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Full-Text Articles in Intellectual History
Agencies At War: Marshaling Places, Objects, And Sonorities In The Alta California Missions, Naomi R. Sussman
Agencies At War: Marshaling Places, Objects, And Sonorities In The Alta California Missions, Naomi R. Sussman
History Honors Projects
1769, Spanish Franciscan Junípero Serra initiated the missionization of Alta California. To transform California into a Spanish territory, Franciscan missions evangelized indigenous peoples. While traditional Alta California mission histories emphasize either Franciscan abuses or saintliness, reifying Native American subordination, most contemporary scholarship accentuates mutual hybridization but minimizes colonial power dynamics. Through archival and secondary research, this thesis argues that spatial interplay expressed neither syncretization nor unadulterated domination, but instead competing agencies within a physical and social “contact zone.” In this Alta Californian “contact zone,” material and sonic culture reinforced the continuous struggle for authority in the missions.
Mythological History, Identity Formation, And The Many Faces Of Alexander The Great, James Mayer
Mythological History, Identity Formation, And The Many Faces Of Alexander The Great, James Mayer
Classical Mediterranean and Middle East Honors Projects
Alexander the Great, ruler of Macedonia and conqueror of much of the eastern Mediterranean world in the fourth century BCE, figures prominently in folklore for centuries afterward. This paper analyzes several stories about Alexander to explore the intersections among history, myth and identity. By looking at accounts of Alexander written by Jews living in Alexandria in the Roman period, by early Byzantine Christians and by medieval Persian Muslims, I demonstrate that communities from all over the Mediterranean used myths about Alexander to redefine their identity in response to catastrophic changes.