A Lady of York: migration, ethnicity and identity in Roman Britain

Modern methods of analysis applied to cemeteries have often been used in our pages to suggest generalities about mobility and diet. But these same techniques applied to a single individual, together with the grave goods and burial rite, can open a special kind of personal window on the past. Here, the authors of a multidisciplinary project use a combination of scientific techniques to illuminate Roman York, and later Roman history in general, with their image of a glamorous mixed-race woman, in touch with Africa, Christianity, Rome and Yorkshire.

Natural Theology: A Reevaluation of Christianity's Relationship to the Natural World

In this thesis I offer two separate arguments for the creation of an environmentally friendly Christian theology. These arguments, although interconnected, are roughly divided into the main chapters of the thesis. I will begin in Chapter Two by offering a negative argument against the assumption that the natural world is sinful. In their article Hauerwas and Berkman suggest that the suffering of animals is both an example of the sinful state of the environment and a justification for human separation from an unholy natural environment. In response to this view I will argue in the second chapter that the suffering of animals can be seen as part of God's intentions for our world. Suffering, in both the human and the larger world, is not evidence of a fundamental flaw in natural systems. Instead, the cycle of death and life found in the natural world can be profoundly spiritual.

The network of intertextual relations in Naipaul's half a life and magic seeds

Esta dissertação mapeia a rede de relações intertextuais em Half a Life (2001) e sua continuação Magic Seeds (2004), os romances mais recentes do Prêmio Nobel de Literatura de 2001, V. S. Naipaul, como contribuição para o estudo da obra do autor. A noção de intertextualidade permeia os estudos literários, e o termo tem sido largamente empregado desde que foi cunhado por Julia Kristeva nos anos sessenta. Desde então as mais variadas, e muitas vezes divergentes, teorias sobre intertextualidade compartilham a idéia de que um texto só adquire significado pleno na interação com outros textos. A abordagem metodológica proposta é baseada na teoria da transtextualidade de Gérard Genette. Esta escolha implica o estudo de intertextos, paratextos, metatextos, arquitextos e hipertextos que constituem a interface entre os dois romances e outros escritos. O nome do protagonista "William Somerset Chandran" constitui o fio que guia o estudo das várias relações transtextuais nos dois romances. A partir do prenome do protagonista – William – este estudo situa os romances no contexto da tradição do Bildungsroman, e argumenta que estes estabelecem uma paródia arquitextual do gênero na medida em que subvertem seu cerne, ou seja, a formação do caráter do protagonista. O nome do meio do protagonista – Somerset – remete à ficcionalização do escritor Somerset Maugham na narrativa, ao mesmo tempo em que esta desmistifica a ótica ocidental sobre o hinduísmo popularizada por Maugham em The Razor's Edge. O sobrenome do protagonista – Chandran – leva ao estudo do conjunto de referências à origem indiana de Naipaul e o papel desta na produção do autor. Este nome se reporta ao romance de Narayan The Bachelor of Arts, cujo protagonista também é nomeado Chandran. Narayan é um escritor de destaque na literatura anglo-indiana e referência recorrente na obra de Naipaul. Os temas de migração e choque cultural apresentados nos dois romances têm sido presença constante na obra de Naipaul. Esta pesquisa mapeia a relação de continuidade entre os dois romances em questão e o conjunto da obra de Naipaul, salientando o papel da ambientação geográfica da narrativa, marcada pela jornada do protagonista através de três continentes. A teoria da transtextualidade é uma ferramenta operacional para a pesquisa, a qual examina a densidade das referências geográficas, históricas e literárias em Half a Life e Magic Seeds, visando aportar elementos para o estudo da produção literária de Naipaul, na medida em que estes romances recentes condensam e revisitam a visão de mundo deste autor.

Barshalder 1 : A cemetery in Grötlingbo and Fide parishes, Gotland, Sweden, c. AD 1-1100. Excavations and finds 1826-1971

The prehistoric cemetery of Barshalder is located along the main road on the boundary between Grötlingbo and Fide parishes, near the southern end of the island of Gotland in the Baltic Sea. The cemetery was used from c. AD 1-1100. The level of publication in Swedish archaeology of the first millennium AD is low compared to, for instance, the British and German examples. Gotland’s rich Iron Age cemeteries have long been intensively excavated, but few have received monographic treatment. This publication is intended to begin filling this gap and to raise the empirical level of the field. It also aims to make explicit and test the often somewhat intuitively conceived results of much previous research. The analyses deal mainly with the Migration (AD 375–540), Vendel (AD 520–790) and Late Viking (AD 1000–1150) Periods. The following lines of inquiry have been prioritised. 1. Landscape history, i.e. placing the cemetery in a landscape-historical context. (Vol. 1, section 2.2.6) 2. Migration Period typochronology, i.e. the study of change in the grave goods. (Vol. 2, chapter 2) 3. Social roles: gender, age and status. (Vol. 2, chapter 3) 4. Religious identity in the 11th century, i.e. the study of religious indicators in mortuary customs and grave goods, with particular emphasis on the relationship between Scandinavian paganism and Christianity.. (Vol. 2, chapter 4) Barshalder is found to have functioned as a central cemetery for the surrounding area, located on peripheral land far away from contemporary settlement, yet placed on a main road along the coast for maximum visibility and possibly near a harbour. Computer supported correspondence analysis and seriation are used to study the gender attributes among the grave goods and the chronology of the burials. New methodology is developed to distinguish gender-neutral attributes from transgressed gender attributes. Sub-gender grouping due to age and status is explored. An independent modern chronology system with rigorous type definitions is established for the Migration Period of Gotland. Recently published chronology systems for the Vendel and Viking Periods are critically reviewed, tested and modified to produce more solid models. Social stratification is studied through burial wealth with a quantitative method, and the results are tested through juxtaposition with several other data types. The Late Viking Period graves of the late 10th and 11th centuries are studied in relation to the contemporary Christian graves at the churchyards. They are found to be symbolically soft-spoken and unobtrusive, with all pagan attributes kept apart from the body in a space between the feet of the deceased and the end of the over-long inhumation trench. A small number of pagan reactionary graves with more forceful symbolism are however also identified. The distribution of different 11th century cemetery types across the island is used to interpret the period’s confessional geography, the scale of social organisation and the degree of allegiance to western and eastern Christianity. 11th century society on Gotland is found to have been characterised by religious tolerance, by an absence of central organisation and by slow piecemeal Christianisation.

