Digital Commons Network^™

When We Were Monsters: Ethnogenesis In Medieval Ireland 800-1366, Dawn Adelaide Seymour Klos

Master's Theses

Ethnogenesis, or the process of identity construction occurred in medieval Ireland as a reaction to laws passed by the first centralized government on the island. This thesis tracks ethnogenesis through documents relating to change in language, custom, and law. This argument provides insight into how a new political identity was rendered necessary by the Anglo-Irish. Victor Turner’s model of Communitas structures the argument as each stage of liminality represents a turning point in the process of ethnogenesis.

1169 marked a watershed moment as it began the Anglo-Norman invasion of Ireland. English nobles brought with them ideas of centralized power. In …

A Eurafrican Future: France, Algeria, And The Treaty Of Rome (1951-1975), Megan Brown

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Before the Treaty of Rome (1957) established the European Economic Community (EEC), French officials made it clear that France’s signature on the Treaty was contingent on its partners’ acceptance of Eurafrican policy. Because Algeria held a unique legal status among France’s overseas holdings, the way in which French officials advocated its insertion within EEC regulation merits particular attention. This status stood distinct from that of the associated territories and, when applied to the Treaty, would theoretically extend to Algeria and its residents the guarantees of free labor circulation, development aid, and tariff preferences open to metropolitan citizens through EEC membership. …

Land Of Women: Basilicata, Emigration, And The Women Who Remained Behind, 1880-1914, Victoria Calabrese

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Between 1880 and 1914, millions of Italians emigrated to all corners of the globe in hopes of earning better wages and forging a better life for themselves and for their families. This dissertation examines the role of the women left behind in the Italian region of Basilicata when their husbands emigrated, and the political, social, economic, and legal changes they experienced in their absence. During the Liberal Period, women had few political rights, and married women were dependent on their husbands, but being left on their own put them in a unique position. I argue that the Southern Italian women …

Inventing Saladin: The Role Of The Saladin Legend In European Culture And Identity, Brian C. David

Masters Theses, 2010-2019

This thesis seeks to uncover and understand the strange historical journey of the Muslim Sultan Yusuf ibn Ayyub, known to the West as Saladin. The historic Saladin was a ruler famous for his successful campaigns against the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem, his victory at the Battle of Hattin, and his holding action against the Third Crusade. Upon Saladin’s death in 1193, he became the subject of numerous legends, most of which describe him as a merciful, chivalric, and ideal leader of men. The epitome of what a thirteenth century European noble was supposed to be. This thesis seek to explain …

The Letters Of Stewart Winfield Herman Jr. An American Pastor In Berlin, 1936-1941, Lucy A. Marks

Student Publications

This paper provides an analysis of the experiences of Stewart Herman Winfield Jr based on a collection of his letters on loan to Gettysburg College from the Gettysburg Lutheran Seminary. This paper discusses Herman’s experiences as a student in Strasburg and Gottingen, and as the pastor of the American church of Berlin from 1936 – 1941. Born in Harrisburg, Herman attended Gettysburg College, and the Gettysburg Lutheran Seminary. Herman’s letters provide both a pastoral and an American perspective on the start of WWII and Nazism in Germany. Herman traveled frequently and witnessed the changes that Berlin faced during World War …

The Royal Disease And The Royal Collapse: Political Effects Of Hemophilia In The Royal Houses Of Europe, Amy Brown 17

Honor Scholar Theses

No abstract provided.

The Byline Of Europe: An Examination Of Foreign Correspondents' Reporting From 1930 To 1941, Kerry J. Garvey

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis focuses on two of the largest foreign correspondents’ networks the one of the Chicago Tribune and New York Times- in prewar Europe and especially in Germany, thus providing a wider perspective on the foreign correspondents’ role in news reporting and, more importantly, how their reporting appeared in the published newspaper. It provides a new, broader perspective on how foreign news reporting portrayed European events to the American public. It describes the correspondents’ role in publishing articles over three time periods- 1930 to 1933, 1933-1939, and 1939 to 1941. Reporting and consequently the published paper depended on the correspondents’ …

Owing And Owning: Zubayr Pasha, Slavery, And Empire In Nineteenth-Century Sudan, Zachary S. Berman

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The Mahdist revolt provides a quandary: why did Africans revolt against imperialism in defense of slavery? This study approaches the issue by analyzing the life of Zubayr Pasha, most well-known of Sudanese slave-traders in the decades leading to the Mahdist Revolt. What I found in interviews with him, parliamentary debates over him, articles about him, and proclamations concerning him, was that the emotional responses to his story show different perspectives on the processes of overlapping imperialisms, voluntary slavery, and a host of integrated issues. To himself he was a trader, a businessman working within the letter of the law; to …

Ultimate Witnesses - The Visual Culture Of Death, Burial And Mourning In Famine Ireland, Extract, Niamh Ann Kelly

Books/Book Chapters

No abstract provided.

