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This community contains materials created by the faculty, students, and staff of College of Humanities and Social Sciences at George Mason University.
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Item A Cross-Channel Marriage in Limbo: Alexandre d’Arblay, Frances Burney, and the Risks of Revolutionary Migration(Consortium on the Revolutionary Era, 1750-1850, 2020) Summers, KellyItem A Gospel of Health and Salvation: Modeling the Religious Culture of Seventh-day Adventism, 1843-1920Wieringa, Jeri; O’Malley, MichaelA Gospel of Health and Salvation is a work of digital history — defined as the critical application of computational technologies to the study of the past — focused on the relationship between time and gender in Seventh-day Adventism. In it I explore the puzzle of the denomination’s prophet and religious leader, Ellen White, and her varied and seemingly contradictory writings on the role of women in the denomination. One of a few women religious leaders in nineteenth-century America, White is difficult to place within the history of American religion. Rising to prominence at the end of the Second Great Awakening, White promoted a vision of gender and women’s participation in the work of salvation that fails to fit neatly into either histories of American feminism or histories of domesticity. Discussing White and her place in American religious history requires a different approach. Using computational text analysis to find broad patterns in the denomination’s periodical record, I highlight three cycles of end-times expectation that shaped the complex vision of gender articulated by White and other denomination leaders during the first seventy years of the denomination. These cycles enable me to bring together two theoretical frameworks often used to analyze the development of religious movements. Rather than a linear trajectory from religious sect to denomination, and concurrently from expansive understandings of gender to restrictive ones, the waves of end-times expectation opened space for alternative and expansive visions of gender at a number of points in the denomination’s early history. Additionally, I argue for the scholarliness of the computational work that grounds my historical analysis. Rather than neutral, the work of selecting the corpus, preparing the text for analysis, selecting modeling algorithms, visualizing the resulting model, and interpreting the results represents the first phase of interpretation and shapes the possibilities of the overall project. To make this multilayered argument, I created the dissertation as a website, rather than a traditional document. Hosted at http://dissertation.jeriwieringa.com, the web interface interweaves the technical, visual, and narrative aspects of the dissertation arguments. The site brings together a topic model of the denomination’s periodical literature, the code used to create and analyze the model, and four interpretive essays. Together these constitute the body of work that is A Gospel of Health and Salvation.Item A Human Being, and Not a Mere Social Factor: Catholic Strategies for Dealing with Sterilization Statutes in the 1920s(Cambridge University Press on behalf of the American Society of Church History, 2004-06) Leon, SharonThis article reviews the developing strategies of Catholic opposition to state laws for compulsory sterilization of so-called ‘feeble-minded’ residents of state institutions during the 1920s. In 1927 the Supreme Court, in its landmark decision Buck v. Bell, affirmed the constitutionality of such laws. This article traces the work of Catholic moral theologians, such as John A. Ryan, and representatives of various lay organizations in opposing such laws and educating Catholic laity on the natural law issues in the debate. In 1930 the National Catholic Welfare Conference published four pamphlets in a series entitled ‘Problems of Mental Deficiency’ that provided a full compliment of medical, legal, and moral objections to the laws. On 31 December 1930 Pope Pius XI in his encyclical ‘Casti Connubii’ provided an authoritative pronouncement on eugenics and sterilization that reaffirmed Catholic opposition to eugenics policy initiatives.Item A Queer Wall in the Head: Using Oral Histories to Map Gay Desire Across Cold War Germany(Johns Hopkins University Press, 2022-10) Huneke, Samuel ClowesThis article uses oral histories to examine divergences in how gay men from East and West Germany remembered the sexuality of their youths. Finding that East German men recalled their sexual exploits in far more detail than did West German men, the article argues that this divergence is the result of a complex interlacing of factors. Ultimately, the article contends that these factors reveal a queer wall in the head that continues to delimit how gay German men understand their actions, their pasts, and their identities.Item Africa's Dilemma - European Borders, Contested Rule(1995) Katz, Mark N.Africa has recently seen movement toward democratization. Whether out of the growing conviction that it is preferable, or the sense that political change is inevitable, several one-party or dictatorial regimes now permit a free press, opposition parties, and more or less "free" elections. Indeed, contested elections are becoming an increasingly common feature of political life in Africa. Of course, there are countries where progress toward democracy seemed to have begun but was halted when the ruling elites saw that this would lead to their removal. But these regimes are no longer so self-confident; they are very much on the defensive and appear to be weakening. The demise of authoritarian regimes does not necessarily mean that democracy will flourish in Africa; authoritarian regimes have not been the only obstacle to democracy. The "legacy of empire" - that all the borders between African states were drawn by outside powers without reference to preexisting national, ethnic, or other boundaries - may become the most serious obstacle to the establishment and maintenance of democracy in Africa. Democratization often brings forward demands for secession or a realignment of existing patterns of ethnic relations. As a result, democratization efforts may not proceed smoothly and peacefully, and may involve internal conflict and demands for the alteration of the colonial - era borders recognized and maintained by the member countries of the Organization of African Unity (OAU).Item Age of Consent Law and the Making of Modern Childhood in New York City, 1886-1921(Oxford University Press, 2002) Robertson, StephenItem American Adolescents’ Knowledge, Attitudes and Sources of Information on Climate Change(2020) Roser-Renouf, Connie; Maibach, Edward; Myers, TeresaThe past several years have witnessed a dramatic increase in young people’s activism on climate change, accompanied by calls for society to act more aggressively to protect