Arts and Humanities Commons^™

North Of The Grid: The Black Experience Of 17th -19th Century Rural New York City, Stephanie E. Barnes

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In the United States, transatlantic slavery was a racial project and template for race-making which created a country that relied on institutions that were organized and performed through social stratification. Today, the nation still operates on systemically racist institutions that have benefited whites while disadvantaging ‘others.’ The narratives presented in American history are rooted in whiteness and benefit the white community while marginalizing nonwhites. Over two hundred years of slavery history in this country has been purposely manipulated and left out. My research focuses on using an historical archaeological framework to research and share the lives of free and enslaved …

Sacred Music In Colonial Era Hispaniola: The Evangelization Of The Taino People, Tito J. Gutierrez

Student Theses

During the 15th-18th centuries, the major European religious orders; the Franciscans, Dominicans, Jesuits, and Jeronymites, journeyed to the newly colonized American territories in an attempt to convert the multitudes of natives peoples living there. Along with prayer books, crucifixes, and religious images, these missionaries brought sacred European music to American shores in an attempt to attract the native people to the Catholic faith.The use of music as a tool for conversion of native people in places such as Mexico, South America, California, and the South West United States, have been well researched and documented. However, the research of the spiritual …

Building Baghdad: The Construction Of Urban Space In Iraq, 1921–1963, Andrew S. Alger

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examines the production of space in Baghdad during the monarchical and early republican eras (1921 – 1963). As the capital of the new nation of Iraq following the First World War, Baghdad expanded along the banks of the Tigris River into new residential and commercial spaces, establishing schools, boutique stores, sporting venues, electricity and running water that transformed how Iraqis conceived of the mundane activities associated with daily life. Employing a theoretical framework drawing on Henri Lefebvre’s production of space, I argue that participation in the creation of new neighborhoods and streets was uneven across differences of class, …

Aesthetic Redemption: Psychedelia, Film, And Walter Benjamin’S Sensory Revolution, Alexander C. Redlins

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This inquiry examines the ways in which the psychedelic nature of film, as posited by Walter Benjamin, has the potential to precipitate class consciousness and lead to humanity’s emancipation from anaesthetizing capitalist forces. We first explore Benjamin’s relationship to, and understanding of, Marxist thought with a particular focus on György Lukács’ theory of reification and Marx’s fetish character of the commodity which Benjamin ultimately believes lead to an erosion of the human sensorium and the destruction of human nature. As such, we explore Benjamin’s revolutionary aesthetic theory which seeks the reversal of these erosive capitalist forces and the redemption of …

Legal Frameworks For Protecting Cultural Heritage In Conflict Zones, Marcie M. Muscat

Dissertations and Theses

Cultural heritage has always been at risk during times of war. UNESCO first endeavored to address the issue shortly after World War II, in 1954, when it passed the first of three signature conventions to protect against the damage, destruction, and pillage of cultural property in times of armed conflict. Lacunae and other deficiencies in their frameworks, however, rendered these conventions difficult to enforce and largely ineffectual. This study offers an assessment of the strengths and limitations of the UNESCO system of cultural-heritage protection, with a particular focus on the 1954 Hague Convention. It is argued that, by superseding certain …

History And Politics In The Thought Of Karl Jaspers, Nathan Wallace

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

A relatively overlooked but important work, The Origin and Goal of History, by Karl Jaspers is examined with regard the intellectual history of its development and influence, and its structure and prospects for contemporary and future relevance for political theory. Emphasis is placed on the argument that the central aspect of the work has been neglected in recent, important literature: its connection of a universal historical narrative with a theory of contemporary politics.

Thresholds Of Atrocity: Liberal Violence And The Politics Of Moral Vision, Kristofer J. Petersen-Overton

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

All political communities set normative limits to the acceptable use of force. A threshold of atrocity indicates the point at which acceptable violence meets the boundaries of the unacceptable. In liberal democratic states such norms are ostensibly set higher. Hence, there is a theoretical threshold to the modern state’s ability to act in ways that violate norms it claims to uphold. Paradoxically, thresholds of atrocity are almost never breached and unconscionable violence occurs regularly. This study seeks to explain the persistence of extreme violence by developing a theory of atrocity grounded in moral vision. Liberal democratic nation-states are able to …

On The Social Construction Of Hellenism Cold War Narratives Of Modernity, Development And Democracy For Greece, Despina Lalaki

Publications and Research

Hellenism is one of those overarching, ever-changing narratives always subject to historical circumstances, intellectual fashions and political needs. Conversely, it is fraught with meaning and conditioning powers, enabling and constraining imagination and practical life. In this essay I tease out the hold that the idea of Hellas has had on post-war Greece and I explore the ways in which the American anti-communist rhetoric and discussions about political and economic stabilization appropriated and rearticulated Hellenism. Central to this history of transformations are the archaeologists; the archaeologists as intellectuals, as producers of culture who, while stepping in and out of their disciplinary …

Halaf Bead, Pendant And Seal 'Workshops' At Domuztepe: Technological And Reductive Strategies., Ellen H. Belcher

Publications and Research

Almost a thousand beads, pendants and seals have been excavated from the site of Domuztepe over the past decade. This paper is based on an examination of the general typology and technology of this assemblage. Manufacturing systems based upon social networks of decentralised organisation of small production ‘workshops’ are explored. It is suggested that these networks shared a system of sequenced actions according to raw material and finished products. A group of unfinished beads in the preliminary phase of production suggests evidence of batched reduction and finishing strategies that balanced breakage risk with a high level of proficiency. At Domuztepe …

Fifth Millennium Anthropomorphic Figurines In Southeastern And Central Anatolia: Comparative Museum Research., Ellen H. Belcher

Publications and Research

The Halaf cultural horizon occurred during the fifth millennium B.C. (uncalibrated) and extended throughout upper Mesopotamia, including southeastern Anatolia. Halaf material culture is well-known for its imaginative and beautifully made architecture, polychrome-painted pottery, geometric stamp seals and figurines. The regional character and variation of Halaf figurine assemblages however, is poorly understood, particularly in southeastern Anatolia. My research and study of these figurines reveals distinct southeastern Anatolian styles and technologies, some of which demonstrate direct connections to central Anatolia.

This article presents preliminary conclusions from a comparative analysis of contemporaneous anthropomorphic figurines belonging to the Halaf and Chalcolithic cultures …