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Leaders On The Ground: Command Influence On War Crimes In The Armies Of France And The United States, Hayward Hood

All Theses

Utilizing torture during the Battle of Algiers, the My Lai Massacre, and torture at Abu Ghraib as specific case studies, this thesis contends that negligence or dereliction of duty by the brigade, battalion, and company commanders were the primary factors. Additional factors included commanders stressing rapid results, and external stressors in the soldiers’ immediate environment. War crimes are defined as violations of the 1907 Hague Convention which was supported by the 1949 Geneva Protocols, and negligence is defined in the legal sense.1 Contrary to the existing narrative, this thesis contends that lower-level commanders did more to create the conditions required …

“Back To The Jungle”: Investigating Rats, Grass, Scrub Typhus, And Plantations In Malaya, 1924–1974, Jack Greatrex

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

In this article, I examine epidemiological research into scrub typhus in British Malaya between 1924 and 1974. Interwar research, I show, explained the incidence of the disease through conjunctions of rats, mites, plantations, lalang grass, and “jungle.” In the process, interwar researchers bridged a novel scientific vocabulary centering on disease “reservoirs” with older suspicions of plantations enabling “pests,” as well as with a later, explicitly ecological understanding of infectious disease. In exploring this history I thereby help to re-historicize the emergence of ecological notions of disease reservoirs, whilst also pushing at the limit-points of influential notions of “tropicality.”

From Hellfighters To Tuskegee Airmen, Austin Teague

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

The First and Second World Wars were enormous facilitators for drawing people from all over to enlist. Nowhere was this more the case than in the United States after it entered the war in 1916, and later in 1941. Although a vast majority of those who joined were white, a smaller percentage were African Americans. Due to the racial relations of the time, they were separated into their own black only regiments. The 369th Infantry Regiment would come to be known as the Harlem Hellfighters and were sanctioned to work in the French Army. The 99th Pursuit Squadron, also known …

Ars, Virtus, Impetus: Gladiatorial Training And Roman Legionaries, Daniel Porter

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

In 105 BCE, the Roman consul Publius Rutilius Rufus employed gladiatorial training for his legionaries. This thesis examines the physiological and psychological consequences of this style of training on the human body in an effort to understand why these particular soldiers were so effective. I used experiential testing alongside primary and secondary source research to examine how this process better prepared Roman troops for engaging in actual combat.

"A Dreadful Thing": C.S. Lewis And The Experinces Of War, Timothy J. Demy

Sehnsucht: The C. S. Lewis Journal

From a Christian perspective, war entails the death and killing of people who are all created in the image of God and therefore have inherent dignity and incalculable worth. And yet, even after experiencing war at firsthand, C. S. Lewis believed that war is sometimes justifiable and necessary.

Like others of his generation, Lewis was deeply affected by the experience of war. He lived through the First and Second World Wars, serving as an officer on the Western Front between November 1917 and April 1918. His brother Warren (“Warnie”) was a career officer serving in the British army in both …

Caron's Japan: Tokugawa State And Society Through A European Lens, Cegan Hinson

Departmental Honors & Graduate Capstone Projects

Dutch East India Company (VOC) merchant François Caron describes Tokugawa Japan as a rigid political hierarchy controlled by the Shogun, similar to the governments established by absolute monarchs in Europe. Caron understands and insightfully describes Tokugawa society by emphasizing perceived and real similarities between Tokugawa Japan and Early Modern Europe. He struggles to understand religious differences between these societies, but his description of Japanese religious practices still reflects how the Shogunate utilized Buddhism and anti-Christian policies to uphold their rule. Caron also depicts Tokugawa Japan as a land of plentiful resources prime for lucrative trade. He includes the writings of …

Demythologizing Homer: Investigating Religion In Minoan Crete, Elizabeth Rybarczyk

Departmental Honors & Graduate Capstone Projects

The Minoan civilization of Bronze-Age Crete has, until recently, been obscured in mythological uncertainty. As a prehistoric civilization, the available evidence for historic analysis is sparse and ambiguous. This paper evaluates the material evidence for ritual activity to chart the religious developments of Minoan Crete. In the earliest periods of their civilization, the Minoans practiced animism, which reflected their ideals towards survival and cooperation. As their prosperity grew due to technological advancements, a social hierarchy formed. The emerging elite employed religion to justify their claim to power by appropriating religion, which culminated in a dual-monotheistic Knossian theocracy. This lasted until …

