VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
On musical patronage: popular music, oil capitalism, and state politics in Equatorial Guinea
Keywords: Equatorial Guinea
Oil capitalism
Popular music
Central Africa
Patronage
Politics
Music economy

This doctoral thesis examines the centrality of the state in the constitution of the popular music economy in Equatorial Guinea. It examines transformations and continuities in music production, circulation, and consumption as they have been shaped by the introduction of digital technologies and the Central African micro-state’s growing dependence on the export of fossil fuels. The spectacular oil boom of the last quarter century has consolidated the already-authoritarian rule of Teodoro Obiang Nguema, who stands today as one of the longest-serving heads of state in the world. From within a highly politicised social sphere, popular music emerges as a privileged medium, employed by the petro-elites to accumulate prestige and by musicians to negotiate their relations with the state and to gain access to (unequally distributed) oil revenues.
Drawing on 14 months of ethnographic fieldwork in Equatorial Guinea’s major cities, I argue that the local music economy is governed by patronage relations that are embedded in long standing, yet evolving, social and political formations characterised by regional logics of power and wealth accumulation. Rather than disturbing and radically transforming musical patronage, the oil boom and the introduction of digital technologies have opened unimagined spaces of creativity and future possibility but also afforded the exacerbation of these onerous and oppressive relations. While musicians navigate the interstices of the state to find strategies to make do, the music economy is increasingly monopolised by the ruling family. As such, this case stands in contrast to both writing on the Euroamerican music industry and recent scholarship on the seemingly pervasive incorporation of African music economies into (digital) capitalism. Bringing together the anthropology of oil, recent scholarship on the new music industry, and theories of the African state, the thesis resists orthodox Marxist readings of capitalism to offer new understandings of musical labour and exchange.
Locality, kinship and ceremonial kinship : a study of the social organization of the Comunidad de Andamarca, Ayacucho - Peru
Keywords: Lucanas
kinship
organisation
Indians
Peru
Quechua
rites
ceremonies
Andamarca
customs
social

In contrast to other studies of the rural communities of the Peruvian Andes and other parts of Latin America which tend to give a view of these societies either as a collection of unrelated institutions of different cultural origins or as mechanical organisms whose parts are integrated due to the pressure of external forces, this thesis attempts to give an image of an Andean society in terms of the categories which are significant to the actors and to disclose the structural tendencies which clearly underly its social organization
Continued in thesis ...
The social construction of revolutionary change in Tigray, Ethiopia, 1975-1997
Keywords: Ethiopia
Tigray
social construction
social change
revolutionary change

This thesis seeks to investigate the hidden record of political, social and cultural reconstruction in Tigray under the Tigray People’s Liberation Front. It is a field-work based contribution, relying on first-hand research into mostly oral sources in the region and does not attempt an exploration based on documentary sources. Discontents gathering force throughout the 20" century at violent expropriation by feudal landlords, bandits and armies of both nobility and emperor, not only toppled Haile Selassie and brought the Derg dictatorship to power, but also gave revolutionary impetus to the founders of TPLF in 1975. The TPLF objective was to set up a rural power base to mobilise for armed struggle against the Derg and at the same time to liberate the peasantry from the cultural effects of feudal subordination. It was not enough to improve the material conditions of their lives; the peasants needed to have more direct control over their lives through increased decision-making power. The TPLF sought to transform the consciousness of the peasants through a range of strategies. They enlisted their support through land reform, but turned them into participants by guiding them to do it for themselves. In 1978 they established departments (of education, agriculture, public affairs and so on) to support the farming communities. They instigated a programme of intensive political education, involving confidence-building, practical experience and cultural activities. As peasants became fighters in large numbers, schools and educational programmes for fighters and civilians multiplied. Village communities began to administer themselves through elected councils, mutually agreed codes of law and regular evaluation to check accountability to all sections of society, including previously discriminated groups, such as women, artisans and minorities. After victory in 1991, the Transitional Government introduced a federal structure, democratic elections and a new constitution to Ethiopia, aimed at encouraging regional equality through self-administration. In Tigray, villages and towns continued to run their affairs, but the TPLF sought to preserve revolutionary momentum by enabling an expanded struggle for development. The study finishes by providing a brief theoretical framework and comparative analysis of the Tigrayan revolution in the context of other, mostly African, insurgencies.
The rise and fall of great technologies and powers
Keywords: Power transitions
Emerging technologies
Historical political economy

