Student Scholarship

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    A Contemporary Cartoon Epic: Classical Reception and Homeric Epic in Bone by Jeff Smith
    (2017) Weissman, Hannah; Sigelman, Asya C.; Stevens, Ben
    This thesis explores the connection between ancient epic and contemporary comics using Bone by Jeff Smith as a case study. The theoretical framework of the paper draws from reception studies to frame comparisons between Bone and ancient epic. The paper explores the genre of epic, using ancient and contemporary scholars to produce a working definition of the genre. It creates a distinction between whether works fall into the epic genre and whether works are themselves epics. Then, it compares the formal elements of Homeric epic with comics and investigates key similarities between the two media. There are five main categories that define whether a work is an epic: content (addressed in the discussion of genre), performativity, perspective, use of character types, and seriality. Finally, it applies the connections from the previous chapters to two comic adaptations of the Homeric epics, Age of Bronze by Eric Shanower and The Odyssey by Gareth Hinds. This study lays a foundation for looking at comics as epic, and thus opens up the idea of epic for a broader range of reception studies.
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    Aeneas in the New World: Reshaping the Interpretive Motif in Barlow's Columbiad
    (2010) Carroll, Thomas Eliot; Mulligan, Bret
    Barlow's Columbiad evokes Virgil's Aeneid by using the motifs of revelation and interpretation to explore the role of the past in informing the present. Virgil creates an opposition between Aeneas, who receives prophecies and signs but is prevented from interpreting them by his shock and fear, and his father Anchises, who interprets the prophecies and guides the Trojans. Aeneas learns to use his father's interpretive ritual but must utilize this technique to craft forward-looking interpretations and lead his people into the unknown, in order to fulfill his destiny. This combination of traditional ritual with a progressive outlook reflects symbolically the new political circumstances of Virgil's Rome. In the Columbiad, Columbus views scenes from early American history, and presents Hesper with the problems and criticisms he sees in the nation's development, relying on Hesper to explain them. Through their intermittent dialogue, the two advocate cyclical and linear models of historical development, respectively. Hesper's interpretation of mankind's progressive improvement prevails, reflecting Barlow's vision of post-revolutionary America as distinct from and improving upon its Old World predecessors. The two epics' common motif reveals the complexity of Columbus' character and reinforces Barlow's democratic message.
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    Amazons in the Amphora: Traces of the Defeated Other in Wonder Woman Comics
    (2010) Pollack, Lara; Roberts, Deborah H.; Mulligan, Bret
    References to the Amazons, a mythical race of warrior women, are widespread in ancient literature. They were generally represented as a defeated Other in their relations with the Greeks, reaffirming the patriarchal nature of Greek society. Amazons have also been received into modern literature, with the most prominent example being Wonder Woman, a comic book character created by William Marston in the early 1940s. Wonder Woman has generally been hailed as a feminist icon. The widespread representation of bondage and other sadomasochistic elements throughout the Wonder Woman comics, however, argue that she and other female characters are still represented as a defeated Other, retaining traces of the misogyny widespread in ancient accounts of Amazons.
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    Chestnut Hill Quaker Meeting : expanding the meetinghouse paradigm
    (2006-11-30T19:34:09Z) Douglass, Robert
    This thesis takes the opportunity provided by the construction of a new Quaker Meetinghouse in Chestnut Hill to consider past and current paradigms in Meetinghouse design. It analyses the history of meetinghouses and the teachings of Quaker thinkers as they relate to meetinghouses. The final section of this essay offers a design proposal for the new meetinghouse. This proposal considers a new paradigm for meetinghouses which focuses on the role of the meetinghouse in expressing ideals of simplicity, peace, humbleness, solidity, and social responsibility. Under this paradigm these concepts, as expressed in the building, aid in the Quaker goal of spiritual transformation.
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    Complex Unity: “Self” and Deliberation in Homer’s Odyssey and Iliad
    (2008) Lebowitz, Willy
    My thesis concerns scenes of deliberation in the Homeric epics. The language of psychological motivation that Homer employs is vastly different from our own. The goal of this thesis is to attempt to understand the complex nature of the Homeric "self" (if there is such a thing) and to remove years of philosophical misinterpretations from our analysis of the Homeric corpus.
