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Bursaries Awarded to Current Postgraduate Students in 2009
Andrew Elrick
One of the most striking gaps in British Imperial historiography is the period between the American War of Independence and the Confederation of Canada. Current British North American historiography has developed emphases on two distinct chronological periods, with ideas of an ‘Atlantic World’ for the 17th/18th centuries, and the emerging debate on the ‘British World’ for the century following c.1870. This has left a significant mid-nineteenth century ‘lacuna’, and neither approach addresses the position of Diplomatic History. My research examines the Oregon Boundary Dispute of 1815-1850, in the context of this historiographical omission. This dispute notably led to the lasting establishment of the Canada-US border along the 49th Parallel, yet almost caused war due to competing territorial claims, political showboating and public opinion. Thus this thesis will provide a British-Imperial perspective on hitherto American-dominated areas of study.
Lisa Wotherspoon
My research will address the question of whether vikings were a force for unity or increased localisation in Anglo-Saxon England and Ireland. Vikings had a major impact on both Ireland and England in reshaping borders and with cultural exchange. The way in which the two cultures responded to viking incursion and settlement has parallels, the most obvious being the production of two war-leaders: Brian Boru and Alfred the Great. While Alfred’s military reforms laid the base for Athelstan’s assumption of royal authority over England in AD 927, Brian Boru’s victory did little to prompt Irish unity. I intend to discover whether viking activity had an impact on the cultural unity of the two populations, or if it simply exacerbated cultural issues and rivalries that were already in existence. To do this, I will be looking at the level of viking impact on social, economic, political, military and ecclesiastical factors and will be assessing whether the cultural responses in these areas prompted unity or fragmentation within the two populations.
Bursaries Awarded to New Postgraduate Students Starting Study in 2007
Andrea Butcher
The aim of my research is to explore the ways in which the administrative centres of the Indian state and the Tibetan Government-in-Exile may impact, administratively and rhetorically, upon religious governance in Ladakh, North-West India through the use of tourism, and to examine how the Ladakhi Buddhist population responds. Undertaking fieldwork, with the Hemis Festival as my laboratory and using ritual performance as the dominant analytical tool, I aim to observe and ethnographically document the narratives and events that frame the tourist experience. Observations will focus on how the respective actors participating in the performative spectacle of the festival socially construct that space and each other, in order to analyse the multiple ways in which [Tibetan] ‘Buddhism’ can be imagined or produced in a translocal space, and to ask whether it is objectively reified by various agents to facilitate support for a subjective agenda that may exist externally to the local.
Anne Crerar
The purpose of the enquiry is to ascertain how the East India Company, a privileged London Corporation and major agent of imperialism, was understood economically, politically, socially and culturally in Scotland c. 1690-1790. This will be the first systematic study of perceptions of the East India Company using sources outside England and will add to the current debate over its domestic impact. It is envisaged that the research will be expanded into a doctoral thesis examining both Ireland and the Atlantic colonies which will address current concerns in the historiography of the British Empire. Through an analysis of attitudes to the EIC in the English speaking Atlantic community it will be possible to test new hypotheses regarding the pre-1800 Empire, increasingly held to be a far more integrative and interactive entity than previous analyses and terminology suggest.
Bursaries Awarded to Current Postgraduate Students in 2007
Scott T. Prather
My Ph.D. thesis centers on Karl Barth and John Howard Yoder’s understanding of the biblical theme of ‘the principalities and powers’. By attending to their doctrinal elucidation of this theme, my work brings Barth and Yoder into a constructively critical dialogue that will illuminate how to think, with them, about the church as a political and moral community. To that end, my thesis focuses on a specific ‘power’– namely, the power of Mammon – and asks, with the help of thinkers such as Jacques Ellul, Martin Luther, and St. John Chrysostom, how the contemporary church is confronted by and might resist this power.
Sandra Cardarelli
My research concerns the artistic output of the diocese of Grosseto, in Southern Tuscany, between circa 1380 and 1480. I am investigating all aspects of patronage and how this shaped civic rituals, religious practices and the works of Sienese artists such as Bartolomeo Bulgarini, Sassetta, Vecchietta and Matteo di Giovanni.
I am currently focussing on the Opera, the institution established in order to build and decorate the cathedral of Grosseto and how the bishop, the commune and the Opera interacted to shape its appearance.
I am also testing the extent to which the veneration of the Virgin of the Assumption and the iconography related to it were influenced by Sienese dominance in the area known as the Maremma. My aim is to provide a contextualized overview of artworks and artefacts in the diocese, and also to reveal how they were the products of the patrons’ requirements.
Stefanie Metze
My research project focuses on the impact of concepts of India on the Enlightenment in Scotland. While placing the dissertation within the established historiography, which stresses the interactive dynamic between Enlightenment and Empire, the project opens new perspectives on the essentially reciprocal nature of these relationships. The dissertation concentrates on Britain’s empire in the East, which has, in contrast to the Atlantic empire, been largely omitted by historians and, secondly, on how ideas and commodities associated with India influenced, shaped, challenged or verified the theories of Scotland’s eighteenth-century literati.
Joanne Anderson
My research project is investigating and contextualizing the evidence of artistic production related to the cult of Mary Magdalen in northern Italy, 1280-1500. Of specific relevance are the numerous and extensive fresco cycles of her legend and the individual works illustrating her penitential and redemptive roles. I am seeking to ascertain why each relevant community chose to venerate this saint, the origins of the visual programmes and what influence they had on one another. Their relationship to the traditional Magdalen devotional and representational sites in Burgundy, Provence, Tuscany, Umbria and Campania provides a wider art historical context.
Samantha May
The dynamics of ideological change within Islamist groups.
Islamist ideology has emerged from the experiences of imperialism, colonialism and the development of the nation state system. The divergent dynamics of these experiences created different Islamist solutions to the various problems that emerged. The Western imposition of the secular nation-state has created separate nationalisms and imposed varying realities upon communities, which in the recent past had much in common. While a synthesis of religious nationalism has been created, there remains, at least in rhetoric, a loyalty to the broader trans-Islamic community. As the Islamic community traverses geographic boundaries, so does much of Islamist ideological rhetoric, while simultaneously many Islamist movements emerge from a highly localised environment that then can impact on the national, regional and global. This dynamic is inherent in identifying the nuances in aims and strategies of differing Islamisms.
Brian Reed
My research topic is concerned with examining Paul’s use of the Hebrew Scriptures in Christian ethics in order to identify how the apostle distinguished between Pentateuchal commands which were still able to define Christian moral behaviour and those which were not. I am currently exploring this issue by investigating the nature and implications of the “summarizing” of individual commandments of the Torah in the command to love one’s neighbour as oneself in Romans 13:9. I hope to correlate these results with the apostle’s similar statement in Galatians 5:14 and show how this concept relates to his ethical exhortation in both letters and, perhaps, throughout the Pauline corpus.
Abi Ngunga
My research is concerned with investigating systematically the theme of messianism in the Septuagint of Isaiah, using an intertextual reading of the text(s). I intend to provide a fresh reading of this important Greek version with significant implications to the Septuagint as a whole. It is hoped that this study will establish the phenomenon of intertextuality as an approach used in early Jewish hermeneutics in dealing with sacred texts. It is also hoped that this investigation may contribute to a better understanding of the messianic thought that the book of Isaiah in its Greek form offers to the forming of Christology as expressed by the New Testament writers.
Jessica Bilhartz
It has been a long accepted assumption that the courts of Charles I and Henrietta Maria were ones of platonic friendship, bereft of the debauchery of the courts of Charles's father and son. However, my initial research is challenging these long held beliefs. More conventionally, the ideas set forth in my research show the possibility of challenging other widely accepted notions in the study of British history, especially the court clientage system of Elton and Kenyon. My early examinations have shown that the court of Henrietta Maria may have been more important to advancement in the king’s court and influential state and army positions than previously thought, and that women and others who occupied what have been historically considered submissive power positions may have actually played substantial and dominant roles in the politics of Caroline Britain.
Matthew Edwards
My research concerns theliterary, conceptual and theological unity and purpose of the Book of Wisdom, particularly with regard to the eschatological use of Jewish history and tradition in the work.
Bursaries Awarded to New Postgraduate Students Starting Study in 2007
Andrea Butcher
The aim of my research is to explore the ways in which the administrative centres of the Indian state and the Tibetan Government-in-Exile may impact, administratively and rhetorically, upon religious governance in Ladakh, North-West India through the use of tourism, and to examine how the Ladakhi Buddhist population responds. Undertaking fieldwork, with the Hemis Festival as my laboratory and using ritual performance as the dominant analytical tool, I aim to observe and ethnographically document the narratives and events that frame the tourist experience. Observations will focus on how the respective actors participating in the performative spectacle of the festival socially construct that space and each other, in order to analyse the multiple ways in which [Tibetan] ‘Buddhism’ can be imagined or produced in a translocal space, and to ask whether it is objectively reified by various agents to facilitate support for a subjective agenda that may exist externally to the local.
Anne Crerar
The purpose of the enquiry is to ascertain how the East India Company, a privileged London Corporation and major agent of imperialism, was understood economically, politically, socially and culturally in Scotland c. 1690-1790. This will be the first systematic study of perceptions of the East India Company using sources outside England and will add to the current debate over its domestic impact. It is envisaged that the research will be expanded into a doctoral thesis examining both Ireland and the Atlantic colonies which will address current concerns in the historiography of the British Empire. Through an analysis of attitudes to the EIC in the English speaking Atlantic community it will be possible to test new hypotheses regarding the pre-1800 Empire, increasingly held to be a far more integrative and interactive entity than previous analyses and terminology suggest.
This page was last modified on: 16-May-2012 15:12:37 BST
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