This dissertation analyzes medical and literary sources from Russia, Italy, and France in the years 1870-1930. By tracking imagery, rhetorical devices and, above all, emplotment strategies that are employed in medical texts and practices as well as in literary works by Dostoevskii, Tolstoi, Chekhov, Svevo, Bulgakov, and Romains, my study argues for the narrative structure of medical knowledge, both in its formulation and its transmission. I address plot-construction as the theoretical node that lies at the core of several practices in the medical field, regardless of their variety and their social and cultural situatedness. Perspective and agency are the organizing principles for chapter subdivision—from the surgeon as the sole author of illness narratives in Chapter 1, on death as the ending, which focuses on the late nineteenth century, we move to the negotiation of that same authorship and authority between doctors and patients in Chapter 2, devoted to the theoretical concept of narrative reliability and tracks the fin-de-siècle emergence of psychoanalysis; from the rhetoric of pharmaceutical advertisement in the 1920s and the diffused authorship it entails, addressed in Chapter 3, we take a post-human turn in Chapter 4, by exploring bodily glands as endowed with narrative agency with the rise of endocrinology and experimental surgery in the years 1900-1930. This formal structure, which shows a gradual shift in perspective and agency as the inquiry moves from one chapter to the next, foregrounds a double historical trajectory that underlies the project– the non-linear transition from the positivist model to the Freudian and post-Freudian stage in the history and epistemology of medicine runs parallel to a gradual and not less problematic evolution of the literary medium. / Comparative Literature

This dissertation documents a generation of black women who came to politics during the 1940s in New York City. Ada B. Jackson, Pauli Murray, Anna Arnold Hedgeman, Bessie Buchanan, Jeanne Noble and Shirley Chisholm among others, worked, studied and lived in Harlem and Brooklyn. They seized the political opportunities generated by World War II and its aftermath and pursued new ways to redress the entrenched systems of oppression that denied them full rights of citizenship and human dignity. These included not only grassroots activism, but also efforts to gain insider status in the administrative state; the use of the United Nations; and an unprecedented number of campaigns for elected office. Theirs was a new politics and they waged their struggles not just for themselves, but also for their communities and for the broader ideals of equality. When World War II began, grassroots activists operated outside the halls of formal political power. Yet they understood the necessity of engaging the state and frequently endeavored to wrest power from it: the power that made life more bearable, that made the streets safer, that kept the roofs over their heads. These activists and others in women's clubs and civic organizations won favor in their communities and they increasingly pursued formal political positions. As the war drew to a close, a growing number of black women ran for elected office and sought political appointments. However, to attain political posts, they had to overcome the entrenched traditions of Tammany Hall's machine and the gendered and racialized nature of New York City politics. Most were unsuccessful, but by 1954, a few succeed. By the 1960s, black women had made their way into national politics. They were appointed to presidential commissions, the administration and won congressional office. Dorothy Height, Pauli Murray, Jeanne Noble, and Congresswoman and presidential candidate Shirley Chisholm represent the advancements black women made into the state structure. This study illustrates the kinds of political changes women helped bring about, it underscores the boundaries of what was possible vis-à-vis the state, and it traces how race, gender and the structure of the state itself shape outcomes.

Under what conditions can one expect to see a sustained system of community management of forests in operation? Considerable theoretical scepticism has been expressed by economists and others about the viability of any such institution. In this view, such institutions will inevitably result in a "tragedy of the commons." However, evidence from around the world has accumulated in recent years which suggests that common property institutions do exist, and in some cases, have existed for a long time. Using archival sources in India and the U.K., this thesis explores the fate of community management of forests in a region of the central Himalayas known as Kumaun. Kumaun was under British administration over the period 1815-1949. The forests of the region were not under formal state management till the 1860s. In fact, there is evidence of customary cooperative arrangements--informal local institutions--before the arbitrary takeover of forests by the new administrators. The new property regime had a disruptive effect on local institutions and precipitated much deforestation, especially since the state did not have the logistical wherewithal to enforce the new forest rules at a time when local arrangements had lost credibility. Two schools of thought emerged within the state bureaucracy to address the emerging crisis of rapidly diminishing forests. The "centralizers" argued for more effective supervision and an increase in state power in order to protect the forests. The "devolutionists," by contrast, canvassed for decentralized management by user communities. Several decades of experimentation with centralized methods failed to protect forests effectively and caused much political protest. The government ultimately had to resurrect local institutions in the 1920s. In the beginning this was a failure, since community management had lost all credibility in the eyes of local users. However, persistent efforts by government officers finally paid off and the new system of van panchayats (village forest councils) finally solved a problem which the state, on its own, could not.

