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Open Access
Living in a World of Words: Humanist Friendships and Book Culture in Quattrocento Rome, 1440-1480
(2024-10-28) Torch, Barry Jason; Cohen, Thomas V,
This dissertation examines the friendships and social networks of some of the humanist scholars who lived and worked in Rome in the decades between 1440 and 1480. By studying their friendships and community formations as a social process, and how they interacted with each other through exchanging books as gifts, I show that the humanists in Rome relied upon their friendships and networks to support their academic works and lives. Their intellectual production, praised and analyzed for their contributions to many avenues of political, cultural, and philosophical history, was buttressed and supported not just by their patrons or their contributions to intellectual culture, but also by the many socio-cultural habits and behaviours of premodern friendships, rivalries, and networks. By narrating some of these friendships and taking a microhistorical lens to humanist life and behaviour, this dissertation argues for the importance of studying humanism as a lived practice and a performance in early modernity, rather than only as an intellectual movement that was obsessed with the transformation of classical antiquity in and for their world. The first chapter grounds this dissertation within the long histories of both intellectual and social history of early modern Italy and highlights a path forward for the study of fifteenth-century humanism. The second chapter studies the humanist genre of the dedicatory letter from a social perspective, and using two examples, argues that this famous genre of humanist writing should also be studied for how it builds, shapes, and informs humanist communities, and not just for how humanists used prefaces to seek patronage. The third chapter studies the printed prefaces of the humanist bishop Giovanni Andrea Bussi, and how he brokered and negotiated the communities of scholars, elites, and humanism itself in mid-fifteenth-century Rome through his prefaces, his editing, and his work with the printers Conrad Sweynheym and Arnold Pannartz. The last chapter looks at the creation of Pius II’s famous memoir, The Commentaries, as a humanist and political text, arguing that there were many authors involved in the creation of its manuscripts and planned circulation. Subsequently, the pope planned for its multiple authorship and coordinated its many hands and voices to create a singular image of himself that could be used and defended by his associates after his death.
Open Access
Machiavelli and The Pisan War: Political Crisis and Cultural Creativity in Renaissance Florence, 1494-1509
(2024-07-18) Mitrovic, Milos; Jurdjevic, Mark
On November 9, 1494, the Pisan rebels proclaimed independence from Florence and reclaimed their city without a fight. Their audacious act marked the beginning of a long war between Florence and Pisa that ultimately ended with Pisa’s surrender in June 1509. As Niccolò Machiavelli’s chancery career (1498-1512) almost matches the entire duration of the Pisan War, one may ask about his role in the conflict as the secretary to the Ministry of War, and later, the founder and supervisor of the Florentine militia. Surprisingly, this topic has attracted little to no attention in historiography. Concerning this, one of the main goals of my dissertation is to bring to light Machiavelli’s engagement in the Pisan War and his contribution to bringing down the rebellious city. Additionally, as many events that Machiavelli experienced during the conflict inspired him to reflect on them in his writings, the purpose of this project is to show how the Pisan War affected Machiavelli’s intellectual formation. To achieve those goals, my dissertation draws mainly from Machiavelli’s early official letters and dispatches (Legazioni) and his first political writings. The use of Machiavelli’s post-1512 opere and contemporary Pisan and Florentine chronicles and histories serves to complement the main source material.
Open Access
The Black Fountain: Childhood and Class in Eighteenth-Century England
(2024-07-18) Morris, Ronald Douglas; Rogers, Nicholas C. T.
“The Black Fountain: Childhood and Class in Eighteenth-Century England” explores the nature of childhood as it was experienced by the poor in the eighteenth century. The scarcity of direct accounts from children at this level of society necessitates a creative examination of available sources: by combining quantitative records—such as workhouse admissions and discharge records or the registers of the philanthropic organizations of the capital—with qualitative sources—such as newspaper accounts, the work of pamphleteers, and parliamentary and court debates—this study overcomes the limitations of the fragmented evidence of childhood and reconstructs a more complete picture. These findings highlight the difficulties in capturing children's attitudes and opinions due to the absence of their personal narratives: interpreting quantitative sources is not without challenges, because they reflect societal biases and perceptions of the time. This study thus adopts an analytical approach that reads institutional records “against the grain,” illuminating the ways that institutions processed and categorized children, but also uncovering instances where children managed to elude or subvert these systems. “The Black Fountain: Childhood and Class in Eighteenth-Century England” also recognizes the agency of impoverished children within the constraints imposed by their circumstances. Although these children faced material deprivation and had limited decision-making power, they actively shaped their own lives and resisted societal expectations. This research contributes to a more nuanced understanding of childhood in the eighteenth century. By synthesizing quantitative and qualitative sources and emphasizing the agency of young individuals, this study challenges prevailing narratives of innocence, vulnerability, and victimhood and unveils the resilience and active participation of children in shaping social, cultural, and economic structures of their time. This exploration offers valuable insights into the lives and experiences of marginalized children, enriching our understanding of this period in history.
Open Access
Speeding Toward Babylon: Subcultural Drug Use in Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver, 1960-1980
(2024-07-18) Hazzan, David Robert; Martel, Marcel
This dissertation examines the history of subcultural drug use in Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver, from 1960 to 1980. The primary method of investigation was oral interviewing, backed up with statistical analysis, NGO and government studies, and art, including music, novels, poetry, and comics produced in the era. Through this work, I have attempted to create a ground-up, “people’s history” of drug use in these three cities at this time. Subcultural drug use became a recognized phenomenon in the late 1950s and early 1960s, with subculturalists like “jazz cats” and rock n rollers using drugs as varied as heroin, cannabis, and amphetamine. Following the “British Invasion” of 1964, subcultural drug use exploded and became much more common, especially under the banner of the “hippies,” a subculture so large it became a “counterculture.” Though there was plenty of darkness surrounding the hippies, the movement was overall an idealistic one, focused on peace, love, and having a good time. This reflected, and reflected upon, wider society, which saw massive economic expansion and a grand liberalization of society generally. With the economic downturn of the 1970s, the introduction of hard drugs, and the “death of the sixties dream,” the counterculture morphed into something more dystopian, finally reaching its apotheosis with punk. The history of drug using subcultures in the 1960s and 1970s provides insights into several fields of Canadian history, beyond drug and subcultural studies. It reflects particularly on (1) the postwar growth of the Canadian economy and population; (2) the rise of the liberal welfare state and reaction to it; (3) the development of the teenager and extension of adolescence; (4) the spread of greater cultural tolerance, the politics around that tolerance, and reaction to it; and (5) the spread of communications, transportation, and pharmaceutical science and technology. This study analyses the conflicts and contradictions of a time and place where millions of youth had more opportunity than ever before, while at the same time being classed as the largest law-breaking cohort in modern history.
Open Access
Drawing The Line: An environmental history of the Westcoast Transmission natural gas pipeline, 1948-1982
(2024-03-16) Van't Veen, Esther; Kheraj, Sean R.
This dissertation is an environmental history of Westcoast Transmission Company Limited (Westcoast), which built Canada’s first big-inch natural gas pipeline and inaugurated large-scale natural gas usage in British Columbia. The study starts in the late 1940s, when the company was founded, and ends in 1982 when it effectively concluded its first encounter with substantial public resistance to its natural gas pipeline ventures. The dissertation asks to what extent Westcoast shaped human-nature relations and argues that Westcoast’s energy transition was about more than technological innovations and economic questions of supply and demand. Instead, natural gas usage and exploitation were intertwined with gender identity, community building, geopolitical questions, colonial ambition, and the definition of modernity. Relying primarily on three archival collections in two Canadian cities, parts of which are newly available to the public, this dissertation explains how Westcoast developed, operated, maintained, and expanded its complex energy system and sheds light on Canada’s relatively late transition to fossil fuels and the persistent nature of Canada’s fossil fuel reliance.
