Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, 2019, Art/Art History

Completed and dedicated in 2002, Prague's Memorial to the Victims of Communism, an immersive installation relies on the performative body of its viewers to make visible the atrocities of communism during the years 1948-1989. The sculptor Olbram Zoubek (1926-2017) received the commission to create the memorial as the result of a 2000 competition published by Prague 1. The memorial spans two staircases that climb the bottom of Petrin Hill in Prague's Mala Strana district. The first staircase leads up to the second, which is populated by six bronze statues of men whose bodies are depicted in an increased state of decay, giving the illusion of bodies disappearing into the woods. The human figures refer to local memory of the iconic figure of Jan Palach as a leading figure of resistance after 1968 as well as the 1989 protestors who were successful in bringing communism to an end in the country. The public space of this memorial allows the viewer to be made an integral part of the preservation of memory by providing the viewer with a space to engage with both the physical memorial and its topic of memorialization. The purposeful inclusion of the viewer reflects a memorial trend toward the `anti-monumental', which serves to condemn totalitarian notions of memory conveyed in monumental forms, demonstrating a clear break with the city's past. The Memorial to the Victims of Communism constitutes its own form of political persuasion, functioning as self-promotion for the Czech Republic's status as a new democratic nation. The memorial allows the viewer to connect closely with the memory depicted by Zoubek, and, as a work of public art, makes that memory continuously accessible to viewers.

Committee: Allie Terry-Fritsch Ph.D. (Advisor); Katerina Ruedi Ray Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Art History

Master of Arts, University of Toledo, 2015, History

This thesis investigates the interaction between Egyptian Marxists and the Egyptian State under Gamal Abd Al-Nasser from 1952 to 1965. After the Free Officer coup of July, 1952, the new government launched a period of repression that targeted many political organizations, including the communists. Repression against the communists was interrupted during a brief interlude from mid-1956 until the end of 1958, when Nasser launched a second period of repression heavily aimed at the communist left. Utilizing quantitative data of the communist prisoner population as well as qualitative first-hand accounts from imprisoned communists, this thesis reconstructs the conditions, demographics, and class status of the communists targeted by the repressive apparatus of the Egyptian state. It also explores the subjective response of the Egyptian communists and their ideological shifts vis-a-vis changing material and repressive conditions. It argues that a combination of state-capitalist reforms, intense state repression, pragmatic influence of the Soviet Union, capitulation to a hegemonic nationalist discourse, and imperialist threat converged to direct Egyptian communist thought. In the end, the Marxist movement was incapable of acting as the vanguard of the Egyptian revolution.

Committee: Ovamir Anjum (Committee Chair); Roberto Padilla (Committee Member); Todd Michney (Committee Member) Subjects: History

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2007, Graduate School

Committee: Not Provided (Other) Subjects:

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2007, Graduate School

Committee: Not Provided (Other) Subjects:

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 1970, Graduate School

Committee: Not Provided (Other) Subjects:

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2007, Graduate School

Committee: Not Provided (Other) Subjects:

Master of Fine Arts, The Ohio State University, 2005, Graduate School

Committee: Not Provided (Other) Subjects:

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 1948, Graduate School

Committee: Not Provided (Other) Subjects:

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

Committee: Not Provided (Other) Subjects:

Artium Baccalaureus (AB), Ohio University, 2024, History

This thesis follows the International Workers' Order (IWO), a fraternal organization that existed from 1930-1954 and provided low-cost quality insurance to working-class Americans. The IWO was dissolved by the state of New York after being listed as a subversive organization and charged with being a Communist front. It discusses the IWO's political advocacy and policies throughout three eras: the early 1930s, the time before and during the Second World War, and the postwar period. By examining the IWO's political advocacy, this thesis seeks to understand how valid the state's allegations of communism were, while still highlighting the organization's successes and benefits.

Committee: Kevin Uhalde (Committee Chair); Kevin Mattson (Advisor) Subjects: History

Bachelor of Arts (BA), Ohio University, 2024, Political Science

This thesis investigates the remarkable response of Poland to the Ukrainian refugee crisis following the Russian invasion in 2022, contrasting it with previous refugee reception experiences, particularly the 2015 EU refugee crisis. It illustrates the methods employed by the Polish government and humanitarian actors, which allowed Poland to overcome challenges in reception processes and a lack of experience in hosting refugees. Based on an analysis of secondary sources, literature, and primary interviews, this thesis found that the unique bond between Poles and Ukrainians contributed to an extremely high rate of volunteerism from Polish citizens. These efforts placed pressure on the Polish government to respond to the crisis and led to a collaboration between humanitarian actors and the government for maximum efficiency. This thesis demonstrates that flexible, informal humanitarian systems allow for optimal efficiency and that the states with a strong desire to host refugees will do so, despite having a limited capacity.

