From 1884 to 1885 the British were first engaged with the Mahdist forces of Sudan in an effort to first rescue the inhabitants of Khartuom, and later to rescue the rescuer Charles “Chinese” Gordon. The affair played out both in Parliament and the newspapers as journalists became the cheerleaders for Empire. My thesis focuses on Britain’s 1884-1890 Sudan Campaign through print culture using political debates, journalism, literature, memoirs, and art. I show how the activism of the press and the romanticism of the larger media reinforced ideas about imperialism and the British role within the Empire at large.

Cotutelle / Entre 1774 et 1815, la noblesse canadienne tente de stabiliser sa position sociale au sein d’une société canadienne désormais sous tutelle britannique. Pour cela, les nobles opèrent une redéfinition culturelle et sociale de leur idée de noblesse afin de s’adapter au nouveau régime. Grâce aux relations qui s’établissent entre les nobles restés dans l’Empire britannique, ceux l’ayant quitté et les nouvelles élites qui s’établissent dans la colonie au tournant du XIXe siècle, il est possible de mieux appréhender la façon dont la noblesse réinvestit son capital symbolique. L’étude des patrimoines matériels, sociaux et intellectuels ainsi que leurs modes de transmission permettent d’examiner les modalités d’adaptation de la communauté noble. Enfin, cette noblesse à cheval entre deux empires, dont les réseaux s’étendent sur de nombreux territoires, permet de mieux percevoir les évolutions qui s’opèrent à cette époque dans les sociétés coloniales et en particulier en Amérique du Nord et au Canada. En étudiant cinq familles emblématiques de la noblesse canadienne, cette thèse tente de répondre à la problématique et aux sous-questions suivantes : comment la noblesse francophone se renouvelle-t-elle et évolue-t-elle en tant que groupe social distinct au sein des élites impériales entre 1774 et 1815 ? Qui est noble ? Être un noble canadien après la Cession dans les empires français et britanniques, qu’est-ce que ça signifie ? Quelles sont les stratégies d’adaptation de la génération de la noblesse canadienne qui vit sa vie publique et adulte entre 1774 et 1815 ? Y a-t-il une « canadianisation » de la noblesse et, si oui, comment se caractérise-t-elle ? Les nobles canadiens s’adaptent-ils au nouveau régime ? Les élites influencent de façon importante la construction de la société dans laquelle elles évoluent : au XIXe siècle la société canadienne-française telle qu’on la connaît jusqu’au milieu du XXe siècle commence à se développer ; elle a en parti été mise en place par et pour les nobles canadiens. Ma recherche a donc pour but de trouver les mécanismes de reproduction des élites coloniales. C’est-à-dire de comprendre comment, en particulier, les nobles continuent à exister sous le Régime britannique. Mon hypothèse est que les nobles réussissent à trouver une forme d’équilibre entre le besoin de renouvellement qui découle du changement de régime et leur fidélité à des traditions présentées comme séculaires. Ce sont des « caméléons sociaux » qui existent à travers trois paradoxes : un imaginaire transnational dans une réalité juridique nationale ; un désir d’éternité couplé à un besoin d’évolution constant ; une culture de la distinction affirmée à l’intérieur de frontières poreuses. La thèse cherche encore à mieux comprendre comment se vit une identité transatlantique et coloniale, se détachant progressivement, mais jamais totalement des pairs de la « vieille Europe » et à travers la formation d’une identité américaine au sein des empires. Elle démontre également l’ambiguïté qui existe entre l’identité noble coloniale, qui pousse au détachement par rapport à la métropole, et l’identité élitaire, qui, au contraire, ramène les nobles canadiens vers l’Europe et les caractéristiques de son élite. / Between 1774 and 1815, Canadian nobility attempted to stabilize their social position within a Canadian society now under British reign. In that order, nobles operated a cultural and social redefinition of their idea of nobility to adapt to the new regime. Thanks to the relationships that nobles who remained in the British Empire developed with those who left it, and the new elites who settled in the colony, it is possible to better understand how Canadian nobility reinvested its symbolic capital. The study of material, social and intellectual heritages as well as transmission mode make possible to examine the modalities of adaptation of the noble community. Finally, this nobility straddling two empires, whose networks spanned many territories, allows us to better perceive the changes that took place at that time in colonial societies and, more specifically, in North America and Canada. By studying five emblematic families of the Canadian nobility, this thesis attempts to answer the following problematic and sub-questions: how the French-speaking nobility is renewing itself and evolving as a distinct social group within the imperial elites between 1774 and 1815? Who is noble? What does it mean to be a Canadian nobleman after the Conquest in both French and British Empires? What are the coping strategies of the generation of Canadian nobility who lived their public and adult life between 1774 and 1815? Is there a “Canadianization” of the nobility and, if so, how is it characterized? Are nanadian nobles adjusting to the new regime? The elites significantly influence the construction of the society in which they operate: in the 19th century French Canadian society as we know it until the middle of the 20th century began to develop; it was in part set up by, and for, Canadian nobility. My research therefore aims to find its reproduction mechanisms. That is, to understand how, in particular, nobles continued to exist under British rule. My hypothesis is that the nobility manages to find some kind of balance between the need for renewal that arises from regime change and its loyalty to traditions presented as secular. Noblemen and women are “social chameleons” that exist through three paradoxes: a transnational imaginary in a national legal reality; a desire for eternity coupled with a constant need for evolution; a culture of distinction asserted within porous borders. This thesis seeks to better understand how a transatlantic and colonial identity is experienced, separating itself gradually, but never completely from the peers of "old Europe" and through the formation of a North American identity within the empires. It also demonstrates the ambiguity that exists between the noble colonial identity, which encourages detachment from the metropolis, and the elite identity, which, on the contrary, brings the Canadian nobles back to Europe and the characteristics of its elite.

