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- Title
- THE RHETORIC OF TRANSGRESSION: RECONSTRUCTING FEMALE AUTHORITY THROUGH WU ZETIAN'S LEGACY.
- Creator
-
Rothstein-Safra, Rachael, Zhang, Hong, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
-
This study examines representations of Wu Zetian in the biographical tradition of the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth centuries, as well as within the subsequent vernacular literature of the Ming and Qing periods. I analyze the traditional use and construction of female stereotypes (and female-oriented flaws and vices) in the rhetoric of official histories and fictional narratives and their application to representations of Wu Zetian. I argue that authors, anxious of discord engendered and...
Show moreThis study examines representations of Wu Zetian in the biographical tradition of the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth centuries, as well as within the subsequent vernacular literature of the Ming and Qing periods. I analyze the traditional use and construction of female stereotypes (and female-oriented flaws and vices) in the rhetoric of official histories and fictional narratives and their application to representations of Wu Zetian. I argue that authors, anxious of discord engendered and caused by women occupying positions of political authority, sought to delegitimize Wu Zetian's reign and subsequently cultivated a "rhetoric of female transgression." I further argue that the image of Wu Zetian has become a cultural signifier of the dangers of female rule. Thus, my research broadly has two foci: (1) it traces the history of delegitimizing female rulership by examining the creation and codification of topoi, and (2) by focusing on images of Wu Zetian, this study examines how these topoi influence contemporary cultural and cross-cultural values, memory, and political rhetoric. This study is divided into three chapters. Chapter one lays out the history of Wu Zetian in the Tang dynasty and an assessment of women in Tang society, which will inform the analysis of literary portrayals of Wu Zetian in chapters two and three. The second chapter examines the earliest representations of Wu Zetian. Thematically, the second chapter explores the biographical interpretation of female authority and the discursive tradition of negotiating historic fact with formulaic and reoccurring tropes. The third chapter looks at representations of Wu Zetian in the literature of the Ming and Qing periods, in which narratives are encoded with the topoi previously established in earlier historical accounts. Ultimately, although this study examines the persistence of rhetorical topoi regarding Wu Zetian, it also addresses the contested and fluid nature of her representations in non-traditional media.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2017
- Identifier
- CFH2000253, ucf:45986
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFH2000253
- Title
- Towards High-Performance Big Data Processing Systems.
- Creator
-
Zhang, Hong, Wang, Liqiang, Turgut, Damla, Wang, Jun, Zhang, Shunpu, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
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The amount of generated and stored data has been growing rapidly, It is estimated that 2.5 quintillion bytes of data are generated every day, and 90% of the data in the world today has been created in the last two years. How to solve these big data issues has become a hot topic in both industry and academia.Due to the complex of big data platform, we stratify it into four layers: storage layer, resource management layer, computing layer, and methodology layer. This dissertation proposes brand...
Show moreThe amount of generated and stored data has been growing rapidly, It is estimated that 2.5 quintillion bytes of data are generated every day, and 90% of the data in the world today has been created in the last two years. How to solve these big data issues has become a hot topic in both industry and academia.Due to the complex of big data platform, we stratify it into four layers: storage layer, resource management layer, computing layer, and methodology layer. This dissertation proposes brand-new approaches to address the performance of big data platforms like Hadoop and Spark on these four layers.We first present an improved HDFS design called SMARTH, which optimizes the storage layer. It utilizes asynchronous multi-pipeline data transfers instead of a single pipeline stop-and-wait mechanism. SMARTH records the actual transfer speed of data blocks and sends this information to the namenode along with periodic heartbeat messages. The namenode sorts datanodes according to their past performance and tracks this information continuously. When a client initiates an upload request, the namenode will send it a list of ''high performance'' datanodes that it thinks will yield the highest throughput for the client. By choosing higher performance datanodes relative to each client and by taking advantage of the multi-pipeline design, our experiments show that SMARTH significantly improves the performance of data write operations compared to HDFS. Specifically, SMARTH is able to improve the throughput of data transfer by 27-245% in a heterogeneous virtual cluster on Amazon EC2. Secondly, we propose an optimized Hadoop extension called MRapid, which significantly speeds up the execution of short jobs on the resource management layer. It is completely backward compatible to Hadoop, and imposes negligible overhead. Our experiments on Microsoft Azure public cloud show that MRapid can improve performance by up to 88% compared to the original Hadoop.Thirdly, we introduce an efficient 3-level sampling performance model, called Hedgehog, and focus on the relationship between resource and performance. This design is a brand new white-box model for Spark, which is more complex and challenging than Hadoop. In our tool, we employ a Java bytecode manipulation and analysis framework called ASM to reduce the profiling overhead dramatically.Fourthly, on the computing layer, we optimize the current implementation of SGD in Spark's MLlib by reusing data partition for multiple times within a single iteration to find better candidate weights in a more efficient way. Whether using multiple local iterations within each partition is dynamically decided by the 68-95-99.7 rule. We also design a variant of momentum algorithm to optimize step size in every