Browsing by Subject "Cold War"
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Item The 1958 U.S. Trade Mission to Yugoslavia and the United States' "Wedge" Policy: A Technocratic Connection(2020-05) Smiley, Jacob, AItem AIM, FOCUS, SHOOT: Photographic Narratives of War, Independence, and Imagination in Mozambique, 1950 to 1993(2013-06) Thompson, DrewPhotography's production and exhibition were important mediums for self-representation, political expression, and economic survival for photographers in Mozambique and their audiences from 1950 to 1993. Furthermore, conversations on race in Mozambique happened in the experiential realm of the visual as state-implemented categories for defining race determined the audiences for specific pictures, the venues in which audiences viewed photographs, and the types of images published versus those relegated to state and personal archives. Few scholars have studied photography in Mozambique along with how questions of race persisted after Portuguese colonialism and shaped post-independence life. In turn, to address these absences, this dissertation looks at Mozambique's history of colonialism, liberation, and economic hardship through the camera's lens and the lives of Mozambican commercial and press photographers, whose careers reflect this history. A reconstruction and historicization of the production, circulation, and appropriation of photographs from the late-colonial period into the present day illuminates the ways in which visual technologies shaped popular perceptions of racial identification and the ways in which independence movements developed. Pictures read against collected oral histories offer a context to recreate the class formations, social activities, and image worlds fashioned by photography. This approach to photography as both the object of study and as methodological approach to historical studies highlights the ways in which popular and government discourses on race, issues silenced by ideologies of racial democracy, co-opted photography's technical and visual languages, and the ways in which photography sometimes contested and contradicted these discourses on race. Ultimately, this study raises new issues about how photography's practice and archiving gave rise to conditions of citizenship and nation and about the nature of artistic resistance movements in colonial and post-independent Mozambique.Item Cold War discourse in the post-Cold War media world: Articulations of global politics in Russian and US mainstream and alternative media(2015-06) Popkova, AnnaThis project examines the role that the Cold War discourse plays in informing and structuring the Russian and US mainstream and alternative news media narratives about international events and controversies that occur in the post-Cold War time but trace their historical roots to the Cold War geopolitical struggles and expose disagreements between Russia and the United States in the 21st century. This project also seeks to identify what other discourses of global politics and international affairs are interwoven in media narratives examined in this study and how their interactions with elements of the Cold War discourse work to create meanings for these media's audiences in the post-Cold War. Theoretically, the study brings together discourse analysis theory, Stuart Hall's theory of articulation and a set of concepts defining the debate on the forces of nationalism and globalization that shape the post-Cold War environment. The project is based on the combination of qualitative textual analysis and critical discourse analysis, and examines three case studies: the war in South Ossetia in 2008, the debate in the United Nations Security Council over the peace resolution in Syria in 2012, and the death of Hugo Ch�vez in 2013. The findings reveal that certain elements of the Cold War discourse continue structuring the narratives that different Russian and US media produce as they make sense of various events that occur in the post-Cold War time, raising critical questions about the persistence of powerful discourses, and about the ability of media both in Russia and in the United States to re-articulate discourses of global politics in the post-Cold War world.Item Constituting the Cold War Commonplace: U.S. Presidential Public Address and the Inventional Possibilities of Speaking In Situ(2016-05) Prasch, AllisonAlthough the “spatial” turn has generated significant advances in many areas of rhetorical theory and criticism, few scholars have considered how speakers (and specifically U.S. presidents) have drawn on the symbolic and physical elements of the speech setting as a material means of persuasion. The purpose of this study, therefore, is to demonstrate how U.S. presidents have invoked place as a rhetorical strategy. I contend that recent rhetorical approaches to space and place offer a fruitful theoretical and methodological perspective that enlarges and enriches our understanding of U.S. presidential public address as rhetoric designed for and delivered in situ, or in place. In this dissertation, I analyze three examples of Cold War presidential discourse: Harry S. Truman’s 1947 speech to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People at the Lincoln Memorial, John F. Kennedy’s 1963 “Ich bin ein Berliner” address at the Rudolph Wilde Platz in West Berlin, and Ronald Reagan’s 1984 commemoration of D-Day at Pointe du Hoc, France. I argue that Truman, Kennedy, and Reagan invoked place to (1) invest the speech setting with symbolic meaning; (2) harness always already present political and cultural symbols to build conceptual and literal commonplaces (topoi) for ideological metaphors, analogies, and networks of shared meaning embedded in that place; (3) constitute a specific geopolitical vision of the world and the United States’ role in it; and (4) reaffirm their role as moral leader and head of state. This study also offers a theoretical and methodological framework—specifically, a rhetorical theory of deixis—for analyzing the persuasive power of rhetoric in situ.Item Constructing Americans’ Responsibility to Give: Shifting Debates about Foreign and Humanitarian Aid to Child Refugees, 1945–1989(2016-05) Park, SharonIn order to garner public support for refugee assistance programs during the Cold War, American policymakers and relief organizations highlighted child refugees as war victims and future global partners. However, understandings about children’s dependency came into tension with refugees’ status as temporary aid recipients and non-citizens, prompting policymakers and taxpayers to set limits for relief, resettlement, and welfare programs. Using two case studies—Jewish child refugees after World War II and Southeast Asian refugee children and families after the Vietnam War—this dissertation argues that these shifts in American attitudes toward refugee assistance redefined, and were shaped by, U.S. foreign and domestic welfare policies.Item Displaying Cold War Technology: The National Air and Space Museum, 1946-1976(2018-12) Shin, JieunThe formative planning for the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum (NASM) between 1946 and 1976 reflected changing notions about aeronautics and space science of Cold War America. After World War II, the National Air Museum (NAM) was proposed as a demonstration of America’s emerging role as a global superpower by displaying the advances made in aviation over more than half a century. With the initial intention of the military leadership to present the significance of airpower, the NAM had rationalized its identity as “a shrine for American aviation” particularly after acquiring the Kitty Hawk in 1948 and securing its site in the National Mall in 1958. The objectives of the NAM shifted from commemoration to education with the advent of the Space Age and the new leadership of the Smithsonian Institution in the 1960s. The reform of national science education and increasing attention to space programs after Sputnik were coupled with the Smithsonian’s efforts to reshape the museum and, eventually, changed its name from NAM to NASM by adding term “Space.” Nonetheless, the actual building plan was impeded by limited staffing, competition with other projects in the Smithsonian, and budgetary limitations due to the Vietnam War. In 1969, in the wake of Apollo 11, the delay of the NASM planning attracted attention from the media, military, and Congress. The NASM advocates turned the criticism into opportunity by emphasizing the dual missions, commemoration and education, with two strategic decisions: a planetarium for public science education and the opening the museum in time for American Bicentennial celebration. After the appropriation for construction in 1972, the NASM reoriented its direction with a new organization and exhibit policies to meet the deadline of July 4, 1976. To present “balanced” perspective, the staff sometimes justified their selection of artifacts and provided historical narratives in conjunction with the interests of government and aerospace agencies. When the NASM finally opened its doors in 1976, the museum proved a tremendous success, but still had enormous potential for displaying more complete stories of the history, culture, and science of aviation and spaceflight with new historians on staff.Item Exceptional Empire and Exceptional Subjects: Biopolitics and the Transnational Making of the Korean/Asian/American through the Cold War(2016-12) Kim, SeonnaThis dissertation explores how the contemporary Korean American and Korean diasporic literary productions imagine and respond to the nexus between the “exceptional” American empire and the exceptional juridico-political subjects it produced and managed in South Korea and across the Pacific through the prolonged Cold War. Drawing on critical biopolitical studies, this project frames the Cold War U.S. military and humanitarian interventions in Asia as neoimperialist governmentality, which not only created excessive, doubled sovereignty and states of exception but also produced and displaced exceptional subjects in the areas affected. My research on the historical, political, legal, and cultural discourses on these displaced subjects evinces that they were not simply excluded as a demographic exception to the Korean and American nation-states, but included in their Cold War geopolitics and biopolitics. This dissertation proposes that the transnational making of the exceptional Korean, Asian, or Asian American subjects through the Cold War provides key sites for understanding the transnational history and dimensions