Open Access
Strays and Saviours: Child Immigration, Perceptions of Childhood, and Child Welfare Policies in Canada, 1869-1930
(2024-03-16) Gagne, Alex Joseph; Martel, Marcel
This dissertation examines Victorian juvenile immigration initiatives spanning the years 1869 to 1930, which involved the relocation of over 100,000 pauper children from urban London slums to rural Canadian homes as part of a social rehabilitation and labor-relief scheme. In response to an alarming surge in juvenile poverty and crime on London streets, prominent child-savers in Britain believed that sending at-risk children to the healing, pastoral countryside of Canada was the solution. Initially applauded by Canadians as an answer to the nation's urgent need for labor and a testament to the enduring imperial link between colony and motherland, concerns about the safety of British juvenile immigrants emerged over time. Debates ensued regarding how the nascent Canadian government ensured the safe placement of these immigrant children in Canadian homes and how the British government's expectations of childcare often differed from Canadian standards. These debates on the well-being of incoming British children involved a myriad of British child-savers, Canadian lawmakers, and politicians, each possessing their own ideal vision of childhood. An analysis of records from British child-savers and Canadian childcare institutions, such as the Children’s Aid Society, revealed stark differences in child-rearing practices. While some British child-savers and the federal government of Canada focused on hard work as a form of moral uplift, Canadian reformers believed that school and a stable home life were more critical for the child’s upbringing. Thus, rather than viewing juvenile immigration solely as a philanthropic enterprise, this dissertation illustrates how the juvenile immigration experience represents a hotly contested form of childcare, demonstrating how children’s bodies became subject to diverse theoretical projections from institutional mandates and professional figures with disparate and often conflicting ideologies of childhood and visions for future citizenship. Complicated by early twentieth century developments in psychology, medicine, and social work, fears, and anxieties about the efficacy of juvenile immigration increased. Once recognized as popular bastions of autonomous and effective childcare, juvenile immigration societies were accused of inadequate practices and rampant neglect by burgeoning child welfare organizations. Consequently, questions were raised, national in scope, about the quality of life for children residing on Canadian soil; indeed, had Canadians begun to reject the efforts of British immigration societies because of a waning imperial bond? Had Canadian attitudes surrounding childcare—influenced by a rising tide of professional critique—rendered the administrative techniques of these British juvenile societies coercive, antiquated and, ultimately, inadequate? Most importantly, how had tensions surrounding juvenile immigration contributed to the inception of Canadian child welfare policy and the origins of pan-Canadian childcare?
Open Access
Talking Through Water: Experts, Environmentalists, and Their Publics, 1944 to 1977
(2023-12-08) Dyck, Karen Angela; McPherson, Kathryn M.
In response to the repeated droughts of the early twentieth century in northeastern North Dakota, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation planned a large-scale diversion project called the Garrison Diversion Unit (GDU). The GDU, a multipurpose engineering project, received its first approval in 1944 promising to redirect water from the North Dakota segment of the Missouri River through a system of dams, reservoirs, and canals for the purpose of irrigation, hydroelectricity, industrial and municipal water supply, expansion of recreation areas, and enhancement of fish and wildlife areas. The engineers who planned the GDU failed to consider the environmental impacts or international political implications of the diversion of the project’s irrigation return flows from one watershed to another and across the border into Canada. Although the project itself remains unfinished to this day, the GDU debates that raged between 1940 and 1977 provide invaluable insights into the professionalization of environmental experts, international water diplomacy, and the role of the public in the realization of mega water projects. From the GDU’s inception, various groups and individuals have contested this project. This dissertation examines how knowledge of water, technology, and public policy was mobilized in various sites of debate during a critical period in the development of environmental policy in America. I analyzed three sites of the debate: the promotion of the project by its leading engineering figurehead, the scientific and environmental organizations and committees that debated the environmental impacts of the project, and the international commission that engaged local users for the first time to determine the project’s future. I found that economic, social, political, and cultural arguments and language, rather than scientific evidence, shaped the dialogue, allowing both experts and non-experts to engage in the debate using various types of knowledge. This dissertation argues that the GDU, the reports it generated, and the talk surrounding it did not only describe the physical engineering edifices being proposed; they also and perhaps more importantly, revealed the GDU as an envirotechnical system that provided experts and non-experts alike with opportunities to communicate, translate, and challenge one another’s ideas about technology and the environment.
