706 research outputs found
Musikstädte as real and imaginary soundscapes: urban musical images as literary motifs in twentieth-century German modernism
No full textPhDThis study examines German literary images of musical life as part of the wider sound identity of the modern German city at the turn of the twentieth century. Focussing on a forty-year period from 1890 to 1930, synonymous with the emergence of the modern German metropolis as an aesthetic object, the project assesses, compares and contrasts how musical life in the Musikstädte was perceived and portrayed by writers in an increasingly noisy urban environment. How does urban musical life influence and condition city writings? What are the differences and similarities between the writings on various musical cities? Can an urban textual sound identity be derived from these differences and similarities? The approach employed to answer these questions is a new, cross-disciplinary one to urban sound in literature, moving beyond reading the key sounds of the urban soundscape using urban musicology, sensorial anthropology and cultural poetics towards a literary contextualisation of the urban aural experience.
The literary motifs of the symphony, the gramophone and urban noise are put under the spotlight through the analysis of a wide range of modernist works by authors who have a special relationship with music. At the centre of this analysis are the Kaffeehausliteratur authors Hermann Bahr, Alfred Polgar and Peter Altenberg, the then Munich-based author Thomas Mann and the lesser known René Schickele. The analysis of these particular works is framed in the music-geographical context of the Musikstadt and literary underpinnings of this topos, ranging from Ingeborg Bachmann to Hans Mayer and, once again, Thomas Mann. In analysing these texts, the methodological approach devised by Strohm, who identifies the blending of a range of urban sounds as a definition of urban space and identity, is applied. His ideas combine historical literary
analysis, musical history and urban sociology. They are rarely used in the analysis of the auditory environment.Arts and Humanities Research Council
Westfield TrustWestfield Trust Studentship
Arts and Humanities Reseach Council (AHRC
Face-maker : the negotiation between screen performance, extra-filmic persona and conditions of employment within the career of Peter Lorre
No full textPeter Lorre often described his acting as merely "face-making". This disparaging attitude is
reflected within critiques which read the life of Peter Lorre as a tragic narrative of wasted
opportunities and his career as a screen performer as restricted by the nature of his
employment in studio-era Hollywood. Working in the United States, he was unable to escape
from the notoriety of his first major role in the German film, M (1931), or from the murderous
persona that evolved from his portrayal of a psychopathic serial killer. His status as an emigre
positioned him as a European "artist" whose talent was misused by American filmmaking
practices which typecast the actor in line with his nefarious public image.
This thesis proposes to investigate the accuracy of these perceptions which approach the actor
via a binary split between "person" and "persona". It will offer an alternative methodology for
analysing the career of the screen actor which recognises that persona-based analyses can
obscure complex negotiations between performance, image and the conditions of employment.
Rather than attempting to reveal the "real" Peter Lorre behind the image, the context of Lorre's
mutable position as an employee within the Hollywood industry and the misconstrued
association between his screen labour and his public persona will be examined. The creative
agency of the actor will also be examined in order to question Lorre's definition of himself as
"face-maker" whose work was reliant upon performative gimmicks.
This alternative approach to the screen actor will be pursued through a chronological
investigation of Lorre's professional labour. Also necessary are an exploration of the features of
Lorre's persona and an understanding of the role played by other media in the construction of
this public image. My methodology will combine close textual analysis of Lorre's screen
performances, archival research into the terms of his employment and extensive analysis of
promotional discourses pertaining to the actor throughout his career.
My historiography of Lorre will consider the relationship between the actor and a number of his
employers to suggest that conditions of employment help to shape screen performance. Lorre's
status as a "face-maker" will also be challenged through a demonstration of the actor's use of
complex performative techniques within his film work. This thesis will demonstrate the limitations
of interpreting Lorre's career as Hollywood's mismanagement of a problematic performer.
Instead, his career can be considered indicative of industrial strategies that exist between acting
labour, promotional personas and employers. One consequence of my research is the reevaluation
of Lorre's persona as "extra-filmic" and his career as "transmedial". As such, this
thesis highlights how the significant labour of a screen performer can potentially become
superseded by the personas used by employers to promote actors away from the cinema
screen
"Have you really read Job? Read him, read him again and again" : Kierkegaard, Vischer, and Barth on the book of Job
No full textThis thesis explores the reception history of the book of Job, particularly in Søren
Kierkegaard’s Three Upbuilding Discourses and Repetition, Wilhelm Vischer’s “Hiob, ein
Zeuge Jesu Christi,” and Karl Barth’s Church Dogmatics. It examines the hermeneutical
presuppositions of these three scholars and how the scholars themselves fit into the history
of interpretation, showing that they use a post-critical allegorical interpretation in order to
explore the freedom of God and humanity.
