Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 1950, Graduate School

Committee: Not Provided (Other) Subjects:

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2024, History

France's nuclear tests in the Sahara, conducted between 1960 and 1966, catalyzed a series of events that profoundly influenced global nuclear politics and the process of African decolonization. Set against the backdrop of the Algerian War, African decolonization, and Cold War competition, the atomic tests in the Sahara had far-reaching implications beyond the immediate scope of France's nuclear ambitions. This dissertation examines the relationship between France's nuclear tests, the unfolding decolonization in Africa, and the making of the global nuclear order. By situating the Sahara tests within the broader context of the end of colonial empires and the dawn of the nuclear age, it offers a fresh perspective on the factors that shaped nuclear decision-making in the post-World War II era. Divided into two parts with six chapters, this project's first part examines how decolonization affected nuclear politics, tracing the decline of the French colonial empire from the 1950s colonization of the Sahara to the establishment of nuclear infrastructure and Great Power nuclear diplomacy. The second part inquires the reverse dynamic, exploring how nuclear politics influenced the decolonization process and postcolonial countries in Africa. I argue that decolonization conditioned and shaped the initial conditions of nuclear politics at a global level, with France's Sahara tests serving as an exceptional event that catalyzed these profound impacts in both the Global North and the Global South. Drawing on a wide range of primary sources from multiple countries, including newly declassified documents from French, British, and U.S. archives, as well as materials from several African countries such as Nigeria, Zambia, Namibia, and Ghana, this research delves into the reactions and resistance of African states, non-state actors, transnational activist networks, and the international community to France's nuclear testing, revealing the web of interests and power dynamics that defi (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: R. Joseph Parrott (Advisor); Alice Conklin (Committee Member); Christopher Otter (Committee Member) Subjects: African History; European History; History; International Relations; Science History

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 0, History

My dissertation, “Squaring the Hexagon: Alsace, Algeria and French National Belonging, 1830-1962,” challenges the traditional boundaries between French and African history. I investigate the connections between Alsace and Algeria, two places where the French state struggled to establish sovereignty over inhabitants who spoke, lived, and worshipped in decidedly distinct ways from the rest of France. Throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, French politicians, government officials, and military commanders viewed their missions of making Alsace and Algeria French — and turning Alsatians and Algerians into Frenchmen — in markedly similar terms, often adapting policies from one region to the other. This entangled history of Alsace and Algeria complicates our understanding of the nature of colonies and regions, revealing the deep connections between empire-building and nation-building.

Committee: Alice Conklin (Advisor); David Steigerwald (Committee Member); Robin Judd (Committee Member) Subjects: European History; History

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2019, History

When France began colonizing the North African country of Algeria in 1830, it claimed the Mediterranean as its internal sea and Algeria as a natural extension of France. French propagandists revived Napoleon's ambition, dating back to his invasion of Egypt in 1798, to transform this notoriously hostile sea into a domesticated “French Lake.” Steamships made this ambition possible; whereas sailing ships had taken three weeks to cross, steamships could make the trip in twenty-four hours. State officials, elite settlers, and businessmen who claimed Algeria as an extension of France literally had to reconfigure the Mediterranean as a French space, bordered by French territory on its northern and southern shores. Steamships played a critical role in shaping modern French imperialism and the Mediterranean. Elites such as state officials, European settlers of Algeria, and steamship companies used steamships as tangible evidence of French mastery of both sea and colony. Algeria's most prominent shipping company, the Compagnie Generale Transatlantique (French Line), operated an extensive Algerian network from Marseille. The French Line's ships became “mobile colonies” while evocative advertising shaped perceptions of a French Lake in the Mediterranean. However, the French Line's commercial preeminence led Algeria's European settlers to protest virulently against the company, ultimately winning important concessions from the French Line by the 1930s.

