VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
They Hasten toward Perfection: Virginal & Chaste Monks in the High Middle Ages
Keywords: medieval
high Middle Ages
monasticism
virginity
chastity
sexuality
gender
eleventh century
twelfth century
male virginity
monastic virginity
monastic chastity
Rupert of Deutz
Guibert of Nogent
Anselm of Canterbury
Aelred of Rievaulx
Bernard of Clairvaux
adolescence
childhood
masturbation
Cistercian
Benedictine
monastic education
De institutione inclusarum
Deploratio virginitatis male amissae
Opusculum ad virginitatem
De laesione virginitatis

As perennial Christian ideals, virginity and chastity were frequent themes in medieval religious discourse. Male religious were frequently virgins and were expected to cultivate chastity; however, women not men were usually the focus of such discussions. But some monastic writers did draw on those models when considering their own spirituality, and it is worth knowing how they were understood and enlisted in those instances. To this end, I investigate five eleventh- and twelfth-century monks who wrote about monastic virginity or chastity: Anselm of Canterbury, Guibert of Nogent, Rupert of Deutz, Bernard of Clairvaux, and Ælred of Rievaulx. In my analysis, I uncover each author’s perception of virginity/chastity. Thus, I reveal that Anselm’s Deploratio is not about lost physical virginity or even sexual sin per se; it is a spiritual meditation driven by his immense fear that sinners would be forever damned. Guibert’s work exposes what a treatise on virginity could become in the hands of an adolescent struggling with sexual desire and steeped in lessons taught by his monastery. Rupert’s tract on virginity and masturbation portrays male virginity as tangible and potent. In so doing, it erects a barrier defending Rupert’s work as an exegete against detractors. For his part, Bernard teaches that what matters most is chaste humility. He also consistently links virginity with pride and false holiness, a strategy possibly linked with a battle between white and black monks. Finally, Ælred produces a model of monastic perfection that is terrifically masculine, distinctively different from virginity, and perfectly suited for his audience. In addition to uncovering each monk’s unique perception of virginity and chastity, I call attention to similarities and differences in their thought and make conclusions based on those observations. Overall, I have found not only that virginity and chastity did matter to some medieval religious men but also that the way they handle those ideals can be tremendously revealing.
Reluctant Relations: And Ethnography of 'Outreach' in a Post-apartheid City
Keywords: South Africa
post-apartheid
performance
moral practice
self-respect
irony
Pretoria
NGO

This dissertation focuses on performance, moral practice, and self-respect in an urban South African setting. Taking as its point of departure the emergence and rapid expansion, in the 1990s and 2000s, of an outreach organization I call Jesus People Pretoria (JPP), it discusses this NGO’s attempt to create a ‘moral community’ in the post-apartheid city from the diverse vantage points of its Afrikaner leaders, its clients, and—most emphatically—its lay workers, the majority of whom are black women. Gradually moving from the everyday stage of outreach labour towards women’s gendered performances within and beyond the work environment, it proposes that at stake in the making of the JPP moral community is the negotiation of self-respect, which hinges upon the degree to which interactions imply the fostering or refutation of mutual respect, or the measure of the ‘equality’ of the exchange. As an urban entity deeply entwined in and illuminative of South Africa’s broader post-apartheid ironies, including ongoing race-based differentiation and the pervasiveness of HIV/AIDS and death, predominantly moral practice here remains but ambivalently constituted. Yet this does not denote the absence of the moral but temporarily rests it in the region of the indistinct, the unresolved, in the moment of its apparent impossibility or unachievability.
Elastin-like Polypeptide Enriched Surfaces for Cardiovascular Applications through the use of Bioactive Fluorinated Surface Modifiers
Keywords: biomaterials
elastin-like polypeptides

