This thesis contextualizes Appalachian murder ballads of the 19th- and early 20th-centuries through a close reading of the lyric texts. Using a research frame that draws from the musicological and feminist concepts of Diana Russell, Susan McClary, Norm Cohen, and Christopher Small, I reveal 19th-century Appalachia as a patriarchal, modern, and highly codified society despite its popularized image as a culturally isolated and “backward” place. I use the ballads to demonstrate how music serves the greater cultural purpose of preserving and perpetuating social ideologies. Specifically, the murder ballads reveal layers of meaning regarding hegemonic masculinities prevalent in 19th-century and turn-of-the-20th-century Appalachian culture. This work also explores the biases and agendas of the early folksong projects in the United States. Examining the arguments of early scholars, I consider the American tradition in juxtaposition to the earlier British forms of music. Rejecting earlier scholarship that argues for the relatedness of British and American balladry, I find that ballads associated with, and circulating in, the United States instead reflect a new cultural idiom grounded in the beliefs of those who sought a conservative Christian aesthetic and way of life in the southern Appalachian mountains. The murder ballads witness that Appalachia, specifically in the 19th-century period of industrial change, was defined by essential tensions between cultural traditions of the past and emerging notions of American modernism. This tension is met in the songs with responses of violence against women whose life situations—marked by sexual freedom—are the very depiction of a new cultural modernism that threatens the hegemony of the past.

The uses and management of water resources play an important role in the development of a culture and the health of its environment and population. Humans throughout history have consistently exploited rivers, which degrades water quality and leads to water scarcity. This thesis is an examination of two river restoration projects, one on the Oder River in Germany and the other on the Klamath River in the United States, that represent each country's efforts to reverse river exploitation. These cases in Germany and the United States demonstrate the importance of achieving a better understanding of the political instruments and strategies for mitigating environmental issues on a global scale.

The study of social memory is not purely a historical or anthropological endeavor. Archaeology can provide a considerable amount of evidence about how and why people remembered. In this case study, the Colosseum will be studied in the broader sense of being a monument of damnatio memoriae and commemorative memory; the very act of building it can be seen as a form of “recutting” the landscape to fit the image Vespasian wanted to convey of his predecessor. The Colosseum will also be studied in an even larger historical context. This will involve analyzing the manner in which it was memorialized during the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, and by British visitors during the Victorian era. I will end the case study with an analysis of Benito Mussolini’s use of antiquity and the Colosseum to propagate Fascism. Lastly, the concept of cultural heritage and the institutions that uphold it, particularly UNESCO, will be put into question. In illustrating the fluidity of interpretations of the past, in this case through material culture, I argue that the endeavor to codify them by establishing World Heritage sites is problematic because of their subjectivity to modern agendas. However, in order to understand changing attitudes and memories associated with a single monument, one must first explore the nature of social memory.

The trials of a comfort woman was never revealed after the conclusion of WWII. More than half a century has passed before the name was uttered on the international stage. Why the sudden break of silence? What is the response of the Japanese government. In this paper, we discuss the issue of the comfort women and the the political implications it holds on Japan. Japan's failure to accept wartime reparation, largely due to Allied intervention, has resulted in the widening gap between Japan and Asia. This paper focuses on the combination of increased US influence as a result of the San Francisco Treaty of 1951 and Japan’s fervent nationalistic identity served to widen the gap between Japan and other East and Southeast Asian nations, making reconciliation over the issue of comfort women a problem that remains unresolved to this day.

(In Spanish) The Spanish Civil war isn't over in the hearts and minds of the people of Spain; rather, it is still being fought in the ideological realm of historical memory. Originally explored in literature and film, the theme of historical memory has not only become more visible and more explicit, but has taken the leap from art and literature into the political realm to become one of Spain's most pressing political issues.