The Contribution Of Domestic And International Conflict In Renaissance Italy To The Sport Of Fencing, Amelia E. Nason

Young Historians Conference

Fencing, the art or practice of attack and defense with the foil, épée, or saber, has progressed over hundreds of years from the warfare of Germanic tribes to a regulated Olympic sport. This paper investigates the development of fencing during the fifteenth and sixteenth century Italian Renaissance and outlines a variety of ways that fencing culture mirrored Italy’s at the time, demonstrating that Italian fencing was a product of both international and domestic conflict beyond the sport itself. The competitive cultural influence of aesthetic epicenters such as the Florentine Republic over other European countries—particularly France, Spain, and Italy—was paralleled by …

33rd Annual Young Historians Conference Program, Portland State University History Department, Portland State University Challenge Program

Young Historians Conference

This is the 2023 Young Historians Conference schedule and abstracts.

From Mascot To Marine: The Long Walk To The American Military Dog Program, Elisabeth Jana Phillips

Masters Theses

In World War II, the military dog became synonymous with patriotism and the fight for a free world. In the absence of a military dog program at the beginning of World War II, the United States was the exception amongst Western powers. The establishment of an official military dog program in the United States during World War II was a critical and inevitable step in the development of the country’s military. Through the creative collaboration of civilians and military personnel, the K9 Corps and Dogs for Defense organization produced trained military dogs that had immediate positive impacts on the battlefield …

Heilbronn Im Jahr 1945: Warum Hier, Alexander Keuerleber

Departmental Honors & Graduate Capstone Projects

Die Stadt Heilbronn, im Südwesten Deutschlands, war und ist ein wichtiger Kreuzungspunkt im südlichen deutschen Raum. Dort kreuzen sich wichtige Handelswege: per Schiff, per Auto, per Zug und zu Fuß. Infolge der Handelswege wurde Heilbronn schnell eine einflussreiche Stadt und Drehpunkt im Land. Im Zweiten Weltkrieg führte das zu Konflikt und Bombardierungen. Wie viele andere deutsche Großstädte kam es 1944 in Heilbronn zu verheerenden Bombenangriffen und dann im April 1945 zu einem neuntägigen Kampf. Dieser Kampf war wichtig, weil er einer der brutalsten Kämpfe der Amerikaner in Deutschland war, und weil es auch der allerletzte große Kampfeinsatz für amerikanische Truppen …

Apartheid’S Leviathan : Electricity And The Power Of Technological Ambivalence, Faeeza Ballim

Ohio University Press Open Access Books

A fascinating study that shows how the intersection of technology and politics has shaped South African history since the 1960s.

This book details the development of an interconnected technological system of a coal mine and of the Matimba and Medupi power stations in the Waterberg, a rural region of South Africa near the country’s border with Botswana. South Africa’s state steel manufacturing corporation, Iscor, which has since been privatized, developed a coal mine in the region in the 1970s. This set the stage for the national electricity provider, Eskom, to build coal-fueled power stations in the Waterberg.

Faeeza Ballim follows …

A Fake Future: The Threat Of Foreign Disinformation On The U.S. And Its Allies, Brandon M. Rubsamen

Global Tides

This paper attempts to explain the threat that foreign disinformation poses for the United States Intelligence Community and its allies. The paper examines Russian disinformation from both a historical and contemporary context and how its effect on Western democracies may only be exacerbated in light of Chinese involvement and evolving technologies. Fortunately, the paper also studies practices and strategies that the United States Intelligence Community and its allied foreign counterparts may use to respond. It is hoped that this study will help shed further light on Russian and Chinese disinformation campaigns and explain how the Intelligence Community can efficiently react.

The Dialectics Of Rock Music And Neoliberalism, Derek Block

Honors Theses

It has been argued that Rock music is one of the Modern West’s most important artistic achievements. It was, in some way, shape, or form, the most popular genre of music in the Western hemisphere for the last 60 years. The depth and relevancy of the genre still resonate through almost every level of society; a Bruce Springsteen song played at a political rally, a Beatles tune scoring a movie characters existential contemplation, the same six songs played at sporting events, and the list goes on. Rock music can be as personal as a stranger strumming a guitar in a …

Torn Between The Creeds Of The Devil: The German-Finnish Co-Belligerency In World War Ii, Stephanie Wright

