Abstract This paper examines how the vitality of Roman religion, much like its Greek counterpart, can be found in its mythology. It looks at how the major myths, especially in the hands of the playwrights, served as a basis for creative re-interpretation, and old stories became a vehicle for new alleged truths. It explores how this steady flow of imagination has proved a continuous delight and inspiration to artists through the ages, but an embarrassment to scholars, for it is often quite difficult to disentangle the various motifs of a story and trace the myth back to its nuclear belief or ritual that started it on its long and varied course.
From the Paper "The official gods of the Roman state served much more important functions. Their chief deity was Jupiter who, like his Greek counterpart Zeus, was primarily associated with the sky and its phenomena. Zeus was regularly viewed as the ?cloud gatherer, ? the god of thunder, lightning and weather and presided over the daylight in opposition to his brother Hades, the god of the underworld and darkness. Jupiter was worshipped on the Capitoline Hill together with the goddess Minerva and Juno, Jupiter's consort, who was primarily a fertility figure and in one of her functions as Juno Lucina presided over childbirth. Minerva was the goddess of handicrafts, but her most important temple was on the Aventine Hill which served as the headquarters of a guild of writers and actors during the second war with Carthage."
Abstract In the first segment of this paper the techniques and theoretical perceptions used in symbolic/experiential family therapy are outlined. The paper mentions that Virginia Satir and Walter Kemplar are also seen as having had equal, initial importance in the birth of experiential family therapy. However, the paper concentrates mainly on the work of Carl Whitaker and his colleagues, whose style of therapy differs greatly from that of Satir and Kemplar. The second section of this paper paints a picture of how these sessions of symbolic, experiential therapy might appear in order to give the reader a deeper understanding of the applicability of Whitaker's somewhat unconventional methods.
Paper Outline
Introduction
Carl Whitaker
Basic Model
Theoretical Concepts
Strengths
Shortcomings
Fit With Systems Theory
Current Research
Conclusion
References
From the Paper "Anxiety and confusion are increased through use of metaphors, teasing, humor, free association, fantasy, confrontation or silence. The underlying premise being that the way to promote individual growth and family cohesion is to liberate effects and impulses. This is often referred to as "expanding the symptom" and is done to refocus the family members on the problem as within the family, as opposed to one person having the problem. (Connell, et al.; 1999, pp.53)"
Abstract This paper presents an overview of the Russo-Chechen conflict. In this study, the writer shows that the conflict reveals a troubling trend of violence and oppression that is difficult to disentangle. The writer discusses that in the greater War on Terror, the way in which this dilemma is approached --and others like it-- will in many ways determine our collective fates.
From the Paper "The conflict between Russian and her former Soviet satellite Chechnya has exacerbated in recent years, threatening to become the full scale civil conflict that many on both sides have anticipated-and some have longed for. Chechnya is a Muslim republic with a history of doggedly pursuing independence. For its part Russia has crafted its own legacy toward Chechnya as a single-minded suppressor, whose response to Chechen bids for autonomy is consistently brutal. Today the Russo-Chechen conflict has claimed roughly ... "
Abstract This paper explains that the SIMUVAC (Simulated Evacuation) episode in Don DeLillo's novel "White Noise" serves as a pivotal turning point in the narrative. The writer then points out that much of the rest of the narrative is haunted by the main protagonist's (Jack) obsession with his own impending mortality. The paper also investigates the concepts of reality and simulation in real life and concludes that the ultimate significance of the SIMUVAC episode in "White Noise" is that it effects the transformation of death from an abstract sphere to something that is very real in Jack's perceptive field.
From the Paper "This episode confirms Baudrillard's characterization of the mass media's deceptive role. While the media generates a strong desire in the masses for knowing the absolute truth, of attaining total objectivity in relation to information, it is actually the "truer than true which counts or, in other words, the fact of being there without being there. Or, to put it yet another way, the fantasy." The tabloid media can be thought of as an extreme representation of this desire for a truth that goes beyond truth, until it ultimately satisfies our hidden desire for escape from reality - i.e. fantasy."
Examines the roles of Jewish women from the time Hitler took power through the final solution in Nazi Germany using Mary Kaplan's book, "Between Dignity and Despair: Jewish Life in Nazi Germany " as a basis of the discussion.
Abstract Mary Kaplan, in her book Between Dignity and Despair: Jewish Life in Nazi Germany", explores the era and the Holocaust from a different perspective, from the role of Jewish women as she tries to answer questions that have never really been answered like: Why didn't they leave as they witnessed a consuming hate manifest itself in Nazism? This essay, relying upon the research and writing of Kaplan and others, attempts to understand, from a woman's perspective, how Jews and Germans disentangled themselves emotionally, socially, as Germans, culturally in a way that led to the destruction of five million men, women, and children in a near successful attempt to carry out Adolf Hitler's final solution.
Outline:
Before and After the Eradication of Jewry from German Life
The Jewish Woman in Nazi Germany
From the Paper "However, by the time hostilities turned into war, it was too late for those Jews who had remained in Germany with hopes that the conditions would run through a course of social change, then, revert back to some sense of normality (Kaplan, 1998, p. 50). Life that had centered around families would soon experience the horror of being torn apart with deportation to the ghettos and to concentration camps. Even as families were being uprooted from their homes and transported to ghettos or concentration camps, it was the women whose lives continued in an as near normal fashion as possible; they remained the magnetic north of the family circle (Kaplan, 1998, p. 52). Their work in cooking, mending, cleaning and in support of their husbands who now suffered an idleness that many were unaccustomed to went on, only perhaps with greater importance especially in the lives of their husbands (Kaplan, 1998, p. 52). "