Open Access
New Conflict, Old Conundrum: Venereal Disease Control and Education in World War Two Canada
(2023-12-08) Moretto, Enrico Peter; Martel, Marcel
This dissertation examines venereal disease control and education in Second World War Canada. By examining the methods and materials used in anti-venereal disease campaigns, I show that these public health drives employed a “moral-medical” model of care and education which stressed that increasingly modern treatment techniques did not wholly supplant morality-based understandings of sexually transmitted infections. While effective chemotherapy and, later, antibiotics made the fight against venereal disease easier, for many of Canada’s physicians, educators, and military officials it remained essential to remind Canadians that the moral elements of sexuality could not be brushed aside. Influenced by the experiences of the Canadian Expeditionary Force in the Great War, anti-venereal disease campaigners were concerned by the impact of venereal disease rates on productivity and efficiency in a wartime setting. On the home front, the prevailing sentiment was that venereal disease both economically and morally threatened the nation. Workers infected with venereal disease threatened wartime labour supplies, endangered the future of Canada’s youth and undermined the spiritual unity of Canada. For these reasons, government and medical officials understood anti-venereal disease work as essential and used its purported importance as grounds to renew campaigns against old moral foes, including the sex trade. While organizations like the Health League of Canada did provide the civilian populace with legitimate medical information concerning venereal disease, their work was far from value-free. With respect to the military, venereal disease control and education differed depending on whether recipients were men or women. For servicemen, moral messaging was prevalent, but so too was a grudging acceptance of male sexuality. Male personnel could expect to receive worthwhile information about venereal disease, prophylaxis training and access to the latest treatment methods: keeping men fit and ready to serve remained a top priority among military officials. For women in the auxiliary services, however, education was prioritized over treatment and prophylaxis. While women who became infected with venereal disease were provided with medical care, anti-venereal disease education for servicewomen often amounted to little more than moral rejoinders to dwell on respectability and their future roles as Canada’s mothers.
Open Access
The West India Regiments: African Soldiers, War, And Empire in The British Atlantic Tropics
(2023-12-08) Prochnow, Kyle Steven; Trotman, David V.
This dissertation reconstructs the lives and military labor of African conscripts who served in Britain’s West India Regiments, formal companies of Black infantry, in the Caribbean and coastal West Africa in the nineteenth century. The Regiments, valued by their officers and the British state for their apparent resistance to the tropical “miasmas” that massacred white soldiers, occupied colonial garrisons on both sides of the Atlantic. In the Caribbean, they engaged French forces and policed enslaved and free Black populations. In West Africa, they patrolled the frontiers of nascent British settlements and subjugated coastal African states on the orders of the imperial government. Most of the soldiers who comprised the West India Regiments over the first half of the nineteenth century had been enslaved, forced into the corps upon arrival in British Atlantic colonies on slave vessels. In the army, Black soldiers endured particular military tasks and methods of discipline that were influenced by evolving imperial ideas about race. But despite the intense order under which they lived, African regulars nurtured personal relationships with chosen associates, both inside the colonial garrison and away from it, for which soldiers’ African backgrounds were key facilitators. The West India Regiments reframe histories of Atlantic warfare, migration, slavery and abolition, race, and tropical disease, opening each of these themes to new connections, sources, and research methodologies.
Open Access
"Which not by the Light of Knowledge can Dispel:" Experiencing Blindness in Late Nineteenth-Century North America
(2023-10-03) Pearce, Joanna Lynne; Podruchny, Carolyn; Reaume, Geoffrey
This dissertation contributes to knowledge by expanding our understanding of the way that blindness was defined and experienced in the nineteenth century. Many of our modern ideas of blindness are still shaped by ideas of helplessness and dependency that were described and defined by schools for the blind during their establishment in the late nineteenth century. These schools relied on fundraising that required the posterchild of blindness to be pathetic and helpless without the interventions of school officials and dedicated separate schools for the blind. However, examining the life experiences of blind people counteracts some of this narrative. While those who wrote autobiographies were a minority, they reflect an understanding and lived experience of blindness that is not described in the work of institutions. By examining these autobiographies next to the main narratives of schools for the blind, we raise questions about the effectiveness of dedicated schooling for the blind in the nineteenth century, interrogating and complicating their narratives. By looking at these documents written by the blind themselves, this dissertation also brings to light the community of blind children and adults that has not been well-examined by previous studies.
Open Access
The Cultural Revolution and the British Chinese: Radicalization of a Transnational Community
(2023-08-04) Rawcliffe, Dalton Allen; Fogel, Joshua A.
