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1	National and Racial Identity and the Desire for Expansion: A Study of American Travel Narratives, 1790-1850 Jeong, Jin Man 2011 May 1900 (has links) This dissertation aims to investigate the shaping of a national literature within travel narratives written by William Bartram, Washington Irving, George Catlin, Thomas L. McKenney, Thomas Jefferson Farnham, and Francis Parkman. I focus attention on two issues: (1) National and racial identity, and (2) Territorial, cultural, and capitalist expansionism. National and racial identity construction is examined by clarifying how the narratives’ underlying voices—the National Symbolic and the Racial Symbolic—encourage the reading public to embrace the values vital in forging American collective identity. Identity invention is also seen in romantic representations of the American landscape and Native Americans. Between 1790 and 1850, the widespread trope of the Noble Savage and “distantiation” working in the Burkean aesthetics of the sublime were used as ideological frames for viewing “Others,” crucial in defining the American “self” by making the white Americans’ shift of association/dissociation with their primitivized Others possible. In order to analyze the narratives’ representation of expansionism as a national desire, this study investigates how romantic rhetoric and the appeal to morality (or the Law) were employed as decisive ideological foundations for rationalizing expansionism. Chapter I establishes the legitimacy of evaluating travel narratives as a significant part of America’s national literature. Chapter II reveals that democracy, masculine robustness, and the myth that Americans are a chosen people of progress are featured aspects in the portrayals of American pathfinders. Chapter III shows that the racial identity of “civilized whites” is forged in accordance with a miscegenation taboo informing negative portrayals of half-breeds and racial boundary crossing. Chapter IV illustrates that American freedom, simplicity, wholesome civilization, and youthfulness are presented as national characteristics through adapting the romantic tropes of the Noble Savage and the aesthetics of the sublime. Chapter V investigates the perverse mode of desiring in the iterative triangular relationship between romanticism, morality, and expansionism—the nation’s civilizing project par excellence. Chapter VI appraises the travel narratives’ roles in defining American selfhood and reflecting (and promoting) an imperialistic desire for expansion. national identity racial identity the sublime American expansionism national literature travel narrative
2	L’Ouverture de l’Ouest et du Pacifique, 1770-1846 / The Opening of the West and the Pacific, 1770-1846 Dubroca, Sandrine 02 April 2011 (has links) Le litige concernant la frontière de l’Oregon, ou la question de l’Oregon, est le résultat des revendications britanniques et américaines pour la région du Pacifique Nord-Ouest de l’Amérique du Nord pendant la première moitié du XIXe siècle. Le Royaume-Uni et les États-Unis ont des aspirations territoriales et commerciales sur cette région. La région est pour les Britanniques une zone d’exploitation pour le commerce de la fourrure pour la Compagnie de la Baie d’Hudson, tandis que les Américains y voient une région peuplée de fermiers. Le différend sur l’Oregon est devenu important dans la diplomatie entre l’Empire britannique et la république américaine. / The Oregon boundary dispute, or the Oregon Question, arose as a result of competing British and American claims to the Pacific Northwest of North America in the first half of the 19th century. Both Great-Britain and the United States had territorial and commercial aspirations in the region. For the British, the area was a fur-trading division of the Hudson’s Bay Company, while for the Americans the region was to be settled by farmers. The Oregon dispute became an important diplomatic issue between the British Empire and the American Republic. Relations Canada- États-Unis Histoire de l’Oregon Histoire de la Colombie Britannique Pacifique Nord-Ouest Commerce de la fourrure Canadian/ American relations History of Oregon History of British Columbia Pacific Northwest Fur trade History of American expansionism
3	"You've Got to Be Carefully Taught": Reflections on War, Imperialism and Patriotism in America's South Pacific Butler, Jayna D. 09 November 2013 (has links) (PDF) Underneath the romance, comedy and exoticism, South Pacific is a story that questioned core American values, exploring issues of race and power at a time when these topics were intensely relevant-the original opened just four years post WWII, on the heels of Roosevelt's aggressive expansionist response to domestic instabilities. Much has been written about the depiction of war and racial prejudice in South Pacific. However, examining such topics in the context of their cultural and political moment (both in 1949 and 2008) and through the lens of Terry Eagleton's unique take on morality, is not only a fascinating study, but an intensely relevant and unchartered endeavor. This work concerns the evolution of an American code of ethics as it has been reflected and constructed in both Broadway productions of Roger and Hammerstein's South Pacific (c.1949, 2008). Specifically, it examines the depiction of WWII, America's imperialistic foreign policy, and the function of American patriotism in light of Terry Eagleton's theories surrounding an evolving code of ethics in 20th/21st century America. By so doing, this thesis uncovers answers to the following questions: What were the cultural and political forces at work at the time South Pacific was created (both in 1949 and 2008), and how did these forces influence the contrasting depictions of war, imperialism and patriotism in each version of the musical? In what ways were these productions reflective of a code of ethics that evolved from what Eagleton would classify as moral realism (prescriptive of behavior) to moral nihilism (reflective of behavior)? How did the use of this increasingly reflexive moral code make this politically controversial musical more palatable, and therefore commercially viable during the contrasting political climates of WWII and the recent war on Iraq? Determining answers to questions such as these enables us as a society to look back on our history-on our mistakes and triumphs-and recognize our tendency to find pragmatic justification for our actions rather than acknowledging the possibility of the existence of objective truth, which remains unchanged through time and circumstance. South Pacific war American expansionism imperialism prejudice American patriotism ethical moral nihilism moral realism relativism evolution code of ethics pragmatic justification objective truth historiography World War II war on Iraq musical theatre Broadway New York Terry Eagleton Richard Rodgers Oscar Hammerstein Joshua Logan Bartlet Sher Mary Martin Ezio Pinza Kelli O'Hara Paul Szot Film and Media Studies Theatre and Performance Studies

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