Journal articles on the topic '1889-1978 Criticism and interpretation'

To see the other types of publications on this topic, follow the link: 1889-1978 Criticism and interpretation.

Create a spot-on reference in APA, MLA, Chicago, Harvard, and other styles

Select a source type:

Consult the top 31 journal articles for your research on the topic '1889-1978 Criticism and interpretation.'

Next to every source in the list of references, there is an 'Add to bibliography' button. Press on it, and we will generate automatically the bibliographic reference to the chosen work in the citation style you need: APA, MLA, Harvard, Chicago, Vancouver, etc.

You can also download the full text of the academic publication as pdf and read online its abstract whenever available in the metadata.

Browse journal articles on a wide variety of disciplines and organise your bibliography correctly.

1

Bastaman, Weny Widyawati, and Siti Sri Suhartini. "TRANSFORMASI KESALIHAN SOSIAL ZAKAT, INFAQ, DAN SHADAQAH MASYARAKAT RANGKASBITUNG PADA TAHUN 1978-2017." Jurnal Artefak 6, no. 2 (September 7, 2019): 99. http://dx.doi.org/10.25157/ja.v6i2.2663.

Full text
Abstract:
Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk memperoleh gambaran tentang adat istiadat yang ada pada masyarakat Dusun Kuta, dan bagaimana peran keluarga dalam mensosialisasikan kepada anggota keluarganya. Metode penelitian ini adalah metode kualitatif serta penemuan kuantitatif yang mendukung. Selanjutnya data diinterpretasi, sehingga menghasilkan data deskriptif berupa kata-kata tertulis dari orang dan perilaku yang dapat diamati. Sedangkan teknik pengumpulan data menggunakan observasi dan wawancara. Hasil penelitian menunjukan dalam proses sosialisasi adat istiadat, keluarga memegang peranan yang amat penting, karena melalaui keluarga inilah anak-anak mengalami proses sosialisasi yang pertama dan mendasari semua proses sosialisasi lebih lanjut. Ibu, bapak mengajari anak-anaknya tentang sikap dan perilaku yang baik menurut adat dan harus dilakukan serta sikap dan perilaku yang tidak boleh dilakukan karena bertentangan dengan adat. Adat istiadat Dusun Kuta yang disosialisasikan itu, antara lain: perilaku dalam hidupan sehari-hari, pekerjaan dalam mencari/mendapatkan nafkah, bentuk dan bahan yang digunakan dalam pembuatan rumah, syarat dan tatacara penentuan kuncen, larangan-larangan dan keharusan-keharusan yang berkaitan dengan keberadaan tempat-tempat yang dianggap keramat.Zakat, infaq and sadaqah have been known and carried out by Muslims for a long time. Along with the times in managing zakat, infaq and sadaqah experienced changes and developments. The method used in this study is a historical method consisting of topic selection, heuristics, namely; data collection consisting of primary data sources and secondary data sources, verification, namely; historical criticism or the validity of the source by means of internal criticism and external criticism, interpretation of data namely; interpretation of data that has been verified, and historiography, namely; write down the results of the study. The results of this study indicate that in the management of zakat, infaq, and sadaqah there are changes and developments. In the history of its development starting from traditional and now there are institutions that manage zakat, infaq, and sadaqah in a professional manner, in terms of management, which are initially consumptive but now more productive, and changes in social values from the implementation of zakat, infaq and shadaqah (muzakki) can better know the condition of the mustahik (zakat recipients). Whereas institutionally tend to only carry out obligations.
APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles
2

Rogacz, Dawid. "The living past and self-made future: Li Dazhao’s metaphilosophy of history." Człowiek i Społeczeństwo 53 (June 27, 2022): 187–99. http://dx.doi.org/10.14746/cis.2022.53.11.

Full text
Abstract:
The paper offers a reconstruction and re-evalutation of the philosophy of history developed by Li Dazhao (1889–1927) – one of the first Chinese Communists. It is argued that despite its marginal treatment in scholarly literature, Li’s philosophy stands out from the thought of other Chinese Marxists for its creative interpretation of historical materialism and a critical engagement with Marx’s view of class struggle and the economic base. Furthermore, in his philosophy of history, Li Dazhao innovatively draws on the Confucian idea of Great Unity (datong), Daoist criticism of heroism, and, most importantly, the concept of ‘life’ in Lebensphilosophie. In addition, the article shows that Li’s view of the historical process was consistently complemented with an exceptional meta-philosophy of history and the philosophy of historiography which shared the premises of the much later narrativist epistemology of history.
APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles
3

Ilhami, Muhammad Ridha. "BIOGRAPHIC VALUES OF H. ABDUL AZIS AS A SOURCE OF LEARNING IPS." Jurnal Socius 10, no. 2 (October 27, 2021): 96. http://dx.doi.org/10.20527/jurnalsocius.v10i2.9507.

Full text
Abstract:
The purpose of the research is to explain the biography and describe the values of the biography of H. Abdul Azis. Next, describe the efforts to make the values of the biography of H. Abdul Azis as a source of social studies learning. The research uses historical methods, with heuristics, criticism, interpretation and historiography stages. Collecting oral sources, written sources and sources of past relics, then critiqued and interpreted to produce historical writings. The results showed that Abdul Aziz was born in Telaga Silaba Village, Hulu Sungai Utara, December 31, 1936. He graduated from SMPN Part A Amuntai, Hulu Sungai Utara (HSU). He served as Mantri Pamong in the 1950s, then Camat of Sungai Turak (1962), Panggang Lake (1965) and Paringin (1968). Head of the Regional Secretariat Government Division to the Chairman of the Regional Legislative Council II HSU (1968-1978). Barito Kuala Regent for two periods 1978-1983 and 1978-1983. Died in Banjarmasin, January 13, 1987. H. Abdul Azis had the values of discipline, hard work, responsibility and social care that supported him, so he was successful as a government official and managed to raise a family. The values from the biography of H. Abdul Azis can be used as a source of social studies learning by integrating them in the syllabus and lesson plans for IPS for SMP/MTs Class IX. The conclusion of the study is that from the biography of H. Abdul azis, there are four main biographical values, namely the value of discipline, hard work, responsibility and social care that can be used as sources for social studies learning.
APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles
4

Tyas, Dewi Ayu Kusuma Ning. "Dynamics of Quranic Studies in Pondok Pesantren." Musala : Jurnal Pesantren dan Kebudayaan Islam Nusantara 1, no. 1 (January 24, 2022): 1–25. http://dx.doi.org/10.37252/jpkin.v1i1.136.

Full text
Abstract:
This study discusses the origin, change and continuity as well as the factors causing the study of the Qur'an at An-Nur Ngrukem Islamic Boarding School. It is qualitative research oriented towards literature study and oral history. The approach used is historical with heuristic methods, source criticism, interpretation and historiography. The results of the study, namely the study of the Qur'an at the An-Nur Ngrukem Islamic boarding school from 1978 AD to 2018 AD, did not change much. At the beginning of the establishment of the An-Nur Ngrukem Islamic boarding school, there was only a study of tahsin (qir?'ah Ashim) and tahfid then a study of commentaries and other classical books such as the Madrasah Diniyah Al-Furqon. The teaching system, facilities and infrastructure developed and the An-Nur Qur'an Education Park (TPQ) institution was established which was devoted to the children of the Ngrukem hamlet and its surroundings using the yanbu'a method. And the pioneering of qir?'ah sab'ah guidance for students who have memorized 30 juz. This was followed by the establishment of educational institutions to support the formal education of the students.
APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles
5

Ternova, M. V. "CONCEPT OF THE STUDY OF ART BY R.J. COLLINGWOOD AS AN OBJECT OF THEORETICAL ANALYSIS." UKRAINIAN CULTURAL STUDIES, no. 1 (6) (2020): 36–40. http://dx.doi.org/10.17721/ucs.2020.1(6).08.

Full text
Abstract:
The article analyzed concept of the study of art by Robin George Collingwood (1889-1943), a well-known English neo-hegelian philosopher. His significant part of the theoretical heritage is connected with the explanation of the nature of art and with the consideration of its condition during the period of the changing Oscar Wilde era to the era of Rudyard Kipling. The circle of problem such as content and form, character, image, mimesis, reflection, emotion, art and "street man" identified. All of them in Collingwood's presentation and interpretation significantly expanded the space of research not only English, but also European art criticism. The concept of study of art is "built" on the basis of an active understanding of historical and cultural traditions accented. The concept of art criticism of R.G. Collingwood – a famous English philosopher of the XIX-XX centuries, on the one hand, has self-importance, and on the other, although based on the traditions of contemporary humanities, still expands art history analysis of aesthetics through aesthetics and psychology. Recognizing the exhaustion of the English model of romanticism, R.G. Collingwood tries to outline the prospects for the development of art in the logic of the movement "romanticism – realism – avant-garde", which leads to the actualization of the problem of "mimesis – reflection". At the same time, the theorist's attention is consciously concentrated around the concept of "subject", the understanding of which is radically changing at the turn of the XIX-XX centuries. Theoretical material in the presentation of R.G. Collingwood is based on the work of Shakespeare, Reynolds, Turner, Cezanne, whose experience allows us to focus on the problem of "artist and audience". It is emphasized that Collingwood's position is ahead of its time, stimulating scientific research in the European humanities. The existence of indicative tendencies, which are distinguished in the logic of European cultural creation of the historical period, is emphasized.
APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles
6

Nilova, Anna. ""POETICS" OF ARISTOTLE IN RUSSIAN TRANSLATIONS." Проблемы исторической поэтики 19, no. 4 (December 2021): 7–39. http://dx.doi.org/10.15393/j9.art.2021.9822.

