Influence

Protosciences, or new sciences trying to establish their legitimacy, are ubiquitous in literature. In the old stories we hear of alchemists who can only dream of the discoveries that modern chemists take for granted, and in the new stories we hear of travelers moving faster than light as our greatest physicists attempt to make that fantasy a reality. Limiting our viewpoint to the modern scientific reductionist view of the universe not only makes little sense if we consider Michael Polanyi's theories of emergence and 'personal knowledge', but it robs medieval scholars for the conceptual credit they are due for theories they could not satisfactorily explain by the future's standards, and stifles the sorts of fantastic possibilities that are opened by the great science-fiction authors. Medieval authors' expositions of protoscientific thought laid the ground work for our own modern disciplines, and by reexamining how this happened we can develop a new appreciation for the power of the imagination.

This thesis aims to rescue the name of Elisabeth Mulder, a Spanish female poet who started to publish her first poetry books around the rise of the Generation of 1927 in Spain. The importance of this work hinges on the recognition of Mulder as a female poet whose work has been marginalized from the literary canon, like that of many other women of her era. This thesis focuses on Mulde''s third poetry collection, Sinfonâia en rojo, which was published in 1929 and stands out for its symbolic richness and its romantic and modernist features. Part of this research deals with the symbolism of the color red and the meanings that red acquires within the context of the poems. The main leitmotivs of Sinfonâia en rojo are the images of fire and blood, which are used to make reference to both the emotional and the physical world of the poetic voice. The research also focuses on the connections between Mulder's work and that of her contemporaries, and it suggests that she was in contact with the literary world of her era.

In response to assertions championing the absence of meaning and significance in language originating from Jacques Derrida's linguistic concepts of deconstruction, George Steiner and John Sheriff provide analyses of language that assert the opposite. Through an emphasis on subjectivities and subjective experience in the world, both find meaning to be bonded to subjective volition and the connectivities between subjects and language systems. For Steiner, this emphasis comes in the form of asserting the presence of others and the responsibilities we have to them, while Sheriff depicts how the semiotics of Charles Peirce make meaning-making subjective and communal. I argue, therefore, that in contrast to conceptions of language that challenge the presence of meaning in language, a structure of language as conceived through Charles Peirce's semiotics and George Steiner's vision of language asserts a dependability of language and the presence of meaning based on principles of connection and communion.

This qualitative study examines whether microblogging illustrates or contradicts the longstanding notion that the Internet allows for greater public participation in important issues, thus potentially expanding public sphere. The study analyzes 5 years of tweets about climate change between ExxonMobil and Greenpeace USA using a new hybrid, or blended methodology that combines Kenneth Burke's rhetorical analysis of cluster-agons with eight physical attributes of the Internet that Marshall Poe identified as influential in pushing societies and ideas in new directions. Clusters are also examined using Grace Poh Lyn's reflexive analysis. Additionally, the analysis also considers the use of agitative and control strategies, discursive tensions between freedom and domination, and the rhetorical use of public vernaculars. Analysis of the tweets reveals that business organizations that at first glance or in theory seem to be at odds actually share common discursive practices. They communicate about the same issues at the same or similar times using the same language for the same primary purpose-survival of the organization-while giving the impression that they are working for the good of their respective publics for environmental causes or the bottom line, or even both. The researcher concludes that although there are specific cases of microblogging in which the public benefits to some extent, those gains are either very short-lived or are more likely to exist in theory rather than practice due to the fluid nature of microblogging as well as continued organizational missteps which I call "corporate ejacking."

The push of the past half century to redefine the American canon through the incorporation of writers representative of America's heterogeneousness has given voice to a range of marginalized writers. This movement, predicated on the belief that American society was never as unified as its early leaders would have us believe, has overstated what it sought to challenge : the unitedness of early Americans. Casting the leaders of the Early Republic as in complete accord, such critical readings negate the significant differences that existed and the pains necessary to present something akin to national unity and identity. It is my aim to show that this unity came about through a constructed rhetoric meant to unify the citizens in colonial America and the Early Republic. In this thesis, I will examine three modes of this rhetoric : American Exceptionalism, the American Enlightenment, and the movements supporting a mono-dialectal view of American English.

