A critical study of the education reform laws of the 1880s in France; specifically the Ferry laws and the Camille See law. How these laws affected women's education and more broadly, the place of women in French society. The ideologies of universalism and laicite and how they affected women's education, specifically the exclusion of women from French society based on the suppression of difference inherent in universalism.

La «Rivista del Cinematografo» è un periodico longevo, il più longevo della storia del cinema italiano. Pubblicato a partire dal 1928, festeggia nel 2008 l’ottantesimo l’anniversario di vita. A dispetto di questa durevole presenza nel panorama editoriale italiano, la «Rivista del Cinematografo» rappresenta però una storia che è rimasta, e lo rimane ancora oggi, esclusa dai discorsi sociali. Il pre-giudizio storico da cui prende le mosse la presente ricerca individua invece – differentemente dalla vulgata “ufficiale” – la «Rivista del Cinematografo» non come “una storia a sé”, ma al contrario come una storia culturale in grado di illuminare in maniera significativa i processi storici del cinema italiano, con particolare – ma nient’affatto esclusivo – riferimento alle sue interrelazioni con la cultura cattolica. Si potrebbe dire, con una formula sintetica, che quella della «Rivista del Cinematografo» è una microstoria di lunga durata. Quest’ultima definizione può apparire contraddittoria perché accosta due categorie legate a due differenti tradizioni storiografiche: da una parte la microstoria, legata a una tradizione fattografica; dall’altra la lunga durata, legata a una tradizione teorico-esplicativa. Ma è proprio nell’ambito di una nuova concezione della storia – la cosiddetta storia culturale – che questa ricerca intende muoversi, nel tentativo di fare tesoro di un dibattito disciplinare che ha conosciuto un enorme sviluppo in questi ultimi anni, e che verrà discusso nella sezione introduttiva, analizzando le ricadute che esso ha sulla pratica storiografica in ambito cinematografico. / The «Rivista del Cinematografo» is the most ancient magazine in the Italian history of cinema. Published before 1928, in 2008 it celebrated its 80th anniversary. In spite of this long-lived presence in Italian publishing, the «Rivista del Cinematografo» represents a history left out in social discourses. This research considers instead the «Rivista del Cinematografo» as a cultural history that can illuminate the historical processes of the Italian cinema with particular – but not exclusive – reference to their relationships with the catholic culture. It could be said that the history of the «Rivista del Cinematografo» is a long duration microhistory. This definition can appear conflicting because it puts two categories that come from two different historical traditions near to each other: the microhistory and the long duration. But this research intends to explore a new historical perspective – the ‘so called’ cultural history – with the aim of learning from a debate which has developed enormously in recent years and analysing the consequences that this debate also has on the historical practice in the field of cinema.

According to the firsthand account of James Brooke, Rajah of Sarawak, it appears that piracy in the state of British Malaya in the mid-1800s was community-driven and egalitarian, led by the interests of heroic figures like the Malayan pirate Si Rahman. These heroic figures share traits with Eric Hobsbawm’s social bandit, and in this case may be ascribed as social pirates. In contrast, late 20th-century and early 21st-century pirates in the region operate in loosely structured, hierarchical groups beholden to transnational criminal syndicates. Evidence suggests that contemporary pirates do not form the egalitarian communities of their colonial counterparts or play the role of ‘Robin Hood’ in their societies. Firsthand accounts of pirates from the modern-day pirate community on Batam Island suggest that the contemporary Southeast Asian pirate is an operative in the increasingly corporate interest of modern-day criminal organizations.

This study examines the cultural and religious politics of dancing in late sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century England. Although theologically dance was considered morally neutral, as a physical, embodied practice, context determined whether each occurrence was deemed acceptable or immoral. Yet, judging and interpreting these contexts, and thus delineating the boundaries between appropriate and inappropriate behaviour, was contested and controversial. Advocates argued that dance enabled controlled, graceful movement and provided a harmless outlet for youthful energy. Opponents decried it as a vain, idle, and lascivious indulgence that led to illicit sexual liaisons, profanation of the sabbath, and eternal damnation. The first chapter introduces early dance fundamentals, describing steps, genres, and sources. The chapter also discusses venues in which people danced, times of day and seasons that were most popular, and demographic details for dancers in western England. Chapter 2 demonstrates how, by varying details of their performance, dancers could influence a dance’s appropriateness, as well as express aspects of identity, such as gender and social rank. Chapter 3 examines how clergymen and religious reformers addressed and tried to undermine pro-dance arguments through their treatment of biblical dance references in sermons and treatises. Chapters 4 and 5 feature case studies of parochial clergymen and lay persons whose opinions about dancing became flashpoints for local controversies. They explain why prosecutions for dancing were so sporadic and geographically scattered: dancing practices rarely entered the historical record unless a “perfect storm” of community tensions and personal antagonisms created irreconcilable differences that led to violence or court cases. The dissertation argues that a category, such as festive traditionalist, is needed to describe those who conformed to or embraced Protestant worship but who strongly resisted attempts to “reform” their behaviour outside of the church.

