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The Darkness Outside: Intimacy as a Means of Relief and Emancipation in James Baldwin and Alice Walker
No full textThesis (B.A. in English Literature, Minor in International Affairs and History)--John Cabot University, Fall 2019.In this thesis I will argue that in the works of James Baldwin and Alice Walker, intimatemoments represent a view into the text’s political message. Both authors offer sincere andcompassionate relationships as an effective form of relief or liberation for black people from theconditions white supremacist patriarchy enforces on them. An intimate interaction can involveno more than two characters and it is a moment of self-discovery through the exposure of selfrelevantfeelings and experiences to another person. White people enjoy intimacy as anexploration of themselves and other people because as a privileged group, they can movecomfortably outside of these interactions. However, for black people in the United States,intimacy is a necessary shelter from a society that constantly mortifies their sense of self-worth.Intimacy can be a moment of happiness and growth, as occurs in the relationship betweenCelie and Shug Avery in The Color Purple, but it is unattainable when the character harborsresentment and self-deprecation, such is the case in Rufus, the protagonist of the first section inBaldwin’s Another Country. Indeed, in order to access an earnest and genuine relationship withother people, the characters need to be ready to love themselves, which becomes difficult whenthey have been violently subjected to white supremacist standards their entire lives. Shame tiedto race, gender, and sexuality, I argue, is the most effective means of alienation Baldwin andWalker’s characters have to battle in order to make their internal lives and material conditionsbearable
The Little Mermaid: The Transformation that Comes with Time
No full textThesis (B.A. in English Literature, Minor in Creative Writing)--John Cabot University, Spring 2019.This thesis is the result of the question, “What did ‘The Little Mermaid’ say about gender roles when it was first published, and what do two of its future adaptations add to that discussion?” It was born out of a curiosity on how fairy tales change with time, altered by the values and taboos of the societies that created them. In order to answer this question, I have selected three versions of ‘The Little Mermaid’ to discuss: the original Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale, the Disney cartoon, and the Northern Ballet production. First, each version was summarized. Then, in order to better understand the social and cultural context of each version, I researched the countries and time periods that these versions found themselves in. Then, I discussed gender roles in each setting. Finally, I related the topic of gender roles in each time setting to its respective version, thus concluding how the view on women’s roles has changed over the course of two centuries. The general conclusions are that stories and societies are very tightly linked, constantly influencing and reflecting each other. By extension, ‘The Little Mermaid’ has changed numerous times since its initial publication. Its more spiritual elements were removed and its more graphic details were diluted, but its core premise has remained the same. Despite obvious differences separating these three versions, they all depict what the time period considered to be strong female qualities. The first portrayed the protagonist as a strong-willed creature who seeks spiritual ascent and achieves it through love and sacrifice. The second casts the mermaid into a hopeless romantic who sacrifices everything for the man she loves, and is rewarded with his love. The third stars a fusion of its predecessors, with a heroine who falls in love with a prince and endures constant, unyielding pain in order to be with him, and it is this love that gives her the strength to kill the sea god and ascend to the heavens, encapsulating both physical and emotional fortitude
Understanding Courtly Culture: The Series of Paintings in the Donjon of the Castle of Quart
No full textThesis (B.A. in Art History)--John Cabot University, Spring 2019.The Castle of Quart sees its most glorious time between its third construction, in 1261, and the fall of the dynasty of its lords, in 1377. This period, politically speaking, is one of the most interesting in the history of Valle d’Aosta. Indeed, a new form of government is starting to take shape, while the power is contended among the Savoia family, who rule on the region, the single lords, who acquire more and more territories to reaffirm their control, and the Church, who had been unofficially in charge up until then.
The paintings in the donjon of the Castle of Quart date back to this period of political uncertainty, in particular the 1270’s. The fragments survived, recovered with a descialbo intervention in recent years, show that the room was meant to be richly decorated with an unprecedented combination of themes, whose interpretation is still a matter of speculation for scholars. Considering that the paintings have been only recently recovered, and that restoration and conservation works in the castle are still going on, it is hard to define with certainty the role the castle and its inhabitants had in the Middle Ages.
