The aim of this thesis is to comprehensively survey and evaluate scholarship, from Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406) to the present, on the fate of Islamic science between the eleventh and sixteenth-centuries, and to outline a more adequate scholarly approach. The thesis also assesses the logic and empirical accuracy of the accepted decline theory, and other alternative views, regarding the fate of Islamic science, and investigates the procedural and social physiological factors that give rise to inadequacies in the scholarship under question. It also attempts to construct an intellectual model for the fate of Islamic science, one that examines the cultural environment, and the interactions among different cultural dynamics at work. Drawing upon Ibn Khaldun's theory and recent substantial evidence from the history of Islamic science, this thesis also entails justifying the claim that, contrary to common assumptions, different fates awaited Islamic science, in different areas, and at different times. For the period of Ibn Khaldun to the present, this thesis presents the first comprehensive review of both classical and contemporary scholarship, exclusively or partially, devoted to the fate of Islamic science for the period under study. Based on this review, the thesis demonstrates that, although the idea that Islamic science declined after the eleventh century has gained a wide currency, and may have been established as the preferred scholarly paradigm, there is no agreement amongst scholars regarding what actually happened. In fact, the lexicon of scholarship that describes the fate of Islamic science includes such terms as: "decline," "decadence," "stagnation," "fragmentation," "standstill," and that Islamic science "froze," to name just a few. More importantly, the study shows that six centuries ago, the Muslim historian Ibn Khaldun provided a more sophisticated and complex theory regarding what happened to Islamic science, which was not utilised except in the work of two scholars. The thesis tests the adequacy of the different claims by applying them to four case studies from the history of Islamic science, and demonstrate that evidence for specified areas shows that different fates awaited Islamic science in different areas and times. In view of the fact that Ibn Khaldun's theory is six centuries old, and that evidence of original scientific activity beyond the eleventh century emerged in the 1950s, what would one expect the state of scholarship to be? One would expect that with the availability of such evidence the usage of "decline" and other single-faceted terms would begin to disappear from the lexicon of scholarship; scholars would show awareness, and criticism, of each other's work; and development of more and more sophisticated concepts would emerge that would explain the fate of Islamic science. The thesis demonstrates that this did not happen. It argues that the key problem is that, after Ibn Khaldun, there was a centuries-long gap, in which even excellent historians used simple, dismissive terms and concepts defined by a limited, but highly persistent, bundle of interpretative views with a dominant theme of decline. These persistent themes within the scholarship by which Islamic science is constructed and represented were deeply embedded in many scholarly works. In addition, many scholars failed to build on the work of others; they ignored major pieces of evidence; and, in most cases, they were not trying to discern what happened to Islamic science but were referring to the subject as part of another project. Thus, in this corpus of scholarship, one that contains the work of some of the 'best' scholars, the myth of the decline remains not only intact but also powerful. Convinced of its merit, scholars passed it on and vouched for it, failing to distinguish facts from decisions based on consensus, emotion, or tradition. There are very few noteworthy cases where Islamic science is being represented in ways that do not imply negativity. There are also some few narratives that present more complex descriptions; however, even Ibn Khaldun's complex theory, which is arguably the most adequate in the scholarship, is non-comprehensive. Some modern scholars, like Saliba and Sabra, present a challenge to the common argument that Islamic science suffered a uniform decline. However, in the absence of any significant challenges to the common claims of the fate of Islamic science, particularly that of decline, it is evident that, at the very least, the scholarship seems to offer support to the work of discourses that construct the fate of Islamic science in single-faceted, simplistic and reductive terms.

Software is one of the core elements that drive the modern economy, with visible use in areas such as personal computing, telecommunications and banking, and background use in areas such as aircraft traffic management, nuclear power generation, and automotive control systems. Organizations that build software are unique in that they span industrial domains, and at their core of what they do is codifying human knowledge. When we talk about software organizations, we think of organizations that work in the three broad areas of shrink wrapped application software, software-intensive systems, or software services.  By shrink wrapped application software, we refer to the software that one can buy in a retail store for use on his or her computer. Software-intensive systems are part of a larger system such as air traffic management, and software services focus on making software work for other organizations. This thesis uses studies of eight software organizations to understand how these organizations are able to identify changes to their environment, and create the required capabilities to meet those changes – in other words, how these organizations gain enterprise agility. To understand enterprise agility, we ask three simple questions, namely how does the organization improve what it currently does? What does the organization do? and Who does the work that the organization chooses to do? By answering each of these questions in the context of software organizations, we identify the three mechanisms of Software Process Improvement (SPI), Creating Systems of Innovation (CSI), and Leveraging Globally Available Capabilities (LGAC). These three mechanisms are interconnected and interdependent. By creating rich descriptions of how these mechanisms are implemented in the organizations that we studied in the thesis, we are able to build confidence that these mechanisms are an accurate representation of the approaches that organizations use. In addition to identifying the mechanisms, by analyzing across the cases, we identify the four organizational enablers of stakeholder alignment, employee empowerment, group & organizational learning, and governance. Organizations can create enterprise agility by ensuring the presence of the four organizational enablers and leveraging some combination of the three mechanisms. While it is possible for the organization to create enterprise agility in the absence of these mechanisms, we believe that the agility generated is not sustainable. To survive in the tough economic conditions of today, software organizations need to be aware of, and actively manage both the enablers and the mechanisms for sustained success. This thesis is a first step in finding more effective ways to manage software organizations as a whole, rather than as a collection of individual projects. It presents a philosophy of thinking about software organizations that addresses the uniqueness of these organizations while at the same time leveraging best practices and thought leadership from the disciplines of software engineering, quality,  knowledge management, strategy, organizational theory, and stakeholder theory.

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This thesis considers the burgeoning development of trans studies and trans policies in post-secondary schools in Canada and the United States. It is concerned with the impact of trans scholarship and trans policies on trans students of colour. The thesis consists of a textual analysis of scholarship, policy documents and newspaper articles. The tendency to prioritize the experiences of white trans people in contemporary scholarship is replicated in trans studies curricula and reinforced through policy documents. These whitening practices affect trans students of colour and limit their ability to find meaning in trans studies. Similarly, these practices limit racialized trans students’ access to university programs and services.

This thesis considers the burgeoning development of trans studies and trans policies in post-secondary schools in Canada and the United States. It is concerned with the impact of trans scholarship and trans policies on trans students of colour. The thesis consists of a textual analysis of scholarship, policy documents and newspaper articles. The tendency to prioritize the experiences of white trans people in contemporary scholarship is replicated in trans studies curricula and reinforced through policy documents. These whitening practices affect trans students of colour and limit their ability to find meaning in trans studies. Similarly, these practices limit racialized trans students’ access to university programs and services.

Combining the critical lenses of early American scholarship and that of the modern South, “Captive Women, Cunning Texts” investigates the uses and transformations of tropes of captivity drawn from the American Indian captivity narrative by women writers of the Southern Renaissance (circa 1910-45). Specifically, this study examines how captivity narratives, the first American literary form dominated by white women’s experiences as writers and readers, provided the female authors of the Southern Renaissance with a genre ideal for critiquing the roles of women in the South, and the official constructions of southern history. This work interrogates the multifaceted ways in which the captivity genre enabled these female authors to reject typical male modes of expression and interpretation, as well as male images portraying women in mythical terms that conflicted with the real experiences and boundaries of their lives. Through critical case studies of Evelyn Scott, Beatrice Witte Ravenel, and Caroline Gordon, this study demonstrates that many women writers of this period self-consciously returned to the literary past of American captivity narratives for models and, in so doing, discovered modes of discourse and tropes of confinement that aided them in their struggle to redefine their place and that of the racial and cultural Other in southern society, literature, and history. Their strategic re-employment of the captivity tradition literally and metaphorically provided liminal sites of exchange that both reveal and inspire agency and change in their unmasking of tradition, veneer, and the deeply imbedded cultural exchange of the white female body.

This presentation covers the origin, history and scope of Partnership: the Canadian Journal of Library and Information Practice and Research; the editorial process and timeframes; research and scholarship for librarians; the peer review process; the components of a good research article; practical tips on what editors look for in a manuscript submission with examples from Partnership journal. The presentation is intended for anyone writing a research article but should be particularly helpful to first-time authors.

This paper covers the origin, history and scope of Partnership: The Canadian Journal of Library and Information Practice and Research, the editorial process and timeframes, research and scholarship for librarians, the peer review process, the components of a good research article, and practical tips on what editors look for in a manuscript submission with examples from Partnership journal. It is intended for anyone writing a research article but should be particularly helpful to first-time authors. The paper was first given as a presentation at Ontario Library Association Super Conference on January 31, 2013. / Ontario Library Association