This dissertation focuses on two miya mandara depicting the sacred geography of the Kumano region of Japan (late-thirteenth/early-fourteenth centuries). It demonstrates that the paintings were produced at Onjōji, a Tendai Buddhist temple in the eastern foothills of Mount Hiei, and owned by Shōgoin, its sub-temple in Kyoto. These temples were affiliated with the Jimon branch of Tendai associated with the esoteric cleric Enchin (814-891)), and were, by the time of the production of the mandara, in heated doctrinal, institutional, and political dispute over independence from the Tendai headquarters at Enryakuji. Three primary issues related to the mandara are addressed. First is the purpose of their production. The dissertation questions earlier claims that miya mandara primarily functioned as visual tools allowing mental visits to depicted sacred sites in place of expensive and arduous pilgrimages. Rather, it argues that the Kumano mandara were part of a larger contemporaneous discourse that included other forms of written and visual materialssuch as the Ippen hijiri-e and Tengu zōshi handscrolls, Shugen shinanshō, and petitions to courtand represented an orchestrated attempt to promote the spiritual superiority and legitimate the institutional autonomy of Onjōji over Enryakuji. Viewed within this context, two atypical features of miya mandara found in the Kumano mandara can be understood: the inclusion of a portrait of Enchin and of the esoteric Diamond and Womb World mandala. Lineage and power being inseparable in the religious and political culture of medieval Japan, the dissertation argues that the purpose of their placement in the Kumano mandara was to claim that the superiority of Onjōji was rooted in both Enchins Jimon lineage and his form of esoteric Tendai centered at the temple, and that each, in turn, valorized and legitimized Onjōjis claim for superiority over all other temples, especially Enryakuji. Finally, the dissertation takes up the problem of another portrait found in the mandara, which has been identified (without substantiation) as the Shingon esoteric priest Kūkai (774-835). The dissertation contests this attribution, which is inconsistent with its other findings, and offers possible avenues of pursuit for identifying this damaged and controversial portrait.

This dissertation situates the life and work of the artist Toyen (Marie Čermínová, 190280), a founding member of the Prague surrealist group, within the larger discourses of modernism and feminism/gender studies. In particular, it explicates Toyens construction of gender and eroticism within the contexts of early twentieth-century Czech feminism and sex reformism, the interwar Prague avant-garde, and Prague and Paris surrealism. Toyens interest in sexuality and eroticism, while unusual in its extent and expression, is intimately related to her historical and geographic position as an urban Czech forming her artistic personality during first a period of economic boom, avant-garde optimism, increased opportunities for women, and sex reformism, and then a period of economic crisis, restriction of womens employment, social conservatism, and tension between the subconscious and the socialist realist. Toyens ambiguously gendered self-presentation, while again unusual, needs to be considered in light of her enthusiastic reception within three predominantly male avant-garde groups (Devětsil, Prague surrealism, and Paris surrealism). I stress that the social and cultural environment of her childhood and youth created an atmosphere that enabled her to pursue lifelong personal interests and obsessions in a manner that was unusually public for a female artist of her generation. As a case study of one artist working within a specific avant-garde movement, this project contributes to critical re-evaluation of surrealism, the Central European contribution to modernism, and the role of female artists in the avant-garde. This intervention in the history of surrealism makes its intellectual contribution by changing our perception of the movement, giving vivid evidence of the Prague groups difference from and influence on the Paris group, and presenting a more complex and nuanced view of womens role in and treatment by surrealism. This dissertation employs a mixed methodology that combines investigation of historical context with aspects of feminist, psychoanalytic, iconographic, and semiotic approaches. No previous study of Toyen or the Czech interwar avant-garde has been done in this manner.

