DISCLAIMER: This document does not meet current format guidelines Graduate School at the The University of Texas at Austin. of the It has been published for informational use only. Copyright by Joshua D. Holland 2016 The Dissertation Committee for Joshua D. Holland Certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: Kurt Hahn, the United World Colleges, and the Un-Making of Nation Committee: Julia Mickenberg, Supervisor Janet Davis Ricardo Ainslie Adam Golub Kurt Hahn, the United World Colleges, and the Un-Making of Nation by Joshua D. Holland, B.A., M.A. Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Texas at Austin May 2016 Dedication For my father David William Holland, who was never satisfied with easy answers. Acknowledgements This dissertation is for my family: my sisters Sarah Diestler and Julia Forcier, and my mother Rita Holland, all in the memory of my father, David Holland. I am sure he would have thought some of this was a little fancy. He was an economist. But he would have been glad to see it done and I so wish he were here to do so. This dissertation is also for my brothers. You have had my back through so many years of adventure, risk, and now, in this case, completion. There are mountains beyond this mountain. We will climb those as well. As an interdisciplinary project that uses the methods of history and ethnography, this dissertation required me to rely on (and therefore acknowledge) a great many people. First among these at the University of Texas is the chair of my committee, Dr. Julia Mickenberg. Julia, as this project grew in historical and geographical scope, you remained steadfast and supportive. This continued as the ethnography grew from one year to two and beyond. I spent half of my UT years away from Austin. It sometimes felt like I was a very distant satellite. You kept me connected. It is quite something to have someone of your caliber and humanity in my corner. At a crucial moment you said something very important to me: “graduate school is supposed to make everyone’s life better.” Well, it did. Thank you Julia. A similar note of thanks is due to the other three members of my committee: Dr. Janet Davis, Dr. Rico Ainslie, and Dr. Adam Golub. I am grateful for your curiosity, advocacy, and generosity of spirit. Your advice and criticism has been gratefully received. Thank you for hanging with me as the project grew and deepened. Rico and Adam: thank you for extending yourself to a project that lay outside of your own institutional or disciplinary bounds. v There are three other professors whose presences were crucial. To Dr. Douglas Foley who was on his way to a well-deserved retirement by the time I began darkening his office doorway to ask about the truth claims of ethnography, I offer heartfelt thanks for your mentorship and humor. I am also grateful for the models of your own excellent ethnographies. Many times when I lost my own voice for a moment I returned to The Heartland Chronicles or Learning Capitalist Culture: Deep in the Heart of Tejas to remember how to stop trying to write it and just go ahead and write it. To Dr. Nhi Lieu, thank you for your brilliant feedback, encouragement, and kindness. This project took much of its initial shape in your class and after. You were a good mentor to all of us. Finally, to Dr. D’Arcy Randall, thank you for your unremitting class and surety that it would all work out. This entire adventure would have been much different without your part in it. During my arc through the American Studies program at the University of Texas, I benefitted from a wonderful set of friendships that made the challenge and hustle more worthwhile. Thank you to the cohort: Andi Gustavson, Gavin Benke, Marsha Abrahams, David Croke, Eric Covey, and Irene Garza, who formed a veritable family during coursework. Other crucial friendships both during school and then the writing process included Eva Hershaw, Celeste Griffin, Rebecca Onion, Becky Dorsogna, Jessica Grogan, Marvin Bendele, Katie Feo Kelly and Jenny Kelly, among others. Three dear friends, scholars in their own right, read whole sections and portions of this work, and it is much better for it. Thanks to Axel Gerdau, Alex Howell, and Seth Joshua Thomas. You three, along with Marcia Thomas, and Kathy and Max George also formed most of the east coast support group. This was just as important as your incisive feedback. vi The United World College of the American West (UWC USA) is part of a larger constellation of schools, administrative structures, and groups of volunteers that, in some way, are connectable to