Historians originally claimed that the 1871 Paris Commune was inspired by Karl Marx. Since the 1960s, however, this assertion has been rejected by scholars who either claim that Marx had no influence over the Paris Communards or do not address the possibility that this influence existed. Many scholars have also claimed that the Commune was not political in any way, but was a rebellion inspired by patriotism, bitterness for the Versailles government’s capitulation of Paris to Prussia, or a spontaneous reaction to hostility from the national army’s attempt to disarm the indignant, rapidly organizing Parisian workers who called for municipal authority under their own socialist government. This thesis analyzes the official publications of the governing body of the Paris Commune and argues that these sources demonstrate that this movement was political in nature, and that Marxist ideology helped to shape the political minds of the revolutionary working class in Paris.

This dissertation argues that transatlantic abolitionists used the Bible to condemn American slavery as a national sin that would be punished by God. In a chronological series of thematic chapters, it demonstrates how abolitionists developed a sustained critique of American slavery at its various developing stages from the American Revolution to the Civil War. In its analysis of abolitionist anti-slavery arguments, “The Bible Against Slavery” focuses on sources that abolitionists generated. In their books, sermons, and addresses they arraigned the oppressive aspects of American slavery. This study shows how American and British abolitionists applied biblical precepts to define the maltreatment of African Americans as sins not only against the enslaved, but also against God. The issues abolitionists exposed to biblical scrutiny, and that are analyzed in this dissertation, correlate with recent scholarly treatments of American slavery. American slavery evolved in the period bracketed by the American Revolution and the Civil War. From 1790 to 1808 American slavery transitioned from reliance on the international slave trade to a domestic market. Abolitionists’ anti-slavery arguments likewise transitioned from focusing on the maltreatment of the immigrant, widow and orphan, to a focus on the proliferation of the sexual exploitation of women and the destruction of African American families. Abolitionists challenged every evolutionary step of American slavery. They argued that slavery was responsible for the destruction of American cities and the split of the British Empire during the crisis of the Revolution. They also denounced the constitutional compromises that protected slavery for 78 years, they challenged its spread westward, decried its dehumanization and sexual exploitation of African Americans, and its destruction of African American families. They galvanized a generation of women anti-slavery activists that launched the feminist movement. Abolitionists’ prediction, meanwhile, that divine retribution would come remained constant. Abolitionists produced such a prodigious body of biblical anti-slavery literature that by the Civil War, their arguments were echoed among northern pastors and even President Abraham Lincoln.

Generally speaking, scholarship in the field of Germanistik has taken an interest in Friedrich Schlegel’s early publication, “Vom aesthetischen Werte der griechischen Komoedie” (1794), either because of its perceived influence on German Romantic Comedy [(Catholy 1982), (Kluge 1980), (Holl 1923), (Japp 1999)], or else because of its relevance as an example of Schlegel's still inchoate aesthetic philosophy [(Dierkes 1980), (Behrens 1984), (Schanze 1966), (Michel 1982), (Dannenberg 1993), (Mennemeier 1971)]. As a theory of comedy in its own right, Schlegel’s essay has garnered little attention, in part because of its supposed inapplicability to comedic praxis and at times utopian implications, in part because of its seemingly contradictory argument, and lastly in part because Schlegel himself abandoned the essay’s central premise soon after its publication. However, it is the central argument of the present study that Schlegel’s essay can be shown to be interesting and relevant precisely for the theory of comedy it contains. Through a close reading of Schlegel’s essay on Old Greek Comedy, as well as an examination of Schlegel’s early political and aesthetic beliefs, which will help render Schlegel’s theory more intelligible, it will be shown that Schlegel’s theory of comedy is novel in so far as it is one of the first aesthetic theories to claim that comedic practice is necessarily deprived of aesthetic validity unless it exists in a social atmosphere of freedom of expression, namely, such as that of the Athenians. The implication is that Schlegel here predicates an aesthetic theory upon one of society. Schlegel’s theory is also interesting for the peculiar type of comedy it advocates, namely a joyous comedy (Comedy of ‘Freude’), which stands in direct opposition to the ‘Satirische Verlachskomoedie’ of the Enlightenment and makes use of a comedic mechanism (joy) that is anathema to traditional negative comedic elements (satire, derision, mockery etc.). The conclusion discusses what the relevance and value of these implications might be for future research.

This work describes how sociology as an academic discipline was introduced, established and pursued at Swedish universities during the period 1930-1955. The main purpose is to follow the establishment of sociology and call attention to dominating ideas of sociology, science and society, and also to reflect the relation between sociology and the demands and expectations of society. This academic institutionalization is considered a continuously changing process where centers and boundaries are formulated and reformulated in accordance with contemporary conditions and preferences of the actors. Expectations on the discipline are investigated, as they were expressed in official inquiries and other political settings as well as in common press. Changes in university structure that led up to the establishment of sociology as a discipline are studied, as well as the official investigations that directly preceded the set up. Institutional activities in the new discipline are dealt with; as are persons, curricula, dissertations and investigations. Internal debates and conflicts are studied and analyzed. The reception of sociology is considered, as well as the use of sociological knowledge in academy, industry and other domains. A main question is how sociology, when established, was understood and pursued. Soon, a clear conception was established in leading quarters. According to this conception, sociology was to be recognized as a specialized discipline alongside other disciplines of social science. The object of sociology was to study modern society and its social conditions, preferably in Sweden. The method of study was to be scientifically empirical, which, above all, meant quantitative field surveys. This study analyzes the formation of this idea of sociology. It was contested, but persons representing deviating conceptions were marginalized. The "boundary-work" that was carried out is therefore considered especially significant. The boundaries were about the implication of the concept of sociology, and conflicts and antagonisms revealed in the boundary-work are analyzed. It is argued that the polemical and dichotomizing rhetoric style used by the actors was of significant importance. By describing, defining and legitimating sociology in terms of opposites: empirical rather than speculative, American rather than continental, quantitative rather than qualitative, it was emphasized that the discipline of sociology was new, scientific and necessary for a modern and progressive community like Swedish society. / digitalisering@umu

Societies in Hong Kong and Taiwan (Formosa) are not familiar with each as they are separate colonies taken by Britain and Japan respectively. This study explores a rare string linking the two communities through Wan-chu Lee and his son Nan-shong. Their evolving views on China reflect larger historical and social background on one hand and yet demonstrate agencies in choosing and forming individual choices regarding both political identities and postcolonial possibilities on other hand. In particular, their multiple views on China are full of individual judgments mediating among China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong as well as between global and regional forces.

Generally speaking, scholarship in the field of Germanistik has taken an interest in Friedrich Schlegel’s early publication, “Vom aesthetischen Werte der griechischen Komoedie” (1794), either because of its perceived influence on German Romantic Comedy [(Catholy 1982), (Kluge 1980), (Holl 1923), (Japp 1999)], or else because of its relevance as an example of Schlegel's still inchoate aesthetic philosophy [(Dierkes 1980), (Behrens 1984), (Schanze 1966), (Michel 1982), (Dannenberg 1993), (Mennemeier 1971)]. As a theory of comedy in its own right, Schlegel’s essay has garnered little attention, in part because of its supposed inapplicability to comedic praxis and at times utopian implications, in part because of its seemingly contradictory argument, and lastly in part because Schlegel himself abandoned the essay’s central premise soon after its publication. However, it is the central argument of the present study that Schlegel’s essay can be shown to be interesting and relevant precisely for the theory of comedy it contains. Through a close reading of Schlegel’s essay on Old Greek Comedy, as well as an examination of Schlegel’s early political and aesthetic beliefs, which will help render Schlegel’s theory more intelligible, it will be shown that Schlegel’s theory of comedy is novel in so far as it is one of the first aesthetic theories to claim that comedic practice is necessarily deprived of aesthetic validity unless it exists in a social atmosphere of freedom of expression, namely, such as that of the Athenians. The implication is that Schlegel here predicates an aesthetic theory upon one of society. Schlegel’s theory is also interesting for the peculiar type of comedy it advocates, namely a joyous comedy (Comedy of ‘Freude’), which stands in direct opposition to the ‘Satirische Verlachskomoedie’ of the Enlightenment and makes use of a comedic mechanism (joy) that is anathema to traditional negative comedic elements (satire, derision, mockery etc.). The conclusion discusses what the relevance and value of these implications might be for future research.

My dissertation, Writing and Ethics in The Southern Cone: Literature between the Singular and The Specific, reads a series of examples from the last dictatorship and the current post-dictatorship period in the Southern Cone--novels and essays from Argentina, Chile, and Paraguay (including works by Augusto Roa Bastos, Roberto Bolaño and Horacio Verbitsky), and a critical debate between artists and intellectuals in Chile (Nelly Richard and Willy Thayer). My goal is to expose their ways of conceiving how communities and individuals are structured by language that organizes subjects according to logics of belonging and rejection according to political values and practices. I take as my point of departure the work of philosopher Peter Hallward on individuation and the formation of groups and communities, from his book Absolutely Postcolonial: Writing Between the Singular and the Specific (2002). I read my textual examples through the terms developed by Hallward, the Singular, the Specified, and the Specific. The Singular describes a way of imagining community identity as a self-creating and self-reinforcing unity where the only members are those who are innate to the singular concept that self-defines it. The Specified refers to a method by which subjects individuated themselves over and against a particular cause or people and thus define themselves by means of this difference. Lastly, the Specific describes a community that is radically indifferent to difference, arguing instead for a form of membership where any subject belongs. My dissertation shows how these three concepts are present in the historical and cultural ideas used by a contemporary generation of thinkers and artists to define the effects of the cultures of dictatorship and post-dictatorship in the Southern Cone. Understanding these concepts helps to elucidate how the cultural discourses during this period were structured and executed in relation to communitarian formation. In short, by reading my Southern Cone case studies through the optic of logics of individuation, I am able to produce a new way of seeing how the region’s intellectuals read the intersections of history, culture, politics, and community in the wake of Latin American dictatorships. / text

