La tête végétalisée est un témoin privilégié de la culture visuelle des Romains. Innovation de l’époque tardo-républicaine et proto-impériale, elle n’en demeure pas moins l’héritière du traitement formel de figures telles que la Rankenfrau et le Rankengott et d’un symbolisme végétal séculaire. Elle évoque une nature naissante ou renaissante qui ne possède pas encore les frontières du cosmos ordonné, et fonctionne comme une épithète iconographique permettant de mettre en évidence un aspect particulier d’un personnage, tel le dieu Oceanus. L’étude des spécificités culturelles et des traditions iconographiques des différentes régions de l’Empire romain, couplée à la mise en série et à l’analyse contextualisée des documents, permet de mettre en évidence les formes de diffusion, de réception et d’appropriation de ce thème ornemental, de sa naissance à son assimilation par le monde chrétien. A côté de tendances relativement homogènes communes à l’Empire, se dessinent quelques courants particuliers, comme l’enrichissement nord-africain de la forme océanique, le renouveau oriental de la bordure à rinceau peuplé héritée de la tradition picturalisante hellénistique, ou « l’humanisation du végétal » gallo-germanique. Entre traditions et innovations, la tête végétalisée du monde romain développe des spécificités iconographiques pérennes qui lui confèrent une signification inhérente à toute forme d’hybridité végétale, tout en permettant à différentes visions du monde de s’exprimer en elle sans se dissoudre. / The foliate head is a privileged witness of the Roman visual culture. This innovation of the tardorepublican and proto-imperial period is the heiress of the formal processing of figures such as the Rankenfrau and the Rankengott and of a secular vegetal symbolism. It evokes a rising or returning nature which doesn’tpossess the borders of the orderly cosmos, and works as an iconographic attribute which highlights a particular aspect of a character, such as the god Oceanus. The study of the cultural specificities and the iconographic traditions of the various regions of the Roman Empire, combined with the serial approach and the in-contextanalysis of the documents, allows to highlight the various forms of diffusion, reception and appropriation of this decorative theme, from its birth to its assimilation by the Christian world. Next to relatively homogeneous trendscommon to the Empire, some particular tendencies take shape, such as the North African enrichment of the oceanic shape, the oriental revival of the border with peopled scroll inherited from the Hellenistic naturalistic tradition, or the Gallo-Germanic « humanisation of the plant ». Between traditions and innovations, the foliated head of the Roman world develops long-lasting iconographic specificities which confer it a meaning inherent to any shape of foliate hybridity, although it allows various views of the world to be expressed in it without being dissolved.

(anglicky) The main question of this thesis is whether the Christian church used stories containing monster beings with the aim of converting the Anglo-Saxon society to the new faith. This question is looked at through interpretative and content analysis of several Old English texts from the Nowell Codex. These are: the heroic-elegiac poem Béowulf, the travelogue The Letter of Alexander to Aristotle, the hagiographic text The Passion of St Christopher and the bestiary Liber Monstrorum, which is the only afore mentioned text not included in the Nowell Codex. The first chapter of this thesis provides a basic summary of the perception of monster beings from the prehistoric times to the Middle Ages. The next chapter analyses the role of the hero, nature and the distance of the British Isles from the centre of the World as perceived at the time. This chapter ends with the analysis of the pagan elements in the poem Béowulf. The last chapter focuses on the interpretations of monster beings in Christian settings and analyses the chosen Old English texts on a Christian interpretative level. The thesis arrives at the conclusion that the Church of the 6th to 10th century didn't use the motifs of various monsters on purpose. On the contrary, it seems that Germanic and Christian elements freely converged, and...

In this essay, I employ Judith Butlers theories of gender performativity to examine the construction of the monstrosity in Howard Phillips Lovecraft’s two works The Outsider and The Thing on the Doorstep. Focusing on the character’s monstrous attributes, how they are seen by themselves, by others and not least by the reader, I examine how their monstrosity is created and strengthened by dehumanizing processes. I argue that Lovecraft through his narrative technique complicates the relation between monstrosity and humanity in his characters, the result of which is a reader left to determine how monstrous, or human, the creature really is. I claim that the beings, themselves remaining uncertain about their own human and monstrous sides throughout Lovecraft’s stories, are not in fact monsters for the reader until the very moment that they themselves acquiescein their own exclusion.

During the 16th century occurred a new phenomen, that the physically disabled people because of they visage were presented as curiosities or miracles. Some cases were so incredible therefore their appearances gave an impulse for creating an artwork. The images were popular between all social levels, were collected by townspeople, scientists, nobles and kings. The dissertation thesis "Homo deformis". The fascination by appearance of deformed human body in the Czech lands between 1526-1620 aims to explore how the phenomen of human curiosities was reflected in early modern visual art in the Czech lands. This dissertation thesis bases on individual examples of human monstrosity in various art forms as an portraits, allegories, scientific illustrations and pamphlets. It exams images of abnormal disabled people between 1526-1620 and focuses on they symbolic meaning, aesthetic interpretation. It summarizes the knowlege about perceptions of depicted abnormal persons in 16th century. It also shows the Early modern society reactions about "homo deformis", their everydayness and social status. This thesis studies reasons why the disabled body was a kind an inspiration for artists. It examines ii the artists of 16th century were able to picture cases of physicality deformed bodies anatomically correctly. It...