Digital Commons Network^™

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 …

Effects Of Christian Colonization On Celtic Mythology From Ancient Ireland To Contemporary Paganism, Evelyn Hanna

Aurora

Christian colonization played a critical role in reshaping Celtic mythology, yet the extent to which these transformations continue to influence modern perceptions of Paganism remains underexamined. This study investigates how the transcription of originally oral Celtic traditions by Christian monks altered the preservation of myth through reinterpretation and ideological influence. Drawing on historical and mythological sources, it analyzes key examples, including the transformation of the goddess Brigid into Saint Brigid and the reclassification of the Tuatha Dé Danann and the Aos Sí as folkloric or demonic figures. These cases demonstrate that the recording of myth was not a neutral process …

Books Of Interest Spring 2026

Comparative Civilizations Review

No abstract provided.

Autonomy And Creativity In ‘Epeli Hau‘Ofa And The Lo‘Au University Philosophy Of Education For Thinking, Siosiua F. P. Lafitani (LoʻAu VavangakitupuʻA)

Pacific Studies

The spirit of autonomy and creativity in Epeli Hau‘ofa’s writings that relate to the

philosophy of the Lo‘au University of education for thinking is explored here.

For Hau‘ofa, the spirit of free thinking aids Moanan (Pacific people) to redefine

their identity in Moana (Oceania) and worldwide. The philosophy of education

for thinking is applied here to highlight that a degree of autonomy and creativ-

ity can be planted and grown in Moana. Free thinking ought to be central to

research projects that strive for autonomy and creativity if twenty-first century

Moanan people want their intellectualism to be a permanent …

The Making Of Saints: Discipleship Formation In The Early Church As A Way Forward For The Modern Age, Ian Wray

Masters of Theological Studies

As the modern Western Church continues to move forward through its history, an effective theology of discipleship will be vital to maintain the Church’s witness to the surrounding world and culture. Looking to the Patristic Period as a way forward can give current practitioners practical solutions and insights to replicate the effectiveness of Christianity’s first beginnings. The Early Church’s Catechumenate involved robust discipleship formation where the pagans who went through the process would leave behind their Roman habitus and embody a Christian lifestyle. By returning to the early church writers, practices, and disciplines that early Christians would have lived out …

The Effect Of The Destruction Of The Jerusalem Temple On The Jewish Perception Of The Sacrificial Cult: A Look At Pseudepigraphical, Deuterocanonical, And Rabbinic Texts, Allen Kendall

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

Though many of us are somewhat familiar with today's modern world religions and with ancient religion inasmuch as it is portrayed in our own religious literature, we often do not understand how we got from the ancient world to the modern. For the most part we understand how ancient Jews worshipped in Jerusalem according to the Law of Moses and chat certain biblical practices have changed, but we are not aware of how this happened. This paper attempts to bridge that gap of knowledge by tracing the development of Jewish religious thought and practice vis-a-vis the sacrificial cult. Over the …

Review Essay: Lewis’S Lost Aeneid: Arms And The Exile, Nikolay Epplée, B. N. Wolfe, Louis Markos

Sehnsucht: The C. S. Lewis Journal

An extended review of C. S. Lewis, C. S. Lewis’s Lost Aeneid: Arms and the Exile, ed. by A. T. Reyes (New Haven, 2011). xxiii + 184 pages. $27.50. ISBN:: 9780300167177

Elite Women In The Mediterranean 31 Bc – 1380 Ad: An Investigation Into Female Agency, Identity, And Patriarchy Across Classical And Christian Paradigms, Julia Maurer

Capstone Showcase

This paper explores the responses of elite women to patriarchal regimes across the Classical Pagan and Medieval Christian paradigms in the Mediterranean from 31 BC to 1380 AD. While the current historiography acknowledges the radical differences between the two worldviews fundamental to the core values of Western Civilization, an investigation of three women that can be taken to be emblematic examples of the periods in which they lived reveals a striking continuity in the nuanced social roles available to women. This continuity contradicts expectations of significant changes reflective of this revolutionary paradigm shift.

I utilize Julia Augusti, Vibia Perpetua, and …

Breaking The Marble Ceiling: The Construction Of Athena In Greek Thought, Elizabeth Tulley

Honors Program Theses

This paper will begin with an examination of Greek culture and religion, in order to provide the context that is important for understanding the peculiarities of Athena. That examination will start with a look into the pre-Greek and early Greek civilizations in Greece, the Minoans and the Mycenaeans, before looking at ancient Greek civilization as a whole. It will then dive deeper into the roles of ancient Greek women, taking into account the Athenian bias that colors most of our sources for Greek civilization. The paper will then turn to briefly look at ancient Greek religion, giving important context for …

Book Review: Hans-Joachim Gehrke, Ed. Making Civilizations: The World Before 600, Robert Bedeski

Comparative Civilizations Review

Studying ancient civilizations is not a precise enterprise, and many statements are approximations, subject to validation or dispute. Several key concepts describe the flow and progress of collective human development. Individuals, families, clans, and tribes precede formation of civilization, which provides the foundation for states. Governments are managerial organizations of more complex societies, providing concentrated focus on defense, currency and infrastructure. Civilizations improve life security as urbanization, innovation, and division of labor increase, requiring more complex and powerful governing institutions.

