History Commons^™

Social Scripts And Emotional Communities Revealed In The Paston Letters, Mary Sweeney

History Undergraduate Honors Theses

This project analyzes the Paston Letters to better understand the emotional communities of an English gentry family in the fifteenth century. The letters examined are exchanged among - John the elder, his two sons, John II and John III, his wife Margaret Paston and their daughter-in-law, Margery Brews Paston. The textual analysis uses historical and sociolinguistic methods, paying particular attention to the language of emotion, such as swear words, words of endearment, and words of expression. The project relies on Melissa Mohr, Geoffrey Hughes, Alexander Bergs, and Barbra Rosenwein. These letters reveal people’s emotions and whether they maintained their emotional …

15 Nr 2005 Grenadier Battalion Köhler, Graff, From September 1781 Vacant Graff, From July 1782 Platte -1779 – 1784 (January – April), Johannes Schwalm Historical Association

Schwalm Marburg Files

No abstract provided.

“Educators Of The Public Taste”: Post-Civil War Textbook Publishing And The American History Textbook, Andrea T. Traietti

History & Classics Undergraduate Theses

No abstract provided.

Backfire: How The Rise Of Neoliberalism Facilitated The Rise Of The Far Right, Jacob Fuller

Capstone Showcase

The U.S. far right has become increasingly mainstream in contemporary American politics. In this paper, I analyze the theory that the far right has gained ground due to a backlash from neoliberal policies beginning in the 1980s under Ronald Reagan. Using Process tracing, I operationalize claims made by those arguing that the white working class has moved towards the far right due to their loss of status, as well as the theory that specific wealthy actors have mobilized these groups and altered the movement against neoliberalism to suit their interests. I find that these arguments have merit, and further the …

#Aminext: The Link Between European Colonization And Gender-Based Violence In Contemporary South Africa, Jenna Meredith Pagel

Capstone Showcase

Alarmingly, the female murder rate in South Africa is five times the global average (BBC News 2019). According to data from 2017 and 2018, a woman is murdered every four hours in South Africa (Wilkinson 2019). More than 30 women were killed by their spouses in August 2019, and at least 137 sexual offenses are committed per day in South Africa (Francke 2019).

For this thesis, and in order to understand why South Africa has some of the highest rates of violence against women in the world, I consult a number of scholars who conclude that the overall issue of …

Ecological Repentance, Emmanuel Salem

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

In an age ripe with discovery and analysis regarding anthropogenic pollution and the resultant climate change, a causal ideological explanation is naturally sought. This paper seeks to delve deep into the Christian religion and its relationship to the current climate crisis, as well as discuss whether or not predictions and speculative assertions professed in the famous essay by Lynn White, Historical Roots of our Ecological Crisis, hold up when surveyed with a more critical and thorough evaluative lens. This conversation is undertaken under three core considerations: biblical cosmology, what has happened in the world of Christian bioethics since White’s time, …

America’S Presidential Crisis Of Legitimacy: How The Electoral College Became Obsolete And How We Can Fix It, Julia Rose Foodman

Scripps Senior Theses

The goal of this thesis is to critique the current American Presidential electoral system, the Electoral College, and to show what an alternative could potentially mean for the American people. This paper seeks to answer the following questions: What are the main arguments for the Electoral College, why are they troubling, and how can we mend American Presidential elections for the greater purposes of political equality, democracy, and freedom? To do so, core arguments made by conservative pundits in favor of the Electoral College are outlined in order to bring attention to their logical, political, and moral inconsistencies. The inequalities …

Archives Of “Sexual Deviance”: Recovering The Queer Prisoner, Vic Overdorf

Journal of Feminist Scholarship

Queer federal prisoners are a population often inaccessible to queer memory due to the strong institutional barriers that separate these individuals from life outside of prison walls. This paper asks: how can we employ feminist methodologies in the recovery of queer voices from federal prison archives? By documenting perceived deviance and perversions, carceral institutions in the 1930s-1950s built a case to justify their use of discursive and physical violence against queer bodies. This paper argues that carceral archives serve as norming mechanisms, creating barriers between normal and abnormal, heterosexual and homosexual. To counter this norming, Ann Laura Stoler (2002) provides …

Ch. 3: A Contrarian Voice: Şehzāde Ḳorḳud’S (D. 919/1513) Writings On Kalām And The Early Articulation Of Ottoman Sunnism, Nabil Al-Tikriti

Books and Chapters

This chapter appears in the book, Historicizing Sunni Islam in the Ottoman Empire, c. 1450-c. 1750.  Edited by Tijana Krstic and Derin Terzioglu.  

