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<p> The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 ushered in a period of change in higher-education systems across the former Eastern bloc. Reform-minded leaders in the region sought to introduce western models and policies promoted by foreign development aid agendas. Private higher-education institutions emerged. This qualitative multiple case study examines three universities based on the western, private, nonprofit model that were established during the post-Cold War transition period: the American University of Central Asia (Kyrgyz Republic), South East European University (Macedonia), and the American University in Bulgaria. These institutions, founded through a process of negotiation involving the national government, U.S. and European governments, and nongovernmental organizations, offered an alternative to state universities. This negotiation continued as these institutions adapted to their changing sociopolitical contexts. The study explores the interplay of global, national, and local influences at the level of these institutions. The research presented is based on data collected on field visits through interviews with faculty and administrators and focus groups with students, as well as document analysis. Findings from the study shed light on how new institutions strive to establish legitimacy. The financial support for these institutions evolved from an initial heavy dependence on support from foreign aid agencies to greater reliance on tuition and responsiveness to the higher education market. The ability to adapt to shifting circumstances while maintaining a consistent sense of identity, despite turnover of faculty and administrators, proved vital. These universities, to varying degrees, were able to strike a balance between the global and local that allowed them to establish themselves as highly regarded institutions in their respective countries. As interest in transnational education grows, this study offers insights into finding a balance between global and local that results in a sustainable higher education endeavor.</p>

<p> The Judeo-Spanish <i>romancero</i> is a sung folk genre, and an oral tradition dating back to twelfth-century Spain derived from medieval Spanish epics and the Spanish ballad. Although the majority of the continental Judeo-Spanish romanceros were lost after the Spanish Inquisition, they are still found throughout the Diaspora. French poet Isaac Levy documented this in <i>Chants jud&eacute;o-espagnols,</i> a 1959 anthology in which Levy compiled original fifteenth-century Judeo-Spanish romancero melodies in the Mediterranean regions. Argentine composer Jorge Liderman was inspired by Judeo-Spanish music after visiting Spain and composed <i>Aires de Sefarad,</i> using selections from Levy's anthology. In this study, the Judeo-Spanish romancero within the scope of Liderman&rsquo;s Argentine musical compositional output are explored. In addition, the musical parameters of both the Judeo-Spanish and the Argentine romancero are investigated. A consideration of the interchange of musical characteristics of both the Argentine and the Judeo-Spanish romancero in <i>Aires de Sefarad</i> is presented in this research, as well as how this contributed to the emergence of a multicultural romancero.</p>

Research management attracts attention of varying intensity within different innovation areas. Whereas in product development efficient management of the whole process is seen as a prerequisite for success, the need for management in pre-competitive applied research is often questioned. If the construction sector is examined, its specific innovation characteristics provide additional obstacles to the achievement of innovation success. Moreover, current research topics focusing on individual technical phenomena have been shifting towards those with a holistic approach, resulting inevitably in interdisciplinary research. The thesis thus aims to develop a holistic management model for pre-competitive applied research in the construction sector, with the focus on steel construction. The study demonstrates the need for increased use of innovation initiators from politics, society and complementary steel user sectors and the formation of networks across the construction supply chain. For the project phase optimization potential is demonstrated in efforts to realize the exchange of technical information and joint creation of knowledge between science and industry. The holistic management model developed offers scope to implement such approaches to improvement while facilitating a repeatable path to project success. A key model component is the innovation broker, through whom from idea generation to results transfer project success is prepared and supported at differing action levels and with all participants integrated. A project-related Community of Practice is additionally used to implement non-contractual project integration prioritized by industry. The model is also evaluated using current European developments for optimizing research management. Testing within an interdisciplinary research cluster project in the construction sector confirms its readiness for application while revealing further development potential. On this basis recommendations are given on the model’s introduction in the management of applied research in structural engineering. The thesis meets the requirement of responding to practical problems while expanding the theoretical understanding of research management.

