Arts and Humanities Commons^™

'Like Iron To A Magnet': Moses Hayim Luzzatto's Quest For Providence, David Sclar

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation is a biographical study of Moses Hayim Luzzatto (1707-1746 or 1747). It presents the social and religious context in which Luzzatto was variously celebrated as the leader of a kabbalistic-messianic confraternity in Padua, condemned as a deviant threat by rabbis in Venice and central and eastern Europe, and accepted by the Portuguese Jewish community after relocating to Amsterdam. Using unpublished archival documents and manuscripts, as well as rare printed books, I seek to reconcile the seemingly incompatible aspects of Luzzatto as 'heretic' and 'hero.'

Chapter one sets the tone for the dissertation by analyzing the original version of …

Comparing Hitler And Stalin: Certain Cultural Considerations, Phillip W. Weiss

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

There is a great temptation to compare the Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin. This is true for two reasons: first, the careers of both men converged at the same point in history, thus doubling the impact both made and second, because the names Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin have become metaphors for ideologies and crimes that today are reviled. The question then arises: who was worse, Hitler or Stalin? This project shows that there is no viable, credible, definitive, or final answer to this question, and that prevailing attitudes about Hitler and Stalin have become so ingrained in contemporary society …

Maniera Devota/Mano Donnesca: Women, Virtue And Visual Imagery During The Counter-Reformation In The Papal States, 1575-1675, Patricia Rocco

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The history of women's participation in religious movements during the Early Modern period in Europe has long been less commented upon in modern scholarship than that of their male counterparts. This project will enlarge our understanding of the participation of women in the visual program of the Counter-Reformation in the Papal State of Bologna. The study focuses on Bologna since the city had an unprecedented large group of active women artists as well as being a crucial site of Catholic reform. Knowledge of Bologna's women is still incomplete; therefore this dissertation is structured as a series of interlinked case studies, …

Inventing Burke: Edmund Burke And The Conservative Party, 1790-1918, Hannah Z. Sidney

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis explores the circumstances by which Edmund Burke came to be regarded as the father of Anglo-conservatism. Conventional wisdom assumes Burke was hailed as a Conservative oracle from the moment Reflections on the Revolution in France appeared. In fact, nineteenth century Conservatives considered Burke a "Whig" who had erred on most critical issues: slavery, Crown prerogative, Ireland, empire.

In the twentieth century, however, the advent of universal suffrage and the demise of the Liberal party forced Conservatives to develop an identity which might compete with Labour's mass appeal. It also shifted the locus of Conservative ire from liberalism to …