European History Commons^™

Can't Women Kill?: Women, Violence, And Power In Nazi Germany, Kelly Ornelas

History Theses

This thesis examines the role of women as perpetrators of violence within the Nazi apparatus, challenging traditional narratives that depict them as passive supporters or victims of their circumstances. Through a Foucauldian analysis, it explores how ordinary German women were conditioned by Nazi propaganda, manipulated discourses, and social expectations to engage in acts of brutality, often without direct orders. Case studies, including Erna Petri and Ilse Koch illustrate how women actively participated in the mechanisms of state violence without rank or official status, raising critical questions about complicity and moral responsibility. This study interrogates the bounds of guilt, arguing that …

Hemispheres Of Faith: Mapping The Global Journey Of An Ivory Rosary Bead At The Metropolitan Museum Of Art, Mary M. Thompson

Theses and Dissertations

Hemispheres of Faith reattributes a carved ivory rosary bead in the Metropolitan Museum of Art to the Quito School in 18th-century Ecuador. Through examining the trade history of the Manila Galleons, material analysis, and iconographic study, Hemispheres of Faith challenges the bead's European origins and reveals the object as a product of global exchange, devotional practice, and colonial artistic collaboration within the Spanish Empire.

Reimagining Heroes: The Evolving Narratives Of Helen And Achilles In Feminist Greek Mythology Retellings, Elena A. Smith

Honors Scholar Theses

“Reimagining Heroes: The Evolving Narratives of Helen and Achilles in Feminist Greek Mythology Retellings” is an analysis of an array of novels, monographs, and critiques regarding the genre of mythology retellings. Combining feminist ideas with historical examples, this thesis delves into why retellings are so popular in the twenty-first century and why the stories of Greek Antiquity have stayed relevant.

This thesis focuses specifically on Helen of Troy, Achilles, and the events of the Trojan War in The Iliad. Comparing the epic with retellings of its events may reveal why these characters, gods, and heroes have continued to be discussed …

Crusade From Afar: British Conservative Revolutionaries And The Nationalist Cause In Spain, Russell Crosthwait

All Theses

The Spanish Civil War catalyzed a distinctive intellectual movement among Britain's interwar right—the Conservative Revolutionaries. This thesis explores how this conflict provided ideological coherence to figures like Arnold Lunn, Arthur Bryant, and Douglas Jerrold, who occupied a unique position between conventional conservatism and fascism. Through organizations such as the Friends of Nationalist Spain, these intellectuals translated their abstract critiques of liberalism, democracy, and industrial capitalism into concrete political action. The thesis demonstrates that these figures were neither simple conservatives nor card-carrying fascists, but proponents of a third way between the two. This study challenges the conventional narrative that portrays British …

Angelic Wasting: The Impacts Of The Enlightenment, Evangelicalism, And The Industrial Revolution On Romanticization Of Tuberculosis In England, 1800-1850, Sara M. Sudano

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis aims to elucidate the intersections between the portrayal of tuberculosis in the Romantic era and the Enlightenment, evangelism, and the Industrial Revolution. This study aims to do so by locating and analyzing depictions in the primary source representations of the disease, then considering the effects of the three factors mentioned above on its representation. The Enlightenment, evangelism, and the Industrial Revolution interacted in a variety of ways, and the influence of all three factors was found within the representations of tuberculosis, albeit in often indirect ways. In the novels of Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell and Charlotte Brontë, tuberculosis was …

20th Century Graphic Design Development: Bridging Theory, History, And Practice Through Russian Constructivism, Oscar A. Gonzalez Jr.

Theses

This project centers on examining Russian Constructivism as a design movement and its influence on contemporary graphic design practices. It focuses on bridging historical theory and visual style with modern studio work, particularly through the creation of LGBTQ+ advocacy posters inspired by Constructivist aesthetics. The aim is to analyze the formal visual elements of Russian Constructivism while producing original designs that engage with current issues of identity and inclusion. Additionally, the project explores how the integration of analog and digital techniques can elevate visual messaging and creative expression.