Currently used small diameter synthetic vascular grafts are prone to high rates of failure related to thrombosis and neointimal hyperplasia. Biomimetic materials, based on the extracellular matrix (ECM) composition of native tissues, represent an attractive solution to address these complications. The inherent low thrombogenicity and cell signalling properties of elastin-like polypeptides (ELPs) make them a suitable option for these applications. In this thesis, ELP surface modification has been achieved through the use of elastin cross-linking peptide bioactive fluorinated surface modifiers (ECP-BFSMs). The synthesis of these low molecular weight fluorinated additives was described and their subsequent blending with a base polycarbonate-urethane (PCNU) was shown to successfully enrich the surface to allow for ELP surface cross-linking. The kinetic surface migration of fluorescent ECP-BFSMs was studied over a 2 week casting period by two-photon confocal microscopy. Contact angle and x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) confirmed the surface localization of the ECP-BFSMs. Changes in contact angle and XPS spectrums following ELP surface cross-linking confirmed the success of the surface modification approach. The novel ELP surface modified materials were demonstrated to inhibit fibrinogen surface adsorption and platelet adhesion under physiological flow conditions and inhibit bulk platelet activation following blood-material contact. Moreover, these ELP modified surfaces were shown to promote increased endothelial and smooth muscle cell adhesion, spreading and retention over a 7 day culture period relative to their non-ELP analogs. Endothelial and smooth muscle cells seeded on the elastin-like materials were shown to express endothelial nitric oxide synthase (eNOS) and smooth muscle myosin heavy chain (SM-MHC) cell specific phenotypic markers, respectively. Furthermore, competitive inhibition experiments revealed that initial smooth muscle cell adhesion to ELP surface modified materials was mediated through elastin-laminin cell surface receptors binding to VGVAPG peptide sequences on the ELP molecules. Hence, these materials may have broad applicability in cardiovascular applications, from blood contacting materials to scaffold structures for vascular graft tissue engineering. Furthermore, this surface modifying additive approach represents a versatile technique that can be custom tailored for various biomimetic applications to generate stable bioactive ECM-like surfaces retained onto a relatively inert fluorinated background.
Exercise Rehabilitation Efficacy and Optimal Exercise Training Prescriptions for Improved Health Outcomes in People with Type 2 Diabetes
Keywords: diabetes
exercise
aerobic fitness
glycemic control

This dissertation examines the impact of exercise rehabilitation and the components of exercise prescriptions on optimizing health outcomes for people with diabetes (DM). Exercise is an accepted part of the diabetes management regime to help prevent or slow the progression of the disease. A combined aerobic and resistance training protocol is the recommended exercise regime for people with DM, but the question remains as to what the optimal dose may be for glycemic control and reduction of cardiovascular risk. This thesis aims to address three objectives surrounding optimal exercise prescriptions for diabetes: 1) To investigate aerobic exercise prescription efficacy in people with DM, coronary artery disease (CAD) and both CAD and DM to determine if there are population-specific VO2peak responses to exercise prescription; 2) To determine the optimal volume and intensity of resistance training exercise, in combination with aerobic training, that may improve glucose control, cardiovascular risk factors and body composition in people with type 2 DM (T2DM); and 3) To study the relationship between exercise performance, physiological changes and depressive mood in people with T2DM participating in a supervised, exercise program. Encouraging participation in an appropriately prescribed aerobic and resistance training program may help to improve adherence to exercise and elicit optimal health outcomes in people with T2DM. Tailoring the exercise prescription to suit the patient’s lifestyle, history and capacity is the utmost challenge for health care providers who hope to provide a complementary, non-pharmacologic therapeutic option for their patients.
Developmental Expression, Function, and Regulation of Multidrug Resistance in the Mouse Placenta and Fetal Brain
Keywords: Multidrug Resistance
Placenta
Blood-brain barrier
Glucocorticoids
Progesterone
Development

During pregnancy, 64-96% of women take at least one prescription drug. The placenta is the primary barrier between substrates in maternal and fetal circulation. The blood-brain barrier (BBB) acts as an additional barrier for the fetal brain, which is particularly susceptible to the effects of xenobiotics. Multidrug resistance phosphoglycoprotein (P-gp; encoded by Abcb1 mRNA) and breast cancer resistance protein (Bcrp1; encoded by Abcg2 mRNA) are efflux transporters localized on placental syncytiotrophoblast and capillary endothelial cells of the BBB. Placental Abcb1/P-gp and Abcg2/Bcrp1 limit maternal-fetal transfer of endogenous and exogenous substrates. Similarly, the neuroprotective roles of Abcb1/P-gp and Abcg2/Bcrp1 in the adult BBB have been demonstrated. However, developmental changes in expression and function and regulation of Abcb1/P-gp and Abcg2/Bcrp1 in these tissues are poorly understood. This thesis investigates gestational changes in expression and function of Abcb1/P-gp and Abcg2/Bcrp1 in the placenta and fetal brain, in addition to regulation by steroids, progesterone and glucocorticoids. The effects of glucocorticoids on Abcb1/P-gp and Abcg2/Bcrp1 in the placenta and fetal brain are of importance given that 10% of pregnant women are treated with synthetic glucocorticoids during the management of threatened preterm labour. These studies demonstrate that the decrease in placental Abcb1/P-gp mediated fetal protection near term is compensated by an increase in Abcb1/P-gp and Abcg2/Bcrp1 mediated neuroprotection in the fetal brain; likely in preparation for life ex-utero. The lack of effects of progesterone and the dose-, age- and sex- dependent regulatory effects of synthetic glucocorticoid have highlighted the complexity associated with regulation of these transporters. Further, these studies are the first to report sexually dimorphic glucocorticoid effects on Abcb1/P-gp and Abcg2/Bcrp1 expression and function, with the female fetus being particularly susceptible to glucocorticoid these effects. In this regard, Abcb1/P-gp and Abcg2/Bcrp1 transport capacity may be altered when synthetic glucocorticoid is administered as a co-therapy, and as such, recipient sex should be considered during pharmacotherapy. Understanding the regulation of Abcb1/P-gp and Abcg2/Bcrp1 expression and function in the placenta and fetal brain during normal development and under pathological conditions is critical for fetal health and development, particularly when therapeutic strategies are utilized in pregnancy.
Emmanuel Lévinas' Barbarisms: Adventures of Eastern Talmudic Counter-Narratives Heterodoxly Encountering the South
Keywords: Jewish Studies
Post-Colonial Theory
Lévinas, Emmanuel
Dussel, Enrique
Jewish Philosophy
Racial Theory
Marxism
Critical Theory
Modern Thought and Culture
Third World Social Movements
Continental Philosophy
Sociology of Knowledge
Modern Rabbinics

