Browsing by Subject "medieval"
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Item Between Mars and Venus: balance and excess in the chivalry of the late-medieval English romance(Texas A&M University, 2006-08-16) Mitchell-Smith, IlanThis dissertation is a study of how late-medieval romances construe ideal chivalric masculinity, and how aristocratic male violence was integrated into a beneficial model for masculine behavior. The focus is on the "fair unknown" romances of the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries, and the final chapter reads Chaucer's "Knight's Tale" as thematically related to the "fair unknown" tradition in its treatment of chivalry and violence. By contrasting the masculine ideal of the romance with that of the chivalric epic, this study approaches chivalry in terms of multiple and competing models, and finds that, unlike the epic, the ideal of the romance was informed by the growing popularization of university-based philosophy and cosmology. Between Mars and Venus argues that the most significant point of departure that the chivalric romance makes from the epic is its characterization of chivalric masculinity as a moderated avoidance of extreme behavior. Animalistic and monstrous references to knightly violence in the romance often result from episodes in which the knight has been overly amorous or courtly. By identifying both extremely amorous and extremelyaggressive behavior in terms of oppositional poles on a spectrum of excess, this study reads ideal masculinity as the mediated balance between the two extremes. The connection between the production of romances and the philosophy of the universities offers an explanation of chivalric masculinity in terms of Aristotelian virtue - as a mean between excess and deficiency of prowess. This reading of chivalric violence avoids the anachronistic assumptions of stereotypical male aggression that many critics rely on. By avoiding these assumptions, this dissertation offers a reworking of the feminine/masculine binary into a paradigm of competing masculinities, which is more attuned to the intellectual and philosophical contexts of late-medieval literary production.Item Heavy Metal Humor: Reconsidering Carnival in Heavy Metal Culture(2013-06-05) Powell, Gary BottsWhat can 15th century France and heavy metal have in common? In Heavy Metal Humor, Gary Powell explores metal culture through the work of Mikael Bakhtin?s ?carnivalesque theory.? Describing the practice of inverting commonly understood notions of respectability and the increasing attempts to normalize them, Bakhtin argues that carnivals in Francois Rabelais? work illustrate a sacrilegious uprising by the peasant classes during carnival days against dogmatic aristocrats. Powell asserts that Rabelais? work describes cartoonish carnivals that continue in as exaggerated themes and tropes into other literary styles, such as comedy and horror that ultimately inform modern-day metal culture. To highlight the similarities of Bakhtin?s interpretation of Rabelais? work to modern-day metal culture, Powell draw parallels to between Bakhtin?s carnivalesque theory and metal culture with two different, exemplary ?humorous? metal performances, GWAR and Anal Cunt. Powell chooses ?humorous? metal groups because, to achieve their humor, they exaggerate tropes, and behaviors in metal culture. To this end, Powell explores metal culture through GWAR, a costumed band who sprays their audience with fake body fluids as they decapitate effigies. He points out examples of Rabelais? work which Bakhtin uses to describe carnivalesque tropes, and threads them to modern-day metal culture. Powell then indicates how carnivalesque performances amplify with Anal Cunt, a ?satirical? hateful, grindcore group. In the band?s performance which is both serious and humorous at once, Anal Cunt draws on several carnivalesque behaviors. To dissect this band?s performance, Powell augments Bakhtin?s carnivalesque theory with Richard Schechner?s theory of ?dark play? and Johan Huizinga?s ?play communities? to more describe and illustrate why some aspects of modern-day metal culture do not match Bakhtin?s theory based on medieval French literature. However, carnivalesque humor becomes ambiguous and social and political problems arise as it escalates. As disrespectability is promoted, social and political tensions surface. Countering Bakhtin?s utopian notion of carnivalesque uprising, Powell highlights how socio-political turmoil presents itself in carnivalesque performance by referring to examples of confusion and concern regarding racism and sexism, something left unexplored in Bakhtin?s work. Powell suggests expanding and modernizing Bakhtin?s carnival could open pathways toward solutions to carnival culture?s socio-political ills.Item Political Science in Late Medieval Europe: The Aristotelian Paradigm and How It Shaped the Study of Politics in the West(2011-10-21) Sullivan, Mary ElizabethThis dissertation looks at Aristotelian political thinkers of the later Middle Ages and argues that they meet all of the criteria of a mature Kuhnian science. Scholars of medieval Europe have spent decades arguing over exactly how one should define medieval Aristotelianism and which thinkers qualify as Aristotelian. I answer this question by turning to the philosophy of science literature. By using the criteria laid out by Thomas Kuhn- a common education, a shared technical language and general agreement on problem choice- I am able to parse out a group of political thinkers who qualify as a scientific community. My dissertation then goes on to illustrate how several different medieval thinkers were able to operate within this Aristotelian paradigm. This project gives scholars of the Middle Ages a more useful lens through which to view the phenomenon of medieval Aristotelianism. For those interested in political science more broadly, I demonstrate that our field has, in fact, experienced a period of maturity, in which scholars shared a unified paradigm and proceeded with their research in concert. I also show some of the benefits and limitations of a common research agenda in the study of politics.Item The Tropes in Beowulf and Renaissance Iconography(2016-04) Davis, David; Hill, Dracy; Plamer, JohnThis video contains the following presentations from the 2016 Second International Conference on Medieval and Renaissance Thought at Sam Houston State University: “Christ Jesus is an Idol: Catholic Rhetoric in the Early Modern Image Debate” by David Davis, and “The Tropes of Beowulf as Revealed by Aristotle, Tolkien, and Deep Case Roles” by John Thornburg.