The Dryland Diaries is a multigenerational narrative in the epistolary style, a tale of four women, central character Luka; her mother Lenore; grandmother Charlotte; and great-grandmother Annie – cast in the Quebecoise tradition of the roman du terroir, invoking place and family, the primal terroir of a storyteller. The novel is driven by three acts of violence – the possible murder of Annie’s husband, Jordan, by her Hutterite father; the rape of Charlotte; and the probable murder of Lenore by a notorious serial killer. Set in rural Saskatchewan and Vancouver, Luka, a single mother, finds Annie’s and Charlotte’s journals in the basement of her farm home, where both her predecessors also lived. She reads their stories while attempting to come to terms with her search for her missing mother, and with her attraction to her former flame, Earl, now married. Luka learns that Jordan disappeared shortly after the Canadian government enacted conscription for farmers in the First World War, when Annie became a stud horsewoman, her daughter Charlotte born before the war ended. Letters and newspaper clippings trace the family’s life through the drought and Great Depression; then Charlotte’s diaries reveal her rape at Danceland during the Second World War. Her daughter, Lenore, grows up off-balance emotionally, and abandons her daughters. Luka returns to Vancouver and learns her mother’s fate. Told from Luka’s point of view, in first-person narrative with intercutting diary excerpts and third-person narratives, the novel examines how violence percolates through generations. It also examines how mothers influence their children, the role of art, how the natural world influences a life, and questions our definition of “home.” At its heart, the novel is a story about what makes a family a family, about choices we make toward happiness, and about how violence perpetuates itself through the generations. Inspired by Margaret Lawrence’s The Stone Angel, Carol Shields’ The Stone Diaries, and the place-particular writing of Annie Proulx and Guy Vanderhaeghe, The Dryland Diaries paints a family portrait of loss, hope and redemption, locating it on the boundaries of historical fiction, firmly within the realm of epistolary and intergenerational narrative.

Helma Sanders-Brahms’ film Deutschland, bleiche Mutter is an important contribution to (West) German cinema and to the discourse of Vergangenheitsbewältigung or “the struggle to come to terms with the Nazi past” and arguably the first film of New German Cinema to take as its central plot a German woman’s gendered experiences of the Second World War and its aftermath. In her film, Deutschland, bleiche Mutter, Helma Sanders-Brahms uses a variety of narrative and cinematic techniques to give voice to the frequently neglected history of non-Jewish German women’s war and post-war experiences.

ABSTRACT Gustafsson, J. & Söderqvist, N., “’The Island of Peace in the Sea of War’ A newspaper study of Växjö city’s newspaper editorials regarding the conflicts of the Second World War in the Nordic countries”, Linnaeus University.   A qualitative textual analysis delving into three local newspapers from Växjö city is in many ways the essence of this study. The main purpose of this study is to examine three key conflicts, the Winter War, Operation Weserübung and the Continuation War. Each conflict has been assessed in relation to the opinions advocated in the editorials of the three politically diverse newspapers. The theoretical basis for this study is founded on similar analysis made by Nybom, Johansson and Åmark who all have contributed to the content of this particular essay. Most of all, Nyboms categorization of the so-called realism and idealism have helped us in understanding the motives and plans of action concerning the nations involved in the selected conflicts. There are several interesting conclusions in this study, in particular the newspapers’ view on main antagonists such as the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany, as well as the Allies.

Extensive sources have been reviewed and analysed to piece together for the first time a detailed academic study of civilian evacuation to Devon viewed against the national backdrop. The primary focus of this thesis is the large number of unaccompanied children who were officially evacuated to the County under the auspices of the Government Evacuation Scheme during the Second World War. However, Chapter Six discusses the evacuation of mothers and accompanying children, unofficial (private) evacuees and private school parties. The majority of evacuated children arriving in Devon originated from the London area and southeastern counties. In addition large numbers of children were also evacuated to the County from Bristol and within the County from Plymouth (Devon) during 1941 and briefly from Exeter in May 1942. Each of the three national evacuation waves is considered individually throughout the text as they are quite distinct in complexion, a fact frequently ignored in generalised accounts which tend to focus on reaction to the initial wave. This thesis argues that: 1. lack of regional and local research has resulted in evacuation largely being viewed in generalised and stereotypical terms without due regard for the socioeconomic and geopolitical variance between those areas involved or the particular localised features of the evacuation process 2. the acclimatisation of evacuated children was particularly successful in Devon and drift back less than the national average 3. local evidence supports the argument that contemporary national reports of impoverished, dirty and ill mannered evacuees were frequently exaggerated 4. evacuation was central in accelerating postwar reform in areas of education, child care and welfare The civilian evacuation during World War Two was a remarkable event in the history of modern Britain. Interest in the subject has recently increased but there is enormous scope and need for further research both to broaden our understanding of the nature and impact of evacuation and to test entrenched views. The over-arching aim of this thesis is to contribute to this exploration.

