Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Le Diable Au Coeur : Bonjour Tristesse Et La Valeur Littéraire Dans Les Années 1950, Lauren E. Mccouch

Senior Honors and Award-Winning Theses

No abstract provided.

Le Juif Caché : Analyse Filmique Du Personnage De Vinz Dans La Haine, Viviana Freyer

Senior Honors and Award-Winning Theses

No abstract provided.

“The Weird And The Occult” In Carmilla And “The Portrait Of Roísín Dhu”, Eliza Lehman

Senior Honors and Award-Winning Theses

This thesis brings together two Irish Gothic texts that contemplate queer intimacy and reveal similar logics of imagined Irish Catholicism. By reading Sheridan Le Fanu’s 1872 novella Carmilla and Dorothy Macardle’s 1924 short story “The Portrait of Roísín Dhu” alongside Heather Love’s Feeling Backward: Loss and the Politics of Queer History (2007), this thesis examines the literary treatment of Irish Catholicism and queerness as “backward.” In both texts, the embedded narrative undermines the frame, allowing more subversive and complex themes to haunt the hopeful, nationalist frame of “The Portrait of Roísín Dhu” and the patriarchal, imperial frame of Carmilla.

Reliving The Troubled Past In “Republican Disneyland”: The 1994 Colonial Williamsburg Auction And Living History Representations Of Enslavement, Zoë Kaufmann

Senior Honors and Award-Winning Theses

No abstract provided.

Entre Métèques Et Cosmopolites : La Place De Paris Dans L’Imaginaire Des Écrivains Du Boom Latino-Américain, Marcos Padrón Curet

Senior Honors and Award-Winning Theses

No abstract provided.

Skin Deep: Racial Categorization In Herman Melville’S Moby-Dick, Devasha Solomon

Senior Honors and Award-Winning Theses

This thesis engages skin as a site of racialization and changeability in Herman Melville’s 1851 novel Moby-Dick. Throughout the novel, Ishmael close reads the skins of those around him to fit his vision of the narrative. Lots of skins are sewn together to create a single white skin. He classifies characters into neat categories in an attempt to destroy their ambiguity, but Ishmael himself contains and develops racial ambiguities that he fears. Melville’s narrator fails to force all of his characters into his story because of the counterstories fundamentally engrained in the skins he attempts to violate.

Surface Impressions: Materiality, Affect, And Bodily Reading Methods In Melville’S Moby-Dick (1851), Sydney Chun

Senior Honors and Award-Winning Theses

By reading different surfaces of Moby-Dick (1851), from the figurative to the material to the embodied, I examine how surface is a relational state. This essay tracks Ishmael’s textual participation with surfaces—or, in other words, how he comes to read, know, and feel—across relational and sensual modes of affect, form, and materiality. Drawing on material text studies, affect studies, New Materialism, and queer studies, I argue that imagined and actual embodied contact enables a kind of sensory, intimate reading method. I engage bodily textual inscription through “impressibility,” following the sensed impressions occurring at the skin. More broadly, I explicate how …

The Art Of Burial In The Medieval Nile Valley: Christian And Islamic Interchange In Religious Funerary Contexts, Arielle Winnik

Bryn Mawr College Dissertations and Theses

Christian communities in medieval Islamic Egypt (ca. ninth to twelfth centuries) were active participants in Islamicate visual culture. Indeed, Christians employed the same artistic objects as their Muslim neighbors in secular contexts, and close commonalities were even pervasive in art employed in religious rituals.

This dissertation investigates one such instance of the shared use of objects between Christians and Muslims in distinct sacred contexts. Christian and Muslim burials shared deep similarities, including the use of burial shrouds and grave markers with almost identical iconographic and compositional features. I draw attention to ways that Christians deployed an interreligious visual and material …

Speech And Enchantment In Early Greek Thought From The Archaic To The Hellenistic Period, R. J. Barnes

Bryn Mawr College Dissertations and Theses

When describing complex aesthetic or cognitive experiences, speakers often reach for idiomatic language. For ancient Greeks, one major cache of idiomatic terms comes from the language of enchantment. This dissertation accounts for how and why ancient Greeks used words related to θέλγω, κηλέω, γοητεία, μαγεία, μαγγανεία, ἐπῳδή, and ψυχαγωγία as a way of describing the effects of speech and song. Examination is given to writers from the Archaic to the Hellenistic period. Most important are Gorgias of Leontini, Plato, and Philodemus, who each remark in detail about the experience of enchantment. The study reveals that Greek writers use the language …

