The thesis represents the first complete academic biography of a Jewish clockmaker, warrior poet and Anarchist named Sholem Schwarzbard. Schwarzbard's experience was both typical and unique for a Jewish man of his era. It included four immigrations, two revolutions, numerous pogroms, a world war and, far less commonly, an assassination. The latter gained him fleeting international fame in 1926, when he killed the Ukrainian nationalist leader Symon Petliura in Paris in retribution for pogroms perpetrated during the Russian Civil War (1917-20). After a contentious trial, a French jury was sufficiently convinced both of Schwarzbard's sincerity as an avenger, and of Petliura's responsibility for the actions of his armies, to acquit him on all counts. Mostly forgotten by the rest of the world, the assassin has remained a divisive figure in Jewish-Ukrainian relations, leading to distorted and reductive descriptions his life. In contrast to these partial views, the thesis follows Schwarzbard's fate chronologically, from cradle to grave, emphasizing development and contradiction in his story. Special attention is paid the dynamic nature of Schwarzbard's Jewish, Anarchist, and French commitments. After a long struggle, it was the first of these that came to dominate Schwarzbard's life, as he called the Jews back into history and himself back to his people with a single, irrevocable deed. / Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations

Thesis (M.A.)--Carleton University, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 143-156). Also available in electronic format on the Internet.

Teilw. zugl.: Zürich, University, Diss., 2006 u.d.T.: Melzer, Nils: Targeted killing under the international normative paradigms of law enforcement and hostilities. / Includes bibliographical references (p. [445]-458) and index.

Thesis--New York University, 1912. / Bibliography: p. 126-130.

Thirty-seven male prisoners who had been convicted or indicted on a charge of threatening the President or national political figure were compared to state inmates, federal inmates, and normative samples on psychometric and demographic variables. Results indicated that assassin/threateners were significantly more paranoid, schizophrenic, and socially alienated than comparison samples. Their heterosexual adjustment and work record tended to be poorer than comparison inmates. Data suggested that the probability of organic impairment was greater for assassin/threateners than for the normative sample. In addition, political threateners were found to be self-destructive, apolitical, Caucasian, and products of disturbed family backgrounds.

History has shown that assassination could be wielded as an effective weapon in the pursuit of interest, security and power. As the feudal age neared its end in Europe, nation states emerged. Despite its pragmatic usefulness, assassination was considered unfit for this new form of governance. States no longer sought to destroy one another as predicted by Thomas Hobbes, but adhered to John Locke's proposed values, which believed that states could mutually exist as rivals. In this system which favored negotiation and settlements, it was difficult for assassination to have a place. Yet at the start of the 21st century, assassination once again saw employment. As of today, it is preferably referred to as targeted killing by its employers and has become somewhat of a 'new normal.' Clearly, there must be certain permissive catalysts that allowed this to happen. This master's thesis firstly explores the ways the United States, Israel and Russia conduct their assassination/targeted killing operations to present the unique ways these states eliminate their enemies, and secondly pinpoints the permissive causes that allowed these three super and great powers of assassination to transform the international norm against assassination and turn a dishonest, immoral practice into something more acceptable and fit...

This masters disertation is focused on an important Czech politician Alois Rašín and his reflection in the period daily newspapers. The researched period is from October 1922 to February 1923. Three important events related to Rašín happened in that period - his second appointment as the minister of finances and his assassination. In the first chapter I write about Rašín as a person and politician. In the second chapter I focus on the political situation during the First republic and Rašín's uneasy relations to others. The third chapter is the research I do using the period daily newspapers. I epitomize my findings in the summary.

This thesis begins by situating the work of Walter Benjamin in its historical complexity and examining the conceptual underpinnings of his phantasmagoria. Benjamin's Arcades Project is considered in light of his attempts to resituate primary structuring dichotomies in a fluid and dynamic configuration. These dichotomies include the political and the apolitical, the material and the immaterial, and the past and the present. The phantasmagoria-as-metaphor is then employed as a methodological framework for analyzing the ever-circulating images of John F. Kennedy. / This thesis is primarily concerned with the conceptual tools necessary to argue that an image is more "real" than its real-life counterpart, that is, real enough to carry resonances that extend beyond both its diminutive "artifice", and its original context. The relations between the immaterial image and its material referent are discussed as complementary and shifting, rather than oppositional and static. This thesis explores the possible and the actual convergence of the image and its material counterparts.

Thesis--New York University, 1912 / Bibliography: p. 126-130 Also available in digital form on the Internet Archive Web site.

This PhD submission constitutes a novel and accompanying critical commentary. My novel Nobody Killed Her provides an alternative history of the assassination of Pakistan's only female Prime Minister, Benazir Bhutto. The thesis questions the choices I made in order to develop the writing of this novel and the decisions I took in order for it to reach its readers. I discuss the issues of creative integrity and the role of the publisher as an enabler, and as a modern day censor. I examine the role of literary influences and publishing pressures on the multi-layered and shifting strains of the creative process and explore fiction as a powerful tool for communicating the paradoxical state of modern Pakistani women, which my novel draws upon. Accordingly, my research narrative is interspersed with personal vignettes that helped shape my writing. Reflecting upon the role of memory, history and politics, and literary influences that shape our writing, I try to interrogate the ‘flash-bulb’ moments of inspiration and argue that creative writing is actually a series of complex thought processes that shape our consciousness. I have also, during the compilation of this essay, looked critically at the role of the publisher in shaping an author’s creativity and the author’s desire for publication in influencing his or her creative choices. I have examined the role of the audience, by asking who the writer is writing for, concluding that the creative journey is more important than the destination i.e., the culmination of the writing into a published form. I conclude by contending that creative writing is above all communication, not just with the reader but also with one’s self. It is about self- expression and therefore must remain true to the self.