In Western Massachusetts, as in many regions of the United States, the municipalities with significant population size are significantly eclipsed in both number and area by the surrounding towns and villages. Struggling rural locations often face similar challenges to their urban counterparts: declining or failed industry, high levels of unemployment or under-employment, and lack access of quality housing across income classes. In addition to these obstacles, they also face additional difficulties of both physical and social isolation. While a great deal of recent effort has been placed in studying the architectural and planning interventions needed in struggling urban locations, rural areas have had little help from the field as a whole, often dismissed as unsustainable due to their lack of density. The focus on only the city fails to consider a larger picture of cities, towns, and rural communities, as an interconnected system. If those “unsustainable” rural communities were to be vacated, cities would rapidly discover significant problems in the realms of agricultural production, water supply maintenance, and a host of other benefits that exist in the symbiotic relationship between cities and the rural areas around them. Working towards a sustainable future requires changes to be made across the board of human habitation, and rural communities play a significant role in that goal. Rather than considering both scenarios in measure, focus remains tilted to the urban context, leaving rural practitioners and planners with few models for moving forward in socially and ecologically sustainable ways. This thesis attempts to rectify that absence. Another facet of this thesis is an attempt to address not only ideas of environmental sustainability, but the social equity, economic vitality, and supportive social systems that are required to meet those goals. Architecture is prone to disregarding the effects the built environment has on the community, but the heritage and culture of a place are always impacted by the construction of a new building, the renovation of an existing community landmark, or the development of new infrastructural systems. These cultural changes can be positive or damaging, depending on how attuned the designer is to current need, and to the involvement and agency of the community being affected. I have chosen to focus this thesis within my home region of Hampshire County. Ware, Massachusetts, located on the south end of the Quabbin Reservoir, is the county’s eastern-most town. Specific obstacles for a thriving rural community include lack of transportation and local job options, a struggling downtown with little successful social space, and a lack of quality affordable housing. The goal of this thesis is to propose an intervention that begins a dialogue with some of these challenges, looking at new options for connecting home, work and community as the beginning for a developing framework that is able to bring Ware into a more holistically sustainable future.

Zugl.: Augsburg, Univ., Diss., 2006

Thesis (M.Phil.)--Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 226-233). Also available in electronic version.

Project (D. Min.)--Iliff School of Theology, 2005. / Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves [146-150]).

Project (D. Min.)--Iliff School of Theology, 2005. / Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves [146-150]).

The level of analysis undertaken in this study can only suggest the role that Nuzi Ware may have played in the signaling of political identity and relationships in the Kingdom of Mitanni. Yet, this study has brought to the spotlight aspects of Mitannian political organization that have been on the periphery of many analyses of Nuzi Ware as well as studies of the Mitanni Empire. This study used the known data about Nuzi Ware and placed it in an explicitly political as well as social framework, confinning the Empire' s decentralized nature, as well as the important role of local elites in the maintenance of this Empire.

Yes / There is a significant lack of geomagnetic field strength (archaeointensity) measurements for many archaeological time periods in the United Kingdom (UK). This not only makes past geomagnetic secular variation difficult to model but also limits the development of archaeointensity dating. This paper presents the first archaeointensity study on UK Neolithic material. In this study, twenty-five sherds of Neolithic Grooved Ware pottery from the Ness of Brodgar, Orkney, UK, some with direct radiocarbon dates, were subjected to a full archaeomagnetic investigation with the aim of increasing the amount of archaeointensity data for the UK. Both thermal Thellier and microwave palaeointensity experiments were used to determine which technique would be most suitable for British Neolithic pottery. Three successful archaeointensity results between 35 and 40μT were obtained using thermal Thellier method, which is consistent with the limited data available within a 15° radius and geomagnetic field model predictions from the same time. We separated the results into four different types with an intention of explaining the behaviours that determine the likelihood of achieving an acceptable archaeointensity estimate. The feasibility of obtaining geomagnetic field strength information during the UK Neolithic from ceramics has been demonstrated and the results provide a solid basis for improving our knowledge of geomagnetic secular variation during archaeological time in Britain. / The Andy Jagger Fund, University of Bradford, for supporting the stay at the University of Liverpool and Crafoord Grant, Sweden, No. 20160763. The radiocarbon dates were funded by AHRC NF/2017/2/7.

