The subject of this investigation is music written for bassoon and piano by twentieth-century Czech composers. While there is substantial output in this category, my focus will be on the works of three Czech composers: Jindrich Feld, Sonatine (1969); Vaclav Felix, Sonata Giocosa, Op. 40 (1974); and Jiri Teml, Teatro Piccolo, (1982). For each composer, I will provide a brief biography as well as a performance analysis of one composition in order to highlight the main features of the work. I chose these three composers because they represent a wide variety of compositional styles under Communist rule (1947-1989). The specific region of focus is the Czech Republic established in 1993, formerly part of Czechoslovakia, a nation created in 1918. Before that time, the Czech lands were part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and the Czech customs, culture and language were suppressed by the German-speaking Austrian rulers. In the 20th century, because Czechoslovakia was part of the Eastern Bloc from the late 1940s through the late 1980s, the wealth of literature from this region was not readily available to American performers. Thus, many of these works have not yet found their way into the standard repertoire of the United States.

This study examines some of the plague sermons of German Catholic preachers during the sixteenth century, the era of the Reformation. It takes the question, "What was preached?" and applies it to a hitherto neglected genre of sources to investigate how Catholic preachers responded to a recurring, pre-Reformation crisis---plague---and how they interpreted that crisis during an era of revolutionary religious change. Special attention is given to the themes of astrology and the causes of plague, interpretations of epidemic disease in terms of divine wrath, plague prevention and social discipline. By comparing some of the Catholic plague sermons with those of their Protestant counterparts, similarities emerge to reveal a shared "Catholic" tradition, just as differences become apparent that reflect many of the debates between the confessions in sixteenth-century Germany. The theme of Catholic preaching and the German Reformation itself, however, has received little attention in the field, despite the fact that scholars have begun to devote much research and exposition to Protestant sermons during the period. Contrary to common opinion--that Catholics failed to measure up to their evangelical counterparts in the pulpits--this study also sketches some of the contours of Catholic preaching during the first three decades of the Reformation: major preachers, the sources, and some of the themes they emphasized. Conceived as both a thesis and as an outline for further research, it is argued here that the Catholic response from the pulpits was of greater scope and higher quality than has hitherto been assumed.

Deviant Bodies explores how post-Reformation anxieties about institutional politics, civic morality, and national boundaries inform--and are informed by--early modern discourses on sexual deviance. Focusing on works by John Bale, John Lyly, Edmund Spenser, James I, Thomas Carew, Andrew Marvell, and John Milton, my study argues that the disruptive presence of queer desire plays an integral role in shaping the emerging, interrelated discourses of heterosexuality and nationalism in early modern culture. Looking at heterosexuality as a complex structure organizing political and sexual relations, my project analyzes the production, circulation, and eradication of deviant sexuality in polemical and literary works that imagine the nation within the context of Protestant political reform. Through its analysis of the textual roots of early English nationalism, Deviant Bodies reveals the extent to which cultural representations of the nation are constituted through sexual deviance. Rather than focusing on the recovery of an essentialist or constructed notion of a "queer" early modern self, however, my study examines the mechanisms of the early modern state--the monarchy, the church, the judiciary, and the parliament--that imagine the existence of sexually deviant individuals or groups. To that end, my study focuses not simply on the historical and literary representation of same-gender sexual desires, acts, or relationships, but rather on the complex relationship of such representations to the institutions that first produce and later obliterate them. Deviant Bodies examines the relationship of sexual aberrance to other categories of cultural deviance with which it is frequently conflated: gender insubordination, religious transgression, and the abuses of political authority most frequently associated with kingship. Through its exploration of the cultural deviance associated with women, papists, and kings in early modern England, this study considers the ways that the nation depends on a complex ideology of deviance in order to constructs its own seemingly immutable borders.

This dissertation examines a series of specific problems affecting England's queens regnant, which arose because of their gender. As queens regnant fulfilled the office of king, we shall refer to them as female kings, and examine their careers within the context of English kingship. The analysis offered here combines gender analysis with political history to explain how female kings were able to perform a male gendered role. The introduction surveys secondary literature concerned with European kingship and queenship, and gender studies of European women, to create an historical context within which to examine female rule in English history. While this dissertation does not include an original study of the career of Elizabeth I (1558-1603), the introduction demonstrates how gender analysis has transformed current understanding of Elizabeth I's efforts to rule a male dominant state, and seeks to apply this methodology to England's other female rulers: the empress Matilda, "Lady of the English" (1141-1148), Mary I (1553-1558), Anne (1702-1714), and Victoria (1837-1901). The main issue tying these various chapters together is the construction of female sovereignty through time. The changing social and legal status of women over the course of English history affected the strategies by which all these women attempted to mitigate social antagonisms and legal restraints to female rule, a historical problem peculiar to England's female kings. In the second chapter, the empress Matilda's efforts to create a singular identity outside the bonds of marriage are identified for the first time, while in the third chapter, Mary I's efforts to create a viable model of female rulership in her anomalous position as a single woman are explored. The fourth chapter examines the marriage of Queen Anne and her husband, Prince George of Denmark, and suggests how precedent and personality contributed to the further evolution of female kingship. The final chapter revisits Queen Victoria's Bedchamber Crisis of 1939, and suggests how gender affected the outcome of a curious and misunderstood political crisis, offering a unique example of the further evolution of female kingship in British political history.

