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In my thesis, I focus on delineating 'The Cynic Sensibility' in British Popular Literature and Culture (1950-1987). Focusing primarily on literature and music (and, to a lesser extent, cinema/television), this works seeks to write a cultural history through analysing cultural texts. The sensibility has three key characteristics: I) it is a Bohemian sensibility; ii) it is apolitical, in that it does not endorse any political alternative to the status quo at any given time, and iii) it is popular, and exists across traditional high/low cultural lines. Connected to this last point is a tendency to oppose stylistic Modernism and its attendant obscurities. Underpinning my thesis are the work of the philosopher Peter Sloterdijk on cynicism as a philosophical phenomenon, and the cultural theory of Raymond Williams. Using this approach, I seek to not only connect spheres of culture which hitherto have been kept separate, but to provide a different insight into 20th century British cultural history.

Although DuBois has been the subject of considerable scholarly work, little of that scholarship has concentrated on his political thought. This dissertation addresses that lacuna in the literature on DuBois by analyzing his writings from the standpoint of a concern with their political and philosophical dimensions and their relation to the social and intellectual contexts within which DuBois wrote and acted. Most significant in this research among the contexts within which DuBois' work was constituted are those aspects related to: (1) rise of the corporation as a central organizing force in United States political economy; (2) development of intellectuals as a self-conscious, discernibly interested stratum in twentieth-century American society; and (3) the continuing efforts of elites within the Afro-American population to congeal a social and political agenda for themselves and hegemony over the organization of the race. This study identifies collectivism as a useful critical concept in interpretation of the intellectual and institutional thrusts of those three elements of the environment of DuBois' theoretical development and points of similarity and confluence among them. Collectivism is seen as a meta-theoretical outlook that values specialized expertise in social decision-making, rational organization and planning and asserts the primacy of the economy in society. To that extent collectivism provides a rubric subsuming the principal ideological stances common among intellectuals during the early decades of this century-i.e., socialism, progressivism, and the varieties of managerialism--and their derivatives. DuBois' thought is found to demonstrate sharp continuities at the philosophical or meta-theoretical level. These continuities are most significant in his attitudes concerning the nature and purposes of knowledge and the proper organization of society in general and of the Afro-American population in particular, and they resonate with the attitudes of his collectivist contemporaries. Notwithstanding DuBois' movements into and out of the university and "activism," the Socialist Party, the NAACP, Pan-Africanism and finally the CPUSA, he is found to have maintained throughout his career commitment to: (1) a positivist-pragmatist view of knowledge; (2) a rationalistic, collectivist view of proper social organization, including a preference for meritocracy; and (3) a belief that the elite of "ability" or the "Talented Tenth" should have primacy in and over the Afro-American population.

The novels of George Mackay Brown have often been read as upholding a traditional ideal of community as that which is singular and complete, a community which exists outside time and history. As this thesis will show, however, Brown emphasises themes of community, history and myth in his work not in order to validate them without reservation, but to question what use these ideas may have in contemporary life. By reading his novels in conjunction with the work of continental theorists ranging from Martin Heidegger to Jean-Luc Nancy, it becomes apparent that Brown critically explores a post-Kantian modernity in which metaphysical or faith-based foundations are no longer possible. Brown's greatest theme throughout his work is not only how community is built and maintained, but also how it is destroyed, and what life remains after that destruction. Brown continually problematises the idea of community in order to show both its relevance and impossibility in modern society. In separately regarding each of Brown's novels in length, this thesis will highlight the various approaches Brown takes to community: the potentially romantic view of community in Beside the Ocean of time; the centrality of sacrifice for the establishing of community in Magnus; and the interections between community and history in Time in a Red Coat, and Vinland. The thesis then turns directly to the question of the relation between individuals and community in Greenvoe, and ends with a discussion of the way in which Brown portrays his own relation to community in his nonfiction and autobiographical writings. Throughout the thesis, the prevailing notion of Brown as a parochial or naive writer will be continually questioned. In addition, by integrating a wide variety of continental theorists into a discussion of Brown's work, this thesis will explore new opportunities for the general study of contemporary Scottish fiction. By revealing Brown to be a more nuanced thinker of the relation between modernity and community than previous critics have allowed, this thesis will both offer a new perspective on Brown's novels and open new paths for the discussion of the role of community in modern literature.

This thesis examines how mental hygiene principles were adopted for a student audience through the elementary-level health textbooks series, Health and Personal Development, used in Ontario schools from 1952 until 1963. In particular, I explore the didactic messages pertaining to mental hygiene as they related to girls. The results of this analysis demonstrate that healthy mental hygiene and personal development for girls, according to the textbooks, meant becoming wives, mothers, and homemakers, as their own mothers model. While these roles required many skills and responsibilities, and provided women with a certain amount of agency in the female-dominated sphere, girls were represented in the textbooks as having a limited set of options in life: to emulate their mothers’ feminine domesticity, or to risk a life marred by poor mental hygiene.

