In most countries' history classrooms, a textbook still plays a key role, and the narratives of these texts help to shape students' perceptions of their nation and others. A large body of American...Show moreIn most countries' history classrooms, a textbook still plays a key role, and the narratives of these texts help to shape students' perceptions of their nation and others. A large body of American research exists examining the historical narratives of ethnic minorities in the United States, including Mexicans and Mexican-Americans, but few studies have examined this question using a textbook sample from across the border aimed at mainstream secondary students. This research raised the question of inclusion of the ""other"" (Mexico in American texts and US in Mexican texts) for the period of the twentieth century. It did this through quantitative analysis of index entries, highlights, pictorial inclusion and text spacing, and also through a qualitative approach of positive/negative coding and using existing theoretical frameworks for narrative analysis. The findings indicated that Mexican texts include references to the US on over 30% of text pages, while US texts average 5% references to the southern neighbor. Additionally, by a 2:1 margin in both cases the coding reveals more negative references than positive, though this can also include victimhood of racial discrimination or economic imperialism. Still, the texts are generally more inclusive than those used in past studies and decades, and sparse but relevant emphasis on cross border cooperation may provide insight into future direction for transnational history provided to a broad audience of secondary students.Show less
De musealisatie van kerken in Europa: hoe beïnvloeden de maatschappelijke veranderingen in Europa de veranderingen in het musealisatie proces van erfgoed. Onderzocht via het onderzoeksobject,"de...Show moreDe musealisatie van kerken in Europa: hoe beïnvloeden de maatschappelijke veranderingen in Europa de veranderingen in het musealisatie proces van erfgoed. Onderzocht via het onderzoeksobject,"de oude Groninger kerken", in Nederland. Focus ligt op de jaren 1960 tot 2010.Show less
This thesis focuses on the question how literary writers intervened in the debates about the nature and history of the GDR in the period following unification by publishing their autobiographies ...Show moreThis thesis focuses on the question how literary writers intervened in the debates about the nature and history of the GDR in the period following unification by publishing their autobiographies (1990-1997). The examination of four writers’ autobiographies by separating their epistemic, moral and political relations to the past, while also considering the emotions expressed in them, reveals the underlying, leading arguments in these texts by shedding light on individual, implicit claims. The writers took varying but concrete stances in the debates. The perspective of the writers' relations to the past reveals their arguments and demonstrates that these were primarily based on epistemic and moral claims instead of on direct political suggestions. It shows the variety of the writers' 'political' arguments and explains in which ways the writers made political points or took a stance in these texts, namely by (epistemically) explaining or showing and by (morally) judging, ridiculing or lamenting certain aspects of their lives, thus differentiating the ‘political’ nature of the interventions and the strategies to convey these. Moreover, the thesis' approach reveals and explains the texts' contradictions. These inconsistencies reveal the issues in which the writers' present interpretations cannot be applied to the construction of their pasts, demonstrating where these ‘weak points’ lie and that autobiographies are not as free as fiction. The analysis furthermore reveals strong correlations between the autobiographies’ styles and conceptualisations. Overall, the thesis complements historiography in various ways. For one, it proves the value of studying the autobiographies of literary writers, of whom other scholars of autobiography assumed that they could easily frame their lives around their art and hold back on political questions. The historical approach furthermore contradicts and complements interpretations by literary scholars. It is original in its use of the perspective of relations to the past in combination with comparing expressed emotions in the texts. Ultimately, this analysis sheds light on the ways in which individuals can deal with historical changes impacting not only their present, but also their past lives.Show less