This study examines the themes of alchemy and transformation in Paradise Lost and seventeenth-century thought. Beginning with an overvieiw of the historical roots of alchemy, this study analyzes the ancient, underlying philosophical concepts that marital union produces the birth of the soul and that destruction is necessary for this birth. Alchemical references identified in Paradise Lost include animal lore and direct alchemical images, which demonstrate Milton's knowledge of alchemy and his deliberate use of the alchemical metaphor. These themes support the proposal that Milton, a Christian humanist, uses alchemy as a metaphor described in this study as "divine alchemy," which begins with his belief that Christians, inheriting original sin, must submit themselves to a transformative process similar to transmutation to restore right reason and, ultimately, achieve salvation.

Unitarian preacher and Union Army officer Liberty Billings arrived in Florida in 1863 with the First South Carolina Volunteer Infantry. Billings settled in Fernandina and became active in Florida Reconstruction politics as a Radical Republican. Most ot the rhetoric regarding Billings focuses on his participation in the 1868 Florida Constitution Convention even though he went on to be State Senator and an influential citizen in Fernandina. This thesis examines the life of Liberty Billings focusing on events preceding and following the Convention. In doing so, it argues that Billings' participation in Reconstruction politics derived from his experiences prior to the Civil War as did his transition from emancipationist to reconciliationist. By examining the earlier years of Billings' life as well as the evidence of his campaigns during 1867, his term as State Senator and Supreme Court cases, it will be demonstrated that Billings abandoned racial equality for class supremacy.

In December 2000, Japanese lawmakers took unprecedented steps to ban Fukasaku Kinji's Battle Royale from theaters prior to its scheduled release. The film was deemed "crude and tasteless" for its portrayal of teen violence in a state run game of kill or be-killed and attempts to ban the film were pursued through the film certification process all the way to the floor of Japanese parliament. This thesis investigates the controversy surrounding the release of Battle Royale and the socioeconomic and cultural factors - in particular, the Japanese recession and widening generation gap of the 1990s - that influenced both the film's message and the extraordinary political reaction in Japan. This thesis argues that the objections to the film were not based solely on the violent content as is often reported, but rather were the combination of adult economic and cultural anxiety regarding themselves and the youth, the anti-authority message of the film that encouraged the youth to reject adult systems, and a political campaign that exploited the adult fears by using Battle Royale as a scapegoat for youth problems.

Beethoven is widely considered to be one of the most influential composers of all time. His compositions denote a crucial turning point in the history of western music, and his influence can be discussed in numerous ways - musically, technically, theoretically and even philosophically. This treatise discusses one of the primary aspects of Beethoven's influence on later generations: the way that his symphonies contributed to the expansion of the genre and, consequently, to the development of the orchestra. Included is a detailed analysis of his nine symphonies, an overview of his personal life, and an exploration of the historical, social, and political time in which he lived. This thesis collects and examines relevant documents in order to inquire about and better understand the changes and innovations that transformed the standard orchestra of the eighteenth century, opening the doors to the symphonic music of the Romantic Era.

This thesis argues that in the wake of the Decembrist Revolt in Russia in 1825, the British Foreign Office was forced to address the tension between two conceptions of stability-one domestic and one international. It contends that the aristocratic ethos of the British diplomatic corps both magnified the fragile social condition of the Russian Empire and organized the political response which subordinated this concern to the international equilibrium of Europe. Ambassadors such as Lord Strangford and Edward Cromwell Disbrowe helped interpret the events of the Decembrist conspiracy while stationed in St. Petersburg and reported back to their Foreign Secretary, George Canning, who used the revolt as an attempt to realign British interests with Russia. In the end, elite Britons chose to protect the international balance of power in post-Napoleonic Europe instead of the traditional social hierarchies believed to be under siege in Russia.