“Neighborly Adoption” examines the predominance of adoption narratives in canonical transatlantic novels and highlights their intervention in a relatively unknown and surprisingly contentious discourse on child adoption. In the 1840s and 1850s, American and British reformers, politicians, and authors were thinking through issues surrounding a growing population of abandoned children in metropolitan cities and the flourishing practice and legal codification of private adoption. While institutional care was still on the rise in this period, writers like Harriet Beecher Stowe, Charles Dickens, and Maria Susanna Cummins criticized these methods, endorsing adoption as a more appropriate model of displaced child care. While critics like Carol J. Singley and Mark C. Jerng have read nineteenth-century adoption narratives as commentaries on whom might be included or excluded from national citizenship, I argue that the adoption plot should be understood as a thoroughly transatlantic phenomenon. American and British authors whose novels were popular on both sides of the Atlantic promote and interrogate what I call “neighborly adoption,” a practice in which a local community of individuals or families collectively raise a displaced child. In these narratives, varied members of the neighborhood—single, married, male, female, poor, and rich—have beneficial and empowering relationships with the children in their community, regardless of biological relation to them. Though adoption today is largely associated with individualistic values—i.e. completing one’s family, a child’s best interest—this project reveals the collective interests at the heart of adoption in nineteenth-century transatlantic literature.

Thesis advisor: Alan Richardson / The Romantic period encompasses a pivotal set of decades for the development of British citizenship, a fact that has been underemphasized due to narrow definitions of what citizenship entails. Within the wide discursive arena of national identity in Romantic fiction, however, specific literary tropes and figures emerge that consolidate and challenge the nascent and evolving concept of the British citizen. The figure of the wanderer or stateless being explores a mode of national belonging that is increasingly untethered to land and nativity; tropes of the virtual and disembodiment become central to articulations of political and bureaucratic citizenship in the American revolutionary context; struggles between dependence and independence in sentimental plots of courtship and marriage narrate the citizenly potential of women in the context of couverture; and portrayals of repatriation and exile illuminate how Britain was coming to terms with its population of color in the early post-abolition era. Taken together, the literary texts under discussion here intervene in the emergence of a ‘Romantic’ citizenship discourse in the English-speaking North Atlantic World. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2021. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: English.

This study examines German-U.S. relations during the George W. Bush administration. It utilizes Peter J. Katzenstein and Robert O. Keohane's theoretical framework of anti-Americanism to examine German perceptions of U.S. foreign policy. Katzenstein and Keohane distinguish four distinctive types of anti-Americanism. Liberal anti-Americanism is a reaction to unpopular U.S. foreign policies. Social anti-Americanism occurs in response to U.S. style capitalism and U.S. society. Sovereign-nationalist anti-American is a nationalistic response to the superpower's perceived intrusion on state sovereignty. Radical anti-Americanism is a Leninist or radical Islamic response to U.S. power. I hypothesize that anti-Americanism in German is primarily a political reaction to the policies of the Bush administration. However the negative attitudes towards U.S. foreign policy also manifest themselves in the form of the social and sovereign types of anti-Americanism. / Master of Arts

