This thesis provides the first study of the representation, performance, and reception of Shakespeare’s ageing women in early modern and present-day England. It contributes an exposition of the physiology and theory of early modern ageing, drawing on this original material to make an argument for the ageing woman as a source of anxiety within the plays as they were originally staged, and as they are performed and received today. It finds the old and ageing woman in Shakespeare’s drama to be represented as physically and verbally excessive; the thesis also identifies a corresponding urge in the plays and in their reception towards the ageing woman’s containment and control. This containment is exercised in the text, the rehearsal room, the theatre, and the public space of performance reviews. My introduction determines my methodology and establishes the terms of reference for the project. The first chapter defines early modern old age and delivers a study of the early modern literature and theory of the ageing body. Each of the four subsequent chapters explores an ageing female character or characters through the lens of a theme: magic, motherhood, sexuality, and memory. The characters studied are drawn from The Merry Wives of Windsor, Macbeth, The Winter’s Tale, Coriolanus, King John, All’s Well That Ends Well, Antony and Cleopatra, Hamlet, and Richard III. Some brief concluding remarks complete the thesis. The larger project of the thesis is a cultural study. Throughout, I am keen to learn how characters are talked about as well as written and performed. My effort to understand the work which Shakespeare’s older women are asked to carry out in the present day defines my methodology: I draw on prompt books, production recordings, reviews, costume, photographs, programmes, and interviews with actors and directors to aid my investigation, juxtaposing these with close study of the written plays and the early modern culture and knowledge which underpins them. The word count, exclusive of bibliography but inclusive of all footnotes and an appendix, is approximately 92,000.

<p>The subject of this thesis is Scandinavian nationalism from the late 18th century to ca 1920. The focus lies on that particular aspect of nationalism that was at the same time the most mundane and the most enigmatic: the ever-present depicting of the nation in words, pictures and music, which in effect created a parallel universe, a patriotic dreamland. This creation was highly gendered, and the media in which it flourished most abundantly was the patriotic song. The study therefore uses song texts as its primary source material and builds upon the theoretical foundations laid by, e.g., Joan Scott and Michael Billig.</p><p>Geographically, the investigation centers on Sweden, using Norway and Swedish-speaking Finland as objects of comparison. The main producers of the lyrics and their intended target groups are identified, and an in-depth analysis of a large corpus of songs is made.</p><p>The main conclusion is that the patriotic songs, in spite of spreading to an ever increasing proportion of the population, were not an expression of the ‘voice of the people’ or even that of the bourgeoisie as a whole. The texts were chiefly written by male academics, and from their formative years during the Napoleonic wars the songs preserved an obsession with a warlike unmarried manhood. Only in the last decades of the period were civilian virtues and national womanhood slightly more emphasized. It is suggested that the songs, apart from being an expression of what Billig has termed ‘banal nationalism,’ also functioned as a bastion of a ‘banal androcentrism.’</p><p>The thesis shows that the patriotic dreamland of the patriotic songs was designed in a way that promoted the interests of its producers and reproducers. The seemingly semi-autonomous quality of the discourse is also discussed, employing meme theory as used by, e.g., Daniel Dennett.</p>

The subject of this thesis is Scandinavian nationalism from the late 18th century to ca 1920. The focus lies on that particular aspect of nationalism that was at the same time the most mundane and the most enigmatic: the ever-present depicting of the nation in words, pictures and music, which in effect created a parallel universe, a patriotic dreamland. This creation was highly gendered, and the media in which it flourished most abundantly was the patriotic song. The study therefore uses song texts as its primary source material and builds upon the theoretical foundations laid by, e.g., Joan Scott and Michael Billig. Geographically, the investigation centers on Sweden, using Norway and Swedish-speaking Finland as objects of comparison. The main producers of the lyrics and their intended target groups are identified, and an in-depth analysis of a large corpus of songs is made. The main conclusion is that the patriotic songs, in spite of spreading to an ever increasing proportion of the population, were not an expression of the ‘voice of the people’ or even that of the bourgeoisie as a whole. The texts were chiefly written by male academics, and from their formative years during the Napoleonic wars the songs preserved an obsession with a warlike unmarried manhood. Only in the last decades of the period were civilian virtues and national womanhood slightly more emphasized. It is suggested that the songs, apart from being an expression of what Billig has termed ‘banal nationalism,’ also functioned as a bastion of a ‘banal androcentrism.’ The thesis shows that the patriotic dreamland of the patriotic songs was designed in a way that promoted the interests of its producers and reproducers. The seemingly semi-autonomous quality of the discourse is also discussed, employing meme theory as used by, e.g., Daniel Dennett.

This thesis studies the literary genre of pastoral between 1559 and 1647. The first of these dates is that of a work that changed the course of early modern pastoral, Montemayor’s Diana; and the second marks the English translation of Gomberville’s Polexandre, a pastoral romance which exemplifies the shifts in cultural values that re-shaped Montemayor’s model over the century that followed its publication. My study focusses on the significance for this genre of the ethical quality known to classical moral philosophy as otium, and translated in early modern English by words such as peace, leisure, retirement, ease and idleness. Otium has strong historical associations with the tradition of Virgilian pastoral. Its significance in early modern pastorals, however, has been largely overlooked, despite the fact that early modern interest in otium had been revitalised by the rediscovery of some of its most important classical discussions. This renewed interest in otium, I argue, was essential to the development of early modern pastoral. My argument challenges both old and new critical perspectives on pastoral, and engages with key issues in early modern culture which literary scholars have neglected. Older studies understood pastoral otium simply as idyllic retreat; newer ones accept this view, but argue against its privileged and quietist political implications, preferring to concentrate on the tradition of interpreting pastoral as political allegory. Otium’s principal connotations, however, were neither quiet nor idyllic. Though its restorative qualities were sometimes cautiously acknowledged, otium’s potential to corrupt was ever-present, and affected a range of areas including privacy, politics, moral psychology and medicine. When people wanted to imaginatively explore those effects, I argue, pastoral was the genre to which they were most likely to turn. Listening to what pastorals say about otium can play an important role in reconstructing this crucial and misunderstood aspect of early modern culture.

Theoretical understandings of war have been dominated by the thought of Clausewitz for a number of decades. His thought is valid in many respects, but for various reasons it is open to misinterpretation and misunderstanding; furthermore, a number of his observations (particularly on the prevalence of chance and uncertainty in war) are not fully explored and substantiated theoretically. This thesis is an attempt to present and elucidate a new theoretical understanding of war's nature which complements Clausewitz's theories and addresses these concerns: this is the understanding of war as a form of violent conflict which is not bound by rules. The thesis consists of five main chapters. The first is an in-depth study of Clausewitz, which will provide an exegesis of his theories and highlight the deficiencies in his thought, before positing how understanding war as ‘violent conflict without rules' could be used to address and explain them. The second chapter is a study of the theory of rules, examining in particular the role they play in moderating conflict: we can find that amongst other things, rules lend predictability and psychological security to a contest, restrict the scope of physical harm and tend to preserve the political and social status quo. As war lacks rules (in the sense that there are no ‘rules of war' as there are ‘rules of chess'), it therefore lacks these benefits. A following chapter on the laws and customs of war will address cases where war appears to be bound by rules, and clarify my position. The final two chapters explore the implications of war's lack of rules with reference to two areas which are most commonly associated with war. The fourth chapter on strategy will explore how this military concept is necessitated by war's ruleless nature; the final chapter will examine the uniquely violent, physical nature of war through the same theoretical prism, and will show how the technological innovation associated with war is a consequence of its lack of regulation, and a potent contributor to the chance and uncertainty which plagues warfare.

Although many historians consider Joseph II's campaign of 1788 against the Ottoman Turks a failure, no one has yet provided a thorough account of it. This study attempts to put something into the void. / Based mostly on original sources found in the Kriegsarchiv (War Archives) in Vienna, it examines the campaign from the perspective of Joseph II. The first chapter tries to explain how Joseph became involved in a conflict with the Porte. The second chapter covers the period of February-July 1788, when Joseph postponed his offensive on Belgrade until the fall and waited in Zemun on the defensive. The third chapter begins with the Ottoman advance into the Banat of Timisoara in early August 1788 and ends with the Habsburg army's retreat to winter quarters in November. / Despite failing to take Belgrade, the Habsburg army captured strategically important positions for the campaign of 1789. The difficulties encountered cannot be blamed solely on Joseph's poor generalship. Other factors, such as insufficient Russian assistance, a difficult climate and terrain and a surprisingly strong Ottoman effort, must also be considered.

Tesis para optar al grado de Licenciada en Historia / En este estudio me interesa abordar la pregunta por los significados que tiene el lugar y las actividades de los sirvientes en una economía doméstica tradicional. Ello requiere que se les observe en el tejido de las relaciones familiares, por una parte, y en el contexto de las prácticas asociadas al mantenimiento de un orden en lo doméstico. Se trata de una aproximación desde la historia de la vida cotidiana, la cual entenderé como un conjunto de prácticas llevadas a cabo por los sujetos, que pretende dar cuenta de las formas concretas en que los individuos se apropian de sus condiciones materiales y las transforman en «maneras de hacer». Se trata de una perspectiva que también puede abordar las relaciones de poder que se instalan en el tejido social, pero con una reducción del enfoque a un ámbito mucho más íntimo, como el del espacio doméstico, por ejemplo, para dar cuenta de la tensión siempre presente que se produce entre la circulación de los discursos y el despliegue de las prácticas, y de las diversas representaciones que allí tienen lugar.

Doctorat en philosophie et lettres / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

Menciona un elemento de mucho interés para entender la historiografía peruana desde tiempos coloniales y su vinculación con la idea o las ideas de nación: la confrontación de versiones históricas, su condición de historia crítica, de herramienta de denuncia social y política. A pesar de los esfuerzos de la historiografía conservadora por imponer su versión de la historia como consensual, nunca ha podido acallar las versiones contrarias o heterodoxas. En efecto, las versiones históricas están en competencia, en contraposición, enfrentadas unas a las otras en función de intereses de sus autores en los campos políticos, ideológicos, religiosos, culturales, económicos y sociales. Las versiones historiográficas se nutren unas de otras, se cuestionan, se sustituyen pero también conviven y, por eso, no siempre resulta fácil hallar las influencias de interpretaciones históricas en autores y tendencias posteriores. De ahí que la identificación de paradigmas historiográficos haya servido para establecer mejor el origen y el flujo de las ideas de la nación peruana en la historiografía. La investigación se realizó una revisación de los postulados originales y a la necesidad de ampliar el marco cronológico del análisis para vincular los discursos históricos posteriores a la rebelión de Túpac Amaru con aquellos vigentes antes de 1780. Por este motivo, a pesar de que el título sugiere que el análisis de los casos empieza hacia 1780, se considera pertinente iniciar la investigación con interpretaciones historiográficas que se remontan al siglo XVI. / Tesis

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