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    Dangerous Fugues: Sirens, Divas, and the Dangerous Voice
    (2012) Silverblank, Hannah; Mulligan, Bret; Roberts, Deborah H.
    The Sirens first appear in Book XII of Homer's Odyssey, and from this episode has emerged a tradition of the dangerously seductive and powerful feminine singing voice. In this essay, I argue that the Sirenic tradition can be identified in the music videos of the American pop divas Madonna and Lady Gaga, in which the singers' voices contain Sirenic qualities but also transcend the power of the ancient Sirens. I use reception theory and Helene Cixous' “The Laugh of the Medusa” to explore the ways in which the voices of ancient Sirens are silenced, arguing that pop divas channel this Sirenic voice in order to move outside of its expressive confines and limitations. I locate four primary sources of danger in the song of the Homeric Sirens. First, the Sirenic voice threatens bodily harm to its listeners, who die upon hearing the song. Additionally, this voice threatens the temporality of the primary narrative, as the Sirens offer the pleasure of a song with an alternative temporality that is incommensurable with that of the Odyssey itself. Next, the temptation of the voice offers a fatal distraction from and thus destruction of the hero's voyage. Finally, I argue that the Sirens' song beckons its listeners to indulge desires that threaten the social stability and economy for the song's male listeners. This section about the danger of the Sirens is followed by an exploration of the mortal female voices in the “Cupid and Psyche” episode of Apuleius' Metamorphoses, wherein the different female characters speak in Sirenic tones and thus offer a mirror to the Homeric rendering of the Sirens. Having traced these dangers through ancient accounts of the Sirens, I briefly discuss other ancient female characters with dangerous voices in Greek and Roman literature, including Medusa, the Furies, the Bacchantes, Scylla, Philomela, Echo, Cassandra, Medea, Circe, and various witches. The essay then moves toward its analysis of the vocal and visual poetics in Madonna's “Bedtime Story” video and Lady Gaga's “Telephone” video. Here, I argue that Madonna's video invokes Sirenic imagery to inscribe power within the voice of the singer, but also to ultimately reject the Sirenic tradition. Through the interactions between the visual, sonic, and lyrical elements of the text, Madonna's “Bedtime Story” enacts a performance of Cixous' écriture féminine in a way that re-characterizes the danger of the Sirens and works to create and claim a new kind of power for the feminine voice. Next, I analyze Lady Gaga's “Telephone,” and I suggest that the two divas in the video also employ Sirenic themes in order to reject a certain mode of listening to the powerful feminine voice, using écriture féminine to break out of the Sirenic tradition and to migrate toward an unspecified, anonymous elsewhere. Where “Bedtime Story” both uses and rejects the Sirenic tradition in the formulation and performance of écriture féminine, the “Telephone” video speaks in écriture féminine in order to defy the limitations placed upon the diva and to posit a new but unknown potential for the feminine voice.
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    Divine Embodiment and Cosmic Tragedy in Prometheus Desmotes
    (2011) Reisman, Asher Jacob; Roberts, Deborah H.
    In this thesis I posit a new reading of the dramatic structure of Prometheus Desmotes, in which the textual and visual features of the play's performance are principally oriented towards the impression of a keen awareness of Prometheus' body in the attention of the audience. This impression is initially produced by the horrific violence of the prologue. This opening scene describes the body of Prometheus and its violation in the unrelentingly corporal terms from the language of human embodiment, while also powerfully affirming his immortality and godhood in the extent to which the violence surpasses all human endurance. These features of Prometheus' body (pitiable physical suffering and divinity) are sounded in a corresponding and intensified manner in the play's cataclysmic finale and more finely articulated and reiterated through the play's otherwise static middle by comparison to other figures whose bodies will share some but never all of these attributes. The significance of this conceptual depiction of a divine body is made clearer by situating Desmotes in relation to its chief predecessors, Homer and Hesiod, in the literary treatment of divine bodies and divine existence more generally. The revisions Desmotes makes to these earlier views is to amplify the prominence of divine violence and suffering and to destabilize the narrative structures which govern it; overturning Homer's program of an Olympus existing in blissful stasis and Hesiod's Zeus-centered cosmic history. These changes open the possibility for genuine tragedy among the gods. Desmotes demonstrates the profound power of such a tragedy first in its long, complex meditation on the body of Prometheus, broken and eternal, and also in the cosmic alterity it envisions in the drama's apocalyptic finale.
