Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Shades Of Liberalism: Lawyers And Social, Political And Legal Transformations In Nineteenth Century Cuba, Ricardo Pelegrin Taboada

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In 1819, Ferdinand VII ordered the creation of two Colegios de Abogados in Cuba to prevent the expansion of the number of legal professionals, as well as the unauthorized practice of law. The strategy, however, failed, and lawyers increasingly became a force of political and social change in the island, being mostly inspired by the debates about the implementation of liberal agendas in and out of Cuba. Some Colegios de Abogados eventually became centers of anti-Spanish conspiracy and lawyers even led recurrent uprisings for Cuban independence. Ideas of reform among Cuban lawyers, however, were diverse, and different interpretations of liberalism …

The Racial Equation: Pan-Atlantic Eugenics, Race, And Colonialism In The Early Twentieth Century British Caribbean, Christopher Anderson Davis

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation explores the intellectual discourse on race in the early twentieth century, particularly from 1919 to 1958, examining how British and American eugenicists and Caribbean nationalists debated the limits of colonial politics in the British Caribbean using academic and scientific language. These discussions emerged in the aftermath of World War I, the economic crises that led to the Great Depression, the political and labor unrest in the British Caribbean, and consequences of the Second World War. The dissertation’s goal is to examine how residents of the British Caribbean understood, appropriated, and challenged some of the principles of eugenics, particularly …

Chiyo-Ni And Yukinobu: History And Recognition Of Japanese Women Artists, Kara N. Medema

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Fukuda Chiyo-ni and Kiyohara Yukinobu were 17th-18th century (Edo period) Japanese women artists well known during their lifetime but are relatively unknown today. This thesis establishes their contributions and recognition during their lifespans. Further, it examines the precedence for professional women artists’ recognition within Japanese art history. Then, it proceeds to explain the complexities of Meiji-era changes to art history and aesthetics heavily influenced by European and American (Western) traditions. Using aesthetic and art historical analysis of artworks, this thesis establishes a pattern of art canon formation that favored specific styles of art/artists while excluding others in ways sometimes inauthentic …

Self-Referential Features In Sacred Texts, Donald Haase

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines a specific type of instance that bridges the divide between seeing sacred texts as merely vehicles for content and as objects themselves: self-reference. Doing so yielded a heuristic system of categories of self-reference in sacred texts based on the way the text self-describes: Inlibration, Necessity, and Untranslatability.

I provide examples of these self-referential features as found in various sacred texts: the Vedas, Āgamas, Papyrus of Ani, Torah, Quran, Sri Guru Granth Sahib, and the Book of Mormon. I then examine how different theories of sacredness interact with them. What do Durkheim, Otto, Freud, or Levinas say about …

Engineering Colonialism: Race, Class, And The Social History Of Flood Control In Guyana, Joshua Mullenite

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Overabundance and scarcity of water are global concerns. Across the world’s low-lying coastal plains, flooding brought on by sea level rise acts as an existential threat for a multitude of people and cultures while in desert (and increasingly non-desert) regions intensifying drought cycles do the same. In the decades to come, how people manage these threats will have important implications not only for individual and cultural survival, but also for questions of justice. Recent research on flooding and flood management probes the histories of survival, and adaptation in flood threatened regions for insights into emergent flood-related crises. However, scholars have …

Racial Constructions And Activism Within Graphic Literature. An Analysis Of Hank Mccoy, The Beast, Juan D. Alfonso

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Through a post-modern lens, I will primarily focus on comics books published by Marvel Comics to demonstrate the myriad of ways in which graphic literature is used as a subversive tool of sociopolitical discourse. I will demonstrate this by deconstructing and redefining the role of myth as a means of transferring ethical practices through societies and the ways in which graphic literature serves this function within the space of a modern and increasingly atheistic society. The thesis first demonstrates how the American Civil Rights Movement was metaphorically translated and depicted to the pages of Marvel’s X-Men comics to expose its …

We’Ve Come A Long Way (Baby)! Or Have We? Evolving Intellectual Freedom Issues In The Us And Florida, L. Bryan Cooper, A.D. Beman-Cavallaro

Works of the FIU Libraries

This paper analyzes a shifting landscape of intellectual freedom (IF) in and outside Florida for children, adolescents, teens and adults. National ideals stand in tension with local and state developments, as new threats are visible in historical, legal, and technological context. Examples include doctrinal shifts, legislative bills, electronic surveillance and recent attempts to censor books, classroom texts, and reading lists.

Privacy rights for minors in Florida are increasingly unstable. New assertions of parental rights are part of a larger conservative animus. Proponents of IF can identify a lessening of ideals and standards that began after doctrinal fruition in the 1960s …

Azúcar Agridulce: Memoria, Discursos Y Paisajes Azucareros En La Nación Y La Cultura Cubana (1791–2017), Deborah Gomez

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

El cierre y desmantelamiento de gran parte de los centrales azucareros cubanos con la llegada del milenio, que se puede definir como la debacle azucarera, creó dos urgencias. Por un lado, la pérdida de los referentes culturales produjo un vacío, un trauma, un desarraigo, que clamaba por un espacio de representación. Por el otro, esta misma experiencia desgarradora creó la necesidad de rescatar el papel que el azúcar había jugado en la Historia, la identidad y la cultura cubana.

El presente estudio, además de examinar varias de las obras que se produjeron en respuesta a la debacle azucarera, también intenta …

Monstrous Maternity: Folkloric Expressions Of The Feminine In Images Of The Ubume, Michaela Leah Prostak

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The ubume is a ghost of Japanese folklore, once a living woman, who died during either pregnancy or childbirth. This thesis explores how the religious and secular developments of the ubume and related figures create a dichotomy of ideologies that both condemn and liberate women in their roles as mothers. Examples of literary and visual narratives of the ubume as well as the religious practices that were employed for maternity-related concerns are explored within their historical contexts in order to best understand what meaning they held for people at a given time and if that meaning has changed. These meanings …

Truffles Have Never Been Modern: An Actor-Network Theorization Of 150 Years Of French Trufficulture, Eric Van Vleet

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Contemporary scholars seeking to increase Tuber Melanosporum truffle production rely almost exclusively on technological advancements to increase yields, while failing to place the cultivation of truffles, trufficulture, in its historical or local landscape contexts. In this dissertation, I describe how truffle scholars’ conceptualization of trufficulture and landscapes has changed over 150 years in France, while focusing on the French département of Lot. I examine changing relations between humans and nonhumans and how they impact truffle harvests. I analyzed the history of French trufficulture through a close reading of historic truffle manuals, archival research and the classification of remotely sensed …

Religion, Politics And War In The Creation Of An Ethos Of Conflict In Colombia; The Case Of The War Of The Thousand Days (1899-1902), Margarita J. Diaz Caceres

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this thesis is to understand the way in which religion and politics played a role in the formulation of a cyclical ethos of conflict, focusing in the last and most important civil war of nineteenth-century Colombia: The War of the Thousand Days (1899-1902). A historiographical review was used to understand the interactions between these two structures, and it pointed at a main problem centered in the political use of religion, as well as the transformation of political debate into a matter of political faith. In conclusion, the War of the Thousand days strengthened narratives of vengeance, worsened …

Mending Identity: The Revitalization Process Of The Muisca Of Suba, Paola A. Sanchez Castaneda

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

For over five centuries, the Muiscas have faced direct colonial aggression against their traditional belief systems and sacred practices that have been historically demonized and driven to the brink of extinction. Despite such circumstances, however, the Muisca community has thrived to the present day, and since the turn of the twentieth century has begun to undergo a process of re-identification as an indigenous community in an attempt to revitalize their ethnic identity and practices. These efforts of re-indigenization have challenged their historically coerced identities, actively engaging in returning to traditional practices and beliefs, demand cultural and spiritual liberties, and regain …

Developing Medicine: Cuba, Modernization, And Public Health, 1898-1945, Jessica Leigh Allison

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines the modernization of aspects of Cuba’s public health programs through the influence of the Rockefeller Foundation. As a result of its sponsorship of projects, the Rockefeller Foundation contributed to the spread of modernizing practices and policies from 1913 through 1945. An evaluation of medical modernization remains an important chapter in the study of post-colonial development. Current research has often portrayed public health modernization efforts as unidirectional with the United States imposing its ideas and practices onto developing nations. By examining institutional records, personal correspondence, and reports, this dissertation provides a more nuanced analysis of the relationship between …

Jewish Women’S Transracial Epistemological Networks: Representations Of Black Women In The African Diaspora, 1930-1980, Abby S. Gondek

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation investigates how Jewish women social scientists relationally established their gendered-racialized subjectivities and theories about race-gender-sexuality-class through their portrayals of black women’s sexuality and family structures in the African Diaspora: the U.S., Brazil, South Africa, Swaziland, and the U.K. The central women in this study: Ellen Hellmann, Ruth Landes, Hilda Kuper, and Ruth Glass, were part of the same “political generation,” born in 1908-1912, coming of age when Jews of European descent experienced an ambivalent and conditional assimilation into whiteness, a form of internal colonization. I demonstrate how each woman’s familial origin point in Europe, parental class and political …

Pennsylvania's Loyalists And Disaffected In The Age Of Revolution: Defining The Terrain Of Reintegration, 1765-1800, Rene J. Silva

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION

PENNSYLVANIA’S LOYALISTS AND DISAFFECTED IN THE AGE OF REVOLUTION: DEFINING THE TERRAIN OF REINTEGRATION, 1765-1800

by

René José Silva

Florida International University, 2018

Miami, Florida

Professor Kirsten Wood, Major Professor

This study examines the reintegration of loyalists and disaffected residents in Pennsylvania who opposed the American Revolution from the Stamp Act crisis in 1765 through the Age of Federalism in 1790s. The inquiry argues that postwar loyalist reintegration in Pennsylvania succeeded because of the attitudes, behavior, actions and contributions of both disaffected residents and patriot citizens. The focus is chiefly on the legal battle over citizenship, …

Britain Can Take It: Civil Defense And Chemical Warfare In Great Britain, 1915-1945, Jordan I. Malfoy

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation argues that the origins of civil defense are to be found in pre-World War II Britain and that a driving force of this early civil defense scheme was fear of poison gas. Later iterations of civil defense, such as the Cold War system in America, built on already existing regimes that had proven their worth during WWII. This dissertation demonstrates not only that WWII civil defense served as a blueprint for later civil defense schemes, but also that poison gas anxiety served as a particular tool for the implementation and success of civil defense. The dissertation is organized …

Popular Radicalism In The 1930s: The History Of The Workers' Unemployment Insurance Bill, Chris Wright

Class, Race and Corporate Power

Historiography on the Great Depression in the U.S. evinces a lacuna. Despite all the scholarship on political radicalism in this period, one of the most remarkable manifestations of such radicalism has tended to be ignored: namely, the mass popular movement behind the Workers’ Unemployment Insurance Bill. This bill, which the Communist Party wrote in 1930, was introduced in Congress three times, in 1934, ’35, and ’36, as an alternative to the far more conservative Social Security Act. Its socialistic nature ensured that it never had any chance of becoming law, but it also enabled it to become enormously popular among …

Exploring The Shadows Of America’S Security State (Or How I Learned Not To Love Big Brother) Reprinted From Tomdispatch.Com Courtesy Of Haymarket Books, Alfred W. Mccoy

Class, Race and Corporate Power

This piece has been reprinted from TomDispatch.com and is an adapted and expanded version of the introduction to Alfred W. McCoy's new book: In the Shadows of the American Century: The Rise and Decline of U.S. Global Power (Haymarket Books, 2017). Thanks to TomDispatch.com, Dr. McCoy and Haymarket Books for allowing us to reprint this here.