The air campaign conducted by the RAAF in the North-Western Area during the Second World War has been largely ignored by historians yet it contributed significantly to the outcome of the Pacific war. This thesis sets out to discuss the campaign by considering various factors that impacted on the RAAF in the lead up to and during the course of the Pacific war and their relevance to the campaign. It looks at the way air operations were conducted in the North-Western Area between 1942 and 1945 and describes the role played by the flying squadrons based in the area. Using primary sources such as operational record books, documents and files at archives and libraries and interviews with veterans and experts the thesis found that the campaign was conducted in several phases. It started with the defence of Darwin. In keeping with overall allied strategy the RAAF then went on an offensive into what was then the Netherlands East Indies (NEI) using medium and heavy bombers and mine laying sea planes flying from bases in Australia???s north west. The NEI was vital to the Japanese war effort as a source of essential raw materials such as oil, timber, and rubber. To defend this part of their new empire the Japanese had amassed large military garrisons on the islands. The vessels used to transport troops and materials became the most important targets for the RAAF???s bomber squadrons. As General MacArthur???s forces advanced along the north coast of New Guinea the North-Western Area based units conducted raids into the NEI to deceive the Japanese into thinking an invasion would be launched from Darwin. As the New Guinea campaign gained momentum the RAAF???s task was to protect its western flank, to prevent the Japanese from moving troops and aircraft east to the Philippines. The thesis concludes the campaign was successful because Darwin was defended, it denied the Japanese vital materials for the conduct of the war and it kept hundreds of aircraft and tens of thousands of troops away from the allied advance.

Thesis (Master of Military Studies)-Marine Corps Command and Staff College, 2008. / Title from title page of PDF document (viewed on: Jan 12, 2010). Includes bibliographical references.

The use of temporary, prefabricated buildings in Britain during the twentieth century arose from wartime need to provide better, and perhaps more importantly, portable shelter for troops and equipment. This thesis provides the first comprehensive list of hut designs for the First and Second World Wars. The full lists and descriptions of each hut are given in the appendices. These lists, 20 types for the First World War and 52 from the Second World War, show the huge range and scope of the huts used and is the major contribution of this thesis. The concentration here is on generic types. Some huts were designed as one-offs and there is no possible way to catalogue these. This thesis has focused instead on those designs or industrially-produced types, which were meant to be produced en-masse as generic solutions to the problem: the sort of hut that might justifiably be given a name (such as a ‘Tarran’, a ‘Seco’, etc.). This thesis provides essential information enabling historians to be able to identify these types. It uses primary and secondary sources to trace the development of these huts and the effect that wartime shortages had on their design. Beginning with the earliest examples of temporary military building, it then focuses on the huts of the First and Second World Wars followed by a study of huts grouped in chapters by material. This research shows that the wartime period pushed industry to make giant leaps forward with construction methods and materials in just a few short years, where otherwise it may have taken decades. This thesis aims to provide the first overview of this process and to enable future researchers to identify and understand the development of these important wartime structures, many of which survive to this day.

The subject of this master's thesis called Family theme in Natalia Ginzburg's works is analysis of the chosen prosaic works of one of the biggest writers of the twentieth century, concentrated on the topic of the family. The introduction is a short presentation of the author (her biographical and bibliographical data). After that there is an analysis of her most known prosaic works with the family topic and with the topic of the relations in general. It is followed by more detailed analysis of her most known novel Lessico famigliare. In the final part, the work is concentrated on the biography of Manzoni's family in La famiglia Manzoni.

