School of Historical and Philosophical Studies - Theses

Permanent URI for this collection

Search Results

Now showing 1 - 10 of 400
  • Item
  • Item
    Thumbnail Image
    Explaining PICTA, PACER and Cotonou : trade policy in the Pacific 1996-2006
    Johnston, Andrea Lee (University of Melbourne, 2009)
  • Item
    No Preview Available
    Universal visions : neuroscience and recurrent chrrcteristics of world palaeoart
    Watson, Benjamin. (University of Melbourne, 2009)
    Palaeoart includes a diverse range of art-like manifestations, predominantly comprising rock art and portable art objects, datingfrom the Pleistocene right through to the Holocene. A fascinating aspect of palaeoart is that striking commonalities or parallels may be observed world-wide. These parallels include a range of recurrent abstract-geometric motifs and patterns, figurative subjects and themes. Similarities in the ways in which this content is executed may also be found. Despite various attempts, these commonalities have not yet been adequately explained. Positioned within a structuralist framework, this thesis considers recent breakthroughs in neuroscience as a means of understanding them. Specifically, it examines the role of human perceptual-neurophysiological universals in governing palaeoart production, and argues for a basis of artistic parallels in aspects of the evolved neurobiology shared by all normal humans. The rock art of hunter-gatherer societies constitutes more than 90 per cent of known prehistoric art, and the scope of the study is limited to palaeoart attributed to pre-European contact, pre-literate hunter- gatherer societies. The temporal scope of the study varies with the evidence discussed. The approach taken is partly informed by recent studies that have used neuroimaging techniques such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to reveal brain activation patterns associated with the perception of different types of visual stimuli. It is further informed by a wide range of additional neuroscientific and perceptual experimentation data relevant to palaeoart imagery. The value of considering human universals as a means of answering the questions how and why the same forms recur in palaeoart around the world is addressed. The approach provides a sound alternative to simplistic interpretations such as cultural diffusion based solely on visual resemblances between the arts of widely separated regions. The examination of palaeoart in light of neuroscientific data has major implications, ultimately revealing underlying reasons for the production of certain types of imagery. Abstract-geometric motifs and patterns, animals and parts of animals, and the human body and its parts are all shown to have special roles in visual information processing. It is found that shared aspects of the human nervous system influence conscious and unconscious preferences and decisions made in the process of creating graphic imagery, and that this has given rise to cross-cultural similarities in palaeoart. Recurrent forms in palaeoart are shown to be precisely those visual stimuli that are particularly powerful triggers of neural activity and correspond with prominent areas of the visual brain. These forms of visual imagery stimulate inherent neural mechanisms that have developed during human evolution specifically for the analysis of biologically significant aspects of the visual world. Palaeoart can thus be regarded as a kind ofneuro- perceptual mirror demonstrating attributes and principles characteristic of human beings.
  • Item
    Thumbnail Image
    This is how we live now : the lifestylization of home
    Rosenberg, Buck Clifford. (University of Melbourne, 2008)
  • Item
    Thumbnail Image
    Who's playing our song ? : the development of the Australian musical 1900-2000
    Johnston, Peter Wylie. (University of Melbourne, 2007)
  • Item
  • Item
    Thumbnail Image
    Internal crusading in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries : case studies of the Albigensian Crusade and the Italian Crusades of Pope John XXII
    Chenu, Christian. (University of Melbourne, 2007)
    This thesis examines the significance of papal participation in several crusades in western Europe in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Paying particular attention to the Albigensian Crusade and the Italian Crusades of John XXII, it argues that, from the thirteenth century, emerging claims of papal sovereignty coupled with a large collection of hierocratic treatises contributed to a juridical redefinition of the crusade that emphasised papal authority as the essential element of a crusade. This thesis argues that this juridical redefinition in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries was attributable to the Holy War origins of the crusade. Specifically, Christian Holy War, as conceived by St Augustine of Hippo, was orientated around the need to eradicate spiritual �fifth columns� amongst the faithful. This internal orientation left Christendom unprepared and lacking the necessary conceptual tools to formulate a coherent theory of Holy War against external pagan aggression. Consequently, at its inception late in the eleventh century, the crusade was a legal and ideological aberration, which remained a topic of debate for more than a century after the First Crusade. This thesis also suggests that in terms of both practical and legal considerations, the crusade received greater form and definition when it was employed in matters more reminiscent of Augustine�s preoccupation with heretics and schismatics. During the Albigensian war, the theory of the crusade was refined to emphasise its role as a function of papal authority. As the nature of this authority was re-examined and augmented in the years following the Albigensian Crusade, so too was the crusade itself redefined. The thesis concludes by demonstrating that, with the Church conditioned to associate heresy with physical and political attacks upon ecclesiastics by the Hohenstaufen and Italian Ghibellines, the Pope�s fullness of power gradually ceased to be the means of crusading practices, and became instead the crusade s ultimate end. As the crusade moved closer to Rome, so its motives came closer to the papal cause.
  • Item
  • Item
    Thumbnail Image
    Disturbance : bodies, disease, art
    Macarow, Keely. (University of Melbourne, 2006)
  • Item
    Thumbnail Image
    Art that matters : identity and contemporary art in Australia
    MacNeill, Kate. (University of Melbourne, 2006)