The opening theme to Cartoon Networks animated series MEGAS XLR (2004) exclaims: "You dig giant robots! I dig giant robots! We dig giant robots! Chicks dig giant robots!" This is perhaps the essential anthem for our fixation with out of this world technology. Japanese and American audiences in particular are innately passionate about science fiction robots, as ardent consumers and proprietors of contemporary Mecha culture. The challenge then for the academically-minded aficionado is to put across just what makes these fantastic machines and their stories so fascinating, so prevalent in entertainment and society, and so tied to our own perceptions of human development. Science fiction represents what people are thinking about technology. This thesis posits the contemporary science fiction phenomenon Mecha as the predominant expression of humankind's age-old fascination with the mechanical arts. The philosophical approaches taken in these forms of escapist entertainment often mirror the attitudes each culture has towards real-life robotic machinery- from replacement prosthetic limbs, to robotic household companions and even weapons of war. In Mecha fiction, the sentiments of the artist-citizen towards this notion of a robotic, hi-tech society are expressed free of the limitations of a practical and commercial reality. Science and engineering have not yet caught up to the culturally-nurtured imaginations and ambitions of the human spirit, and they never will. Instead, the artists and creators of Mecha consciously and unconsciously translate and magnify this social consensus into mechanical designs and narratives that enforce a particular paradigm on the overall human-machine relationship. This study examines through key written and visual texts the function of low culture pop-entertainment as an influential and relevant indicator of broader societal values and cultural traditions. By reverse-engineering and deconstructing (quite literally) these Mecha designs and how they function as a creative work, I believe we can better understand how two cultures have come to express their relationship with technology both conceptually and philosophically.

Since 1984 the Havana Biennale has been known as the Tri-continental art event, presenting artists from Latin America, Africa, and Asia. It also has intensely debated the nature of recent and contemporary art from a Third World or Global South perspective. The Biennale is a product of Cubas fruition since the Revolution of 1959. The Wifredo Lam Center, created in 1983, has organized the Biennial since its inception. This dissertation proposes that at the heart of the Biennale has been an alternative cosmopolitan modernism (that we might call contemporary or post-colonial) that was envisaged by a group of local cultural agents, critics, philosophers, art historians, and also supported by a network of peers around the world. It examines the role Armando Hart Dávalos, Minister of Culture of Cuba (1976-1997), who played a key figure in the development of a solid cultural policy, one which produced the Havana Biennale as a cultural project based on an explicit Third World consciousness. It explores the role of critics and curators Gerardo Mosquera and Nelson Herrera Ysla, key members of the founding group of the Biennale. Subsequently, it examines how the work of Llilian Llanes, director of the Lam Center and of the Biennale (1983-1999), shaped the event in structural and conceptual terms. Finally, it examines the most recent developments and projections for the future. Using primary material, interviews, and field work research, the study focuses on the conceptual, contextual, and historical structure that supports the Biennale. It presents from several optics the views and world-view of the agents involved from the inside (curators and collaborators), as well as, from an art-world perspective through an account of the nine editions. Using the Havana Biennale as case study this work goes to disentangle and reveal the socio-political and intellectual debates taking place in the conformation of what is call today global art. In addition, recognizes the potentiality of alternative thinking and cultural subjectivity in the Global South.

The Sanctuary of Demeter at Pergamon, capital of the Attalid kingdom in Asia Minor (283-133 BCE), is among the city's oldest, largest, and best-preserved monuments, and it affords a unique view into its development. The cult-site was established in the fourth century BCE and renovated twice in the Hellenistic period - by Philetairos (283-263 BCE), founder of the Attalid dynasty, and by Queen Apollonis, wife of Attalos I (241-197 BCE) - and again in Roman times. Despite its well-documented history, the sanctuary still awaits analysis as an architectural, ritual, and dynastic space, along with integration into the scholarship on Pergamon. This dissertation reexamines the precincts of Philetairos and Apollonis with the aim of reconstructing a context for the sanctuary in the Attalid capital. The investigation proceeds from a reassessment of the archaeological remains, formal and comparative analysis of the monuments, and consideration of cultic requirements. It offers a revised picture of the precinct's development by proposing new reconstructions for the pre-Attalid temenos and the building phases of Philetairos and Apollonis. It presents new evidence for narrowing the time-frame of Apollonis' dedication, making it one of the most precisely dated monuments at Pergamon. Although the lack of precise information on the cult prevents ritual identification of all structures on the site, an attempt is made to explain the precinct's ceremonial use. A focal point of the dissertation is the contextualization of the sanctuary's architectural detail. My analysis shows that the monuments of the Demeter Sanctuary were rooted in an Anatolian building tradition and that the style(s) of Apollonis' buildings elaborated on the architectural language of Philetairos' designs, conveying both unity and continuity. My reevaluation of the Demeter Sanctuary as an architectural and ritual space lays the groundwork for my future, broader investigations into the role of this cult-site in the Attalid capital - studies that address the intersection of gender, cult, dynasty, and building style in this space.

