VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Contested Colonialism: The Rise of Settler Politics in Yukon and the Northwest Territories

Despite forty years of institutional innovation across Northern Canada â including the creation of Indigenous governments and Nunavut â why do the governments of Yukon and the Northwest Territories (NWT) so closely conform to the established norms of Canadian parliamentary and bureaucratic governance? In this study, I argue that these governments reflect the political preferences of non-Indigenous settlers, and that these preferences were embedded in the design of territorial institutions during their formation in the 1960s and 1970s. The institutional legacy of this period continues to structure political and economic dynamics in the territories today. To make this argument, I develop the theoretical concept of contested colonialism, which explains the distinct position of non-Indigenous peoples in Northern society as actors who simultaneously bring colonialism to the North, while also contesting elements of that same colonial order. It is marked by the emergence of a stable settler society, the structural alignment of settler interests with those of colonial federal administrators, and the capacity of settlers to take advantage of political opportunities to further their own interests. Using interpretivist and qualitative methods, including extensive archival research, I trace the rise of settler politics through the prism of liberal autonomy movements and the development of responsible government in both territories. Demographic, geographic, and economic factors account for differences in the effectiveness of settler movements across Yukon and the NWT.

Keywords: Northwest Territories
political development
responsible government
settler colonialism
social movements
Yukon
Advisor: White, Graham
Castilianization in the Archdiocese of Lima, 1600-1700

Historical studies of the Spanish language in colonial Peru have overwhelmingly focused on explaining broad changes in the Spanish Crown’s language policies for its viceroyalty, on evaluating the putative outcomes, successes and failures of those policies, and on examining the writings of indigenous notables who read, wrote, and spoke Spanish – a broad collection of people known as ‘Indios Ladinos.’ While assumptions reign, however, relatively little is known about the process of Castilianization itself. Who learned to speak, write or read Spanish? Under what circumstances, why, how, and with what repercussions? My study approaches Castilianization in the seventeenth-century Archdiocese of Lima not as a completed – or even “completeable” – process that was – or could be – decided by policy, but rather as an on-going and discontinuous process in which Andeans created their own linguistic and broader cultural realities within the confines of colonial society. I draw upon a wide range of sources, from the seventeenth-century leaflets used to teach Spanish in Iberia and Peru, through the dictates of spiritual and secular establishments, to the inspection records which reported on the state of Spanish language education in Andean parishes and provided contemporary snapshots of the complexities of day-to-day language use in overwhelmingly multilingual communities. The study is divided into five chapters: Chapter one examines the official approaches to Spanish and Quechua in mid-colonial Peru from a new perspective of coexistence and complementarity rather than that of competition. Chapter two introduces the Archdiocese of Lima’s episcopal inspection records, which, among other things, report on Spanish language schools – escuelas de muchachos indios – meant to be operating across the archdiocese. Next, I examine the ways in which intended schools intersected with the aims and fears of seventeenth-century extirpators. In chapter four I explore the purported “escuelas” themselves, contending that they are best understood not as permanent spaces or consistent features of Andean parishes but rather as transient – even periodic – endeavours of communities and individuals. Finally, chapter five examines the thoughtworlds and experiences of speakers – indigenous and mixed-race people who employed Spanish and Quechua, and whose language use – and lives – beg our re-thinking of the category of Indios Ladino and much else besides.

Keywords: Castilianization
Colonial Peru
Indios Ladinos
Spanish Language
Advisor: Mills, Kenneth
die sah man weinen. The Representation of Emotion and Dispute in Middle High German Heroic Epic

This thesis approaches the depiction of conflict and emotion in Middle High German heroic epic from an anthropological perspective, thereby establishing the norms and practices that obtain within the fictive societies the texts present. I argue that these epic narratives problematize the anxieties of medieval aristocratic society, critique those human elements deemed most disruptive to it, and establish positive and negative models for its ordering through variations upon a traditional progression of conflict and through the representation of communicative emotion within this progression. Across many texts, medieval German heroic epics present a remarkably consistent set of practices and behaviour associated with conflict. With recourse to medieval law codes and anthropological observations of societies lacking effective centralized authority, I demonstrate that these practices provide the texts with a flexible narrative structure and are a framework for engaging with social and political concerns. In chapter one, I begin with a consideration of the role played by displays of emotion as symbolic communication within heroic narrative, demonstrating that such displays are a primary means by which status and identity is expressed and established. In chapter two, I contextualize these displays within a semi-standardized progression of conflict comprising more-or-less discrete stages of dispute. In so doing, I show that the communicative content and performative valence of emotion is dependent upon its position within the conflict progression. In the third chapter, I establish these disputes as the expression of an economy of symbolic capital with honour as its essential currency. Approaching these strategic performances in such a manner reveals that the dispute practices previously outlined function as a form of status competition in which the negotiation and valuation of honour serves to establish and consolidate social hierarchies. The final chapters are devoted to the varied communicative valences of specific emotion displays in this context. Here, I demonstrate that public displays of grief are utilized to delineate and confirm membership within the honour group, even as they broadcast collective injury, solicit aid, and legitimize violence. Public anger, on the other hand, serves to make or refute status claims, threatening or accompanying reactive violence.