L’étude de l’oeuvre poétique tardive de l’artiste Jean Hans Arp (1886-1966) révèle que l’opposition entre non-sens et sens, au moyen de laquelle est souvent analysé le passage de sa production dada à sa poésie des années cinquante et soixante, n’a pas lieu d’être. L’introduction d’une cohérence aux plans formel et structurel permet au plan sémantique le maintien de la plurivocité et de la contradiction. L’analyse des formes poétiques arpiennes montre l’existence d’une invention et d’une variété formelles intactes dans la production tardives, entre actualisation de formes anciennes et innovation. Cette tension anime également son activité anthologique et éditoriale, comprise comme élément constituant de sa poétique tardive : le poète déploie des stratégies visant à constituer, entre soixante et quatre-vingts ans, une oeuvre réflexive, intégrant les cinquante années de production antérieure, mais en déjouant constamment les écueils de l’(auto-)monumentalité. Le rapport entretenu avec la réalité extérieure au langage connaît un bouleversement référentiel après 1943-1945. La critique accrue de la rationalité occidentale et l’exigence d’expression subjective conduisent à la mise en place d’un discours poétique sur le monde et sur les capacités du langage, une « cosmogonie de poche » à la fois humble et démiurgique. Elle consiste en une confiance inaltérée dans le pouvoir créateur du langage poétique, capable de créer d’autres mondes. Cette modernité radicale d’Arp, exacerbée car revendiquée, le situe de façon originale dans le contexte du devenir des avant-gardes européennes après 1945 et met en lumière la spécificité de son appartenance à une génération de transition. / A close study of Jean Hans Arp’s late poetry exposes the inadequacy of the traditional opposition between non-sense and sense, which is frequently used to analyse the transition from his Dada production to the poetic works of the 1950s and the 1960s. By introducing a formal and structural coherence, the poet manages to preserve plurivocity and contradiction on a semantic level. Considering the specificities of Arp’s late poetic forms, the study shows that invention and variety are as vivid then as they were during Dada Zurich, based on both innovation and actualisation of former techniques. This tension is inherent to his anthological and editorial activity as well, which is considered here as a key element of his late poetics. In his sixties and up until his eighties, the poet develops strategies aimed at constituting a reflexive work which integrates the earlier production while always avoiding the trap of (self-) monumentalisation. After 1943-1945, the relationship between Arp's poetry and reality outside the language undergoes a profound referential change. His increasing criticism of western rationalism and need for subjective expression, without returning to neo-romanticism, form the basis for a poetic discourse on the world and the possibilities of language, a “pocket cosmogony” that is both humble and demiurgic”. The latter hinges on an unwavering faith in the creative power of the poetic word and its ability to generate other worlds. This radical modernity, consciously asserted, locates Arp’s late work as an original experiment in the context of the avant-gardes post-1945, highlighting his specific itinerary within a transitional generation.

Créé le 8 novembre 1948 à Paris par huit peintres et écrivains belges, hollandais et danois, Cobra est l’acronyme de Copenhague, Bruxelles, Amsterdam. Le mouvement se propose rapidement de devenir un lien souple entre artistes et poètes de différents pays, par le biais d’un certain nombre de publications et d’expositions. Son existence officielle sera brève, puisqu’elle prend fin en 1951 avec le dernier numéro de la revue éponyme. Si les premières tentatives d’analyse historique et de synthèse sont venues des artistes et des poètes membres du mouvement, plusieurs études abouties ont vu le jour depuis les années 1970.<p>S’appuyant sur un certain nombre d’affirmations émanant des acteurs de Cobra comme des historiens ayant écrit sur le sujet, l’auteur s’est penché sur la question de la violence picturale et théorique au sein de ce mouvement. Picturale, par la propension des artistes à brouiller la lisibilité de la composition et des figures, par leur volonté de « faire brut » et enfantin, de « mal peindre », de maltraiter le sujet en le rendant méconnaissable, hybride, défiguré. Théorique, par un certain nombre de déclarations (pour la plupart, parues dans la revue Cobra) véhémentes, engagées, politiques, relatives au climat sociopolitique de l’après-guerre comme au contexte artistique et culturel contemporain.<p>Au cours des recherches, il est apparu que la violence de Cobra était plus ambiguë que ce qui avait été imaginé initialement. Elle relève en réalité d’une forme d’instrumentalisation émanant des acteurs, qui ont multiplié les effets rhétoriques, les attitudes et les déclarations allant dans ce sens, conduisant Cobra à user d’une violence « décorative » nettement instrumentée :un outil utilisé par les artistes dans la construction de leur image, de leur identité individuelle et collective. Cette piste a ainsi débouché vers d’autres résultats que ceux imaginés au préalable mais n’en a pas moins permis de réévaluer le mouvement sur le plan de l’histoire des représentations, en étudiant les stratégies développées par ses membres dans les œuvres et les discours. La mise en perspective critique de ceux-ci a permis de cerner la capacité rhétorique de certains membres de Cobra, qui ont valorisé l’image d’un mouvement artistique résolument « moderne », c’est-à-dire violent et revendicateur, tout en puisant leur inspiration dans certaines formes d’art primitives et brutes.<p>La thèse s’articule de façon thématique, autour de quatre pôles révélateurs des formes et du sens de la violence détectée dans les œuvres et les discours des Cobra :<p>Répondre à la guerre – Cobra face au siècle<p>Une violence générationnelle<p>Le primitif ou le jeu de la violence<p>Aspirations libertaires<p> / Doctorat en Histoire, art et archéologie / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished