<p>This dissertation argues that the literary, intellectual, and cultural borders of Victorian Britain extended as far as Australia and New Zealand, and that the tradition of nation-based literary criticism inherited from the Victorians has blinded Victorian Studies to that possibility. Building upon the nineteenth century concept of "Greater Britain," a term invoking the expansion of the British nation through settler colonization, I demonstrate that literary forms did not simply diffuse from the core to the periphery of the empire, but instead were able to circulate within the space of Greater Britain. That process of circulation shaped Victorian literature and culture, as local colonial circumstances led writers to modify literary forms and knowledge formations; those modifications were then able to be further disseminated through the empire by way of the networks that constituted Greater Britain.</p><p>My argument focuses on the novel, because its formal allegiance to the imagined national community made it a valuable testing ground for the multi-centered nation that was being formed by settlement. I specifically locate the Victorian novel in the context of Britain's relations with the colonies of Australia and New Zealand, which were unique in that their transition from initial settlement to independent nations occurred almost entirely during the Victorian period. The chapters of <italic>Unsettled Nation</italic> focus on realism, romance and political economy's interest in settlement; the bildungsroman and theories of discipline developed in the penal colonies; the theorization of imperial spatiality in utopian and invasion fiction; and the legacy of the Waverley novel in the portrayal of colonization in temporal terms. Each chapter presents a specific example of how knowledge formations and literary forms were modified as a result of their circulation through the archipelagic nation space of Greater Britain.</p><p>Working at the intersection between Victorian Studies and Australian and New Zealand literary criticism, I seek to recover and reconsider the geographical mobility of nineteenth century Britons and their literature. Thus, more than merely trying to cast light on a dimension of imperialism largely ignored by critics of Victorian literature, I use the specific example of Australasia to make the broader claim that the very idea of Victorian Britain can and must be profitably expanded to include its settler colonies.</p> / Dissertation

The Canary Island pine, Pinus canariensis, is an endemic tree that forms one of the main forest ecosystems within the archipelago, and whose distribution has been reduced in the last five centuries by clear cutting for the extraction of timber and tar. It was in the XXth century that exploitation declined and reforestation programs were brought forward for the restoration of an ecosystem that harbours a number of endangered endemic species of plants and animals. In addition to reforestation efforts, an understanding of population genetic processes is also necessary for the successful conservation management of the Canarian pine forest, particularly in light of gathering evidence for local adaptation.<br /><br />In this thesis historical and contemporary gene flow within P. canariensis was studied with nuclear and chloroplast microsatellite markers. High immigration rates (0.68–0.75) were estimated as expected for an outcrossing windpollinated tree. Nevertheless, significant population differentiation (theta = 0.019, RST = 0.044) was detectable for sites separated by only a few kilometres. Within the context of reforestation programs the high levels of gene flow detected would appear to have a positive effect on reforested stands by facilitating the immigration of local alleles from natural stands into potentially genetically depauperate first generation gene pools of reforested stands.<br /><br />Historical population growth was revealed with chloroplast microsatellites for most populations of P. canariensis. Population expansions for the pine parasite weevil Brachyderes rugatus were also detected, broadly coinciding with the population expansions within the Canary Island pine forests. Given the estimated times of expansion, these population demographic increases would seem likely related to the process of colonisation of newly emerged islands or local patches after volcanic disturbance. Detection and dating of these expansions from chloroplast microsatellites was, to some degree, negatively affected by homoplasy (i.e. parallel and back mutations).<br /><br />Coalescent simulations of the evolution of chloroplast microsatellites were applied to study the effects of homoplasy in the statistical analysis of population structuring. Measures of genetic diversity based on number of haplotypes and genetic distances were differently affected. Genetic distances were underestimated but were proportional to the actual value. These effects help to explain the lower performance of statistical analyses for the detection and dating of population expansions. Further research on the effects of homoplasy in the analysis of population differentiation using chloroplast microsatellites is essential.

No description available.

