M.A. - History

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/10125/2071

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No time like the past: Manifestations of memory in the life and work of Élisabeth Vigée-Lebrun
(University of Hawai'i at Manoa, 2025) Colborne, Kaitlyn; Hoffenberg, Peter H.; History
This thesis examines the evolving role of memory in the life and work of Élisabeth Vigée-LeBrun (1755-1842), exploring how her portraits and memoirs negotiate shifting conceptions of temporality, historicity, and identity in response to the French Revolution. Through close visual and textual analysis, the project traces how Vigée-LeBrun’s art transitioned from academic emulation of the past to more personal modes of commemoration. I analyze her pre-Revolutionary engagement with classical antiquity and Renaissance masters as a gendered assertion of artistic legitimacy. I consider her post-1789 portraits of Emma Hamilton, painted during Vigée-LeBrun’s exile, as reflections of spatial and temporal liminality. Chapter 3 explores her posthumous portraits and Souvenirs (1835), arguing that they function as affective responses to grief, trauma, and historical rupture. Drawing on theorists such as Pierre Nora, Reinhart Koselleck, François Hartog, and Dominick LaCapra, the thesis situates Vigée-LeBrun’s work within broader debates about memory, trauma, and representation. I contend that her self-fashioning—across both canvas and memoir—constitutes a deliberate act of memory-making that both resists and reconfigures dominant historical narratives. Ultimately, this study reveals how Vigée-LeBrun’s visual and literary productions became tools for preserving personal and collective memory amid revolutionary dislocation, positioning her as both a witness to and architect of post-Old Regime historical consciousness.
Homebrewing medievalisms
(University of Hawai'i at Manoa, 2025) Johnson, Kai Arthur; Jolly, Karen L.; History
This thesis argues that Battleflower and tabletop role-playing games like it can facilitate discussions on historical authenticity, race, othering, and historical contingency. Battleflower is a homebrew supplementary material for the fifth edition of the tabletop role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons. Utilizing Fiore dei Liberi’s Florius de Arte Luctandi as a primary source, this thesis uses Battleflower to explore the relationship between concepts like historical contingency, authenticity, race, and othering. My duty as a historian is to translate and discuss the historical record with not just other academics and students, but also the general public, teaching and engaging through entertainment. If my homebrew creates a conversation about history and historical education, I have done my job as a historian.
The jihad archipelago: Towards a more inclusive reimagining of religious pluralism and Islamic “terrorism” in island Southeast Asia
(University of Hawai'i at Manoa, 2025) Hikam, Reza Maulana; Andaya, Leonard Y.; History
This thesis traces the historical development of Islamic movements in island Southeast Asia, focusing on Indonesia and the southern Philippines. It begins with the Islamization of the region through trade, migration, and localized integration between the eleventh and fifteenth centuries. From the early modern period to the age of colonial rule, Islamic authority became increasingly entangled with resistance against European powers. In Indonesia, movements evolved from anti-colonial struggles into organized political expressions such as Sarekat Islam, and later into militant formations like Darul Islam. In the Philippines, Islam persisted through the Moro sultanates before confronting American imperial consolidation. The study follows these developments into the post-independence era, when transnational networks emerged under groups such as Jemaah Islamiyah. A local case study of Poso, Central Sulawesi, provides insight into how regional dynamics, historical memory, and cultural affiliations—particularly those rooted in Luwu and Bugis traditions—shaped patterns of radicalization and conflict. By placing localized phenomena within a broader historical framework, the thesis argues that contemporary Islamic extremism cannot be understood apart from the long arc of regional Islamic history, postcolonial discontent, and evolving notions of statehood and legitimacy.