During the fourteenth century, with the rise of Dol po pa Shes rab rgyal mtshan (1292-1361), the gzhan stong philosophical tradition became a source of great controversy in Tibet. Dol po pa taught this new philosophical tradition for the first time to the wider Tibetan intellectual community. As Dol po pa's Jo nang teachings attracted an audience, many other philosophical giants of the day, such as Bu ston Rin chen grub (1290-1364), Red mda' ba Gzhon nu blo gros (1349-1412/13), and their students composed polemical works to refute Jo nang tradition. Lamp that Illuminates the Expanse of Reality was composed in the midst of this controversy to defend the Jo nang point of view. In it, its author, Gha rung pa Lha'i rgyal mtshan (1319-1402/03), attempts to prove that the Jo nang philosophical tradition is the definitive teaching and the quickest path to achieve the Buddhahood.

This thesis traces the development of the concept of freedom through three generations of the Modern Arab Renaissance (Nahda). The first chapter challenges the claim that the concept of freedom, in the sense of a political right, was absent from Arab thought prior to the French occupation of Egypt (1798-1801). ‘Abd al-Rahman al-Jabarti’s (1754-1825/6) chronicle of the occupation reveals that he possessed the concept of freedom despite the lack of an Arabic word to identify it. Therefore, when Rifa’a Rafi’ al-Tahtawi (1801-73) translated the French term liberté into Arabic, through a semantic expansion of the word hurriyah, he was naming rather than introducing the concept. The second chapter turns to Syria and examines how Butrus al-Bustani’s (1819-83) advocacy of the freedom of conscience (hurriyat al-damir) as an individual right reflects the influence of his American missionary mentors. However, while the missionaries used this concept to defend their narrow sectarian interests, Bustani believed that the freedom of all citizens must be protected equally by a secular government. The third chapter follows two Syrian friends, Muhammad Rashid Rida (1865-1935) and Farah Antun (1874-1922), who migrated to Egypt where their differing visions of reform brought them into conflict on the pages of their respective literary journals. While Antun argued that secularism provides the best guarantee of freedom, Rida contended that true freedom is only found in Islam. Despite this divide, they shared the same fundamental understanding of the value and meaning of freedom. This chapter shows that the concept of freedom is compatible with differing political ideologies while maintaining its core semantic field. Although there were some changes in how Arab intellectuals conceived of freedom during the nineteenth century, this study demonstrates that there was considerable continuity. / text

This study examines the responses of European intellectuals since the 1880s to an increasingly virulent and organized anti-Semitism in Europe, and the ways in which they sought to understand the character and origins of the hatred, and to fathom and work out the problems, terms and possibilities for Jewish identity. Focusing on the French figures Bernard Lazare and Marcel Proust from the time of the Dreyfus Affair and then on the Frankfurt School of social theory and Hannah Arendt from the period around and after the Second World War, the thesis argues that these thinkers created a common historical-psychological discourse on anti-Semitism, which attempted to confront, comprehend and explain the historically critical issues of anti-Semitism and Jewish identity. The study explores the discourse’s fundamental assumptions, insights, and arguments regarding the origins, character, and magnitude of anti-Semitism. It also analyzes its contentions concerning the contradictions, sources, and alternatives for Jewish identity. But, more, it claims that, despite their frequent perceptiveness, these figures’ interpretations of the two concerns proved limited, deficient, even deeply flawed. The thesis seeks to show that its intellectuals’ attempt to understand the twin issues was hence a failure to grasp and interpret them adequately, and to resolve them. It contends further that what impaired the authors’ engagements with anti-Semitism and Jewish selfhood were ideas that were fundamental to their thinking. These intellectual factors, moreover, connected the figures solidly to important historical contexts that they inhabited, thereby implicating the significant settings in the epistemological errors and defeats. These momentous ideas thus operated as both contextualizing and destructive forces—linking the intellectuals to their home contexts and transforming their understanding of their historic problematic into a misunderstanding. / Thesis (Ph.D, History) -- Queen's University, 2009-04-16 08:34:25.821