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In modern populations, adolescence is recognized as a pivotal part of the life course, but bioarchaeologists have not yet widely considered the experiences of adolescents in the past. This research investigates the biological and social changes during Roman adulescentia for individuals buried at Isola Sacra (1st-4th centuries CE; Italy) and Lisieux-Michelet (4-5th centuries CE; France). To investigate biological changes, this thesis identifies osteological indicators of pubertal timing and peptide analysis to assess biological sex for pre-pubertal individuals (n=264). Results demonstrate that adulescentia experienced an extended period of puberty, from nine to 20 years of age; menarche occurred around 15 years of age. Comparisons between the two archaeological sites demonstrate similar patterns of pubertal timing, suggesting similar exposure to Early Life Stress. To investigate the social changes, this research uses stable isotope analysis of incremental dentine sections in teeth, to investigate dietary change between childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. Incorporating literary sources, observed changes in diet are contextualized in relation to expected social age changes for middle-class individuals within the Roman Empire. At both sites, females exhibit a gradual dietary transition, reflecting a gradual social age change, or that diet is not an appropriate proxy for social age changes for women. For males, changing dietary patterns correspond with the beginning of adulescentia, when these young men took on new roles within their communities and underwent pubertal development. This research demonstrates that adulescentia was an extended period of biological and social change for males and females, which took on different forms depending on one’s sex/gender and social position. This research also demonstrates how investigations of adolescence can permit a more holistic interpretation of this transitional period of the life course and exposes the transitional experiences of these individuals as they come of age in the Roman Empire. / Dissertation / Candidate in Philosophy / There are kids, and there are adults, but what about those in-between? When does one become the other? These are the questions driving this doctoral research, and in applying them to the Roman Empire, I examine patterns of puberty and changes in diet, to better understand when children started to look like and eat like adults in their communities. This research demonstrates that adulescentia (i.e., adolescence) was a period of extended biological development, with puberty occurring between 9 and 20 years of age. Changes in diet, however, occurred in different ways for males and females, and across space and time within the Roman Empire, suggesting that there was not a singular experience or definition of adulescentia, but that lived experiences were more variable and nuanced than ancient literary sources suggest.

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Thesis advisor: Alan Richardson / The Romantic period encompasses a pivotal set of decades for the development of British citizenship, a fact that has been underemphasized due to narrow definitions of what citizenship entails. Within the wide discursive arena of national identity in Romantic fiction, however, specific literary tropes and figures emerge that consolidate and challenge the nascent and evolving concept of the British citizen. The figure of the wanderer or stateless being explores a mode of national belonging that is increasingly untethered to land and nativity; tropes of the virtual and disembodiment become central to articulations of political and bureaucratic citizenship in the American revolutionary context; struggles between dependence and independence in sentimental plots of courtship and marriage narrate the citizenly potential of women in the context of couverture; and portrayals of repatriation and exile illuminate how Britain was coming to terms with its population of color in the early post-abolition era. Taken together, the literary texts under discussion here intervene in the emergence of a ‘Romantic’ citizenship discourse in the English-speaking North Atlantic World. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2021. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: English.

Thesis advisor: Angela K. Harkins / Romans 5:12-21 has attracted a variety of complex interpretations. It has been read (1) as a theological treatise of original sin (Augustine); (2) as a textual support for the doctrine of justification by faith alone (Luther and the Reformers); and (3) as Paul’s discourse of cosmic powers of sin and death that hold people in bondage and God’s salvific intervention to liberate human beings from cosmic powers of sin and death (contemporary “apocalyptic” school). Three major problems have arisen from reading the passage through these lenses. First, the passage is studied with lack of proper attention to the Roman imperial context in which the text was produced. Second, sin and salvation are over-spiritualized and personalized such that these concepts are rarely applied to concrete contemporary socio-political issues that affect the lives of people today. The result is not only a disjuncture between theology and ethics, but also the disconnection between the Christian kerygma and sociopolitical realities. Third, the rhetorical function of the text for its immediate audience is often underexplored. The implication is that theologians speculate on the themes of sin and salvation in Rom 5:12-21 without paying adequate attention to the concrete ideologies and behaviors that Paul was challenging nor the practices he was calling his audience to embody as a way of counteracting the systemic sins and evils. This study offers an alternative reading of Adam-Christ antithesis in Rom 5:12-21 in light of Roman imperial domination and Paul’s apocalyptic anti-imperial discourse using two contemporary frameworks—empire and postcolonial criticism. Using these frameworks, I read the Adam-Christ antithetical discourse in Rom 5:12-21 as Paul’s critique of the realities of sin and death as embodied by the Roman imperial power. Paul engages in this critique by means of typological reflection on Adam and Christ—the two historical figures whose actions reveal two contrasting ways of being in the world that result either in death or life. Read against the background of Roman imperial domination in the first century CE, I argue that Paul’s personification of sin and death as forces of domination, enslavement, and death-dealing in Rom 5:12-21 can be understood as the way that colonized subjects, such as Paul, give coded expression to the multifaceted experiences of colonial domination, as well as the culture of death that were prevalent within the Roman Empire. In Rom 5:12-21, Paul invites his audience to embody Jesus’ obedience and justice as a way of countering the sinful praxes that he traced their root to Adam. In this way, Christ’s believers can participate in the new age that God inaugurates through the events of Christ and the divine Spirit. / Thesis (STD) — Boston College, 2022. / Submitted to: Boston College. School of Theology and Ministry. / Discipline: Sacred Theology.