Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Defending Liberal Education: Implications For Educational Policy, Christopher W. Lyons

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This thesis advocates for the inclusion of liberal education in discussions of the college and university missions and mandates in North America. It is conceived with the purpose of influencing policy thinking and generating the theory and ideas required for sound education policy decision making. Research into liberal education is a special and atypical kind of inquiry and requires innovative theoretical approaches. Liberal education is foremost a philosophical problem and requires philosophical approaches. The method used is, therefore, conceptual in nature and drawn from analytical philosophy.

My research approaches liberal education conceptually in three ways: historically, philosophically, and politically. Historically, …

Peri Algeos: Pain In Aeschylus And Sophocles, Anda Pleniceanu

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This thesis is an examination of physical pain in ancient tragedy, with the focus on three plays: Aeschylus’ Prometheus Bound and Sophocles’ Philoctetes and Trachiniae. The study unfolds the layers of several conceptual systems in order to get closer to the core—pain and its limits in tragedy. The first chapter aims to show that Aristotle’s model for the analysis of tragedy in his classificatory tract, the Poetics, centered on the ill-defined concept of mimesis, is an attempt to tame pain and clean tragedy of its inherent viscerality. The second chapter looks at the dualist solution advanced by Plato …

"Zeus The Head, Zeus The Middle": Studies In The History And Interpretation Of The Orphic Theogonies, Dwayne A. Meisner

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This thesis contributes to debates about the definition of Orphism by observing three characteristics of Orphic myth: Near Eastern influence, discourse between myth and philosophy, and speculations about the natures of Phanes, Zeus, Dionysus and other deities. In chronological order I analyze the fragments of four theogonies that were attributed to Orpheus: the Derveni, Eudemian, Hieronyman, and Rhapsodic Theogonies. Most modern scholars have described these poems as if they were similar to Hesiod’s Theogony – lengthy chronological accounts of the births of the gods from the beginning of time to the present – but I argue that the Orphic tradition …

Frontiers Of Food: Identity And Food Preparation In Roman Britain, Sarah J. Taylor

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Food preparation and consumption are culturally specific practices. This thesis uses literary and archaeological evidence from the military fort at Vindolanda on Hadrian’s Wall as a case study for understanding the cultural identities of diverse communities on the frontier of Roman Britain. This involves the investigation of the dietary identities of various social groups within the broader framework of the maintenance of cultural identity by conquered peoples. The distinctive preservation of archaeological materials at Vindolanda provides the opportunity to include implements not usually preserved (e.g. wooden objects and environmental data). In addition, the Vindolanda writing tablets contextualize the artefact assemblages. …