Cultural History Commons^™

Typography And The Evolution Of Hebrew Alphabetic Script: Writing Method Of The Sofer, Shayna Tova Blum

Faculty and Staff Publications

Typography is the study of language letterforms, phonographic alphabetic characters that, when combined with additional characters, form words and/or sentences to express an idea and communicate a message to an audience. The history of typographic design dates back to early civilization and the invention of alphabetic writing systems, formulated and processed through the literary skills of the Hebrew Scribe Ezra whose knowledge and practice offered a significant contribution within a predominantly oral society. By examining the history of Hebrew typography through the discourse of biblical writing systems and alphabetic design, the article addresses the development of Hebrew scripts evolving from …

An Archaeological History Of Qumran: With An Explanation Of Archaeological Techniques, Christy Connell

Masters Theses

Khirbet Qumran is an archaeological site located on a plateau in Qumran National Park near the Dead Sea in Israel. Although it is a site rich in archaeological history and has been visited by tourists since the early nineteenth century, it only recently became a household name in the mid-twentieth century with the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in the caves surrounding the plateau. While the Dead Sea Scrolls are generally the area of focus for most scholars, much archaeology has been done in Qumran focusing on the community and its ruins as well. This thesis focuses on the …

Silver Breathed Upon The Stage: The American Revolution As Drama And Mythology, Nathan Stone

Masters Theses

At the time of the American Revolution, several different intellectual influences were present within the American colonies: the classical tradition, taken from ancient Greece and Rome; Christianity, taken from the Bible and the Reformed, Calvinist tradition; and, Whig theory. The question that must be asked is: Were these different intellectual traditions brought together at the time of the American Revolution and, if so, by what means? By analyzing how the different traditions were present in the colonies as well as how the past was utilized through the eighteenth century understanding of time and history—particularly through the use of pseudonyms and …

The Southern Baptist Convention “Crisis” In Context: Southern Baptist Conservatism And The Rise Of The Religious Right, Austin R. Biggs

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

From the late 1970s through the early 1990s, a minority conservative faction took over the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC). This project seeks to answer the questions of how a fringe minority within the nation’s largest Protestant denomination could undertake such a feat and why they chose to do so. The framework through which this work analyzes these questions is one of competing worldviews that emerged within the SBC in response to decades of societal shifts and denominational transformations in the post-World War II era. To place the events of the Southern Baptist “crisis” within this framework, this study seeks to …

Hebrew Typography: A Modern Progression Of Language Forms, Shayna Tova Blum

Faculty and Staff Publications

Influenced by studies in traditional Ashkenazi and Sephardi scripts. The typeface had been designed for the printing of the Koren Tanakh, a first edition printed Jewish Bible processed through an all-Jewish collaboration for the first time in centuries. Koren’s project was inspired by the revival of Hebrew initiated by Haskalah writers in the 18th century. Haskalah writers utilized the language and scripts of written and printed literary texts. Influenced by philosophical and political ideologies of the European Enlightenment, the Haskalah explored Jewish identity through language by defining the secular context through traditional Jewish symbolism and narratives. The Zionist movement of …

Shenoute’S Feast: Monastic Ideology, Lay Piety, And The Discourse Of Food In Late Antiquity, Dana Robinson

Faculty Publications - Department of History and Politics

In the fourth and fifth centuries c.e., food provides a dense and value-laden web of meaning which lay and monastic Christians use to negotiate their identity with the culture at large, but also vis-à-vis each other. The works of Shenoute of Atripe are a valuable source of insight into the workings of this discourse in a Christian community, since they embrace both internal monastic instruction (the Canons) and public sermons (the Discourses). The first half of this paper constructs Shenoute’s ideology of the Christian meal in terms of the larger discourse of food in which it participates. He …

Design-Based Research Mobile Gaming For Learning Jewish History, Tikkun Olam, And Civics, Owen Gottlieb

Articles

How can Design-Based Research (DBR) be used in the study of video games, religious literacy, and learning? DBR uses a variety of pragmatically selected mixed methods approaches to design learning interventions. Researchers, working with educators and learners, design and co-design learning artifacts and environments. They analyze those artifacts and environments as they are used by educators and learners, and then iterate based on mixed methods data analysis. DBR is suited for any "rich contextualized setting in which people have agency." (Hoadley 2013) such as formal or informal learning environments.

The case covered in this chapter is a mobile Augmented Reality …

Lost & Found: Order In The Court -- The Party Game, Owen Gottlieb, Ian Schreiber

Presentations and other scholarship

Lost & Found is a strategy card-to-mobile game series that teaches medieval religious legal systems with attention to period accuracy and cultural and historical context.

The Lost & Found games project seeks to expand the discourse around religious legal systems, to enrich public conversations in a variety of communities, and to promote greater understanding of the religious traditions that build the fabric of the United States. Comparative religious literacy can build bridges between and within communities and prepare learners to be responsible citizens in our pluralist democracy.

The second game in the series, Lost & Found: Order in the Court …