Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2001. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references. Available also from UMI/Dissertation Abstracts International.

Thesis--Universidad de Sevilla. / "Apéndice estadístico": p. [411]-480. Includes bibliographical references (p. [491]-494).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2003. / Supervisor: Carol MacKay. Vita. Includes bibliographical references. Available also from UMI Company.

The Roman Empire was a slave society. New Testament and Early Christian scholars have long recognized that slaves formed a substantial portion of the earliest Christian communities. Yet there has been extensive debate about manumission, the freeing of a slave, both in the wider context of the Roman Empire and more specifically in Paul’s context. 1 Cor. 7:20-23 is a key passage for understanding both slavery and manumission in Pauline communities, as well as Paul’s own thoughts on these two contentious issues. The pivotal verse is 1 Cor. 7:21. The majority opinion is that Paul is suggesting slaves should become free, i.e., manumitted, if they are able. In order to better understand this biblical passage and its social implications, this project explores the various types of manumissions operative the Roman world: the legal processes and results; the factors that galvanized and constrained manumissions; the political and social environment surrounding manumission in Corinth during Paul’s ministry; as well as the results of manumission as it relates to Paul’s communities. Finally, the project returns to the passage in 1 Cor. 7:20-23 and offers a new interpretation. / text

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Mastering Emotions: The Emotional Politics of Slavery explores how the emotions and affective norms of the Antebellum South were conditioned upon and constructed through the institution of slavery. Though slavery is a subject wrought with emotion, there has been no focus in recent historical scholarship on the affective dimensions of slavery. Studies in the history of emotion have also largely ignored slavery. My intervention in these fields reveals the ways that both slaveholders and slaves wielded fear, trust, jealousy, and affection in their interactions with one another. The project also sheds light on how the emotional norms of societies are learned and policed, manipulated and enforced. I argue that the emotions of slaveholders and slaves alike were irrevocably shaped by slavery. The daily negotiations and contestations that occurred between slaveholders and slaves through and about feelings, in conjunction with larger debates about race, freedom, and emotional norms, form the backbone of what I call the emotional politics of slavery. Mastering Emotions examines how the affective norms of slavery were taught, how emotional transgressions were punished, and the long-term impacts of those emotional norms on the affective landscape of the post-Reconstruction South. To gain insight into the emotional lives and affective experiences of enslaved people of color I use a variety of primary sources such as slave narratives, letters, and court testimony. Steeped in the mode of sentimentalism, which encouraged people to reflect upon and articulate their feelings, slaveholders revealed how they felt about their slaves, and how they believed their slaves felt, in diaries, wills, and even records of slave sales and manumissions. Studying the affective terrain of the Antebellum South provides fresh insight into the politics of slavery, revealing how those in bondage used feelings to resist slavery, and how the planter class employed emotions to enforce the institution. This project also contributes to the burgeoning field of affective history by complicating understandings of how emotions are constructed in relation to power, and how power operates in affective relations.

This dissertation examines the era of slavery amelioration while situating the significance of this project to reform slavery within the longer history of the British Empire. While scholars of British slavery have long debated the causes of both the abolition of the slave trade (1807) and the abolition of slavery (1833), they have overlooked the ways that both abolitionists and politicians attempted to "reform" slavery - extending both baseline protections and a civilizing mission toward slaves - as a prelude toward broader emancipation. This attempted amelioration of slavery influenced both the timing and form that emancipation took. By focusing on the island where metropolitan officials first attempted to exert an ameliorative agenda, this dissertation uncovers the forgotten influence of Spanish laws and practices on British abolitionism. Trinidad was captured from Spain in 1797 during the heyday of abolitionist agitation, during an era when Spanish slave codes were gaining newfound attention among British reformers for their reputed benevolence. Despite local planter opposition, metropolitan officials elected to retain the island's Spanish legal structure following the Peace of Amiens. The Trinidad template for amelioration would be framed around the island's Spanish laws, notably the office of Protector of Slaves. This individual was imagined as an intermediary between master and slave, metropole and colony, epitomizing an attempt to infuse the slave regime with a modicum of imperial regulation. The ideas behind amelioration survived the abolition of slavery. After Caribbean slavery was abolished between 1833 and 1838, the reforms that had been attempted in Trinidad and elsewhere over the previous decades came to inform the regulation of labor relationships, particularly immigrant labor, following in its wake. The process of negotiating reform - of slavery, indentured labor, and relations with indigenous peoples - had taught Colonial Office officials to distrust the instincts and activities of white colonial subjects. The Protector model proliferated in contexts of continued distrust during an era when metropolitan officials remained reluctant to exert more direct authority than necessary. This model would break down only in the wake of repeated failure. Until then, metropolitan officials hoped that local watchdogs would "protect" nonwhite and laboring subjects from abuse. / History

Slavery is an unjust institution. Indeed, slavery is often seen to be a paradigmatic case of injustice. Despite this, there is little agreement on how to best explain the injustice of slavery. In this dissertation I examine and reject three main explanations of the injustice of slavery: that slavery is unjust because slaves lack freedom, that slavery is unjust because slaves are alienated from their social world, and that slavery is unjust because slaves lack self-respect. Such explanations are unable to explain the injustice of slavery itself because they cannot identify all cases of slavery as unjust. Instead, I argue that slavery is unjust because it makes it impossible for slaves to realise both their interest in self-respect and their interest in being at home in the world. Slavery is not the only institution, however, that places people in this dilemma; any institution that treats some people as inferior to others will be unjust for the same reason, although not necessarily to the same extent. Thus the explanation of the injustice of slavery also provides us with an explanation of the importance of political equality.

This study considered Toni Morrison’s novel Beloved. This essay focuses on Paul D and his journey to recover his manhood since he had been deprived of it as a slave. I have examined Paul D’s character through the lens of masculinity studies that are framed by issues of ethnicity and race. The essay also considers Beloved’s effect on Paul D and how she helped him release his repressed memories. In turn, Paul D helps the love of his life, Sethe, to heal and she too releases her repressed memories.  Finally, the essay claims that Paul D went through many stages in his lifetime; most importantly he was a slave, who becomes a free man and develops into an agent for healing.