In The Company Of Angels: Expressions Of Personal Autonomy, Authority, And Agency In Early Anglo-Saxon Monasticism, William Tanner Smoot

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

In this thesis I examine the opportunities for individual agency and social and spiritual autonomy in the seventh-and-eighth-century Anglo-Saxon kingdoms occasioned by the introduction and development of Christian monasticism. The term “autonomy” concerns the degree to which individuals managed to determine the social order and nature, as well as spiritual character, of their ensuing lives through an adherence to monastic practice. Early Anglo-Saxon Christianity assumed a monastic character, and from the outset coenobitic communities acquired and maintained certain rights regarding their internal governance and social development from their ecclesiastic and secular superiors, which conceptually separated religious households from those of …

A Different Way Of Touring Europe; One Aid Man's Journey Across Europe During World War Ii, Abigail M. Currier

The Gettysburg Historical Journal

Robert Bell Bradley enlisted in the United States Army in October of 1942 as an aid man. He spent several months training to be a first responder on the front lines of combat and learning how to deal with a variety of issues. He was then attached to the 30^th Infantry Division and sent to England in preparation for operation OVERLORD and the D-Day Invasion. Two months later, he was captured by the Germans and this event began a year long journey filled with death and near misses. [1] While Bradley’s experiences cannot speak for all prisoner of war …

Civil War Or Genocide? The United Nations Commission Of Experts’ Misunderstanding Of The Third Balkan War Of The 1990s, Matthew G. Morley

Grand Valley Journal of History

When the country of Yugoslavia disintegrated into war, the United Nations created a research commission, the Yugoslav Commission of Experts, to document war crimes. This commission, led by Cherif M. Bassiouni, depicted the conflict as a perpetual problem with historical roots and also as having victims on both sides, which presented a legal-definitional paradox to the Security Council, requiring litigation of principles, categorization of conflicts, and discussion of further involvement - if applicable. This paper traces the essentialist understandings of the Commission of Experts and the International Human Rights Law Institute – two groups that otherwise had good intentions to …

‘Something A Little Bit Tasty’: Women And The Rise Of Nutrition Science In Interwar British Africa, Lacey Sparks

Theses and Dissertations--History

Widespread malnutrition after the Great Depression called into question the role of the British state in preserving the welfare of both its citizens and its subjects. International organizations such as the League of Nations, empire-wide projects such as nutrition surveys conducted by the Committee for Nutrition in the Colonial Empire (CNCE), sub-imperial networks of medical and teaching professionals, and individuals on-the-spot in different colonies wove a dense web of ideas on nutrition. African women quickly became the focus of efforts to end malnutrition due to Malthusian concerns of underpopulation in Africa and African women’s role as both farmers and mothers. …

The Hopes And The Realities Of Aviation In French Indochina, 1919-1940, Gregory Charles Seltzer

Theses and Dissertations--History

My dissertation examines how and why the French employed aviation in the five constituent parts of French Indochina (Annam, Cambodia, Cochinchina, Laos, and Tonkin) during the interwar period of the 1920s and 1930s. I argue that the French, believing that the modern technology of powered flight possessed seemingly endless potential, saw aviation as a vehicle for extending, consolidating, developing, and protecting their interests both within the colony and around Southeast and East Asia. Aircraft, whether civil or military, were viewed and used as a multi-purpose tool of empire. Indeed, planes were employed for a variety of tasks in Indochina: transportation …

Climate And Capitalism: English Perceptions Of Newfoundland's Natural Environment And Economic Value, 1610-1699, Joshua Tavenor

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

For English merchants, planters and politicians, colonizing Newfoundland required learning the limitations and opportunities afforded by the island’s natural environment. The crucial period for this learning process took place from 1610, the first English effort to colonize the island, to the 1699 passing of the Act to Encourage the Trade to Newfoundland, which defined the cod fishery as the island’s only viable industry. During these eighty-nine years, English enterprises and policies consistently failed to meet the expectations of their backers, and new information challenged accepted ideas about Newfoundland’s climate and natural resources, pressuring the supporters of those decisions to …

Review Of Muslims And Jews In France. History Of A Conflict By Maud S. Mandel, Bryan Turner

