European History Commons^™

Front Matter

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

No abstract provided.

Historical Inquiry-Based Lessons In World History Classrooms: Creating Opportunities For Historical Thinking, Melinda Thatcher Lofland

All Graduate Reports and Creative Projects, Fall 2023 to Present

This Plan B project creates inquiry-based lessons that help students investigate the global tapestry of World History with its vast threads of transregional connections and diverse cultures that color our contemporary world and help prepare them to participate as global citizens. This project uses primary and secondary sources to create evidence-based lesson plans that will help history teachers provide opportunities for students to practice historical inquiry skills in Utah’s world history classrooms. These plans employ current scholarship and best teaching practices while following national and state standards for World History. In addition, these lessons were developed using inquiry-based historical thinking …

Genocide As Patriotic Duty: The Outcomes Of Ultranationalism And Dehumanization From World War Ii Genocide Orchestrators, Corie R. Blais

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

The thesis provides a contribution to the field of history how nationalism

often transforms individuals during wartime to become dehumanizing

ultranationalists through patriotism and its connection to genocide.  Also, it gives

insight into the many ways that genocide orchestrators during World War II,

relied on propaganda of racism, religion, and “othering” in order to justify their

incentives to expand territories and dehumanize victims through medical

experimentations and sexual violence.  While research materials in the context of

Nazi Germany were ample, one challenge in my research was finding

documentations on Stalin’s People Commissariat of Internal Affairs (NKVD)

police unit which carried …

The Kings Are Dead. Long Live The Kings: The Legacy Of Roman Kingship In The Republican And Imperial Periods, Dylan Hillebrand

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

From Romulus through Tarquinius Superbus, Rome’s kings occupied a major place within the collective cultural imagination of the ancient polity long after the office was abolished. For generations, no accusation was as odious as “king” and the entire period was seen as a cautionary tale. While the legacy of the kings remained an essential part of Roman identity, how the people related to that legacy changed eventually resulting in a restoration of kingship. A complete picture of the establishment-rejection-restoration cycle becomes clear through examination of the works of Roman (and Greek) historians. Central questions which guide this study: Why were …

Book Review: A People Destroyed: New Research On The Roma Genocide, 1941–1945, Elizabeth Graham

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

No abstract provided.

Full Issue

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

No abstract provided.

Student Awards

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

Awards for Outstanding Papers Written in 2025

Dam Negotiations: Water, Diné Sovereignty, And The Navajo Dam, George Smith

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

On July 30, 1958, contractors working for the Bureau of Reclamation broke ground on the Navajo Dam, located about 35 miles east of Farmington, New Mexico. Diné Tribal chairman Paul Jones had called the dam a “new hope for [his] people,” anticipating increased agricultural and industrial capacity from irrigation and flow management. Though officially approved in 1962, the contingent Navajo Indian Irrigation Project (NIIP) that was to provide those many of those benefits remained to be completed in 2024. By contrast, the San Juan Chama Project (SJCP), the other project contingent upon the dam, diverted water from the San Juan …

Marcion And The Crisis Of Second-Century Christianity, Samuel Petersen

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

Almost a century after the death of Christ and his original apostles, the 2nd-century Judeo-Christian church found itself in a vicious struggle for survival catalyzed by an ongoing negotiation between the church’s traditional Jewish roots and establishing its own identity. The loose confederation of Jesus-believers fought to gather themselves into a functional body as they wrestled with questions surrounding the very nature of the Christian faith.

“No Hen Should Herald The Dawn Lest Misfortune Follow”: Gender, History, And Power Sima Guang’S Comprehensive Mirror, Zoe Ngan

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

It was not a particularly notable occasion when Emperor Gaozong 高宗 of the Tang dynasty (AD 618–907) established Wu Zetian 武則天 as a mid-ranked concubine in 654. Emperors, throughout Chinese history, were polygamous rulers who acquired no shortage of concubines per the Rites of Zhou 周禮, an ancient ritual text which proposed that rulers obtain 121 wives and consorts. Wu’s nomination signified the unpredictability of imperial favour and almost certainly did not turn heads when her appointment occurred.

“I, Too, Want To Be Free”: Women And The Birth Control Movement In Utah, 1914–1940, Evelyn Wilcox

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

Like many other women, I too, want to be free,” explained a 33-year- old Utah woman in a 1925 letter to Margaret Sanger, a prominent leader in the birth control movement. This woman, whose name is unknown, was married to a 78-year- old man with whom, she thought, “in her ignorance,” that she would never have any children—she was proven wrong. With six children under the age of eight at the time and wanting to prevent having more, this woman’s predicament reflects Sanger’s mission to inform everyday women of birth control so they could make their own reproductive choices. After …

Christianity Behind The Iron Curtain: How Creative Arts Gave A Voice To The Voiceless, Riana Johnson Wills

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

In 1988, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) held celebrations across the Soviet Union to mark the Millennium of Christianity in Russia, commemorating a thousand years since the baptism of Rus in 988. While this was a monumental day for Christians, many believers across the Soviet Union felt a sense of dissonance. For decades, religious freedom and worship had not been privileges they enjoyed. Thousands of Christians suffered for their belief. The communist regime began in 1922 with Vladimir Lenin. The USSR built upon Marxist ideology where atheism is a fundamental and they expected nationwide compliance to these ideologies. …

Rationed Victory: A Study Of American Civilian Rationing In World War Ii, Alex Moulder

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

In any conflict or competition it is often said that the winner is “fueled to victory.” This could come as a result of training, diet, stamina, support from others, or sheer willpower. Even small variations in any of these elements can have significant consequences and affect outcomes. The same can be said about civilians during wartime, especially during the largest conflict of the twentieth century, World War II. The war cemented the United States as a global power, thanks in part to its massive economy, technologies, and industries, which helped to overcome the war of attrition against the Axis powers. …

“It Was The Women Who Kept It On”: The 1984–85 National Union Of Mineworkers Strike In Wales, Brett Bodily

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

On March 3rd, 1984, more than 140,000 miners, all members of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) walked out on strike in protest of proposed colliery, or “pit” closures. Years of disputes culminated in a major showdown between the largest labor union in the United Kingdom and a resurgent national conservatism led by Margaret Thatcher— leader of the Tory party. The communities built around coal mining recognized the Tory pit closure plan for what it was—an existential threat to their way of life. Women within these communities rose to the occasion and took on leadership and organizational responsibilities, many for …

Leasing Land, Losing Sovereignty: Us Military Land Leasing In Okinawa, Japan, Kathryn Blau

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

Military land leasing in Okinawa has played a central role in limiting Okinawan political sovereignty since the end of World War II by fostering economic dependence on US military bases and enabling policies that override local opposition. Tracing the evolution of the leasing system under both American occupation and Japanese administration reveals how land expropriation, compensation policies, and increasingly generous financial incentives encouraged reliance on base-related income while discouraging advocacy for land reversion and base reduction. The analysis further demonstrates how the Japanese government's legal enforcement of mandatory lease renewals, particularly during the 1996 Okinawa land dispute, curtailed the rights …

Editor's Preface, Gabe Smock

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

This editor's preface explores the origins and enduring mission of The Thetean, BYU's undergraduate history journal. Through archival research in the L. Tom Perry Special Collections, the journal's founding history is traced to its inaugural 1967 edition, revealing the origin, pronunciation, and meaning of its distinctive name as a reference to Phi Alpha Theta, the history honor society. The preface highlights the journal's longstanding commitment to encouraging scholarly research, providing publication opportunities, and introducing students to the work of historians. By recovering the journal's own history, it underscores the broader value of historical inquiry: understanding the past to better …

Front Matter

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

No abstract provided.

Hindu Poetry And The Project Of An Inter-Spiritual Catholic Theology, Francis X. Clooney

Journal of Global Catholicism

This article engages the work of the Indian south Indian Tamil-language Vaiṣṇava poet saints known as the Alvārs. The article specifically focuses the First HundredHoly Linked verses of Poykai Ālvār to argue for inter-spiritual learning between Catholics and Hindus. The article concludes with personal reflections on this encounter within the context of the global Catholic Church

Demographic Trends And Far-Right Party Support In Europe: The Role Of The Cordon Sanitaire, Maxwell Curry

Department of Political Science: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This study examines whether cordons sanitaires, institutional exclusionary arrangements common in Western and Central Europe on the part of mainstream political actors aimed to prevent far-right political parties perceived as posing a threat to liberal democratic order from entering into governing coalitions or otherwise participating in mainstream political life, condition the relationship between immigration-related demographic change and support for far-right political parties. Contemporary scholarship has extensively examined the relationship between immigration and support for far-right political parties, but comparatively little research has examined the institutional factors that potentially condition such a relationship. In an analysis of parliamentary election data …

Objects Of Atrocity: Material Culture And The Challenges Of Difficult Histories, Robert M. Ehrenreich, Jane E. Klinger, Gabriel H. Pizzorno, Caroline Sturdy Colls

Purdue University Press Books

The vast majority of people throughout history have left few written traces. That is especially the case for those who were brutally forced from their homes, stripped of their possessions, and swiftly imprisoned, enslaved, or murdered. Objects of Atrocity: Material Culture and the Challenges of Difficult Histories addresses how we return humanity to these people in order to avoid their erasure from history. Academics and practitioners from a variety of disciplines and cross-disciplinary approaches grapple with the challenges and possibilities relating to the collection, conservation, storage, and display of objects in the aftermath of mass atrocities. This collection confronts a …