An analysis of the structural use of music, song and dance in certain novels by West African writers in relation to concepts of time
- Authors: Baxter, Marion
- Date: 1988
- Subjects: Music and literature
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2174 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1001825
- Description: The topic of this thesis is time in the West African novel in English and French, and the key approach is that West African time is readily grasped through a study of West African music. Though Western time is not exclusively or only linear, mechanical and exploitative, and African time not exclusively cyclic, synchronic and experiential, yet there is a characteristically African view of time and preferred modes of its employment in West African fiction. The novelists considered here wrote in European languages, yet each was a member of a specific cultural group and concerned to portray the aesthetics of his inheritance, an important aspect of which is the predominance of repetitive formulae, both in music and in oral literature. The Introduction offers an historical survey of some of the main notions of time that have been manifest in the West, and compares them with notions of African time. Chapter One examines the structural use of rhythm and repetition in the novels of Camara Laye. Chapter Two discusses the griot and other traditions of oral literature in the novels of Ayi Kwei Armah and Yambo Ouologuem, novels which are concerned with the griot 's continuing role in the creation and dissemination of historical perspective. Chapter Three analyses Chinua Achebe 's portrayal of the values of pre-colonial life in Igbo society where the role of music is to limit behaviour through the structures of ritual which thus create static/cyclic time. Chapter Four describes the syncretic art-form, 'highlife', as used by novelists such as Wole Soyinka, which, because it is transitory and always changing, underscores the ironies of modern city life. The thesis concludes that the authors discussed above are aware that music, because it is predominantly social in Africa, is a powerful medium for achieving a healing synthesis between the traditional past when communalistic values were binding, and the urban-orientated present with its insistence on individuation and material enrichment.
- Full Text:
- Authors: Baxter, Marion
- Date: 1988
- Subjects: Music and literature
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2174 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1001825
- Description: The topic of this thesis is time in the West African novel in English and French, and the key approach is that West African time is readily grasped through a study of West African music. Though Western time is not exclusively or only linear, mechanical and exploitative, and African time not exclusively cyclic, synchronic and experiential, yet there is a characteristically African view of time and preferred modes of its employment in West African fiction. The novelists considered here wrote in European languages, yet each was a member of a specific cultural group and concerned to portray the aesthetics of his inheritance, an important aspect of which is the predominance of repetitive formulae, both in music and in oral literature. The Introduction offers an historical survey of some of the main notions of time that have been manifest in the West, and compares them with notions of African time. Chapter One examines the structural use of rhythm and repetition in the novels of Camara Laye. Chapter Two discusses the griot and other traditions of oral literature in the novels of Ayi Kwei Armah and Yambo Ouologuem, novels which are concerned with the griot 's continuing role in the creation and dissemination of historical perspective. Chapter Three analyses Chinua Achebe 's portrayal of the values of pre-colonial life in Igbo society where the role of music is to limit behaviour through the structures of ritual which thus create static/cyclic time. Chapter Four describes the syncretic art-form, 'highlife', as used by novelists such as Wole Soyinka, which, because it is transitory and always changing, underscores the ironies of modern city life. The thesis concludes that the authors discussed above are aware that music, because it is predominantly social in Africa, is a powerful medium for achieving a healing synthesis between the traditional past when communalistic values were binding, and the urban-orientated present with its insistence on individuation and material enrichment.
- Full Text:
An existential-phenomenological exploration of interracial love relationships in South Africa
- Authors: Ross, Christopher James
- Date: 1988
- Subjects: Interpersonal relations -- South Africa , South Africa -- Race relations
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2900 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002064
- Description: The aim of the study was to explicate the experience of interracial love relationships between Blacks and Whites in South Africa. As a point of departure, a basic question was established which would elicit the actual experience of this phenomenon. The researcher conducted twelve interviews and chose the six psychologically richest accounts. The researcher then analysed in detail (using the phenomenological method) the resulting protocols comprising the interviews. The researcher then explicated the experience and discovered that interracial love was a historical process of going through a relationship over time. The subjects experienced a particular historical background in the face of which they felt unfulfilled which brought about the potential to search for authenticity in a particular way. The subjects were placed in a situation where interracial love became a possibility. The subjects saw the other as human and fell in love. A new horizon emerged and a learning experience, about themselves and the world, occurred. The element of conflict was always present which was exacerbated by the South African Apartheid system. Subjects experienced fulfillment and disappointment depending on whether or not their historical demand was met. This structure of the experience was dialogued with the writings of existential-phenomenological philosophers and psychologists and also with that of previous research in the context of discussing particular areas of psychological significance such as historical background and Apartheid, racism, alienation, motives for interracial love, love and the universality of human nature and interracial love as a learning experience.
- Full Text:
- Authors: Ross, Christopher James
- Date: 1988
- Subjects: Interpersonal relations -- South Africa , South Africa -- Race relations
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2900 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002064
- Description: The aim of the study was to explicate the experience of interracial love relationships between Blacks and Whites in South Africa. As a point of departure, a basic question was established which would elicit the actual experience of this phenomenon. The researcher conducted twelve interviews and chose the six psychologically richest accounts. The researcher then analysed in detail (using the phenomenological method) the resulting protocols comprising the interviews. The researcher then explicated the experience and discovered that interracial love was a historical process of going through a relationship over time. The subjects experienced a particular historical background in the face of which they felt unfulfilled which brought about the potential to search for authenticity in a particular way. The subjects were placed in a situation where interracial love became a possibility. The subjects saw the other as human and fell in love. A new horizon emerged and a learning experience, about themselves and the world, occurred. The element of conflict was always present which was exacerbated by the South African Apartheid system. Subjects experienced fulfillment and disappointment depending on whether or not their historical demand was met. This structure of the experience was dialogued with the writings of existential-phenomenological philosophers and psychologists and also with that of previous research in the context of discussing particular areas of psychological significance such as historical background and Apartheid, racism, alienation, motives for interracial love, love and the universality of human nature and interracial love as a learning experience.
