Ancient History, Greek and Roman through Late Antiquity Commons^™

Epic Heroism For The Ordinary: Tolkien’S Reworking Of Odyssean Heroism In The Hobbit, Jon Billsberry

Journal of Tolkien Research

This article explores The Hobbit as a narrative of two Odyssean homecomings: Thorin’s return to Erebor and Bilbo’s return to Bag End. Thorin undertakes the more direct nostos: as a displaced royal heir, he returns to recover his ancestral household, inheritance, authority, and public identity. Bilbo, by contrast, leaves a secure home and gradually acquires the cunning, adaptability, judgement, and independence that make Thorin’s return possible. Tolkien thus separates heroic position from heroic conduct. This separation produces conflict at Erebor, where Thorin’s defence of royal possession threatens violence and Bilbo uses the Arkenstone to challenge the king he helped …

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 …

Cupid And Psyche: How Stories Reflect Cultural Norms, Maia Porter

Honors Projects

Stories, as a whole, are retold time and time again, changing slightly with each retelling and interpretation. The story of Cupid and Psyche follows this pattern, changing as it is retold to fit the norms and values of the culture it is told within. This project examines three versions of the story: Apuleius’s “Cupid and Psyche” which is told within his larger novel Metamorphoses, Till We Have Faces (1956) written by C. S. Lewis, and Luna McNamara’s Psyche and Eros (2023). This project examines Psyche’s characterization and how much autonomy or agency she is given, how the inequality inherent in …

An Etruscan Life And Death: 2025 Findings From The Valle Gianni Archaeological Site, Skye Mccord

Exceptional Scholarship & Artistry

The site of Valle Gianni, part of The Northwest Bolsena Archaeological Project, is located on the northwest lakefront of Lake Bolsena, and harbors many Roman and Etruscan archaeological findings dating back to the late Iron Age. The purpose of this thesis is to explore the cultural traditions of the Etruscans, their place in the wider Mediterranean during the late Iron Age into Classical antiquity, and the changes to both physical landscapes and cultural landscapes after their conquest by the Romans. The site of Valle Gianni acts as a case study in the dynamics of colonization and the repurposing of sacred …

Flos Gari: Experiments With The Flower Of The Ancient Romans In A Modern Kitchen, Austin M. Pritchett

SPARK Symposium Presentations

This paper examines a condiment popular among the ancient Romans which might seem off-putting to modern people: the fermented fish sauce garum. A brief history of the garum as well as an analysis of its chemical composition are given, before the author describes his experiments with the sauce in his own kitchen, conducted in an attempt to determine its suitability for the modern palate.

International Students In Early American Forensics: Notes On The History Of The U.S.-Japan Forensics Relationship During The Late 19th And Early 20th Centuries, Satoru Aonuma, Junya Morooka, Tomohiro Kanke

Studies in Debate and Oratory

Ending 215 years of “national seclusion,” in 1854, Japan ratified the Treaty of Amity and Commerce with the United States and opened its doors to the rest of the world. Because of this special bilateral relationship, between the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries, more Japanese began traveling to the U.S. than to any other country. Focusing on young Japanese who went to the U.S. as students and participated in debate and oratorical education during this period, this essay will re-examine the history of the U.S.-Japan relationship in terms of academic debate and oratory. During this period, American …

Just War Theory In The Hunger Games: Suzanne Collins’S Critique Of Violence, Power, And Rebellion, Laila Hannum

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis applies just war theory to Suzanne Collins's The Hunger Games trilogy, arguing that while the districts' rebellion satisfies the principles of jus ad bellum (justice in going to war), it systematically violates jus in bello (justice in the conduct of war) and jus post bellum (justice after war), and ultimately replicates the oppressive structures of the Capitol it sought to overthrow.

