The statues of Antinous, Hadrian’s favourite, are often believed to be primarily products of Hadrian’s philhellenism. The easiest explanation for Antinous’ unusual historical profile is that Hadrian loved Greek culture, Antinous was Greek, and the statues, mimicking Greek art, are an extravagant commemorative effort. Closer examination reveals that this is too simplistic an explanation. By quantifying extant statues of Antinous based on provenance and iconography, summarizing Hadrian’s ideology, examining Hadrian’s own image, and considering the cult of Antinous, we can see that Antinous played an important role in Hadrian’s ideology. His cult was a social and religious unifier and helped bridge the gaps between communities and foster shared pride and community amongst adherents; the statues, often cultic objects, visually conveyed this purpose through various iconographic connections to other cults. All this complemented Hadrian’s agenda of imperial unity and consolidation. Philhellenism cannot be denied entirely, but the primary purpose of Antinous’ statues was ideological.

The central material studied in this thesis is a representative group of the earliest surviving Christian icons from the collection of St Catherine’s Monastery in Sinai, all dated to the sixth or seventh centuries. These are discussed specifically in relation to their possible sources within the preceding Greco-Roman tradition of portraiture. While each of these sources is important to a full understanding of the Sinai icons’ visual languages, original functions and meanings, they have not previously been analysed alongside each other in a single study. By doing so, the aim is to reconstruct a more complete artistic context for the icons’ production, as well as to arrive at a fuller understanding of the historical, social and religious factors that would have conditioned their reception. Three categories of portrait-image are critically considered as possible sources for the Sinai icons in terms of technique, style, iconography and function: Roman imperial portraiture (from the first to the sixth centuries); the funerary portraiture of Roman Egypt (first to third centuries); and the corpus of sacred pinakes or ‘pagan icons’ produced in the Fayum region of Egypt (mainly second century). Following the Introduction in which recent scholarly literature on the topic is critically assessed and definitions of key terms are given, the opening chapter presents a detailed visual analysis of each of the eight selected Sinai icons. Questions of dating and geographical attribution are addressed, with previous proposals either revised or confirmed. In Chapter Two, Roman imperial portraiture is discussed, principally in terms of its meanings and functions, and comparisons are made with early portraits of Christ. Questions of the construction of likeness, and the complex relationship between a portrait (whether of an emperor or of Christ) and its prototype, are addressed. It is argued that while early Christian portraits did adopt various elements of imperial iconography to convey a message of universal authority, at the same time they performed functions which were not shared by imperial portraits – for example, participating in intercessory and anagogical prayer. Chapter Three analyses the techniques and styles used in the corpus of Romano- Egyptian ‘mummy-portraits’, with correspondences and differences highlighted between these and the early Sinai icons, and also discusses the question of whether portrait-mummies performed a devotional function comparable to that of early Christian icons. To this end, importance is again given to the question of the relationship between a portrait-mummy and its prototype (the soul of the deceased), as well as questions of audience, display and reception. On the basis of this discussion it is argued that the portraits participated in a reciprocal ‘exchange of gazes’ with their intended viewers, and that this is likely to have been a key factor in the reception of some of the Sinai icons as well. Chapter Four discusses the smaller extant corpus of painted panels depicting pagan deities, produced in the Fayum concurrently with the portrait-mummies. Some striking correspondences in terms of physical construction, technique and style are drawn between these and the early Sinai icons, and literary evidence is adduced to elucidate the role of the artist’s phantasia, or faculty of visualisation, in the construction of the likenesses of both pagan deities and Christian saints. In sum, it is argued that the formal characteristics of the early Sinai icons can all be derived from the non-Christian portrait-categories discussed above; however, these forms were employed in the service of an expanded range of devotional functions in a Christian context. In particular, the early Sinai icons invited a new mode of reception, characterised by an interpersonal, prayerful exchange with an icon’s prototype(s), which the portrait-image both stimulated and channelled.

This thesis examines the portraiture of the Ptolemaic queen Arsinoë II (lived ca. 318- 268 BC), which appears on a variety of media including: coinage, intaglios, oinochoai (a type of wine jug), statuettes, sculpture-in-the-round, relief stelai, and temple reliefs. The overall aim of this study is to reveal the agency behind the portraiture of Arsinoë (labelled the ‘queen-image’) so as to show that her image was a fabrication of the Ptolemaic administration. In order to demonstrate this, a unique methodological approach is used that comprises elements from semiotics, Alfred Gell’s agency theory, and Richard Dyer’s star theory. This new theory is applied to the media portraying the queen that is collected into an accompanying catalogue composed of eighty-one entries, which includes both Greek and Egyptian-style representations for a holistic approach to the evidence. The material depicting the queen-image encompasses a large span of time: from the early 3rd into the 1st century BC. The first two chapters focus on the iconographic components making up Arsinoë’s portraits and categorise these elements based on the type of information – personal or public – that they convey about the queen. The iconographic elements of the queen-image are interpreted as embedded with conscious meaning: these pictorial signs are specifically chosen by the Ptolemaic administration because of the symbolism attached to them. Therefore, analysing their symbolic meaning provides insight into the royal ideology communicated by Arsinoë’s image. Chapter 3 considers the level of agency that the Ptolemaic administration had over individual portrait media in order to demonstrate the influence the administration had in the manufacture of the queen-image. Chapter 4 examines the display context of the portrait media so as to determine the accessibility of Arsinoë’s image to the population of Hellenistic Egypt thereby making it possible to characterise the audience of these works. The display context of the queen-image dictates both the types of people encountering her portrait and demonstrates the Ptolemaic administration’s success in promoting the queen to different groups. Finally, it is argued that the Ptolemaic administration used Arsinoë’s portraiture to propagate Lagid queenship, which incorporated concepts of legitimacy, authority, piety, attractiveness, fertility, and idealised femininity. As the first Ptolemaic queen to be depicted in portraitre, Arsinoë’s image becomes a model for queenship imitated by later royal women as well as a legitimising symbol for succeeding kings.

This dissertation considers photographs of American Indians in Parisian exhibitions between 1870 and 1890 as part of a mobile and dynamic visual culture in the larger Atlantic World and as the embodiment of performative cross-cultural encounters. The project analyzes western American survey photographs disseminated abroad, as well as pictures of Native performers taken in the French capital. The study ranges from John K. Hillers’s output for John Wesley Powell and William Henry Jackson’s work for Ferdinand V. Hayden to the photographic albums of Prince Roland Bonaparte, the grandnephew of Napoleon I. Active in French scientific circles, Bonaparte photographed Plains Indian performers in 1880s Paris. Working within the developing fields of American and French anthropology, these photographers and their project directors transmitted pictures internationally in order to present their respective nations as scientific and political powers and showcase American Indians as figures of competing national patrimonies. Composed of four case studies based on exhibitions, the study challenges readings grounded solely on the original imperialist intentions of the objects’ producers. Instead, a transcultural perspective examines American Indian agendas and circumstances in these photographic exchanges. The dissertation also traces the changing meaning of these pictures over time. Chapter One analyzes a set of Hillers’s photographs of Hopi villages sent to the Société de géographie de Paris in 1877 by Powell as part of an international competition to claim authority regarding Southwest cultures. Chapter Two examines Jackson and Hayden’s Photographs of North American Indians (1878) similarly given to the Société d’anthropologie de Paris in 1879 in this culture of rivalry. However, a close reading of the volumes’ delegation portraits disrupts the imperialist framing of its text. Chapter Three explores Bonaparte’s album, Peaux-Rouges (1884) of frontal and profile photographs of Umonhon (Omaha) at the Jardin d’acclimatation and argues that references to performance and histories of contact subvert its essentializing physical anthropology approach. Chapter Four reads Bonaparte’s volumes of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West in Paris for the 1889 Exposition Universelle. Here, allusions to intercultural exchanges of the Lakota performers abroad, as show members and tourists, also challenge a hegemonic interpretation of Bonaparte’s anthropological photographs. / 2020-01-25

