Arts and Humanities Commons^™

English Calvinism And The Crowd: Coriolanus And The History Of Religious Reform, Peter Iver Kaufman

Jepson School of Leadership Studies articles, book chapters and other publications

Late Tudor London comes alive when Stephen Greenblatt's acclaimed biography of William Shakespeare, shadowing its subject, takes to the streets. “The unprecedented concentration of bodies jostling … crossing and recrossing the great bridge, pressing into taverns and theaters and churches,” Greenblatt suggests, is a “key to the whole spectacle” of crowds in the playwright's histories and tragedies. To be sure, his little excursions in London left their mark on his scripts, yet he scrupulously sifted his literary sources from which he drew characters and crises onto the stage. He prowled around Plutarch and read Stow and Hollinshed on the wars …

When Religion And Philosophy Meet : A Comparison Of The Theology Of The Unity School Of Christianity With The Classical Aristotelian Worldview, Jeffrey Michael Jackson

Master's Theses

The Unity School of Christianity's theology shares key characteristics with Aristotle's philosophical worldview, which have enabled it to meet the challenges of twentieth century America. Unity was founded in 1889 by Charles and Myrtle Fillmore in Kansas CIty, and has become a thriving religious movement in the United States and worldwide. A comparison of Unity's theology with Aristotle's philosophy finds that both share a pragmatic focus on physical life and its attributes instead of an afterlife; both accept the world as inherently good in nature; and both see underlying order and interconnection in the world. Both also see purpose in …

Slaveowners And Southern Soldiers : The Military Participation Of The Slaveholding Community In Civil War Lunenburg County, Virginia, Glenn Seiler

Master's Theses

Before the final shot of the Civil War rang out, the phrase "a rich man's war, poor man's fight" was well embedded in the psyche of Confederate citizens. Many historians credit such perceptions with ultimately condemning the Confederacy to failure. While numerous government policies seemed to emphasize a sense of protection toward the men of affluent Southern families, Confederate leaders disputed such claims. To the common Southerner the rich did not contribute in an equitable share of the fighting and often sought personal gain while the masses endured hardships. There can be no doubt internal class dissent plagued the Confederacy …

Courting Disaster : Women, Romance, And Novels In Eighteenth And Nineteenth Century Britain, Beth J. Massie

Honors Theses

Society always fears that something is corrupting its youth and therefore dooming the future. In the late eighteenth century, British High Society believed that the sentimental and overly dramatic courtship novel was adversely affecting the actions of marriageable young women. In response to these fears, women writers of the early nineteenth century produced literature designed to guide young women safely and happily through the steps of courtship and marriage. The impact of British society's changing views on courtship and marriage combined with the fears raised by the courtship novel in the minds of older society transformed the courtship novel of …

Kichi Mondai (The Military Base Problem) : A Study Of How American Bases In Okinawa Are Presented To The American People, Mark Carney

Honors Theses

Media representations play a role in how one perceives a particular space. The American media presented the American military bases in Okinawa during the period of American civil administration (1945-1972) as necessary and beneficial for the Okinawan people . Because the media linked the bases and the United States Civil Administration of the Ryukyu Islands (USCAR) as dependent upon one another, the media considered the benefits brought to Okinawa by the existence ofUSCAR a result of the bases as well. Despite Okinawan resistance to both USCAR and the military bases, the press presented the Okinawan people as actually wanting the …

[Introduction To] Meat Matters: Butchers, Politics, And Market Culture In Eighteenth-Century Paris, Sydney Watts

Bookshelf

In eighteenth century Paris, municipal authorities, guild officers, merchant butchers, stall workers, and tripe dealers pledged to provide a steady supply of healthful meat to urban elites and the working poor. Meat Matters considers the formation of the butcher guild and family firms, debates over royal policy and regulation, and the burgeoning role of consumerism and public health. The production and consumption of meat becomes a window on important aspects of eighteenth-century culture, society, and politics, on class relations, and on economic change. Watts's examination of eighteenth-century market culture reveals why meat mattered to Parisians, as onetime subjects became citizens. …

[Introduction To] Epic Revisionism: Russian History And Literature As Stalinist Propaganda, David Brandenberger, Kevin M. F. Platt

