toc / Chinese / Master / Master of Philosophy

In Swift's works, both heroes and madmen are characterized by supra-normal aspiration, imagination, individuality, and pride, and the mad hero becomes an effective emblem for the chaos arising when individual vision challenges traditional authority in religion, politics, and literature. Swift's view of madness as the willful perversion of reason tends to be traditional, though his sense of its pervasiveness creates a subversive skepticism. Consistently throughout his works, Swift posits conscience as the only safeguard against the madness of pride. Swift views the traditional hero as subversive, typically portraying him as mad while presenting the sane man as unheroic. As the Tale-teller argues, the traditonal hero is a successful madman. Swift's later works demonstrate that madness and heroism often coincide because of the mutually reinforcing relationship between power and ego, and he asserts that the will to power, manifested in the heroic imposition of one's will upon others, is a form of madness. As an alternative to the asocial and amoral traditional hero, Swift promotes a moderate hero in the figures of the Church of England Man, the Examiner, and the Drapier: the one just man, motivated by Roman and Christian virtue, in a mad society. But even the vir bonus remains susceptible to challenges of authority, for in a mad and corrupt society his singular vision cannot appeal to common sense. Moreover, if he becomes powerful, he risks madness, and if he retreats from madness, he becomes impotent. As a consequence of this double bind, the satirist himself suffers a profound alienation. Swift recognizes that by engaging in the controversies of his age, he himself becomes liable to charges of the madness of pride. Even as he harangues the world, his recognition of the heroic conceit in establishing himself as satirist is evident in the self-satire of A Modest Proposal and the verses on his death. Similarly, the self-portraits in his poetry and Gulliver's Travels demonstrate his conscience at work as he satirizes his own indignation and reforming urges, striving thereby to maintain a modicum of humility and thus sanity, and, in laughing with the reader, striving to maintain common sense as well.

In New Spain, the professionalization of medicine followed the same pattern as in Europe and was prompted by similar intellectual and political factors. As with their European colleagues, the local medical elite of the late eighteenth century was greatly influenced by the Enlightenment, working tirelessly to advance medical science and improve the quality of treatment available to the public. Scientific developments in Europe influenced practitioners in New Spain through local and imported publications as well as through the arrival of a large number of European practitioners. While the Enlightenment played an important role from the scientific and medical points of view, international politics proved crucial to the development of surgery and its rapid rise to a professional level. The intense rivalry among nations prompted Spain to reorganize its armies and consequently, to turn its attention to military surgery. In Mexico, the establishment of formal surgical education and the reorganization of the armies resulted in the arrival of foreign practitioners and the creation of a two tiered system based on nationality. Of equal importance for the initial stages of professionalization was the rapid erosion of traditional social values in the late colonial period. As reflected by the increasing laxity in the enforcement of the limpieza de sangre requirements, race and ancestry as a measure of status were beginning to give way to personal merit. The medical professional gives a unique opportunity to analyze the fascinating world of late colonial Mexico. The hierarchical organization of the profession reflects contemporary society and offers a glance at daily life from the point of view of various socio-economic levels while the relations among its members mirror the complicated relations among the different segments of society. The growing criollo nationalism becomes patent in the attitude of some practitioners, an echo of future and more profound antagonism. From an intellectual point of view, the medical profession illustrates the achievements of local practitioners and pharmacists which have been largely ignored by scholars. Finally, it reflects the last efforts of Spain to reassert control over its colony and its powerlessness to stop the tide of history.

In this dissertation the author argued for a postcolonial reading of the sublime that takes into account the racial and gendered underpinnings of Immanuel Kant's and Edmund Burke's classic theories. The thesis used the understanding of the sublime as a lens for an analysis of the cultural politics of landscape in a range of late imperial and early modern texts about Africa. A re-reading of Henry Morton Stanley's central African exploration narratives, John Buchan's African fiction and political writing, and later texts such as Alan Paton's fiction, autobiographies and travel writing, together with an analysis of colonial mountaineering discourse, suggest that non-metropolitan discourses of the sublime, far from being an outmoded rhetoric, could manage and contain the contradictions inherent in the aesthetic appreciation and appropriation of contested colonial landscapes.

In this dissertation the author argued for a postcolonial reading of the sublime that takes into account the racial and gendered underpinnings of Immanuel Kant's and Edmund Burke's classic theories. The thesis used the understanding of the sublime as a lens for an analysis of the cultural politics of landscape in a range of late imperial and early modern texts about Africa. A re-reading of Henry Morton Stanley's central African exploration narratives, John Buchan's African fiction and political writing, and later texts such as Alan Paton's fiction, autobiographies and travel writing, together with an analysis of colonial mountaineering discourse, suggest that non-metropolitan discourses of the sublime, far from being an outmoded rhetoric, could manage and contain the contradictions inherent in the aesthetic appreciation and appropriation of contested colonial landscapes.