Keywords: Conflict
Emotion
Feud
Honor
Middle High German
Nibelungenlied
Advisor: Stock, Markus
Changeable Conditions: British Writing About the Weather in Canada, 1700-1775

This dissertation investigates the politics of the weather in eighteenth-century British literature. From Swift’s “City Shower” to Smollett’s complaints about Bath’s “perpetual rain,” eighteenth-century literature is saturated with the rhetoric of meteorological science – so much so that, like Samuel Johnson, we have come to assume that “when two Englishmen meet” to talk “of the weather, they are in haste to tell each other, what each must already know.” Changeable Conditions argues we know only half the story – and explains how, in the midst of the technological and epistemological changes reconceiving the weather as a “natural fact,” eighteenth-century anxiety about environmental influence also turned the weather into a prominent and productive term in public debate about Britain’s imperial obligations. Prior to the 1759 turn in British fortunes during the Seven Years War, British writers treated inclement weather as a levelling condition, a check on human hubris, or, as in Johnson’s Rasselas, a metaphor for all that seemed too far away to verify and too “changeable” to control about the diverse environments of empire. As British imperial interests turned away from territory and towards trade and settlement, however, a new pattern emerged: vivid descriptions of bad weather continued to cast the risk of being overwhelmed as inevitable and dire, but now, “weather-beaten” bodies – like those that litter Smollett’s Humphry Clinker – appeared not to mark the limits of human agency, but rather to call the reader to action, the sure sign of a place and people that could be managed more effectively. How, in so little time, did weather turn from a force that governs the mind and marks the body into a force that could be mitigated by more forward-thinking governance? To answer this question, the case studies in Changeable Conditions propose that eighteenth-century writers amplified the threat of environmental influence to justify a British right to govern all over the world, and demonstrate how this the process helped to entrench the limited view of human agency and narrow sense of responsibility for change in the weather that continue to drive debate about the anthropogenic origins of the present climate crisis.

Keywords: Early Canadian literature
Eighteenth-century British literature
Environmental literature
Travel writing
Advisor: Bewell, Alan
Charisma in Everyday Life: Conceptualization and Validation of the General Charisma Inventory

Although both scholars and lay people are fascinated with charismatic individuals, relatively few theorists have attempted to define charisma. Much of the empirical research examining charisma has been concerned with the study of leadership. Even within that literature, however, theorists have focused on charismaâ s outcomes, leaving unarticulated precisely what charisma is. Here, I tested a new operational conceptualization of charisma in the context of everyday life. Specifically, I proposed that charisma is composed of the interpersonally-focused dimensions of influence and affability. I validated this conceptualization in a series of studies, demonstrating (i) that lay people possess a consensual idea of charisma; (ii) that charisma consists of two quantifiable dimensions, influence and affability; (iii) that charisma is distinct from other constructs of interest to psychologists and leadership theorists; (iv) that charisma is observable; and, finally, (v) that assessments of charisma predict important real world outcomes, such as persuasion and liking. These studies, therefore, provide a new, comprehensive contextualization of charisma that extends beyond the study of formal leadership. Furthermore, the current work highlights that charisma is a relevant construct to leaders and laypeople alike. Thus, this research not only attempts to conceptualize and measure charisma but also demonstrates that charisma might be important to people every day.

