My study was prompted by a hostile reaction to S. Foster Damon' s claim that Blake read the Bhagavad-Gita. I am intimately familiar with that work, intellectually, spiritually, in translation, and in the original Sanskrit. This reaction led me to question the validity of recent Blake criticism. My research concentrated on a verse letter to John Flaxman in which Blake names his most inspirational sources: Milton, Shakespeare, Isaiah, Ezra, Boehme, and Paracelsus. I draw heavily on historians, such as E. P. Thompson, Nigel Smith, and A. L. Morton, and recent critics, such as Robin Aubrey, John Mee, Mark Trevor Smith, and of course David Erdman, to refute what I consider wrong-headed assumptions in Blake criticism. The net effect of my preliminary study validates to a large extent Northrop Frye's, and to a lesser extent, Harold Bloom's, reading of Blake. Still, whether the above critics or others seem to be right or wrong, none takes into account the concept that Blake is not an intellectual, but a preacher. He is proselytizing. Understanding his theological stance is so fundamental to understanding Blake that I remain mystified that scholars have insisted on an aesthetic motive for his work. Aesthetics may be the means, but the end is theology. My study shows how Blake's theology is visionary, sophisticated and cogent and, perhaps more significantly, widely shared, especially among the working classes.

The dissertation analyzes the history of tourism at Shaker communities from their foundation to the present. Tourism is presented as an interaction between the host Shakers and the visitors. The culture, expectations, and activities of both parties affect their relationship to each other. Historically, tourists and other visitors have gradually dominated the relationship, shifting from hostility based on religion to acceptance based on a romantic view of the Shakers. This relationship has spilled over into related cultural phenomena, notably fiction and antique collecting. Overall, the analysis extends contemporary tourism theory and integrates Shaker history with the broader course of American history.

This dissertation examines the non-literary and non-aesthetic reasons underlying the bias in favor of realism in the formation of the traditional literary canon of nineteenth-century British fiction. Since English literature first became a recognized academic discipline in Great Britain in the 1870s and '80s, the study of fiction has been (with few exceptions) a study of realistic fiction. College survey courses in the period usually teach W. M. Thackeray through Thomas Hardy, but almost never make excursions into the fantasy fiction of Victorians like George MacDonald or Charles Kingsley. My thesis is that this exclusion can best be explained by examining the role of the Anglican Church as well as that of Non-Conformist or Dissenting evangelical sects in the educational institutions of nineteenth-century Britain in the first half of the century, and by examining the function that the academic study of English literature played in British imperialist ideology in the latter part of the century. Both Church and Empire needed a canon of realism to promote their own brand of conservative ideology, although each tended to define realism differently. Victorian fantasy writers often targeted Church doctrine or imperial dogma for especially satirical treatment, thus insuring their own exclusion from the universities which were run by the Church and operated to supply patriotic administrators to the Empire. My study examines in detail the ecclesiastical and political context of educational philosophy and how this context affected reading curriculum and ultimately, the canon. My study also examines in detail the lives and historical situations of five Victorian fantasy writers: John Ruskin, George MacDonald, Charles Kingsley, Henry Rider Haggard, and Rudyard Kipling. Ruskin, MacDonald and Kingsley used fantasy as a means of attacking various branches of organized Christianity. Haggard and Kipling used fantasy as a means of attacking various aspects of popular imperial rhetoric. Throughout the dissertation, I situate the writers' novels within their historical contexts to show why fantasy fiction has traditionally been ignored or denigrated by academic critics.

This dissertation examines the wooden wayside shrines of Lithuania and the unique role they played in the religious, social and political history of Lithuania from the end of World War II to the 1990s. Two manifestations of performance are discussed: (1) the development of the wayside shrine tradition in the territory of Lithuania itself, and (2) the radicalization of the tradition among émigré artists rebuilding a sense of community in the West. With the annexation of Lithuania into the Soviet Union following World War II, the Communist government aggressively repressed but never completely eradicated the religiously-based wayside shrine tradition. Beginning in the 1970s, the Folk Art Society in Lithuania vigorously generated a renaissance in the folk heritage. Society members turned to the arts and crafts tradition and created over thirty, large-scale ensembles of woodcarvings throughout the countryside. As part of a struggle to assert Lithuanian cultural identity, the ubiquitous wayside shrines composed of roofed poles with chapels containing free-standing religious figures evolved into totemic carvings, which combine religious and secular figures fully engaged on the trunk of the totem pole. In North America, the Lithuanian diaspora recreated the shrines predominantly in miniature form, often using a greater variety of materials and tools. In this radicalized form they became the symbol of the Lithuanian community's identity in all aspects of its visual culture. The dissertation is organized into three sections: (1) an examination of the historical tradition, 1850–1940; (2) an analysis of the metamorphosis of the tradition in Lithuania, 1940–1990; (3) a comparative analysis of production in North America. Extensive fieldwork and interviews in Lithuania and North America, and research in previously unexplored archives inform the dissertation. Prior scholarship on the wayside shrine tradition has remained largely descriptive. This study seeks a broader cultural analysis, including the North American production which has not been documented until now. The contribution of this dissertation is to synthesize the significance of this art form by applying a variety of scholarly disciplines: art history, religion, anthropology, history, material culture, and immigration studies.

In the 17th century, the Province of Venezuela was an unstable and violent corner of the Spanish world, economically fueled either by private conquest or the imposition of various forms of unfree labor. Though there were moments of resistance to slavery, the encomienda, and the reparimiento in other parts of Latin America, the Capuchin position was remarkably unified. This dissertation answers the question: what encouraged or allowed the Capuchins of Venezuela, as a corporate body, to take a posture of resistance to a program which had been legitimated by both civil and ecclesiastical authority? The answer surprisingly enough does not come from their immediate surroundings, but rather can be traced to its origins during the first hundred years after Francis of Assisi’s death. That is, resistance is not to be attributed either to modern or Iberian impulses, but to Medieval and Italian. This dissertation argues that the abolitionist position that these men articulated was a direct product of a radical Franciscan ideology that was internalized and transmitted via the Ordo Fratrum Minorum Cappucinorum. The Capuchins of Venezuela eschewed any concern for social stability or the flourishing of empire and instead embraced a radical conception of obedientia, which enabled them to resist coercive activity in the region. The key to this resistance was a perfectionist interpretation of the Franciscan vita. In this model, complete adherence to Francis’ way of living—as expressed in his writings, especially the Rule, and to his more radical descendants, the Testamentum—was understood to be the most ideal program for Christian living outside of the Gospels, providing a moveable locus of stability. The mind of Francis thus provided a transcendent point which was divorced from time, place, and immediate social concerns. Through analysis, literary and contextual, of Rule commentaries, personal correspondences, and polemical writings, three things become clear. The first is that there was a strain of Franciscan theology and praxis that rejected authority not directly derived from the life and methods of Francis of Assisi. Second, the Capuchins from their earliest moments adopted and espoused these positions as the official platform of the Reform. Finally, both of these elements primed the friars to resist the coercive colonial program in Venezuela. In undertaking this argument, this dissertation does not advance any claims of Franciscan exceptionalism, or imply that resistance to coercion was an integral part of the Capuchin colonial experience writ large. Instead, I attempt to illustrate that when the Capuchins chose to elevate their own consciences’ above contemporary social norms, they did so by utilizing methods which were deeply ingrained in the Capuchin Reform. / 2026-01-24T00:00:00Z

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