Doctor of Philosophy, Case Western Reserve University, 2023, Art History

The Triumph of Death is a woefully understudied motif of late medieval art, almost completely overlooked in studies on medieval death imagery and culture. Scholarship on the Triumph of Death is scant and has favored an iconographic and stylistic approach to the subject. By framing the Triumph of Death within its cultural and socio-historical context, addressing literary associations with this motif, and studying its visual developments, this dissertation aims to provide a new insight into the medieval perception of the Triumph of Death imagery. In investigating a broad range of late medieval Italian Triumph of Death frescoes, and studying them through the lenses of gender, reception, and performance theories, my dissertation reveals that representations of personified Death as Mors triumphans (“Death in triumph”) are polysemic. Specifically, I explore the Triumph of Death imagery in relation to four major themes: epidemic disease, courtly love, female personifications of Death in monastic sites, and the vernacular culture of lay brotherhoods of flagellants.

Committee: Elina Gertsman (Committee Chair); David Rothenberg (Committee Member); Gerhard Lutz (Committee Member); Elizabeth Bolman (Committee Member) Subjects: Art History; Middle Ages

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2021, History of Art

The Ebstorf Cloth was an embroidery of the Mystic Hunt made by a nun in Ebstorf Covent in Germany in 1475. The embroidery was used as an altar cloth, in particular to hold the Missal during Mass. The visual and theological density of the Mystic Hunt allegory—in which the Annunciation is staged as a unicorn hunt—is a fitting analogy for the experience of enclosed life. Contemporary monastic reform and construction at Ebstorf reinforced enclosure, bringing new nuances to the nun's understanding of the Virgin in the gated garden motif. The pair of Virgin Mary and Gabriel also emphasize the mutability priest and nun during the aural exchange of the Mass, in which nun's works of art and music served an integral role in the Eucharistic Liturgy.

Committee: Karl Whittington PhD (Advisor); Christian Kleinbub PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Art History

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2020, English

This dissertation considers references to soil in the work of Renaissance English poet Edmund Spenser, arguing that Spenser uses soil in his work to reflect upon issues of interpretation, representation, and allegory. Examining The Shepheardes Calender, A View of the State of Ireland, and Book I of The Faerie Queene, I argue that soil in Spenser's work is neither simply a metaphor nor simply a reference to the real world environment of Renaissance England. Rather, it embodies a complex and shifting signification that reflects the broad range of influences on Spenser's life: humanist training, the English efforts to colonize Ireland, and the overlapping discourses of Protestantism and English nationalism. Because these varying and at times contradictory discourses all used references to and metaphors of soil, soil, I argue, became for Spenser a useful way of exploring how meaning is assigned, navigated, and understood, especially in instances where there are conflicting influences upon the creation of meaning. I argue that soil's ability to call attention to the processes of meaning-making and interpretation have important implications for a range of Spenserian topics, not least of them being the nature of allegory. But I also argue that Spenser's use of soil has implications more broadly for how the nonhuman world of the Renaissance is understood. Ultimately, I argue that Spenser—and, by extension, the Renaissance more broadly—requires a different way of thinking about the environment than is commonplace in ecocriticism and contemporary culture today, a way that is alert to the Renaissance's mutually constitution of the “literary” and the “real.”

Committee: Alan Farmer (Committee Chair); Sarah Neville (Committee Member); Hannibal Hamlin (Committee Member); Luke Wilson (Committee Member) Subjects: Literature

PHD, Kent State University, 2018, College of Education, Health and Human Services / School of Teaching, Learning and Curriculum Studies

My dissertation joins a vibrant conversation with James G. Henderson and colleagues, curriculum workers involved with leadership envisioned and embodied in his Collegial Curriculum Leadership Process (CCLP). Their work, “embedded in dynamic, open-ended folding, is a recursive, multiphased process supporting educators with a particular vocational calling” (Henderson, 2017). The four key Deleuzian “folds” of the process explore “awakening” to become lead professionals for democratic ways of living, cultivating repertoires for a diversified, holistic pedagogy, engaging in critical self-examinations and critically appraising their professional artistry. In “reactivating” the lived experiences, scholarship, writing and vocational calling of a brilliant Greek and Latin scholar named Marya Barlowski, meanings will be constructed as engendered through biographical narrative and currere case study. Grounded in the curriculum leadership “map,” she represents an allegorical presence in the narrative. Allegory has always been connected to awakening, and awakening is a precursor for capacity-building. The research design (the precise way in which to study this `problem') will be a combination of historical narrative and currere. This collecting and constructing of Her story speaks to how the vision of leadership isn't completely new – threads of it are tied to the past. Her intrinsic motivational indicators as relevant to curriculum leadership will be described and analyzed through her lived experiences, scholarship and writing that all pointed towards her vocational calling.

Committee: James Henderson Dr. (Committee Chair) Subjects: Curricula; Curriculum Development; Education History

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2017, English

Scholars often frame allegory as if it were tied to stable signifiers (i.e. white as purity) and therefore insulated from material concerns. I argue, however, that allegorical clothing is always-already material. That is, it is necessarily tied to material concerns either with respect to fashion or status, and therefore all allegorical costume should be seen as a comment on contemporary material culture. In order to make this argument, this dissertation tracks allegorical costume in English poetry from Langland to Spenser. Starting in the 14th century, there was a rapid expansion of access to and variety in fashion, and there was an increased awareness that identity could be donned and therefore bought and sold. This troubled contemporary moralists, who struggled to define how clothing worked in the public sphere, and it troubled allegorical poets, who struggled to apply stable literary markers in a shifting discursive field. Because allegory is only able to signify through a shared contemporary discourse, I thus argue that fashion both disrupted the discursive field around dress and destabilized allegorical imagery. Chapter 1 examines William Langland's Piers Plowman and The Book of Margery Kempe to see how allegorical conventions conflict with the way characters read each other's clothing, and how the access to power and institutional backing allows certain characters to define how their clothing is read. Chapter 2 explores the rise of the morality play by perusing The Castle of Perseverance, Mankind, and Hyckescorner. While, morality plays are often assumed to be heavy handed lectures that impose categorical imperatives on their audience members, this chapter shows that English morality plays are inescapably material. Even though their structure remains consistent, their descriptions and staging of righteousness shifts along with East Anglian politics. Chapter 3 compares Skelton's Bowge of Court to his one surviving morality play, Magnyfycence. While both are (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Ethan Knapp (Committee Chair); Hannibal Hamlin (Committee Co-Chair); Sarah-Grace Heller (Committee Member) Subjects: Literature; Medieval Literature; Middle Ages

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2017, English

Modes of the Flesh considers the ways that literary form—mode, in particular—shapes the representation of the human body in British literature from approximately 1660-1800. Focusing on the allegorical, satirical, pornographic, and gothic modes, this project aims to expand our conception of literary embodiment, establish the represented body as a formal element, and make embodiment central to our understanding of the textual representation of human beings. Because modally-inflected literary bodies engage the same kinds of ontological and epistemological questions entertained by this period's empiricist philosophy, I argue that mode offers its own kind of philosophy of the body. But, because modal bodies engage these questions with a very different set of tools, the results are often provocatively at odds with mainstream philosophical discourse. Existing scholarship on the literary body tends either to analyze the way a body is represented in order to better understand the work's themes or meanings, or to argue that the way a body is represented reflects historical or theoretical models of embodiment. This dissertation differs from the first tendency by offering a theory of the represented body, and therefore taking the body as an object, not an instrument, of study. It diverges from the second tendency by arguing that the way bodies are presented in literature has as much to do with the kind of text they appear in as with scientific, theological, social, or other extra-literary understandings of the body. In each chapter, I focus on a significant mode of Restoration and eighteenth-century literature, and a particular aspect of literary embodiment. The first chapter, on the allegorical mode and bodily matter, thinks about the function of materiality in a mode commonly associated with abstraction and interpretation. The second chapter, which considers the satirical mode and bodily form, explores the role of abstract form in satirical conceptions of personhood an (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Sandra Macpherson (Advisor); David Brewer (Committee Member); Robyn Warhol (Committee Member) Subjects: British and Irish Literature; Literature

MARCH, University of Cincinnati, 2015, Design, Architecture, Art and Planning: Architecture

The sky, earth, and horizon are always with us from our earliest memories: indeed it is impossible to imagine a time or an experience without them. But it is this very proximity that has come to betray us. Further, with the rise of urban dwelling and the concomitant estrangement with the natural condition, people today are not able to appreciate these elemental forces the way they once could. This has contributed to an impoverished understanding of the natural environment.

Committee: Aarati Kanekar Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Michael McInturf M.Arch. (Committee Member) Subjects: Architecture

Master of Arts in English, Youngstown State University, 2014, Department of Languages

Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene exhibits a complex array of detail that cannot be overlooked, from the description of Red Crosse Knight and Error to the successful completion of his quest for holiness. My thesis will carefully examine Book 1, with the most attention given to Cantos 1, 2, and 11. Within these sections, a solid foundation is established, and the other cantos rest heavily on this groundwork. More significantly, answers to the following queries will be revealed both through my lens of interpretation as well as relying on other scholar's previous work: What does the encounter between Red Crosse Knight and Error represent, and how does it denounce the Catholic Church? What were the reasons for Spenser's decision to use medieval diction and a variety of character names from several languages within his work? Who, aside from Sidney, were the other writers that inspired Spenser's epic, and in turn, what knowledge did Spenser gain from each of their works? How does the encounter between Red Crosse Knight and the dragon compare to the temptation of Jesus in the desert, and why is this event integral to the epic? Finally, how does the epic both "delight and teach" readers, to quote Sidney, and what are the means/conventions used to accomplish this task?

Committee: Corey Andrews Ph.D. (Advisor); Rebecca Barnhouse Ph.D. (Committee Member); Philip Brady Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Literature

Master of Arts (MA), Wright State University, 2011, English

Set in 1888-9, this historical fiction narrative chronicles the events leading up to, and following the Martin brothers' failed quest for vengeance. The brothers work as mercenaries for a Plains sheriff before being sent into exile. They eventually part ways and each of them spirals into their own brand of madness.

Committee: Erin Flanagan PhD (Committee Chair); Nancy Mack PhD (Committee Member); Scott Geisel MA (Committee Member) Subjects: Literature

MARCH, University of Cincinnati, 2008, Design, Architecture, Art and Planning : Architecture

Architecture often exists in the public sphere, although it is actually the desires of few forced upon many. Rosalyn Deutsche theorizes that democracy and thus pluralism are necessary for the public sphere to exist. How can architecture position itself within this contradiction? By valuing the creative readings, rereadings, writings and rewritings of the user at the same level as the architects, pluralism can be encouraged (a mental pluralism). According to Marx, creative production is essential to the ontological sense of being yet it has been lost for many. By exploring the result of a shifted paradigm from that of encouraging creative physical occupation to the fostering of a creative mental use, architecture can negotiate its boundaries in the advanced capitalist society. This thesis proposes an architecture that values creative mental use, and explores the possibilities of achieving such through seven methods: Void/Gap, Montage/Fragmentation/Juxtaposition, Allegorical, Arbitrary/Ambiguous, Indexical, Self-Reference, and the Heterotopic.

Committee: Vincent Sansalone (Committee Chair); Rebecca Williamson (Committee Member) Subjects: Architecture

Bachelor of Arts (BA), Ohio University, 2011, English

The role played by the sun in Dante's Commedia is an intriguing one. The Poet associates the planet (the sun was considered a planet in Dante's time) with notions of salvation, intellect, and divinity, and yet a deep examination of Dante's allegorical scheme reveals that the sun also serves a deeper purpose in helping readers understand the Poem's overall allegorical and linguistic structure. The sun begins in the first two sections of the poem as a signifier, but is superseded as a symbol for divinity by divinity itself in the final canticle of Paradiso. As a work of spiritual allegory, the Commedia strives toward revelation of spiritual truths through parable and fictional narrative; as a symbol for God, the sun illuminates the world with intellect and hope. Yet when Dante-pilgrim passes into the world of the divine, God assumes the same role filled by the sun in the previous canticles; he fills the entire cosmos with intellect and hope. Through careful consideration of how the allegorical significance of the sun changes, this thesis reveals the ways in which the Poet points readers toward the spiritual truths underlying his allegorical constructions, ultimately declaring that spiritual instruction reaches fullest fruition in salvation and realization of Paradise.

Committee: Marsha Dutton PhD. (Advisor); Jeremy Webster PhD (Other); Carey Snyder PhD (Other) Subjects: Literature

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2012, English

This study develops a critical method for reading the vernacular frame narratives of Chaucer, Gower, and Lydgate based on the grammar-school commentaries that taught them classical rhetoric, philology, and history. In the course of developing this method, I answer the following questions: why do the school texts and vernacular works exist in the same format? Why is it that Christian writers appropriate the structuring principles of Ovid's pagan Metamorphoses for their works? Furthermore, what inspired England's obsession with Ovidian narrative structure during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries? Chaucer, Gower, and Lydgate, to name just a few, participated in this Ovidian vogue—attempting to capture the Roman's sinister and playful voice and, more specifically, to master the frame-narrative device that gave it critical direction. Seeing Ovid's collection of pagan myths as a cohesive and continuous poem, medieval commentators uncovered an argument about abuses of power. Vernacular writers adopted this approach to Ovid, interpreting his work as a model for literary navigation in a historically turbulent period. I hereby alter the assumption that medieval writers mined classical literature merely as sources for their compilations of exempla with which to practice moralizing strategies. Chaucer, Gower, Lydgate, and their literate contemporaries would have learned in school that the Metamorphoses was a text replete with masterful grammar, syntax, and rhetoric—but also with drama, subversion, and political intrigue. Schoolmasters generated an affinity for the Metamorphoses by emphasizing how Ovid the exile depicted a corrupt empire that maintained its dominance by removing discordant subjects; and these instructors showed that Ovid represented such hegemonic abuses by repeatedly relaying myths in which outliers are physically transformed in order to silence them. Thus the peculiar character of medieval education, which achieved literacy through the reading of non-Chr (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Professor Lisa J. Kiser PhD (Committee Chair); Professor Frank T. Coulson PhD (Committee Member); Professor Ethan Knapp PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Literature; Middle Ages