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This thesis attempts to understand the reasons behind Hungary’s surge in populism in the years following the 2008 financial crisis. In particular it looks at the two major political parties in Hungary, Fidesz and Jobbik, and how they continue to maintain control over the Hungarian government despite the common theory that populist support deteriorates overtime. A key component of Populism is that it usually grows in times of crises. Particularly in Hungary I focus on the many crises that arose during Hungary’s turbulent history of occupation, especially their transition out of Communism. Along with the devastation caused by the 2008 financial crash. Hungary’s inability to completely transition into a full-fledged Democracy as well as the economic devastation they witnessed following 2008 has created an environment where Populism can thrive indefinitely.

The dissertation, "The Stakes of Empire: Colonial Fantasies, Civilizing Agendas, and Biopolitics in the Prussian-Polish Provinces (1840--1914)," is a comparative and transnational analysis of the discourses and practices that the German empire used to map out, describe, and regulate Polish-speaking citizens in Imperial Germany. It studies the cultural and biological definitions of Polish subjects not only through the scientific works of Germans and Poles in Central Europe, but also through their experiences with colonial projects in German Africa. Inspired by the works of postcolonial and imperial studies on subjectivity, I study multiple levels of subject positioning, nested imperial and colonial relations, and constructions of national/colonial cartographies using sources that range from medical texts and state documents to travel literature. I argue that many ideological elements informing power relations and cultural practices in distant colonies also applied to the Prussian-Polish provinces, especially when considering the politics of the state regulating populations and epidemic diseases in the borderlands. Poles were often portrayed in the German empire as internal others who shared characteristics with the colonized and required similar strategies of control. / In addition to providing a historical context for the health conditions of the Prussian-Polish provinces, the dissertation analyzes the complicated process by which these territories became stigmatized as disease-stricken places. I show this transformation by studying debates about cholera and typhus epidemics in the region. The project also examines the different Polish scientific organizations that were founded not only as a "self-help" strategy used to confront diseases, but also as a method to counter the Germanizing projects and the leading medical discourses about the region. The close analysis of Polish writings from this period demonstrates that Polish-speaking citizens under the German empire were not passive receptors of state policies and discourses, but they were actively challenging these conceptions by calling into question imperial civilizing agendas and developing at the same time their own civilizing and colonial fantasies. By studying these medical and political debates, the dissertation uncovers novel ways to connect medicine, scientific expeditions, and colonial agendas.

Postsocialist Eastern Europe is one region where economic restructurings coincide with state-building processes, both of which lead to a reordering of national values and a redefining of national identity. The former USSR continues to be a reference point for adults in western Ukraine as they make sense of ongoing uncertainties. The generation born after socialism and Ukraine's independence in 1991, however, has learned what life was like before it was transformed only through the accounts of others. As a result, the way these young people relate to the cultural, political, and economic elements associated with socialism and postsocialism are not the same as what the older generation expects of them. / Drawing upon ethnographic and linguistic data collected over sixteen months at two public schools in western Ukraine, this research examines how space and time work in concert to allow young people in contemporary Ukraine to make sense of the world they live in. Specifically, I apply Bakhtin's notion of the chronotope, a space-time association that underlies people's experiences and conceptions of personhood, to contend that teenagers draw upon multiple linkages between space and time in order to position themselves among their peers, within their local communities, and towards the wider global community. / My analysis suggests that teenagers position themselves in relation to different social identities by constructing multiple chronotopes of tradition and modernity. Specifically, I examine how these space-time associations underlie teenagers' attitudes towards out-migration, language use and linguistic variability. These chronotopes play an important role in how Ukrainian teenagers perceive the differences between the older and younger generations, between rural and urban residents, and between Ukrainians and the rest of the world. In addition, socioeconomic class and differing ideologies of language influence how space and time are valued within these dichotomous relationships. / An investigation such as this suggests that everyday encounters with change are only one way in which social transformation is experienced. People also draw upon space and time in order to contextualize change and understand its effect on their lives, an integral facet of experience that extends beyond any particular historical event or rupture.