European History Commons^™

15 Nr120 Monthly Lists Knyphausen Regiment April 1776 To October 1783, Johannes Schwalm Historical Association

Schwalm Marburg Files

No abstract provided.

Diplomatic Misjudgments: The Decision-Making Process Before And During The 1870 Franco-Prussian War, Nathan Daly

History & Classics Undergraduate Theses

How did emotions affect the diplomatic process during the waning days of the Concert of Europe?  Was the idea of national honor so prevalent that diplomats began to lack reason when it was called into question by opposing states?  What happens when overzealous officials make claims and requests that far outweigh their position and norms of the time?  To address these questions, this thesis examines the diplomatic negotiations that took place before and during the 1870-1871 Franco-Prussian War, with a focus on the French side. The first chapter, which examines the crisis before the war, highlights how the French diplomats …

The Last Boat: How American And Polish Domestic And Foreign Policies Shaped The Polish Jewish Emigration Experience, 1933–1939, Jesse Spadaccini

History & Classics Undergraduate Theses

The interwar period from 1918 to 1939 saw Poland and the United States contend with major international and domestic questions regarding Jewish emigration. In a matter of twenty years, Polish policy developed from protecting its Jewish minority to actively persecuting it in political, economic, and social spheres with radical antisemitism. In the United States, immigration was limited post-1924 because of a nationality-based quota system introduced by the Immigration Act of 1924. Despite diplomats arguing for increased numbers, American officials’ position remained strong on limiting immigration, continuing unchanged as an understanding of Polish-Jewish plight became clear in the 1930s. The Polish …

Women With Will: The Power Of The Women Of The Renaissance, Madeline E. Stewart

Tenor of Our Times

Women of Italy in the Renaissance period were not powerless. They may or may not have had articulate power, but in many cases, they wielded an inarticulate power or influence that is more complex and difficult to define by modern terms associated with feminism. Feminism is simply anachronistic for this time, and the people of this time cannot be expected to have upheld ideals that had not been developed yet. Claims that women had no power or development in this era are false. Some excellent examples of some of the most powerful people in Italy politically were women, and they …

Living Letters, Jacob Rooney

Tenor of Our Times

Living Letters

Made In Ireland: A Postcolonial Analysis Of Irish Cultural Revival And Its Impact On Ireland’S International Relations, Emma Boyd

Political Science Student Papers and Posters

This thesis examines the impact of how British colonial rule led to the decline of Irish cultural components, such as Gaelic (Gaeilge), and how postcolonial revival efforts have shaped Ireland’s modern identity and its use of soft power in international relations. Drawing on mobilization and postcolonial theories, this paper defines key concepts, mobilization, remobilization, and postcolonial identity, to provide an analytical foundation. The analysis explores how colonial policies eroded Irish culture and language, intensified by the Great Famine, and how the Irish Diaspora serves as a global network for remobilizing Irish identity abroad. The ongoing conflicts in Northern Ireland will …

The Transparent Crypt: Temporal Stratification, Materiality, And The Affective Archive In Jenny Erpenbeck’S "Kairos", Mallory Wooldridge

Comparative Literature M.A. Essays

For Germany, the process of reckoning with the past is not a new one. Termed Vergangenheitsbewältigung in the post-war period and envisioned as a project extending beyond the academy into public consciousness, “dealing with the past” was first envisioned in response to the Nazi regime and its horrors. While already a disjointed project in the Nazi context, the question of how reunified Germany reckons with the former German Democratic Republic’s past remains unresolved.

In her 2021 novel Kairos, Jenny Erpenbeck proposes a different model of historical consciousness. Drawing on Theodor Adorno’s post-war theory of working through the past ( …

Stakhanov Lives Forever: How Art And Culture Outlasted Politics In The Communist World, Samuel Shewmake

Calvert Undergraduate Research Awards

The Stakhanovite movement and its long term consequences has been heavily debated in the field of Soviet history for several decades. The dominant scholarly narrative is that the Stakhanovite movement and Stakhanovism were largely extinguished during the period following the buildup to the Second World War. Previous works have relied heavily on solely political analysis of the movement, presuming that its character was primarily state-driven with little social component. This paper analyzes the social and artistic legacy of the Stakhanovite movement through novel analysis of film, music, and art of the Stakhanovite period and following decades. Contrary to what has …

No Fue Un Accidente: The Fascist Fantasy Of Self-Victimization In Alfonso Ponce De León’S Autorretrato (1936), Geovany Uranda

Calvert Undergraduate Research Awards

During the eve of the Spanish Civil War (1936 - 1939) Alfonso Ponce de León, a Falange propagandist and artist, created Autorretrato (1936), a self-portrait inspired by an automobile accident he experienced. He exhibited this work several months before his arrest, torture, and execution by Republican forces. This paper analyzes the self-portrait as a fascist work of self-victimization and ideological myth-making in line with fascist propaganda of the time. The painting presents Ponce de León as a dead or dying figure staged through the visual language of Catholic martyrdom. Drawing from Baroque compositional practices and iconographic tropes associated with the …

A Culture Divided: How Irish Americans Responded To Ireland’S Wartime Neutrality, Robert J. Barron

Honors College Theses

In the Second World War, the nation of Ireland declared its neutrality and maintained this status through the course of the long conflict. Meanwhile, Germany, Great Britain, and eventually the United States all competed to gain Ireland’s support in the war. However, one overlooked group continued to keep tabs on the affairs within their homeland: Irish Americans. How does one respond to a nation you have a connection with staying neutral in such a deadly conflict? The answer, for Irish Americans, was that it depended on the year. Before the United States entered the war, Irish Americans firmly defended the …

