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Witchy Politics: Witches And Witchcraft As Political Tropes From Malleus Malleficarum (1487) To Les Sorcières De La République (2016) And The Mercies (2020), Mallaury Joëlle Marie Gauthier

Foreign Languages & Literatures ETDs

The focus of this thesis are two recent novels featuring witches: Chloé Delaume’s Les Sorcières de la République(The Witches of the Republic, 2016) and Kiran Millwood Hargrave’s The Mercies (2020). The first is a futuristic dystopia set in 2062, during the witch trial of the Sibyl of Cumae. The second is a work of historical fiction based on witch trial records and set in seventeenth-century Finnmark (Norway). Both are feminist novels, and both emphasize the political valence of the witch as a gendered figure. This figure emerged from the misogyny of early modern demonology but acquired its contemporary contours …

A Medieval Pirate's Life: The Role Of Piracy In Medieval Life Versus Its Role In Modern Historiography, Leah Lam

History ETDs

Medieval piracy is a mysterious phenomenon that is interwoven within the politics, culture, economic histories of the Middle Ages. Its presence throughout the Middle Ages is not questioned, yet it is rarely researched thoroughly. The subject of medieval piracy falls prey to the biases and assumptions that modern historians carry towards piracy as a whole, making the subject be under researched and improperly utilized. In this thesis, I will be highlighting the role that piracy played in medieval life and the way that modern historiography has neglected it. To do so thoroughly, I have pulled examples from different times, regions, …

"Do You Know The Way To San Jose?" Ethnic Mexicans, Urbanism, Culture, And Politics In Emerging Silicon Valley, 1940-1980, Alexandro J. Jara

History ETDs

My dissertation explores the Latino experience in Santa Clara County, especially in San Jose. The area, located in Northern California’s Bay Area, is nestled just south of the more popular cities of Oakland and San Francisco, nearly five hundred miles from the U.S.-Mexico border. My examination of the social, cultural, and political activities of Latinos in San Jose provides insight into the community development of ethnic Mexicans away from traditional sites of study in places like Tucson, San Antonio, and Los Angeles. I argue that beginning at mid-century, Latinos moved into the downtown area and helped prevent nearby neighborhoods from …

Devilish Leaders, Demonic Parliaments, And Diabolical Rebels: The Political Devil And Nationalistic Rhetoric From Malmesbury To Milton, Karra Hk Shimabukuro

English Language and Literature ETDs

Throughout its history, England and its writers have created its national identity out of thin air. Some writers such as William of Malmesbury and John Milton have consciously constructed their imagined Englands, while other authors during the medieval and early modern periods are subtler, but whose works reflect the historical and cultural moment, the fears, desires, and anxieties about kingship, tyranny, heirs, and stability, that existed during that time. Little scholarship has focused on the devil’s role in these constructions, his political nature, and how this nature is used in constructing nationalistic arguments. This devil can lead kings, nobles, and …

Land, Gender, And The Politics Of Identity Formation: Uncovering Hispana/Mexicana Voices In The Southwest, Karen R. Roybal

American Studies ETDs

The southwestern United States has an exceptional history that makes the region a prime focus for study concentrating on culture, tradition, language and land. As an area closely tied to the concept of conquest, the Southwest has had its share of issues related to colonization, imperialism, Manifest Destiny, and cultural erasure. This study focuses on the Southwest as a region that is closely linked to the land as it relates to the formation of identities of its people. Mexican Americans in the Southwest have historically experienced struggle, particularly after 1848 and the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, when …

Desiring Nation: Prostitution, Citizenship, And Modernity In Cuba, 1840-1920, Tiffany A. Thomas-Woodward

History ETDs

This dissertation uses prostitution as a lens through which to study the intersection of gender, sexuality, and nation-building in late colonial and early republic Cuba. Between 1840 and 1920, Cuba underwent a series of profound transformations spurred by the abolition of slavery, national wars of independence, mass migration, and foreign occupation. My investigation of Spanish, Cuban, and U.S. sources reveal that as Cubans struggled to define a sense of national identity in the face of changing political alliances and shifting populations, prostitution became a focus for the expression of contemporary social and sexual anxieties. State policies, designed to control prostitutes' …

The Mexican Federalist-Centralist Struggle, 1824-1860, Michael C. Meyer

History ETDs

The problem of Mexican Federalism has been seriously debated by Latin American historians and political theorists. Does the present Mexican political structure, when viewed in conjunction with the unique functioning of Mexican Politics, justify the federal designation? Conscientious observers are in close unanimity on the answer. Federalism, in the "traditional" sense of the word, does not exist in Mexico today. As one leading observer has stated, "the seeds of centralism were sowed at Querétaro despite the adoption of the federal form provided for the 1917 constitution." Numerous studies appearing both in books and periodicals have reached the same conclusion. It …

The Political Thought Of José María Luis Mora, 1794-1850, Morris L. Simon

Latin American Studies ETDs

This work undertakes a study of some aspects of the thought of one man, Doctor José María Luis Mora, a Mexican liberal of the nineteenth century. Naturally, selection by the writer has narrowed considerably the scope of this study. Two factors have conditioned the choice of material from Dr. Mora's breadbasket of ideas: (1) its relevancy to the Mexico of Mora's day, and (2) its value in revealing Mora as a political thinker.

A Study Of The Political Aspects Of Positivism In Mexico, Sam Schulman

Political Science ETDs

The purpose of this thesis is to review the history of Positivism in Mexico, however summarily and limited, to find its place in the structure of the Porfirian government, to reach a number of conclusions based upon this investigation--in all, to understand better the ideas behind the actions of recent Mexican history.

New Mexico's Struggles For Statehood, 1903-1907, Mary J. Masters

History ETDs

In a study of New Mexico's efforts to win statehood, the joint statehood period (1903 to 1907) presents unusual interest. It was during these years that an attempt was made on the part of the administration and certain congressional leaders to unite New Mexico and Arizona and admit them as one state. The period is a distinct episode in the struggle of New Mexico for admission in the union.

It is the purpose of this paper to trace the story of jointure, to discuss the origin of the policy, and to analyze the arguments of the opposing factions. Frequent reference …

British Criticism Of American Literature 1844-1860 As Reflected In Littell's Living Age, Lelon Avalon Hill

English Language and Literature ETDs

In reviewing sixty-seven volumes, ranging from six hundred and twenty to eight hundred and twenty-five pages, of Littell's Living Age, which extracts verbatim from British periodicals and newspaper, and in reading various works of American and British authors, literatures, histories of the period involved, and early magazines and periodicals, I have found material pertaining to the subject under discussion that would fill a good sized book. Therefore, having only limited time and space, I shall give the opinions of British periodicals and newspapers that are to be found in Littell's Living Age.

In writing this thesis I shall …