This thesis examines the emergence, and then development, of what I call 'monetary mythology', a historical narrative, or version of history, concerning the inter-war period of Germany. Following the Second World War, it was left to West German elites to establish a new federal central bank, the Deutsche Bundesbank. A three-way power struggle emerged between the existing West German central bank - the Bank deutscher Länder - the federal government and the various state governments, all vying to influence the institutions and structure of this new monetary authority. In justifying their arguments, West German elites used various lessons derived from the turbulent experiences of the inter-war era. Monetary mythology, for its part, emphasised the lessons of Germany's two inflations; and the Bank deutscher Länder, and its allies, explicitly tied these lessons to the need for an independent central bank. And though it was once challenged by other competing historical narratives in the period 1949-51, monetary mythology emerged by 1956 triumphant in the public sphere in terms of framing the parameters through which West Germans viewed their monetary history. The doctoral project at hand approaches economic history from a cultural angle. In doing so, it offers an alternative history of the Bundesbank, as well as an alternative explanation for the cultural preoccupation surrounding inflation in West Germany. The thesis explains this cultural preoccupation in institutional terms. In providing for a central bank that was independent of political instruction, the Bundesbank Law of 1957 allowed for conflicts between the federal government and central bank to emerge. These conflicts often became 'dramatised' in the public sphere, creating controversies surrounding the Bundesbank's independence, and, in turn, giving rise to circumstances in which the lessons of the two inflations continued to remain relevant, geared in support of central bank independence.

This thesis provides a reading of Chrétien de Troyes' Arthurian romances that reflects the cultural and intellectual context of twelfth-century Christianity. The impact of this context on Chrétien's romances is examined by identifying the influence that contemporaneous biblical expository texts, hagiography, and the material culture of the cult of saints had upon his work. Although scholars have devoted much attention to the study of Chrétien's romances, and some have examined the potential influences of various medieval Christian beliefs, practices, and symbols on his work, none have yet to produce a thorough study of these elements while focusing specifically on the female characters. Scholars have identified the influence of the cult of saints on the depiction of Guinevere in The Knight of the Cart, but have not examined this influence on the depictions of the ladies in the other four romances in detail. I look beyond Guinevere, examining all of the female protagonists in the Arthurian romances, comparing their attributes and actions to those of biblical women in contemporaneous biblical exposition and those of saints in hagiography. At the heart of this comparison is the relationship between the lady and her knight, a relationship that is described in similar terms to that between a biblical woman and God and that between saint and devotee.

En 1737, Juan Martínez Salafranca, Leopoldo Jerónimo Puig et Francisco Javier de la Huerta lancent la publication du Diario de los literatos, premier vrai journal espagnol. Dédié à l’analyse d’ouvrages, le Diario est également le premier journal culturel qui voit le jour en Espagne. Dans son sillage, les parutions ayant pour objet les lettres, les arts, les sciences et les moeurs vont ensuite se multiplier tout au long du XVIIIe siècle. Cette étude se propose de faire l’analyse de cette presse culturelle espagnole, de sa naissance jusqu’en 1808, année au cours de laquelle la Guerre d’Indépendance vient marquer un temps d’arrêt dans son évolution.L’objectif de ce travail est de déterminer la part d’originalité dont fait preuve la presse culturelle espagnole du XVIIIe siècle, en tant que pratique et en tant que genre, vis‐à‐vis des autres écrits de l’époque. Dans cette perspective, sont considérées la manière qu’ont les périodiques d’appréhender les événements qui ponctuent le quotidien de leur ville de parution, les dimensions et les caractéristiques graphiques des numéros dont ils sont composés. Est également interrogé le système énonciatif en vigueur dans la presse : les voix qui apparaissent au fil des pages, leur mise en relation ainsi que la place qui est laissée à l’expression de la subjectivité. L’analyse des modalités d’écriture dont témoignent articles historiques, critiques d’ouvrages et réflexions morales suppose, quant à elle, d’examiner les liens qu’entretient la presse avec les genres existants. Cette étude examine, enfin, les objectifs que prétendent remplir les journalistes et la logique interne qui découle de ceux‐ci. / In 1737, Juan Martínez Salafranca, Leopoldo Jerónimo Puig and Francisco Javier de la Huertastarted publishing the Diario de los literatos, the first genuine Spanish newspaper. Dedicatedto book reviews, the Diario was also the first cultural newspaper to appear in Spain.Following its example, the number of publications devoted to literature, arts, science andsocial criticism increased throughout the century. It is, therefore, the purpose of this studyto analyse the Spanish cultural press from its first appearance up to the beginning of thePeninsular War in 1808, a conflict which caused a lull in the evolution of the genre.This research aims to determine the originality of this type of press, as a practice and as agenre, compared to other types of writings of the period. From this perspective, it examineshow these newspapers assimilated the events which marked the everyday life of their placeof publication, and studies the dimensions and graphic characteristics of each newspaper’sset of issues. It also explores the enunciative system adopted by this type of press: the voicesthat appear over the pages, their relationship throughout the text and the space given to theexpression of subjectivity. The analysis of the different writing systems of historical articles,book reviews and moral reflexions, implies the study of relationships prevailing betweenthe press and other existing genres. Finally, this research also highlights the aims thatjournalists claim to pursue and the resulting logic of cultural press.