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    Educatio et alimenta puellis: Munificence or political tricks of emperors?
    (2009) Derbew, Sarah; Germany, Robert
    I aim to explore Trajan's motive for providing grand munificence to poor girls by examining depictions of poor girls on coins and his arch in Beneventum. I also explore the use of education as part of this political agenda of emperors to create this debt. Through my examinations, I suggest that Trajan used his munificence to create an obligatory debt to reduce the possibility of poor girls gaining freedom and autonomy. Emperors depended on these poor girls because when they became older, they had the ability to populate the Empire with their children. Their children then could become laborers and soldiers, or future vessels of more children for the Roman Empire.
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    Framing Classical Objects through Comic Book Theory
    (2016) Rehm-Daly, Nathaniel; Mulligan, Bret
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    Hannibal’s Ethnicity: Reexamining Negative Carthaginian Stereotypes in Ab Urbe Condita
    (2015) Grossweiner, Allyssa; Scott, Russell T.
    This thesis examines the ways in which Hannibal in Livy’s Ab Urbe Condita may be simultaneously read as both strongly Carthaginian and as an individual acting independently of ethnically determined norms. This examination gives further implications for the reading of Carthaginians in Livy as more negatively portrayed as a result of Hannibal’s influence. Hannibal is more perfidious and cruel than typical images of Carthaginians in both preceding literature and in Livy, but also his extreme devotion to his oath against Rome demonstrates that Hannibal is able to deviate from Carthaginian stereotypes. This implies that Hannibal’s excessive Carthaginian behaviors may be read as both ethnic and autonomous. Corresponding examinations of Scipio’s and Pleminius’ departure from normal Roman behavior demonstrate that when Romans deviate from expected Roman behavior, their subordinates deviate as well. This reading is used to further model Hannibal’s relationship with Carthaginians, indicating that Hannibal has made the Carthaginians somewhat Hannibalic, passing on his negative image to them.
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    Hispanics in the Chicago economy : an analysis of the earnings determination of Chicano and Puerto Rican males
    (2006-11-30T19:07:07Z) Craig, Sandy
    The rapid growth of the Hispanic population in recent years raises many questions about their disadvantaged economic standing in the United States and the differences in economic standing between Hispanic subgroups. In this thesis, I analyze the economic standing of Chicano and Puerto Rican males in Chicago, as defined through earnings. To this end, I examine the historical experiences of both groups in the city before turning to an analysis of their relative economic standing. Using aggregated census tract-level data from 1980 to 2000, the results indicate that earnings determinants are different for the two groups. Consistent with prior economic theory, schooling is important in determining earnings for both Chicano and Puerto Rican males, although the rate of return of schooling is greater for Puerto Ricans than it is for Chicanos. The different effects of English proficiency on the earnings of Chicano and Puerto Ricans are particularly puzzling. I argue that differences in the determination of earnings account for some, but not all, of the earnings disparity between the two groups. In combination with an examination of the historical conditions of each group, however, the economic analysis of earnings determination presented in this thesis is important for understanding the earnings disparity between Chicano and Puerto Rican males in Chicago and their relative economic standing in the city.
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    History of the architecture and planning of the Bryn Mawr College campus
    (2007-06-20T15:54:37Z) Smith, Kennedy
    Cope and Stewardson's career in collegiate Gothic architecture began with the design of Radnor Hall at Bryn Mawr in 1886. Their roles - and those of their predecessors, contemporaries , and successors - in the development of the architecture and planning of the Bryn Mawr College campus will be the theme of this investigation.
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    Housing in Philadelphia, 1890-1920: apartment houses for a "city of homes"
    (2006-11-01T20:51:09Z) Wisniewski, Linda
    "The dominance of the "morally desirable" single-family dwelling in Philadelphia in the late nineteenth century distinguished the city from other urban areas where multi-family dwellings were an economic necessity for residents...Residential and business directories as well as census data from 1900 and 1920 demonstrate that Philadelphia's reputation as a "city of homes" was partly a perception that overshadowed an increasing population of hotels and apartment houses...The development of apartment housing in Philadelphia, especially in the neighborhoods, depended upon the same segregating forces that enabled the development of the single-family dwelling. In the end, residents of these multi-family dwellings were in transitional phases of their lives where the single-family dwelling would not have been suitable."