This dissertation provides an examination of the lives and works of two Russian artists: Elena Dmitrievna Polenova (1850-1898) and Mariia Vasilevna Iakunchikova (1870-1902). It takes a biographical approach to elucidate how Polenova and Iakunchikova negotiated the constraints imposed by their gender and the rapid changes occurring in Russias social structure in their search for a modern Russian art. The dissertation begins with an investigation of Polenovas activities in the spheres of social activism and art in the 1870s and concludes with both womens contributions to the Russian handicrafts (kustar) pavilion at the 1900 Paris Exposition Universelle. While Polenovas contributions to the Russian kustar revival have been the subject of scholarly research, her activities in the broader art world have not. This dissertation seeks to remedy the skewed vision of Polenovas artistic output that has been a result. In addition, her close friendship and artistic synergy with Iakunchikova has been neglected. Iakunchikova is virtually unknown outside a small group of Russian-art specialists. Thus, an investigation of both womens work together provides a more rounded history of their contribution to Russian artists search for a modern, yet uniquely Russian, art at the end of the nineteenth century.

This dissertation uses selected works of Grant Woods art as a touchtone to investigate a broader visual culture surrounding agriculture in America during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. By doing so I argue that Wood engaged with pressing social questions, including the phenomenon now referred to as agribusiness. Although agribusiness is often associated with the Green Revolution of the 1940s and 1950s, its beginning dates to the nineteenth century. Indeed, Woods lifetime was an era when land was consolidated, production and distribution were vertically integrated, and breeding became scientifically informed. To access the power dynamics of this transition, I begin each chapter with work by Wood, and then analyze it in conjunction with imagery produced by or for individuals with diverse cultural agendas. This wide range of voices includes government officials, members of socialist farm organizations, newspaper publishers, plant breeders, owners of large and small farms, auction house managers, and university educators. To show precedents for and the legacy of Woods work I begin my analysis of visual culture before his birth and end after his death. The dissertation thus begins in 1862the year that land in the Midwest began to be parceled out for grain farming as small 160-acre homesteads and gargantuan bonanza farms thousands of acres in size. The dissertation ends in 1957the year that the term agribusiness was coined by the Harvard-based economists John Davis and Ray Goldberg. I take an interdisciplinary approach anchored most fully within the norms of art history, but also engage with strategies from visual, cultural, and agricultural studies. My argument, ultimately, is that agribusiness is a cornerstone of modern thinking, and that Grant Wood was not only aware of the experiences, debates, institutions, and theories of agribusiness emerging in his midst but engaged with them in his fine art. More broadly, by using a wide range of imagery, including photography, advertising, penmanship, film stills, crops, cartoons, architecture, and diagrams I show that the way Americans came to understand and accept agribusiness as the basis of their food system was negotiated, in part, through visual materials.

This dissertation is an exploration of the cultural biography of toiletry case sets in early China. It traces the multiple significances that toiletry items accrued as they move from contexts of everyday life to those of ritualized death, and focuses on the Late Warring States Period (5th c. BCE) through the Han Dynasty (206 BCE-220 CE), when they first appeared in burials. Toiletry case sets are painted or inlaid lacquered boxes that were filled with a variety of tools for beautification, including combs, mirrors, cosmetic substances, tweezers, hairpins and a selection of personal items. Often overlooked as ordinary, non-ritual items placed in burials to comfort the deceased, these sets have received little scholarly attention beyond what they reveal about innovations in lacquer technologies. This dissertation presents a contextualized and nuanced understanding of toiletry case sets as enmeshed within rituals, both mundane and sacred. Chapter Two begins with their uses in life, as essential to fulfilling fluctuating social ideals of beauty and, as sets found in association with both females and males, tools through which gender identity was enacted rather than simply reflected. Chapters Three and Four focus on the layers of meaning that toiletries accrued when placed on display during the funerary rituals, arranged within organized tomb layouts, or kept above ground for use in post-burial contexts. These chapters employ approaches to the material culture of death developed by Howard Williams, ideas that are themselves based on the classic sociological model for studying death rituals established by Robert Hertz. Such theories provide a framework for understanding how toiletry items may have affected the corpse, the soul, and the mourners differently. As items used in daily rituals of grooming and adornment, these sets became entangled within the biographies of individuals, ensured the order and beauty of the body into death, and may have acted as potent objects of memory throughout rituals surrounding death. This open inquiry of the toiletry case set demonstrates the potential for objects in early China to be understood as active within social, political and ritual contexts, and contributes to a growing discourse about the multiple meanings of objects.