Radiant Sites: Projection And The Mobile Spectator In Contemporary Moving-Image Installations, Taylor Hobson

Bryn Mawr College Dissertations and Theses

This dissertation examines contemporary moving-image installations that use projected images to expand and elaborate upon the cinematic experience. It focuses on works by Douglas Gordon (b. 1966), Jim Campbell (b. 1956), and the partnered artists Janet Cardiff (b. 1957) and George Bures-Miller (b. 1960), all of whom have reconfigured the classical cinematic system of viewing since the 1990s. Through their works, I trace the term “expanded cinema” as a literal extension of projected light from the screen into the open gallery and beyond. I argue that the term “projection” – as thrown light, mental anticipation, and moving bodies – brings …

Resistance To The Rise Of The Principate: An Analysis Of Literary Allusions To Augustus’ Rivals, Christina Mcguire Villareal

Bryn Mawr College Dissertations and Theses

This dissertation asserts that opposition to Augustus and the establishment of the Principate was pervasive and originating from all social strata. After examining incidents of political resistance and social unrest, the project analyzes literary allusions to those who were killed or exiled while challenging Augustus’ rise to power. Using maps, coins, and other artefacts to help explore topographical and contemporary references, this study maintains that coded depictions in literature may provide deeper understanding of events from the period, especially since many of our extant sources are biased, incomplete, or composed centuries later.

The case studies for the literary portion of …

Surface Impressions: Materiality, Affect, And Bodily Reading Methods In Melville’S Moby-Dick (1851), Sydney Chun

Senior Honors and Award-Winning Theses

By reading different surfaces of Moby-Dick (1851), from the figurative to the material to the embodied, I examine how surface is a relational state. This essay tracks Ishmael’s textual participation with surfaces—or, in other words, how he comes to read, know, and feel—across relational and sensual modes of affect, form, and materiality. Drawing on material text studies, affect studies, New Materialism, and queer studies, I argue that imagined and actual embodied contact enables a kind of sensory, intimate reading method. I engage bodily textual inscription through “impressibility,” following the sensed impressions occurring at the skin. More broadly, I explicate how …

"Dämonendiagnose": Behinderung, Sexismus Und Antisemitismus In Der Mittelalterlichen Monster-Mythologie Nordeuropas, Stephanie Strevey

Senior Honors and Award-Winning Theses

No abstract provided.

The Neo-Latin Supplements To Virgil’S Aeneid, 1400–1700, Luca A. D'Anselmi

Bryn Mawr College Dissertations and Theses

In this dissertation, I examine the Neo-Latin supplements to Virgil’s Aeneid (1400–1700), in particular, Pier Candido Decembrio’s Liber Decimus-Tertius Eneidos (1419), Maffeo Vegio’s Supplementum (1428), Jan van Foreest’s Exequiae Turni (1651), and the Supplementum ad Aeneida (1698) of Simonet de Villeneuve. This thesis is a contribution to the ongoing discussion surrounding the nature of classical supplementation in Neo-Latin texts. While advancing new readings of each of the supplements, I argue that previous definitions of supplementation and previous scholarly approaches to each of the Virgilian supplements are insufficient. In addition, I make available several of the supplements for the first time …

Imperial/Non-Imperial Encounters In The Gulf During The Late Pre-Islamic Period: The Glazed Pottery From Southeastern Arabia And Tepe Yahya, Iran, Matthew F. Jameson

Bryn Mawr College Dissertations and Theses

This dissertation proposes a method of combining formal, contextual, and geochemical ceramic analyses to investigate an encounter between imperial and non-imperial societies evidenced in the archaeological record. Glazed pottery from Mesopotamia appeared in southeastern Arabia and southeastern Iran during the late pre-Islamic period (c. 300 BCE – 7th century CE) and neither the mechanisms through which it arrived nor its use in local contexts is fully understood. It is found alongside a set of objects that signal an increased connectivity with the wider worlds of the Indian Ocean, MENA region, and the Mediterranean. Previous scholarship has focused on the extent …

Text And Images Of Authority: The Inscribed Seals From The Persepolis Fortification Archive, Christina Chandler

Bryn Mawr College Dissertations and Theses

The Persepolis Fortification archive, a large archive of administrative tablets dating to the early years of Darius I (509-493 BCE), preserves impressions of over 4,000 distinct and legible seals. 174 of these approximately 4,000 seals carry both figural imagery and text in their designs. This dissertation presents the inscribed seals corpus from the Fortification archive for the first time, thus laying the groundwork for future studies on inscribed seals from Persepolis.