Full text
Abstract:
The article presents an overview of the existing translations of Aristotle's “Poetics”, characterizes the features of each of them. In the preface to his translation of Aristotle's “Poetics”, V. Zakharov characterized the work of the Greek philosopher as a “dark text.” Each translation of this treatise, which forms the basis of European and world literary theory, is also its interpretation, an attempt to interpret the “dark places.” The first Russian translation of “Poetics” was made by B. Ordynsky and published in 1854, however, the Russian reader was familiar with the contents of the treatise through translations into European languages and its expositions in Russian. For instance, in the “Dictionary of Ancient and New Poetry” Ostolopov sets out the Aristotelian theory of drama and certain other aspects of “Poetics” very close to the original text. Ordynsky translated the first 18 chapters of “Poetics”, focusing on the theory of tragedy. The translator presented his interpretation of Aristotle’s concept in an extensive preface, commentaries and a lengthy “Statement.” This translation set off a critical analysis by Chernyshevsky, and influenced his dissertation “Aesthetic relations of art to reality”, in which the author polemicizes with the aesthetics of German romanticism. In 1885 V. Zakharov published the first complete Russian translation of “Poetics”, in which he offered his own interpretation of Aristotle's teaching on language and epic. The author of this translation returns to the terminology of romantic aesthetics, therefore the translation itself is outside the main line of perception of the teachings of Aristotle by domestic literary theory, which is clearly manifested in the translations of V. G. Appelrot (1893), N. N. Novosadsky (1927) and M. L. Gasparov (1978). The subject of discussion in these translations was the interpretation of the notions of μῦϑος and παθος, the concepts of mimesis and catharsis, the source of suffering and the tragic, the possibility of modernizing terminology. An important milestone in the perception and assimilation of Aristotle's treatise by Russian literary criticism was its translation by A. F. Losev, which was not published, but was used by the author in his theoretical works and in criticizing other interpretations of “Poetics”. M. M. Pozdnev penned one of the last translations of “Poetics” (2008). The translator does not seek to preserve the peculiarities of the original style and interprets “Poetics” within the framework and terms of modern literary theory, focusing on its English translations. The main subject of the translator's reflection is Aristotle's understanding of the essence and phenomenon of poetic art. Translations of the Greek philosopher's treatise reflect the history of the formation and development of the domestic theory of literature, its main topics and terminological apparatus.
APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles
7

Hristova, Nina. "The Book of Academician Kiril Hristov "The Struggle of Ideas in the Science – Clash of Ideas"." Scientific knowledge - autonomy, dependence, resistance 29, no. 2 (May 30, 2020): 181–87. http://dx.doi.org/10.37708/bf.swu.v29i2.13.

Full text
Abstract:
Kiril Vasilev was born on 23rd May 1918 and died in 2014 in Sofia. In 1938 he was a member of the Bulgarian Communist Party (BCP). During the Second World War he was a partisan in the Second Rhodope Brigade ‘”Vasil Kolarov”. Kiril Vasilev attended major Thompson from Greece to Bulgaria. After 9th September 1944 he was one of the main opponents against the organization “Friendship Motherland”, which tried to change names of the Bulgarians, who professed the Islam.Kiril Vasilev studied Philosophy at Sofia University. He was a lecturer at the University and read lectures on Historical Materialism. He was a head of the department of “Dialectical and Historical Materialism”. Kiril Vasilev laid the foundations of the Empiric Sociology in Bulgaria.Kiril Vasilev was not a conformist. He came into conflict with many leaders of the BCP. His clashes with Todor Zhivkov were frequent. He leveled criticism at all existing political models. Kiril Vasilev was not flattering in his interpretation on present-day political, economical, and social data, too. The special features of Kiril Vasilev`s character, his direct statement, and his experience give us an additional clearness in relation to the fate of his book. The monograph, according to his own words, was written about 1978, but it was accessible to the reading public only in 2008. In this work we can notice some inconvenient ideas, for the sake of that this book probably cames off the press approximately 30 years later.
APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles
8

White, Nick. "Gitta Sereny and Albert Speer's ‘Battle with Truth’ on the London Stage." New Theatre Quarterly 17, no. 2 (May 2001): 170–85. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0266464x00014573.

Full text
Abstract:
Prompted by the investigative journalist Gitta Sereny's biography Albert Speer: His Battle with Truth, two recent productions, Esther Vilar's Speer and David Edgar's Albert Speer, have set out to explore the reputation of Hitler's architect and later Minister of Armaments and War Production, Albert Speer, the only leading Nazi to acknowledge his guilt at the Nuremberg Trials. The plays, like the biography, are concerned with the extent of Speer's knowledge of the ‘Final Solution’ during his career in the Nazi hierarchy, and consequently with the integrity of the stance he adopted at Nuremberg and thereafter – that is, of his claim of guilt by association and omission rather than by active participation. In her biography, Sereny claims that as a result of her association with Speer he eventually acknowledged his guilt to her, and was repentant. But Nick White believes that the evidence – much of it unearthed by Sereny herself – suggests otherwise, and that Sereny had failed to acknowledge that between 1978 and his death in 1981 Speer consistently deceived her about crucial aspects of this evidence. How successful are Vilar and Edgar in their quite different dramatic sifting, not only of the public persona of Speer, but also of the interpretation granted their subject by the biographer upon whom their plays, to a lesser and greater degree, depend? Nick White has taught at City University, London, and his PhD dissertation, ‘In the Absence of Memory? Jewish Fate and Dramatic Representation: the Production and Critical Reception of Holocaust Drama on the London Stage, 1945–1989’ (1998) has been followed by a companion volume of criticism, articles, and letters, The Critical Reception of Holocaust Drama on the British Stage, 1939–2000.
APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles
9

Mlikota, Jadranka, and Rene Čipanj Banja. "O Bojničićevoj Gramatici madžarskoga jezika iz drugoga kuta: uzroci i narav mijena izdanja gramatike na razmeđu dvaju stoljeća." Studia Slavica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 66, no. 2 (January 16, 2023): 341–58. http://dx.doi.org/10.1556/060.2022.00018.

Full text
Abstract:
U sjeni Bojničićeva rada, obilježenoga iznimnim prinosom hrvatskoj kulturnoj povijesti i pomoćnim povijesnim znanostima, ostala je Gramatika madžarskoga jezika (1888., 1896., 1905., 1912.) koja je na razmeđu dvaju stoljeća, u vrijeme smjene filoloških škola (zagrebačke školom hrvatskih vukovaca), doživjela nekoliko izmijenjenih izdanja. Gramatiku je – točnije njezino prvo izdanje – kao udžbenik odobrio Odjel za bogoštovlje i nastavu Kr. ugarskoga ministarstva, potom ju nagradio 1889., a naposljetku je ipak negativno ocijenjena, i to u službenom glasilu istoga Odjela koji ju je i nagradio, u Nastavnom vjesniku, a gotovo jednako ocijenit će ju i neki mađarski izvori početkom 20. stoljeća.Pritom je riječ o kritikama koje su se mahom odnosile na (hrvatski) metajezik gramatike, donošenje netočnih pravila te na njezino, po sudu određenih kritičara, nesustavno oblikovanje, a samom se Bojničiću zamjerala nedostatna filološka naobrazba. Upravo ju stoga ti kritičari između ostaloga opisuju kao priručnik neprikladan za nastavnu uporabu. Od navedenih četiriju izdanja gramatike – iako konzultirani hrvatski i mađarski izvori ustvari ne donose nedvosmislen podatak o tome koliko je točno izdanja gramatika doživjela – spomenutoj je filološkoj ocjeni također podlegnulo samo prvo, a autor je poneke ispravke uklopio u kasnija izdanja svoga gramatičkoga priručnika.U ovom se radu uspoređuju četiri izdanja Bojničićeve gramatike, utvrđuju se jezične, nazivoslovne i leksičke mijene njezina polaznoga (hrvatskog) jezika te se propituje u kojoj su mjeri potaknute objavljenim kritikama te koliki je odraz smjene filoloških škola vidljiv u pojedinim izdanjima. U sklopu tumačenja mijena što ih izdanja gramatike sadrže, posebice se ističu jezične osobitosti svojstvene normi zagrebačke filološke škole, čime se pak nastoji potkrijepiti činjenica kako je riječ o obilježjima koja su prisutna u svim četirima izdanjima gramatike neovisno o vremenu njihova izdavanja te jezično-političkim okolnostima i utjecajima pod kojima su nastala.U konačnici se nastoji potvrditi (ne)opravdanost negativne recepcije koju je gramatika imala u dijelu filološke javnosti svojega vremena. Drugim riječima nastoji se dati odgovor na pitanje valja li Bojničiću pridružiti epitet autora čiji rad – pa tako ni njegova gramatika – u odgovarajućoj mjeri nije stručno potkovan ili mu pak, bez obzira na njegovu naobrazbu i upućene kritike, valja odati priznanje zbog neospornih prinosa što ih je dao u području hrvatsko-mađarske gramatikografije.In the shadow of Bojničić’s work marked by exceptional contributions to Croatian cultural history and auxiliary historical sciences remained the Hungarian Grammar (1888, 1896, 1905, 1912), which at the turn of the century, at the time of change of philological schools (Zagreb philological school was supplanted by the school of Croatian Vukovians), saw several modified editions. This grammar book (to be exact, its first edition) was approved as a textbook by the Royal Hungarian Ministry of Worship and Education and awarded by the same institution in 1889. Eventually, the grammar was nevertheless negatively reviewed in Nastavni vjesnik, the official gazette of the same Ministry, which had previously awarded the grammar, and was almost equally evaluated by some Hungarian sources at the beginning of the 20th century.The criticism mostly concerns the grammar’s metalanguage (Croatian), deriving incorrect rules, and its unsystematic format (according to certain critics), and Bojničić himself was criticized for his deficient philological education. This is exactly the reason why those critics, amongst other things, describe it as a handbook inadequate for school use. Of the four above-mentioned editions of the grammar – although the consulted Croatian and Hungarian sources do not explicitly state exactly how many editions the grammar had – only the first edition received the above-mentioned philological evaluation, and the author made some corrections in the later editions of his grammar book.This paper compares the four editions of Bojničić’s grammar, identifies linguistic, terminological, and lexical changes in its source language (Croatian), and examines the extent to which they had been motivated by the published criticism and the extent to which the change of philological schools is reflected in individual editions. Within the interpretation of the changes made in the different editions, linguistic features characteristic of the norm of the Zagreb philological school are highlighted, in an attempt to corroborate the fact that these features are present in all four editions of the grammar irrespective of the time of their publication as well as the linguistic-political circumstances and influences under which they came into existence.Ultimately, the present paper seeks to confirm the (un)justification of the negative reception the grammar had in a part of the philological public of its time. In other words, we seek to answer the question of whether Bojničić is to be given the epithet of an author whose work – including his grammar – is to a certain extent not professionally grounded, or, regardless of his education and the criticism toward his work, he has to be given credit for his indisputable contribution to the field of Croatian–Hungarian grammaticography.
APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles
10

McParland, Edward. "A bibliography of Irish architectural history." Irish Historical Studies 26, no. 102 (November 1988): 161–212. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0021121400009640.

