Thesis advisor: John Michalczyk / The Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) possesses an historical identity distinct from other national conflicts because of its chronological position between World War I and World War II. International ideological interests came to the forefront of the Spanish conflict and foreign powers became involved in the Republican and Nationalist political factions with the hopes of furthering their respective agendas. The Spanish Civil War extended the aftermath of World War I, as well as provided a staging ground for World War II. Therefore, the Spanish Civil War transformed into a ‘proxy war’ in which foreign powers utilized the national conflict to further their ideological interests. In order to unite these diverse international socio-political campaigns, governments and rebel groups turned to modern visual propaganda to rally the public masses and move them to actively support one side over the other. Propaganda film and poster art supplied those involved in the Spanish Civil War with an invaluable political tool to issue a call to action and unite various political factions around one ideological movement. / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2013. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: College Honors Program. / Discipline: International Studies.

Based on longitudinal qualitative research, the paper analyses manifestations and mechanisms of the repression of activists of the Spanish protest movement 15M, and effects of this repression perceived by activists. To contextualize this, the background of the movement, its goals, and its achievements are described. The movement started in 2011, protesting the social crisis, the consequences of austerity policies, and corruption. It had viable effects on the framing of the current situation, in political attitudes and also, indirectly, on the political system. The Spanish government has responded to movement activities with repression and with new laws that interviewees characterize as a further restriction of the civil right to demonstrate and protest. Findings indicate that the combination of overt and covert repression have effects far beyond the manifest acts of the repression itself.

My research focused on understanding how viceregal authority was accepted in Mesoamerica. Rather than approaching the problems from the perspective of institutional history, I drew on prosopographical techniques and the court-studies tradition to focus on the practice of government and the affinities that bound indigenous and non-indigenous political communities. In Chapters two and three I investigate how particular notions of nobility informed the ‘ideals of life’ of the Spanish and indigenous elites in New Spain and how these evolved up to 1535. The chapters also serve to establish a general context to the political situation that Mendoza faced on his arrival. Chapters four to seven explore how the viceroys sought to increase their authority in New Spain by appropriating means of direct distribution of patronage and how this allowed them personally to satisfy many of the demands of the Spanish and indigenous elites. This helped them impose their supremacy over New Spain’s magnates and serve the crown by ruling more effectively. Viceregal supremacy was justified in a ‘language of legitimacy’ that became increasingly peculiar to New Spain as a community of interests developed between the local elites and the viceroys who guaranteed the local political arrangements on which their status and wealth increasingly depended. I conclude by suggesting that New Spain was governed on the basis of internal arrangements guaranteed by the viceroys. This led to the development of what I define as a ‘parasitic civic-nobility’ which benefitted from the perpetuation of the viceregal system along with the crown. The internal political logic of most decision making and a defined local identity accompanied by increasingly ‘sui generis’ ‘ideals of life’ qualify New Spain to be considered not as a ‘colony’ run by an alien bureaucracy that perpetuated Spanish ‘domination’ but as Mexico City’s sub-empire within the Habsburg ‘composite monarchy.

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Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2006. / Full text release at OhioLINK's ETD Center delayed at author's request

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, San Diego, 2006. / Title from first page of PDF file (viewed December 7, 2006). Available via ProQuest Digital Dissertations. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 307-318).

The spatial distribution and properties of rainfed orchards in semi-arid environments result from complex interactions between man and the physical and economical environment. This thesis investigates a number of these interactions in the context of the mechanisation of management practices since the 1950's. It is shown how the practice of clean sweeping (i.e. frequent shallow tillage) influences the orchard water balance and how the removal of traditional soil and water conservation structures affects the connectivity of overland flow to the river system. Although clean sweeping prevents transpiration and competition by weeds, it also constrains the root growth in the plough layer, so that the trees cannot access the water from small rain events. In addition, clean sweeping promotes accelerated soil erosion. It appears that the practice of clean sweeping limits the water availability in orchards on loamy soils with an annual rainfall in the order of 300 mm. It is demonstrated that the presence and properties of rainfed orchards are related to spatial patterns of soil characteristics and climate. The observed decline in conservation structures like terraces and check-dams leads to an increase in the connectivity of water and sediment to the river system. An alternative for these traditional techniques to retain the water and the soil is the application of cover crops. The advantage of cover crops is that they do not limit the field size. A drawback in dry areas is the competition for water and nutrients between the cover crop and the trees. Field evidence and water balance simulations suggest that cover crops are feasible in areas with an annual precipitation of 500 mm or more.

