Religion and history became closely related in new ways in the Victorian imagination. This thesis asks why this was so, by focusing on arguments within British Protestant culture over progress and development in the history of Christianity. In an intellectual movement approximately beginning with the 1845 publication of John Henry Newman's 'Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine', and powerfully spreading and developing until the earlier years of the twentieth century, British intellectuals came to treat the history of religion - both as a past and present process, and as a didactic genre - as a vital element of broader attempts to stabilise or reconstruct religious belief and social order. Religious revivalists, determined to use church history as a raw material for the inculcation of exclusive confessional identities and dogmatic theology, were highly successful in pressing it on the attention of early Victorian audiences. But they proved unable to control its meaning. Historians rose to prominence who instead interpreted the history of Christianity as a guide to how religious culture, which many treated as indistinguishable from society as a whole, might eventually supersede denominational and dogmatic divisions. Humanity's spiritual development in time, which numerous British critics assessed with the aid of German Idealist thought, also became an attractive apologetic resource as the epistemological basis of Christian belief came under unprecedented public challenge. A major part of that danger was perceived to come from rival, avowedly secularising interpretations of human social progress. Such accounts - the ancestors of twentieth-century secularisation theory - were vigorously opposed by historians who understood modernity as involving not the decline, but the purification of Christianity. By exploring the ways in which Victorian critics - clerical and lay, religious and secular - approached religious history as a resource for solving the problems of their own age, this thesis offers a new way of understanding the importance of history, claims to knowledge, and the nature and ends of 'liberalism' in the long nineteenth century.

This thesis, which focusses on the relationship between Lord Holland and Portugal, investigates aspects of political, diplomatic and cultural history. It covers the period between 1793 and 1840 and traces the evolution of Holland's views on Portugal from the time of his first visit to Spain to his later contribution to the establishment of a constitutional regime in Portugal. Particular attention is given to the Hollands' visits to Portugal in 1804-5 and 1808-9. Their journals and correspondence reveal their impressions of the people, culture and history of Portugal. On their travels, they met a number of prominent Portuguese, notably Palmela, who were to remain in contact with Holland House - especially during periods of exile - for many years into the future. The Portuguese journeys and the continuing contact with people like Palmela were to play an important part in the development of Lord Holland's views, not only on Portugal but also on broader political and constitutional issues. Thus the thesis investigates Lord Holland's influence on ' the establishment of a constitutional regime in Spain in 1809-10 and - indirectly and unintentionally - in Portugal in 1820-23, It includes a study of Holland's contribution to the settlement of a government in Brazil in 1808 - that is at the time the Bragancas moved from Portugal to Rio de Janeiro - and his indirect influence on the establishment of the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and the Algarves in 1815, as well as his role in the abolition of the Atlantic Slave Trade and the effects of abolition on Anglo-Portuguese relations. Lord Holland's contribution to the establishment of a Liberal regime in Portugal in 1834 is examined at some length. It includes a study of the extent of Holland's support for the Portuguese Liberal Cause after Dom Miguel's usurpation of the throne in 1828 and of his subsequent role in the 'Liberal invasion' of Portugal. To this end it investigates relations between Portuguese emigres and the Holland House Circle, Holland's role in the triangular diplomacy between Lisbon, St James and South Audley Street in 1828 and later. Finally, it considers Holland's contribution to the end of the Portuguese Civil War in 1834 and to the subsequent establishment of a constitutional regime in that country.

The aim of this research is to advance the understanding of the impacts of the industrial revolution on urban space during the period 1850-1900. This was a period of great dynamism with high levels of social and economic change, political radicalism and urban growth that had profound effects on the urban landscape. In contrast to much previous research on Victorian urban space, the case study settlements used are Edinburgh and Perth, Scottish burghs with diverse economies not dominated by a heavy industrial sector. The analysis uses data from a variety of sources including the census, valuation rolls and the Register of Sasines. It also draws insights from structuration theory by examining the spatial outcome of various processes in terms of the reflexive relationship between structural factors such as class and capitalism and the residential movements of individuals (agents). Three scales of analysis are used. Thus, meso-scale socio-spatial change is seen as affected by both macro-scale structures and micro-scale actions of agents. By constructing a series of maps and measures of the distribution of social groups at various times over the half century, the thesis demonstrates that socio-spatial differentiation increased markedly over the period. The processes driving this socio-spatial change are identified as the operations of the housing market, structured feeling and mobility. The detailed roles of each is examined. Together, it is argued these are the modalities which link structures and agents and are thus the proximate determinants of socio-spatial change.

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vii, 80 p. A print copy of this thesis is available through the UO Libraries. Search the library catalog for the location and call number. / This thesis offers an analysis of the competing interests of the state and the individual in Belle Epoque France as manifested in a crisis of marriage. I argue that traditional institutions that favored social stability were incompatible with a modern understanding of individual rights. My argument is centered on three issues: the abolition of the dowry, the legalization of divorce and the legitimization of free union. Conservatives considered familial stability to be a vital element of national security, thereby justifying extensive state interference in marriage practices. Liberals contended that the primary function of government was to guarantee individuals maximal freedom. These competing interests produced a climate of crisis that pitted two irreconcilable visions of marriage against one another. / Committee in Charge: George Sheridan, Chair; David Luebke; Alexander Dracobly

Through an examination of the letters, reports and published writings of the missionaries of two distinctive Protestant missions active in the Kurdish region during the nineteenth century, this thesis explores the Orientalist and imperialist qualities of missionary knowledge production. It demonstrates the diversity of Protestant missionary thought on the subject of the Orient and the individual nature of missionary knowledge production during this period. Equally importantly the study allows for a critical examination of the Orientalist critique in the context of missionary activity and a contextualised assessment of missionary complicity with imperialism. The findings of the study show that the Orientalism of the Anglican ‘Assyrian Mission’ and that of the American Presbyterian ‘West Persia Mission’ share common characteristics but, importantly, diverge diametrically in the meanings ascribed to the differences perceived to separate ‘Oriental’ from ‘Occidental’. This diversity in the representative style of the two missions can be linked to their opposed objectives in relation to proselytisation and thus suggests that their knowledge production was not solely determined by Orientalist discourse but also influenced by other discursive factors. Given Edward Said’s recognition of the diversity of the phenomenon of Orientalism it is therefore of great value to attempt to map some of this vast and divergent terrain of ideas. My thesis thus suggests that a meaningful division can be made within the Orientalist discourse between expressions of an Orientalism of essential difference and that of an Orientalism of circumstantial difference. Concerning imperialism, the study argues that, although these missionaries can be considered imperialists in an unwitting and indirect sense, care needs to be taken in the application of this label. My argument is that association with and contribution to textual attitudes which promote ideas of ontological or cultural superiority are a very different activity to conscious engagement in projects of imperial expansion; and that this needs to be recognised. Furthermore the standard model of a political metropolitan center determining the fate of its activities in the periphery is reversed in the case of these missionaries, where religious concerns drove engagement against political interests.

Please read the abstract (Summary) in the section 00front of this document / Thesis (D Phil (Cultural History))--University of Pretoria, 2007. / Historical and Heritage Studies / DPhil / unrestricted

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In 1883 a group of Belgian artists wishing to challenge the hegemony of the Brussels Academy founded the organization, Les Vingt, on the principles of egalitarianism and artistic freedom and elected Octave Maus, editor of the self-proclaimed avant-garde journal, L'Art Moderne, as its secretary. Henceforth, Les Vingt assumed the identity of Belgium's leading visual exponent of modernité and L'Art Moderne became its foremost champion. In actuality, the alliance the Vingtistes formed with L'Art Moderne allowed Octave Maus and his co-editor Edmund Picard to gain control of the group's operations. The journal's editors, through their association with the Belgian social reform movement, had formulated an artistic concept they called l'art social and Les Vingt was to become the incarnation of this new doctrine of social art. During the period of 1887 to 1889, however, while the Belgian workers' movement erupted in a succession of strikes and demonstrations, Maus and Picard radically changed their strategy in marketing Les Vingt to its viewing public. They campaigned for a revised, "depoliticized" avant-garde identity for the group, and the model they chose to represent this new identity was French divisionism. The group's appropriation of divisionism, however, signified a forfeiture of many of the group's original ideals. Furthermore, it became a point of conflict for those Vingtistes who chose to remain loyal to their own styles. This conflict is evident in the case of James Ensor, one of the group's important founding members. During this period, he developed his own personal imagery that was a synthesis of Flemish and modern themes and motifs. This imagery made a bold, critical attack upon Les Vingt's capitulation to French divisionism, which signified an acqui-esence to the ardently Francophile tastes of the Brussels bourgeoisie. The focus of this thesis is an analysis of Les Vingt's avant-garde identity as it evolved out of its relationship with L'Art Moderne, and how that relationship led to the importation of divisionism. Ensor's conflict with Les Vingt and his provocative Flemish imagery is also examined as a means of assessing the significance of Les Vingt's adoption of the French art style. / Arts, Faculty of / Art History, Visual Art and Theory, Department of / Graduate

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