The Reformation in French-speaking Switzerland outside of Geneva has received relatively little attention from historians. Unlike the movement in Geneva, the Reformation in its neighboring lands progressed in a completely different manner and was ultimately imposed on the people by the magistrates of Bern. Before 1536, Protestant reformers such as Guillaume Farel and Pierre Viret hardly touched most areas of the Pays de Vaud, which was governed by the Catholic duke of Savoy. Instead, they concentrated their efforts on areas within the jurisdiction of or allied to Protestant Bern, where they met with strong resistance from the people. The reformers focused their attacks---in preaching, in print, and symbolically in acts of iconoclasm directed against church altars---on the Catholic mass. Very few parishes abolished the mass, however. The religious situation shifted dramatically in 1536, however, when Bern conquered Vaud in its war against Savoy. Due to widespread resistance to the Protestant preachers, Bern imposed the Reformed faith on all its subjects following the 1536 Lausanne Disputation. The "new religion" was opposed by many, particularly the former Catholic clergy, many of whom continued to celebrate Catholic ceremonies in secret while waiting for a final resolution by the promised general council. The nobles suddenly found themselves vassals of the "common man," the Bern city council, and were loath to institute religious changes on their lands. The commoners in Vaud continued to practice traditions, such as praying to the saints and observing Catholic feast days. The Bernese magistrates and the Calvinist ministers in Vaud recognized these problems but could not agree on how to fix them. The Bernese saw the Reformation as a long-term process and hoped eventually to effect change by their ordinances. The ministers, led by Pierre Viret and strongly influenced by John Calvin, believed that change was taking place too slowly and that meanwhile the "body of Christ" was being polluted by unworthy communicants taking the eucharist. They argued for the necessity of greater ecclesiastical discipline, including excommunication, and the dispute led to the banishment of Viret and his colleagues, who subsequently moved to Geneva.

This dissertation places gender at the center of multiple articulations of power that constituted the imperial relationship between Wales and England, as well as the self-fashioning development of Welsh nationalism between 1847 and 1945. Research in both Welsh and English language sources and the materials of Plaid Cymru: the Nationalist Party of Wales reveals that Welsh women, as both ideological symbols and actors, played crucial roles in the formation of Welsh nationalism. This dissertation challenges the notion of a homogenous 'British' identity during the nineteenth century, placing Welsh nationalism firmly within a larger comparative framework of imperial and post-colonial movements, particularly using gender to constituting power relationships between various groups of men. Yet Welsh nationalism differed from other movements in that no major articulation of feminist agendas occurred within the nationalist movement between 1880--1945, particularly within Plaid Cymru. The conservative gender roles disseminated by nationalist groups based itself instead on hegemonic Victorian English gender roles of the early nineteenth century as outlined in the periodical Y Gymraes, syncretically combined with an emphasis on Welsh women as primary communicators and representatives of Welsh culture via their weaving and wearing of flannel and the pointed Welsh hat. Both practices sprang from nationalist fervor of Lady Llanover, often dismissed as a dilettante. These themes dominated nationalist publications and party doctrine until 1945, despite women's contributions of labor and financial support that kept Plaid Cymru viable during its formative decades.

This dissertation examines the cultural politics of family-making in Italy, where women in the 1990s reached record-low fertility rates. Gender, kinship, ethnicity, race and nationalism have become foci of social and individual conflicts in the context of Italian reproductive patterns. This interdisciplinary project, based on 22 months of anthropological fieldwork, explores the effects of this demographic transition on the everyday lives, emotions, memories and family-making practices of women and men in one historic central Italian comune (county) in the Province of Prato. Located in a rural-industrial region of Tuscany, individuals there recount the shift from a peasant agricultural economy based on sharecropping and straw weaving to an urban industrial economy based on rag regeneration and textile production, and link this to the ongoing "crisis" in the patriarchal family. It examines relations between productive and reproductive labor from the mid-nineteenth century to the present, and offers a historical corrective to scholarship on globalization. Integrating methods from sociocultural, linguistic and historical anthropology, this ethnography contributes to the understanding of fertility decline in a way that analyses of aggregate statistics alone cannot: namely, it reveals how ideologies about class and gender create social identities that lead couples to make small families. Influenced by feminist anthropology and political-economic approaches, the project places attention on power relations associated with old and new meanings of domicile labor, social space, marriage, patriarchy as well as parenting; a persistently intense role of motherhood is connected to the "culture of responsibility." Discourse analysis is used to examine demography narratives, which depict the very low birthrate as "irrational" and as a "problem." In the context of immigration into Europe, such scientific authority enables elite racism and sneaky pronatalism. Hence, this research participates in the movement of scholars committed to critical population studies and, as such, adds much-needed depth to global debates about changing family dynamics, population politics and women's status.

