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This thesis showcases the work of four costume designers working within the genre of costume drama during the 1950s in France, namely Georges Annenkov, Rosine Delamare, Marcel Escoffier, and Antoine Mayo. In unstitching the cinematic wardrobes of these four designers, the ideological impact of the costumes that underpin this prolific yet undervalued genre are explored. Each designer’s costume is undressed through the identification of and subsequent methodological focus on their signature garment and/or design trademark. Thus the sartorial and cinematic significance of the corset, the crinoline, and accessories, is explored in order to determine an ideological pattern (based in each costumier’s individual design methodology) from which the fabric of this thesis may then be cut. In so doing, the way in which film costume speaks as an independent producer of cinematic meaning may then be uncovered. By viewing costume design as an autonomous ideological system, rather than a part of mise-en-scène subordinate to narrative, this fabric-centric enquiry consolidates Stella Bruzzi’s insightful exploration of film costume in Undressing Cinema, Clothing and Identity in the Movies (1997). Where this study diverges from previous work, however, is in its focus on specific costume designers to illustrate the way in which the costume of costume drama may operate as a complex component of cinematic signification in terms of gender, authenticity, status and power.

Scholarship on 1950s American science fiction cinema has tended to explore the relationship between these films and their domestic contexts of production and reception. They are often characterised as reflections of US anxieties about communism and nuclear technology. However, many such films were exported to Britain where these concerns were articulated and understood differently. The ways in which this different national context of reception shaped British interpretations of American science fiction cinema of this era has not yet been accounted for. Similarly, although some research has addressed 1950s British science fiction, this scholarship has been comparatively concise and has left gaps in our knowledge about the domestic reception of these films. Unable to draw on a British reception history of domestic and US 1950s science fiction cinema, debates about the genre have sometimes been underpinned by the presumption that western audiences responded to these films in a uniform manner. This thesis seeks to complicate our understanding of the genre by suggesting the specificity of the British reception history of science fiction cinema during the 1950s. The paucity of documentary evidence of British responses to 1950s science fiction films makes an audience study impossible. Within the intellectual framework of the New Film History, this thesis instead employs a contextually- activated approach to reception. Making extensive use of archival sources, newsreels, newspapers, magazines and other such documentary evidence, it explores some of the different contexts in which 1950s science fiction cinema was received in Britain and suggests how these factors might have shaped the interpretation of the genre. The thesis examines the interplay between American and British 1950s science fiction cinema and the British public understanding of communism, immigration, nuclear technology and scientific advancement. It contributes to our knowledge of these films by demonstrating that Britons did not necessarily understand 1950s science fiction cinema in the same way as Americans because they were party to a differently inflected series of public debates. It exposes the flexibility of the metaphors utilised by the genre during this period and their susceptibility to reinterpretation in different national contexts. This research makes visible, in a more extensive manner than has yet been accomplished, the specificity of the British reception history of 1950s science fiction cinema, and thereby provides a means to resist assumptions about the similarity of western audiences during this decade. Its conclusions call for further research into other national reception histories of these films, so that they too are not overshadowed by the better known American history of the genre, and into the possibility that the British reception history of other genres might similarly have been obscured.

This thesis considers the musical response of the American composer, Miriam Gideon to political events during the McCarthy era. It examines the interrelationships between politics, society and culture and considers how these are reflected in two works, Epitaphs from Robert Burns (1952) and Altered Steps to Altered States (1953) that Gideon composed during this period. Specifically, this thesis focuses on Gideon’s transition from teaching and composing music within an academic setting to preparing for life in a musical world, without support from mainstream academic institutions. Following the Introduction, Chapter 2 documents the rise of anti-communist practices on campus at Brooklyn College and City College, New York City where Miriam Gideon held music teaching posts. It reconstructs the personal events that led to the loss of both of these appointments and examines how and why this occurred. It is argued that Gideon entered a period of ‘inner exile,’ and this concept and its consequences for Gideon are explored in Chapter 3. An examination of her private diaries demonstrates that the effects of the McCarthy era were not only physical, but also psychological and social. Chapters 4-6 consider Gideon’s music through the perspective of inner exile and aim to show that the music that she wrote was a reflection of her experiences. Gideon’s return to academia in 1955 and her rehabilitation back into the academy are discussed in Chapter 7. A complete list of Gideon’s compositional output is included and is organised chronologically, alphabetically and by genre. This thesis examines new documents not previously available to scholars, and includes interviews conducted by the author with Gideon’s former students and colleagues.

The thesis deals with the relationship between Czechoslovakia and Egypt during the years 1952 - 1958. This period was chosen because many important historical events took place that time. Egypt went through the revolution of 1952 as well as the Suez Crisis and joined political union with Syria. The thesis is divided into three parts, where the first and main section is dedicated to the political relationship between both states. The following chapter is focused on cultural issues and the last one is devoted to the economic relationship. The aim of the thesis is to analyze these relations and their development. As far as the sources of information are concerned, it was necessary to study extensive archive materials, which are mainly preserved in the Archive of Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Key words: Czechoslovakia, Egypt, The 1950s, Diplomatic Relations.

