The Exodus story of the Israelites' slavery in Egypt and subsequent redemption was central to Jewish accounts of their national origins and was an important component of Jewish self-identification in antiquity. Although Greek and Latin sources appear ignorant of the Exodus story, ancient ethnographies of the Jews in non-Jewish sources claim that the Jews were originally Egyptian. This thesis examines how Josephus presents the Exodus story of the Jews' servile national origins in Egypt to a Roman audience who had biases against slaves, freedmen, and Egyptians, and little knowledge of Jewish origins apart from reports that they were Egyptian by origin. Josephus's first work Jewish War, a politico-military history, includes tangential remarks about Jewish origins, but implies in the proem that the Jews were originally Egyptian. Jewish Antiquities, which rewrites the biblical account of Jewish origins, explicitly denies that the Jews were originally Egyptian and deliberately omits mention of the Jews' servitude in Egypt at important points in the narrative where it would have been expected. In Against Apion, an apologia, Josephus subtly uses keywords and the rhetorical technique of insinuatio to prove that the Jews were not originally Egyptian without stating openly that this is a goal of the work. Several factors explain these results. Aristotle's theory of natural slavery, which posits that slaves are innately defective, was part of the ideological assumptions of first century CE Roman elites. Romans were also ambivalent about their own partly-servile origins in Romulus's asylum. Influenced by Augustan propaganda about Actium, first-century Roman sources deride Egyptians with a range of negative stereotypes. Josephus denies that the Jews were Egyptian and omits their servile origins at important points in the narrative where the Bible mentions it in order to portray the Jews as favorably as possible.

The diploma thesis deals with German historiography in South Bohemia in the late 19th and 20th century. The main subjects of the research are four semi-professional regional historians; native German who studied south-bohemian history. The first one was a teacher and city archivist Reinhold Huyer (1850-1928), the second was a governor archivist Karl Köpl (1851-1932), then a Cistercian priest Valentin Schmidt (1863-1927) and a teacher and politician Franz Engelbert Vollgruber (1847-1917). The first chapter discusses the development of German historiography in the Czech lands. Then, the chapter analyses the definition, progression and the representatives of Czech and German regional history, mainly in South Bohemia. The second chapter portrays private and public life of these authors. The third chapter maps their work, whose primal concern was the history of south-bohemian region, their aims, topics they dealt with, their used primal sources and literature, editorial work and their contribution to the knowledge of the local history. The last chapter shows the bibliography of the work of Huyer, Köpl, Schmidt and Vollgruber. The conclusion sums achieved results of the research. After the conclusion, there is a list of used primal sources, literature and appendixes. The thesis is mainly based on the study of personal collection of German historians, their independent publications and regional newspapers, where their most often contribution concerned the local history.

The dissertation deals with the transformations of historiography and perception of the historical time in the last third of 18th and at the beginning of the 19th centuries. The central questions it investigates are: How has the way of locating (Czech) society in time changed? How did representations of past fundamentally change between 1760s and 1820s, in the era of the so-called "Sattelzeit"? What is the relationship between these changes and the way in which history was represented? What impact did the changes of media, book markets, and culture of reading have in this time? What are the political and aesthetic consequences of these changes? The answer to these questions is found in five fundamental innovations of Enlightenment historiography. These innovations (understood according to Niklas Luhmann's system theory in order to reduce complexity) - fundamentally influenced the way in which late Enlightenment thinkers conceptualized the flow of historical time and the praxis of historiography. It is about the spread of cumulative concepts of knowledge in historia litteraria related to the growth of book markets, narrativisation of the historical experience (as a result of emergence of the newly incoming fictional genres of the historical novels),, philosophy of history as a new idealistic...

