A investigação, inscrita no âmbito da História da Educação, em especial da história da leitura no Ocidente, na perspectiva da história cultural, toma como eixo privilegiado de atenção a historicidade dos corpos inscritos nos processos de leitura. Os indícios são buscados na pintura artística brasileira, produzida no século XIX e no início do século XX. Procura demonstrar de que maneira as imagens das pinturas artísticas, concebidas como representações, possibilitam observar vestígios das práticas de leitura do passado que propiciam pensar as percepções dos artistas, que se transformam em narradores de histórias e de enredos, nutridos pela imaginação criadora e por suas experiências no lugar e no momento vivido. De certa forma, cada artista pode ser considerado como o leitor da realidade de seu tempo; captura e retrata flagrantes do cotidiano e observa as relações práticas dos leitores, em diferentes situações, com os objetos de suas leituras. Os corpos que leem estão aí representados numa diversidade inusitada. As construções teóricas de Roger Chartier, de Robert Darnton, de Peter Burke e de Sandra Jatahy Pesavento sustentaram a análise e levaram a pensar acerca das permanências e das rupturas significativas que têm lugar na longa história das maneiras de ler. Além disso, justificam a escolha em examinar a história das práticas de leitura a partir da iconografia que representa o corpo leitor. A consulta junto a livros de história da arte, a catálogos de exposições e a acervos virtuais de fundações de arte, pinacotecas e museus brasileiros possibilitaram a constituição de um corpus documental formado por 85 obras, todas produzidas por artistas brasileiros ou por artistas estrangeiros que permaneceram longos períodos no Brasil e puseram-se a retratar cenas do cotidiano do país. Deste conjunto de pinturas, 45 obras foram selecionadas para compor as séries iconográficas analisadas na investigação. Concebendo que toda a experiência de leitura exige uma atitude do corpo, mesmo que seja para a decifração silenciosa das palavras e das imagens inscritas nos textos, o trabalho direciona sua atenção, primordialmente, para a análise dos corpos leitores e para as gestualidades que presidem a leitura. A partir da indagação sobre aquilo que as obras de arte têm a dizer sobre o corpo leitor, é possível afirmar que as pinturas artísticas produzidas no Brasil, ao longo do século XIX e nas primeiras décadas do século XX possibilitam discorrer sobre a corporalidade relacionada à leitura, considerando que o exercício do ler exige uma postura corporal que se modifica de acordo com os suportes, com os lugares e com as expectativas de leitura. Além disso, essas imagens demonstram que as práticas de leitura do período analisado estão atravessadas por questões de idade, de gênero, de etnia e de classe social. Expressam diferentes espaços constituídos para a leitura, suas distintas modalidades, a diversidade dos suportes que comunicaram os textos e do mobiliário que sustentou o corpo leitor. Sugerem, ainda, as diferentes motivações que presidem a leitura. / The research, inscribed in the history of education, particularly the history of reading in the West, from the perspective of cultural history, takes as a privileged axis of attention to the historicity of the bodies included in the processes of reading. The evidences are sought in the Brazilian artistic painting, produced in the nineteenth and early twentieth century. It seeks to demonstrate how images of artistic paintings, conceived as representations, allow you to observe traces of the reading practices of the past that provide insights to think of artists who become storytellers and story lines, nurtured by the creative imagination and their expertise in place and living moment at the time. In a way, each artist can be considered as the reader of the reality of their time, captures and portrays the daily gross and notes the practical relations of readers in different situations, with the objects of his readings. The bodies that read are there represented a unusual diversity .The theoretical constructions of Roger Chartier, Robert Darnton, Peter Burke and Sandra Jatahy Pesavento support the analysis and led to thinking about the continuities and ruptures that take place in the long history of ways of reading. Also, justify the choice to examine the history of reading practices from the iconography that represents the body reader. The consultation on the art history books, exhibition catalogs and virtual collections of art foundations, art galleries and museums in Brazil allowed the creation of a corpus of documents consisting of 85 works, all produced by Brazilian artists or foreign artists who remained long periods in Brazil and began to depict scenes of everyday life in the country. From this collection of paintings, 45 wor ks were selected to be analyzed in the iconographic series research. Concept that the whole experience of reading requires an attitude of the body, even to the deciphering of silent words and images included in the texts, the work directs its attention primarily to the analysis of body gestures and for readers who preside over the reading. From the question of what works of art have to say about reader's body, we can say that the artistic paintings produced in Brazil during the nineteenth century and first decades of the twentieth century discuss the possible embodiment related to reading, considering that the exercise of reading requires a posture that changes according to the media, places, and the expectations for reading. Moreover, these images show that the reading practices of the period analyzed are crossed by issues of age, gender, ethnicity and social class. They express different spaces made for reading, its different modalities, the diversity of media that reported the texts and the furniture that supports the body reader. Also suggest the different motivations that govern the reading.

