Il lavoro riguarda alcuni aspetti ancora non molto studiati della personalità intellettuale di John Henry Newman, vale a dire la proposta di una cultura cristiana alternativa alla secolarizzazione in ambito educativo e socio-politico, così come si sviluppò durante il corso della sua vita: il giudizio dato da Newman sull'antico regime inglese è il tema del primo capitolo; la riflessione degli ultimi anni oxoniensi e dei primi anni successivi alla conversione (il ruolo del cristianesimo e del cattolicesimo nella cultura inglese) è il tema del secondo successivo; la proposta educativa così come emerge degli scritti sull'Università è il tema del terzo capitolo; alla riflessione sul compito Stato e sui fondamenti della politica è infine dedicato il quarto capitolo. / The work considers some aspects (not so studied yet) of the intellectual personality of John Henry Newman, that is the Christian cultural proposal alternative to the secularization in education, and in the social and political field, as it was developed during his life: the topic of the first chapter is Newman's opinion about the ancien regime; in the second chapter we study the reflection of the last Oxonian years and of the first years after his conversion (the role of Christianity and of Catholicism in English culture); the third chapter regards the educative proposal, as it develops from the writings on University onwards; the fourth chapter is dedicated to the reflections on the role of the State and on the foundations of politics.

Focusing on Cyrene and Serima art workshops under the tutelage of Paterson and Groeber, respectively, the study acknowledges the foundational importance of Christian art (from the late 1930s up to the 1960s) in the rise of prominent first generation artists in Zimbabwe such as Mukomberanwa, Ndandarika, Khumalo, Songo, Sambo and many others. It rejects perceptions of African modernism as inauthentic imitations of artistic innovations that originated with European art. While accepting that there was a deliberate fusion of traditional art into mission mainstream education to produce Christian art forms with a strong Africanised identity, the study reveals missionaries’ conservatism and restrictions on artistic freedom. It, therefore, locates the formation of modern art in Zimbabwe largely within a broader spectrum of Africans’ encounter with colonialism or western culture which induced artists to invent new artistic expressions reflecting their own emergent political and socio-economic circumstances. The novelty and outright rejection of missionary impact are, therefore, alien to the natural synthesis that informed artistic modernism in Zimbabwe. / Art History, Visual Arts and Musicology / M.A. (Art History)