Political and social views

the decades after World War II the United States became the most prosperous nation in the world. Yet, that prosperity and growth had a negative impact on the environmental quality of the nation. By the mid 1960s there was a rise in concern over environmental issues in the American public. Consequently, President Richard M. Nixon in his determination to give the American people what they sought decided to enact policies to bring the environmental crisis to an end. Among the environmental policies of the Nixon Administration was the Clean Air Act of 1970, a highly controversial piece of legislation that placed tough regulations on the automobile industry. Due to the significant role of the auto industry in the American economy, and Nixon's concerns over reelection, there were two major shifts in business/government relations during this era. The first one was characterized by determination to protect the environment with little attention to complaints from the industry. The second one was about protecting the profitability of the industry while giving little attention to environmental problems.

This thesis will reveal a political dimension to Emerson's work, situating itself in the current scholarly movement to analyze Emerson from a different angle. Scholars have long heralded Emerson as a staunch individualist or transcendentalist, yet there has been a recent shift in literary studies to consider him from a social or political perspective. Emerson's emphasis on the individual does not diminish in any of the three essays that I have selected; however, he strongly urges every individual to contribute towards the amelioration of society. He also believes that an individual person has enormous potential to cause both great improvement and great harm, which is why a wise man or scholar is a paramount component to any society. Moreover, this thesis addresses topics that are particularly useful today, as Emerson's words are just as relevant to the political situation in the world now as they were in the 19th century.

This thesis demonstrates how some women used the power of their ancestry and family name to run for political office, to become a positive role model for other women, and also to help pass laws favorable to the improvement of gender equality. Edna Pearce Lockett was unique, but also a reflection of the values of her community. Women who ran for office tended to have strong male figures in their lives that treated them as equals. They often were savvy enough to use the novelty of their gender to encourage positive press. Far from trying to be men, they accentuated their femininity through press accounts detailing their fashion sense, their dedication to feminine pursuits, and their ability to be ladies as well as serve their constituency. Edna Pearce Lockett's life also illustrates what society was like in central Florida during the first half of the 20th century for men and women living on and around the cattle industry.

The thesis provides a cultural analysis on the micropolitics of Yugoslavia wars in 1992-1995, examining local and global media coverage along with grassroots and historical dimensions. The study offers an extensive overview of scholarly literature on the Balkans, arguing that often omitted local, cultural and historical narratives of the war events reveal complex perspectives on the rationales provided on civil war. Investigating the nationalist social movements in Yugoslavia (1992-1995), the thesis articulates the need to revisit Deleuze and Guattari's framework of micropolitics to understand the cultural and historical dimensions operational in such movements. The study presents local media coverage in Nasa Borba, Borba, and Hrvatsko Slovo, focusing mainly on two major atrocities committed during the Balkan conflict, in order to shed light on the complex role of discourse emerging in war environments.

Zora Neale Hurston's last published novel, Seraph on the Suwanee, can be read as a sociopolitical critique of what she once referred to as the false foundation of Anglo-Saxon civilization. An overview of the history of race as a concept and the development of racial awareness in the United States provides a background/context for understanding the world Hurston was diagnosing: her analysis implies that the social construction of whiteness contains within its ideology the seeds of its own destruction. Feminist notions of origin, context, and foundation highlight the narcissistic nature of patriarchal social systems that exploit not only the female body but nature as well. In a society that supposedly honors the maternal and praises the beauty of nature, Hurston's novel suggests that both motherhood and nature are exploited by a patriarchal culture focused on competition and material gain. In addition, by highlighting the narcissism of her male protagonist, who presumably represents a socially admired standard of normalcy, she undermines the narrative of superiority that privileges a white patriarchy.

Stripped of the intent of its author, L. Frank Baum, the children's fairy tale The Wonderful Wizard of Oz was left to be understood only within a changing cultural construct. Historian Hayden White, arguing that the similarities between a novel and a work of history were more significant than their differences, insisted that history was preeminently a subsection of literature. According to White, historical narratives were manifestly verbal fictions, and the only acceptable grounds upon which the historian should choose his historical perspective were the moral and the aesthetic. White conflated historical consciousness with myth and blurred the boundary that had long divided history from fiction. Just as changing cultural concerns infused the Dorothy of Baum's children's literature with meaning so social, cultural, and moral imperatives came to dictate the content of historical stories particularly in the historiography of the Reconstruction era. The twenty first century conception of Reconstruction is different from the conception influential at the start of the twentieth. In assessing the scholarship of William A. Dunning, contemporary historians have adopted a new paradigm when describing the scholar's Reconstruction accounts. Modern commentators reject Dunning's authorial intention and the contextual framework needed to define it. Thus, Dunning has receded into the "realm of myth." Careful attendance to Dunning's historical context, contemporary audience, and his authorial intent, will reposition the perspective for analysis of Dunning's work. Removing Dunning from abstract analysis will allow historians to arrive at an understanding of his work, and view the importance of the real Dunning, rather than the fabricated image constructed from a partial and even fragmented reading of his work.

Early twentieth-century Ireland was the setting of a complex political situation dominated by overlapping social, ideological, and ethnic conflicts. A group of working-class nationalists led by James Connolly attempted to fuse the class and national struggles, incorporating elements of nationalist cosmology, Marxist teleology, syndicalist trade-union practice, and the cultural militarization of Ireland's "physical-force" tradition. This thesis critically examines their hybrid theory and revolutionary praxis. With its analysis of the failure to realize an independent, socialist Ireland, it contributes to broader discussions of the relationship between nationalism and socialism, and the ability of these theories to address cultural heterogeneity.