Year: 2024, 2024
Member of: Trent University Graduate Thesis Collection
Abstract: <p>This study examines the intersection between nuclear energy in Ontario, Canada, with popular forces acting upon it between the 1940s and the mid-1980s. It finds that nuclear energy
was the target of changing epistemology as society shifted to a post-modern framework in its
perception of technology. Technology was irreparably associated with potential encroaching
governmental… more
Year: 2023, 2023
Member of: Trent University Graduate Thesis Collection
Name(s): Creator (cre): Hoyt, Andrew Mitchell, Thesis advisor (ths): Bocking, Stephen, Degree committee member (dgc): Dunaway, Finis, Degree committee member (dgc): Rutherford, Stephanie, Degree committee member (dgc): Martin, Laura J, Degree granting institution (dgg): Trent University Abstract: <p>Colonization has transformed the landscapes of the American Midwest and compromised the region's resources and ecologies. In response, governments, environmental scientists, and Indigenous nations have undertaken myriad efforts over the past century to restore Midwestern environments. Yet the appropriate goals and techniques for this work have been deeply contested. This thesis… more
Year: 2023, 2023
Member of: Trent University Graduate Thesis Collection
Name(s): Creator (cre): Martel, Ewan, Thesis advisor (ths): Sheinin, David, Degree committee member (dgc): Wright, Robert, Degree committee member (dgc): Elton, Hugh, Degree committee member (dgc): Bargain-Villéger, Alban, Degree granting institution (dgg): Trent University Abstract: <p>AbstractThe Rise of Property and the Death of the Moral Economy: Enclosure and Social Unrest in Late-Eighteenth Century England – Ewan Martel</p><p>Eighteenth-century Great Britain was a kingdom marked by the rise of a property-based and highly individualistic conception of social and economic structures came a doctrine of improvement based upon extracting the most value from… more
Year: 2023, 2023
Member of: Trent University Graduate Thesis Collection
Name(s): Creator (cre): Frattasio, Kyle James, Thesis advisor (ths): Cazorla-Sanchez, Antonio, Degree committee member (dgc): Wright, Robert, Degree committee member (dgc): Nguyen-Marshall, Van, Degree committee member (dgc): Shubert, Adrian, Degree granting institution (dgg): Trent University Abstract: <p>The outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in July 1936 divided national public opinions throughout the West. One of the factors behind such split was religious beliefs. This was the case for the United States and Ireland where Francisco Franco's rebels got significant public support. This work argues that both the Irish and American Catholic Church hierarchies and laity Catholics'… more
Year: 2023, 2023
Member of: Trent University Graduate Thesis Collection
Abstract: <p>This thesis examines racism in Argentina between 1880 and 1930. The governing elite's efforts to whiten the Argentine population at the end of the nineteenth century led to the erasure and discrimination of anyone who did not have Caucasian features: Afro-descendants, mulattos, mestizos, and creoles. However, in the 1930s, whitening policies proved to have limited success. On the… more
Year: 2023, 2023
Member of: Trent University Graduate Thesis Collection
Abstract: <p>The scope of my scholarship has undergone a primarily interdisciplinary approach with an emphasis on historiographic scholarship and method, with the support of communication and sociological theory to underpin my core arguments in each chapter. I use the theories of Third Space, commodified racism, and common sense racism in combination to provide an in-depth analysis of prior… more
Year: 2023, 2023
Member of: Trent University Graduate Thesis Collection
Abstract: <p>Arturo Cruz Jr., born in 1953, was a highly influential and respected figure in Nicaraguan Politics. He was involved in the Contras. Cruz played a crucial role in supporting the Contras, helping to secure U.S. funding for the group which was a rebel group formed by the US against the Sandinista dictatorship in the 1980s. Later, he also served as the Nicaraguan ambassador to the US… more
Year: 2021, 2021
Member of: Trent University Graduate Thesis Collection
Name(s): Creator (cre): Sadlier, Ginevra, Thesis advisor (ths): Hurl-Eamon, Jennine, Degree committee member (dgc): Eamon, Michael, Degree committee member (dgc): Nguyen-Marshall, Van, Degree committee member (dgc): Hindmarsh, Bruce, Degree granting institution (dgg): Trent University Abstract: <p>This thesis examines low-ranking British soldiers' memoirs in the nineteenth century to determine the extent to which they identified with Christianity and how their expressions of faith differed from each other. Using twelve narratives published between 1811–1863, it finds that all of these soldiers identified themselves with Protestant Christianity and, more importantly,… more