Chapter one offers a defense of using reception history in biblical studies. By
walking through Mikhail Bakhtin’s theories on great time and the chronotope, it argues that
great texts continue to live and grow even after their completion and canonization. During
this “afterlife,” their meaning expands as more readers participate in their interpretations.
Chapter two examines the afterlife of the book of Job in the hands of Christian exegetes,
focusing on allegory and freedom in the interpretations by Gregory the Great, Thomas
Aquinas, Martin Luther, John Calvin, and Immanuel Kant. Chapter three looks at the
unusual and rich interpretations of Job by Kierkegaard—the autonymous upbuilding
discourse on Job’s response to his suffering in the prologue and the novella Repetition as an
interpretation of the dialogue between Job and his friends. Chapter four examines the
interpretation of the book of Job in Vischer’s mini-commentary. Vischer sees the character
of Job as one whose devotion to God goes beyond the laws that God purveys and the
doctrine that seeks to explain God. Referring specifically to the works of Kierkegaard and
Vischer, Karl Barth’s work on Job—the focus of chapter five—sees the book of Job as
illustrative of Jesus Christ’s relationship to God and humanity. All three scholars
incorporated allegory while ruminating on the freedom of God in the book of Job. The final
chapter evaluates their interpretations while addressing their similarities and differences
Tagging of Biomedical Articles on CiteULike: A Comparison of User, Author and Professional Indexing
Full text linkThis paper examines the context of online indexing from the viewpoint of three different groups: users, authors, and professional indexers. User tags, author keywords and descriptors were collected from academic journal articles, which were both indexed in Pubmed and tagged on CiteULike, and analysed. Descriptive statistics, informetric measures, and thesaural term comparison shows that there are important differences in the use of keywords between the three groups in addition to similarities which can be used to enhance support for search and browse. While tags and author keywords were found that matched descriptors exactly, other terms which did not match but provided important expansion to the indexing lexicon were found. These additional terms could be used to enhance support for searching and browsing in article databases as well as to provide invaluable data for entry vocabulary and emergent terminology for regular updates to indexing systems. Additionally, the study suggests that tags support organisation by association to task, projects and subject while making important connections to traditional systems which classify into subject categories
Being in encounter : toward a post-critical theology of knowledge of God for persons with intellectual disabilities : with special reference to Karl Barth's 'Church dogmatics' III:2
No full textThis study is an exercise in understanding both doctrinally and pastorally the nature of
knowledge of God for persons with intellectual disabilities. Its central question is:
“How might one know the Word of God without words?” At present, no extended
theological systematical consideration has taken place of this question, and confusion
arguably exists in the church and wider disability circles as to if/how persons with
high support needs, such as intellectual disability, should be afforded pastoral care.
This study addresses this need in dialogue with Karl Barth’s theological insights, and
by developing an account of knowledge of God for persons with intellectual
disabilities that is at once theologically informed and pastorally effective.
In the last thirty years theological reflection considered in light of the situation of
disability has seen tremendous growth and change, as the discipline has budded and
blossomed. In particular, theologians of disability have reflected on the significance of
disability in relation to the Christian doctrines of creation, anthropology, Christology,
the imago Dei, ecclesiology and eschatology, amongst others, with rich and varied
results. Similarly, this project suggests that consideration of the doctrine of revelation
and the discipline of pastoral care in light of the situation of intellectual disability will
yield unique and valuable outcomes for the disability community, but also for the
wider church. Karl Barth will be the primary dialogue partner in these preparatory,
theological stages. His thought regarding the incarnation of the Word in various forms,
perhaps surprisingly, opens new avenues for our reflection. By engaging Barth’s
theological anthropology as well as his theology of co-humanity of being with others
in encounter, this project aims to demonstrate that knowledge of God is possible for all
persons of all abilities
The Gospel of Thomas and the earliest texts of the synoptic gospels
No full textResearch on the Gospel of Thomas in the last quarter of a
century has made it clear that the origins of this apocryphal gospel
cannot
be
satisfactorily explained from a single point of view. The
author thus suggests that Thomas
be
understood as a growing collection
of sayings which originated in various places and languages, with some
logia being added to the collection after its inception. While this
suggestion is by no means new, there have been few extensive attempts
to study Thomas from such a presupposition.
Due to the need for a control group, only the logia which have
rather close parallels to the Synoptic gospels are investigated. Verbal and textual affinities are noted between these logia and the earliest texts of the Gospels (the Coptic versions, the Diatessaron, the
Old Syriac version, and other early versions and Christian writings).
Various degrees of probable contact between each logion and these
texts are assigned.
