The relationship between ideas and history is important in order to understand the past and the present. The idea of religious liberty and the realization of that ideal in sixteenth-century Europe by the Anabaptists in Switzerland and South Germany in the 1520s was considered to be revolutionary in a society characterized by the union of church and state. The main impetus of the idea of religious liberty for the Anabaptists was the application of the New Testament standard of the Christian church, which was an independent congregation of believers marked only by adult baptism. The purpose of the present study is to demonstrate the contributions of the Swiss Anabaptists to the idea of religious liberty by looking at the ministries and activities of three major leaders of the early Swiss movement: Conrad Grebel, Michael Sattler, and Balthasar Hubmaier. This thesis takes up the modern form of religious liberty as analyzed by twentieth-century authorities, as a framework for better understanding the contributions of the Anabaptists. My research then explores the establishment of the first Anabaptist church in history, the Zollikon church outside of Zurich, and examines its organization membership, motives, and strategies for evangelizing Switzerland. In all areas influenced by the Anabaptists, there was considerable acceptance of their doctrine of a separated church. Their teaching on liberty of conscience also influenced people in towns such as Zollikon and Waldshut. Possible historical links between the Anabaptist doctrines and establishment of later Baptist denominations are shown.

"November 2003" / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 276-306) / xiii, 306 leaves : ill., planes, plates (some col.) ; 30 cm. / Title page, contents and abstract only. The complete thesis in print form is available from the University Library. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Adelaide, Dept. of Asian Studies and Dept of Public Health, 2003

This dissertation studies the earliest years of photography’s invention. Attention to the earliest conceptions of photography reveals a more complex and contested understanding of the nature and significance of photographic representation than has previously been attributed to the Victorians of the early nineteenth century, providing not only a more comprehensive picture of the history of the new technology, but also new insights into the interactions of Victorian photography and visual culture. The earliest representations and receptions of photography are gathered from inventors’ reports, the first photographic texts produced for a specialist and general audience, and periodical articles that reveal the popular reception of photography by a non-specialist audience. The evolving representations and reception of photography are traced throughout the 1840s, as the medium grew increasingly popular, with a particular focus on photographic portraiture. Arguing that the earliest figurations of a new medium directly inform or “premediate” how the medium is negotiated as it becomes established in the culture – that is, even though the technology and use of photography changed quite rapidly, the earliest perceptions of the medium powerfully influenced how it was used, perceived, and resisted – I examine the central anxieties raised by photography that persisted throughout the 1840s and early 1850s. Using Charles Dickens’s Bleak House as a case study, I then turn to literature of the realist genre to assess how photography is imagined and contested in novelistic form. This not only provides a model with which to examine the incorporation of photographic allusions and themes into the realist novel, but also contributes new insights into the ways in which the issues of photography and other aspects of visuality intersected with the literary realist enterprise.

This dissertation studies the earliest years of photography’s invention. Attention to the earliest conceptions of photography reveals a more complex and contested understanding of the nature and significance of photographic representation than has previously been attributed to the Victorians of the early nineteenth century, providing not only a more comprehensive picture of the history of the new technology, but also new insights into the interactions of Victorian photography and visual culture. The earliest representations and receptions of photography are gathered from inventors’ reports, the first photographic texts produced for a specialist and general audience, and periodical articles that reveal the popular reception of photography by a non-specialist audience. The evolving representations and reception of photography are traced throughout the 1840s, as the medium grew increasingly popular, with a particular focus on photographic portraiture. Arguing that the earliest figurations of a new medium directly inform or “premediate” how the medium is negotiated as it becomes established in the culture – that is, even though the technology and use of photography changed quite rapidly, the earliest perceptions of the medium powerfully influenced how it was used, perceived, and resisted – I examine the central anxieties raised by photography that persisted throughout the 1840s and early 1850s. Using Charles Dickens’s Bleak House as a case study, I then turn to literature of the realist genre to assess how photography is imagined and contested in novelistic form. This not only provides a model with which to examine the incorporation of photographic allusions and themes into the realist novel, but also contributes new insights into the ways in which the issues of photography and other aspects of visuality intersected with the literary realist enterprise.

