Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Unusual Accidental Signs, Microtonal Inflections, And Marchetto Of Padua, Alan D. Richtmyer

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis addresses the question of how an interval roughly half the width of the minor semitone could be incorporated into the otherwise strictly diatonic framework of the medieval gamut and then asks whether certain unusual accidentals signs found in fourteenth- and early fifteenth-century sources were meant to signal such inflections.

It demonstrates that when a tone is subdivided so as to produce a microtone, the chromatic part that remains must either be made explicit, or must be transferred elsewhere in the scale so that the encompassing framework of the gamut will remain intact. It shows that when the former …

Material Culture In The Religious Narratives Of The Old English Exeter Book, Justin J. Larsen

English Language and Literature ETDs

The term “material culture” represents many different approaches and schools of thought across multiple academic disciplines, but its place in the study of medieval literature is particularly difficult to ascertain. The long tradition of simply using the archaeological record to “fill in” gaps left in the textual historical record does little to expand our understanding of the place that these objects actually occupied in the users’ daily lives, nor does it allow us to make greater connections between the texts, their audiences, and their broader environment. Likewise, the role of the text and its reception has a great deal to …

The Gods Have Taken Thought For Them: Syncretic Animal Symbolism In Medieval European Magic, Solange Nicole Kiehlbauch

Master's Theses

This thesis investigates syncretic animal symbolism within medieval European occult systems. The major question that this work seeks to answer is: what does the ubiquity and importance of magical animals and animal magic reveal about overarching medieval perceptions of the world? In response, I utilize the emerging subfield of Animal History as a theoretical framework to draw attention to an understudied yet highly relevant aspect of occult theory and practice. This work argues that medieval Europeans lived in a fundamentally “enchanted” world compared to our modern age, where the permeable boundaries between physical and spiritual planes imbued nature and its …

Misassembled Monsters, Jenn Brown

Graduate School of Art Theses

This thesis is a narrative of personal and material history. Through my work in painting, sculpture, and installation, I seek to share my story of emotional armoring in an attempt to connect to an audience. In my work, I look to my personal memories of growing up in a small, midwestern town and armoring myself with emotional barriers against its social construct of “normalcy.” Inspired by Medieval suits of armor and the characteristics of Goth culture throughout history, I employ my work to present the stage of a theatrical battleground. Creating each of my pieces is a fight for the …

Splitting Hairs: The Creation And Dissolution Of Boundaries In Thirteenth-Century French Literature, Cassidy Devon Thompson

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Medieval authors often blur the boundaries between humans and animals in their works. In “Splitting Hairs: The Creation and Dissolution of Boundaries in Thirteenth-Century French Literature,” I study how medieval authors dehumanize people by inscribing bestial traits onto the human body via hair and hairiness in order to interrogate acts of self-definition, religious practices, social identity, and gender roles. The work examines a wide variety of literary and nonliterary texts of the thirteenth century including encyclopedias, medical treatises, hagiographies, romances, satirical poetry, and fabliaux. I explore how and why authors use the visibility, malleability, and shared human and animal quality …

Of The Silmarils And The Ring: J. R. R. Tolkien's Fiction And The Importance Of Creation And Art, Michael Hartinger

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

J. R. R. Tolkien embodies the opposing ideals of Enchantment and the Machine in the Silmarils and the One Ring respectively. These created objects oppose each other just as Tolkien’s ideals of art do. Enchantment is art’s ideal, it's purpose is to glorify and enrich the beauty of reality through subcreation. The Silmarils exhibit the delight of making and perceiving beauty. Whereas the Machine is art’s shadowy reflection that utilizes apparatuses or devices rather than personal talent in order to coerce others and reality itself. Overall Tolkien's aesthetic theories reflect many fears surrounding modern attitudes toward weaponizing art. Tolkien supplies …

“All The Foundation Of The Earth Becomes Desolate” Tracing Icelandic And Anglo-Saxon Connections Through A Shared Literary Frontier, Adam E. Timbs

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The mythology of migration is deeply integral to the medieval Germanic societies peopling Northern Europe and the island nations of the North Sea. Anglo-Saxon and Icelandic society construct their identities through a memory of migration that takes places within a frontier that is mythic and historical in scope. By surveying eco-critical components of Anglo-Saxon poems such as “The Wife’s Lament” and “The Husband’s Message” alongside the Icelandic sagas Egil’s saga and The Vinland sagas, a shared tradition of the frontier ideal is revealed.

Medieval Japanese Zen: Catalyst For Symbol System Formation, Kendall Ann Roper

Dissertations, Masters Theses, Capstones, and Culminating Projects

Post-modernism asserts that the world as we know it does not exist independently from the symbolic interpretations we formulate about it. This symbolic and ever unfolding interpretation of reality applies to our understanding of science as well as philosophy, to religion as well as art. In striving to describe religious experiences, various cultures have developed complex symbolic languages whose purpose is to reference a culturally understood version of sacred reality as presented through religion. Religions contribute to shaping these cultural perceptions of reality by utilizing symbolic acts, objects, events, qualities, or concepts to express otherwise inexpressible elements of a culture’s …

Rising Above The Faithful: Monumental Ceiling Crosses In Byzantine Cappadocia, Alice Lynn Mcmichael

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The design of Byzantine architecture created viewing conditions that reveal social and spatial contexts of Christian ritual, private devotion, and expressions of identity. This is apparent in the decoration of ceilings, which were crucial visual elements within spatial relationships in late antique and medieval architecture but are rarely discussed because few examples survive. However, Byzantine Cappadocia, a region that is now central Turkey, has a high number of extant medieval ceilings in its rock-cut architecture. About eighty monuments there have monumental ceiling crosses that were painted or carved in relief between the sixth and eleventh centuries. In this dissertation the …

The Transition Of Papal Politicization As Demonstrated Through Pope Gregory Ix And His Adversaries In The Thirteenth Century, Emily Northcutt

History ETDs

Gregory IX (pope 1227-41) asserted his papal authority over secular and religious leaders in an attempt to showcase the strength of the church. His pontificate took place between those of the famous Innocent III (1198-1216) and the powerful Innocent IV (1243-54), meaning that Gregory’s accomplishments are often overshadowed. This thesis aims to prove that Gregory is a worthy protagonist and a worthy subject of study in his own right. Comparing Gregory’s pontificate to those of his immediate predecessor and successor highlights the shifting nature of Gregory’s priorities. This work examines Gregory’s relationship with Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II regarding crusades …

Aurality As Methexis And The Rise Of Castilian Literature: The Case Of The Siete Partidas, Maristela Verastegui

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Participation is the engine of cultural production. In the case of literature, the privileged modality that enables participation is auditory perception. In order to articulate a theory of literary cultural production based on auditory perception, participation needs to be analyzed in the context of Platonic methexis, understood as an embodied experience facilitated by brain mechanisms of sensory processing and cognition, which manifest in specific ways in written texts. The Siete Partidas, the first complete and systematic legal code of the Western World, provides the perfect case study to test a theory of literary cultural production based on methexis via …

Losing Shahrazad: A Distant Reading Of 1001 Nights, Taysa Mohler

Senior Projects Spring 2018

This project is a distant reading analysis of seven 19th and 20th-century English translations of One Thousand and One Nights or The Arabian Nights. Through the use of computer programming and distant reading, it becomes clear that the Nights' frame tale is the carrier of the internal logic and generative power of the story cycle. Further, the frame tale expresses the Nights' self-representation, which serves to undermine the historical use of the Nights as synecdoche for the Orient. Therefore, the translators that remove the frame story from their versions further the Nights' use as an Orientalist object, …

"Wommanly Noblesse:" Female Gender Dynamics In Medieval Romance, Mary Elizabeth Shaner

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Exploring systemic, gendered power dynamics and inequalities for women within medieval Matters of Rome, France, and Britain Romances is essential to understanding real-world sociopolitical power structures and female gender roles. Diverging from most previous scholarship in my use of critics as well as in my interpretation of Criseyde and Guinevere as protagonists, my argument examines how scholars would laud the heroic bravery of Geoffrey Chaucer's Criseyde and Sir Thomas Malory's Guinevere if they were male heroes, yet because of the narrative conventions of medieval Romance, Courtly Love, Chivalry, and the Antifeminist Traditions, these fictive women are seen as the destroyers …

Dread And The Undead: Old Norse Zombies, Arthurian Adventures, And Horror Movies, Mikaela Torraca Kohan

Senior Projects Fall 2018

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Languages and Literature of Bard College.

