Public History Commons^™

War, Remembrance, And Katýn:
How Public Memory Sites Affirm National Identity, Adele Partington

History and Political Science | Senior Theses

The nation of Poland had a well-established national identity based on its culture, religion, language, and history prior to its occupation by the USSR, but this identity was suppressed in the sixty years of Soviet control from 1939 to 1989. After achieving their independence, Poles reexamined their history and identity, in addition to choosing which aspects of Soviet history and identity to keep or do away with. This thesis examines the relationship between public memory sites in or about Poland and the affirmation of the Polish national identity after Polish independence from the Soviet Union in 1989. Building on the …

Disaffection And Othering: Beyond Our Coordinates, Christen Kadkhodai

War, Diplomacy, and Society (MA) Theses

"Othering” is just one of many tools nations use during war time to garner support for the war effort. “Othering” in media often goes undetected, a subtle framing of one’s own viewpoint as the viewpoint and the gaze, often at the exclusion and alienation of others. This collection of essays explores how individuals and institutions “Othered” during wartime. Essays “A Review of Walt Disney’s Life and ‘Othering’” and “Walt Disney’s ‘Reluctant Dragon’ and the 1941 Strike,” study how and why Walt Disney “Othered” certain audiences in his films The Reluctant Dragon, Saludos Amigos, and The Three Caballeros. …

Historical Trauma: Literary And Testimonial Responses To Hiroshima, Mariam Ghonim

Theses and Dissertations

The concept of trauma is controversial in literature. While one may be able to come up with ways to describe trauma in fiction, representing historical trauma is a hard task for writers. Some argue that trauma can not be described through those who did not experience it, while others claim that, provided some elements are added, one can represent trauma to the reader. This thesis focuses on twentieth-century historical traumas related to a nuclear catastrophe and explores the different literary and testimonial responses to the catastrophic man-made event of Hiroshima (1945). In this thesis, Kathleen Burkinshaw’s historical fiction The Last …

Beirut/The Other Side Of The City: The Impact Of Visual Texture Production Of The Lebanese Postmemory Generation, 1989 - Present, Mohamed Moustafa Gameel Ebada

Theses and Dissertations

In 1989, after the Ta'if agreement, the war in Lebanon started to fade, which ended years of one of the most destructive civil conflicts in the region with no decisive winner or loser. The year also marked the birth of a new Lebanese generation who did not experience the war in person. It is a generation of postmemory, a term Maria Hirsch coined to describe the reminisces of those who did not have a personal encounter with past traumatic events. However, it was not before February 2005, when Rafic Al-Hariri's violent assassination occurred, when the postmemory generation started to question …

Out Of Sight, Out Of Mind: Analyzing Inhumane Practices In Mississippi’S Correctional Institutions Due To Overcrowding, Understaffing, And Diminished Funding, Ariel A. Williams

Honors Theses

The purpose of this research is to examine the political, social, and economic factors which have led to inhumane conditions in Mississippi’s correctional facilities. Several methods were employed, including a comparison of the historical and current methods of funding, staffing, and rehabilitating prisoners based on literature reviews. State-sponsored reports from various departments and the legislature were analyzed to provide insight into budgetary restrictions and political will to allocate funds. Statistical surveys and data were reviewed to determine how overcrowding and understaffing negatively affect administrative capacity and prisoners’ mental and physical well-being. Ultimately, it may be concluded that Mississippi has high …

The Technocratic Politics Of The Common Core State Standards In History, Kate Duguid

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This paper shows that the explicit aims of the American educational standards for public schools, the Common Core State Standards to teach history to create “college and career ready” students, marks a shift from preparing students for political participation to preparing them for market participation. I trace the intellectual and pedagogical origins of the Common Core’s pretense of technocratic apolitical values back through the previous two major American curricular reform efforts. In the first section I discuss the origins and development of the National History Standards and show how Cold War anxiety prompted a shift in evaluating students as potential …

The One Exhibition The Roots Of The Lgbt Equality Movement One Magazine & The First Gay Supreme Court Case In U.S. History 1943-1958, Joshua R. Edmundson

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

The ONE Exhibition explores an era in American history marked by intense government sponsored anti-gay persecution and the genesis of the LGBT equality movement. The study begins during World War II, continues through the McCarthy era and the founding of the nation’s first gay magazine, and ends in 1958 with the first gay Supreme Court case in U.S. history.

Central to the story is ONE The Homosexual Magazine, and its founders, as they embarked on a quest for LGBT equality by establishing the first ongoing nationwide forum for gay people in the U.S., and challenged the government’s right to engage …

A One Percent Chance: Jabotinsky, Bernadotte, And The Iron Wall Doctrine, Andrew Harman

War, Diplomacy, and Society (MA) Theses

This thesis is an examination of the long historical processes that have led to the Israel/Palestine conflict to the contemporary period, focusing mostly on the period before Israeli independence and the 1948 war that created the Jewish state. As Zionism emerged at the turn of the twentieth century to combat the antisemitism of Europe, practical and political facets of the movement sought immigration to Palestine, an area occupied by a large population of Arab natives. The answer to how the Zionists would achieve a Jewish state in that region, largely ignoring the indigenous population, fostered disagreements and a split in …

Sanctioned Silencing, Symbolic Resistance: Race, Space, And Dispossession In A Marginalized South African Community, Killian Richard Miller

Senior Projects Spring 2016

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Social Studies of Bard College

My field work and the written portion of my ethnography work through issues of marginality, state apparatuses, illusions of freedom, and making meaning in a context of oppression. All these power dynamics are historically-situated within the cultural context and community of Hangberg, a place forged by the race-based forced removals of Apartheid. British and Dutch colonization, Apartheid's racial regime, and the post-Apartheid oligarchical state, are all historical and contemporary authoritative forces that are impacting the everyday lives of people in Hangberg. Perspectives of power also serve as examples …

Nation-State Personality Theory: A Qualitative Comparative Historical Analysis Of Russian Behavior, During Social/Political Transition, Mark George Bound

Department of Conflict Resolution Studies Theses and Dissertations

The study theorizes that a nation-state can manifest a condition similar to that of personality commonly associated with humans. Through the identification of consistent behaviors, a personality like condition is recognizable, and the underlining motivations dictate national policy independent of any current social/political influence. The research examines Russia during two historical periods examining the conflict events and social/political transitions of the period, to identify common behavioral characteristics, which indicate the existence of any independent personality like trait.

The study focuses on two historical periods: the Monarch Period of Peter I (The Great), and the Post-Soviet Union period of Vladimir Putin, …

The Response Of The Black Community In Mississippi To The Dixiecrat Movement In 1948, Walter Mcclusky Hurns

Morehead State Theses and Dissertations

The thesis of the research is that the States' Right Movement of 1948 in Mississippi helped to create a new political awareness among blacks for the first time since Radical Reconstruction. As a result of the Dixiecrat revolt against Truman and civil rights, blacks in the state became more assertive about their rights and in 1948 organized themselves gradually to demand their civil rights. In response to the Dixiecrat Movement can be found the origins of the civil rights movement of the fifties and sixties.

Political And Economic Factors In The Decline Of The British Empire, Pasquale Anania

University of the Pacific Theses and Dissertations

The decline of British influence in world affairs is one of the more pronounced political phenomena of modern times. Over the past century key territories subject to British rule have been slipping loose from their imperial moorings at an ever more rapid rate. Those remaining subject to British authority grow progressively more belligerent.

In his search for an understanding or this eclipse or British sovereignty, the contemporary historian finds himself groping through a network of complexly interrelated social, political, economic, and psychological processes. One or another student or history has argued that specific instances or groups of these processes are …