Committee: Alice Conklin (Advisor); Christopher Otter (Committee Member); Thomas McDow (Committee Member); Jennifer Sessions (Committee Member) Subjects: History; Technology

Master of Arts (MA), Wright State University, 2018, International and Comparative Politics

China signed its first turn-key communication satellite contract with Nigeria in 2004. The contract stipulated that China would design, build, integrate, launch, and complete in-orbit checkout for the Nigcomsat-1 communication satellite and then transfer control over to Nigeria. By 2018, China had contracted and launched another six communication satellites for various foreign customers. The customers, who are foreign governments, are geographically dispersed throughout South America, Europe, Africa, and Asia. The satellite sales have occurred during China's unprecedented economic growth, a time in which China has been granted additional foreign policy options as its power increases relative to others. This thesis utilizes lateral pressure theory to suggest that China has strategically signed contracts with foreign governments for the sale of communication satellites to further its foreign policy objectives. Examination of China's space history, its foreign policy goals, and key variables shed light on China's intentions and possible future actions.

Committee: Laura Luehrmann Ph.D. (Advisor); Liam Anderson Ph.D. (Committee Member); Alex Elkins M.A. (Committee Member) Subjects: Political Science

MS, University of Cincinnati, 2018, Arts and Sciences: Geology

The long–term response of humans to climate/environmental changes can be assessed by studying climate proxy records extracted from well–described, dated, and preserved archaeological sequences. Two Holocene Capsian sites from NE Algeria, document a marked change in subsistence strategies near 8,200 cal yrs BP. To examine the potential relationship between cultural shifts and environmental change, analyses were conducted using the stable oxygen (d18O) and carbon (d13C) isotopic composition of archaeological shells of the terrestrial gastropod Helix melanostoma from the early to mid–Holocene (10,500 to 6,500 cal yrs BP). This study provides intra–shell and whole shell isotopic profiles to infer seasonal, as well as average local environmental conditions in NE Algeria. The d18O and d13C results illustrate that conditions were notably wetter between ~10,000–8,500 cal yrs BP, coinciding with the African Humid Period (AHP), whereas the environment turned significantly drier at ~8,160-7,300 cal yrs BP, immediately after the 8,200 cal yrs BP climate event. These results suggest that noticeable humidity fluctuations occurred during the Early Holocene in NE Algeria and could have impacted the economy and strategies of prehistoric human groups in the area.

Committee: Yurena Yanes Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Andrew Czaja Ph.D. (Committee Member); Aaron Diefendorf Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Paleoclimate Science

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2017, History

My dissertation analyzes Algerians' use of humor during the country's civil war of the 1990s. While a conflict that leaves 200,000 people dead is no laughing matter, Algerians persisted in producing comedy throughout the war. Twenty months of consulting media archives and conducting oral interviews in Algeria and France revealed that jokes and cartoons constituted an important discourse through which various actors defined their position in the war. Informed by theories of culture and power, this project advances humanistic understanding of humor as a means of navigating postcolonial and intercultural identities as well as an instrument of war or peace and an historical source.

Committee: Ousman Kobo (Advisor); Ahmad Sikainga (Committee Member); Sabra Webber (Committee Member) Subjects: History

Master of Arts, University of Toledo, 2012, English (as a Second Language)

The first chapter of this thesis provides an overview of Algeria's history of linguistic diversity. The same chapter describes the language policy of Arabization, which has dominated Algeria's linguistic situation since independence from France in 1962. In the second chapter, this thesis presents a theoretical framework for the study of the spread of English in Algeria, where this language has been making inroads. It is argued that English should play a positive role in promoting a peaceful linguistic environment in the North African country. In the third and final chapter, the above-mentioned framework is applied to Algeria's context, analyzing this environment through the lenses of the theoretical considerations suggested by the framework.

Committee: Melinda Reichelt PhD (Committee Chair); Mohamed Benrabah PhD (Committee Member); Ruth Hottell PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: English As A Second Language; Language; Linguistics; Sociolinguistics

Bachelor of Arts (BA), Ohio University, 2012, French

This thesis critically examines the construction, manipulation, and performance of identity in La Voyeuse interdite (1991) and Garcon manque (2000) by Nina Bouraoui, a contemporary Franco-Algerian lesbian author. As a postcolonial female writer, Bouraoui challenges both colonial and patriarchal discourse. Throughout this thesis, I argue that postcolonialism (as both a school of thought and a political and social reality) must confront an increasingly ambiguous world where essentialist assumptions about identity deteriorate. Identity, I argue, is not an intrinsic characteristic or the expression of an individual's essence, but rather the effect or the construction of a multiplicity of cultural, ethnic, political, and social influences. By analyzing identity as a stylized, ritualized, and repeated social performance, I call attention to the power structures that legitimize and normalize these performances. This thesis is a multifaceted theoretical approach to Bouraoui's writing, incorporating scholarship in performance studies along with postcolonial and feminist theories.