During the first and second centuries CE colonists living along the Northern Frontier of the Han Empire built tombs with stone doorways that depicted scenes of the hunt. These reliefs depict a fabulous world inhabited by mounted archers, hybrid xian (immortals) and frolicking/fleeing animals. Within these reliefs there is also a limited tendency to draw on the alternate lifestyles of the Xiongnu, a confederation of northern nomadic tribes who served as both neighbor and foe to the Han Chinese who lived in this area. Previous scholarship has seen hunting imagery in these reliefs as passive reflections of the mixed culture and economy of the region. I instead maintain that it was part of an iconographical program that depicted and facilitated the passage of the deceased to paradise across the dangerous borderlands between Heaven and Earth. My dissertation argues that imagery in Shaanxi and Shanxi was actually a refinement of earlier Eastern Zhou (771-221 BCE) and Western Han (206BC- 8CE) depictions of the hunt and immortals, but that in this region, the positioning of the hunt at doorways created a liminal space representing the "Great Boundary" between this world and the next. This world is described in an inscription from a tomb excavated in Suide, Shaanxi that warns the deceased of the dangers that confront him if he does not return to the world of the living. On the basis of this inscription and similar "soul-summoning" passages from the Chu ci (Songs of the South) and Eastern Han dynasty tomb-quelling texts (zhenmu wen), I argue that hunting imagery in Shaanxi and Shanxi belongs to the desolate spaces that were believed to exist between this world and the next. Furthermore, I conclude that these images were a local response adopted by the patrons because they lived in a militarized, colonized setting in which fears of foreign neighbors fused with their apprehensions of the 'beyond'.

Scholars traditionally understand neo-Romanesque architecture as a stylistic manifestation of the homogenizing and nationalizing impulse of the Kaiserreich. Images of fortress-like office buildings and public halls with imposing facades of rusticated stone dominate our view of neo-Romanesque architecture from the Kaiserreich (1871-1918). The three religious buildings at the core of this study - Edwin Opplers New Synagogue in Breslau (1866-1872), Christoph Hehls Catholic Rosary Church in Berlin-Steglitz (1899-1900), and Friedrich Adlers Protestant Church of the Redeemer in Jerusalem (1893-1898) offer compelling counter-examples of the ways in which religious groups, especially those that were local minorities, adapted the dominant neo-Romanesque style to their own particular quest towards distinctive assimilation in an increasingly complex, national, modern society. This synagogue and these churches belong to an important sub-section of German neo-Romanesque architecture that calls into question our standard narrative of the Wilhelmine neo-Romanesque style as a universalizing and secularizing aesthetic. This synagogue, Catholic parish church, and Protestant church forged a new alliance of religion and politics in the service of two often conflicting masters: the religious community and the nation-state. By reinventing neo-Romanesque forms for a modern, yet still religious context, Edwin Oppler, Christoph Hehl, and Friedrich Adler provide the crucial link necessary to incorporate medievalist architecture into the larger narrative of Germanys modernization. While these sacred structures are prime exemplars of many social and architectural themes, my aim is to present them neither as isolated case studies nor as highlights in a comprehensive survey of Wilhelmine religious architecture. I treat these three sacred structures as central case studies while considering their architecture, decorative programs, and mediated presentation in photography and print publications. The core themes of this work the struggle between religion and national secular society, a longing for an imagine past as inspiration to create new styles for a new configuration of community are not only the essential components of our definition of modernity but also what continues to frame our experiences today. Ultimately, these buildings serve as models to understand the challenges of diversity and multicultural society that continue to define our world.