Liberty University Research Week

Graduate

Textual or Investigative

The Atomic Bomb: A Violent Means Of Peacemaking, Eric Cashion

Liberty University Research Week

Undergraduate

Textual or Investigative

The Sound Of The Civil War: Examining The Intersection Between Music And Emotion In America, 1861-1865, Christina Cannon

Campus Research Month

The topics of the history of music and the history of music intersect in the Civil War in fascinating ways. Both religious music and “secular” music were seen to have great power over their listeners, potentially with the power to alter the directions of lives or their salvation status. Music was used both as a mode of rebellion against the antagonizing army and ideal and a rebellion against unnecessarily violent acts. Each side used it against the other, but a select few also used it against the war itself. Soldiers marched to music, set camp to music, and fought to …

Review Essay: Lewis Agonistes: How C. S. Lewis Can Train Us To Wrestle With The Modern And Postmodern World, William Gentrup

Sehnsucht: The C. S. Lewis Journal

A lengthy review of Lewis Agonistes: How C. S. Lewis Can Train Us to Wrestle with the Modern and Postmodern World. By Louis Markos. Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 2003.

ISBN 0-8054-2778-3. Pp. xv + 174. $19.99 [paper].

A Medieval Pirate's Life: The Role Of Piracy In Medieval Life Versus Its Role In Modern Historiography, Leah Lam

History ETDs

Medieval piracy is a mysterious phenomenon that is interwoven within the politics, culture, economic histories of the Middle Ages. Its presence throughout the Middle Ages is not questioned, yet it is rarely researched thoroughly. The subject of medieval piracy falls prey to the biases and assumptions that modern historians carry towards piracy as a whole, making the subject be under researched and improperly utilized. In this thesis, I will be highlighting the role that piracy played in medieval life and the way that modern historiography has neglected it. To do so thoroughly, I have pulled examples from different times, regions, …

Savages And Sable Subjects: White Fear, Racism, And The Demonization Of Creole Voodoo In New Orleans In The 19th Century, Christopher L. Newman

Madison Historical Review

Prior to the Haitian Revolution, the religion of Voodoo maintained a safe and uninterrupted presence in New Orleans. Practiced by free and enslaved Blacks, Voodoo thrived within the larger Creole culture of the Louisiana territory. However, after the rebellion, white slaveholders in New Orleans would come to regard Voodoo as an evil, savage superstition related to Haitian Vodou. The demonizing of New Orleans Voodoo would emerge from white slaveholders’ fears of slave uprisings inspired by the Haitian Revolution and a migration of Haitian rebels into New Orleans. Yet theological objections were not the primary impetus for white aggressions toward Creole …

The 2023 Society For Military History Annual Meeting, Micah Wright

Title III Professional Development Reports

Financed by Title III funds, I attended the Society for Military History (SMH) Annual Meeting in San Diego, California. The conference took place from March 23-25 2023. The Society for Military History was established in 1933 and is the preeminent professional organization for military historians in the United States. The SMH is devoted to stimulating and advancing the study of military history and counts more than 2,700 members from academia and the armed forces.

During the conference, I presented an original research paper entitled “A Soldier Can Owe Allegiance to but One Flag: Political Polarization and Military Service in Puerto …

Legacy - Spring 2023, South Carolina Institute Of Archaeology And Anthropology--University Of South Carolina

SCIAA Magazine - Legacy & PastWatch

Contents:

The South Carolina Paleo Point Survey

Director's Notes

The Camden Burial Project, Part I: Background and Preliminary Results

The Search for Stuarts Town (1684-1686)

Numismatic History of the Charlesfort/Santa Elena Site: The Sixteenth-Century Spanish Occupation

SCIAA Publications Online at Scholar Commons: 2022

The South Carolina Paleoindian Point Survey on the Occasion of the Recording of the 800th Point

A Search Renewed: Continuing Survey Efforts to Locate Lucas Vazquez De Ayllon's Lost Capitana

Underwater Archaeological Photogrammetry Workshop

Guam 2022: Shipwreck Survey in Apra Harbor

The Savannah River Archaeological Research Program (SRARP) Premiers Two New Films

Historic Archaeology: Visiting 38LX5 in …

Time To Face The Music: Shostakovich’S 7th Symphony And The Siege Of Leningrad, Muhanna Al Lawati

