Intellectual History Commons^™

Alexander Von Humboldt En España. Los Antecedentes Necesarios Del Viaje Americano., Miguel Angel Puig-Samper

Homage to Alexander von Humboldt: Travels to and from Spain Throughout the Centuries / Homenaje a Alexander von Humboldt: Viajes hacia y desde España de todos los siglos

Uno de los aspectos más desconocidos del viaje americano de Alejandro de Humboldt es el de su paso por España, sobre todo su trabajo científico, sus contactos y los medios de preparación de la exploración del Nuevo Mundo en compañía del botánico y médico francés Aimé Bonpland. Humboldt tenía varios motivos para tomar la decisión de viajar a España, aunque el fundamental fue el fracaso de sus planes anteriores para viajar a otros lugares del mundo. Necesitaba el permiso del rey Carlos IV para investigar en las regiones que le interesaban. Conseguir este permiso no era un asunto fácil, ya …

Restoration Quarterly: Vol. 67, No. 3

Restoration Quarterly

No abstract provided.

The Ghannouchi Test: The Compatibility Of Religious Ideas And Secular Democracy, Andrew P. Sheppe

Dartmouth College Master’s Theses

Secular, democratic societies and governments evolved out of religious societies and defined themselves partially in opposition to religious authority. This historical relationship has led to a debate about the compatibility between religious ideas and modern, secular society. Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde posited that secular, democratic societies still depend on religious foundations. Jürgen Habermas disagrees, claiming that processes of rational dialogue can provide sufficient support.

Two prominent twentieth century theologians, Reinhold Niebuhr and Abraham Joshua Heschel demonstrate that democratic systems are enriched and protected by theistic ideas, thus supporting Böckenförde’s dictum. However, they both recognize the importance of epistemic humility and a …

Privatisation And Toleration: How The Eighteenth-Century Enlightenment Impacted European Attitudes Towards Religion, Cody Mitchell

Swarthmore Undergraduate History Journal

For centuries, scholars have debated the significance of the Enlightenment in its impact on European attitudes to religion. On one hand, many scholars immediately following the eighteenth century saw the period as a particularly anti-religious one. For many, particularly at the popular level, the supposed birth of toleration during the Enlightenment and the post-Renaissance rise of free thought and rationalism brought about a dramatic shift in opinions and attitudes towards religion—manifesting, particularly, in the widespread acceptance of irreligion. Today, most historians adopt a more cautious approach, recognising that rarely does history conform to such simple narratives. This paper seeks to …

So Who Gets To Be Modern? Jadidism And Reform In Late Nineteenth And Early Twentieth Century Russia, Grant Douglas Linville

University Honors Theses

Jadidism was a sociocultural reformist project from the 1880s to 1920s developed by Muslim intellectuals in the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union. The Jadidist movement derives its name from the "new-method" (usul-al Jadid) schools that spread Jadid pedagogy, which revolved around the inclusion of secular topics and Western knowledge as well as instruction in local, Tatar, and Russian languages, in addition to the already present religious studies accompanied by Arabic and Persian taught in the Islamic educational institutions the maktab and madrasa (primary and higher education respectively). Over time Jadidism grew to encompass a host of societal …

A Symbol For The Masses: Sergei Chakhotin And The Modern Crisis Of Propaganda, Benjamin J. Diehl

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation is an intellectual biography of Sergei Chakhotin, a Russian biologist whose most famous work, The Rape of the Masses (1939), represented an insightful, pioneering analysis of modern propaganda as it arose during Europe’s “Age of Catastrophe” (1914-1945). In this work and others, Chakhotin used the psychological theories of Ivan Pavlov to develop a system of thought that emphasized the scientific possibilities and political inevitability of mass conditioning through propaganda. In addition to Pavlov’s theory, Chakhotin also used other intellectual frameworks, such as Taylorism and microbiology, to buttress his own firsthand experience during World War I, the Russian Revolution, …

Disability: A Dirty Word? How Language Historically Perpetuates Exclusion And Systemic Oppression, Kelly E. Imm

Graduate Masters Theses

In 1990, the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) marked a pivotal moment in the American disability rights movement, which began in the 1960s and sought to secure civil rights for people with disabilities. Despite this monumental achievement, this thesis considers how the language used throughout American history and culture to describe people with disabilities, even within the confines of progressive legislation like the ADA, remains deeply rooted in ableist and oppressive historical attitudes. At the heart of this issue, this thesis demonstrates how the medicalization of disability, which has dominated American culture for centuries, continues to frame …

Beyond The Binary: Amazigh Ethnicity And Transformational Resistance, Nour Sidhoum

Journal of Amazigh Studies

This article explores Amazigh activism in Algeria, focusing on the role of language, memory, and political mobilisation in reshaping national identity. It critically examines the reductive Arab/Berber binary, arguing that such oppositions, rooted in French colonial logic, provide the vocabulary through which Amazigh identity claims are confined within minority paradigms. The aim is to reconceptualise Amazigh ethnic identity as a form of transformational resistance that challenges dominant power structures rather than merely seeking accommodation within them. Drawing on a diverse range of primary and secondary sources—including memoirs of key figures in Algerian nationalism such as Hocine Aït Ahmed and Sadek …

Can't Women Kill?: Women, Violence, And Power In Nazi Germany, Kelly Ornelas

History Theses

This thesis examines the role of women as perpetrators of violence within the Nazi apparatus, challenging traditional narratives that depict them as passive supporters or victims of their circumstances. Through a Foucauldian analysis, it explores how ordinary German women were conditioned by Nazi propaganda, manipulated discourses, and social expectations to engage in acts of brutality, often without direct orders. Case studies, including Erna Petri and Ilse Koch illustrate how women actively participated in the mechanisms of state violence without rank or official status, raising critical questions about complicity and moral responsibility. This study interrogates the bounds of guilt, arguing that …

The Mighty C: A Fractal Model For Modern Creativity, Joe Todaro

Creativity and Change Leadership Graduate Student Master's Projects

The persistent ambiguity surrounding the definition of creativity has hindered its advancement across academic, educational, and professional settings. In response, this paper proposes an updated framework—The Mighty C—which defines creativity as the intrinsic human activity of generating meaningful, novel, and useful outcomes through deliberate process. This model addresses critical gaps in conventional definitions, particularly the frequent omission of meaningfulness, intentionality, and the uniquely human nature of creativity. It further emphasizes the recursive nature of these aspects across different levels of creative activity, represented through the structure of fractals. Drawing from scholarly models such as Rhodes’ 4Ps and Kaufman and Beghetto’s …

Querying The Ecological Sublime: Colonial Aesthetics, Anticolonial Thought, And The ‘Double Fracture’, Tacuma Peters

Publications and Research

This article examines the ecological sublime in its relationship to the history of colonial aesthetics, anticolonial thought, and contemporary colonialism. It argues that, while Edmund Burke utilized the sublime in support of colonialism (including settler colonialism) in North America and colonial slavery, Samson Occom and Ottobah Cugoano developed versions of the sublime to contest British colonialism in the Americas. The history of this aesthetic contestation has not been represented in scholarship on the ecological sublime, which, this article shows, has a vexed relationship with historical and contemporary colonialism. The article argues that the ecological sublime exhibits the “double fracture” of …

Moving The Goalposts: American Sports Coverage In Newspapers And The Construction Of Gender, Race And Sexuality In The Olympics In 1928, 1932, 1936., Jacob Havers

All Theses

This thesis takes an in-depth look at the media coverage of women in the Olympics in 1928, 1932 and 1936. Specifically following the track athletes Kinue Hitomi, Louise Stokes, Tidye Pickett and Mildred “Babe” Didrikson the thesis explores how by being athletic women they had their identities as feminine figures heavily questioned and scrutinized in newspapers at the global level. The harshest of these critics was often the American media, who held strict standards of race, gender and sexuality in the late 1920s-mid 1930s. They sought to uphold these standards at the global scale, and the American media’s interrogation of …

Double, Double, Toils And Troubles: Analyzing The “Magical” Relationships Between University Leaders’ Personality Traits And Their Self-Efficacy In Leadership Situations, Fay Ludvine Boudreaux

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

This present study investigated the relationship between higher education leaders’ personality traits and their self-efficacy in leadership situations. A total of 151 leaders employed across the nine institutions within the University of Louisiana System completed a survey that prompted them to identify their personal values, traits, and skill sets, as derived from the online Pottermore quiz, the official Harry Potter Hogwarts House sorting instrument. This niche personality metric was chosen to cater to higher education’s evolving landscape, as it welcomes an influx of Millennials into leadership positions. Participants’ responses were eventually recoded to “sort” them into their respective Houses: Gryffindor, …

Imagining Indigeneity: The Construction Of The Indio In The Work Of José Carlos Mariátegui, Shaylee Luedders

History Undergraduate Honors Theses

The main focus of José Carlos Mariátegui’s (1894-1930) abundant literature was the adaptation of Marxist theory to the particular needs of Latin America. He is often considered the first major Latin American Marxist and played a key role in the history of leftism in the region. Among his most significant contributions to Marxism in Latin America is his incorporation of indigenous populations into a Marxist framework. He believed that, due to their history of communal ownership under the Inca, a “communist spirit” was retained in Peru’s indigenous population. In his writing about Peru’s potentially communist future, Mariátegui often touched on …

Pedro Aceves Mfa Thesis, Pedro M. Aceves

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

My Work is about looking at Cruising through a queer decolonial lens. Using multiple mediums such as photo, glass, Augmented reality, and film, I explore these queer histories and aesthetics through not just an anthropological approach but also an artistic epistemological approach weaving together narratives of prehispanic and modern queer Latinidad.

The Philosopher’S Art: The Alchemical And Religious Writings Of Sir Isaac Newton, Caleb J. Stamp

Senior Honors Theses

Sir Isaac Newton is inarguably one of the most famous yet divisive geniuses in human history. His writing touched on a staggering variety of topics, including chemistry, physics, and history, among others. Some of his less well-known works – most notably, his alchemical experiments and his prophetic commentaries – have created wildly conflicting views of both him and his theories. However, Newton’s alchemical and religious writings are crucial to understanding his broader worldview: namely, that the spiritual and natural aspects of the world worked together in a universe created by a supreme God who ordained that reality operates in a …

The Ideology Of Isolation, Chase Robbins

SPARK Symposium Presentations

No abstract provided.

Relational Pedagogy For Teaching The History Of American Religion In Collegiate Classrooms, Pearl Young

The Journal of Faith, Education, and Community

There is something odd about teaching religious history in collegiate classrooms. Most academic historians agree that religion is central to the history of any society, yet discussions of religious history or even religious culture are strikingly peripheral to historical narratives taught in college classrooms. Instructors frequently sidestep religion, deeming it too personal and divisive for an objective, scientific study so frequently associated with the academic field of history.

I argue that a more deliberate approach, one of relational pedagogy, overcomes these obstacles while recognizing the legitimacy of such concerns. This approach serves students well and can cover a breadth of …

The Grand Narratives: The Rise And Fall Of Universal Philosophical Systems, Gavin S. Litchford

Senior Honors Theses

This thesis reviews the development of narrative and systematic methods of argumentative legitimation in the Western tradition of philosophy from its conception until the present day. Utilizing both primary sources from central figures in key movements within this development process and supplementary secondary sources, this analysis notes which systems were used as appeals to higher authority and the trends in the adoption and transformation of new models. It is demonstrated that the Enlightenment era punctuated a progression begun in the premodern era from simple, cultural narratives to individualized, subjective, and self-perpetuating Grand Narrative systems, and that it generated the preconditions …

Historical Criticism According To Abu Ali Ahmad Bin Muhammad Bin Yaqoub Miskawayh 320-421 Ah / 932-1030 Ad: His Book The Experiences Of Nations And The Succession Of Desires Is An Example, Mamdouh Gh. Barry, Adnan Melhem

An-Najah University Journal for Research - B (Humanities)

Objectives: There are many references that specialize in Miskawayh's moral philosophy, especially books, as well as precise and specialized research, while we did not find this interest among researchers in the subject of historical criticism at Miskawayh, except for a few published and peer-reviewed scientific researches, which covered limited aspects about his approach to writing history, and his style in recording the narratives of the first sedition was absent from them, especially during the reign of Othman bin Affan, and what happened during the reign of Ali bin Abi Talib, as well as Muawiyah bin Abi Sufyan, and did not …