of the post-World War II formation of Asian America as it illuminates the links between U.S. foreign policy in Asia and domestic racial liberalism during the Cold War. Tracing the origin of the transpacific exceptional subjects and their transpacific links, the project also draws a genealogy of a forgotten Korean diaspora that still haunts the modernity of Korean and American nation-states. I argue that the selected cultural memories and imaginaries produced by Nora Okja Keller, Heinz Insu Fenkl, Jane Jeong Trenka, and Chang-rae Lee expose and intervene in the complex operations and technologies of U.S. sovereign biopower and governance within and across its national border and its logics of exclusion and inclusion by verbally enacting scenes of multiple subjectifications of the exceptional figures in Asia and America. Chapter by chapter, the dissertation attends to the particular conjunctures of local and global biopolitics in which the exceptional subjects emerged and were subjectified. It also demonstrates how each of these texts in a unique and experimental way disrupts the normative codifications and configurations of the exceptional empire as a global peacekeeper or humanitarian force and of the exceptional(ized) subjects as undeserving racial aliens or exceptionally deserving model citizens. Collectively, these literary texts create an aesthetics of the stateless that imagines alternative models of politics, subjectivity, and cross-national and interracial community to move beyond biopolitics and towards a decolonized future.Item Families precede nation and race?: marriage, migration, and integration of Japanese war brides after World War II.(2010-08) Nakamura, MasakoUnlike other war brides of World War II, the international and interracial marriages between Japanese women and U.S. servicemen, which were seen as the products and symbols of the U.S. occupation, posed distinct challenges to the American and Japanese state and, in particular, to the image of American families at home and abroad. This dissertation examines how these Japanese women were treated as a "problem" by American and Japanese societies and how the "problem" was approached through diverse but intertwined sites, venues, and agents such as legal discourse, American Red Cross brides' schools in Japan, social science studies, and Japanese War Brides Club at the International Institute in San Francisco, in the late 1940s and 1950s. It also examines how these women responded to those approaches, how they remembered their experiences, and their ongoing transnational relationships with their two home countries, Japan and the United States. I argue that Japanese war brides, who were the majority of not only Asian war brides, but also postwar Japanese immigrants, played a key role in redefining the "American family" and concepts of race and citizenship. They became central to the debate about the makeup of the "ideal American family" and led to changes in postwar U.S. immigration policy as well as popular and scholarly understandings of not only "Japanese war brides" but also interracial marriages. Disciplining these ex-enemy nationals, who were considered to be racially inassimilable and ineligible for citizenship, into good wives and mothers of U.S. citizens became an important mission for Americans in the United States and Japan during the rise of the Cold War. Their "successful" marriages and integration became a display of American racial tolerance in early Cold War America. As a result, the image of these women shifted from a "problem" to a showcase of ideal, "model minority" brides. These Japanese women, both individually and collectively, played a significant part in changing American and Japanese perceptions of "Japanese war brides" and interracial marriage since they had made their decisions to marry U.S. servicemen and immigrate to the United States as young women.Item From Displaced Persons to Exiles: Nationalism, Anti-Communism, and the Shaping of Latvian American Diaspora(2016-06) Ankrava, ArtaThis dissertation explores the shaping of the Latvian American exile from temporary settlement in Displaced Persons (DP) camps in post-war Europe, to resettlement to the U.S. following the DP Act of 1948. Specifically, Latvian diasporic discourses of nationalism, transnationalism, and anti-Communism are analyzed through the lens of Latvian-language exile periodicals. These are conceptualized as a transnational space, a locus of intersection of diasporic, national and hybrid, and sometimes competing identities. Building on archival research conducted at the Immigration History Research Center, University of Minnesota, the project uses newspaper articles to identify the variety of discourses present in major diasporic periodicals and draws out points of contention as well as agreement on the shaping of the Latvian nation both pre and post USSR dissolution. The dissertation’s main goal is to explore how the Latvian American exile community was shaped by the Cold War, and how Latvia as nation was imagined and re-imagined in diasporic press. Through secondary source analysis of Vietnamese refugee experience later in the twentieth century, this project also aims to question notions of “exile” and “refugee” as such, and interrogates how they were used in relation