xvi, 187 p. : ill., maps. A print copy of this title is available through the UO Libraries under the call number: KNIGHT E99.N97 B74 2003 / The culture history of the northeastern Great Basin, as currently written by the archaeological profession, is silent as to the view of Gosiute and Shoshone natives about their own ancestors. The goal of this dissertation is the infusion of Punown (interrelated Numic speaking peoples) epistemology into mainstream anthropological interpretation, as provided through North American Desert West prehistory. The hypothesized Numic expansion into the Northeast Great Basin, according to which the Punown natives now resident throughout the region are very recent immigrants, is problematic on several grounds. In the dissertation I show that late population movement into this region by Numic ancestors has not been demonstrated. After a hundred years of research no consensus yet exists as to the origins of the Northern Uto-Aztecan speaking Numic peoples (Punown). In spite of that, and in spite of the fact that it takes no account of the natives' own view of their origins, the Numic Expansion Hypothesis is being used in a way by some archaeologists and cultural resource managers that denies to the Punown their cultural heritage. The archaeological record of the region, extending back into deep time, is rich in the similarities it shows with the native Punown cultures of the contact-historic period. The epistemology and spiritual beliefs of the Punown also assert their cultural continuity with the ancient traditions documented in that archaeological recoret;It is not acceptable that a scientific hypothesis impedes native people's role in the care and stewardship of sites and places throughout the region that their own spiritual traditions tell them they are responsible for. The mainstream anthropological concept of science and the epistemology of the Punown are opposed diametrically. Punown view the world and its people as interconnected through the Sacred Earth Matrix, while anthropologists see the human world as bifurcated from nature. Punown understand archaeology and relatedness spiritually, while archaeologists see dead objects in an "objectified" way. Conformity to the existing paradigm, with its persistent building and rebuilding of earlier untenable Euroamerican views of Numic origins, makes the Punown outsiders to the region in which they live. This goes on even though many scholars, reviewing the case for a Numic Expansion, find it seriously lacking. Infusion of Punown epistemology into current archaeological practice offers a basis for pooling Punown and mainstream anthropological approaches to the prehistory of the Desert West. A mutually enhancing research partnership based on beneficial objectives is advocated; this will go far to repair a strained relationship that now exists between Punown and archaeological researchers, and result in a fuller and richer history for all to contemplate. / Committee in Charge: Dr. C. Melvin Aikens, Chair; Dr. Jon Erlandson; Dr. Lawrence Sugiyama; Dr. Scott DeLancey

Fundação de Amparo a Pesquisa no Estado do Rio Grande do Sul / In 1948, Manoelito of Ornellas published his work Gauchos and Bedouins: ethnicity and the social formation of Rio Grande do Sul, inserting himself in the debates on the (re)formulation of regional identity carried out in the mid-twentieth century in the state. At that time, disputes involving the legitimate past and what is and how to be gaucho took new turns, different from those born with the creation of IHGRS and the "official line". Both history as discipline and the social actors involved changed. In this research, we try to demonstrate the transformation that occurred and how the work and the author fit into the heart of this process. For this, the dissertation is divided into three chapters In the first, will be addressed the relations of the author and his work with their contexts, especially the historiographical culture of Rio Grande do Sul and the debates around the regionalist literature, tradition in which he was inserted as an intellectual. The second chapter takes place a mixture of biography and intellectual biography, paying attention to the trajectory of Manoelito in seek of grants to interrelate their written production. In the third and last is performed an internal review of Gauchos and Bedouins, trying to understand their epistemological assumptions, notions and central representations builded, his dialogue with the historiographical culture of the period and the insertion in the debate on the identity (re)construction during the publication period. The research is linked to the Research Field Integration, Politic and Frontier of the PPGH-UFSM and was funded by a CAPES/FAPERGS scholarship. / Em 1948, Manoelito de Ornellas publicou sua obra Gaúchos e Beduínos: a origem étnica e a formação social do Rio Grande do Sul, inserindo-se nos debates sobre a (re)formulação da identidade regional levadas a cabo em meados do século XX no estado. Naquele momento, as disputas envolvendo o passado legítimo e os sentidos do ser gaúcho tomaram novos rumos, distintos daqueles nascidos com a criação do IHGRS e o "discurso oficial". Tanto a história disciplinar quanto os atores sociais envolvidos mudaram. Busca-se demonstrar as transformações ocorridas e como obra e autor inserem-se no âmago desse processo. Para isso, a dissertação divide-se em três capítulos. No primeiro, serão abordadas as relações do autor e sua obra com seus contextos, principalmente a cultura historiográfica sulrio- grandense e os debates em torno da literatura regionalista, tradição de pensamento na qual se inseriu como intelectual. No segundo capítulo, realiza-se uma mescla de biografia e biografia intelectual, atentando para a trajetória de Manoelito e buscando subsídios para inter-relacionar sua produção escrita. No terceiro e último, é realizada uma análise interna de Gaúchos e Beduínos, procurando compreender seus pressupostos epistemológicos, as noções e representações centrais construídas, o diálogo com a cultura historiográfica do período e a inserção nos debates sobre a (re)construção identitária local durante o período de publicação. A pesquisa vincula-se à Linha de Pesquisa Integração, Política e Fronteira do PPGH-UFSM e foi realizada com auxílio de bolsa CAPES/FAPERGS.

