Ancient History, Greek and Roman through Late Antiquity Commons^™

The Wolfenden Report: The Key To The English Gay Rights Movement, Ryan Hollister

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

The history of homosexuality in Great Britain is long and complicated, extending all the way back to the Roman conquest. Romans had a tradition of homosexuality, but when Rome fell, churches became the authority on homosexuality, leading to numerous movements to fight against it. King Henry the 8th of England outlawed buggery, a term for anal intercourse, in 1533, and there are suspicions chat King James had homosexual relationships, but the scope of English history cannot be fully summarized in a paper of this length. Instead, this paper will focus on the British decriminalization of homosexual practices in the 1950s …

Abraham Smoot: Complexity In Context, Molly Hansen

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

In 2019, a Salt Lake Tribune article described pieces of Abraham O. Smoot's slaveholding past. The article raised controversy over the administration building on BYU campus, which bears Smoot's name. After that Salt Lake Tribune article brought Smoot's negative history into a more public eye, outcry from the general public, the BYU community, the Latter-day Saint community, and the Smoot family themselves erupted. Questions like 'Why do we have buildings that honor slaveholders?' and 'Was he even a slaveholder?' and 'Do we unname or rename the Abraham Smoot Building at BYU?' were raised, and are still being asked in public …

Left In The Dust: Byu's Reluctant Response To The Rise Of The Automobile, Caleb Child

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

Although Brigham Young UNiversity students and faculty have changed throughout the years, one issue has managed to unite all members of the campus community for almost a century: campus parking lots. As a student in 1946 wrote,

"It goes without saying that we don't like muddy shoes and don't like bad roads; bur what can we do? The natural solution to the problem is to let the school go back to the horse. No parking problem, no roads to worry about. Just put the feed bag on old Dobbin and !er him roam rill school's out. Then a quick whistle, …

"Hiding By Showing": Hans Holbein's The Ambassadors As A Eucharistic Tableau, Katharine Davidson Bekker

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

Liturgical cloths and hangings have been a ubiquitous part of the Eucharistic experience for Christian churchgoers for much of the Catholic Church's religious history. While often overshadowed or displaced in religious images by the drapery of individual figures, altar cloths and frontals are occasionally featured, as in the Master of the Aachen Altar's images of The Mass of St. Gregory (figs. I and 2). A similar green cloth to those in the St. Gregory images is seen in the background of Hans Holbein the Younger's 1533 portrait of The Ambassadors (fig. 3). Though much has been said about many of …

Front Matter

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

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Editor's Preface, Alison Wood

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

When writing of her friendship with Henry James, Edith Wharton described their relationship as "an atmosphere of the rarest understanding, the richest and most varied mental comradeship." The friendship began in 1900, when Wharton sent James a brief note congratulating him on a recent publication. They struck up a correspondence, one chat lasted nearly fifteen years. Wharton would lacer reflect on the relationship in her autobiography, calling it "a real marriage of true minds," built upon a shared love of writing and reading. This relationship is documented in large part because of their vast correspondence, as the two authors shared …

See The Tears And Hear The Tales: Ancient Lessons From The Odyssey To Address Timeless Human Needs For Recovery, Aimee M. Smith

Master of Arts in Classical Studies

The ancient text of the Odyssey reveals a timeless truth that remains significant in modern days: people need to be seen and heard in order to recover from life’s difficulties. Scholarship from literary trauma theorists during the past several decades has provided insights into the recovery process from traumatic experiences. Combat trauma theory, in particular, has provided a foundation for analysis of the ancient Greek epics for exploration of the universality of the experience of human trauma and suffering. Through analysis of the nostos or homecoming process of Odysseus, the reader recognizes the importance of offering opportunity through xenia of …

Naturalist Thomas Hardy's Inadvertent Support Of The Gospel Narrative When Portraying Sexual Abuse And Shame In Tess Of The D'Urbervilles, Hannah Carmichael