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This dissertation argues that the history of Miami is best understood as an imperial history. In a series of thematic chapters, it demonstrates how the city came into existence as a result of expansionism and how it continued to maintain imperial distinctions and hierarchies as it incorporated new people, beginning as a colonial frontier prior to the nineteenth century and becoming an imperial center of the Americas in the twentieth century. In developing an imperial analysis of the city, “The Viceroyalty of Miami” pays particular attention to sources that elite imperialists generated. Their papers, publications, and speeches archive the leading and often loudest voices directing the city’s capitalist development and its future. This focus on the elite shows both their local power over the city and their global vision for it, putting local history into dialogue with newer scholarly approaches to global urban cities. Though imperialists worked to portray the area as untamed during the Spanish colonial period, taming nature became paramount in subsequent eras, especially during the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century with the environmental transformation of south Florida. City founders intentionally introduced plants from the Americas and around the world that created an elite tropical culture in Miami, a consequence of overseas imperial acquisitions in 1898 in tropical parts of the world. Spanish revival architecture worked as the means of establishing U.S. sovereignty over a formerly contested frontier, but self-contained suburban development inaugurated persistent problems of metropolitan management. Finally, once imperialists laid claim to the soil and the building that sat upon it, they turned to the air, making Miami a projected site of U.S. power through aviation. In light of the four substantive chapters, the Epilogue recasts our understanding of ideological migration before and after 1959 as the final stage of Miami’s transformation from a colonial frontier to an imperial city.

Poet and professor Sterling A. Brown (1901-1989) played a significant role in the birth of black literary and cultural studies through his literary and academic careers. Brown helped to establish a new wave of black cultural and folklore studies during his time as the “Director of Negro Affairs” for the Federal Writers’ Project. As a professor at Howard University, Brown influenced black literary studies through his literary criticisms and seminars and his role as a mentor to literary figures of the next generations. Through letters to and from Sterling Brown and manuscripts, this thesis argues that Brown’s poetry, publications and folk studies in the nineteen twenties and thirties where the groundwork for his most prolific role of teacher-mentor.

Œuvre majeure de l'historiographie communale, la Nuova cronica de Giovanni Villani constitue un passage obligé pour qui entend se plonger dans l'histoire de la Florence médiévale. Marchand, homme d’État et chroniqueur, son auteur incarne la figure du popolano grasso florentin. Narrant en treize livres l'histoire de sa cité et du monde, de ses origines jusqu'à 1348, elle a laissé plus d'une centaine de manuscrits, a participé à faire du toscan la langue des Italiens et a inspiré une bibliographie foisonnante. Cette thèse s'intéresse à un aspect largement ignoré de cet ouvrage, à savoir le rapport de l'auteur à l'histoire de son temps, en se focalisant sur les trois derniers livres couvrant les années 1326-1348. Période de mutations politiques et de bouleversements économiques, mais aussi de profonde effervescence culturelle, ces années marquent un tournant dans l'histoire communale : la Nuova cronica révèle à cet effet toute la richesse de ce premier Trecento florentin. L'étude de la chronologie de composition du texte laisse apparaître un délai très resserré entre les événements et leur retranscription. Cette quasi-contemporanéité de l'histoire pèse sur les outils et les méthodes de l'historien, qui doit revoir ses canaux d'information, renouveler ses sources et réinterpréter ses cadres explicatifs. Parallèlement à la mobilisation des réseaux marchands, l'étude des sources témoigne d'un usage intensif des documents d'archives, qui participent à créer une mémoire des institutions communales. L'analyse des cadres interprétatifs montre l'importance de la sensibilité religieuse du chroniqueur, une religion civique, qui teinte son récit d'une forte dimension moraliste et édifiante et lui donne parfois l'allure d'une somme d'exempla laïcs ou d'un manuel de vertus civiques. L'aspect exceptionnel des derniers livres de la chronique réside toutefois dans la fenêtre qu'ils ouvrent sur la culture des grands marchands florentins de ce début de XIVe siècle : à travers l'étude de deux aspects de cette culture, celle théologique et celle scientifique, il nous est donné à voir la capacité d'appropriation, par un laïc moyennement lettré, d'une large parcelle de la culture savante, constituant à cet égard un véritable exercice de vulgarisation et de médiation culturelle. / As a major work of communal historiography, Giovanni Villani's Nuova cronica is a milestone for whoever intends to immerse themselves into the history of medieval Florence. Merchant, statesman and writer, the author embodies the figure of the Florentine popolano grasso. Narrating in thirteen books the history of both his city and the world, from its origins to 1348, the chronicle has left more than one hundred manuscripts, contributed to making Tuscan the language of Italians, and has inspired an abundant bibliography. This thesis focuses on a largely ignored aspect of this book, namely the relationship the author has to the history of his time, focusing on the last three books covering the years 1326-1348. Those years were a period of important political and economic change, as of deep cultural liveliness, and marked a turning point in the communal history: the Nuova cronica reveals the prosperity of this early Florentine Trecento. The chronology of the writings shows a particularly small time span between the events and their transcription: this has its consequences on both the tools and methods of the historian, who is therefore required to re-study his information channels, renew his sources and reinterpret the explicative frameworks. In addition to relying on merchant networks, the study of the sources reveals an extensive use of archive documents, which create a memory of communal institutions. The analysis of the interpretive frameworks of history attests of the importance of the author's religious mindset; this paints his historical narrative with a strong moralistic and uplifting dimension, sometimes giving it the appearance of a sum of secular exempla or a manual of civic virtues. However, the remarkable aspect of the last books lies in the way they open new perspectives into the culture of the great Florentine merchants of this time. Through the study of two aspects of this culture, theological and scientific, the capacity of a moderately literate secular man to capture a large part of scholar culture is revealed. This makes the chronicle a true work of vulgarization which builds a link between different levels of culture.

Ce travail vise à enrichir la connaissance du patrimoine à travers l’étude de ses représentations à la télévision. Il repose sur l’étude des programmes de la télévision française des années 1950 aux années 1990 qui ont traité de ce sujet, sans distinction de genre de programme ni de type de patrimoine. La télévision est devenue, au cours de la deuxième moitié du XXe siècle, le média le plus populaire auprès des Français. Dans le même temps, la notion de patrimoine s’est considérablement enrichie, son sens a muté, et son public s’est très largement renouvelé et popularisé. Cette thèse d’histoire se propose d’étudier les représentations d’un objet culturel dans un média de masse. L’enjeu est d’abord de mener l’étude d’un sujet à la télévision et de souligner les évolutions de son traitement, de sa programmation, de sa visibilité. Il s’agit également de comprendre comment les professionnels de la télévision entendent traiter ce sujet et ce qu’ils souhaitent proposer aux téléspectateurs. Comment le patrimoine est-il défini et présenté à la télévision ? Aussi, la télévision est un média qui a ses particularités. Il s’agit de comprendre si elle a affecté l’image du patrimoine. Ce faisant, il s’agira de comprendre comment la télévision a pu accompagner les évolutions de la notion et le renouvellement du public du patrimoine. / This doctoral dissertation aims at helping the understatement of cultural heritage (or patrimony) through the study of its representations (the way cultural history defines them) in a mass media. This works consists in the study of French television programs, aired form the early 1950s to the late 1990s. During this period, in France, television became the media with the biggest audience. Also, the notion of patrimony went through considerable changes, becoming a social phenomenon: and increasing number of French citizens, from all social backgrounds, became interested in heritage. First of all, this work is a study of a subject that was treated in a variety of genres, that became more and more visible over time, and its popularity rises both in and out of the medias. How did the producers and journalists defined patrimony and what did they intend to propose to the audience with it? This work ambitions to better understand the democratization of patrimony in the French society. Was television involved in any way in this change? This media, with its particularities, may have offered a different understanding of the notion, and the representations of patrimony on television may have affected le way viewers see it.

San Luis Obispo, California was a violent place in the 1850s with numerous murders and lynchings in staggering proportions. This thesis studies the rise of violence in SLO, its causation, and effects. The vigilance committee of 1858 represents the culmination of the violence that came from sweeping changes in the region, stemming from its earliest conquest by the Spanish. The mounting violence built upon itself as extensive changes took place. These changes include the conquest of California, from the Spanish mission period, Mexican and Alvarado revolutions, Mexican-American War, and the Gold Rush. The history of the county is explored until 1863 to garner an understanding of the borderlands violence therein.

L’histoire culturelle des dictionnaires a frayé un nouveau terrain de recherche des études des représentations. La rétroaction du sens figuré du mot chinois nous a dirigé vers ce présent travail visant aux représentations de la Chine dans les dictionnaires français. Avec l’histoire culturelle des dictionnaires comme cadre théorique principal, nos études se sont appliqués aux neuf dictionnaires dont les dates de publication couvrent une période de 250 ans. À travers les observations et les analyses sur la formation, le changement et la transmission des représentations de la Chine, nous avons découvert des influences complexes des multiples facteurs concernant les dictionnaires sur les représentations, et l’effet non négligeable au fil du temps des dictionnaires sur la formation des stéréotypes concernant la Chine dans la langue française. / The cultural history study of dictionaries has opened a new field for the research of representations. A retrospection of the extended meaning of the french word “chinois” led us to the present work about representations of China in french dictionaries. With the cultural history of dictionaries as the main theoretical framework, we have studied nine dictionaries whose publication dates cover 250 years. Through observations and analyzes on the formation, the change and the transmission of representations of China, we have uncovered complex influences of multiple factors about the dictionaries on representations, and the significant effect over time of dictionaries on the formation of stereotypes concerning China in the french language.