Cette thèse s’intéresse aux historiens classicisants de langue grecque de l’Antiquité tardive. Elle développe une analyse sociale de ces historiens et de leurs écrits. Son objectif principal est de souligner les interactions entre l’écriture de l’histoire, vu comme une pratique sociale, et la société romaine tardo-antique. La première partie dresse la biographie des historiens, d’Eunape de Sardes à Théophylacte Simocatta. Le profil social de ces historiens y est défini, et une attention particulière est portée aux liens entre activité littéraire et carrière professionnelle. La seconde partie étudie plus spécifiquement les élites provinciales tardo-antiques, groupe auquel appartiennent en majorité nos historiens. Elle explique pourquoi pratiquement tous les historiens étaient des avocats et comment ces derniers en venaient à écrire de l’histoire. La dernière partie analyse les fondements sociaux de l’histoire. Elle souligne ce que l’histoire devait à l’éducation tardo-antique et montre comment les vertus de l’historien reflétaient les vertus sociales attendues d’un membre de l’élite tardo-antique. / The main objective of this dissertation is to offer a social analysis of the classicizing historians of late antiquity. It aims to underline the interactions between history-writing and society. The first part presents the biographies of late antique classicising historians, from Eunapius of Sardis to Theophylact Simocatta. It describes the social profile of those historians, while insisting on the interactions between professional career and literary endeavours. The second part explains why most historians were lawyers and analyzes the place history-writing occupies in their social life. The third part deals with the social foundations of history writing. It focuses on the role of rhetorical education in the formation of future historians and shows how the virtues of the historian mirrored the social virtues of late antique elites.

[pt] O cinismo – entendido tanto em seu sentido antigo como uma escola filosófica helenística, quanto em seu sentido moderno como uma falsa consciência esclarecida – é o tema da presente tese. A partir da pergunta Como escrever uma história do cinismo?, pretendemos avaliar as condições de possibilidade e, ao mesmo tempo, propor uma tal história. Para dar conta dessa empreitada, lançamos mão da noção de dialética cínica. Em nosso capítulo inicial, apresentamos quatro momentos-chave da história do cinismo – personificados por Diógenes de Sínope, Luciano de Samósata, Jean-Jacques Rousseau/Denis Diderot e Friedrich Nietzsche. Em seguida, examinamos a historiografia recente sobre o tema, com foco nos trabalhos de Heinrich Niehues-Pröbsting, Peter Sloterdijk e Michel Foucault. Por fim, no último capítulo, refletimos sobre o que é e como se dá a dinâmica da dialética cínica. O nosso objetivo, depois de percorrido todo o texto, é deixar claro como o discurso cínico opera de forma dialética na medida em que ele sempre escorrega de sua própria definição. / [en] Cynicism – understood both in its ancient sense as a Hellenistic philosophical school, and in its modern sense as an enlightened false consciousness – is the subject of the present thesis. Starting with the question How to write a history of cynicism?, we intend to assess the conditions of possibility and, at the same time, propose such a history. To deal with this endeavour, we resorted to the notion of cynical dialectic. In our opening chapter, we present four key moments in the history of Cynicism – personified by Diogenes of Sinope, Lucian of Samosata, Jean-Jacques Rousseau/Denis Diderot and Friedrich Nietzsche. After that, we examine the recent historiography on the subject, focusing on the works of Heinrich Niehues-Probsting, Peter Sloterdijk and Michel Foucault. Finally, in the last chapter, we reflect on what the cynical dialectic is and how its dynamics works. Our objective, after going through the entire text, is to make clear how the cynical discourse operates in a dialectical way, inasmuch as it always slips away from its own definition.

Although the Liber Historiae Francorum is the only surviving contemporary chronicle which treats the fifty years spanning the turn of the seventh to the eighth century in Frankish Gaul, it has been generally mistrusted by students of the period. This thesis is an attempt to discover whether the reputation is just or whether the chronicle might yield new information about the later Merovingian age. In so doing it asks three questions: 1) Is the work's latest edition, which is now nearly 100 years old, still the best version of the text we can achieve? 2) How accurate is the LHF's description of events? 3) Does a study of the author and his attitudes yield any insight into the nature of late Merovingian politics and society? The study concludes that the edition is an accurate rendering of the surviving manuscripts and an adequate basis for study of the work. This is true despite the fact that the contents of one early manuscript, which was unknown to the work's editor, calls into question the currently held assumptions concerning order, date, and composition of the LHF's recensions. Although the chronicle does indeed contain many errors in its earlier parts, for the period from the 650's (LHF-43) to the end of the work, there are a surprising number of instances where its version of events is either as believable as or more probable than the currently accepted view. An analysis of the author and his attitudes outlines a picture of late Merovingian politics as conducted by factions of leading Neustrians, whom the chronicler calls the Franci, and who could find unity in the loyalty due the legitimate Merovingian king.