Dekonstruktion Der Afd: Eine Analyse Der Rechtspopulistischen Deutschen Partei Der„Alternative Für Deutschland”, Elizabeth A. Breckenridge, Elizabeth Breckenridge

Departmental Honors & Graduate Capstone Projects

Die Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) ist eine rechtsextreme populistische Partei, die innerhalb eines Jahrzehnts rasch an Macht gewonnen hat, insbesondere in den ostdeutschen Bundesländern, aufgrund ihrer Betonung der Nationalisierung, ihrer populistischen Rhetorik und ihrer Anziehungskraft auf Wähler, die Ängste vor Einwanderung und kulturellem Wandel hegen. Die AfD hat es innerhalb von fünf Jahren geschafft, eine starke Wählerschaft zu mobilisieren, 2017 Sitze im Bundestag zu erringen und gilt nun als wichtigste Oppositionspartei zu den etablierten Parteien. Die AfD ist die erste rechte Partei seit 1945, die aufgrund des Aufstiegs rechtspolitischer Ideologien bedeutende Wahlerfolge erzielen konnte. Aufgrund des reaktionären Pendelschwungs nach dem …

Those Magnificent Men In Their Fighting Machines: An Investigation Into The Lives Of Wwi Tankmen, Lucas C. Campbell

Master's Theses

This thesis will look at the immense backlog of war diaries, journals, personal letters, government documentation, and oral histories left behind by British tank crewmen of the First World War. The purpose of this investigation is mainly to uncover the reasons that individuals were chosen for transferal into the Royal Tank Regiment, where they were transferred from, what their training consisted of before their deployment, and their combat history once they were sent into the battlefields on the Western Front. The goal of this project is to gauge the reaction to the emergence of this crucially important technology on a …

Remembering The Stasi On The Screen: Historical Film Analysis Of The East German Ministry For State Security, William H. Herzfeld

History Undergraduate Honors Theses

The purpose of this thesis is to assess how the history and identity of the Ministerium für Staatssicherheit (Ministry for State Security, Stasi) has been internalized by the German people through film media. Germans endured significant trauma and cultural manipulation at the hands of the Stasi and the Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands (Socialist Unity Party, SED) that is personified in many ways. The trauma that the Stasi inflicted sits heavily on the reflective interpretations of the DDR, complicating retrospection on life in the DDR and its positive elements. The Stasi have come to represent the essential negativity of life in …

Cultural Of Authenticity And Commodification: Analyzing The Aesthetic Waves And Collective Culture In The 2010s And 2020s, Stefanny Leung Yu

Student Theses

The “authentic self” is curated, aestheticized, and most notably, commodified. Digital algorithms, likes, views, and engagement are more than just digital metrics, they are the management of performance. For millions of other users — including the author herself — social media is the locus of personal expression. Most notably, sites like Tumblr, where users in the 2010s posted hazy images or overly filtered graphics along with melancholic song lyrics that match the vibe of the moment, expression was earnest and idealized. Today, social media in the 2020s, new creators like Hannah Neelaman, better known as Ballerina Farm, dress in pastoral …

Sisterly Bonds Beyond The Grave: The Ethical Implications Of Posthumously Publishing Jane Austen’S Persuasion, Ashleigh Jay

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

By the time that Jane Austen died in 1817, she had only published four novels. After her death, her family retained her other writings. Later that year, they published one of Austen’s finished manuscripts which became the novel Persuasion. This act of posthumous publication invokes inquiries into whether the action was ethical. In order to better understand the ethics of publishing Persuasion posthumously, one can look at information from Jane Austen’s life and ideas around posthumous actions. Even though Persuasion by Jane Austen was published posthumously, Austen’s choice to leave the manuscript with her sister and her completion of …

Pedro Aceves Mfa Thesis, Pedro M. Aceves

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

My Work is about looking at Cruising through a queer decolonial lens. Using multiple mediums such as photo, glass, Augmented reality, and film, I explore these queer histories and aesthetics through not just an anthropological approach but also an artistic epistemological approach weaving together narratives of prehispanic and modern queer Latinidad.

“With Neither Hope Nor Fear”: Continuity In The Life Of Isabella D’Este, Alyssa Murphy

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Isabella d’Este is traditionally viewed as the most notable female art patron of Renaissance Italy, primarily studied for her excellent taste. This positive interpretation has left her out of the reputational rehabilitation that modern historians have applied to many of her contemporaries, and what recent work has been done focuses on her marriage. However, Isabella outlived her husband by nearly twenty years, and contrary to writers who view that widowhood as an afterthought, she remained a dominant political and cultural figure in her own right. This thesis reassesses Isabella’s letters to argue that the traditional segmentation of her life does …

The Rise And Fall Of The Contagious Diseases Acts: An Examination Of The Legislative Influences, Medical Discourse And Repeal Arguments, Elizabeth Henderson