Migrant (1959-1960) and Poor.Old.Tired.Horse.(1962-1967) were two little magazines edited respectively by British poets Gael Turnbull and Ian Hamilton Finlay. This thesis aims to explore the magazines’ contributions to the diversification of British poetry in the 1960s, via their commitment to transnational exchange and publication of innovative poetries. My investigation is grounded on the premise that little magazines, as important but neglected socio-literary forms, provide a nuanced picture of literary history by revealing the shifting activities and associations between groups of writers and publishers. Drawing on Pierre Bourdieu and Pascale Casanova, I argue that Migrant and Poor.Old.Tired.Horse were exceptionally outward-looking publications bringing various kinds of poetic forms, both historical and contemporary, local and international, to new audiences, and creating literary networks in the process. A brief overview of the post-war British poetry scene up until 1967, and the role of little magazines within this period, will contextualize Turnbull’s and Finlay’s activities as editors and publishers. Migrant is examined as a documentation of Turnbull’s early years as a poet-publisher in Britain, Canada, and the US. I argue that Turnbull’s magazine is at once a manifestation of the literary friendships he forged, a negotiation of American poetic theories, and a formulation of a new British-American literary network. Identifying Charles Olson’s ‘Projective Verse’ manifesto as a particular influence on Turnbull, I examine aspects of Olson’s conceptualization of poetry as a dynamic process of unfolding in the content and ethos of Migrant. Finlay’s attitudes to internationalism and use of vernacular speech in poetry are compared to those of Hugh MacDiarmid to demonstrate that Poor.Old.Tired.Horse. emerged out of both a rejection and engagement with an older generation of Scottish writers. The content and organisation of the magazine, I argue, bear Finlay’s consideration of art as play. Drawing on Ludwig Wittgenstein’s positing of language as games, I examine the magazine as a series of playful procedures where a variety of formal experimentations were enacted.

Since the 1940s, many works of Catalan literature have taken place in Cuba. While anthologies mention the genre, there has been as of yet no thorough examination of the importance of this trend. Starting with the long history of the relationship between Catalonia and Cuba, this dissertation employs a transatlantic approach to understanding the significance of the island to Catalan literature and identity. The Catalan protagonists, through their contact with Cuba, undergo change that is accompanied by a redefinition of both personal and national identity. The thesis is structured by various journeys from the Mediterranean to the Caribbean. In Por el cielo y mandamp;aacute;s allandamp;aacute; (2000), Carme Riera tells the story of a voyage which takes place in the late colonial period and in the early days of the Cuban fight for independence. Chapters from Gent del meu exili: inoblidables (1975) by Teresa Pamies and Records vells, histandamp;ograve;ries noves (1941) by Josep Maria Poblet personify the voices of Catalan Republican exile in Cuba. Habanera (1999) by Angeles Dalmau focuses on the overseas experience of a modern-day tourist. The methodology of this dissertation draws on literary geography, the study and interpretation of writers representations of physical space, and focuses particularly on the role that Cuba plays in redefining the protagonists of the works examined. Theories of historical memory and feminism, as well as concepts related to postcolonialism and cultural geography also contribute to the conclusion that the physical and cultural space of Cuba reshapes the identity of the fictional Catalans who encounter it.

Approved for public release, distribution is unlimited / The purpose of this study is to determine how post-Cold War NATO allies have contributed to transatlantic relations, both in times of crisis and in times of harmony. Their contribution, although less significant when compared to long-time members' military capabilities, takes various forms. Their support in times of disagreement among allies over the Iraq 2002-2003 issue proved to be more valuable than was anticipated. Therefore, my research is an introspective look at the events that marked NATO's evolution during the last fifteen years and their implications for NATO members as units and for traditional transatlantic relations as a whole. Successive NATO enlargements proved that each decision to add new members reflected NATO's priorities at that particular moment. Whether it was a pre-Cold War enlargement or a post-Cold War enlargement, the decision reflected NATO's interests. Some of the decisions were predominantly military; some were in accordance with the international order established after World War II. The post-Cold War enhancements had two major characteristics: the first enlargement was more symbolic than the second because it erased the artificial lines set by Yalta, whereas the second one was much more practical. The geo-strategic position of the NATO candidates and their willingness to join, prior to their formal invitation, were favorable factors, and the decisions made regarding membership proved to have long-term, positive consequences. New NATO members, particularly Romania, appreciated their new status and participated actively in both NATO operations and in "coalition of the willing". Their equal participation in NATO-led operations and coalitions made a palpable contribution to both NATO and to the transatlantic relations. / International Civilian, Romanian Ministry of National Defense

