History of Art, Architecture, and Archaeology Commons^™

We Might Be Mad Here : An Archaeological Investigation Of Institutional Life In The Northeast, Rachel Manning

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

The establishment of almshouses in the United States provided a way for states to offer housing to their poor and destitute populations. Throughout the 20th century, most of these establishments changed their function, with many of them morphing into asylums for the mentally insane. Grave assemblages have been collected through archaeological excavations, typically when significant changes are expected to be made to what was once property of the almshouse. This study compares the artifact assemblages of three contemporaneous almshouses: the Oneida and Onondaga County Almshouses of New York State and the Uxbridge Almshouse of Massachusetts. While the associated artifacts are …

57 | Caesarea Maritima, Volume I: Herod’S Circus And Related Buildings, Part 2: The Finds, Yosef Porath

IAA Reports—Monograph Series of the Israel Antiquities Authority

This is Part 2 of Volume I in a series of final reports of the IAA Excavation Project at Caesarea (1992–1998), the renowned ancient city built by King Herod. Volume 1: Part 2 presents the pottery, coins and glass finds from excavations in Herod’s Circus.

The Hurttienne And Meyer Lots Of Corktown, Detroit– A Historical Archaeological Study In Identification Of Formation Processes And Resident Behavior, Graham Sheckels

Wayne State University Theses

This thesis examines two historical archaeological excavations at the Hurttienne and Meyers properties in the Corktown district of downtown Detroit. A series of houses were built upon these lots in the late 1800's, and were occupied for more than a century, before burning down and being bulldozed in the 1980's. Both single family households and boardinghouses are represented at these sites. Data has been compiled and mapped using Geographic Information System (GIS) software, interpolating contour maps for both lots. These interpolations are further overlaid with building footprints obtained by georectifying Sanborn and other historic maps. Comparison of different excavation layers …

Arabic Pseudo-Script And The Italian Renaissance, Wihad Al-Tawil

Wayne State University Theses

ABSTRACT

ARABIC PSEUDO-SCRIPT AND THE ITALIAN RENAISSANCE

by

WIHAD AL-TAWIL

May 2015

Advisor: Dr. Jennifer Olmsted

Major: Art History

Degree: Master of Arts

The curious pseudo-Arabic script found on artworks of the Italian Renaissance period provide art historians with an interesting challenge. Through the teachings of western-based perspectives of history, it has come to be accepted that pseudo-Arabic was included in religious artworks chiefly as a visual tool which referenced the eastern roots of Christianity. This essay proposes an alternative model of interpretation, however, which explains the inclusion of pseudo-Arabic script as a visual indication of humanism—an educational mentality born …

Beads And Pendants From Sedeinga, Nubia, Joanna Then-Obłuska

BEADS: Journal of the Society of Bead Researchers

Excavations conducted during the 2009-2014 seasons at the burial site of Sedeinga, Nubia, produced 3,400 beads and pendants of various materials which date to the Late Napatan and Meroitic periods, ca. 400 B.C.-A.D. 300. The chronological, geographical, and political situation of the site made the bead assemblage exceptionally rich in organic and inorganic materials as well as the technologies used to make the objects. During a period dominated by faience and glass in bead production, the use of organics and stones indicates strong links with the neighboring Nubian deserts, an overland connection with the Red Sea coast, and, surprisingly, an …

Historicity, Achronicity, And The Materiality Of Cultures In Colonial Brazil, Amy J. Buono

Art Faculty Articles and Research

"In this essay, I use three nontraditional forms from the visual culture of colonial Brazil—Tupinambá featherwork, Portuguese Atlantic mandinga pouches, and azulejos (tilework)— in order to meditate upon materiality and temporality as methodological problems with which our discipline should engage. Each of these art forms has historical trajectories that span cultures, continents, and centuries, a circumstance that raises questions as to how such diverse and stubbornly nonhistoricizable genres can be melded into a coherent historical narrative of the visual and material cultures specific to 'Brazil,' especially when two of them — the mandinga bags and azulejos — are not intrinsically …

2015 Bethsaida Field Report, Rami Arav, Carl Savage, Nicolae Roddy, Gregory C. Jenks, Vanessa Workman, Kenneth M. Bensimon

Field Reports

The 2015 excavation season at Bethsaida took place during May 28th to July 3rd, 2015. Seventy six faculty, students and volunteers joined this season. The expedition was hosted in Ginosar Village, Kibbutz Ginosar. We are very grateful for the kind and efficient hospitality Ginosar team and members, provides us for more than 20 years.

Scribblescholar Was Here: Confessional Notes Of A Vandal Academic, Clay Shields

Theses and Dissertations--English

As a (former) vandal-punk in the academy, I often fear succumbing to Ivory Tower Stockholm syndrome. The identities I perform, vandal-punk and scholar, ideologically clash to the point that they often feel irreconcilable. By codemeshing the high-low discourses associated with these adopted cultures, I attempt to disrupt any hierarchal privileging of either, instead searching for a way to live with and harness both.

The Truth Of Night In The Italian Baroque, Renee J. Lindsey

Theses and Dissertations--Art and Visual Studies

In the sixteenth century, the nocturne genre developed in Italian art introducing the idea of a scene depicted in the darkness of night. This concept of darkness paired with intense light was adopted by Caravaggio in the late sixteenth century and popularized by himself and his followers. The seemingly sudden shift towards darkness and night is puzzling when viewed as individual occurrences in artists’ works. As an entire genre, the night scene bears cultural implications that indicate the level of influence culture and society have over artists and patrons. The rising popularity of the theater and the tension between Protestantism …

Robot Saints, Christopher B. Swift

Publications and Research

In the Middle Ages, articulating religious figures like wooden Deposition crucifixes and ambulatory saints were tools for devotion, techno-mythological objects that distilled the wonders of engineering and holiness. Robots are gestures toward immortality, created in the face of the undeniable fact and experience of the ongoing decay of our fleshy bodies. Both like and unlike human beings, robots and androids occupy a nebulous perceptual realm between life and death, animation and inanimation. Masahiro Mori called this in-between space the “uncanny valley.” In this essay I argue that unlike a modern person apprehending an android (the uncanny human-like object that resides …

History Of Architecture And Urbanism In New York City, Malka Simon, Brooklyn College Library And Academic It

Open Educational Resources

Professor Simon requested a platform where she could provide her students with links to specialized resources and websites that relate to her course that are freely available on the web or through the library. Since her course relies heavily on site visits, she was also looking for a way to share images with students that would be accessible on a mobile device and allow a student to upload images and video to share as well. Mindful of the fact that not all her course material is available on the web, some of the course material is password protected.

The full …

Reconsidering The Influence Of Islam On Yoruba Cultural Heritage, 1930-1987, Akeem Abiodun Oladiti

Khazar Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences

Previous studies on the activities of Islam have focused on the contribution of the religion to state building (Last, 1967, p. 4 ), the nineteenth century jihad (Smith, 1961, p. 45) and the phenomenal growth of Islam during the colonial period (Gbadamosi, 1978, p. 77). However, no specific attention has been paid to how Islam affected Yoruba culture negatively with specific focus on the area of religion education and language. This study intends to fill this obvious gap in the historiography of influential cultural invasion of Islam from 1930, when colonial political structures allowed the Muslims to maintain a physical …

Norton Simon: The Man With "Two Hats", Helen Ragen

Scripps Senior Theses

Norton Simon was a unique collector because he let passion guide his collecting interests, but he controlled his passion by making his purchases based on smart economic decisions bolstered by years of experience in successful business negotiations. The Norton Simon Museum, today in Pasadena, California, displays the eccentric collectors life work as he created one of the greatest and most recognized collections on the west coast. By examining the progression and establishment of Norton Simon Inc., alongside the creation of the Norton Simon Art Foundation, multiple parallels can be drawn between Simons’ unique approach to business and the application of …

Previously Undocumented Art Criticism By Walt Whitman, Wendy J. Katz

School of Art, Art History, and Design: Faculty Publications and Creative Activity

Whitman’s “Letters from a Travelllling Bachelor,” written for the New York Sunday Dispatch (October 14, 1849, through January 6, 1850) are well known, as is his practice of contributing news about Brooklyn and Brooklyn artists to the Dispatch as well as to other newspapers like the Evening Post.1 But his extended description of a painting by Jesse Talbot, Encampment of the Caravan, in the Evening Post (“Encampment of the Caravan,” April 29, 1851; p. 1), and his critique of the National Academy of Design annual exhibition in the Dispatch of the following year (“An Hour at the Academy of Design,” …

