Classics Commons^™

In The Eyes Of Empires: Depictions Of Ancient Illyria, Maeve Quinlan Miller

History & Classics Undergraduate Theses

Illyria, called Illyricum under Roman governance, was an area in the ancient Mediterranean which extended across the eastern coast of the Adriatic Sea. Situated north of Greece, west of Macedon, and across the ocean from Rome, Illyria occupied a critical place in the world, and yet it remains underdiscussed in scholarship. The sources that have survived into the modern era come from non-Illyrian voices, like Livy from Rome, Polybius, a Greek historian, or Arrian, who took great lengths to record the campaigns of Alexander the Great. Without affiliation or deep understanding of Illyrian ways, places like Rome, Greece, and Macedon …

Icarus’S Fall: Villainization In Wicked, Star Wars, And The Untamed, Laura Renfroe

Honors Theses

When looking back on the most beloved, yet infamous, villains of popular culture, one can note an abundant rise of prequels and backstory-driven media exploring the paths that villain characters take that lead them to their tragic fall. Some of those stories include John M. Chu’s Wicked, George Lucas’s Star Wars: Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, and Chen Jialin and Zheng Weiwin’s The Untamed, each of which explores protagonists who are labeled as “wicked” and depicted as fallen to the “dark side.” While these characters are often studied in existing literary research, there have yet to be explicit ties …

Artifacts As Ambassadors: How Archaeological Artifacts Dictate Modern Diplomatic Relations And Repatriation, Emma Boyd

Honors Papers and Posters

In this thesis, I examine and re-center the roles of archaeological artifacts and conceptions of ownership in global politics, drawing on debates about cultural heritage and diplomacy. This thesis will emphasize debates around ownership and repatriation, articulating their value in international relations and diplomacy between Western countries and postcolonial nations, as well as between federally recognized Native American Indigenous Tribes and the United States government. The thesis review takes the Elgin Marbles, arguably the most debated subject, as a model for my case study analysis. I will explore complications driven by conversations of repatriation. Overall, this thesis will propose theories …

Intellectual Virtue And Artificial Intelligence, Bayan R. Alazab

SPARK Symposium Presentations

This paper presents a clear argument that artificial intelligence in education is not inherently detrimental, but rather that its impact depends on how it is used. Drawing on Aristotle’s concept of intellectual virtue and the Golden Mean, it argues that AI can either hinder or enhance learning. When students rely on AI as a substitute for their own reasoning, they undermine the development of critical thinking skills essential to intellectual virtue. In contrast, when used in moderation, AI can function as a tool that deepens understanding and supports cognitive growth.

The paper also highlights a key inconsistency within educational institutions. …

Aristotle And The Proslavery Writings Of The Antebellum South, Ace Farris

The Cardinal Edge

This paper explores how nineteenth-century Southern intellectuals appropriated and adapted Aristotle’s ancient defense of slavery to legitimize racial slavery in the antebellum United States. Although Aristotle’s theory of “natural slavery” emerged from the social and economic conditions of classical Greece, where enslaved people constituted essential components of the household, Southern thinkers tailored his argument to justify the peculiar institution. The paper begins by outlining Aristotle’s defense of slavery in his Politics, which states that some individuals naturally lack the capacity for rational deliberation, thereby benefiting from enslavement. Then, it traces how the American South’s investment in classical education allowed …

Sheikh ḤIlu: The Late Ottoman Ceramic Assemblage, Anna De Vincenz

Qadum: Journal of Excavation Reports from Israel

A small assemblage of ceramic artifacts, dating to the late Ottoman period, was recovered from excavations at Sheikh Ḥilu. The assemblage is typical of the period, including locally produced vessels made of Black Gaza Ware and other coarse wares, as well as a few items of imported glazed tableware. The ceramic smoking pipes, characteristic of the Ottoman period, span from the seventeenth to the early twentieth century and could have been made locally or imported from one of the many pipe-making workshops in the Ottoman Empire.

Sheikh Ḥilu: The Medieval Pottery Assemblage, Elisabeth Yehuda

Qadum: Journal of Excavation Reports from Israel

This article examines the pottery assemblage unearthed during the excavations at Sheikh Ḥilu. It comprises a variety of local and imported vessels, including unglazed and glazed bowls, frying pans, cooking pots and jugs. These vessels range in date from the twelfth century to the early Mamluk period but converge during the thirteenth century, thus testifying to a settlement at Sheikh Ḥilu during the late Crusader period.