iteration. This method uses a new adaptive rule that decreases the step size whenever neighboring gradients show differing directions of significance. Experiments show that our adaptive algorithm is more efficient and can be 7 times faster compared to the original MLlib's SGD.At last, on the application layer, we present a scalable and distributed geographic information system, called Dart, based on Hadoop and HBase. Dart provides a hybrid table schema to store spatial data in HBase so that the Reduce process can be omitted for operations like calculating the mean center and the median center. It employs reasonable pre-splitting and hash techniques to avoid data imbalance and hot region problems. It also supports massive spatial data analysis like K-Nearest Neighbors (KNN) and Geometric Median Distribution. In our experiments, we evaluate the performance of Dart by processing 160 GB Twitter data on an Amazon EC2 cluster. The experimental results show that Dart is very scalable and efficient.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2018
- Identifier
- CFE0007271, ucf:52208
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0007271
- Title
- To The Memory Of Brave Men: The Imperial War Graves Commission And India's Missing Soldiers Of The First World War.
- Creator
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Sims, Roger, Gannon, Barbara, Lester, Connie, Zhang, Hong, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
-
This thesis examines the commemoration of Indian soldiers who died during the First World War by the Imperial War Graves Commission, Britain's official government body overseeing all imperial commemoration efforts. For the soldiers of the Indian Army their war experience was split between the Western Front in Europe and Mesopotamia in modern-day Iraq. They were also far more ethnically, religiously, and lingually diverse than their British and Dominion counterparts. In order to examine how...
Show moreThis thesis examines the commemoration of Indian soldiers who died during the First World War by the Imperial War Graves Commission, Britain's official government body overseeing all imperial commemoration efforts. For the soldiers of the Indian Army their war experience was split between the Western Front in Europe and Mesopotamia in modern-day Iraq. They were also far more ethnically, religiously, and lingually diverse than their British and Dominion counterparts. In order to examine how geography, religion, and the imperial relationship affected Britain's commemoration of India's war dead, this study uses the Commission's own records to recreate how the IWGC created its policies regarding Indian soldiers. The result shows that while the Commission made nearly every effort to respect India's war dead, the complexity of their backgrounds hampered these efforts and forced compromises to be made. The geography of the war also forced a clear definition between the memories of Indian soldiers who died in Europe and those who fell in Mesopotamia.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2018
- Identifier
- CFE0007098, ucf:51938
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0007098
- Title
- The Heralds of the Dawn: A History of the Motion Picture Industry in the State of Florida, 1908-2019.
- Creator
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Morton, David, Foster, Amy, French, Scot, Zhang, Hong, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
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Often overlooked in its contribution to cinema history, the State of Florida has the distinction of being among just a handful of regions in the United States to have a continuous connection with the American motion picture industry. This relationship in turn has produced iconic entertainment that has shaped the state's image to the outside world, while production spending has served as an important booster for local economies across Florida. The purpose of this study is to demonstrate how...
Show moreOften overlooked in its contribution to cinema history, the State of Florida has the distinction of being among just a handful of regions in the United States to have a continuous connection with the American motion picture industry. This relationship in turn has produced iconic entertainment that has shaped the state's image to the outside world, while production spending has served as an important booster for local economies across Florida. The purpose of this study is to demonstrate how the sometimes cooperative and often contentious dynamics between film and television producers and state politicians have influenced this history of film production in Florida. This can best be understood by examining the ideological divide between the pro-business and anti-corporate factions in Florida's government. Through a series of interconnected case studies that apply place-based analysis, this project demonstrates how the Florida government and communities have historically interacted with the motion picture industry. While Florida never truly became an (")Almost Hollywood(") or (")Hollywood East,(") film producers and state officials were at various times successful in turning the cities of Jacksonville, Tampa, Orlando, and Miami into important centers for film and television production. Yet just as each of these production hubs gained momentum, resistance at the state and local level resulted in the industry's decline and departure. These moments of cooperation and conflict provide important insights into the specific environmental characteristics that inspired filmmakers to come to Florida, as well as the social-political circumstances that eventually pushed them from the state. With a close scrutiny of trade press sources, periodicals, local newspapers, and the personal papers of filmmakers and politicians, this work explains the varied reasons behind the repeated rise, fall, and occasional exodus of the state's motion picture industry. This will be achieved by scrutinizing examples that range from policy decisions made by Florida's government from the turn of the twentieth century on through to the current efforts being made by Florida lawmakers to reinvigorate the state's production industry.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2019
- Identifier
- CFE0007505, ucf:52630
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0007505
- Title
- Differing Perspectives: Positive Accounts of the Down to the Countryside Movement.
