Source majeure de l’histoire du cinéma, la presse cinématographique française des premiers temps reste pourtant encore un vaste continent à explorer. À partir d’un corpus composé de douze revues couvrant la période de 1908 à 1940, cette recherche entreprend d’étudier les facteurs à la fois techniques, économiques et sociaux de la naissance et de l’évolution de la presse cinématographique française sur trois décennies. Envisagée en tant qu’entreprise de presse, dans sa dimension collective, chaque revue fait l’objet d’une étude méthodique de son identité, de ses spécificités, ainsi que des différentes mutations, administratives, techniques, économiques, formelles et éditoriales, subies. L’ambition première de cette thèse est de proposer une histoire autant de la presse que des journalistes. Elle aspire ainsi à définir la profession de journaliste et de critique de cinéma, telle qu’elle est perçue à l’époque par la corporation du cinéma ainsi que les journalistes et critiques eux-mêmes. La définition de cette fonction se fait également à travers la création de groupements professionnels, dont cette recherche espère avoir éclairé l’histoire et les péripéties qui la jalonnent. Le dessein poursuivi par ailleurs est de contribuer à une meilleure connaissance des hommes, journalistes et critiques, encore méconnus pour la plupart mais qui ont pourtant été des figures marquantes de leur époque, qui ont participé à la création de la presse spécialisée et à l’élaboration d’une pensée et d’une critique cinématographiques dans les années 1900-1930. / A major source for history of cinema, the early French film press however still remains a vast, unexplored continent. With a body of research composed of twelve film magazines spanning over the 1908-1940 period, this thesis aims to study the technical, economical and social factors involved in the birth and evolution of the French film press over three decades. Contemplated as a press organization, in its collective dimension, each film magazine is subject to a methodical study of its identity, specifications and various mutations – administrative, technical, economical, formal and editorial – incurred. The main ambition of this thesis is to propose a history of press as well as of journalists. The study thus aims to define the profession of journalist and film critic, as it is perceived in this period by the film corporation and the journalists and critics themselves. This fonction also defines itself through the creation of professional associations, the history and adventures of which this research hopes it has illuminated. The pursued purpose is also to contribute in a better knowledge of the men, journalists and critics, remaining mainly unrecognized to this day despite being major figures of their time, who participated in the creation of the specialized press and the formulation of a critical thought about cinema, in the 1900s-1930s.

Ziel dieser Untersuchung ist es, feuilletonistische Entwürfe von „Amerika“ in der Zeit von 1918 bis 1938 zu analysieren. Der Amerika-Diskurs in der deutschen Presse diente mir dabei als Folie für eine weitere Untersuchung im Kontext der Ersten Tschechoslowakischen Republik. Der Hauptbeitrag der vorliegenden Arbeit liegt daher in einer gänzlich neuen Perspektive auf die Perzeption der USA sowie im Vergleich dieser tschechoslowakischen Sicht mit der deutschen. In den 1920er- und 1930er-Jahren vermochte insbesondere das Feuilleton als modernes urbanes Genre die aktuellen zeitgenössischen Diskurse einerseits aufzunehmen, andererseits mitzugestalten. Deshalb diente es mir als Quelle. In der vorliegenden Arbeit wurde die Modernisierung als komplexes Phänomen untersucht, das alle Bereiche des Alltags erfasste. Anhand ausgewählter Themenbereiche – Amerika, Stadt, Frau – wurde herausgearbeitet, wie sich die Zeitgenossen mit diesem Prozess auseinandersetzten. Da die Modernisierung mit Amerikanisierung gleichgesetzt wurde, ist der so genannte Amerikanisierungsdiskurs zentraler Bestandteil der Untersuchung. Amerika diente sowohl in der Weimarer Republik wie in der ČSR als Projektionsfläche für Wunschvorstellungen sowie für Probleme im Umgang mit der Modernisierung. Das Zentrum der Moderne war der urbane Raum. Daher konzentriert sich meine Arbeit auf die Großstädte Berlin und Prag. Als deren Bezugsgröße diente New York. Analysiert wurden die Selbst- und im Falle Berlins auch die Fremddarstellungen der Metropolen im Hinblick auf ihre voranschreitende Urbanisierung. Der gesellschaftliche Wandel manifestierte sich in den 1920er-Jahren am deutlichsten an der gesellschaftlichen Aufwertung der Frau; sie profitierte am meisten vom Prozess der Modernisierung. Die Weiblichkeitskonstruktionen widerspiegeln daher wichtige Aspekte der Auseinandersetzung mit der Modernisierung / Amerikanisierung. / The goal of this research is the analysis of perceptions about the American model of modernity in the period between 1918 and 1938. The debate about America in Germany serves as the template for its examination in the context of the first Czechoslovak Republic, which will present an entirely new perspective. The main contribution of this thesis is the removal of the one-sided approach to German perceptions of America by means of comparison and perspective from Czechoslovakia. In the ‘20s and ‘30s played in particular the feuilleton a crucial role in creating popular perceptions of society. As a modern urban genre it enabled both the depiction and the formation of contemporary discourse. The subject of this thesis is a study of modernization, a complex phenomenon that has touched upon all aspects of everyday life. The analysis of selected topics – the USA, the city, and the woman – shows how people responded to this process. Due to the fact that modernization became equated with Americanization, a discourse about the latter is central to this analysis. Both in the German Weimar Republic as well as in Czechoslovakia America was used as a backdrop for projecting; both the visions and challenges that occurred while dealing with modernization. The center of modernism was the urban environment. This fact has led the focus of this examination to the cities of Prague and Berlin, with the reference point for both being New York. This thesis analyzes the way these cities presented themselves from the point of view of urbanization – in the case of Berlin it also includes perception of the city by outsiders. In the ‘20s social change was predominantly manifest in the empowerment of women and it was also women who profited most from modernization of the social sphere. The evolution of the notion of femininity is thus reflected in important aspects of this confrontation with modernization / Americanization.