- Full Text:
Defined by wine : a study of sacramentalism in George Herbertʾs poetry
- Authors: Goddard, Kevin Graham
- Date: 1988
- Subjects: Herbert, George, 1593-1633 -- Criticism and interpretation , Christian poetry, English -- History and criticism
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2177 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1001828
- Description: This dissertation proposes that George Herbertʾs poetry may profitably be understood as a sacramental means by which the divine is made present in temporal existence. In order to support this claim, the relation between sacramental symbolism and literary symbolism, particularly Herbertʾs, is examined from a number of perspectives. The symbolic meanings suggested by Herbertʾs title (The Temple), and their relation to sacramentalism are considered in the opening chapter. This includes a consideration of some of the background to the analogical thinking prevalent in both the seventeenth-century and Herbert. It is followed in the second chapter by an examination of some of the modern theories about how literary symbolism may relate to sacramental symbolism, a discussion which is followed by a consideration of this dissertation's argument in relation to modern scholarship. The chapter ends with a reading of ʺThe Flowerʺ. The third chapter discusses the poet's attempt to imitate the divine by ʺcopyingʺ both Scripture and Nature, and this includes a consideration of the allegorical and hieroglyphic modes of thought prevalent in the poems. The concern with imitation encourages an examination of the poet's frequent invitation for God actually to assume the poet's role, and this is the subject of the fourth chapter. The argument suggests that the poet's attempt to ʺsacrificeʺ his own writing may be seen in his concern with corporate imagery and corporate (impersonal) structures. The five ʺAfflictionʺ poems are examined as examples of the first, while structures such as synecdoche and metonymy are examined as examples of the second. The final chapter considers aspects of narrative time in the poems, particularly the sense often evoked of the eternal being imminent in the present. This involves a consideration of both liturgical imagery, and what may be called liturgical structures as they can be seen to operate in the poems. Particular examples of the latter are the relation between the liturgical anamnesis and the poems, as well as certain narrative structures that may be called ʺachronisticʺ.
- Full Text:
- Authors: Goddard, Kevin Graham
- Date: 1988
- Subjects: Herbert, George, 1593-1633 -- Criticism and interpretation , Christian poetry, English -- History and criticism
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2177 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1001828
- Description: This dissertation proposes that George Herbertʾs poetry may profitably be understood as a sacramental means by which the divine is made present in temporal existence. In order to support this claim, the relation between sacramental symbolism and literary symbolism, particularly Herbertʾs, is examined from a number of perspectives. The symbolic meanings suggested by Herbertʾs title (The Temple), and their relation to sacramentalism are considered in the opening chapter. This includes a consideration of some of the background to the analogical thinking prevalent in both the seventeenth-century and Herbert. It is followed in the second chapter by an examination of some of the modern theories about how literary symbolism may relate to sacramental symbolism, a discussion which is followed by a consideration of this dissertation's argument in relation to modern scholarship. The chapter ends with a reading of ʺThe Flowerʺ. The third chapter discusses the poet's attempt to imitate the divine by ʺcopyingʺ both Scripture and Nature, and this includes a consideration of the allegorical and hieroglyphic modes of thought prevalent in the poems. The concern with imitation encourages an examination of the poet's frequent invitation for God actually to assume the poet's role, and this is the subject of the fourth chapter. The argument suggests that the poet's attempt to ʺsacrificeʺ his own writing may be seen in his concern with corporate imagery and corporate (impersonal) structures. The five ʺAfflictionʺ poems are examined as examples of the first, while structures such as synecdoche and metonymy are examined as examples of the second. The final chapter considers aspects of narrative time in the poems, particularly the sense often evoked of the eternal being imminent in the present. This involves a consideration of both liturgical imagery, and what may be called liturgical structures as they can be seen to operate in the poems. Particular examples of the latter are the relation between the liturgical anamnesis and the poems, as well as certain narrative structures that may be called ʺachronisticʺ.
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Lovedale 1930-1955 : the study of a missionary institution in its social, educational and political context
- White, Timothy Raymond Howard
- Authors: White, Timothy Raymond Howard
- Date: 1988
- Subjects: Lovedale Institution , History , South Africa , Education , African people
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2527 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1001856
- Description: Lovedale was founded by the Glasgow Missionary Society as an eduational centre for Africans. Education was to be adapted to the lives of the Africans which would be a departure from the English classical tradition. This meant that emphasis was placed on vocational training and that academic education focussed on the study of English rather than the Classics. But the importance of mother-tongue education was also stressed. The missionaries placed emphasis on village education, whereby the African would be taught skills and crafts that would be useful to him in life. Education, they argued, should also aim at character-training and at spreading the Christian message. They also wanted to see co-operation between the Church and the State in the education of the African. Vocational education was designed to create African artisans who would be able to compete with Whites; but it also aimed at emphasizing the importance of industry in building up character. The Lovedale Press illustrates vocational training in progress, dealing with the difficulties that arose when African printers came into competition with Whites. But the missionaries also used the Press to propagate the Christian message and to promote African literature. An ideological rift began to open up between the missions and the new Black political beliefs of the Second World War. This led to the Lovedale Riot which is considered in the broader framework of sociopolitical unrest within the country. After the 1948 Election an ideological rift also developed between the missions and the State. This study concludes by examining the introduction of the Bantu Education Act and the Lovedale response to this. It was felt that although Bantu Education threatened to undermine their educational endeavour, they should nevertheless cooperate with the system in order to save what they had built up.