School leadership has been an evolving topic over the past several decades, with research examining the impact of leadership on school performance, school culture, and other elements in this field. However, only a few studies have examined the construct of leadership in alternative schools, where these specialized sites often serve as mid-points between traditional schools and juvenile detention centers. Considering the evidence related to the displacement rates of minority students, particularly Black males, from traditional schools to alternative settings, these specialized sites are ideal for exploring practices that perhaps can redirect students in the school-to-prison pipeline, back towards their traditional settings or perhaps help to push students towards high school graduation. In this study, leadership is examined at two alternative schools operating in the southeast United States, in two different districts where documented disparities have been published in the media as well as federal complaints filed due to the excessive displacement of Black students from traditional school settings as a result of suspensions, expulsions and/or school-based arrests. According to the literature review, alternative schools have grown exponentially over the past decade across the nation, with many having disproportional numbers of minority students placed in these schools. Often these schools serve as sites for segregating disruptive students, and tend to focus greater attention on managing student behavior as opposed to driving student achievement. Utilizing feedback from local district and business leaders, the two alternative schools included in this study were targeted for this investigation due to their perceived success, related to school outcomes, graduation rates and low suspension/expulsion rates. This study, through the collection of data using participant interviews, constructs portraits of each school principal and their enactment of leadership at each alternative setting. In this study, leadership is examined at two alternative schools operating in the southeast United States, in two different districts where documented disparities have been published in the media as well as federal complaints filed due to the excessive displacement of Black students from traditional school settings as a result of suspensions, expulsions and/or school-based arrests. According to the literature review, alternative schools have grown exponentially over the past decade across the nation, with many having disproportional numbers of minority students placed in these schools. Often these schools serve as sites for segregating disruptive students, and tend to focus greater attention on managing student behavior as opposed to driving student achievement. Utilizing feedback from local district and business leaders, the two alternative schools included in this study were targeted for this investigation due to their perceived success, related to school outcomes, graduation rates and low suspension/expulsion rates. This study, through the collection of data using participant interviews, constructs portraits

This research project investigates how estrangement is manifested within the photographic image, and how levels of estrangement establish conditions for the relationships between the subject, viewer and artist. Since the medium's inception the photographic process has involved encountering and negotiating otherness and the place of strangers. Over time a consistent photographic power dynamic has been established, and this project examines to what extent participants in this dynamic can escape or yield to the historically sedimented structures in which they find themselves participating. The images in this body of work tread the line between typological portraits and tentative encounters with strangers. These encounters/images do not suggest personal identity but question what it is to be a photographic subject. Rather than offer psychological insight into the subject, they attempt to foreground the signifying systems and process of photographic "representation". The project explores estrangement through physical and conceptual distance, negotiating photography's relationship to the real as a process, an image and an object.

While the majority of literature written in regard to artist Romaine Brooks has focused on her portraiture of cross-dressing women, I intend to focus on other aspects of her oeuvre which are often neglected. Therefore, I will examine works depicting women produced or exhibited by Brooks during the years 1910 and 1911 when her output was at its most varied. I have divided these works into four different categories: nudes, interior scenes, balcony scenes, and portraits. These paintings prove that while Brooks painted in a traditional fashion, she also subtly challenged the role of women in art and society.

