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The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

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Robbed In The Wilderness: The Western Odyssey Of John Hoback, Edward Robinson, And Jacob Reznor, Aaron Cobia

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

Warned by John Reed that a band of Shoshones were on the war path, Marie Dorion gathered her two young children, got on her horse, and headed to where her husband, Pierre, was hunting. Delayed by darkness, cold, and fear of Indians, Marie finally reached the hut from which Pierre and the other men were hunting. As she approached the hut, she saw Giles Leclerc "staggering as if unwell." Wounded and faint from the loss of blood, Leclerc told Marie that La Chappelle, Reznor, and her husband had been "robbed and murdered that morning. " Marie put LeClerc and one …

Pleas For Toleration Against The Call Of Treason: The 1890 Shanghai Protestant Missionary Conference And The Controversy Over Chinese Rites, Joseph Seeley

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

On May 7,1890, a colorful assortment of Western Protestant missionaries, stationed in all corners of late Qing-dynasty China, gathered in Shanghai for a thirteen-day mission conference. Some came to the conference clad in native Chinese dress, complete with Manchu-style ponytails or queues, while others were dressed more formally in the proper Victorian garb preferred by their non-missionary Western counterparts. Regardless of perceived differences in dress or ecclesiastical affiliation in the multi-denominational assembly, all sought to enjoy what was later described by conference organizers as "an occasion of the highest social enjoyment... as well as spiritual profit." As over four hundred …

Domestic And Foreign Opium Regulation In Victorian England: 1830-1900, Zachary Zundel

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

By the nineteenth century, the British Empire had extended its reach all the way around the globe. They did not come to this position easily. Extending their reach required the British to fight wars with many of the major European powers, such as France, both on the mainland and in colonies around the world. China proved to be one of the most difficult areas for the British to extend into. In China the people were resistant to diseases and possessed greater technology than the other areas of the globe. Europeans wanted access to Asia for products such as spices and …

"Concern For ... South Africa Must Not Impel Us To Commit Acts Of Economic Suicide", Michael Milendez

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

The early 1970s marked the gradual end of the silent era in the antiapartheid movements in South Africa. The Black Consciousness movement along with other internal anti-apartheid movements began to gain strength and a greater voice. At the same time, the U.S. government continued to ignore, for the most part, South African affairs. This changed with the Angola Conflict in 1975 and the heightening of internal strife of South Africa, which began with the Soweto Uprisings in 1976. The conflicting economic and strategic interests of the U.S. Government led to policies, which allowed apartheid to survive in South Africa throughout …

Persecution Of Catholic Leaders In The Ussr, Jenevra Owen

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

In the early 1900s Russian people sought for change in the government because they were not pleased with the capitalist system under the Tsar. The year 1917 saw the end of the Tsar's reign as he fell to the Bolshevik Party (a socialist group) during the Russian Revolution. This completely altered the face of the Russian government as it ushered in a new era for the Russian people. They had been longing for a transformation within the government, and the revolution served as the means to bring about that change. As a result, the Bolshevik Party was created to provide …

Explaining The Stigma: Emma Smith's Reputation Among Latter-Day Saints, 1860 To Present, Dallan Petersen

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

In 1874 Brigham Young declared that Emma Smith, the widow of Joseph Smith, would "be damned as sure as she is a living woman. " Few people have ever elicited enough controversy to be publicly condemn by an LDS Church President, but Emma Smith is among them. Today, Emma Smith is a controversial figure among Mormons, but the reason she became so is less well known. Since the 1980s, LOS books and magazines have claimed her reputation is a product of her refusal to follow her husband's church to Utah in 1846. However, there is no evidence that Emma's reputation …

Manchester And The Lit And Phil, Nik Vigil

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

In writing his extensive History, Directory, and Gazetteer of the County Palatine of Lancaster, Edward Baines wrote, "When the increase of wealth and population lead to the establishment of societies for the improvement of the mind and the extension of science, they produce their legitimate influence; of this nature is the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society." The Lit and Phil, as it was most commonly known, was established in 1781 as a society intended for the discussion of topics as diverse as experimental chemistry and the commercial arts. The Lit and Phil was unique in that it was begun …

Protest And The Pri: Examining Us-Mexican Relations, 1968-1971, Jake Glenn

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

A green flare shot up in the air, lighting the sky. A red flare shortly followed. As a suprised crowd looked up, "a hail of bullets" turned a pepaceful student protest into a massacre at Tlatelolco.

"Dish For An Epicure": Spanish Perceptions Of Indigenous Food In Mexico And Central America, 1517-1577, Timothy Boyer

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

Upon Arrival in Veracruz, Mexico in 1520, the conquistadors were exposed to the sights, sounds, and tastes of the New World. In Cuba they had subsisted on a mostly European diet, but in Mexico they would have to learn to make do with indigenous foods. Their leader, Hernan Cortes, ordered the ships burned to prevent deserters, destroying any hope they had of receiving supplies of European foods during their conquest of what would later become known as Nueva Espana. This left them highly dependent on either their own ability to properly identify food sources or, as was usually the case, …

Front Matter

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

No abstract provided.

Full Issue

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

No abstract provided.

Bahrdt' S Psychological Portrait Of The Dogmatic Priest In Das Religions-Edikt And Herr Pastor Rindvigius, Timothy Wright

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

'What is enlightenment?' This question, posed to German reading audiences in the autumn of 1783 by the journal Berlinische Monatsschrift, ignited a debate that lasted a decade. While the famous answer, given by the philosopher Immanuel Kant, emphasized enlightenment as, above all else, self-emancipation, others stressed the role of external factors-education and institutions-in promoting the individual's ability to think for himself. Through correct upbringing, education, and laws, the individual and society can be brought to enlightenment, so the thinking went. This latter model accented the importance of human development (Bildung) and institutional reform as a means to facilitate this …

Lds Women And The Teton Dam Disaster Of 1976, Emily Willis

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

June 5, 1976, started like any other spring day in southeastern Idaho. After the cold winter, most of the residents of the numerous farming towns that lie throughout the Upper Snake River Valley found the beautiful Saturday ideal for farm work, gardening, or spring cleaning. About twenty miles northeast of Rexburg, the largest town in the area, the Teton Dam neared completion. A Bureau of Reclamation project, the dam promised to stop the annual flooding that so often decimated portions of farmers' fields along the Teton River. Around 11 o'clock that morning, however, came a terrifying report: the Teton Dam …

Spiritual Chemistry: The Theosophic Roots Of Newtonian Alchemy, Jeffery Tucker

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

The popularization of mathematics in the Modern Era and the subsequent proliferation of technologies have created a cultural environment in which the meaning of 'science' is often assumed to be self-evident. Philosophically, this presumptive consensus derives many of its arguments from Popperian criteria, which seek to delineate the critical differences between 'science' and 'non-science.' These demarcations imply that 'science' is an empiric reality, discoverable in both its methods and qualities. Although Kuhnian relativism has attenuated the robustness of these assertions, the fact remains that many individuals purport to have an intuitive ability to state definitively, "This is science." Such claims …

On History As Such And Historical Practice, Drew Mecham

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

In his essay "On History Again," Thomas Carlyle asks: "Were there no brave men, thinkest thou, before Agamemnon?" Carlyle probably sought to reference the idea that history is incapable of uncovering the past completely: the documents simply fail to create a full image of the past that we desire. It seems that his answer to his question would be that yes, there were brave men before Agamemnon, but they are lost to us. He reaffirms this point later: "The Life of Nero occupies some diamond pages of our Tacitus; but in the parchment and papyrus archives of Nero's generation how …

Strengths And Weaknesses Of The Annales School: On The Conflict Between Pope Boniface Viii And Philip Iv Of France, Jonathan Luke

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

In the introduction to his book On History,

Annales School founder Fernand Braudel remarked that "Annales has been received, like any other outstanding thing, with both violent enthusiasm and obstinate antipathy." Indeed, many scholars reacted both positively and negatively to Braudel's call that history be reborn. The Annales School announced that, in the face of the unprecedented atrocities committed during the World Wars, traditional history as written by Leopold van Ranke and his followers, which stresses "political and military events as the story of the great deeds of great men," was grossly insufficient for describing the human condition. In …

"Nobody Whups Me Now": Emancipation And Slave Identity In Mississippi, Daniel Hoer

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

Long before the CIvil War drew to a close, slaves had been looking steadfastly towards the day they would be set free. Like Abe McKlennan, who anticipated the arrival of his freedom many years before it came, Dora Franks similarly recalled one day when she overheard her master telling his wife, Emmaline, "dat dey was gwinter have a bloody war and he was afeared dat all de slaves would be took away." Dora heard Emmaline declare that if this were true "she feel lak jumpin' in de well," and although Dora hated to hear her mistress say such things, she …

Vainglory Or The True Glory Of Christ: The Life Of Saint Catherine Of Siena, Dana Hallstrom

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

On April 29,1380, Saint Catherine of Siena lay dying in Rome surrounded by her closest disciples. An eyewitness account of the scene reports that in the midst of her death throes Catherine suddenly exclaimed, "Vainglory? Never! But the true glory of Christ crucified," seemingly compelled in her last moments to offer a final justification for her unusual life. Several years prior to her death, after having spent more than three years in selfimposed solitude and severe asceticism in a small room underneath the stairs of her father's house, young Catherine Benicasa experienced a vision in which Christ appeared to her …

"Across The Atlantic": How World War Ii Changed British Public Opinion Of Americ, Lexi Edgar

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

It was July 4,1951. Exactly 175 years earlier, America had boldly proclaimed its independence from Great Britain and entered a fierce and desperate struggle to separate itself from the mother country. Yet on this day, reminiscent of the division of the two nations, Americans and Brits came together in London to celebrate their unity. They gathered to dedicate the Roll of Honor, a book containing the names of the 28,000 American soldiers who gave their lives in Great Britain during World War II.