Theodore Beza and the Quest for Peace in France examines the changing political strategies and religious attitudes of French Protestant leaders between the Saint Bartholomew's day massacres (1572) and the Edict of Nantes (1598). The hand-picked successor of John Calvin in 1564, Theodore Beza was an influential teacher, preacher, and power-broker in Geneva, as well as a prominent exiled leader of the French Reformed churches during the next four decades. Drawing on Beza's correspondence network, city archival materials and rare Huguenot pamphlets, I reconstruct the survival tactics of French Protestants in response to Catholic advances, document the decline in Huguenot expectations after 1572, and examine how social and political factors created widening ideological fissures within the Reformed movement by century's end. In highlighting the patterns of thought of the Huguenot leadership, my research contributes to an understanding of Protestant mentalities during the turbulent era of the French civil wars. In the aftermath of the massacres of 1572, Beza and other exiled leaders in Geneva were not only theorists of political resistance, but major players in Protestant agitation against the Valois monarchy. As the Reformed churches withered under royal persecution and Catholic missionary activities during the next decade, the reformer and his colleagues gradually aligned their political fortunes with Henri of Navarre. Beza tempered, but did not abandon his resistance theories when Navarre became presumptive heir to the French throne (1584). In return for a secret--hitherto unknown--annual stipend, Beza became Navarre's 'public relations agent' in Germany and Switzerland, raising money and mercenaries for Huguenot armies in the years prior to Henri's accession (1589). The bonds of friendship, patriotism and patronage made Beza a dedicated supporter of the person and program of Henri IV, even after the king converted to Catholicism in 1594. Thereafter, he urged the Reformed to trust the king's peace overtures, while attempting to silence 'moderates' who advocated doctrinal compromise in return for a political settlement. Though welcoming the Edict of Nantes, Beza and other Protestant leaders recognized that prospects for reform in France had been decisively curtained: 'the golden age has degenerated into a century of iron.'

Widows as individuals and as a social group held fundamental importance to both the family and civic life of early modern Castile. Archival sources indicate that widows' influence throughout all levels of Castilian society was magnified by their relative degree of legal autonomy, combined with a tacit acceptance of women's activities in many areas of familial and municipal life. The use of documents more closely reflecting women's daily activities allows for contextualization of the complex impact of moral and legal rhetoric on the social construction of widowhood, providing concrete examples of widows' practical and often highly tactical employment, evasion, and/or manipulation of patriarchal and moral norms. The experience of widowhood both forces a re-examination of gender boundaries by questioning current theories of female enclosure and demands a re-evaluation of gendered patterns in expressions of patronage and parentage. Marital status and social class become more important that the gendered moral and legal strictures of an apparently patriarchal society in terms of early modern women's ability to take part in a wide range of activities normally not considered possible for their sex. Toledo's widows challenge public/private spheres models by giving evidence of the public nature of private lives and the private ends of public acts. Examining widows' lives provides insight into the complex mechanisms lying behind the formulation of gender boundaries in the early modern world and the pragmatic politics of everyday life at the nexus of family and community.

During World War II, the Croatian ultra-nationalist Ustasa persecuted nearly two million Serbs, Jews, and Roma in the Independent State of Croatia, a state that included present-day Croatia and Bosnia-Hercegovina. The Ustasa-run Jasenovac concentration camp became a lasting symbol of ethnic persecution. Political analysts today often cite this genocide as proof that ethnic violence and fragmentation within the region are inevitable. However, an equally important reality is that within just four years, Ustasa excesses had provoked a widespread popular reaction against the violence and against the national exclusivity that inspired it. Although many people in Croatia and Bosnia initially celebrated the collapse of Yugoslavia in 1941 and supported the declaration of Croatian independence, the Ustasa's brutal treatment of minority groups quickly alienated much of the population. Opposition to ethnic persecution took many forms, including assisting people targeted by the government, hiding victims or helping them to escape from the country, aiding prisoners of the regime, and, occasionally, publicly protesting discriminatory measures. Within the concentration camps as well, prisoners of different ethnic backgrounds came together in food sharing and newsgathering cooperatives in a common effort to survive. This rejection of ethnic violence served to discredit the extreme Croatian nationalism represented by the Ustasa--and also its Serbian counterpart represented by the Cetniks. The result was a resurgence of Yugoslavism, a renewed emphasis on the interdependence of Serbs, Croats, Bosnian Muslims, and others. Opposition to ethnic persecution also fueled the expansion of the Partisan resistance and shaped the character of that movement, causing its leaders to develop a program of ethnic equality and a federally organized postwar government. The ideology of Yugoslav unity transformed the Partisans into a popular movement, allowing the Partisans to triumph over both the Serbian domination of the prewar Yugoslav kingdom and the fratricidal violence of the Independent State of Croatia. Thus, people's reaction against atrocities in Croatia during World War II had important consequences for the entire region. The issues of ethnic violence, conflicting concepts of nationalism, and resistance are interrelated and, when considered together, give a fuller picture of developments in Yugoslav history.