Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Zycie W Ameryce: Life In America (Poster), Brett A. Cotter

Summer Research Program

Poster complementing author's summer research project exploring the history of the Polish-American community of Worcester, Massachusetts centered on the parish of Our Lady of Czestochowa and how its members responded to the forces of Americanization. Research in area archives such as the Worcester Historical Museum, the Worcester Public Library, and at Our Lady of Czestochowa’s rectory and its parish school of Saint Mary’s, as well as oral history interviews with past and longtime members of the community test the assumption that the story of Worcester’s Polish community is one of loss and decline. On the contrary, Polish-American efforts to preserve …

Zycie W Ameryce: Life In America, Brett A. Cotter

Summer Research Program

My project explores the history of the Polish-American community of Worcester, Massachusetts centered on the parish of Our Lady of Czestochowa and how its members responded to the forces of Americanization. Like many ethnic groups new to America, Polish-Americans and Polish immigrants in the twentieth century had to adapt in a world that demanded conformity in exchange for social mobility and departure from tradition and community. Over eight weeks, I conducted research in area archives such as the Worcester Historical Museum, the Worcester Public Library, and at Our Lady of Czestochowa’s rectory and its parish school of Saint Mary’s, as …

Native Roots And Foreign Grafts: The Spiritual Quest Of Uchimura Kanzō, Christopher Andrew Born

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Between 1875 and 1890, Japanese academics, writers, legal experts, and intellectuals discussed and debated a host of new ideas and programs in the rapidly-expanding national media. Of great consequence were the 1890 Imperial Rescript on Education and the Meiji Constitution. The first sought to establish a strong nativist basis for a Japanese identity under the aegis of an imperial hegemon. The second sought to create a structure for modern citizenship based on Western notions of law and social contract. These seemingly antithetical documents came to symbolize the problematical status of the individual in Meiji Japan. They would become the touchstone …

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 …

Pre-Occupied Spaces: Remapping Italy's Transnational Migrations And Colonial Legacies [Table Of Contents], Teresa Fiore

Sociology

By linking Italy’s long history of emigration to all continents in the world, contemporary transnational migrations directed toward it, as well as the country’s colonial legacies, Fiore’s book poses Italy as a unique laboratory to rethink national belonging at large in our era of massive demographic mobility. Through an interdisciplinary cultural approach, the book finds traces of globalization in a past that may hold interesting lessons about inclusiveness for the present.

Fiore rethinks Italy’s formation and development on a transnational map through cultural analysis of travel, living, and work spaces as depicted in literary, filmic, and musical texts. By demonstrating …

Re-Writing English Identity: Medieval Historians Of Anglo-Norman Britain, Teresa Marie Lopez

Doctoral Dissertations

My dissertation uses post-colonial and narrative theories to examine the historiographic tradition of twelfth-century England. This investigation explores the idea of nationhood in pre-modern England and the relationship between history and romance in post-Conquest historical writings. I analyze how Geoffrey of Monmouth, Henry of Huntingdon Geffrei Gaimar, and Laʒamon imagine and narrate the explicit changes to the ruling elite in twelfth-century England, and how this process constructs their idea of “Englishness.”

From Hellenism To Hitlerism: The Use Of Sport As An Ethnic And Cultural Identifier, Ethan Schwartz

University of Massachusetts Undergraduate History Journal

From antiquity onwards, sports and competitive athletic events have been used as an area to implement othering strategies. Othering is the attempt to differentiate a societal group by some determining factor. Evidence of athletics being used as an othering medium, is prevalent throughout ancient Greece, ancient Rome, Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany, and early 20th century Britain.

Damar On Fridays, Maja Sadikovic

Theses

Abstract

These poems are about the first hand witnessing of the Balkan war and its visceral repercussions, ripping of families across generations and continents due to religious intolerance, and an identity crisis within the diaspora of the former Yugoslav people. They interact with appeals of loss, in terms of bodies, memory, and material, despair within the identity of the self in and outside of religion, and the perception of love and belonging, but not necessarily in that order. They are largely inspired by victim story-telling, translations of conversations with natives of the former Yugoslavia and their children, and ramifications of …

Neither Here Nor There: Northern Ireland, Myth, And The People In Between, Amanda L. Judge

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Northern Ireland is often portrayed in political, journalistic, and academic literature as having two main communities – Catholic/Irish/nationalist/republicans and Protestant/British/unionist/loyalists. This study argues that there is a Third Community in Northern Ireland that consists of political moderates, those who resist categorization into these two communities, and those who consistently defy traditional communal boundaries. Through an examination of primary and secondary sources, including political party literature, the press, web sites, poetry, short stories, music, and important academic studies, this community is depicted in great detail. It has a history and a mythology in addition to its own political ideals, symbolism, and …

'Gifts From Amin': The Resettlement, Integration, And Identities Of Ugandan Asian Refugees In Canada, Shezan Muhammedi

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Given the current climate of the global refugee crisis it is vital to investigate why and how Canada has admitted refugees in the past. Prior to the creation of formal refugee policy, several notable resettlement initiatives occurred within the country in the postwar period including the arrival of Hungarian and Czechoslovakian refugees. This is the first academic study on the resettlement, integration, and identities of Ugandan Asian refugees who arrived in Canada between 1972 and 1974. They were the largest group of non-European and predominately Muslim refugees to arrive in Canada before the official creation of formal refugee policy in …

Get Ye A Copper Kettle: Appalachia, Moonshine, And A Postcolonial World, Christopher David Adkins

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

For little over a century, the American region of Appalachia was an internal mineral colony of the United States. This internal colonization produced innumerable negative environmental and economic effects, as well as – most insidious of all – the constructed stereotype of the Hillbilly that even in the Twenty-First Century refuses to die. Yet part and parcel of that same stereotype is something found all over Appalachia, representing a freedom, an identity, and an heritage so long denied to Appalachia and the Appalachian people on its own terms: moonshine, the colorless, unaged corn whiskey long produced both in Appalachia …

A Theory Of Veteran Identity, Travis L. Martin

Theses and Dissertations--English

More than 2.6 million troops have deployed in support of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Still, surveys reveal that more than half feel “disconnected” from their civilian counterparts, and this feeling persists despite ongoing efforts, in the academy and elsewhere, to help returning veterans overcome physical and mental wounds, seek an education, and find meaningful ways to contribute to society after taking off the uniform. This dissertation argues that Iraq and Afghanistan War veterans struggle with reassimilation because they lack healthy, complete models of veteran identity to draw upon in their postwar lives, a problem they’re working through collectively …

Encountering Greek American Soundscapes, Anthony Shay

Pomona Faculty Publications and Research

For this chapter I will look at Greek American music making through the eyes of a non-Greek, my younger self, who enjoyed and sought out this musical tradition for over fifty years, primarily as a folk dance enthusiast. For the international recreational dancer of the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, Greek music has rich melodic lines and many different rhythmic patterns (5/8; 7/8; 9/8, etc.) that attracted many individuals of Anglo American background like me to learn these dances, especially in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s when recreational and performance folk dance constituted a major leisure-time activity for hundreds of thousands …

Lost Boys And Girls: Navigating Experience And Identity During Operation Pedro Pan, Caleb M. Still

Honors College Theses

Over 14,000 unaccompanied children came from Cuba to the United States during Operation Pedro Pan. Once they arrived they were faced with an entirely new living situation and were forced to adapt. One of the remaining similarities to their Cuban home was the Catholic Church. The Church played a significant role in shaping these children’s fluid concept of their ethnic, national, and religious identities. Previous scholarship has not addressed the role of the Church in the program or the issue of the fluidity of identity among these children. This study builds on the existing scholarship and aims to fill in …