- Full Text:
- Authors: White, Timothy Raymond Howard
- Date: 1988
- Subjects: Lovedale Institution , History , South Africa , Education , African people
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2527 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1001856
- Description: Lovedale was founded by the Glasgow Missionary Society as an eduational centre for Africans. Education was to be adapted to the lives of the Africans which would be a departure from the English classical tradition. This meant that emphasis was placed on vocational training and that academic education focussed on the study of English rather than the Classics. But the importance of mother-tongue education was also stressed. The missionaries placed emphasis on village education, whereby the African would be taught skills and crafts that would be useful to him in life. Education, they argued, should also aim at character-training and at spreading the Christian message. They also wanted to see co-operation between the Church and the State in the education of the African. Vocational education was designed to create African artisans who would be able to compete with Whites; but it also aimed at emphasizing the importance of industry in building up character. The Lovedale Press illustrates vocational training in progress, dealing with the difficulties that arose when African printers came into competition with Whites. But the missionaries also used the Press to propagate the Christian message and to promote African literature. An ideological rift began to open up between the missions and the new Black political beliefs of the Second World War. This led to the Lovedale Riot which is considered in the broader framework of sociopolitical unrest within the country. After the 1948 Election an ideological rift also developed between the missions and the State. This study concludes by examining the introduction of the Bantu Education Act and the Lovedale response to this. It was felt that although Bantu Education threatened to undermine their educational endeavour, they should nevertheless cooperate with the system in order to save what they had built up.
- Full Text:
Oor die kortkuns van John Miles
- Authors: De Beer, Marésa
- Date: 1988
- Subjects: Miles, John, 1938- -- Criticism and interpretation
- Language: Afrikaans
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:3569 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002092
- Description: This thesis involves intensive analyses of some of the short-short stories in John Miles's Liefs nie op straat nie, in order to reveal the narrative strategies employed in each. In other words, it is geared to "the rules that govern ... textual actualization and, consequently, those rules that govern the way literary discourse functions as communication" (Riffaterre 1983: 158). Subsequently, attention is given to the interrelationship among the texts, the way in which they act upon one another and interact with the title of the volume, in order to establish the function of such relations. The following texts are analysed in consecutive chapters: "Lucy", "Lappies, kan jy my hoor, Lappies?", "Voorgevoel", "Dom Nakkie, my Dom Nakkie" and "Wie het nog Dom Nakkie gesien?", "Hy staan by die deur en hy klop", "Gustav gaan speel", and "Liefs nie op straat nie". In a concluding chapter the implications of the title are discussed with reference to all the texts in the volume, including those not analysed individually. It is concluded that, on the one hand, the expectations raised by the title are ironicized because the title is never "completed" explicitly, and because that which, by implication, should not be seen in public ("op straat"), is specifically situated in the street and scrutinized in close-up. But on the other hand the title also evokes a peculiar mentality present in all the texts, either in the narrators, or in the characters, or in both. The discussion of "Lucy" is focussed mainly on the contrast and interaction between the world of the child and that of the adult and on the way in which this interaction is actualized within the text through the contrast in the experience of time, the use of "mémoire involontaire", "durée" and the contrasts between (and overlapping of) narrative perspective and focalization. In respect of "Lappies, kan jy my hoor, Lappies?" special attention is paid to similarities and contrasts between this text and the traditional suspense story, notably the way in which conventional techniques are employed to create suspense, as well as to generate an entire subtext which eventually "relocates" the text on the niveau of the murderer's psychological dilemma. In discussing "Voorgevoel" emphasis is not placed primarily on what is conveyed by the narrator, but on the way in which his intentions are subverted both by the window pane through which he is looking and by the narration as such. In this way he is foregrounded and revealed as narrator, just as the text is foregrounded and revealed as literature, with the emphasis, in both cases, not only on their defence mechanisms but also on their impotence. "Dom Nakkie, my Dom Nakkie" and "Wie het nog Dom Nakkie gesien?" are grouped together in one chapter in order to illuminate the interaction between the two narratives in the first text, as well as the interaction between the two texts. Ultimately, they may be seen as three narratives juxtaposed through irony and relativism. The "triumph" of the "preferably not in public" mentality, both in the text and in society, is also illustrated by the interaction between the three narratives. In chapter, 5, in which "Hy staan by die deur en hy klop" is discussed, attention is focussed on the ironic function of the Biblical references, the contrast between Jan and the rest of society, and the way in which the "climax" is located within the Iserian "blank" in the text, so that the entire process of decoding is based on a filling in of that "blank" and its implications. "Gustav gaan speel" is based loosely on Barthes's lexia model, in order to determine the signifying process in the text, and also to demonstrate the way in which the text presupposes rereading. In the discussion of the title text it is revealed how the text is centered in the basic dichotomy between the narrator-as-writer and the journalist, and the way in which this polarity is relativized by the text as such. The text is demonstrated to be the credo of the volume as a whole as well as of the fiction of the Seventies in Afrikaans.