Chapter abstract:  What characterizes Ottoman Sunnism, and how did it come to be? The conventional view is that by roughly the middle of the sixteenth century the imperial elite came to adopt and promote a particular religious identity, which can be characterized by several overlapping, interrelated, and historically defined denominational (madhhab) affiliations, as well as a particular relationship with the political hierarchy. The favored denominations included Hanafi legal affiliation and Maturidi kalām orientation, accompanied by elite …

Centralizing The Purse: Why A More Centralized National Government Was Crucial For Managing America's Revolutionary War Debt, Ethan Berg

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

Research on the American Revolutionary debt has particularly focused on the leadership of American financial figures: most notably Superintendent of Finance Robert Morris and U.S. Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton. While scholars affirm their indispensable leadership, they also acknowledge institutional and political conditions that distinguish their tenures. This CE/T seeks to further analyze these conditions. It draws upon scholarly works while evaluating different aspects and time frames of Americas’ public debt, including the initial accumulation of debt, the tenure of Robert Morris, the formation of the U.S. Constitution, and the tenure of Alexander Hamilton. The CE/T also analyzes the papers of …

Maiden, Martyr, Sinner, And Saint: Performing The Narratives Of Joan Of Arc, Emma Cox

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

This Capstone Experience/Thesis Project, made possible through the WKU Mahurin Honors College, is a study of historiography, or the way history is written. Joan of Arc is used to explore historiography because she is a figure that is written in many ways, each version giving us a snippet of the whole picture. The show written based on my research is titled Jehanne. I wanted to tell Joan’s story, but not just one version of it; I wanted to tell the whole story of who she is, not just what she did or what she believed. Not only does Jehanne …

Women Outside The Household In Early Modern Germany, Abigayle Edler

Honors Theses

During the early modern period, women were highly regulated by society. This regulation included everything from sumptuary laws restricting consumerism and clothing to exclusion from guilds and other occupational restrictions. Women were generally expected to remain within the household sphere and were discouraged from deviating from traditional norms. However, some early modern German women were able to challenge and subvert these expectations. Given the prescribed gender roles often enforced within early modern German society, what prominent roles and industries, if any, were women able to participate in outside of the household? “Women Outside the Household in Early Modern Germany” utilizes …

Maiden Voyagers: Exhibiting The Autonomy Of Travelling Women To Western Australia, 1818-1830, Toni Church

Theses

My thesis appraises critical problems of current museum practice concerning women, particularly interpretations of the physical female form and autonomous behaviours, through a wide-ranging field work study and in-depth analysis of recent Australian museum exhibitions and surveys of international exhibitions online. A working understanding of New Museology and empathetic museum practice was derived from this fieldwork experience and complemented by an academic study of museological theory to formulate future museum best practices. The second part of the thesis critiques written records and other artefacts to investigate autonomous behaviours in the experiences of European women who travelled to Western Australia in …

Contested Civic Space: The Piazza Della Signoria In Medicean Florence, Joanne Wisely

Senior Honors Theses and Projects

The heart of civic life in Renaissance Florence was an open square called the Piazza della Signoria. The piazza was the site of debates, executions, and power struggles, making it the most contested space in the city. Florentines held tremendous pride in their republic and often commissioned sculptural works to represent their civic values, displaying them publicly in the piazza. This research examines the shifting messages of sculptural works in the Piazza della Signoria during three distinct periods: from the piazza's creation in 1300 until 1494; from the expulsion of the Medici in 1494 until their return in 1512; and …

Drag Magazine: A Study Of Community, Olivia Austin

Departmental Honors Projects

This research aims to understand the trans/drag community and its relationship to political activism and the lesbian and gay community in the 1970s and early 1980s. I aim to answer the following questions: How did Drag perceive the relationship between the gay/lesbian community and the trans/drag community? How did Drag function in the trans/drag community? How did Drag benefit its readers? Transgender individuals and drag queens were at the forefront of activism in the1960s during the Compton’s Cafeteria Riot and the Stonewall Inn Riots. Recently, there has been more attention to the critical transgender activism by Marsha P. Johnson and …

Book Review: 101 Women Who Shaped South Carolina, Maggie Albro

Publications

No abstract provided.

North Korea: How Fear Is Used To Control A Nation, Ashley Clisby

Capstone Showcase

The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, more commonly known as North Korea, is most commonly known for its possession and testing of nuclear weapons and threatening to use these weapons of mass destruction. Less commonly talked about are the human rights violations that are being experienced by the citizens of North Korea. Most, if not all, of the information regarding North Korean human rights that have been reported on comes from individuals who have escaped the Kim regime. There is very limited information traveling in and out of North Korea that is not heavily monitored by the government. These individuals …

Gaming And Culture: How Videogames Can Affect Global Players' Preception And Understanding Of Japan's History And Culture, Garrett Davies

Capstone Showcase

Video game developers have the ability to create synthetic worlds. These are places where players have the ability to immerse themselves within a culture presented to them by the creators. This allows a global audience to participate in the expression and learning of culture but that may come at a cost. Focusing on Japan, I want to dive into how culture is presenting within video games, why it is presented in such ways, and what that means for players' perception of the country through play.

Representation, Narrative, And “Truth”: Literary And Historical Epistemology In 19th-Century France, Samuel A. Schuman

Honors Papers

My thesis examines the fluid boundaries between French historical and literary writing in the 19th century, and the shifts in “historical consciousness” that occurred in both fields as the century progressed. I examine three exemplary French writers—Jules Michelet, a historian, and Honore de Balzac and Emile Zola, both novelists—considering each primarily as a historical thinker, regardless of whether they considered themselves to be one. I argue that as the 19th century progressed, the broad shift in French institutions towards positivist epistemological and explanatory frameworks was reflected in literature, as well as in history. Both disciplines, one increasingly academic and one …

Dancing On The Dead: Death, Entertainment, And Respectability In Victorian London, Noa H. Segal

Honors Papers

As industrializing nineteenth-century London found itself in the position of a prominent world capital, the city faced problems of overcrowding, high poverty, and waves of epidemics, making the dead progressively more visible in public spheres of society. This thesis examines different forms of publicly-spectated death in Victorian London, moving from anatomical dissections to funerals to burials, following the Victorian corpse in these moments of dealing with the dead and the level of media involvement in structuring and marketing each of these spectacles to the public. While the current historiographical debate surrounding spectacles of death in nineteenth-century Europe agrees that death …

Witnessing Difference: An Exploration Of Living In The Aftermath Of Trauma In Post-Holocaust America In Cynthia Ozick’S “Rosa”, Anastasia Kourotchkina

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis examines the process of witnessing in Cynthia Ozick’s novella Rosa as a crucial part of living in the aftermath of Holocaust. By using Kelly Oliver’s concept of witnessing, I approach the process of witnessing trauma as the process of restoring subjectivity. As my analysis of Ozick’s Rosa shows, what prevents both Rosa and those around her to bear witness to trauma is the failure to imagine oneself as implicated in the traumas of the other. I conclude that the tendency to ignore the essential connection and dependence that exists between the Self and the other is enabled by …

Women And World War One: Perspectives On Women's Role In Wwi Literature, Rachel Michelle Brown

All Master's Theses

This thesis analyzes the changing gender roles of British women who served as caretakers in World War One. Often overlooked for their contributions, the women who worked on the frontlines of the war defined the changing role of women during and after the war in several crucial ways: 1) the general expectations of women’s gender role, 2) how women perceived and acted in motherhood, and 3) how women constructed and maintained heterosexual, homosocial, and platonic relationships. Using a gender theory approach, this thesis analyzes two semi-autobiographical fictional texts, Evadne Price’s Not So Quiet: Stepdaughters of War, published in 1930, and …

Sport, Kul’Turnost, And Physical Culture In The Khrushchev Era Soviet Union, 1953-1964, James Henry Jennings

All Master's Theses

Sport served many purposes in the Soviet Union, as it has in most modern societies. This study examines the relationship between state-sponsored imperatives for citizens to engage in sport and exercise and cultural norms in the Soviet Union during the Khrushchev years, 1953-1964. It also examines the attempted creation of a class of people who exhibited proletarian engagement with work, but also possessed bourgeois cultural tastes. A variety of visual and text-based primary sources from Russian-language magazines and poster campaigns were analyzed for their tone, content, and cultural signifiers. The sources yielded a view of Soviet society in which the …