公共動物園被引入臺灣的歷史才僅一世紀之久，但在這短短的百年之間，它的樣貌已歷經多重改變。1910年代起臺北動物園本是總督府博物館下的一支，後移入圓山成為都市公園的一角，再後是遊樂園與動物表演的娛樂場，到1980年代下半加入學校校外教學輔助場域的功能，並利用物種的保存基地（「方舟」）口號建構自我的存在意義。而在經營主體上，臺灣的公共動物園多以市級公立機構的形式經營， 20世紀初是作為帝國（國家）或地區城市的文明設施，園中動物成為市民的共同寵物；而在1970年代起受全球環境政治影響，動物園組織集團化，知識交流頻繁，動物的飼養、登錄、繁殖、交換等各項管理更具有國際視野，園內動物在全球生態系中的自然資產價值也被強調。 在探究動物園急欲與過去的娛樂歷史劃清界限的原因的同時，本文擬在探討國家、社會對圈養野生動物的利用面向之外，也思考被圈養的野生動物在不同時期的處境，牠們（或牠們的血統來源者）如何從棲地被帶到城市？在動物園這個空間如何被安排融入人類社會，成為人類社會生活的一部分？因此本文的書寫方式並不是一部單純的動物園園史或動物園經營史，而是期望從動物文化史的角度談動物園的歷史。 無論是前述各種對動物的資源化運用，或基於環境主義對瀕臨絕種動物的保育以及環境教育的新目標，動物園內的動物作為生命個體的意義在何時開始被注意到、甚至受到重視，都是值得關切的動物園歷史問題。動物園中的動物在人們眼中並不等值，受重視者生前、死後在園中都經過特意的文化儀式處理，包括命名、婚配、標本化與在展示中意欲喚起人們對該動物在人類社會扮演的角色的記憶。本文除思考圓山動物園自開園以還，園內動物被施行肉體虐待的問題，並提及戰爭結束前，幾位名人遊客描寫圓山動物園內人氣動物在圈養中身心困頓的處境，也探討動物園經營者自1970年代開始承認空間規劃等管理與動物福祉的直接關聯。雖然戰後1950年代臺北動物園的職員已創組愛護動物協會，但是其對愛護的觀念，是侷限在購買更多的珍奇動物、訓練動物表演、作動物展覽等娛樂人們的活動，與考量動物本身需求的關愛仍有相當的距離。更多探索動物與人類社會相遇的歷史，必有助於吾人思考真正的人與自然關係和諧之道，這也是本文撰寫的主要動機。 / The concept of public zoo was first introduced into Taiwan about one hundred years ago in 1910s. Although the zoo history in Taiwan was short, its role and function was still vital and changed many times. The Taipei Zoo was originally established as an adjunct to the Taiwan Governor Museum; however, it was later made accessible to the public as a park in Yuan-shan and transformed to be a playground and a place for animal performances as well. In the late 1980s, zoos in Taiwan, taking the responsibility for educating visitors especially young students, became a spot for field trip and started to be aware of the need to engage in species conservation (like the ark) so as to construct its meaning and importance. Most of public zoos in Taiwan were governmental institutions. At the beginning of 20th century, a zoo was a facility which represented civilization of a progressive empire, country or city. Animals in zoos were like “pets” for all citizens. In the 1970s, global environmental and political situations influenced ways to manage zoos. The collectivization of zoos became popular. Many of them cooperated and shared zoological researches with others more frequently. Besides, there showed a more international vision in nursing, registering, breeding or exchanging animals in zoos. Their values and positions in the global ecosystem were eventually emphasized. In addition to exploring the reason why zoos strived to make a clean break from their past, this thesis intends to discuss how the country or the society utilized captive wild animals and to examine situations of captive wild animals in different periods as well. How were they (or their ancestors) brought from their habitats in the wild to cities? How were they arranged to integrate into human society and became a part of people’s social life? Therefore, this study is not a history of a particular zoo or about zoo management. Instead, this thesis attempts to demonstrate the zoo history from a viewpoint of a cultural history of animals. In the field of the zoo history, it is worth considering when animals in zoos were treated or respected as individual subjects since they were often used as resources to meet people’s needs. The development of environmentalism strengthened the idea of conserving and breeding endangered species and also evolved new thinking for environmental education. In fact, there still existed a hierarchy to classify animals in zoos. Those who were carefully chosen and raised would experience specific cultural rituals such as naming or pairing during their lifetime. After they died, they would be preserved as biological specimen and displayed to the public to intentionally recall people’s memory of their roles in human society. This thesis not only examines issues like animal abuse from the opening of Taipei Zoo in Yuan-shan but also refers to some celebrities’ descriptions of popular animal stars’ physical and mental illness due to being confined within enclosures before the end of World War II. Moreover, it reveals that from the 1970s managers of zoos began to pay attention to animal welfare when making spatial planning or managing the zoo. Even though in the 1950s staff in Taipei Zoo founded a society for animals’ care and protection, they still strictly focused on buying precious animals, training them to perform tricks for visitors or exhibiting them in order to entertain human beings. These behaviors could be scarcely comparable to those caring actions designed to meet animals’ real needs. To explore history of human-animal interaction more fully can surely help us to think about how to live more harmoniously with nature. This is indeed the main goal for this thesis.