Windows are a significant feature of building construction that have largely escaped notice in terms of their design and fabrication in America from the time of European colonization to the mid-nineteenth century. This thesis tells the story of the glass, woodworking, and hardware technologies that transformed windows from hand-crafted to mass-produced building components. It also explores the stylistic, social, and economic factors that underlie the development and usage of windows in America. / Department of Architecture

When they resided along the White River in Indiana from 1790 to 1821, the Lenape culture exhibited a blend of traits created by contact with European and other Native American groups. This has made observing the Lenape culture archaeologically problematic, especially the village of Wapicomekoke. In searching for this site, several research questions were addressed including who the Lenape were during this time period and what type of material culture would be associated with them. By compiling a brief history of the Lenape, the archaeological evidence associated with these encounters, and ethnohistoric data pertaining to the life of the Lenape at Wapicomekoke, it can be predicted that the archaeological site associated with this historic location would show evidence of log cabins, a large central longhouse, and of daily activities such as food preparation, dress, and trade goods use as well as Lenape specific items such as the “Delaware dolls.” / Theory and methods -- The Lenape history of contact -- Lenape archaeology -- Settlement patterns and material life -- The Lenape in Indiana, synthesizing the data -- Historic Lenape. / Department of Anthropology

Following the appointment of its first aristocratic Grand Masters in the 1720s and in the wake of its connections to the scientific Enlightenment, ‘Free and Accepted’ Masonry rapidly became part of Britain’s national profile and the largest and arguably the most influential of Britain’s extensive clubs and societies. The new organisation did not evolve naturally from the mediaeval guilds and religious orders that pre-dated it, but was reconfigured radically by a largely self-appointed inner core. Freemasonry became a vehicle for the expression and transmission of the political and religious views of those at its centre, and for the scientific Enlightenment concepts that they championed. The ‘Craft’ also offered a channel through which many sought to realise personal aspirations: social, intellectual and financial. Through an examination of relevant primary and secondary documentary evidence, this thesis seeks to contribute to a broader understanding of contemporary English political and social culture, and to explore the manner in which Freemasonry became a mechanism that promoted the interests of the Hanoverian establishment and connected and bound a number of élite metropolitan and provincial figures. A range of networks centred on the aristocracy, parliament, the magistracy and the learned and professional societies are studied, and key individuals instrumental in spreading and consolidating the Masonic message identified. The thesis also explores the role of Freemasonry in the development of the scientific Enlightenment. The evidence suggests that Freemasonry should be recognised not only as the most prominent of the many eighteenth century fraternal organisations, but also as a significant cultural vector and a compelling component of the social, economic, scientific and political transformation then in progress.

Nineteenth-century British fiction is often dismissed as necrophillic or obsessed with death. While the label of necrophilia is an apt description of the fetishistic representations of dead women prevalent at the end of the century, it is too narrow to fit literature produced earlier in the century. This is not to say that abnormal attitudes toward death are only a feature of the late nineteenth century. In fact, pathological attitudes toward death abound in the literature, but the relationship between the deceased and the survivor is not always sexual in nature. Rather, there is a clear shift in attitudes, from the chaste death fantasy, or attraction to the idea of death, prevalent in Gothic works, to the destructive, stagnant mourning visible in mid-century texts, and culminating in the perverse sexualization of dead women at the turn of the century. This literary shift is most likely attributable to the concurrent changes in attitudes toward sex and death. As sex became more acceptable, more public, via the channels of scientific discourse, death became a less acceptable idea. This “denial of death” is a direct reaction to the religious uncertainties brought about by industrialization. As scientists and industrialists uncovered increasing evidence against a literal interpretation of the Bible, more people began to doubt the nature of God and the existence of an afterlife. If there was no God, then there was no heaven, which raised questions about what happened to the soul after death. With the certainty of an afterlife gone, death became mysterious, something to fear, and the passing of loved ones was doubly-mourned as their fate was now uncertain.

Im 18. Jahrhundert ist Jaroměřice eines der wichtigsten Musikzentren der böhmischen Länder. Das Schloßtheater führt importierte und heimische Opern der Wiener und neapolitanischen Richtung auf. Allerdings wissen wir nicht, ob man alle Opernpartituren, die für das Schloßmilieu erworben wurden, auch tatsächlich einstudiert und aufgeführt hat.