History / English

During the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries in Spain, Jews, Muslims, and "conversos" would find themselves in quite often unstable and often dangerous circumstances that would threaten not only life and property but the very nature of faith. While there is no easy answer to the root cause of Christian oppression of Jews, contemporary firebrand mendicant preaching bears considerable culpability in the social and economic upheaval caused by the violence and sanctions against Jews and those forcibly converted to Christianity.

The "Long Twelfth Century" was the period between around 1100 and 1250 which, contrary to popular modern belief, was an era of rapid social, artistic, and technological advancement which has been often unfairly perceived by the modern era as brutish, unsophisticated, and indicative of the word "medieval.”

One of the world's greatest architectural and artistic achievements, the Hagia Sophia was first constructed as the Great Church in the fourth century. However, it would be lost to arson as a response to the exile of John Chrysostom, the Archbishop of Constantinople. The second church to occupy the site at the beginning of the fifth century would stand for a century before becoming one of the many casualties of the Nika Riots in 532. The third church, constructed by Justinian I in the sixth century, would endure many of its own misfortunes during its long and storied history as it changed hands many times between Christians and Muslims but would become one of the most enduring and recognizable examples of Byzantine architecture still in existence. However, the identity of the Hagia Sophia has fallen into question just as many aspects of the beautiful and venerable building have fallen into disrepair.

Thomas More's short but powerful book, Utopia, was one of several notable humanist works by contemporary theologians and philosophers that were perhaps more indicative of the time that they were written more so than of a literary movement concurrent with the evolution of art and music during the Renaissance. When the European world was introduced to the printing press around 1450, the public that was previously starved of literature written in the vernacular developed a ravenous appetite for new words and ideas that became available seemingly overnight. But so too was post-Medieval, pre-Industrial Europe starved for the new ways of thinking and believing that the new books brought to them; ironically, many would simply retool old words into a new context. But for a Europe meshed together by a thousand years of wars, the spread of Christianity, and maintaining the authority of tradition, even old words and ideas would find a new identity in ethics and humanism.

Since 146 B.C.E. when the Roman general Mummius razed the city of Corinth and pillaged its treasures, Greece was ruled under the banner of Rome.  Such was the devastation of Corinth that the remnants of the formally great city laid deserted for a century.  However, as the Athenians were largely unaffected by the shift of power, life continued as usual until late 87 B.C.E. when another Roman general, Sulla, laid siege to Athens.  Although the walls of Athens stood firm for months against the invaders the Athenians gradually grew more desperate for food as Sulla had cut off lines of supply and bottled the port of Piraeus, and they were reduced to eating boiled shoe leather.  Sulla’s conquest of Athens was not confined to its people and he despoiled not only the temples of Epidaurus, Olympia and Delphi to fund the campaign but also leveled the surrounding forests for materials to build his siege engines, including the sacred grove of olive trees dedicated to Athena.

The event that had brought the Romans to Iberia had begun the previous year after Hannibal, arguably one of the greatest military commanders in history, lay siege to the hill town of Saguntum, a bustling city of several thousand inhabitants that boasted a prosperous port that enjoyed trade with numerous Greek and Phoenician cities on the coast of the Mediterranean. Although a treaty had been signed with Rome by Hannibal’s brother-in-law Hasdrubal the Fair in 226 B.C.E. which recognized Carthaginian control of the lands in the Iberian Peninsula south of the Ebro river, no reason seems to have been given for the action; according to Titus Livius in book twenty-one of his monumental work, History of Rome (Ab Urbe Condita), written around 26 B.C.E., Hannibal crossed the Ebro river and “…besieged Saguntum, a Roman ally, and took it in the eighth month. Because of these violations, envoys were sent to the Carthaginians, to ask for an explanation. When they refused satisfaction, war was declared.”

The people of the Gothic period, the “barbaric” period widely considered to have taken place in Europe from the middle of the twelfth until the end of the fifteenth centuries, were as compelled by ideas of immortality as people in the modern era, though the mediums available to them to express their hopes and fears, lives and loves, joys and sorrows were the advancement of technology and scientific discovery but through art, architecture, and literature.

Henri Toulouse-Lautrec, arguably one of the most influential artists in modern history, possessed the unique talent of forcing the viewer to empathize with the subjects of his paintings, who were often those on the lowest rungs of society; prostitutes, dancers, and entertainers, who Toulouse-Lautrec frequently associated with much to the chagrin of his wealthy and aristocratic family. Rather than view his subjects through either the jaundiced eye of a prejudicial society or the elevated view of a painter to a muse, Toulouse-Lautrec gave his subjects an honesty that was both poignant and accessible.

Theatre is a constantly evolving art form. Whereas two hundred years ago plays told the stories of the trials and tribulations of the elite ruling class, today’s shows are moving toward a focus of telling truthful human stories. Pulling from the practice of verbatim theatre which uses recordings of real-life people to tell a story, this project is centered around the question of what it means to be human and what we believe to be our place or purpose in the world. I am exploring this question in a twofold manner by examining it from both an objective and subjective perspective. For the first, I am looking at the concept of humanity from a scientific perspective, looking at how physics, evolutionary biology, and sociology shape our understanding of what makes a human uniquely human. I have conducted background research in the form of literature reviews to gain a general understanding of each field’s views, and followed them up with interviews with an expert in each field in order to ...