The growing prevalence and popularity of Right Wing Populist organisations and figures across much of Western Europe remains one of the most pertinent political issues in the region. Through the...Show moreThe growing prevalence and popularity of Right Wing Populist organisations and figures across much of Western Europe remains one of the most pertinent political issues in the region. Through the successful exploitation of a controversial ideology broadly concerned with national sovereignty, nativism, and anti-elitism, Right Wing Populists have been able secure increasingly larger segments of the electorate and thus enter the political mainstream in many European countries. The recentness and rapidity of this phenomenon has spurred a great deal of popular and media interest. Much of this has been wholly negative, defined by explicit comparisons of Right Wing Populists to 20th century totalitarians and lengthy critiques about the perceived dangers of their platforms. Within Academia, several new theses have emerged which seek to account for these movements and extrapolate the underlying conditions fuelling their rise. This dissertation demonstrates how many of these academic theses, despite their modernity and differing conclusions, echo strands of functionalist and anti-popular mentalities that were prominent in the early half of the early 20th century. More specifically, due to their focus on economic and demographic factors as being the primary motivating force behind support for Right Wing Populism, they mirror Hannah Arendt’s conceptualisation of the ‘Masses’, whereby she claims that 20th century totalitarian movements were only able to secure power through the mobilisation of a large body of citizenry which had been rendered identity-less and embittered as a result of the rapid social and economic changes witnessed during the preceding century. By doing so, these do two things. Firstly, they tacitly agree with popular claims that these movements are the spiritual successors to 20th century totalitarians. Secondly, by ignoring or downplaying potential ideological or cultural conditions, such theses serve to delegitimise and trivialise support for Right Wing Populist movements, thus constricting political discourse. In response, this dissertation argues, using a number of comparative case studies chosen according to the least-similar case design as defined by Christopher Lamont, that these materialist understandings of the support for Right Wing Populists and, by extension, the various assumptions from which they derive, have lost much of their validity in the 21st century. Rather, this dissertation puts forward that support for these organisations is for the most part the consequence of preexisting cultural and historical factors, combined with rational self-interest, which persist across generations regardless of material changes. Fulfilment of this aim is fundamental as it encourages policy makers to re-assess their preconceived notions of Right-Wing Populists and consequently develop a more all-rounded understanding of them, which in turn allows the production of more relevant and effective positions to address the social conditions stimulating their growth.Show less
In this thesis, French Catholic responses to the Space Race, starting with the launch of Sputnik I in 1957, and ending with the moon landing of Apollo 11 in 1969, are analysed. This is done by...Show moreIn this thesis, French Catholic responses to the Space Race, starting with the launch of Sputnik I in 1957, and ending with the moon landing of Apollo 11 in 1969, are analysed. This is done by looking at four major Catholic newspapers. Each of these papers represented an aspect of the fragmentised French Catholic society. When taken together and compared, these papers allowed for a study of the different opinions towards spaceflight in France during the Space Race. To find out whether these opinions were specific to Catholics or more generally held across society, as a point of reference, the response in the secular paper Le Monde are also taken into the equation. Even though the topic is far from conventional, this study is able to provide relevant additions to several fields. These additions can be divided between more theoretical findings about the development of religion, and more practical observations regarding French history and Catholic history. Firstly, on a more abstract level, this study questions the master narrative of secularisation. This is done by showing that the teleological framework used to explain the development of religion is not able to incorporate the way Catholics reacted to modernisation in the form of spaceflight. In other words: the classical image of the decline of religion in the face of modernity does not show from this case study. But apart from fulfilling this negative role in this thesis, secularisation also features as an object of study. For the way French Catholics saw their present and future was very much influenced by the spectre of secularisation. But, with the reforms of the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965), a new progressive stance was taken regarding modernisation. Spaceflight played a crucial role in this Catholic repositioning, for it was the live broadcasted Genesis- reading aboard Apollo 8 on Christmas Eve 1968 that remystified spaceflight and space, and convinced many Catholics that scientific modernisation was not a threat to religion anymore. So even though some already saw the possibility for science and religion to integrate, after this single event, this thought became much more widespread amongst French Catholics. In abstract words, from that point on, the developments of spaceflight caused scientific progress to be definitely detached from the master narrative of secularisation in the minds of French Catholics. Moreover, the Genesis-reading greatly boosted Catholic confidence, making the secularisation seem less menacing than before. Apart from these observations regarding the development of religion, this thesis also provides a new insight into French history and Catholic history. It for example showed that the split within French Catholic society grew during the timespan of the Space Race, but, surprisingly, that the diverse factions came closer together regarding their views on spaceflight. Another interesting conclusion is that spaceflight influenced the way French Catholics perceived the Cold War. The Space Race was clearly seen as a struggle between the superpowers in which France, despite its relatively successful space program, had no role to play. Crucially for the image of spaceflight, the same rockets that were used for the exploration of space could also be used to carry a nuclear payload, and spacefaring therefore always remained connected to the danger of atomic warfare. Another important conclusion is that French Catholics perceived the Cold War differently than non-Catholics. Instead of seeing the familiar Cold War between the communist Soviet Union and capitalist America, French Catholics lived through a Catholic Cold War in which Catholicism above anything struggled against anti-religiousness. And spaceflight offered a unique argument for Catholics in this confrontation, because towards the end of the Space Race, the Soviet space program was sometimes framed as a profane program, symbolising the negative, self-destructive force of communism, and atheism in general. Lastly, by comparing the findings of this thesis with secondary literature about the responses of American believers, it turns out that French Catholics evaluated spaceflight differently than religious Americans. Whereas Americans generally had a much more positive outlook on spaceflight and saw reacted to the exploration as Americans rather than believers, while for French, this was the other way around.Show less
De Franse historicus François Pierre Guillaume Guizot (1787-1874) heeft zijn reputatie voor een groot deel te danken aan zijn Histoire générale de la civilisation en Europe (1828). Niet alleen in...Show moreDe Franse historicus François Pierre Guillaume Guizot (1787-1874) heeft zijn reputatie voor een groot deel te danken aan zijn Histoire générale de la civilisation en Europe (1828). Niet alleen in Frankrijk, maar ook buiten eigen land en zelfs buiten Europa werd het werk zeer positief ontvangen. Uit de historiografie blijkt dat ten minste twee kenmerkende bestanddelen van Guizots werk daarvoor verantwoordelijk zijn: het concept van beschaving en het idee van vooruitgang. Op basis van een analyse van Guizots beschavingsgeschiedenis en twee geschiedschrijvingen waarbij van dit werk gebruikgemaakt is – Ongeloof en revolutie (1847) van Guillaume Groen van Prinsterer (1801-1876) en Weerlegging van de materialisten (1880-1881) van Sayyid Jamal ad-Din ‘al-Afghani’ (1838/9-1897) – wordt in deze scriptie betoogd dat ook Guizots positieve visie op de rol van religie in de geschiedenis zijn wereldwijde populariteit kan verklaren.Show less
My primary aim in this investigation is to trace the history of the invention of the Marxist historian’s persona in the Communist Party Historians’ Group, and thereby reveal its specific...Show moreMy primary aim in this investigation is to trace the history of the invention of the Marxist historian’s persona in the Communist Party Historians’ Group, and thereby reveal its specific configuration. This is to be an exercise in the recently emerging research program of what I have termed the empirical philosophy of history, as developed by Herman Paul. I supplemented this framework with certain Bourdieusian insights, adopting analytic tools — concepts like forms of capital and fields — that were specifically constructed to reveal more clearly the social elements and forces at play in the development of the dispositions or embodied commitments to goods that constitute personae. After elaborating my methodological framework, I move to outlining the basic elements that went into the making of the Marxist historian’s persona; the primary commitments to epistemic, moral and political goods that were embodied by the Historians’ Group’s founders — Dona Torr, A. L. Morton, Maurice Dobb and Christopher Hill — who played a primary role in its making. These consisted of the epistemic commitments to obtaining a dialectical and historical view or understanding of history, the moral commitment to the emancipation of the proletariat and the political commitment to Communism of the Soviet variety as espoused by the Communist Party of Great Britain. The obtaining of these commitments required the exercising of the appropriate virtues like employing the dialectical and historical materialist methods, engaging in class analysis and maintaining loyalty to the Communist Party. These virtues in turn implied an opposition to vices that consisted of their lack in other historians’ scholarly personae, pejoratively referred to as ‘bourgeois’. However, there was also a struggle internally regarding the proper interpretation of these commitments and virtues, one that played out both within the Historians’ Group itself and the wider Party. The contours of this struggle and the practices of contestation it involved —abounding in virtue and vice language — is clarified through the prism of dispositional variations that existed among the Group’s members, which I distinguish as the academic and non-academic. However, these are not presented as discreetly definable entities, but rather as consisting of a common network of commonalities (as in a family resemblance concept), thereby allowing for consideration of the variations that existed among members of each, while also allowing for the role of contingency that had a major effect on the making of the Marxist historian’s persona.Show less
In this thesis, I will research the academic practices of some selected historians during the first years of the Portuguese New State. These can be divided in two kinds of practices: those directly...Show moreIn this thesis, I will research the academic practices of some selected historians during the first years of the Portuguese New State. These can be divided in two kinds of practices: those directly implicated in the histories they wrote — the final product —and those which are related to their habits and work ethics, be it of socialization with other scholars in academic organizations and correspondence, or work-habits related to how they thought history should be researched and transmitted. This approach provides a holistic view of particular cases within the Portuguese historiography landscape, focused on epistemic, political and moral aspects, and their connection with the Regime in which they were inserted. It also provides the key features of the phenomenon of Discipline at the time, given its emergence in Portuguese Academia, and in History in particular, highlighting the goods, virtues, skills and habits which defined History as collective endeavor.Show less
Abstract in Dutch: In de negentiende eeuw speelden (wetenschappelijke) deugden een grote rol in het leven van wetenschappers zoals de kerkhistoricus Johannes Gerardus Rijk Acquoy en de Historicus...Show moreAbstract in Dutch: In de negentiende eeuw speelden (wetenschappelijke) deugden een grote rol in het leven van wetenschappers zoals de kerkhistoricus Johannes Gerardus Rijk Acquoy en de Historicus Robert Fruin. Deugden zoals onpartijdigheid, waarheidsliefde en ijver golden als belangrijke karaktereigenschappen en werden door leerlingen en collega’s geroemd, onder andere in necrologieën. Deze deugden droegen bij aan de vorming van de geesteswetenschappen in de negentiende eeuw omdat zij een kader vormden waarin wetenschappers houvast vonden terwijl de manier waarop zij werkten veranderde. Het cultiveren van bepaalde (epistemische) deugden stelde hen er toe in staat als waardevolle wetenschappers te functioneren. De scriptie onderzoekt welk ideaalbeeld van Fruin en Acquoy hun deugden, epistemisch, moreel, politiek en anders, er gevonden kan worden in de necrologieën geschreven door hun collega’s en leerlingen kort na hun overlijden en wát dit zegt over manier waarop we de functie van deze verschillende deugden, epistemisch en anders, zien binnen de wetenschappelijke wereld van de geesteswetenschappen in de tweede helft van de negentiende eeuw. In tegenstelling tot Herman Paul zijn suggestie dat deugden als onpartijdigheid, waarheidsliefde en ijver deel uitmaakten van een geleerdenethos, stelt deze scriptie dat de geleerde deugden niet alleen in wetenschappelijke context functioneerden, maar ook en juist, werden ingezet buiten die context. De scriptie stelt bovendien dat deze deugden, die zo’n belangrijke plaats innamen in de verwetenschappelijking van de geesteswetenschappen, niet alleen buiten een wetenschappelijke context functioneerden maar daar mogelijkerwijs ook oorspronkelijk gecultiveerd waren; in de burgerlijke wereld van de negentiende eeuw.Show less
Three remarkable minds shaped the computer world as we know it today. Douglas Engelbart invented the man-machine interaction system and Theodor Holm Nelson laid out the basic structure of hypertext...Show moreThree remarkable minds shaped the computer world as we know it today. Douglas Engelbart invented the man-machine interaction system and Theodor Holm Nelson laid out the basic structure of hypertext, which serves as the underpinning principle of the Internet. Both men were inspired by Vannevar Bush, the science advisor to president Roosevelt during World War II and an influential information theorist after that. The question is, were these authors already thinking about the future of humanism as an intellectual discipline? As it turns out, formative ideas for humanism in the computer were already present from the outset.Show less
Een onderzoek over de houding van de protestants christelijke politieke partijen in de jaren 30 van de 20e eeuw tegenover het vraagstuk van de joodse vluchtelingen.