Kurt Hahn. To my own great relief everyone I encountered was happy to help with this project. My questions, research trips, emails, phone calls, and endless interviews were met with enthusiasm, and curiosity. This project gained momentum each time this happened. All of this began with the advocacy of a single person: my long-time friend Kris Wilson. Kris introduced me (and the idea of this project) to the UWC USA President Lisa Darling, and Vice President for Academic Affairs Tom Oden. Kris, this whole thing became possible because of you. Thank you. Lisa and Tom, thank you for your openness to this project, and especially your respect for my need for absolute academic freedom. It is a rare pair of administrators who would be so forward thinking as to entertain such a project. Lisa, your many introductions led to crucial research trips to Salem, Germany; Llantwit Major, Wales; Elgin, Scotland; and London, England. Tom, your care for the students and willingness to confront the most challenging aspects of school life as well as ethnographic access was a constant boon to this project. I am proud to call you my friend. Thank you to Keith Clark, Executive Director at the London International Office of the UWC movement during the time of this project. I believe your knowledge of, and constant enthusiasm for, the UWC movement is not as widely-known as it should be. I am deeply grateful for your friendship and generosity regarding your own time (perhaps your most precious resource). vii Thank you also to the leadership and personnel at the United World College of the Atlantic (UWC AC) in Llantwit Major. Interim Director Paul Motte, Rachel Carlson, and Alan Hall, you were so good to me during my visit. It was really something to watch the rescue boats come in off the Bristol Firth in the evening right after listening to the rich litany of institutional history generously delivered by Alan. A heartfelt thanks also to the wonderful Louise Avery at the Gordonstoun School. It is one thing for an archivist to be so kind to a visiting scholar as he orders copies of nearly every document in your collection. It is quite another to pick him up from his hotel in your personal car so he doesn’t have to walk all the way to Gordonstoun from town. Thank you so very much for a trip that changed the vector of this dissertation. In this vein, I hope that every scholar has the experience at any archive that I did at the Kurt Hahn Archive at the Salem School. Archivists Antje Bemmer and Brigitte Mohn, along with the cheerful assistance of Mona Weinhuber, made an exhausting four-day trip profoundly fruitful. Chapters 1 and especially 2 would be ghosts of their current forms without your help. As the tiny field of Hahn scholarship expands, the Kurt Hahn Archive and its wonderful staff will forever be at its epicenter. I spent two-and-a-half years at the UWC USA. It is a small school near a small town in one of the least-populous states in the United States. Were it not for the wonderful friendships and fruitful professional relationships that bloomed there among staff, the project would have been much lonelier and more difficult. Thank you therefore to Dan and Jen Willms, Arianne Zwartjes, Gita Eglite, Bianca Sopoci-Belknap, Ben Gillock, Parris Bushong, Naomi Swinton, Travis Day, Anne Farrell, Linda Curtis, Todd French, Aaron Kagan, Elise Manning and so many other viii members of the faculty and staff. Special thanks to Mike Hatlee and Codou Dioff and the students of the Aconcagua and Mont Blanc dorms, who were open to the idea of my visiting the respective day rooms in those dorms. It was an experience that brought home many realities of residence life, the challenging job of the Resident Tutor, and the strange difficulties of ethnography. All of this said, it is toward two groups of students that my deepest gratitude is felt. First to the UWC USA student body of the years 2011-2013, all firsties and second-years included: your curiosity, bravery, welcoming spirit, and often-outrageous humor made this project a strange and unqualified delight. Thank you for having me. And to the 15 subjects, listed here by pseudonym: Xolani, Anne, Veronica, Mathias, Ismael, Agni, Grace, Dvora, Falhuveri, Brenda, Sohrab, Davo, Lavinia, Elena, and Rahma: your contribution of time, vulnerability, introspection, patience, and grace made this project possible. Thank you for trusting me. ix Kurt Hahn, the United World Colleges, and the Un-Making of Nation Joshua D. Holland, PhD The University of Texas at Austin, 2016 Supervisor: Julia Mickenberg This dissertation has two phases.