Social conflict is common in many nations around the world. Tensions often arise from cultural misunderstandings and disagreements over national and group membership in multicultural populations. France offers a particularly clear example of such unrest. As a contemporary multi-ethnic, multicultural nation, France advocates both the belief in universal human rights as well as assimilationist policies designed to create a singular majority culture. North African immigrants and Pied-Noir repatriates are two groups at the center of recent debate in France. Both have historical ties to colonial French North Africa, but now reside within the modern French state. Each offers a unique case study of alternative strategies related to cultural negotiation and social tension as both groups currently demand recognition as French citizens and minorities. This dissertation analyses how North African and Pied-Noir minority communities in France engage discourses of history, culture, and identity to create a hospitable place for themselves in the French nation by redefining themselves both as minorities and as active citizens. One primary mechanism through which these groups achieve these goals is cultural associations, or social clubs. Cultural associations were legalized in 1901 and have not yet found a well-established role in France. Minorities use this institutional fluidity to develop concurrently their national and minority identities. Within such associations, they develop performances for both minority and outside audiences, engage contemporary French understandings of "culture," and acquire attention and resources needed to enact social change. One of the recurring tropes in such performances is the display of minority history and the role minorities play in French history. Through analysis of such activities this dissertation argues that these groups create new conceptions of national membership through their assertion of their right to be members in the French nation while retaining their cultural difference.

Permission from the author to digitize this work is pending. Please contact the ICS library if you would like to view this work.

This study examines the expression and patterns of alternate history in nineteenth-century Britain and France. “Alternate history” refers to the presentation of events that did not happen in order to consider historical trajectories that might have been and the consequent displacements of present and future. The central chapters of this thesis correspond to the three fields of writing in which these texts are clustered: in narratives of undefeated and resurgent Napoleons, which I trace from the rival journalistic claims made about Napoleon and his historical significance; in accounts that re-imagine the transition from antiquity to modernity, for example by delaying the passage of Christianity from the Middle East to western Europe; and, as part of the plurality-of-worlds debate, in the popular-astronomical imagination of variant versions of human history upon other planets. Three patterns of alternate history are discernible: the romantic-utopian, the critical-reflexive and the linear-chronological. I attach to these patterns the figures of the garden, the map and the dial. These models do not correspond to the three temporal fields of the recent, antique and planetary past, and there is not a straightforward development of these patterns or modes across the nineteenth century; they rather represent a spectrum of purposes for the fictional alteration of the past which occur at various moments and contexts in the century. Alternate history in this period has never been the subject of in-depth analysis. The approach of this study will not absorb such transformations of history into a tradition of futurist writing, as some critics have done. Maintaining alternate history’s distinctness from futurism makes it possible to avoid framing the texts as precursors to science fiction’s historical anticipations. This study will argue that alternate history should instead be recognised as a category of writing that is aware of and concerned with the way that history is written and received, in particular with history’s interactions with other literary forms and the relationships between writing history and other disciplinary fields. More broadly, alternate history should be interpreted in the context of the often described formation of History as a positivist discipline by the late nineteenth century; but far from indicating a steady progression toward scientific historiography, alternate-historical texts reflect upon that transformation and its consequences in other literary fields (journalism, political theory, popular Astronomy, the romance novel) in the century whose “great obsession” is said to have been history.

In evaluating the Middle Ages on film, this thesis combines two different critical approaches, drawn from historiography on one side and semiotics on the other. In the first chapter, I argue that historiographic criticism has largely undermined our belief in a monolithic, objective History, and that modern historical enquiry contains a tacit admission of its own subjectivity. In Chapter Two, I use these admissions to argue the case for history on film, demonstrating that in terms of the construction of history, the processes of filmmaking closely resemble those of ‘doing’ history, and that criticisms of historical films are often the same criticisms which Historians raise in respect of their own works of ‘pure history’. In the remaining chapters (3-6), I look at specific examples of types of historical character, drawn from the medieval separation of society into “those who work, those who fight and those who pray”, as well as “those who rule”. In each case, I adopt a similar methodological approach, conducting close cinematographic analysis on a range of film extracts in order to see how filmmakers have tried to construct the past visually in their representation of historical characters. Here my arguments move away from historical criticism to focus instead on aesthetics and cinematography. The overall theory is that there exist two fundamental approaches to the medieval past in film: the first iconic and syntagmatic, the second paradigmatic. Iconic approaches, I argue, work to try to recreate the lost medieval referent by using aesthetic ‘signifiers’ in order to communicate their significance to a medieval audience. The paradigm, on the other hand, works in the opposite way; in order to explain a medieval object, the filmmaker casts about for modern equivalents to use as metaphors. Where the icon recreates the object to communicate the concept, the paradigm communicates the object by re-presenting the concept.