While ambitious art museums, biennials, galleries, curators, and critics promoted early Colombian conceptual art and its antecedents as being part of the latest international art trends, the intrepid iconoclasts who created it were not at all interested in being au courant or international. Far from it, their primary focus was on addressing local issues and audiences. They had an ambivalent relationship to institutions, taking advantage of internationalization, which was part of a strategy for cultural and economic development. But these artists did so in order to insert their own tactics emerging from, and dealing with, the realities of underdevelopment. Artists such as Antonio Caro, Jorge Posada, and Efraín Arrieta--developing approaches first introduced by antecedents like Bernardo Salcedo, Feliza Bursztyn, and Beatriz González--sought to open the viewers' eyes to the concrete experience of the here-and-now through the use of usually banal and often ephemeral materials and techniques. They focused critically on social issues--nationalism, education, imperialism, agrarian inequity, governmental policy, and political organization. In taking on specific, timely, and usually local matters dealing with culture, politics, the economy, and social organization, they sought to upset the prevailing conditions outside as well as inside the realm of art. Even the introduction of new forms and ways of producing art should be seen as an ideological rather than a formal exercise since it constituted a cultural assault against the Colombian ruling class. This art, then, was political: it was motivated by beliefs regarding the public affairs of a country. I argue that early Colombian conceptual art was a visual means of exposing institutional strategies of control. I show how this art partook of the spirit of participation which marked the late 1960s and early 1970s in Colombia and in the world. In the process, I add to the understanding of this tumultuous period in world history, since my study is an example of the complex processes of cultural production in an age of globalization. / text

My dissertation analyzes the work of the artist group 3Nós3 (the name is a pun in Portuguese meaning "three knots/ we three"), who performed artistic actions in public space that they referred to as "urban interventions" on the streets of São Paulo from 1979 to 1982. These ranged from placing garbage bags over the heads of monumental sculptures to taping Xs across the doorways of art galleries along with signs reading "What is inside remains the same; what is outside expands." Within the context of the military regime that had ruled Brazil since 1964, the urban interventions targeted symbols of authority ranging from public sculpture to the art world establishment. My research focuses on one of the most noteworthy traits of the group's activities: their almost complete absence from the history of Brazilian art. In spite of the recent popularity on the international artistic circuit of contemporary Brazilian art with a performative edge (the artists Hélio Oiticica and Lygia Clark being the best examples of this type of work) the work of 3Nós3 has remained obscure, even within Brazil. The explanations for this lack of attention to 3Nós3 include the transitional political nature of the abertura period during which the interventions took place, the artists' own denial of traditional artistic circuits and involvement in youth subcultures, the ephemeral nature of the interventions themselves, and a lack of understanding of the reasons why the artists chose to work in public space, particularly in regard to the interventions' relationship with their audience. The goal of my dissertation is to argue for the inclusion of the interventions into the history of art without relying on arguments related to their quality, i.e. whether or not they constitute "good art." Rather, it is only through a detailed consideration of the specific cultural and political contexts in which the works occurred that they start to make sense. I conclude by examining the present-day conditions that could make the inclusion of 3Nós3 into larger international artistic movements such as street art and "the interventionists" (including Eduardo Srur and the Grupo Contra Filé, among others) possible. / text

As we all know, there are multiple stories of art. But even in the West, each country has its own story, especially when it comes to the visual arts in the second part of the twentieth century. The stories told by the French, the German, the Italian, and the American textbooks and museums differ greatly. Yet, the American story is usually regarded as the standard account: the common Western story against which we mentally contrast the Non-Western stories. Without aiming at writing the true story of contemporary Western art, this dissertation tries to uncover alternative stories, interpret the differences, and explain how one particular view came to prevail as the story. Concretely, it examines four contentious issues on which the standard account is particularly challenged by other stories, namely the fracture of the Second World War, the shift of the artworld’s center from Paris to New York, the domination of American art in the 1970s, and finally the European comeback of the 1980s. Analyzing the different national interpretations of these events and confronting them with empirical data (place, date, participant, etc.), the dissertation uncloaks enduring myths and reductive explanations. It highlights above all the role of dealers, collectors, curators, critics, and government officials in the way art is produced, received, and remembered. It also demonstrates how the shifting historical, economic, and institutional contexts continuously reshaped the story, the canon, and the viewers, so that what art historians have traditionally seen as stylistic shifts and artistic leadership appears rather as the result of forces that extend beyond the artistic creation. Stories with less international recognition should not be dismissed in favor of an official story that would erode all differences and present us with a single -- and thus deficient -- perspective. Only through the consideration and analysis of multiple cultural and national perspectives can we understand the complexity of the artworld’s dynamics. Ultimately, I propose a comprehensive yet critical art historical approach rooted in cultural history that would offer a solution to writing art history in an age of globalization that purports to eschew previous assumptions of nationalism and creative genius. / text

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