Bookshelf

Focusing on a number of historical and literary personalities who were regarded with disdain in the aftermath of the 1917 revolution - figures such as Peter the Great, Ivan the Terrible, Alexander Pushkin, Leo Tolstoy, and Mikhail Lermontov - "Epic Revisionism" tells the fascinating story of these individuals' return to canonical status during the darkest days of the Stalin era. An inherently interdisciplinary project, "Epic Revisionism" features pieces on literary and cultural history, film, opera, and theater. It pairs scholarly essays with selections from Stalin-era primary sources - newspaper articles, unpublished archival documents, short stories - to provide students and …

[Introduction To] Her Best Shot: Women And Guns In America, Laura Browder

Bookshelf

The gun-toting woman holds enormous symbolic significance in American culture. For over two centuries, women who pick up guns have disrupted the popular association of guns and masculinity, spurring debates about women's capabilities for violence as well as their capacity for full citizenship. In Her Best Shot, Laura Browder examines the relationship between women and guns and the ways in which the figure of the armed woman has served as a lightning rod for cultural issues.

Utilizing autobiographies, advertising, journalism, novels, and political tracts, among other sources, Browder traces appearances of the armed woman across a chronological spectrum from …

[Introduction To] Crucible Of The Civil War: Virginia From Secession To Commemoration, Edward L. Ayers, Gary W. Gallagher, Andrew J. Torget

Bookshelf

Crucible of the Civil War offers an illuminating portrait of the state’s wartime economic, political, and social institutions. Weighing in on contentious issues within established scholarship while also breaking ground in areas long neglected by scholars, the contributors examine such concerns as the war’s effect on slavery in the state, the wartime intersection of race and religion, and the development of Confederate social networks. They also shed light on topics long disputed by historians, such as Virginia’s decision to secede from the Union, the development of Confederate nationalism, and how Virginians chose to remember the war after its close.

Colin Powell's Life Story As A 'Good Black' Narrative, Mari Boor Tonn

Rhetoric and Communication Studies Faculty Publications

The versions of Powell’s life examined in this chapter contain two overarching features ethnographers claim are means by which immigrant blacks work to accrue “good” black status. First, their emphasis on Powell as the son of industrious Jamaican immigrants comports with the common practice ethnographers locate among second-generation black immigrants of consciously telegraphing their ethnic heritage as a means of “filtering” themselves for the dominant culture so that they can ward off downward social mobility still linked to a black racial identity in the United States. The inclusion of ancestry in life stories by political hopefuls is not in itself …

The Marketing Of Mussolini : American Magazines And Mussolini, 1922-1935, Anthony F. Ambrogi

Master's Theses

Until the Halo-Ethiopian War, Italian dictator Benito Mussolini and the American press had a symbiotic relationship. Mussolini used his charisma and journalistic skills to put himself in the limelight of the American foreign press, and whether they loved him or hated him, American periodicals relished the constant flow of news and sensationalism from Rome. This analysis examines the rise of Fascism and Mussolini in Italy and his efforts to market himself to the press, especially the American press. It then reviews American magazines from 1922 until Italy's invasion of Ethiopia in 1935 and their varying attitudes toward II Duce. Popular …

"Whoso Sheddeth" : Execution Sermons And Narratives In 18th Century New England, Adrienne H. Thornblom

Master's Theses

Murder, theft, and infanticide in eighteenth-century New England were all treated with the same punishment, public execution. The executions were not just public displays, but also a time for sermons and life lessons to teach those who witness the criminal's death to refrain from sinful behavior. At the core of every sermon was the Biblical passages used to warn the onlookers to be careful in life and a pea for the criminal to repent. In addition to the sermons, some of the criminals provided confessions to their crimes and even indicated their newfound salvation for their sins.

This thesis closely …

The Virginia War Department During The American Revolution, Thomas Gregory Tune

Master's Theses

This thesis will provide a comprehensive analysis of the Virginia War Office during the American Revolution. A study of the War Office must start with its origin and, therefore, with the legislation that created it. This thesis will explore the reasons for the creation of the War Office and its legislative evolution into one of the most powerful agencies in the Commonwealth of Virginia. It will also discuss the War Office's legislative demise near the end of the war as the Virginia General Assembly began to shrink the government in cost-saving measures.

The second part of this thesis will examine …

"King Harvest (Has Surely Come)" : Rural Populist Imagery In Roots Rock Music, 1967-1973, Christopher Lee Witte

Master's Theses

Through a detailed focus on these five groups and their music, with an added emphasis on their lyrics, this thesis attempts to create a meaningful tie between Slotkin' s study of American myth-making and story creation with a key area of popular culture - music - that he did not focus on. The thesis itself is separated into three key chapters - the first reveals how nature and landscape are presented in these songs and how they viewed modern twentieth century America with idealized notions of a rural past. The second discusses their presentations of heroes and anti-heroes as musical …

The Old College Goes To War : The Civil War Experiences Of William And Mary Students, Faculty, And Alumni, Sean Michael Heuvel

Master's Theses

A stroll around the modem-day William and Mary campus offers visitors many links to the college's colonial history. The re-created town of Colonial Williamsburg, the Wren Building, and statues and portraits of famous alumni, such as Presidents Thomas Jefferson and James Monroe, all conjure up images of William and Mary's eighteenth century grandeur. Conversely, evidence of the college's rich Civil War history is more obscure. Although scholars have recently examined Williamsburg's role in the War Between the States; little is known about the wartime activities of those individuals linked to William and Mary. This study examines the wartime service of …

'Subterranean Evil' And 'Tumultuous Riot' In Buganda: Authority And Alienation At King's College, Budo, 1942, Carol Summers

History Faculty Publications

Staff petitions, sexual and disciplinary scandal and open riot pushed Buganda's leaders to close Budo College on the eve of Kabaka (King) Muteesa II's coronation. The upheaval at the school included a teachers' council that pro-claimed ownership of the school, student leaders who manipulated the headmaster through scandal and school clubs and associations that celebrated affiliation over discipline. Instead of enacting and celebrating imperial partnership and order in complex, well-choreographed coronation rituals, the school's disruption delineated the fractures and struggles over rightful authority, order and patronage within colonial Buganda, marking out a future of tumultuous political transition.

The Creative Intelligentsia And The Rise Of Official Russocentrism Under Stalin, David Brandenberger

History Faculty Publications

In the mid-to-late 1930s, Soviet society witnessed a major ideological about-face as party propaganda and mass culture assumed an increasingly patriotic, Russo-centric orientation. Heroes, imagery, and legends from the Russian national past were deployed to bolster the legitimacy of the Soviet state and provide a complement to the reigning Marxist-Leninist ideology, then in a trend threatening to eclipse the stress on revolutionary class consciousness that had characterized the Soviet experiment for nearly two decades.

This shift away from proletarian internationalism toward Russo-centric etatism has been a source of considerable scholarly controversy. Some have linked this phenomenon to nationalist sympathies within …

The American Civil War, Emancipation, And Reconstruction On The World Stage, Edward L. Ayers

History Faculty Publications

Americans demanded the world's attention during their Civil War and Reconstruction. Newspapers around the globe reported the latest news from the United States as one vast battle followed another, as the largest system of slavery in the world crashed into pieces, as American democracy expanded to include people who had been enslaved only a few years before.

American Travelers In Palestine : Origins Of Holy Land Discourse In Nineteeth-Century America, Matthew R. Scutari

Honors Theses

Throughout the nineteenth century, American writers, journalists, explorers, and pilgrims traveled to the region then known as Palestine, publishing travel narratives upon their return to the U.S. Such narratives were wildly popular during this period, and the accounts of these travelers quickly made their way into the nation's collective consciousness. From personal libraries to Sunday school classrooms, their depictions of the Holy Land, which reflected a uniquely American biblical tradition, ultimately painted a picture of Palestine that closely conformed to popular preconceptions of what the Holy Land ought to be, stubbornly resisting contradiction and reinforcing stereotypes already held by many …

Courting Disaster : Women, Romance, And Novels In Eighteenth And Nineteenth Century Britain, Beth J. Massie

Honors Theses

Society always fears that something is corrupting its youth and therefore dooming the future. In the late eighteenth century, British High Society believed that the sentimental and overly dramatic courtship novel was adversely affecting the actions of marriageable young women. In response to these fears, women writers of the early nineteenth century produced literature designed to guide young women safely and happily through the steps of courtship and marriage. The impact of British society's changing views on courtship and marriage combined with the fears raised by the courtship novel in the minds of older society transformed the courtship novel of …

Pilgrimage Of Dignity : Pope John Paul Ii's June 1979 Visit To Poland, Przemyslaw P. Polaski

Honors Theses

Pope John Paul II's first visit to Poland took place in June of 1979. The pilgrimage was arguably one of the most important trips of his pontificate. Within a matter of days the Pope was able to transform Polish society, inspire hope, and ignite a sense of collective dignity. Through a series of rhetorically powerful speeches the pilgrim awakened the oppressed nation and questioned the foundations of Communist authority to rule. Talking about the inalienable rights of man, the Pope stirred up a longing for freedom that matured with the birth of the Solidarity Movement in 1980. His epical journey …