Die Dissertation behandelt die Texte britischer Schriftsteller_innen, die in der Zeit der Weimarer Republik nach Deutschland kamen und über ihre Erfahrungen mit Deutschland und den Deutschen schrieben. Sie umfasst sowohl Texte, die in den Jahren 1919-1933 entstanden sind, als auch Texte, die sich rückblickend mit Erfahrungen in der Weimarer Republik befassen und in den Jahren zwischen dem Ende der Weimarer Republik und dem Ausbruch des Zweiten Weltkriegs (1933-1939) entstanden sind. Die wissenschaftliche Auseinandersetzung mit den Texten britischer Schriftsteller_innen über die Weimarer Republik hat sich bisher weitgehend auf die Werke von Christopher Isherwood und seinen Freunden W. H. Auden und Stephen Spender beschränkt. Durch die Fokussierung auf die Erfahrungen dieser Autoren legt die bisherige Forschung zu britischen Schriftsteller_innen in der Weimarer Republik einen starken Schwerpunkt auf die Erfahrungen junger homosexueller Männer in Berlin in den letzten Jahren der Weimarer Republik und vernachlässigt andere Aspekte der Erfahrungen dieser Schriftsteller sowie die Perspektiven der zahlreichen anderen schreibenden Brit_innen, die die Weimarer Republik besuchten und aufgrund ihrer Herkunft, ihres Alters und ihrer Beweggründe für ihren Aufenthalt sehr unterschiedliche Erfahrungen machten. Die Studie zeigt erstmals eine breit angelegte Untersuchung der unterschiedlichen Perspektiven, die sowohl die biografischen Erfahrungen der Schriftsteller analysiert als auch den Prozess der Fiktionalisierung dieser Erfahrungen in verschiedenen Phasen der Zwischen- und Nachkriegszeit erklärt. Die eingehende Analyse der verschiedenen literarischen Versionen der "Weimarer Erfahrung" durch britische Schriftsteller zeigt, wie diese Erfahrung in Fiktion umgewandelt wurde, wie die persönliche Auseinandersetzung mit Deutschland retrospektive Erzählungen verkompliziert und wie diese Komplikationen in fiktionalen Texten ausgetragen werden. Die Arbeit ist in drei chronologische Kapitel unterteilt, die sich jeweils mit einer Phase der Weimarer Republik befassen und eine Reihe von fiktionalen und nicht-fiktionalen Texten einbeziehen. / The dissertation analyses the texts of British writers who visited Germany during the years of the Weimar Republic and wrote about their experiences with Germany and the Germans. It includes texts that were written during the years 1919-1933 as well as texts that deal retrospectively with experiences in the Weimar Republic and were written in the years between the end of the Weimar Republic and the outbreak of the Second World War (1933-1939). Scholarly engagement with the writings of British writers on the Weimar Republic has so far been very much limited to the texts of Christopher Isherwood and his friends W. H. Auden and Stephen Spender. By focusing predominantly on the experiences of these authors, the existing research on British writers in the Weimar Republic places a strong emphasis on the experiences of young homosexual men in Berlin in the final years of the Weimar Republic and neglects other aspects of these writers' experiences as well as the perspectives of the numerous other British writers who visited the Weimar Republic and had very different experiences due to their background, age and motivations for their stay. For the first time, this study undertakes a wide-ranging investigation of diverse perspectives, which both analyses the biographical experiences of the writers and explains the fictionalisation process of these experiences in different phases of the interwar and post-war period. The in-depth analysis of the diverse literary versions of the 'Weimar experience' by British writers shows how this experience was transformed into fiction, how personal engagement with Germany complicates retrospective narratives, and how these complications are played out in fictional texts. The work is divided into three chronological chapters, each dealing with a phase of the Weimar Republic and drawing on a range of fictional and non-fictional texts.

