This thesis discusses how certain societies (Germany, Israel, and Argentina) that have been involved in two documented cases of genocide in the 20th Century -- one that was the source for and falls within the United Nations Treaty definition of genocide (the Holocaust), and one that does not (the Dirty War in Argentina) --have dealt with these events in their recent past. In dealing with these issues, the thesis employs the analysis of genocide developed by the Argentine scholar, Daniel Feierstein, who has proposed that all genocides progress through a series of steps that first create what he calls a "negative otherness" to the victims of the genocide, that then isolates and debilitates the victim group, and that ultimately leads, as a penultimate (not final) step, to the physical annihilation of the victims of the genocide. Feierstein's most novel and provocative contribution to the study of genocide, however, is his concept that there is an additional and final step -- which he calls the threat of “symbolic realization” -- that will actually take place in society after the killing or physical annihilation has been completed and the historical order of things has been restored. In Feierstein’s view, the purpose of genocide is to use the technologies of power of the state against the victim group in order to permanently change social relations within the state by excluding and then annihilating the victims of the genocide. For this reason, Feierstein argues that, unless the post-genocide society continues to confront the causes and reality of the genocide as a present and ongoing political and social dynamic in the society, so that the memory and cultural and social presence of the victim group is preserved in an immediate way, the genocide will be realized on a symbolic level in the sense that the change of social relations that the perpetrators of the genocide intended will in fact occur. In the analysis that follows of the issues of assigning culpability, providing reparations, and constructing memorials in post-genocide societies, the thesis argues that, whether consciously articulated or not, what drives the bitter controversy and debates over these matters in post-genocide societies is an underlying fear on the part of victims and victim groups that the significance of what they have suffered and why they have suffered will be lost and forgotten (symbolically realized, in Feierstein’s terminology) in the state's efforts at reconciliation precisely through the process of assigning guilt, awarding reparations, and constructing memorials. Going a step beyond where Feierstein leaves off, the thesis suggests, however, that this sort of symbolic realization is, in fact, an inevitable and unavoidable consequence of the process of writing the history of the genocide (or any event) and the detachment, analysis, contextualization, reductiveness, and simplification that history requires.

Most contemporary scholarship on Mexican history separates the years 1808-1824 into two distinct processes; Mexican independence and the formation of a new Mexican state. This thesis provides a new synthesis of the two processes of independence and state formation in Mexico. Covering events chronologically from 1808-1824, this thesis argues that the formation of a federal republic in Mexico was no accident, but that it was inevitable. The incessant conflict between insurgent and royalist factions decentralized politics in New Spain from 1810-1820 and weakened the authority of the government in Mexico City. This decentralized arena allowed many political actors of all castes, individuals and groups, to claim political authority on a local level. The only way for Mexico City to forge a new nation after 1820 was to recognize these newly established provincial interests. This thesis uses the failed attempt by Agustin de Iturbide to centralize government following independence as further corroboration that Mexico's War for Independence had established permanent federalist impulses within the country, which would eventually culminate in the creation of a federal republic in 1824.

This thesis analyzes resistance songs as key representations of the identity and political formation that took place during the 1960s Chicano movement. Examining particular musical traditions, this thesis highlights the value of placing songs of the Chicano struggle in national narratives of history as well as in the context of an enduring and thriving legacy of political and social activism that continues to allow the Chicano community to recognize and validate their current social realities.

Drawing from oral histories which I gathered while living in Bolivia, this thesis tracks the start, growth, and development of the political movement led by women from the Bolivian mines from 1961 to 1987. This movement helped create a new political culture that recognized the importance of women’s participation in politics and human rights. Today, this culture lives on. Bolivia has not experienced a coup since 1980, and the nation’s human rights record has improved dramatically since the 1980s as well. Prior to the mid-1980s, Bolivia was often under the control of oppressive military regimes that resorted to many different types of coercion in attempts to silence resistance in the mining centers, the national government’s main source of conflict. This uneven power struggle between working class activists and the national government motivated many women to challenge gender roles and involve themselves in politics. After establishing their political organization called the Housewives’ Committee, women activists organized and acted collectively to challenge political oppression and mitigate the effects of extreme poverty. They frequently employed compelling tactics, most commonly hunger strikes, to win attention for their issues. They also involved themselves in many other diverse projects and demonstrations depending on their communities’ need. Women’s political development resulted in a number of personal transformations among those who participated: it awakened a political consciousness and also enabled women to recognize the importance of their paid and unpaid work in the mining economy. These changes eventually altered women’s understanding of how women’s oppression fit into the broader struggle of working class activism by convincing them of the deep connection between women’s liberation and the liberation of their community. These transformations led to the acceptance of women as political activists and leaders, which continues in the present. This work also tracks the United States’ impact on the relationship between the mining centers and the state. This analysis serves to remind us that as United States citizens we must be very critical of our nation’s impact; because of our ability to enormously affect small land-locked countries like Bolivia, we must also hold ourselves accountable to understanding our historical impact so that we can make informed decisions in the present.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Brown University, 2008. / Vita. Advisor : Nelson H. Vieira. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 320-336).

