Globalized Islam: The Search for a New Ummah by Oliver Roy
Thesis - 6 pages - Philosophy
This document presents a review of the book Globalized Islam. The Search for a New Ummah written by Oliver Roy. With this book, Olivier Roy sums up the logical consequence of a long consideration of Islam and political modernity that had begun in 1985 in Afghanistan and continued with the...
Postmodern perspective on Marlow
Thesis - 2 pages - Philosophy
In the world of postmodernism, absolute truths such as grand theories and master narratives are non-existent (Irvine 03). Rather, the emphasis in postmodern literature is on the “spectacle of the brain and its workings” (Baudrillard 01), where reality is shaped indefinitely by the...
A close reading of The ascetic in a canoe
Thesis - 2 pages - Literature
Through his essay, The Ascetic in a Canoe, Pierre Elliot Trudeau attempts to describe his personal relationship with nature, through imagery, visualizations and deep descriptions of Canada's natural environment. Nature is shown as a companion in the otherwise vast openness. Nature is the great...
Aquinas and Anselm - Arguments for the existence of God
Thesis - 3 pages - Philosophy
Within the field of philosophy, more specifically, the philosophy of religion, many thinkers have employed theories (or proofs as they would say), arguing for the existence of God. One prominent theorist was Saint Anselm who sought to prove the existence of God through his ontological argument....
An essay on Charles Hartshorne's mnemonic metaphysics
Thesis - 4 pages - Philosophy
Our ancestors of the ‘pre-philosophical' era - much too often called Ionian thinkers - engaged themselves in an admirable quest to make sense of everything that struck their awe. As a consequence, the concept of deity, as well as the supernatural forces attributed to nearly all types of...
Philosophy of religion
Thesis - 3 pages - Philosophy
According to the Divine Command Theory, God is the ultimate source of morality; an action is obligatory if God commands it, permitted if it does not go against any of God's commands and wrong if it is inconsistent with that which God commands. God has infinite freedom and omnipotence to do...
A radical faith: The Bible versus Orpheus and poetry - An analysis of Emily Dickinson's poem 1577
Thesis - 3 pages - Literature
In Emily Dickinson's poem 1577, “The Bible is an antique Volume-,” the speaker questions blind adherence to Biblical belief and ultimately proposes the adoption of a new faith. Through skeptical tone and understated form, the poem elegantly demeans the Bible's authority as the sole...
Much ado about nothing: The power of perception in Shakespeare's comedy
Thesis - 5 pages - Literature
Although American culture places great emphasis on the silver screen, the medium has its limitations. Among them are a relatively short length of time in which to work, a broad audience with a short attention span, and several conventions to be observed when making a film in terms of plot...
Locke's empiricism
Thesis - 2 pages - Philosophy
Empiricism is a branch of philosophy that is said to have emerged with the theories of John Locke in the 1600s. It is a theory of knowledge that argues knowledge comes from lived experience, and it is one of the many notions about how we come to understand aspects or things in the world. It...
Socrates - Immortality of the soul
Thesis - 2 pages - Philosophy
There are many philosophies of the soul presented in ancient philosophy. Among them was Socrates who gave an influential account of the immortality of the soul. In the Phaedo, Socrates offers four arguments for the soul's immortality. This essay will discuss which of these four arguments is...
Indigenous resurgence in the contemporary Caribbean (Chapters 2, 3, 4, 5, 12 & 13)
Book review - 3 pages - Literature
In a contemporary sense, perspectives of the Caribbean have been created in a way that does not speak of the indigenous and aboriginal peoples of the areas as much as they should. This is likely to change though as these indigenous and aboriginal peoples of the Caribbean are once again gaining...
The restless heart: The theme of scattered humanity in Augustine's Confessions
Thesis - 2 pages - Literature
At the very beginning of his Confessions, Augustine states “[men's] hearts are restless till they rest in [God].” However, because of how he views the human condition, Augustine explains that man is continuously “scattered” by his own impermanence and is always moving through...
The middle finger that is Stanley Kubrick's "Dr. Strangelove"
Thesis - 5 pages - Literature
By the time Churchill dropped the iron curtain across Europe, America was giving up on the idea of a cooperative relationship with the Soviet Union. Foreign policy was being dictated by such blatant anti-communist and anti-Russian works as the Truman Doctrine, the Marshall Plan, as well as the...
Cheyette v. The State
Thesis - 2 pages - Philosophy
In his article “The Invention of the State,” Fredric L. Cheyette argues that the in the eleventh and twelfth centuries medieval society allowed an organized, coercive “other” to evolve, courtesy of a small group of literate elite. His idea is that following the Investiture...
Cultural anxiety of "the Modern" in Nietzsche and German expressionism
Thesis - 2 pages - Philosophy
In his work analyzing early German film, Siegfried Kraucauer defines expressionism as “a shaping of primitive sensations and experiences” and supports this definition by suggesting that the early German film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari makes use of expressionist aesthetic in its...
The mythological supports of Beckett's Waiting for Godot
Thesis - 3 pages - Literature
In Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot, existence made up of binary oppositions, replacing one another in a never-ending cycle. The most prominent--and the most basic-- of these oppositions is that of life and death. Through an exploration of various mythological allusions made in the play, the...
The enigma of 5.1.19 in Richard III
Thesis - 2 pages - Literature
Richard III as a historical play is interesting because of its large focus on questions of the supernatural. The play considers, or forces the reader to consider, such ideas as the power of prophecy and dreams, ghostly interactions, pre-destination, divine intervention, and so on. The...
The ambiguity of motive in Chaucer's Canterbury tales
Thesis - 2 pages - Literature
The reality presented in Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales is one that is skewed by both Chaucer, the writer, and his fictional persona of humble narrator, who is the only source of information in the poem. The resulting overlay of these different perspectives and the reader's dependence on...
The effect of the pilgrim's purpose in Chaucer's Canterbury fabliaux
Thesis - 3 pages - Literature
According to Robert E. Lewis in his “The English Fabliau Tradition and Chaucer's ‘Miller's Tale',” the heyday of the French fabliaux lasted from “the late twelfth century to the 1340s.” In addition, as Lewis goes on to point out, the French genre appeared in several...
Roman, provincial and Islamic law by Patricia Crone
Book review - 3 pages - Literature
The basic thesis of Patricia Crone's Roman, Provincial and Islamic Law is that the sharia is, at least in part, derived from what the author calls “Roman provincial law”, and not from pre-Islamic Arabian cultures, other Near-East cultures (Egyptians, Akkadians and Jews among others) or...
Victorian morals in Dracula
Thesis - 3 pages - Literature
Two of the most compelling and interesting themes and elements of Dracula are the themes of “life as a positive and perpetual entity”, and the fleeting, sinful and worthless nature of a life centered around earthly pleasures and indulgences. The theme of the perpetuity of some kind of...
The Handmaid's tale
Thesis - 3 pages - Literature
Margaret Atwood's “The Handmaid's Tale” is described as a classic dystopian novel, presenting the subjugation of women under a theocratic totalitarian social framework in a fictitious future. Atwood's dystopia takes place in the Republic of Gilead and the narrator is the central...
Midwestern poets
Thesis - 2 pages - Literature
There were five famous Midwestern poets in the 20th century. The five were Carl Sandburg, Edgar Lee Masters, Vachel Lindsey, Edna St. Vencent Millay, and Sara Teasdale. Sandburg, Masters, and Lindsey were from Illinois; Sandburg, Millay and Lindsey were first recognized in Harriet Monroe's...
Modern poetry and imagism
Thesis - 3 pages - Literature
Perhaps modern poetry can be traced back to one man, T.E. Hulme. He defined classical and romantic poetry, which helped distinguish what modern poetry really was. Before modern poetry was considered “modern poetry”, there was classical poetry, and there was romantic poetry. In order to...
Harriet Monroe
Thesis - 2 pages - Literature
Harriet Monroe was born on December 23rd, 1860 to Samuel and Amelia Monroe. She was born in Chicago, where she spent most of her life. Her father was a lawyer, and she spent most of her time in his library reading his poetry books. She studied at Dearborn Seminary in Chicago. She wrote a sonnet...
Reincarnation: The repression of past-life teachings political, not spiritual
Thesis - 2 pages - Philosophy
Noting the resurrection of all in nature, reincarnation may remain at center stage: very prominent and well respected in the first 500 years of Christianity. In his "Confessions" even St. Augustine wonders about the viability of reincarnation. Emperor Constantine omitted the earliest references...
Spectrum of consciousness: Time, eternity, space and infinity
Thesis - 2 pages - Philosophy
It has been established that Reality is a level of consciousness, and it is ultimately and inherently ungraspable and unthinkable by the human mind. In this chapter, Wilber discusses how consciousness is not contained by the human body or mind, but is Absolute Subjectivity, so termed because the...
Do androids dream of electric sheep: A review
Book review - 2 pages - Literature
Edward James states in his piece, Science Fiction in the Twentieth Century, that, “Because science fiction deals with imaginative alternatives to the real world, [it] also offers criticism of that world.” In Philip K. Dick's novel, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, that criticism is...
Monster and man: The contrasting enemies of epic heroes
Thesis - 3 pages - Literature
Epic heroes can be defined by the kinds of enemies against which they battle. Odysseus used his intellect while contending with Cyclops, witches, harpies, and other various horrific beasts. As Greece was renowned for its philosophers and mathematicians, it is not a difficult link to make...
The Tale of Genji and the four major plays of Chikamatsu
Thesis - 3 pages - Literature
The Tale of Genji can be used to show how samurai culture varies from the culture of the Heian courts. The samurai culture is honorable, loyal, and respectful, while the Heian courts were polygamous and corrupt in some aspects. Many of the aristocrats of the Heian courts strive only to gain power...