This thesis bridges the bottom-up and top-down approaches favour of transnational history from the middle to understand the influence of the Leftist Riots and China’s Cultural Revolution provoked unrest in Britain’s Chinatowns in 1967. Concerned by the outburst of solidarity, the Hong Kong government sent Administrative Officer David (Kar-wah) Lai to survey why Britain’s ethnic Chinese community—often considered apolitical—demonstrated in support of the Hong Kong Leftists. Using recently released archival material from the National Archives, Hong Kong Public Records Office and the London Metropolitan Archives, this dissertation argues that, while the impetus for protest in Britain’s Chinatowns was the 1967 Leftist Riots, there were several other underlying causes that help to explain why the ethnic Chinese population of Britain demonstrated in support of the Hong Kong Leftists. The Hong Kong government survey initially believed that the ethnic Chinese community’s unrest was due to Maoist indoctrination by the Chinese Mission, its supporting pro-Beijing associations, and Leftist media. However, Lai’s survey revealed that the members of the ethnic Chinese community who gravitated towards Maoism did so for pragmatic reasons, not because of any strongly held ideological conviction. This dissertation contends that the Hong Kong Chinese and Britain’s ethnic Chinese who dabbled in left-wing politics were not true Communists or Maoists but were merely expressing their discontent with British colonial rule in Hong Kong and British society. Their lack of Communist conviction becomes increasingly clear by 1997 and the handover of Hong Kong to the PRC. By this time, Britain’s ethnic Chinese were thriving financially and many questioned returning to the “motherland” and whether Hong Kong would be able to maintain autonomy or remain insulated from the challenges within the PRC. Emigrant Chinese in Britain have held a complex relationship with the phenomenon of both British and Chinese “colonialism.” By studying the history of Hong Kong emigrants in Britain, this thesis contributes to the understanding of the decline of the British Empire and the rise of the PRC state, and how the emergence of a British Hong Kong and its diasporic citizens became central to the new Cold War Anglo-Chinese relationship.
Open Access
Allies, Accomplices, Avengers: The Alliances of Non-Elite Women in Seventeenth-Century England
(2022-12-14) Couling, Marlee Jane; Cohen, Elizabeth S.
This dissertation examines the alliances of non-elite women in England in the decades between 1630 and 1700. It is the first scholarly work to focus on the positive interactions of plebeian women and the important role which female networks played in their lives, both as a part of ordinary sociability and in times of need. Using ecclesiastical and secular judicial records, it shows that non-elite women formed a wide variety of legal and illegal alliances as a means to mitigate their social, legal, physical, and economic vulnerabilities in this period. These alliances hinged on the sites and issues that early modern women were associated with in daily life, namely the female body and the expectations ascribed to it—motherhood, feminized labour within and outside the home, and beliefs, both negative and positive, about the ‘natural’ moral roles of women. Although female alliances and sociability were viewed negatively in early modern popular culture, including scripture, law and medicine, this dissertation shows that women needed female allies and, in fact, were expected to have them. Seventeenth-century patterns of labour and sociability encouraged the formation of female alliances. The rituals of childbirth reveal networks of women, as do trials for slander, illicit pregnancy, divorce, and infanticide. Central to these alliances was the female body. Ordinary women wielded considerable authority, socially and legally, as the only true experts on their bodies. They provided important evidence for the prosecution and punishment of crimes ranging from defamation to murder. In some of these cases, female allies contributed towards life-or-death decisions. Furthermore, this dissertation shows that the body connected women’s legal and illegal alliances. The likelihood of experiencing poverty, unwanted pregnancies, damaged reputations, and violence encouraged the formation of emotional communities among some women. Sometimes this involved competing alliances, or a collective against an individual, as in bastardy cases. In the end, few women were truly without allies in this period.
Open Access
Investing in Infidels: Slavery in Trecento and Quattrocento Florence
(2022-12-14) Zhang, Yi Ran Angela; Jurdjevic, Mark
In the intake records of the Foundling Hospital in Florence between 1450 and 1453, only two infants, out of the almost three hundred, were marked as “ghezzo” and “nero”, meaning dark-skinned and black. At the same time, about fifty percent of the children left there were the children of enslaved women who accounted for 92% of the enslaved population of Florence. These numbers demonstrate the large role gender, sexual violence, and race formation played in Florentine slavery. My dissertation examines the integration and explanation of slavery in Florence following its revival in the fourteenth century, with emphasis on lived experiences and visible minorities in the enslaved population. In archival sources, including letters, sermons, court records, account books, notarial documents, legislation, and slave and orphan registers, descriptions of enslaved peoples emerge within fluid categories that were placed in hierarchical relationships based on perceived otherness. My study provides an analysis of the experiences of slavery and its implications in wider Tuscan society. The first chapter focuses on the perception and prejudices of Italian intellectuals against slaves, as well as the formation of identity in Florence against the backdrop of enslavement. I also examine the creation of the Tuscan identity in Florence to reveal how humanism and the revival of classical antiquity was used in rhetoric to justify the ownership of slaves. The second chapter examines letters of women in the domestic sphere for insight into the interactions between enslaved and enslavers in Florentine households as well as in Florentine institutions and society. In the third chapter, I discuss how use of epidermal descriptors and gender divides reveal new possibilities for the study of race and enslavement in the premodern and early modern Mediterranean. My last chapter focuses on the interactions and negotiations between enslaved peoples and legal and government entities and what they reveal about social and cultural ideas on enslavement using court records and legislation. These four chapters argue that slavery in Florence was both distinct and inseparable from the wider narrative of Mediterranean enslavement in the medieval and early modern period.