All Theses

The Contagious Diseases Acts (CDA) were the most important legislative intervention concerning sexuality in the nineteenth century. The CDA was a public health measure passed to address the spread of venereal disease amongst the British Army and Navy, and targeted Britain's most vulnerable women – sex workers – because they were blamed for being the presumed cause and primary mode of spreading venereal disease. This resulted in the legalization of what critics of the CDA would call surgical assault, or instrumental rape, of working-class women suspected of being sex workers. Historians who study sexuality and sex work in Britain have …

The Shift Of Western Power In The Anglo-American Relationship As Examined Through The Military Events Of World War Ii, Zaina A. Nait Omar

All Theses

How did the authority within the Anglo-American Alliance begin to shift toward the American domination that ruled the second half of the twentieth century? By examining the events of World War II, this thesis restructures the typical timeline with which historians have approached the dynamic of authority in the Anglo-American Relationship. Many historians claim that America was the perceived senior partner by 1941; however, this thesis demonstrates that by examining things from a military lens, that date must change. The British continued to operate under the intention of maintaining their global authority through 1945 and even into 1946. The thesis …

Performative Masculinity In Ducal Literature In Florence (1520-1580), Matthew T. Perkins

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Ducal literature of sixteenth-century Florence illuminates the performative nature of gender and sexuality, especially in regard to masculinity. The impetus of this study is Benvenuto Cellini’s autobiography, My Life. While contemporary historiographical studies examine Cellini’s work for its overt misogyny and violence, this work argues that the performative nature of gender, through interdisciplinarity and contextual analysis, offers a highly complex view of masculinity. Cellini’s autobiography directly relates to Giorgio Vasari’s The Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects. Vasari’s accounts of Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni and Giovanni Antonio Bazzi, called Il Sodoma, emphasize the importance of fashioned …

Ua12/2/2 Talisman: Connection, Wku Student Affairs

WKU Administration Documents

Spring 2025 Talisman:

• Alali, Cecilia & Ragan Harrington. Connection
• Hardesty, Emma. On a Roll – Dungeons & Dragons
• Muscutt, Carson. Grinding Through Life – Molotov Skateshop
• Cox, Kate. Stopwatch
• Harrington, Ragan. 1 Campus, 7 Strangers – Logan Hesse, Nicholas Basile, Spencer Winterbottom, Alliyah Jones, Alex Gehring, Annie McClurg, Rowan Finley
• Vickers, Abigail. Forged in Combat – Mixed Martial Arts
• Wood-Morris, Oli. Survivors to Neighbors – Bosnian Refugees
• Jordan, Shylin. Severed Roots
• Bivens, Emily. Behind the Screen – Social Media
• Dean, Clarissa. Shear Talent – Shake Rag Barbershop
• Sutton, Avery. For the Love of the Old – Thrift Shopping
• Phelps, Maggie. …

The Golem, Sayanti Ganguly Puckett Dr.

Sabbatical Projects

My research explores the Jewish mythical figure of the golem and the symbolism behind it from contradictory angles that juxtapose the figure as a subservient defender of the oppressed Jews and as a monster over whom his creator has lost control and who then runs amok slaughtering those it is created to protect. My research attempts to make sense of these clashing propensities to understand how this figure can become such a bewildering yet ominous figure to Christians and Jews alike. Additionally, in the ultimate destruction of the golem, I would like to explore societal anxieties, fears, and securities about …

The Philosopher’S Art: The Alchemical And Religious Writings Of Sir Isaac Newton, Caleb J. Stamp

Senior Honors Theses

Sir Isaac Newton is inarguably one of the most famous yet divisive geniuses in human history. His writing touched on a staggering variety of topics, including chemistry, physics, and history, among others. Some of his less well-known works – most notably, his alchemical experiments and his prophetic commentaries – have created wildly conflicting views of both him and his theories. However, Newton’s alchemical and religious writings are crucial to understanding his broader worldview: namely, that the spiritual and natural aspects of the world worked together in a universe created by a supreme God who ordained that reality operates in a …

A Tale Of Two Faiths: Contemporary Protestantism In The Spanish-Speaking Catholic World, Jackson B. Mitchell

Honors Theses

This thesis explores the shifting religious landscape of the Spanish-speaking Catholic world through the lens of Protestant growth, particularly Pentecostal and Evangelical movements. Beginning with a historical account of Spain’s Catholic hegemony and its colonial export of Catholicism to Latin America, the study traces how Latin America’s religious identity has gradually diverged from its Spanish roots. Over the past half-century, Protestantism has grown rapidly across Latin America, challenging Catholic dominance and reshaping the region’s spiritual and social fabric.

The thesis then turns back to Spain, where rising immigration from Latin America and changing cultural dynamics have facilitated the reintroduction of …