Electronic dance music is a genre that has been long in the making. Starting with disco in the 1970s, dance culture genres evolved into house, acid house, techno, garage, 2-step, hardcore, gabba, san frandisco, electro, and many others. This paper studies the transformation of electronic sound, and the contributing/impeding factors involved. Drug use is heavily related to the creation and enjoyment of music, and features prominently in the history of dance culture. Starting with the use of acid in the 1960s and progressing to the use of acid, Quaaludes, poppers, speed in the 1970s, with MDA featured in clubs toward the end of the decade. The 1980s began the recreational use of MDMA, but not until the late 80s in UK acid parties did it become known as the party drug that it is known as today. MDMA use then spread rampantly throughout the US as the UK culture was exported and emulated. UK acid parties were the precursor to raves, which were illegal, and the backlash from the law was incredible and organized. Slowly licensing laws became more relaxed, and permits became easier to obtain, making future raves more legal, but according to ravers, less fun, ending at 2am instead of 8am, and forcing the drugs scene underground, rather than having them openly solicited. Organized crime in the UK got much worse as gangs realized the potential profits of selling drugs, and the scene forever changed because of this in the early 90s. The raves of the early 90s in New York, the Midwest, and San Francisco, were paradise in comparison. San Francisco enjoyed the most freedom, and beach raves became common. The electronic dance culture found a home in large festivals, and perhaps because of this the future of electronic music remains uncertain, especially with the casualties that have recently happened relating to ecstasy use, and complications in organizing such massive events.

Protestant nuns, Stiftsdamen, fulfilled a unique role in early modern Lutheran society. This papers focuses on the implied social roles and expected virtues of Protestant nuns [Stiftsdamen] in the works of male Lutheran pastors who supported Protestant theological positions that promoted marriage as the proper place for women, and yet who also praised unmarried female monastics in funeral sermons [Leichenpredigten]. Lutheran pastors wrote funeral sermons for both Stiftsdamen and married women, funeral sermons display similarities or differences between what virtues, characteristics, and displays of piety for women. A comparison will also be made between funeral sermons for Stiftsdamen and those written for Catholic nuns by Catholic clergy. Convent necrologies, written by Catholic abbesses will also be used to compare what virtues were expected of female religious. Also included is an examination of nuns’ writings about theology, their doctrinal reasons for remaining Catholic, leaving the cloister, and adapting their convent life to fit Lutheran teachings. Damenstiften preserved access for women to positions of authority and self empowerment. These women were, however, different from earlier female religious communities and from Catholic nuns living in other Lutheran areas. Protestant Stiftsdamen had more contact with outside society than cloistered Catholic nuns due to the desire of Lutherans to incorporate these women into their communities. An analysis of the perception of Stiftsdamen by Lutheran pastors and the nuns' consciousness of their own position, duties, and piety is the cornerstone of this new research on gender and religion in early modern Germany. The perpetuation of Protestant convents into the seventeenth century is only briefly documented by historians who focus instead on the religious experience of women in Germany during and directly following the Reformation. Catholic examples of female piety will contribute to the understanding of female religious and their role in society at large. In conclusion, this research displays how Stiftsdamen were praised for the same virtues as early modern married Protestant women and Catholic nuns in funeral sermons, but were not specifically praised as female religious by male Lutheran pastors.

How people think about the end of the world greatly affects how they live in the present. This thesis examines how popular American thought about “the end of the world” has been greatly affected by Hal Lindsey’s 1970 popular prophecy book The Late, Great Planet Earth. LGPE sold more copies than any other non-fiction book in the 1970s and greatly aided the mainstreaming of “end-times” ideas like the Antichrist, nuclear holocaust, the Rapture, and various other concepts connected with popular end-times thought. These ideas stem from a specific strain of late-nineteenth century Biblical interpretation known as dispensational premillennialism, which has manifested in various schools of premillennial thought over the last 150 years. However, Lindsey translated this complicated system into modern language and connected it with contemporary geopolitics in powerful ways which helped make LGPE incredibly popular and influential in the 1970s and beyond. This paper includes an introduction to some essential concepts and terms related to popular premillennialism followed by a brief history of popular prophecy in America. The second half of this thesis examines the social, religious, and political climate of the 1970s and how Lindsey’s success connects to the culture of the Seventies, specifically conservative reactions to the various social movements of the 1960s. The last major section discusses Lindsey’s malleable theology and the power of interpreting the Bible “literally.” In the 1970s, conservative theologians and denominations won the battle to define certain concepts within Christianity including terms like “literal,” “inerrant,” and related terms, and Lindsey’s treatment of “the end times” reflects these definitions and how they affect Biblical interpretation. Finally, the conclusion fleshes out the appeal of popular premillennialism in the 1970s and into the present day.