The Polemic Construction of Judaism at the origins of Christianity: from Paul to Justin Martyr

This research aims to identify the guidelines that are opposed to Judaism in the body of the work Dialogue with Trypho of Justin Martyr, using the methodology engendered by Norbert Elias and John L. Scotson in their work, The Established and the Outsiders. As a result, our research intends to contribute to unveil another aspect of Justin’s work, considered by many scholars as a proselytistic tool; by taking it as a document builder of the Christian identity trough its dissociation from Judaism. For this reason, this thesis investigates and reviews the socio-cultural and political environment that gave rise to Roman Christianity, taking into consideration Christian internal conflicts and the resulting dichotomies within the Roman Christian community, as a result of its departure from its Jewish matrix.

Marx and the Bible: José Miranda’s Critique of the Philosophy of Oppression

This paper critically examines the liberation theology of José Porfirio Miranda, as expressed in his Marx and the Bible (1971), with a focus on the central idea (and subtitle) of this work: the “Critique of the Philosophy of Oppression.” Miranda’s critique is examined via certain key tropes such as “power,” “justice,” and “freedom,” both in the context of late twentieth-century Latin American society, and in the state of the “post-Christian” and “post-Marxist” world more generally, vis-à-vis contemporary liberal justice theory. Close examination of the potentialities, paradoxes and subtle evasions in Miranda’s critique leads not to the conclusion that Miranda does not go far enough in his application of Christian principles to justice theory.

Faith and the Sublation of Modernity: Kierkegaard and the Transformation of Fideism

This article retraces the “genealogy” of the fideist perspective in philosophy as well as literature, especially within the writings of Søren Kierkegaard and the novel Don Quixote. It contends that a demythologized perspective of the fideist-humanist sort, based upon Erasmian tolerance and intellectual creativity and updated with the insights of post-analytic theory (e.g., the work of Alasdair MacIntyre, Richard Rorty, and Jeffrey Stout), without revoking the vocabulary of transcendence, can reinforce the weathered but still valuable post-Enlightenment moral vocabulary, and can reiterate the humaneness of liberal hope without undue encumbrance from the dogmatic baggage of traditional theological jargon and metaphysics.

Ogawa Mimei's Children's Stories: A Case Study of the Rise of Childhood in the Context of Westernization and Japanese Modernization

In this thesis, I examine the influences of westernization, the tension between Japanese modernity and tradition, and the stories of Hans Christian Andersen on Ogawa Mimei’s children’s stories. I begin the body of my thesis with a brief historical background of Japan, beginning with the start of the Meiji period in 1868. Within the historical section, I focus on societal and cultural elements and changes that pertain to my thesis. I also include the introduction of Hans Christian Andersen in Japan. I wrap up the historical section by a description of Ogawa’s involvement in the Japanese proletarian literature movement and the rise of the Japanese proletarian children’s literature movement. Then, I launch into an analysis of Ogawa’s works categorized by thematic elements. These elements include westernization, class conflict, nature and civilization, religion and morals, and children and childhood. When relevant, I also compare and contrast Ogawa’s stories with Andersen’s. In the westernization section, I show how some of Ogawa’s stories demonstrate contact between Japan and the West. In the Class Conflict section, I discuss how Ogawa views class through a socialist lens, whereas Andersen does not dispute class distinctions, but encourages his readers to attempt an upward social climb. In the nature and civilization section, I show how Ogawa and Andersen share common opinions on the impact of civilization on nature. In the religion and morals section, I show how Ogawa incorporates religion, including Christianity, into vii his works. Andersen utilizes religion in a more overt manner in order to convey morals to his audience. Both authors address religious topics like the concept of the afterlife. Finally, in children and childhood, I demonstrate how both Ogawa and Andersen treat their child protagonists and use them and their situations to instruct their readers. Through this case study, I show how westernization and the tensions between Japanese modernization and tradition led to the rise of the proletarian children’s literature movement, which is exemplified by Ogawa’s stories. The emergence of the proletarian children’s literature movement is an indication of the establishment of a new concept of childhood in Japan. Writers like Ogawa Mimei attempted to write children’s stories that represented the new Japanese culture that was a result of adapting Western ideals to fit Japanese society. Some of Ogawa’s stories are a direct commentary on his opinion of Japanese interaction with the West. By comparing Ogawa’s and Andersen’s stories, I demonstrate how Ogawa borrows certain Western elements and possibly responds directly to Andersen. Ogawa also addresses some of the same topics as Andersen, yet their reactions are not always the same. What I find in my analysis supports my thesis that Ogawa is able to maintain Japanese tradition while infusing his children’s stories with Western and modern elements. In doing so, he reflects a largely popular social and cultural practice of his time.