- Full Text:
- Authors: De Beer, Marésa
- Date: 1988
- Subjects: Miles, John, 1938- -- Criticism and interpretation
- Language: Afrikaans
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:3569 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002092
- Description: This thesis involves intensive analyses of some of the short-short stories in John Miles's Liefs nie op straat nie, in order to reveal the narrative strategies employed in each. In other words, it is geared to "the rules that govern ... textual actualization and, consequently, those rules that govern the way literary discourse functions as communication" (Riffaterre 1983: 158). Subsequently, attention is given to the interrelationship among the texts, the way in which they act upon one another and interact with the title of the volume, in order to establish the function of such relations. The following texts are analysed in consecutive chapters: "Lucy", "Lappies, kan jy my hoor, Lappies?", "Voorgevoel", "Dom Nakkie, my Dom Nakkie" and "Wie het nog Dom Nakkie gesien?", "Hy staan by die deur en hy klop", "Gustav gaan speel", and "Liefs nie op straat nie". In a concluding chapter the implications of the title are discussed with reference to all the texts in the volume, including those not analysed individually. It is concluded that, on the one hand, the expectations raised by the title are ironicized because the title is never "completed" explicitly, and because that which, by implication, should not be seen in public ("op straat"), is specifically situated in the street and scrutinized in close-up. But on the other hand the title also evokes a peculiar mentality present in all the texts, either in the narrators, or in the characters, or in both. The discussion of "Lucy" is focussed mainly on the contrast and interaction between the world of the child and that of the adult and on the way in which this interaction is actualized within the text through the contrast in the experience of time, the use of "mémoire involontaire", "durée" and the contrasts between (and overlapping of) narrative perspective and focalization. In respect of "Lappies, kan jy my hoor, Lappies?" special attention is paid to similarities and contrasts between this text and the traditional suspense story, notably the way in which conventional techniques are employed to create suspense, as well as to generate an entire subtext which eventually "relocates" the text on the niveau of the murderer's psychological dilemma. In discussing "Voorgevoel" emphasis is not placed primarily on what is conveyed by the narrator, but on the way in which his intentions are subverted both by the window pane through which he is looking and by the narration as such. In this way he is foregrounded and revealed as narrator, just as the text is foregrounded and revealed as literature, with the emphasis, in both cases, not only on their defence mechanisms but also on their impotence. "Dom Nakkie, my Dom Nakkie" and "Wie het nog Dom Nakkie gesien?" are grouped together in one chapter in order to illuminate the interaction between the two narratives in the first text, as well as the interaction between the two texts. Ultimately, they may be seen as three narratives juxtaposed through irony and relativism. The "triumph" of the "preferably not in public" mentality, both in the text and in society, is also illustrated by the interaction between the three narratives. In chapter, 5, in which "Hy staan by die deur en hy klop" is discussed, attention is focussed on the ironic function of the Biblical references, the contrast between Jan and the rest of society, and the way in which the "climax" is located within the Iserian "blank" in the text, so that the entire process of decoding is based on a filling in of that "blank" and its implications. "Gustav gaan speel" is based loosely on Barthes's lexia model, in order to determine the signifying process in the text, and also to demonstrate the way in which the text presupposes rereading. In the discussion of the title text it is revealed how the text is centered in the basic dichotomy between the narrator-as-writer and the journalist, and the way in which this polarity is relativized by the text as such. The text is demonstrated to be the credo of the volume as a whole as well as of the fiction of the Seventies in Afrikaans.
- Full Text:
Perceptions of, and attitudes towards, varieties of English in the Cape Peninsula, with particular reference to the ʾcoloured communityʾ
- Authors: Wood, Tahir Muhammed
- Date: 1988
- Subjects: English language -- South Africa -- Cape of Good Hope , English language -- Variation , Sociolinguistics -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2336 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002018
- Description: This study set out to analyse the concept of the ʾcoloured communityʾ and to describe the linguistic phenomena associated with it. It was found that the community was characterized by division and an overt rejection of 'coloured' identity. A satisfactory definition of the community could only be arrived at by exploring social psychological and anthropological concepts, particularly that of the social network, and a covert identification was postulated. This in turn was used to explain the linguistic phenomena which were found to be associated with the community. The latter included a vernacular dialect consisting of non-standard Afrikaans blended with English, as well as a stratification of particular items in the English spoken by community members . This stratification was analysed in terms of the social distribution of the items, enabling comparisons to be made with the English spoken by ʾwhitesʾ. A fieldwork study was embarked on with the intention of discovering the nature of the perceptions of, and attitudes towards, the idiolects of certain speakers. These idiolects were considered to be typical and representative of the forms of English normally encountered in the Cape Peninsula, and were described in terms of the co-occurrences of linguistic items which they contained. Tape recordings of the speech of this group of speakers were presented in a series of controlled experiments to subjects from various class and community backgrounds who were required to respond by completing questionnaires. It was found that those lects which contained items and co-occurrences of items peculiar to 'coloured' speakers were associated with lower status than those containing items and co-occurrences of items peculiar to 'white' speakers. Attitudes towards speakers were found to be more complex and depended upon the styles and paralanguage behaviours of the speakers, as well as accent, and also the psychological dispositions of the subjects who participated
- Full Text:
- Authors: Wood, Tahir Muhammed
- Date: 1988
- Subjects: English language -- South Africa -- Cape of Good Hope , English language -- Variation , Sociolinguistics -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2336 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002018
- Description: This study set out to analyse the concept of the ʾcoloured communityʾ and to describe the linguistic phenomena associated with it. It was found that the community was characterized by division and an overt rejection of 'coloured' identity. A satisfactory definition of the community could only be arrived at by exploring social psychological and anthropological concepts, particularly that of the social network, and a covert identification was postulated. This in turn was used to explain the linguistic phenomena which were found to be associated with the community. The latter included a vernacular dialect consisting of non-standard Afrikaans blended with English, as well as a stratification of particular items in the English spoken by community members . This stratification was analysed in terms of the social distribution of the items, enabling comparisons to be made with the English spoken by ʾwhitesʾ. A fieldwork study was embarked on with the intention of discovering the nature of the perceptions of, and attitudes towards, the idiolects of certain speakers. These idiolects were considered to be typical and representative of the forms of English normally encountered in the Cape Peninsula, and were described in terms of the co-occurrences of linguistic items which they contained. Tape recordings of the speech of this group of speakers were presented in a series of controlled experiments to subjects from various class and community backgrounds who were required to respond by completing questionnaires. It was found that those lects which contained items and co-occurrences of items peculiar to 'coloured' speakers were associated with lower status than those containing items and co-occurrences of items peculiar to 'white' speakers. Attitudes towards speakers were found to be more complex and depended upon the styles and paralanguage behaviours of the speakers, as well as accent, and also the psychological dispositions of the subjects who participated
- Full Text:
The doctrine of heaven in the writings of St. John of Damascus and earlier Greek tradition
- Authors: Parrish, Christopher John
- Date: 1988
- Subjects: John, of Damascus, Saint
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:1220 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1001550
- Description: This thesis investigates the subject of Heaven or Paradise in the De Fide Orthodoxa of St. John of Damascus (c.675 - c.749) , a Greek Father and theologian who gave the Church a definitive heritage of the Greek Fathers' teaching. After a preliminary consideration of the meanings of "Heaven" and Paradise as a state or a place, a substantial part of this thesis is then given to a detailed treatment of the Greek Fathers' teaching on the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and the tree of life in Paradise. The questions of the indispensability of the tree of life to the final bliss of the saints, and the doubtful place of the tree of knowledge also receive attention. The meaning of the trees for St. John of Damascus is expounded in order to show his use of the ideas of Greek Fathers prior to him, for example, Gregory Naziazenus and Maximus the Confessor. After this, the questions of entry into Paradise and the Greek teaching of the intermediate state of the departed are raised. The descent of Christ to Hades precedes discussion of whether St. John of Damascus taught a doctrine of Purgatory or not. The practice of prayer for the departed is examined with respect to its effect on the intermediate state of the faithful departed. Lastly, this thesis explores the necessity of the resurrection for the final bliss of the faithful, and establishes the relevance of this teaching for modern thought on the preservation of integral personality. In conclusion, the writer suggests that St. John of Damascus bequeathed to the Church rich insights into the Greek Fathers' doctrine of Heaven.
