This thesis explores the early career of Eduardo Paolozzi (1924 – 2005), focusing in particular on his artworks of the 1940s and 1950s. Predominantly known for his post-World War Two activity as an eclectic artist, designer and pedagogue, Paolozzi emerged as an experimental alternative to the modernist formalism of Henry Moore’s generation and remains one of the acknowledged leaders of an artistic movement that helped invigorate the British art scene. The sheer volume and diversity of his creative output, however, its wide-ranging use of descriptive materials and profuse interests, has legitimised the now standard reception of his work as one of wilful, perhaps even whimsical, eclecticism. Thus, he has become simultaneously codified as British artist, child of Surrealism, and ‘father of Pop.’ The thesis presented here intends to offset the standard historiography of Paolozzi’s artistic development, employing instead an interpretation grounded in the artist’s Italian roots and which takes into consideration his exposure to wider avant-garde movements and trends. Such a re-evaluation enables sense to be made of the imagery and ideas present in his work, and gives shape to the superficial incoherence of the ‘fragmentary’ phases apparently marking his output. What emerges is an alternative trajectory, one that moves from the early collages, full of L'Esprit Nouveau and Futuristic enthusiasm for the New World, through his use of Greco-Roman art, mechanisation and Uomo Novo during the years of Fascism, to the more concerted reassessment of the modern post-War world that is embodied in his satirical brutalist sculptures and proto-Pop demythologies, these last works mapping an emergence out of totalitarianism and the rediscovery of ‘democratic and international values.’ In this new analysis, Paolozzi stands as one of the few international figures who consistently developed a mature and idiosyncratic rationale through which a new, non-Fascist modernism was reformulated.

In the immediate post-Second World War period, London's criminal cultures generated popular understandings of fantasy and cinematic escapism as a modern mode of life, a pleasure-seeking activity and a form of rationality. These narratives centred on increasingly visible but enigmatic genres of urban transgression: notably the phenomenon of spivery. Mixing petty crime, gambling and the black market with proletarian dandyism, urban waywardness and celebrity posturing, the cultural iconography of spivery was also associated with the deviant lifestyles of confidence tricksters, army deserters, good-time girls and mass murderers. Drawing on cinema, popular literature, courtroom drama, autobiography and psychiatry, this thesis explores how debates about the escapist mentalities of the spiv shaped the public discussions of crime as a socio-aesthetic practice. The central aim is to explore the cultural and symbolic associations between street-wise forms of deviant illusion and the cinematic representation of fantasising criminals in 1940s London. The thesis reveals how contemporary historical actors and cultural institutions understood the imagination as a popular and contested form of knowledge about the self, social change and erotic life. The method interweaves intertextual analysis of a key cinematic subgenre of crime, 'spiv films', with a historical focus on two 'true crime' stories: the cleft chin murder (1944) and the serial killings carried out by John George Haigh (1944-45). Utilising the criminals' self-confessions, trial transcripts, autobiography and popular journalism, these cases studies show how spivery was rooted in the experience and representation of everyday metropolitan life. The interdisciplinary examination of cinematic text and historical evidence emphasises how Hollywood aesthetics and indigenous national culture co-determined the public construction of 1940s crime as an embodiment of the contradictions of post-war British modernity.

During the late 1950s and the 1960s America faced a high level of racial tension. At the same time Britain imposed racially discriminatory immigration controls and passed legislation to outlaw racial discrimination. This thesis asks to what extent the events in the United States had an impact on the response of British institutions to the development of a multi-racial society and increased rate of non-white immigration during these crucial years between the 1958 race riots to the Kenyan Asian crisis. The first part of the thesis examines the background to British perceptions about both the 'special relationship1 with the United States and images of African Americans in the period prior to the years under review. It explores the ways in which the white British population was more informed about African Americans than the inhabitants of the colonies, and subsequently the Commonwealth. The following section examines ways in which the press and government drew on the activities of the Civil Rights Movement and the rise of Black Power in the United States during the 1960s to illustrate arid support their arguments. It notes the high level of interest in Britain in American news and the increasing sense of concern within press reports and debates in the House that Britain was heading for an American style racial conflict. The third part ofthe thesis examines four sections of the British population which could be said to have a special interest in this issue: the non-white immigrants themselves; antiimmigrants groups; the religious denominations and British Jews: and organisations which sought to promote racial harmony. The study examines not only the response ofthese sections ofthe population to American racial trouble but the ways in which their activities had an impact on British perceptions. As the most concerned sections ofthe population, their activities were those most frequently reported by the press. In varying degrees, the responses ofthese sections of the population to the issues of immigration and racial discrimination reflected a growing concern that Britain was following the United States towards racial conflict. This perception was fed by both the press and government action and in turn had an impact on both public opinion and politicians and created a national mood in which debate over these related issues was coloured by the increasingly tense racial situation in the United States. 1967 and 1968 were the years in which this national perception was at its height and witnessed the passage ofthe Immigration Bill which excluded the entry of Kenyan Asians and the extension of Race Relations legislation. This thesis traces the development ofthis national mood, the significance of which has previously been underestimated.

