BA, Oberlin College, 2019, History

Echo epidemics would sweep through Europe well into the eighteenth century, yet none would parallel the terror and drama particular to the Black Death (1348-1351), nor would they inflict as violent an injury upon paradigms of historical writing. This thesis explores and evaluates how the Black Death affected medieval historical narrative.

Committee: Ellen Wurtzel (Advisor) Subjects: Epidemiology; European History; Health; History; Medicine; Medieval History; Medieval Literature; Middle Ages

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

MA, Kent State University, 2021, College of the Arts / School of Art

The aim of this thesis is to offer alternative approaches and solutions of the Italian Medieval artists and contemporaries in response to the catastrophic Black Death. As opposed to the pessimistic views of the time, which are largely the only responses considered, I offer benevolent approaches, displaying contemporaries' positive and effective steps toward faith, religion, morality, and ultimately, salvation. First, I align my views with those of Millard Meiss in his celebrated book, Painting in Florence and Siena after the Black Death, in the tracing of a stylistic change following the epidemic. I continue to offer alternative approaches through the analysis of plague imagery, which calls upon saints and holy figures for divine intervention and celestial protection from the Black Death. The reappropriation of traditional icons such as Saint Sebastian and the Madonna della Misericordia, as well as the new invention and veneration of San Rocco in the late fifteenth century serve as a means of moving toward their faith and redemption. The final response this thesis offers is a piece of literature, Giovanni Boccaccio's Decameron. Throughout the Decameron, Boccaccio offers a map of morality of sorts to his readers, while also leaving the one hundred stories open for interpretation, allowing the readers to decide for themselves, which behaviors and characters are to be emulated and which are to be avoided.

Committee: Gustav Medicus Ph. D (Advisor); Kristin Stasiowski Ph. D (Committee Chair) Subjects: Art History

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Bowling Green State University, 2021, American Culture Studies

From 1981-1996, the United States experienced an epidemic of human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) that held profound implications for issues ranging from civil rights, public education, and sexual mores, to government accountability, public health, and expressions of heterosexism. Popular comic books that broached the subject of HIV/AIDS during the U.S. epidemic elucidate how America's discourse on the disease evolved in an era when elected officials, religious leaders, legal professionals, medical specialists, and average citizens all struggled to negotiate their way through a period of national crisis. The manner whereby comic book authors, illustrators, and publishers engaged the topic of HIV/AIDS changed over time but, because comic books are an item of popular culture primarily produced for a heterosexual male audience, such changes habitually mirrored the evolution of the nation's mainstream, heteronormative debates regarding the epidemic and its sociocultural and political implications. Through studying depictions of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in popular comic books, alterations in the heterocentric, national discourse emerge revealing how homophobic dismissals of the “gay plague” in the early 1980s gave way to heterosexual panic in the mid-1980s, followed by the epidemic's reinterpretation as a national tragedy in the late-1980s. Ultimately, this study uncovers how, in the early 1990s, HIV/AIDS awareness became a national cause celebre and a fad effectively commoditized by the economic forces of American popular culture until its novelty waned when the epidemic phase of the U.S. HIV/AIDS crisis drew to a close in the mid-1990s. Throughout, representations of HIV/AIDS in popular American comic books show how comic book creators sought to elevate their medium beyond the confines of its perceived juvenile trappings by exploring topical and controversial material that would appeal to the expanding market of adult buyers that blos (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Jeffery Brown (Advisor); William Albertini (Committee Member); Timothy Messer-Kruse (Committee Member); Michael Decker (Other) Subjects: American History; American Literature; American Studies; Mass Media; Public Health

Master of Arts (MA), Ohio University, 2020, Art History (Fine Arts)

