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  • About
  • The Global ETD Search service is a free service for researchers to find electronic theses and dissertations. This service is provided by the Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations.
    Our metadata is collected from universities around the world. If you manage a university/consortium/country archive and want to be added, details can be found on the NDLTD website.
31

Korean "comfort women" and military sexual slavery in World War II

Ahn, Yonson January 1999 (has links)
The aim of this thesis is to explore the way in which sexualities and identities are involved in the creation of patriarchal relations, ethnic hierarchies and colonial power in the context of "Comfort Women". The women were considered sexual slaves for Japanese soldiers during World War II. I attempt to show the It) ways in which masculinity, femininity, and national identity were re/constructed through the enforcement of the subject-positionings of gender, colonialism and nationalism. The questions I raise and attempt to answer are: What kinds of masculinity and femininity of the Japanese soldiers and Korean "Comfort Women" respectively, and the national identities of both, were re/constructed through the comfort station system? How were the positionings of the "Comfort Women" enacted through daily practices and ideology, and what were the consequences of the re/construction of their identity? Finally, how did the "Comfort Women" position themselves in the face of the imposition of gender and national identities, by Japanese colonial and Korean nationalist power? I use personal narratives, including testimonies and life histories of the former Korean "Comfort Women" and Japanese veterans obtained from my interviews with them as well as from testimonies already released. I interviewed thirteen former Korean "Comfort Women" and seventeen Japanese veterans. Thirteen out of the veterans were 'rehabilitated' in China after World War El, the remaining four were not. I also occasionally use official documents on the comfort station system, which were issued by the Japanese military and the Western Allies. I argue that the development of gender and national identities contributed to the construction of Japanese colonialism, and that the "Comfort Women" system helped to produce and reproduce Japan as an imperial state with power over the lives and human resources of the colonies. In particular, the maintenance of the military system depended on the circulation of these concepts of masculinity and femininity. The regulation of masculine and feminine sexuality and national identities through the military comfort station system was a crucial means through which Japan expanded its colonies by military means.
32

'We shall defend our island' : investigating a forgotten militarised landscape

Rowe, Philip January 2014 (has links)
The outmanoeuvring of Allied forces in May 1940 led to the eventual evacuation of the BEF from the continent in June 1940. Fearing an invasion, GHQ Home Forces set about the rapid re-militarisation of the UK to oppose, arguably, the first very real threat to this country’s sovereignty since the Norman conquest of 1066 AD. Constructing a series of anti-invasion defences throughout the countryside, a network of defensive fieldworks and concrete gun emplacements were erected, with linear stop lines forming part of the overall stratagem for a countrywide defence in depth. Examining one particular linear stop line, GHQ Line Green, despite previous research into its archaeological route through the landscape several questions still remain unanswered - Did the proposed wartime route for the stop line match the documented archaeology? Did the defensive fieldworks conform to 1940 WO specifications, or were they similar in design to the linear fieldworks of the First World War? Did GHQ Line Green dismiss the defensive ‘folly’ notion of the Maginot Line by being strategically sited in the Bristol hinterland? A prepared battlefield that never faced the unpredictable test of conflict, evidence offered by original cartographic, archaeological and GIS ‘Fields-of- Fire’ analysis concluded that the GHQ Line Green was strategically placed in the landscape. In ideal conditions GHQ Line Green could have had limited success in slowing down an invasion force. This dismisses the notion that the stop line was a defensive ‘folly’. With its origins found to lay in First World War fortifications, the research undertaken for this thesis will further our understanding of an often forgotten Second World War landscape.
33

Perceptions of Holocaust memory : a comparative study of public reactions to art about the Holocaust at the Jewish Museum in New York and the Israel Museum in Jerusalem (1990s-2000s)