Sheikh Ḥilu: A Crusader Structure And Additional Remains From The Iron Age And Late Ottoman Period, Yoav Arbel, ‘Abed A-Salam Sa‘Id

Qadum: Journal of Excavation Reports from Israel

Excavations at the site of Sheikh Ḥilu in Ḥadera revealed the remains of a possible manor house or farm dating from the Crusader period. The partially exposed two-phase complex is a rare example of a settlement from this period in the Sharon plain. Careful planning and relatively high construction quality attest to its significance; however, apart from its solid architecture, there is no evidence of fortification. The site underwent a non-violent abandonment at the end of the Crusader period, after which it was temporarily settled by squatters. In the late Ottoman period and the early twentieth century, this was the …

Khirbat Shumeila: Buildings From The Persian And Hellenistic Periods And Installations In Their Surroundings / ח'ירבת שומילה: מבנים מהתקופות הפרסית וההלניסטית ומתקנים בסביבתם, Elena Kogan-Zehavi

Qadum: Journal of Excavation Reports from Israel

Salvage excavations at Khirbat Shumeila identified four strata spanning the late Persian, early Hellenistic, Roman and Byzantine periods. The primary remains comprise two structures: Building 25, which features two distinct construction phases dating to the late Persian and early Hellenistic periods, and Building 6, dating to the Hellenistic period. These buildings, along with the installations uncovered within and around them, indicate intensive agricultural activity, suggesting their function as farmsteads. Their proximity to additional adjacent farmsteads implies their integration into a regional agricultural network established during the fourth-century BCE Persian administrative reorganization—a configuration that continued uninterrupted into the early Hellenistic period. …

Mediators Of The Dead: Funerary Strategies And Material Practice In The Final Jōmon Period, Celeste Marie Tran

Theses

Shakōki-dogū are prehistoric clay figurines from Japan’s Final Jōmon period, characterized by enlarged, goggle-eyed features. In both scholarship writing and museum display texts, generalized thematic labels or iconographic readings sometimes reduce the corpus’s internal variability. This study examines a focused set of Final Jōmon shakōki-dogū from northern Honshū (Tōhoku) and Hokkaidō (Figures 2–6) through their formal and material evidence—shape, surface treatment, and condition—read alongside published excavation reports and catalogue records. It asks what these figurines can be shown to do, as prehistoric artworks, within death-related practice when interpretation is anchored to observable features and documented context, rather than to a …

Parallel Concepts Found In The Thousand And One Nights And Sufi Hagiography, Walaa Kamal Emam Kamel

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis argues that The Thousand and One Nights functions as more than mere populist entertainment; rather, it constitutes a literary corpus imbued with Sufi mystical epistemologies that reflect the spiritual quests and Sufi concepts evident in hagiographical traditions. Through discourse and intertextual analysis of two Nights stories, “The City of Brass” and “The Porter and the Three Ladies of Baghdad,” alongside Farīd al-Dīn ʿAṭṭār’s Tadhkirat al-awliyāʾ, this study demonstrates how shared rhetorical strategies—specifically David Pinault’s Leitwörter analysis and L.A. Paul’s Transformative Experience concept—reveal a narrative and rhetorical emphasis on the metamorphosis of the self from worldly attachment toward …

International Students In Early American Forensics: Notes On The History Of The U.S.-Japan Forensics Relationship During The Late 19th And Early 20th Centuries, Satoru Aonuma, Junya Morooka, Tomohiro Kanke

Studies in Debate and Oratory

Ending 215 years of “national seclusion,” in 1854, Japan ratified the Treaty of Amity and Commerce with the United States and opened its doors to the rest of the world. Because of this special bilateral relationship, between the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries, more Japanese began traveling to the U.S. than to any other country. Focusing on young Japanese who went to the U.S. as students and participated in debate and oratorical education during this period, this essay will re-examine the history of the U.S.-Japan relationship in terms of academic debate and oratory. During this period, American …

A Crown In Death: An (Expanded) Dramaturgical Approach To The Trojan Women Of Euripides, Stephanie Lester

Montview Journal of Research & Scholarship

In the action-packed, visually-oriented market for modern media, some may assume a 2,400-year-old Greek tragedy to be slightly past its expiration date, especially if it features little to no action onstage like in Euripides’ The Trojan Women. However, it is important to remember that literature is lost when the world fails to cherish it, so if a text survives that long, it may be worth another cursory glance. In this case, that glance involved a full dramaturgical study featuring qualitative script analysis of multiple translations of The Trojan Women with related texts to explore context, themes, common literary devices, and …

Yafo, Ha-Te‘Uda Ha-Aduma Street: The Military Finds / יפו, רחוב התעודה האדומה: ממצא צבאי, Alexander Glick

Qadum: Journal of Excavation Reports from Israel

The excavation on Ha-Te‘uda Ha-Aduma Street in Yafo uncovered fourteen military items, including two cannonballs and twelve small-caliber bullets. A correlation of these finds with historical sources and with modern and eighteenth–nineteenth-century maps suggests that the military items uncovered in the excavation were related to one or more of the historical sieges of Yafo: the siege laid by Muhammad Beq Abu-Dahab in 1775–1776, during which a siege battery was constructed within the area of the present excavation; or Napoleon’s siege in 1799, whose batteries were likewise positioned within the excavation area.

Yafo, Ha-TeʻUda Ha-Aduma Street: The Glass Finds, Brigitte Ouahnouna

Qadum: Journal of Excavation Reports from Israel

The excavation at Ha-Te‘uda Ha-Aduma Street in Yafo yielded about fifty glass items dating from the late nineteenth to the mid-twentieth centuries CE. These include imported and locally produced medicine, cosmetic and beverage bottles, as well as bracelet fragments of common types that first appeared in the Mamluk period and remained in use through the Ottoman period and into recent times. The finds reflect a modest repertoire associated with local daily life at the beginning of the twentieth century.

Yafo, Ha-TeʻUda Ha-Aduma Street: Late Ottoman Porcelain And Ceramics, Anna De Vincenz

Qadum: Journal of Excavation Reports from Israel

The salvage excavations on Ha-Teʻuda Ha-Aduma street in Yafo yielded a small Late Ottoman ceramic and porcelain vessel assemblage. Porcelain and hard-paste vessels were imported from Europe, whereas glazed earthenware vessels were imported from Europe and Turkey. Among the locally made vessels were Black Gaza Ware and other coarse ware vessels. Many roof tiles, complete and fragmentary, as well as bricks, were imported mainly from Marseille, France. Only a few smoking pipes and narghile were found; these were either locally produced or originated in Turkey.

Yafo, Ha-Te‘Uda Ha-Aduma Street: Remains Of The Al-Hureish Neighborhood From The Late Ottoman Period And British Mandate Era / יפו, רחוב התעודה האדומה: שרידי שכונת אל־הורייש משלהי התקופה העות'מאנית וימי המנדט הבריטי, Ayelet Dayan, Yoav Arbel

Qadum: Journal of Excavation Reports from Israel

The excavation at the corner of Yehuda Ha-Yamit and Ha-Te‘uda Ha-Aduma Streets in Yafo uncovered remains dating to the eighteenth–twentieth centuries CE, including those of the late Ottoman and British Mandate neighborhood of al-Hureish. The earliest construction remains at the site, dated to the second half of the nineteenth century CE, suggest agricultural activity in the area or early residential structures with channels installed for drainage. This construction was later disrupted by a wall, possibly part of the eastern wall of the al-Hureish neighborhood, built in a subsequent phase. The main significance of the excavation was the al-Hureish neighborhood, founded …

Humanity Is Evolving Its Consciousness: The Role Of Archetypal Energies As Guides During An Unfolding Weeding Out And Alignment Process, Carroy U. Ferguson

Psychology Faculty Publication Series

Humanity is evolving its consciousness at individual and collective levels.  Given these seemingly tumultuous times, as of this writing (January 2026), to make such a statement may sound like a strange thing to say.  However, I suggest that if you are alive today and if you are reading these words, these are the very times for which you were born—to assist Humanity as it evolves its consciousness with your unique gifts, whatever they may be.  That is, this period of our individual and collective human being-ness may be characterized as an unfolding period of weeding out and alignment with the …

Opening Remarks At The Launch Of Lagff-Doc And The Inaugural Lmu Prize For Social Justice For Documentaries: The Lmu–Lagff 10-Year Educational Partnership, Katerina Zacharia

Classics and Archaeology Faculty Works

This document comprises two speeches delivered by Professor Katerina Zacharia on January 31, 2026, at Loyola Marymount University. The first speech marks the launch of the inaugural Los Angeles Greek Documentary Film Festival (LAGFF-doc) and celebrates a decade of educational partnership between LMU's Department of Classics & Archaeology and the Los Angeles Greek Film Festival (LAGFF). It reflects on the program's growth since 2014 — encompassing over 220 student interns, 135 students in Greek cinema courses, and 15 School of Film and Television faculty jurors — and articulates LMU's Jesuit mission of educating the whole person through experiential learning, critical …

Kajian Arsitektur Lumbung Padi, Lolo Gedang, Kerinci, Romario Lubis

Multikultura

Rice barns are agrarian vernacular architecture that reflects local knowledge, environmental adaptation, and the socio-cultural values of the supporting community. This study aims to examine the architectural characteristics of traditional rice barns in Lolo Gedang Village, Kerinci, through analysis of form, construction techniques, and cultural context. The method used is descriptive qualitative with inductive reasoning based on literature studies and analysis of the architectural elements of the barn as a cultural artifact. The results show that the Lolo Gedang rice barn is designed adaptively to highland climate conditions, especially in maintaining the quality of grain from humidity and pests, through …