Thesiss

This study examines the laws concerning divination and sorcery which are found in the three major law codes of the Pentateuch, with the goal of shedding fresh light on why there are forbidden to Israel, and how the teaching concerning these practices is related to the overall th…

This dissertation examines the quixotic attempt of the Jesuit scholar Athanasius Kircher (1601/2–1680) to decipher Egyptian hieroglyphs. Kircher's hieroglyphic studies are best understood as the offspring of an encounter between Renaissance occult philosophy and antiquarianism, …

For centuries, the practice of tarot has been shrouded in mystery and superstition. As time went on and advancements in science and technology were made, so expanded our understanding of the world around us. Historians generally agree that tarot did not start out as a tool of di…

Sixteenth-century Italy is rich in considerations on the frightening power of song and women’s voices. Looking back to classical sources on sirens, enchantresses, and the power of the ancient modes; consolidating ideas about the body and the world in the burgeoning field of natu…

My research on Victor Brauner’s work in the first two decades of his affiliation with the Surrealist group in Paris re-establishes the role played by the Romanian Jewish artist in the definition of automatic Surrealist procedures of painting and mixed-technique objects that reli…

This dissertation is an initial attempt to historically contextualize the Ottoman alchemical literature and those who produced it. Starting in the late fifteenth century, the Islamic tradition of alchemy was transmitted and vernacularized by learned Rumis who would make signific…