This study examines the photographic production of the 1970s in Cuba through print media and aims to situate its role and function within the cultural politics that dominated this decade. The photographic image played a distinctly prominent role in the construct of a euphoric narrative that defined the early Revolutionary period. However, at the onset of the 1970s, the social, political and cultural life of the country was marked by a centralization and institutionalization of power that challenged the autonomy of artists and intellectuals. The medium of photography functioned almost exclusively as an instrument for journalism, removed from its artistic potential. The research focused on the work of a generation of photographers that emerged during two distinct moments in two major publications ? Cuba Internacional in the early 1970s and Revolución y Cultura in the second half of the decade. The study shows that the photographic production of this group of photographers was imbued with a personal aesthetic vision that belied the contemporaneous political status quo and as such reflected shifting ideological attitudes. The research also examines the socio-political factors that led these publications to represent sites of relative creative freedom and artistic innovation. It demonstrates how the function of photography shifted from strictly documentary to an artistic manifestation. The research predicted and found that photography played an influential role in the art making processes that generated aesthetic ruptures in the 1980s.

The author discusses three Soviet comedies from the 1970s: Moskva slezam ne verit (Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears, Vladimir Menshov, 1979), Osenniy marafon (Autumn Marathon, Georgi Daneliya, 1979), and Ironiya Sudby, ili S lyogkim parom (Irony of Fate, Eldar Ryazanov, 1975), and how they relate to both conventions of romance and conventions of the mainstream traditions of the romantic comedy genre. The text explores the evolution of the genre and accompanying theoretic writings, and relates them to the Soviet films, focusing largely on the conventions that can be grouped under an idea of the romantic chronotope. The discussion includes the conventions of chance and fate, of the wrong partner, the happy ending, the temporary and carnevalesque nature of romance, multiple levels of discourse, and some aspects of gender, class and power. In addition, some attention is paid to the ways in which the films connect to specific genre cycles, such as screwball comedy and comedy of remarriage, and to the implications that a communist system may have on the possibilities of love and romance. The author argues that Soviet and Hollywood films share many conventions of romance, but for differing reasons.

The Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974 made the production of an annual comprehensive budgetary framework the central focus of the federal budget process. Before 1974, the budget process had allowed legislation from each of the revenue committees and each of the appropriations subcommittees to come to the floor separately. Congress judged the merits of individual programs without considering the overall budget. The 1974 budget act changed the organizational ethos of the budget process from incremental change to comprehensive review and from fragmented, ad hoc decision making to coordinated decision making. It helped sort members into ideologically homogenous groups by transforming many battles over separate policy priorities into one grand battle over the biggest question in American politics: What is the role of government? The 1974 shift to comprehensive budgeting, along with subsequent additional controls on budget practices, has magnified and accelerated the effects of the many polarizing forces that have characterized the last 40 years of American politics. With this conclusion come unanswered questions regarding the merits of a distinct two-party system, as well as the potential need for comprehensive budgeting despite its political challenges.

The Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974 made the production of an annual comprehensive budgetary framework the central focus of the federal budget process. Before 1974, the budget process had allowed legislation from each of the revenue committees and each of the appropriations subcommittees to come to the floor separately. Congress judged the merits of individual programs without considering the overall budget. The 1974 budget act changed the organizational ethos of the budget process from incremental change to comprehensive review and from fragmented, ad hoc decision making to coordinated decision making. It helped sort members into ideologically homogenous groups by transforming many battles over separate policy priorities into one grand battle over the biggest question in American politics: What is the role of government? The 1974 shift to comprehensive budgeting, along with subsequent additional controls on budget practices, has magnified and accelerated the effects of the many polarizing forces that have characterized the last 40 years of American politics. With this conclusion come unanswered questions regarding the merits of a distinct two-party system, as well as the potential need for comprehensive budgeting despite its political challenges.

Activists, artists, journalists, and intellectuals in the United States, from the 1950s to the present, have supported national liberation movements in Latin America, Africa, and Asia, arguing that anti-colonial struggles abroad were related to human and civil rights struggles in the United States. This dissertation builds on these foundations by tracing multi-racial and transnational connections among people and organizations in the United States, and between the United States and Latin America during the 1970s. Uncovering these connections that linked the Third World “within” to the Third World “without” across the Américas reconfigures the narrative of what happened to social movements in the 1970s, and helps us re-imagine the Chicano movement through the lens of an anti-colonial politics. This project bridges the local, national, and international terrains of political struggle by tracing the lives of activists and organizations in the United States and Latin America who defined their politics in relation to the Third World. It interrogates four inter-related themes: the prison rebellions in the United States, third world political activity in major U.S. urban centers, guerrilla theatre on both sides of the U.S-Mexican (and by extension Latin American) international border, and social movement connections between Texas and Mexico. My primary focus is on localized strategies for grassroots mobilizations rooted in working class cultural practices, multi-ethnic solidarities, and transnational political formations that were comprised of Chicano, Black, Asian, Puerto Rican, Mexican, American Indian, and white activists and artists. I also emphasize the local elements involved in the political alliances, coalitions, and solidarity efforts across geopolitical borders and different political perspectives. Overall, this project explores connections across, underneath, and outside the political, economic, and cultural construction of the nation state, and the hemispheric construction of the Americas with the United States as the primary political, economic and cultural power. These intertwined perspectives simultaneously step back to interrogate the larger international connections while focusing in on local manifestations of national issues refracted through a hemispheric lens. It is in the 1970s - a decade characterized by a shift in the policies of the crisis-ridden political economy of the Keynesian welfare state in response to these very struggles - that we should locate the early elements of what is currently referred to the anti-globalization movements. / text

Conceptual practices developed in Colombia towards the end of the 1960s and into the 1970s. Even a cursory look at surveys of Colombian conceptual art shows that the collective El Sindicato, active between 1976 and 1979, secured its space in these accounts with its 1978 work Alacena con zapatos, which won the top prize at the XXVII Salón Nacional. However, Alacena con zapatos was neither the only, nor the most significant, contribution of El Sindicato to the development of conceptual practices. The collective’s rich oeuvre, while concise, was nonetheless remarkable in its interventions on public spaces as a means for social change. A number of factors have led to the critical misunderstanding and, ultimately, the historiographical neglect of these interventions. This thesis problematizes these factors in order to reframe and expand El Sindicato’s role within the narrative of Colombian art. To elucidate El Sindicato’s contributions, and taking into account that much of Colombian conceptual art remains unknown in the United States, this thesis also registers Colombia’s artistic field as it stood in the 1970s. In all, my project situates El Sindicato’s practices within the broader narrative of Conceptualism as a means to both enrich our understanding of contemporary art in Colombia and help expand the familiar boundaries of the map of conceptual art. / text

Magister Artium - MA / The research for this thesis started off as a long academic essay that sought to review a 1970s biography of Kenneth Kaunda.1 In its original focus, the study aimed at evaluating the work on the narrations of Kenneth Kaunda’s life from a theoretical and critical perspective. Specifically it sought to evaluate the biography for its theoretical and methodological approaches, its attention to issues of sources, archives, narrative and history. In addition, it aimed at locating the biography in relation to debates over biography and history in South Africa. As I began my research for the long essay, it soon became apparent that the biography of Kenneth Kaunda ended its narration in 1964 and yet it was published ten years later in 1974. By ending its ‘coverage’ of the narrations of Kenneth Kaunda’s life in 1964, it seemed obvious that its coverage was in many ways similar to his autobiography that was published in 1962.2 The ending of the biography’s coverage in 1964 thus seemed rather abrupt as it precluded any representations of the subject in the post 1964 period in which he had become President of Zambia. Kenneth Kaunda was resident of Zambia for nearly three decades (1964-1991) having led the ‘final’ phase of the nationalist struggle for Independence through the United National Independence Party (UNIP). Surely, I surmised, the meanings of Kenneth Kaunda’s life as nationalist leader, as presented in most of his biography, would differ from those of him as President? Upon evaluating the biography, it seemed to be a largely chronological and descriptive rather analytical account of the subject’s life. However, what made it profound to me was the ways in which it entwined the narratives of Kenneth Kaunda’s life with the events, dates 1 The biography of Kenneth Kaunda by Fergus Macpherson was the subject of the long essay. See Fergus Macpherson, Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia: The Times and the Man (Lusaka: Oxford University Press, 1974). 2 Kenneth D. Kaunda, Zambia Shall Be Free: An Autobiography (London: Heinemann Educational Books td, 1962). and activities of the history of the Zambian nation. Some accounts inadvertently referred to this interconnection by referring to Kenneth Kaunda as the ‘founder of Zambia’. My exposure to various other debates around the production of history in the public domain such as through museums and national heritage sites or monuments prompted me to consider undertaking a study of the post-1964 historiography of Kenneth Kaunda. Rather than attempting to fill Kenneth Kaunda’s post-1964 historiographical gap with a chronological account of his political life, I wanted to trace the narratives of Kenneth Kaunda’s life in connection with the production of history in different domains in Zambia. This thesis thus aims at examining the political auto/biographical narrations of Kenneth Kaunda in relation to the production of nationalist history and national heritage in Zambia in the years following the country’s Independence in 1964.4 One of the key questions that this study sought to engage with was: how did the ‘representations’ of Kenneth Kaunda influence the ways in which Zambia’s post-independence nationalist history and national heritage were produced? In seeking to provide an answer to the question, the study evaluated the auto/biography of Kenneth Kaunda itself, as well as how it reflects in the history texts utilised in Zambian schools and in history in the public domain through national heritage sites or monuments and museum exhibitions. The thesis will show that in Zambia, the auto/biography of Kenneth Kaunda has acquired significance through history as school lesson and as history in the public domain, through the production of national heritage sites and museum exhibitions. / South Africa