Full text
Abstract:
What follows is a list — covering items published between 1900 and 1986 — of serious accounts of the history of important architectural projects undertaken in Ireland between the late seventeenth and early twentieth centuries. It is intended to be comprehensive in respect of monographs, collective works and articles in non-Irish periodicals, but in respect of Irish periodicals it is a supplement to Richard J. Hayes, Sources for the history of Irish civilisation: articles in Irish periodicals (9 vols, Boston, 1970). None of the above definitions is rigidly adhered to: much is included which falls outside their limits, but an attempt has been made to include everything that falls within them. The following have not been comprehensively included: (1) Monographs on non-resident architects whose careers, notwithstanding Irish commissions, were mainly abroad, e.g. Robert Adam, G.E. Street, Edwin Lutyens. This is partly because such architects are so numerous (there is evidence of over a hundred British architects having professional contacts with Ireland between 1750 and 1850) and partly because they are already well served bibliographically, e.g. by Howard Colvin, A biographical dictionary of British architects, 1600–1840 (London, 1978); (2) studies of the foreign careers of Irish architects, e.g. James Hoban, Eileen Gray; (3) studies of vernacular architecture (but see entry under this heading in the index); (4) contemporary reviews or criticism of buildings; (5) reviews of books; (6) printed primary sources, such as J.T. Gilbert, Calendar of ancient records of Dublin… (19 vols, Dublin, 1889–1944).
APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles
11

Vieira, Júlia Lemos. "Marx não economicista: pistas contra interpretações reducionistas." Trilhas Filosóficas 11, no. 3 (April 17, 2019): 121–37. http://dx.doi.org/10.25244/tf.v11i3.3401.

Full text
Abstract:
Resumo: A história do marxismo e dos movimentos sociais demonstram que as diferentes concepções sobre o que Marx quis dizer com os seus conceitos de base e superestrutura na configuração de uma teoria da história nortearam estratégias de luta diferentes na esquerda política - tendo o marxismo ocidental configuradose como uma reação ao soviético, rejeitando, dentre outros aspectos, a ideia de uma relação mecanicista nos fatores sociais estruturais. O presente artigo sugere pistas para criticar a interpretação de que há um reducionismo econômico na obra de Karl Marx. Palavras-chave: Marx. Infraestrutura. Superesturura. História. Revolução. Abstract: The history of Marxism and social movements demonstrate that the different conceptions of what Marx meant by his concepts of base and superstructure in the configuration of a theory of history guided different strategies of struggle on the political left - with Western Marxism configured as a reaction to the Soviet, rejecting, among other things, the idea of a mechanistic relationship in structural social factors. The present article suggests clues to criticize the interpretation that there is an economic reductionism in the work of Karl Marx. Keywords: Marx. Infrastructure. Supersession. History. Revolution. REFERÊNCIAS BOBBIO, Norberto. Nem com Marx, nem contra Marx. Tradução de Marco Aurélio Nogueira. São Paulo: Editora UNESP, 2006. COHEN. G.A. Karl Marx’s Theory of history: A defense. Expanded Edition. Princeton. Pinceton: University Press, 2000. KAUTSKY, Karl. The Dictatorship of the Proletariat. 1918. in <http://www.marxists.org/archive/kautsky/index.htm> MARX, Karl; ENGELS, Friedrich. A Ideologia Alemã. Tradução de Marcelo Backes. Rio de Janeiro: Civilização Brasileira, 2007. MARX, Karl; ENGELS, Friedrich. Obras Escolhidas. Vol. 1-3. São Paulo: Editora AlfaÔmega, 1983. MARX, Karl. A miséria da filosofia. Tradução de José Paulo Netto. São Paulo: Editora Global, 1985. MARX, Karl. Contribuição à Crítica da Economia Política. Tradução de Maria Helena Barreiro Alves. São Paulo. Martins Fontes. 1983. MARX, Karl. Elementos fundamentales para la crítica de la economia política (Grundrisse) 1857 ~1858. Traducción de Pedro Scaron. México. Siglo XXI Editores. 2007. Vol. 1-3. MARX, Karl. Las luchas de clases en Francia. Traducción de Tristán Suárez. Buenos Aires. Editorial Claridad. 1973. MARX, Karl. Manuscritos Econômicos-Filosóficos. Texto integral. Tradução de Jesus Ranieri. São Paulo: Boitempo, 2006. MARX, Karl. O Capital: Crítica da Economia Política. Tradução de Reginaldo Sant’anna. Livro Primeiro. Vol. 1-3. Rio de Janeiro: Civilização Brasileira, 1971. PLEKHÂNOV, G.V. Os Princípios Fundamentais do Marxismo. 1927. Tradução de Sônia Rangel. São Paulo: Editora Hucitec, 1978. SHAW, Willian H. Marx’s Theory of History First Edition. London: Hutchinson, 1978 TRÚBNIKOV, Vadim (org.) Marx, Engels, Lénine: sobre as vias de acesso ao socialismo. Moscovo: Edições da Agência de Imprensa Nóvosti, 1980.
APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles
12

Prószyński, Jerzy. "REVISION OF THE GENUS SITTICUS SIMON, 1901 S. L. (ARANEAE: SALTICIDAE)." Ecologica Montenegrina 10 (April 5, 2017): 35–50. http://dx.doi.org/10.37828/em.2017.10.7.