The present educational status of Pulaski County has evolved through more than a century of slow progress. The causes back of the goals gained, whether they be natural consequences as in "the winning of the west," or the result of a brilliant stroke of genius on the part of some indomitable leadership, it is not the purpose of this study to determine. The purpose may be stated thus: (1) To preserve some rare materials in peril of passing into oblivion, such as primitive reports, given by the first trustees, pioneers of the primeval districts; the first notice issued by the commissioners to hold an election; a certificate nearly a century old, and some interesting material found in newspapers; and some verbal accounts. (2) To list and give the date of every commissioner and superintendent who has served as the head of the educational system of the county. (3) To make a record of the epistolary reports of the county superintendents of the different years, since they shed much light on the educational problems of their time. Since the geography of a country has much to do with the economical and social life of a people, and since all are factors in an educational program, the geographical features of the county have been included. An account of the historical background has seemed pertinent to an understanding of the peoples. The Academy Lands have been the most obscure chapter of this work. So far no source material in the form of records is available on the Somerset Academy. So far as known, there has been no written history of education in Pulaski County. The only things that approach it are some articles written by members of the D.A.R., by the Chautauqua Clubs, and by Enos Swain. A brief account of Pulaski County is given in Collins's History. Use has been made of some of this material. Clarice Payne Ramey has written a history of the county, but the writer has not had access to it.

Depictions of college professors in American films are common, and while a number of studies have investigated various aspects of college life in motion pictures, few have focused exclusively on the cinematic professoriate. In addition to being an indelible part of history, cinematic depictions of college professors are part of the national discourse on the role and function of the faculty and university. An investigation of how college professors have been represented in American films, and how these representations are read and created by real-life college professors and filmmakers may provide a deeper understanding of the relationship between popular culture images and academia. This project consists of three sections. The first focuses on the trajectories of negative representations of college professors in popular American films from 1970-2016. The second examines interview responses of film professors to on-screen depictions of college faculty. The third presents a case study of professorial depictions by a group of filmmakers who created a feature length film about a college professor. As various public stakeholders are increasingly questioning the role of the college professor and the institution of higher education, this project seeks to examine the influence of popular professor images and cultural influences on the conceptions of two interpretive communities – one that embodies the professoriate and one that creates images surrounding it. Moreover, this project considers these depictions within film marketplace and popular culture contexts.

Wild Abandon traces a literary and cultural history of late twentieth-century appeals to dissolution, the moment at which a text seems to erase its subject’s sense of selfhood in natural environs. I argue that such appeals arose in response to a prominent yet overlooked interaction between discourses of ecology and authenticity following the rise and fall of the American New Left in the 1960s and 70s. This conjunction inspired certain intellectuals and activists to celebrate the ecological concept of interconnectivity as the most authentic basis of subjectivity in political, philosophical, spiritual, and literary writings. As I argue, dissolution represents a universalist and essentialist impulse to reject self-identity in favor of an identification with the ecosystem writ large, a claim to authenticity that flattens distinctions among individuals and communities. But even as the self appears to disintegrate, an “I” always remains to testify to its disintegration. For this reason, dissolution performs a primarily critical function by foregrounding an unsurpassable representational tension between sense of self and ecosystem. Each chapter explores a different perspective on this tension as it conflicts with matters of gender and race in works by Edward Abbey, Peter Matthiessen, Toni Morrison, Margaret Atwood, and Jon Krakauer. Assuming an anti-essentialist stance, all the texts I study acknowledge ecological interconnectivity as a universal condition but maintain the necessity of culturally mediated and individually constructed identity positions from which to recognize that condition.

In 1958, actress Donna Reed formed her own production company to create The Donna Reed Show, which ran successfully until 1966. One of only two female television producers working in Hollywood, Reed’s show foreshadowed much of the discontent illustrated in Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique. The series explored Donna’s frustrations with housework, her interest in professional activities outside the home, and her determination to be an equal in her marriage. However, The Donna Reed Show also diverged from Friedan on key issues by elevating the housewife and establishing her moral authority, thus foreshadowing more conservative “maternal” feminism as identified by Christina Hoff Sommers. The Donna Reed Show has been falsely grouped with other family sit-coms as conformist and has been largely overlooked for its contributions to the feminist movement by scholars, when in fact Reed created the most complex mother character on television at the time.

Since the first gold-seekers arrived in New Zealand in the 1860s, Chinese have been regarded as outsiders to discussions of national identity. Colonial representations of otherness have left Chinese longing to be recognised as established settlers. Fresh interpretations are much needed to align myth with the longstanding realities of settlement. The absence of a recognisable Chinatown in New Zealand has meant that many of the Chinese customs inherited from the first settlers are observed in private within the family home. This condition coupled with emerging research and exposure on the topic offers a chance to define Chinese spaces and author Chinese stories from within a local community. This research project interrogates the transformation of Cantonese settlers into Chinese New Zealanders through illustration design. By claiming the book as a space, unsung moments of settlement are made visible to challenge stereotypes and forge a new space for Chinese New Zealand stories. The process of collage is used to illustrate the complexities of constructing identity. Home Made is an alternative cultural history told through visual metaphor. Gold was responsible for first transforming the sojourner into the settler, the bowl is used to mediate tradition between home and enterprise in settlement, while the lantern illuminates and celebrates local Chinese spaces. Brought out from home kitchens and backrooms of family businesses, these artefacts represent a longstanding Chinese presence. Home Made activates these metaphors to structure an argument for the longevity and contemporary significance of Chinese settlement in New Zealand.

Historians have traditionally emphasized the sharp differences between Herbert Hoover’s vision of an associational state and the activism of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal. This dissertation highlights an important area of continuity between the economic policies espoused by Hoover—during his tenures as Secretary of Commerce and President—and Roosevelt, focusing on federal efforts to promote the nascent aviation industry from the end of World War I until the passage of the Civil Aeronautics Act in 1938. These efforts were successful, and offer a unique arena in which to document the concrete gains wrought by Hoover’s associationalist ideology and Roosevelt’s New Deal. Moreover, both Hoover’s corporatist policies and New Deal efforts to create aviation infrastructure—largely through the auspices of public works agencies like the Public Works Administration and Works Progress Administration—form a striking example of the government’s ability to successfully foster the development of a new industry, even in the midst of the Great Depression. Significantly, both men’s efforts represented an alternative to nationalization, the path taken by virtually every European nation during the era. This period thus offers the opportunity to examine how both presidents’ aviation policies cohere with their larger visions of government’s proper relationship to the economy, to compare and contrast associationalism and New Deal, and to elucidate aviation’s role in promoting American economic development. During these years government actions expanded from having literally no engagement with commercial aviation to subsidizing airmail routes, creating a regulatory infrastructure to promote safe operations by licensing pilots, inspecting aircraft, approving manufacturing operations, and aggressively promoting flying to the American people. Contextualized by the American public’s well-documented enthusiasm for flying—particularly after Charles Lindbergh’s famous New York-to-Paris flight in 1927—these federal actions created America’s modern air transport network, culminating in the passage of the seminal Civil Aeronautics Act of 1938, the construction and improvement of almost a thousand airports around the country, and the growth of a core group of airlines, including United, Delta, and American, that still dominate commercial flying today.

In the fall of 1859, John Brown launched a raid on the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, and in so doing arguably fired the first salvo of the Civil War. That his raid occurred in the border area between North and South should come as no surprise because it was in that area where Americans were the most divided. Citizens across the border state region–that area that comprised the lower North and upper South–soon found themselves caught between two hostile sections. Based on an analysis of letters, journals, newspapers, and public documents, this dissertation is a study of one portion of that border region, the central Ohio River Valley, during the momentous years between Brown’s raid and the early weeks of 1862, when Indiana Senator Jesse Bright was expelled from the United States Senate for treasonous behavior. Citizens who lived in the river counties between Cincinnati and Louisville shared important economic, cultural, and socio-political views that united them and created a regional bond capable of withstanding the centrifugal pull of sectionalism despite the omnipresent influence of slavery. These trans-river bonds moderated their response to secession and reinforced their Unionist proclivities. Their fidelity to the Union strengthened Abraham Lincoln’s hand and helped to insure that the Union would endure.

During the Korean War the White House and the Army publicized the Medal of Honor to achieve three outcomes. First, they hoped it would have a positive influence on public opinion. Truman committed to limited goals at the start of the war and chose not to create an official propaganda agency, which led to partisan criticism and realistic reporting. Medal of Honor publicity celebrated individual actions removed from their wider context in a familiar, heroic mold to alter memory of the past. Second, the Army publicized the Medal of Honor internally to inspire and reinforce desired soldier behavior. Early reports indicated a serious lack of discipline on the front lines and the Army hoped to build psychological resilience in the men by exposing them to the heroic actions of other soldiers. Finally, the Cold War spawned a great fear of communist subterfuge in the United States, which was exacerbated by the brainwashing of prisoners of war. The White House and the Army reached out to marginalized elements of American society through the Medal of Honor to counter communist propaganda. The Korean War remains an understudied era of American history, yet it was incredibly important to the United States and the world. The war influenced the United States to maintain a large standing military prepositioned around the world to protect its interests. Achieving the status quo antebellum validated the containment strategy against communism, which heavily influenced the decision to intervene in Vietnam. The United Nations, ostensibly in charge of allied forces in the Korean War, gained credibility from preventing the loss of South Korea. Despite these important effects of the war on world history, scholars continue to focus on World War II and Vietnam. This study seeks to build on the relative dearth of scholarly material on the Korean War by examining in historical context the manipulation of a symbol that intersected both the military and the home-front to influence behavior.

In 1807 the United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing (Shakers)established a society near the Gasper River in Logan County, Kentucky. The society was soon named South Union, and it lasted until 1922, the longest-lasting Shaker community west of the Appalachians. Most of the first Shaker converts in Logan County had only a few years beforehand participated in a series of evangelical Presbyterian camp meetings known collectively as the Kentucky Revival, the Revival of 1800, or the Great Revival.Though Presbyterian revivalism and Shakerism shared certain characteristics (particularl millennialism and enthusiastic forms of worship), there were many differences between them as well; Shakerism was not necessarily a logical continuation of the Great Revival. So why did so many Scots-Irish Presbyterians in south-central Kentucky convert to Shakerism? How did conversion make sense to them? And how was Shaker conversion understood by those who did not convert? Through a close reading of primary sources, this thesis attempts to answer these questions. Shaker conversion is better understood as an interaction within a community rather than as a transaction between an individual and God. The decade or so preceding the establishment of South Union—the disestablishment of state churches, the mass migration to the trans-Appalachian west, the burgeoning market economy—was, for many Scots-Irish Presbyterians, a period of social disorder. This was especially true in south-central Kentucky, where the local Presbyterian establishment was riven by schism. The Great Revival was a brief but ultimately disappointing creation of an alternate community, a way of escape from the surrounding chaos. Shakerism offered the apotheosis of that alternate community. South Union was a camp meeting that never ended. However, the denizens of south-central Kentucky who did not convert to Shakerism were quite hostile to the new sect. They understood conversion as a form of betrayal, a renunciation of a community which they still identified with. This understanding became especially clear during a divorce case involving William and Sally Boler, in which William Boler’s rights as a man and a citizen became circumspect because of his conversion to Shakerism. Since the mid-nineteenth century, Shaker conversion has become less threatening to the outside world. Indeed, the popular imagination has co-opted South Union as quintessentially American. By reclaiming the Shakers from the margins of society, popular memory has effectively erased conversion from the Shaker story. After all, Shaker conversion was never as much about belief or even practice as it was about a distinct and separate community.