Educational initiatives: Filipinos in higher education at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa
(University of Hawai'i at Manoa, 2025) Castillo, Erisa Rhaine; Rosa, John P.; History
Operation Manong was founded at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa in 1972, nearly six decades after the first Filipinos arrived in Hawaiʻi, to support recent Filipino immigrants in education. In 1987, volunteers, staff, and faculty formed the Pamantasan Council to further promote campus diversity and service learning. Both initiatives aimed to improve access to higher education for Filipino and other underrepresented students through extensive outreach programs. While most scholarship on Filipinos in Hawaiʻi focuses on plantation history, this thesis uses foundational documents and reports from both programs to highlight the educational challenges, underrepresentation, and need for greater attention to Filipino students. Therefore, my master’s thesis argues that Operation Manong and the Pamantasan Council were pivotal responses to the systemic barriers faced by Filipino students in accessing a higher education. These initiatives addressed the issues within the educational pipeline, from early childhood to higher education, by actively confronting American colonialism, racial discrimination, and other institutional obstacles (e.g., linguistic) in school that hindered their academic success and upward mobility. Interviews with Dr. Amy Agbayani, Dr. Jonathan Okamura, and Dr. Melinda Tria Kerkvliet, key figures in both initiatives, provide context and illustrate how the educational struggles of Filipinos were tied to a lack of services and representation. Lastly, there are continued efforts to support Filipino students and other underrepresented groups at the University of Hawaiʻi under the Division of Student Success. Moreover, non-UH initiatives emerged in 2022 such as the Filipino Curriculum Project established by Marissa Halagao, a graduate of Punahou High School (2023), and current student at Yale University. This project created a Filipino History Culture class and curriculum for secondary-level schools to implement.
Nuclear nationalism and gender: A feminist analysis of India's nuclear development
(University of Hawai'i at Manoa, 2025) Moody, Asako M.; Reiss, Suzanna J.; History
This thesis explores India’s nuclear development through a feminist and intersectional lens to challenge dominant state-centric and masculinist narratives that normalize nuclear weapons as symbols of national power. Focusing on India’s 1998 nuclear tests and the subsequent geopolitical discourse, this research critiques the influence of deterrence theory in nuclear discourses for marginalizing the lived experiences of communities affected by nuclear development. Drawing on methodologies such as nucliteracy and feminist objectivity, this research foregrounds the perspectives of anti-nuclear activists, particularly feminist and ecological movements, to explore how nuclear development in India reinforced postcolonial emasculation, Hindu nationalism, and militarism. Through a discursive analysis of texts written in response to India’s 1998 nuclear tests, the thesis argues that not only has India’s nuclear program disproportionately impacted women, indigenous groups, and marginalized communities, but the narrative of nuclear justification through rationalities of national security and masculine strength contributes to obscuring these perspectives. By reframing nuclear history from the perspectives of those impacted by it, this work calls for a reorientation of nuclear discourse that centers gender, the human costs of militarization, and ecological perspectives.
GREAT BRITAIN’S VIEWS OF EXISTING CUSTOMARY INTERNATIONAL LAWS REGARDING WARFARE DURING AND AFTER THE SECOND WORLD WAR, 1939–48
(University of Hawai'i at Manoa, 2024) Ehrhart, Samuel Copeland; Hoffenberg, Peter H.; History
During WWII, Great Britain and Nazi Germany fought against each other in a brutal war with massive death tolls and atrocities affecting both sides. At the end of the war, high-ranking German leaders went on trial by the Allies for “war crimes” and “crimes against humanity,” with multiple leaders of the Third Reich being punished with prison or execution at the gallows. As a key member of the Allied nations, British wartime leaders faced no trials for any injustices that were committed against Nazi Germany and the fascist Kingdom of Italy. Britain, during WWII, allegedly committed atrocities against Nazi soldiers and German civilians, which would constitute war crimes under The Hague and Geneva Conventions. An investigation of these attacks shows that Great Britain largely acted through the concept of “reprisal,” or retaliation against Nazi Germany for previous attacks. While Great Britain had a right to go to war (jus ad bellum), Britain’s wartime policies did not follow proper, legal conduct (jus in bello) of armed warfare during WWII. There have been a few scholarly works that look at Great Britain’s alleged war crimes against the Third Reich. This thesis will investigate how Great Britain interpreted existing international customary laws (CILs) to conduct the policies and actions of soldiers during WWII. While analyzing multiple alleged war crimes through international customary laws, I argue that the state of Great Britain did commit numerous war crimes against Nazi Germany during WWII and that Britain’s leaders avoided punishment because of being a victorious nation in the war. Furthermore, I will argue that Britain’s wartime leaders such as Prime Minister Winston Churchill, Air Marshal Arthur Harris, Deputy Air Marshal Robert Saundby, and Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Scotland were liable to have been held accountable for their actions through war crimes trials, just like the leaders of Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich faced after WWII concluded.
