Proefschrift-Utrecht. / "Stellingen": [3] p. laid in. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (doctorat)--Université de Nantes, 2005. / Cover title. Includes bibliographical references (p. 558-586).

Thesis--Philipps-Universität Marburg. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 365-415).

Thesis (M.A.)--Eastern Illinois University, 2010. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 207-221).

Due to their desire for a strong Central European nation to counterbalance France and Russia and their belief that any people should have the right to unification, the British supported the German nationalist movement after 1866. Due to French meddling in the affairs of other countries and French opposition to what the British thought was the legitimate aim of the German people, the British became anti-French in the late 1860s. Due to the belief of the British in progress, they could view most of the events on the Continent, even the violent ones, as the gradual advancement of civilization. The Franco-Prussian War required the British to re-evaluate all of these views, as well as many others, and conclude that Germany, not France, constituted the threat to Europe.

No description available.

This project explores two main lines of inquiry concerning representations of ruins in Paris. I first identify a turning point in the evolution of the ruin leitmotif beyond Romanticism in its transfer into a new context: modern Paris. The analysis demonstrates the correlation between this leitmotif and urban environment in transformation, and their influence on aesthetics, leading to the renewal of modes of representation in literary and visual discourse. Unconventional ruins, recently created by demolition during Haussmannisation (1853-70) or war (1870-71) challenge conceptions about space (inside/outside, up/down, visible/invisible), time, and the individual in relation to the city. In view of tracing the transformation of the ruin ethos in relation to modern sensibilities towards the city and its modes of representation, a chronological approach concentrates on two main periods divided into four chapters. The first interval extends from 1848 throughout the Second Empire and the second spans the 1870-1871 conflagration and the Third Republic. An interdisciplinary and dialogic approach reveals the exchanges between different media (literature, journalism, painting, photography) aiming to convey the paradoxes of Paris's modern ruins. Moreover, close reading and comparisons of authors' and artists' depictions across media and genres nuance, correct or disprove critical appraisals, re-establishing artistic authority (e.g. photographers Charles Marville and Bruno Braquehais). The second line of inquiry posits that representations of ruins reflect on the relationship of Parisians with their city during systematisation and wartime destruction. Research reveals that individual initiatives of representing urban ruins attest to a new sensibility towards the city, preceding the Second Empire's (1853-1870) apparatus of historical and topographic documentation to preserve the appearance of spaces before intervention. Thus, during Paris's systematisation, private and artistically-minded projects become the tools of patrimonial preservation. By comparison, aesthetic approaches to ruins in 1871 mark a new appreciation of modern architecture, while engaging with war trauma.

Conservative international thought in Victorian Britain is a prominent landmark in the landscape of international thought which has up to now gone unmapped. In illuminating this body of thought, the thesis addresses weaknesses present in three different historiographies. As the first detailed study of conservative international thought in Victorian Britain, the thesis rectifies a marked bias in Victorian intellectual history towards the study of liberal and radical thought. Furthermore, by analysing the political thought of major representatives of the conservative educated classes, this thesis provides context for the history of conservative high politics, thereby leading us to view these in a different light. Finally, this study, by providing a historically nuanced account of the evolution of major themes of international relations theory in mid-Victorian Britain, functions as a corrective to the self-history of the academic field of International Relations. The thesis makes its argument by analysing conservative contributions in periodicals, pamphlets, and newspapers to British public debates on international affairs, from the Crimean War (1854-56) until the Eastern Question crisis of 1876-80. The general claim of this thesis is that there existed a distinctly conservative perspective on the international sphere. The core elements of this conservative perspective were the primacy of statesmen in setting foreign policy; of interests, military force, and stature in determining the course of international politics; and of order and equilibrium as its normative content. Conservative authors used this constellation of ideas in the major debates of the mid-Victorian era on international affairs, both as a means to make sense of events, and as a counterpoint to liberal narratives - with which Victorian international thought is all too often identified. In recovering the international political thought of Victorian conservatives, this thesis illuminates an important but neglected aspect of how international relations were understood and conceptualised in mid-Victorian Britain.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2008.

The year 1880 was rife with nationalist fervor and a general glorification of the French nation through imagery, literature and legislation. However, at this same time, Les Soirées de Médan, a collection of stories concerning the Franco-Prussian war also appear, bringing with them a distinctly anti-nationalist, harsh, and unforgiving view of the war and France's role in it. This thesis will examine personifications of France within L'attaque du Moulin and Boule de suif, the first two texts of Les Soirées de Médan, and their definite lack of the nationalist enthusiasm that characterized the time of their creation. The study of these allegorical representations reveals the place in the mentality of the French people of the concept they represent, a shorthand for a complex and evolving idea. Though others have mapped out the historical appearance and place of representations of France, I will delve into the possible reasons for the necessity of the feminine in this allegorization, the connotations and conventions that make it an effective tool for fighting nationalist tides for both Zola and Maupassant, and the historical and political context that allow us to trace a general shift in the concept of the nation through these female symbols. Furthermore, given the prevalence of female allegories at the time, and the monopolization of their usage for political purposes, the choice of these authors to employ allegory (a rhetorical mode characterized by its official status with the very regime they are criticizing) takes on further levels of criticism and satire. Exploring the opposition and relationship of these two literary female allegories to contemporary allegorical and visual representations will reveal how they relate to-and eventually criticize and reject-the prevailing political and nationalist discourse of their day.