Undergraduate Theses

ABSTRACT: King Arthur first appears in the Early Middle Ages in historical chronicles and stories documented by monks of Britain. As these works diffused, the legend of King Arthur continued to gain prominence to such an extent that he appears in High Medieval texts, such as Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History of the Kings of Britain, and as a protagonist in medieval romances such as Thomas Malory’s Le Morte D’Arthur. King Arthur has seen a revival in the past 150 years which has prompted both intellectual and cult debates on whether or not the legendary King of the Britons was real, or solely an idyllic figure to embellish medieval writing. This thesis seeks to explore the debate surrounding the historicity of King Arthur through an analysis of prior scholarship to form a structure of the debate. Tangible archaeological evidence will be cross-referenced with medieval texts which mention Arthur or otherwise lend contextual clues about his life, in order to demystify the duality of a real and a legendary King Arthur.

ABSTRACT: Viking invasions beginning in the late 8th century and continuing throughout the 9th century lead to the weakening and fall of all of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms except for the Kingdom of Wessex. This thesis seeks to explore the creation of a single Anglo-Saxon Kingdom through the development of a dominant Wessex political structure and the standardization of an Anglo-Saxon cultural identity under Alfred the Great in the late 9th century C.E. The way in which Alfred organized the defense of his kingdom contributed to the centralization of his administration politically and economically. Additionally, Alfred’s revival of learning and Christianity further consolidated his authority by ensuring the effectiveness of his administration and cultivating the support of the Church. Increased literacy rates and a revival of monasticism also created a literate audience base and production centers for his Anglo-Saxon Chronicle which served to justify Alfred’s reign while standardizing and spreading the concept of an Anglo-Saxon identity.

ABSTRACT: Thai History has been examined in numerous ways, by a wide range of scholars, over several decades. This undergraduate history thesis is in no way intended to be a revisionist study of the period in question. What I hope this thesis does make clear, however, is a trend not often considered by historians working on the subject. The idea of two national identities is not uniquely my own. Most research on the origin of Thai nationalism resolves the dilemma of defining the national identity by suggesting the defeat of one of these national models. I would disagree with this simplification, as it gives too much importance to the political parties that introduced these national identities, and not enough to the philosophical and historical background of the identities. In this thesis I do not give names to these two identities, instead referring to the political party or faction that supported them at any given time; most significantly the Monarchist and Revolutionary divide. This was intentional, as the focus of this thesis is on this period, and not the continued evolution of these national models. This thesis was also not intended to criticize the royal family or any monarch of the Chakri dynasty, and has avoided explicitly covering topics that are currently censored by the Thai government. Despite these two limitations, this thesis endeavors to go through the narratives of the two national identities from the start of the reign of King Vajiravudh to the abdication of his successor, King Prajadhipok, and to analyze the points in which these two identities interacted and how they eventually came to conflict
The County will have complete independence; the people will be safe from danger; everyone will have work and therefore not starve; everyone will have equal rights, and none will be servants or slaves of the royalty
- Manifesto of the People’s Party.

ABSTRACT: The mountains of the Matese hosted two of the most significant episodes of dissent in the first decades of post-Unification Italian history. Brigandage and the attempted anarchist revolution took place in different historical moments and involved different actors, yet both provided a similar revolutionary answer to the so-called Southern Question. The microhistorical comparative study carried out in this thesis analyzes the political agency of the Matese peasantry as exemplified by the brigand Banda Giordano and the anarchist Banda del Matese. In particular, it hypothesizes that the success of the Banda Giordano stemmed from its roots in the territory, insofar as the similar cultural and social background was instrumental in the peasants’ decision to collaborate with the brigands. On the other hand, the different background of Banda del Matese alienated the peasantry as it appeared “foreign.” By 1877, a full decade into peasant revolts, the anarchists arrived from the North presenting a more abstract enemy than the tangible one that the peasantry needed to fight. As a result, the peasants felt that a new uprising would only provoke tough retaliation by the National Army. Notwithstanding the differences in the results, both episodes cast into question the social legitimacy of the new State’s institutions, and, even more importantly, they defied the Northern narrative of political passivity of the Southern peasantry. Shedding a light on the political agency of the peasantry ultimately opens a number of questions that still need to be investigated regarding the political consciousness of contemporary Southern Italy and the evolution of Italian national identity.