to different Cold War era anti-Communist immigrant groups to the U.S. Finally, the dissertation also addresses post-USSR collapse Latvian identity politics, including exile and homeland relations, as well as suggesting avenues for future research.Item In-Class History Simulation: WWII Yalta Conference Involving Great Britain, Soviet Union, and the United States(2018) Arendale, David; Ghere, DavidStudents are members of the Yalta Conference negotiation teams representing leaders from Britain, the Soviet Union, and the United States. Students know the decisions made will be important to end World War Two and to shape the post-WWII world. Students are to focus on the needs of their country. Obviously, the decisions agreed by all three countries impacted many other countries not be represented in these negotiations. Simulation Learning Objectives: 1. Connect the historical context for the relationships and previous disputes among the three countries during negotiations at the Yalta conference during World War Two. 2. Recognize how historical context shaped the national goals of each country and their negotiation strategies. How could have events turned out different? What are the forces of history at work that make this process for change so difficult? 3. Assess each nation's success in achieving its goals in the short term and long term. 4. Consider the merits of those goals considering the ensuing historical events. 5. Speculate about new dynamics and possible changed outcomes if the smaller European countries whose fates were heavily influenced by the decisions by the three leaders at Yalta were involved in the negotiations as well. 6. Experience the challenges and skills needed for effective negotiations. Method of Play: Read the separate document on student instructions for more detail. Materials Included in Simulation Packet: 1. Instructor history simulation procedures and PP presentation used to guide students in preparation for and during the simulation. 2. Yalta Conference historical background to be read by students before the simulation and referenced during the simulation. Justification for bargaining positions for each country is embedded within the document. The simulation receives high approval by the students, often listed as their top learning experience. As noted above, an evaluation form is completed by the students. It is partially a reflection on what they learned and partially an evaluation with suggestions to change. Often, those changes are reflected in the curriculum which is updated annually. This simulation has been used each semester for over seven years. It has been effectively used in classes of 95 to 25.Item Literature of Warning: The State-Private Network, Cultural Patronage, and the Emergence of Foundation Literature during the Cold War(2021-02) Niedfeldt, AmandaThe literature on the cultural Cold War acknowledges that American philanthropic foundations provided funding to various Cold War projects, but does not provide a close analysis of the foundations’ involvement or examine how philanthropies and government agencies coordinated their funding, let alone consider the influence it had on writers and their work. This gap in analysis overlooks the intricacies of the foundations’ relationship with the American state and the role philanthropies played in circulating culture and building artistic networks throughout the Cold War. This dissertation begins to close that gap by examining the establishment of the Berlin Artists-in-Residence program by the Ford Foundation in 1963, focusing on its first two years of writing residences before the program was transferred to the German Academic Exchange Service, which still runs it today. Analyzing the function and influence of foundations within international artistic affairs during the Cold War period establishes that foundation personnel played key roles in connecting government policy to results on the ground. More broadly, this project explores how foundations built artistic networks and institutionalized art with a range of residency programs, grants, and accolades, setting a precedent, which still functions to this day. Analyzing the participation of Ingeborg Bachmann, Walter Höllerer, Witold Gombrowicz, Piers Paul Read, and W.H. Auden in the Berlin program shows that this new arrangement and the work it propelled resulted in mixed consequences for artists, extending prestige and visibility to certain artists and creating complications for others. Close attention to the Berlin projects elucidates how philanthropic foundations and Cold War networks played an essential role in connecting writers, while also allowing for exploration of how those writers utilized the opportunity in pursuit of their own goals. Ultimately, the analysis of writers’ texts illuminates their awareness of how the political-economic environment was working to shape them into suitable public intellectuals for the postwar age. The writers’ attention to and discussion of their artistic, social, and financial predicaments within their work defines a new subgenre of mid-century twentieth literature: foundation literature.Item "The Mighty Microbe Can Go to War:" Scientists, Secrecy, and American Biological Weapons Research, 1941-1969(2021-11) Vogel, WilliamDuring WWII and the early Cold War, an