Patrick Chamoiseau is arguably the most prominent cultural personality from the French island of Martinique. His reputation is due to the worldwide success of his novels, especially Texaco, winner of the Prix Goncourt-award in 1992, but also to the fact that he is the leading theorist of the Créolité, an ideological movement whose aim is to preserve the character of Creole identity and culture against the threat of assimilation. Chamoiseau’s importance in an ideological context tends to overshadow his literary qualities, his novels being often seen as illustrations of his political ideas.Although Chamoiseau’s ideological views aren’t totally absent from his literary work, his novels strike the reader as extremely complex constructions, containing far more than a subversive aspect. An aspect that has been neglected by the critics is for example the supernatural. Probably because of the geographic vicinity to South America, Chamoiseau’s use of the supernatural has been, rather hastily, considered as typical of magical realism or marvellous realism. This dissertation aims at showing that the fantastic, as defined by Tzvetan Todorov (1970), is better suited to describe this aspect of Chamoiseau’s novels, especially Biblique des derniers gestes (2002).Our main objective is, however, not to decide whether the novel belongs to the fantastic as a genre, but to examine the reasons why it is used. A close analysis shows that it is often in relation to the past of Martinique that the supernatural appears. Thanks to the theory of the fantastic, we find three possible explanations of this fact. Firstly, the supernatural is juxtaposed to the real in order to reveal its limits and its “constructedness”. Martinican past thus appears as a French construction. Secondly, the fantastic can be used to reveal the absence of genuine Martinican history. Finally, the fantastic can be a reminder of a terrible event from the past. In conclusion it can be said that Chamoiseau uses the fantastic in order to write the history of an event that he sees as the origin of Martinique: slavery. By doing this he contributes to the fantastic as well, by showing that it is not necessarily gratuitous and by providing a good example of original and innovative use.

<p>In the first half of the nineteenth century, historians in the United States described their work as an aesthetic practice. The romantic nationalist George Bancroft claimed that historical writing ought to provide readers with a series of beautiful images that would "secure the affections" of the American people for the U.S. Constitution. William H. Prescott, author of volumes on the age of conquest, introduced his most popular work by claiming that he wanted to present his readers with a "picture true in itself" and, through his vividly imaginative descriptions, "to surround them in the spirit of the times." For this generation of historians, their magisterial texts were not simply more or less true accounts of European experience in the New World or the story of the nation's revolutionary origins, they were paintings in words--expressionistic and romantic images that would make the passions, conflicts, and virtues of previous generations available to their readers as an imaginative experience.</p><p>Scholars have long understood the various forms of historical consciousness of the nineteenth-century as producing national, imperial, and racial orders in their imagination of the United States as the locus of a linear and progressive flowering of liberty in the New World. My project supplements these totalizing accounts by examining the central texts of nationalist history through the lens of literary analysis to demonstrate how their aesthetic dimensions both enabled and disrupted such a political and temporal imagination. Romantic history emerged in an era of pronounced temporal crisis for the United States. On the surface, these historians sought to provide readers with experiences of an otherwise inaccessible revolutionary past that would help bind a nation confronting fears about dissolution in exponential westward growth, immigration, and the sectional crisis over slavery. Yet, when we look closer at these texts, we realize that they contain covert recognitions of the vitality of struggles for freedom taking place elsewhere--in Haiti, Mexico, or West Indian abolition--that exceeded the terms of U.S. racial republicanism and claimed futures at odds with nationalism's sense of historical preeminence. Both compelled and horrified by the assertion of black freedom throughout the Atlantic world, the beautiful and haunted images of romantic history registered the irruptive force of transatlantic political movements nominally inadmissible within U.S. historical discourse.</p><p> </p><p>While romantic historians developed aesthetic norms for confronting and disavowing alternatives to national orders of time and political progress, abolitionist writers held fast to these disruptions to construct an aesthetics of slave revolution. In the second half of my dissertation, I examine the trajectory of this black radical tradition from the abolitionist historians of the antebellum period to the twentieth-century thinkers who adapted and transformed these aesthetics into a comprehensive anti-imperialism. Considering writings by William C. Nell, Martin R. Delany, W.E.B. Du Bois and C.L.R. James I argue that this tradition did more than reconstruct histories of black political life that had been suppressed by white supremacist orders of knowledge. These writers vitalized history with alternate models of freedom as immediate, proliferating, and eruptive--even when they also sought for signs of racial progress in a linear model. In their vivid descriptions of an experience of freedom that was irreducible to linear models of progress, these texts produced what Walter Benjamin once described as "the constructive principle" in materialist history: "where thinking suddenly halts in a constellation overflowing with tensions, there it yields a shock to the same." This shock of overflowing tensions is the moment when history becomes aesthetic--when imaginative excess overturns the narrative form of history. I ultimately argue that the aesthetics of history can help us reconsider the political stakes of historical scholarship, allowing us to think about the writing of history as an ongoing encounter with freedom that always exceeds the limits of factual, analytical and discursive accounts of what has been.</p> / Dissertation