The Scuola Grande di San Rocco, founded in 1478 in Venice, possessed the relics of the plague saint, Roch, which were housed in the confraternity's adjacent church. In 1564 Jacopo Tintoretto won a competition to decorate the ceiling of the Albergo (meeting room of the scuola's governing board), completing the work that year with a depiction of Saint Roch in Glory surrounded by representations of other scuole grandi and allegories of virtues and the seasons. The artist was then commissioned to paint the walls, which he finished in 1567 with scenes from the Passion of Christ. Tintoretto returned eight years later at the beginning of the devastating plague of 1575-76 to paint the Sala Superiore—the chapter room (Sala Capitolare), where the membership met as a group (completed in 1581). The thesis focuses on the paintings Tintoretto executed in the Albergo and Sala Superiore, with particular attention given to the three main ceiling paintings of the Sala Superiore, The Brazen Serpent, Moses Drawing Water from the Rock, and The Fall of Manna. Together, these works communicate the transformative power of the Eucharist and the mission of the confraternity to aid the citizens of a city whose far-flung sea trade made it vulnerable to outbreaks of the plague. The prominent location of the paintings and their significance to the role of the confraternity in providing charity are explored in relation to healing power of Christ, whose physical presence was manifest at the Eucharist, and the intervention of Saint Roch (and his relics, physically present nearby). The thesis concludes with an examination of the significance of Tintoretto's The Brazen Serpent and Albergo Passion scenes for the wall paintings of the staircase: Saint Roch Invoked Against the Plague (1666) by Antonio Zanchi (1631-1722) and Venice Granted Termination of the Plague (1673) by Pietro Negri (1628-79), both painted in commemoration of the Virgin's intervention in ending the plague that swept the city in 16 (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Marilyn Bradshaw Ph.D. (Advisor) Subjects: Art History; Bible; Medicine; Religious History

MA, Kent State University, 2020, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of Philosophy

In this thesis, I argue that there is a metaphysical shift in Albert Camus's philosophy which allows him to build an ethics of revolt in his later work out of his earlier, individual-focused account of absurdism. Against Herbert Hochberg and other scholars who argue that Camus's later work is inconsistent with his earlier work, this thesis tracks the progression of Camus's thought in order to demonstrate that his ethics does not constitute a rupture with his past work but a consistent evolution of it. First dealing with the problem of suicide covered in the Sisyphean cycle, the thesis goes on to examine the ethics of rebellion in the Promethean cycle and concludes with a speculative consideration of the third, incomplete cycle on love. Taken together, these chapters show that the consistent evolution of Camus's absurdism argues the reaction to the absurd that one ought to have is that of agape: the recognition of humanity's innate power to create value as a transcendental structure of consciousness.

Committee: Benjamin Berger (Advisor) Subjects: Philosophy

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2019, History

During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the Ottoman state sought to exploit Iraq's natural resources and address its ecological vulnerabilities as part of a broader effort at modernization. In doing so, it was informed by an “environmental imaginary” of Iraq's supposed environmental decline when compared to its perceived past prosperity. That fact, along with Iraq's frontier dynamics, incentivized an already expanding and growing Ottoman government to further solidify its rule in the region through a set of imperial policies aimed at effective environmental management. This dissertation examines this development as it unfolded between the years 1831 and 1909, a period in Ottoman history characterized by rapid government expansion and the state's use of modern forms of governmentality. It draws on an array of Ottoman, British, and French archival sources to demonstrate how irrigation, flood control projects, epidemics, provisioning operations, cash crop cultivation, and climate irregularities all shaped Ottoman imperial policy in Iraq in previously unappreciated ways. Ultimately, this dissertation suggests that, in the Iraqi frontier, late Ottoman state building was a symbiotic process informed by central government priorities and on-the-ground environmental realities.

Committee: Carter Findley (Advisor); Jane Hathaway (Committee Member); Scott Levi (Committee Member); Sam White (Committee Member) Subjects: Environmental Studies; History

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 1957, Graduate School

Committee: Not Provided (Other) Subjects: Biology

Master of Arts in English, Cleveland State University, 2016, College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences

Giovanni Boccaccio was a contemporary witness to the effects of the Black Death pandemic, the Yersinia pestis bacterial pandemic in Europe between the years 1346-53, causing 75 million to 200 million deaths across the continent alone. In The Decameron, Boccaccio depicts the outbreak's high-mortality rates and how that was a catalyst for many social and cultural changes within fourteenth-century Europe. He also goes on to portray the devastating effects of death on, not only the physical bodies of people and animals, but also on their mental, emotional, and spiritual states, and how this accelerated their acceptance of the rising merchant mentality of more utilitarian values. While some critics interpret depictions of the plague within The Decameron, others argue that Boccaccio's merchant portrayals are more favorable than in previous literature. But overall, critics do little to link the plague to the positive change in society's acceptance of these merchants and tradesmen. The Decameron, through its one-hundred tales told over the course of a ten-day adventure, taken by seven young ladies and three young men, presents the reader with examples of pre, during, and post plague societal perceptions and norms. The framework of the Decameron serves to show the drastic cultural shifts occurring, in part due to the pestilence, that further spur forward the acceptance of this rising merchant class in society.

