College of Arts & Humanities
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The collections in this community comprise faculty research works, as well as graduate theses and dissertations.
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Item The Comedy Propaganda Machine: The Soldier Sketch Writing Contest of World War II(2022) Demmy, Tara Noelle; Hildy, Franklin J; Theatre; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)In 1941, the U.S. military faced the challenge of preparing to fight a war on two fronts (thousands of miles away against formidable foes) and finding comedy scripts to entertain soldiers. Wait, what? It is true, “comedy” was on the country’s long and complicated to-do list for World War II, in addition to recruiting millions of people and producing ships, aircraft, artillery, tanks, food, and ammunition. The army’s soldier show program included contests, quizzes, one-act plays, musicals, vaudeville acts, minstrel shows, and radio comedy. Military manuals detailed how to act, direct, write, and build props and costumes. The goal was to provide soldiers with the skills to self-entertain, no matter the conditions. Soldier entertainment during World War II was expansive, including Entertainment Units and USO shows, but this study focuses on informal shows, performed for and by troops in combat zones overseas. Two organizations led this effort: the Special Service, a branch of the U.S. Army, which facilitated all leisure and recreation programs for GIs, including dances, camp newspapers, music, educational programs, and sports; and the Writers’ War Board, a propaganda agency run by celebrity writers. Funded administratively by the U.S. Government’s Office of War Information (OWI), the Writers’ War Board sought to rectify the mistakes of state-run propaganda campaigns of World War I, aiming to integrate pro-war sentiment into American’s daily entertainment streams. The Special Service made the argument to commanding officers that participation in comedy would make men into better soldiers. They believed that comedy would promote and maintain what they termed “combat morale,” or the will to kill / be killed on behalf of the organization and its objectives. Using comedy to convince men to risk their lives and take the lives of others, does indeed feel like an act of propaganda. Using research from five archival collections, this dissertation asks: How did sketch comedy promote and maintain combat morale during World War II? Or in other words, how did sketch comedy function as propaganda, convincing men to risk everything? Soldier shows improved the combat efficiency of the soldier through the development of individuality, development of leadership, development of esprit de corps, and provided a means of relaxation from mental stress. The 1944 sketch writing contest for the armed services, the pinnacle collaboration between the Writers’ War Board and the Special Service, serves as the through line of this dissertation. This contest, culminating in the published booklet titled GI Prize Winning Blackouts (1944), features short funny scenes about army life. Present-day military veterans participated in workshops where they read the World War II sketches aloud and discussed them in relation to their own service. Each chapter includes embedded audio files and direct quotes, centering their perspectives as credible experts. War, like comedy, often holds multiple, even contradictory meanings. Tensions are explored within each chapter, adding complexity to my understanding of the relationship between comedy, morale, propaganda. Comedy, despite its “entertaining” nature, needs to be critically engaged, especially during periods of crisis, when audiences are most vulnerable. As during a pandemic, or war, comedy audiences (of social media, performance, and everyday joking) must be aware of their desperate need for connection and therefore their vulnerability to consciously or unconsciously be convinced to join a group and act on behalf of it. The Special Service and Writers’ War Board worked together to turn a group of civilians into effective combat soldiers, willing to risk their lives in battle. This case study speaks to the power of comedy as propaganda at a time when the stakes were incredibly high.Item THE EMPEROR’S TEARS: GRIEF AND MOURNING IN THE PROPAGANDA OF NAPOLEONIC FRANCE(2021) Treadwell, Charlotte Susan; Kosicki, Piotr H; History; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This thesis explores Napoleon’s use of grief and mourning in propaganda. Drawing on military bulletins, published accounts of funerals, and poetry and prose, this thesis examines portrayals of the deaths of Jean Lannes and Géraud-Christophe Michel Duroc in official propaganda, and the responses these portrayals provoked in popular culture and private correspondence. This thesis outlines ways in which Napoleon and his government portrayed and evoked grief and mourning in order to influence public opinion, including depicting Napoleon’s grief in order to construct a sympathetic portrait of him, evoking grief within the army as a source of motivation, and using public commemoration of the dead to glorify the empire and provide a model of heroism and devotion for France’s soldiers and citizens to emulate.Item Call and Response: The Efficacy of British Wartime Propaganda in Palestine and Bahrain During the Second World War(2018) Gitlin, Jackelyn Joy; Wien, Peter; History; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)During the Second World War, Britain employed propaganda campaigns abroad to their vast empire in the hopes of maintaining their control over their territories in the face of Axis aggression. The mandate of Palestine and the protectorate of Bahrain both saw British propaganda efforts in both their respective countries as Britain sought to sway Arab hearts and minds during the war. Britain hoped to counter Axis propaganda in both Palestine and Bahrain and attain their goal of maintaining influence across their territories. This thesis argues that this propaganda effort was ultimately not the motivating factor for why Arabs supported Britain and the Allies or quieted their outward anti-British sentiments. Local elites in both Palestine and Bahrain sought to gain favor and status with the British for their own personal agendas, rather than allying with Britain due to successful propaganda policies.Item Empowering Images: Negotiating the Identity of Authority through Material Culture in the Hellenistic East, 140-38 BCE(2014) Hwang, HyoSil Suzy; Venit, Marjorie S; Art History and Archaeology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)During the late-second to first century BCE, Tigranes II the Great of Armenia (140-55 BCE), Antiochos I Theos of Commagene (ca. 86-38 BCE), and Mithridates VI Eupator of Pontus (134-63 BCE) employed multivalent imagery to legitimize their positions and assert their authority amid the changing political landscape of the Hellenistic East. Each king's visual program shaped and reflected the political dynamics of his reign, the mixed cultural identity of his population, and the threats posed by foreign powers. As the kings negotiated their positions within an environment rife with military conflict and in territories composed of multi-ethnic populations, they created nuanced visual programs that layered ties to multiple historic precedents and religious authorities. Each king's program intended to communicate differently to diverse audiences - both foreign and domestic - while simultaneously asserting the king's position as the ruler of a powerful and unified realm. This dissertation considers the rulers' creation and dissemination of such imagery, revealing new dimensions of ruling ideologies and visual culture in the Late Hellenistic East.Item German Radio Propaganda in the Soviet Union: A War of Words(2012) Butsavage, Christopher James; Herf, Jeffrey; History; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The focus of this study is the content of Nazi radio propaganda to and concerning the Soviet Union. The radio was a new and innovative means for the Nazi regime to directly communicate with the masses of illiterate civilians in the Soviet Union on a daily basis. This study finds that as the war in the east progressed, there was an increasingly stark dichotomy between the positive messages found within German radio propaganda and the harsh reality of the Nazi occupation. It seems almost as though there was a morbid inverse correlation between the amount of violence the Germans inflicted upon civilians (including forcibly sending them to work in Germany) and the amount of radio propaganda exhorting these same civilian populations to join the Nazi cause. It is also important to note that every German radio broadcast to Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union was not propaganda. In fact, by 1943, a great deal of news items broadcast on German radio in occupied territory were administrative in nature. Announcements such as local curfews, blackouts, conscription and mobilization decrees, and warnings were frequently broadcast.