American research program centered on Fort Detrick, Maryland sought to transform germs into weapons. Though sponsored by the military officials of the US Army Chemical Corps, this program was heavily intertwined with the civilian microbiologist community. Some of the most prominent members of this community had organized biological weapons research and staffed Detrick during WWII, and microbiologists’ influential relationship with the military continued into the Cold War. In this dissertation, I examine this relationship, focusing in particular on the roles that military secrecy played in these scientists’ lives. I examine the informal agency of scientists who served as military ‘advisors’ within the classified world, as well as the role of these same scientists in disciplining dissent within their own scientific community. I examine the evolution of laboratory safety technologies at Detrick from a means to contain secrets to one of the major legacies of biological weapons research in the ‘open’ world. I examine the contingent nature of the secrecy system itself, and how scientists variously subverted and supported it. Finally, I examine how would-be scientific critics of biological warfare negotiated their position as ‘outsiders’ of the secrecy system to contribute to the eventual end of this research at Detrick in 1969. With this work, I contribute to the underdeveloped historiography of the biological sciences in the Cold War, as well as to that of secrecy and science.Item Mother America: Cold War Maternalism and the Institutionalization of Intercountry Adoption from Postwar South Korea, 1953-1961(2016-01) Lee, ShawynIn 1953 an armistice was signed suspending the conflict of the Korean War, a three-year long civil war between what is now the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea) and the Republic of Korea (South Korea) (Cumings, 2010). Casualties and the wounded numbered well over a million (Halberstam, 2007). Of those who remained in South Korea were hundreds of thousands of widows and children (Korean Institute of Military History, 2001). Many of the children were mixed-blood, born of Korean mothers and fathered by U.S. servicemen. Because of their mixed parentage, they were oftentimes abandoned, unwanted (Burnside, 1956). Mounting publicity of the poor, helpless “waif” was used to implore the American public to come to the rescue of these desperate children (Oh, 2012). Historian Christina Klein (2003) argues that it was felt that intercountry adoption could strengthen foreign relations between the U.S. and South Korea. It became acceptable and expected that American families would welcome mixed-blood Korean children into their homes, thus symbolizing American prosperity and security. Social welfare agencies played a major role in shaping and formalizing intercountry adoption practices in the aftermath of the Korean War. Numerous scholars, many of them Korean adoptees, have investigated the origins of Korean adoption. They have examined the same time period and utilized the same archival material as this study. What their research has in common with the present study is the critical interrogation of the longstanding dominant adoption narrative of children’s best interests served by humanitarian rescue and American benevolence. However, for as significant a role that social work played in formalizing Korean adoption practice standards in the 1950s, there currently exists no research that centers the activities of the profession with respect to Korean adoption. Using historical research methods situated within a maternalist and social constructionist framework, this study undertook a critical analysis of social work child-rescue efforts in postwar South Korea from 1953 to 1961 as embodied by one international social welfare agency: the American Branch of International Social Service (ISS-USA). This social work organization established and institutionalized intercountry adoption practices in the 1950s in its efforts to save mixed-blood Korean children orphaned by the Korean War. The American Branch became the premier expert on international adoption beginning in the 1950s. Its practice standards are still used today. Content analysis, informed by critical discourse analysis (CDA) and historical discourse analysis (HDA) methods, was conducted on primary source documents of ISS-USA. This archival collection is housed in the Social Welfare History Archives at the University of Minnesota. Findings revealed both how ISS-USA set up a system of formalized adoption standards, and the extent to which maternalist ideological values influenced by Progressive Era maternalism placed thousands of mixed-blood Korean children into the embracing arms of “Mother America.” First, in order to relieve the emergency situation of the many needy children in postwar South Korea, ISS-USA developed a formalized system of intercountry adoption procedures through what it called case conference by correspondence, whereby everything from policy monitoring, practice methods, research, and adoptions were discussed and established through detailed letter writing between ISS-USA social workers, their foreign correspondents, and local and state welfare organizations. Second, in what I call Cold War maternalism, I expanded Progressive Era maternalist