Inscribed seals offer myriad avenues of investigation. In the present study, we focus on three main features of inscribed seals: 1) the languages and formulae of the inscriptions; 2) …

Plutarch Reading Plato: Interpretation And Mythmaking In The Early Empire, Collin Miles Hilton

Bryn Mawr College Dissertations and Theses

Plutarch of Chaeronea, an eminent figure among the Platonists of the early Roman Empire, built his philosophy by continuously drawing frameworks and models from Plato’s dialogues, both in his works dedicated solely to exegesis and his own lively philosophical dialogues. He both interprets Plato and adapts various models from the Platonic dialogues. Each philosopher was especially concerned with problems posed by myth, yet each also employed their own elaborate and imagistic narratives. In this study, I argue two main points. First, Plutarch’s treatment of mythic narratives, in their dangers and their potential uses, is carefully modelled after Plato. Both are …

‘The Oracular Tale’ And The Oracles Of The Greeks: Storytelling, Conjecture, And Oracular Ambiguity In Herodotus’ Histories And Its Historical And Cultural Context, Daniel J. Crosby

Bryn Mawr College Dissertations and Theses

In this dissertation, I investigate the belief in the power of prophecy in ancient Greece. More specifically, I study how the ancient Greeks used oracles, like those of the famous oracle at Delphi, to make their past, present, and future knowable. I analyze the stories about oracles from Herodotus’ Histories as well as Thucydides and the corpus of Greek inscriptions using a theory of storytelling called narratology. With this theory, I show that all stories about oracles are expressions of the same basic plot whether a narrator employs all of its typical episodes or leaves some of them implied. Further, …

Corrompue Et Corruptrice : Marie-Antoinette Dans Les Libelles Révolutionnaires, Victoria A. Murano

Senior Honors and Award-Winning Theses

No abstract provided.

The Terracotta Altars Of Morgantina: A Study Of The Form, Production, Use, And Development Of Arulae From Hellenistic Sicily, Andrew Tharler

Bryn Mawr College Dissertations and Theses

This dissertation establishes the first systematic and comprehensive study of cylindrical terracotta altars, often referred to as arulae. Arulae are considered characteristic of the material culture of Hellenistic Sicily and thought to represent a significant body of evidence for domestic cult practice. However, no comprehensive treatment has been published, and critical information about their use has not been securely established. As a result, arulae have not been fully incorporated into research on Hellenistic religion, and assertions about their ritual function remain conjectural. This study focuses on the complete corpus of arulae from Morgantina, comprising more than 300 fragments, but examples …

Prison, Publicité Et Rhétorique: Mirabeau Entre L’Ancien Régime Et La Révolution, Arianna Li

Senior Honors and Award-Winning Theses

No abstract provided.

L’Appropriation Féminine De La Vendetta Corse Dans Orphelins De Dieu, Hallie Y. Novak

Senior Honors and Award-Winning Theses

No abstract provided.

Classicizing Identity: The Alt-Right, Art, And Archaeology, Nina Angileri

Senior Honors and Award-Winning Theses

No abstract provided.