Committee: Myra A. Waterbury Dr. (Advisor) Subjects: Political Science

Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, 1955, Media and Communication

Committee: Donald C. Kleckner (Advisor) Subjects: Mass Communications

Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, 1955, Media and Communication

Committee: Donald C. Kleckner (Advisor) Subjects: Mass Communications

PHD, Kent State University, 2022, College of Education, Health and Human Services / School of Foundations, Leadership and Administration

In 2015, then-Higher Education Minister Rodolfo Alarcon said in response to many Cubans' inability to communicate in the international language, English fluency would be required by students as a university exit requirement (“Mastering English,” 2015). The purpose of this interpretive qualitative study was to understand the experiences of Cuban university English instructors, who encountered these curricular changes. The data were collected using semi-structured interviews with six university instructors and emailed responses from another six. The participants included both current and former faculty members who left the teaching profession for more lucrative careers in private tutoring or tourism. Motivational Systems Theory (Ford, 1992), various aspects of social identity (Gray & Morton, 2018) and my own experience as an EFL instructor guided the study in understanding the instructors' social identity, motivation, and self-agency. The data were analyzed using computer-assisted qualitative data analysis software. The findings showed differing experiences among men and women and urban and rural instructors. Faculty expressed both positive and negative teaching experiences, and, as a result of some unfavorable experiences, some instructors left the field of teaching altogether and applied their talents to the growing tourism and private business sectors. In addition to understanding the experiences of the study's participants, the investigation also provides valuable insight into the evolution of English teaching in Cuban higher education, the consequences of educational borrowing and the complexity of conducting research within an authoritarian regime.

Committee: Martha Merrill (Advisor) Subjects: Bilingual Education; Caribbean Studies; Comparative; Education; Education History; Education Policy; Educational Evaluation; Educational Theory; English As A Second Language; Foreign Language; Higher Education Administration; Latin American History; Latin American Studies; Linguistics; Modern Language; Multicultural Education; Multilingual Education; Personality Psychology; School Administration; Teacher Education; Teaching; Technology

Master of Arts, Miami University, 2022, History

During the Vietnam Era (1960-1975), the United States underwent significant social change. While American troops were fighting alongside the South Vietnamese against Ho Chi Minh, his North Vietnamese troops, and their pursuit of spreading Communist ideology in Southeast Asia, the American government was also pursuing Communism and antigovernment activity stateside. The main target of the government's suspicion were the G.I. coffeehouses and underground presses utilized by G.I.s who were motivated by their experiences in conflict to join the antiwar movement. The coffeehouses and their associated newspapers sought to provide resources for G.I. and veteran support (legal and otherwise), coffee and other cafe provisions, and a safe space to connect with other G.I.s to discuss their antiwar sentiments, plan protest activity, and disperse their ideas to those outside the confines of their respective bases. Through thorough research and discussion of chosen coffeehouses and underground newspapers, it is clear that these places and resources provided safer outlets for antiwar sentiment, not antigovernment sentiment. The coffeehouses and newspapers instead mediated safe expression and freedom of speech rather than proposed ways to create an organized threat to the U.S. government and its military complex.

Committee: Steve Conn (Advisor); Andrew Offenburger (Committee Member); Amanda McVety (Committee Member) Subjects: American History; History; Military History; Military Studies; Political Science

Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, 2022, History

Hockey holds a central place in Canadian national identity. Despite the traditional dominance of Canadian teams in the pre-war and immediately post-war years, European nations such as the USSR, Sweden, and Czechoslovakia developed their hockey programs quickly in the post-war years, challenging Canadian dominance, and thus jeopardizing, in the eyes of Canadians, one of the most central aspects of their national culture. This loss of hockey supremacy compounded an already challenging period in which Canadians struggled to define what it meant to be Canadian in the US-led Cold War world. This thesis examines the Canadian cultural dynamics of Canadian participation in international hockey competitions during the 1960s and 1970s. These tournaments and exhibition tours played against foreign teams were commonly detailed by the Canadian press using no uncertain terms to express their contempt for their opponents. This thesis suggests the public focus on international hockey during this period reflects the uncertainty of Canadian culture and politics at home. Faced with trouble defining Canadian national identity in the Cold War world, Canadians looked to their national sport as a means of reaffirming their identity, rooted in northern masculine toughness and “Canadianness.” This work uses sports periodicals from the period between 1955 and 1975, to assess the shifting attitudes towards Canadian hockey in international competitions, and how Canadians viewed themselves in relation to the wider Cold War world when confronted with a domestic cultural crisis. This work expands on the diligent work of scholars of Canadian culture and those in the expanding subfield of hockey studies by providing a look at the thoughts of Canadians, and how their attitudes towards hockey reflect their attitudes towards Canadian culture.

Committee: Benjamin Greene Ph.D (Advisor); Rebecca Mancuso Ph.D (Committee Member) Subjects: Canadian History; Canadian Studies; History

Bachelor of Arts, Ohio University, 2021, History

Billie Holiday, Lena Horne, and Nina Simone were musicians in the early-mid twentieth century who were innovators for using art as activism. They used their art and platforms to raise awareness and comment on the state of the nation in regards to civil rights. Billie Holiday paved the way with her iconic song "Strange Fruit," calling out racial injustice in the form of lynchings. Lena Horne was a performer who made room for Black actors in Hollywood for roles outside of stereotypes, like servants or "mammies." Nina Simone was a classical pianist who used her strong voice and honest lyrics to narrate the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. Their lives demonstrate intersectionality and how Black women used their strength, determination, and art to be part of a movement.

Committee: Chester Pach Dr. (Advisor) Subjects: African American Studies; American History; Black History; Gender; History; Modern History; Music

Bachelor of Arts (BA), Ohio University, 2020, Anthropology

In 2017, the Cuban street artist Yulier P. Rodriguez was thrown in jail and forced to sign a document saying he would never paint on the street walls again. Soon after, the government began covering up his anti-Castro murals at night. Yulier once had over 200 paintings on the walls of Havana, and now, less than 20 exist. My ethnographic research conducted in Havana in May 2018 and 2019 details political art and government censorship in Post-Fidel Cuba. It looks at how street artists use public visual art to protest the communist regime; Yulier is one of the artists I interviewed and followed in this research. My project encapsulates the lives of these artists and looks at how they use art as a form of resistance. Through ethnographic research methods — participant observation, oral interviews and photography — I examine how these artists persevere despite being under constant government surveillance. My research focuses on dissenting artists in Havana and examines how this trend fits into the broader experience of communist regimes, past and present. My project presents a new facet of these regimes in hopes of gaining a broader understanding of the comparative experience and impact communism can have on people worldwide.

Committee: Smoki Musaraj Dr. (Advisor); Rosen Matthew Dr. (Advisor) Subjects: Cultural Anthropology

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2020, History

This dissertation examines Communist Party propaganda and agitation (agitprop) in Kazakhstan, both the mechanics of agitprop production and dissemination, as well as the influence that agitprop had on the Kazakh populace during the Stalinist era in the Soviet Union (1929-1953). It argues that authorities in Moscow did not dictate Communist Party agitprop content and preferred to leave the responsibility of propaganda creation and dissemination to propagandists (agitprop workers) at the grassroots level. This heavy reliance on low-ranking agitprop workers proved problematic in Kazakhstan because most did not receive sufficient training to convey complex Marxist political theories to a largely illiterate population. In fact, many Kazakh propagandists were themselves semi-literate. Under-qualified agitprop workers resulted in shortcomings with propaganda production and dissemination, including teachings that ran against the official ideology. These shortcomings undermined the potency of Communist Party propaganda to educate and transform the Kazakh populace into modern Soviet citizens.

Committee: David Hoffmann (Advisor); Nicholas Breyfogle (Committee Member); Scott Levi (Committee Member); Sarah Schoppe-Sullivan (Committee Member) Subjects: History

BA, Oberlin College, 2019, History

This thesis is an intellectual history of dialecticism and its use in the works of the Frankfurt School members, Erich Fromm and Herbert Marcuse. Famously, these two men had a ferocious and polemical debate in the pages of Dissent Magazine in 1955-56. The Fromm-Marcuse Debate has since become almost the sole lens in which the intellectual differences and similarities between these men are analyzed. Through a comparative and historical analysis of their individual work, largely removed from the Dissent Debate, I offer a new interpretation of their conflict, their personal relationship, and a new perspective on critical theory and its relationship to political action. I argue that Erich Fromm and Herbert Marcuse's intellectual ideas are better juxtaposed through their interpretation of dialectics, rather than psychoanalysis, and that through this, they present us with starkly different prescriptions for individual and collective political engagement. Thus, both Fromm and Marcuse are outliers within the field of critical theory, and certainly within the Frankfurt School, even as their ideas remain in firm conflict with one another.

Committee: Annemarie Sammartino (Advisor) Subjects: American History; American Studies; European History; History; Modern History; Philosophy; Political Science