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<i>"Whoever attempts to solve the riddle of space in the abstract will construct the outline of emptiness and call it space. Whoever attempts to meet man in the abstract will speak with his echo and call this a dialogue. Man still breathes in and out. When is Architecture going to do the same?"</i>¹ In order to develop a language in architecture, an architect spends a lifetime building and refining the grammar and expressions he or she uses. With study and an understanding of place, one can use architectural language to develop a dialogue with place. Without dialogue the architecture is empty. This interpretation of Aldo Van Eyck's statement is a beginning for this effort in design. The site, the "place," was chosen first for values which make it unique, and the project and its program were developed later. The observation of place extended from the physical environment, its history, and culture, to other aspects which make up the "spirit of place," as described by Christian Norberg-Schulz. The attempt was then to design in relation to aspects which I felt were important to the place, to create a dialogue. / Master of Architecture

This thesis is an iconographic study of the four earliest and relatively complete tenth-century manuscripts of Beatus’ Commentary on the Apocalypse: New York, Pierpont Morgan Library MS M. 644 (the Morgan Beatus); Valladolid, Biblioteca de la Universidad de Valladolid MS 433 (the Valladolid Beatus); Girona, Museu de la Catedral de Girona MS 7(11) (the Girona Beatus) and La Seu d’Urgell, Museu Diocesá de La Seu d’Urgell MS 501 (the Urgell Beatus). As a part of the tenth-century revival of Beatus’ text that initially was penned in the eighth-century, these works were created in monastic centres during a period when conflict between the Christian kingdoms in the north and Islamic rulers in the south was at a peak, the manuscripts’ iconographic innovations reflect the social, political and religious circumstances of their patrons, creators and audiences. While these manuscripts offer the possibility of furthering scholastic understanding of Iberia prior to the year 1000 the majority of past scholarship has been devoted to defining dates, stemma and the physical characteristics of the works. Debates over descriptions of style, labels and influence have overshadowed discussions of iconographic significance, which have begun to emerge only in the last few decades. Therefore, this thesis provides iconographic analysis of five under-studied scenes, which include the Mappamundi, the Four Beasts and the Statue, Noah’s Ark, the Palm Tree and the Fox and the Cock. While these images are just five of up to 120 included in the illustrative programmes of these manuscripts, they are the only scenes that illustrate the text of Beatus’ Commentary, rather than the narrative of Revelation. This is significant because these extra-apocalyptic scenes were selected and created specifically because of the messages within the Commentary that they enhance; the ideas promoted through these images are not restricted by the narrative of Revelation and therefore reveal much about the political, religious and social situation in the northern Iberian Christian communities that created them. By discussing the visual elements of these five images in conjunction with iconographic traditions from other parts of western Europe, the Byzantine world, the Mediterranean and the Islamic world, this thesis will examine the Beatus illustrations and, on a larger scale, the production of these manuscripts, in relation to the historical struggles of the time. Informed by postcolonial theory, it will not only diverge from the standard ways of approaching these works, but also will bring new insight into the Christian perspective of Muslim occupation in medieval Iberia, suggesting that monastic communities were attempting to combat the Muslim threat by encouraging participation in and dispersal of the Christian faith in order to maintain Christian practices and beliefs on the Iberian Peninsula and furthermore to assert Christian dominance at the Judgment.

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The gender portrayals study aims to understanding how the roles of men and women are portrayed in magazine advertisements. This has been an issue investigated over the past decades as companies try to achieve a higher level of sales of their products and services and the gender issue influences in how this companies plan one advertising program or another. However, there is a debate among authors: some of them believe that advertising reflects what is already on society and others express that advertisers use the most convenient reality to sell their products. Thus, it makes us wonder what is the actual truth behind this debate. This thesis tries to answer the question of how men and women are portrayed in advertising campaigns. There are several studies on gender portrayals across countries but none that compares France, Spain and Sweden. This thesis tries to fill this gap.   The study is conducted following Hofstede framework that classifies countries whether masculine or feminine, and is completed by analyzing the data gathered from four magazines of these three countries. We classified this data following Courtney and Lockeretz classification scheme and analyzed the data obtained with theories of some other authors.   The results of this thesis show that males were dominant among working roles while females were in non-working roles. The findings might not add a huge contribution to this field of study but may be used as guiding tool for further research.

This dissertation analyzes the strategies that Spanish and Hispano-African authors employ when writing about Africa in the contemporary novel (1990-2010). Focusing on the former Spanish colonial territories of Morocco, Western Sahara, and Equatorial Guinea, I analyze the post-colonial literary discourse about these regions. This study examines the new ways of conceptualizing Africa that depart from an Orientalist framework as advanced by the novelists Lorenzo Silva, Concha López Sarasúa, Ramón Mayrata, María Dueñas, Fernando Gamboa, Montserrat Abumalham, Javier Reverte, Alberto Vázquez-Figueroa, and Donato Ndongo. Their works are representative of a recent trend in Spanish letters that signals a literary focus on Africa and the African Other. I examine these contemporary novels within their historical context, specifically engaging with the theoretical ideas of Edward Said’s Orientalism (1978), to determine to what extent his analysis of Orientalist discourse still holds value for a study of the Spanish novel of thirty years later. In addition, the work of theorists such as Gil Anidjar, Emmanuel Levinas, James C. Scott, Ryszard Kapuściński, Georges Van den Abbeele and Chandra Mohanty contribute to the analyses of specific works. These theorists provide a theoretical framework for my thesis that contemporary Spanish authors are writing Africa in ways that undermine and circumvent the legacy of Orientalist discourse. I seek to highlight the innovative approaches that these authors are taking towards their literary engagement with Africa. The imaginary that pertains to Africa has served an integral role in the history and creation of modern Spain, and it is illuminating to trace the influences that it continues to exert on Spanish writers. In the last thirty years, Spain’s relationship with Africa has dramatically changed through peace treaties, the independence of nations, migratory patterns, tourism, and in other substantial ways. Within this dissertation, I address these changes by focusing on literary representations of political engagement, gender issues, and travel to highlight how Africa is represented in light of these recent developments. As Spanish authors continue to engage with and to write about Africa, this study hopes to show that Orientalism is no longer a prevalent discourse in the contemporary Spanish novel.

A stochastic dynamic programming model (called P.B.S.D.P.) based on the consideration of peak discharge and time between peaks as two stochastic variables has been used to model and to solve a reservoir operation problem. This conceptualization of the physical reality allows to solve, in this order, the tactical and strategic operation of surface reservoirs. This P.B.S.D.P. model has been applied to the Sau reservoir in the Northeastern corner of Spain. The results showed a significant improvement over the currently used operation procedure, yielding values of yearly average electricity production that are somewhat under 6% of what could have been the maximum electricity production.

This study serves as an introduction to three recent narratives in Spanish Science Fiction. While this literary genre has long been read in Spain in translation, it is only recently that Sci-Fi has been successful as a popular literature produced by native authors. Álex de la Iglesia, Gabriela Bustelo and Rafael Reig have worked in realist and genre fiction through their careers but chose to use Science Fiction to speak of the rapidly changing space of Madrid. Their criticism is centered on the changes to the physical, social, economic and political landscape of Madrid post-1992. My analysis is based on the works of the geographer David Harvey, among others, which helps to underline the importance of the urbanization of capital and consciousness that the three narratives disentangle. While being three very different texts - one film and two novels -, they all manipulate concerns of time and space to come to a similar conclusion. Their narratives serve as a warning about how the good intentions of humanist theories like feminism or scientific advancement can easily turn into a nightmare by instead serving the needs of capitalism rather than those of social justice.

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