Publications and Research

The mood of European scholarship with respect to the recognition and integration of Islam is typically pessimistic. The rise of anti-immigrant and anti-Islam political parties – Golden Dawn in Greece, the Northern League in Italy, Marine Le Penn and the National Front in France, and the English defense league in Britain – have exposed a hitherto hidden or ignored under-current of resentment against foreigners. In the context of these developments, Maud Mandel’s study of Muslims and Jews in France is a welcome corrective to the dominant focus on anti-Islam in the academic literature and in the popular media. The historical …

Imperial Correlations Between The German Kaiserreich In Eastern Europe And The Third Reich In Eastern Europe, Laura Guebert

Posters-at-the-Capitol

This project is an examination of correlations between imperial enterprises of the Second German Empire and the Nazi Reich through the lenses of global and imperial critiques. The two primary case studies are the German Ober Ost and Nazi-occupied Eastern Europe, particularly the General Government. This research draws heavily on certain themes and theories developed by leading historians of modern German and Eastern European history, including Timothy Snyder, Alexander Watson, Ben Kiernan, Shelley Baranowski, and Peter Fritzsche. By understanding the shared trends of empire and genocide, it is my aim to bring the actions of the National Socialists out of …

Sean L. Field, Robert E. Lerner, And Sylvain Piron, Eds., Marguerite Porete Et Le Miroir Des Simples Âmes: Perspectives Historiques, Philosophiques Et Littéraires. Paris: Vrin, 2013. 368 Pp. Notes, Bibliography, And Index. $43.00 U.S. (Pb). Isbn 978-2-7116-2524-6, Tanya S. Stabler

History: Faculty Publications and Other Works

A review of Marguerite Porete et le Miroir des simples âmes: Perspectives historiques, philosophiques et littéraires.edited by Sean L. Field, Robert E. Lerner, and Sylvain Piron.

The French Revolution In The French-Algerian War (1954-1962): Historical Analogy And The Limits Of French Historical Reason, Timothy Scott Johnson

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examines the use of the French Revolution as an explanatory device for discussing the French-Algerian War (1954-1962). Anticolonial intellectuals in France invoked the French Revolution to explain their reasons for supporting colonial reform as well as their solidarity with Algerian nationalist aims. Through an examination of intellectuals’ public interventions alongside French and Algerian historical narratives, I examine the ways in which historical alignment signaled political and cultural distance between France and Algeria. Making an independent Algeria analogous to eighteenth-century revolutionary France lent political and conceptual legitimacy to Algerian claims to an independent national identity while also reinforcing the …

Interstate Alliances Of The Fourth-Century Bce Greek World: A Socio-Cultural Perspective, Nicholas D. Cross

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation offers a reassessment of interstate alliances (συμμαχία) in the fourth-century BCE Greek world from a socio-cultural perspective. Although there are a number of studies of ancient and modern alliances that approach the topic from a politico-military perspective, this is the first to apply a socio-cultural perspective to classical Greek alliances. By considering the subject in its own context, from the primary literary and epigraphic sources rather than modern theoretical models, this study aims to identify how contemporaries understood and represented their collaborative activities with other poleis. This approach leads to insights that challenge the widespread notion that classical …

A Short History Of Horror: Early Modern Jews And Their Monsters, Iris Idelson-Shein

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

The following sources offer a short survey of one particularly troubling source of fear—and indeed horror—in the early modern period, namely—the womb. A mysterious, uniquely feminine organ, for centuries the womb has been the stuff of fantasies and nightmares. It has been imagined at one and the same time as a haven and a hell, a nest and a tomb, a source of pleasure and pain, life and illness.

The following excerpts come from different genres, spaces, and languages. The first two excerpts are taken from two medical compendiums written around the turn of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The …

The Elberfeld System: Poor Relief And The Fluidity Of German Identity In Mid-Nineteenth Century Germany, James Willis

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

The Elberfeld System is synonymous with the development of the welfare state in the German Empire. Historians underscore the Elberfeld System’s “Germanness” because of its adoption by numerous nineteenth-century Prussian industrial cities. Their interpretation is useful for understanding the development of the welfare state in the German Empire, but fails to appreciate the Elberfeld System within its own context. This thesis explores the social and economic reasons that the Elberfeld System succeeded when and where it did. Elberfeld was one of the earliest industrialized centers in continental Europe in the first half of the nineteenth century. Industrialization created class stratification …

The Watch Tower Bible And Tract Society: How Jehovah’S Witnesses Denounced And Resisted The Nazi Regime, Elena Sorchiotti

