Thesis (Ph.D.)--Bowling Green State University, 2006. / Document formatted into pages; contains viii, 186 p. Includes bibliographical references.

disertační práce v anglickém jazyce ALICE BARTŮŠKOVÁ MONASTIC RULES AND MUSES. THE CAPUCHIN FRIARS IN THE SERVICE OF THE ART IN EARLY BAROQUE BOHEMIA VEDOUCÍ PRÁCE: DOC. PHDR. MARTIN ZLATOHLÁVEK, PHD. Dissertation entitled Monastic rules and muses. The capuchin friars in the service of the art in early Baroque Bohemia set out for the purpose of research to the neglected theme of the Capuchin brothers - painters on the border between Mannerism and the Baroque era. This phenomenon in painting, which is not only characteristic for the order of the Capuchins, but also of other ecclesiastical orders, has never been more comprehensive. The Capuchin brother Paolo Piazza came to the Czech lands with first capuchin brothers; in his paintings he is inspired of the Venetian school of the 16th century. He was a versatile painter, he created not only painting on canvases, but also made wall paintings and his painting manuscript was not uniformly defined. Paolo Piazza worked in the capuchin monasteries in Prague and Brno during the reign of Rudolph II, for the emperor himself he created several artworks. Piazza's work has also been preserved in the engravings of the Sadeler family. Thanks to these engravings, several Piazza's compositions with a set iconographic type have spread to European fine arts. From the...

This study aims to explore the mosaics in the Sala delle Palestrite at Villa Romana del Casale in Piazza Armerina, Sicily. These mosaics depict women wearing garments that resemble modern bikinis. However, upon closer examination of the roles of these ten women, it becomes evident that their attire is a form of Roman underwear, worn in an athletic context. Rather than being bikini-dressed figures, the women in the mosaic are athletes engaged in various sports activities from both ancient Greek and Roman cultures. The concept of aretḗ, which celebrates the ideal combination of strength, beauty, and harmony, often explains why Greek athletes are depicted nude. In contrast, the clothed female athletes in the mosaic suggest a different interpretation of female aretḗ, highlighting a paradox between the ideal representations of male and female athletic bodies. This depiction may however also signal an increase in women's autonomy during the 4th century AD, possibly resulting from broader cultural and social changes that reduced restrictions on women during this period. Furthermore, this study argues that these female athletes embody not only progressive but also aristocratic values. The mosaic reflects the upper class's interest in using artistic expressions to convey social status and intellectuality within their homes. With the increased social freedoms of the period, including women's rights to own land, the mosaic could represent the villa's domina attempt to portray a new image of women, diverging from traditional roles. Although the mosaic indicates greater social freedom for aristocratic women, it also reveals the persistence of traditional values in its stylistic expression. Given the historical association between women, fertility, and physical activity, the athletes' bodies might serve to communicate female aretḗ, often linked with fertility and reproduction. Alternatively, this could also highlight a recurring issue in art history; the limited representation of the female body, especially in contexts like athleticism, which did not conform to traditional portrayals of women. In conclusion, the mosaics offer a complex portrayal of female athletes that reflect both progressive and traditional values, illustrating broader social changes and the evolving roles of women in ancient society. It is thus unique evidence of the early female liberation.

This thesis explores Herman Melville’s relationship to sceptical philosophy. By reading Melville’s fictions of the 1840s and 1850s alongside the writings of Descartes, Berkeley, Hume, and Kant, I seek to show that they manifest by turns expression, rebuttal, and mitigated acceptance of philosophical doubt. Melville was an attentive reader of philosophical texts, and he refers specifically to concepts such as Berkeleyan immaterialism and the Kantian “noumenon”. But Melville does not simply dramatise pre-existing theories; rather, in works such as Mardi, Moby-Dick, and Pierre he enacts sceptical and anti-sceptical ideas through his literary strategies, demonstrating their relevance in particular regions of human experience. In so doing he makes a substantive contribution to a philosophical discourse that has often been criticised – by commentators including Samuel Johnson and Jonathan Swift – for its tendency to abstraction. Melville’s interest in scepticism might be read as part of a wider cultural response to a period of unprecedented social and political change in antebellum America, and with this in mind I compare and contrast his work with that of Dickinson, Douglass, Emerson, and Thoreau. But in many respects Melville’s distinctive and original treatment of scepticism sets him apart from his contemporaries, and in order to fully make sense of it one must range more widely through the canons of philosophy and literature. His exploration of the ethical consequences of doubt in The Piazza Tales, for example, can be seen to anticipate with remarkable precision the theories of twentieth-century thinkers such as Emmanuel Levinas and Stanley Cavell. I work chronologically though selected prose from the period 1849-1857, paying close attention to the textual effects and philosophical allusions in each work. In so doing I hope to offer fresh ways of looking at Melville’s handling of literary form and the wider shape of his career. I conclude with reflections on how Melville’s normative emphasis on the acknowledgement of epistemological limitation might inform the practice of literary criticism.

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The project is one building and the floor of the Piazza del Duomo, in Milan, Italy. The piazza is an ideal case history of the development of an urban fabric, and of the consciousness of urbanism itself. / Master of Architecture

My objective with this thesis is to understand how racist stereotypes and myths compounded the sale of fair-skinned black women during and after the slave trade in New Orleans, Louisiana. This commodification of black women's bodies continued well into the twentieth century, notably in New Orleans' vice district of Storyville. Called "quadroons" (a person with ¼ African ancestry) and "octoroons" (1/8 African ancestry), these women were known for their "sexual prowess" and drew in a large number of patrons. The existence of "white passing" black women complicated ideas about race and racial purity in the South. Race as a myth and social construct, or as Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham explains in her essay, African-American Women's History and the Metalanguage of Race, a "metalanguage" exposes race not as a genetic fact, but rather a physical appearance through which power relations and status were to be conferred. My methodology uses race and gender theory to analyze primary and secondary sources to understand and contextualize how population demographics, myths, and liberal 18th century colonial laws contributed to the sale of black women's bodies. The works of Emily Clark, Walter Johnson, Gwendolyn Midlo Hall and other historians who utilize Atlantic history have been paramount in my research. Emily Clark has transformed the "white-black" women from a tragic, sexualized trope into a fully actualized human being, while Hall has tackled the racist underpinnings inherent in the neglect of black women's history. The writings of bell hooks, particularly her essay Eating the Other, establishes the modern day commodification of black women vis-à -vis their representation in media, as well as through the fetishism of their bodies by a white patriarchal system. During slavery plantation owners could do virtually anything they wanted with their property, including engaging in sexual intercourse. By depicting black women as hypersexual jezebels, they could justify their rape, while establishing their dominance and place in the white male hegemony of that time period. For the right price a white male of a lesser class could achieve the same thing at a brothel down in Storyville at the turn of the twentieth century, for as Emily Clark argues in her book, The Strange History of the American Quadroon, these brothels were a great equalizer, allowing all white men to experience "…sexual mastery enjoyed only by elite planters before the Civil War." By democratizing white supremacy, the quadroon and others like her forged solidarity that bridge across all classes, while upholding whiteness and oppressing people of color at the same time.