acase@tulane.edu / This dissertation identifies and analyzes the politics of three postmodern authors (Vladimir Nabokov, Thomas Pynchon, and Don DeLillo) by focusing mainly on their novels that are set during the Cold War. I argue that these authors’ writings, which are often read as apolitical or as cultural critiques, engage with historical and political Cold War issues, like totalitarianism, liberal anticommunism, the threat of nuclear apocalypse, and the expanded role of government agencies. Moreover, I show that although these authors cover similar political topics and often work in similar genres, like the spy thriller, their political orientations vary. What unites their disparate political views is that all three authors endorse individual liberty during the Cold War, and all provide narratives in which their protagonists withdraw from society. The overall implication, then, is that the individual can no longer affect political outcomes in an age of extreme ideologies, overwhelming technology, and seemingly allpowerful governmental agencies. My first chapter examines the politics of Vladimir Nabokov, and by using theorists, like Dominick LaCapra and Cathy Caruth, I argue that Nabokov’s postmodern novels (Bend Sinister, Pnin, and Pale Fire) explore the impact of trauma and reveal the author to be a staunch liberal anticommunist. My second chapter deals with the politics of Thomas Pynchon, and by employing theorists like Fredric Jameson, Michel de Certeau, and Michel Foucault, I argue that Pynchon’s anarchistic leanings in V. and The Crying of Lot 49 give way to a clearer anarchist outlook in “A Journey into the Mind of Watts”—that is, until Gravity’s Rainbow reflects his political despair. My third chapter examines Don DeLillo’s early novels (Americana, End Zone, Players, Running Dog) as well as his more ambitious historical works (The Names, Libra, Mao II, and Underworld), and by using theorists like Linda Hutcheon, Foucault, and Guy Debord, I argue that DeLillo’s politics reflect a type of left-leaning libertarianism. Ultimately, this dissertation serves as a corrective not only to these authors’ statements about the supposed apolitical nature of their work, but it also identifies their political philosophies, which are placed within the larger historical context of the Cold War. / 1 / Jason P. Markell

This is an investigation into the history of masculinity in spaceflight during some of the tensest years of the Cold War era. This dissertation asks why the U.S. did not counter the Soviet launch of the first woman into space. Scholars have pieced together the story of American women’s fight for spaceflight. The dissertation adds another layer to this narrative by analyzing the construction of the astronaut image from 1958 to 1972, a period characterized by a widespread masculinity crisis. Scholars of Cold War America suggest that Americans saw communism, conformity, feminism, homosexuality, bureaucracy, corporations, male consumerism, leisure, automation, and the dreaded “organization man” as a threat to masculinity. The astronaut was not only a way for Americans to display their superiority over the Soviets; he also represented a widespread domestic reaction against the threat of automation. I build on the scholarship of the Cold War masculinity crisis by focusing on how the crisis played out within the public discourse of the astronaut image. I begin with a narrative of the Cold War masculinity crisis. Using print media, congressional records, and astronaut accounts, I explore how the masculinization of spaceflight created a public image of the astronaut that mirrored the Cold War masculinity crisis. As the average American man struggled for individuality and control in his own life, the astronaut struggled to exert and maintain individual control over the space capsule. Continuing through the Apollo program, the discourse surrounding the astronaut shifted away from depictions of him as a rugged individual exerting control in space toward an emphasis on the astronaut as a team player who shared control of the capsule with computers, the scientist-astronauts, and Mission Command. In the end, the astronaut struggled to represent a superior masculinity as he increasingly became the corporate organization man, symbolizing the masculinity crisis. The struggle to resolve the masculinity crisis continued as teamwork replaced individualism, hyphenated scientist-astronauts flew into space, and NASA commissioned the first passenger space shuttles.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, San Diego, 2008. / Title from first page of PDF file (viewed December 16, 2008). Available via ProQuest Digital Dissertations. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 206-219).

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The concept of Strategic Culture was developed during the Cold War years as a tool to analyse the nuclear policies of the Soviet Union and the United States, in an effort to assess the likelihood of their utilising their nuclear capabilities. Strategic Culture provides a useful lens through which we may understand the context, outlook and behaviour of states, shedding light on the way they perceive the international community and their role within it. As the Cold War came to an end, the focus of Strategic Culture literature shifted from the nuclear bipolarity that characterised U.S.-Soviet relations, to focus on other states and issue areas that dominated the international agenda within the New World Order. This thesis seeks to return to the original tenets of Strategic Culture, bringing attention back to the initial remits of this area of study, that is, the nuclear strategic cultures of the U.S.A. and Russia. Further to identifying the strategic cultures of the United States and Russia, this research questions whether these have been impacted by the change in international order brought on by the end of the Cold War. This work will also question whether nuclear weapons contorted their respective strategic cultures, or whether their strategic cultures were insulated from the impact of nuclear weapons. It will also assess whether the differences in strategic cultures have brought about differences in nuclear policy.

Boston University. University Professors Program Senior theses. / PLEASE NOTE: Boston University Libraries did not receive an Authorization To Manage form for this thesis. It is therefore not openly accessible, though it may be available by request. If you are the author or principal advisor of this work and would like to request open access for it, please contact us at open-help@bu.edu. Thank you. / 2031-01-02

Senator Warren Robison Austin (R-VT) was appointed by President Harry S. Truman to be the US Representative to the United Nations in June 1946. While a member of the US Senate, Austin had been a great advocate for internationalism and the United Nations. His tenure as Representative lasted until January 1953. The growing pains of the new organization were complicated by myriad contentious problems, not the least of which was the dawning of the Cold War. Austin was caught between the Soviet delegation, who were bent on opposing virtually all US initiatives at the UN, and members of the Truman Administration who were adamantly anti-communist/anti-Soviet. This thesis examines the role that anti-communism played in establishing an atmosphere of distrust leading, at least partly, to the Cold War; and Austin’s role at the United Nations as regards three representative issues that confronted the international organization during his tenure. The first issue was how the Soviets and the Western Powers disagreed over the question of unanimity of the permanent five members in the Security Council. Next, I will show how irreconcilable differences between the United States and the Soviets thwarted the functioning of the Atomic Energy Commission of the Security Council. Lastly, the Korean War is examined as the first use of a military response by the United Nations to international aggression. Austin dutifully represented the administration at the United Nations, but often expressed his own less confrontational views in meetings, speeches outside the UN, and in letters to friends and loved ones. He held the United Nations to be a positive force for peace, while other members of the administration were stridently anti-Soviet and found the United Nations to be the perfect ideological battleground while acting unilaterally outside the organization. I will show how Austin had an idealistic view of the United Nations and maintained that it was the best vehicle for the maintenance of peace. Also how he was, initially, more even-handed in dealing with the Soviet delegation than his overseers in the Truman administration. He eventually grew weary of Soviet tactics and their alleged aggression in Korea leading him to harden his outlook.