Thesis advisor: Cynthia L. Lyerly / This dissertation uses the Keithian Schism, a split within the Society of Friends in the last decade of the seventeenth century led by George Keith, to integrate and thus better explore several aspects of Quakerism, the public sphere, and early Enlightenment fears of religious heterodoxy. Quaker history has often narrowly focused on those aspects of Quakerism that set it apart from English society as a whole. The Schism, I first seek to show, reveals how very early modern the Quakers were in their handling of honor culture, public dispute, identity, and political authority. At the same time, these common elements of Quakerism and early modern society are examined within the specific needs of the Society. Starting in the 1670s, the Society of Friends pursued a project of theological reform, and political lobbying in order to achieve legal toleration of their sect. Central to this effort was their ability to control how it was represented by opponents and members alike. Keith was involved with this project, at the levels of creating a less heterodox theological façade for the doctrine of the Inner Light and of using his more educated demeanor to cultivate elite allies (such as the Cambridge professor Dr. Henry More and his student, Anne Conway). Keith's adoption of a Renaissance system of ideas known as the "Ancient Theology" led him toward a more traditional formulation of the nature of Christ that helped provoke the Schism (without determining it). Influenced by English "revisionist" historians, however, I then focus on the narrative of the Schism, first within Pennsilvania and then London, to show that the Schism was also very much about personal honor, corporate identities, and reputation. Finally, the dissertation turns to the period after Keith's expulsion from the Society to reveal two often neglected aspect of the Schism: the role of non-Quakers and of the public sphere produced by the lapsing of the Licensing Act in 1695. These events reveal first the interest of a broader public in what is usually understood as an event solely within Quaker or colonial Pennsylvanian history. Likewise the entry into the press of numerous former Quakers, Dissenters, Anglicans and printers seeking to use the Schism to their own religious or commercial advantage elaborates recent historical literature concerning the perceived dangers of the public sphere. I set a portion of this Keithian literature, which consisted of a High Anglican attack on Quakerism as Deistic, within the contemporaneous Socinian Crisis and the rise of "societies for the reformation of manners," such as the Anglican S.P.G. and S.P.C.K., which were fundamentally anti-Quaker in their focus, both in England and the colonies. Ultimately, the ability of the Society to utilize it highly organized meeting structure to control its representation in the public sphere demonstrates the manner in which the public sphere of 1690s England was simultaneous dangerous and essential to the Quaker effort to achieve a toleration that extended beyond the merely legal. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2009. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: History.

In this dissertation, I argue that self-translators embody a borderline sense of hybridity, both linguistically and culturally, and that the act of translation, along with its innate in-betweenness, is the context in which self-translators negotiate their fragmented identities and cultures. I use the poetry of Urayoán Noel, Juan Gelman, and Yolanda Castaño to demonstrate that they each uniquely use the process of self-translation, in conjunction with a bilingual presentation, to articulate their modern, hybrid identities. In addition, I argue that as a result, the act of self-translation establishes an interliminal space of enunciation that not only reflects an intercultural exchange consistent with hybridity, but fosters further cultural and linguistic interaction. As a manifestation of their hybrid sensibilities, each of these three poets employs the process of self-translation as an extension of their poetic themes, including a critique and parody of postmodern globalization, reappropriation of language to combat forces of oppression and deterritorialization, or a socio-linguistic representation of bilingual life in a stateless nation from the perspective of a minority language. Self-translation highlights the interliminality between languages, establishing a “third space” of communication that transcends the incomplete communicative ability of each of the two languages. When presented bilingually, self-translation foregrounds the act of translation; the presence of both languages not only encourages interaction between the two languages, but also draws attention to the act of translation, instead of obscuring it in a layer of transparency. This brings the reader to ponder the act of translation and the relationship between languages, ultimately enabling the reader to more fully appreciate the generative qualities of translation.

This dissertation investigates how three significant nineteenth-century American female writers strategically transform a central Gothic motif – the virtuous heroine pursued by a villain who lusts for sexual and socioeconomic power – to tell new stories about gendered bodies and the erotic relations between them. Established in the genre-defining British Gothic novels of the late eighteenth century, this popular motif endured throughout the nineteenth century in texts written and read on both sides of the Atlantic. This project examines understudied texts by E.D.E.N. Southworth, Louisa May Alcott, and Julia Ward Howe that exhibit a striking intertextual awareness of the motif, reformulating it to critique the era’s marital and inheritance practices that enable and reinforce persistent gender inequities. These texts presciently recognize the performative nature of gender, centering on protagonists that move fluidly between genders with strategic choices about dress, speech, and social roles. By examining these texts together, this project shows that they anticipate the insights of contemporary feminist and queer theory as their protagonists deliberately calculate how to blend traditionally gendered behaviors and transform sexual threats into situations in which they can either consensually participate or cleverly elude. Chapter One argues that E. D. E. N. Southworth’s popular serial novel The Hidden Hand (1859) rewrites the narrative pattern that situates Gothic heroines as vulnerable to rape by positioning its heroine as aware of her fictional status and therefore capable of using her metafictional knowledge to reconfigure sexually threatening situations. Chapter Two examines how Louisa May Alcott’s sensation tale A Long, Fatal Love Chase (1866) blends traditionally male and female Gothic narratives to cast its heroine as a female Faust figure whose desperate desire for freedom leads her to enter naively into a bigamous partnership with a Mephistophelean man whose relentless pursuit ultimately causes her death. Chapter Three contends that Julia Ward Howe’s recently recovered manuscript The Hermaphrodite (1848) situates its ambiguously sexed but male-identifying protagonist as a Gothic “heroine” who employs unconventional strategies to cope with conventional threats to his physical and financial autonomy and rejects all interpersonal bonds because of the gendered restrictions they impose upon him. / 2019-07-31T00:00:00Z

This dissertation considers photographs of American Indians in Parisian exhibitions between 1870 and 1890 as part of a mobile and dynamic visual culture in the larger Atlantic World and as the embodiment of performative cross-cultural encounters. The project analyzes western American survey photographs disseminated abroad, as well as pictures of Native performers taken in the French capital. The study ranges from John K. Hillers’s output for John Wesley Powell and William Henry Jackson’s work for Ferdinand V. Hayden to the photographic albums of Prince Roland Bonaparte, the grandnephew of Napoleon I. Active in French scientific circles, Bonaparte photographed Plains Indian performers in 1880s Paris. Working within the developing fields of American and French anthropology, these photographers and their project directors transmitted pictures internationally in order to present their respective nations as scientific and political powers and showcase American Indians as figures of competing national patrimonies. Composed of four case studies based on exhibitions, the study challenges readings grounded solely on the original imperialist intentions of the objects’ producers. Instead, a transcultural perspective examines American Indian agendas and circumstances in these photographic exchanges. The dissertation also traces the changing meaning of these pictures over time. Chapter One analyzes a set of Hillers’s photographs of Hopi villages sent to the Société de géographie de Paris in 1877 by Powell as part of an international competition to claim authority regarding Southwest cultures. Chapter Two examines Jackson and Hayden’s Photographs of North American Indians (1878) similarly given to the Société d’anthropologie de Paris in 1879 in this culture of rivalry. However, a close reading of the volumes’ delegation portraits disrupts the imperialist framing of its text. Chapter Three explores Bonaparte’s album, Peaux-Rouges (1884) of frontal and profile photographs of Umonhon (Omaha) at the Jardin d’acclimatation and argues that references to performance and histories of contact subvert its essentializing physical anthropology approach. Chapter Four reads Bonaparte’s volumes of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West in Paris for the 1889 Exposition Universelle. Here, allusions to intercultural exchanges of the Lakota performers abroad, as show members and tourists, also challenge a hegemonic interpretation of Bonaparte’s anthropological photographs. / 2020-01-25