Keywords: charisma
leadership
personality
social influence
social psychology
Advisor: Rule, Nicholas O
The Bounds of Human Empire: Early Modern English Utopias and the Early Capitalist Imagination

Utopia has often been defined as an imaginary, secular, rational ideal that marks a break with older, mythic, pre-political forms of social ideality such as paradise, Cokaygne, arcadia, or the Golden Age. The utopian order—whether understood as an expression or critique of emergent capitalist ideology—is conceived as the seed-form of a future commonwealth in which natural scarcity and social conflict are transcended through the rationalization of the production process or the extension of human control over nature. This dissertation examines the social and historical context for the emergence of early modern utopian literature as a genre; it also challenges the dominant narrative of rationalization and disenchantment by showing how paradise and utopia are not discrete stages in the development of an idea but form a structural opposition through which we in the present define our own modernity. This dissertation is divided into three chapters, each exploring a different mode or subtype of utopia—social, scientific, and paradisial. Through a close reading of two influential works of early modern utopian literature—Thomas More’s Utopia and Francis Bacon’s New Atlantis—alongside John Milton’s Paradise Lost, I argue that early modern utopian literature provides an image of the future constructed out of disparate pre-modern cultural forms and modes of production that are brought into contact and projected into a fictional space opened up or made imaginable by the discovery of the New World. Europe’s mythic prehistory is made coincident with its early capitalist present; an original, humanized nature or an original form of communal property is juxtaposed with and partially integrated into a rationalized system of labour discipline and knowledge production, animated by an early capitalist ethic of improvement.

Keywords: early modern literature
paradise in literature
utopias in literature
Advisor: Nyquist, Mary
Identification and Characterization of ARGLU1, a Novel Glucocorticoid Receptor Coactivator

Glucocorticoids (GCs) are stress-induced hormones that signal to multiple tissues in the body to increase glucose levels in circulation. Prolonged GC stimulation, however, leads to hepatic GC-stimulated glucose production and GC-induced adipogenesis contributing to the development of hyperglycemia, insulin resistance and obesity. At the molecular level, GC actions are mediated through the glucocorticoid receptor (GR) and its associated accessory proteins. Therapeutically, GC drugs (i.e., dexamethasone) are prescribed for their anti-inflammatory effects. We are interested in understanding the underlying mechanisms of GR signaling to separate the therapeutic from the deleterious effects of GCs. Studies presented in this thesis detail the discovery and characterization of arginine and glutamate rich 1 (ARGLU1), a dual function protein able to co-activate GR and modulate splicing. ARGLU1 is a polarized protein with the N-terminal end important for interaction with splicing factors; and the C-terminal end interfacing with GR via an LXXLL motif. In neuronal cells, we found that genes regulated transcriptionally by ARGLU1 were different from those alternatively spliced. Loss of function studies revealed ARGLU1 to be critical for neuronal development in zebrafish. In tissue specific studies, we show that ARGLU1 is important for GC-mediated hepatic gluconeogenesis but is dispensable for the immune suppressive actions of GCs. Using chromatin immunoprecipitation assays we demonstrate that ARGLU1 knockdown decreases GR recruitment to the Pepck (a key gluconeogenic enzyme in liver) promoter in vivo decreasing the expression of the Pepck gene. We also show that animals lacking hepatic ARGLU1 are protected against GC-induced dyslipidemia. In adipocyte differentiation, ARGLU1 was essential very early in the differentiation process, by affecting the recruitment of GR and other factors to the PPARÎł gene, which is the master regulator of adipogenesis. In conclusion, we identified ARGLU1 as a novel GR coregulator important in both GC mediated transcription and alternative splicing. Moreover, we showed that ARGLU1 is critical for GC-mediated gluconeogenesis and adipogenesis.

Keywords: Coactivators
Diabetes
Glucocorticoids
Nuclear receptors
Obesity
Splicing
Advisor: Cummins, Carolyn L
Limited Developments, Limits of the “Real”: The Italian Novel of Formation and Uses of Literary Realism during Fascism, 1929–1938

This thesis examines a cluster of six Italian realist novels of formation, all initially released between 1929 and 1938 and written by young intellectuals who came of age during the fascist period—Alberto Moravia’s Gli indifferenti, Umberto Barbaro’s Luce fredda, Carlo Bernari’s Tre operai, Elio Vittorini’s Il garofano rosso, Fausta Cialente’s Natalia, and Alba de Céspedes’ Nessuno torna indietro. In each case, the author’s ideological intentions influenced not only his or her decision to employ realism and the general form of the romanzo di formazione but also the shape of the protagonist’s path toward maturation and the characteristics of the realism with which this process is narrated. Despite significant variances between them, the primary works included in the corpus show major commonalities that make it possible to begin to define a typology of the Italian realist novel of formation of the period roughly spanning the 1930s. Aesthetically, they involve prose that is mostly realist but incorporates non-realist traits, the result of the authors’ experimentation with techniques derived from the contemporary avant-garde. In terms of thematic content, the male writers depict male developments made difficult by a combination of repressive environmental forces outside of the protagonists’ control and problematic personality traits, especially significant given the emphasis placed on virile youth by the regime. The female authors approach the task differently, portraying women who are remarkably transgressive, considering traditional gender roles in Italy and fascist propaganda concerning women, but who nonetheless mature more successfully than their male counterparts do. The manner in which the writers use the realist Bildungsroman as a means of intellectual and ideological engagement makes these novels important to the history of both the novel of formation and literary realism.