Year: 2021, 2021
Member of: Trent University Graduate Thesis Collection
Abstract: <p>"The Paper Chase: A Survey of Student Newspapers on Ontario Campuses in the 1960s" is a regional study of three University campuses in Ontario — the University of Toronto, Queen's University and Trent University — and examines each of these institutions' respective student newspapers, The Varsity, The Queen's Journal, and The Arthur as a primary source analysis.… more
Year: 2020, 2020
Member of: Trent University Graduate Thesis Collection
Abstract: <p>This thesis examines the social impact of horses on French elites between 1150 and 1300. Using courtly literature, a veterinary treatise, manuscript illuminations, archeological studies, material artefacts, and account books, it explores the place of horses in elite society—practical and symbolic—and assesses the social costs of elite use and ownership of horses. While horses served… more
Year: 2020, 2020
Member of: Trent University Graduate Thesis Collection
Abstract: <p>This thesis explores middling reform-minded representations of plebeian children's material worlds in England from 1720 to 1780. Specifically, it examines depictions of chattel and place in imagery of children, to convey messages aligned with the reform initiatives of the eighteenth century. Using the Old Bailey Proceedings, prints by William Hogarth, and novels, it argues that… more
Year: 2020, 2020
Member of: Trent University Graduate Thesis Collection
Abstract: <p>This study analyzes Christian European perceptions of group identity and beliefs in early modern geographic literature, as exemplified by John Ogilby's Africa (1670), a selective translation of Olfert Dapper's 1668 work, and its descriptions of West-Central Africa. Ogilby's work, congruently with contemporary geographic literature, employed the Christian religion as a key… more
Year: 2020, 2020
Member of: Trent University Graduate Thesis Collection
Abstract: <p>This study investigates the origins of the music produced by the 1920s Ku Klux Klan in Indiana as well as trying to understand how it facilitated recruitment into the Klan and how it was used as a tool for wider social and political change. The Indiana Klan's newspaper The Fiery Cross is awash in reports of parades and other public performances of music, yet this phenomenon has… more
Year: 2019, 2019
Member of: Trent University Graduate Thesis Collection
Abstract: <p>The Royal Philanthropic Society (RPS) was the first institution in England to care for young offenders. While historians have demonstrated the legal importance of this institution, none have examined the experience of the youths it attempted to reform. The admission registers of the RPS reveal the importance of adults and peers in the experiences of the inmates of the institution, as… more
Year: 2019, 2019
Member of: Trent University Graduate Thesis Collection
Abstract: <p>This thesis examines performance and propaganda in the reign of Edward IV and explores the ways in which Edward, his queen Elizabeth Woodville, and her brother Anthony sought to legitimize their newfound positions. It argues that all three sought to 'perform idealism' to bolster their claims to their respective positions, presenting themselves as close to the contemporary ideal… more
Year: 2019, 2019
Member of: Trent University Graduate Thesis Collection
Abstract: <p>Justice Weekly was a tabloid published in Toronto from 1946 to 1972. The popular narrative is that it was an unremarkable, obscure, and pornographic paper which was co-opted by gay and homophile voices in the 1950s. But why did a magazine best remembered, as Mordecai Richler put it, as "the pervert's new statesman" publish this material? This thesis argues that Justice… more
Year: 2019, 2019
Member of: Trent University Graduate Thesis Collection
Abstract: <p>The Spanish Civil War was a theatre of political tension where democracy, communism, and fascism clashed during the interwar period, starting in July 1936 and ending in April 1939. The war defied the traditional concept of a civil war as Germany, Italy, and the Soviet Union became involved. All three saw Spain as a testing ground for new military technologies. Meanwhile the United States… more
Year: 2018, 2018
Member of: Trent University Graduate Thesis Collection
Abstract: <p>Jimmy Carter and his administration varied the ways in which they addressed human rights concerns internationally. There was a strong, often emotional evocation of human rights in reference to countries that were less economically, strategically, or politically important to the United States and the foreign policy goals of the Carter administration. This was not present in Carter's… more
Year: 2017, 2017
Member of: Trent University Graduate Thesis Collection
Abstract: <p>Within this project, I have identified a new pattern of instruction, surrounding women's bodies and their movement within the public space, present within didactic literature produced during the reign of Charles VI of France (1368-1422). This pattern, present in the texts Le livre du Chevalier de la Tour Landry pour l'instruction de ses filles, Le Menagier de Paris, Le livre… more
Year: 2017, 2017
Member of: Trent University Graduate Thesis Collection
Abstract: <p>This thesis explores the social history of the Marange people of eastern Zimbabwe from the 1960s to 2015. It uses historical episodes like the recurring droughts, the 1970s war of independence, the 'crisis in Zimbabwe,' that has been traced from the late - 1990s, and the diamond mining story to demonstrate how the inhabitants interacted with their environment. It argues that… more
Year: 2017, 2017
Member of: Trent University Graduate Thesis Collection
Abstract: <p>From 1949-1957, Prime Minister Louis St. Laurent was the face of the Liberal Party. Party branding was wholly devoted to his friendly, 'Uncle Louis' brand image. St. Laurent's image was manipulated and manufactured without public preconception, establishing the modern tactics of personal branding still used by his successors. This thesis studies the elections of 1949, 1953… more
Year: 2017, 2017
Member of: Trent University Graduate Thesis Collection
Abstract: <p>This thesis provides an in-depth and chronological study of the development of civil aviation in the Bechuanaland Protectorate (today's Botswana), and the role played by the British Government in the development of this form of transport. The thesis argues that Her Majesty's Government's neglect and very little interest in its protectorate's civil aviation represented… more
Year: 2016, 2016
Member of: Trent University Graduate Thesis Collection
Abstract: <p>During the 1970s, ideological divisions caused by divergent interpretations of the American failure in Vietnam permeated the world of foreign policymaking. This led to a concern among the architects of the Reagan administration that foreign policymaking had become incoherent. They attempted to mitigate the effects of this disharmony by re-establishing a workable degree of ideological… more
Year: 2016, 2016
Member of: Trent University Graduate Thesis Collection
Abstract: <p>This thesis provides an analysis of the Carnegie Commission's report on the causes and consequences of the Balkan Wars (1912-1913). Shortly after the closing of hostilities, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace appointed an international Commission of Inquiry to collect evidence of atrocities from the sites of war. The thesis analyzes the arguments expressed in the… more
Year: 2016, 2016
Member of: Trent University Graduate Thesis Collection
Abstract: <p>Many print sources from 1680 to 1730 depicted bawds and witches as figures of transgressive elderly femininity. They were often described as having roughly the same anti-social behaviour, age, and gender. Both witches and bawds were seen as seducing innocents into a life of sin, associating with the </p><p>devil, and acting lustful and unmotherly. Furthermore, they were… more
Year: 2016, 2016
Member of: Trent University Graduate Thesis Collection
Abstract: <p>In 1945, few refugee cases were as complicated as those of the Jewish survivors of the Holocaust who found themselves stranded in defeated Germany but could neither return home due to antisemitic violence nor immigrate to most countries due to extant prewar visa restrictions. Between 1945 and 1947, some 150,000 Jews fleeing ongoing antisemitic violence joined them in American-occupied… more
Year: 2016, 2016
Member of: Trent University Graduate Thesis Collection
Abstract: <p>This thesis offers a comprehensive look at the changing roles of a colonial built railway in what is now eastern Botswana. It was built for the extraction of mineral wealth and migration of cheap African labour in Southern Africa but it later assumed a different role of shaping the modern Botswana state. The thesis deals with several other issues related to the railway in Bechuanaland… more
Year: 2015, 2015
Member of: Trent University Graduate Thesis Collection
Abstract: <p>The thesis uses three case studies of President Nixon's foreign policy in South-east Asia to analyze presidential domestic-making. The theoretical concept of personality politics is used to analyze the Nixon administration and foreign policy. Nixon's secretive nature combined with his mistrust of the press and bureaucracy to create an office structure that restricted the… more
Year: 2015, 2015
Member of: Trent University Graduate Thesis Collection
Name(s): Creator (cre): Millar, Isaac Jordan, Thesis advisor (ths): Palmer, Bryan D., Thesis advisor (ths): Durand, Caroline, Degree committee member (dgc): Dunaway, Finis, Degree committee member (dgc): Sheinin, David M.K, Degree granting institution (dgg): Trent University Abstract: <p>The Reagan era instigated a fundamentally conservative shift in the political, economic and discursive climate of America. As Ronald Reagan is a highly divisive symbolic figure in American politics, much of the historiography of his presidency has been characterized by polarized interpretations. Over the past decade there has been a noticeable shift towards more favourable and triumphal… more
Year: 2015, 2015
Member of: Trent University Graduate Thesis Collection
Abstract: <p>This study examines the elite national print media reaction to, and coverage of, the Cuban Revolution, between 1956 and 1962. It finds that media, equally alienated by both Fidel Castro and the United States, progressively pursued an independent narrative predicated on an homage to Cuban sovereignty. Specifically, media uniformly adopted veteran New York Times' reporter Herbert L.… more
Year: 2014, 2014
Member of: Trent University Graduate Thesis Collection
Name(s): Creator (cre): Shore, Deborah Ann, Thesis advisor (ths): Siena, Kevin P, Degree committee member (dgc): Andrew, Donna T, Degree committee member (dgc): Hurl-Eamon, Jennine, Degree committee member (dgc): Miron, Janet, Degree granting institution (dgg): Trent University Abstract: <p>British pornographic texts arguing the texts were part of a wider cultural discourse on luxury, criticising the upper echelons of society for their decadent and vice-ridden lifestyles. Pornographic texts consistently portray the elites of Britain as partaking in sexual deviances including lesbianism, sex with dolls, dildos and household objects. The portrayals could be dismissed as tales… more
Year: 2014, 2014
Member of: Trent University Graduate Thesis Collection
Name(s): Creator (cre): Martin, Steven Henry, Thesis advisor (ths): Cazorla-Sanchez, Antonio, Degree committee member (dgc): Andriewsky, Olga, Degree committee member (dgc): Kay, Carolyn, Degree committee member (dgc): Shubert, Adrian, Degree granting institution (dgg): Trent University Abstract: <p>Carlism and anarchism were revolutionary social movements that acquired significant popular support during the most intensive period of modernization in Spain (mid 19th to mid 20th centuries). It was noted but not well explored by contemporaries and historians that these enemies were similar in their hostility towards modernization and in their intense idealism. This thesis compares the… more
Year: 2014, 2014
Member of: Trent University Graduate Thesis Collection
Abstract: <p>This thesis analyzes the history of the Inter-American Schools Service (IASS), which ran under the auspices of the American Council on Education beginning in 1943. The program was defined as a private initiative aimed at spreading U.S. democratic values throughout the hemisphere for the mutual benefit of both the United States and Latin America. Yet the program was ultimately one facet… more
Year: 2014, 2014
Member of: Trent University Graduate Thesis Collection
Name(s): Creator (cre): Perks, Ryan, Thesis advisor (ths): Cazorla-Sanchez, Antonio, Degree committee member (dgc): Kay, Carolyn, Degree committee member (dgc): Andriewsky, Olga, Degree committee member (dgc): Irvine, William D, Degree granting institution (dgg): Trent University Abstract: <p>Utilizing pre-existing scholarship on post-conflict reconstruction in twentieth-century Europe, as well as a variety of French primary sources, this thesis explores the concept of national-moral reconstruction as utilized by French political leaders in the wake of their country's defeat by Nazi Germany in June 1940. In particular, this study analyzes the competing discourses… more
Year: 2014, 2014
Member of: Trent University Graduate Thesis Collection
Abstract: <p>This thesis presents an assessment of the role of culture in the political marginalization and the socio-economic violence and abuse against women in Zambia. It also explores other contributing factors such as the country's economic crisis of the 1970s, and its colonial legacy, especially in as far as these factors related to the status of women and contributed to the issue of… more
Year: 2014, 2014
Member of: Trent University Graduate Thesis Collection
Name(s): Creator (cre): Clemens, Miranda, Thesis advisor (ths): Harris- Stoertz, Fiona, Degree committee member (dgc): Boynton, Susan, Degree committee member (dgc): Elbl, Ivana, Degree committee member (dgc): Siena, Kevin, Degree granting institution (dgg): Trent University Abstract: <p>This thesis examines Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179)'s theology of music, using as a starting place her letter to the Prelates of Mainz, which responds to an interdict prohibiting Hildegard's monastery from singing the liturgy. Using the twelfth-century context of female monasticism, liturgy, music theory and ideas about body and soul, the thesis argues that Hildegard… more
Year: 2014, 2014
Member of: Trent University Graduate Thesis Collection
Name(s): Creator (cre): Ensing, Leah, Thesis advisor (ths): Harris-Stoertz, Fiona, Degree committee member (dgc): Boulby, Marion, Degree committee member (dgc): Elbl, Ivana, Degree committee member (dgc): Gerish, Deborah, Degree granting institution (dgg): Trent University Abstract: <p>This study examines interaction and accommodation between Western Christians and Muslims in the Levant between the Second and Third Crusades, 1145 to 1192, examining three groups: short term crusaders, members of military orders, and permanent settlers. While members of these groups possessed several personal and group identities, most shared a prescriptive religious identity that… more
Year: 2014, 2014
Member of: Trent University Graduate Thesis Collection
Abstract: <p>In 1915 U.S. Marines invaded Haiti. Driven first by the epidemiological dangers in Haiti, health and medicine was made a central tenet in administering the occupation. Useful for protecting the American Marines from disease, the Service d'Hygiene (the occupation-era Public Health Service) also served a hegemonic purpose. By bringing American biomedicine to sick Haitians, the Service… more
Year: 2014, 2014
Member of: Trent University Graduate Thesis Collection
Name(s): Creator (cre): Grummitt, Julia, Thesis advisor (ths): Dunaway, Finis, Degree committee member (dgc): Junyk, Ihor, Degree committee member (dgc): Walden, Keith, Degree committee member (dgc): Braddock, Alan C., Degree granting institution (dgg): Trent University Abstract: <p>Since 1979, photographer and sociologist Camilo José Vergara has taken repeat photographs of American cities in decline, focusing on evolving landscapes of postindustrial decay. Vergara's images subscribe to an aesthetic of ruin while providing a record of America's crumbling ghettos rooted in social documentary concerns. Vergara's work diverges from the ahistorical… more
Year: 2014, 2014
Member of: Trent University Graduate Thesis Collection
Name(s): Creator (cre): Samoil, Andrea, Thesis advisor (ths): Palmer, Bryan, Degree committee member (dgc): Anastakis, Dimitry, Degree committee member (dgc): Dunaway, Finis, Degree committee member (dgc): Finkel, Alvin, Degree granting institution (dgg): Trent University Abstract: <p>The lengthy and raucous 1986 Gainers meatpacking plant strike in Edmonton, Alberta was one of the most important events in recent Alberta labour history. In the midst of the economic crisis of the 1980s and the rise of neo-liberal ideas, the strike marked a backlash by both the labour movement and ordinary citizens against attacks on workers and unions. Characterized by widely covered… more
Year: 2014, 2014
Member of: Trent University Graduate Thesis Collection
Name(s): Creator (cre): Priest, Allen George, Thesis advisor (ths): Sheinin, David, Degree committee member (dgc): Dunaway, Finis, Degree committee member (dgc): Durand, Caroline, Degree committee member (dgc): Kay, Carolyn, Degree committee member (dgc): Pruessen, Ronald, Degree granting institution (dgg): Trent University Abstract: <p>A presidential spouse in an era of rigid gender norms, Jacqueline Kennedy frequently straddled the divide between celebrity, social acceptability, and personal desire. Yet, history remembers America's thirty-seventh First Lady more for her fashion and soft-spoken nature. Forgotten is that she was a `transitional' figure, who oversaw America's largest restoration of the… more