Committee: Rachel Carnell PhD (Committee Chair); Jeff Karem PhD (Committee Member); Gary Dyer PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: European History; European Studies; History; Language Arts; Literature; Medieval History; Medieval Literature; Middle Ages

Master of Arts in History, Youngstown State University, 2010, Department of Humanities

The bubonic plague arrived in San Francisco in 1900 during the third pandemic of the disease. After infiltrating the local rat population, the plague quickly spread to the Chinese region of the city known as Chinatown. Mainstream society blamed the Chinese for bringing the disease to America, but the reason why the plague was prevalent in this area was the unsanitary, overcrowded living conditions that existed here. The fact that the disease was believed to be “Asiatic” in nature had much to do with the pre-existing anti-Chinese attitudes that were present in the United States. These negative attitudes had been widespread since the Chinese began immigrating to the United States in large numbers following the discovery of gold in California in 1848. Mainstream society's reaction to the bubonic plague was not all that shocking. In fact, given the relationship that existed between Chinese Americans and the general population in San Francisco at the time, it was not surprising that the Chinese were targeted during the two epidemics, especially the first epidemic which lasted from 1900-04. By utilizing personal letters, telegrams, speeches, political cartoons, and government documents the author will examine the mindset that existed prior to the plague's arrival. Conversations between Walter Wyman, the Surgeon General, and Joseph Kinyoun, the director of laboratory hygiene within the U.S. Marine Hospital Service, will help prove that the plague merely heightened pre-existing anti-Chinese sentiment. The author concludes that the Chinese were subjected to discrimination during the epidemic because they had experienced the same treatment prior to the plague's arrival.

Committee: Brian Bonhomme PhD (Advisor); Martha Pallante PhD (Committee Member); Daniel Ayana PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Epidemiology; History

Bachelor of Arts, Miami University, 2006, College of Arts and Sciences - Philosophy

Reading Don DeLillo and Dave Eggers one feels the strong impression that nothing matters. Using White Noise and You Shall Know Our Velocity as starting points I examine where this impression comes from and what it implies. Next I explore the question of whether life could be worth living in such a situation and what a worthwhile life would look like using Camus' works The Myth of Sisyphus and The Stranger. Finally I examine The Rebel and The Plague to determine whether humanism is still possible given the picture painted in the above works. Ultimately I conclude that it is still possible to care about the suffering of others.

Committee: Elaine Miller (Advisor) Subjects:

Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, 2009, Art/Art History

The focus of my thesis is on the diseased body in early modern Italy. The population of Europe was decimated by plague epidemics, especially during the fourteenth through seventeenth centuries. Epidemics were considered to be a punishment from God for the sins of a society who failed to follow proscribed religious teachings. This notion was compounded by the lack of scientific knowledge regarding the etiology and appropriate treatment for this disease, as well as for a more modern disease: HIV/AIDS. The plague-afflicted were stigmatized by their diseased body and humiliated through the implementation of extreme public health measures designed, erroneously, to contain and halt the spread of the disease. The victim was ostracized from society and abandoned by family, religious and medical communities. Especially during catastrophic times, people prayed to saints: prayers were said to stave off disease or to affect a miraculous cure. The beholder entered into a visual relationship with the image of the saint and the saint acted as an intercessor. While scholars agree that the sense of sight was privileged over others, I argue that for some plague-afflicted individuals, tactile sensation was more important and efficacious than sight. The plague-afflicted victim was stripped of dignity and control over his body; the corporeal application of a saintly image provided the victim with a locus of control and served as the motivating factor to regain control of his life, to be able to die a good death, and perhaps, to affect a miraculous cure.

Committee: Allison Terry PhD (Advisor); Rebecca Green PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Art History