History

Considering the significance of the First World War in changing society’s accommodation of African Americans with disabilities, its lack of coverage in the intersected historiography of black disability is perplexing. Independently of each other, the field of African American Studies has mostly focused on the treatment of black soldiers during the war (without concern for disability), while the field of Disability Studies has tended to analyse the provision of state support and rehabilitation to veterans with disabilities (without concern for race). In doing so, both have missed the opportunity to undertake an intersected study of black disability in the early twentieth century, consequently allowing for the existence of a significant and problematic gap in the historiography. As Stephen Knadler writes on the subject, ‘to ignore is to neglect and to neglect is to deny.’

It is with awareness of his historiographical neglect that this dissertation will approach the topic of black disability in and around the First World War. It will do so from three angles, each of which will constitute its own chapter. The first of these will provide an overview and exploration of the historiography of black disability, highlighting the insufficiencies of scholarly work on the topic and calling for a more developed base of literature going forward. The historiography of the First World War has, until recently, tended to underexplore the subject of black disability, and this dissertation intends to problematise this neglect. The second chapter will provide a more historical angle by assessing the experiences of African American soldiers and veterans during and after the war. It will aim to uncover the inconsistent and unequal provision of benefits to African American soldiers who suffered physically and mentally as a result of the war, and will frame this discriminatory situation through the white, ableist psyche of early twentieth century America. Finally, the third chapter of this dissertation will approach the topic of black disability through the lens of early twentieth century African American art and literature. The career of Horace Pippin will provide a key case study in the process of building an understanding of how the First World War influenced the cultural perception, presentation and reception of black disability in the period.

This article explores transnational dialogues between peoples of color in Brazil, Spanish-speaking South America, Haiti, and North America on issues relating to revolution, abolitionism, diplomacy, and civil rights in the nineteenth century. By focusing on Emiliano Felipe Benício Mundrucu (1791–1863), a Brazilian pardo who traveled and lived in Brazil, Venezuela, Haiti, and the United States, this paper discusses the unique socio-economic, racial, and political perspectives that educated, polyglot, and unusually well-traveled peoples of color brought to debates on abolition, civil rights, and broader hemispheric-wide questions of black identity in this period. It also explores their involvement in transnational revolutionary activity in the early nineteenth century, discussing how Mundrucu, along with other Brazilian secessionists, solicited the help of the young, radical republics of Haiti and Gran Colombia to challenge the Brazilian monarchy in Rio de Janeiro and establish a federalist republic in the north east of the country.

This paper’s primary focus was the Lutheran interpretation of Romans 13 and how this reading initially helped shape the Henrician Reformation. The paper focused upon St Paul’s injunctions concerning political obligation and traced its influence through statutes such as the Act in Restraint of Appeals (1533), the Act of Supremacy (1534) and the Submission of the Clergy (1534). The paper also discussed the polemical debate surrounding the Pauline injunction as engaged by Luther, William Tyndale, Robert Barnes, Stephen Gardiner and John Calvin.