by Michael G. Safonov and Michael Athans. / Bibliography: p. [B8]. / NASA/Ames Grant NGL-22-009-124 and NASA Langley Grant NSG-1312.

Anna Matilda Whistler (1804-1881) is now best known as the sitter for perhaps the most famous painting of an artist’s mother in the world, by James McNeill Whistler, Arrangement in Grey and Black: Portrait of the Artist’s Mother, Musée d’Orsay, Paris. My thesis is an annotated edition of Anna Whistler’s extent correspondence, comprising 267 letters and six essays. I have annotated the letters with respect to chronological, geographical, social, political and artistic references, documenting life and culture in the mid-19th century in America, Britain and Russia. Anna Whistler was a prolific letter writer who knew how to shape her epistolary style to suit the person in question. Her commentary ranged from the evolution of travel to Imperialist Russia. Her changing social status - from that of a wealthy housewife in Russia to a bankrupt widow - and her constant search for new homes and horizons for her children, take the reader on a social and geographical journey from the antebellum South to New England, and Europe. It is from these places that Anna Whistler introduced her correspondents and now us, today’s readers, to the personal stories of hundreds of individuals including the leading professionals of the time. These range from manufacturers and railroad engineers to religious leaders, slave owners, army officers and artists. A North Carolinian by birth, Anna Whistler experienced a lifestyle that was rich both in material and spiritual terms. She was brought up in a nineteenth century context, where white middle-class women were confined in most cases to the private domain of the home. Although Anna Whistler believed in traditional domestic roles for women, her circumstances actually led her to more beyond these boundaries.

This contribution explores notions of "popular narratology" in reports, memos and strategic research papers of the US military and affiliated institutions. It investigates the military´s analysis of emerging social media practices and corresponding efforts to adapt military organization, strategy, and culture to these new technological and cultural phenomena. Employing notions and techniques of constructing and disseminating a narrative that they borrow from literary theory, media studies, and advertising, these texts negotiate best practices to set political agendas and instigate institutional reforms within the military. Providing a cultural history perspective on these recent developments in military policy, this article emphasizes the military papers´reflections on the textuality of military information in order to reveal their agenda of furthering the military´s interests. It is thus invested in exploring how textual (i.e., "poetic") qualities serve as tools to pursue political goals.

This contribution explores notions of "popular narratology" in reports, memos and strategic research papers of the US military and affiliated institutions. It investigates the military´s analysis of emerging social media practices and corresponding efforts to adapt military organization, strategy, and culture to these new technological and cultural phenomena. Employing notions and techniques of constructing and disseminating a narrative that they borrow from literary theory, media studies, and advertising, these texts negotiate best practices to set political agendas and instigate institutional reforms within the military. Providing a cultural history perspective on these recent developments in military policy, this article emphasizes the military papers´reflections on the textuality of military information in order to reveal their agenda of furthering the military´s interests. It is thus invested in exploring how textual (i.e., "poetic") qualities serve as tools to pursue political goals.

In 896 Pope Stephen VI put the corpse of his predecessor, Pope Formosus, on trial in a Church synod in Rome, known since as the Cadaver Synod. The pontificate and the ordinations of Formosus were annulled and he was reburied in a pilgrims' cemetery from which his body was quickly removed and thrown into the Tiber. It still is generally assumed that Formosus was tried as revenge for his having betrayed Lambert of Spoleto by inviting Arnulf of Carinthia to become emperor, and that Pope Stephen VI was carrying out the wishes of Lambert and his mother. This dissertation, by examining the entire career of Formosus as well as the manuscript evidence for the Cadaver Synod and the 898 Synod of Ravenna, which overturned it, will present a new view of what happened in this neglected period of European history. In so doing, it has reached very different conclusions about the trial and its purpose.