Matching Items (17)
Description
Tobias Smollett was an eighteenth-century surgeon, writer, novelist, and editor. He was a Scotsman who sought his fortune in south Briton. Throughout his life and career he experienced many of the cultural and political influences that helped to shape the British identity. His youth as a Lowland Scot, student and apprentice, and naval surgeon enabled him to embrace this new identity. His involvement in nearly every aspect of the publishing process in London enabled him to shape, define, and encourage this identity. His legacy, through his works and his life story, illustrates the different ways in which the United Kingdom and its inhabitants have been perceived throughout the centuries. As a prominent man of his time and an enduring literary figure to this day, Smollett offers an ideal prism through which to view the formation of the British identity.
ContributorsKeough, Megan (Author) / Warnicke, Retha (Thesis advisor) / Szuter, Christine (Committee member) / Wright, Kent (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
This thesis addresses the concept of "silence" in Vercors' 1943 novel on resistance in occupied France, The Silence of the Sea, contesting the arguments of scholars who designate silent resistance as expressly "female" and applicable only to women. Although women in France were supposed to be apolitical and removed from activities such as public debates and direct warfare, an examination of allegorical and historical female figures, together with male and female interpretations of those figures, suggests that men and women in France understood patriotism, and especially female patriotism, through a conceptual framework that was informed by and manifested itself in female images of the French Republic. My study on the gendered applications of female images focuses upon the French use of female allegorical figures, and resistance symbols such as the Lorraine Cross, to denote opposition to the Prussian/German acquisition of lands that the French people perceived as French, exploring commonalities between images from the Franco-Prussian War and World War II. Utilizing images relating to the republican values of liberty, equality, and fraternity, including Marianne, the female allegory of the people's Republic, and Joan of Arc, a historical character who became a female allegorical figure, this thesis argues that female allegories of republican resistance to tyranny were combined with resistance to Prussia (Germany) during the "Terrible Year" of 1870-1871. Furthermore, these images combined masculine militant elements, with perceived feminine qualities such as purity and saintly endurance, giving rise to divergent interpretations of female imagery among men and women, and a perceived association between women and silent, indirect resistance. Bourgeois men applied the militant aspects of female images to real women in abstract form. However, with the German annexation of Alsace-Lorraine, resistance techniques and symbols that had been gendered feminine gained precedence and became associated with men as well as women. Recent scholars have utilized the masculine/feminine dichotomy in French female allegories to classify World War II-era resistance as either "active" or "passive," failing to consider the conflation of the masculine/temporal and feminine/spiritual spheres in Vercors' novel and in documents such as "Advice to the Occupied."
ContributorsStevenson, Julia (Author) / Thompson, Victoria (Thesis advisor) / Fuchs, Rachel (Committee member) / Wright, Kent (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
This thesis will examine how the Middle Ages are historically interpreted and portrayed in the United States. In order to keep this study within reasonable bounds, the research will exclude films, television, novels, and other forms of media that rely on the Pre-Modern period of European history for entertainment purposes. This thesis will narrow its focus on museums, non-profit organizations, and other institutions, examining their methods of research and interpretation, the levels of historical accuracy or authenticity they hold themselves to, and their levels of success. This thesis ultimately hopes to prove that the medieval period offers the same level of public interest as popular periods of American history.
This focus on reenactment serves to illustrate the need for an American audience to form a simulated connection to a historical period for which they inherently lack geographic or cultural memory. The utilization of hyperreality as described by Umberto Eco lends itself readily to this historic period, and plays to the American desire for total mimetic immersion and escapism. After examining the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s exhibition of medieval history as high art and culture, the thesis focuses on historical reenactment, as it offers a greater level of visitor interaction, first by analyzing R.G. Collingwood’s definition of “reenactment” and it’s relation to the modern application in order to establish it as a veritable academic practice.
The focus of the thesis then turns to the historical interpretation/reenactment program identified here as historical performance, which uses trained actors in controlled museum conditions to present historically accurate demonstrations meant to bring the artifacts on display to simulated life. Beginning with the template first established by the Royal Armories Museum in the United Kingdom, a comparative study utilizing research and interviews highlights the interpretative methods of the Frazier History Museum, and those of the Higgins Armory Museum. By comparing both museum’s methods, a possible template for successfully educating the American public about the European Middle Ages; while a closer examination of the Frazier Museum’s survival compared to the Higgins Armory’s termination may illustrate what future institutions must do or avoid to thrive.
