Graduate Theses & Dissertations

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Sponsoring Private Schools in an Informal Empire
This thesis analyzes the history of the Inter-American Schools Service (IASS), which ran under the auspices of the American Council on Education beginning in 1943. The program was defined as a private initiative aimed at spreading U.S. democratic values throughout the hemisphere for the mutual benefit of both the United States and Latin America. Yet the program was ultimately one facet of the United States' informal imperialism and a tool for the consolidation of U.S. hegemony, which came at the expense of Latin Americans' pursuit of the very values the IASS was said to facilitate. This theme is explored through a general discussion of cultural policy in the twentieth-century United States as well as the specific history of the IASS program and its relation to U.S. policies of intervention in Guatemala and Bolivia. Author Keywords: American Schools, Cultural Imperialism, Guatemala, Hegemony, Informal Imperialism, Inter-American Schools Service
EMPIRE AND ITS PRACTITIONERS
In 1915 U.S. Marines invaded Haiti. Driven first by the epidemiological dangers in Haiti, health and medicine was made a central tenet in administering the occupation. Useful for protecting the American Marines from disease, the Service d'Hygiene (the occupation-era Public Health Service) also served a hegemonic purpose. By bringing American biomedicine to sick Haitians, the Service d'Hygiene built support for the occupation and helped foster long-term connections between Haiti and the United States. This hegemonic drive was made possible by the incorporation of non-state actors into the colonial project. To achieve this, the American authorities forged a development strategy for Haiti that was premised upon a relationship between the state and private institutions such as the Rockefeller Foundation. This strategy also encouraged Haiti to look to the United States for support, a goal successfully realized when Haitian politicians continued to do so even after the Marines left Haiti in 1934. Author Keywords: Haiti, Hegemony, Imperialism, Public Health, Rockefeller Foundation, Service d'Hygiene
Cooperation and Conflict
This study examines interaction and accommodation between Western Christians and Muslims in the Levant between the Second and Third Crusades, 1145 to 1192, examining three groups: short term crusaders, members of military orders, and permanent settlers. While members of these groups possessed several personal and group identities, most shared a prescriptive religious identity that encouraged a common goal: holy war for the protection of the Holy Land from Muslims, whom they identified as a distinct, enemy `other.' Despite these prescriptive beliefs, when Christians came into contact with Muslims, particularly following longer and more varied contact, most engaged in some convergent accommodation, such as diplomatic accommodation, development of shared languages and gestures, or admiration for chivalric qualities. Those settled in the Levant accepted the existing economic and social structures, assuming the roles of previous elites, adopting certain local customs, sharing sacred spaces, medical knowledge, or even developing personal ties with Muslims. Author Keywords: Accommodation, Christianity, Crusades, Identity, Islam
American Acropolis, American Ruins
Since 1979, photographer and sociologist Camilo José Vergara has taken repeat photographs of American cities in decline, focusing on evolving landscapes of postindustrial decay. Vergara's images subscribe to an aesthetic of ruin while providing a record of America's crumbling ghettos rooted in social documentary concerns. Vergara's work diverges from the ahistorical tendencies of contemporary ruin porn photography: by challenging the photograph's temporal stasis Vergara bears witness to the ongoing reality of disenfranchisement, assembling an archive that takes up the Benjaminian task of doing history in images. Vergara's photographs challenge standard photojournalistic portrayals of violence, particularly the ways in which `violent' African American and Hispanic inner city populations have been erroneously cast as the cause of their own economic misfortune. The Invincible Cities website assists Vergara in drawing attention to forgotten places but also complicates his mandate to engage outside viewers by distancing them from the real-­world environments his photographs portray. Author Keywords: Camilo José Vergara, imagistic history, postindustrial decline, repeat photography, ruin porn, Walter Benjamin
Reshaping the Terms of Debate