Drawing primarily on Michael Walzer's Just and Unjust Wars and on Brian Orend's ideas on post-war justice, this thesis traces the rebellion's moral arc across all three novels. Chapter One shows that the rebellion meets the criteria …

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 Perry-Campbell Collection: An Analysis Of Byzantine And Roman Coins, Samuel A. Skokan

Department of Anthropology: Theses and Student Research

The Anthropology Collections of the Nebraska State Museum are home of the Gladys G. Perry Campbell and Iain Colin Gordon Campbell (I. C. G. Campbell) coin collection, which consists of an estimated 4,000 coins that date between the 1^st century BC to the 15th century AD. The collection consists of bronze coins (91%+) and billon (alloy) coins that represent low-denomination currency of the Roman and Byzantine Empires. There are approximately 3,200 Byzantine and 750 Roman coins. This study focused solely on the Byzantine coins of the Collection, to document their chronological range and research value. The collection can support …

Shame Versus Guilt: Effects On Voter Mobilization In A Social Media Environment, Rachel Herner

Honors Projects

Young people traditionally have low voter turnout rates compared to their older counterparts. Voter turnout is essential to maintaining the democratic structure of the United States government. Therefore, extensive research has been conducted to find ways to increase voter turnout among young voters. Past research has shown that social pressure and shame can be utilized to increase voter participation. Additionally, Classical Civilization scholars have investigated the motivations of people through guilt and shame. Given the rise of social media use in the United States by young people over time, researchers have been provided with a new tool to encourage voter …

Race And Greek Mythology: An Analysis Of A Racialized Hierarchy In Literary And Artistic Depictions Of The Line Of Io In Archaic And Classical Greece, Angie Pierre

History & Classics Undergraduate Theses

Following the emergence of the Greek alphabet in 8th century B.C.E, Greece produced literary works which demonstrated contemporary beliefs, customs, and practices. Additionally, pottery during this era began to be more expressive. The use of geometric shapes and imagery from Egypt were later used to create stories and induce emotions in pottery. Following the Archaic period, the Classical era has produced a plethora of literary and artistic material that expands on material from the Archaic era while simultaneously providing commentary on its own period. While not in a consistent manner, an underlying theme within the art and literature of the …

Cultural Memory And The Search For Identity In Victorian Fantasy Fiction, Sadie Boggs

Honors College Theses

Fantasy literature's origins can be traced through myths and folktales, medieval romances, enlightenment fairy tale fantasy, and Romanticism, before finally taking firmer root in the Victorian period and blooming into its own genre in 20th century modern fantasy. Victorian thinkers reacted to the Enlightenment’s realism and technological innovation by “rediscovering” the Middle Ages as a time of beauty, simplicity, and moral virtue. Simultaneously, Psychology developed as a recognized field of study, and theories emerged about the psychological process of memory formation and retrieval, as well as its reliability and relation to identity.

Considering these psychological theories, Victorian fantasy's cultural memory …

Immigration: Ancient Counterparts And Processes, Monica Souza Sue

Undergraduate Research Symposium Posters

This project sought to inspect parallels between modern and ancient societies, and the commonality of certain events and political markers. This project makes mentions of power dynamics, the position of immigrants as a source of labor, and their commodification as a force. Research used a 'compilation of materials' method. In which, is performed the examination and studying of different materials in relation to the question, compiling findings, and crafting commentary based on the discoveries of the medias. The experiences of immigrants in the United States are strongly comparable to the experiences of metic (immigrant) women in ancient Athens. A small …

Experiments In Love: Longus’ Daphnis & Chloe And Henry De Vere Stacpoole’S The Blue Lagoon, L. Kirsten Day

Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy

Despite a chronological gulf of nearly two thousand years, the second century C. E. Greek romance writer Longus and the early twentieth century Irish novelist Henry de Vere Stacpoole were prompted to produce their best works by a similar motive: an urge to explore the world, and particularly the phenomenon of love and desire, from a standpoint of complete innocence. Although the resulting novels, Daphnis & Chloe and The Blue Lagoon respectively, have no evident direct connection, they exhibit surprising similarities not only in plot, setting, and characterization, but also in the values, perspectives, and worldviews they advance. The striking …

Ovid And Mel Gibson: Power, Vulnerability, And What Women Want, Geoff Bakewell

Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy

Knowledge of Ovid is invaluable for analyzing Nancy Meyers’s film What Women Want (2000). Advertising executive Nick Marshall (Mel Gibson) is a sexist, chauvinistic ladies’ man who acquires the ability to hear what women are thinking. He is in effect a second Tiresias, and this article examines him in light of the gender-bending seer from the Metamorphoses. Meyers links Nick’s miraculous transformation to his attempt to listen to women while simultaneously cross-dressing. He subsequently becomes an intermediary between the genders, especially on sexual matters. The article further examines the Nick/Tiresias parallel in light of Ovid’s treatment of other Theban …

The Labyrinth Of Memory: Iphigeneia, Simonides, And Classical Models Of Architecture As Mind In Chris Nolan’S Inception (2010), Benjamin Haller

Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy

Chris Nolan’s 2010 film Inception uses architecture as a language whereby to comment upon the relationship of the protagonist, Dom Cobb, with his deceased wife, Mal. This paper argues that three classical models – Homer’s tomb of Myrhine described in the Iliad, Iphigeneia’s dream of the collapse of the house of Agamemnon in Euripides’s Iphigeneia Among the Taurians, and Simonides’ Memory Palace mnemonic technique – manifest parallel uses of architecture as a metaphor for mind.

The film identifies each of its main characters – Dom, Mal, and Ariadne – with different architectures and with different modes of cognition. The …

300 And Fellini-Satyricon: Film Theory In The Tertiary Classroom, Leanne Glass

Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy

Pedagogical practices in Reception-based courses on ancient Greece and Rome in film often focus on an individual film’s connections to its historical themes and meta-narrative. In contrast, courses based on Film Studies often focus pedagogical discourses on filmic techniques or the filmmaking process per se. Regularly, the two approaches remain discrete and discipline-based.

In view of this disjuncture in teaching approaches and foci, the intention of this paper is to explore the benefits of film theory, including its consideration of film technique, within Classical Reception courses. Therefore, the suggestion offered herein is that more emphasis on the pedagogies of Film …

Theseus Loses His Way: Viktor Pelevin’S Helmet Of Horror And The Old Labyrinth For The New World, Alison Traweek

Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy

This article explores the relationship between the myth of Theseus and the Minotaur, and Viktor Pelevin’s 2006 adaptation of it, The Helmet of Horror, particularly how it can serve as a case study for the nature and significance of adaptation. It examines the idea of memory, a central theme of the novel, and considers how three aspects of the original myth – the Minotaur, Ariadne’s thread, and the labyrinth itself – shape and inform Pelevin’s retelling. Each of these is unique to this myth in antiquity, and together, they structure the story. Each is also fundamentally connected to the …

The Odyssey And Its Odyssey In Contemporary Texts: Re-Visions In Star Trek, The Time Traveler’S Wife, And The Penelopiad, Mary Economou Bailey Green

Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy

Homer’s The Odyssey is the archetypal quest story. The dialogue began with Homer, and contemporary texts and popular culture media have continued the tradition of deconstructing and recreating stories, addressing issues related to the human psyche. As Hardwick and Stray note, the relationship between ancient and modern is “not merely inherited but constantly made and remade,” one that we see in the following varied genres and versions that retell the Odyssean myth, relating re-visions of characters, relationships, structures, and themes. The original Star Trek episode “Who Mourns for Adonais” is an allegory of the Odyssean quest for human knowledge, while …

O Homer, Where Art Thou?: Teaching The Iliad And The Odyssey Through Popular Culture, Mallory Young

Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy

Like so many of my academic colleagues, I spend an inordinate amount of time lamenting our students’ lack of engagement, discipline, and preparation. The problems are naturally exacerbated when the subject is literature and the literature in question is, by its nature, far removed in time and place from students’ daily lives. At the same time, requirements to study literature have become compressed, if not eliminated entirely. Ancient Greek works, in particular, seem to pose special problems for unmotivated or unprepared students. As our students become less likely to have a prior context from which to approach ancient texts, the …

Wounds That Will Not Heal: Heroism And Innocence In Shane And The Iliad, Carl A. Rubino

Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy

George Stevens’ film Shane, which dates from 1953, remains an especially successful version of the heroic paradigm that is established in Homer’s Iliad. Just as Achilles, the hero of Homer’s poem, considers abandoning the war at Troy in favor of a long and uneventful life at home, the film’s mysterious hero makes a futile attempt to abandon his violent past for a “normal life” as an ordinary farmer in the American west. In the end, however, the threatened status of the domestic world Shane is trying to enter makes it impossible for him to renounce his heroic nature and violent …

Archaic Burials In The Necropolis Of Aigai And The Manufacturing Of Significance In Archaeology, Abigail Chapman

Anthropology Undergraduate Honors Theses

The excavation of Ancient Aigai, modern Vergina in Greece, has unearthed a wealth of archaeological treasures, including Macedonian tombs attributed to Philip II and Alexander the Great. However, the manufactured significance imposed on these excavations has shaped the contemporary understanding of Archaic burial practices in Aigai. This paper aims to understand how the constructed narratives surrounding these excavations influence current ideas on burial customs in Aigai during the Archaic period. By analyzing the layout of the city and its necropolis, scholarship can gain valuable insights into the social structure of Archaic Macedonia. This can help to develop a more complete …

Naturalist Thomas Hardy's Inadvertent Support Of The Gospel Narrative When Portraying Sexual Abuse And Shame In Tess Of The D'Urbervilles, Hannah Carmichael

Master of Arts in Classical Studies

In his novel Tess of the D’Urbervilles, the naturalist author Thomas Hardy attempts to critique the 19th-century Christian perspective on sexual abuse. Instead, he inadvertently critiques legalism, exposing it as the antithesis of true Christianity. Secular scholars believe that Hardy’s novel is blaming the Victorian era’s sexual ignorance for the stigma and shame surrounding sexual abuse. Christian scholars believe that Hardy’s naturalistic worldview simply lacks a moral standard. However, I believe that Hardy’s novel exposes an issue far deeper than sexual ignorance and lacks something far more substantive than a moral standard; his novel addresses the devastating consequences of …

Civil War In Ancient Egypt? A Case Study Of The First Intermediate Period (Ca. 2120-1970 Bc), Marco Pinfari

Theses and Dissertations

The First Intermediate Period (FIP – ca. 2120-1970 BCE) is often described by Egyptologists as a period of “civil war.” In the Egyptological literature, however, little attention is paid to defining this notion (which was first introduced only in the Late Roman Republic, almost 2,000 years later) and to explaining how it could be applicable to ancient Egyptian history.

This thesis contributes to this debate by analyzing the FIP through the lenses of contemporary approaches to civil war, drawn from political science and other cognate disciplines. It first discusses how if the events of the FIP comply with contemporary definitions …

Anthropomorphism In Aesop's Fables, Nasih Alam

Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism

Generally, Aesop’s The Complete Fables is considered didactic for children. In my paper, I discuss how Aesop represents nonhumans in his fables and how they could negatively affect the psychology of children aged 7-12 if we as parents, teachers and legal guardians do not become conscious of its problematic didactic function. I show that most of the anthropomorphized animals in The Complete Fables have anthropocentric and provide environmentally harmful rhetorics. In order to keep the required length of paper in mind, I have limited myself to five tales from Aesop’s The Complete Fables, to show how and where the rhetoric …

The Authors

Textile Crossroads: Exploring European Clothing, Identity, and Culture across Millennia

Short professional biographies of the Contributors: Dimitra Andrianou, Giacomo Bardelli, Magali An Berthon, Tina Boloti, Cecilie Brøns, Ana Cabrera-Lafuente, Francesca Coletti, Roxana Coman, Catarina Costeira, Cristina Cumbo, Camilla Cziffery Nielsen, Klara Dankova, Anna Maria Desiderio, Kerstin Droß-Krüpe, Arianna Esposito, Astrid Fendt, Nade Genevska Brachikj, Francisco B. Gomes, Judith Goris, Audrey Gouy, Karina Grömer, Morten Grymer-Hansen, Mary Harlow, Susanna Harris, Sophia Larissa Hayda, Angela Huang, Floor Huisman, Alina Iancu, Zofia Kaczmarek, Marisa Kerbizi, Meghan Korten, Tetiana Krupa, Karolina Anna Kulpa, Lena Larsson Lovén, Ronja Lau, Yuliia Lazorenko, Susanne Lervad, Petra Linscheid, Christina Margariti, Maria João Melo, Elena Miramontes Seijas, Leyre Morgado-Roncal, …

The Euroweb Textile And Clothing Terminology Network And The Digital Atlas Of European Textile Heritage: Some Reflections And Results, Louise Quillien, Alina Iancu, Meghan Korten, Susanne Lervad, Joana Sequeira, Catarina Costeira

Textile Crossroads: Exploring European Clothing, Identity, and Culture across Millennia

One of the research areas of the EuroWeb project during the four years of the COST Action (November 2020 – October 2024) is the comparative study of textile and clothing terminologies in European languages across time. Inside the EuroWeb network, the research group on Textile and clothing terminologies has three topics of particular interest: 1. the specificities of these terminologies, and the strategies for naming textiles and garments; 2. the impact of European geography on textile and clothing terminologies, especially visible through textile terms formed after a toponym or through the circulation of loanwords; 3. the influence of textile and …

Exploring Dress, Gender, And Bodily Capital Through Pre- And Protohistoric Funerary Contexts: Case Studies From Southwestern Europe, Francisco B. Gomes, Catarina Costeira, Anna Maria Desiderio, Arianna Esposito, Giacomo Bardelli

Textile Crossroads: Exploring European Clothing, Identity, and Culture across Millennia

While uneven in their scope and reach, studies of dress and dress complements (fibulae, belt buckles, buttons, etc.) have a significant tradition within the broader study of the pre- and protohistory of Mediterranean Europe. Many of these studies, however, have had a strong focus on the typology of the dress complements and ornaments themselves, either as chronological indicators, ethnic markers, or both. In more recent years, however, a shift in research agendas has ushered in the introduction of new perspectives and new ways of thinking about dress and bodily adornment.

This contribution explores one such perspective in particular — namely, …

Displaying And Experiencing Dress Identities In Museums: Case Studies From The Etruscan Period To Modern Times, Karina Grömer, Astrid Fendt, Morten Grymer-Hansen, Anna Zimmermann, Kayleigh Saunderson, Camilla Cziffery Nielsen, Francisco B. Gomes

Textile Crossroads: Exploring European Clothing, Identity, and Culture across Millennia

Dress, clothes, and accessories receive and give meaning through their nearness to the human body. As P. Stallybrass writes: “Bodies come and go: the clothes that have received those bodies survive.” It is through the close interaction between dress and person that they both receive their meaning. Clothes shape the human body, and we in return shape our clothes. Dress communicates class, gender, nationality, and marital status, and we leave behind parts of us in its smell, wrinkles, wear, and tear: “Clothes receive the human imprint.” Archaeological and historical dress — no matter how ancient — remain intrinsically linked to …

Red Dyes From West To East In Medieval Europe: From Portuguese Manuscript Illuminations To Romanian Textiles, Irina Petroviciu, Paula Nabais, Maria J. Melo

Textile Crossroads: Exploring European Clothing, Identity, and Culture across Millennia

Red is the color par excellence, its symbolism being linked with protection and magic through its primary attributes, fire and blood. It was the predominant color from the earliest times, certainly during the Greek and Roman periods and into Medieval Europe, until blue became a competitor around the 13th century. Mineral pigments, like iron oxides, were the first red sources, used to draw lines, dots, or spots on cave walls or stones. Later, other mineral red pigments were also exploited: Cinnabar, natural mercury sulfide, since the Neolithic, and realgar, arsenic trisulfide, in Ancient Egypt. Scientific investigation revealed that, although …