Full text
Abstract:
The genus Sitticus Simon, 1901 sensu lato is revised and split into new genera Sittiab gen. n., Sittiflor gen. n., Sittilong gen. n., Sittisax gen. n., which join existing already Attulus Simon, 1889 sensu novo, Jollas Simon, 1901, Sitticus Simon, 1901 sensu stricto, and Sittipub Prószyński, 2016, based on interpretation of taxonomic data from a number of publications of the Author, on the background of world's literature synthesized in Prószyński (2016a, b) available at http://www.peckhamia.com/salticidae/Subfamilies/, and http://www.peckhamia.com/salticidae/.The following new synonyms and combinations are established, or clarified. Attus viduus Kulczyński, 1895 (removed from synonymy of A. distinguendus) = Attulus avocator (O. Pickard-Cambridge, 1885) comb. n., Jollas armatus (Bryant, 1943) = "Oningis" armatus Bryant, 1943b - retransfer of misplaced species, belonging to EUOPHRYINES, Jollas crassus (Bryant, 1943) = "Oningis" crassus Bryant, 1943 - retransfer of misplaced species, belonging to EUOPHRYINES, Jollas lahorensis (Dyal, 1935) (nomen dubium) = "Oningis" lahorensis Dyal, 1935 - unrecognizable species, should be listed as nomen dubium in its original combination, Sitticus absolutus (Gertsch, Mulaik, 1936) = Sittiab absolutus (Gertsch & Mulaik, 1936) comb. n., Sitticus ammophilus (Thorell, 1875) = Attulus ammophilus (Thorell, 1875) comb. n., Sitticus ansobicus Andreeva, 1976 = Attulus ansobicus (Andreeva, 1976) comb. n., Sitticus atricapillus (Simon, 1882) = Sittiflor atricapillus (Simon, 1882) comb. n., Sitticus avocator (Pickard-Cambridge O., 1885) = Attulus avocator (Pickard-Cambridge O., 1885) comb. n., Sitticus burjaticus Danilov & Logunov, 1993 = Attulus burjaticus (Danilov & Logunov, 1993) comb. n., Sitticus caricis (Westring, 1861) = Sittiflor caricis (Westring, 1861) comb. n., Sitticus clavator Schenkel, 1936 = Attulus clavator (Schenkel, 1936) comb. n., Sitticus concolor: Maddison, 1996 (nomen dubium) = Sittiab cursor (Barrows, 1919) comb. n., Sitticus cursor (Barrows, 1919) = Sittiab cursor (Barrows, 1919) comb. n., Sitticus cutleri Prószynski, 1980 = Sittiflor cutleri (Prószynski, 1980) comb. n., Sitticus damini (Chyzer & Kulczynski, 1891) = Attulus damini (Chyzer & Kulczynski, 1891) comb. n., Sitticus distinguendus (Simon, 1868) = Attulus distinguendus (Simon, 1868) comb. n., Sitticus dorsatus: Richman, 1979 (nomen dubium) = Sittiab absolutus Gertsch & Mulaik, 1936 comb. n., Sitticus dubatolovi Logunov & Rakov, 1998 = Attulus dubatolovi (Logunov & Rakov, 1998) comb. n., Sitticus dudkoi Logunov, 1998 = Sittiflor dudkoi (Logunov, 1998) comb. n., Sitticus dzieduszyckii (L. Koch, 1870) = Sittisax dzieduszyckii (L. Koch, 1870) comb. n., Sitticus floricola (Koch C.L., 1837) = Sittiflor floricola (Koch C.L., 1837) comb. n., Sitticus floricola palustris (Peckham & Peckham, 1883) = Sittiflor floricola palustris (Peckham & Peckham, 1883) comb. n., Sitticus goricus Ovtsharenko, 1978 = Attulus goricus (Ovtsharenko, 1978) comb. n., Sitticus inopinabilis Logunov, 1992 = Attulus inopinabilis (Logunov, 1992) comb. n., Sitticus inexpectus Logunov, Kronestedt, 1997 = Sittiflor inexpectus (Logunov, Kronestedt, 1997) comb. n., Sitticus juniperi Gertsch & Riechert, 1976 = Sittiab juniperi (Gertsch & Riechert, 1976) comb. n., Sitticus karakumensis Logunov, 1992 = Attulus karakumensis (Logunov, 1992) comb. n., Sitticus kazakhstanicus Logunov, 1992 = Attulus kazakhstanicus (Logunov, 1992) comb. n., Sitticus longipes (Canestrini, 1873) = Sittilong longipes (Canestrini, 1873) comb. n., Sitticus magnus Chamberlin, Ivie, 1944 = Sittiflor magnus (Chamberlin, Ivie, 1944) comb. n., Sitticus mirandus Logunov, 1993 =Attulus mirandus (Logunov, 1993) comb. n., Sitticus monstrabilis Logunov, 1992 = Sittiflor monstrabilis (Logunov, 1992), Sitticus nenilini Wesolowska, Logunov, 1993 = Attulus nenilini (Wesolowska, Logunov, 1993) comb. n., Sitticus niveosignatus (Simon, 1880) = Attulus niveosignatus (Simon, 1880) comb. n., Sitticus penicillatus (Simon, 1875) = Attulus penicillatus (Simon, 1875) comb. n., Sitticus penicilloides Wesolowska, 1981 =Attulus penicilloides (Wesolowska, 1981) comb. n., Sitticus pulchellus Logunov, 1992 = Sittiflor pulchellus (Logunov, 1992) comb. n., Sitticus ranieri (Peckham & Peckham, 1909) = Sittisax ranieri (Peckham & Peckham, 1909), Sitticus rivalis Simon, 1937 = Sittiflor striatus (Emerton, 1911) - reinstated synonym, contra Logunov, 2004 a: 35, Sitticus rupicola (Koch C.L., 1837) = Sittiflor rupicola (Koch C.L., 1837) comb. n., Sitticus saltator (Simon, 1868) = Attulus saltator (Simon, 1868) comb. n., Sitticus saxicola (C. L. Koch, 1846) = Sittisax saxicola (C. L. Koch, 1846) comb. n., Sitticus sinensis Schenkel, 1963 = Attulus sinensis (Schenkel, 1963) comb. n., Sitticus striatus Emerton, 1911 = Sittiflor striatus (Emerton, 1911) comb. n., Sitticus talgarensis Logunov & Wesolowska, 1993 = Attulus talgarensis (Logunov & Wesolowska, 1993) comb. n., Sitticus vilis (Kulczynski, 1895) =Attulus vilis (Kulczynski, 1895) comb. n., Sitticus zaisanicus Logunov, 1998 = Attulus zaisanicus (Logunov, 1998) comb. n., Sitticus zimmermanni (Simon, 1877) = Sittiflor zimmermanni (Simon, 1877).South American groups of species Sitticus leucoproctus and Sitticus palpalis are left temporarily within genus Sitticus pending further research. Pseudattulus kratochvili Caporiacco, 1955 (female only) = Sitticus cabellensis Prószyński, 1971 comb. reinstated = Sittisax cabellensis (Prószyński, 1971) comb. n.Referring to previous paper by Prószyński (2016c) I correct species synonym Myrmavola globosa (Wanless, 1978) = Toxeus globosus (Wanless, 1978), being a typing error.Also, I reconfirm hereby original genus placement of Emertonius exasperans Peckham & Peckham, 1892, as seconded by Prószyński & Deeleman-Reinhold, 2010: 164-167, figs 169-171 and documented at: http://www.peckhamia.com/salticidae/q24-Emer.html, dismissed by the World Spider Catalog, ver. 2016 with incompetent comment.Misplacement in Sitticus s.l. detected: Sitticus taiwanensis Peng X. & Li S., 2002, Sitticus wuae Peng X. & Tso I., Li S., 2002 – correction pending further research.
APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles
13

Nolte, S. Philip. "One text, many stories: The (ir)relevance of reader-response criticism for apocryphal literature in the Septuagint." HTS Teologiese Studies / Theological Studies 68, no. 1 (January 11, 2012). http://dx.doi.org/10.4102/hts.v68i1.1092.

Full text
Abstract:
This article investigated the value of reader-response theory for the reading of apocryphal texts in the Septuagint. The groundbreaking work on reader-response theory developed by Wolfgang Iser in his book The Act of Reading: A Theory of Aesthetic Response, written in 1978 served as the theoretical point of departure. Although the reader-response theory has been scrutinised and criticised heavily during the last three decades, Iser made a very valuable contribution to the reading of literature. My assumption is that religious texts have to be read in the same way as other literature and therefore literary theories such as Iser’s can be conducive for responsible interpretation. The article consists of the following parts: introductory remarks on the value of reader-response theory for the interpretation of apocryphal texts; a short overview of reader-response criticism; a discussion and evaluation of three different aspects of Iser’s theory, namely ‘gaps’ in texts, ‘asymmetry’ between readers and texts and the concept of ‘the implied reader’. The findings of the investigation will be given in part five (Findings).
APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles
14

"Sociological concept of Ukrainian literature by Professor KhINO V. Koryak." Journal of V. N. Karazin Kharkiv National University, Series "Philology", no. 80 (2019). http://dx.doi.org/10.26565/2227-1864-2019-80-02.

Full text
Abstract:
The article discusses the features of the concept of Ukrainian literature teacher and professor of KhINO, the head of the department of the history of Ukrainian literature (1933–1936) of the Kharkov University V. Koryak (1889–1937). His aesthetic views combined Marxism, sociological criticism and the ideas of building “proletarian culture”. The sociological concept of the dynamics of the national literary process and the interpretation of works of art reflected the Marxist approach to the analysis of writing and significantly influenced the Ukrainian literary criticism of the 1920s, as well as its further transformations during the period of “socialist realism”. V. Koryak taught at KhINO since 1925, and having defended his thesis, he first became the so-called “red professor”, from 1927 - a visiting professor, while continuing to teach the course of history of Ukrainian literature. He was also the head of the Soviet literature room at the T. G. Shevchenko Institute of Literature, and from 1933 to 1936, after the restoration of Kharkov University, he headed the department of the history of Ukrainian literature. The basic terms of the sociological concept of V. Koryak were made public in the textbook of Ukrainian Literature (1928), which was used to teach this subject. This course was the first attempt to synthesize the problematic issues of "Marxist literary criticism" to create an original concept of the history of Ukrainian literature based on the sociological method. Negative and positive features of V. Koryak’s literary-critical concept were reflected to the greatest extent in his interpretation of T. G. Shevchenko’s works. A significant amount of his extraordinary ideas can also be traced in the interpretation of the works of other Ukrainian writers.
APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles
15

Hart, Jonathan Locke. "French-speaking Intellectuals and Culture in Some Key Works of Edward Said." European Review, March 31, 2020, 1–19. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s1062798720000356.

Full text
Abstract:
Edward Said, who is a key intellectual figure in the theory and interpretation of western European colonization and decolonization, sees criticism as personal engagement and a matter of character and not simply scholarship. He is highly influential in the fields of colonialism, postcolonialism, representation and interpretation. Of the many influences Said in turn has undergone, those in French deserve specific exploration. This article explores some of these influences, but it also looks at some of Said’s own representations of French and French-speaking culture. To this end I will examine how Said in some of his key works addresses, among other things, the role of the intellectual, Orientalism, colonialism, and literary theory. My approach is chronological. I will first turn to the role the French-speaking world plays in Said’s first published book, Joseph Conrad and the Fiction of Autobiography (1966), and then to a couple of Said’s most celebrated works: Orientalism (1978) and Culture and Imperialism (1993).
APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles
16

Erchinger, Philipp. "Reading Experience: William James and Robert Browning." Journal of Literary Theory 11, no. 2 (January 1, 2017). http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/jlt-2017-0018.

Full text
Abstract:
AbstractThe topic of this essay is the concept of experience which, in the field of literary studies, is often used as if it were divided into an objective and a subjective aspect. Advocates of so-called ›empirical‹ approaches to the study of texts and minds tend to proceed from experience only to abstract impersonal (or objective) ›data‹ from it. By contrast, phenomenological and hermeneutic methods are frequently said to work through more immediately personal (or subjective) responses to, and engagements with, literary works. Thus experience, it seems, must either be read in terms of statistical diagrams and brain images, or else remain caught up in an activityDrawing on the radical empiricism of William James, this essay seeks to reintegrate the experience of reading and the reading of experience, both of which are ambiguously condensed in my title. The main argument of the piece therefore hinges on James’s and John Dewey’s claim that experience is »double-barrelled« (James 1977, 172), which is to say that it refers to »the entire process of phenomena«, to quote James’s own definition, »before reflective thought has analysed them into subjective and objective aspects or ingredients« (James 1978, 95). Made up of both perceptions and conceptions, experience, as James views it, is the medium through which everything must have passed before it can be named, and without (or outside of) which nothing, therefore, can be said to exist. With this radical account of empiricism in mind, I revisit some of the assumptions underpinning cognitive literary criticism, before turning to an interpretation of the dramatic poetry of Robert Browning, which has been described as a version of »empiricism in literature« because it is concerned with »the pursuit of experience in all its remotest extensions« (Langbaum 1963, 96).More specifically, my article engages with »Fra Lippo Lippi« and »An Epistle Containing the Strange Medical Experience of Karshish, the Arab Physician« in order to show that Browning’s dramatic monologues make experience legible as an activity by means of which perceptions come to be turned into conceptions while conceptions, conversely, are continuously reaffirmed, altered, or enriched by whatever perceptions are added to them as life goes on. As I argue, Browning’s
APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles
17

Kiedrowski, Jonas, and William T. Smale. "Legal and Political Considerations Associated with the Cancellation of the Court Challenges Program of Canada." Journal of Education, Society and Behavioural Science, September 19, 2020, 1–13. http://dx.doi.org/10.9734/jesbs/2020/v33i930253.