The starting research question focused on the meaning that such a combination of images could have in a castle later abandoned and almost forgotten. The aim of this thesis is to show the interest that such paintings must have raised in any kind of audience of the time, through the analysis of the single themes both in relation to the valley and its land, and to the rest of Europe. This will be realized giving an insight on the themes represented in the donjon and on the possible parallelisms with similar works in central Europe, in relation to the history of the lords of Quart and of the Savoia family and their respective roles in Valle d’Aosta
The Origins of Gnosticism: Jewish Apocalypticism and the Problem of Evil
No full textThesis (B.A. in Humanistic Studies, Minor in Philosophy)--John Cabot University, Spring 2019.The discoveries of the Nag Hammadi Library in 1945 and of the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1947 revived scholarly interest in the phenomenon of Gnosticism and Jewish Apocalypticismrespectively, and the way in which their systems relate to one another. They also provided a greatamount of new material to work with, including original text which were previously unaccountedfor. Regardless of the amount of new primary sources, scholars still cannot find consensus on thespecific origins of Gnosticism, yet it is commonly believed among them that its origins are sowide and diverse that they cannot be traced back to a single origin.Going along those lines, this essay will attempt to explore one of said possible origins,namely the problem of evil, as it appears in the Jewish Apocalypse genre of literature, includingWisdom teaching and Scepticism as closely related genres. It will do so by identifying andanalyzing common themes as they appear in the texts, and exploring the way in which they relateand can be identified with recurring Gnostic themes.This thematic analysis and the textual analysis alongside it will conclude that there is atraceable development from the fringes of the Jewish tradition and their concern with thesuffering of their people to the ontological separation of God from the material world present inGnostic texts as the final answer to the problem of evil. This development follows the steps fromprophetic eschatology to apocalyptic eschatology and from ethical dualism to cosmologicaldualism, as certain Jewish communities realize that God’s new order for the righteous wouldneither unfold within the realities of this world nor come about during their lifetimes
Neocolonialism and Corruption in Ghana
No full textThesis (B.A. in Political Science)--John Cabot University, Spring 2019.This paper explores domestic and external factors Ghana’s economy to find out how Ghana is still dependent on foreign aid for economic development. The study brings the role of Ghanaian elites and institutions into the close analysis of the Neocolonialism concept. The findings of the research are relevant to explain that the dynamics of resource management coupled with corruption reduces the value of foreign aid on investment. Hence, the study holds that domestic factors including weakness of institutions and corruption more relevant in determining growth than the external influence that might support the concept of Neocolonialism in Ghana
Alexander’s India: The Perception of India, by the Greeks, prior to Alexander’s campaign to India
Get PDFThesis (B.A. in Classical Studies)--John Cabot University, Spring 2019.This thesis began with the question: What did Alexander believe he would find in India? Throughout the research and writing of this thesis, a variety of potential answers to this question have been found. Alexander may have believed in the fantastical, as the Greeks did not distinguish mythology as such, the mythological was as real as the sciences. It seems Alexander did believe in Dragons, but he may not have believed in the Pygmies. Alexander may have had a more realistic view, of the subcontinent, as after conquering Persia, he obtained access to the Persian records of the province. Alexander may have believed that beyond India was a wasteland, a desert, and earth encircling ocean, or the edge of the world. The answer to this question may not be possible to discover, but the rhetorical exercise can illuminate much about not just the man and his conquests, but of Greek society and their understanding of the world. This thesis also addresses the connections between ancient Greek and Indian society, primarily the connection between philosophical developments. This philosophical connection may have been through trade, through Persia, or from an older Dionysian conqueror; the method by which this was established remains unknown, but the existence of this connection is near certain. The most interesting development in the answer to this question came out of this philosophical connection, coming from the comparison of belief in death and the afterlife from these two cultures. When Alexander conquered Egypt he styled himself a Pharaoh, and when he had conquered Persia, he adopted the Persian Empire and the structure of the Empire. In the Orient, Alexander used the beliefs of the cultures he conquered to present himself as a god-king. The god-king model did not sit well with the Greek part of his empire, so Alexander followed the models of Dionysus and Herakles for his own deification. Alexander would present a story of his demi-god nature and a path toward deification. By incorporating the Indian philosophy, when Alexander conquered India, he conquered death