The Social Dynamics Of Early Helladic Sealing Practices: Seal Use And Social Change In Early Bronze Age Greece, Maggie Beeler

Bryn Mawr College Dissertations and Theses

This study investigates the role of administrative sealing practices in the emergence of social complexity in Early Helladic (EH) period (ca. 3100-2000 BCE) Greece. Archaeologists associate emerging complexity in mainland Greece with key developments in the EH period, including sealing practices, long-distance exchanges, monumental architecture, and craft specialization. Seals and sealings are a particularly sensitive proxy for complexity because of their economic and political potential as administrative devices, a pre-literate form of record keeping. Although Mycenaean elites used seals to control resources in the palatial political economy in the Late Bronze Age, there is no evidence that incipient elites did …

Inspired Invention: Cristóbal De Villalpando's Paintings Of The Life Of Saint Francis, Mark A. Castro

Bryn Mawr College Dissertations and Theses

This project is an in-depth study of Cristóbal de Villalpando’s cycle of paintings depicting the life of Saint Francis of Assisi, commissioned in 1691 for the Franciscan Convent in Antigua, Guatemala. This seminal group has not been the subject of a focused study since 1986 and the sources of its unique iconography, as well as its impact on later depictions of this saint’s life in New Spain, have never been fully explored. In a larger context, examining the scenes illustrated in Villalpando’s series, which were likely selected under the guidance of his Franciscan patrons, tells us something about the Franciscans …

The Latin Controversial Dialogues Of Late Antiquity, Charles Nestor Kuper

Bryn Mawr College Dissertations and Theses

This dissertation addresses how the literary genre of the philosophical dialogue was used by Latin authors in late antiquity (300–700 AD) to negotiate ongoing anti-heretical debates. ❧Traditional scholarship on this topic has focused mostly on the Greek dialogues. When the Latin material received attention, it was read in terms of its appropriation of and deviation from classical models. More recent scholarship has acted as a corrective to this model, and one key question that has emerged is whether true dialogue persisted into late antiquity at all. Some scholars have provocatively suggested that the democratic aims of the dialogue are inconsistent …

On The Surface Of A Thessalian City: The Urban Survey Of Kastro Kallithea, Greece, Laura E. Surtees

Bryn Mawr College Dissertations and Theses

This dissertation examines the establishment, occupation, and abandonment of Kastro Kallithea, a Hellenistic city in Achaia Phthiotis, Thessaly, through data collected from the intensive urban survey of the site. Kastro Kallithea is an orthogonal grid planned city with distinct zones of activities enclosed within a massive circuit wall running 2 km in length. The ancient name of the site is unknown, although it has been tentatively identified by Friedrich Stählin as the ancient polis of Peuma, known from coins and inscriptions. The site was founded in the late fourth century and was occupied into first century B.C.E. There is no …

A Walk Through The Past: Toward The Study Of Archaeological Museums In Italy, Greece, And Israel, Andrea Guzzetti

Bryn Mawr College Dissertations and Theses

Archaeological museums and museum displays help to broadcast ideological statements, particularly concerning the formation of national identities, yet the ways in which the messages being transmitted have been articulated within the actual spaces devoted to the display of artifacts are still far from being thoroughly studied. More specifically, little attention has been dedicated to some of the most immediate means through which a museum interprets the past for the modern-day visitor, such as its plan, the arrangement of its collections in the galleries, and its visiting paths.

The dissertation examines the physical features a group of archaeological museums in Italy, …

Household Shrines And Cults In Roman Achaia: A New Approach To Examining Cultural Change Under The Roman Empire, Catherine W. Person

Bryn Mawr College Dissertations and Theses

This study explores the changing nature of household cult practices, a currently under-studied category of evidence, in the Roman province of Achaia, from the first century BCE to the fourth century CE, with reference to pre-Roman domestic religion. The primary aim of this investigation is to understand to what extent Roman cult practices were integrated in select households across Roman Achaia. Household religion is an ideal indicator for cultural change and shifting cultural identities; it was essential in both Greek and Roman cultures and vital to the survival of the family unit and the wider community, but was conducted differently …

How To Ask For A Favor: An Exploration Of Speech Act Pragmatics In Heritage Russian, Irina Yevgenievna Dubinina

Bryn Mawr College Dissertations and Theses

Heritage language (HL) is a linguistic system that arises in the context of early childhood bilingualism, both sequential and simultaneous, when one of the languages is not fully acquired. The performance of speech acts in HLs is yet to be understood, and this dissertation is a first step in this direction. The study investigates the pragmatic competence of adult Heritage Russian (HR) speakers dominant in American English by focusing on their ability to comprehend and produce requests for favor that appeal primarily to the addressee's good will.

The data were collected through a questionnaire and role-play enactments in nativespeaker (NS) …