Siva Siva Mai: SIVA SĀMOA AND SAMOAN WOMEN IN DIASPORA
(University of Hawai'i at Manoa, 2024) Schwalger, Tess Elizabeth; LaBriola, Monica C.; History
From Upolu to Utah, the tāupou (highest ranking women in the Samoan village) is the embodiment of Samoan identity and holds immense power within the village. The position of tāupou in the diaspora maintains many of the same characteristics as in Sāmoa: she is an important cultural figure, a symbol of connection to Sāmoa, and an emblem of Indigenous representation and women’s power. The continuity of the taualuga (dance performed by tāupou) and the essence of the tāupou’s position is a symbol of Samoan identity in diaspora and represents the important role Samoan women play in cultivating and perpetuating fa’asāmoa. Samoan women predominantly raised in diaspora use siva (dance), particularly the construct of the tāupou through the taualuga, as an important way to nourish the vā (space between, relationships) with their community, cultural identity, and connection to Sāmoa. This intentional engagement with Samoan values and community through siva and the taualuga is invaluable, especially when Samoan women are disconnected from their ancestral lands and language. Although scholarship on Sāmoa paints only a partial picture of the tāupou and taualuga, Samoan women have carried with them this knowledge and sense of Samoan-ness for generations despite centuries of colonial oppression. To support one another in diaspora, Samoans build diasporic villages and diasporic malae (sacred, educational learning spaces traditionally located inside the village) where Samoans weave together communities and nourish vā (space/relationship) between Samoan customary land and Samoans in diaspora, in part through intentional engagement with the taualuga. Using an interdisciplinary approach that includes a mix of historiographical methods, interviews, and Indigenous knowledge systems, I further the work of a number of Pacific scholars including Sa’iliemanu Lilomaiava-Doktor and M. Luafata Simanu-Klutz to re-center and reclaim Indigenous narratives from colonial projections.
British colonial constructions of the “half-caste” category in world-historical perspective
(University of Hawai'i at Manoa, 2024) Chew, Carissa Tarmin; Chew, Carissa T.; History
The word “half-caste” was coined by British imperial agents in the late eighteenth century to refer to people of “mixt European and Indian blood” in the South Asian context, specifically those who had European fathers and South Asian mothers. Despite its profound and largely harmful legacy, a history of the category “half-caste” has never been written. Taking a world-historical approach, this research traces how the phenomenon of “half-caste” was developed and diffused via British imperial and missionary networks across and beyond the British Empire from South Asia to Oceania and the Pacific, Africa, and the United Kingdom metropole in the period 1786 to 1960. I offer a discursive history of a British-made racial taxonomy of control that was used to segregate, subjugate, and sexualize mixed-race people in different parts of the globe. Using an intersectional lens whilst blending the global with the intimate, I interrogate the patterns and divergences within British policies towards mixed-race education, welfare, and status across time and place, track the gendered and socioeconomic knowledge production of the racial category “half-caste” in official and unofficial circles, and contextualize its transregional genealogy. Weaving together a tapestry of case studies from East India Company India, Aotearoa, Samoa, Hawaiʻi, Australia, Fiji, Southern Rhodesia, Northern Rhodesia, Nyasaland, and the United Kingdom, I demonstrate that the “half-caste” classification was the product of a complex, cross-imperial network in which the perceived threat that mixed-race people posed to the empire’s class, race, and gender hierarchies was never strictly local in scope. Collapsing the boundaries of area studies as well as the line separating colony and metropole reveals a complex, sometimes incongruous set of British attitudes towards mixed-race people that in many ways reflected the unevenness of empire and conflicting ideologies about race and governance.
The Epic Life of Taiwanese-Japanese Soldier Kan Shigematsu (1925-2000)
(University of Hawai'i at Manoa, 2024) Wu , Han-Ling; Brown, Shana J.; History
In the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War, and the subsequent Asia-Pacific War, the Japanese Empire came to increasingly rely upon its colonial subjects in its war efforts. Based on the biography of Kan Shigematsu (1925-2000), a Taiwanese-Japanese POW guard and soldier, this thesis uses a single case study to illustrate how colonial subjects experienced the war. Examining how race, labor and empire are intertwined, this is a work of both microhistory and transnational history. The thesis argues that Taiwanese in their deployment were both victims of Japanese militarism and victimizers of POWs and local populations. The thesis focuses on both the wartime and postwar experience. Arguing that the revocation of both Japanese nationality and owed compensations to colonial veterans was an act of breaking an imperial social contract signed between the empire and its colonial subjects. The termination of such a contract indicates that colonial subjects were subjected to a second-class citizenship, or even non-citizenship.
