School of Historical and Philosophical Studies - Theses
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ItemZazou, Zazou Zazou-hé: a youth subculture in Vichy France, 1940-44( 2007)In the late 1930s, French singer Johnny Hess launched his career in the cabarets ofParis. In 1939, he released the hit song “Je Suis Swing”. The catchy chorus proclaimed: “Je suis swing, je suis swing, dadou dadou je m'amuse comme un fou, je suis swing, je suis swing, zazou zazou zazou-hé”. In the winter of 1941, an eccentric group of young people began to gather in cafes on the Champs-Elysées and in the Latin Quarter of Nazi occupied Paris. They called themselves Zazous. This thesis is a history of the Zazou youth subculture in press, film and literature. It uses contemporary popular culture to explain a socio-cultural phenomenon which emerged under the Vichy regime and the Nazi Occupation. Three case studies each introduce a different representation of the Zazous. The first case study is the caricature of the Zazou in the collaborationist press. The second case study is Richard Pottier's 1942 film Mademoiselle Swing. The third case study is the Zazou as literary subject in Boris Vian's Cent Sonnets and Vercoquin et le plancton. In reading the Zazou through a cultural prism, each chapter details a different element of the subculture's function within the "parent" culture. The collaborationist press were writing for supporters of the Vichy regime and actively promoting the values of the National Revolution. Mademoiselle Swing was a popular representation seeking a wide, perhaps even a mass, audience. Boris Vian wrote his novel and poetry from within the subculture itself; his intended audience was familiar. These case studies reveal as much about the Vichy regime as they do the Zazous: the subculture is a mirror in which Occupation culture is reflected. The Zazous posed real ideological problems for Vichy. However, in reacting so vehemently, the regime in fact magnified the Zazous' social influence. In examining the Zazous, not only does a defined "world" of youth emerge, but we also uncover the incoherent nature of the Vichy regime. The thesis also traces a chronological evolution of the Zazous from “Je Suis Swing” in 1939 to their effective dissolution with the introduction of the Service du Travail Obligatoire (STO) in the winter of 1942-43.
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ItemAustralian new left politics, 1956-1972( 2009)A study of the Australian New Left might not immediately appear pertinent to contemporary society. Adherents of New Right economics have been, until recently, unshakable in their global ascendancy over the past three decades. From Russia to Tanzania, discourses of neo-liberalism have become so deeply entrenched in world politics and trade that they have been adopted by the transitional states of Eastern and Central Europe, along with other less developed countries in the international system, despite the fact that all have very different cultural histories and levels of economic development. There have been few exceptions, with one example Hugo Chavez's Venezuela. The discrediting during the global oil crisis of the mid-1970s of the post-WWII orthodoxy of Keynesian economics, social democracy and the Welfare State has played its role in this paradigm shift. More pertinent to the radical left may be that the legacy of Soviet Communism's 'terrors and errors' still looms large in the consciousness of socialist thought, provoking disagreement over what can be salvaged from the cadaver of Marxist theory. The increasing specialisation and integration of world marketplaces since the 1960s has also led to questions over whether the notion of a working class - so essential to Marx's utopian revolution - still exists at all. The rise of 'identity politics' and the relativism of postmodernist thought, seen as at the cutting edge of academic theory since the 1970s, have represented further challenges to those desiring to rebuff the entrenched global logic of consumer capitalism. Capitalism is the only 'meta-narrative' left uncontested by postmodernists, while other ideologies - such as Marxism, feminism and even the discipline of history - are criticised for their failure to adequately address the realities of difference within the groups (i.e. workers, women) that they focus upon. This thesis re-examines a time when the left commanded a degree of mainstream popularity; when hundreds of thousands of Australians took to the streets to protest against the government, and when, however briefly, Marxist sympathisers constituted respectable numbers in academic circles, to ascertain what lessons, if any, might be learnt for 'socialist humanist' campaigns today. The anti-globalisation campaigns of the past decade and recent concerns regarding climate change represent hope as starting points for contemporary mass radicalism. Recently, I travelled beside a thoughtful and articulate man in his late fifties who had been a student at the University of Western Australia during the early 1970s. He had been acutely aware of radicals at other campuses such as Monash at this time, and laughed dismissively that student activists were still saying the same things nowadays. While my travelling companion was amused that contemporary student radicals continue to subscribe to what he sees as archaic and refuted ideas and philosophies, I believe that this constancy is due to the fact that New Left criticism remains highly applicable today.