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Acculturation has become an integral part of scholarship about Native Americans in the Southeast. Recent studies have focused on trade the eighteenth century and Choctaw entry into the American market economy during the beginning of the nineteenth century. This study analyzes acculturation from 1801 to 1861, carrying the story about cultural change and persistence through the Removal era and to the American Civil War. It argues that while Choctaws acculturated to survive, prosper, and protect autonomy in a changing world, they continuously battled communal dissolution, which threatened to destroy their nation. Some individuals attempted to promote new methods of subsistence, worshiping, and dealing with the United States, and others feared that a loss of traditions would disrupt the bonds that bound together Choctaws as a people. Most Choctaws attempted to change certain elements of culture while maintaining others. New ideologies about behavior, political and social organization, and economic transformation highlighted the divisions between individuals and among social orders and classes. The threat of factionalism then determined how Choctaws, both elites and commoners, reacted to major nineteenth-century crises, which included the destruction of game, entrance into the American market economy, establishment and continuation of missionary education, Removal, the evolution of a national constitution, and decisions about Choctaw entry into the Civil War. By understanding the relationships between communal dissolution and acculturation in this way, this study portrays how Choctaws fought to balance cultural change and persistence while creating new bonds that held their society in tact through multiple tribulations throughout the nineteenth century.

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This dissertation is an interdisciplinary study of scientific change. The undulatory theory of light replaces the emission theory of light in the early nineteenth century, triggering an "optical revolution" and vigorous debates among physicists in British from the 1830s to the 1850s. In this study I give the first full account of this extended episode of scientific change, drawing on methods and concepts from history, sociology and philosophy of science. The interdisciplinary account of the episode provides a basis for criticizing the existing models of scientific change in the philosophy of science. Previous historical studies of the “optical revolution" pay little attention to the period after the 1830s. Because the cognitive superiority of the undulatory theory had become obvious in the early 1830s, some historians have implicitly assumed that any controversy would soon come to a natural end. I, however, document that intensive debates continued from the 1830s until the end of the 1850s, and that emissionists even enjoyed temporary victories in their fights with undulationists. The narrative reveals the historical complexities of this episode: the debates extended long after the cognitive superiority of the undulatory theory should have become apparent by modern standard, the results of the debates did not necessarily coincide with modern cognitive judgements, and individual agents played decisive roles in determining how long a debate lasted and how it would end. On the basis of the historical narrative, I provide a philosophical analysis of the practices of theory appraisal and experiment appraisal that constituted the main theme of the controversy. Instead of merely identifying the criteria of evaluation employed in this episode, I pay special attention to how individual agents actually applied these criteria in concrete situations, what kinds of strategies or tactics they employed for the applications of these criteria, and how they created favorable conditions, both cognitive and social, for successfully applying these criteria. Individual agents’ efforts in selecting application strategies and in creating favorable conditions made the practices of appraisal complicated, exhibiting various features that are incomprehensible if we limit ourselves merely to studying the criteria of evaluation. I finally discuss a different approach to scientific change. The existing philosophical models of scientific change merely analyze the final product of science -- scientific theories, and ignore the impact of social factors and the role of individual agents. I suggest we concentrate on the process of knowledge production, and pay attention to individual agents’s practices in this process, as well as to the relevant cognitive and social factors that influence individual agents. Following this new approach, scientific change is understood as an evolution that involves interactions among three elements: theory, experiment, and human agent. / Ph. D.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of South Africa, 2001.

This thesis examines a thirty year span in the history of Scottish photography, focusing on the rise of the commercial studio from 1851 to assess how images were produced and consumed by the middle class in the mid-Victorian period. Using extensive archival material and a range of theoretical approaches, the research explores how photography was displayed, circulated, exploited and discussed in Scotland during its nascent years as a commodity. In doing so, it is unlike previous studies on Scottish photography that have not attended to the history of the medium as it is seen through exhibitions or the national journals, but instead have concentrated on explicating how an individual photographer or singular set of images are evidence of excellence in the field. While this thesis pays close attention to individual projects and studios, it does so to illuminate how photography functioned as a material object that equally shaped and was shaped by ideological constructs peculiar to mid-Victorian life in Scotland. It does not highlight particular photographers or works in order to elevate their standing in the history of photography but, rather, to show how they can be used as examples of a class phenomenon and provide an analytical frame for elucidating the cultural impact of commercial photography. Therefore, while the first two chapters provide a panoramic view of how photography was introduced to the Scottish middle class and how commercial photographers initially visualized Scotland, the second section is comprised of three ‘case studies' that show how the subject of the city, the landscape and the portrait were turned into objects of cultural consumption. This allows for a re-appraisal of photographs produced in Scotland during this era to suggest the impact of photography's products and processes was as vital as its visual content.