- Full Text:
- Authors: Parrish, Christopher John
- Date: 1988
- Subjects: John, of Damascus, Saint
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:1220 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1001550
- Description: This thesis investigates the subject of Heaven or Paradise in the De Fide Orthodoxa of St. John of Damascus (c.675 - c.749) , a Greek Father and theologian who gave the Church a definitive heritage of the Greek Fathers' teaching. After a preliminary consideration of the meanings of "Heaven" and Paradise as a state or a place, a substantial part of this thesis is then given to a detailed treatment of the Greek Fathers' teaching on the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and the tree of life in Paradise. The questions of the indispensability of the tree of life to the final bliss of the saints, and the doubtful place of the tree of knowledge also receive attention. The meaning of the trees for St. John of Damascus is expounded in order to show his use of the ideas of Greek Fathers prior to him, for example, Gregory Naziazenus and Maximus the Confessor. After this, the questions of entry into Paradise and the Greek teaching of the intermediate state of the departed are raised. The descent of Christ to Hades precedes discussion of whether St. John of Damascus taught a doctrine of Purgatory or not. The practice of prayer for the departed is examined with respect to its effect on the intermediate state of the faithful departed. Lastly, this thesis explores the necessity of the resurrection for the final bliss of the faithful, and establishes the relevance of this teaching for modern thought on the preservation of integral personality. In conclusion, the writer suggests that St. John of Damascus bequeathed to the Church rich insights into the Greek Fathers' doctrine of Heaven.
- Full Text:
The functions of narrative : a study of recent novelistic nonfiction
- Authors: Carlean, Kevin John
- Date: 1988
- Subjects: Reportage literature -- History and criticism , Nonfiction novel
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2176 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1001827
- Description: Since Truman Capote's In Cold Blood: A True Account of a Multiple Murder and its Consequences was published in 1965, there have been many attempts to define and explain the phenomenon of the "non-fiction novel" as a unified narrative genre. Some of these attempts have been highly theoretical and scholarly, but most have been rather loose definitions referring to an extremely wide range of diverse factual narratives. Over the years, so many different works have been called "non-fiction novels" that it now seems as if the notion of such a unified genre is questionable. Surely it is not generically useful to say that such functionally distinct works as Oscar Lewis's La Vida: A Puerto Rican Family in the Culture of Poverty (1967) and Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart ot the American Dream (1971) belong in the same narrative category. The purpose of this study is to show that many of the works routinely referred to as "non-fiction novels" perform fundamentally different narrative functions and do not belong together in a unified genre. Roman Jakobson's model of communication and his notion of the "dominant function" are used to identify three functional categories into which the narratives discussed in the study logically fall: first, there are predominantly sociological works in which the referential function is the most important element of the communication; second, there are predominantly journalistic works in which the opinions of the writer or emotive function constitute the central narrative concern; and thirdly, we have works performing a dominant novelistic or aesthetic function in the sense that the secondary meanings and themes implied are the most important elements communicated. The thesis follows the following structure. In the introductory chapter, a critique of some of the major generic theories of the "non-fiction novel" as unified genre is offered. The purpose here is not to caricature what are sometimes extremely sophisticated studies. (Indeed, in my own analysis of texts, I am often indebted to the critical insights of the scholars whose theories I question in the introduction.) My purpose is merely to show that the corpus of works each writer refers to can be divided more logically between different dominant narrative functions. The introduction ends with a more detailed explanation of the adaptation of Jakobson's notion of "the dominant" and how it relates to the functional categories identified. Chapter 2 offers analyses of a group of documentary narratives that perform a dominant sociological function but have often been referred to as "non-fiction novels." The chapter starts with an analysis of James Agee's Let Us Now Praise Famous Men (1941), a text widely regarded as the first real American example of the "genre." This is followed by an examination of the anthropological works of Oscar Lewis: Five Families: Mexican Case Studles in the Culture of Poverty (1959), The Children of Sanchez: Autobiography of a Mexican Family (1964), Pedro Martinez: A Mexican Peasant and his Family (1964) and La Vida: A Puerto Rican Family in the Culture of Poverty. I conclude the chapter with an analysis of the recent sociological works of Studs Terkel: Division Street: America (1968), Hard Times: An oral History of the Great Depression (1970) and Working: People talk about what they do all day and how they feel about what they do (1974). In Chapter 3, the notion of subjective participation journalism is explained. This is followed by an analysis of three of the most famous and creative of the works that fall into this functional category: Hunter S. Thompson's Hell's Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of an Outlaw Motorcycle Gang (1966), Michael Herr's Vietnam classic, Dispatches (1977), and Norman Mailer's account of a famous protest march, The Armies of the Night: History as a Novel, The Novel as History (1968). Chapter 4 offers a discussion of three works that perform a dominant novelistic function in the realistic tradition of Dostoevski's Crime and Punishment. All three are based on actual murder cases, but the facts of the stories are subordinated to the novelistic themes the author wishes to abstract. They are: Meyer Levin's Compulsion (1957), Mailer's The Executioner's Song (1979) and Capote's In Cold Blood. From this outline, it may appear as if the study is loaded in favour of the sociological works discussed in Chapter 2. This is intentional because, although many critics have referred to them as "non-fiction novels", very little systematic and detailed analysis of these works as a corpus has been forthcoming. This long chapter is an attempt to redress the balance.