Committee: Lois Vines PhD (Advisor); Ghirmai Negash PhD (Advisor); Carey Snyder PhD (Committee Member); Jeremy Webster PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: African Literature; Foreign Language; Literature; North African Studies

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2011, History

Steam technology radically transformed world shipping in the nineteenth century. Shipping lines established fast and predictable schedules that linked the far reaches of the world to Europe. These sea routes also went hand-in-hand with European imperial expansion; regular, reliable communications between colony and mother country cemented imperial control. To analyze these links, I explore the establishment and operation of shipping lines between France and its most prized colony, Algeria, between 1830 and 1914. The French state fostered this trade through generous subsidies, eventually declaring a monopoly on Franco-Algerian trade in 1889. Far from being a simple story of the French state playing a large role in the affairs of private enterprise, I examine the tensions between political and economic motives to justify these steamship services. These tensions underlying the justifications of linking France and its empire with French ships reveal that the day-to-day operations of these shipping lines were more complex, and more fraught, than previously imagined.

Committee: Alice Conklin PhD (Advisor); Christopher Otter PhD (Advisor); David Hoffmann PhD (Advisor) Subjects: History

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2009, History

This dissertation examines the international history of the Palestinian armed struggle from late 1967 until the beginning of the Lebanese Civil war in 1975. Based on multi-archival and multilingual research in Lebanon, the United States, and the United Kingdom, I argue that the Palestinian guerillas won the struggle for international recognition by identifying themselves with the cultural forces of anti-colonialism and Third World internationalism. By laying claim to the status of a national liberation struggle, Palestinian fighters tapped into networks of global support emanating from places like Beijing, Hanoi, Algiers, and Havana that allowed them to achieve a measure of political legitimacy in the international community and provided for the continued survival of their movement. At the same time, these efforts to emulate revolutionary movements from other parts of the world helped to reshape Palestinian national identity into a profoundly cosmopolitan organism; a product of twentieth century globalization. However, these radical visions of national liberation ran headlong into U.S. designs for global order; if radical Palestinians could create a “second Vietnam” in the Middle East, the implications for U.S. authority in the Third World could be disastrous. Through support for regional police powers like Israel and Jordan, Washington was able to mount a sustained counterinsurgency campaign that prevented a guerilla victory.

Committee: Peter Hahn (Advisor); Robert McMahon (Committee Member); Stephen Dale (Committee Member); Kevin Boyle (Committee Member) Subjects: History; International Relations; Middle Eastern History

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2008, Political Science

Within a large and growing literature on insurgencies, scholars have engaged in fierce debate about the determinants of conflict outcomes. Having noted that materialcapability is a poor predictor of conflict outcomes, intense disagreement has arisen over why this is the case. Some argue that insurgencies are defeated through military and police means of punishment and prosecution. This is referred to as the combat model. Others argue that insurgencies are ultimately defeated through political means, and I refer to this as the social model. Why each of these two processes is thought to be more effective is rarely well explained or specified by their proponents. Because each of these model yields different and competing expectations for the outcomes of insurgent conflicts, I evaluate their relative merits in this study. To evaluate these two competing schools of thought in the security studies literature, I present a conditional theory of insurgent outcomes that predicts when the combat and social models will be relevant. In order to do this, I approach insurgencies using scholarship from the study of terrorism, deriving three archetypical motivational logics of insurgency action: strategic, organizational, and extremist. From the scholarship on insurgencies, I also develop a typology of counterinsurgency strategies focusing on three broad but distinct strategic approaches: policing, accommodation, and reciprocal punishment. The combination of a particular insurgent motivation with a particular counterinsurgent strategy will result in an increase or decrease in insurgent violence. I hypothesize that this conditional model will better predict insurgent outcomes than either the combat model or the social model alone. However, even if it does not, its evaluation will still serve as a useful comparison of the relative merits of those two models. To test the model I code statements made by leaders of insurgencies to discern their motivations and compare these codings to t (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Donald Sylvan PhD (Committee Co-Chair); Richard Herrmann PhD (Committee Co-Chair); John Mueller PhD (Committee Member); Alexander Thompson PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Political Science