This thesis unites a selection of H. G. Wells’s scientific romances with the theoretical approaches of philosopher Gilles Deleuze. Deleuzian theory provides a challenging yet powerful set of conceptual tools, used to rethink existing texts and critical paradigms, allowing the revaluation of literature, film and other fields. Within specific case studies, various aspects of Wellsian texts are used to exemplify a number Deleuzian concepts; for example, ‘Becoming-Animal’ in The Island of Doctor Moreau, the ‘Body Without Organs’ in The War of The Worlds and ‘Nomadology’ in The Time Machine. Characteristically, rather than simply applying philosophy to the arts, Deleuzian theory attempts to extract philosophy from them, and this approach should aim to engage positively and constructively with a text, serving to demonstrate ‘productive use of the literary machine…that extracts from the text its revolutionary force’ (Anti-Oedipus 116). Via this process, various Wellsian conceits are examined that have subsequently become synonymous with the science fiction genre, such as transhumanism, alien invasion and time travel. In performing this process, Wells is recast as a writer and thinker who demonstrates resonance with Deleuze’s theoretical approach. Having established the value of a Deleuzian reading via the medium of the specific textual case-studies, the thesis concludes with an argument concerning whether Wells himself can be positioned in terms of a Deleuzian ‘conceptual persona’, and ultimately the question of his adherence to the concept of ‘minor’ literature and writing is addressed. Deleuze maintains that any work of art ‘points a way through life, finds a way through the cracks’ (Negotiations 143), and how Wells’s oeuvre engages with this process is demonstrated, taking into account the myriad of ‘mutations’ to which it has been subject. Ultimately, this serves to demonstrate the ‘untimely’ power of Wells’s literature; ‘acting counter to our time and thereby acting on our time and, let us hope, for the benefit of a time to come’ (Difference xix).

In 1877 the University of St Andrews initiated a unique qualification, the Lady Literate in Arts, which came into existence initially as the LA, the Literate in Arts, a higher certificate available to women only. Awarded by examination but as a result of a programme of distance learning, it was conceived and explicitly promoted as a degree-level qualification at a time when women had no access to matriculation at Scottish universities and little anywhere in the United Kingdom. From small beginnings it expanded both in numbers of candidates and in spread of subjects and it lasted until the early 1930s by which time over 36,000 examinations had been taken and more than 5,000 women had completed the course. The scheme had emerged in response to various needs and external pressures which shaped its character. The purpose of this thesis is to assess the nature and achievements of the LLA in its first fifteen years and to establish its place within the wider movement for female equality of status and opportunity which developed in the later decades of the nineteenth century. The conditions under which the university introduced the LLA, its reasons for doing so, the nature of the qualification, its progress and development in the years before 1892 when women were admitted to Scottish universities as undergraduates and the consequences for the university itself are all examined in detail. The geographical and social origins and the educational backgrounds of the candidates themselves are analysed along with their age structure, their uptake of LLA subjects and the completion rates for the award. All of these are considered against the background of the students' later careers and life experiences. This thesis aims to discover the extent to which the LLA was influential in shaping the lives of its participants and in advancing the broader case for female higher education. It seeks to establish for the first time the contribution that St Andrews LLA women made to society at large and to the wider movement for female emancipation.

AbstractThis thesis examines the sea trade between the city of Vasa in Österbotten and the county of Västerbotten in Sweden during the period 1809-1830 and aims to determine how the division of Sweden into two countries in 1809 affected the trade. In order to systematically treat data, a theoretical concept of quantitative network analysis is applied. The primary source material consists of accounts from the custom house in Vasa.The results show that the sea trade had resumed within a year after the Treaty of Fredrikshamn in 1809. The sea trade over Kvarken was predominated by agents from Västerbotten, particularly from Umeå. In 1810, the first boat departed from Umeå to Vasa, a trend which would come to accelerate up to a culmination in 1816 as regards the number of boats and the quantity of goods. The sea trade later experienced a successive decline between 1817 and 1830, which marks the end of the studied period. The agents which travelled over Kvarken were initially peasants, albeit over time these were successively replaced by skippers and other sea-faring professionals. Concerning shipped goods, the study also concludes that the main products shipped from Västerbotten to Vasa were fish and fabrics. Conversely, the main products shipped from Vasa to Västerbotten were cattle and grains.Even though the trade had importance for the Vasa region in terms of supplying important staple goods, the trade with Västerbotten represented just a small percentage of the total goods shipped through Vasa port. The trades swift recovery after the division is partly attributed to the good relations between Sweden and Russia after the Treaty of Fredrikshamn (1809); but also the favorable tariff policy between the two countries. Another contributing factor to the increase in trade between Vasa and Västerbotten at the time may have been the limitation of trade with continental Europe as a result of the ongoing Napoleonic Wars. Key words: Sea trade, Vasa, Österbotten, Umeå, Västerbotten, Kvarken, 19th century