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The Great Appalachian Flood of 1977 was a historic flood that killed over 100 people, damaged nearly 1,500 homes, and displaced almost 30,000 Appalachian residents. The flood lasted from April 2nd to April 5th, 1977 affecting southwestern Virginia, eastern Kentucky, southern West Virginia, and eastern Tennessee. This project focuses on the disaster relief efforts by the incarcerated population of Wise County Correctional Facility, commonly known as Unit 18, in Wise, Virginia. This project utilized locally produced primary sources known as the Mountain Community Television interviews. These interviews were archived online through the Appalshop Archives in Whitesburg, Kentucky. The Mountain Community Television interviews used for this project were recorded three to four weeks following the early April flood in Wise by media activists and volunteers. The reporters interviewed incarcerated men from Unit 18, the administrative staff and correctional officers at Unit 18, local business owners, and residential community members of Wise. This article examines how the community of Wise, Virginia reacted to the disaster relief efforts in the community. The disaster relief work performed by Unit 18 inmates in the aftermath of the 1977 flood exemplifies a growing reliance on prison laborers in central Appalachia specifically, and rural America more generally. The majority of residential community members in Wise expressed NIMBY (Not in My Backyard) attitudes toward the prison facility and incarcerated population at Unit 18. On the other hand, local business owners who directly benefited from disaster relief work and prison labor changed their opinions about Unit 18 inmates. This project details how the April flood influenced local business owners to move from "Not In My Backyard" to an expanding reliance on incarcerated labor. Most of the Wise community retained NIMBY perceptions about Unit 18 and the incarcerated population after the April flood relief efforts excluding local business owners, a small but important sect of the Wise population. The article concludes by examining Unit 18 inmates' reflections on their labor, wages, and the rehabilitation programs at the Wise County Correctional Facility in the late 1970s. / Master of Arts / In 1977, a catastrophic flood impacted the central Appalachian region of the United States. This flood later became known as the "Great Appalachian Flood of 1977." The flood primarily affected small towns and rural communities in southwestern Virginia, eastern Kentucky, eastern Tennessee, and southern West Virginia. Disaster relief efforts in the aftermath of the flood varied across the region causing regional activists to criticize the government's relief efforts. In Wise, Virginia imprisoned men from Wise Correctional Facility Unit 18 volunteered to help the local community in their time of need. This project pays direct attention to Wise, VA community members' changed or solidified opinions about the local prison population at Wise Correctional Unit 18. The writing examines how Unit 18 prisoners viewed their role in the Wise community, their labor and wages, and the different approaches to prisoner rehabilitation. This project uses primary sources from the Appalshop Archives labeled as the Mountain Community Television interviews. In the late 1970s, Mountain Community Television interviewers were a group of local activists and volunteers that circulated broadcasts in southwestern Virginia. The Mountain Community Television interviews were conducted in the following weeks after the Great Appalachian Flood in Wise,Virginia. The interviews describe how local business owners of Wise and Unit 18 correctional administrators worked closely to change the working relationship between the community and the inmates at Unit 18. The vast majority of community members of Wise did not change their opinions about the location of the prison or the population of Unit 18 despite prisoners volunteering to help the community in the aftermath of the flood. On the other hand, the imprisoned population at Unit 18 advocated for more inclusion in the community with an expansion of educational and rehabilitative programs at the correctional facility after. This research is important because it highlights how rural communities and small towns contribute to mass incarceration in the United States. The project can be used to explain how Wise, Virginia directly, and central Appalachia generally, became an important landscape for the U.S. prison regime before the end of the twentieth century.

Although the Apollo 11 moon landing was one of the most remarkable events of the twentieth century, it was also among the most abstruse—what did it mean, after all? With implications ranging from the everyday benefits of “spinoff” to the cosmic questions of existence, it seemed like it had to signify something important. But the United States was undergoing a profound cultural shift as the 1960s gave way to the 1970s, a transformative moment when the rationalist, technological optimism of the high Space Age began losing traction to the more intuitive, relativistic, neo-romantic cultural aura of the 1970s. This turn left many Americans who reckoned that Apollo should be important—somehow, in some way—unable to adequately integrate the event into their worldviews, their American mythologies. This study examines how Americans attempted to make sense of Apollo in the 1960s and 1970s. This period saw a noticeable retreat from the faith in science and rationalism that had driven American thought and culture in the decades following World War II, and which formed the foundation of the successful space program. In its stead emerged a new understanding of “progress” that was divorced from its previous equation with technological advancement for its own sake and reconsidered in terms of its impact on sustainability and personal fulfillment. In this environment, Apollo—an endeavor that that ultimately seemed to offer no deeper meaning that itself—provided bold evidence that the crucial answers to life’s quandaries would not be discovered through technological journeys to the near planets; indeed, that the prolonged emphasis on these sorts of materialist endeavors had only obscured humanity’s quest for true meaning and its continued sustenance on what Apollo made abundantly clear was the only planet it would inhabit for a long time to come. This cultural turn spelled doom for a space program that for all its futuristic trappings was actually firmly rooted in the past, in a mindset that had flourished throughout the middle of the twentieth century but was now falling under wide suspicion. / text