“So What:” Jazz Musicians and French Critics in Dialogue, 1918-1959
(University of Hawai'i at Manoa, 2023) Holck, Noah; Matteson, Kieko; History
This thesis charts the reception of jazz in France and the genealogy of jazz criticism in France during the interwar and (1918-1939) and postwar periods (1945-1959), with a focus on the dialogue that emerged between jazz race, identity, and authenticity. This discourse originated in France between African American jazz musicians and French audiences in the form of performance and critique. In this thesis, I argue that French jazz criticism was rooted in racially essentialist notions and that jazz musicians, through their music, refuted these racially essentialist characterizations.
Gold And Wood: Material Culture And Ritual In Precolonial And Catholic Philippines
(University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2023) Smith, Madison; Lanzona, Vina; History
When Ferdinand Magellan landed in what would become the Philippine archipelago, the crew of the circumnavigation voyage was struck by the amount of gold that the indigenous peoples carried. The subsequent interactions between Magellan’s crew and the indigenous peoples of the Visayan islands set the stage for over 300 years of Spanish colonialism and Christianization. However, they did not just find gold in the Philippines. The Spanish also encountered a rich culture that included animist elements, and wood was an important material for the indigenous communities of the archipelago. There have been a plethora of works that have addressed the contexts of indigenous resistance and negotiation in the Philippines during the Spanish colonial period, and this work attempts to investigate the presence of this negotiation within the context of material cultures. Through the materials of gold and wood, I argue that the use of material culture shows clear indications of this syncretic process during the Spanish colonial period.
How the Ainu Became Jōmonese: Ainu Ancestry Through Japanese Eyes
(University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2023) Truchon, Sarah; McNally, Mark T.; History
Despite only being declared Japan’s indigenous people in 2019, the Ainu within its borders have long been associated with the Jōmon, the archipelago’s earliest known inhabitants. Unpacking the labels of “Jōmon” and “Ainu” reveals the traits that caused these two peoples to be almost exclusively joined together in the first place, which in turn helped to influence the Ainu’s ability to claim indigeneity. Through this paper, I aim to show that the ways in which the Japanese have looked at the Ainu, from the time when Japanese chroniclers first started recording their state’s history to the present day, has contributed to the association of Hokkaidō’s indigenes with the Jōmon. Starting with the Emishi, the people(s) living on the outskirts of the Japanese polity were looked down on as barbaric or backwards in comparison to the refined Japanese. These views, while generally remaining static into the Meiji period, could shift depending on socio-political necessity and the acquisition of new ways of understanding their subjects, eventually culminating in a theory that the Neolithic residents of Japan and the Ainu were related. This theory was later confirmed by bioanthropological findings. Further reinforcing the bond are the ways in which the Ainu and their culture are currently presented to the Japanese public through museum exhibits and events.
The Bank For International Settlements And The Rise Of Financial And Political Instability, 1919-1948
(University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2022) Wrenn, Christopher Scott; Daniel, Marcus; History
This thesis argues that the creation of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) was part of a significantly broader plan to stabilize international finance through the promotion of core democratic and capitalist policies to thwart Soviet communism and stimulate Western private commercial interests. In particular, a triune core is posited to explain the enduring coordination and cooperation exhibited by the United States, Great Britain, and Germany in creating the world’s first international financial institution, as well as in defending it, once the Bank was targeted for liquidation for alleged financial malfeasance. The establishment of the BIS formalized the nascent underpinnings of a long-standing interest in creating an international bank by the Bank of England, the Reichsbank and the US Federal Reserve. One of the ironies of this multinational birth was the tremendous instability that was injected into global finance and the postwar geopolitical situation just as the Bank for International Settlements became established in the early years of the Great Depression. The source of these destabilizing tendencies could be seen to arise from the same financial instruments which were extolled as the keys to stabilizing international finance: access to internationally recognized credit and loans. This thesis provides a coherent narrative of events involved in the conception, creation and operation of the Bank in the period from the signing of the Versailles Treaty in 1919 to the decision to rescue the BIS from liquidation in 1948.
