Thesiss

Şarki is a song type well known today as the representative genre of light classical Turkish music performed in the urban popular culture of Istanbul. Contemporary Turkish musicologists and literary critics, however, give greater significance to this genre by suggesting that şar…

'A treatise of algebra historical and practical' (London 1685) by John Wallis (1616-1703) was the first full length history of algebra. In four hundred pages Wallis explored the development of algebra from its appearances in Classical, Islamic and medieval cultures to the modern…

This thesis offers a theoretical investigation into concepts of beauty, the sculptured body and myths of Venus and Medusa, primarily through the works of Igor Mitoraj and Marc Quinn. These themes are transformed and inverted in the Looking-glass towards the trans-body, which is …

This dissertation is a study of the liturgical music of the Pusti Marg (Vallabh Sampraday), a Vaisnava tradition which began in the 16th-century in the region of Braj. I present a detailed ethnography of the way in which k irtan-s (devotional songs) are used in ritual throughout…

The principal focus of the dissertation is ritual and the understanding of the human proclivity for control in a chaotic world. This proclivity resonates not only in the cults and sacred places of the Hellenistic-Roman world but distinguishes the very essence of humanity in term…

This dissertation considers the various treatments of the Persian Wars (490; 480-479 B.C.) as they appear in different poetic genres in Greece during the Classical period. Chapter One treats the lyric and elegiac accounts of Simonides and Pindar, who were among the first to comp…

Improvisation is an art form which has arguably been present since the existence of music itself. Inventing music on the spot, like spontaneous speech, is a common expression of artistry throughout history and across musical boundaries. While improvisation has maintained its imp…

Images of virgins in either marital or religious contexts bear reticent and symbolic comparisons to sacrifice in Classical Greek vase painting. Following sociological and structuralist definitions of sacrifice, sacrificial ritual contains a symbolic system of gestures. In the ca…

This dissertation research paper will be an examination of a number of prominent Black composers in the Classical music genre and their influences and contributions to the Classical music violin literature. The overall intent of the paper is to act as an additional resource for …

This thesis develops a conceptual framework for understanding the relevance of beauty in the spiritual formation of contemporary high school students, and then this thesis surveys some practical applications of that framework. Chapter 2 defends the objectivity of beauty as neces…

For the past century scholars have been studying privacy and the private sphere in the context of many societies. Surprisingly, no scholar has yet undertaken a comprehensive study of privacy as manifest in Islam. In this dissertation I argue that Muslim scholars had a notion of …

A new method for teaching traditional Arabic violin teaching was developed by combining a distinct Arabic style with Western notation. Every aspect of the style has been explained, notated and recorded so that the violinist can effectively perform the repertoire that has been in…

This dissertation concerns the subject of organic unity in classical Arabic poetry. While this issue is not new in discussions of Arabic literature--since the nineteenth century Western and Arab critics have been attacking the classical Arabic poem for its alleged lack of cohere…