Master of Arts in Classical Studies

In his novel Tess of the D’Urbervilles, the naturalist author Thomas Hardy attempts to critique the 19th-century Christian perspective on sexual abuse. Instead, he inadvertently critiques legalism, exposing it as the antithesis of true Christianity. Secular scholars believe that Hardy’s novel is blaming the Victorian era’s sexual ignorance for the stigma and shame surrounding sexual abuse. Christian scholars believe that Hardy’s naturalistic worldview simply lacks a moral standard. However, I believe that Hardy’s novel exposes an issue far deeper than sexual ignorance and lacks something far more substantive than a moral standard; his novel addresses the devastating consequences of …

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The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

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Faithful In Friendship: Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Self-Perception As Portrayed By His Relationship With Eberhard Bethge, Greer Bates

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

Shortly before Christmas 1943, Dietrich Bonhoeffer sat at the desk in his cell at Berlin's Tegel Prison to pen letters to the loved ones he left behind when the Gestapo arrested him on charges of conspiracy against the Fuhrer. Bonhoeffer recently passed the eight-month mark since his arrest, and he had given up hope of being released to his family in time for the holiday. "There's probably nothing for it but to write you a Christmas letter now to meet all eventualities," he opened a note to his parents, explaining that he had accepted the fate of not spending Christmas …

"Millions Shall Know Brother Joseph Again": The Joseph Smith Papers Internship, M. Jordan Kezele

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

Despited his prophetic Calling, it is doubtful that Joseph Smith knew when he established the Church in 1830 that it would take twenty-four large folio volumes of records to document his fourteenyear ministry. Nor did he foresee the dozens of historians, millions of dollars, and impressive research library that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints would devote to the history's assembly. The Joseph Smith Papers Project, commenced in 2001, will publish every known and available document composed or dictated by Joseph Smith from 1828 to his martyrdom in 1844. Magnificent in scope, chis mountain of work encompasses a …

Book Review: Manchester, William, And Paul Reid. Ihe Last Lion, Winston Spencer Churchill· Defender Of The Realm, Carson Teuscher

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

In the darkest days of World War II, when Germnay had conquered most of mainland Europe and the future looked bleak for those who opposed Hider and his armies, the world relied upon the decisive leadership and action of men like Winston Spencer Churchill. After painful defeats at the war's outset, Churchill's spirited rhetoric inspired Britons to rally together like a lion to resist the Axis Powers. Churchill, of course, believed that his people had "the lion heart"; but as Paul Reid wrote, Churchill "supplied the roar."

Immortality Through Obliteration: Buddhist Influences On Juche Thought, Christian Curriden

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

North Korean Juche philosophy has come to be considered a quasi-state religion. Since its inception in the mid-192os as a slogan encouraging selfsufficiency and anti-Japanese struggle, it has undergone a series of changes. First, the focus of animosity changed from the Japanese to the Americans during the Korean War. During the 1960s, it morphed into a more comprehensive nationalist ideology emphasizing political independence, economic autarky, and military self-defense. With the addition of the "political-social body" concept in 1986, it evolved yet again into a quasi-religious metaphysical worldview, asserting that the leader, party, and people were all organs of an immortal …

A Tale Of Two Conferences, Sierra Smith

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

In April 1945, the United States was in the thick of the Second World War. In Europe, Allied powers were on the offensive, slowly gaining back ground lost to the Axis while the war in the Pacific raged on. American President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin, representing the "Big Three" countries of the Allied powers, were in the midst of postwar reorganization negotiations and discussions. It was a crucial time for determining the balance of world power, including relations between the United States and the Soviet Union. At this critical moment, Roosevelt …

The Tree Of "Bitter Fruit": Why Anarchism Failed In Transylvania, Richard Bruner

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

Today, the word "anarchy" conjures images of bombs, anti-government protests, and chaos. Achough that may be the modern perception of anarchy, the image did not begin like that. The term has existed for ages, only evolving toward its modern connotation during the nineteenth century. The Greek meaning of the term is "contrary to authority or without a ruler." Anarchy existed as a loose term for the lack of government, or to describe chose who opposed government-often with a derogatory meaning attached to it. Then, in the 1840s Jean-Pierre Proudhon adopted the term to describe his political and social philosophies. Simply …

Frozen In Hell The Prisoner: Exchange Program's Influence On The Civil War, Carson Teuscher

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

The Confederacy was on the edge, and union forces knew it. In the early months of 1865, General William T. Sherman had rippled through a crippled South on his way to Virginia, following his decisive "March to the Sea." Destroying supply lines and debilitating Confederate morale, Sherman arrived in Bentonville, North Carolina, in March. There, the war's fate hung in the balance: Union morale was at a peak, and soldiers were anxious for an end to the long, bloody conflict. After three long days of fighting, a private from Wisconsin's 31st Regiment, Johann Frenckmann, lay wounded among 4,738 other casualties. …

The Smallpox Revolution, Sierra Marchand

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

Samllpx was one of the most feared diseases in colonial North America during the eighteenth century. This fear was caused by "the suddenness and unpredictability of its attack, the grotesque torture of its victims, the brutality of its lethal or disfiguring outcome, and the terror that it inspired, which [made] Smallpox unique among human diseases." People who contracted the disease had a thirty to fifty percent chance of survival, and if they survived the painful illness, many victims lost their eyelashes, had permanent facial scaring and pitting, or even sometimes went blind. This made smallpox survivors the subjects of social …

Obrajes, Andean Workers, And The Spanish Elite: Hegemony And Hierarchy In Peru's Late-Colonial Era, Taylor Cozzens

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

In colonial Peru, Spanish-Indian relations revolved around taxes and tribute labor. Regarding the latter, the Spanish elite required the conquered Andean communities to provide workers for colonial industries. Though the Spanish-whether born in Spain (Peninsular) or in the New World ( Criollo or Creole)- had the upper hand in this arrangement, they did not have total control. The relationship was, rather, one of hegemony. Historian Florencia Mallon described hegemony as a "dynamic or precarious balance, a contract or agreement [that] is reached among contesting forces." In Peru, tribute labor facilitated this kind of balance. Specifically, the Indians respected Spanish rule …

Defending Megalopolis, Joshua Mackay

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

The Battle of Leuctra in 371 BCE was a seminal moment in Greek history. The battle marked the end of the Spartan domination of Greece begun in 404 BCE at the end of the Peloponnesian War. At Leuctra, Sparta and her allies confronted Thebes and the Boeotian League and were decisively defeated. In the wake of this battle, Thebes enforced a synoikismos of the surrounding villages and small poleis and founded a unique polis, Megalopolis, whose purpose is heavily debated today. Because the lhebans constructed Megalopolis soon after the Battle of Leuctra in an attempt to contain Sparta within the …

Preface, Elise Petersen Lipps

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

One year ago, Cameron Nielsen approched me at the History Department Banquet with an interesting inquiry. We had seldom crossed paths, so his question surprised me: was I interested in replacing him as the Thetean's editor in chief? Flattered, but preoccupied with an upcoming presentation in Philadelphia and a summer internship in the English Lakes, I agreed to consider his offer with little ambition to follow through. How appreciative I am that Cameron persisted and passed my name to Dr. Jeff Hardy, who extended me a second invitation shortly thereafter. I write this prologue one year later with a grateful …

Front Matter

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

No abstract provided.

Full Issue

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

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Slim Winnings For Tubby Taft: Utah And The Presidential Election Of 1912, Natalie Larsen

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

Traveling on a special passenger train from Salt Lake City to Los Angeles, Utah governor William Spry waxed uncharacteristically eloquent with the reporters who hounded him for his insights on the 1914 congressional elections. Sent by the roundly Republican newspaper the Los Angeles Times, the reporters were looking to see how the dust had settled after the humiliating Republican losses two years earlier in 1912. Democrat Woodrow Wilson won a resounding victory that year, while Theodore Roosevelc's Progressive Parry won eighry-eight electoral votes, and the incumbent president William Howard Taft limped away with a meager eight electoral votes. Considering …

Angles And Angels: Political Unity And Spiritual Identity In Anglo-Saxon England, Susannah Morrison

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

The development of nationalism in Europe is a contested process, and most historians conclude that nationalist sentiments did not arise in the shattered remnants of the Western Roman Empire until the twelfth century. However, a national consciousness developed in England long before this date. Although it was a fundamentally abstract concept, largely limited to the intellectual domain of the highly educated elite, English national identity in the Anglo-Saxon period was a vibrant and powerful cultural force. Memorably articulated by the Venerable Bede in the eighth century, this proto-national sentiment identified the Angles-the Germanic tribes who had invaded and occupied Britain …

Non-Chinese In Chinese History The Enduring Influence Of "Foreign Barbarians" In Ancient China, Caleb Darger

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

The modern concept of Chinese Nationality is a rather recent construct. During China's early Republican (1912-27) and Nationalist (1928-49) periods, leaders like Sun Yat-sen and Yuan Shikai embraced the idea of Zhonghua minzu, translated as "Chinese nation" or "Chinese races." The inclusive term helped unify the Han Chinese people and four other major non-Han ethnic groups that comprised most of the Chinese population: The Man (Manchus), the Meng (Mongolians), the Hui (Uighurs and groups of Muslims in northwestern China), and the Zang (Tibetans). The term was later expanded in 1978 after the death of Mao Zedong to include fifty-one …

The Effect Of The Destruction Of The Jerusalem Temple On The Jewish Perception Of The Sacrificial Cult: A Look At Pseudepigraphical, Deuterocanonical, And Rabbinic Texts, Allen Kendall

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

Though many of us are somewhat familiar with today's modern world religions and with ancient religion inasmuch as it is portrayed in our own religious literature, we often do not understand how we got from the ancient world to the modern. For the most part we understand how ancient Jews worshipped in Jerusalem according to the Law of Moses and chat certain biblical practices have changed, but we are not aware of how this happened. This paper attempts to bridge that gap of knowledge by tracing the development of Jewish religious thought and practice vis-a-vis the sacrificial cult. Over the …

Limitations Of The Index In Philip Ll's Spain, Courtney Cook

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

On 19 December 1592, Philip II of Spain composed a letter to Diego de Orellana de Chaves, a royal governor of Spain's northern coast. At war with England and France, Philip's concern in this instance was neither strategy nor war logistics, but rather books. Orellana de Chaves notified Philip previously in two letters chat Spanish privateers had captured a French ship carrying books. The king expressed concern chat the books be turned over to the proper authorities, the Inquisition, reminding his governor chat not all books contain proper messages for Spanish readers. Eager to maintain the religious purity of his …

Rebirth And Renewal In Maya Ritual From The Precolonial Period To The Present, Madeline Duffy

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

The concepts of rebirth and renewal were paramount in pre-Columbian Maya culture. Traditionally, the Maya believe chat everything passes through a never-ending cycle of birch, maturation, decay, death, and rebirth. This cycle encompasses the elements of everyday life which the Maya could perceive: the human life cycle, the life cycle of crops, the seasons, and even the rise and fall of the sun. They noticed chat all of these day-today happenings "have their beginnings in a creative ace and ultimately weaken and die in an orderly succession of days chat is both comforting in its predictability and terrifying in its …

"The Voice Of The People, And Not The Voice Of This House": Legislative Instructions In The Atlantic World And The Irish Struggle For Free Trade, 1779-1780, Ian Mclaughlin

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

In 1771, on his way to London to lobby for the American cause, Benjamin Franklin visited the city of Dublin. While there, he visited with several members of che Irish Parliament, especially chose who had their own gripes with British imperialism. "I found [the Irish Patriot Party] disposed to be friends of America," he wrote of che experience to a friend, "in which disposition I endeavored to confirm chem, with the expectation chat our growing weight might in time be thrown into their scale, and, by joining our interest with theirs, might be obtained for chem as well as for …

"Always Leading Out In That Which Is Great And Good": Mormon Women's Perspective Of Women's Rights Fifty Years After Suffrage, Ashley Anderson Webb

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

On a cold Thursday in eartly February 1920, newly enfranchised women from across che nation huddled together in Chicago for a seven-day-long Golden Jubilee. The anticipated passage of the Nineteenth Amendment lay only three scares' ratification and half a year away. That same Thursday, women in Utah looked back half a century co 12 February 1870, when che Utah Territory granted its women the right co vote. While reflecting on their own history, Utah's women also case their eyes outward, joining their sisters throughout the US who looked forward co the future of nationwide suffrage. Many prominent female leaders of …