Keywords: Bildungsroman
Fascism
Italian literature
Literary realism
Novel of formation
Advisor: Somigli, Luca
The Philosophy of Moral Response in the Imperial Stoa

This dissertation considers the problem of moral responsibility as treated by Seneca, Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius. For them, in contrast to the early Stoics, it has become a question of practical ethics focused on one person’s response to the wrongdoing of another. These later Stoics take issue with the Aristotelian and Peripatetic claim that voluntary injustice requires an angry response, which helps to structure Aristotle’s theory of rectificatory justice. By distinguishing between the determination of guilt and the determination of the response to the wrongdoer, Seneca shows, against the Peripatetic view, that it is possible to respond adequately to the wrongdoing of others without becoming angry or condoning their misdeeds. Seneca’s rejection of the Aristotelian model of retribution leads him to endorse an alternative model of the response to wrongdoing, Socratic in its inspiration, which is based on the correction of the offender. Epictetus, for whom the Stoics’ use of the Socratic model is particularly prominent, extends the Stoic framework of interpersonal response by describing external events, including the actions of others, as the materials of the art of living, giving his ethics a participatory, reactive character. He attributes Socrates’ patience with others to his insistence on the independence of each person’s own mind and the consequent impossibility of interpersonal harm. His analysis of wrongdoing in terms of the Socratic Paradox offers reasons for suspending anger against wrongdoers, without thereby diminishing their culpability. Marcus Aurelius uses the Stoic concepts of reservation (ὑπεξαίρεσις) and reversal (περιτροπή) to construct a framework of interpersonal action and reaction. Emphasizing the importance of affection toward human beings, even when they go astray, Marcus calls on himself to correct the wrongdoer’s mistakes; in acknowledging the possibility of correction, he acknowledges the wrongdoer’s agency, while insisting that a dispassionate reaction to wrongdoing is compatible with meaningful human relationships and with due regard for the rationality and responsibility of the erring agent. It is argued that an interpersonal perspective on responsibility such as these authors adopt is effective in understanding and refining our reactions to the wrongdoing of others as well as the structure of moral responsibility itself.

Keywords: Epictetus
Marcus Aurelius
Moral Responsibility
Seneca
Stoicisim
Wrongdoing
Advisor: Inwood, Brad
Microfluidics for Sperm Selection and Male Infertility Diagnostics

This thesis is focused on application of microfluidics to understand the swimming behavior of sperm close to surfaces, develop rapid clinical technologies for sperm selection, and develop scalable approaches for male fertility testing. The most impactful contributions of this thesis are the discovery of slither swimming mode (Chapter 3), a high-throughput device for selection of sperm with high DNA integrity (Chapter 5), and paper-based strategies for semen analysis (Chapter 6 and 7). Using total internal reflection fluorescence microscopy, slither swimming mode is revealed for bull and human sperm. In slither mode, the full sperm length is aligned with the surface and flagellum beats in a two-dimensional plane within a micrometre of a surface. This behavior is distinct from established three-dimensional bulk swimming modes where the flagellar wave is helical and the head continuously rotates. In addition, the cross-sectional distribution of bull sperm in rectangular microchannels is studied, revealing the predominance of sperm motion in corners. Natural swimming characteristics of sperm in confined geometries are used to develop a microfluidic device for one-step semen purification and sperm selection by processing one milliliter of semen in under 20 min. Clinical tests with human sperm showed more than 80% improvement in selected human sperm DNA integrity, significantly outperforming the best current practices. Paper-based microfluidic technologies are developed for semen analysis and sperm DNA integrity testing, from initial conception to clinical validation at Royal Victoria Hospital in Montreal. A paper-based device is developed that quantifies live sperm concentration, motile sperm concentration, and motility within 10 minutes. Another paper-based device is developed for assessing sperm DNA integrity. The device tests for both DNA fragmentation and DNA packaging by leveraging the preconcentration capability of ion concentration polarization in paper. In all cases, our paper-based devices provide identical clinical decisions as current clinical practices.

Keywords: Biomedical microdevices
Biophysics
Infertility
Lab on a Chip
Microfluidics
Sperm motility
Advisor: Sinton, David