Popescu, Diana January 2012 (has links)
This thesis investigates the changes in the Israeli and Jewish-American public perception of Holocaust memory in the late 1990s and early 2000s, and offers an elaborate comparative analysis of public reactions to art about the Holocaust. Created by the inheritors of Holocaust memory, second and third-generation Jews in Israel and America, the artworks titled Your Colouring Book (1997) and Live and Die as Eva Braun (1998), and the group exhibition Mirroring Evil. Nazi Imagery/Recent Art (2002) were hosted at art institutions emblematic of Jewish culture, namely the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, and the Jewish Museum in New York. Unlike artistic representation by first generation, which tends to adopt an empathetic approach by scrutinizing experiences of Jewish victimhood, these artworks foreground images of the Nazi perpetrators, and thus represent a distancing and defamiliarizing approach which triggered intense media discussions in each case. The public debates triggered by these exhibitions shall constitute the domain for analyzing the emergent counter-positions on Holocaust memory of post-war generations of Jews and for delineating their ideological views and divergent identity stances vis-à-vis Holocaust memory. This thesis proposes a critical discourse analysis of public debates carried out by leading Jewish intellectuals, politicians and public figures in Israel and in America. It suggests that younger generations developed a global discourse which challenges a dominant meta-narrative of Jewish identity that holds victimization and a sacred dimension of the Holocaust as its fundamental tenets.
34

Uncertainty and Threat Perception: Nationalism as an Informational Index of International Behavior

Vargas Maia, Tatiana 01 December 2015 (has links)
What is the influence that state-level nationalism exerts on dynamics of threat perception? The primary goal of this research is to investigate in what ways and to what extent state-level nationalism is used as an indicator of states’ intentions by governments in order to reduce uncertainty about the possible motivations and behaviors of other countries, informing their processes of threat assessment. The main objective of this research is to investigate if the type of state-level nationalism displayed by a specific state (civic/cultural/ethnic) affects the perceptions of threat developed by other countries. The hypothesis advanced here is that the further away a country is from the civic variety of nationalism, the higher the level of threat perception developed by others. In order to assess this hypothesis, a strategy that allies case-study qualitative research with large-scale quantitative analysis is applied. Three comparative case studies are performed, focusing on how the United States, France and Great Britain perceived the changes in the nationalisms of Germany and Italy from 1934 to 1938, and if these changes informed in any way their assessment of threat during the interwar period. In addition to this, the final part of this dissertation encompasses a quantitative analysis designed to look into the main question addressed by this project from a different perspective, in an attempt to seek for the possible objective basis of the threat perceptions investigated in the case studies.
35

Music goes to war : how Britain, Germany and the USA used jazz as propaganda in World War II

Studdert, Will January 2014 (has links)
The thesis will demonstrate that the various uses of jazz music as propaganda in World War II were determined by an evolving relationship between Axis and Allied policies and projects. The limited previous scholarship in the area, however, has been restricted to ‘single-country studies’ which present only national perspectives with little reference to the broader international context. Within a comparative framework, the thesis will trace and contextualise the international development of ‘propaganda jazz’, from early isolated broadcasts to consolidation in the form of regular programming and dedicated musical ensembles. A wide range of English- and German-language sources including Mass Observation, oral history, trade magazines and archive material from Britain, Germany, the USA and Canada will be utilised and cross-referenced to provide an unprecedented perspective on wartime uses of broadcast propaganda. Although a significant number of British and German documents relating to propaganda were destroyed during and after the war, the breadth of the research will allow reconstruction and analysis of various propaganda programmes from a multitude of standpoints. The thesis will also explore contemporary cultural, social and political considerations in Britain, Germany and the USA, thus not only increasing the scope and perspective of the discourse, but also reflecting the diversity of the interrelated factors which influenced wartime popular culture and propaganda. The thesis will make a number of significant contributions to the historiography of the field. Analyses of previously overlooked Allied and Axis propaganda projects will highlight the diversity of the methodologies regarding the use of music for propaganda purposes. Moreover, the international scope will facilitate an imperative reappraisal of British ‘black’ propaganda radio stations of Sefton Delmer and the Political Warfare Executive (PWE), which were hugely successful and yet have been unjustifiably neglected by prior historiography. The popularity and psychological adroitness of PWE’s broadcasts will be juxtaposed with the demonstrably inferior quality and effectiveness of German ‘black’ programming for Britain and the USA, which exposed considerable limitations to Joseph Goebbels’ abilities. The thesis will also explore Goebbels’ attempts to nurture an ‘indigenous’ New German Entertainment Music, and demonstrate that the Propaganda Minister’s inability to come to terms with jazz, both for German audiences and as a tool for propaganda broadcasts to the enemy, ceded an extremely important advantage to the Allies. A radical revision of the character and work of Hans Hinkel, an influential figure in the Nazi cultural apparatus who has nonetheless been the subject of very little scholarly attention, will also be provided. While a central component of the thesis is the assertion that Goebbels was far less pragmatic than has been acknowledged by prior historiography, Hinkel’s reputation as an ideologically rigid reactionary will be challenged by cross-referencing oral history sources and documentary evidence. Furthermore, the comparative framework will be used to show conclusively that the problems of appropriate musical programming for the Forces, which fell within Hinkel’s remit, were not restricted to Germany but were part of a broader international discourse regarding music’s role in the maintenance of morale. It will facilitate a wide-ranging exploration of the uses of music and broadcasting to manipulate Forces and civilian morale for both benevolent and malevolent purposes.
36

An Analysis of Two World War II Propaganda Films: The German Feuertaufe and the Polish-British This is Poland

January 2014 (has links)
abstract: At the beginning of the 20th century, the introduction of the motion picture as a medium changed the way people disseminate information between each other and to the masses. The magnitude of this change was supplemented and amplified first by, the addition of sound, then color, and finally (possibly most importantly) the invention of the technology to send and receive motion picture signals along with their corresponding sound tracks. This would eventually all be combined in the production of the first television sets. Some of the most stunning illustrations of the power brought about by this medium can be observed in the way that Germany was able to utilize film during (and before) World War II. The idea of using cinema as a propaganda tool led to the creation of UFA during WWI (1914-1918). Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels' fascination with film and its propaganda potential led to the development of many successful public communication techniques and numerous tactics used to influence the people's thoughts and actions. This thesis provides background information pertaining to the outbreak of World War II including the German propaganda machine, and examines the role that motion pictures played in the distribution of anti-Polish messages before and during the early stages of the war. It focuses specifically on the film Feuertaufe as an example illustrating six major tenants of Nazi film propaganda namely: oversimplification, appeal to emotions, harnessing the power of the visual image, intentional blurring of lines between entertainment and facts, repetition, and the use of graphics combined with music. Next, this essay explores how each of the abovementioned characteristics were used by the Poles and the British in their pro-Polish film This is Poland in order to sway public opinion and spread messages aligned with their political views respectively. This thesis concludes by stressing the importance of being aware of these techniques so that one may be able to separate fact from hype, and by looking at the possible utilization of the six tenants in the years to come as smart mobile-devices usher in yet another metamorphosis of the art of information distribution. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.A. German 2014
37

The 'Churchillian paradigm' and the 'other British Isles' : an examination of Second World War remembrance in Man, Orkney, and Jersey

Travers, Daniel January 2012 (has links)
This dissertation studies Second World War ‘sites of memory’ in the islands of Jersey, Orkney and the Isle of Man, to determine if each island celebrates the war’s events as Britain does, or if they have charted their own mnemonic course. It builds on the work of Angus Calder, Malcolm Smith, and Mark Connelly, who have explored how popular conception of the Second World War in Britain has been structured around a certain set of commemorative motifs, most of which centre on Winston Churchill and the events of 1940. The British war narrative is now commonly referred to as the ‘Churchillian paradigm’ or ‘finest-hour myth’, and continues to be the driving force in commemoration and memorialization on the British mainland. The three islands in this study are culturally and historically distinct from Britain, and each has strong notions of its own ‘island identity’. Each also possesses a tangential and divisive domestic experience of war, one which is often minimized in the iconography of the Churchillian paradigm. Jersey was occupied by Nazi Germany from 1940 to 1945, Orkney was home to several thousand Italian POWs who built important infrastructure in the island, and the Isle of Man was home to 14,000 German, Finnish, Japanese, and Italian internees in what one critic has called ‘a bespattered page’ in the nation’s history. By examining ‘sites of memory’— museums, heritage sites, commemorations, celebrations, philately, and use of public space—this dissertation shows that each island simultaneously accepts and rejects elements of the finest-hour myth in their collective memory. Each island displays its unique (though often quite negative) heritage in order to differentiate itself from Britain, while at the same time allowing them, at certain events, to participate in celebration of Britain’s ‘greatest victory’. In this way, islands’ use ‘Britishness’ pragmatically, by basking in traditionally ‘British’ commemorative tropes, while at the same time deepening their own cultural and historical sovereignty.
38