My study seeks to fill a void in Cold War historiography by situating the emergence of 1950s youth culture in the context of containment culture, evaluating the form and extent of youth's cultural 'rebellion'. The pervasive cultural discourse of 'containment', which operated as both a foreign policy to restrict the Soviet Union's sphere of influence and a domestic policy to stifle political dissent, mandated that America propagate an image of social harmony and political plurality during the early years of the Cold War. Yet the emergence of a rebellious youth culture in the middle of the 1950s challenges the notion that America was a 'consensus society' and exposes the limitations and fissures of the white middle class hegemony that the containment narrative worked to legitimate. In examining the rise of rock n roll, the emergence of the drive-in theatre as a "teen space," and the significance of "style" to the galvanization of 1950s youth culture, this study examines the ways in which youth culture of the period variously negotiated, resisted, and accommodated containment culture.

abstract: Bisexuality is a unique kind of sexual identity, as a gray area between heterosexuality and homosexuality. The piece You made up the Story and I Played with all the Parts explores bisexuality as a lived artistic experience based on my sexual journey within a society that advocates heterosexuality. The piece includes movement phrases and text derived from conversations with intimate partners, characters based on former partners, storytelling, a 1950s-style sex education video parody, and audience participation via dialogue. The creation of movement and dialogue manipulated heteronormative social stigmas into a canny social acceptance of bisexuality. The multifaceted nature of the piece provokes viewers to consider how sexuality is constructed socially through my own interpretation. As a result, the work suggests that bisexuality is a legitimate sexual identity and represents a culture within American society. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.F.A. Dance 2011

All the major critics of postwar literature regard the fifties as a period in which literature was inept, conservative and conformist. This thesis argues that fifties literature was instead an active and successful agent in problematising conservative political orthodoxies, and in articulating alternative identities and politics. The study is concerned with two major themes: the relationship between literature and history, and the critical reputation and location of literature in nineteen-fifties Britain. It begins from positions that are already evident in postwar literary criticism towards both of these themes. Literature is understood in much of the critical writing of postwar Britain to be representative of social trends and attitudes, and its meaning is determined largely according to particular understandings of postwar British history and society. The literary text, if understood as 'representative', is capable of offering the reader direct access to the society of its production, and of reflecting the dominant trends and attitudes in a given period. Because it is the most recent period of realism in the history of English literature, the fifties seem to be particularly susceptible to this view. Reading fifties literature in the light of poststructuralist thinking on textuality and representation, this study argues that literature is not representative bu negotiates identities and social experiences of the fifties in a much more diverse way. These negotiations are demonstrated in readings of the work of John Osborne, Brendan Behan and Sam Selvon, and elaborated theoretically in the concluding chapters of the study. Literature's Poor Relation demonstrates that fifties literature is able to manoeuvre into a space wherein it can articulate oppositional and critical stances towards power, by firstly, imitating social detail and literary traditions, and secondly, reading these details and traditions in such was as to deconstruct them. The appearance of representativeness serves to seduce the reader into desiring the text (the idea that Look Back in Anger was representative attracted many of its original audiences to see it), and its readings and interpretations of history and identity deflect the reader's desire towards oppositional and critical moments in the text.

L’exposition The Family of Man d’Edward Steichen a été initialement présentée au MoMA en 1955. Cette thèse porte sur sa réception depuis sa création en 1955 jusqu’à aujourd’hui, grâce à sa réinstallation au Château de Clervaux au Luxembourg depuis 1994. Dans les années 1950 et 1960, l’exposition a été présentée dans le monde entier. Comment l’exposition The Family of Man a-t-elle été perçue dans certains pays où l’exposition itinérante a été présentée de 1955 à 1964 ? Comment a-t-elle été réinstallée depuis les années 1990 au Luxembourg dans un nouveau contexte ? Pourquoi a-t-on continué à produire du discours sur l’exposition alors qu’elle avait disparu en tant qu’objet entre ces périodes ? En effet, des réactions sur l’exposition avaient émergé dans la presse au moment de l’exposition itinérante. Aujourd’hui, l’exposition est visible grâce aux objets matériels reproduits des années 1950 et aux documents archivés en plus de la consultation du catalogue. Cela permet au spectateur d’expérimenter l’exposition réellement de son point de vue. / The Family of Man exhibition of Edward Steichen was organized at MoMA in 1955. This thesis addresses the reception of The Family of Man from its creation in 1955 until today, thanks to the reinstallation of the exhibition in the Clervaux Castle in 1994. In the 1950s and 1960s, the exposition was shown in 38 countries. How was The Family of Man exhibition received in certain countries where the itinerant exhibition was shown from 1955 to 1964? How was it reinstalled in the 1990s in Luxembourg in a new context? Why was discourse on the exhibition produced between the two periods when it was no longer there as an object? In fact, there had been reactions to The Family of Man at the time of the itinerant exhibition. Today, the exhibition is visible thanks to the material objects reproduced in the 1950s and the archived documents in addition to the consultation of the catalogue. This allows the spectators to have an actual experience of the exhibition by themselves from their point of view.