Between 1825 and 1880, the reputation of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century English Puritanism underwent dramatic changes. From the Restoration of 1660 through to the 1820s, Puritanism was vilified or ignored by most ‘respected’ commentators. However, there was then a significant change in attitudes, and by 1874, the historian Samuel Rawson Gardiner was providing a highly positive view of the Puritans’ role in English history. This thesis considers the questions of how and why historical writers contributed to a ‘recovery’ of Puritanism during this period. In addressing these questions, this thesis undertakes a detailed analysis of what a number of leading Victorian men of letters wrote about the Puritans and Puritanism. Thomas Babington Macaulay and Thomas Carlyle in particular were instrumental in the new, more positive interpretation of Puritanism, and they in turn were influential upon diverse writers, including John Charles Ryle, John Stoughton, James Anthony Froude, and Charles Kingsley – who all presented Puritanism positively in their historical writing, but who often had strikingly different agendas. The thesis argues that this ‘recovery’ of Puritanism was very broad and was reflected in different intellectual frameworks and ideas. These included, but were not restricted to, the Whig political reforms of the second quarter of the century; the idealisation of hero-worship; the justification and celebration of Imperial Britain; the Evangelical movement, both Dissenting and within the Church of England; social conservatism regarding the role of women; the support of literary censorship and ‘plain’ fashion; and discussions of appropriate and effective literary and rhetorical styles. Our writers presented their interpretations through a range of media, from overtly teleological pamphlets and public lectures, to novels and dramatic presentations of events, to more source-based, objective and analytical writing that would be recognized as ‘serious history’ today. Through investigating these different angles, the thesis shows how the discipline of history was developing during the second two quarters of the nineteenth century, and considers how the new historical methodologies and approaches influenced both ‘amateur’ and ‘professional’ historical writers.

The warrior has played an important role in most societies, often representing power. The military/ defence system is founded more or less on the ideal of the good and noble warrior. The aim of the thesis is to examine how the warrior's power has been expressed on stage in different times and different contexts. Three perspectives are discussed: 1) The warrior in society, 2) The warrior's self-image (ethos and warrior virtues), 3) The warrior in drama and on stage. In society, warriors in uniform are one means to increase dignity and give credibility to ceremonies. Society uses the same actions as theatre – music, choreography and costumes (parade uniforms). In the thesis there are some examples from the cultural history of the warrior (uniforms, gestures, music etc.). The principal part of the thesis is a study of the warrior as theatrical motif and a discussion of a series of warrior figures in literature and drama on stage. These figures are analysed from the perspectives of masculinity, play and historiography. The warrior in literature and drama is rarely a hero. The thesis gives examples under the following headings. The submissive warrior: Catherine de Medici used the warrior as a pliable tool to reduce internal court quarrels, when they were commanded to participate in the court ballets. A different kind of docility in warriors is found in the nineteenth century English melodrama. The false and coward warrior: Ancient writers often used satire in their plays, and warrior figures were easy prey for this. Miles Gloriosus and the Capitain in Commedia dell’arte are two examples. The weak warrior: Anthony, in Anthony and Cleopatra by Shakespeare, is a warrior hero who abandons his wife and family to live with the Egyptian queen, attracted by the luxury and refined lifestyles at her court. The oppressed warrior: The Good Soldier Schweik, created by Bertolt Brecht after a story by Jaroslav Hasek, is an oppressed ordinary soldier in the Czech army, who faces oppression by doing exactly as he is told, and consequently is creating confusion. Georg Büchner’s drama Woyzeck contains an altogether deeper darkness. The outmanoeuvred warrior: The captains in August Strindberg’s two plays The Father and The Dance of Death are both in conflict with their wives but lose their fights. The optimistic warrior: Chekhov introduces in the play Three Sisters two warriors with bright visions of the future but also tells the audience that life can be a tragedy. To portray the good and noble warrior is of course possible but it is seldom dramatic, whilst weak and lovesick, false and treacherous warriors are dramatically effective. The theatre's tradition of subversion is a variety of the ancient custom of 'turning society upside-down' during Lent, analysed by Michail Bakhtin in Rabelais and his World. The theatre is also a microcosm. The performing arts make use of the individual to criticize the whole. In drama, it is the individual warrior who bears the responsibility without the need to say anything about the armed forces. Sometimes this is done through the mirror of laughter. When the warrior is seen through the theatre's lens, the picture is enlarged and – according to physical principles, at a certain distance – shows the warrior as part of the upside-down world.

