Theses and Dissertations
This collection includes both ASU Theses and Dissertations, submitted by graduate students, and the Barrett, Honors College theses submitted by undergraduate students.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 18
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- All Subjects: history
- Creators: Thompson, Victoria
Description
This thesis explores the implications that the outcome of a certain U.S. lawsuit involving antiquities could have on practices and programs in the United States, related to cultural heritage and history. This paper examines the Rubin et al case, which sought to attach a collection of ancient Persian artifacts (known as The Persepolis Tablets) as a source of legal compensation. Presented as a case study, and using primary and secondary research sources, this paper analyzes the Rubin et al lawsuit and the factors that led to its initiation, and seeks to determine how and why adverse consequences could result from its final ruling. This thesis demonstrates that the final decision in the lawsuit could leave a negative impact on a number of practices related to cultural heritage in the United States, especially with regards to cultural and academic institutions such as museums and universities.
ContributorsAhouraiyan, Taraneh (Author) / Warren-Findley, Jannelle (Thesis advisor) / Warrren-Findley, Jannelle (Committee member) / Thompson, Victoria (Committee member) / Smith, Louis (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
The Legacy of the Filibuster War: National Identity, Collective Memory, and Cultural Anti-Imperialism is a dissertation project analyzing how the Filibuster War becomes a staple for Costa Rican national identity. This work presents several challenges to traditional theories of modernization in the creation of nationalism. By focusing on the development of cultural features defined by the transformation of collective memory, this project argues that national identity is a dynamic process defined according to local, national, and international contexts. Modernization theories connect the development of nationalism to the period of consolidation of the nation-state, usually during the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century. The Costa Rican case demonstrates that, while modernization coincides with the creation of symbols of official nationalism, the Filibuster War became a symbol of national identity beginning in the 1850s, and it has been changing throughout the twentieth century. Threats to sovereignty and imperialist advances served to promote the memory of the Filibuster War, while local social transformations, as the abolition of the army and internal political conflict forced drastic changes on the interpretation of the war and the establishment of a national narrative that adjusts to social transformation.
ContributorsCabrera Geserick, Marco Antonio (Author) / Stoner, Lynn (Thesis advisor) / Thompson, Victoria (Committee member) / Few, Martha (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
In "Gendering Consumption," Jayne Kaiser explores the public consumption experience associated with late-nineteenth century Parisian department store within the context of the leisure travel industry. Capitalizing on increased travel abroad, the Bon Marché department store attempted to attract British and American tourists (and their money) to the store by marketing shopping as a cultural experience. The production and distribution of Souvenir booklets that mirrored the organization, content, and imagery of travel guides offered an opportunity for the Bon Marché to position the store among traditional cultural institutions. By focusing on the material and non-material experiences of men in the Bon Marché described in narratives and diaries, "Gendering Consumption" advocates for a more comprehensive and inclusive understanding of public consumption. Careful not to minimize the important role the department store played in the increasing agency of women, the author challenges historians to consider alternative spaces created by department stores as new products of masculine consumption. In an innovative approach, "Gendering Consumption" analyzes government documents to discover how American tourists used the new retailing model perfected by department stores such as the Bon Marché, to create opportunities for economic transgressions in the form of tariff fraud.
ContributorsKaiser, Jayne (Author) / Thompson, Victoria (Thesis advisor) / Fuchs, Rachel (Committee member) / Wright, Johnson (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
The Second World War has been portrayed as the central event for understanding the history of America in the 20th Century. This dissertation will examine the acts of commemoration and remembrance by veterans who served on the escort carriers, USS Block Island, CVE-21 & CVE-106. Acts of remembrance and commemoration, in this case, refer to the authorship of memoirs, the donation of symbolic objects that represent military service to museums, and the formation of a veteran's organization, which also serves as a means of social support. I am interested in the way stories of the conflict that fall outside the dominant narratives of the Second World War, namely the famous battles of land, sea, and air, have been commemorated by the veterans who were part of them. Utilizing primary source material and oral histories, I examine how acts of remembrance and commemoration have changed over time. An analysis of the shifting meanings sheds light on how individual memories of the war have changed, in light of the history of the larger war that continues to ignore small ships and sea battles.
ContributorsHruska, Benjamin J. (Author) / Thompson, Victoria (Thesis advisor) / Warren-Findley, Jannelle (Committee member) / Longley, Kyle (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
The purpose of this essay is to determine how the narratives of veterans who served in combat roles during the Vietnam War have affected how historians have written about the war. First, this project will briefly cover the history of the general public’s view of the war and it’s veterans, looking at how feelings towards Vietnam War veterans have shifted over the past fifty years. Next, this project will analyze two books about the Vietnam War that focus primarily on the veteran experience, rather than on the internal politics of the United States and Vietnam or on the successes or failures of battle, and determine the extent to which these books contribute to public understanding of the war. This essay will then determine the role memory plays in crafting these narratives and how historians have an obligation to include or at least consider the complex perspectives of veterans and their families when they write on topics as controversial as warfare.