The Democratic Republic of Congo experienced a merciless war from 1998 to 2002 that seriously affected its labour market, as it did all other aspects of society. The effects on the labour market have aroused various debates. This thesis offers a first analysis of the reconstruction process of the labour market in post-war Congo, and of the roles that key actors involved played in it. It asks the following fundamental question: what are the processes involved in the reconstruction of the post-war Congolese labour market, and how did the main actors affect these processes? The research used a constructivist methodological approach and the extended case method to collect detailed data through field interviews conducted with 109 people in Kinshasa. The data suggest that the past of the Congolese labour market is clearly visible in its post-war recovery processes (2003–2018). While the past weighed heavily on the present, from 2003 to 2011 the Congolese government nevertheless delayed the implementation of reform policies aimed at achieving a functioning labour market. Reforms introduced since then have been blunted by poor implementation processes. Moreover, the inherent weakness of Congo’s labour market institutions deepened the lack of impact of the reconstruction attempts. Likewise, the private sector did not contribute substantially to efforts at creating an effective labour market. Entering this landscape, many Congolese employees struggled to achieve integration into the formal labour market. The main argument of this thesis is that the post-war Congolese labour market has experienced an extended reconstruction due to delayed and poorly implemented labour market policies. On a more positive note, this study demonstrates the usefulness of Peck’s theory of labour market social regulation as an efficient theoretical tool in evaluating a problematic transition such as that experienced in the Democratic Republic of Congo. / Thesis (PhD (Sociology))--University of Pretoria, 2020. / the Andrew J. Mellon Foundation / The University of Pretoria, the Faculty of Humanities / Sociology / PhD (Sociology) / Unrestricted

Sarajevo is city as cultural palimpsest; its history shaped by the multiplicity of regimes and empires that have held the east-meets-west nexus. For years the various ethnicities and religions that comprised the city coexisted harmoniously, but the fall of the Yugoslavian federation in the late 1980s pushed Sarajevo into violent civil conflict. Sarajevo emerged from the war the capital of a new state, but was utterly decimated by the years of siege. In the intervening two decades, the city has superficially recovered: buildings have been rebuilt, infrastructures and institutions reestablished. A thriving black tourism economy has even taken root in the city - to many, a sign that the city has made peace with its fraught history. But violent protests against the government in the spring of 2014 belie this notion of peace; the city is still at odds with itself. Architecture cannot save the world, nor can it guarantee a path towards sustained peace. It can, however, serve as a form of reconciliation - a critical component of an urban healing process. Introducing interventions in phases will ensure smooth assimilation in an area likely wary of new systems, and might physically exemplify a healing process. Thoughtful architecture and urban planning can lay the foundation for healing and rejuvenating a city raw from conflict, but requires the strength of the community to support and nurture it. The designer's challenge is, in this case, particularly complex, and requires a conscientious and diplomatic approach, drawing from the local community itself. No one outside can guarantee that Muslims, Croats and Serbs in Bosnia can come together and stay together as free citizens in a united country sharing a common destiny, said President Clinton in 1995. / 0 / SPK / specialcollections@tulane.edu

No / At the end of the Cold War, the Balkan states of South East Europe were in crisis. They had emerged from two decades of hardline communism with their economies in disarray and authoritarian leaders poised to whip up nationalist feelings so as to cling on to power. The break up of Yugoslavia followed in 1991 along with prolonged instability in Romania, Bulgaria and Albania. The Balkans After The Cold War analyses these turbulent events, which led to violence on a scale not seen in Europe for nearly 50 years and offers a detailed critique of Western policy towards the region. This volume follows on from the recently published Outcast Europe: The Balkans, 1789 - 1989 - from the Ottomans to Milosevic, also by Tom Gallagher.

This thesis is about the life chances and trajectories of ex-combatant and other youth in post-war Monrovia, Liberia. In it I present the results of a qualitative inquiry into the relationship between shifting structural conditions and youth agency in the aftermath of 14 years of civil war. Much of the literature concerned with ex-combatant “reintegration” remains a-theoretical and fails to situate their experience within the contours of transition from structures in armed groups to structures in post-war society. It is rife with normative assumptions about how ex-combatants should “return” to civilian life. The ex-combatant trajectories detailed in this study challenge this literature reflecting neither “reintegration” nor “return.” Instead, they highlight how ex-combatants negotiate a complex environment in which structural norms, values, and relationships converge and conflict after war. To demonstrate this, the thesis presents an analysis of the relationships between structural constraints and youth agency among youth who fought, and others who did not. In so doing, it provides a situated analysis of post-war society which is often missing in the literature concerned with ex-combatants. The empirical material shows the significance of interdependent relationships at the level of the family and the household. It is “wealth in people” at this proximate level that supports survival and enables socio-economic mobility, with implications for social respect. Without patronage through family and kin, socio-economic possibilities diminish significantly. This means that options available to many ex-combatants are limited after war, as they are often unable or unwilling to be incorporated into families and former communities. Their navigation of the post-war social terrain reflects efforts to survive and maintain respect through patrimonial relationships within and outside of their structured networks from war. Some retain the status and respect they achieved in war through relationships maintained from their years of conflict. Others were able to survive and achieve respect through new or renewed relationships with families and extended kin. Life chances and trajectories emerge from embedded positions within structured social relations that are produced and reproduced in the aftermath of conflict. With this work, I argue that social processes are vital to any theorisation about life after war.

This thesis examines continuity and change in the three Black Country localities of Pensnett, Tipton and Sedgley between 1945 and c1970. The dominant historiography of the period suggests that the prosperity of post-war British society, the safety-net of state welfare provision and unprecedented levels of consumer spending mostly eradicated the inter-war behaviour patterns of individuals, families and communities. Utilising the oral testimony of sixty residents from the three localities, and supplemented by a range of primary sources, the thesis demonstrates that growing affluence impacted only marginally upon the customary social mores of the lowermiddle and working-class inhabitants. Whilst aspirations to new housing and increased consumption affected perceptions of status and social standing, the economic strategies of the pre-war period prevailed. The thesis evaluates the effect of affluence upon earning, spending and saving. It questions assumptions that the support of kinship networks, matrilocality and community cohesion disappeared as slums were replaced with new housing estates. It demonstrates that the Welfare State impacted little upon attitudes to income and employment and that the wages derived from formal employment were augmented by informal work, penny-capitalist ventures and illicit activities. It shows that despite embracing the consumer society, families within these localities adhered to traditional methods of shopping and the financing of consumption. The thesis challenges the work of a range of historians who have emphasised change over continuity in characterisations of British society in the post-war period and endorses Hoggart’s claims that despite post-war innovations “old habits persist”

No description available.

There is a gap in the existing literature as to why the New Left in West Germany entered a phase of rapid decline by the end of the 1970s. The overarching aim of this thesis is to offer a politico-theoretical explanation for the historical development of the New Left and why the ‘red decade’ between 1967 and 1976/7 ended so abruptly. Within this context, the thesis will focus on the Maoist K-Gruppen and particular emphasis will be placed on the Marxistische Gruppe, which defied the general decline of West Germany’s New Left and developed into its largest organisation during the 1980s. Furthermore, the Red Cells movement will be analysed from which both currents emerged in the wake of the student movement. Key works of the Marxistische Gruppe will be analysed with particular emphasis on politico-theoretical aspects. The analysis of the group’s theoretical work will provide a better understanding of the New Left’s historical developments against the background of the changing political environment. This thesis will conclude with reflections on developments of the radical left after the collapse of the New Left in 1989/91 and how the red decade’s legacy is still prominent in the work of the Gegenstandpunkt publishing house (the Marxistische Gruppe’s ideological successor). In conclusion, this thesis will reveal that the influence of politico-theoretical aspects on the historical development of the New Left has been given too little consideration and that the New Left’s fate cannot be adequately explained by external factors, but demands the consideration of the very development of theories and the practical conclusions organisations reached regarding their social, economic and cultural circumstances. This work will be the first to provide an insight into the potential of such a theoretical explanation for an understanding of the specific developments of the post-1968 West German New Left.