“Ocean Bombay” is a social history of a colonial city of itinerants. Between 1839 and 1937 the actions of the British Indian colonial state and itinerancy upon one another shaped both the borders of the newly independent nations in 1947 and the changing notions of community and human relationship with space in the South Asian subcontinent. This dissertation charts the story of that development by studying itinerant groups staking their belonging to communities and space in colonial, port Bombay: Sidi shipworkers, Bombay-Aden merchants, Irani cafe owners, nomadic groups, publishers, filmmakers, and actresses. In doing so I intervene in the urban historiography of the city by writing about Bombay’s forgotten transoceanic past as a port city straddling the transformation of the subcontinent from colonial state to nation-state. Further, I rethink the concepts of “community” and border-making as used in South Asian historical and theoretical thinking by examining them through the lens of itinerancy and gender. “Ocean Bombay” thus locates Bombay society at the intersection of several oceanic geographies, through the study of an archive built from fragments and interviews collected across India, the United Kingdom, and Iran.

[pt] Esta dissertação busca realizar uma análise do romance os retirantes de Jose do Patrocinio tendo com critério principal a relação entre cultura e literatura em um contexto de transição da ideia de realidade. A obra foi publicada em 1879 em forma de de folhetim no jornal gazeta de noticias e teve com inspiração uma cobertura jornalistica realizada por Patrocinio da seca que atingiu a província do Ceara no ano de 1878. Dito isto, argumenta-se como o autor cira uma narrativa incorporando elementos históricos e imaginários em uma ora de ficção que apresenta traços remanescentes do romantismo, mas que também apresenta inovações em aspectos com da representação da natureza e na construção dos personagens. / [en] This dissertation searchs to carry through an analisys of the romance Os retirantes of Jose do Patrocinio having as main criterion the relation between culture and literature in a context of transition of the reality idea. The workmanship was published in 1879 in serial form in the periodical gazeta the noticias and had as inspiration a journalistic covering carried thought by Patrocinio of dries that it reached the province of the Ceara in the year of 1878. Said this, it is argued as the author creates incorporating historical and imaginary elements in a fiction workmanship that presents traces of the romantismo, but that also it presents innovations in aspects as of the represantation of the nature and in the construction of the personages.

Thesis advisor: Kendra Eshleman / This paper reads Josephus' 'Bellum Judaicum' within the Greco-Roman historiographic tradition and argues that this work must be read within this context. Josephus adheres to the conventions of this tradition and an examination of this shows that specific objections raised by scholars who consider Josephus unreliable are better explained as him following these conventions. Josephus chooses to write in this tradition because it allows him to address a tripartite audience of Jews, Romans, and the Greek-speaking east in order to instruct all sides on the best ways to manage affairs between Rome and her subject nations. It further concludes that Josephus should be considered a reliable historian. / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2012. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: College Honors Program. / Discipline: Classics Honors Program. / Discipline: Classical Studies.

Abstract This is a study of law and language; in particular an investigation into the language of judgments. The focus is on judgments as texts authored by judges. The main thinkers chosen as the theoretical basis are not experts in law – Michel Foucault, Mikhail Bakhtin, Norman Fairclough and Hayden White, for example. The reason for this choice is to consider the language of law from insights outside of law. Topics such as rhetoric, narrative, critical discourse analysis, intertextuality, interpretive communities, the monologic voice, oppositional reading, and power relations are seldom found in mainstream legal literature. The position taken is that judgments are texts which are no more privileged (simply because they are legal texts) than any others that a society creates. However, judgments are viewed by some as being special societal texts, coated with a patina of mystique because they are dealing with inviolate legal principles. The patina is removed enough to suggest that judges use various linguistic processes to shape their judgments in ways no different from other authors, notwithstanding that they are writing about ‘the law’. Judges are rhetoricians who use rhetoric to shape the facts, choose the most expedient legal principle, and incorporate views of society expedient to their opinion. The thrust of this study is to locate rhetoric at work within a specific sphere. The corpus consists of forty-four cases over a seventy-five year period dealing with sexual orientation. This area of law was chosen for a number of reasons. It is self-contained and lends itself to detailed examination. The topic is emotive which means more rhetorical techniques are at play than in a fairly technical area of law. There have been significant changes in the way sexual orientation has been treated in law over the years. It is interesting to trace how rhetoric facilitated that change. Lastly, we see how a judicial hegemony deals with an apolitical, splintered minority. Any categorical conclusions are impossible in an exploration of this kind. The findings, however, indicate that judges are not as restricted as is generally considered and that their judgments are shaped by employing linguistic techniques available to writers of both fact and fiction. The intention is to provide a fresh way of reading judgments, where observations gleaned in one area can be applied to other areas of law.