CLASSICS, ORIENTAL STUDIES, AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF AMERICA’S WESTERN IDENTITY, 1865–1930
| Author(s) | Wagner, Kelsey | |
| Date Accessioned | 2024-06-25T17:16:20Z | |
| Date Available | 2024-06-25T17:16:20Z | |
| Publication Date | 2023-05 | |
| Abstract | The American education system changed drastically between the end of the Civil War in 1865 and the interwar period up to 1930. In the years leading up to the Civil War, institutions of higher education adhered to the classical curriculum, which promoted the study of ancient Greek and Latin for the development of moral citizens. In the face of industrialization and professionalization that came with the late nineteenth century, the classical curriculum lost value and fell by the wayside. Colleges and universities instead turned to the sciences and vocational fields such as engineering and agriculture. This professional and scientific turn provoked great changes in the field of classics so that it acquiesced to the data-driven methodologies of the newly formed social sciences. Accompanied by its novel sister discipline, Oriental studies, the social-scientific study of classics began to divorce the field from religion and the Biblical chronology while adhering to the social evolutionary model. The revitalized field of classics and Oriental studies gained prevalence in the inter-war period as America found itself a global power. This thesis explores the archives of five major universities as well as scholarship published in classics and Oriental studies between 1865 and 1930 to construct a narrative of the emergence of “Western civilization” and a solidified East-West binary in American thought. | |
| Advisor | enter | |
| Program | enter | |
| URL | https://udspace.udel.edu/handle/19716/34533 | |
| Language | en_US | |
| Publisher | University of Delaware | |
| Title | CLASSICS, ORIENTAL STUDIES, AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF AMERICA’S WESTERN IDENTITY, 1865–1930 | |
| Type | Thesis |