Full text
Abstract:
Unique in the Western world, the Court Challenges Program was an undertaking funded entirely by the Federal Government of Canada, without regard to jurisdiction, to subsidize legal test cases of national importance regarding the clarification and interpretation of language and equality rights guaranteed under Canada’s Constitution. This paper reviews the literature on the cancellation of the Court Challenges Program of Canada. Except from 1992 to 1994, when Brian Mulroney’s Conservative government withdrew all financial support for the program, it existed in its various institutional forms from 1978 to 2006, until Stephen Harper’s Conservative government cancelled it on September 25, 2006. In June 2008, the program was somewhat resurrected under the name of the Language Rights Support Program. This program, despite its questionable aspects, helped change the landscape of Canadian law in regards to access to services for Aboriginals, differently-abled people, the rights of women and sexual minorities, and access to education, health and the courts for those speaking minority languages. This paper examines the stormy history of the Court Challenges Program, explores criticisms of its administration, and considers the political motivations that led to the program’s demise in 2006 and subsequent resurrection in 2019.
APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles
18

Jaakkola, Maarit. "Journalistic genre (Culture Coverage)." DOCA - Database of Variables for Content Analysis, March 26, 2021. http://dx.doi.org/10.34778/2y.

Full text
Abstract:
This variable describes the basic journalistic genres typically used in specialized cultural coverage. The fundamental distinction goes between fact-based objective-seeking genres, such as news and news feature, and opinionated articles based on subjective accounts, such as columns, essays, comments and reviews. In journalism, it is important to separate opinions from facts, and this is why subjective views are differentiated from ways of representation that are based on the strategic ritual of objectivity (Tuchman, 1972), i.e., presenting facts by referring to sources or simply describing them instead of exposing the journalists’ own opinions and feelings. Reviews present a specialist genre of their own, connected to the institution of criticism (Hohendahl, 1982). Reviewing – the evaluation of new cultural products on the market – underlies the assumption that only selected experts are allowed to write reviews (Chong, 2020). Newspapers are also constantly developing their means of presentation, which results in an increased number of different newspaper-specific and hybrid formats, both in print and online (see, e.g., Santos Silva, 2019). Being not only medium-specific, genres may also vary from one journalistic culture to another, which makes a nuanced cross-cultural comparison difficult and motivates a limited use of values. Field of application/theoretical foundation Journalistic genres constitute the epistemological ground on which cultural journalists and reviewers cover culture. Scholars have been interested in the shifts in cultural coverage that have occurred between descriptive, interpretative, and evaluative content (Widholm et al., 2019). Descriptive content is often regarded in professional terms as non-ambitious in culture, while the meaning-making subjective elements are preferred and conceived of as an indication of quality (proactive professional engagement rather than marketing of cultural events). In cultural coverage, it is yet often difficult to separate facts from evaluative accounts, as the description of products, phenomena, persons, and events often require that they are put into an evaluative frame. The selection of a genre is related to the production structures, as many reviews are written by freelancers outside the newsroom. The number and share of reviews are typically regarded as an indication of journalistic acknowledgement for expert knowledge, and also the volume of outsourced production, as a great majority of reviews are written by freelancer-based experts. A decreasing number of reviews is thus typically interpreted as a crisis of criticism (Elkins, 2003; Jaakkola, 2015). References/combination with other methods of data collection Journalistic genres are often studied in conjunction to the artistic genres (see variable “Forms of culture”). Some studies are only interested in tracing the number and volume of reviews. Sample operationalization The two basic journalistic genres are news and reviews. News coverage can be further broken down to news feature (phenomenon-led coverage also called reportage) and person-led feature (typically referred to as person portraits). Further, there are two typical opinionated genres, essays and columns, and many kinship genres such as analysis, (news) comment and preview, that can be separately identified or merged into one variable showing personal voicing of the author. Example study Jaakkola (2015) Information about Jaakkola, 2015 Author: Maarit Jaakkola Research question/research interest: Representation of the share of journalistic genres applied in covering culture on culture pages of daily newspapers across time, to expose the production structure Object of analysis: Articles/text items on culture pages of five major daily newspapers in Finland 1978–2008 (Aamulehti, Helsingin Sanomat, Kaleva, Savon Sanomat, Turun Sanomat) Timeframe of analysis: 1978–2008, consecutive sample of weeks 7 and 42 in five year intervals (1978, 1983, 1988, 1993, 1998, 2003, 2008) Info about variable Variable name/definition: Journalistic genre Unit of analysis: Article/text item Values: Journalistic genre Description 1. News Informative, fact-based article intended to deliver an objective account on an event 2. Review Opinionated, subjective article related to a new cultural product with an intention to evaluate it, written by a reviewer or critic 3. Person portrait/feature An informative article, typically interview-based, in which a person constitutes the topic 4. Reportage/feature An informative article intended to give account of the context of a news event or examine a phenomenon 5. Essay A longer opinionated, subjective article written by a journalist or reviewer to cover a phenomenon, process, state of the art or arts, etc. 6. Other commentary A short opinionated, subjective article written by a journalist (non-reviewer): a column, causerie, comment, preview or analysis, sometimes related to a news article 7. Other A text item not suited for any other category; e.g., a list, visualization, hybrid format, or similar Scale: nominal Intercoder reliability: Cohen's kappa > 0.76 (two coders) References Chong, P.K. (2020). Inside the critics‘ circle: Book reviewing in uncertain times. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Elkins, J. (2003). What happened to art criticism? Chicago: Prickly Paradigm Bristol University Presses. Hohendahl, P.U. (1982). Institution of criticism. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Jaakkola, M. (2015). Witnesses of a cultural crisis: Representations of mediatic metaprocesses as professional metacriticism of arts journalism. International Journal of Cultural Studies, 18(5), 537–554. doi:10.1177/1367877913519308 Santos Silva, D. (2019). Digitally empowered: New patterns of sourcing and expertise in cultural journalism and criticism. Journalism Practice, 13(5), 592–601. doi: 10.1080/17512786.2018.1507682 Tuchman, G. (1972). Objectivity as strategic ritual: An examination of newsmen's notions of objectivity. American Journal of Sociology, 77(4), 660–679. doi:10.1086/225193 Widholm, A., Riegert, K., & Roosvall, A. (2019). Abundance or crisis? Transformations in the media ecology of Swedish cultural journalism over four decades. Journalism. Advance online publication August, 6. Journalism. doi:10.1177/1464884919866077
APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles
19

Barbujani, Guido. "Neolithic demic diffusion." Human Population Genetics and Genomics, October 16, 2021, 1–17. http://dx.doi.org/10.47248/hpgg2101010005.

Full text
Abstract:
In 1978, Paolo Menozzi, Alberto Piazza, and Luca Cavalli-Sforza paved the ground for a new multidisciplinary approach to the study of human prehistory, interpreting genetic evidence in the light of archaeological information. By producing synthetic maps of allele frequencies and summarizing them by principal component analysis (PCA), they identified an association between patterns in genetic diversity across Europe and in the Neolithic archaeological record showing the earliest documented dates of farming societies. Based on this observation, they proposed a model of demic diffusion from the Near East. They argued that the observed patterns were the result of population growth due to increased food availability in early farming communities, westward dispersal of early farmers, and relative isolation between dispersing farmers and local hunter-gatherers. These results played a major role in our understanding of the Neolithic transition, but were also criticized on methodological grounds. For instance, it has become increasingly clear that the interpretation of PCA plots is less straightforward than originally thought, and correlations should be corroborated by explicit comparison of alternative demographic models. Despite these valid criticisms, genetic and genomic studies, including those involving ancient DNA, have largely confirmed the crucial role of the Neolithic transition as a process of demographic change in European prehistory, with some qualifications. Today, there is still much to be learned about the details of that complex history, but many researchers regard the European population structure as largely reflecting the genetic consequences of three major migrations: from Africa in Upper Paleolithic times, from the Near East at the beginning of the Neolithic, and from the eastern steppes in the Bronze Age. This deep structure has not been erased, despite many additional processes involving historical migrations, isolation (i.e., drift) and local gene flow, and has been recognized thanks to the pioneering work of Menozzi, Piazza and Cavalli-Sforza. Based on “Menozzi P, Piazza A, Cavalli-Sforza LL Synthetic maps of human gene frequencies in Europeans. Science 1978;201:786-792.”
APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles
20

Levine, Michael, and William Taylor. "The Upside of Down: Disaster and the Imagination 50 Years On." M/C Journal 16, no. 1 (March 18, 2013). http://dx.doi.org/10.5204/mcj.586.

Full text
Abstract:
IntroductionIt has been nearly half a century since the appearance of Susan Sontag’s landmark essay “The Imagination of Disaster.” The critic wrote of the public fascination with science fiction disaster films, claiming that, on the one hand “from a psychological point of view, the imagination of disaster does not greatly differ from one period in history to another [but, on the other hand] from a political and moral point of view, it does” (224). Even if Sontag is right about aspects of the imagination of disaster not changing, the types, frequency, and magnitude of disasters and their representation in media and popular culture suggest that dynamic conditions prevail on both counts. Disaster has become a significantly urban phenomenon, and highly publicised “worst case” scenarios such as Hurricane Katrina and the Haiti earthquake highlight multiple demographic, cultural, and environmental contexts for visualising cataclysm. The 1950s and 60s science fiction films that Sontag wrote about were filled with marauding aliens and freaks of disabused science. Since then, their visual and dramatic effects have been much enlarged by all kinds of disaster scenarios. Partly imagined, these scenarios have real-life counterparts with threats from terrorism and the war on terror, pan-epidemics, and global climate change. Sontag’s essay—like most, if not all of the films she mentions—overlooked the aftermath; that is, the rebuilding, following extra-terrestrial invasion. It ignored what was likely to happen when the monsters were gone. In contrast, the psychological as well as the practical, social, and economic aspects of reconstruction are integral to disaster discourse today. Writing about how architecture might creatively contribute to post-conflict (including war) and disaster recovery, for instance, Boano elaborates the psychological background for rebuilding, where the material destruction of dwellings and cities “carries a powerful symbolic erosion of security, social wellbeing and place attachment” (38); these are depicted as attributes of selfhood and identity that must be restored. Similarly, Hutchison and Bleiker (385) adopt a view evident in disaster studies, that disaster-struck communities experience “trauma” and require inspired responses that facilitate “healing and reconciliation” as well as material aid such as food, housing, and renewed infrastructure. This paper revisits Sontag’s “The Imagination of Disaster,” fifty years on in view of the changing face of disasters and their representation in film media, including more recent films. The paper then considers disaster recovery and outlines the difficult path that “creative industries” like architecture and urban planning must tread when promising a vision of rebuilding that provides for such intangible outcomes as “healing and reconciliation.” We find that hopes for the seemingly positive psychologically- and socially-recuperative outcomes accompanying the prospect of rebuilding risk a variety of generalisation akin to wish-fulfilment that Sontag finds in disaster films. The Psychology of Science Fiction and Disaster FilmsIn “The Imagination of Disaster,” written at or close to the height of the Cold War, Sontag ruminates on what America’s interest in, if not preoccupation with, science fiction films tell us about ourselves. Their popularity cannot be explained in terms of their entertainment value alone; or if it can, then why audiences found (and still find) such films entertaining is something that itself needs explanation.Depicted in media like photography and film, utopian and dystopian thought have at least one thing in common. Their visions of either perfected or socially alienated worlds are commonly prompted by criticism of the social/political status quo and point to its reform. For Sontag, science fiction films portrayed both people’s worst nightmares concerning disaster and catastrophe (e.g. the end of the world; chaos; enslavement; mutation), as well as their facile victories over the kinds of moral, political, and social dissolution the films imaginatively depicted. Sontag does not explicitly attribute such “happy endings” to wish-fulfilling phantasy and ego-protection. (“Phantasy” is to be distinguished from fantasy. It is a psychoanalytic term for states of mind, often symbolic in form, resulting from infantile wish-fulfilment, desires and instincts.) She does, however, describe the kinds of fears, existential concerns (like annihilation), and crises of meaning they are designed (purpose built) to allay. The fears are a product of the time—the down and dark side of technology (e.g. depersonalisation; ambivalence towards science, scientists, and technology) and changes wrought in our working and personal lives by urbanisation. In short, then as now, science fictions films were both expressions of deep and genuine worries and of the pressing need to inventively set them to rest.When Sontag claims that “the imagination of disaster does not greatly differ” (224) from one period to another, this is because, psychologically speaking, neither the precipitating concerns and fears (death, loss of love, meaninglessness, etc.), nor the ways in which people’s minds endeavour to assuage them, substantively differ. What is different is the way they are depicted. This is unsurprisingly a function of the political, social, and moral situations and milieus that provide the context in which the imagination of disaster unfolds. In contemporary society, the extent to which the media informs and constructs the context in which the imagination operates is unprecedented.Sontag claims that there is little if any criticism of the real social and political conditions that bring about the fears the films depict (223). Instead, fantasy operates so as to displace and project the actual causes away from their all too human origins into outer space and onto aliens. In a sense, this is the core and raison d’etre for such films. By their very nature, science fiction films of the kind Sontag is discussing cannot concern themselves with genuine social or political criticism (even though the films are necessarily expressive of such criticism). Any serious questioning of the moral and political status quo—conditions that are responsible for the disasters befalling people—would hamper the operation of fantasy and its production of temporarily satisfying “solutions” to whatever catastrophe is being depicted.Sontag goes on to discuss various strategies science fiction employs to deal with such fears. For example, through positing a bifurcation between good and evil, and grossly oversimplifying the moral complexity of situations, it allows one to “give outlet to cruel or at least amoral feelings” (215) and to exercise feelings of superiority—moral and otherwise. Ambiguous feelings towards science and technology are repressed. Quick and psychologically satisfying fixes are sought for these by means of phantasy and the imaginative construction of invulnerable heroes. Much of what Sontag says can straightforwardly be applied to catastrophe in general. “Alongside the hopeful fantasy of moral simplification and international unity embodied in the science fiction films lurk the deepest anxieties about contemporary existence” (220). Sontag writes:In the films it is by means of images and sounds […] that one can participate in the fantasy of living through one’s own death and more, the death of cities, the destruction of humanity itself. Science fiction films are not about science. They are about disaster, which is one of the oldest subjects in art. In science fiction films disaster is rarely viewed intensively; it is always extensive. It is a matter of quality and ingenuity […] the science fiction film […] is concerned with the aesthetics of disaster […] and it is in the imagery of destruction that the core of a good science fiction film lies. (212–13)In science fiction films, disaster, though widespread, is viewed intensively as well as extensively. The disturbances constitutive of the disaster are moral and emotional as well as material. People are left without the mental or physical abilities they need to cope. Government is absent or useless. We find ourselves in what amounts to what Naomi Zack (“Philosophy and Disaster”; Ethics for Disaster) describes as a Hobbesian second state of nature—where government is inoperative and chaos (moral, social, political, personal) reigns. Science fiction’s way out is to imaginatively construct scenarios emotionally satisfying enough to temporarily assuage the distress (anomie or chaos) experienced in the film.There is, however, a tremendous difference in the way in which people who face catastrophic occurrences in their lives, as opposed to science fiction, address the problems. For one thing, they must be far closer to complex and quickly changing realities and uncertain truths than are the phantastic, temporarily gratifying, and morally unproblematic resolutions to the catastrophic scenarios that science fiction envisions. Genuine catastrophe, for example war, undermines and dismantles the structures—material structures to be sure but also those of justice, human kindness, and affectivity—that give us the wherewithal to function and that are shown to be inimical to catastrophe as such. Disaster dispenses with civilization while catastrophe displaces it.Special Effects and Changing StorylinesScience fiction and disaster film genres have been shaped by developments in visual simulation technologies providing opportunities for imaginatively mixing fact and fiction. Developments in filmmaking include computer or digital techniques for reproducing on the screen what can otherwise only be imagined as causal sequences of events and spectacles accompanying the wholesale destruction of buildings and cities—even entire planets. Indeed films are routinely promoted on the basis of how cinematographers and technicians have advanced the state of the art. The revival of 3-D movies with films such as Avatar (2009) and Prometheus (2012) is one of a number of developments augmenting the panoramas of 1950s classics featuring “melting tanks, flying bodies, crashing walls, awesome craters and fissures in the earth, plummeting spacecraft [and] colourful deadly rays” (Sontag 213). An emphasis on the scale of destruction and the wholesale obliteration of recognisable sites emblematic of “the city” (mega-structures like the industrial plant in Aliens (1986) and vast space ships like the “Death Star” in two Star Wars sequels) connect older films with new ones and impress the viewer with ever more extraordinary spectacle.Films that have been remade make for useful comparison. On the whole, these reinforce the continuation and predictability of some storylines (for instance, threats of extra-terrestrial invasion), but also the attenuation or disappearance of other narrative elements such as the monsters and anxieties released by mid-twentieth century atomic tests (Broderick). Remakes also highlight emerging themes requiring novel or updated critical frameworks. For example, environmental anxieties, largely absent in 1950s science fiction films (except for narratives involving colliding worlds or alien contacts) have appeared en masse in recent years, providing an updated view on the ethical issues posed by the fall of cities and communities (Taylor, “Urban”).In The Invasion of the Bodysnatchers and its remakes (1956, 1978, 1993), for example, the organic and vegetal nature of the aliens draws the viewer’s attention to an environment formed by combative species, allowing for threats of infestation, growth and decay of the self and individuality—a longstanding theme. In the most recent version, The Invasion (2007), special effects and directorial spirit render the orifice-seeking tendrils of the pod creatures threateningly vigorous and disturbing (Lim). More sanctimonious than physically invasive, the aliens in the 1951 version of The Day the Earth Stood Still are fed up with humankind’s fixation with atomic self-destruction, and threaten global obliteration on the earth (Cox). In the 2008 remake, the suave alien ambassador, Keanu Reeves, targets the environmental negligence of humanity.Science, including science as fiction, enters into disaster narratives in a variety of ways. Some are less obvious but provocative nonetheless; for example, movies dramatising the arrival of aliens such as War of the Worlds (1953 and 2005) or Alien (1979). These more subtle approaches can be