This dissertation examines the scope and limitations of the re-appropriation of the term barbarism by modern Jewish intellectuals in conversation with Third World social movements. Emmanuel Lévinas is my paradigmatic example of this re-appropriation, as his Talmudic interpretations illuminate this process, and his work is located on the axis of the encounter between Jewish and decolonial thinking. I contend that Lévinas follows a classic line of modern European interpreters who expressed their discomfort with the description of the Jewish people as barbaric. While this discomfort can be traced within this orthodox interpretation of Lévinas, I argue that his particular solution for the problem can only be explained by a more heterodox exploration. Lévinas’ positive re-appropriation of the term is part of contextual conversations that he sustained with other peoples characterized as barbarians (i.e. Third World decolonial theorists). While this re-appropriation was originally conceived in order to establish an East-East revolutionary conversation between Eastern European rabbinical interpreters and other radical Eastern projects (i.e. Maghrebi Marxism) it became an East-South decolonial conversation between Jewish and Afro-Caribbean/Latino-American intellectuals. This conversation, however, ultimately challenges the apologetic Jewish re-appropriation of exteriority in the concert of multiple barbarians. I explore the limitations of Jewish thought to engage with this community and cross from an apologetic to a critical barbarism. This dissertation, in conclusion, seeks to make an original contribution in the interrelation between Jewish and post-colonial studies. I aim to do so by first, demonstrating that the Jewish return to classical sources is historically and conceptually a decolonial counter-narrative that was influenced by (and in turn influenced) Third World discourses; second, explaining the reasons and consequences of the persistence of Jewish imagery and influences in Third World decolonial theory; third, exploring the limits of Jewish thinking and the benefits of the expansion of Jewish apologetical dialogues into barbaric critical conversations. And finally, challenging most contemporary scholarship in modern Jewish philosophy, which holds that Jewish thought and the modern re-reading of its sources can only be understood in the context of Western consciousness.
The Afterlife of Shakespeare's Plays: A Study of Cross-cultural Adaptations into Opera and Film
Keywords: Shakespeare
Adaptations
Opera
Film
Europe
India
Cross-Cultural
Postcolonial
Music
Renaissance

This study considers the ways in which Shakespeare’s plays have been adapted in cross-cultural contexts from the nineteenth century to the present, specifically in Europe and India, through the media of opera and film. I bring into dialogue reception theory, adaptation studies, Shakespeare scholarship, musicology, film studies, and postcolonial theory in order to examine the mechanisms of Shakespeare’s reception in these two culturally diverse regions of the globe, and argue that there are significant parallels between European and Indian adaptations of Shakespeare. Despite the different cultural and political histories of the two regions, Shakespeare’s plays reached out to local audiences only when they were modified in order to make them relevant to the cultural and ideological concerns of the new audiences that were far removed from Shakespeare’s own. Moving away from understanding Shakespeare’s reception either in terms of the dramatist’s “universal appeal” or in terms of colonial instrumentality, as has usually been the case, I argue that such predetermined critical paradigms take away from what in Shakespeare various cultures have found truly valuable, truly affective. Moreover, I argue that the degree of transculturation, both with European and Indian adaptations, is greater when Shakespeare is adapted in media that involves performance, than when he is adapted in a purely verbal medium, such as translations. This process of indigenization through performance, one that I have termed “performative transculturation,” has opened up fresh avenues of cross-cultural exchange over the ages. The works I examine in detail are Ambroise Thomas’ opera Hamlet, Giuseppe Verdi’s opera Otello, Ishwarchandra Vidyasagar’s Bhrantibilash, a prose adaptation of The Comedy of Errors, and Vishal Bhardwaj’s films Maqbool and Omkara, based on Macbeth and Othello respectively.
Role of Nestin in Mouse Development
Keywords: Nestin
Neuromuscular junction

Although nestin has served as a marker of neural stem/progenitor cells for close to twenty years, its function is still poorly understood. During development, this intermediate filament protein is expressed in many different progenitors including those of the central nervous system, heart, skeletal muscle and kidney. The adult expression of nestin is mainly restricted to the subependymal zone and dentate gyrus of the brain, the neuromuscular junction and renal podocytes. I have used two approaches of gain of function and loss of function to elucidate the role of nestin in vivo. Although I was able to generate transgenic lines in which the transgene was ubiquitously expressed at the RNA level, over-expression of nestin at the protein level was not achieved possibly due to post transcriptional regulation of this gene. My data from loss of function approach indicates that nestin-deficient mice have impaired coordination. Balance and muscle strength are not affected and there are no apparent anatomical defects. I found that nestin deficiency is compatible with normal development of the central nervous system but results in abnormal clustering of acetylcholine receptors in the neuromuscular junctions, similar to the phenotype described for deficiency of cyclin-dependent kinase 5 (Cdk5) a candidate downstream effector of nestin. In renal podocytes, where both nestin and Cdk5 are normally expressed, we found reduced branching and abnormally contoured podocyte processes. To further connect the phenotype of nestin deficiency to Cdk5, I demonstrated that nestin deficiency can rescue maintenance of acetylcholine receptor clusters in the absence of agrin, similar to Cdk5/agrin double knockouts, indicating that the observed nestin deficiency phenotypes are the consequence of aberrant Cdk5 activity.
The Normative Implications of Personal Identity Theory
Keywords: personal identity
normative ethics

This dissertation investigates the relationship between personal identity theory and normative ethics. There are a surprising number of contradictory arguments about the relevance of personal identity criteria for ethics and political philosophy. For example, writers like David Gauthier, Thomas Nagel and John Rawls argue that utilitarianism disregards the separateness, or non-identity, of persons. Derek Parfit claims the opposite. According to him, utilitarians respect the separateness of persons while also respecting the disintegration within lives. Also, Henry Sidgwick was under the impression that the separateness of persons supports egoism and disregard for the other-regarding demands of morality. David Brink claims the opposite. According to him, the resulting form of egoism would be nearly indistinguishable from altruism and therefore not at odds with the other-regarding demands of morality. Finally, both Rawls and Nozick argue that the separateness of persons speaks in favour of their own deontological view—despite the fact that their views are fundamentally opposed. Rawls hopes to gain support for his contractually derived principles of justice, while Nozick believes he can generate support for his deontological side constraints. This situation is rather surprising and in need of an explanation. Finally, there have also been skeptical arguments about the force of such appeals, such as Rawls’s claims that personal identity theory and ethics are independent, and his claim that personal identity criteria are inherently normative. This dissertation looks at these controversies in detail and comes to the conclusion that the force of appeals to personal identity is considerably more fine-grained and more complex than has been presumed.
The Mudang: Gendered Discourses on Shamanism in Colonial Korea
Keywords: modern korean history
gender and religion
shamanism and indigenous studies
urban studies
post-colonial studies

This dissertation examines the discursive production of mudang, also known as shamans, during the late Chosŏn Dynasty (eighteenth to nineteenth-centuries) and during the Japanese colonial period in Korea (1910-1945). The many discursive sites on mudang articulated various types of difference, often based on gender and urban/rural divides. This dissertation explores four bodies of work: eighteenth to nineteenth-century neo-Confucian reformist essays, late nineteenth-century western surveys of Korea, early twentieth-century newspapers and journals, and early ethnographic studies. The mudang was used throughout this period to reinforce gendered distinctions, prescribe spatial hierarchies, and promote capitalist modernity. In particular, institutional developments in shamanism studies under colonial rule, coupled with an expanded print media critique against mudang, signalled the needs and desires to pronounce a distinct indigenous identity under foreign rule. Chapter one traces three pre-colonial discursive developments, Russian research on Siberian shamanism under Catherine the Great, neo-Confucian writings on "mudang," and Claude Charles Dallet’s late nineteenth-century survey of Korean indigenous practices. Chapter Two examines the last decade of the nineteenth-century, studying the simultaneous emergence of Isabella Bird Bishop’s expanded discussion on Korean shamanism alongside early Korean newspapers’ social criticisms of mudang. Chapter Three looks at Korean newspapers and journals as the source and product of an urban discourse from 1920-1940. Chapter Four examines the same print media to consider why mudang were contrasted from women as ethical household consumers and scientific homemakers. Chapter Five looks at Ch’oe Nam-sŏn and Yi Nŭng-hwa’s 1927 treatises on Korean shamanism as a celebration of ethnic identity which became a form of intervention in an environment where Korean shamanism was used to justify colonial rule.