Bachelor of Arts, Miami University, 2010, College of Arts and Sciences - French

People experience cultural differences on many levels – a student leaving the United States for the first time, a government negotiating with another government that follows completely different standards and principles. Culture is an integral part of every day life and differences among cultures have been important contributing factors to how people perceive and react to others. In previous scholarship on this topic, culture has been explored through art, literature, foreign policy, etc. This paper takes a new approach to culture by examining cultural differences, as seen by doctors, between France and Algeria and Tunisia between the mid-nineteenth century and early twentieth.Three doctors were chosen for this purpose: Emile-Louis Bertherand, Lucien Bertholon, and Dorothee Chellier. The paper begins with a brief introduction to the definition of culture and the state of medicine during the period. It then examines other approaches to cultural difference, and then discusses the contributions of the doctors. Each of the doctors listed above contributes a different perspective on the Maghrebian region, and at the end of the exploration, we find that the doctors are an integral part of perpetuating French culture as well as bringing French culture to the indigenous populations.

Committee: Jonathan Strauss PhD (Committee Chair); Mark McKinney PhD (Committee Member); James Creech PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Cultural Anthropology; European History; Health; History; Language

Bachelor of Arts, Miami University, 2005, College of Arts and Sciences - French

History is not a single, homogenous account of the past. It is instead characterized by multiple, often conflicting narratives on which different social groups base their identities. By examining a series of Elie Kagan's photographs of the October 17 massacre of Algerian demonstrators in Paris, this thesis looks to determine the role of these photographs in French and Algerian collective memory of the event. It also addresses issues surrounding compassion fatigue in the modern image culture and the effects of drawing photographic parallels between modern atrocity and the Holocaust.

Committee: Mark McKinney (Advisor) Subjects:

Master of Arts, Miami University, 2008, Religion

This paper investigates the neo-colonial situation occurring within contemporary France, surrounding the tensions that have emerged concomitantly with increasing numbers of Muslim immigrants in the country. Proposing the application of methods from the history of religions, the thesis traces the concealing function of colonial discourses in French colonial Algeria, suggesting a connection between them and French immigration policy in the 20th century. It further investigates the roles that these discourses play in the formation of the religious identities of the liminal sons and daughters of Muslim immigrants to France with several case studies, including a look at the hijab debate in France and the novel Le Gone du Chaaba by Azouz Begag. Using these examples, the thesis concludes by exploring the way that colonial dynamics of concealment may be subverted.

Committee: Frederick Colby PhD (Advisor); Mark McKinnery PhD (Committee Member); Elizabeth Wilson PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: History; Religion

MA, Kent State University, 2012, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of History

The ideology of Republican motherhood, a political philosophy that equated patriotism with gendered social constructions of womanhood, within the early years of the French Third Republic, influenced the implementation of state mandated girls' education in the metropole. Expanding upon already existing gendered cultural constructions of womanhood and the social role of French women, politicians sought to promote the concept of Republican motherhood in the textbooks of school girls to prepare them for their future role as mothers of strong and loyal French citizens. The ideology of patriotic womanhood, under the Third Republican government, was not only a guiding principle for domestic policy, but was also intrinsic to French colonial policy in Algeria. Through the use of a common nineteenth-century European practice known as woman-to-woman medical care, Dr. Dorothee Chellier, a female physicians under the auspice of the colonial government provided medical care to indigenous women in Algeria. Chellier published multiple written accounts of her medical advocacy for indigenous women's health care and her account clearly demonstrates that the ideology of Republican motherhood was a factor in her participation in the medical missions as well as an important facet within the Republican government's policy of assimilating the indigenous population of Algeria by catering to the women within the Berber tribes and predicting that they would not only personally recognize the benefice of French medical care, but pass on these beliefs to their children. Chellier and the Algerian colonial governor sought to assimilate the indigenous population to French social and economic frameworks, but also to ameliorate the fractious environment between the European colonial settlers, indigenous groups, and the French military. Thus, Republican motherhood was a framework used in the metropole and in the colonial context by Republican politicians who sought to harness the power of a mother's i (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Rebecca Pulju PhD (Advisor) Subjects: European History