How and when do technological changes affect the rise and fall of great powers? Scholars have long observed that rounds of technological revolution disrupt the economic balance of power, bringing about a power transition in the international system. However, there has been surprisingly limited investigation into how this process occurs. The standard explanation emphasizes a country’s ability to dominate innovation in leading sectors, seizing monopoly profits in new, fast-growing industries centered around major technological breakthroughs. I propose an alternative mechanism based on the diffusion of general-purpose technologies (GPTs), which presents a different trajectory for countries to leapfrog the industrial leader. Characterized by their potential for continuous improvement, pervasiveness, and synergies with complementary innovations, GPTs only make an economy-wide impact after a drawn-out process of diffusion across many sectors. This GPT trajectory shapes which institutions matter. Specifically, variation in institutional adaptations that widen the human capital base to enable the spread of GPTs explain why some industrial leaders separate themselves from the pack. To test this argument, I set the leading-sector mechanism against the GPT diffusion mechanism across three historical case studies: Britain’s rise to preeminence in the Industrial Revolution; America and Germany’s overtaking of Britain in the second industrial revolution; Japan’s challenge to America’s technological dominance in the information technology revolution. Evidence from these case studies supports the relative explanatory power of the GPT mechanism over the leading-sector mechanism. According to some categorizations, these cases correspond to history’s three industrial revolutions. Given that many argue we are in a fourth industrial revolution, the findings of this dissertation should be particularly relevant for how emerging technologies like AI will affect a possible U.S.-China power transition.
The linear ubiquitin assembly complex’s recruitment to signaling complexes: The role of HOIP’s zinc finger domains
Keywords: LUBAC
inflammation
NZF
ubiquitin
HOIP

The linear ubiquitin chain assembly complex (LUBAC) regulates NF-κB activation and prevents cell death by conjugating M1 polyubiquitin on inflammatory complexes through its catalytic subunit HOIP. Although the conjugation of M1 chains is well described, less is known about the mechanism of LUBAC’s recruitment to inflammatory signaling complexes. This thesis elucidates the role of HOIP’s zinc finger region, which encompasses its B-box, Zf and NZF domains, in the binding and recruitment to ubiquitin chains, by employing biophysical techniques such as NMR and ITC to characterize the mechanism. The HOIP NZF1 domain is the driving force behind ubiquitin-binding and interacts with monoubiquitin with a higher affinity than previously studied NZF domains, while HOIP NZF2 employs a similar interface as NZF1 to bind to monoubiquitin weakly. HOIP’s specificity for K63-linked chains is determined by the tandem NZF domains, which cooperatively decrease the protein’s affinity to monoubiquitin and increase its affinity to polyubiquitin, as shown by ITC binding experiments. The interaction of HOIP NZF1 with the downstream signaling effector NEMO hinders, but does not abolish, ubiquitin binding due to an overlap in the binding interfaces for ubiquitin and NEMO. To widen the scope of the regulation of LUBAC’s recruitment, phosphorylation of S383 of the NZF1-NZF2 linker region and HOIP oligomerization via the B-box domain are studied as regulatory mechanisms for the affinity to K63-linked polyubiquitin and found to not affect it. It is therefore proposed that HOIP NZF1 and NZF2 jointly drive LUBAC’s recruitment to preformed K63-linked polyubiquitin in inflammatory signaling complexes. A novel binding mechanism for linkage-specific NZF domains is described, in which binding is driven by NZF1 while K63 diubiquitin specificity is established independently by each NZF domain.
Path-integral methods for non-adiabatic reaction rates
Keywords: Non-adiabatic dynamics
Reaction Dynamics
Chemical Reaction Rate Theory
Nuclear Quantum Effects
Electron transfer
Electronically nonadiabatic reactions