The results of this study give some idea as to the place of
origin, the original language, and the approximate date at which certain logia were added to the collection. Those sayings which show a
closer affinity to the Diatessaron, the Old Syriac version, or other
Syrian writings may
be
considered as having been added to the sayings
collection as it circulated in its earliest form, possibly in a Semitic language. Other logia which show no signs of awareness of a
Syrian reading, but which are similar to variants found in the Coptic
versions or other Egyptian texts, may well have originated in Egypt
and been added to the collection at a later stage. These results,
however, must await verification by those who might approach Thomas
from related, but different, perspectives
Ungleichheitsstrukturen versus Vielfalt der Lebensführungen: warum die Ungleichheitsforschung die Differenzierungstheorie konsultieren sollte
Full text link"Der folgende Text bezieht sich auf die Veranstaltung 'Author Meets Critic', in der das Buch: Thomas Schwinn (Hrsg.), Differenzierung und soziale Ungleichheit. Die zwei Soziologien und ihre Verknüpfung, Frankfurt a.M. 2004 (2. Auflage 2004), diskutiert wurde. An der gut besuchten Veranstaltung nahmen neben dem Herausgeber Reinhard Kreckel, Hans-Peter Müller, Uwe Schimank und Markus Schroer teil. Thema des Buches wie der Diskussion war die Frage, wie die beiden makrosozialen Theorietraditionen der Soziologie, funktionale Differenzierung und soziale Ungleichheit, verknüpft werden können. Insbesondere stand die Frage im Mittelpunkt, welchen Erkenntnisgewinn soziale Ungleichheitsanalysen erwarten dürfen, wenn sie den Kontakt zur Differenzierungstheorie suchen. Die Kritiker klagten dabei eine genauere Klärung des Zusammenhangs der beiden Strukturdimensionen ein. Strittig blieb, ob es eine beide Aspekte integrierende Theorie geben könne oder ob man sich mit problembezogenen Verknüpfungen begnügen müsse. Der folgende Text greift diese Debatte auf und versucht, einige Antworten auf die aufgeworfenen Fragen zu geben." (Textauszug
Modern soteriology and the concept of salvation in existentialist theology
Full text linkThis thesis analyses the conditions for a concept of soteriology in modem secular society. And it examines the concept of salvation underlying 20th century existentialist theology in order to see whether it complies with these conditions. The first chapter analyses philosophical concepts of salvation from Kant to Heidegger. It is shown that since Hegel salvation is mainly understood in terms of "alienation" and "overcoming of alienation" and that through the philosophical development of the 19th century two main conditions of modern soteriology have been derived from this understanding: a) the presupposition of an epistemological, existential and ontological unity of reality and b) the presupposition that individual, existential experience of salvation must basically be possible. The second and main chapter tries to bring out the concept of salvation inherent in the theologies of Paul Tillich and Karl Rahner. The third and concluding chapter shows how far Tillich's and Rahner's surprisingly similar concept of salvation complies with the conditions worked out in the first chapter. The author argues that both theologies fulfil the postulate of epistemological and ontological unity of reality by substituting traditional theistic doctrines of God by an ontological understanding of God as Being itself. However, the second condition is not met: in order to maintain the claim of the unity of reality, both theologies presuppose an existentialist understanding of human existence: the existential status quo, and with it alienation, is necessarily posited as absolute. Thus the possibility of experiencing the overcoming of this existential state is a priori excluded. The conclusion is that existentialist theology does not convey an understanding of salvation which complies with the conditions of secular modernity
Other endings of Mark as responses to Mark : an ideological-critical investigation into the longer and the shorter ending of Mark's Gospel
Full text linkThe Longer Ending and the Shorter Ending of Mark's Gospel are the ancient Markan readers' responses to Mark's Gospel. This leads us to the question of how the authors of these endings read their Mark's Gospel. These endings reflect the ideologies of their authors. The ideologies are related to the interests of the author or the authorial community (ideological primary group), and are embedded within the text. The Longer and the Shorter Ending were produced within a social context where the matter of apostolic authoritative leadership was a sensitive issue. A potential conflict is found in many contemporary texts from the NT and the extra- canonical texts, especially with regard to the apostolic authority of Mary Magdalene and Peter. Their struggles for apostolic authority are often found in the post-Easter narrative context. The assumed ideological primary community of the Longer Ending is Pro- Magdalene. It acknowledged Mary Magdalene as its authoritative leader who enjoyed apostolic authority especially over Peter. This community was interested in mission, and re-authenticated the mission of the Eleven. The LE provides a certain guideline for the qualification of leadership in the LE's community, which is the visual experience of the resurrected Jesus. The assumed ideological primary community of the Shorter Ending is Pro- Petrine. It was in favour of Peter, and suggested him as holding authoritative apostolic authority. This community wanted to clarify the resurrection of Jesus, and emended the empty tomb narrative of Mark's Gospel. It was also interested in mission, and the authority of disciples, especially that of Peter, in their performing mission tasks is highlighted in the Shorter Ending
- …