their futures. To better understand what young people think and feel about climate change, we surveyed American adolescents, asking what they know, feel and believe about the issue, what questions they have about it, and where they are obtaining their information. This report summarizes the results of the survey and is intended to support efforts to inform and educate American youth about climate change.Item American Adolescents’ Responses to NASA’s Climate Change Website(2020) Roser-Renouf, Connie; Myers, Teresa; Maibach, EdwardThis is the second of two reports about American adolescents and climate change. In the first report, we described teens’ knowledge, attitudes, and sources of climate change information. In this report, we analyze their responses to one important source of this information –the NASA website climate.NASA.gov. The NASA website is one of the primary sources provided by the federal government to inform the public on the issue of climate change. In this report we assess how adolescents feel about the website, how it affects their climate change knowledge and attitudes, and whether some adolescents are more responsive to the website than others, based on their age, gender and interest in science.Item Americans’ Views of Climate Change, NASA, and NASA’s Climate Website(2020) Myers, Teresa; Roser-Renouf, Connie; Maibach, EdwardThis report summarizes the results of a nationally representative survey of American adults conducted in 2018. The report’s findings are intended to support NASA’s efforts to inform and educate the American public on the issue of climate change. The results detail the information users are seeking on climate change, their evaluations of the clarity and usefulness of the website climate.NASA.gov, and the impacts the website has on visitors’ climate change knowledge, attitudes and beliefs, and on their views of NASA and its earth science research.Item An Emerging Russian-Iranian Alliance?(US-Azerbaijan Council, 1996) Katz, Mark N.Item An Inspired Identity: The Importance of the Performing Arts in Community Building(2014-05-23) Fijalka, MichaelBuilding community through the performing arts seems to have been the main influence for the construction of the Reston Community Center at Hunters Woods, which was completed and opened in May, 1979, and included, in particular, a 275 square foot theater and rehearsal rooms. This suggests that the performing arts were an intentional key to building community in the still young town of Reston.Item Analysing the Changing Foreign and Domestic Politics of the Former USSR(Elsevier, 1992) Katz, Mark N.For the past few years, history seems to have been switched from "normal" speed to "Fast forward." Vast transformations have been occurring in what once appeared to be immutable aspects of Soviet foreign and domestic politics as well as in international relations generally. Nor have these transformations necessarily come to an end. Others may yet be in store. How should questions about the foreign and domestic politics of the former Soviet Union be analysed during this period of rapid change? The question is an important one since the methodology or approach scholars employ can in large measure determine the answers to the questions they ask. I will argue here that traditional Sovietology, or an analysis of domestic and foreign policy issues from the perspective of Russian and Soviet history, is not the most fruitful method for studying a situation in which rapid change is occurring. A more productive approach, in my view, is what will be called here comparative historical analysis - an approach which seeks to relate questions regarding the foreign and domestic politics of the former USSR to similar situations which have occurred elsewhere. No claim is being made that this method will yield definitive answers. What it can do, though, is bring to light a range of answers or possibilities that traditional Sovietology, by examining questions solely in terms of the Russian/Soviet historical experience, does not. In this paper, I will first examine traditional Sovietology and consider why it is no longer as useful a methodology as it once was. I will then outline comparative historical analysis and discuss why it might be a more appropriate methodology for analysing the current situation. Finally, I will discuss two examples of the very different results which different methodologies might yield when applied to the same question.Item Anne Rossignol, Madame Dumont, and Dr. John Schmidt Junior: Community and Accommodation in Charleston, South Carolina, 1790-1840(Consortium on the Revolutionary Era, 1750-1850, 2020) Krebsbach, SuzanneItem Anti-Soviet Insurgencies - Growing Trend or Passing Phase?(1986) Katz, Mark N.Item Assertive, But Alone(Chatham House, 2007) Katz, Mark N.Some would say that Russian foreign policy has become belligerent. But the strident, confident tone is playing well at home in this election season. More discerning domestic commentators are pointing out that it is simply not working and may have unintended, longer-term consequences.Item Assessing the Political Stability of Oman(2004) Katz, Mark N.Oman is facing important economic and political challenges. The economic challenge it faces is that its population is rising while its oil reserves are declining. The political challenges it faces are the extreme concentration of authority in the hands of one man (Sultan Qaboos), the sultan's unwillingness to allow meaningful political participation or dialogue, political legitimacy issues concerning both Sultan Qaboos and the succession process he has set up, and sporadic but persistent signs of opposition. This article examines these problems and assesses their implications for the political stability of Oman.Item Beneath the Hardened Lava: Images of Nature and Revolutionary Violence in Germaine de Staël’s “Épître au malheur”(Consortium on the Revolutionary Era, 1750-1850, 2020) Caetano, Luiza DuarteItem Beyond the Reagan Doctrine - Reassessing U.S. Policy Toward Regional Conflicts(Center For Strategic and International Studies, 1991) Katz, Mark N.The crisis in the Persian Gulf region has brought into sharp focus the transformation of problems of regional security in the post-cold war era and the special promise of international consensus in an era not divided by East-West discord. Yet it also has demonstrated the continued and growing problem of North-South and South-South conflict, especially with the proliferation of advanced military capabilities. The Following essays assess different aspects of the regional security challenge.Item "Born Out of Zhaka’s Spear": The Zulu Iklwa and Perceptions of Military Revolution in the Nineteenth Century(Consortium on the Revolutionary Era, 1750-1850, 2020) Ivey, JacobItem ”Boys, of course, cannot be raped”: Age, Homosexuality and the Redefinition of Sexual Violence in New York City, 1880-1955(Blackwell, 2006-08) Robertson, Stephen