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Full-Text Articles in History

How To Be A French Jew: Proust, Lazare, Glissant, Paul J. Fadoul Sep 2016

How To Be A French Jew: Proust, Lazare, Glissant, Paul J. Fadoul

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In my dissertation I use Auerbach's insights developed in his Mimesis to demonstrate that in A la recherche, Proust captures the political and racial concerns of his times, proposing as a solution a heterogeneous French society where cultural, ethnic, and religious groups live together in mutual respect and understanding. In his novel, Proust echoes ideas developed by Bernard Lazare in Le Nationalisme Juif (1897) as well as in the literary output of the first French Jewish Renaissance (early1900’s to the mid1930’s). These authors responded to the portentous mix of Nationalist and anti-Semitic politics by urging the creation of a separate …


The French Revolution In The French-Algerian War (1954-1962): Historical Analogy And The Limits Of French Historical Reason, Timothy Scott Johnson Sep 2016

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 …


An Alliance Of Ladies: Power, Public Affairs, And Class Construction In Early National New York City, Alisa J. Wade Sep 2016

An Alliance Of Ladies: Power, Public Affairs, And Class Construction In Early National New York City, Alisa J. Wade

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The dissertation studies elite women’s political consciousness in New York City between 1783 and 1815, contextualizing women’s position within the city’s social strata and the rise of market capitalism in the post-Revolutionary era. In a period of deferential politics, women within the leadership class played a unique role in remodeling the structure of republican government and determining who belonged within it. Building on the foundation of learned femininity, they constructed the etiquette that undergirded men’s political careers and oversaw the marriage market. They mediated divisions between new merchant capital and more established landed wealth, reinforcing dynastic stability. Moreover, they were …


Shattered Mosaic: David Dinkins, Rudolph Giuliani, And Social And Electoral Polarization In Late-20th Century New York City, Gabriel S. Tennen Jun 2016

Shattered Mosaic: David Dinkins, Rudolph Giuliani, And Social And Electoral Polarization In Late-20th Century New York City, Gabriel S. Tennen

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

On Tuesday November 2, 1993, New Yorkers went to the polls to vote in the mayoral election between the incumbent Democratic candidate, David Dinkins, and the Republican-Liberal Party candidate, Rudolph Giuliani. As with most local New York elections, several additional candidates were on the ballot. Jimmy McMillan, known now as the “Rent is Too Damn High” candidate, made his first bid for public office that year. The clear frontrunners, Giuliani and Dinkins, would finish just percentage points apart, with Giuliani garnering 50.9% of the popular vote and Dinkins only 48%. This was a near mirror image of the previous election …


Neither A Slave Nor A King: The Antislavery Project And The Origins Of The American Sectional Crisis, 1820-1848, Joseph T. Murphy Jun 2016

Neither A Slave Nor A King: The Antislavery Project And The Origins Of The American Sectional Crisis, 1820-1848, Joseph T. Murphy

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

“Neither a Slave nor a King” intervenes in the scholarly debate over the “antislavery origins” of the sectional crisis in antebellum America – how the rise of a northern antislavery movement escalated the sectional tensions that led to southern secession and the Civil War. There are two main strands of literature on the antislavery origins of the sectional crisis. The first, in which social and cultural historians are dominant, focuses on the rise of radical (or “immediate”) abolitionism in the 1830s, exploring its impact on North-South relations and antebellum reform generally. The other strand, written by political and legal historians, …


This Species Of Property: Slavery And The Properties Of Subjecthood In Anglo-American Law And Politics, 1619-1783, John N. Blanton Feb 2016

This Species Of Property: Slavery And The Properties Of Subjecthood In Anglo-American Law And Politics, 1619-1783, John N. Blanton

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This Species of Property examines the development of the law and practice of slavery in the 17th and 18th century Anglo-American empire through analysis of common law court decisions in England, Massachusetts, and Virginia. The dissertation argues that there was a long and vibrant debate over the legitimacy of the chattel principle – the definition of enslaved persons as a type of property – and that enslaved people and their allies pushed for the recognition of the legal humanity or subjecthood of the enslaved in colonial and metropolitan courts. This antislavery legal tradition culminated in the famous Somerset …


Export / Import: The Promotion Of Contemporary Italian Art In The United States, 1935–1969, Raffaele Bedarida Feb 2016

Export / Import: The Promotion Of Contemporary Italian Art In The United States, 1935–1969, Raffaele Bedarida

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Export / Import examines the exportation of contemporary Italian art to the United States from 1935 to 1969 and how it refashioned Italian national identity in the process. I do not concentrate on the Italian art scene per se, or on the American reception of Italian shows. Through a transnational perspective, instead, I examine the role of art exhibitions, publications, and critical discourse aimed at American audiences. Inaugurated by the Fascist regime as a form of political propaganda, this form of cultural outreach to the United States continued after WWII as Italian museums, dealers, and critics aimed to vaunt the …