Showing 1 - 6 of 6 Items

Date: 2019-05-01

Creator: Albert William Wetter

Access: Open access

During the Great War, the Military Service Act was introduced on January 27, 1916 and redefined British citizenship. Moreover, some men objected to the state’s military service mandate, adamant that compliance violated their conscience. This thesis investigates how the introduction of conscription reshaped British society, dismantled the “sacred principle” of volunteerism, and replaced it with conscription, resulting in political and popular debates, which altered the individual’s relationship with the state. British society transformed from a polity defined by the tenets of Liberalism and a free-will social contract to a society where citizenship was correlated to duty to the state. Building off Lois Bibbings’ research on conscientious objectors, this thesis nuances the analysis with the case studies of David Blelloch and Norman Gaudie. Framed by two theories—Benedict Anderson’s imagined community and Barbara Rosenwein’s emotional community—these case studies demonstrate how conscientious objectors exposed the incongruence of the British imagined and emotional community, and the redefinition of citizenship. By weaving these theories into the British Great War tapestry, this thesis contends that the British nation was imagined differently before the war than it was after the war because of the introduction of conscription. Drawing from parliamentary debate transcripts, newspaper articles, and archival material from the Imperial War Museum in London, and the Liddle Personal Collection at the University of Leeds, Blelloch’s and Gaudie’s respective case studies ultimately bait the question: “What does it mean to be British?”

Date: 2024-01-01

Creator: Samantha Brown

Access: Open access

This thesis focuses on the French official mistress as a position of unofficial female political power under the French monarchy from the 16th to the 18th century. Centering on three case studies – Diane de Poitiers, Madame de Maintenon, and Madame de Pompadour – this thesis argues that the role of the official mistress extended beyond sexual companion to advisor, negotiator, diplomat, artistic patron, and cultural trendsetter. By taking a deep look at the epistolary and artistic record of these three official mistresses from across France’s modern history, the extent of their autonomy and political maneuvering becomes clear in the tactics they used to project and solidify their power. Diane de Poitiers, Madame de Maintenon, and Madame de Pompadour all existed in unique contexts of the French court and constructed their own methods of fulfilling the role of the official mistress, revealing both changes in the monarchy and their impacts upon it. Notably, the ways in which they projected identity through self-fashioning resulted in a reflection of this image back onto the monarch, expanding the extent of their impact on the monarchy. In striving to understand the political reality of women in France under Salic law and today, the position of maîtresse-en-titre is a crucial framework to recognize the significance of female power structures at court and in the monarchy, and the degree to which women were able to shape these structures themselves.

Date: 2020-01-01

Creator: Emily Ann Cohen

Access: Open access

Following the Second World War, as German Communists worked to establish a new socialist East German state, Jews who survived persecution and imprisonment by the Nazis worked to reestablish a Jewish community at the same time. Though many scholars dismiss the relationship between Jews and the Socialist Unity Party, the ruling party of the German Democratic Republic, as one characterized only by neglect and occasional political exploitation, it was much more nuanced, shaped in large part by the Cold War. Both the party and the Jewish community relied on the other to accomplish their goals, namely, survival in a new world order: The Socialist Unity Party relied on the Jewish community to maintain the German Democratic Republic's claim to legitimacy, and the Jews, few in number, relied on the party for financial support. Despite mutual benefits, however, the state and party nearly always had the upper hand. The power imbalance led Jews to find creative ways to fulfill their needs and, at several points, even prompted protest of the party’s treatment of its Jewish citizens. This paper follows the course of this relationship by focusing on the German Democratic Republic's management of sites of historical significance—which vacillated between outright destruction and dedicated protection—returning particularly to the Jewish cemetery in Berlin-Weissensee, one of the largest Jewish cemeteries in Europe. With this particular lens, this project addresses questions about memory, mythology, and agency in a socialist dictatorship and challenges assumptions about Jewish life in East Germany.

Date: 2022-01-01

Creator: Sebastian de Lasa

Access: Open access

The rise of Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA) in the early 1970s coincided with the rise of national liberation movements across Europe, which largely were inspired by notable examples of resistance throughout the Global South in the decades prior. ETA’s growth over this period, and in the years prior, was heavily dependent on the image created of the organziation in the local, domestic, and international press, including through documents distributed by the group itself. By comparing ETA’s external presence to the group’s internal strife, it becomes clear that ETA made efforts to align itself with the popular revolutionary language of the period. The group took advantage of, and aimed to create press spectacles, in attempts to manipulate its public image. However, the discrepancy between the group’s public image and internal dissolution became apparent as the group pursued more violent acts in the goal of Basque liberation.

Date: 2020-01-01

Creator: Alexander Noah Kogan

Access: Open access

Narratives at Holocaust memorials and museums in the United States connect the Holocaust to present-day identities and weave the Holocaust into American history. Holocaust narratives––whether at the universal, national, or local level––draw moral lessons from the past. These narratives and their moral lessons redefine what constitutes the Holocaust and are determined by the needs and sentiments of the present. The sites of remembrance in this thesis at once show the significance of the Holocaust in American identities at both national and local levels, as well as encourage an active remembrance of the past that restructures these identities. The type of active remembrance and its purpose differs at each site, but each encourages a reconsideration of the past to find potentially applicable lessons for the present.

Date: 2025-01-01

Creator: Janet Elizabeth Briggs

Access: Open access