This focus on reenactment serves to illustrate the need for an American audience to form a simulated connection to a historical period for which they inherently lack geographic or cultural memory. The utilization of hyperreality as described by Umberto Eco lends itself readily to this historic period, and plays to the American desire for total mimetic immersion and escapism. After examining the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s exhibition of medieval history as high art and culture, the thesis focuses on historical reenactment, as it offers a greater level of visitor interaction, first by analyzing R.G. Collingwood’s definition of “reenactment” and it’s relation to the modern application in order to establish it as a veritable academic practice.
The focus of the thesis then turns to the historical interpretation/reenactment program identified here as historical performance, which uses trained actors in controlled museum conditions to present historically accurate demonstrations meant to bring the artifacts on display to simulated life. Beginning with the template first established by the Royal Armories Museum in the United Kingdom, a comparative study utilizing research and interviews highlights the interpretative methods of the Frazier History Museum, and those of the Higgins Armory Museum. By comparing both museum’s methods, a possible template for successfully educating the American public about the European Middle Ages; while a closer examination of the Frazier Museum’s survival compared to the Higgins Armory’s termination may illustrate what future institutions must do or avoid to thrive.
ContributorsHatch, Ryan R (Author) / Wright, Kent (Thesis advisor) / Warnicke, Retha M. (Committee member) / Fixico, Donald L. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015
Description
My honors thesis, entitled “Conversing with Angels: John Dee and His Quest for Divine Knowledge”, was a study of the Elizabethan scholar John Dee and the angelic conversations he is most known for. I decided to focus my work on the nature of the conversations, as well as looking for an answer to the question of why Dee spent years of his life figuring out how to contact, invoke, and converse with God’s divine beings. After extensive research I found five scholars whose works held six different arguments as to Dee’s motivations for the conversations.
I began my thesis discussing the conversations themselves, starting with Dee’s scryer, Edward Kelly, and the ways in which he was able to contact the angels. I also went into detail about the prayers and psalms Dee used to invoke the angels, as well as the multiple topics discussed throughout the conversations. I found that Dee’s transcriptions of the conversations were written in a form of short hand, and often included his own commentary to go along with what the angels told him. After the general overview of the process that let to the conversations, as well as the conversations themselves, I moved on to discussing the six different arguments from the five scholars: Deborah Harkness, Nicholas Cluelee, Stephen Clucas, György Szönyi, and Stuart Clark.
A quick rundown of each argument is as follows. Deborah Harkness argued that Dee’s conversations found their root in apocalyptic concerns, while Harkness and György Szönyi believed he was trying to bring religious reformation to the world. Stephen Clucas felt Dee was doing everything to bring glory to God, and Nicholas Cluelee claimed Dee was conversing with angels for a purely scholarly reason. Finally, Stuart Clark played devils advocate and argued that Dee was not actually talking to angels, but rather to demons.
After much consideration, taking each of the six interpretations into account, I concluded my thesis by arguing in agreement with György Szönyi and Nicholas Cluelee. I believed, like Szönyi, that Dee was doing all of this work to bring glory to God. But that was most likely only to a lesser extent, for when it comes to Dee’s main reasoning behind the conversations, I argued, like Cluelee, that Dee was a scholar through and through. He had spent his whole life chasing after the idea of omniscience, finally looking to the heavens in hopes that God would share his divine knowledge. Therefore, while Dee might have been conversing with angels for many different reasons, I believe that the main reason was somewhat selfish. He was a scholar with the chance to learn the secrets and knowledge of the divine, there was no other motivation needed.
I began my thesis discussing the conversations themselves, starting with Dee’s scryer, Edward Kelly, and the ways in which he was able to contact the angels. I also went into detail about the prayers and psalms Dee used to invoke the angels, as well as the multiple topics discussed throughout the conversations. I found that Dee’s transcriptions of the conversations were written in a form of short hand, and often included his own commentary to go along with what the angels told him. After the general overview of the process that let to the conversations, as well as the conversations themselves, I moved on to discussing the six different arguments from the five scholars: Deborah Harkness, Nicholas Cluelee, Stephen Clucas, György Szönyi, and Stuart Clark.
A quick rundown of each argument is as follows. Deborah Harkness argued that Dee’s conversations found their root in apocalyptic concerns, while Harkness and György Szönyi believed he was trying to bring religious reformation to the world. Stephen Clucas felt Dee was doing everything to bring glory to God, and Nicholas Cluelee claimed Dee was conversing with angels for a purely scholarly reason. Finally, Stuart Clark played devils advocate and argued that Dee was not actually talking to angels, but rather to demons.
After much consideration, taking each of the six interpretations into account, I concluded my thesis by arguing in agreement with György Szönyi and Nicholas Cluelee. I believed, like Szönyi, that Dee was doing all of this work to bring glory to God. But that was most likely only to a lesser extent, for when it comes to Dee’s main reasoning behind the conversations, I argued, like Cluelee, that Dee was a scholar through and through. He had spent his whole life chasing after the idea of omniscience, finally looking to the heavens in hopes that God would share his divine knowledge. Therefore, while Dee might have been conversing with angels for many different reasons, I believe that the main reason was somewhat selfish. He was a scholar with the chance to learn the secrets and knowledge of the divine, there was no other motivation needed.
ContributorsBosak, Lindsey Rae (Author) / Barnes, Andrew (Thesis director) / Wright, Kent (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Department of English (Contributor) / School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies (Contributor)
Created2014-12
Description
This thesis explores the wide-ranging urban renovations of Paris that the Second Empire, led by Emperor Napoleon III, commissioned from 1853-1870. The complex nature of redesigning the French capital required the oversight of the prefect of the Seine under Napoleon III, Georges-Eugène Haussmann, a man who popularized not only the appearance of Paris as it is known today but also the innovative means of financing projects of such large magnitudes. Ordering for wider streets to accommodate the flow of traffic from a rapidly growing population in the nineteenth century, the city government of Paris saw an opportunity to modernize completely its urban area in a functional manner by implementing new water and sewer systems, municipal parks, street lighting, and uniform façades. The comprehensive nature of this undertaking constituted one of the first instances of modern urban planning. While the massive construction projects did displace many of the residents of the city's core, they fundamentally transformed Paris from a medieval town notorious for its malodorous stench, overcrowding, and disease to one of the world's most celebrated and visited cities.
ContributorsSifferman, Steven Tyler (Author) / Shaeffer, J. Duncan (Thesis director) / Hopkins, Richard (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / WPC Graduate Programs (Contributor) / School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning (Contributor) / School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences (Contributor)
Created2014-05
Description
Women. War. What is the relationship between women and war? As evidenced by movies, popular memoirs and journals, there is a definite relationship between men and war. However, this definite relationship has created a problematic and a complex relationship between women and war. The two historical events that are considered as the ‘turning points’ for women are the French Revolution and World War I are compared in this thesis. The popular perception of women’s legacy of the French Revolution is that the Revolution cultivated the ideas of Republican Motherhood and the Cult of Domesticity while World War I catapulted women to the public sphere. These two contrasting legacies are compared to see if French women’s lived experiences, memories, and writings verify these popular perceptions. Or, do the writings of the French women present a different argument? The thesis compares the writings and the lived experiences of the French women through three different themes: the argument for political rights, victimization and agency, and gendered connections (the development of sisterhood for the Revolution) or gendered divides (women’s role on the home and war front). In addition, these three themes come together to show how it is difficult to come up with a collective, public memory.
ContributorsYu, Heajin (Author) / Thompson, Victoria (Thesis director) / Hopkins, Richard (Committee member) / Fuchs, Rachel (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor) / School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies (Contributor)
Created2014-05
DescriptionThe three main objectives of this paper are to: analyze the influence of Freud and Nietzsche on the movie Fight Club, Draw ties between Nietzsche's theories to the character of Tyler Durden, and to discuss how all of this led to the enlightenment of the Narrator.