Ludwig Von Mises is consensually seen as the father of modern libertarianism, but little is known about the deeper roots of his uncompromising laissez-faire way of thinking. This dissertation tries...Show moreLudwig Von Mises is consensually seen as the father of modern libertarianism, but little is known about the deeper roots of his uncompromising laissez-faire way of thinking. This dissertation tries to present a better understanding of the origins of Mises thought and, more particularly, how Mises, from a very technical economist before the First World War, turned into an ideologist in his book Nation, State, and Economy (1919). Through a careful description of the historical background an analysis of the evolution of his political thought from 1907 to 1919, it is argued that the three Mises’ main biographies, from Jörg Hülsmann, Murray Rothbard, and from Mises himself, interpreted his pre-war ideas in a teleological and anachronistic manner by applying posterior concepts that did not hold before the war. The main conclusion of this thesis is that Mises shifted from a technician to an ideologist as a reaction against the First World War and the excessive centralization of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. After suggesting that the psychological roots of this shift should be explored, it is also argued that Mises is, in the end, conceptually mimicking the socialists he criticizes, and that the second wave of the Austrian School starts not in the twenties, but in 1919 with Nation, State, and Economy.Show less
Deze masterthesis wil een verbinding leggen tussen de kerkelijke rite van het afleggen van belijdenis en de feminisering van religie. De femiseringsthese die geldt voor de negentiende eeuw, steunt...Show moreDeze masterthesis wil een verbinding leggen tussen de kerkelijke rite van het afleggen van belijdenis en de feminisering van religie. De femiseringsthese die geldt voor de negentiende eeuw, steunt op vier variabelen: een feminisering van de geestelijke stand, van gelovigen en hun rituelen, van de aard van religie en van religieuze spiritualiteit of vroomheid. Het afleggen van belijdenis biedt de mogelijkheid om de reikwijdte van de feminiseringsthese voor de protestantse context te onderzoeken. De belijdenisrite daarvoor geschikt: veel mensen deden belijdenis en de bronnen vermelden een verantwoording om belijdenis te doen. De feminiseringsthese en de belijdenisrite zijn voor de Nederlandse context nog nauwelijks gebruikt. In deze thesis wordt het onderzoek beperkt tot het grootste protestantse kerkgenootschap in Nederland, de Nederlandse Hervormde Kerk, in de periode 1816-1900. Een van de conclusies is dat de belijdenisrite in de tweede helft van de negentiende eeuw wordt versterkt door de invoering van kerkelijke rituelen en familierituelen. Het gebruik van emoties bij de belijdenis werd in de tweede helft van de eeuw toegejuichd, maar slechts zolang de belijdenis duurde. Daarna werd repressie door predikanten belangrijker geacht. Vrouwen in de negentiende eeuw schreven verder het meest over de belijdenis. Het beschrijven van vroomheid door vrouwen was geaccepteerd. Mannen (predikanten en gemeenteleden) gaven een negatieve betekenis aan deze vroomheid door die te vergelijken met uiterst piëtistische vrouwen. Zij vonden dat zowel mannen als vrouwen met mate over vroomheid moesten spreken. Redelijkheid en bescheidenheid achtte men van meer belang. Verschillen tussen bronnen van predikanten en gemeenteleden lichten met name op in de maatschappelijke betekenis die ze aan de belijdenisrite meegeven. This thesis makes a connection between the rite of confirmation and the feminisation of religion. Both confirmation and the theory of feminisation are hardly studied in the Dutch context. In this thesis research is limited to the largest protestant denomination in the Netherlands, the Dutch Reformed Church, in the period 1816-1900.Show less
