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

“I, Too, Want To Be Free”: Women And The Birth Control Movement In Utah, 1914–1940, Evelyn Wilcox

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

Like many other women, I too, want to be free,” explained a 33-year- old Utah woman in a 1925 letter to Margaret Sanger, a prominent leader in the birth control movement. This woman, whose name is unknown, was married to a 78-year- old man with whom, she thought, “in her ignorance,” that she would never have any children—she was proven wrong. With six children under the age of eight at the time and wanting to prevent having more, this woman’s predicament reflects Sanger’s mission to inform everyday women of birth control so they could make their own reproductive choices. After …

Christianity Behind The Iron Curtain: How Creative Arts Gave A Voice To The Voiceless, Riana Johnson Wills

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

In 1988, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) held celebrations across the Soviet Union to mark the Millennium of Christianity in Russia, commemorating a thousand years since the baptism of Rus in 988. While this was a monumental day for Christians, many believers across the Soviet Union felt a sense of dissonance. For decades, religious freedom and worship had not been privileges they enjoyed. Thousands of Christians suffered for their belief. The communist regime began in 1922 with Vladimir Lenin. The USSR built upon Marxist ideology where atheism is a fundamental and they expected nationwide compliance to these ideologies. …

Rationed Victory: A Study Of American Civilian Rationing In World War Ii, Alex Moulder

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

In any conflict or competition it is often said that the winner is “fueled to victory.” This could come as a result of training, diet, stamina, support from others, or sheer willpower. Even small variations in any of these elements can have significant consequences and affect outcomes. The same can be said about civilians during wartime, especially during the largest conflict of the twentieth century, World War II. The war cemented the United States as a global power, thanks in part to its massive economy, technologies, and industries, which helped to overcome the war of attrition against the Axis powers. …

“It Was The Women Who Kept It On”: The 1984–85 National Union Of Mineworkers Strike In Wales, Brett Bodily

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

On March 3rd, 1984, more than 140,000 miners, all members of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) walked out on strike in protest of proposed colliery, or “pit” closures. Years of disputes culminated in a major showdown between the largest labor union in the United Kingdom and a resurgent national conservatism led by Margaret Thatcher— leader of the Tory party. The communities built around coal mining recognized the Tory pit closure plan for what it was—an existential threat to their way of life. Women within these communities rose to the occasion and took on leadership and organizational responsibilities, many for …

Leasing Land, Losing Sovereignty: Us Military Land Leasing In Okinawa, Japan, Kathryn Blau

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

Military land leasing in Okinawa has played a central role in limiting Okinawan political sovereignty since the end of World War II by fostering economic dependence on US military bases and enabling policies that override local opposition. Tracing the evolution of the leasing system under both American occupation and Japanese administration reveals how land expropriation, compensation policies, and increasingly generous financial incentives encouraged reliance on base-related income while discouraging advocacy for land reversion and base reduction. The analysis further demonstrates how the Japanese government's legal enforcement of mandatory lease renewals, particularly during the 1996 Okinawa land dispute, curtailed the rights …

Editor's Preface, Gabe Smock

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

This editor's preface explores the origins and enduring mission of The Thetean, BYU's undergraduate history journal. Through archival research in the L. Tom Perry Special Collections, the journal's founding history is traced to its inaugural 1967 edition, revealing the origin, pronunciation, and meaning of its distinctive name as a reference to Phi Alpha Theta, the history honor society. The preface highlights the journal's longstanding commitment to encouraging scholarly research, providing publication opportunities, and introducing students to the work of historians. By recovering the journal's own history, it underscores the broader value of historical inquiry: understanding the past to better …

Front Matter

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

No abstract provided.

Selene And Pleiades Labor To Keep Watch Over A Lonely Night - Sappho, Maksim Astashinskiy

Faculty Papers and Publications

The title is the translator’s; the poem is popularly referred to as the “Midnight poem,” Wikipedia, accessed July 19, 2026, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midnight_poem; the Greek text is transcribed from The Digital Sappho: Text and Commentary, accessed July 17, 2026, https://digitalsappho.org/fragments/fr118-168/. For an expansive compilation of translations of this poem, see: “Sappho’s Moon and Pleiades,” Brief Poems: An irregular anthology of tweet-size poems (blog), November 22, 2015, https://briefpoems.wordpress.com/2015/11/22/sapphos-moon-and-pleiades/. The unattributed two-line poem text is featured in Hephaestion (ca. 2nd century C.E.), see: Hephaestionis Enchiridion, cum commentariis veteribus edidit Maximilianus Consbruch. Accedunt variae metricorum graecorum reliquiae (Lipsiae: B.G. …

Staging Reception / Perception: Transhistorical Bi-Directional Dialogues Between Etruscan Visual Cultural Objects And Giuseppe Penone's Contemporary Sculptures, Shelby Morgan

University Honors Theses

I use the occasion of the March 2024 exhibit,"Vulci. Goods for Mankind. Goods for Gods." at Milan's Luigi Rovati Foundation to consider how the museum's staging of Etruscan visual material cultural objects and contemporary sculptures by Italian artist Giuseppe Penone prompts viewers to perceive transhistorical bi-directional dialogues between the viewer and material culture as well as between the ancient and contemporary objects themselves.

Via a close reading of the exhibition while leveraging the three frameworks of aura, imprint and classical reception I analyze how the staging of the hypogeum creates a place of atmosphere. I argue this is done through …

Forced Dependency: The Subjugation Of Women Through Medicine In Ancient Greece And Rome, Evelyn J. Polovich

Binghamton University Undergraduate Journal

In the ancient Mediterranean men were in charge of every facet of life, including women’s medicine. They forced women out of the oversight of gynecology and reformed it into a method of control that they could assert in order to force women into a position of submission. This paper aims to bring the ways in which ancient medicine was influenced by cultural ideas and worked to subjugate women and allow men to gain further control over their autonomy. This research was inspired by the works of ancient physicians like Hippocrates, Soranus, and Galen, as well as contemporary sources that critique …

The Technology Of Tradition And Biology Of Narrative: New Analogies For The Study Of Homer And Epic, Eunice Kim

Open Access Fund Publications

In two separate, timely books Bozzone and Christensen draw from a wide range of scientific disciplines and modern parallels to consider how Homeric language and epic stories are in some ways living and alive. For Bozzone, who analyses the various formal features of Homer’s poetic technique by incorporating cognitive and linguistic frameworks, Homeric language is ‘living’ insofar as it operates on mechanisms analogous to those a speaker uses for natural languages and other kinds of speaking performances. Christensen, on the other hand, applies a series of biological analogies to epic poetry and imagines that the narrative of Homeric epic is …

The Historical Persistence Of Working-Class Culture: How Laborers Created The Ethical Foundation Of Western Civilization, Kenneth Atkinson

Faculty Publications

This article highlights four historical events that shape our present: the world’s first industrial strike in ancient Egypt to protest workers’ health and safety; working-class efforts to improve labor conditions during the Roman Republic and Middle Ages through strikes and the creation of guilds; the social justice activism of the prophets of Western religions (all working-class folks!); and the creation of the selfie and the transition from a culture of character to our present obsession with celebrities and individualism that began during the Renaissance. Each case highlights unique features of working-class culture, working class reactions to societal changes, and the …

Aphrodite In Movement And Miniature: Knidian Statuettes Of The Ancient And Modern, Jacqueline M. Lewis

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis examines Hellenistic statuettes of the Knidian Aphrodite as independent works of art with distinct ancient contexts and modern collecting histories. Drawing on archaeological evidence from Delos, archival and public records from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and a comparative framework that places Hellenistic and modern collecting cultures in dialogue, this thesis aims to present the Knidia within the dynamic, interactive history of statuettes. Evaluated on its own terms rather than in relation to a lost original, Knidian Aphrodite statuettes illuminate both the richness of Hellenistic domestic religious life and …

The Hope Dionysos (After Augustus): A Post-Actian Reading Of Dionysian Imagery, Jane Horman

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

At the center of the Roman court at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York stands an almost seven-foot-tall statue of an androgynous looking figure, leaning on a smaller statue of a woman. This piece, formally known as Statue of Dionysos Leaning on a Female Figure, has been nicknamed the Hope Dionysos for both the archaic statue he is leaning on, as well as the family to whose collection he belonged for many years. However, in its day, the statue occupied a complicated place in Roman culture. This paper will examine the ways in which Dionysos, specifically through …

Rethinking The Canon: A Conceptual History Of The Layered Foundations Of Western Politics, Dembael Seidi, Muhammad Andi Firmansyah

Jurnal Wacana Politik

Many accounts of Western political history suggest a direct, straight line from Ancient Greece to modern democracy. This article argues that this “Great Books” narrative is a myth that ignores how political ideas actually change over time. Using Reinhart Koselleck’s Begriffsgeschichte (conceptual history) framework, we demonstrate that key terms such as “law” and “citizenship” were not merely preserved but fundamentally transformed as they moved through Greco-Roman, Islamic, and Judeo-Christian civilizations. We call this transformation “conceptual alchemy”: a series of semantic translations through which Greek rationalism was retheorized via Islamic metaphysics and later synthesized by medieval scholasticism. Consequently, rather than a …

Rome Goes West: The Influence Of Classical Antiquity Upon The American Founding, Rebecca Felton

Bound Away: The Liberty Journal of History

To the American founding generation, the history of classical antiquity—of Rome in particular—not only supplied a common vernacular capable of transcending geographical and social boundaries, but also imparted important lessons regarding statecraft and the destinies of nations. Over the course of the 1760s and 1770s, the founders increasingly regarded America as the inheritor of Roman imperium, politically, culturally, and even religiously. Thus, alongside British constitutionalism, Enlightenment philosophy, and Christian resistance theory, the memory of Rome contributed to the declaration of American independence from Great Britain.

Illicit Origins, Public Displays: How Trafficking And Repatriation Reshaped Ancient Greek Pottery In Modern Museums, Alisha Bhandari

Honors College Theses

This thesis examines how illicit excavation, antiquities trafficking, and repatriation have reshaped the modern circulation and interpretation of ancient Greek pottery in museum collections. While Greek pottery has traditionally been studied through style, iconography, attribution, and artistic value, this project shifts attention to the modern systems that have determined how these objects were excavated, sold, displayed, and contested. Through a literature review and three case studies — the Aineta Aryballos, the Python Bell-Krater, and the Athena Kylix — this thesis argues that ancient Greek pottery should be understood not only as evidence of antiquity, but also as evidence of modern …

Penitential Systems In The Latin West And Byzantine East, Elijah C. Dodson

Honors Theses

This thesis examines the development and organization of penitential discipline in early medieval Christianity through a comparison of the penitential tradition associated with Theodore of Canterbury in the Latin West and the canons attributed to John the Faster in the Byzantine East. The study focuses on how these texts regulated sexual sin and what their structures reveal about the institutional role of the Church in different historical contexts. The analysis is based on a comparative reading of penitential texts, supported by patristic writings and modern scholarship. By examining how specific categories of sexual misconduct are classified and disciplined, this study …

Clue In The Roman Style House: A Twist On The Classic Board Game Featuring A Fusion Of Ancient And Modern Roman Influences, Madelyn Junk

Honors Projects

Throughout time, games have been used to convey how society functions. They hint at societal structure, behavioral patterns, and roles of community members. Specifically, board games are excellent ways to teach players about attention to detail and how to synthesize information.

This unique and functional honors project finds its strength as a detail-oriented game that stresses the importance of critical thinking and deduction as it further rewards those skills through play and friendly competition. It combines art history, education, and graphic design disciplines to result in a creative output alongside a research paper. Its final product is a playable game …

The Priene Synagogue Community And Jewish Diaspora Prominence In Late Antique Cities, Amari Pavati

Undergraduate Honors Theses

The late antique synagogue of Priene, like other synagogues in the region and potentially beyond, acted as an “urban center” for the community it served. I argue that the urban context of diaspora synagogues like the Priene synagogue has been under explored, and that analysis of Jewish communities within their changing urban contexts reveals the place of Jewish communities within late antique society. Synagogues served multiple functions for their communities, some visible from archaeological evidence and other known from textual evidence. The Priene synagogue, for example, was laid out and artistically decorated to mark the central, sacred nave as separate …