- Full Text:
- Authors: Carlean, Kevin John
- Date: 1988
- Subjects: Reportage literature -- History and criticism , Nonfiction novel
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2176 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1001827
- Description: Since Truman Capote's In Cold Blood: A True Account of a Multiple Murder and its Consequences was published in 1965, there have been many attempts to define and explain the phenomenon of the "non-fiction novel" as a unified narrative genre. Some of these attempts have been highly theoretical and scholarly, but most have been rather loose definitions referring to an extremely wide range of diverse factual narratives. Over the years, so many different works have been called "non-fiction novels" that it now seems as if the notion of such a unified genre is questionable. Surely it is not generically useful to say that such functionally distinct works as Oscar Lewis's La Vida: A Puerto Rican Family in the Culture of Poverty (1967) and Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart ot the American Dream (1971) belong in the same narrative category. The purpose of this study is to show that many of the works routinely referred to as "non-fiction novels" perform fundamentally different narrative functions and do not belong together in a unified genre. Roman Jakobson's model of communication and his notion of the "dominant function" are used to identify three functional categories into which the narratives discussed in the study logically fall: first, there are predominantly sociological works in which the referential function is the most important element of the communication; second, there are predominantly journalistic works in which the opinions of the writer or emotive function constitute the central narrative concern; and thirdly, we have works performing a dominant novelistic or aesthetic function in the sense that the secondary meanings and themes implied are the most important elements communicated. The thesis follows the following structure. In the introductory chapter, a critique of some of the major generic theories of the "non-fiction novel" as unified genre is offered. The purpose here is not to caricature what are sometimes extremely sophisticated studies. (Indeed, in my own analysis of texts, I am often indebted to the critical insights of the scholars whose theories I question in the introduction.) My purpose is merely to show that the corpus of works each writer refers to can be divided more logically between different dominant narrative functions. The introduction ends with a more detailed explanation of the adaptation of Jakobson's notion of "the dominant" and how it relates to the functional categories identified. Chapter 2 offers analyses of a group of documentary narratives that perform a dominant sociological function but have often been referred to as "non-fiction novels." The chapter starts with an analysis of James Agee's Let Us Now Praise Famous Men (1941), a text widely regarded as the first real American example of the "genre." This is followed by an examination of the anthropological works of Oscar Lewis: Five Families: Mexican Case Studles in the Culture of Poverty (1959), The Children of Sanchez: Autobiography of a Mexican Family (1964), Pedro Martinez: A Mexican Peasant and his Family (1964) and La Vida: A Puerto Rican Family in the Culture of Poverty. I conclude the chapter with an analysis of the recent sociological works of Studs Terkel: Division Street: America (1968), Hard Times: An oral History of the Great Depression (1970) and Working: People talk about what they do all day and how they feel about what they do (1974). In Chapter 3, the notion of subjective participation journalism is explained. This is followed by an analysis of three of the most famous and creative of the works that fall into this functional category: Hunter S. Thompson's Hell's Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of an Outlaw Motorcycle Gang (1966), Michael Herr's Vietnam classic, Dispatches (1977), and Norman Mailer's account of a famous protest march, The Armies of the Night: History as a Novel, The Novel as History (1968). Chapter 4 offers a discussion of three works that perform a dominant novelistic function in the realistic tradition of Dostoevski's Crime and Punishment. All three are based on actual murder cases, but the facts of the stories are subordinated to the novelistic themes the author wishes to abstract. They are: Meyer Levin's Compulsion (1957), Mailer's The Executioner's Song (1979) and Capote's In Cold Blood. From this outline, it may appear as if the study is loaded in favour of the sociological works discussed in Chapter 2. This is intentional because, although many critics have referred to them as "non-fiction novels", very little systematic and detailed analysis of these works as a corpus has been forthcoming. This long chapter is an attempt to redress the balance.
- Full Text:
The political department and the retraction of paramountcy in India 1935-1947
- Authors: Moëd, Madeleine
- Date: 1988
- Subjects: India , India -- Politics and government -- 1919-1947
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2526 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1001855
- Description: The Political Department and the Indian Political Service stand accused of sins of omission and commission. The evidence suggests that they were badly hampered by ill-conceived training prodecures, a lack of manpower and above all the incoherent policy of the British government towards the Indian states. The failure of the 1935 Federation Act which formally established the Political Department was not due to princely intransigence inspired by political officers. Between 1935 and 1947 the Political Department embarked on a vigorous programme of combining the resources of the smaller states to strengthen them as viable partners in a new India. Their lack of success in effecting the federation of the states with India in 1947 was not a result of the disinclination of political officers to implement reform as much as their inability to do so. Many princes were also unwilling to sacrifice a measure of sovereignty for efficient government and paramountcy precluded forcing internal reform on the princes. Paramountcy was never clearly defined and thus its retraction in 1947 took place amidst confusion and misunderstanding on all sides. The Indian Political Service was always treated as secondary to the Indian Civil Service and the states to British India. Britain's emphasis on constitutional change in British India, reflected in the Cripps Mission of 1942, the Cabinet Mission of 1946 and the rush towards independence in 1947 resulted in her inattention to the Political Department and the princes which culminated in the abandonment of both in 1947.
- Full Text:
- Authors: Moëd, Madeleine
- Date: 1988
- Subjects: India , India -- Politics and government -- 1919-1947
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2526 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1001855
- Description: The Political Department and the Indian Political Service stand accused of sins of omission and commission. The evidence suggests that they were badly hampered by ill-conceived training prodecures, a lack of manpower and above all the incoherent policy of the British government towards the Indian states. The failure of the 1935 Federation Act which formally established the Political Department was not due to princely intransigence inspired by political officers. Between 1935 and 1947 the Political Department embarked on a vigorous programme of combining the resources of the smaller states to strengthen them as viable partners in a new India. Their lack of success in effecting the federation of the states with India in 1947 was not a result of the disinclination of political officers to implement reform as much as their inability to do so. Many princes were also unwilling to sacrifice a measure of sovereignty for efficient government and paramountcy precluded forcing internal reform on the princes. Paramountcy was never clearly defined and thus its retraction in 1947 took place amidst confusion and misunderstanding on all sides. The Indian Political Service was always treated as secondary to the Indian Civil Service and the states to British India. Britain's emphasis on constitutional change in British India, reflected in the Cripps Mission of 1942, the Cabinet Mission of 1946 and the rush towards independence in 1947 resulted in her inattention to the Political Department and the princes which culminated in the abandonment of both in 1947.
