This study explored the responses of Amish agrarians in northern Indiana to the mechanization and modernization of rural life in the early twentieth century. This period was marked by a shift towards agribusiness as well as the increased usage of farm machines. In addition to the increased emphasis on farm efficiency, reformers sought to modernize or update rural life. Within the context of these transformations, the Amish maintained their identity by exploring the necessity and the consequences of adapting to life in the modern world. Their responses to modernization defined not only their cultural boundaries in the modern world but also created their identity in twentieth century America. In stark contrast to the ideal of the independent farmer, the Amish used the strength of their community (both Amish and nonAmish) and their agrarian roots to endure and overcome the challenging events of the early twentieth century. The purpose of this study was to expand the scholarship of Amish studies in northern Indiana as well as place the Amish experience within the context of agrarian historiography. Resources used to examine this period included Amish writings, farm publications from Indiana and data from the agricultural census.

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This thesis examines the twentieth century architecture from the perspective of conservation. The criteria of conservation have changed as the idea of conserving a single monument has progressed into the acceptance of the need to conserve different cultural properties and the field has been enriched with new notions, such as the twentieth century architectural heritage. The main concern in this thesis is to present these current debates about and developments in the conservation of the twentieth century architecture in the world and in Turkey. Such a study initially entails to deal with the basic issues of conservation, the twentieth century architecture in the world and in Turkey and its conservation, and to form a detailed documentation of registered twentieth century buildings. With reference to the information gathered from this study and by examining the registration decisions of buildings the aim is to analyse the practice of the conservation of the twentieth century architecture in Ankara as an exemplary case of the current situation of the field in these terms in Turkey.

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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.

At the turn of the twentieth century, Paris was an international center for music, art, and fashion. It fostered the creation of a variety of innovative artistic developments and is widely considered to be the birthplace of Modernism. Stravinsky's Le Sacre du printemps, the epitome of modernist innovation, could only have happened in this unique cultural climate in the context of the Franco-Russian alliance. Stravinsky's early musical development reached its peak in his early ballets, most notably Le Sacre du printemps. This work is a culmination of the multiplicity of cultural activities that include art, scenario, choreography, and music that came together in Paris. In this essay, I will explore the various ways in which the city of Paris in the beginning of the twentieth century influenced Stravinsky's musical voice. My discussion moves from an overview of the city to Stravinsky, exploring the ways in which the Parisian environment shaped his compositional style. To this end, Le Sacre du printemps is viewed as a kind of lightning rod, bringing together many of the fundamental artistic developments of the early twentieth century and reflecting the diverse and modern city in which it was premiered. / text

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.