Satorial Manipulation Within Historical Politics, Heather Dew

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

Fashion's impact on the course of history largely unexplored. Herbert Blumer, a noted sociologist at UC Berkeley, accurately credits this oversight to

"a failure to observe and appreciate the wide range of operation of fashion; a false assumption that fashion has only nivial or peripheral significance; a mistaken idea that fashion falls in the area of the abnormal and irrational and thus is out of the mainsneam of human group life; and, finally, a misunderstanding of the nature of fashion."

Blumer was criticizing sociologists, but he may as well have been criticizing historians; scholarly works analyzing fashion's impact are rare …

Slavery And The Second Party System: The Senate Gag Rule As A Test Case, Lee J.F. Deppermann

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

By December 18, 1835, James Henry Hammond, freshman representative from South Carolina, had endured long enough. Hammond insisted that instead of discussing and tabling antislavery petitions, the House of Representatives should not even receive them. The result was the most intense and divisive slavery debate since the Missouri Compromise. When it became apparent that abolitionist tracts would not be allowed to penetrate the South, abolitionists brought their crusade for public opinion to the halls of Congress, claiming their constitutional right of petition. It was these petitions that drove many Southerners, especially the impulsive and fiery Hammond, to lash out and …

Preface, Peter Wright

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

The eminent Russian humanist and novelist Leo Tolstoy once quipped, "Historians are like deaf people who go on answering questions that no one has asked them." Although Tolstoy intended this to be a criticism of contemporary historical trends, his thought reveals an important truth about the value of historical studies: historians often investigate questions that others never think to explore and thus provide new and unique perspectives on past human experience. Does the fact that the majority deigns not to entertain these questions decrease their significance? On the contrary, I believe that this is precisely what gives historical inquiry its …

Front Matter

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

No abstract provided.

The Villainess Does Damage Control: Cultural Rescue In The Man Of Law’S Tale, Lucy Esplin

Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism

In the late fourteenth century, Geoffrey Chaucer wrote his masterwork, The Canterbury Tales, a satirical frame narrative centered on English society. The tales follow a group of pilgrims spanning a wide range of English society, who engage in a storytelling contest as they embark on their pilgrimage. One story is the “Man of Law’s Tale,” a crusader romance that follows the pious Constance in her missionary-like journeys. She first travels to Syria to marry a Sultan, after negotiations between the Roman and Syrian rulers demanded the Sultan be baptized and control over Jerusalem would be handed over to Christians (Chaucer …

Full Issue

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

No abstract provided.

Geraldo The Fearless: The Unsung Hero Of Portugal, Jacob Badal

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

It is well known that Western Europe has enjoyed a longstanding fascination among scholars and students. So much so that calls to move beyond the region towards a global focus in academia are increasing daily. Yet, much of Western Europe's history beyond England, France, and Germany remains unexplored. Spain, as of late, has enjoyed a resurgence of interest, but Portugal has largely been ignored. Indeed, many do not even consider the two Iberian nations and their entangled histories with Islam and North Africa as part of Europe proper, despite the many advancements contributed by both nations to science, cartography, navigation, …

Binding Interdependence: The Necessity Of Marriage In The Stonor Letters, Sarah Emmett

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

Upon her Mattiage to William Stonor in 1475, Elizabeth Stonor, nee Croke, was no wedding amateur. Twice before, she had stood on the steps of the church, as was the custom, and promised to share her wealth and her body with her husband. Twice before, her husband had promised to provide for her and leave her a dower portion upon his death. Both grooms had offered Elizabeth gold and silver coins and a ring to seal their union, and both times, Elizabeth and her husband had prostrated themselves before the altar of the church and heard mass among their family, …

The Jewish Assimilation Of Europe, Noah Allen

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, historians consistently freamed Jewish crises a conflict between the forces of assimilation and preservation, or in some cases liberalism and orthodoxy. Israeli scholars like Katz helped reinforce this frame in volumes like Tradition and Crisis, describing rationalist trends in modern Jusdaism like the Haskalah movement as an assimilation reaction to the liberalizing force of the European Enlightenment. Szajkowski extended this narriative to the French Revolution, asserting that French Jewry was faced with a choice between the defense of ancient tradition and absorption into a radical new movement that was unappreciative of the …

The Becket Family Of Salem, Massachusetts, Kaitlyn Richardson

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

Though Notorious for the Salem Witch Trials of the 1690s, history moved on in Salem after the trials. During the eighteenth century, Salem grew increasingly prominent in the seafaring trade, and by 1800 had a population of 9,400, making it the sixth-largest city in the United States and the second-busiest port in Massachusetts. Indeed, Salem and her trade contacts are considered by historians co be integral in the beginnings of United Scares international relations during the early nineteenth century. This port town had contacts with such far-flung places as other North American Colonies, the Caribbean, Asia, Europe, and the West …