- Creator
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Nettina, Michael, Zhang, Hong, Dandrow, Edward, Foster, Amy, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
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Despite the number of narratives regarding the negative outcomes and experiences of the Down to the Countryside Movement during the Cultural Revolution, there is a scarce amount of literature in the West regarding the fringe benefits of the movement. The historiography in the field is limited, with most Western writers only focusing on the unfortunate consequences of the movement, such as violence, rape, limited access to education, and the strain on families affected by the political...
Show moreDespite the number of narratives regarding the negative outcomes and experiences of the Down to the Countryside Movement during the Cultural Revolution, there is a scarce amount of literature in the West regarding the fringe benefits of the movement. The historiography in the field is limited, with most Western writers only focusing on the unfortunate consequences of the movement, such as violence, rape, limited access to education, and the strain on families affected by the political movement. The purpose of this study is to give a voice to the Chinese sent-down youth whose positive thoughts on the Down to the Countryside are often not addressed in the West. This is done by the evaluation of memoirs in the form of books and journal articles. By analyzing these works, one finds that many of the sent-down youth had positive experiences during their time in the countryside. These include but are not limited to developing a strong work ethic, making long-lasting friendships with other sent-down youths as well as with peasants, and, for young women, developing a sense of equality with young men due to their effort in hard, manual labor. This study is significant because it can serve as a framework for future research into the lives and experiences of the sent-down youth.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2018
- Identifier
- CFE0007230, ucf:52215
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0007230
- Title
- Confrontational Christianity: Contextual Theology and Its Radicalization of the South African Anti-Apartheid Church Struggle.
- Creator
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Rodriguez, Miguel, Walker, Ezekiel, Sacher, John, Zhang, Hong, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
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This paper is intended to analyze the contributions of Contextual Theology and Contextual theologians to dismantling the South African apartheid system. It is intended to demonstrate that the South African churches failed to effectively politicize and radicalize to confront the government until the advent of Contextual Theology in South Africa. Contextual Theology provided the Christian clergy the theological justification to unite with anti-apartheid organizations. Its very concept of...
Show moreThis paper is intended to analyze the contributions of Contextual Theology and Contextual theologians to dismantling the South African apartheid system. It is intended to demonstrate that the South African churches failed to effectively politicize and radicalize to confront the government until the advent of Contextual Theology in South Africa. Contextual Theology provided the Christian clergy the theological justification to unite with anti-apartheid organizations. Its very concept of working with the poor and oppressed helped the churches gain favor with the black masses that were mostly Christian. Its borrowing from Marxist philosophy appealed to anti-apartheid organizations. Additionally, Contextual theologians, who were primarily black, began filling prominent leadership roles in their churches and within the ecumenical organizations. They were mainly responsible for radicalizing the churches and the ecumenical organizations. They also filled an important anti-apartheid political leadership vacuum when most political leaders were banned, jailed, or killed.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2012
- Identifier
- CFE0004322, ucf:49484
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0004322
- Title
- The Role of Tactical Nuclear Weapons in American China Policy: 1950-1963.
- Creator
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Poppino, James, Zhang, Hong, Foster, Amy, Lyons, Amelia, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
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This study demonstrates that tactical nuclear weapons occupied a central and essential role in US military policy for confronting the Peoples Republic of China between 1950 and 1963. Historians seldom look at tactical nuclear weapons as a separate and distinct component of American foreign policy and generally place these weapons as a subset of a strategic doctrine directed at the Soviet Union. When examined as a separate component of military policy, however, tactical nuclear weapons proved...