This dissertation addresses key questions that are yet to be answered related to the involvement of local patrons in the decoration of northern New Spanish churches. The case study of the Jesuits' church of San Ignacio in Santa María de las Parras (located in present-day Coahuila, Mexico) reveals new evidence that prominent Spanish and Tlaxcaltecan Indian benefactors participated in the adornment of private devotional chapels in this religious space. In Parras, the Jesuits and secular landowners cultivated vineyards and participated in the lucrative business of viticulture that transformed this mission settlement by the mid-seventeenth century into a thriving winemaking center. As the Jesuits created their own "spiritual economy" in Parras on the northeastern frontier, they fostered alliances with Spanish and Tlaxcaltecan vineyard owners to serve both their religious and temporal interests (Chapter One). The surviving evidence of artworks and inventories reveals that these benefactors donated funds to decorate their own chapels in San Ignacio. This financial support helped the Jesuits purchase and import paintings by prominent artists working in Mexico City for display in their Parras church. While these patrons selected the iconographies of the artworks they funded, the Jesuits also arranged their chapels in a carefully ordered sequencing of images to promote devotions that were commensurate with Ignatian spirituality (Chapter Two). To shed more light on the process in which the Jesuits coordinated the circulation of devotional images from Mexico City to Parras, this study will examine travel logs to document the mobility of the Jesuits and their frequent movement between metropolitan settings and the northern frontier. By tracking the circulation of individuals as well as artworks, it is possible to uncover how the Society's process of fostering relationships with donors operated in Parras just as it did in larger cities such as Mexico City, Lima, Cuzco, and Rome (Chapter Three). Vineyard metaphors that resonated with special symbolic meaning at Parras also took on a new relevance when martyrdom became an omnipresent subject in the wake of Indian revolts. Evangelization on the frontiers of the Christian world became integral to the Jesuits' formation of their missionary identity in both New Spain and Europe. This study will present evidence of rare martyrdom drawings produced in Mexico and transported to Rome that played an active role in transforming the importance of the New Spanish frontier and catalyzed the creation of new artworks in Mexico City and Rome (Chapter Four). The evidence uncovered in this study has important implications for the field of colonial art history, as it reveals that art production in Parras was not an isolated missionary phenomenon but rather part of a dynamic network of artistic patronage and cultural exchange that moved in both directions between Europe and New Spain. This re-contextualizing of center-periphery paradigms further demonstrates that metropolitan and frontier relationships were not always opposed to each other, but rather interacted within a larger network of artistic dialogue. / History of Art and Architecture

My dissertation examines the transmission and establishment of the institution of slavery from medieval Iberia into the expanding Spanish Empire and its subsequent development. This involves understanding the dynamic interactions between the law, imperial institutions, slave owners, and the enslaved. I embarked upon this subject in response to a lacuna of historical knowledge of the transition and development of slavery as it moved between the Iberian Kingdoms and took root in the expanding Atlantic Empires. Without understanding the medieval background of imperial law it is impossible to understand the particular development of the institution of slavery in Spanish America. / History

My dissertation proposes a comprehensive study of the politics of representing the Amazonian territory in literature and culture. Using the context of the Amazonian rubber boom (1879-1912) and its aftermaths in Peru and Brazil, my research evaluates how the Amazon Basin became the focus of political and sentimental debates, triggering discussions to rethink national identity, ethnicity, sovereignty, and modernity at the turn of the twentieth century. Traditionally portrayed as an exotic, primeval land, geographically isolated, and with endless natural resources waiting exploitation by a higher civilizing order, its presence continually frustrated colonizers and investigators who failed to reduce it to a set of manageable meanings. Despite the many books written about the region since its encounter in the sixteenth century to nowadays, the Amazon resists demands to be modern and construed by an imported Western rational. Like the Pampa in Argentina and the Backlands in Brazil, Brazil and Peru's Amazon is a tropical body that calls institutional authority into question. / Romance Languages and Literatures

This work seeks to relocate El desierto prodigioso y prodigio del desierto (1650 ca.) within the discursive net of 17th Century Spanish Empire, and to make visible its agendas within the context of the New Kingdom of Granada. Hence, this work states the enunciation of a creole epistemology, defined as an interrogative attitude assumed by the colonial subjects on discourses and forms of writing associated with the Metropoli, which statements of truth and authority are proved inadequate in colonial contexts. These subjects are not necessarily spanish descendants born in America; they are called «criollos» because of their elitist attitude towards their american origin along with their mastering of the discursive reason. / Romance Languages and Literatures

The Napoleonic invasion of Iberia shattered the Spanish empire in 1808. The French emperor occupied Spain and forced Ferdinand VII to abdicate the throne. Once the war against the French began, most vassals also rejected the Spanish imperial government in Madrid that had recognized the change of dynasty. The implosion of the Crown severely tested the hierarchical, centralized, and interdependent nature of the empire. Historians of the Spanish Bourbon empire have rightly argued that the invasion catalyzed the emergence of the new nations from 1810 onward. Many of them, however, have failed to notice the concurrent and extraordinary efforts to reconstitute the empire--a critical history that contextualizes the decisions Spanish Americans faced in this tumultuous period. / History