This thesis discusses recent progress in the development of path-integral methods for non-adiabatic reaction rates in large-scale atomistic simulations. Electronically non-adiabatic reactions are important in a wide range of phenomena, including electron transfer in DNA, enzymatic oxygenation reactions, and the function of light-emitting diodes. Imaginary-time path integrals provide an ideal way to simulate these complex condensed phase reactions, as they are both linearly scaling and capable of accurately describing zero-point energy and tunnelling.
The thesis begins by considering methods for calculating reaction rates in systems that are not fully in either the adiabatic or non-adiabatic limits. Recent work in this area is reviewed, before two new approaches are introduced. The first of these, the non-adiabatic quantum instanton (NAQI), generalises Wolynes theory (valid in the non-adiabatic limit) and the projected quantum instanton (valid in the adiabatic limit) to arbitrary values of electronic coupling. The second approach is a simple formula for interpolating between the results of golden-rule and Born-Oppenheimer rate calculations. This formula can immediately be applied to calculate reaction rates in condensed phase reactions, by combining it with pre-existing path-integral methods in each limit.
Following this, the thesis focusses on the calculation of reaction rates in the golden-rule limit. Again, two new approaches are introduced. The first is an implementation of Wolynes theory which can be used to numerically analytically continue Wolynes theory into the Marcus inverted regime. The second is an alternative path-integral method called the linear golden-rule (LGR) approximation, a size consistent modification of the recently proposed GR-QTST. LGR overcomes the known deficiencies of Wolynes theory, and can be directly applied to calculate reaction rates in the inverted regime. The thesis concludes with a fully atomistic simulation of aqueous ferrous-ferric electron transfer, which addresses recent questions about the nature of the tunnelling in this system.
Bacon's knowledge and use of the Bible
Keywords: literature
Bible
Bacon
knowledge
Francis

The purpose of this study of Francis Bacon's Knowledge and Use of the Bible is the collection of evidence to enable an estimate to be formed of the extent of his acquaintance with and indebtedness to the Latin and English Bible. First, it views him not only as an heir of the great Vulgate-quoting traditions of the past, but also as one who, despite his disclaimer of the modern languages, helped the phraseology of the English Bible to pass into the language by bringing it “home to men's business and bosoms." Secondly, it examines the ways in which Bacon's knowledge of Scripture was probably acquired and produces evidence showing to which versions of the Latin and English Bible he was indebted. It also attempts to show how, and with what effect, he applied his biblical knowledge. It is a study of Bacon's specific biblical sources and of the way in which these sources are used. it is hoped that by these means some light has been shed on the problem of how many of Bacon's allusions are original, and how many were already proverbial in his time. All contemporary Latin and English Bibles have been consulted, and particular care has been taken in the collation of their renderings with Bacon's.
Continued in thesis ...
The emergence of queer nature: Minakata Kumagusu (1867-1941) and the making of microbial paradigm 1887-1900
Keywords: intellectual history of modern Japan
history and philosophy of science
history of religion
queer theory
history of social sciences

The Japanese independent naturalist-polymath Minakata Kumagusu (1867-1941) fascinated scholars of modern Japan with his prolific work that traversed disciplinary boundaries. Yet, the state-centred history writing could not make sense of what underlined his seemingly discursive works and actions, naturally. The thesis elucidates a cohesive account of his transdisciplinary knowledge formation for the first time. It does so by decolonising modern Japanese intellectual history through a novel method. Modern Japanese history typically opened with Japan’s Meiji period (1868-1912) known as the era of the nation’s paradigm shift to the one of the modern West. The thesis reopens the paradigm with one that was ‘microbial’ by conceptualising its underlining logic as ‘queer nature.’ The microbe slime mould that captured his imagination transcended male-female, plant-animal, and life-death binaries. Just like this microbe, the process of knowledge production based on queer nature transgressed the binary and hierarchical conceptions of the West-the-rest male-female, subject-object, intellect-emotion, and life-death. Within the microbial paradigm, Sino-Asian-derived knowledge informed the reasoning behind its knowledge formation. The thesis reveals the followings by asserting queer nature as the basis of truths that emerged in Kumagusu’s life and work during his early adulthood in 1887-1900. These are: his civilisational theory where being ‘civilised’ meant equality and cooperation among all nations, race and sex; metaphysics of what he called “wisdom-knowledge” that facilitated people to ‘civilise’ as above through changes and turns, as opposed to the teleological progress, in his evolutionary henkaron (The Theory of Change); and a form of social sciences that produced their ‘facts’ and ideas as historically authentic in a centreless and non-hierarchical manner, in what I call ‘queer historicity.’ Reopening the intellectual history of modern Japan with queer nature thus illuminates the microbial paradigm whose significant intellectual phenomena remained marginalised, until now.
Allegory of the self: Boccaccio's Buccolicum carmen
Keywords: Giovanni Boccaccio
pastoral
Buccolicum carmen
literary careers
reception studies
autofiction
intertextuality
Trecento
self-fashioning
Virgil
Eclogues