Alienata Da'sensi: Reframing Bernini's S. Teresa, Andrea Bolland

School of Art, Art History, and Design: Faculty Publications and Creative Activity

Gian Lorenzo Bernini’s Ecstasy of St Teresa for the Cornaro Chapel (1647–52) is perhaps the artist’s most sensually charged creation, and the apparently physical nature of Teresa’s ecstasy is today even acknowledged in survey textbooks. Teresa herself opened the door to this reading when, in describing her spiritual ecstasy, she admitted that ‘the body doesn’t fail to share in some of it, and even a great deal’. Yet the balance between sense and spirit in the sculpture emerges somewhat differently if it is viewed (literally and figuratively) in context: as an altarpiece in a chapel where its presentation is structured …

The Tomb Of Ny-Ankh-Nesut: A Contextualized Study Of Looted Fragments, William L. Austin

Honors Papers

This paper’s aim is to place the looted fragments from Ny-ankh-nesut's tomb back into their original context within the tomb, based on what remains in the tomb today and on the meaning and significance behind the iconographic themes. In order to understand the meaning behind the fragments, this paper will begin with an introduction to the purpose of Old Kingdom tombs. Through observing the basic necessities of an Old Kingdom tomb, one can begin to discover how and why Ny-ankh-nesut would have chosen the specific program exhibited in his tomb. Along with illustrating the underlying principles of Egyptian funerary practices, …

China Gothic: Indigenous' Church Design In Late-Imperial Beijing, Anthony E. Clark

History Faculty Scholarship

In 1887 the French ecclesiastic-cum-architect, Bishop Alphonse Favier, negotiated the construction of Beijing’s most extravagant church, the North Church cathedral, located near the Forbidden City. China was then under a semi-colonial occupation of missionaries and diplomats, and Favier was an icon of France’s mission civilisatrice. For missionaries such as Favier, Gothic church design represented the inherent caractère Français expected to “civilize” the Chinese empire. Having secured funds from the imperial court to build his ambitious Gothic cathedral, the French bishop enlisted local builders to realize his architectural vision, which consisted of Gothic arches, exaggerated finials, and a rose widow with …

My Way Or The Highway And A Correspondence: Visual Representations Of The City, Larkin J. Sheldon

Scripps Senior Theses

This Capstone Project encompasses two videos, each representing different ways to visually structure the experience of “the city”.

The first video, "My Way or the Highway", is a 5 minute piece examining Los Angeles Transportation systems. Through observational footage and a poetic editing style, I compare and contrast the experience of traveling via public and private transportation. Through this video I aim to encourage the viewer to consider their own transportation options whether it is in Los Angeles or anywhere else around the world.

The second is a 12 minute video, titled "A Correspondence" structured as a …

Iksal Village A-7352, Fadi Abu Zedan

Favissa: Past Archaeological Excavation Reports

In March 2015, a salvage excavation was conducted in the center of the village of Iksal (permit No. A-7352/2015), prior to the construction of a private residence. The excavation, carried out on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority, was directed by F. Abu Zedan, with the assistance of Y. Ya‘aqobi (administration), R. Liran and R. Mishayev (surveying), Y. Bibas (photography), and K. Kovlo (scientific guidance).

Anti-Grand: Contemporary Perspectives On Landscape, N. Elizabeth Schlatter, Kenta Murakami

Exhibition Catalogs

Anti-Grand: Contemporary Perspectives on Landscape

Joel and Lila Harnett Museum of Art University of Richmond Museums, VA
January 15 to March 6, 2015

Anti-Grand: Contemporary Perspectives on Landscape features 24 contemporary, international artists, artists’ collectives and game developers who examine, challenge, and re-define the concept of landscape while simultaneously drawing attention to humanity’s hubristic attempts to relate to, preserve, and manage the natural environment. Anti-Grand includes 33 works of art, with video, installation, video games, and traditional two- and three-dimensional work.

All of the works in the exhibition were created since 2000 to focus on art made well after the …