a co-operative inquiry. The reflexive exploration process will be divided into two phases over a 12-month period. The first phase consists of integrating a praxis process that guides managers to reflect in depth on their democratic leadership practices, with the help of practice narratives and group dialogues. The collection of reflections, our study's qualitative data, helped us to determine the preliminary components of humanist savoir-être, by way of a phenomenological examination of these reflections according to constructive and inductive logic. During the second phase, inspired by the Training Groups tradition based on increasing awareness of self and others, managers were invited to participate in an democratic leadership experiment under the context of outdoor adventure. This phase enables managers to continue their reflexive exploration process for exerting democratic leadership, conducive to fostering the initial awareness of certain humanist savoir-être components rooted in their practice. The continuation of these two reflexive exploration phases enables the identification, using a conceptualization category approach in a theorizing perspective, of 11 categories that constitute components of a humanist savoir-être usage theory linked to democratic leadership. At the end of this process, we've built a model identifying certain characteristics of a humanist savoir-être rooted in democratic leadership. The approach will have been for the managers a spiritual quest, a connection to their interiority, to explore their managerial ethics in action.

The late fourth-century work often called Pseudo-Hegesippus, or De Excidio Hierosolymitano (On the Destruction of Jerusalem), is a rendition of Jewish history from the second century BCE to 70/74 CE. It ends with the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 and a brief mention of the Jewish mass-suicide atop Masada in 74. In effect, it is a Christian attempt to write the Jews out of history. Within this literary enterprise, the work enlists biblical traditions and classical rhetorical habits and motifs to construct an aesthetically- and ideologically-compelling history. Though based upon Flavius Josephus' Jewish War in large part, this work is a Christian history written for particular discursive purposes; namely, to explain why Jerusalem's and the Temple's destruction in 70 CE marked the effective historical endpoint of the Jews. This dissertation illustrates and explores the character of this text through what is arguably its most interesting and important chapter: Book 5, Chapter 2. It shows how the author creatively interweaves biblical references to key characters and episodes to construct an anti-Jewish rhetoric. It argues that this text must be understood in the light of the classical tradition. The Greek and Roman authors of classical antiquity established a tradition that prescribed particular ways of articulating the past and the people that populated it. Pseudo-Hegesippus draws heavily upon these traditions. This dissertation illustrates this in detail, and explores the particular rhetorical contours of De Excidio as a text involved in constructing a past-tense Jewish identity for a fourth-century Christian audience. In so doing, it exposes an important and understudied source for our knowledge of fourth-century Jewish-Christian relations; it reveals a new angle on nascent Christian historiography in its formative period; and it shows to what extent Greco-Roman literature can function as important framing comparanda for reading Christian literature from late antiquity. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Religion in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Fall Semester 2018. / October 26, 2018. / Biblical Reception, Classics, De Excidio, Early Christianity, Josephus, Pseudo-Hegesippus / Includes bibliographical references. / David B. Levenson, Professor Co-Directing Dissertation; Nicole Kelley, Professor Co-Directing Dissertation; Svetla Slaveva-Griffin, University Representative; Matthew Goff, Committee Member.

This dissertation stems from an ethnographic experience, i.e., a course on the Six Healing Sounds of Qigong taught by Dr Yu Zhang, which I and other students attended in 1991 in Los Angeles, California. The course led to the following questions: What is qigong? What are the Six Healing sounds? Are the claims of this healing tradition to ancient origins accurate? These questions led to the following conclusions: Qigong is indeed a practice of ancient origins, albeit one that comes from different streams of Daoist and medical practices. Its name is a recent design by the Chinese government in the early 1950's, with the ulterior goal of creating an effective, low cost health care system rooted in Chinese culture. Apart from the answers provided above, I argue that qigong is a body technology that uses slow, gentle exercises, visualizations and standing and sitting meditations to elicit a state of reverie, a liminal or altered state of consciousness that is conducive to bodily, mental and spiritual experiences and transformation. / A Dissertation submitted to the Program in Interdisciplinary Humanities in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Summer Semester, 2015. / April 29, 2015. / Chi Kung, Daoism, Daoyin, Liminality, Qigong, Traditional Chinese Medicine / Includes bibliographical references. / Benjamin D. Koen, Professor Co-Directing Dissertation; Kathleen Erndl, Professor Co-Directing Dissertation; David Johnson, University Representative; Svetla Slaveva-Griffin, Committee Member; Martin Kavka, Committee Member.

