No description available.

No description available.

No / As this collection makes abundantly clear, the concept of “World Cinema” can be hard to define. To further establish a sensible definition of what “cult world cinema” might be is to stretch, contort and confuse understanding even further. Scholars have made bold attempts at defining what “cult cinema” might be that range from the “informal” to the “intertextual” by way of the “subcultural”. For instance, Karl and Philip French’s notion of cult as an “intense personal interest and devotion to a person, idea or activity” sought to access the devotional, sacramental aspect of engagement with cinema (French and French 1999: 6). A study by Jancovich and colleagues argued that it is the reception of films and their distinction from, and opposition to, the “mainstream” that defines films as “cult” (Janovich et al. 2003: 2). Mathijs and Sexton (2011) later promoted a rich, intertextual sense of what cult cinema might be, while admitting that because the numerous attempts at defining cult cinema approach the subject from the perspective of the vernacular—“highlighting elements that cannot be caught in a description”—any definition of cult cinema must be tantalisingly “intangible” and “intersubjective” (Mathijs and Sexton 2011: 6).

The thesis examines the presence of Demeter in Hellenistic poetry, while it also considers the way contemporary Demeter cult informs the poetic image of the goddess. My research focuses on certain poems in which Demeter is in the foreground, that is, Philitas’ Demeter, Callimachus’ Hymn to Demeter, Theocritus’ Idyll 7, and Philicus’ Hymn to Demeter, supplemented by the epilogue of Callimachus’ Hymn to Apollo and Philicus’ Hymn to Demeter. The first part of my study is dedicated to the presentation of the evidence for Demeter’s role in the religious life of places that are directly or indirectly associated with the poems I discuss, that is, Egypt, Cyrene, Cos and Cnidus, in order to establish the cultic and historical framework within which Demeter’s literary figure appears. In the second part I closely examine the poems that feature Demeter and conclude that the goddess and motifs closely linked with her have poetological significance, which supports the view that Demeter functions as a symbol of poetics. Furthermore, I examine the social elements in the narrative of the most extant Hellenistic poem on Demeter, i.e. Callimachus’ Hymn to Demeter, and propose that these reflect Demeter’s role as a ‘social’ goddess.

No description available.

No description available.

The topic of this diploma work is about the reflections on biological and cultural determination of female beauty. By research of these two fields, this work is concerned with the inquiry of their correlative relation in the aesthetic ideal of the female beauty in nowadays, primarily in the expressions of the highest aesthetization nearly of its artificiality of body. This work examines to what extent the biological determination of the body interacts in the aesthetization process. First, the work outlines the biologically determinated preferences of the female physical attraction through the evolutionary process of sexual selection and it supports their relevance by the Darwinian theory about the existing taste in animal world. This work introduces the cultural determination on female beauty on the platform of society designated expressions of the aesthetization of female body, fully expanded from nineteenth century, and the reflection on correlative relation of these two inseparable fields is discussed on the background of the highest aesthetization process of female body in the context of its aesthetic ideal of nowadays. KEY WORDS body and corporeality, female beauty, biological determination, cultural determination, aesthetization, artificiality

This dissertation examines Apollo Karneios’ cult(s) in its religious, festive, and political aspects, and investigates the deity’s role in civic and ethnic identities: one of the most striking features of the cult of this deity is the evidence for its presence in many Dorian communities throughout the Mediterranean, particularly in Sparta, where Apollo Karneios’ cult was of central significance. My research endeavours to clarify the cult’s use in political relations between ancient Sparta and its colonies, and interrogates the evidence to determine where and when the cult originated; how we can recognise the deity in visual material; if Karneios was a Spartan god, or if he ‘belonged’ to all Dorians; and the role of his cult in the foundation of Spartan colonies, such as Thera and Cyrene. This work begins with a review of how previous scholarship addressed those issues raised above, and continues with an analysis of the iconography of the deity, combining literary sources with autopsy of the material evidence, which includes sculpted stelai, archaeological sites and monuments, and most numerous of all, inscriptions. Organising the evidence according to geographical areas, my work progresses comparing and contrasting the manifestation and character of the cult in various locations. In addition, my new readings of literary and epigraphical sources, combined with first-hand study of archaeological evidence, result in new reconstructions of monuments related to Karneios’ cult, and offers a new interpretation of Spartan civic and religious topography. As a last step, my research argues that although the cult displays regional variations to reflect local identities, the many similarities established a Dorian network around the Mediterranean, which changed over time. This study contributes to the ongoing discussion on the formation and modifications of local identities and political relations among the Dorian poleis of the Mediterranean, highlighting the role of religion, and, in particular of Apollo Karneios in this complex historical process.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Ohio University, June, 2009. / Release of full electronic text on OhioLINK has been delayed until June 1, 2014. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 98-111)

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Ohio University, June, 2009. / Title from PDF t.p. Release of full electronic text on OhioLINK has been delayed until June 1, 2014. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 98-111)