This thesis examines the symbiotic relationship between the meanings of tattoos and social norms through a comparative analysis of three distinct periods in twentieth-century American history. I use extensive archival material and an interdisciplinary approach to explain how the meanings of body ink shifted and to identify factors that influenced the public’s perceptions of tattoos as deviant or acceptable. In the 1920s and 1930s, tattooing practices among favored social groups, specifically military personnel, middle- and upper-class white men and women, and circus performers, generally received more positive reactions than those among lower-class and criminal subcultures. In the 1950s and 1960s, body ink became practiced primarily by marginalized individuals, such as criminals, bikers, and sex workers, and the general public’s understandings of tattoos as indicators of deviance and dangerous immorality strengthened. The new clientele and practitioners of the 1970s and 1980s mainly came from a high socio-economic status and reframed their tattooing practices as artistic expressions of individuality. I argue that, although body ink aesthetic by and large supported American values of patriotism, heteronormativity, and racial advantage, tattooing practices among ‘respectable’ groups were more accepted than those by ‘deviant’ subcultures. My research shows that the fluctuations between public rejection and appreciation of tattoos in these periods rested principally on the appearance and function of the inked design and on the position of the tattooed body in the social hierarchy. This thesis demonstrates that tattooing practices created and perpetuated but also destabilized and influenced gender-, race-, and class-based American ideals, and my research exposes the nuanced connections of body ink with deviance and normativity, the malleability of social conventions, and a complex web of power relations constantly in flux. / Graduate / 2018-08-23

Magister Artium - MA / In 1974 an Agricultural Museum Committee was established at the Worcester Museum which ultimately led to the development in 1981 of the Kleinplasie Open Air Farm Museum.This began a new phase in the museum’s history, one that I will argue was particularly closely linked to Afrikaner nationalist historiography, in particular to ideas about frontier farmers and pioneer farming lifestyles and activities.This study will take the form of a critical analysis of the establishment of Kleinplasie Living Open Air Museum from 1974 until 1994. It will evaluate the making of exhibitions, its architecture, and the performances and public activities in the establishment of the institution as a site of memory and knowledge. The key question this work engages with is how representations, performance, exhibitions, museum activities, and public involvement were shaped to create particular messages and construct a site of cultural identity and memory at Kleinplasie Living Open Air Museum.It will also deal with questions around who decides on the voices and content of the exhibitions, architecture and displays. The role played by professionals, those who claim to represent community, donors and other interests groups will also be placed under the spotlight. There are also questions around the provenance of collections, the way they were acquired through donations and sponsorships, and the crucial role objects played in the construction of the narrative and identity of the museum.A key question that emerges from my own work is the connection between the Afrikaner nationalist scholarship and the development of the open-air museum based on the life of the frontier farmer at Kleinplasie. While Kleinplasie does not seem to follow the monumental approach that was evident in schemes such as the Voortrekker Monument in Pretoria, where triumphalism and conquest are key metaphors, it does rely on a sense of ‘independence’ and self-fulfilment in social history type setting. There is thus a need to consider how Afrikaner nationalist historiography impacted on the way history was depicted at Kleinplasie. P. J. van der Merwe’s studies of the character and lifeways of the trekboer(Die Trekboer in die Geskiedenis van die Kaapkolonie), seems to have played a central role in the construction of the theme and narrative. This three-volume trilogy provided Kleinplasie(literally, ‘little farm’) with a social and cultural history on which to construct its version of the past.

Please read the abstract in the section 07summary of this document / Thesis (DPhil (Cultural History))--University of Pretoria, 2007. / Historical and Heritage Studies / unrestricted