This study examines the development of apocalypticism in Mormon culture from the nineteenth century to the early twentieth century. Specifically, it argues that a major shift in apocalyptic thought in the twentieth century was essential for the Americanization of Mormons during the period of transition (1890-1930). The early Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints possessed a radical eschatology, emphasizing dualism and the imminence of the apocalypse. Following the murder of their prophet, Joseph Smith, Mormons came to see themselves as a distinctive people from other Euro-Americans, which they referred to as Gentiles. They expected the soon collapse of the American government as a result of their culpability in Smith's death, as well as other examples of persecution. Throughout the nineteenth century, the relationship between Mormonism and their fellow Americans was defined by this millenarian logic. It was only after Utah was received as a state in the Union that Mormons began to embrace a more moderate millenarian thought. In addition to historicizing the subject of apocalypticism in Mormonism, this study examines how the regulation of apocalyptic prophecy ultimately resulted in a new understanding of how lay Mormons should properly experience and narrate the experience of their faith. Throughout the nineteenth century, it was popular for Mormons to narrate visions, dreams, and prophecies, often including narratives of the apocalypse. During the period of transition, the Church hierarchy did not directly refute previous understandings of millenarian thought. Instead, they opposed popular vernacular prophecies, which continued to promote a nineteenth-century Mormon worldview. By regulating these prophecies and marginalizing those who shared them, Church leaders articulated new rules for the sharing of charismata. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Religion in partial fulfillment of the Doctor of Philosophy. / Spring Semester, 2015. / December 5, 2014. / Eschatology, Mormonism, Vernacular Religion / Includes bibliographical references. / John Corrigan, Professor Directing Dissertation; Trevor Luke, University Representative; Amanda Porterfield, Committee Member; Michael McVicar, Committee Member.

This project considers the relationship between religion and politics in the early republic period of the United States. The goal of this project is to uncover the ways the inchoate federal government provided support for religion in an era when disestablishment is the law of the land. Using the lens provides a new and distinct way to understand how the federal government interpreted and applied the concept of disestablishment as seen in the religion clauses of the First Amendment. I argue that the federal government, while never formally endorsing a particular denomination, recognized and supported an underlying common Protestant ethos centered around biblicism to both develop and disrupt aspects of religious freedom in the early republic. Such a balancing act was necessitated by competing religious denominations in different states; ideals of both Protestant dissent and enlightenment rationality; and the fragile nature of federal governance in the early republic that sought out security in the absence of previous colonial ideals. Because of all of this, cooperation between church and state was steady and active. But the nature of that cooperation, expressed in the disestablishment language of the First Amendment, reflected a new reality distinct from European Christendom. The subjects of this project illustrate the diverse ways religion was supported by the government and show how the new reality of disestablishment was worked out in the developing federal bureaucracy. They include the postal service, which allowed for the dissemination of religious information through the mail at favorable rates; religious services held in the governmental buildings, especially the U.S. Capitol building; chaplaincy programs, both within Congress and the military; and federal policy regarding Native Americans, which included providing support for Christian missionaries in their goal of evangelization. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Religion in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Spring Semester 2018. / April 4, 2018. / chaplain, Disestablishment, early republic, federal government, post office / Includes bibliographical references. / Amanda Porterfield, Professor Directing Dissertation; Edward Gray, University Representative; John Corrigan, Committee Member; Michael McVicar, Committee Member.

Through both persuasive and prescriptive texts from church library advocates and contemporaneous academic work from scholars of library and information studies, this dissertation examines the twentieth century mainline Protestant church library movement in the United States. Focus on this understudied movement, the dissertation argues, constitutes something of a “missing link” in the study of American religion and information in the twentieth century; study of the ideological underpinning and policy best-practices point towards mainline Protestant understandings not only of information, and its uses and dangers, but of institutional authority in the twentieth century. Further, the dissertation argues that unpacking the working understandings of “religion” cultivated by twentieth century scholars of libraries and information can add to our historiographic understanding of how “religion” emerged as an object of study in the academy in the twentieth century. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Religion in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Spring Semester 2018. / April 19, 2018. / American Religious History, Church Libraries, Twentieth Century / Includes bibliographical references. / Amanda Porterfield, Professor Directing Dissertation; Don Latham, University Representative; Michael McVicar, Committee Member; John Corrigan, Committee Member.

Bibliography: pages 391-401. / This thesis constitutes an analysis of the Islamic conception of the primary elements of human nature, namely, the heart, intellect, will, soul and psyche. This analysis embraces the major schools of thought within the Islamic tradition. The Islamic conception of human nature is based on the primary Islamic sources, namely, Qur'an, hadith; and is further substantiated by referring to the works of a variety of classical Islamic scholars. The Islamic perspective of the primary elements of man has provided a basis for determining the principles of an Islamic psychology.

The purpose of this study is to examine how tabletop roleplaying games were portrayed in Swedish newspapers during the 1980s and the 1990s. to examine this a total of 48 articles from various Swedish newspapers have been analysed. The aim is to see how they were portrayed within the articles and to apply a model regarding moral panics to the descriptions.  The method used is text analysis of the articles, and the theoretical framework used is Stanley Cohens theory regarding moral panics and folk devils. The model used is created by Tommy Gustafsson and Klara Arnberg’s and is used to find roles and mechanism present in a moral panic. The model is based on the theoretical framework designed by Cohen. The result showed that all roles and mechanisms described in Gustafsson and Arnberg’s model were present in the descriptions of roleplaying games in Swedish newspapers during this period. During both the 1980s and the 1990s the descriptions contained both positive and negative aspects of roleplaying games and its effect on the youth. During the 1980s the negative descriptions were reliant on the satanic panic in the United States, and during the 1990s several cases involving suicide, murder and crimes in Sweden were blamed on the roleplaying games. This created a fear of roleplaying games and what effect it had on the children and young adults that played these games. It also created a need to understand the contents of these games and why the young wanted to play them.   Key words: roleplaying games, newspaper analysis, moral panics, Stanley Cohen, folk devils