Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 1972, Graduate School

Committee: Not Provided (Other) Subjects:

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 1970, Graduate School

Committee: Not Provided (Other) Subjects:

Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, 1956, English

Committee: Norbert F. O'Donell (Advisor) Subjects: British and Irish Literature

Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, 1956, English

Committee: Norbert F. O'Donell (Advisor) Subjects: British and Irish Literature

Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA), Ohio University, 2018, Film

The thesis documents the creation of a short film, Hell is a Game Show, and situates the project in the intellectual heritage of filmmaking. It also examines past artistic representations of Hell, demonstrating how a new and original representation was created for the film.

Committee: Steven Ross (Advisor) Subjects: Art History; Film Studies

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2018, Germanic Languages and Literatures

In this MA thesis, I argue that the deal with the devil, as it manifests in 19th century German literary texts like Johann Wolfgang Goethe's Faust: Eine Tragodie, Gottfried Keller's Romeo und Julia auf dem Dorfe, and Theodor Storm's Der Schimmelreiter, negotiates the experience of modernity and mediates the experience thereof through offering moments of forgetting. Upon approaching modernity with help from Jurgen Habermas, Friedrich Nietzsche and Karl Marx, the thesis explores the existential importance of Gluck and forgetting according to Nietzsche's second Untimely Meditation, Vom Nutzen und Nachteil der Historie furs Leben. Subsequently, I posit that the deal with the devil, as an explicit component and, later on, implicit undercurrent of 19th century German texts, takes on the role of facilitator of moments of such forgetting. Goethe's masterpiece Faust lays the foundation for this conflux of developments, motifs, and experiences in the wager its protagonists strikes with the devil Mephistopheles and in the various escapades that take Faust out of the Gothic halls of the university to the changing feudal world, where he encounters his lover Gretchen. The experience of Gluck that he significantly does not seal with her drives him, first, away into the classical spheres of Greek Antiquity, where he cannot rest to be with Helen of Troy, and, second, into a proto-capitalist dam project through which he intends to atone for his failings with Gretchen and congeal the otherwise insubstantial forgetting. In Keller's Romeo und Julia auf dem Dorfe, the devilish Black Fiddler offers Sali and Vrenchen, the two losers of an unfolding modernity, the chance for a tainted forgetting, an offer they do not take. In Der Schimmelreiter, the deal with the devil materializes from the winning, bourgeois end to Hauke Haien, who builds a dam for purposes palpably similar to Faust's.

Committee: Robert Holub (Advisor); John Davidson (Committee Member) Subjects: Germanic Literature

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), University of Dayton, 2015, Theology

This dissertation considers two trajectories of Christian thought about human temptation after the first sin of Adam and Eve and about Christ's confrontation with the devil in his own temptation, focusing on the embodiment of these trajectories in the thought of Maximus the Confessor and Thomas Aquinas. The first of these trajectories sees fallen human temptation in the framework of an ascetic confrontation with the devil on the battlefield of the human mind, in thoughts and desires. The second of these trajectories see this temptation in the framework of a purely internal division between the flesh and the spirit, expressed as disordered concupiscence (“desire”) or the fomes peccati (the “tinder of sin”). Structurally, the work is divided into two sets of three chapters with an introduction and a conclusion. The introduction reviews modern denials of the devil's role in Christian theology, defends the place of the devil in Christian theology, considers recent work that relates to the dissertation's subject matter, and provides a detailed outline of the following chapters. Each set of three chapters (first on Maximus, then on Thomas) is organized according to: (1) sources for the central figure; (2) the anthropological framework for temptation in the thought of the figure; and (3) the Christological application of this framework. The author shows that both Maximus and Thomas conceive of Christ in his temptation as an empowering exemplar who takes on something of the punishment for Adam's sin in his own temptation by the devil. Though certain disjunctions appear between these thinkers in the course of the study, the conclusion offers constructive suggestions about ways in which the two trajectories might still be compatible. The conclusion also outlines areas for future historical and systematic research concerning Christian traditions of temptation and recommends a retrieval of the earlier trajectory of which Maximus forms a part.

Committee: Matthew Levering (Advisor); Paul Blowers (Committee Member); Gloria Dodd (Committee Member); Dennis Doyle (Committee Member); William Portier (Committee Member) Subjects: Divinity; Ethics; Middle Ages; Psychology; Religion; Theology

Bachelor of Arts (BA), Ohio University, 2015, English

Whether viewed as an attempt from a pious man to rationalize the acts of God or an exploration of free will, Milton's Paradise Lost has cycled through diverging, occasionally contradictory, readings since its publication nearly 400 years ago. A sizeable portion of the poem's complexity lies in the manner in which it chooses to depict God, who is split into the characters of The Father and The Son, and and the Devil. The most notorious figure in Milton's ouvre, Milton's Satan stands apart from former depictions of the Devil in its unapologetic identification with the fallen angel's goals and desires. This, paired with a God that is noticeably less merciful than is traditionally depicted, gives rise to unsettling questions regarding the nature of Christianity and the mind of a poet who would write such a work in a time when, even amongst growing heterodoxy, certain components of Christian faith were considered unshakable truths. The route that I have taken to solve this incongruity is to divorce the text from its source material and view it as something other than just an expression of religious devotion or theological study. Drawing extensively from Milton's life, historical predicament and political tracts, this reading views the text as an expression of political disillusionment, an examination of the act of revolt from a man who had passionately supported a doomed revolution.

Committee: Beth Quitslund (Advisor) Subjects: British and Irish Literature; Literature

MA, University of Cincinnati, 2014, Arts and Sciences: Germanic Languages and Literature

The early-modern period was a time of political, social, religious, and philosophical transitions. This thesis seeks to explore early-modern witchcraft within the framework of these transitions, using ecclesiastical treatises, contemporary art, witch trial transcripts, and literary depictions of witchcraft to ascertain the changing role of the devil in the early-modern conceptualization of witchcraft. At the beginning of this period, the devil was a ubiquitous and concrete presence in virtually all early-modern witchcraft discourse, whether textual or visual. As the period evolves, textual and visual representations develop nuances that reflect the changing philosophical and religious discourses. By the end of this period, texts and art indicate a spectrum of beliefs about the devil's role in witchcraft, from the concrete and dominant presence he had at the beginning of this period, through a middle-ground of equality with the witch in her/his apostasy, through to a growing disbelief in his corporeal existence or influence on human behavior. The images of the devil and witch during this period remain the dominant images of the devil and witch into and throughout the modern period.

Committee: Richard Schade Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Sigrun Haude Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Germanic Literature

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 1951, English

Committee: Ruth Hughey (Advisor) Subjects: