Abstract not available.

Abstract not available.

In 1790s England, an expanding empire, a growing diaspora of English settlers in foreign territories, and spreading political unrest in Ireland and on the European continent all helped to contribute to a destabilization of British national identity. With the definition of “Englishperson” in flux, Ireland, France, and Italy—nations which are prominently featured in William Godwin’s Caleb Williams (1794), Ann Radcliffe’s The Romance of the Forest (1791), The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794), and The Italian (1797), and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818)—could be understood, similar to England’s colonies, as representing threats to the nation’s cultural integrity. Because the people of these European countries were stereotypically perceived as being economically impoverished victims of political and “popish” tyranny, it would have been easy to construct them in popular and literary discourse as being both socially similar to the “primitive” indigenous populations of colonized territories and as uneasy reminders of England’s own “premodern” past. Therefore, the overarching goal of this project is twofold. First, it attempts to account for the Gothic’s frequent—albeit subtle—use of imperialist rhetoric, which is largely encoded within the novels’ representations of sublimity, sensibility, and domesticity. Second, it claims that the novels under consideration are preoccupied with testing and reaffirming the salience of bourgeois English identity by placing English or Anglo-inflected characters in conflict with “monstrous” continental Others. In so doing, these novels use the fictions of empire to contain and claim agency over a revolutionary France, an uncertainly-positioned Ireland, and a classically-appealing but socially-problematic Italy.

No description available.

A survey of demonstrative usage in Classical Latin, an assessment of the syntactical significance of ille and iste in Late Latin, together with conditions favouring the evolution of the definite article, and an examination of articular usage in Old French up to the Chanson de Roland. / Master of Arts (MA)

This master's thesis examines public euroscepticism in three case studies: Germany, The Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. It argues that relevant literature lacks consistency and continuity because of the narrow scope in which the phenomenon has been observed in terms of the factors related to euroscepticism. The aim of this thesis is to solve this problem by performing a more holistic examination; by marrying previously accumulated knowledge on euroscepticism, public opinion data provided by the Eurobarometer and European Union Parliamentary Election results all in an effort to demonstrate the variability both in the factors related to euroscepticism and relevant attitudes over time This thesis examines euroscepticism from a multidimensional perspective. It does this by performing a cross-national longitudinal trend study, observing factors related to euroscepticism: political parties, economics, migration, national identity and national sovereignty from 1994 to 2014. Compiling and observing this body of data, it is expected, will confirm or reject the argument that the causes and degrees of euroscepticism fluctuate over time and amongst member states. Having confirmed this fact may spur further investigation of the phenomenon and encourage the European Union to identify policy areas which could nurture closer relations with its European citizens in an effort to gain further legitimacy. Democratic legitimacy also means a Europe which listens to the expectations of its citizens and addresses their concerns through adequate policies. For any of its policies, including enlargement, the EU has to win the support of its citizens.European Commission, Enlargement report (2006: 23) / Master of Arts

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<p>This dissertation examines sermons delivered by Confessing Church pastors in the Nazi dictatorship. The approach of most historians has focused on the history of the Christian institutions, its leaders, and its persecution by the Nazi regime, leaving the most elemental task of the pastor ? that is, preaching ? largely unexamined. The question left unaddressed is how well did Confessing pastors fare in articulating their views of the Nazi regime and the persecution of the Jews through their sermons? To answer this question, I analyzed 910 sermons by Confessing Church pastors, all delivered or disseminated between 1933 and the end of World War II in Europe. I argue that new trends in preaching popular among Confessing Church pastors discouraged deviation from the biblical text in sermons, and thus one result was few criticisms concerning German politics and society. Nevertheless, a minority of pastors criticized the Nazi regime and its leaders for their racial ideology and claims of ?Aryan? superiority, and also for unjust persecutions against Christians. They condemned Nazism as a morally corrupt ideology in contradiction to Christianity. Further, I argue that these sermons provide mixed messages about Jews and Judaism. While on the one hand, the sermons express admiration for Judaism as a foundation for Christianity and Jews as spiritual cousins; on the other hand, the sermons express religious prejudice in the form of anti-Judaic tropes that corroborated the Nazi ideology that portrayed Jews and Judaism as inferior. In the final section of the dissertation I explore the ministries of German pastors of Jewish descent and argue that they not only experienced persecution from the Nazi state, but also from their own congregations. Nevertheless, the themes of their sermons are consistent with those found in those of their colleagues. My research demonstrates that the German churches were in fact places to offer criticism of the Nazi regime, which was often veiled through biblical imagery and metaphor. Yet the messages reveal criticism from a position of obedience and subservience to the state, and at the same time the expose a confused ambiguity about the Jews and Judaism and their relation to Christians in Nazi Germany.

<p> In the study of the Holocaust and the genocidal policies of the Nazi regime, emphasis is most frequently placed on the attempted extermination of the Jewish population of Europe. While this focus is not misplaced, the result of this focus often forces other persecuted groups into the background. The persecution of the Jehovah&rsquo;s Witnesses of Germany is often given limited attention in Holocaust historiography. Although not designated for extermination like the Jews, the Nazi regime sought to bring about an end to the presence of this religious sect, viewing the Witnesses as a threat to the unity of the German Reich. This paper draws on the theories of Benedict Anderson and Hannah Arendt and uses the region of present-day North Rhine-Westphalia as a case study in an effort to explain how and why the Jehovah&rsquo;s Witnesses (unlike other sectarian religions) came to be seen as enemies of the Reich. It is estimated that there were 2,500 documented cases of state-sponsored persecution inflicted upon Witnesses living in North Rhine-Westphalia. The types of persecution varied from trial and imprisonment in concentration camps, to the removal of children from the care of their parents, to execution. Although the numbers of individuals targeted do not rival those of the Jews, their marginalization in the study of the Holocaust and genocide limits our understanding of the scope of this crime against humanity. This paper is an attempt to correct this deficiency.</p>

No description available.