This thesis deals with binary gender roles in Revolutionary Nationalism in Post-Revolutionary Mexico. By analyzing the first 20 number of the Comic book Adelita y las Guerrillas, the thesis argues...Show moreThis thesis deals with binary gender roles in Revolutionary Nationalism in Post-Revolutionary Mexico. By analyzing the first 20 number of the Comic book Adelita y las Guerrillas, the thesis argues that masculine and feminine gender roles are created in tandem, primarily through the characters Adelita and Juan sin miedo. The thesis argues that whilst portraying progressive gender roles on a superficial level, at its core, the comic book reproduces conservative gender ideology as a part of Revolutionary Nationalism.Show less
The treatment of mental health problems has had limited success in both England and Ireland. Since the Percy Commission in 1957 in England, and the Commission of Inquiry into Mental Illness in 1966...Show moreThe treatment of mental health problems has had limited success in both England and Ireland. Since the Percy Commission in 1957 in England, and the Commission of Inquiry into Mental Illness in 1966 in Ireland, both countries have strived to modernise and improve the quality of their mental healthcare systems. Despite this, they have experienced several shortfalls surrounding funding, staffing and community care amongst other issues. As a result of these problems, both countries have some of the highest rates of mental illness in Europe, with 18.5 percent of Irish people and 17.7 percent of English people experiencing at least one mental illness. While both England and Ireland inherited a similar system based around asylums and a focus on long-term institutionalisation the outcomes for the respective countries were vastly different. Additionally, both countries have moved towards a community-based approach in the hope to rehabilitate and reintegrate patients into the community. Though, England has seen lower rates of hospitalisation and shorter hospital stays for mental illness than in Ireland, as well as historically having lower rates of mental illness. However, since the 1990s, English rates of mental illness have been increasing gradually. As a result, English rates of mental illness are nearly that of Ireland. By discussing the historic developments in mental healthcare in the two countries and issues around welfare and healthcare, the causes for this discrepancy as well as the recent increases in the rate of mental illness can hopefully be explained.Show less
This paper plugs a gap in the history of suicide in England, between the end of the Early Modern Era and the beginning of the Victorian Period. I argue, using mainly newspaper reports as a...Show moreThis paper plugs a gap in the history of suicide in England, between the end of the Early Modern Era and the beginning of the Victorian Period. I argue, using mainly newspaper reports as a representation of popular currents of thought among the growing literate classes, that the prominent suicides of foreign secretary Lord Castlereagh and other politicians in the Regency Period constituted a suicide ‘cluster’ which provoked imitators and a heightened anxiety over the issue. Further, that this suicide crisis, responding to charges of élite hypocrisy and building on shifts in language initiated by the Romantic Movement, and in opposition to perceived secularist and evangelical threats, helped to generate a new code of social mores. This code was a retrenchment of traditional Christian morals for a new bourgeois and scientific age; it was, in short, the birth of Victorian middle-class morality.Show less
This research examines the life and thoughts of Ivan Ilin during his life in Berlin between 1922 and 1938. The goal was to re-connect Ivan Ilin with his historical context. This was performed by...Show moreThis research examines the life and thoughts of Ivan Ilin during his life in Berlin between 1922 and 1938. The goal was to re-connect Ivan Ilin with his historical context. This was performed by comparing Ilin to his environment by analysing his reaction to the trends and ideas which developed in the Russian emigrant community in Berlin. By doing this, this thesis challenges the currently established vision on political ideas and legacy of Ivan Ilin.Show less
In 1932-1933 famine swept across the Ukrainian countryside killing an estimated 5 million people. The famine was a culmination of different factors, but most notably it was the result of deliberate...Show moreIn 1932-1933 famine swept across the Ukrainian countryside killing an estimated 5 million people. The famine was a culmination of different factors, but most notably it was the result of deliberate policies of the Soviet government. In the summer of 1933 a young Welsh journalist named Gareth Jones illegally toured the Ukrainian countryside, witnessing the dead and the dying, walking through the silent and abandoned villages and speaking with the starving peasants. Upon his return to the United Kingdom Jones attempted to expose the famine in order to aid the starving Ukrainian population. However, his message had little impact. It was snowed under by positive reports coming from Western correspondents stationed in Moscow. The news of the famine failed to gain traction amongst the public, and before long people forgot that it ever happened. This thesis seeks to investigate why Jones’ articles exposing the Ukrainian famine in 1933 had so little impact amongst the British and American public. There was no public outrage, no large-scale famine relief actions, and not a sound from the British and American governments on the matter could be heard. The silence surrounding the famine was deafening, and the voice that was trying to attract attention to it was ignored. Why were people so willing to look away? Can this silence be attributed to a feat of Soviet Propaganda? Were the reports coming from Moscow simply more credible than the reporting of twenty-seven years old Jones?Show less
This thesis looks at British society and the changes that have taken place in the British minds regarding the EU. It does so by analysing the political discourse and local changes that have taken...Show moreThis thesis looks at British society and the changes that have taken place in the British minds regarding the EU. It does so by analysing the political discourse and local changes that have taken place between the 1975 an 2016 referendum.Show less
The focus of this thesis is on the role of the Dutch national identity in the perceptions and experiences of a wide array of Dutch Spainfighters, who volunteered to fight on the Republican side in...Show moreThe focus of this thesis is on the role of the Dutch national identity in the perceptions and experiences of a wide array of Dutch Spainfighters, who volunteered to fight on the Republican side in the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s. It aims to understand how the volunteers dealt with the potential for clashes between the imagined communities of the Dutch nation-state and the border transcending, transnational appeal of their left-wing ideology. This thesis demonstrates that they felt loyalty both to the transnational community of left-wing and communist sympathizers, and the national Dutch community. It argues that the motivation of the Spainfighters is closely linked to their national identity, which they tried to construct in symbiosis with their transnational thoughts via the message of anti-fascism. As such, the thesis adds to the understanding of the phenomenon of foreign fighters. Next to the conscious building of national identity, national sentiments and practical culture played a considerable role in the daily reality of the Spainfighters, which is especially relevant if the rather mythical image of the International Brigades as a classic example of a transnational army is taken into account. As the case of the Dutch Spainfighters illustrates, the International Brigades provided space and even recognition for national identity as an organizing entity and as such functioned more as an ideologically motivated international army. For this reason, this thesis suggests that the fundaments of the supposedly transnational movement of support to the Spanish Republic may partly be built on national tensions and the resulting compromises. While studying transnational movements in the twentieth century, it therefore may be worth the effort to analyze the role of national identity, of national political culture.Show less
In the autumn of 1982, a relatively small and rural county in North Carolina called Warren County started the environmental justice movement. The allocation of a hazardous landfill to the county...Show moreIn the autumn of 1982, a relatively small and rural county in North Carolina called Warren County started the environmental justice movement. The allocation of a hazardous landfill to the county sparked this start. Residents argued that the landfill was only allocated to Warren County because the county was predominantly African American and poor. Protesters said that the authorities did not expect African American and poor people to have the political clout to significantly rebel against the construction of the landfill. Yet both African American and white residents strikingly did rise up together in a direct-action protest of roughly four weeks. Only a few years prior, both of those races had still lived segregated in North Carolina with their separate environmental struggles. Now, they were protesting together for an environmental concern. How did this unity come about? This study aims to provide a part of an answer to that question by focusing on how identity-rhetoric generated unity among African American and white people in Warren County. It concludes that two core narratives of race and class as well as the identity issues religion, public health, and the relation between governing authorities and citizens generated a sense of unity that incorporated all people of Warren County and even beyond.Show less
The National Board for Historical Service played an important role during wartime America. Both in society and politics the NBHS historians helped the US government to gain support for the war effort.
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
When, in March 1996, the Howard Government emerged victorious in the Australian federal election, it was the first such victory by the coalition of the Liberal and National Party at the federal...Show moreWhen, in March 1996, the Howard Government emerged victorious in the Australian federal election, it was the first such victory by the coalition of the Liberal and National Party at the federal level since 1980. This coalition would go on to win a further four elections and, when John Howard was finally defeated at the polls in December 2007, he had become the nation’s second longest serving Prime Minister. Among all the doubtlessly important determinants of Howard’s political success, there is one that sets him apart from his predecessors in the Australian conservative tradition: his frequent and impassioned appeals to Australia’s history and national identity. This thesis addresses two principal questions, one to do with history, the other with social theory. The historical question asks what factors account for this successful realignment between politicians and national identity. The theoretical question concerns national identity itself, as a more general phenomenon in social life. Social theorists have long debated the relative priority of mass, bottom-up, grass-root social processes in constituting and shaping the substance of national identity, relative to the attempts of cultural, political, ideological and economic elites to shape and mould national identity to serve their own ideological and material ends. In brief, there is common ground in the view that national identity, as a product of social artifice is constructed. What is less clear, is the extent to which it is constructable, and if so, who has the power to do the constructing, and under what circumstances. This thesis will contribute to an understanding of the conditions under which national identity becomes malleable, allowing it to be more easily appropriated by enterprising politicians. The evidence to test my premise will come principally from a case study of John Howard’s political career.Show less
‘The Great Forgetting’ is about the process of consolidation of French republicanism in the early, formative years of the French Third Republic and the regime’s accordant search for the republic’s...Show more‘The Great Forgetting’ is about the process of consolidation of French republicanism in the early, formative years of the French Third Republic and the regime’s accordant search for the republic’s legitimacy in the aftermath of l’année terrible - the year of 1871, during which France had to deal with the loss of the Franco-Prussian war, the fall of the Second Empire, the creation of the Third Republic, the siege of Paris by the Prussians, the defeat and humiliating peace terms, the Paris Commune, and new ideas about the nation. This process can otherwise be described as the creation of a history and accordant commemorative tradition of a Republic by its government that had to account for its legitimacy in the aftermath of a violent past. The whole will be analysed by considering the Père-Lachaise cemetery in Paris as a locus for national symbolism of the French Third Republic. This thesis argues that the cemetery can be considered as a stage for performing politics used by the governments of the Third Republic and its abovementioned opponents as a place to create their definition of France from 26 March 1871 onward. While describing this mnemonic battle on Père-Lachaise about the place of l’année terrible in the history of the Third Republic, this thesis analyses why it was that a ‘Communard memory’ of this period prevailed over any other constructed collective memory in relation to issues of legitimacy of and in the early Third Republic.Show less
This dissertation focuses on the ideas and beliefs of Hendrik Brugmans, an interesting and influential man during the start of the European integration process right after the Second World War.
This thesis investigates the relationship between the Russian tsarist state and the four most important Russian Christian sects, the Khlysty, Skoptsy, Dukhobors, and Molokans, in the period 1801...Show moreThis thesis investigates the relationship between the Russian tsarist state and the four most important Russian Christian sects, the Khlysty, Skoptsy, Dukhobors, and Molokans, in the period 1801-1881. First the developments of the Russian Orthodox Church and the tsarist state following the Russian Orthodox Church schism (raskol), which gave rise to Russian religious dissent, are discussed, before moving on to an in-depth assessment of the history and beliefs of the four sects mentioned above. In the second part of the thesis the attitudes of the three tsars that ruled Russia between 1801 and 1881, Alexander I, Nicholas I, and Alexander II, are clarified, before the views of the sectarians on the policies of the three rulers are considered. It is then argued that these rulers, and Nicholas I specifically, vilified the sectarians as class of (imaginary) enemies as part of their state formation policies. In practice this meant the (forced) expulsion of many of the sectarians to the fringes of the Russian empire. The sectarians themselves, in turn, developed tools to cope with these conditions, and in some cases in their new role as frontier colonists became the epitome of Russianness in the multi-ethnic regions of the empire. This thesis therefore not only pays attention to the changing political situation of tsarist Russia in the nineteenth century and the state views on sectarianism, but also to the ways in which marginalized groups outside the Russian Orthodox Church reconciled their religious and ethnic identities with the demands of the state.Show less