The Failed Bombing Offensive: A Reexamination Of The Combined Bomber Offensive In 1943

Truxal, Luke W. 12 1900 (has links)
For decades nations have debated how to successfully employ air power. In 1943 the United States and Great Britain launched a massive strategic bombing campaign against Germany. The two sides agreed to a flawed plan due to the fundamental differences on bombing doctrine. As a result, the campaign was fraught with issues that remained largely unresolved in 1943. Without a clearly defined plan, the Allies were unable to determine which commands or targets received priority throughout the offensive. This ultimately led to a confused and unfocused campaign. High losses and inconclusive results derailed the American bombing effort. By November, the two sides agreed that the entire bombing offensive was either behind schedule or had failed entirely.
39

“The purest pieces of home” : German POWs making German music in Iowa

McGinnis, Kelsey Kramer 01 December 2015 (has links)
The internment of over 375,000 German prisoners of war has become a footnote in the broad history of the United States’ involvement in World War II. Yet for Algona, a small town in north-central Iowa, a POW camp allowed the community to contribute to the war effort and to have a real encounter with “the enemy.” The memory of Camp Algona, which housed over 10,000 German POWs during the war, has been preserved in the archive of the Camp Algona POW museum. Among the historical and military documents held in the archive is an extensive collection of material related to the activities of the camp’s choir, orchestra, and theater troupe. The archive holds extant concert programs, photographs, concert reviews from the camp newspaper, and the choir director’s scrapbook, which together document fifty-nine concerts given between October 1944 and December 1945. Archival documentation suggests that music, especially German music, was a prominent feature of Camp Algona’s culture, distinct from other artistic and creative endeavors. This suggests a narrative that conflicts with existing assumptions in the most comprehensive histories of German POW camps in America (such as Arnold Krammer’s Nazi POWs in America and Judith Gansberg’s Stalag, U.S.A.), which generally categorize music-making as one of many popular recreational activities. One commonly accepted view is that music, like other leisurely activities, was evidence of the United States’ adherence to the Geneva Convention of 1929, which stipulated that captors must provide adequate time and means for recreation and “intellectual diversion.” Yet, first-hand accounts, newspaper reviews, and other archival documents from Camp Algona suggest that the music performed by the choir and orchestra had myriad layers of meaning and functionality for the POWs. Camp Algona’s archive holds the largest known collection of music and music-related artifacts from a German POW camp in the U.S. Thus, assumptions or oversimplifications in existing literature are likely products of the lack of existing scholarship specifically related to music. The archival evidence from Camp Algona suggests that music-making by German POWs functioned as a facilitator of communal expressions of emotion, nationalism, and cultural pride. It also served as a cultural bridge between Iowans and POWs in the context of Christmas concerts and religious services involving civilians. Through critical exploration of this relatively new archive, it is possible to offer the first musicological perspective on the lives of German POWs in American during WWII, one that contributes to the existing historical literature and invites further scholarship and comparative study on music in POW camps in America.
40

Getting People to Wish What They Need: How the United States Government Used Public Relations Strategies to Communicate Food Policy During World War II, 1941-1945

Purcell, Laura 29 June 2018 (has links)
This thesis examines how the United States federal government used public relations to improve the diets of everyday Americans during World War II. The government invested in several years of research, led by Margaret Mead, to understand the competing forces that influence dietary habits, choice, and folkways. Information about healthy eating was distributed to media and food companies along with other messages about rationing restrictions and compliance. A vestige of that time that still exists today is the USDA's Recommended Dietary Allowances. This study examines cookbooks, newspaper and magazine articles as examples of how nutrition information was presented. The study finds that the government chose not to prioritize nutrition messages as part of their overall PR strategy, but the messages were embraced by private industry and integrated into promotional materials. The addition of this story to public relations history challenges current PR histories as it demonstrates a comprehensive campaign that integrated research, planning, implementation, and evaluation of those efforts. / MA

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