"Alas For The Red Dragon:" Redefining Welsh Identity Through Arthurian Legend, Claire Lober

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Projects

Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia regum Britanniae, Prophetiae Merlini, and Vita Merlini reimagine British history in an attempt to renegotiate the boundaries between English and Welsh culture. Through the figure of Merlin, Geoffrey co-opts key elements of Welsh culture as part of the larger Norman colonization effort. I argue that the effectiveness of Geoffrey’s colonization attempt lies in his embodiment of Welsh figures and his hybrid identity that allowed him to insert himself into the Welsh narrative and reconstruct it from within. I also argue that a reconsideration of Vita Merlini reveals a new dimension of Geoffrey’s colonial project. Merlin’s changing …

Sacred And Profane Loves: The Renaissance Influence In C.S. Lewis' Till We Have Faces, Kevin Corr

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

C.S. Lewis’ last novel, Till We Have Faces: A Myth Retold, has often been regarded as his greatest work, but just as often as his most enigmatic work. The purpose of this thesis is to unveil much of the novel’s mystery by considering the impact Renaissance literature had in shaping the novel, most notably Edmund Spenser’s Faerie Queene. Although it is well-known that Lewis was Professor of Medieval and Renaissance Literature at Cambridge, current scholarship on Lewis has overlooked the Renaissance influence in the author’s work, which particularly plays a vital role in Till We Have Faces. …

Crazy In The Garden, Martin Pate Katzoff

Senior Projects Fall 2018

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Arts of Bard College.

Listening To An/Other Voice: Gender, Creativity, And The Divine In The Works Of Female Christian Mystics And Women Surrealists, Stephanie Garboski

Honors Theses

This thesis will compare two groups, Christian women mystics and women surrealists, by analyzing select works by Hildegard of Bingen, Mechthild of Magdeburg, Leonora Carrington, and Dorothea Tanning. This analysis will involve a comparative, theoretical approach that draws connections between the way in which both groups utilize varying literary and artistic forms, symbols, and polyglottery. I will utilize Bourdieu’s terms of cultural production as a framework in which to better understand how women of both fields are used for their creativity and supposed connection to an/other, which is the source of inspiration native to each field, God and the unconscious. …

"Contra Haereticos Accingantur": The Union Of Crusading And Anti-Heresy Propaganda, Bryan E. Peterson

UNF Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study assesses the intersection of crusading and heresy repression in the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries. The event that encapsulates this intersection was the Albigensian Crusade, a two-decades long conflict that befell the south of France, or Occitania. The papacy, aligned with northern lords and other willing Christians, took up arms to defend the Church from the Cathar heresy’s corrupting influence. This conflict marked a new development in Christian acts of violence. While the Church had crusaded against many different enemies—even branding some as heretics—before 1209, the Church had never called a crusade for the explicit purpose of …

A Righteousness Housed In The Body: The Conception And Division Of Kings' Bodies In Early Medieval Northwestern Literature, Sharon Miller Wofford

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines how the bodies of kings in medieval Irish, Anglo-Saxon, and Norse literature demonstrate sacral kingship, a theory which links the prosperity of a people to the strength of the king’s relationship with the divine. I argue that the practice of collecting the heads of English kings as relics, particularly the Northumbrian warrior-kings Edwin and Oswald, is due to an understanding of the king's bodies as a source of power and "luck." I put the dispersal of the heads of Kings Edwin and Oswald in conversation with the work of Andrew Reynolds on deviant burial customs in Anglo-Saxon …

She Is Right To Behave Thus: Implications Of Illicit Rendezvous In Medieval Narrative, Catherine Albers

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

While preconceptions of the Middle Ages often rely on assumptions about Christianity and the kind of society that the Catholic Church promoted, the reality is that the historical and literary medieval world is much more complicated. When discussing the issues of sexuality, women, and sexual normativity, these assumptions hinder our ability to accurately analyze the content and reception of medieval literature. This project addresses this gap by positioning itself among the criticism set forth by scholars of four different cultures (Irish, Norse, English, and Italian) to examine the connections between the reception of women who act outside of the boundaries …

"A Meruelous Thinge!": Elizabeth Of Spalbeek, Christina The Astonishing, And Performative Self-Abjection In Oxford, Bodleian Library, Ms Douce 114, Murrielle Michaud

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Contributing to the spirited discussion regarding feminist and pro-feminine readings of Middle English hagiography, this dissertation challenges the tradition of grouping accounts of medieval holy women into a single genre that relies on stereotypes of meekness and obedience. I argue that fifteenth-century England saw a pro-feminine literary movement extolling the virtues of women who engaged in what I term “performative self-abjection,” a form of vicious self-renunciation and grotesque asceticism based on Julia Kristeva's model of the abject. The corollary of women's performative self-abjection is ex-gratia spiritual authority, public recognition, and independence, emphasized in the English corpus of fifteenth-century women’s hagiography. …