Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, Dept. of Folklore and Ethnomusicology, 2009. / Title from PDF t.p. (viewed on Jul 13, 2010). Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 70-12, Section: A, page: 4805. Adviser: Richard Bauman.

In spite of a vast and robust literature on madness and its institutions, colonial Mexico remains unchartered domain and little is known about the Hospital de San Hipólito in Mexico City, the first hospital of the Americas to specialize in the care and confinement of the mentally disturbed. Founded in 1567 by a penitent conquistador, San Hipólito provided caridad or charity, including specialized medical and custodial services, to some of New Spain’s most marginal, troubled, and troublesome subjects. This dissertation examines the history of this precocious colonial institution—including its growing alignment with both the Inquisition and secular criminal courts from which it often received patients—raising questions about medical and nonmedical understandings of madness, or locura, and its connection to categories of race, class, and gender; patient experience and agency; and how the hospital fit (and did not) into larger imperial agendas. Although the dissertation charts the entirety of San Hipólito’s colonial history, a major focal point is the second half of the eighteenth century. It was during this period—often associated with the tightening of colonial rule under the absolutist Bourbon monarchs—that the hospital was remodeled and amplified, and its wards increasingly populated by allegedly insane criminals forcefully confined by mandate of the Inquisition and the secular law enforcement. Ostensibly intended for pobres dementes (mad paupers), by the late eighteenth century, San Hipólito had assumed a central role in the management of madness not just in connection to poverty, but also in relation to a range of religious and sexual offenses, and violent crimes such as murder. Drawing on hospital records, as well as criminal and Inquisition cases, I stress that such changes were broadly linked to the growing medicalization of madness rather than to its putative criminalization or the transformation of the hospital into an instrument of social control. San Hipólito was far from a bricks-and-mortar embodiment of a powerful colonial regime; its history reveals the ad hoc nature of confinement, and cases involving patient flight and concerns over feigned madness underscore the inability of the colonial state to fully govern the lives of its subjects. / History of Science

After providing a survey of related literature and of Protestant antecedents in Colombia during the colonial and early national periods, the dissertation examines the expansion of foreign missions in Colombia during the early twentieth century. The main body of the work describes various aspects of Protestant life after 1930, including life stages, self-image, construction of community, and societal responses. Although many Colombians reacted adversely to Protestants, a general atmosphere of tolerance is evident. Protestants suffered greatly during the mid-century Violence, but not to an unusual extent in comparison to Colombians in general. However, the Protestants' oppositional religious identity and their sense of vulnerability during that period made their psychological experience of the Violence somewhat unusual. Through the end of the twentieth century, Protestantism provided an oppositional space in which many Colombians found a sense of security, empowerment and optimism in the face of tremendous challenges in a violent land.

<p> The speeches given by Pedro Segundo and Getulio Vargas during wartime not only reveals their orientation of leadership but in turn provides something else. These discourses gives one a unique window into not only how these leaders chose to perceive the challenges of wartime but how to address them to the national populace. The rhetoric they used had to transform for purposes of mobilization while adapting to shifting political environments. Among one of the features of this adaptation was the choice of which aspects of the national consciousness to stress at pivotal moments. By examining the public speeches of Pedro Segundo and Getulio Vargas one can see the political orientation of both leaders, understand the political climate of both periods, and witness how much Brazil had changed in the eighty-one years between the beginning of the Paraguayan War and the end of WWII.</p>

<p>This thesis seeks to recover historical memory during El Salvador&rsquo;s devastating anticommunist campaigns from 1932 to 1963. With El Salvador&rsquo;s long history of repression against social movements, fear and even shame have silenced stories about the movement and its participants. In line with the current projects dedicated to social memory, this projects reconstructs the untold story of Felix Paname&ntilde;o, a local shoemaker and member of the Communist Party in the 1930s through his family&rsquo;s memories. Shoemakers were key to the growing political consciousness of the time, as documented by Roque Dalton through the testimonial of shoemaker and survivor of the 1932 revolt, <i>Miguel M&aacute;rmol</i>. Much of Paname&ntilde;o&rsquo;s life and struggle transpired within key political moments from the persecutions of political activists that followed the 1932 revolt, known as &ldquo;<i> La Matanza</i>&rdquo;, through the wave of repressive military dictatorships that conspired against political activist and democracy. These dictators imposed a tyranny that ultimately drove large numbers of Salvadorans to migrate to the U.S. beginning in the 1960s. Many of these immigrants, in turn, silenced their memories and depoliticized in exchange for a new beginning. Today, some of these memories are being rebuilt, giving insight to better understanding El Salvador&rsquo;s past, as well as the present peoples&rsquo; struggle for democracy at home and those participating from abroad. </p>

<p> The primary objectives of this thesis are to research the Conquest of Mexico and to integrate research to expand upon <i>Mexica</i>, a 125 page historical fiction screenplay that was started in 2008 about the 16th century invasion of Mexico by Hern&aacute;n Cort&eacute;s. Through quantifying and writing commentary on the revisions to reflect the integration of new research, the enhanced work is accompanied by a critical introduction essay that simultaneously serves as a literature review to determine how sources contributed to the dramatization. The critical introduction is in Spanish, the research was conducted in Spanish and English, and <i>Mexica</i> is in English, to better reach the target, mainstream American audience. The essay addresses schools of thought and theoretical frameworks on the conquest and how they have been accepted, rejected, dramatized and/or incorporated in the screenplay. By analyzing chronicles, literature, film and television relevant to the conquest, narrating experiences and creative license are demonstrated. The essay exhibits a historiographical review by examining myths, misconceptions and consensus on several themes relevant to this era of initial contact in the New World. The critical introduction of <i>Mexica</i> explains how the enhanced script better integrates the indigenous perspective through analysis of a variety of sources, with a non Euro-centric emphasis, to reflect compelling and multidimensional characters in the historical fiction genre. </p>

A series of indigenous rebellions took place in mid-eighteenth-century Sonora that caused Spain to alter its colonial policies, depending less on the Jesuit mission system and more on a professional military force for pacifying and controlling the region. The rebellions coincided with a shift toward a drought-dominant climate pattern that began in the late 1720s. This study explores the relationship between that climatic shift and the rebellions by narrowing the focus to several disturbances and insurrections among the Seris, Pimas Bajos, and Yaquis during the period of 1725-1742. Research centers on climate variability, the relationship between climate patterns and indigenous subsistence practices, and whether Spanish colonial policies and institutions rendered these practices more or less vulnerable to environmental perturbations. Because the same environmental factors shaping indigenous subsistence strategies also affected Spanish decision-making, the development of Spanish colonization in Sonora is reviewed within an ecological framework as well, recognizing the interaction among the environment and political, economic, and demographic factors. This study adopts a multidisciplinary approach integrating paleoclimatic, ethnohistorical, ethnographic, and archaeological sources of data to establish patterns of precipitation and reconstruct indigenous subsistence systems within their local environments, both before and after Spanish colonial rule. The research presents evaluations and English translations of numerous Spanish texts that include description of local environments; indigenous land use, reliance on crops versus wild resources, scheduling, harvest, and/or storage; significant climatic events such as droughts or floods; and the events of specific insurrections. The research also considers Spanish policies and institutions as they developed in Sonora, and changes they engendered in indigenous subsistence organization and the environment. This study assesses the effectiveness of those changes in the face of climate fluctuations, and scrutinizes Seri, Pima Bajo, and Yaqui disturbances and insurrections as responses to Spanish-induced subsistence changes under escalating colonial pressures and climate-related environmental stresses. On a broader level, this research demonstrates the potential of the documentary record, when combined with advances in climate research, for increasing our understanding of human vulnerability to climate change, human responses and coping strategies, and the impacts of human behavior on climate.

This model proposes an approach for teaching history through drama in education. The program uses the framework of la carpa, a Mexican American theatrical tradition. Participants develop historical knowledge and skills of expression while they learn to use their own lives as a key to understanding the lives of others. In the past two decades in the U.S., drama teachers and youth project leaders have been employing social drama to encourage adolescents to express their fears, frustrations and experiences. As with the tradition of la carpa, the scripts reveal sentiments that may not be able to be spoken safely elsewhere. In contrast to the production of classic, scripted plays, social drama provides participants with the opportunity to create their own material using their own lives as primary resources. In addition to challenging participants aesthetically, the teaching model of la carpa fosters interpersonal development.

Following the Japanese attack on Pearl harbor December 7, 1941, the lives and fortunes of resident Japanese Americans changed dramatically. Over 120,000 West Coast Japanese Americans--over half of them US citizens--found themselves ordered into War Relocation Camps for the duration of the war. / Virtually unknown until now is that the United States also pursued similar goals with several Latin American governments. The United States actions, it was felt, required deporting Peruvians of Japanese, German and Italian background to the United States. For the German and Italians a return "to their home of ethnic origin" awaited. The fate of the Japanese from Peru and other Latin American countries however, was different. Under a plan crafted by General George C. Marshall, they were to be exchanged for non-official Americans currently held by the Japanese in recently conquered territories across Asia. / This dissertation explores the machinery of the United States and Peruvian program that saw several thousand Japanese deported from their homes and placed in Immigration and Naturalization camps in Texas, Missouri, Montana, New Mexico, and North Dakota pending trade for Americans. However, following the end of hostilities 1945, the United States attempted to return the deported Japanese to Peru and Peruvian officials refused to accept the Japanese back--although they had no difficulties with the return of their Germans and Italians. Peruvian Japanese waited another ten years in the United States before resolution of this very difficult legal and political problem occurred. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 57-02, Section: A, page: 0824. / Major Professor: Neil Betten. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1995.

The purpose of this study was to identify the forces, including the personalities, which influenced the establishment, development and growth of public school libraries in Puerto Rico, the main trends in school library services and their contribution to education as seen by participants of the system. / A historical approach, combining documentary analysis, interviews, survey questionnaires and visits to sample school libraries was used to gather the data needed. / Three main trends were found in the school library movement from 1900 to 1984. From 1900 to 1930, the basic elements of a national administrative structure of a school library system were developed. Due to a period of economic crisis, from 1930 to 1952 the school library movement remained stagnant. The period from 1952 to 1984 was the period of greatest growth and change. Centralization of the Program's administration and services as an integral part of the curriculum began to be emphasized. / The main negative factors affecting the establishment, development, and growth of school libraries from 1900 to 1984 were the lack of knowledge of their role in education at all levels, economic support, supportive school library legislation, and the lack of emphasis on reading outside textbooks and on learning to learn skills. / Positive factors influencing the development of school libraries in Puerto Rico were: (a) the support of some school principals, teachers, parents, superintendents and Commissioners or Secretaries of Education, (b) the influence of the United States culture, particularly of its school library movement, (c) the federal funds, (d) the establishment of the school librarian courses at the College of Education and the Graduate School of Librarianship at the University of Puerto Rico, (e) changes in educational policies, (f) the leadership of Carmen Hernandez de Leon, the second Program Director, and (g) the leadership of some school librarians. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 51-03, Section: A, page: 0666. / Major Professor: John N. DePew. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1990.