Thesis--Munich. / Includes bibliographical references (p. [86]-100).

Thesis--Hamburg. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 193-202).

Thesis--Bonn. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 9-16).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, Dept. of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, August 2001. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available on the Internet.

The Aztec empire emerged in AD 1428 as a result of the triple alliance among the city-states of Tenochtitlan, Texcoco, and Tlacopan. Although it is well documented that the Aztecs conquered numerous polities in the Basin of Mexico over the next 100 years, the demographic consequences of this expansion remain unclear. At the influential Otomi city-state of Xaltocan, for example, colonial documents suggest that the Aztec conquest led to a replacement of the original Otomi population, whereas archaeological finds suggest that a significant portion of the original population may have remained at the city under Aztec rule. To help resolve questions about Xaltocan’s population history during this period, I extracted ancient DNA from 21 individuals that can be divided into two temporal subpopulations (roughly predating and postdating the hypothesized replacement event). I determined mitochondrial DNA haplogroups through RFLP analyses and constructed haplotypes based on 372 bp of HVR1 sequence. Statistical analyses show significant differences between the mitochondrial composition of the two subpopulations. Altogether, the results of this study support the hypothesis that matrilines at Xaltocan underwent a significant replacement event following the Aztec conquest, and they suggest that the Aztec expansion may have had a substantial genetic impact on certain Mesoamerican populations. / text

This dissertation offers a case study on the intersection of gender and modernization in the Middle East within the context of the 19th century Ottoman modernization project. It analyzes the position of Muslim/Turkish women in the Ottoman Empire between the years of 1870 and 1922 through a prosopographic study of the first professional women in Turkish history, the schoolteachers known as the muallimat. In 1870 Ottoman educational reformers opened Darülmuallimat, the Women Teachers' Training College, to train female instructors for the recently established girls' middle schools. This training and employment opportunity created by the government provided favorable conditions for Muslim women to fashion a respectable career for themselves as teachers and to forge a new definition of femininity which was based on the convergence of the traditional and the modern. This study provides a multi-faceted portrait of the muallimat by examining their respective socio-economic profiles, educational backgrounds, income levels, living standards and family lives. It also offers a revision of the official Republican narrative which claims that the "universally suppressed" Muslim/Turkish women were emancipated only under the auspices of Atatürk's secular westernization reforms. The experience of the muallimat clearly defies the oversimplified conception of "Islamic patriarchal oppression" and demonstrates that Ottoman women teachers played a significant role in shaping their own future and the future of the society at large. My study relies primarily on the records of the Ottoman Ministry of Education. To supplement the official sources, I also utilize material from the Ottoman women's press as well as the biographies and autobiographies of women writers of the period and various other late Ottoman literary works. Together, the archival and other primary material help to illuminate major aspects of the late Ottoman era women school teachers' professional and personal experiences.

No description available.

No description available.

This dissertation examines the era of slavery amelioration while situating the significance of this project to reform slavery within the longer history of the British Empire. While scholars of British slavery have long debated the causes of both the abolition of the slave trade (1807) and the abolition of slavery (1833), they have overlooked the ways that both abolitionists and politicians attempted to "reform" slavery - extending both baseline protections and a civilizing mission toward slaves - as a prelude toward broader emancipation. This attempted amelioration of slavery influenced both the timing and form that emancipation took. By focusing on the island where metropolitan officials first attempted to exert an ameliorative agenda, this dissertation uncovers the forgotten influence of Spanish laws and practices on British abolitionism. Trinidad was captured from Spain in 1797 during the heyday of abolitionist agitation, during an era when Spanish slave codes were gaining newfound attention among British reformers for their reputed benevolence. Despite local planter opposition, metropolitan officials elected to retain the island's Spanish legal structure following the Peace of Amiens. The Trinidad template for amelioration would be framed around the island's Spanish laws, notably the office of Protector of Slaves. This individual was imagined as an intermediary between master and slave, metropole and colony, epitomizing an attempt to infuse the slave regime with a modicum of imperial regulation. The ideas behind amelioration survived the abolition of slavery. After Caribbean slavery was abolished between 1833 and 1838, the reforms that had been attempted in Trinidad and elsewhere over the previous decades came to inform the regulation of labor relationships, particularly immigrant labor, following in its wake. The process of negotiating reform - of slavery, indentured labor, and relations with indigenous peoples - had taught Colonial Office officials to distrust the instincts and activities of white colonial subjects. The Protector model proliferated in contexts of continued distrust during an era when metropolitan officials remained reluctant to exert more direct authority than necessary. This model would break down only in the wake of repeated failure. Until then, metropolitan officials hoped that local watchdogs would "protect" nonwhite and laboring subjects from abuse. / History

The advent of the hordes of HUlegU Khan into Persia in the mid thirteenth century marked not only a new era for the peoples of the Iranian plateau and the surrounding lands but for the invaders and settlers themselves, The coming of HUlegU Khan was in sharp contrast to the visitations of his father, Tolui Khan, and grandfather, Chinggis Khan, and the two generals, lebei and SUbodei, some three decades earlier This dissertation explores the establishment and development of the early ll-Khanate concentrating on the period of HUlegU and his son Abaqa's reign from 1256 until 1282, roughly covering the period of the luwaynis' ascendancy After a survey and review of the primary sources used in researching this dissertation, chapters two three and four look at the main events of the first two ll-Khans' reigns and the problems they faced as their armies moved west Chapters five and six deal with the threats that the emerging kingdom suffered from fellow Mongols in the north and in the east, and how these tensions and conflicts were indicative of events and developments elsewhere in the Mongol Empire, Chapters seven, eight and nine deal respectively with the semi-autonomous provinces of Kirman, Shiraz, and Herat Each of these provinces dealt with the central Mongol power in a different way and these contrasting relationships is examined. Chapter ten is concerned with a phenomenon often associated with the later thirteenth century, namely the growth in the incidence of Sufis, Qalandars, and poets, all of whom flourished under the II-Khans This chapter creates a picture of a world not always associated with Mongol Iran. The final chapter summarises the conclusions drawn from the preceding chapters and attempts to portray a fresh, more positive image of these early II-Khanid rulers and paint a more balanced and less cynical picture of conditions under HUlegU and his son Abaqa. The illustrations are intended more for their aesthetic appeal than their historical revelations.