Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Methods Of Memorialization: Holocaust Commemoration In The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Kylee Bolinger

University Honors Theses

Memorials, both formal and informal, both private and public, have long participated in the pursuit to honor the victims of tragedy, disaster, or genocide. Memorial museums serve both to memorialize victims and to foster an environment conducive to reflection and education about these stories. Such memorial museums have especially made their mark after one of the most notable and devastating genocide events in history: the Holocaust in twentieth-century Europe. This thesis examines how memorialization methods utilized by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) make up the American interpretation of Vergangenheitsbewältigung, the concept typically applied to how Germans deal …

Partizan: Separating The Human From Propaganda With Film, Raymond Hill

University Honors Theses

The relative protection Americans have for freedom of expression can allow stories to be told that would not be able to be told elsewhere. However, telling a story that does not belong to the storyteller and represents people of a different culture or nation can problematize the retelling of events and its perspective. The long-standing rivalry between United States and Russia complicates the matter further, making it difficult to find American film relating to Russia without the inclusion of propaganda and uneducated assumptions in film. Despite these issues, authentic storytelling can provide an informative view of events that the average …

Serfs, Excluded Or Governed By The State? Serfdom In Russia, An Historiographical Analysis, Jason Ferguson

Dissertations and Theses

Serfdom in Russia has often been viewed in Anglo-U.S. historiography as an exceptional institution in that it emerged in the early-modern age, after serfdom in Western Europe had ended, and that it persisted for well over two centuries, spanning the Muscovite and the Imperial eras. Many historians have thus compared serfdom in Russia unfavorably to labor systems that developed in Western European nations at that time, considered to be "modern" and "free," in contrast to the "unfree" labor obtained through Russian serfdom. This thesis presents the scholars who take this view, and refers to them as "Consensus Historians," as their …

Vestiges Of Propaganda: Postage Stamps Issued By The Third Reich In Poland And The Netherlands During The Second World War, Olivia Phillips

University Honors Theses

This thesis hopes to bridge the gap between philately and history and examines how postage stamps issued by the Third Reich during the Second World War portrayed their colonial and racial policy in the Netherlands and Poland. Through my research where I examine Nazi primary source documents and rely on an expansive discourse community whose focus is communications theory, postal history, and colonial history, I focus on how these stamps were an extension of the Reich’s Ministry for Propaganda. Dutch stamps closely align with German-issued stamps from the same period, through the depiction of hypermasculine men in a rural setting …

Session 2: Panel 1: Presenter 1 (Paper) -- The Struggle Of The Soul Medieval Women Mystics And The Constraints Of The Orthodoxy, Kasaundra A. Bonanno

Young Historians Conference

First Corinthians 14:34 tells us, “let your women keep silence in the churches for it is not permitted unto them to speak.” But what happened when medieval women in the 12-15th centuries did speak, and what techniques did they apply to gain credibility? This paper explores the various methods (along with cultural aspects such as the appearance of piousness) women mystics utilized to gain power within the Church in a time when their voices were silenced, and the factors that allowed individuals such as Catherine of Siena to gain incredible influence where individuals like Joan of Arc were burned at …

Session 1: Panel 2: Presenter 2 (Paper) -- The Irish Language And Nationalism In The 20th Century, Charlotte Cody

Young Historians Conference

Under centuries of British colonial rule, mass emigration, and discriminatory laws, the Irish language took a secondary position to English. As Irish nationalist ideology gained momentum in the early 20th century, Irish became useful and popular as a powerful symbol of resilience and a discrete national identity. However, the significance of Irish to nationalism had a mixed impact on its perception across the island due to the violence and sectarianism that accompanied the struggle for independence. This paper explores the influence that this divisive history had and continues to exert on the perception of and legislation supporting the Irish language, …

Session 1: Panel 3: Presenter 3 (Paper) -- The Reforms Of Mikhail Gorbachev And Their Effect On The Ussr, Fevronia M. Van Sickle

Young Historians Conference

This paper explores the influence of Mikhail Gorbachev’s policies on Soviet governance in relation to the USSR’s foundational ideology of communism, and the factors that led to the Union’s demise.

The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, most commonly referred to as the USSR, came into being in the early 20th century and lasted only around seventy years. Built upon revolutionary Marxist ideology, the USSR governed according to the ideology of communism while simultaneously contradicting the very ideology that formed its foundations, such as clinging to the existence of a state. Mikhail Gorbachev, General Secretary of the Communist Party of the …

Mutual Aid As Spiritual Tacit Knowledge Within Doukhobor Epistemology, Rachel L. Neubuhr Torres

University Honors Theses

The relationship between Michael Polanyi’s concept of tacit knowledge and religion is a topic that is rarely explored. Applying tacit knowledge to the study of religion and spirituality allows us to think about how we connect with the world and how we address the concern of what one feels to be true of their existence, or existential intuition. In the latter half of the 1800s the Russian prince turned anarchist, Peter Kropotkin, wrote extensively on the theory of mutually beneficial cooperation, or mutual aid, as being one of the most important factors of evolution. As Kropotkin began writing his series …

The Kings Have Daddy Issues: Masculinity And Generational Kingship Of The Plantagenet Dynasty, Richard Merrell

Phi Alpha Theta Pacific Northwest Regional Conference

Abstract: Masculinity studies owes a great debt to sociologist R. W. Connell, whose ideas on hegemonic masculinity have created a rich and fruitful field of study. The application of masculinity studies in medieval history is a similarly new field, dominated by Marc Ormrod’s broadly focused studies of the times. My paper does two things: it narrows Ormrod’s focus while introducing a new element of inquiry into the intergenerational relationships that reveal learned masculinity and the creation of symbols of power in Medieval England. I will focus on King Edward III; Edward the Black Prince, and King Richard II to examine …

Seamen And Sinners: Piracy And The Labor Culture Of The Early Eighteenth-Century British Atlantic World, Avonlea Bowthorpe

Phi Alpha Theta Pacific Northwest Regional Conference

Abstract: Between 1700 and 1730, the British Atlantic was significantly influenced by two compelling forces. The first was the continued and accelerating growth of competing European empires in the region, who in this period endeavored to define and protect their territorial boundaries whilst setting up profitable economic systems of production and commerce within them. The second was that of the pirates of the Atlantic, who, in a final crescendo of violence and destruction, would take hundreds of ships, disrupt highly valuable trade, and engage in bloody warfare with the Royal Navy. The purpose of this paper is to examine the …

Black Gold, White Gold, And The Bear's Influence Over Central Asian Economies, Jennifer Leo

University Honors Theses

In examining the socioeconomic state of former Soviet republics in Central Asia, it becomes clear that the current economies of nations such as Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan have been shaped by a history of Russian dominance, followed by turbulent developments that took place during the "perestroika" and post-independence period. These periods were marked by significant changes in governance which allowed Central Asian nations to gain inclusion in the global economy, forge partnerships with economically thriving world superpowers (US and China), and emerge from the Soviet system of mono-product economies. As a result of such developments, former republics of the Soviet …