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The Introduction deals primarily with issues regarding Seneca's Phoenissae specifically, but includes some discussion of more general questions. It consists of the following sections: 1. Title (in which the problem of the two titles, Phoenissae and Thebais, is considered); 2. The Nature and Structure of the Work (which includes discussion of; the unity and state of completion of the Phoenissae, the question of the absence of a chorus, the possibility that the prologue is missing, the ending of the play, Seneca's dramatic purpose); 3. Seneca's Treatment of the Theban Legend (in which Seneca's debt to both his dramatic and non-dramatic precursors is discussed); 4. Philosophy, Rhetoric and Politics in the Phoenissae; 5. Staging (in which there is a general consideration of the question, followed by a discussion of the particular difficulties involved in the Phoenissae); 6. Chronology (which deals with the problem of dating Seneca's plays and the criteria for establishing a relative chronology). The Commentary is a line-by-line literary analysis of the Phoenissae, which includes discussion of syntactical, metrical, textual and philological questions. It is based on the 1986 OCT text of Otto Zwierlein.

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Paintings of Raphael and Titian were chosen for study (1) to ascertain the extent to which they used geometry, and (2) to determine, if possible, the differences and likenesses in their underlying schemas, and (3) to determine how geometrical divisions, if used, affected the character of their paintings.

Political thinkers of the Renaissance, foremost among them Niccolò Machiavelli and Desiderius Erasmus, authored works commonly referred to as “mirrors of princes.” These writings described how princes should rule, and also often recommended a certain arrangement or relationship between the intellectual class and the political powers. François Rabelais’s five books of Pantagruel also depict and recommend a new relationship between these elements of society. For Rabelais, the tenets of a philosophy that he calls Pantagruelism set the terms between philosophers and rulers. Pantagruelism, defined in Rabelais’s Quart Livre as “gaiety of spirit confected in contempt for fortuitous things,” suggest a measured attitude toward politics. Rabelais’s prince, Pantagruel, accordingly rejects the tendencies of ancient thinkers such as Diogenes the Cynic who viewed politics as futile. Yet Pantagruel also rejects the anti-theoretical disposition of modern thinkers such as Machiavelli who placed too much confidence in politics. I demonstrate how Rabelais warns against the philosophers’ entrance into public service, and how he simultaneously promotes a less selfish philosophy than that of Diogenes. I argue that Pantagruel’s correction of his friend Panurge through the consultations of experts regarding the latter’s marriage problem shows that fortune will always trouble human life and politics. I also argue that Pantagruel’s rule over the kingdom of Utopia exemplifies a Socratic form of rule—reluctant rule—which relies on a trust that necessity (embodied in the Tiers Livre in the Pantagruelion plant) and not fortune (embodied in the Tiers Livre in Panurge’s future wife) governs the world, including the political world.

In this dissertation, I seek to analyze events in the 1821 Greek and Romanian revolutions against Ottoman rule in the Balkans using a relational sociology perspective. I am mainly looking at the network position of various figures who played a role in the development of nationalist arguments and ideology, and positing that these figures combined the role of network-broker – a figure who straddles holes among tight knit communities – and cultural brokers – a concept from anthropology involving the promotion of ideas from a “wider world” into a smaller community. I try to show how various configurations of network position and cultural knowledge can be an important determining factor in the success of various revolutionary actions, as well as the ideologies that develop from those actions. This factor which can provide an alternative explanation to that posed by modernization or institutional theories. In Chapter 1, I focus on Lycurgus Logothetis, a cultural and network broker who liberated Samos from the Ottoman Empire, while provoking the massacre of Chios; following the thread of events to France, I show how this event intertwined with events in the French art world, to increase support for Greece. In Chapter 2, I focus on the Phanariots, a group of elite Greek Christians in the Ottoman Empire who used their contracts with abroad to gain a precarious position within the Empire, one that involved the rapid rise and fall of a number of brokerage figures from a small pool of candidates. In Chapter 3, I show how the rebellion against that system, the rebellion of Tudor Vladimirescu, succeeded in creating a nationalist impulse in Romania owing to Vladimirescu’s creation of a quasi-group of mainly Romanian speaking notables, separated from the Greek world, and beholden to his success, and the limitation of this rebellion in the lack of important contacts from abroad. In Chapter 4, I examine the case of Ali Pasha, the rebellious, modernizing Pasha who developed an important base of operations by making local village contacts and reducing the Klepht-Armatoli, an Ottoman institution that depended on appointment the most important bandit in the region as an Imperial agent to keep the peace; and again, show that Ali Pasha’s bid for independence failed because of limited network connections with the Great Powers. Chapter 5 deals with Alexander Mavrocordatos, the network and cultural broker who succeeded in creating a new Greek constitution at the cost of importing old patron-client relations into his new and modernizing state. Finally in Chapter 6, I show the test case of a “trickster”, Georgios Karaiskakis, who handles contradictions between various networks of meaning with sarcasm and deliberate taboo violation, thus “getting action” without needing to use network or cultural brokerage. At the end of these chapters, I hope to have developed a number of interrelated hypotheses about the interaction between network brokerage, cultural brokerage, and the way these operate among the edges of paradox and contradiction in social life.

This thesis seeks to determine the historical role of the twelfth-century abbess Heloise, apart from the frequently cited and disputed letters exchanged between her and Peter Abelard. Independent information exists in the testimony of Heloise's contemporaries, in the rule written for her abbey the Paraclete, and in the liturgy of the Paraclete. This evidence not only substantiates an erudite Heloise in concert with the Heloise of the letters, but serves as testimony to a woman of ability and accomplishment who participated in monastic reform and who sought to bring a positive direction to women's lives in the cloister. From this, it becomes clear that although Heloise may not have written the letters ascribed to her she was certainly capable of writing them.