"Undercurrents of Urban Modernism: Water, Architecture, and Landscape in California and the American West" conducts an art-historical analysis of historic waterworks buildings in order to examine cultural values pertinent to aesthetiteics in relationships between water, architecture and landscape in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Visual study of architectural style, ornamental iconography, and landscape features reveals cultural values related to water, water systems, landscape/land use, and urban development. Part 1 introduces a historiography of ideas of "West" and "landscape" to provide a context for defining ways in which water and landscape were conceived in the United States during turn-of-the-century urban development in the American West. Part 2 provides a historical context for California waterworks with a discussion of major U.S. city waterworks from 1799 to 1893 in Philadelphia, Louisville, New York, and New Orleans. Primary architectural styles discussed are Greek Revival, Egyptian Revival, and Roman Revival. Part 3 presents the dissertation's central object of study: waterworks and hydropower architecture for the greater San Francisco Bay Area between 1860 and 1939. From substations to dams, architects who designed waterworks structures drew from historical revival, academic eclecticism, and structural design traditions. The specific waterworks structures anchoring inquiry in this chapter are two round, peripteral, neoclassical water temples built for San Francisco's water supply to mark key underground aqueduct features. I analyze these two temples--the Sunol Water Temple from 1910 and the Pulgas Water Temple from 1939--in formal terms as well as from within broader urban and historical contexts. Part 4 culminates the dissertation with a case study of two dams whose aesthetic features were obscured by unneeded buttresssing when concerns for dam safety arose after a Southern California dam failure had killed several hundred people in 1928. I inquire into a cultural ambivalence stemming that seems to stem from historical conflicts determining the relative aesthetics of "use" and "beauty" in utilitarian waterworks structures. The overall questions in this dissertation inquire into ways in which aesthetic aspects of architectural design of waterworks structures expressed cultural values regarding water, architecture, and landscape in California between 1860 and 1939. / text

“The Transgressive Stage: The Culture of Public Entertainment in Late Victorian Toronto,” argues that public entertainment was one of the most important sites for the negotiation of identities in late Victorian Toronto. From the vantage point of the twenty-first century, where theatre is strictly highbrow, it is difficult to appreciate the centrality of public entertainment to everyday life in the nineteenth century. Simply put, the Victorian imagination was populated by melodrama and minstrelsy, Shakespeare and circuses. Studying the responses to these entertainments, greatly expands our understanding of Victorian culture. The central argument of this dissertation is that public entertainment spilled over the threshold of the playhouse and circus tent to influence the wider world. In so doing, it radically altered the urban streetscape, interacted with political ideology, promoted trends in consumption, as well as exposed audiences to new intellectual currents about art and beauty. Specifically, this study examines the moral panic surrounding indecent theatrical advertisements; the use by political playwrights of tropes from public entertainment as a vehicle for political satire; the role of the stage in providing an outlet for Toronto’s racial curiosity; the centrality of commercial amusements in defining the boundaries of gender; and, finally, the importance of the theatre—particularly through the Aesthetic Movement—in attempts to control the city’s working class. When Torontonians took in a play, they were also exposing themselves to one of the most significant transnational forces of the nineteenth century. British and American shows, which made up the bulk of what was on offer in the city, brought with them British and American perspectives. The latest plays from London and New York made their way to the city within months, and sometimes weeks, of their first production. These entertainments introduced audiences to the latest thoughts, fashion, slang and trends. They also confronted playgoers with issues that might, on the surface seem foreign and irrelevant. Nevertheless, they quickly adapted to the environment north of the border. Public entertainment in Toronto came to embody a hybridized culture with a promiscuous co-mingling of high and low and of British and American influences.

This thesis examine the cultural interaction between Anishinabe people, who lived in what is now southern Ontario, and the Loyalists, Euroamerican settlers who moved north from the United States during and after the American Revolution. Starting with an analysis of Anishinabe cultural history before the settlement era the thesis argues that Anishinabe spirituality was not traditionalist. Rather it inclined its practitioners to search for new knowledge. Further, Anishinabe ethics in this period were determined corporately based on the immediate needs and expectations of individual communities. As such, Anishinabe ethics were quite separate from Anishinabe spiritual teachings. Between 1760 and 1815, the Anishinabe living north of the Great Lakes participated in pan-Native resistance movements to the south. The spiritual leaders of these movements, sometimes called nativists, taught that tradition was an important religious virtue and that cultural integration was dangerous and often immoral. These nativist teachings entered the northern Anishinabe cultural matrix and lived alongside earlier hierarchies of virtue that identified integration and change as virtues. When Loyalist Methodists presented their teachings to the Anishinabeg in the early nineteenth century their words filtered through both sets of teachings and found purchase in the minds of many influential leaders. Such leaders quickly convinced members of their communities to take up the Methodist practices and move to agricultural villages. For a few brief years in the 1830s these villages achieved financial success and the Anishinabe Methodist leaders achieved real social status in both Anishinabe and Euroamerican colonial society. By examining the first generation of Anishinabe Methodists who practiced between 1823 and 1840, I argue that many Anishinabe people adopted Christianity as new wisdom suitable for refitting their existing cultural traditions to a changed cultural environment. Chiefs such as Peter Jones (Kahkewahquonaby), and their followers, found that Methodist teachings cohered with major tenets of their own traditions, and also promoted bimadziwin, or health and long life, for their communities. Finally, many Anishinabe people believed that the basic moral injunctions of their own tradition compelled them to adopt Methodism because of its potential to promote bimadziwin. / Thesis (Ph.D, History) -- Queen's University, 2008-07-17 13:59:23.833