This dissertation assesses the degree of assimilation achieved by Irish immigrants in the US in the last decades of the nineteenth century. It employs a matching technique to link specific individuals in both the 1880 and 1900 US censuses. I use this technique to create matched samples of Irish immigrants and native born Americans, allowing me to capture significant information concerning these individuals and their families over this timeframe. Utilising these samples, together with other data, I assess the degree of assimilation achieved by Irish immigrants, in aggregate and in selected subsets, with native born Americans across a range of socio-economic characteristics over this period. Among my principal findings are that Irish immigrants did not assimilate quickly into American society in this period, nor did they achieve occupational parity with native born Americans. Younger Irish and those who immigrated to the US as children experienced greater assimilation and achieved higher levels of occupational mobility, as did those Irish immigrants who married a non-Irish spouse. Higher levels of geographic clustering were associated with lower degrees of assimilation and lower occupational outcomes. My research provides support for the argument that such clustering delays immigrant assimilation. My results also indicate continued cultural persistence by Irish immigrants as it relates to their choice of names for their children. Irish immigrants who gave their children a common Irish name closely resembled those who married an Irish-born spouse - they underperformed in the workplace and experienced a lower degree of assimilation. These results suggest that the flame burning under the Irish melting pot in the last decades of the nineteenth century was not very hot, and that the assimilation process for Irish immigrants into American society was a varied and multidimensional one.

This is a history of the relationship between prejudices and reality during the first century of the Spanish Conquest and colonization of America. The study deals particularly with the Discovery and Conquest of La Española and La Nueva España. The authors studied are Cristóbal Colón, Ramón Pané, Pedro Mártir de Anglería, Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo, Bartolomé de las Casas, Hernán Cortés, Francisco López de Gómara, Bernal Díaz del Castillo, Vasco de Quiroga, Toribio de Benavente "Motolinía", Diego Durán, Bernardino de Sahagún and José de Acosta. There is a change in the perception of reality during the Renaissance. It brings a separation between the realms of the earthly and the divine as well as a glorification of the self, known today as individualism. There is also a great tension between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance in Spain. A way of seeing the world that privileges the divine fights ferociously with another one that suddenly has an immense need to understand the real, concrete world. This tension makes the study of the early descriptions and interpretations of America particularly interesting. They document the ways in which the Western imagination learns to apprehend reality in the very beginnings of the Modern Age. The writers of the Western Indies struggle with their words, their ideas, their faith and their own life in their attempt to describe and understand the New World. The process is highly complex and superbly exemplifies Marx's concept of ideology: the awareness that there is always a real and an imaginary way interacting with each other when we try to live and understand reality. Idealizations, prejudices, inventions, fantasies, destructions and abuses coexist in the texts of the "Cronistas de Indias" with a heroic effort to describe, understand, classify and explain a reality that is totally alien to their eyes and their mental schemes. This effort reaches an end with the triumph of the Counterreformation in Spain. All the early history of the New World had to be proof of a divine plan and so, many of the truths, methods and ideas that the early writers of America had gained, with a truly heroic effort to overcome ideological limitations, started to get lost once again. / text

This work argues that Cameroonian cinema is in the thick of cultural reclamation and human rights debates in the country. The crux of the problem is this: in a country colonized for over a century by three major western powers (Germany, France and Great-Britain), what is left of Cameroonians and their indigenous culture? Did colonialism demolish them into a mass of emasculated cultural bastards led by self-loathing elites locked into the country colonial archives, or did some withstand that colonial onslaught to reclaim their humanity, from within, consistent with a genuine, homegrown progressive indigenous culture? To answer these questions, this author argues that three propositions have to be considered: first, for any forms of cultural reclamation and human rights, denials of the past mixed with official thought control do not work in the case of Cameroon. Second, within, this logic, only grassroots democratic and marginal media communication theory can help the viewer to understand how Cameroonian cinema interrogates and critiques the naturalizations of a neo-colonial political order through the construction of counter hegemonic voices. Third, it is essential to show how these counter hegemonic cinematic narratives are building new forms of democratic archives out of the colonial ones. Consequently, this author claims that Cameroonian cinema, one of the few independent media of communication, that for decades has both managed to resist dictatorship and thrive, is keeping a steady drumbeat of freedom on behalf of ordinary Cameroonians by consistently targeting the state in order to demonstrate the dangers of an institution uninterested in the work of cultural reclamation by not allowing proper conditions for artists to create original work. These confrontations with the state give Cameroonian cinema a cachet to voice human rights questions as well. As a result, cinema blurs the line between art and social activism. It brings a new mystic to human rights' work because these filmmakers demonstrate that culture and human rights can no longer be consigned to the margin of Cameroonian society. What is at stake, it is the knowledge that the road ahead, Africa’s future, lies with those with the skills to take advantages of technologies and the contemporary global discourse of human rights, democracy and globalization not the same old beaten paths of neo-colonial clientelism and patronage, lower standards of governance, defining actual Cameroon’s neo-colonial state practices. With this background, both filmmakers and human rights activists are forcing the state to take notice. This work indicates that arguing against technologies and global flows in our contemporary world is akin to try carrying a cat by the tail. / text

As an important part of our lives, stories help us to form both our personal identities and the identities of the social groups that make up our society. They facilitate us to be in contact with our beliefs, our feelings, our knowledge, our perception, and what is significant to us. Similarly, we understand those very things from the stories of others. These stories are obtained through different ways: family, friends, literature, poetry, religion, teachers, movies, art, and so on. Through these, our culture is born and sustained. There is no doubt that architecture is an important defining element of our culture. For that reason, we must decisively evaluate its essential role in the communication of these stories. Being more than just the planning, design and construction of a building, the architecture design process involves the manipulation of mass, space, volume, texture, light, shadow, materials, program, and other elements in order to achieve an end which is aesthetic as well as functional, and if taken further architecture can be experienced through the senses. When thinking about what architecture involves, I have to ask myself a question, can architecture take a more dynamic role in the transmission of our culture; generally, symbolically, and more particularly, by encouraging and reinforcing the dissemination of stories? In our modern-day western built-environment, museums have taken a most active role programmatically in the transmission of our culture and stories. My thesis will focus on this building type. During the last 30 years, museums have experienced a change from presenting real things to the creation of experiences. In essence, exhibitions have transitioned from object-oriented to story-centered. How can architecture better provide this recently modified museum experience? Furthermore, what can architecture do to push this focus even further so that people are better able to absorb these stories and experiences? Before attempting to answer these questions however, I must explain how my thesis question will be explored in actual terms. Consequently, I will investigate how the architecture of a museum can further activate, reinforce, and promote a set of stories important to our culture and country as a whole. My thesis project will be a museum that portrays the sequence of events and cultural history of Puerto Rico. With this in mind, I would like to explore an effective method to convey and inform people about who we are and where we come from. All the elements that had contributed to its creation give this culture the distinctive attributes to set it as the perfect model to use architecture as the tool that will disseminate our cultural history. Given the fact that it is very compelling for people to learn through visualization, the creation of a museum that reflects the Puerto Rican culture would be an outstanding tool to educate people. However, instead of designing a museum that merely houses artifacts, I want to create a museum that tells a story about about Puerto Rico's past and present.

Dytiscidae, contains numerous endemic and non-endemic species on Madagascar. Their evolutionary history is largely unknown on the island. Herein, I use analyses to infer phylogenetic relationship among groups of diving beetles, with a focus on the subfamily Dytiscinae and endemic species in two other groups of Dytiscidae. Paper I represents the first phylogenetic reconstruction focusing on the tribe Aciliini based on molecular data. Several commonly used molecular markers, as well as a new marker for Hydradephagan beetles, were evaluated in this study. Our analyses suggest that six genera within Aciliini are monophyletic. The most basal clades with Neotropical and Afrotropical taxa suggest a possible Gondwanan origin. Evaluation of gene fragments indicated CAD to be the most informative marker. Paper II focuses on colonization and radiation events of large bodied endemic diving beetles of the tribes Cybistrini and Hydaticini on Madagascar. Colonization events were inferred from dated phylogenetic trees and ancestral biogeographical reconstructions. Our results suggest both multiple colonizations, and out-of-Madagascar dispersal events, mostly during the Miocene and Oligocene. In paper III, we revised the Rhantus species of Madagascar. We used both molecular and morphological data to evaluate species hypothesis and emphasized the value of Manjakatompo – one of the last remaining fragments of central highland forests. In Paper IV we reconstruct the phylogeny and use Species Distribution Modelling for the endemic genus Pachynectes in Madagascar. Our sampling has discovered that the species diversity of Pachynectes is at least three times higher than previously believed. It seems that allopatric speciation was the main driver, which led to the diversity of Pachynectes. Our results suggest that climatic gradients and the five main biomes were a better predictor than watershed systems in explaining the distribution pattern and speciation between sister species. / Dykarskalbaggar i familjen Dytiscidae finns över hela världen och kan hittas i såväl temporära som permanenta vattensamlingar, i rinnande såväl som i stillastående akvatiska habitat. Bland dykarskalbaggarna finns ett hundratal både endemiska och icke-endemiska arter på Madagaskar. Deras evolutionära historia på denna mytomspunna ö är dock i stort sett okänd. I den här avhandlingen använder jag molekylära data och analyser för att härleda evolutionära släktskap, s.k. fylogenier eller släktträd, för olika grupper av dykarskalbaggar med fokus på underfamiljen Dytiscinae samt endemiska arter från två andra grupper på Madagaskar. Artikel 1 är den första molekylär-fylogenetiska studien som gjort på tribuset Aciliini. Flera molekylära markörer (delar av gener) användes samt utvärderades, inklusive den nya markören CAD för Hydradephaga skalbaggar. Analysen bekräftar att tribuset Aciliini är en monofyletisk grupp (naturlig grupp som härstammar från en gemensam förfader) samt att Eretini är närmaste släktingen. Alla sex släkten med flera arter i tribuset stöddes också som monofyletiska, det sjunde släktet har bara en art. De mest basala grupperna i trädet utgjordes av Neotropiska och Afrotropiska arter vilket antyder ett ursprung på Gondwana kontinenten. Denna slutsats var dock beroende av för vilken nod i trädet (av två möjliga) som ett fossil användes som kalibreringspunkt. Utvärderingen av de olika genfragmenten ledde till slutsatsen att CAD var den mest informativa genen tätt följd av en annan nukleär proteinkodande gen, WNT. Artikel 2 fokuserar på kolonisations- och artbildningshändelser för två grupper av relativt stora dykarskalbaggar. Denna studie bygger på två tidigare publicerade dataset där vi lade till Madagaskars arter. Kolonisationshändelser härleddes genom daterade molekylära släktträd samt rekonstruktion av förfäders biogeografiska utbredningsområden. Resultaten visade både på ett flertal separata koloniseringshändelser men också "ut-ur-Madagaskar" spridning, framförallt under tidsperioden Miocen-Oligocen. Studien visade också att inga koloniseringshändelser lett till några signifikanta artradiationer på Madagaskar i dessa två grupper. I Artikel 3 reviderar vi arterna av släktet Rhantus som finns på Madagaskar, vilka alla är begränsade i sin utbredning till den centrala högplatån på Madagaskar. Vi använder både morfologi och molekylära data för att testa arthypoteser samt bestyrker det bevarandebiologiska värdet av Manjakatompo-skogen, ett av de allra sista fragmenten av skog på den centrala högplatån. I Artikel 4 härleder vi släktskapet för det endemiska rinnande-vatten släktet Pachynectes samt analyserar de ingående arternas utbredning genom modellering. Våra insamlingar runt om Madagaskar har visat att artdiversiteten i släktet är minst tre gånger så hög som man tidigare trott. Genom att integrera släktskapsanalys med utbredningsmodellering söker vi få en inblick i vad som drivit artbildningen i en endemisk artradiation. Allopatrisk artbildning verkar varit den huvudsakliga typen av artbildning inom Pachynectes. Vi testade även två huvudhypoteser som söker förklara mikroendemisk artbildning generellt på Madagaskar. Våra resultat visar att klimatgradienter och de fem huvudsakliga biomen på Madagaskar verkar ha en långt bättre förklaringsgrad än stora floder och avrinningsområden för att förklara Pachynectes arternas utbredning och släktskap. / <p>At the time of the doctoral defense, the following paper was unpublished and had a status as follows: Paper 4: Manuscript.</p>

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