Masters Theses, 2010-2019

The present thesis aims to reveal the stance of the religious organization of Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society, towards the oppression and persecution of its members - examined in the accompanying website - perpetrated by the Nazi regime in Germany, from 1933 to 1944. Unlike the majority of Christian denominations, Jehovah’s Witnesses from all around the world took a firm stand against Hitler’s political agenda and against the actions carried out by the Nazi authorities. Through the use of diplomatic means, publication of articles, special campaigns, and letters addressed to government officials, the world headquarters of …

New Influences On Naming Patterns In Victorian Britain, Amy M. Hasfjord

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines a major shift in naming patterns that occurred in Victorian Britain, roughly between 1840 and 1900, though with roots dating back to the mid-18th century. Until approximately 1840, most new names in England that achieved wide popularity had their origins in royal and/or religious influence. The upper middle classes changed this pattern during the Victorian era by introducing a number of new names that came from popular print culture. These names are determined based on a study collecting 10,000 men's and 10,000 women's names from marriage announcements in the London Times. Many of these new names were …

Immigrants In The Sexual Revolution: Perceptions, Participation, And Belonging, The Netherlands And Denmark, 1960s-80s, Andrew D.J. Shield

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This is an historical study of first-generation immigrants in Denmark and the Netherlands in the 1960s-80s and their perceptions of the 'Sexual Revolution.' Foreign workers and post-colonial immigrants arrived during the same decades when laws regarding women's equality, contraception and abortion, homosexuality, pornography, adultery and divorce were challenged and reformed, in many cases in the context of intensive social movement activism. This research explores immigrants' perceptions of the dramatic changes in sexual and gender relations transforming Europe in the 1960s-80s, and the instances of immigrant solidarity with, and participation in, networks for social justice, women's equality, and sexual liberation.

Part …

The Problematic Pleasures Of Productivity And Efficiency In Goa And Navegador, Nancy M. Foasberg

Publications and Research

Eurogames are a specific subset of modern board games known for mathematical beauty, low conflict and light themes. However, despite their apparent nonviolence, they often use colonial themes. This article argues that the uncritical embrace of these themes and "abstracting away" of troubling historical content results in a narrative that supports colonialism. Two examples of the genre, Goa and Navegador are analyzed in detail.

Negotiating An Electorate: Gender, Class, And The British Reform Acts, Jill Marie Abney

Theses and Dissertations--History

Five Reform Acts passed over the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries gradually increased the size of the British electorate. Negotiations over lowering property, rent, and lodging restrictions led to new Acts that slowly increased the number of Britons deemed worthy to vote. This dissertation examines the extent class and gender were relevant to those negotiations of British citizenship over the course of those five Acts. The project scrutinizes the language used in Parliamentary debates, political pamphlets, and political correspondence to reconstruct the constantly-changing conceptualization of the ideal citizen’s gendered identity in Britain and Europe. This project illuminates the …

The Decolonization Of Christianity In Colonial Kenya, Amanda Ruth Ford

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Kenya was an unusual case within the larger narrative of decolonization in the British Empire. The presence of white settlers, the relative newness of the colony, and the particular way in which the British pursued the civilizing mission all combined to make the end of empire particularly violent for all parties involved. Independence in Kenya was precipitated by a bloody civil war, known as Mau Mau, and the imposition of martial law by the government for almost a decade. In the midst of this chaos, the Church of England’s missionary body, the Church Missionary Society worked to protect their converts …

"Pray For The People Who Feed You": Voices Of Pauper Children In The Industrial Age, Rebecca S. Duffy, Jill Ogline Titus

Schmucker Art Catalogs

Following the Industrial Revolution in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, countries such as the United States and England experienced a widening gap between the rich industrialists and the impoverished working class. As a result, poverty quickly shifted from a localized problem to a national epidemic. Each country was faced with the challenges of addressing and alleviating poverty on a national scale. With a limited amount of resources, questions arose about who should receive relief. What should it look like? How should it be administered? And how would poverty and policy affect political, economic, social and familial structures? [ …

Imperial Priests And Martyrs: Pretexts For State Violence And Religious Change In France, 1848-1871, Benjamin Tyner

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examines the lives and political significance of five French Catholic priests who were murdered between 1848 and 1871. Using French newspapers, printed religious texts and pamphlets, hagiographic biographies and other sources, I show the many ways in which French priests were wittingly and unwittingly used by the French Second Republic (1848-52), Second Empire (1852-70) and the Paris Commune (1871) and Third Republic (1870-1940). Archbishop of Paris Denis Auguste Affre (1848), Saint Augustin Schoeffler (1851), Archbishop of Paris Marie-Dominique-Auguste Sibour (1857), Saint Théophane Vénard (1861), and Archbishop of Paris Georges Darboy (1871) were all killed more for their relationship …