Cette thèse s’intéresse au rôle et à la représentation des bijoux dans les textes narratifs français des trois dernières décennies du XIXe siècle. Non seulement ils abondent dans les œuvres en prose de l’époque, les pierres et métaux précieux en investissent à la fois l’intrigue, le lexique et la poétique. Qui plus est, ils constituent aussi des objets fortement connotés animant les récits de leurs propres significations esthétiques, sociales, économiques et politiques. Les études de texte ici présentées amènent par surcroît à constater qu’à travers les joyaux, des sujets ou des interrogations essentiels au discours du temps surgissent, se problématisent, s’amalgament et se métamorphosent. Suivant une approche sociocritique, qui conjugue l’analyse textuelle à l’examen de données socio-historiques, cette étude du bijou dans le roman fin-de-siècle démontre qu’en tant que signe polysémique, il cristallise les implications littéraires, esthétiques et sociales du texte et constitue un objet privilégié pour mettre en communication les auteurs avec leur société. Plus précisément, le bijou dans la littérature fin-de-siècle condense des rapports de force de l’époque : emblème des séculaires lignées aristocratiques de jadis, il constitue dans un monde désormais bourgeois un objet qui se vend, se démocratise et se copie; signe de l’asservissement du corps féminin à une autorité masculine, il peut aussi devenir l’arme terrible d’héroïnes conquérantes et affranchies; matière prisée des rêveurs et des artisans, il permet au texte fin-de-siècle de se positionner par rapport à l’hégémonie zolienne et aux autres pratiques artistiques du temps. Chacune des trois grandes parties de la thèse (l’objet, le corps, la matière) explore l’une de ces luttes de pouvoir, et est divisée en deux chapitres présentant tour à tour des points de vue qui se complètent ou qui s’affrontent. Cette thèse invite au final à isoler certains aspects de la gemme (la rareté, la dualité nature / culture, etc.) qui en font une métaphore de prédilection pour les auteurs de l’époque. Du nombre, sa résistance, toujours mise en tension avec l’inexorable travail de la durée, permet de mieux cerner l’esthétique fin-de-siècle et son rapport équivoque, conflictuel, au monde et au temps qui passe. / This thesis investigates the function and representation of jewels in French narratives from the last three decades of the nineteenth century. Not only is this prose rich in gems and precious metals; its plot, vocabulary, and aesthetic are endowed with these luxurious substances and with their properties. In addition jewels represent objects of strong connotations, and thus they charge the narratives with their own aesthetic, social, economical or political meanings. Above all, the analyses of texts presented here reveal that through jewels, interrogations that are central in the social discourse of the time are raised, problematized, intertwined or transfigured. In accordance with a sociocriticism that takes into consideration socio-historical issues in its approach to literary text this study of the jewel in the fin-de-siècle novel shows that, being strong and complex signs, jewels condense the literary, aesthetic and social implications of the text, and constitute privileged objects prone to mediate authors with their society. More precisely, jewels in fin-de-siècle literature summarize tensions of the time: emblems of the secular aristocratic lineages of long ago, in a newly bourgeois world they are more accessible, common objects which can be sold and copied; albeit signs of the submission of the feminine body to a masculine authority they can also become a terrible weapon for freed and conquering female heroes; they embody a substance cherished by dreamers and craftsmen through which the fin-de-siècle text positions itself with regards to Zola’s hegemony and to other artistic practices of the time. Each of the three sections of the thesis (l’objet, le corps, la matière) explores one of these power struggles and is divided into two chapters presenting successively completing or competing points of view. This thesis ultimately leads to the identification of various aspects (rarity, duality nature / culture, etc.) by which gems become a favourite metaphor for authors of the end of the nineteenth century. Among these attributes, precious stones’ resistance – always in tension with the inexorable work of duration – leads to a better comprehension of the fin-de-siècle aesthetic and its equivocal, conflicting relations with the world and with time as it flies by.