This study explores the role of the assassination of President James Abram Garfield and the midterm election of 1882 in compelling the 47 th Congress to pass the Pendleton Civil Service Act in January 1883. Relying on the manuscript collections of major Gilded Age political figu…
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South Africa has a ruling dominant party, the African National Congress (ANC), which has been in power since apartheid ended in 1994. In national elections, the ANC has consistently received an overwhelming majority of the vote, even though the majority of South Africa's citizen…
The contemporary Iranian art market has been garnering great interest and gaining momentum since the 1990s, and by the time auction houses started to hold major contemporary Middle Eastern art sales in the mid-2000s, Iranian artwork had begun to blossom into a viable and dynamic…
This thesis will explore the concept of the patrimonial foundation of art in the Ottoman Empire and the relationship between the poet and patron by first examining the historical context to these phenomena. While discussing the notion of patronage, one of the significant questio…
In contrasting the political trajectories of two post-Soviet Central Asian states this study addresses one of the defining questions of political science: what factors shape regime change? Despite their shared seven decades of Soviet rule, Kazakhstan has, since communism's colla…
The goal of this dissertation is to engage in a comprehensive and systematic examination of the writings of Ignatius of Antioch on the subject of episcopal leadership. Working on the premise that the episcopacy is both an historical and a social phenomenon in the early church th…
From Mussolini to Mao, from Kim Il Sung to Saddam, leader cults have been a staple feature of twentieth-century authoritarian politics. This dissertation examines the cult of Joseph Stalin from its inception in December 1929, the date of Stalin's fiftieth birthday, to his death …
This dissertation is an examination of Queen Melisende's piety, power, and patronage in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem of the twelfth century. The principal sources used to assess her reign are William of Tyre's A History of the Deeds Done Beyond the Sea and the royal charters i…
Since the Roman arch monument came into use some 2,200 years ago, it has been subject to an increasingly narrow range of interpretations. This dissertation aims to reveal the monument's original significance, which has become obscured by a steadfast triumphalist reading. Most an…
Understanding the dynamics of regimes that combine the external trappings of democracy with the substance of authoritarian rule is a central puzzle facing comparative political scientists. Thus far, much of the literature addressing hybrid regimes has focused on the importance o…
Much attention has been paid to the religious practices and ideas of early Christianity. A fuller and more accurate picture of this religious community can be had by paying close attention to social values and behavior. One area in which Jesus and his followers taught substantia…
Since the Islamic Revolution, parastatal organizations have emerged as powerful economic actors in Iran. Vested initially with much of the expropriated wealth of the former elite, these institutions were intended to provide charitable assistance to politically favored strata, in…
In the late-fourth century of the Roman empire, the province of Cappadocia housed a population of persons from diverse cultural and religious backgrounds. While other studies have emphasized the "christianization" of eastern Rome, this dissertation examines the manner through wh…
This dissertation examines architectural patronage under the third Egyptian Fatimid caliph, al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah (r. 386-411/996-1021). The reign of this "psychotic" ruler represents a controversial, yet pivotal moment in the history of sectarian relations in the Islamic world.…
Sayf al-Din Tankiz al-Nasiri governed the province of Syria during the reign of sultan al-Nasir Muhammad Ibn Qalawun, one of the best documented and most productive periods for architecture in the Mamluk era. His unusually long tenure, from 1312-1340, allowed him to give sustain…
This dissertation will focus on a unique album (Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Codex Mixtus 313) created in the sixteenth-century for one of the greatest Ottoman bibliophiles, Sultan Murad III (r. 1574-95). The album includes miniature paintings and figural drawings…