This dissertation excavates the political economy and cultural politics of the "Vanishing Indian." While much of the scholarship situates this ubiquitous American trope as a rhetorical representation, I consider the ways in which the "Vanishing Indian" was necessarily rooted in the emerging capitalist and cultural economy of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. By combining cultural history, Native studies, material culture, and public history, my project addresses a predicament peculiar to settler societies. Specifically, I address the dilemma faced by an immigrant people who attempted to make the transition from colonial to national without being indigenous. My investigation into the complex historical processes of a symbolic, material, and oftentimes-ambivalent reconfiguration of self seeks to broaden our understanding of a national identity not only rooted, but also deeply invested, in settler-colonialism. The ancient mummified remains of an early Woodland aboriginal woman disinterred in Kentucky in 1811, are the axis around which this dissertation revolves. The history of her disinterment links American national identity formation with capitalist imperatives for natural resource extraction, the exploitation of slave labor, settler expansion, and the development of another form of "Indian Removal" – practiced below ground, as it were. The plunder of ancient ruins, disinterment of Indian graves, and the correlated development of early American archaeology became part of a larger national project. While Native remains were not in and of themselves economic resources, increasingly, speculators in science and antiquities came to regard them as both natural and national resources. Their disinterment was certainly as much a byproduct of scientific speculation as of speculation in lands "opened up" by western expansion. The appropriation of Native remains became a locus of power through which Americans sought to add the length and breadth of an historic past to the promise of a national future. Ultimately, I seek to interrogate one of the many aims of colonization through settlement—the appropriation of indigenous status—and situate a history of science, curiosity, and the appropriation of American Indian land and bodies at the center of this development.

Between Figure and Line: Visual Transformations of Cartesian Physics, 1620-1690 is the first sustained examination of the diagrams and illustrations that constituted the seventeenth century's new physics. When René Descartes introduced natural philosophy to the graphic techniques of geometry, mixed mathematics, cartography, and master engravers, subsequent interpreters of the new science were encouraged to respond in kind. But none of their pictures - neither the outlines of barometric tubes employed by Parisian salon impresario Jacques Rohault, nor the still lifes and landscapes into which Leiden university professor Wolferd Senguerd etched Cartesian matter, and certainly not the copies of Descartes's figures with which Jesuit priest Gabriel Daniel refuted the new philosophy - agreed on a single visual idiom for revealing nature's laws. Such pictorial diversity, I argue, marked the natural philosophical figure as a critical, and contested, apparatus for grasping at truth amidst the slow disintegration of Aristotelian certainty. / History of Science

This project takes popular organizations in mid-twentieth century Lebanon as its focus. These socio-political groupings were organized at the grassroots, made up of young men, and included scout organizations, social justice movements, student clubs and workers' associations. Employing a cultural history approach, the dissertation examines the cultural productions of these types of groups, ranging from group anthems to uniforms, letters of the rank and file to speeches of leaders. With these primary sources, it captures the cultures that took shape around five main actors in the field of street politics: the Lebanese Communist Party, the Syrian Social Nationalist Party, the Kata'ib Party, the Najjadeh Party and the Progressive Socialist Party. And as these groups condoned and committed acts of sectarian violence in the 1958 War and the Lebanese Civil War of 1975-1990, this dissertation also investigates the distinct cultures that formed around these groups during wartime. In the end, I argue that both inside and outside of moments of conflict, popular organizations cultivate and mobilize multiple, interactive identities to make sense of their actions, sectarian or otherwise. Moreover, I find that a critical site to explore these complex processes is their routine practices grounded in duty, strength and honor. Part I of the dissertation examines identity formation within these five groups, and the physical and symbolic spaces they produced in Beirut during the 1920s-1950s. Informed by Pierre Bourdieu's theories on social life, this historical background shows how organizational attempts to project uniqueness, win over recruits, and make partisan, often sectarian, claims over the whole Lebanese nation created boundaries between these groups. Also, the lives of individuals within these groups, regardless of the group's distinct vision for Lebanon, were colored by cultures of discipline and defense, working to normalize practices linked to violence. In Part II the dissertation takes up the two historical events of social mobilization and conflict in which these groups participated: the 1958 War (where the Kata'ib, once a nationalist scout group, serves as the focus for the investment in sectarianism) and the Two-Year War of 1975-1976 (where the Lebanese National Movement - specifically the Lebanese Communist Party, once a workers' association, and the Progressive Socialist Party, once a social justice movement - serve as the focus for the investment in anti-sectarian frames). First, through investigating the changing positions of these popular organizations throughout these two wars, the dissertation argues that these groups are active agents in producing sectarian violence, adding nuance to past characterizations of conflict in Lebanon. Second, by capturing the quite seamless shift towards practices of violence, it finds that the quotidian and routine also lay at the center of violence. Finally, by analyzing the textual and visual productions of these groups leading up to and during war, the dissertation finds that multiple and interacting identities, such as national, populist (i.e., fulfilling the needs of people and winning their support in a particular locality) and sect are mobilized to perform violence. Accordingly, sectarian violence, as it emerged in the mid-twentieth century, is sectarian because these groups defined it in sectarian (and antisectarian) terms, not because the violence was rooted in immutable sectarian differences. Collectively, “Winning Lebanon: Popular Organizations, Street Politics and the Emergence of Sectarian Violence in the Mid-Twentieth Century” seeks to bring the local level and the cultural into the study of conflict, and add nuance to the understanding of sectarianism and sectarian violence in Lebanon and the broader Middle East.