Prometheus & The Body Beautiful: Arno Breker And The Weaponization Of The Greco-Roman Tradition In The Größe Deutsche Kunstausstellung, Sophia Maldonado

Departmental Honors & Graduate Capstone Projects

During the Third Reich (1933-1945), Hitler and the Nazis turned to the visual arts as a tool for propaganda to promote Hitler’s conception of the ideal people, i.e. the ‘Aryan’ race. Rooted in a calculate understanding of Greco-Roman civilization and culture, this conception of the ideal appropriated the visual vocabulary of the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Within the 1937 inaugural exhibition of the Große Deutsche Kunstausstellung, a propagandistic effort designed to promote this ideal, Arno Breker, chief sculptor of the Nazi Party, would exhibit his Prometheus. Breker’s interpretation of this mythological figure stood as a representation of …

The Circulation Of Bronze Mirrors In Late Prehistoric Xinjiang (2000–200 B.C.), Yanlong Guo

Art: Faculty Publications

Decades of archaeological excavations have yielded a large number of bronze mirrors from late prehistoric sites in Xinjiang. Scholarly attention has been invested in fitting these specular discs into a singular origin story of the Chinese mirror. Repositioning them within the context of the eastern Eurasian steppe, this article instead takes Xingjiang mirrors as artifacts indexing both diverse local developments and transregional patterns of circulation. A typological framework is proposed based on shape and structure: knob mirror with a flat rim, knob mirror with a flanged rim, grip mirror with a long handle, tanged mirror with a short protrusion, and …

Prophets, Pagans, And Papyri, Stephen O. Smoot, Kerry Muhlestein

BYU Studies

Egypt has a long history of exchange and contact with a variety of people. Ancient people of diverse ethnic backgrounds made their way into Egypt—whether as war captives, mercenaries, merchants, invading armies, members of diplomatic parties, refugees, or simple migrants—bringing with them their language and culture. One such group was the ancient Jews, whose enslavement at the hands of “a new king over Egypt, which knew not Joseph” (Ex. 1:8), and exodus under the prophetic leadership of Moses may be the best-remembered incident of a Hebrew presence in Egypt, but it was not the only one.

Nineteenth- And Twentieth-Century Readings Of The Medieval Orient: Other Encounters, Liliana Sikorska

Research in Medieval and Early Modern Culture

Travel narratives and historical works shaped the perception of Muslims and the East in the Victorian and post-Victorian periods. Analyzing the discourses on Muslims which originated in the European Middle Ages, the first part of this book discusses the troubled legacy of the encounters between the East and the West and locates the nineteenth-century texts concerning the Saracens and their lands in the liminal space between history and fiction.

Drawing on the nineteenth-century models, the second part of the book looks at fictional and non-fictional works of the late twentieth and early twenty-first century which re-established the “Oriental obsession,” stimulating …

Full Circle: Juvenal’S Egyptians And The Return Of The “Angry White Man” In Satire 15, Nancy Shumate

New England Classical Journal

Some critics have seen a softening of Juvenal’s signature anger in the later satires, while others argue, on the contrary, that the indignatio animating the earlier poems resurfaces toward the end of the corpus. This paper supports the second position by comparing the characterization of speakers in the first six satires and in the fifteenth. In spite of its different setting and quasi-philosophical trappings, the (virtually) last poem’s speaker emerges as a variation of the same reactionary character type so fully drawn in the first two books. The Satires are thus framed by prototypes of the grievance-driven “angry white man” …

Full Circle: Juvenal’S Egyptians And The Return Of The “Angry White Man” In Satire 15, Nancy Shumate

Classical Languages and Literatures: Faculty Publications

Some critics have seen a softening of Juvenal’s signature anger in the later satires, while others argue, on the contrary, that the indignatio animating the earlier poems resurfaces toward the end of the corpus. This paper supports the second position by comparing the characterization of speakers in the first six satires and in the fifteenth. In spite of its different setting and quasi-philosophical trappings, the (virtually) last poem’s speaker emerges as a variation of the same reactionary character type so fully drawn in the first two books. The Satires are thus framed by prototypes of the grievance-driven “angry white man” …

Madwomen And Mad Women: An Analysis Of The Use Of Female Insanity And Anger In Narrative Fiction, From Vilification To Validation., Lindsay Haralu

College of Arts & Sciences Senior Theses

This project examines the use of female insanity and anger in narrative fiction, as demonstrated by the character of the madwoman. Madness is a concept that has long been gendered female throughout Western history, in medicine, language, religion, and culture. Socially and culturally constructed madness can be used to determine the boundaries of society, the norms and values from which “madness” deviates, while the character of the madwoman can be used to demonstrate how women have challenged these boundaries and how the roles of women and definitions of femininity have changed over time. This study analyzes the madwoman trope from …

Adapting Merited And Award-Winning Buildingdspermitted Levels And Non-Negotiable Values: The Case Of The Library Of Alexandria, Alexandria, Egypt, Yasser Aref, Ayman G. Abdel Tawab

Architecture and Planning Journal (APJ)

The practice of launching international architectural design competitions to key and important buildings in Egypt is not a new trend. Once built, those award-winning buildings usually undergo a modification process either by their owners or occupants. Owners or occupants always modify these buildings so that their performance would be adapted to certain local parameters. These modifications, however, may touch upon some of the original qualities that had donated those designs merits and recognitions at the time of their selection as prize winners. Many of these significant award-winning buildings might be considered as modern heritage resources, thus developing another layer of …

The Spiritual Nature Of The Italian Renaissance, Kaitlyn Kenney

Senior Honors Theses

This study seeks to investigate the influence of faith in the emergence and development of the Italian Renaissance, in both the artwork and writing of the major artists and thinkers of the day, and the impact that new expressions of faith had on the viewing public. While the Renaissance is often labeled as a secular movement by modern scholars, this interpretation is largely due to the political motives of the Medici family who dominated Florence as the center of this artistic rebirth, on and off again throughout the period. On close examination, the philosophical and creative undercurrents of the movement …

What Is Translation?, Amber C. Johnson

The Corinthian

As the translation scholar Michael Cronin states, “if we want a world that values diversity of perspective over the certainty of singular belief, a world where many voices balance the privileged few, then translators must be part of the dialogue” (Eco-Translation). Translation is the transfer of factual and cultural knowledge from one way of understanding to another. Translation exposes us to divergent texts, viewpoints, and information, from parts of the world or fields of knowledge not otherwise available to us. In order to produce an ethical translation, the translator has to be respectful of the intentions and effects …

Co-Opted, Cults And The Classics: Highlighting The Magna Mater Cult In Rome, Janessa Reeves

Honors Projects

This paper argues for a more critical approach to classics, pushing for the de-sanctification of classical antiquity and deconstruction of ‘western civilization’ as a tool able to be co-opted by white supremacist agendas. In the latter part of the paper, I demonstrate what I hope this will look like through analysis of Roman reception of the Mother of the Gods cult, known in Rome as the cult of Cybele or Magna Mater, or the Phrygian cult, and how Roman reactions to the cult reveal xenophobic sentiments and toxic masculinity within the social fabric. Throughout this work, I engage with questions …

Awe Volume 6 Full Issue

AWE (A Woman’s Experience)

No abstract provided.

“Is It Wrong To Want To Help Build Up God’S Kingdom?”: An Examination Of The Gendered Experience Of Early Brigham Young Academy Students

AWE (A Woman’s Experience)

No abstract provided.

Book Reviews, Timothy J. Christian, David Nonnenmacher Jr., Michael Tavey, Matthias P. Gergan, Matthew Haugen, Zachariah S. Motts, J. Russell Frazier, Robert A. Danielson, J. R. Wright, Christopher Ashley, Scott Donahue-Martens

The Asbury Journal

No abstract provided.

“‘Bere We Þe Cros’: The Persistence Of The Cross In English Ritual And Religious Practices From Bede To The Reformation”, David Black

Masters Theses, 2010-2019

Long before Christian missionaries arrived in England in the 7^th century, the pagan population recognized the cross as a potent magical symbol. As a result, proselytizers shrewdly used the population’s familiarity with the cross, and their understandings of its power, to encourage converts to the new religion. Over the ensuing centuries of English Christian dominance, the magical aspects of the cross continued to develop both mythologically and theologically, without ever losing connection to their pagan origins. The Crusades, both through the propaganda of preachers and the massive influx of True Cross Relics, contributed in a substantial way to new …

The Phoenicians And The Formation Of The Western World, John C. Scott

Comparative Civilizations Review

No abstract provided.

A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The 21st Century, Peter R. Bales

Open Educational Resources

A humorous but entirely factual account of American history from the beginning up to the present.

The Letters Of St. Paul [Lecture Notes], Scott Gambrill Sinclair

The Scott Sinclair Lecture Notes Collection

Lecture notes on a series of talks by Scott G. Sinclair's on his version of the Historical Jesus.

Paganism, Wesley, And The Means Of Grace, Joseph R. Dongell

The Asbury Journal

No abstract provided.

Odor And Power In The Americas: Olfactory Consciousness From Columbus To Emancipation, Andrew Kettler

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation analyzes discourses concerning odor within the Atlantic World from approximately 1492 until 1838. Numerous historians and philosophers have described how the Reformation’s emphasis on texts and an increased concentration on visual science during the Enlightenment influenced Western Europeans to heighten the importance of the eye to the detriment of the lower sense of smell. This dissertation begins by thinking about materialist contours of this olfactory decline through a linguistic analysis of sulfur within seventeenth century England. It then proceeds to examine how in the early Americas such a repudiation of the sense of smell did not occur. The …