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This thesis examines the hypotheses that modern historians have developed about the religion of the emperor Constantine I. Its aim is to elucidate the different methodologies historians have employed to interpret the contemporary evidence, which has often led to the development of conflicting hypotheses. The first chapter will discuss interpretations of the contemporary evidence that has led Barnes, Drake, and Bardill to hypothesize that Constantine converted to Christianity after the Battle of the Milvian Bridge. This chapter will primarily discuss possible familial and political influences and the narratives of Eusebius and Lactantius in order to elucidate the circumstances surrounding Constantine’s conversion. Then Constantine’s military insignia and his possible sacrifice after battle will be discussed in order to demonstrate any alterations in his religious mentality. The second chapter will examine the different interpretations of Constantine’s religious policy and legislation in order to clarify why Barnes proposes that Constantine became intolerant of religious diversity after his conversion, while Drake, Potter, and Bardill believe that he had remained as tolerant as he had been as a pagan. The third chapter will present the interpretations of the contemporary evidence that has led Burckhardt and Kee to assert that Constantine never converted to Christianity. This thesis will demonstrate that the vague and sometimes contradictory contemporary evidence supports multiple and even competing hypotheses. For this reason, there can be no “correct” answer about the religion of Constantine.

This thesis intends to focus on certain playwrights’ creative fascination and complex relationship with ‘politicians as subject’ who have been elevated to the rank of ‘greatness’ in part through their work. More specifically, it serves as a study into how playwrights mold certain politicians’ images, a type of creative investment that in turn helps craft, (re) affirm, or deconstruct the politician as a ‘cultural symbol.’ Using a historigraphic model based on Paul Ricoeur and Hayden White’s work, this thesis explores the dramaturgical approaches used by ‘artist-historian’ playwrights when creating dramatic figures inspired by Canadian politicians. In particular, it examines Linda Griffiths’ portrayal of Pierre Elliot Trudeau in Maggie and Pierre, David Fennario’s portrayal of René Lévesque in The Death of René Lévesque, and Allan Stratton’s portrayal of William Lyon Mackenzie King in Rexy!

Helen M. Carter / Typescript / M.S. Florida State College for Women 1914 / Includes bibliographical references (leaf 4)

Dissertation: The Making of "Democratic Socialism". Party Historiography of 50's and 60's Between Stalinism and Reform Communism The aim of this dissertation is to analyze the development of the Party historiography in the 50's and 60's. The story of Party historiography starts in the early 50's when it was created as a brand new revolutionary historiography deep rooted in the structure of the Communist party. This new historiographical project had to deal with the history of Communist Party of Czechoslovakia and labour movement. The Party historiography had reflected the changes in the actual policy of Czechoslovak communism. It is possible to distinguish the stalinist, the post-stalinist and the reform communist period of the Party historiography development. In the first half of the 50's Party historiography was a part of Party propaganda. After 1956 Party historians developed the scientific paradigm of Party historiography which contained also obligatory post-stalinist interpretation framework for writing about the Communist party past. In the 60's this historiographical paradigm broke down under the strong criticism, which was led from the reform communist positions. So called Reform historiography of the 60's developed a new historiographical narrative. It was based upon belief in the...

An exploration of South African historiography through the prism of representations of activist writer Ruth First (1925-1982) forms the focus of this thesis. Ignored in South African canonical histories during the apartheid era, Ruth First is frequently portrayed as an icon of the struggle in current accounts about the past. The dissertation is ordered by five central discussions: gender, political activism, Jewishness, maternal behaviour and the role of the individual in the community. With reference to her non-fiction writing, autobiographical accounts by her daughters and her contemporaries, photographic exhibitions and transcriptions of amnesty hearings to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (amongst other works), I trace Ruth First's presentation of identity through communications of dress, posture and language. I examine too the production of her image across time in South African culture. Imprisoned under the infamous Ninety-Day law in 1963, Ruth First subsequently wrote a memoir titled 117 Days: An Account of Confinement and Interrogation under South African Ninety-Day Detention Law (1965), which became known as a classic of the genre. Caught between her commitments to racial equality and a life of social privilege, between the demands of motherhood and her sociological research work in Africa, between performances of a white femininity and the suppressed ramifications of a difficult ethnic past, Ruth First shuttles between unsatisfactory subject positions. I propose here that Ruth First strains against the representative mantle which she is made to wear in post-apartheid tributes to the past, and which she herself sometimes donned as a lifetime member of the South African Communist Party, and later the African National Congress. As the daughter of poor Yiddish-speaking Jews from Lithuania, I propose that Ruth First is marked by a history of dislocation, immigration and revolutionary activity which she refused to acknowledge. I undertake my own historiographical exercise through which I re-situate Ruth First within an alternate heritage of Jewish activist women. An understanding of the historiographical process as a series of continuous adjustments of the past to politicized positions in the present underlies my examination. Includes bibliographical references (p. 308-326).

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Traditional Caribbean history has been directed by and focused upon the conquerors who came to the region to colonize and seek profitable resources. Native Caribbean peoples and African slaves used to work the land have been silenced by traditional history so that it has become necessary for modern Caribbean thinkers to challenge that history and recreate it. Alejo Carpentier and Michelle Cliff challenge traditional Caribbean history in their texts, The Kingdom of This World and Abeng, respectively. Each of these texts rewrites traditional history to include the perspectives of natives and the slaves of Haiti and Jamaica. Traditional history is challenged by the inclusion of these perspectives, thus providing a rewritten, revised history. / by Tricia Amiel. / Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2012. / Includes bibliography. / Electronic reproduction. Boca Raton, Fla., 2012. Mode of access: World Wide Web.