A Kanaka ʻōiwi Affair: Native Hawaiian Resistance To U.S. Federal Recognition At The 2014 Interior Department Hearings In Hawaiʻi
(University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2022) Kanaeholo, Kale K A; Rosa, John P.; History
In the summer of 2014, the U.S. Department of the Interior embarked on a two-week journey throughout the Hawaiian Islands to seek a consensus on a proposed administrative rule that would allow Native Hawaiians to seek federal recognition and reestablish a government-to-government relationship with the United States. Meetings were held in community spaces across Hawaiʻi and the continental United States where testifiers overwhelmingly said ʻaʻole (no) to the proposal—a rejection of U.S. intervention in a uniquely Kanaka affair. This thesis highlights Kanaka ʻŌiwi (Native Hawaiian) resistance to the U.S. federal government’s federal recognition push in summer 2014. This project also contains a discussion on key government officials who advocated for federal recognition, most notably then-Assistant Secretary of the Interior Esther Kiaʻāina. Kiaʻāina was the next generation in a long genealogy of Native Hawaiians who sought to provide “better” for the Lāhui (nation, people). Her active participation on United States’ behalf created an opportunity for Kānaka (Native Hawaiians) to speak with a senior administration official, although some believed she was the incorrect liaison for such an issue. The project also examines the meeting transcripts through a critical historical lens. Introductions and even full testimonies were reduced to “Speaking Hawaiian” in the official DOI transcripts. The omission of Hawaiian language from these records thus served two purposes: suppressing Native Hawaiian voices and misinforming the Interior Department’s final decision.
The Charge of Command Responsibility: An Examination of Command Responsibility in the Post-World War II War Crime Trials of Axis Powers
(University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2022) Bushell, Peter; Totani, Yuma; History
Following the Second World War, the Allied Powers conducted a series of ground-breaking war crime trials to seek justice for atrocities committed by Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany. These trials produced the legal doctrine of command responsibility; a principle that addresses a military commander’s accountability for the crimes of their troops, even if they did not order or authorize the commission of the crimes. The legacy of how command responsibility was implemented is significant not only for its first problematic precedent but because of the lessons it holds for current international war crime courts. This work examines the first Japanese war crime trials that dealt with command responsibility (that of General Yamashita and Lt. General Homma) and contrasts them with two later but comparable German trials (the High Command and Hostage Cases). While scholarship on Japanese war crimes trials has recently burgeoned in the last decade, no close comparison has ever been made between German and Japanese command responsibility cases. Contrasting differences in the trials’ procedures, conviction criteria, and final judgments are vital to achieving a better understanding of the evolution of command responsibility. The present study utilizes trial records, military reports, and war-era accounts to analyze these four trials and examines the possible outcomes of placing the Japanese defendants on trial while applying the conviction criteria used during the German Cases.
The Pacific guano rush
(University of Hawaii at Manoa, 1983) Wrighton, Scot W.; History
This study examines the commercial history of guano mining in the Pacific between 1855 and the end of the century. It also analyzes reasons for the frantic search for hitherto undiscovered guano deposits by British and American merchant marine interests d
A campaign for political rights on Guam, Mariana Islands, 1899-1950
(University of Hawaii at Manoa, 1982) Bordallo, Penelope c; History
The thesis begins with a short description of the people and their culture and the nature of the military government created by the United States in 1899.Following this is a chronological account of the movement for U. S. citizenship. The thesis ends with
The Grant administration and the Pacific Islands, 1869-1877
(University of Hawaii at Manoa, 1972) Rigby, Barry; History
The Grant administration played a significant role in providing a basis for an active interest in the Islands. Its record in the year 1869 to 1877 therefore warrants closer investigation. In tracing the emergence of a foreign policy in American relations with the Pacific Islands there is some attention to be paid to what has come to be a major debating point in the discussion of motives behind foreign policy. This concerns the idea of recent authors, such as W illiam A. Williams, that it was perceived national economic interests that determined the type of foreign policy pursued by the United States in this and other periods. Williams does not deny the existence of political and strategic considerations but insists that these were dependent upon economic motives. In his view America would seek political predominance in Hawaii, for instance, only to assist economic interests. Likewise, he explains expressions of strategic interest as a response to the need to defend the economic stake. Whether or not this does anything to explain United States official interest in the Pacific Islands in the years of the Grant administration can be decided only from a close examination of the evidence.
The history of the Bougainville taro blight
(University of Hawaii at Manoa, 1974) Packard, Jerry C.; History
This thesis attempts to delineate the events associated with the taro blight caused by the fungus, Phytophthora colocasiae, which struck Bougainville-Buka around the close of World War II. The responses of the inhabitants themselves are considered. The sc
The Morning Stars: ships of the "Gospel Navy" with a supplemental listing of missionary vessels around the world
(University of Hawaii at Manoa, 1971) Livingston, Theodore William.; History
This thesis looks at ships and the important role they had in church history. In Oceania, the need for a special kind of ship to serve the churches was filled, and a "Gospel Navy" was formed. This thesis is an attempt to tell part of that story.

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