Armstrong Undergraduate Journal of History

It was in his music that Shostakovich expressed his thoughts and feelings about the radically evolving political landscape of the 20^th century. Bolshevism and Stalin’s subsequent inheritance of the USSR promulgated a refashion of the arts, forcing Shostakovich to be an instrument of the state in order to avoid being a victim. It was during Hitler’s Siege of Leningrad where Shostakovich, ironically, did not feel like a victim, but the custodian of a powerful weapon that dared to defy forces beyond his comprehension. In response to Hitler’s Bolshevik crusade, Shostakovich would launch an ideological crusade of his own, composed …

The Sharpeville Massacre, Violence, And The Struggles Of The African National Congress, 1960-1990, Reese W. Hollister

Armstrong Undergraduate Journal of History

During the long process of decolonization in South Africa, the Sharpeville Massacre was a turning point for the African National Congress' decision to begin using violence for the internal resistance to apartheid. Nelson Mandela and the ANC reacted to the Sharpeville Massacre by shifting their methods to incorporate the practicality of anti-colonial violence. In his 1964 "I Am Prepared to Die" speech, Mandela acknowledged that peaceful resistance was met with brutal force, and this could not go on. The ANC continued its strong non-violent resistance while also developing a military wing and conducting sabotage. This essay brings into question the …

“The Same Service As Our Soldiers”: Metropolitan-Colonial Military Discourse In New France, 1754-60, James E. Lemons

Student Publications

The Seven Years’ War represented a new chapter in American military history, introducing European cultures of warfare to the North American continent for the first time in generations. This led to significant intermixture, dialogue, and debate between Indian, colonial, and metropolitan military men, especially within the context of New France. While some historians have located the debate between Canadian and metropolitan French military cultures as an attempt by the metropolitans to impose their own ways forcibly onto the existing landscape, this paper contends that both sides were remarkably willing to alter their manners of fighting and adapt in a syncretic …

Blood Cries Out From The Ground: The Einsatzgruppen And The Holocaust In Ukraine, Lauren R. Letizia

Student Publications

After the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, the Wehrmacht occupied much of the western Soviet regions. The Third Reich deployed special killing squads known as the Einsatzgruppen to protect its military and ideological interests. These units were responsible for murdering over two million Jews from 1941 to 1944, primarily through mass shootings. Ukraine was one of the most afflicted countries by this “Holocaust by Bullets.” Because of the efficient genocidal techniques of Einsatzgruppen units operating in the region, one in four Jews who perished in the Holocaust was Ukrainian. The scale on which these killings …

On Civilizational Strategic Studies, Stephen T. Satkiewicz

Comparative Civilizations Review

Given the on-going crises around the world, especially the current war in Ukraine, it has become imperative to analyze the strategic interests of the major geopolitical players in the world. Samuel P. Huntington formulated his controversial “Clash of Civilizations” thesis almost thirty years ago, but this topic has received a resurgence of interest due to Christopher Coker’s research on “civilizational states.” Coker takes this concept a bit further by arguing that different geopolitical actors disagree on how the world should be ordered.

Now is perhaps the most opportune time to examine the relevance of civilizations as well as civilizational theory …

May We Remember How The Great War Changed The Practice And Ceremony Of American Memorialization In Norfolk County, Massachusetts, 1868-1939, Grace Heffernan

History & Classics Undergraduate Theses

The emotional and psychological damage wrought by the Great War has long been rendered exceptional. The sheer numbers of dead and wounded coupled with new kinds of wounds – physical, emotional, psychological – perhaps justify this view. Yet in declaring that the Great War was a shock, a watershed, a tragedy, there is an implicit presupposition that some kind of precedent existed. As long as war had existed, so too did loss, grief, and mourning. The Great War did not introduce human sorrow to the world, though perhaps it altered human remembrance. When American families grieved their loved one, was …

The Christmas Never Forgotten: December 1914, Michael Facenda

History & Classics Undergraduate Theses

No abstract provided.

I-195 In Providence, Rhode Island: Urban Development Or Dislocation?, Alec Fraggos

History & Classics Undergraduate Theses

In 1939, as the effects of the 1938 New England Hurricane that devastated much of Rhode Island, it became painfully evident to Providence city officials that it needed a better system of highways and bridges. More than this, because several Rhode Islanders had died while evacuating, the state made a concerted effort to build more and better highways. As the U.S. joined the war effort, the possibility of another failed evacuation caused a panic among city officials that continued to drive the placement of urban highways in Providence. With changes in the city’s landscape and major shifts in demographics, Providence …