Open Access
Great War Profiteering, Patriotism, and the Democratic Revolt in English Canada, 1914 to 1922
(2022-08-08) Targa, Ryan; Stephenson, Jennifer
In Canadian Great War historiography, the late-war and post-WWI revolt has remained a conspicuous subject for exploring regional and class conflict. This dissertation examines the revolt with a new analytical perspective centred on patriotism and profiteering. The first section of this study constructs a cultural framework called Great War culture. Based on the limitations of the state, it became necessary to militarize socialization so that a major war effort could be undertaken. Through this process, Canada experienced a war-centric cultural shift, whereby social and political belonging became premised on patriotic identity. The term “profiteering” emerged as part of the war-centric lexicon to designate those who were disregarding patriotic sensibilities and selfishly exploiting the war for profit. The second section of this dissertation examines three major interpretations of Great War profiteering between 1914 and 1918: war profiteering, food profiteering, and alien profiteering. It provides an understanding of each controversy through the perspective of federal politicians and state officials; leaders in the labour, farmers’, and veterans’ movements; and ordinary patriots in English Canada. It argues that Borden’s administration failed to curb patriotic outrage and disillusionment, setting the stage for explosive post-war militancy and unrest. The final section examines how workers, farmers, and veterans drew upon the legitimacy of the Great War as a struggle for democracy to challenge the terms of post-war reconstruction. As this section explores, patriots undertook this revolt by using direct action involving violence and industrial militancy. They also used political action to challenge party politics, which some believed to be a root cause of the profiteering evil.
Open Access
History, Politics and Theory in the Great Divergence Debate and World History
(2022-08-08) Murphy, Olya; Fogel, Joshua A.
The thesis examines four distinctive schools of thought, each of which makes claims about the causes of the rise of the West: the California School, World Systems Analysis (WSA), Political Marxism, and Analytical Marxism. As far as theories go, Marxist social theory, including historical materialism, takes centre stage. I argue that Marxist theory, at least in some formulations, currently provides the most coherent, plausible and useful framework for the study of world history, and when it comes to the divergence, Political Marxist accounts of the rise and spread of capitalism are the most convincing. However, the work does not attempt to establish the truth of Marxism or to present it as the only plausible or useful theory for understanding society and history. Instead, it sets a more limited task, namely, to examine critiques of Marxism that have contributed to the latter’s marginalization in the writing of world history and the ‘Great Divergence’ debate in particular. It shows that many of these widely accepted critiques are unpersuasive and seriously flawed. Parts I and II demonstrate that explaining the ‘great divergence’, a key issue for world history, requires getting clear on the role of capitalism, its emergence and spread. This has led me to consider two influential schools: the California School that rejects the concept of capitalism, and WSA, with its conceptions of the world capitalist system. I argue that the theoretical conceptions of WSA, though useful and informative in some ways (especially if compared to the California school), do not adequately account for the emergence and development of capitalism or the great divergence. I counterpoise their conceptions with the Political Marxist’s conceptions and historical analyses, and argue that the latter are both closer to Marx’s own theorizing and provide a stronger basis for understanding the divergence. In Part III, I present a more critical discussion of Political Marxism and try to show that it can, and should, be combined with a more ‘orthodox’ conception of Marx’s theory of history, historical materialism—and here I focus on the formulations of historical materialism put forth by some of the Analytical Marxists, most centrally, G.A. Cohen's account.
Open Access
Making Science Popular: Readers, Nation, and the Universe in Chinese Popular Science Periodicals, 1933 - 1952
(2022-08-08) Nahmias, Noa Rachel; Judge, Joan
In 1933, a group of scientists and educators based in Shanghai published a magazine they hoped would spread science to China's "ordinary" people, entitled Kexue huabao 科學畫報. The direct translation of the title is "Science Pictorial," but the publisher included an English title – Popular Science – on the cover of this Chinese language journal. This dissertation deconstructs what "popular science" meant in Republican China through three sets of questions: who participated in popularizing science in China? Who were their audiences? And what kinds of narratives about science emerged in popular publications? I use the journal as an entry point to examine how scientists, politicians, publishers, and writers undertook the mission of "scientizing China." "Treating the journal as an archive, I mine its texts, images, regular columns, formatting, para-textual elements, readers' letters, circulation figures, and its relationship to other science dissemination projects. I find that science popularizers viewed images and objects as integral to transmitting scientific knowledge and crucial to reaching their target audiences. Kexue huabao attempted to appeal to women, children, and "ordinary people" by mobilizing the notion of science as everyday knowledge. In the process of bringing scientific knowledge to China, the publisher engaged a transnational repository of texts and images and used these to construct a vision of science as universal. The dissertation demonstrates that in 20th century China, science was seen not only in terms of nation-building but also as a global framework of knowledge.
Open Access
Lake Effect Pizza: The Commodification and Culture of Pizza in Toronto, Ontario and Buffalo, New York 1950-1990
(2022-08-08) Hughes, Alexander Travis; Shore, Marlene
This dissertation examines the history of pizza in Toronto, Ontario and Buffalo, New York, spanning a period from 1950 through to the early 1990s. Pizza, far more than its constituent parts of dough, sauce, and cheese, is used as a lens to explore the history of immigration, business, labour, urbanization, gender, culture, economics, consumption, and food in Toronto and Buffalo. Through an analysis of a variety of sources, including oral interviews, GIS-produced maps, and newspapers, this dissertation explores how pizza was commoditized as an item of popular urban consumption and culture, in a variety of sites and spaces within the cities. The commodification of pizza, the development of pizza industries, and the culture of consumption in Canada and the United States paralleled currents in postwar life in Toronto and Buffalo. The central question emanating from these histories and which is explored here is the ways in which culture, ethnicity, immigration, and urban economies shaped the commodification of an ethnic food. Pizza was once confined to the foodways of Italian immigrants in Canada and the United States, but was eventually commoditized for sale to non-Italians. The commodification of the food item spread from small family owned businesses attributed to Italian ethnic economies to franchises and conglomerates owned by non-Italians. Moreover, the food item itself was modified based on availability of ingredients and to appease the taste preferences of non-Italians. The Great Lakes cities, Toronto and Buffalo had similar sized populations, patterns of Italian immigration, industry and growth in 1950. However, by 1990, Toronto was the largest city in Canada, a multicultural metropolis with strong economic output, and Buffalo was a regional American city, which suffered greatly from deindustrialization and protracted population loss. Despite similar postwar currents, the staggering divergences between the economic capacities of two urban centres shaped different patterns of commodification and consumption of pizza.
Open Access
The Colonial Economy: Prosperity and Depression in Kano Province of Northern Nigeria, 1899 1939
(2021-11-15) Jemirade, Dele Toyin; Lovejoy, Paul
Kano and its environs came under British rule in the first years of the twentieth century. The British introduced new systems that dramatically transformed the direction of events and the way of life of the people. Scholars have examined the historical development of Kano from multiple perspectives. Thus, the present study is a contribution to the analysis of the historical development of Kano Province under colonial rule with a focus on economic development. Development here refers to economic development, or those features that support it such as railroads, roads, storage facilities, etc.; the "soft" human development, such as education, health, clean water, and electricity; the human capital that supports it; and of course, the social groups that are at the centre of any economic process. The study examines the colonial economy and developments in Kano from its establishment as a province after the conquest of the Sokoto Caliphate between 1897 and 1903, up to the end of the Great Depression and the beginning of the Second World War. The study examines the nature of the economic development of Kano and related issues, which impacted economic activities during the period. These issues include administrative restructuring, the abolition of slavery, the land tenure system, agriculture, taxation, trade, labour, infrastructure development, reform of the legal system, and economic regulating systems. The innovations that the British colonial authorities introduced made it possible for the economy of Kano to become integrated into the global economy, as agricultural products were exported in large quantities, notably groundnuts. Though most of these policies were targeted towards the maximization of the colonial interests, they were nevertheless initiated and implemented with peculiar considerations to the environmental suitability, socio-political setting, and population configuration of the indigenous Kano people. While not denying that the colonial occupation of Kano was deliberately designed and implemented by the British authorities to serve their imperial interests, the study argues further that the realistic effects of colonial planning also led to diverse economic advancement for the Kano area as well as for the indigenous and foreign population during the period under study. The research is problematized within the context of the factors that influenced the economic boom in Kano during the colonial period. Generally, the research confirms that Kanos colonial economy went through a series of changes from the pre-colonial levels to periods of boom and bust from the first decade of the nineteenth century through the Great Depression and the onset of the Second World War. When the British arrived in Kano, they were not well informed of local conditions. The first resident, Cargill, became embroiled in a policy dispute, but the opening of the railway in 1911 saved the day, which enabled the unprecedented exploitation of the area. The railway linked Kano to international trade, which increased its fortunes until the Global Depression reversed the trend. This thesis establishes that colonial policies had significant consequences on Kanos economy, and the area benefitted from colonialism in many ways which helped to advance its fortunes and development in comparison to its previous state.
Open Access
Ordinary Copts: Ecumenism, Activism and Belonging in North American Cities, 1954-1992
(2021-11-15) Akladios, Michael Maher; Perin, Roberto
This dissertation takes the oral testimonies of immigrants as the point of departure and seeks to restore agency to modern Coptic Orthodox Christians as a heterogeneous group. It charts the everyday social relations, religious duties and occupational demands of immigrant families and rejects a culturally driven interpretation that sees Copts as indistinguishable from their religion. In this materialist approach, immigration and the process of ethnicization that followed were conditioned by socialization in Egypt, spatial-temporal settlement patterns, and the integration of family and church in diversifying Canadian and US cities. It proposes two distinct but complimentary arguments. First, Copts who left urban centers in Egypt following the 1952 Free Officers revolution did not form insular, hermetically sealed communities following immigration. Instead, Copts integrated in Toronto, Montreal, and the New York and New Jersey area in two distinct ways: either choosing a two-way process of acculturation or cautious adaptation which best preserved their ethno-religious particularity. Second, Copts arrived with two kinds of ethnic cultures: sacred and secular. Whether church activism, cultural commemoration, or later diasporic nationalism, their lay initiatives were not uprooted from Egyptian soil and replanted in North America nor wholly reinvented with western values. Rather, institutional development was an adaptive process which drew on past experience in modern Egypt and the demands of their new environments. The two arguments about the material and spiritual aspects are grounded in the social world of Copts and the notion that a transnational analysis which attends to the heteroglossia of competing narratives among migrating actors is how we understand and appreciate this history.
Open Access
The Making of Quilengues: Violence, Enslavement and Resistance in the Interior of Benguela, 1600-1830
(2021-07-06) Thompson, Estevam Costa; Curto, Jose Carlos
The Making of Quilengues: Violence, Enslavement and Resistance in the interior of Benguela, 1600-1830 is a history of small-scale societies in West Central Africa during the age of the Atlantic slave trade, starting with the oldest references to Mbangala nomadic warriors that inhabited the region to the latest references about the soba of Socoval, the most powerful African ruler of Quilengues. There are three main themes in this dissertation. One is the political and cultural composition of the immediate backlands of Benguela from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries. A second topic is that of the long historical process of Portugals conquest of this area during the period under scrutiny. Lastly, this dissertation explores the role of both locals and foreigners in the development of the Atlantic slave trade from Benguela. While a considerable portion of the historiography on West Central Africa focuses either on Portuguese commercial and cultural penetration into the interior or on the kingdoms of Kongo and Ndongo, this dissertation is centred on the history of small-scale decentralized societies scattered throughout one extensive area in the backlands of Benguela, that is Quilengues. These are social formations often ignored or understudied in favor of the history of larger and centralized political units. One of the goals of this doctoral dissertation is to highlight different reactions and responses from local African rulers and their peoples to the economic stimuli emanating from the coast after the official arrival of the Portuguese in the early seventeenth century. A second objective is to advance an Africanist perspective of the history of Quilengues where Africans are agents of their own history, thus moving beyond a simple analysis of Portuguese penetration into the interior of West Central Africa. This dissertation shows that resistance, in its varied forms, was a fundamental factor that slowed down Portuguese colonial ambitions in the interior of Benguela. As evidenced here, Portuguese explorers arrived in West Central Africa with a clear project of conquest and colonization. However, logistic limitations and local resistance delayed such a process until the early twentieth century, when the Portuguese overcame most of these limitations (such as transportation and communications), and found themselves in a better position to effectively expand and occupy the territory under their colonial domain.