The Reagan era instigated a fundamentally conservative shift in the political, economic and discursive climate of America. As Ronald Reagan is a highly divisive symbolic figure in American politics, much of the historiography of his presidency has been characterized by polarized interpretations. Over the past decade there has been a noticeable shift towards more favourable and triumphal interpretations of the Reagan era. This thesis seeks to analyze the ideological shifts that have characterized the trajectory of historical writings on the Reagan era. Through employing a careful textual analysis of key works by Michael Schaller, Gil Troy and Sean Wilentz, amongst others, this study demonstrates how historiography serves us less as an objective means of understanding the past and more so as an expanding collective historical artifact that illustrates the changing currents of intellectual and political discourse. In doing so, the notion of scholarly objectivity itself is thrown into question. Author Keywords: Cold War, Conservatism, Historiography, Neoliberalism, Reagan Doctrine, Ronald Reagan
Beyond Paris
A presidential spouse in an era of rigid gender norms, Jacqueline Kennedy frequently straddled the divide between celebrity, social acceptability, and personal desire. Yet, history remembers America's thirty-seventh First Lady more for her fashion and soft-spoken nature. Forgotten is that she was a `transitional' figure, who oversaw America's largest restoration of the White House and served as a `goodwill ambassador' for her husband. When three gunshots brought their tenure to an abrupt end, Jackie's focus shifted and she fixated on the creation of a legacy that immortalized JFK. `Camelot,' is a construct almost exclusively conceived and executed by the former First Lady. In this vein, the coming exploration delves into the private actions of Jackie during her time in as First Lady, contrasting them sharply with her public image. What emerges is a portrait the world seldom saw: one driven by raw intellect and a desire to be of service to her husband and country. Author Keywords: Camelot, First Lady, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, Restoration, White House
Elite Canadian Print Media Construction of the Cuban Revolution, 1956-1962
This study examines the elite national print media reaction to, and coverage of, the Cuban Revolution, between 1956 and 1962. It finds that media, equally alienated by both Fidel Castro and the United States, progressively pursued an independent narrative predicated on an homage to Cuban sovereignty. Specifically, media uniformly adopted veteran New York Times' reporter Herbert L. Matthews' conflation between Cuban postcolonial independence and the Revolution following his exclusive interview with Fidel Castro in February 1957. Media maintained it until 1962 as it remained the only consistent, defensible theme amid Castro's apparent failure to meet expectations and the United States' cautious indifference to a revolution in kind and abject disregard for Cuban sovereignty. Research is based on an exhaustive review of eleven carefully selected elite broadsheets and three national magazines. Overall, this study offers an important counterpoint to the broader body of Canada-Cuba-U.S. postwar historiography that almost exclusively addresses foreign policy. Author Keywords: Canada-Cuba-U.S. relations, Canadian print media, Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro, Herbert L. Matthews, journalism
Class Struggle and Solidarity in Neo-Liberal Times
The lengthy and raucous 1986 Gainers meatpacking plant strike in Edmonton, Alberta was one of the most important events in recent Alberta labour history. In the midst of the economic crisis of the 1980s and the rise of neo-liberal ideas, the strike marked a backlash by both the labour movement and ordinary citizens against attacks on workers and unions. Characterized by widely covered picket line violence, repressive police and court actions, and government unresponsiveness, the strike generated massive solidarity within and beyond the labour movement. This solidarity originated in a rejection of the neo-liberal new reality of Alberta typified by high unemployment, anti-union laws and practices, and lack of government welfare support, and it generated a provincial change the law campaign, national boycott, and rising class consciousness. The working class mobilization during the Gainers strike was a watershed for the Alberta labour movement. Author Keywords: Alberta Federation of Labour, Gainers strike, neo-liberalism, solidarity, working class
Nymphs, Satyrs and Impotent Old Men
British pornographic texts arguing the texts were part of a wider cultural discourse on luxury, criticising the upper echelons of society for their decadent and vice-ridden lifestyles. Pornographic texts consistently portray the elites of Britain as partaking in sexual deviances including lesbianism, sex with dolls, dildos and household objects. The portrayals could be dismissed as tales fabricated for the titillation of the reading audience except that medical texts of the period diagnose the diseases of nymphomania and satyriasis, the rough equivalent of modern sexual addiction, as primarily affecting those of the upper class. Lifestyle was the key to diagnosis; luxurious living was thought to weaken the elite body rendering it vulnerable to excess sexual passions. Therefore, the hyper-sexual elite in pornographic texts reflected the contemporary cultural understandings of lifestyle and physiology. Author Keywords: Britain, culture, eighteenth century, nymphomania, pornography, sexuality
Witches and Bawds as Elderly Women in England, 1680-1730
Many print sources from 1680 to 1730 depicted bawds and witches as figures of transgressive elderly femininity. They were often described as having roughly the same anti-social behaviour, age, and gender. Both witches and bawds were seen as seducing innocents into a life of sin, associating with the devil, and acting lustful and unmotherly. Furthermore, they were connected with Catholicism and were thought to unite sinners against English Protestant society. The physical descriptions of the witch and procuress also bore significant patterns in presenting deformity, disfigurement, smelliness, rottenness, and death, traits generally connected with elderly women. Though historians have recognized the tendency of the witch or bawd to be characterized as an old woman, none have conducted a systematic comparison of the two stereotypes. Such an analysis can offer insight about the social anxieties around aging femininity in this period. Author Keywords: bawd, cheap print, elderly women, old age, witch, witchcraft
Underdevelopment in Eastern Bechuanaland
This thesis offers a comprehensive look at the changing roles of a colonial built railway in what is now eastern Botswana. It was built for the extraction of mineral wealth and migration of cheap African labour in Southern Africa but it later assumed a different role of shaping the modern Botswana state. The thesis deals with several other issues related to the railway in Bechuanaland including land alienation, the colonial disregard of the chiefs’ authority, racial discrimination and the economic underdevelopment of Bechuanaland. Since there were no other significant colonial developments at the time of independence, this thesis argues that the railway was the only important feature of the British colonisation of Bechuanaland. From early on, the railway attracted different cultures, identities and religions. It was also instrumental in the introduction of an indigenous capitalist class into Bechuanaland. Author Keywords: Bechuanaland, Botswana, colonisation, migration, railway, underdevelopment
Technology of Consent
The 1980s in the United States have come into focus as years of extensive ideological and socioeconomic fracture. A conservative movement arose to counter the progressive gains of previous decades, neoliberalism became the nation’s economic mantra, and détente was jettisoned in favour of military build-up. Such developments materialized out of a multitude of conflicts, a cultural crisis of ideas, perspectives, and words competing to maintain or rework the nation’s core structures. In this dissertation I argue that alongside these conflicts, a crisis over technology and its ramifications played a crucial role as well, with the American public grasping for ways to comprehend a nascent technoculture. Borrowing from Andrew Feenberg, I define three broad categories of popular conceptualization used to comprehend a decade of mass technical and social transformations: the instrumental view, construing technology as a range of efficient tools; the substantive view, insisting technology is an environment that determines its subjects; and a critical approach, which recognizes the capacity for technology to shape subjects, but also its potential to aid new social agendas. Using Feenberg’s categories as interpretive lenses, I foreground these epistemologies in three of the decade’s most popular formations of literary science fiction (sf), and describe the broader discourses they participated in: military sf is connected to military strategy and weapons development (instrumental), cyberpunk to postmodernism and posthumanism (substantive), and feminist sf to feminist theory and politics (critical). These were not just discursive trajectories, I claim, but vital contributors to the material construction of what Antonio Gramsci would call hegemonic and counterhegemonic formations. While the instrumental paradigm was part of the decade’s prevailing hegemonic make-up, substantive and critical discourses offered an alternative to the reality of cowboy militarism and unchecked technological expansion. By engaging with the decade’s texts—from There Will Be War to RoboCop to “A Cyborg Manifesto”—I hope to illuminate what I call the technology of consent, the significance of technological worldviews for modern technocultures, where such views are consented to by subaltern groups, and at the same time the existence of consent itself as a kind of complex social technology in the first place. Author Keywords: American History, Discourse, Hegemony, Science Fiction, Technoculture, Technology

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Graduate student theses produced at Trent University. You may also browse theses and dissertations by year, program, or author.

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