Show moreThis study demonstrates that tactical nuclear weapons occupied a central and essential role in US military policy for confronting the Peoples Republic of China between 1950 and 1963. Historians seldom look at tactical nuclear weapons as a separate and distinct component of American foreign policy and generally place these weapons as a subset of a strategic doctrine directed at the Soviet Union. When examined as a separate component of military policy, however, tactical nuclear weapons proved to be indispensable tools for the American leadership to deal with the complex relationship between the United States, the People's Republic of China and the Republic of China (Taiwan). Such weapons allowed each of the three administrations examined in this study (Harry Truman's, Dwight Eisenhower's and John Kennedy's) to commit the United States to defense obligations that would otherwise have been impossible. As these weapons developed from their infancy in the late 1940s through a number of aggressive field deployments in the 1950s, US presidents repeatedly turned to tactical nuclear weapons when considering their military options for confronting China. The role of tactical nuclear weapons strengthened with each passing presidency and with each crisis between China and the United States. From these crises, tactical nuclear weapons evolved from inefficient weapons systems of Korean War policy, to a key element of a defensive military policy to contain China, and, in their final iteration, as an instrument that not only to assured containment, but was also considered as a possible method of depriving China from obtaining its own nuclear weapons.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2016
- Identifier
- CFE0006163, ucf:51118
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0006163
- Title
- Bridging Discourse: Connections Between Institutional and Lay Natural Philosophical Texts in Medieval England.
- Creator
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Lorden, Alayne, Larson, Peter, Zhang, Hong, Crepeau, Richard, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
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Translations of works containing Arabic and ancient Greek knowledge of the philosophical and mechanical underpinnings of the natural world(-)a field of study called natural philosophy(-)were disseminated throughout twelfth-century England. During the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, institutional (ecclesiastical/university) scholars received and further developed this natural philosophical knowledge by reconciling it with Christian authoritative sources (the Bible and works by the Church...
Show moreTranslations of works containing Arabic and ancient Greek knowledge of the philosophical and mechanical underpinnings of the natural world(-)a field of study called natural philosophy(-)were disseminated throughout twelfth-century England. During the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, institutional (ecclesiastical/university) scholars received and further developed this natural philosophical knowledge by reconciling it with Christian authoritative sources (the Bible and works by the Church Fathers). The subsequent discourse that developed demonstrated ambivalence towards natural philosophical knowledge; institutional scholars expressed both acceptance and anxiety regarding the theory and practice of alchemy, astrology/astronomy, and humoral/astrological medicine. While the institutional development and discourse surrounding natural philosophical thought is well-represented within medieval scholarship, an examination of the transmission and reception of this institutional discourse by broader sectors of English medieval society is needed. Examining fourteenth- and fifteenth-century Middle English public writings, texts, and copies of Latin works provides an important avenue of analysis when exploring the transmission and reception of institutional natural philosophical discourse to the laity. By comparing the similarities of discourse evident between the institutional and lay texts and the textual approaches the Middle English writers employed to incorporate this discourse, these works demonstrate that the spheres of institutional and lay knowledge traditionally separated by medieval historians overlapped as the clerics and laity began sharing a similar understanding of the philosophical underpinnings of the natural world.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2015
- Identifier
- CFE0005830, ucf:50916
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0005830
- Title
- "The Cause of Zion": Divisions Between Southern Baptists in Antebellum North Carolina.
- Creator
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Steele, Kristian, Sacher, John, Murphree, Daniel, Zhang, Hong, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
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This project examines the ways in which divisions within Baptist churches in antebellum western North Carolina were caused by the Second Great Awakening and the Market Revolution. More precisely, these schisms were reactions to theological changes made by the governing bodies of the Baptist denomination as well as the social reform endeavors propagated by the new emerging middle class. With state funding no longer going to certain churches, denominations now competed on equal footing for...
Show moreThis project examines the ways in which divisions within Baptist churches in antebellum western North Carolina were caused by the Second Great Awakening and the Market Revolution. More precisely, these schisms were reactions to theological changes made by the governing bodies of the Baptist denomination as well as the social reform endeavors propagated by the new emerging middle class. With state funding no longer going to certain churches, denominations now competed on equal footing for congregants. Baptists began to adapt their theology in order to reach a broader audience. But their accommodations in doctrine were challenged by members of their own denomination who saw no reason to alter their interpretations of scripture. Concomitantly, a rapidly expanding market economy gave rise to a new middle class of individuals whose unique social perspectives differed sharply from both rural lower and upper classes in the South. And as more members of the Baptist ministry began identifying with this emerging class of professionals, citizens who found themselves disconnected from market centers and bereft of the benefits of a growing economy took issue with the unfamiliar social mentality propagated by these preachers. Recent historiographic trends have upset traditional narratives that have long-argued social reform could not take root in the Old South. However, these studies have failed to fully examine the significant role played by churches in heated political and economic debates. Rather than only focus on how churches inserted themselves into the secular sphere, this thesis looks inside the churches and analyzes the degree to which socioeconomic and cultural forces radically changed the ways in which North Carolinians made sense of their world in religious terms.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2016
- Identifier
- CFE0006401, ucf:51452
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0006401
- Title
- Comrades In Arms?: Russian (&) Muslim Soldiers In The Red Army During World War II.
