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Full-Text Articles in Cultural History
Is It So Bad To Be Yourself?, Andrew S. Russell
Is It So Bad To Be Yourself?, Andrew S. Russell
Graduate Theses
Homosexuality has been a topic of recent controversial religious discourse, not only in America, but also world-wide. This begs the question: when did homosexuality become such a divisive issue in religious circles? The purpose of this thesis is to examine how ancient western cultures perceived homosexuality and treated homosexuals. Starting with the pagan civilizations of Greece and Rome, and then looking at how homosexuality was perceived in the ancient Judaic world and into the early Christian community, it seems that homosexuality only gradually became stigmatized as early Christians sought to distinguish themselves as unique in the ancient world.
Children Of A One-Eyed God: Impairment In The Myth And Memory Of Medieval Scandinavia, Michael David Lawson
Children Of A One-Eyed God: Impairment In The Myth And Memory Of Medieval Scandinavia, Michael David Lawson
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Using the lives of impaired individuals catalogued in the Íslendingasögur as a narrative framework, this study examines medieval Scandinavian social views regarding impairment from the ninth to the thirteenth century. Beginning with the myths and legends of the eddic poetry and prose of Iceland, it investigates impairment in Norse pre-Christian belief; demonstrating how myth and memory informed medieval conceptualizations of the body. This thesis counters scholarly assumptions that the impaired were universally marginalized across medieval Europe. It argues that bodily difference, in the Norse world, was only viewed as a limitation when it prevented an individual from fulfilling roles that …