Who Let The Werewolves Into The Manuscripts: Written And Pictorial Representations Of Werewolves In English Manuscripts, Allison Slowiak

LSU Master's Theses

The werewolf – a fictional figure that transforms from human to wolf – serves as a compelling example of how medieval thought shaped ideas about identity and transformation. The motif of the werewolf, present in a small corpus of works from the tenth through the fourteenth century, emerged to explore the limits of change while also comparing the likeness of humanity to its animal counterpart. This paper explores medieval literature - Beowulf, Bisclavret, Biclarel, and Melion – from both French or English descent to offer overlapping and contrasting thoughts about human likeness to wolves. The manuscripts - The Nowell Codex, …

Acquiring Egypt: Napoleon, Joséphine, And The Formation Of France’S Collections Of Egyptian Antiquities, 1792-1822, Anna E. Dow

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation examines the seizure and acquisition of Egyptian antiquities by the French government between 1792 and 1822. During this period, the French government seized antiquities for a variety of reasons, not the least of which was to benefit the French people politically and financially and to support the French ideals of art and civilization. Egyptian antiquities were collected almost accidentally, as French armies confiscated the collections of the wealthy in Paris and the aristocratic collections in Italy. But the presence of the art prompted the curiosity of the French, which led to a greater interest in Egyptian antiquities. However, …

Cicero And Conspiracy, John Ferraro

Best Integrated Writing

Ferraro argues that the traditional account of the Catiline Conspiracy of 63 B.C.E., largely shaped by Cicero, is biased and politically motivated. It suggests that Cicero exaggerated or misrepresented the threat posed by Catiline to justify consolidating power and suppressing reform efforts, highlighting the need to critically evaluate partisan primary sources when interpreting this event.

Best Integrated Writing Spring 2026 - Complete Edition, Wright State University School Of Humanities And Cultural Studies, Tracy Smith, Kristie Mckiernan

Best Integrated Writing

Best Integrated Writing includes excellent student writing from Integrated Writing courses taught at Wright State University.

Opening And Closing Doors: Internationalism In The Norbertine Missions To Settler And Indigenous Populations In Wisconsin, Alex Gruber

Journal of Global Catholicism

In this essay, I argue that the Premonstratensian or Norbertine Order located in Berne Abbey in the Netherlands responded strongly to a call for international ministry by going to northeast Wisconsin for Walloon settlers from Belgium and their descendants in 1893. However, these priests and brothers fell much farther short of internationalism in the mission to the Oneida Nation reservation they received in 1898. I will make my case by detailing these two missions and analyzing how the Norbertines acknowledged their international nature and practiced or failed to practice internationalism in them. Diving into the mission histories requires discussion of …

“Enslavement By Unbridled Passions:” Catholic Magisterial Institutional Attitudes Toward Homosexuals In Poland Between 1945 And 1989, Agnieszka Laddach

Journal of Global Catholicism

During Communism, the Polish bishops presented a narrative about (homo)sexuality with in order to create the image of a righteous moral and social life that was to influence the Catholics. In my research I conduced a thematic analysis of this narrative. I highlight the doctrinal and Polish social-religious context to foreground tendencies in the formation of Church teaching about homosexuality as well as the importance of the Church in Poland to its formation. Then, I show the factors that characterize the episcopal discourse’s content and language about homosexuality, recognizing that components of episcopal discourse suggest a specificity of Church potential …

Overview & Acknowledgments, Mathew Schmalz

Journal of Global Catholicism

This Introduction overviews the work of contributors from the Graduate Symposium sponsored by the Journal of Global Catholicism and the McFarland Center for Religion, Ethics and Culture.  The Introduction also highlights the independent peer reviewed submission from Dr. Agnieszka Laddach of the University of Warsaw.

Making A Victim: The Quest To Define Austria In A Cold War Context, Katherine E. White

The Cardinal Edge

When the Second World War concluded, the Allied Powers were left with the complicated question of how to deal with the territories that they had occupied on their march to Berlin. Of all the territories conquered by Germany under Nazi rule, Austria proved to be one of the most difficult and polarizing to define. It towed the line between victim and accomplice, having endorsed its own annexation to Germany in 1938. For ten years after the war’s end, the Allied Powers occupied Austria, locked in a stalemate over the country’s fate. This paper examines how the various occupying powers, in …

How Laws And Systems Contributed To The Masking And Expansion Of The Verdingkinder System And Targeted Jenisch People, Max Gmuender

Scholarly Horizons: University of Minnesota, Morris Undergraduate Journal

Did Switzerland have slavery? What did it look like? These were the questions that led me investigate the history of “Verdingkinder,” or contract children, who were placed as indentured laborers primarily on Swiss farms from 1850 to 1950. As I dug deeper, I discovered a more targeted campaign within this broader system: the “Kinder der Landstrasse” (Children of the Road) program, which ran from 1926 to 1973 and specifically removed children of the Jenisch ethnic community from their families.

This discovery raised a critical question that has driven my research: How did legal frameworks and institutional systems in Switzerland facilitate …

Sparks Under Ashes, Ani Sargsyan

School of Art, Art History, and Design: Theses and Student Creative Work

Rooted in hope, reflections on longing, family history, and the contemporary Armenian experience take precedence in Sparks Under Ashes. The title of the show itself derives from my great-grandfather’s notebook, which details his unjust exile during the Great Purge of the Soviet era and other life experiences. His handwriting becomes ingrained in my work as both our marks collide through painting, drawing, and transfer processes to bridge the time between us and celebrate generations of resilience.

Acts of endurance are crucial for Armenia’s survival because attempts of erasure have always been prominent, with the 1915 genocide being the darkest …