ContributorsOsowski, Derek William (Author) / Dalton, Kevin (Thesis director) / Wright, Kent (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Department of Finance (Contributor) / Department of Management (Contributor)
Created2014-05
Description
Newfoundland is an island on the east coast of Canada that is mostly forgotten to the study of history. This paper looks in depth at the fighting between France and England between 1696 and 1713, which in Europe coincided with the Nine Years’ War and the War of the Spanish Succession. In 1696, fighting broke out on Newfoundland between England and France because of the Nine Years’ War. Pierre le Moyne d’Iberville, a French officer, commanded the attacks on over twenty English settlements. The attacks lasted less than a year. Attacks would happen again because of the War of the Spanish Succession. France and England would attack each other trying to gain control of the prized commodity of the island, the cod fish. This study looks at how French and English fighting on Newfoundland helped to change the landscape and shaped the way the history of the French and English on the island is portrayed today. Historians tend to look more at the modern history of the island such as: soldiers in World War I and World War II, when Newfoundland became a Canadian province, and the English history of the island. This study argues that, by studying French and English fighting on the island, we can better see the historical significance of Newfoundland.
ContributorsGeorge, Jacquelyn Irene-Rose (Author) / Gray, Susan (Thesis advisor) / Thompson, Victoria (Committee member) / Wright, Kent (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016
Description
This thesis in partial fulfillment of my degree from Barrett, the Honors College at Arizona State University delves into the career and viewpoints of Elizabeth Banks, a nineteenth-century American journalist who traveled to London in the 1890s to write about differences between American and British culture and lifestyles. Her three books include Campaigns of Curiosity: Journalistic Adventures of an American Girl in London (1894), The Autobiography of a "Newspaper Girl" (1902), and The Remaking of an American (1928). Banks asked that all of her personal documents be destroyed after her death, so these published books serve as the only remnant of her transatlantic life. With that in mind, I approached the documents with the idea that Banks chose what to include, what to exclude, and how to present her persona as opposed to giving a complete, unbiased picture. Banks used these books to formulate a public identity that served her purposes, which makes sense considering she needed the approval of her readership in order to subsist financially. The contradictions among the three works, and even within each individual work, allowed Banks to appear nonthreatening to the status quo, but still interesting enough to deserve attention. While the context of her environment experienced changes, so did her public "performance." She altered her image in conjunction with what she identified as important to her readers. I rely on a careful reading of her three published books, contextualized with secondary sources to understand how Elizabeth Banks constructed a public identity during a time characterized by social shifts, especially due to the rise of the women's movement, an interest in access to rights previously reserved for men, and reevaluation of the relationship between the social classes. This thesis takes an interdisciplinary approach that utilizes concepts from women and gender studies to better analyze Banks and her lived experiences. While other research on Elizabeth Banks reaches the same conclusions I do, and while other historians have identified Banks's public character as complex and contradictory, this work focuses specifically on how these contradictions operated. By placing portions of her works directly alongside one another, and by analyzing exactly how she incorporated differing ideologies into her pieces, her public identity can be more fully understood as multifaceted and existing in relation to society's changing demands. Also, this thesis considers the importance of the social constructs of class and gender to Banks's identity. The first chapter focuses on gender and her experience as a woman journalist. The second chapter deals with class politics as they impacted her work. Even though I address these social identities in separate chapters, I approached Banks with intersectionality in mind, as Banks's experience of gender is related to class, and vice versa. Elizabeth Banks crafted her public identity in conjunction to public opinion. She knew that she required the approval of her readers. By policing boundaries created by gender and class, she appears as an outsider looking in. She blurs the lines between masculine and feminine and middle class and working class. She does not firmly set herself in any one group, which allowed her to expand her appeal. This analysis of Banks illuminates how a woman could effectively navigate the public arena in nineteenth-century England.
ContributorsColes, Alexandra Patricia (Author) / Fuchs, Rachel (Thesis director) / Hopkins, Richard (Committee member) / Switzer, Heather (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies (Contributor) / School of Social Transformation (Contributor) / School of Art (Contributor)
Created2013-05
Description
A study of the personal rule of the seventeenth century French king, Louis XIV analyzing his decision making process as an absolutist ruler. A special focus on Louis' foreign policy influences and how he conducted his government including the roles of ministers, ambassadors, the French court and nobility, and councils in the way he made decisions.
ContributorsSnittjer, Molly Helena (Author) / Wright, Kent (Thesis director) / Fuchs, Rachel (Committee member) / Hopkins, Richard (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Politics and Global Studies (Contributor) / School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies (Contributor)
Created2013-05