ContributorsArroyo, Jose Maria (Author) / Miller, Keith (Thesis director) / Thompson, Victoria (Committee member) / Historical, Philosophical & Religious Studies (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-05
Description
The purpose of this research was to create a theoretical lesson plan to teach the French Revolution, and specifically the March on Versailles, to secondary-level (middle and high school) students. This lesson plan incorporates a simulation of the March on Versailles for students to participate in as a supplement to their usual lesson, and as a different and engaging method of learning. For the purposes of this honors thesis, the research and information gathered was split into four individual sections: a pedagogy, a historiography, a series of short biographies, and a script which is accompanied by a short film of the dialogue. These four parts would work together in order for an instructor to easily build either a simple, short, one-class lesson or a multi-lesson project for their students. The parts combine research into educational studies and research on French Revolutionary history in order to encompass all aspects of a lesson. The goal of such research into a potential lesson plan would be to create a history lesson which is more interesting to all students, especially those who struggle to find enjoyment in history. Moving forward, this theoretical lesson would be put into practice with middle or high school students in order to gauge their interest and engagement with the subject before and after a simulation in their class.
ContributorsNun, Taylor Jaylene (Author) / Thompson, Victoria (Thesis director) / Harris, Lauren (Committee member) / School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies (Contributor) / School of Film, Dance and Theatre (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
Description
This dissertation examines the history of urban nightlife in New York City and San Francisco from 1890 to 1930 and charts the manifestation of modernity within these cities. While some urbanites tepidly embraced this new modern world, others resisted. Chafing at this seemingly unmoored world, some Americans fretted about one of the most visible effects of modernity on the city—the encroachment of sex onto the street and in commercial amusements—and sought to wield the power of the state to suppress it. Even those Americans who reveled in the new modern world grappled with what this shifting culture ultimately meant for their lives, seeking familiarity where they could find it. Thus, this dissertation details how both Americans who embraced the modern world and those who perceived it as a threatening menace similarly sought a mediated modernity, seeking out and organizing spaces within modern amusements that ultimately reinforced existing cultural hierarchies.
Using the lens of spatial analysis, this dissertation examines how different groups of Americans used the spaces of nighttime amusement to interrogate how nightlife culture reflected and reinforced dynamics of power in a historical moment when social movements seemed to be upending existing power structures of race, class, and gender. Pioneering works in the field of the history of popular amusements tend to frame the experience of commercial amusements—and by extension modern life—as a liberating force lifting Americans from the staid traditions of the nineteenth century. But this dissertation charts the way Americans sought to moderate the effects of modern life, even as they delighted in it. Even as the modern world seemed on the cusp of overturning social hierarchy, Americans found comfort in amusements that structured space to reaffirm the status quo; while so much of the modern world appeared to break with the past, existing structures of social power remained very much the same.
Using the lens of spatial analysis, this dissertation examines how different groups of Americans used the spaces of nighttime amusement to interrogate how nightlife culture reflected and reinforced dynamics of power in a historical moment when social movements seemed to be upending existing power structures of race, class, and gender. Pioneering works in the field of the history of popular amusements tend to frame the experience of commercial amusements—and by extension modern life—as a liberating force lifting Americans from the staid traditions of the nineteenth century. But this dissertation charts the way Americans sought to moderate the effects of modern life, even as they delighted in it. Even as the modern world seemed on the cusp of overturning social hierarchy, Americans found comfort in amusements that structured space to reaffirm the status quo; while so much of the modern world appeared to break with the past, existing structures of social power remained very much the same.
ContributorsHoodenpyle, Morgan (Author) / Gullett, Gayle (Thesis advisor) / Gray, Susan (Committee member) / Thompson, Victoria (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018
Description
Tempe experienced rapid growth in population and area from 1949 to 1975, stretching its resources thin and changing the character of the city. City boosters encouraged growth through the 1950s to safeguard Tempe’s borders against its larger neighbor, Phoenix. New residents moved to Tempe as it grew, expecting suburban amenities that the former agricultural supply town struggled to pay for and provide. After initially balking at taking responsibility for development of a park system, Tempe established a Parks and Recreation Department in 1958 and used parks as a main component in an evolving strategy for responding to rapid suburban growth. Through the 1960s and 1970s, Tempe pursued an ambitious goal of siting one park in each square mile of the city, planning for neighborhood parks to be paired with elementary schools and placed at the center of each Tempe neighborhood. The highly-publicized plan created a framework, based on the familiarity of public park spaces, that helped both long-time residents and recent transplants understand the new city form and participate in a changing community identity. As growth accelerated and subdivisions surged southward into the productive agricultural area that had driven Tempe’s economy for decades, the School-Park Policy faltered as a planning and community-building tool. Residents and city leaders struggled to reconcile the loss of agricultural land with the carefully maintained cultural narrative that connected Tempe to its frontier past, ultimately broadening the role of parks to address the needs of a changing city.