ideologies that established specific notions of proper motherhood as belonging to privileged white, middle- and upper-middle class Christian women to a national level. Cold War maternalism suggests that given the patriotic pronatalist, anti-communist contextual reality of 1950s America (May, 2008), by deeming American parents as suitable “mothers” for Korean children, in essence, the United States came to be seen as the best “mother” for South Korea and the many mixed-blood Korean children left after the war. Findings from this study provide another critical perspective of the Korean adoption origin story, but uniquely contribute to this growing body of research by critically examining social work’s central role in establishing intercountry adoption standards. Implications for social work research and practice include more focus on critical indigenous research methodologies, the importance of understanding historical aspects of the profession, and the consideration of historical trauma in current social work practice with intercountry adoptees.Item Online History Simulation: WWII Yalta Conference involving Great Britain, the Soviet Union, and the United States(2018) Arendale, David; Ghere, DavidStudents take on the personality of Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin at the Yalta Conference representing Britain, Soviet Union, and the United States. On alternating days, each student will assume the personality of one of the three leaders. This is a creative writing activity and can be a challenging experience for some. Students work as individuals though they can see the online work being completed by others. A major objective of this activity is to understand the point-of-view of a world leader based on their country's history. While national leaders have their own personalities that impact their style of communication, understanding their country's history provides deeper influences on their desires for their homeland. Their individual actions reflect their historical culture and values. Three times before the end of World War Two, the leaders of Great Britain, Soviet Union, and the United States met to decide how to bring the war to a quick conclusion and how the world would look after World War Two. Only the top leader from each country was authorized to speak on behalf of their nation's interests. Not only were they influenced by the immediate decisions needed to end the war, but also they were consciously or unconsciously influenced by their nation's history while they negotiated with each other. These meetings sometimes took weeks to complete. During the breaks during the meetings, the leaders conferred with their staff to discuss negotiation strategies. These strategies changed dynamically based on the flow of conversations. Reaching agreements was difficult since it required the unanimous agreement of all three nations. Since two of the three countries (Great Britain and the U.S.) represented democratic political systems, the USSR was naturally suspicious when they both agreed on a negotiating item since they feared it would be harmful to interests of the Soviet Union who employed a totalitarian government system. Learning Goal: Understand the point-of-view of a world leader based on their country's history. While national leaders have their own personalities that impact their style of communication, understanding their country's history provides deeper influences on their desires for their homeland.Item Pan-America: Calypso, exotica, and the development of steel pan in the United States(2011-05) Martin, Andrew RichardThe American steel band story is one of migration and the appropriation of the national instrument of Trinidad by and for the cultural dominance of America. Moreover, despite its humble beginnings the steel pan has slowly positioned itself to thrive in the United States. The following study parses out the development of steel pan in America into sections that include an analysis of early steel band influences within Cold War American popular music, the 1950s calypso craze, the New York Carnival scene, Pete Seeger and steel pan as American folk music, the United States Navy Steel Band, early examples of steel band success in academia, steel band's attempt to find a voice and identity within the American popular and commercial music landscape, several individual case studies, and current trends. Despite its unique nature, the steel pan has experienced a fate similar to many other non-western folk instruments; it has been integrated, appropriated, and modified by American practitioners into an entirely new and musical genre, increasingly different in style and character from its Trinidadian roots. The present study further explores the social and artistic phenomenon of steel pan in America and its development over time. The development of steel pan in America is a serious art movement in both social identity and artistic development, and it is my aim to illustrate the motives that propel the scene. Accordingly, every attempt will be made to explore, locate, and provide a historical analysis of the first appearance of steel band music in the United States, drawing links between institutional locations (military bands, school and university programs, recordings/record labels, and more) and regional sites (Harlem, Brooklyn, Dekalb, Illinois) whenever possible. Other avenues of research considered include American steel band's historical links to conflicts with other Trinidadian musical genres (calypso and soca) and black diasporic, and (white) mainstream postwar cultural practices in the United States. Under discussion, too, is the global impact of the American steel band, the historical impact of American popular music on steel band music, cultural appropriation, transvaluation, and remade traditions such as the Brooklyn Carnival and J'ouvert tradition.Item Pan-America: calypso, exotica, and the development of steel pan in the United States.(2011-06) Martin, Andrew RichardThe American steel band story is one of migration and the appropriation of the national instrument of Trinidad by and for the cultural dominance of America. Moreover, despite its humble beginnings the steel pan has slowly positioned itself to thrive in the United States. The following study parses out the development of steel pan in America into sections that include an analysis of early steel band influences within Cold War American popular music, the 1950s calypso craze, the New York Carnival scene, Pete Seeger and steel pan as American folk music, the United States Navy Steel Band, early examples of steel band success in academia, steel band's attempt to find a voice and identity within the American popular and commercial music landscape, several individual case studies, and current trends. Despite its unique nature, the steel pan has experienced a fate similar to many other non-western folk instruments; it has been integrated, appropriated, and modified by American practitioners into an entirely new and musical genre, increasingly different in style and character from its Trinidadian roots. The present study further explores the social and artistic phenomenon of steel pan in America and its development over time. The development of steel pan in America is a serious art movement in both social identity and artistic development, and it is my aim to illustrate the motives that propel the scene. Accordingly, every attempt will be made to explore, locate, and provide a historical analysis of the first appearance of steel band music in the United States, drawing links between institutional locations (military bands, school and university programs, recordings/record labels, and more) and regional sites (Harlem, Brooklyn, Dekalb, Illinois) whenever possible. Other avenues of research considered include American steel band's historical links to conflicts with other Trinidadian musical genres (calypso and soca) and black diasporic, and (white) mainstream postwar cultural practices in the United States. Under discussion, too, is the global impact of the American steel band, the historical impact of American popular music on steel band music, cultural appropriation, transvaluation, and remade traditions such as the Brooklyn Carnival and J'ouvert tradition.Item Safety in Numbers: Creating and Contesting the Los Alamos Approach to Supercomputing, 1943 to 1980(2019-08) Lewis, NicholasSince its origins during World War II as the primary R&D site of the Manhattan Project, the Laboratory at Los Alamos has pushed the limits of computational technologies and systems. In response to its heavy computing demands, and the infancy of the computing industry during the early Cold War, the Theoretical Physics (T) Division at Los Alamos, which provided computing resources for all divisions at the Lab, played an active role in researching and developing the computing technologies that its scientists required. T Division's hardware and software R&D effort formed the basis of the distinctive Los Alamos approach to computing, which placed computing on an equal footing with other scientific research, and encouraged the formation of local, world-class expertise in computing technologies essential to the Lab's mission. As particular computing technologies matured, and vendors were able to provide commercial products adequate for the Lab's needs, T Division shifted its R&D focus to other, less mature lines of computing research. This approach provided Los Alamos computer users with technologies that were otherwise unavailable or unsuitable from outside sources, and ensured that T Division could rapidly adapt the Lab's computing operation to unpredictable changes in the technical and strategic demands of the Cold War. The Los Alamos approach to computing remained largely uncontested until its transfer in 1968 with T-Division personnel to the Lab's new Computing (C) Division, where the inherited approach became a point of contention for a growing number of weapons-program computer users who opposed the Lab's basic computer-science research and C Division's operational independence. Radical changes to the Lab's administrative structure over the 1970s upended the power dynamics between the supporters of the traditional Los Alamos approach to computing and those who sought to bring the Lab's computing resources under the direct control of the weapons program. A focal point for critics of C Division's R&D policies, the local development of a cutting-edge operating system for the iconic Cray-1 supercomputer became the final battle ground over the decades-old Los Alamos approach to computing.