本文的研究對象是南宋（1127-1279）至明代（1368-1644）龍泉窯宗教塑像。這裡所指的宗教塑像，是指佛教、道教和民間宗教的人物塑像。本文旨在探討宗教塑像的生產和使用情況，並特別探討當中龕像的年代和所表現的信仰。 / 本文的第一部分探討塑像的生產和使用情況。通過廣泛蒐集、對比和分析考古及傳世塑像，文章總結出龍泉窯在南宋起開始燒造宗教塑像，元代（1271-1368）時擴大規模，明中期以後停產。雖然宗教塑像並非龍泉窯的大宗產品，可是它們製作講究，經製模、模印、塑貼、雕刻、局部施釉和鬆漆多項工序，足見塑像並不因產量相對較少而顯得不重要，相反它們應是一種受到重視的產品。塑像的使用地點廣泛，除民間之外，明代宮廷也有使用。部分塑像更遠銷海外。 / 文章的第二部分集中探討龍泉窯宗教塑像中龕像的年代和所表現的信仰。鑒於收集所得的二十六尊龕像只有兩尊帶有年款，其餘龕像的年代並不明確，故此第二章首先判斷龕像的年代。通過與發掘所得的塑像及紀年龕像進行對比，文章論證這些龕像均約為明代早期的產品。此外，結合文獻和圖像，文章闡明上述龕像乃分別與道教九天應元雷聲普化天尊、佛教觀音以及觀音與道教真武組合信仰有關。 / This thesis studies religious sculptures made at the kilns in Longquan during Southern Song(1127-1279) and Ming dynasty(1368-1644). More specifically it examines sculptures from Buddhism, Daoism and popular religion. This thesis aims at investigating the production and the consumption of these sculptures, as well as elucidating religious beliefs they represent. / The first part of the thesis examines the production and the consumption of religious sculptures. Through delving into and analyzing a comprehensive collection of the excavated and extant sculptures, the thesis concludes that production of these religious sculptures first began in the Southern Song dynasty, with production scale largely increased in Yuan dynasty (1271-1368), and eventually halted in the late Ming. Albeit those religious sculptures comprise a small portion of Longquan wares, the detailed perfection in each and every step of production as demonstrated in their delicacy and exquisiteness render them significances. Furthermore, it is revealed that religious sculptures were widely used not only amongst commoners but also in the royal family of the Ming dynasty and overseas. / The second part of the thesis examines religious beliefs that 26 extant niche sculptures represent. By comparing the dated sculptures, it is justified to conclude that the religious sculptures were all produced around the early Ming dynasty. Through an integrated analysis of literatures and images, the present thesis shows that the sculptures denote different religious beliefs, namely, the belief of Heavenly Worthy of Universal Transformation of the Sound of the Thunder of Responding Origin in the Nine Heavens, Avalokiteśvara of the South Sea, as well as the association of Avalokiteśvara and the Dark Warrior. / Detailed summary in vernacular field only. / Detailed summary in vernacular field only. / Detailed summary in vernacular field only. / 黃煒均. / "2012年9月". / "2012 nian 9 yue". / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2012. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 74-94). / Abstract in Chinese and English. / Huang Weijun. / 內容摘要 --- p.i / 謝辭 --- p.iv / 前言 --- p.1 / Chapter 一、 --- 研究回顧、 方法與目的 --- p.1 / Chapter 二、 --- 論文結構 --- p.3 / Chapter 第一章 --- 宗教塑像的生產與使用情況 --- p.5 / Chapter 一、 --- 考古及傳世塑像的整理 --- p.5 / Chapter 二、 --- 生產與使用情況的總結 --- p.12 / Chapter 第二章 --- 傳世龕像的年代 --- p.15 / Chapter 一、 --- 神龕造型的分類與辨識 --- p.15 / Chapter 二、 --- 龕像年代的斷定 --- p.17 / Chapter 第三章 --- 九天應元雷聲普化天尊龕像 --- p.24 / Chapter 一、 --- 洪武龕神祗身份的辨識 --- p.24 / Chapter 二、 --- 永樂龕神祗身份的辨識 --- p.32 / Chapter 三、 --- 神祗形象、 組合與神龕造型所表現的信仰 --- p.38 / Chapter 四、 --- 銘文與供奉的目的 --- p.44 / Chapter 第四章 --- 觀音龕像 --- p.49 / Chapter 一、 --- 觀音龕像神祗身份的辨識 --- p.49 / Chapter 二、 --- 神祗組合與神龕造型所表現的信仰 --- p.55 / Chapter 二、 --- 觀音與真武合龕神祗身份的辨識 --- p.58 / Chapter 四、 --- 神祗組合與神龕造型所表現的信仰 --- p.59 / 總結 --- p.72 / 參考書目 --- p.74 / 圖版 --- p.95

No description available.

In this dissertation, I take seriously Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s assertion that even though non-indigenous peoples in America "may have come over on different ships," they are all, in spite of and in the face of their particular ethnic, racial, gender, class, tribal, or national identities, nevertheless together "in the same boat now." In particular, in this project I reconstruct and reinterpret the process of migration, assimilation, and the realization of full sociopolitical participation in the United States in terms of the relationship between peoples of African descent--who were compelled to migrate as slaves across the Middle Passage, and who also voluntarily immigrated from various localities within the Black Atlantic--and select groups of immigrants from other locations around the globe. In my thesis, I concentrate on novels by William Faulkner, Paule Marshall, James Baldwin, Gayl Jones, and cartoonist Chris Ware, and examine closely how these authors, in their respective texts, work to restructure, reimagine, and thereby challenge the enshrined American narratives of national belonging and acculturation through literary constructions of the identities and experiences of peoples of African descent, as migrants themselves, in tandem with their social, political, economic, sexual, racial, and cultural engagements with other immigrants to the nation-state. In the introduction to my text, I survey and carefully synthesize diverse literary, historical, sociological, postcolonial, and feminist approaches to and theories of the problems of race, immigration, and nationalization, and formulate a new critical interdisciplinary framework for the mutual (de)construction of peoples of African descent as immigrants among immigrants in America.