No description available.

Many religious leaders in the early 1900s were afraid of the immoral associations and repercussions of birth control. The Catholic Church and some Protestants never accepted contraception, or accepted it much later, but many mainline Protestants leaders did change their tune dramatically between the years of 1920 and 1931. This investigation seeks to understand how Margaret Sanger was able to use her rhetoric to move her reform from the leftist outskirts and decadent, sexual connotations into the mainstream of family-friendly, morally virtuous, and even conservative religious approval. Securing the approval of religious leaders subsequently provided the impetus for legal and medical acceptance by the late-1930s. Margaret Sanger used conferences, speeches, articles, her magazine (Birth Control Review), and several books to reinforce her message as she pragmatically shifted from the radical left closer to the center and conservatives. She knew the power of the churches to influence their members, and since the United States population had undeniably a Judeo-Christian base, this power could be harnessed in order to achieve success for the birth control movement, among the conservative medical and political communities and the public at large. Despite the clear consensus against birth control by all mainline Christian churches in 1920, including Roman Catholics and Protestants alike, the decade that followed would bring about a great divide that would continue to widen in successive decades. Sanger put forward many arguments in her works, but the ones which ultimately brought along the relatively conservative religious leaders were those that presented birth control not as a gender equity issue, but rather as a morally constructive reform that had the power to save and strengthen marriages; lessen prostitution and promiscuity; protect the health of women; reduce abortions, infanticide, and infant mortality; and improve the quality of life for children and families. Initially, many conservatives and religious leaders associated the birth control movement with radicals, feminists, prostitutes, and promiscuous youth, and feared contraception would lead to immorality and the deterioration of the family. Without the threat of pregnancy, conservatives feared that youth and even married adults would seize the opportunity to have sex outside of marriage. Others worried the decreasing size of families was a sign of growing selfishness and materialism. In response, Sanger promoted the movement as a way for conservatives to stop the rising divorce rates by strengthening and increasing marriages, and to improve the lives of families by humanely increasing the health and standard of living, for women and children especially. In short, she argued that birth control would not lead to deleterious consequences, but would actually improve family moral values and become an effective humanitarian reform. She recognized that both liberals and conservatives were united in hoping to strengthen the family, and so she emphasized those virtues and actively courted those same conservative religious leaders that had previously shunned birth control and the movement. Throughout the 1920s, she emphasized the ways in which birth control could strengthen marriages and improve the quality of life of women and children, and she effectively won over the relatively conservative religious leaders that she needed to bring about the movement’s public, medical, and political progress.

La tesi si concentra sul Partito Nazionalista Cinese negli anni Venti come punto privilegiato di osservazione del cambiamento politico della Cina dopo la Prima guerra mondiale. Questo decennio rappresentò un momento di definizione identitaria sia per i comunisti sia per i nazionalisti. La storiografia ne ha sottolineato numerosi aspetti, ma si è finora occupata del periodo 1919-1928 come una preistoria degli anni Trenta piuttosto che come un autonomo segmento di storia cinese. Studi recenti hanno superato implicitamente questo approccio criticando due date periodizzanti fondamentali per il Novecento cinese: la nascita della Repubblica nazionalista (1911) e la nascita della Repubblica Popolare (1949). A metà tra queste due date, gli anni Venti sono emersi come snodo decisivo nel passaggio da impero a Stato nazionale, durante cui si definì un nuovo spazio di discussione politica. Questo processo, pur interno, subì l’influsso delle strategie internazionali di sovietici e statunitensi dando vita a una nuova visione non soltanto della rivoluzione ma anche dello Stato post-rivoluzionario. Le classi dirigenti nazionalista e comunista, durante la collaborazione, si rivelarono dinamiche e tale “competizione” si trasferì anche all’interno di ciascun movimento diventando un fattore determinante per il successo o il fallimento del partito inteso come moderna formazione politica. / The thesis focuses on the Chinese Nationalist Party in the 1920s as a special standpoint to analyze the political changes in China after the World War I. That decade was crucial for shaping the identity of nationalists and communists. Many works have already examined some aspects, but they mostly considered the years 1919-1928 as a pre-history of the Thirties rather than an autonomous part of Chinese history. Recent studies have overcome this approach by criticizing two of the main periodization in the Chinese twentieth century: the birth of the nationalist Republic (1911) and the birth of the People’s Republic (1949). Halfway, the 1920s stood out as a critical juncture in the transition from empire to nation-state. A new space of political discussion was defined. The process, albeit internal, was under the influence of the USSR and US international strategies and gave birth not only to a new vision of the revolution, but also to a vision of the post-revolutionary state. Also, the nationalist and communist leaderships turned out to be dynamic. That "competition" may be seen also within the two political movements and became a shaping factor for the success or failure of the party as a modern political formation.