The present study looks at the influence that two of the major cultural forces of the twentieth century had on the output of Carlo Emilio Gadda. It grew out of a search for ways of discussing Gadda and in particular his 1957 novel Quer pasticciaccio brutto de via Merulana that would be accessible to the widest possible audience. Ten chapters in length, the study treats first the influence that Christianity and in particular Italian Catholicism had on the avowedly atheist writer over five chapters, paying attention to the saints and holy places used in Gadda’s output, then moves on to consider the importance of his scientific training as an engineer and his interest in physics in the second half. Aside from examining the text of Quer pasticciaccio and other works such as Cognizione del dolore and La Madonna dei filosofi, I have used biographical information and in particular data gleaned from research in Gadda’s own personal library. The aims of the study are to introduce the reader unfamiliar with Gadda to his work, to offer a new framework by which the Gadda scholar may consider the Gran Lombardo, and to suggest new solutions to the unending puzzle that is Quer pasticciaccio.

Texas Baptists in the twentieth century struggled to overcome prejudice and embrace racial equality. While historians have generally agreed that Baptist leadership in Texas was more progressive in regard to race relations than that of other southern states, Texas Baptists acquiesced to calls for racial justice with great difficulty. This study seeks to analyze the relationship between Texas Baptists' understanding of social Christianity and their views of racial equality. Furthermore, this study seeks to examine the extent to which white Texas Baptists actually changed their racial views and incorporated African Americans into their church services following the civil rights movement. An analysis of the racial transformation of one of Texas' most famous Baptists, W. A. Criswell, and the history of the Christian Life Commission, which is the ethical arm of the Baptist General Convention of Texas, provides great insight in to the racial progress made by Texas Baptists in the twentieth century. As Texas Baptists enter the twenty-first century and encounter a large and growing Hispanic population, the findings of this study will render aide to those who wish to embark on a new future by learning from the mistakes of their past.

Abstract This research report examines Maurice Ravel’s piano pieces, Miroirs (1905), as texts. These five piano pieces draw on a wide range of sources and conventions across nearly two centuries and yet are utterly integrated in their expression. In the Miroirs, Ravel exhibits a fascinating meshing of historical and contemporary influences that range from Mozart to Chabrier and Fauré. The pieces are also interestingly and very personally related to their cultural and social contexts, in that each individual piece was dedicated to a member of the Apaches, a group of young artists and intellectuals residing in Paris of whom Ravel was himself one. The research examines the significance of the Miroirs both within Ravel’s own and the broader twentieth-century repertoire.

Magister Artium - MA / This thesis traces the immigration of Madeirans to Cape Town and their settlement from the 1900s to the 1970s. It focuses on how exclusionary legislation from 1902 affected Madeiran entry, how they managed to circumvent it and the documents required for immigration over this long period. Particular attention is drawn to the role of women in the migration process, the nature of the households and the impact of women in shaping a settled Madeiran population. The thesis examines the role Portuguese organisations played and continue to play in maintaining cultural and religious values and the extent to which these values have been retained in the second and later generations. This thesis seeks to ask to what extent the Madeiran migration experience bears commonalities with other groups, particularly Indians, or whether unique features are discernible. Indians and Madeirans were both regarded as ‘undesirable’ and subject to literacy tests, domicile certificates, permits and certificates of identity. Illegal entry was common to both groups. Chain migration featured in their decision to leave the poverty of their homeland. The split-household was the dominant household form. Once settled, Indian and Madeiran wives played a key role in the business and in passing on their cultural and religious values. Both groups established cultural organisations. Despite these commonalities, Madeiran migration displayed certain unique features compared to Indians.

This thesis provides a specific insight into the previously unexplored subject of the black fair in Macon, Georgia from 1906 to 1930. It draws on archives, government papers, newspaper reports, and the correspondence of black leaders in order to create a localised study documenting the attempts of Georgia‘s African Americans to further themselves and to improve race relations within their community. Subsequently, the fair creates a microcosm of wider efforts of black uplift and racial politics in the South during this period. The fair reveals the work of Richard Wright, a figure who demonstrated how local African American leaders often straddled the doctrines of W. E. B. Du Bois and Booker T. Washington, and adapted their philosophies within everyday life. The fair is also illustrative of how leaders such as Washington also cultivated relationships with black community leaders and fellow educators, while also connecting to the black masses. Similarly the celebration and appearance of national black political figures, such as James Napier, encouraged black pride and determination. Furthermore, such exhibits created powerful symbols which connected black political success with economic wealth. The thesis thereby situates the black fair and its organisers within a significant period of black political development, one which contributed to the later Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. Institutions such as the African American fair were vital spaces which fostered a sense of black community, economics and autonomy. This thesis helps draw attention to the importance of such recreational spaces, repositioning them within the political and social studies of black southerners during the early twentieth century.