The Indian “Lakshmi” Figurine from Pompeii as an Emblem of East-West Trade in the Roman Early Imperial Era
No full textMaster of Arts in Art History -- John Cabot University, Spring 2019.In 1938 Amedeo Maiuri, as Superintendent of Archaeology at Pompeii, made an unprecedented discovery that remains a unicum: a small ivory statuette of extraordinary craftsmanship, presumed to have been imported from India during the height of Roman and Indian trade in the first century AD. Scholars knew from the textual sources that trade had flourished for centuries between Rome and Arabia, India, and with India as a conduit, China. Roman objects excavated at Indian sites such as Arikamedu, Kolhapur, Pattanam, etc, highlighted that bustling commercial relationship. However, the droves of spices, cloth, wood and gems that the ancient writers and the Periplus Maris Erythraei reported as having been exported from India to Rome had long vanished or become impossible to provenance. Some luxurious ivory ornaments had been found, but none pinpointed Indian craftsmanship. Instead, Maiuri’s intricately carved 24-cm tall female figure, securely traceable to India prior to AD 79, is the best, if not only, ancient Indian object found on Roman soil, to date. In the 80 years since its discovery, research on this object has been sporadic. Many art historians still do not know of its existence. The Thesis attempts to reconstruct the path from creator to end user in a cosmopolitan world, imagining the 6000 km journey the statuette might have made from India to Pompeii, updating iconography and function debates, and putting the find spot debate to rest. Moreover, this paper highlights specific artifacts in the storerooms of the National Archaeological Museum of Naples as well as interesting footnotes in previously published papers that could benefit from fresh study. This paper attempts to rectify the misperception that lack of artifacts in the West signifies lack of activity, creating a fuller picture of this unusual object, a fascinating testament to the avid exchange among prosperous civilizations two thousand years ago
Nonconscious Cognitive Suffering: Considering Suffering Risks of Embodied Artificial Intelligence
Get PDFStrong arguments have been formulated that the computational limits of disembodied artificial intelligence (AI) will, sooner or later, be a problem that needs to be addressed. Similarly, convincing cases for how embodied forms of AI can exceed these limits makes for worthwhile research avenues. This paper discusses how embodied cognition brings with it other forms of information integration and decision-making consequences that typically involve discussions of machine cognition and similarly, machine consciousness. N. Katherine Hayles’s novel conception of nonconscious cognition in her analysis of the human cognition-consciousness connection is discussed in relation to how nonconscious cognition can be envisioned and exacerbated in embodied AI. Similarly, this paper offers a way of understanding the concept of suffering in a way that is different than the conventional sense of attributing it to either a purely physical state or a conscious state, instead of grounding at least a type of suffering in this form of cognition
Populism as a Political Style: UK, Italy and France
No full textThesis (B.A. in Political Science, Minor in Communication and History)--John Cabot University, Spring 2019.This thesis first of all offers a brief review of the main theories about Populism criticized by Moffitt and Tormey. Moreover, Benjamin Moffitt and Simon Tormey will build upon the weaknesses of these dominant theories in order to present their alternative model of Populism as a Political Style. My goal is to validate Moffitt and Tormey’s model by applying it to three case studies (UK, Italy and France) in order to conceptualise the expression of the phenomenon, and eventually make predictions for Europe. The question I will systematically seek to answer is how populism as a political style has expressed itself in the UK, Italy and France.
Applying the chosen model to my three case studies will lead us to three hypothetical options regarding the expression of populism. First, this expression of Populism as a Political Style in the UK, Italy and France, varies according to the socio-political context in which it emerges. Second, the expression of the Populist phenomenon creates tensions towards the European community. Third, the expression of populism creates tensions within the country, resulting in social/domestic instability.
I will conclude that Populism itself is a phenomenon that evolves through time, therefore the definition of the term may also vary through time. In this current context, the model is efficient today although it might be so in the future