This thesis sets out to provide an interdisciplinary study of four of the sixteen hexameter poems in Giovanni Boccaccio’s pastoral Buccolicum carmen (ca. 1362/63). It argues that the Buccolicum is a coherent book of poetry that displays an allegory of Boccaccio’s autofictional self, constructed through different bucolic characters and themes which symbolise different fragments of Boccaccio, as well as different steps in his literary and ethical ascent. Consequently, it intends to dispel the unhelpful dichotomy between autobiography and fiction which has dominated most commentaries and studies on the Buccolicum. It also investigates the place of the Buccolicum (Boccaccio’s only book of Latin poetry) in his literary career. Reflecting Boccaccio’s theoretical approach towards pagan literature, developed especially in the Genealogie deorum gentilium (ca. 1359–74), the Buccolicum engages with the classical tradition, and particularly with Virgil’s Eclogues, to support an autofictional narrative of conversion. In the wake of Petrarch’s own Bucolicum carmen, Boccaccio presents the pastoral world as the earthly world of temporary pleasures, sin and sorrow. In sum, the present study aims to provide a thorough examination of a selection of four of Boccaccio’s eclogues, each focusing on one key theme of the Buccolicum (love, politics, poetry, and religion). At the same time, this thesis scrutinizes the processes of reception, mediation and allusion to classical texts which shed light on Boccaccio’s bucolic autofiction, as well as on the classical texts themselves.
Monetary expansion in Britain in the late twelfth century
Keywords: Economic history
Numismatics
Monetary expansion
twelfth century
12th century
Money
coinage
coins

The thesis is conceived as a contribution to the quantification of the monetary expansion that occurred in Britain c.1150-c.1200. The increased money supply facilitated developments in commerce and was connected with increasing population and urbanisation. Changes in the monetary system and the source of bullion are examined. This thesis draws upon a range of previously unpublished numismatic material that is collated and catalogued for the first time,and which is subjected to analytical techniques.
It is known that monetary expansion occurrence large scale in the thirteenth century and iris here suggested that the increase began on comparatively modest scale in England during the Cross and Cross lets coinage (1158-1180) and in Scotland during the Crescents coinage (c.1170-1195). The English coinage is considered through primary evidence of a die-study of the Northampton mint and the content of the Gayton hoard (1998-9) in conjunction and comparison with other published information. The Scottish coinage is subjected to comprehensive investigation by die-study to provide the first analysis of the structure and internal chronology of the coinage, which is prerequisite to understanding the extent of the monetary expansion.
The thesis provides the first investigation of the alloy of late twelfth-century coins using Electron Probe Microanalysis (ELMA). The data demonstrates that alloy content varied by region and that the contribution of bullion from the ‘mine of Carlisle’ had only a peripheral influence on monetary expansion. EPMA data is compared with evidence from the Dialogus de Scaccario. Metallurgical analysis indicates that monetary expansion occurred in Scotland in the late twelfth century when coinage, functioning as a standardised means of exchange,became more useful than wealth stored in stocks of bullion; it was not specifically caused by a local argentiferous discovery. Trace elements in the alloy of Scottish coins indicate that some bullion utilised for coinage had been in Scotland since the Viking Age, and had originated from Samanid Central Asia.
Oxford and Paris University manuscripts in the thirteenth century
Keywords: manuscripts
Paris
13th century
University
thirteenth century
medieval
Oxford

The purpose of this thesis is to find a method for differentiating the manuscripts of the Universities of Paris and Oxford in the thirteenth century by the study of the decoration of flourished initials. In order to study the decoration I analysed it by separating it into its component parts. I then codified the results and listed them in a Catalogue of Components. This enabled me to differentiate manuscripts and to date them in a particular period.
The thirteenth century was chosen for this work as being the period when the manuscripts of the two Universities most resembled each other. It is possible that Oxford University evolved from an exodus of students from Paris in the latter part of the twelfth century, as suggested by Rashdall. 'This and a continuing exchange of students between the two Universities (which Rashdall further suggests), could explain the similarities of manuscripts of the two centres. The similarities could have come about in these ways: the students would have brought books with them,the whole style and production of which could have influenced those produced in the new centre; any new books written by a scribe or student trained in either of the Universities would almost certainly have reflected the influence of that university; and a scribe's style could have influenced the style of books produced in the centre where he settled, worked and possibly taught his techniques. But there is an obvious difficulty in deciding whether a book reflects the style of one University or another: it is impossible to tell whether, for example, a book was written in Paris, or in Oxford by a scribe trained in Paris.
Continued in thesis ...