- Creator
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Bradfield, Daniel, Solonari, Vladimir, Zhang, Hong, Gannon, Barbara, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
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This thesis focuses on the perceptions of Muslims soldiers regarding their military service during World War II. To thoroughly analyze Muslim soldiers' attitudes, the thesis explores the total experience of Muslim military service through the Soviet Union's and Red Army's policies toward Muslims and how Russian soldiers viewed their Muslim counterparts. To achieve this, the thesis summarized current scholarship on Soviet and Red Army policies toward Muslims. The thesis analyzed the oral...
Show moreThis thesis focuses on the perceptions of Muslims soldiers regarding their military service during World War II. To thoroughly analyze Muslim soldiers' attitudes, the thesis explores the total experience of Muslim military service through the Soviet Union's and Red Army's policies toward Muslims and how Russian soldiers viewed their Muslim counterparts. To achieve this, the thesis summarized current scholarship on Soviet and Red Army policies toward Muslims. The thesis analyzed the oral histories and written accounts of Muslim soldiers and Russian soldiers to understand the perceptions of Russians and Muslim soldiers. A hierarchy of cultural backwardness underlined Soviet policies in both the Red Army and the larger Soviet system. Soviet authorities viewed Russians and other Slavic peoples as more highly advanced and therefore could progress 'backward' minorities through the Marxist teleology. Muslim soldiers who were able to communicate in Russian with Russian soldiers forged primary bonds with them. Muslim soldiers who did not form these relationships correlated the Russian soldiers with the Soviet state. Russian soldiers downplayed the contributions of Muslim soldiers while glorifying their central role to the Red Army's victory as the 'Slavic Backbone.' Immediate post-war interviews focused on the difficulties of serving with Muslims including poor communication, self-injury, (&) desertion. However, the post-soviet interviews described the Muslim members of their primary groups as integral parts of their units. Their successful service stood tall when balanced against the larger perception of Muslim ineffectiveness.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2016
- Identifier
- CFE0006444, ucf:51449
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0006444
- Title
- Imperial Japan's Human Experiments Before and During World War Two.
- Creator
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Vanderbrook, Alan, Zhang, Hong, Larson, Peter, Lester, Connie, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
-
After Japan occupied Manchuria in 1931, Ishii Shiro created Unit 731 and began testing biological weapons on unwilling human test subjects. The history of Imperial Japan's human experiments was one in which Ishii and Unit 731 was the principal actor, but Unit 731 operated in a much larger context. The network in which 731 operated consisted of Unit 731 and all its sub-units, nearly every major Japanese university, as well as many people in Japan's scientific and medical community, military...
Show moreAfter Japan occupied Manchuria in 1931, Ishii Shiro created Unit 731 and began testing biological weapons on unwilling human test subjects. The history of Imperial Japan's human experiments was one in which Ishii and Unit 731 was the principal actor, but Unit 731 operated in a much larger context. The network in which 731 operated consisted of Unit 731 and all its sub-units, nearly every major Japanese university, as well as many people in Japan's scientific and medical community, military hospitals, military and civilian laboratories, and the Japanese military as a whole. Japan's racist ultra-nationalist movement heavily influenced these institutions and people; previous historians have failed to view Japan's human experiments in this context. This thesis makes use of a combination of declassified United States government and military documents, including court documents and the interviews conducted during the Unit 731 Exhibition that traveled Japan in 1993 and 1994, and then recorded by Hal Gold in his book, Unit 731 Testimony, along with a number of secondary sources as supporting material. Each of these sources has informed this work and helped clarify that Unit 731 acted within a broader network of human experimentation and exploitation in a racist system, which normalized human atrocities. Attitudes of racism and superiority do not necessarily explain every action taken by Japanese military personnel and scientists, nor did every individual view their actions or the actions of their countrymen as morally correct, but it does help explain why these acts occurred. What enabled many Japanese scientists was the racist ideology of the ultra-nationalist movement in Japan.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2013
- Identifier
- CFE0004767, ucf:49769
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0004767
- Title
- From Skeptical Disinterest to Ideological Crusade: The Road to American Participation in the Greek Civil War, 1943-1949.
- Creator
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Villiotis, Stephen, Solonari, Vladimir, Zhang, Hong, Beiler, Rosalind, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
-
This thesis examines the way in which the United States formulated its policy toward Greece during the Greek civil war (1943-1949). It asserts that U.S. intervention in Greece was based on circumstantial evidence and the assumption of Soviet global intentions, rather than on dispatches from the field which consistently reported from 1943-1946 that the Soviets were not involved in that country's affairs. It also maintains that the post-Truman Doctrine American policy in Greece was in essence,...
Show moreThis thesis examines the way in which the United States formulated its policy toward Greece during the Greek civil war (1943-1949). It asserts that U.S. intervention in Greece was based on circumstantial evidence and the assumption of Soviet global intentions, rather than on dispatches from the field which consistently reported from 1943-1946 that the Soviets were not involved in that country's affairs. It also maintains that the post-Truman Doctrine American policy in Greece was in essence, a continuation of British policy there from 1943-1946, which meant to impose an unpopular government on the people of Greece, and tolerated unlawful violence of the extreme Greek right-wing.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2013
- Identifier
- CFE0005068, ucf:49959
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0005068
- Title
- Fire in a Distant Heaven: The Boxer Uprising as a Domestic Crisis in the United States.
- Creator
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Fandino, Daniel, Zhang, Hong, Lyons, Amelia, Kallina, Edmund, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
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This thesis examines the Boxer Uprising which took place in China around the turn of the twentieth century as a domestic crisis in the United States and the means through which different factions within America shaped the popular perception of the event. It argues that American and Chinese interest groups successfully managed the crisis by developing a narrative that served to further their own interests. These efforts were geared towards convincing an uncertain American public of the...
Show moreThis thesis examines the Boxer Uprising which took place in China around the turn of the twentieth century as a domestic crisis in the United States and the means through which different factions within America shaped the popular perception of the event. It argues that American and Chinese interest groups successfully managed the crisis by developing a narrative that served to further their own interests. These efforts were geared towards convincing an uncertain American public of the necessity and righteousness of particular ways to respond to the crisis. The primary factor in this narrative was a malleable ideal of civilization centered on American concepts of industry, Christianity, and democracy. This thesis maintains that the print media of the day was the essential element for the distribution of this message, which allowed for an explanation to the crisis, the protection of Chinese citizens within the United States, justification for American actions abroad, and a speedy return to the status quo.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2014
- Identifier
- CFE0005489, ucf:50337
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0005489
- Title
- "City of Superb Democracy:" The Emergence of Brooklyn's Cultural Identity During Cinema's Silent Era, 1893-1928.
- Creator
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Morton, David, Foster, Amy, French, Scot, Zhang, Hong, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
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This study discusses how motion picture spectatorship practices in Brooklyn developed separately from that of any other urban center in the United States between 1893 and 1928. Often overshadowed by Manhattan's glamorous cultural districts, Brooklyn's cultural arbiters adopted the motion picture as a means of asserting a sense of independence from the other New York boroughs. This argument is reinforced by focusing on the motion picture's ascendancy as one of the first forms of mass...
Show moreThis study discusses how motion picture spectatorship practices in Brooklyn developed separately from that of any other urban center in the United States between 1893 and 1928. Often overshadowed by Manhattan's glamorous cultural districts, Brooklyn's cultural arbiters adopted the motion picture as a means of asserting a sense of independence from the other New York boroughs. This argument is reinforced by focusing on the motion picture's ascendancy as one of the first forms of mass entertainment to be disseminated throughout New York City in congruence with the Borough of Brooklyn's rapid urbanization. In many significant areas Brooklyn's relationship with the motion picture was largely unique from anywhere else in New York. These differences are best illuminated through several key examples ranging from the manner in which Brooklyn's political and religious authorities enforced film censorship to discussing how the motion picture was exhibited and the way theaters proliferated throughout the borough Lastly this work will address the ways in which members of the Brooklyn community influenced the production practices of the films made at several Brooklyn-based film studios. Ultimately this work sets out to explain how an independent community was able to determine its own form of cultural expression through its relationship with mass entertainment.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2014
- Identifier
- CFE0005217, ucf:50636
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0005217