personally confronting even without the mutation of victims into vegetables or zombies. Special effects technologies have made it possible to illustrate the course of catastrophic floods and earthquakes in considerable scientific and visual detail and to represent the interaction of natural disasters, the built environment, and people, from the scale of buildings, homes, and domestic lives to entire cities and urban populations.For instance, the blockbuster film The Day After Tomorrow (2004) runs 118 minutes, but has an uncertain fictional time frame of either a few weeks or 72 hours (if the film’s title is to taken literally). The movie shows the world as we know it being mostly destroyed. Tokyo is shattered by hailstones and Los Angeles is twisted by cyclones the likes of which Dorothy would never have seen. New York disappears beneath a mountainous tsunami. All of these events result from global climate change, though whether this is due to human (in) action or other causes is uncertain. Like their predecessors, the new wave of disaster movies like The Day After Tomorrow makes for questionable “art” (Annan). Nevertheless, their reception opens a window onto broader political and moral contexts for present anxieties. Some critics have condemned The Day After Tomorrow for its scientific inaccuracies—questioning the scale or pace of climate change. Others acknowledge errors while commending efforts to raise environmental awareness (Monbiot). Coincident with the film and criticisms in both the scientific and political arena is a new class of environmental heretic—the climate change denier. This is a shadowy character commonly associated with the presidency of George W. Bush and the oil lobby that uses minor inconsistencies of science to claim that climate change does not exist. One thing underlying both twisting facts for the purposes of making science fiction films and ignoring evidence of climate change is an infantile orientation towards the unknown. In this regard, recent films do what science fiction disaster films have always done. While freely mixing truths and half-truths for the purpose of heightened dramatic effect, they fulfil psychological tasks such as orchestrating nightmare scenarios and all too easy victories on the screen. Uncertainty regarding the precise cause, scale, or duration of cataclysmic natural phenomena is mirrored by suspension of disbelief in the viability of some human responses to portrayals of urban disaster. Science fiction, in other words, invites us to accept as possible the flight of Americans and their values to Mexico (The Day After Tomorrow), the voyage into earth’s molten core (The Core 2003), or the disposal of lava in LA’s drainage system (Volcano 1997). Reinforcing Sontag’s point, here too there is a lack of criticism of the real social and political conditions that bring about the fears depicted in the films (223). Moreover, much like news coverage, images in recent natural disaster films (like their predecessors) typically finish at the point where survivors are obliged to pick up the pieces and start all over again—the latter is not regarded as newsworthy. Allowing for developments in science fiction films and the disaster genre, Sontag’s observation remains accurate. The films are primarily concerned “with the aesthetics of destruction, with the peculiar beauties to be found in wreaking havoc, in making a mess” (213) rather than rebuilding. The Imagination of Disaster RecoverySontag’s essay contributes to an important critical perspective on science fiction film. Variations on her “psychological point of view” have been explored. (The two discourses—psychology and cinema—have parallel and in some cases intertwined histories). Moreover, in the intervening years, psychological or psychoanalytical terms and narratives have themselves become even more a part of popular culture. They feature in recent disaster films and disaster recovery discourse in the “real” world.Today, with greater frequency than in the 1950s and 60s films arguably, representations of alien invasion or catastrophic global warming serve to background conflict resolutions of a more quotidian and personal nature. Hence, viewers are led to suspect that Tom Cruise will be more likely to survive the rapacious monsters in the latest The War of the Worlds if he can become less narcissistic and a better father. Similarly, Dennis Quaid’s character will be much better prepared to serve a newly glaciated America for having rescued his son (and marriage) from the watery deep-freezer that New York City becomes in The Day After Tomorrow. In these films the domestic and familial comprise a domain of inter-personal and communal relations from which victims and heroes appear. Currents of thought from the broad literature of disaster studies and Western media also call upon this domain. The imagination of disaster recovery has come to partly resemble a set of problems organised around the needs of traumatised communities. These serve as an object of urban governance, planning, and design conceived in different ways, but largely envisioned as an organic unity that connects urban populations, their pasts, and settings in a meaningful, psychologically significant manner (Furedi; Hutchison and Bleiker; Boano). Terms like “place” or concepts like Boano’s “place-attachment" (38) feature in this discourse to describe this unity and its subjective dimensions. Consider one example. In August 2006, one year after Katrina, the highly respected Journal of Architectural Education dedicated a special issue to New Orleans and its reconstruction. Opening comments by editorialist Barbara Allen include claims presupposing enduring links between the New Orleans community conceived as an organic whole, its architectural heritage imagined as a mnemonic vehicle, and the city’s unique setting. Though largely unsupported (and arguably unsupportable) the following proposition would find agreement across a number of disaster studies and resonates in commonplace reasoning:The culture of New Orleans is unique. It is a mix of ancient heritage with layers and adaptations added by successive generations, resulting in a singularly beautiful cultural mosaic of elements. Hurricane Katrina destroyed buildings—though not in the city’s historic core—and displaced hundreds of thousands of people, but it cannot wipe out the memories and spirit of the citizens. (4) What is intriguing about the claim is an underlying intellectual project that subsumes psychological and sociological domains of reasoning within a distinctive experience of community, place, and memory. In other words, the common belief that memory is an intrinsic part of the human condition of shock and loss gives form to a theory of how urban communities experience disaster and how they might re-build—and justify rebuilding—themselves. This is problematic and invites anachronistic thinking. While communities are believed to be formed partly by memories of a place, “memory” is neither a collective faculty nor is it geographically bounded. Whose memories are included and which ones are not? Are these truly memories of one place or do they also draw on other real or imagined places? Moreover—and this is where additional circumspection is inspired by our reading of Sontag’s essay—does Allen’s editorial contribute to an aestheticised image of place, rather than criticism of the social and political conditions required for reconstruction to proceed with justice, compassionately and affectively? Allowing for civil liberties to enter the picture, Allen adds “it is necessary to enable every citizen to come back to this exceptional city if they so desire” (4). However, given that memories of places and desires for their recovery are not univocal, and often contain competing visions of what was and should be, it is not surprising they should result in competing expectations for reconstruction efforts. This has clearly proven the case for New Orleans (Vederber; Taylor, “Typologies”)ConclusionThe comparison of films invites an extension of Sontag’s analysis of the imagination of disaster to include the psychology, politics, and morality of rebuilding. Can a “psychological point of view” help us to understand not only the motives behind capturing so many scenes of destruction on screen and television, but also something of the creative impulses driving reconstruction? This invites a second question. How do some impulses, particularly those caricatured as the essence of an “enterprise culture” (Heap and Ross) associated with America’s “can-do” or others valorised as positive outcomes of catastrophe in The Upside of Down (Homer-Dixon), highlight or possibly obscure criticism of the conditions which made cities like New Orleans vulnerable in the first place? The broad outline of an answer to the second question begins to appear only when consideration of the ethics of disaster and rebuilding are taken on board. If “the upside” of “the down” wrought by Hurricane Katrina, for example, is rebuilding of any kind, at any price, and for any person, then the equation works (i.e., there is a silver lining for every cloud). If, however, the range of positives is broadened to include issues of social justice, then the figures require more complex arithmetic.ReferencesAllen, Barbara. “New Orleans and Katrina: One Year Later.” Journal of Architectural Education 60.1 (2006): 4.Annan, David. Catastrophe: The End of the Cinema? London: Lorrimer, 1975.Boano, Camillo. “‘Violent Space’: Production and Reproduction of Security and Vulnerabilities.” The Journal of Architecture 16 (2011): 37–55.Broderick, Mick, ed. Hibakusha Cinema: Hiroshima, Nagasaki and the Nuclear Image in Japanese Film. London: Kegan Paul, 1996.Cox, David. “Get This, Aliens: We Just Don’t Care!” The Guardian 15 Dec. 2008 ‹http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/filmblog/2008/dec/15/the-day-the-earth-stood-still›. Furedi, Frank. “The Changing Meaning of Disaster.” Area 39.4 (2007): 482–89.Heap, Shaun H., and Angus Ross, eds. Understanding the Enterprise Culture: Themes in the Work of Mary Douglas. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1992. Homer-Dixon, Thomas. The Upside of Down: Catastrophe, Creativity and the Renewal of Civilization. Washington, DC: Island Press, 2006.Hutchison, Emma, and Roland Bleiker. “Emotional Reconciliation: Reconstituting Identity and Community after Trauma.” European Journal of Social Theory 11 (2008): 385–403.Lim, Dennis. “Same Old Aliens, But New Neuroses.” New York Times 12 Aug. 2007: A17.Monbiot, George. “A Hard Rain's A-gonna Fall.” The Guardian 14 May 2004.Sontag, Susan. “The Imagination of Disaster” (1965). Against Interpretation and Other Essays. New York: Dell, 1979. 209–25.Taylor, William M. “Typologies of Katrina: Mnemotechnics in Post-Disaster New Orleans.” Interstices 13 (2012): 71–84.———. “Urban Disasters: Visualising the Fall of Cities and the Forming of Human Values.” Journal of Architecture 11.5 (2006): 603–12.Verderber, Stephen. “Five Years After – Three New Orleans Neighborhoods.” Journal of Architectural Education 64.1 (2010): 107–20.Zack, Naomi. Ethics for Disaster. New York: Rowman and Littlefield, 2009.———. “Philosophy and Disaster.” Homeland Security Affairs 2, article 5 (April 2006): ‹http://www.hsaj.org/?article=2.1.5›.FilmographyAlien. Dir. Ridley Scott. Brandywine Productions, 1979.Aliens. Dir. James Cameron. Brandywine Productions, 1986.Avatar. Dir. James Cameron. Lightstorm Entertainment et al., 2009.The Core. Dir. Jon Amiel. Paramount Pictures, 2003.The Day after Tomorrow. Dir. Roland Emmerich. 20th Century Fox, 2004.The Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Dir. Don Siegel. Allied Artists, 1956; also 1978 and 1993.The Invasion. Dirs. Oliver Hirschbiegel and Jame McTeigue. Village Roadshow et al, 2007.Prometheus. Dir. Ridley Scott. Scott Free and Brandywine Productions, 2012Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope. Dir. George Lucas. Lucasfilm, 1977.Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi. Dir. George Lucas. Lucasfilm, 1983.Volcano. Dir. Mick Jackson. 20th Century Fox, 1997.War of the Worlds. Dir. George Pal. Paramount, 1953; also Steven Spielberg. Paramount, 2005.Acknowledgments The authors are grateful to Oenone Rooksby and Joely-Kym Sobott for their assistance and advice when preparing this article. It was also made possible in part by a grant from the Australian Research Council.
APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles
21