- Full Text:
The Port Elizabeth disturbances of October, 1920
- Authors: Baines, Gary F, 1955-
- Date: 1988
- Subjects: Black people -- South Africa -- Port Elizabeth -- Social conditions , Police shootings -- South Africa -- Port Elizabeth , Labor movement -- South Africa -- Port Elizabeth -- History
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2529 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1001858
- Description: Chapter one suggests thet trade and merchant capital, which were crucial to Port Elizabeth's economic development during the nineteenth century, was subsumed by the rise of manufactures and industrial capital after the First World War. Industrial expansion was cut short by the post-war recession, which caused un- and underemployment. The black worker, who experienced a severe loss in real earnings on account of the increased cost of living, became involved in a struggle with employers for wage increases. Chapter two shows how the policy of segregation was applied in Port Elizabeth, which meant that the workers were subjected to an increasing degree of control and regulation of their daily lives. The conditions of reproduction in the black townships fostered inter-racial and cross-class mobilisation which culminated in the formation of a general labour union, the Port Elizabeth Industrial and Commercial Workers' Union (PEICWU). Chapter three will suggest links between the tradition in Port Elizabeth of worker resistance and the unionisation of black workers in the post-war period. Thus, the first three chapters attempt to provide a historical perspective for analysing the underlying causes of the 1920 Port Elizabeth disturbances. The immediate cause of the disturbances was the arrest of the Union leader, Masabalala, after he called for a general strike. Chapter four will show how the intervention of the local authorities provoked a spontaneous act of defiance on the part of Union members. A demonstration outside the Baakens Street Police Station to demand the release of Masabalala, precipitated the tragic shootings of 23 October 1920. The repressive violence which left 22 dead (with two further deaths resulting indirectly from the incident) was unprecedented in South African history. The resolution of the crisis brought the workers no nearer to obtaining a reasonable settlement of the wage issue. If anything, the resolve of employers to deny wage demands was hardened by the actions of the local authorities, who attributed the disturbances to ' agitation '. Such thinly-disguised justifications of the shootings by the dominant classes, however, provoked recriminations from other quarters. Chapter five examines the legal and political ramifications of the Port Elizabeth shootings. The circumstances of the shootings prompted the Smuts Government to appoint a Commission of Enquiry in the face of public pressure. The Commission found that the Police and vigilantes were largely to blame for the high death toll. But the Government's 'whitewash' of the findings could not absolve the Police from culpability entirely, nor could it sidestep its own responsibility and liability to victims of the shootings. Finally, in Chapter six, an attempt will be made to assess the long term impact of the shootings on the PElCU and the black labour movement in Port Elizabeth generally. The outcome of the episode was a victory for employers, which dealt a body blow to worker organisation which only became resurgent in the 1950s.
- Full Text:
- Authors: Baines, Gary F, 1955-
- Date: 1988
- Subjects: Black people -- South Africa -- Port Elizabeth -- Social conditions , Police shootings -- South Africa -- Port Elizabeth , Labor movement -- South Africa -- Port Elizabeth -- History
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2529 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1001858
- Description: Chapter one suggests thet trade and merchant capital, which were crucial to Port Elizabeth's economic development during the nineteenth century, was subsumed by the rise of manufactures and industrial capital after the First World War. Industrial expansion was cut short by the post-war recession, which caused un- and underemployment. The black worker, who experienced a severe loss in real earnings on account of the increased cost of living, became involved in a struggle with employers for wage increases. Chapter two shows how the policy of segregation was applied in Port Elizabeth, which meant that the workers were subjected to an increasing degree of control and regulation of their daily lives. The conditions of reproduction in the black townships fostered inter-racial and cross-class mobilisation which culminated in the formation of a general labour union, the Port Elizabeth Industrial and Commercial Workers' Union (PEICWU). Chapter three will suggest links between the tradition in Port Elizabeth of worker resistance and the unionisation of black workers in the post-war period. Thus, the first three chapters attempt to provide a historical perspective for analysing the underlying causes of the 1920 Port Elizabeth disturbances. The immediate cause of the disturbances was the arrest of the Union leader, Masabalala, after he called for a general strike. Chapter four will show how the intervention of the local authorities provoked a spontaneous act of defiance on the part of Union members. A demonstration outside the Baakens Street Police Station to demand the release of Masabalala, precipitated the tragic shootings of 23 October 1920. The repressive violence which left 22 dead (with two further deaths resulting indirectly from the incident) was unprecedented in South African history. The resolution of the crisis brought the workers no nearer to obtaining a reasonable settlement of the wage issue. If anything, the resolve of employers to deny wage demands was hardened by the actions of the local authorities, who attributed the disturbances to ' agitation '. Such thinly-disguised justifications of the shootings by the dominant classes, however, provoked recriminations from other quarters. Chapter five examines the legal and political ramifications of the Port Elizabeth shootings. The circumstances of the shootings prompted the Smuts Government to appoint a Commission of Enquiry in the face of public pressure. The Commission found that the Police and vigilantes were largely to blame for the high death toll. But the Government's 'whitewash' of the findings could not absolve the Police from culpability entirely, nor could it sidestep its own responsibility and liability to victims of the shootings. Finally, in Chapter six, an attempt will be made to assess the long term impact of the shootings on the PElCU and the black labour movement in Port Elizabeth generally. The outcome of the episode was a victory for employers, which dealt a body blow to worker organisation which only became resurgent in the 1950s.
- Full Text:
The promotion of a racially integrated Catholic community at King William's Town : challenges and opportunities
- Authors: Fahy, Paul
- Date: 1988
- Subjects: Apartheid -- South Africa -- Religious aspects -- Catholic Church
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:1218 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1001548
- Description: Taking as its point of departure the model of the Church as a sacrament of unity, this study explores its implications for the fostering of a racially integrated Catholic community within an apartheid society. The particular context within which the investigation is conducted is the Sacred Heart Church, King William's Town, where the writer is pastor to a multiracial congregation. A dialogical approach is adopted between theology and praxis, in terms of which the data from a social analysis of the community are brought into a creative dialogue with the Vatican II vision of the Church. Findings from the analysis show that the attitudes of congregants to a racially integrated community are generally ambivalent. Historical, theological, psychosocial and political factors are seen to play an important role in shaping these attitudes. Arising from the dialogue between theology and praxis, the model of a pilgrim Church suggests itself as more relevant and realistic. This model constitutes a proximate goal. The sacrament model of the Church provides direction and focus for the pilgrim Church and is viewed as the ultimate goal. These models must be seen as complementary. The study concludes with a pastoral plan aimed at attaining the goals described. The main thrust of this plan is directed at changing congregants' attitudes to a racially integrated community. The strategies suggested involve the motivation of congregants to become actively involved, the transformation of congregants' attitudes, the promotion of a positive attitude to conflict and the challenging of apartheid structures. A differential approach is suggested in the pursuit of these objectives. A final conclusion to be drawn from this study is that the search for community is never-ending and that the fostering of a racially integrated Catholic community is a slow and painful process.
- Full Text:
- Authors: Fahy, Paul
- Date: 1988
- Subjects: Apartheid -- South Africa -- Religious aspects -- Catholic Church
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:1218 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1001548
- Description: Taking as its point of departure the model of the Church as a sacrament of unity, this study explores its implications for the fostering of a racially integrated Catholic community within an apartheid society. The particular context within which the investigation is conducted is the Sacred Heart Church, King William's Town, where the writer is pastor to a multiracial congregation. A dialogical approach is adopted between theology and praxis, in terms of which the data from a social analysis of the community are brought into a creative dialogue with the Vatican II vision of the Church. Findings from the analysis show that the attitudes of congregants to a racially integrated community are generally ambivalent. Historical, theological, psychosocial and political factors are seen to play an important role in shaping these attitudes. Arising from the dialogue between theology and praxis, the model of a pilgrim Church suggests itself as more relevant and realistic. This model constitutes a proximate goal. The sacrament model of the Church provides direction and focus for the pilgrim Church and is viewed as the ultimate goal. These models must be seen as complementary. The study concludes with a pastoral plan aimed at attaining the goals described. The main thrust of this plan is directed at changing congregants' attitudes to a racially integrated community. The strategies suggested involve the motivation of congregants to become actively involved, the transformation of congregants' attitudes, the promotion of a positive attitude to conflict and the challenging of apartheid structures. A differential approach is suggested in the pursuit of these objectives. A final conclusion to be drawn from this study is that the search for community is never-ending and that the fostering of a racially integrated Catholic community is a slow and painful process.
- Full Text:
Theory in interpretive psychology - with special reference to Paul Ricoeur's interpretation of Freud
- Authors: Du Toit, Barry
- Date: 1988
- Subjects: Freud, Sigmund, 1856-1939 , Ricœur, Paul , Psychoanalysis
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2906 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002071
- Description: The thesis aims to show that, while an interpretive psychology is not compatible with theory as it occurs in the predictive- causal explanation of the natural sciences, it is both possible and necessary to develop a concept of theory valid within an interpretive methodology. These claims are advanced in the course of an examination of Ricoeur 's interpretation of Freudian psychoanalysis. After examining some traditional ways in which phenomenological psychology has responded to the psychoanalytic challenge, the thesis presents an interpretation of Freudian psychoanalysis as a hermeneutic approach which utilized theoretical constructions in a productive way, although distorted by Freud's natural-scientific self- understanding. Freud's causal-explanatory language and natural- scientific meta theory are shown to be significant inasmuch as they provide a vehicle for theory construction in psychoanalysis. However, since the theory is modeled on that of the natural sciences, it proves incompatible with the interpretive aspects of Freud's approach. We then establish a concept of theory and of causal analysis which is different to that of the natural sciences, and is compatible with, and indeed founded in, an interpretive approach to psychology. These concepts are then illustrated in the context of psychoanalysis. In the final chapter the advantages of the use of theory in interpretive psychology are discussed.
- Full Text:
Theory in interpretive psychology - with special reference to Paul Ricoeur's interpretation of Freud
- Authors: Du Toit, Barry
- Date: 1988
- Subjects: Freud, Sigmund, 1856-1939 , Ricœur, Paul , Psychoanalysis
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2906 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002071
- Description: The thesis aims to show that, while an interpretive psychology is not compatible with theory as it occurs in the predictive- causal explanation of the natural sciences, it is both possible and necessary to develop a concept of theory valid within an interpretive methodology. These claims are advanced in the course of an examination of Ricoeur 's interpretation of Freudian psychoanalysis. After examining some traditional ways in which phenomenological psychology has responded to the psychoanalytic challenge, the thesis presents an interpretation of Freudian psychoanalysis as a hermeneutic approach which utilized theoretical constructions in a productive way, although distorted by Freud's natural-scientific self- understanding. Freud's causal-explanatory language and natural- scientific meta theory are shown to be significant inasmuch as they provide a vehicle for theory construction in psychoanalysis. However, since the theory is modeled on that of the natural sciences, it proves incompatible with the interpretive aspects of Freud's approach. We then establish a concept of theory and of causal analysis which is different to that of the natural sciences, and is compatible with, and indeed founded in, an interpretive approach to psychology. These concepts are then illustrated in the context of psychoanalysis. In the final chapter the advantages of the use of theory in interpretive psychology are discussed.
- Full Text:
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