Gender And Conservation: A Comparative Study Of The Bison And Wild Horse Conservation Movements, Holly Charlotte Fleshman

All Master's Theses

The focus of this thesis are the American bison and wild horse conservation movements. The goal is to address how these movements utilized and manipulated gender as a driving force for conservation. Throughout the nineteenth century, bison and bison hunting became identified with American manliness, which provided an opportunity for men like Theodore Roosevelt to establish and develop their masculinity through bison hunting narratives. When bison populations plummeted in the late nineteenth century, these men turned conservationists, and equated bison preservation with preservation of white American manliness. They developed idiosyncratic views of Darwin’s theory of natural selection, which allowed conservationists …

Destalinization And Its Impact On Gulag Returnees In The Khrushchev Era, 1953-1964, Kendal Ridgeway

All Master's Theses

With the death of Stalin and the immediate return of millions of Gulag survivors into Soviet society, Khrushchev’s government was confronted with the problem of maintaining the legitimacy of the communist system while at the same time addressing the legacy of mass repression in the Stalin years. Beginning briefly with the consolidation of the Gulag system in 1926, this work ties together narratives of official policy makers, Gulag returnees themselves, and contemporary Soviet historians to examine Gulag reform in the Khrushchev era in a wholistic manner. Using primary and secondary source material, this study analyzes policies of destalinization with specific …

Women And Violence In Revolutionary Russia, 1860-1925, Jenny R. Findsen

All Master's Theses

Russian women engaged in public violence during the late imperial and revolutionary periods in various ways and for a variety of reasons. This study examines traditional gender roles in Russia, and women’s motivations for female terrorism as well as military and police service. It establishes that women broke through patriarchal social barriers through violence, even while still embracing traditionally feminine notions of self-sacrifice for the common good. Based on primary sources such as memoirs, official policies, and newspaper articles, I argue that Russian women committed both illegal and officially sanctioned violence to achieve diverse personal, ideological, political, material, and familial …

Moving Towards Equity In The Arts Is America’S Silicon Valley A Cultural Backwater Or Harbinger?, Tom Borrup, Heidi Wagner, Elizabeth Taing, Amanda Rawson

Journal of Urban Culture Research

During a time when American cultural institutions and their funders have committed to advancing cultural equity and reverse patterns of white supremacy, this study illustrates a possible scenario of what that might look like. The nonprofit arts and cultural landscape observed in Silicon Valley raises questions of how American cities and regions might look in their movement towards equity. Data on these nonprofit organizations in this California region were examined in 2019 and compared with data from a decade earlier. These included numbers and start-up years of nonprofit arts and cultural organizations, their types, expenditures, and mission-based focus. In addition …

The Practice Of Creative Music And Dance Performances Of The Asli Mala Group, Rungnapa Sathittham, Nantida Chandransu

Journal of Urban Culture Research

What are the contexts and conditions important to the sustainability of an expressive culture, especially in the face of an everchanging socio-cultural environment? This research examines the strategies used by the Asli Mala performance group to adapt the traditional rong ngeng Pattani performance into their creative repretoire. Using data gathered from observations and interviews during fieldwork in 2018-19 and drawing on Bourdieu’s practice theory, I asked: How might we read Asli Mala’s creative works in terms of fields, capitals and strategies? While I argue that there are dominant and dominated agents operating under four subfields, the strategies employed by the …

Songs From The Sea : Maritime Influence On Indonesian Popular Songs In The 1980s, Abdullah Sammy

Journal of Urban Culture Research

This study examines the influence of maritime affairs on the development of Indonesian popular music in the 1980s. During the 1980s period, maritime events and issues became one of the discourses that developed in society. This is inseparable from the burning incident of the Tampomas II ship which resulted in hundreds of deaths. Not only the Tampomas II tragedy, the 1980s was marked by the issue of damage to marine ecosystems in Indonesia. This research reveals that Indonesian music is heavily influenced by maritime elements. Almost all traditional Indonesian music in each region touches on maritime elements. The same applies …

Online Art Projects During Covid - 19, Bussakorn Binson

Journal of Urban Culture Research

No abstract provided.