The Internet has been a mystifying and nebulous concept since its birth in the early 90s (Kelly). Just two years ago in an infamous public address, former Senator Ted Stevens attempted to explain the internet to the masses, calling it a series of tubes (Doctorow). This statement was followed by a flurry of blog postings, YouTube videos and general mockery from the computer savvy communities, thus confirming the fact that most people, besides the geeks, still don't fully comprehend what the Internet is. At its inception, PHDs, scientists and professors of anthropology alike hailed the Internet as a potential "gaia of cultures," and an opportunity for global communication and the exchange of ideas (Harcourt 22). Currently, it would be hard to say that the Internet is only being used for such lofty pedagogical purposes, but true to those scholarly dreams, people around the globe are exchanging ideas, more specifically videos, on YouTube, the world's third most visited website ("Global Top"). After a number of search engines, the fifth and seventh most visited sites in the world are Facebook and MySpace ("Global Top"). These top sites require no qualifications, impressive resumes, or background checks. A working email address, username and password are all anyone needs to be published on the Internet. YouTube, Facebook and MySpace all exist solely for the same purpose - to host content posted by users for others to peruse. If one were to judge our current historical moment based on our websites of choice, it would be fair to say we are self-obsessed. We exist in a culture defined by its desire and ability to look at itself online.

This project examined the life narratives of four veteran teachers, each of whom began their careers before the onset of the Standards Era and were still teaching in 2013. Seeking to surface both their ways of resilience and negotiations of their identities as teachers through their decades-long careers, the question is positioned in the neoliberal turmoil of high-stakes accountability, national curriculum standards, and widespread, large-N assessment, to determine if resilient, long-career teachers exhibit particular characteristics and support systems that enable their accomplished status. Using the postmodern, interpretivist methodologies of portraiture and oral history, richly contextualized narratives for each teacher were crafted as an initial analysis. A secondary analysis revealed three manifestations of identity: the socially constructed identity, the bureaucratically informed identity, and the emotionally shaped identity. Findings suggest that having a fully developed and robust set of identities might encourage teacher resilience and longevity, supporting existing bodies of research, and that storytelling is an important aspect of identity development and maintenance. An additional finding was the absence of adversity through veteran teachers’ careers, which pushes against current research on resilience, as it positions resilience against adversity. An interesting question remains, which is in what ways might these veterans have renamed themselves—through the development of multiple and fluid identities—and renamed the challenges and disruptions of their world of work so that they might continue in the classroom. As school leaders typically rely on the knowledge base of seasoned veterans—to inform curriculum development, novice teacher support, and professional learning communities—it seems important to consider the power of storytelling in those venues. In conclusion, the author suggests that the addition of research from the field of knowledge creation, usage, and stewardship could be useful to future research of veteran teachers and the ways their professional knowledge might be better leveraged for improved educational outcomes. / text

As the Italian thirst for excellence and knowledge burgeoned throughout the Quattrocento, the genre of instructional literature responded accordingly to social demands. Offering advice on a wide range of experience from the quotidian to the extraordinary, from superstition to scientific, conduct manuals appealed to readers of all Italian social classes. Investigating the relationship between this body of literature and the lives of contemporary women, this paper will focus specifically on those manuals which prescribe behaviors for women, and will investigate the reception of these precepts and the extent in which these notions informed and transformed women's lives. In order to better understand this complex relationship, I will focus on one particular piece of advice which recurs throughout instructional literature during this time: the prescribed notion that women should remain far removed from their household windows for the sake of their honor, reputation and chastity. The adherence to such an idea would prohibit women's use of their household windows, confining them to the deep recesses of the home, far from public view and public life. Widely read manuals, such as Alberti's Della Famiglia and Barbaro's Trattati delle donne, promulgated windows as literal "windows of opportunity" to further vice, such as lust, adultery, vanity and profligacy. Furthermore, these concerns are addressed in texts beyond the realm of the prudent, instructional literature; the theme recurs as metaphor for deviancy in both popular fiction and contemporary women's portraiture. Boccaccio's Decameron, a book which conduct manual authors continually deemed inappropriate for women, features several tales in which women carry out affairs by way of their bedroom windows. Within the genre of portrait painting, both Fra Filippo Lippi and Botticelli painted interior scenes which featured women positioned at windows. The synthesis of these seemingly disparate sources, hitherto unexplored within the same context, reveals a complicated moral climate that undoubtedly had decisive consequences for Italian women during the fifteenth century.