ContributorsSweeney, Jennifer (Author) / Thompson, Victoria (Thesis advisor) / Gray, Susan (Committee member) / MacFadyen, Joshua (Committee member) / Smith, Jared (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2019
Description
The constructing of visitor expectations and memory of historic sites is an important aspect of the heritage industry. This study examines the creation and change of dominant historical memories at four British palaces and ancestral homes. Through the close analysis of a variety of guidebooks beginning in the eighteenth century as well as other promotional materials such as websites and films, this study looks at which historical memories are emphasized for visitors and the reasons for these dominant memories. Place theorists such as Yi-Fu Tuan and Michel de Certeau as well as memory theorists such as Maurice Halbwachs, Pierre Nora, and Eric Hobsbawm have influenced the analysis of the project's sources. This inquiry focuses on four palaces: Hampton Court Palace outside London; Edinburgh Castle in the heart of Edinburgh, Scotland; Cardiff Castle in Cardiff, Wales; and Chatsworth House in Devonshire, England. The Victorians have played a large role in determining dominant memories at these sites through their interest in and focus on both the medieval period and objects in the home. Dominant memories discussed focus on the Tudors, medieval military importance, the myth and imagining of the Victorian medieval, the Regency period of Jane Austen, and elite family-home relationships. This study argues that the emphases on certain subjects allow us glimpses into the national spirit (past and present) of the peoples of Britain.
ContributorsDeselms, Alexandra (Author) / Thompson, Victoria (Thesis advisor) / Tebeau, Mark (Committee member) / Warnicke, Retha (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015
Description
In speeches, declarations, journals, and convention proceedings, mid-nineteenth-century American woman's rights activists exhorted one another to action as equal heirs of the rights and burdens associated with independence and chided men for failing to live up to the founders' ideals and examples. They likened themselves to oppressed colonists and compared legislators to King George, yet also criticized the patriot fathers for excluding women from civic equality. This dissertation analyzes these invocations of collective memories of the nation's founding, described as Revolutionary heritage rhetoric, in publicly circulated texts produced by woman's rights associations from 1848 to 1890. This organization-driven approach de-centers the rhetoric of the early movement as the intellectual products of a few remarkable women, instead exploring movement rhetoric across the first generation through myriad voices: female and male; native- and foreign-born; those who spoke extemporaneously at conventions along with well-known organizers.
Tracing the use of Revolutionary heritage rhetoric over a fifty-year span reveals that activists’ invocations of the founding were inseparably connected to their willingness to work for racial and class equality along with woman's rights. References to the Revolution and such slogans as “no taxation without representation” could be inclusive or exclusionary, depending upon how they were used and who used them. In the opening decades of the organized woman’s rights movement, claims to a shared Revolutionary heritage reflected larger commitments to racial, class, and gender equality. As organizations within the movement fractured around competing ideas about how to best improve women's lives, activists’ rhetoric changed as well. When the commitment to universal equality gave way to ideologies of race, class, and nativity privilege, references to the founding era morphed into justifications for limited, rather than equal rights. Revolutionary heritage rhetoric largely disappeared from suffrage, education, and pay equity arguments by the late 1880s, replaced by arguments grounded in white, Protestant, female moral superiority.
Tracing the use of Revolutionary heritage rhetoric over a fifty-year span reveals that activists’ invocations of the founding were inseparably connected to their willingness to work for racial and class equality along with woman's rights. References to the Revolution and such slogans as “no taxation without representation” could be inclusive or exclusionary, depending upon how they were used and who used them. In the opening decades of the organized woman’s rights movement, claims to a shared Revolutionary heritage reflected larger commitments to racial, class, and gender equality. As organizations within the movement fractured around competing ideas about how to best improve women's lives, activists’ rhetoric changed as well. When the commitment to universal equality gave way to ideologies of race, class, and nativity privilege, references to the founding era morphed into justifications for limited, rather than equal rights. Revolutionary heritage rhetoric largely disappeared from suffrage, education, and pay equity arguments by the late 1880s, replaced by arguments grounded in white, Protestant, female moral superiority.
ContributorsLewis Butterfield, Emily (Author) / Simpson, Brooks (Thesis advisor) / Thompson, Victoria (Committee member) / Schermerhorn, Jack (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016