This dissertation focuses on contemporary American fiction that explores the intertwined histories of genetics and industrialism. I argue that Jeffrey Eugenides, Louise Erdrich, and Richard Powers interpret industrial and scientific texts from the early twentieth century to tell a previously untold history of the era. Emphasizing the connections between emerging understandings of genetics and new methods of manufacturing, they present the story of how the gene made life seem buildable. These writers trace fantasies of the literal mass production of Americans, exposing how immigrants, Native Americans, and women became particular targets of an industrial impulse toward standardization. Yet the novels in my study also recover an alternative history of the gene, in which it possesses a range of abilities enabling it to resist efforts to industrialize not just social, but also organismal, life. Genes are portrayed in these fictions as agents of transformation as well as replication, thus inspiring optimism about the possibility of unsettling the future of corporate capitalism in American life. Chapter One argues that Jeffrey Eugenides' Middlesex draws parallels between Henry Ford's factory, Thomas Hunt Morgan's genetic laboratory, and the Stephanides family lineage to show how naturally occurring mutations subvert the pursuit of exact reproduction. Chapter Two examines Louise Erdrich's Tracks, and its portrayal of the Pinkham Medicine Company's commercial hybridization of plants. Pointing to the genetic reversion that often accompanies hybridity, Erdrich undermines Pinkham's efforts to cultivate a uniform American populace from diverse racial roots. Chapter Three discusses Richard Powers' depiction of corporatization in Gain, focusing on Procter and Gamble's pursuit of self-perpetuation by crossing not merely into legal, but also embodied, personhood. Turning to chromosomal chiasmus as a mechanism that makes reproduction a process inherently variable, and therefore unstable, Powers portrays the genetic body as a dubious model for corporate longevity. Taken together, my central texts address the relationship between fiction and history, literature and science, and human and industrial reproduction. / 2017-11-18T00:00:00Z

Evolution of the terrestrial egg of amniotes (reptiles, birds, and mammals) is often considered to be one of the most significant events in vertebrate history. Presence of an eggshell, fetal membranes, and a sizeable yolk allowed this egg to develop on land and hatch out well-developed, terrestrial offspring. For centuries, morphologically-based studies have provided valuable information about the eggs of amniotes and the embryos that develop from them. This review explores the history of such investigations, as a contribution to this special issue of Journal of Morphology, titled Developmental Morphology and Evolution of Amniote Eggs and Embryos. Anatomically-based investigations are surveyed from the ancient Greeks through the Scientific Revolution, followed by the 19th and early 20th centuries, with a focus on major findings of historical figures who have contributed significantly to our knowledge. Recent research on various aspects of amniote eggs is summarized, including gastrulation, egg shape and eggshell morphology, eggs of Mesozoic dinosaurs, sauropsid yolk sacs, squamate placentation, embryogenesis, and the phylotypic phase of embryonic development. As documented in this review, studies on amniote eggs and embryos have relied heavily on morphological approaches in order to answer functional and evolutionary questions.

The Geological Survey of India (GSI) was a government institution that was created to map the geography and mineral resources of colonial India. British geologists Thomas Oldham and Valentine Ball used the GSI in order to affect policy changes regarding museum ownership, environmental conservation, and railroad construction. All of these policies were intended to impose order on the landscape and streamline the resource extraction process. Their goal was to enrich the British Empire. An Indian geologist named Pramatha Nath Bose, who also worked for the GSI for a time, also worked to enact policy changes regarding education and production. But instead of trying to make the British Empire stronger, he wanted to push it out of India. He left the GSI since he found it too restrictive, and, together with other Indians, restructured geological education at the university level and set up a successful steel manufacturing mill. Both the British geologists and Bose helped lay the economic foundation of India's independence. The GSI gave geologists power in some situations, but in others it restricted the advancement of the field.

The purpose of this thesis is to present an overview of the origins and uses of dreams and dream interpretation through the years. This is accomplished in two main sections. The first section traces the ancient history of dreams and their uses in various cultures. It begins with the first written evidence of dreams found in the Egyptian culture and is carried through the Babylonian, Greek and Roman Eras. The history also includes the use of dreams as documented in the Biblical Records, the Oriental cultures and during the era of Christianity. The superstitions about dreams during the Medieval era through to the Middle Ages is discussed.

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / From 1907 to 1909, the Austrian anthropologist, Dr Rudolf Pöch (1870-1921), conducted an expedition in southern Africa that was financed by the Imperial Academy of Sciences in Vienna. Pöch enjoyed administrative and logistical support from Austria-Hungary as well as the respective colonial governments and local authorities in the southern African region. During this expedition, he appropriated the bodily remains of more than one hundred people and shipped them to Vienna. When Pöch started teaching anthropology and ethnography in 1910, the remains became an essential part of the first ‘anthropological teaching and research collection’ at the University of Vienna.

京都大学 / 0048 / 新制・課程博士 / 博士(文学) / 甲第18713号 / 文博第671号 / 新制||文||613(附属図書館) / 31664 / 京都大学大学院文学研究科現代文化学専攻 / (主査)教授 伊藤 和行, 教授 林 晋, 准教授 伊勢田 哲治 / 学位規則第4条第1項該当 / Doctor of Letters / Kyoto University / DGAM

京都大学 / 0048 / 新制・課程博士 / 博士(文学) / 甲第20597号 / 文博第746号 / 新制||文||649(附属図書館) / 京都大学大学院文学研究科文献文化学専攻 / (主査)教授 横地 優子, 教授 赤松 明彦, 教授 伊藤 和行, 矢野 道雄 / 学位規則第4条第1項該当 / Doctor of Letters / Kyoto University / DGAM