History Commons^™

The Story Behind My Uncle's Copy Of Il Milione, Janos M. Jalics

Student Projects from the Archives

In 1983, a 1948 copy of Marco Polo’s Travels was given to my Uncle Laci by my Great-Aunt Kristi and Great-Uncle Paul. It was translated by William Marsden. The story of this book is surrounded by adventure.

Digital Occult Library, Alexis Brandkamp

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This capstone project is a website, titled Digital Occult Library, hosted by the CUNY Commons and built with WordPress. The site address is:

digitaloccultlibrary.commons.gc.cuny.edu

It features (in this iteration) twenty-five unique pages with information on and discussion of occult and esoteric topics. It also hosts a forum that can be accessed and utilized by anyone, not just those registered on the Commons. The purpose of the site is to inform three types of interested parties on the highlighted topics: a general audience with no current knowledge of the occult, practitioners of esoteric traditions, and academics. Not only is the …

Editor’S Preface, Tyler Harris

Studia Antiqua

No abstract provided.

Front Matter

Studia Antiqua

No abstract provided.

Full Issue

Studia Antiqua

No abstract provided.

Why She Ran: Hebrew Bible Well Symbolism In The Protevangelium Of James 11.1–4, Rachel Huntsman

Studia Antiqua

There are aspects of the annunciation scene—as portrayed in the Protevangelium of James—which have not yet been examined by modern scholars. These issues are important when relating to the history of well symbolism in the Hebrew Bible, which symbolism continued in force through the Second Temple period. This paper examines the symbolism of wells, fertility, and marriage and how the author of the Protevangelium of James consciously knew about this symbolism and wrote his narrative in a way that distanced Mary, the mother of Jesus, from any ideas saying that she was less than virginal.

Taking Away The Sin Of The World: Egō Eimi And The Day Of Atonement In John, Jackson Abhau

Studia Antiqua

The presence of Jewish themes and allusions in the Gospel of John has received much scholarly attention in recent decades. This study follows this trend, exploring several possible connections between the Day of Atonement and the Johannine narrative. In this paper, I argue that these connections—which include John the Baptist’s identification of Jesus with the Lamb of God, echoes of the scapegoat ritual, high-priest-like prayers, and the repeated use of the phrase egō eimi—were deliberately incorporated into the narrative by the author of John as pointed allusions to the Day of Atonement. For the original audience, as well as …

Symbolism Of Temple Gates In Ancient Israel, Talitha Hart

Studia Antiqua

The gates of the city and the temple establish boundaries between inner and outer space, while also allowing access to an area that is clearly separated from its surroundings. Throughout ancient Israel, the city gate was seen as representing economic activity, belonging, justice, and strength. I would argue that the gate of the temple represented many of the same things and was seen in a similar way. I have decided to include the tabernacle, as well as both Solomon’s and Herod’s temples, in this analysis, as they seem to have been seen in a similar light even if they were …

Covenant Peoples, Covenant Journeys: Archetypal Similarities Between The Noah, Abraham, And Moses Narratives, Jeremy Madsen

Studia Antiqua

The stories of Noah, Abraham, and Moses display remarkable similarities. All three follow a narrative pattern where God appears in theophany to a prophet-patriarch figure, God forms a covenant with this prophet-patriarch and his people to bring them to a new land, and God guides them on a divinely-assisted journey until they reach that land. Rather than being the result of typological shaping or historical resemblance, the narrative similarities between these three stories are most likely indicative of a common narrative archetype, which this paper titles the covenant journey archetype. The thrice-fold repetition of this archetype within the Pentateuch attests …

Coffin Soul Portals Of The Female Xunren In Tomb Of Marquis Yi Of Zeng, Mary E. Blum

Theses and Dissertations

There is a significant void in scholarship concerning the Tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng’s (Zeng Hou Yi), Leigudun M1, Suizhou, Hubei Province, dated to 433 BCE during the Eastern Zhou Dynasty (770-256 BCE) of Bronze Age China, specifically on the lacquer coffins of the female xunren. There is extensive research dedicated to its well-preserved ritual bronze vessels, lacquer wares, and musical instruments, but this tomb is not known for the lacquer designs of portals present on twelve of the twenty-one female companion’s coffins. In this paper, I argue the xunren coffin designs in tomb Leigudun M1 of Zeng Hou …

De Libero Conscientia: Martin Luther’S Rediscovery Of Liberty Of Conscience And Its Synthesis Of The Ancients And The Influence Of The Moderns, Bessie S. Blackburn

Liberty University Journal of Statesmanship & Public Policy

One fateful day on March 26, 1521, a lowly Augustinian monk was cited to appear before the Diet of Worms.[1] His habit trailed behind him as he braced for the questioning. He was firm, yet troubled. He boldly proclaimed: “If I am not convinced by proofs from Scripture, or clear theological reasons, I remain convinced by the passages which I have quoted from Scripture, and my conscience is held captive by the Word of God. I cannot and will not retract, for it is neither prudent nor right to go against one’s conscience. So help me God, …

Bernard Palissy: Early Career - Securing Patronage And Mimicking Nature In A Moment Of Crisis, Karissa Bailey

LSU Master's Theses

Early in 1562, France was experiencing a state of high religious tension between Protestants and Catholics that would precipitate the outbreak of the Religious Wars on March 1. A week before, Bernard Palissy, a Huguenot potter, wrote a letter to his Catholic patron from prison inBordeaux where he was being held on charges associated with an iconoclastic incident in his home city of Saintes. This letter would later be published as a dedication letter for the pamphlet Architecture et Ordonnance, which featured the description of a grotto commissioned by Anne de Montmorency, Palissy’s patron, seven years earlier. This thesis analyzes …

Bones, Burials, And The Riddle Of Truth: Reconstructing The Past Through What Has Been Left Behind, Jelena M. Begonja

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Mortuary archaeology is known to be the study of human remains and burials. The primary focus of this work has been to study all of the elements associated in burials to learn more about the burial practices and rituals in a group’s culture, however, there is much more potential in studying burial sites than just learning about a group’s burial rituals and practices. This thesis will demonstrate that it is indeed possible to make different inferences about the rest of people’s daily lives, and the truth, based from materials found in studying burials alone. For some groups without much existing …

Bloodied Hearts And Bawdy Planets: Greco-Roman Astrology And The Regenerative Force Of The Feminine In Shakespeare’S The Winter’S Tale, Christina E. Farella

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis offers a new reading of William Shakespeare’s late play The Winter’s Tale (1623), positing that in order to understand this complex and eccentric work, we must read it with a complex and eccentric eye. In The Winter’s Tale, planets strike without warning, pulling at hearts, wombs, and blood, impacting the health and emotional experience of characters in the play. This work is renowned for its inconsistent formal structure; the first half is a tragedy set in winter, but abruptly shifts to a comedy set in spring/summer in its latter half. What’s more, is that planets, luminaries, and …

Female Roles In Antiquity: The Dichotomy Between The Stage And The Page, Bella Biancone

Undergraduate Research and Scholarship Symposium

The women portrayed in Greek drama were often strong, courageous, and integral to the storyline. In contrast to their real-life counterparts (who may have not even been allowed to see the plays), these women stood out as individuals in their respective stories. They are bold, dynamic, intelligent and respected. They are meant to be seen and heard. Women in drama emerge as heroines of their own stories and serve to educate the audience on some aspect of women in Greece. On other hand, the women of Homeric epics tended to be subdued and traditional; they are background characters, merely present …

Sexual And Erotic Transgression Through Aesthetic History: A Study Of Algernon Charles Swinburne, Ronny F. Ford

Beyond the Margins: A Journal of Graduate Literary Scholarship

This article examines the relationship between Algernon Charles Swinburne’s poetic writing and history, especially in regards to how he explores sexual transgressions. The article begins with how aestheticism works in tangent with history to further these transgressions within a historical context and especially within the realm of Victorian Christianity. Next, Swinburne’s medieval aesthetics in “The Leper” will be analyzed in regards specifically necrophilia and the taking care of a leper, and how the writing of this poem was both a condemnation of Christianity and an accidental upholding of it. The violent homoeroticism and monstrous femininity of “Anactoria” are also looked …

Tracing The Past, Drawing The Present, Sixue Yang

Graduate School of Art Theses

The group of work, Rising Water, Floating Islands is inspired by traditional Chinese scroll landscape paintings. Such landscape paintings combine meticulous technique, compositional complexity, and tension between representation and abstraction to reveal an alternative universe that waits discovery amid our mundane existence. In “Rising Water, Floating Islands,” I explore the political and social ramifications of the ongoing cultural conflict between traditional and emergent contemporary values. By combining traditional Chinese elements and techniques with my own markings and gestural adaptation in my painting, I give the audience the opportunity to contemplate the implications of our present digital condition through traditional esthetic …

Is It So Bad To Be Yourself?, Andrew S. Russell

Graduate Theses

Homosexuality has been a topic of recent controversial religious discourse, not only in America, but also world-wide. This begs the question: when did homosexuality become such a divisive issue in religious circles? The purpose of this thesis is to examine how ancient western cultures perceived homosexuality and treated homosexuals. Starting with the pagan civilizations of Greece and Rome, and then looking at how homosexuality was perceived in the ancient Judaic world and into the early Christian community, it seems that homosexuality only gradually became stigmatized as early Christians sought to distinguish themselves as unique in the ancient world.

Curating Digital Pedagogy In The Humanities, Katherine Harris, Matthew Gold, Rebecca Frost Davis

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

This is the published introduction to the born-digital, open-access, peer-reviewed *Digital Pedagogy in the Humanities*. More a rationale and scholarly study of both Digital Pedagogy and DPiH in general, this introduces articulates the uses, theory, rationale about digital pedagogy as it has been shaped in U.S. institutions since the explosion of Digital Humanities in 2009. As a separate field now, Digital Pedagogy is built on the generosity of its practitioners, but saving the *stuff* of teaching and pedagogy is difficult. The introduction historicizes this now-published project, its open peer review process, and its development in the early years (starting in …

The Aesthetics Of Storytelling And Literary Criticism As Mythological Ritual: The Myth Of The Human Tragic Hero, Intertextual Comparisons Between The Heroes And Monsters Of Beowulf And The Anglo-Saxon Exodus, Daniel Stoll

Undergraduate Honors Theses

For thousands of years, people have been hearing, reading, and interpreting stories and myths in light of their own experience. To read a work by a different author living in a different era and setting, people tend to imagine works of literature to be something they are not. To avoid this fateful tendency, I hope to elucidate what it means to read a work of literature and interpret it: love it to the point of wanting to foremost discuss its excellence of being a piece of art. Rather than this being a defense, I would rather call it a musing, …

Editor's Preface, Samuel Mitchell

Studia Antiqua

No abstract provided.

Front Matter

Studia Antiqua

No abstract provided.

Full Issue

Studia Antiqua

No abstract provided.

Synthetic Ignatius: Recovering Pagan And Johannine Influences In The Ignatian Epistles, Samuel Mitchell

Studia Antiqua

No abstract provided.

Josephus's Blunting Of Amalek And Phinehas The Zealot In Jewish Antiquities: A Statement Against Nationalism, Jacob Inman

Studia Antiqua

No abstract provided.

Evaluating Deafness In The Hebrew Bible: A Semantic Analysis Of Iiחרשׁ, Tyler Harris

Studia Antiqua

No abstract provided.

Canidia: Meta-Muse Of Anti-Elegy, Hanna Seariac

Studia Antiqua

No abstract provided.

Judahite Aniconism: A Determining Factor In Tensions Between The Am HāʾĀreṣ And The Haggôlāh, Jacob Fuge

Studia Antiqua

No abstract provided.

Pomegranate Imagery: A Symbol Of Conquest And Victory, Makayla Bezzant

Studia Antiqua

No abstract provided.

Greatest Among Gods And Men: The Reception Of Xenophanes’S Theology By Anaxagoras And Diogenes, Zakarias D. Gram

Studia Antiqua

No abstract provided.