Rechercher

In 1936, the American Music League published Negro Songs of Protest, a book of songs collected by the left-wing folklorist Lawrence Gellert. In 1938 and 1939, with the financial support of the communist movement, the producer John Hammond was able to present From Spirituals to Swing at Carnegie Hall, New York, two concerts that celebrated the contribution of African American music in American history. Moreover, the From Spirituals to Swing concerts broke the color line, by letting Blacks and Whites play music together on stage and sit together in the audience. During the same years, jazz singer Billie Holiday enjoyed a monstrous success with her anti-lynching song “Strange Fruit” at Café Society, the first integrated club and radical left-wing cabaret in New York. It was the time of the Popular Front; a time when the communist movement had a great influence on American society and when the organized left exerted unprecedented power over mass culture. Starting with a discussion of the revolutionary potential of African American music and trying to understand what social movements do with culture, this essay traces the developing point of view of white American communists toward the commercial explosion and growing popularity of blues and jazz music in USA during the interwar years. It asks the question of why there was so little mention of jazz and blues in Party organs during the 1920’s and early 1930’s , it explores the changing attitudes of the Old Left toward popular culture and suggests that the American communist movement used blues and jazz music for agitprop, during the last of the three main political phases of the Communist Party of America (CPUSA) – the colorblind class (1919-1928); the Black Belt Nation thesis (1928-1935); and the Popular Front (1935-1940).

Studying the works and letters of Johann Joachim Winckelmann written between 1755 and 1768 gives new insights on love between men in the 18th century and on its relation to the construction of masculinity. The case of Winckelmann illustrates the constructed and changing nature of eroticism: the influence of the Hellenic example is visible in the homoerotic fantasy that Winckelmann used to interpret his desires. Antiquity, given its cultural authority, represented a relatively safe space where Winckelmann was able to express his homoerotic sensibility to which the western context was hostile. Greek literature exalted the display of affection between men and its statuary, the nude male body. This fantasy would later prove to be the capital in Winckelmann’s comprehension and justifications of his relations with other men in Italy after 1755. Far from being confined to the repression of homoeroticism by the 18th century European society, the case of Winckelmann illustrates its potential for partial integration. The originality of Winckelmann lies in the way he used to communicate his homoerotic ideas in scholarly texts while rendering them socially acceptable. Finally, several clues in his works and letters bear to think that Winckelmann was aware of his difference and that between 1755 and 1768 he created for himself a discrete community of men also sensitive to homoerotic desires.

This thesis analyzes the identity of the tumular monuments designated as “Thracian”, discovered in the territory of present day Bulgaria and dated between the 5th and the 3rd centuries B.C. These monuments, built in ashlar masonry or in unprocessed stones, or a mix of different materials and building techniques, were invariably covered by earthen mounds (called tumuli) which have been used to varied ends by local populations from Antiquity until the present day. More or less detailed studies of these tumular monuments began to appear by the end of the 19th century, while the list of newly discovered structures continues to grow almost exponentially. These publications and discoveries revealed that the sample of known Thracian monuments is characterised by what has been described as a great variety of architectural forms. Overwhelmed by this apparent variety, and in an attempt to explain it, certain researchers have tried to categorise what they have perceived as different types of monuments. Many hypotheses bearing on the function of the latter have also been proposed, although they differ only in the details and can be categorised in two main groups: that arguing for a funerary function of the monuments, and that arguing for a cultual one. Through the years, a heated debate has developed between researchers adhering to one or to the other of these hypotheses – discussion which has been fueled by a constant discovery of new monuments. It is thus surprising to note that neither the hypothesis pertaining to the possible origins of these buildings, nor those attempting to explain their functions, have been based on tangible data – a situation which has resulted in the attribution to the monuments of dubious labels such as “tombs-temples-mausoleums-heroons”. This study provides a comprehensive analysis of the hypotheses pertaining to the functions and, in more general terms, the identity of the Thracian tumular monuments. Its main objective is to explain the problems that these hypotheses have helped to identify, and which, ironically, they have contributed to sustain. It is noted that, despite the lack of precision in the accumulated empirical data relating to the Thracian monuments, most, if not all, researchers working in the field have tended to sink into an excessive positivism. This approach resulted in the implicit or explicit expression of the belief that that the inclusion of the maximum quantity of empirical data in a given analysis will necessarily result in a more complete understanding of a given archaeological context, which can then be inserted in a previously elaborated historical context, so as to paint a clearer picture of the past. Contrary to this tendency, and because of the lack of precise data, the present research focuses first, and foremost, on the publications bearing on the Thracian monuments and proposes a theoretically informed approach of the study of the latter. As described in Part I, this approach is based on current discussions concerning the methods and techniques of analysis in the fields of archaeology, anthropology and history, which have developed around similar circumstances defined by “incomplete” empirical data. The different hypotheses relating to the identity (or function) of the Thracian monuments have been based on specific archaeological elements (mainly of architectural nature), which are described and analysed in the second part of the thesis. The different interpretations of the Thracian monuments are then examined in the light of these analyses. Finally, in Part III of this thesis, the identities attributed to the Thracian monuments are scrutinised on the basis of these analyses and a restitution of the practices related to these monuments is proposed. The approach to the study of the Thracian tumular monuments that has been adopted in this thesis takes into account not only the methodological aspect of the research published by specialists in the field, but also the data on which the different hypotheses relating to these monuments have been based. Particular attention has been drawn to two aspects present in all publications on the subject: the “technical” and “theoretical” vocabulary implicitly or explicitly employed by the authors and the manner in which it affects their perception of the identity of the Thracian monuments. Part III analyzes and underlines the outcome of the different uses of the implicitly or explicitly defined vocabularies employed by thracologists, leading to a comparison between the already published perceptions of the identity of the Thracian monuments and the reconstitution of their function proposed by the author of this thesis. This comparison, as well as the application of the methodology presented in Part I, show that the restitution of the monuments as having had a funerary function is the most parsimonious and better founded in the material record than the cultual function for which some have argued. However, the function of the monuments, as reconstituted by the author of this thesis, differs from most of the “funerary” explanations of the monuments published to date – these tend to venture far beyond the inductions permitted by the available data. Furthermore, this (or any other) restitution of the monuments’ function as funerary does not automatically exclude the possibility of them having been used as cultual places/buildings. Despite the apparent similarity between such an argument with those that have been emitted towards the identification of the Thracian monuments as “temple-tombs”, the author expresses the opinion that the use of such labels is dubious and allows for unfounded critique and ineffectual comparisons between the classical Greek idea of the “temple” and Thracian cultual places. The result of the analysis of the different elements pertaining to the reconstitution of the Thracian monuments’ identity have led to the following conclusions: 1) none of the already published hypotheses arguing for a funerary or for a cultual explanation of the monuments can be validated because of the excessive recourse by their authors to extrapolations lacking proper argumentation; 2) the lack of precise data or, more importantly, of precisely excavated and reconstituted archaeological contexts, prohibits the elaboration of complex hypotheses such as those proposed by specialists in the field; 3) nevertheless, the current state of knowledge regarding the material culture related to the Thracian monuments, and the rigorous application of a methodical analysis of the data show that a reconciliation between the “funerary” and the “cultual” identities of the monuments is possible – however, this fact should not be perceived as a justification of the use of labels similar to “temple-tombs”, nor of the conclusions upon which such labels are based; 4) there is an urgent necessity for a re-definition of the methodological approaches used (or the lack thereof) in the theoretical analyses of the Thracian monuments, as well as those employed on the field, during excavations. A failure to take account of these facts and shortcomings by proceeding with such a re-definition would mean that the identity of the Thracian tumular monuments would remain a matter of opinion and could even be transformed into a matter of dogma. The analyses in this thesis can serve as a base for the re-evaluation of the identity of the Thracian monuments because of their theoretical and methodological soundness. However, such a re-evaluation must also be based on a reconstitution of Thracian ritual practices based on the archaeological record. Paradoxically, despite the impressive amount of publication on the subject of the Thracian tumular monuments as places of cultual practices, a systematic reconstitution of Thracian ritual based on Thracian material culture is yet to be proposed.

Ce mémoire offre un résumé de l’état de la recherche quant à la perception des Japonais et de l’ennemi japonais aux États-Unis avant et pendant la Deuxième Guerre mondiale. Il en ressort que la question plus spécifique du traitement réservé à l’ennemi japonais et à la responsabilité des actions de guerre perpétrées par celui-ci dans les journaux américains mérite d’être approfondie. L’analyse des articles publiés dans les trois mois suivant l’attaque japonaise de Pearl Harbour et précédant la fin officielle de la guerre dans trois grands périodiques américains de l’époque suggère que ceux-ci offrirent un traitement de l’ennemi japonais similaire à celui présent dans l’ensemble des autres média américains de l’époque, mais que ce traitement est généralement plus nuancé et éclaté dans les trois mois précédant la fin de la guerre. Certaines dissensions importantes peuvent y être constatée quant à la question de la responsabilité des actions de guerre japonaises entre les périodiques, ce qui suggère l’existence de points de vue, de valeurs et de perceptions différentes des Japonais aux États-Unis pendant la Deuxième Guerre mondiale.

Ma recherche vise, d’une part, à appréhender le phénomène de la publication des correspondances des « poilus » (les soldats français de la Première Guerre mondiale) et d’autre part, à déterminer leur rôle dans la mémoire collective de la Grande Guerre. Précédé d’un bilan historiographique, mon travail se divise en trois chapitres autour de trois thèmes principaux, la correspondance, l’édition et la mémoire. Le premier chapitre met en contexte la production des lettres et identifie les facteurs l’influençant. Le deuxième chapitre se penche sur les buts éditoriaux des publications de correspondances et sur leur transformation au fil des époques. Finalement, le dernier chapitre analyse la place de ces publications dans le cadre de la commémoration de la Grande Guerre. La recherche va au-delà de l’analyse des lettres et s’intéresse davantage aux desseins éditoriaux des recueils. Les sources utilisées sont des ouvrages collectifs publiant des lettres de poilus, édités entre 1922 (La dernière lettre) et 2006 (Paroles de Verdun).