Bowles-Smith, Emily. "Recovering Love’s Fugitive: Elizabeth Wilmot and the Oscillations between the Sexual and Textual Body in a Libertine Woman’s Manuscript Poetry." M/C Journal 11, no. 6 (November 28, 2008). http://dx.doi.org/10.5204/mcj.73.

Full text
Abstract:
Elizabeth Wilmot, Countess of Rochester, is best known to most modern readers as the woman John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, abducted and later wed. As Samuel Pepys memorably records in his diary entry for 28 May 1665:Thence to my Lady Sandwich’s, where, to my shame, I had not been a great while before. Here, upon my telling her a story of my Lord Rochester’s running away on Friday night last with Mrs Mallet, the great beauty and fortune of the North, who had supped at Whitehall with Mrs Stewart, and was going home to her lodgings with her grandfather, my Lord Haly, by coach; and was at Charing Cross seized on by both horse and footmen, and forcibly taken from him, and put into a coach with six horses, and two women provided to receive her, and carried away. Upon immediate pursuit, my Lord of Rochester (for whom the King had spoke to the lady often, but with no success) was taken at Uxbridge; but the lady is not yet heard of, and the King mighty angry and the Lord sent to the Tower. (http://www.pepysdiary.com/)Here Pepys provides an anecdote that offers what Helen Deutsch has described in another context as “the elusive possibility of truth embodied by ‘things in themselves,’ by the things, that is, preserved in anecdotal form” (28). Pepys’s diary entry yields up an “elusive possibility” of embodied truth; his version of Wilmot’s abduction solidifies what he perceives to be the most notable features of her identity: her beauty, her wealth, and her sexual trajectory.Pepys’s conclusion that “the lady is not yet heard of” complicates this idea of anecdotal preservation, for he neatly ties up his story of Wilmot’s body by erasing her from it: she is removed, voiceless and disembodied, from even this anecdote of her own abduction. Pepys’s double maneuver demonstrates the complex set of interactions surrounding the preservation of early modern women’s sexual and textual selves. Written into Pepys’s diary and writing in conversation with her husband, Wilmot has generally been treated as a subordinate historical and literary figure—a character rather than an agent or an author. The richness of Wilmot’s own writing has been largely ignored; her manuscript poetry has been treated as an artefact and a source of autobiographical material, whereas Rochester’s poetry—itself teeming with autobiographical details, references to material culture, and ephemera—is recognised and esteemed as literary. Rochester’s work provides a tremendous resource, a window through which we can read and re-read his wife’s work in ways that enlighten and open up readings rather than closing them down, and her works similarly complicate his writings.By looking at Wilmot as a case study, I would like to draw attention to some of the continued dilemmas that scholars face when we attempt to recover early modern women’s writing. With this study, I will focus on distinct features of Wilmot’s sexual and textual identity. I will consider assumptions about female docility; the politics and poetics of erotic espionage; and Wilmot’s construction of fugitive desires in her poetry. Like the writings of many early modern women, Wilmot’s manuscript poetry challenges assumptions about the intersections of gender, sexuality, and authorship. Early Modern Women’s Docile Bodies?As the entry from Pepys’s diary suggests, Wilmot has been constructed as a docile female body—she is rendered “ideal” according to a set of gendered practices by which “inferior status has been inscribed” on her body (Bartky 139). Contrasting Pepys’s references to Wilmot’s beauty and marriageability with Wilmot’s own vivid descriptions of sexual desire highlights Wilmot’s tactical awareness and deployment of her inscribed form. In one of her manuscript poems, she writes:Nothing ades to Loves fond fireMore than scorn and cold disdainI to cherish your desirekindness used but twas in vainyou insulted on your SlaveTo be mine you soon refusedHope hope not then the power to haveWhich ingloriously you used. (230)This poem yields up a wealth of autobiographical information and provides glimpses into Wilmot’s psychology. Rochester spent much of his married life having affairs with women and men, and Wilmot represents herself as embodying her devotion to her husband even as he rejects her. In a recent blog entry about Wilmot’s poetry, Ellen Moody suggests that Wilmot “must maintain her invulnerable guard or will be hurt; the mores damn her whatever she does.” Interpretations of Wilmot’s verse typically overlay such sentiments on her words: she is damned by social mores, forced to configure her body and desire according to rigorous social codes that expect women to be pure and inviolable yet also accessible to their lovers and “invulnerable” to the pain produced by infidelity. Such interpretations, however, deny Wilmot the textual and sexual agency accorded to Rochester, begging the question of whether or not we have moved beyond reading women’s writing as essential, natural, and embodied. Thus while these lines might in fact yield up insights into Wilmot’s psychosocial and sexual identities, we continue to marginalise her writing and by extension her author-self if we insist on taking her words at face value. Compare, for example, Wilmot’s verse to the following song by her contemporary Aphra Behn:Love in Fantastique Triumph satt,Whilst Bleeding Hearts a round him flow’d,For whom Fresh paines he did Create,And strange Tyranick power he show’d;From thy Bright Eyes he took his fire,Which round about, in sports he hurl’d;But ’twas from mine, he took desire,Enough to undo the Amorous World. (53) This poem, which first appeared in Behn’s tragedy Abdelazer (1677) and was later printed in Poems upon Several Occasions (1684), was one of Behn’s most popular lyric verses. In the 1920s and 1930s Ernest Bernbaum, Montague Summers, Edmund Gosse, and others mined Behn’s works for autobiographical details and suggested that such historical details were all that her works offered—a trend that continued, disturbingly, into the later half of the twentieth century. Since the 1980s, Paula R. Backscheider, Ros Ballaster, Catherine Gallagher, Robert Markley, Paul Salzman, Jane Spencer, and Janet Todd have shown that Behn’s works are not simple autobiographical documents; they are the carefully crafted productions of a literary professional. Even though Behn’s song evokes a masochistic relationship between lover and beloved much like Wilmot’s song, critics treat “Love Arm’d” as a literary work rather than a literal transcription of female desire. Of course there are material differences between Wilmot’s song and Behn’s “Love Arm’d,” the most notable of which involves Behn’s self-conscious professionalism and her poem’s entrenchment in the structures of performance and print culture. But as scholars including Kathryn King and Margaret J. M. Ezell have begun to suggest, print publication was not the only way for writers to produce and circulate literary texts. King has demonstrated the ways in which female authors of manuscripts were producing social texts (563), and Ezell has shown that “collapsing ‘public’ into ‘publication’” leads modern readers to “overlook the importance of the social function of literature for women as well as men” (39). Wilmot’s poems did not go through the same material, ideological, and commercial processes as Behn’s poems did, but they participated in a social and cultural network of exchange that operated according to its own rules and that, significantly, was the same network that Rochester himself used for the circulation of his verses. Wilmot’s writings constitute about half of the manuscript Portland PwV 31, held by Hallward Library, University of Nottingham—a manuscript catalogued in the Perdita Project but lacking a description and biographical note. Teresa D. Kemp has discussed the impact of the Perdita Project on the study of early modern women’s writing in Feminist Teacher, and Jill Seal Millman and Elizabeth Clarke (both of whom are involved with the project) have also written articles about the usability of the database. Like many of the women writers catalogued by the Perdita Project, Wilmot lacks her own entry in the Dictionary of National Biography and is instead relegated to the periphery in Rochester’s entry.The nineteen-page folio includes poems by both Rochester and Wilmot. The first eight poems are autograph manuscript poems by Rochester, and a scene from a manuscript play ‘Scaene 1st, Mr. Daynty’s chamber’ is also included. The remaining poems, excluding one without attribution, are by Wilmot and are identified on the finding aid as follows:Autograph MS poem, entitled ‘Song’, by Elizabeth WilmotAutograph MS poem, entitled ‘Song’, by Elizabeth WilmotAutograph MS poem, entitled ‘Song’, by Elizabeth WilmotMS poem, untitled, not ascribed Autograph MS poem, entitled ‘Song’, by Elizabeth WilmotAutograph MS poem, untitled, by Elizabeth WilmotAutograph MS poem, untitled, by Elizabeth WilmotAutograph MS poem, untitled, by Elizabeth Wilmot Autograph MS poem, untitled, by Elizabeth WilmotTwo of the songs (including the lyric quoted above) have been published in Kissing the Rod with the disclaimer that marks of revision reveal that “Lady Rochester was not serving as an amanuensis for her husband” yet the editors maintain that “some sort of literary collaboration cannot be ruled out” (230), implying that Rochester helped his wife write her poetry. Establishing a non-hierarchical strategy for reading women’s collaborative manuscript writing here seems necessary. Unlike Behn, who produced works in manuscript and in print and whose maximization of the slippages between these modes has recently been analyzed by Anne Russell, Wilmot and Rochester both wrote primarily in manuscript. Yet only Rochester’s writings have been accorded literary status by historians of the book and of manuscript theory such as Harold Love and Arthur Marotti. Even though John Wilders notes that Rochester’s earliest poems were dialogues written with his wife, the literariness of her contributions is often undercut. Wilders offers a helpful suggestion that the dialogues set up by these poems helps “hint … at further complexities in the other” (51), but the complexities are identified as sexual rather than textual. Further, the poems are treated as responses to Rochester rather than conversations with him. Readers like Moody, moreover, draw reflections of marital psychology from Wilmot’s poems instead of considering their polysemic qualities and other literary traits. Instead of approaching the lines quoted above from Wilmot’s song as indications of her erotic and conjugal desire for her husband, we can consider her confident deployment of metaphysical conceits, her careful rhymes, and her visceral imagery. Furthermore, we can locate ways in which Wilmot and Rochester use the device of the answer poem to build a complex dialogue rather than a hierarchical relationship in which one voice dominates the other. The poems comprising Portland PwV 31 are written in two hands and two voices; they complement one another, but neither contains or controls the other. Despite the fact that David Farley-Hills dismissively calls this an “‘answer’ to this poem written in Lady Rochester’s handwriting” (29), the verses coexist in playful exchange textually as well as sexually. Erotic Exchange, Erotic EspionageBut does a reorientation of literary criticism away from Wilmot’s body and towards her body of verse necessarily entail a loss of her sexual and artefactual identity? