The purpose of this master's thesis is to examine Frances Harper's narrative strategy and moral didacticism in Iola Leroy: or Shadows Uplifted (1892) as she strives to achieve consubstantiality and a "heightened consciousness" within her characters and her audience while adhering to the literary and feminist paradigms of the late nineteenth century. Harper identifies with her African-American male audience's dilemma of "double-consciousness" and their veil of androcentrism. She also identifies with her Euro-American female audience's delicate and matriarchal roles, while also attempting to uplift their position of the "Other" to the "One." Finally, with her African-American female audience, Harper identifies with their complex situatedness of "double-consciousness" and the "Other," while also attempting to uplift them from a historically imposed position of selflessness to one of empowerment.

La présence de Peter Watkins dans son film Edvard Munch se manifeste de manière ubiquitaire par le biais de l'instance narrative qui s'infiltre, suivant la logique du masque, dans le portrait qu'elle fait du peintre. Le motif du masque permet de penser la co-présence du cinéaste et du peintre dans un rapport de complémentarité. D'abord, l'instance narrative du film est plurielle: elle comprend le méga-narrateur, l'auteur construit et intersubjectif, l'auteur de film, l'auteur historique et le narrateur explicite. Les caractéristiques propres à chacune de ces instances mettent en lumière les nombreux moyens dont dispose l'instance narrative fondamentale, en charge du récit, pour se dévoiler et se dissimuler dans l'oeuvre. De fait, elle apparaît masquée, formant un visage singulier, bien que redoublant celui du peintre. Le rapport entre le peintre et le cinéaste, qui sont tous deux sujets et objets de l'énonciation, est notamment établi par l'interaction du son et de l'image: Watkins, narrateur explicite se manifestant par la voix over, et Munch, présent à l'image mais peu volubile, se complètent et se définissent l'un l'autre. Ce «nous énonciateur» prend forme dans un réseau de correspondances, de parallèles et de contaminations esthétiques et thématiques entre le peintre et le cinéaste, contaminations qui prolifèrent de même entre monde fictionnel et monde réel. Ainsi, la vérité, conçue par le cinéaste et réinventée par le spectateur dans un acte infini de création, est rendue possible par un rejet de toute distinction entre monde vrai et monde des apparences, objectivité et subjectivité, réalité et fiction, Munch et Watkins. La reproduction et l'imitation laissent place à une représentation délibérément infidèle et subjective de l'époque, de la vie et de la carrière de Munch. La présence ubiquiste de l'instance narrative, contaminant par sa subjectivité non seulement le personnage du peintre, mais tout le langage cinématographique, participe donc de la logique du simulacre, puissance du faux devenue volonté de création. L'omniprésence de l'instance narrative dans Edvard Munch participe d'un désir délibéré, chez Watkins, de falsification et de fictionnalisation. ______________________________________________________________________________ MOTS-CLÉS DE L’AUTEUR : Peter Watkins, Edvard Munch, Narration filmique, Son au cinéma, Voix over, Documentaire, Réel à l'écran, Masque, Simulacre, Auteur au cinéma, Méga-narrateur, Auteur historique, Auteur construit, Expressionnisme, Biographie, Autobiographie, Cinéma politique.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2007. / The entire dissertation/thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file (which also appears in the research.pdf); a non-technical general description, or public abstract, appears in the public.pdf file. Title from title screen of research.pdf file (viewed on January 29, 2007) Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Indiana University of Pennsylvania. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (MPhil (Information Science))--University of Stellenbosch, 2011. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The thesis offers an integration of theories of Organizational Learning and a specific framework regarding the dimensions of Learning Organizations. In a case study the extent to which a small consultancy firm display the characteristics of a learning organization is investigated and used as a basis to reflect up the challenges faced by similar organizations trying to increasingly become Learning Organizations. At first various theories of Organizational Learning are reviewed and thereafter the notion of a Learning Organization is unpacked along seven dimensions. The description of management practices for facilitating a Learning Organization and theories about Organizational Learning are then brought together in the form of steps an organization could follow. In the case study a questionnaire based on Watkins and Marsick’s “Dimensions of a Learning Organization Questionnaire” is administered in the organization and the findings discussed against the background of the preceding literature review. The relationship between organizational learning and organizational culture, as well as the relationship between leadership and learning processes, and the impact of systemic exploitation of knowledge assets on organizational efficiency and effectiveness are examined. From the results it is clear that the organization cannot yet lay claim to being a learning organization, yet it displayed some characteristics of a learning organization. Leadership and connecting the organization to its environment were the areas where the company showed most development. However, empowering people toward a collective vision was the least developed area in the organization due to the perception of lack of freedom to choose one’s work assignment and the invitation to contribute to the organization’s vision. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Die tesis bied ‘n integrasie van die teorieë oor Organisatoriese Leer en `n spesifieke raamwerk oor die dimensies van Lerende Organisasies. In `n gevallestudie word die mate waartoe ‘n klein konsultasie firma die eienskappe van ‘n Lerende Organisasie vertoon ondersoek en gereflekteer op die uitdagings wat soortgelyke organisasies moet oorkom om hulself toenemend in Lerende Organisasies te omwentel. Dit word gedoen deur ‘n oorsig van verskillende teorieë van Organisatoriese Leer en daarna word die idee van ‘n Lerende Organisasie uitgepak in sewe dimensies. Die beskrywing van bestuurspraktyke rondom Lerende Organisasies en die toerie van Organisatoriese Leer word dan geintegreer in die vorm van `n stappe wat ‘n organisasie sou kon volg. Hierop volg die gevallestudie waarin ‘n vraelys (Watkins en Marsick se “Dimensies van ‘n Lerende Organisasie Vraelys”) gebaseer op die sewe dimensies van die Lerende Organisasie onder bestuurders in die organisasie versprei is. Die resultate van die vraelys word bespreek teen die agtergrond van die voorafgaande literatuur-oorsig. Die verhoudinge tussen organisatoriese leer en organisasie kultuur, sowel as tussen leierskap en leerprosesse, en die impak van die sistemiese ontginning van kennis-bates op organisatoriese effektiwiteit word ondersoek. Uit die resultate is did duidelik dat die organisasie nog nie werklik ‘n Lerende Organisasie is nie, maar dit vertoon wel eienskappe wat eie is aan Lerende Organisasies. Leierskap en die koppeling van die organisasie aan sy omgewing is die areas waar die organisasie die meeste ontwikkeling getoon het, terwyl die bemagtiging van mense om ‘n bydrae te lewer tot die kollektiewe visie van die organisasie die minste ontwikkelde area was as gevolg van die indruk onder lede dat hulle min vryheid het om hulle take te kies en die gebrek aan ‘n uitnodiging om deel te neem.

Mémoire numérisé par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal. / Pour respecter les droits d'auteur, la version électronique de cette thèse ou ce mémoire a été dépouillée, le cas échéant, de ses documents visuels et audio-visuels. La version intégrale de la thèse ou du mémoire a été déposée au Service de la gestion des documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal.

Nowadays, the number of applications which need more than one power source is increasing. Distributed generating systems or micro-grid systems normally use more than one power source or more than one kind of energy source. Also, to increase the utilization of renewable energy sources, diversified energy source combination is recommended. For example, a wind-photovoltaic generating system, a combination of a wind generator and photovoltaic array, can give a greater degree of freedom when choosing the install location. The combination of more power sources and diversified power sources makes it possible to obtain higher availability in a power system. A parallel connection of converters has been used to integrate more than one energy source in a power system. However, a multiple-input converter (MIC) can generally have the following advantages compare to a combination of several individual converters; (1) cost reduction, (2) compactness, (3) more expandability and (4) greater manageability. First, this research suggests MIC topology comparison criteria that can be used as a decision guide for choosing a MIC topology depending on the application. Even though there are some MIC topology classification methods such as by the kind of combining methods, the classification methods are not enough to choose one particular topology. The comparison criteria presented in this dissertation are practical enough to decide which topology is suitable and should be chosen. Second, a new MI modified inverse Watkins-Johnson converter (MIMIWJC) without a coupled inductor is proposed. The circuit configuration of this converter and its operation principles are described, including the open-loop and closed-loop circuit. For control purposes, a small signal model of the proposed converter is developed using Middlebrook’s extra element theorem. In addition, two possible control methods are introduced in this dissertation. Finally, the theoretical analysis of the proposed converter is verified with simulations and experiments. / text

Mémoire numérisé par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal / Pour respecter les droits d'auteur, la version électronique de cette thèse ou ce mémoire a été dépouillée, le cas échéant, de ses documents visuels et audio-visuels. La version intégrale de la thèse ou du mémoire a été déposée au Service de la gestion des documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal.

This dissertation tracks the literary afterlife of natural history in American literature, long past its term of relevance for scientific experts, and examines how natural history persists as idiom, cultural metaphor, and discursive framework in nineteenth-century literature in a way that informs poetic production. At the juncture of literary and cultural history, history of science, and environmental studies, I reconstruct the enduring literary rapport between poetry and natural history in US culture, showing how the aesthetic innovations of a wide current of poetic experimentalism variously draw upon natural history as a resource. I therefore push against major received narratives about natural history’s disappearance after the eighteenth century and the development of American poetry as a filiation of European Romanticism. As I read the texts of familiar literary figures such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Edgar Allan Poe, Frances Watkins Harper, and Herman Melville, I recontextualize these figures into a shared poetic strain that reflexively develops upon natural history as a mode of thinking about the New World as a biophysical, social, and cultural habitat. My chapters analyze these writers’ accounts of poetry and their various experiments with not only the capacities of poetic genres—such as epic or elegy—but also the material production of their poems as objects in the world. In the process, I also show how the different poets of my dissertation confront the violent historical and social repercussions of scientific modernity, colonialism, enslavement and racism, mass extermination, or war, as they advance poetry as the fit vehicle for rethinking the grids of normativity and possibility in modern America.

A MATTER OF NATIONAL CONCERN examines the Kennedy Administration’s contribution to the restoration of public education in Prince Edward County, Virginia, and determines if those actions support the dominant narrative of Kennedy’s overall civil rights record – a historical assessment generally generated from a few acute crises. For five consecutive years (1959-1964), in defiance of federal court orders, the county board of supervisors refused to levy taxes to operate public schools, marking Prince Edward County as the only locale in the nation without free public education. The county leadership organized a segregated private school system for the 1,400 white children, but afforded no formal education for the 1,700 African American students. The Kennedy Administration inherited the Prince Edward County school situation – a crisis that threatened to cripple a generation, and, if replicated, destroy public education. In the Prince Edward County school dilemma, the Kennedy Administration took proactive measures, proved sympathetic to the plight of African Americans, challenged Virginia’s congressional delegation, and appointed federal judges that supported President Kennedy’s civil rights agenda. The Prince Edward County story generally, and the federal government’s actions specifically, have been virtually overlooked by historians. A MATTER OF NATIONAL CONCERN challenges scholars to re-evaluate the Kennedy Administration’s civil rights record by including all of the civil rights events of the Kennedy years, thus developing a thorough, comprehensive assessment. A MATTER OF NATIONAL CONCERN is the product of the study of unpublished archival documents, oral histories, interviews, newspaper reports, and secondary sources. This work was created using Microsoft Word 2003.