The leaderless resistance: George Lincoln Rockwell and the White Separatist Movement

The scope of the thesis encapsulates the wider post-war White Separatist Movement from the origins of American Nazism under George Lincoln Rockwell to the later developments of leaderless resistance and the political and cultural changes to the movement. The specific focus will be upon the relationship between George Lincoln Rockwell and the leaderless resistance concepts, in particular through its development and utilisation. Due to the complexity of the issues and the variety of influencing factors it is necessary in the first instance to assess it in terms of a historiography to allow themes to develop. As a result of this historical analysis themes have become evident to allow a conceptual analysis. In particular the thesis will utilise the following thematic contexts for assessing the various developments within White Separatism: including, state building; political marketing; the role of the media; and the propensity for terror and hate activities. In assessing the basis upon which the conceptual analysis is developed the research has utilised extensive use of texts, radio broadcasts, and pamphlets from the movement. The study has also been able to consider, government reports, law enforcement updates and communications from Civil Rights groups and other agencies. In the conceptual analysis of this information and themes, the thesis utilises new concepts as a means of creating an understanding of a rapidly changing area of politics; including ‘organic politic’ and ‘political firms’, when assessing political marketing trends; and assessing terrorist motivation.

Wondrous transformations: rereading and rewriting wonder in contemporary anglophone and francophone fairy tales

This thesis compares contemporary anglophone and francophone rewritings of traditional fairy tales for adults. Examining material dating from the 1990s to the present, including novels, novellas, short stories, comics, televisual and filmic adaptations, this thesis argues that while the revisions studied share similar themes and have comparable aims, the methods for inducing wonder (where wonder is defined as the effect produced by the text rather than simply its magical contents) are diametrically opposed, and it is this opposition that characterises the difference between the two types of rewriting. While they all engage with the hybridity of the fairy-tale genre, the anglophone works studied tend to question traditional narratives by keeping the fantasy setting, while francophone works debunk the tales not only in relation to questions of content, but also aesthetics. Through theoretical, historical, and cultural contextualisation, along with close readings of the texts, this thesis aims to demonstrate the existence of this francophone/anglophone divide and to explain how and why the authors in each tradition tend to adopt such different views while rewriting similar material. This division is the guiding thread of the thesis and also functions as a springboard to explore other concepts such as genre hybridity, reader-response, and feminism. The thesis is divided into two parts; the first three chapters work as an in-depth literature review: after examining, in chapters one and two, the historical and contemporary cultural field in which these works were created, chapter three examines theories of fantasy and genre hybridity. The second part of the thesis consists of textual studies and comparisons between francophone and anglophone material and is built on three different approaches. The first (chapter four) looks at selected texts in relation to questions of form, studying the process of world building and world creation enacted when authors combine and rewrite several fairy tales in a single narrative world. The second (chapter five) is a thematic approach which investigates the interactions between femininity, the monstrous, and the wondrous in contemporary tales of animal brides. Finally, chapter six compares rewritings of the tale of ‘Bluebeard’ with a comparison hinged on the representation of the forbidden room and its contents: Bluebeard’s cabinet of wonder is one that he holds sacred, one where he sublimates his wives’ corpses, and it is the catalyst of wonder, terror, and awe. The three contextual chapters and the three text-based studies work towards tracing the tangible existence of the division postulated between francophone and anglophone texts, but also the similarities that exist between the two cultural fields and their roles in the renewal of the fairy-tale genre.

The symbolic, socio-economic and exchange value of Imperial German and National Socialist medals and badges, 1701 to the present

This thesis examines the manufacture, use, exchange (including gift exchange), collecting and commodification of German medals and badges from the early 18th century until the present-day, with particular attention being given to the symbols that were deployed by the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (NSDAP) between 1919 and 1945. It does so by focusing in particular on the construction of value through insignia, and how such badges and their symbolic and monetary value changed over time. In order to achieve this, the thesis adopts a chronological structure, which encompasses the creation of Prussia in 1701, the Napoleonic wars and the increased democratisation of military awards such as the Iron Cross during the Great War. The collapse of the Kaiserreich in 1918 was the major factor that led to the creation of the NSDAP under the eventual strangle-hold of Hitler, a fundamentally racist and anti-Semitic movement that continued the German tradition of awarding and wearing badges. The traditional symbols of Imperial Germany, such as the eagle, were then infused with the swastika, an emblem that was meant to signify anti-Semitism, thus creating a hybrid identity. This combination was then replicated en-masse, and eventually eclipsed all the symbols that had possessed symbolic significance in Germany’s past. After Hitler was appointed Chancellor in 1933, millions of medals and badges were produced in an effort to create a racially based “People’s Community”, but the steel and iron that were required for munitions eventually led to substitute materials being utilised and developed in order to manufacture millions of politically oriented badges. The Second World War unleashed Nazi terror across Europe, and the conscripts and volunteers who took part in this fight for living-space were rewarded with medals that were modelled on those that had been instituted during Imperial times. The colonial conquest and occupation of the East by the Wehrmacht, the Order Police and the Waffen-SS surpassed the brutality of former wars that finally culminated in the Holocaust, and some of these horrific crimes and the perpetrators of them were perversely rewarded with medals and badges. Despite Nazism being thoroughly discredited, many of the Allied soldiers who occupied Germany took part in the age-old practice of obtaining trophies of war, which reconfigured the meaning of Nazi badges as souvenirs, and began the process of their increased commodification on an emerging secondary collectors’ market. In order to analyse the dynamics of this market, a “basket” of badges is examined that enables a discussion of the role that aesthetics, scarcity and authenticity have in determining the price of the artefacts. In summary, this thesis demonstrates how the symbolic, socio-economic and exchange value of German military and political medals and badges has changed substantially over time, provides a stimulus for scholars to conduct research in this under-developed area, and encourages collectors to investigate the artefacts that they collect in a more historically contextualised manner.