History and Classics PhD thesis collection
Recent Submissions
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Iconoclast imperial authority and its contested legacy: from the Arab siege (717/18) until the death of Michael III (867)
(The University of Edinburgh, 2021-07-31)The thesis studies the first two iconoclast Byzantine emperors, Leo III (r. 717-41) and his son Constantine V (r. 741-75), and their highly-contested legacy. It first revisits the evidence for the reigns of Leo III and ... -
Negotiating violence: public discourses about political violence in Interwar Britain and German
(The University of Edinburgh, 2021-07-31)This thesis analyses public discourses about political violence in interwar Britain and Germany. Much of the existing work on political violence in the aftermath of the First World War has focused on the defeated countries ... -
Emotional politics in the Iliad
(The University of Edinburgh, 2021-07-31)This thesis constitutes a systematic analysis of emotion’s role in Iliadic politics. I hereby argue that emotions, which the evidence of Homer’s Iliad reveals as shaping and shaped by communal norms, are constitutive ... -
Cross-confessional captivity in the Later Medieval Eastern Roman world, c.1280-1450
(The University of Edinburgh, 2021-07-31)Around the turn of the fourteenth century, a phenomenon distinct from the larger trans-regional Mediterranean slave trade emerged in the Aegean region: Turkish raiders took Greek Orthodox captive, keeping some as slaves ... -
Spiritual roles in early modern Scotland
(The University of Edinburgh, 2021-07-31)This thesis compares how Reformed conversion-centred spirituality was articulated in sermons, conversion narratives and witchcraft confessions, with a particular focus on looking at the broad similarities across these ... -
Anti-Catholicism and the Church of Scotland, c.1690–1745: confronting and contesting Popery
(The University of Edinburgh, 2021-07-31)This thesis examines anti-Catholicism in Scotland in the first half of the eighteenth century, with a particular focus on how the Presbyterian Church of Scotland perceived and responded to popery. ‘Popery’ was a ... -
Quo vadis? Epigraphy, language, and people in the making of Roman Italy
(The University of Edinburgh, 2021-07-31)This thesis offers a novel contribution to the debate on the so-called Romanisation of Italy in the republican period through discussion of one contemporary body of evidence in regard to one highly pertinent theme: the ... -
City of marble, a city of song: Roman monuments and the poetics of space in Ovidian poetry
(The University of Edinburgh, 2021-07-31)This thesis explores the interaction between place and poetry in Ovid’s poetic corpus. Throughout his works, the poet’s repeated depictions of Roman urban space and monumental architecture confirm the fundamental ... -
Black, black, beautiful black: the educational use of African American children’s literature in New York City, 1965-1979
(The University of Edinburgh, 2021-07-31)This thesis examines Black pride, Black history and Black memory in a renaissance of Black-authored US children’s books from 1965 to 1979. African American children’s books had a long history of furthering a Black ... -
Language and politics in the world of the Hellenistic Poleis: the evidence of inscriptions
(The University of Edinburgh, 2020-11-30)This dissertation examines the relationship between language and politics in the Hellenistic period, more specifically during the third and second centuries BC, with a particular focus on the shared political language ... -
Elite women and power in Late Medieval Scotland, 1296 to 1458.
(The University of Edinburgh, 2020-11-30)This thesis is a case study of elite women in late medieval Scotland, which contributes to the ongoing re-assessment of women and power in medieval Europe called the ‘Beyond Exceptionalism’ movement. The debate around ... -
Narrative agency of women accused of homicide: New York City and London, 1880-1914
(The University of Edinburgh, 2020-11-30)This thesis examines the role of narrative agency in the meaning-making process of cases of women accused of adult-victim homicides in New York City and London from 1880 to 1914. The place of women as perpetrators ... -
Eros, Euripides and a re-evaluation of Greek sexuality with particular reference to Alcestis, Andromache, Andromeda, Antigone and Helen
(The University of Edinburgh, 2020-11-30)Accounts of love and marriage in Euripidean tragedy have formed a consensus that eros never has positive effects, but leads only to misfortune (Greek eros means sexual longing and thus differs from the English ‘love’, which ... -
Roles of the Edinburgh, Kelso, and Newcastle dispensaries in charitable relief, 1776-1810
(The University of Edinburgh, 2020-07-26)This thesis explores late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century British charitable medical provision through a comparative study of the Edinburgh, Kelso, and Newcastle dispensaries. It is situated within historical ... -
Representations of the Northern Ireland 'Troubles' within the British media, 1973-1997
(The University of Edinburgh, 2020-06-26)This thesis investigates British media representations of the conflict in Northern Ireland between 1973 and 1997, and how these affected the lived experiences of the Irish in Britain over this period. The ‘Troubles’ ... -
Greek epic parody
(The University of Edinburgh, 2020-06-26)In this work, I will investigate the historical origins and the most essential features of Greek epic parody, a literary genre that has its roots in the archaic stages of Greek literature but that was formally codified in ... -
Language and identity amongst Irish migrants in London, Philadelphia and San Francisco, 1850-1920
(The University of Edinburgh, 2020-06-26)This thesis examines the Irish language in London, Philadelphia and San Francisco in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Exploring the ways in which Irish speakers used and maintained their language in the ... -
Muslim men in the imagination of the Medieval West, c. 1000 – c. 1250
(The University of Edinburgh, 2020-06-26)This thesis focuses on how Muslims, specifically men, were represented in terms of gender, ethnicity, and religion in the central Middle Ages. While the scope of the issue is wide, the focus is on the twelfth century, when ... -
British policy and the protection of minorities 1878-1939
(The University of Edinburgh, 2020-06-26)This thesis considers the question of the protection of vulnerable minority populations in the Ottoman Empire and in Europe, in the context of Britain’s role as a global manager of the international system. It addresses ... -
Ribemont-sur-Ancre, ritual practice, and northern Gallic sanctuaries from the third through first century B.C.
(The University of Edinburgh, 2020-06-26)The following thesis addresses the Iron Age origins and development of the northern Gallic sanctuary of Ribemont-sur-Ancre, exploring the material remains of ritual practice it provides in comparison with material ...