The use of literature both in and outside the classroom is of the utmost importance and must be taken note of by language teachers. The National Curriculum Statement provides the guidelines for teachers to select texts themselves. This leads to teachers only selecting the well-known texts which results in learners only getting to know very few literary works. Older texts are the ideal option for text-selection for the teaching of literature in the classroom. They are still very relevant for classroom use and are considered to be necessary and an integral part of the study of literature. But the teaching of older literature is often neglected especially in the Afrikaans classroom. The Afrikaans literary tradition is still very young in comparison to other languages and consequently does not provide the same type of older texts that for instance English can provide in the form of Shakespeare for teaching purposes. An alternative would be to make use of Middle Dutch and nineteenth century Afrikaans texts. Although these texts aren’t always accessible for learners in the twenty-first century, this problem can be solved by writing a study guide for the purpose of studying older texts. This study guide is obviously meant for learners who can cope with the difficulty of the texts and is therefore meant for home language speakers in the grade 12 classroom. A study guide such as this must be written with a heterogeneous group in mind and should reflect the guidelines as contained in the National Curriculum Statement, especially with regard to the learning activities included in the study guide. To make the study guide user friendly it is better to present the older texts parallel with a translation. This will prevent readers from constantly having to search for footnotes at the bottom of the page. A parallel translation will also make the texts much more accessible. The purpose of the study guide is not to force learners to read Middle Dutch, but rather to expose them to older literature connected to Afrikaans. The teacher can use his own discretion to decide which of the older texts he/she wants to discuss or explore. Concerning the nineteenth century Afrikaans texts it is unnecessary to translate them. It is, however, important to provide sufficient background information in the case of both the Middle Dutch and the nineteenth century Afrikaans texts. By providing cultural history as background information the reader will be enabled to make better sense of the characters and the texts themselves. Readers should then be able to better understand the context in which the texts were produced. / Dissertation (MA (Afrikaans))--University of Pretoria, 2007. / Afrikaans / MA / unrestricted

This dissertation addresses racism in contemporary Curaçao—a former Dutch colony in the Caribbean that remains a component of the Kingdom of The Netherlands. The dissertation theorizes racism as a partially hidden constituent of the island’s ideology of national identity, which throughout its history has emulated hybridity before being influenced, more recently, by multiculturalism. The research’s main objective is to uncover the ways race and racism have been entangled with Curaçao’s hegemonic ideology of national identity, a reality too often omitted and always under-theorized in Dutch and Dutch Caribbean scholarship. Using historical, ethnographic, statistic, and discourse analysis data, the dissertation reveals how profound the operations of race have been on Curaçaoan society, and on all Curaçaoans on the island and in the diaspora. It discusses the historical formation of ideologies of race and national identity in Curaçao, to contribute to the explanation of the current state of race relations on the island. It exposes the silencing impacts that the hegemonic ideology of national identity has had on individual Curaçaoans’ understanding of self through the reflexive presentation of an intergenerational family history. The dissertation ends with ethnographic analytic descriptions of five neighborhoods differently located in Curaçao’s racial/spatial order, which reveal the mechanizations of multiculturalism and the prevalence of racism.

The purpose of my thesis seeks to uncover the constructed nature of the Anglo-Saxon ethnicity within two works of fiction. My thesis utilizes London’s The Valley of the Moon (1913) and Norris’s McTeague (1899) because they were published in a similar era. Both authors lived and wrote in the Bay Area during the Progressive Era of American politics. Therefore, there is political, stylistic, and regional proximity. Although Anglo-Saxonism has always been present in the United States, the construction of race was changing in the 1900s. The Valley of the Moon and McTeague both contain intriguing (and antiquated) notions of whiteness that further exacerbate the class struggle in California. This thesis describes the convergence of Progressive politics, eugenics, and Marxism within a unique chapter of American history. Through an exploration of Anglo-Saxonism, this examination of racial classifications is an attempt to reveal the inner workings of oppression in America.

This Master’s Thesis examines the ways in which the culturally distinct groups who inhabited the pre-colonial and colonial Southeast approached cross-cultural communication. The extensive and violent entradas led by Spaniards into the Southeastern interior in the 1500s represent a watershed moment in North American history that deeply impacted the economic, social, and geopolitical landscapes of an already well-populated and politically sophisticated region. The subsequent establishment of St. Augustine in 1565 and the arrival of the British in the mid-seventeenth century are similarly seen as pivotal moments in the region’s history that forced many culturally and linguistically dissimilar groups to interact. Early accounts of cross-cultural interactions are peppered with glimpses into the importance of verbal and nonverbal communication to the successes and failures of Indian and European groups and individuals in the region. This thesis explores how different groups actually learned and utilized language and communication in pre-colonial and colonial times. It argues that Southeastern Indians remained active agents of their lives when faced with the drama and disharmony that often accompanied European settlements and the individuals who populated them. Although they sometimes borrowed communicative techniques and methods from their European counterparts when attempting to quell cross-cultural anxieties and misunderstandings, Southeastern Indians continued to rely on methods of communication predicated on maintaining balance and harmony within and between communities developed during the Mississippian period. Meaning making, performance, and communicative practice lay at the heart of this study, as do the multiple perspectives of those who contributed to these processes.

This dissertation examines the role of Singer in the modernization of sewing practices in Spain and Mexico from 1860 to 1940. Singer marketing was founded on gendered views of women’s work and gendered perceptions of the home. These connected with sewing practices in Spain and Mexico, where home sewing remained economically and culturally important throughout the 1940s. "Atlantic Threads" is the first study of the US-owned multinational in the Hispanic World. I demonstrate that sewing practices, and especially practices related to home sewing that have been considered part of the private sphere and therefore not an important historical matter, contributed to the building of one the first global corporation. I examine Singer corporate records and business strategies that have not been considered by other scholars such as the creation of the Embroidery Department in the late nineteen-century. Likewise, this dissertation challenges traditional narratives that have assumed that Spain and Mexico were peripheral to modernity. I look at Singer corporate records in Spain and Mexico and at regional government and cultural sources to demonstrate how Singer integrated Spain and Mexico within its business organization. Singer's marketing was focused on the consumer, which contributed to make the company part of local sewing businesses and cultures.

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / This work investigates a student print called The Necydalus , in the period from 1909 to 1911, it was produced in Atheneu Sergipense, a secundary teaching instituition of Sergipe, so the analysis fulfilled in sixty-one series located in this newspaper as a sourse and object of investigation permited to comprehend, through that was written on this print, the conception of students about educational topics and others events happened in the daily of Sergipe, connected to period studied. The investigation linked to the designs of the New Cultural History and the History of Education, taking as perspective to verify the connections between the educative practices and the culture printed on the copies searched. / Este trabalho investiga um impresso estudantil denominado O Necydalus, no período de 1909 a 1911, o mesmo foi produzido no Atheneu Sergipense, instituição de ensino secundário de Sergipe. Sendo assim, diante da análise realizada nos sessenta e um números localizados deste jornal como fonte e objeto de investigação, foi possível compreender, através do que se escrevia nesse impresso, a concepção dos estudantes sobre temas educacionais e aos demais acontecimentos que se desenrolaram no cotidiano sergipano, relacionados ao período estudado. A investigação vinculou-se aos pressupostos da Nova História Cultural e da História da Educação, tendo como perspectiva verificar as relações existentes entre as práticas educativas e a cultura impressa nos exemplares pesquisados.

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / The present study intends to analyze the educational subjects in the Cidade Nova magazine, within the period of 1980 through 2005, based on articles and letters of the readers. It has as theoretical support the categories of representation, appropriation and materiality, of Roger Chartier; civilization, of Norbert Elias; field, of Pierre Bourdieu and charism, of Max Weber; beyond the local and national production on educational and catholic periodic press. The investigation is associated to estimated matters on the New Cultural History and the History of the Education and contributes for the understanding of the linkings between educational practices and printed matters in the analyzed period. / O presente estudo pretende analisar os temas educacionais publicados na revista Cidade Nova , no período de 1980 a 2005, através dos artigos e das cartas de seus leitores. Tem como aportes teóricos as categorias de representação, apropriação e materialidade, de Roger Chartier; civilização, de Norbert Elias; campo, de Pierre Bourdieu e carisma, de Max Weber; além da produção local e nacional sobre imprensa periódica educacional e católica. A investigação vincula-se aos pressupostos da Nova História Cultural e da História da Educação e contribui para a compreensão das relações entre práticas educacionais e impressos no período analisado.