Conventional wisdom suggests that ‘nations without states’ are seeking to preserve cultural and linguistic homogeneity within their homeland by advocating for independence or political autonomy. Accordingly, large-scale immigration has typically been seen as a threat to national minorities because newcomers tend to integrate into the culture of the majority group. In addition, even if immigrants learn the minority’s language, they are unlikely to sympathize with the nationalist movement or vote for nationalist parties. This dissertation seeks to explain why Basque nationalism, despite its historical grounding in racism and exclusivity, developed a group-based multicultural approach in response to foreign immigration. To account for this unexpected outcome, I develop two interrelated causal arguments that integrate the role of ideas and the imperative of nation building for nationalist elites. Nations are forged by a rich legacy of memories and nationalist history requires both an act of collective remembering and collective amnesia. The ideas that stem from the memories of repression constrained the choices of Basque nationalists, preventing the rise of ideas of racial purity and exclusion in favour of multiculturalism and openness. A second argument that I advance is that changing contexts are motivating nationalist elites to find new policy areas with which to distinguish the values of the majority and minority nation. The emergence of a stricter immigration framework in Spain and a backlash against multiculturalism in Europe provided Basque nationalists with an opportunity to link open citizenship and multiculturalism to the distinctiveness of the Basque nation. I apply the arguments developed through an in-depth study of the Basque case to the nationalist movements in Scotland, Quebec, and Flanders and conclude that diversity is an effective, but risky, new value that minority nationalists are employing to further their case for independence.

The Galician hórreo is a traditional rural building of Northern Spain used for desiccation and conservation of cereal grains. This detached building provides natural ventilation, an unfavourable environment for biotic agents such as fungi and insects, and prevents the access of other animals, such as rodents. The essential typology of the Galician hórreo emerged historically as a result of many different cultures interacting with changing harvesting techniques related to growing cycles. Types are those persistent architectural elements that give form to the collective life of the city. This thesis examines the significance of the ‘hórreo’ typology in the context of Aldo Rossi’s advocacy of ‘type’ as a persistent architectural element that gives form to the collective life of a city or region and raising the issue of permanence in architecture within the fluid tides of history. The hórreo is perceived as an irreducible element encoded within the historical permanence of the regions of Galicia and Asturias. The thesis proposes an architecture that embodies time and memory in a world where space and time become increasingly compressed. In recognizing the limitations of typology in an era of accelerated experience, the thesis argues for its relevance by creating an architecture that bridges different eras and time periods for a culture like Galicia, that still remembers.

The present study examines the evolution of the definitions of 31 terms having to do with three prominent religions in Spain: Christianity, Judaism and Islam. The definitions are analyzed for racism and religious bias in reference to the cultural and ideological periods of Spanish society throughout history. Each word is studied from the earliest date of appearance in a Spanish language dictionary. The database used is the Nuevo Tesoro Lexicográfico de la Lengua Española (NTLLE), published by the Real Academia Española (RAE) in 2001, which includes 70 dictionaries, 37 of which are written by authors not connected with the RAE. In an attempt to broaden the historical point of view, as many entries from dictionaries as possible are used in this analysis. Racist definitions are defined as containing abusive or pejorative language that insinuates that one race, or religion, is superior to another. Biased definitions use language that inhibits neutrality in the descriptions. It is shown that Christian terms are generally associated with positive concepts. Terms related to Judaism suffer much racism and religious bias through pejorative language and direct comparison to Christianity. Islamic terms reveal less racism in their entries and fall more often under neutral descriptions. That fewer biased entries exist for Islamic terms may be related to their status as a majority in Spain during large periods of history, whereas Jews suffered more racism because they were consistently the minority. The role of the Spanish Inquisition in the persecution of Jews will is shown to have heavy influence in the entries for several Jewish terms. While the item judío suffers the most extensive use of pejorative language, moro is the only term for which negative language endures to the present.