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    “Is Paris burning?”: The French Banlieue in crisis
    (2007-06-21T15:50:14Z) Lynch, Sarah
    Over the past twenty-five years, the French government has steadily implemented a program of urban policy (la politique de la ville) that targets working-class suburbs in decline (banlieues). The strategies underlying these policies have changed with each successive administration; dozens of policies have been enacted, each has been trumpeted as the key to solving France’s ongoing “urban crisis.” In general, these policies sought to address complex issues of poverty and social marginalization in the banlieues; individually, each policy was a response to those particular aspects of the urban crisis that had become most pressing at the time. By all accounts, each policy failed. Indeed, the fiery riots that swept through France in November 2005 convinced all social observers that the dysfunction of the banlieue is actually accelerating and intensifying. This thesis highlights the failure of French urban policy through the lens of three separate initiatives, each of which was chosen as representative of a distinct ideological stage in the evolution of la politique de la ville: Développement social des quartiers (DSQ, 1981), Pacte de relance pour la ville (PRV, 1996), and Plan de cohésion sociale (PCS, 2004). This thesis contends that the failure of la politique de la ville can be traced to a conceptual shift that occurred in the mid-1990s. This shift is apparent in the contrast between the assumption of the DSQ, in the 1980s, that the dysfunction in the banlieues reflected larger social problems within France, and the subsequent belief, of both the PRV and the PCS, that the banlieues themselves were the principal source of social dysfunction. This gradual articulation of the banlieues and their inhabitants as a problem has managed to shift the ideological focus of French urban policy from progressive social development to repressive social control. Presently, the emphasis is on pacifying the banlieues in the interest of national security. This thesis explores the reasons for that conceptual shift and traces its profound implications. In conclusion, this thesis argues that the official response to the radical question of citizenship that dysfunction in the banlieues continues to raise will determine the viability of French republican ideals into the twenty-first century.
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    Love as Recollection in Plato's Symposium
    (2010) LeFrancois, Meghan; Mulligan, Bret
    In Plato's Symposium, the interlocutors take turns giving speeches about love. The careful reader can draw several parallels between love as it is discussed throughout this dialogue and recollection as it is presented in Plato's Meno and Phaedo. According to the recollection thesis, humans have latent, innate knowledge, and throughout our lives, we recollect it, making it explicit and articulate. In the Symposium's culminating speech—that of Socrates—I argue that we learn that love is, in fact, a kind of recollection; we learn that love is the recollection of the form of beauty. In this speech, Socrates argues that love is an ascent. When we love correctly, we complete this ascent, and recollect the form of beauty. When we love incorrectly, we only ascend partially and so we partially recollect; in the process, we give birth not to knowledge, but to ideas. Socrates' speech invites us to reconsider the dialogue's other speeches. I argue that each speech not only shows parallels between love and recollection, but contributes to Socrates' argument that love is a species of recollection. The speeches of Pausanias and Eryximachus, for example, anticipate the distinction Socrates later draws between a correct and an incorrect kind of love. Alicibiades' speech—the only speech after Socrates'—reiterates, in a story, Socrates' argument for love's being a kind of recollection. I argue that this reading of the dialogue supports an interpretation of the recollection thesis according to which not only philosophers, but all humans recollect. Finally, I provide a possible reason that Socrates is the first interlocutor to explicitly mention recollection; perhaps he is the only interlocutor with something like explicit knowledge of what love is.
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    Making Sense of Socrates in a Dialogue of Contradictions: Studies in Plato's Protagoras
    (2008) Rodriguez, Evan; Hamilton, Richard, 1943-
    Examines Plato's Protagoras as a masterpiece of writing where literary and dramatic elements constitute its philosophical import. Part one, "A Dialogue of Contradictions," helps us understand the Protagoras as an exploration of the differences between philosophical and sophistic method through an analysis of its complex cast of characters. Part two, "Making sense of Socrates," focuses on a close textual reading of the last fifteen pages of the dialogue to clarify the significance of the confrontation between Socrates and Protagoras.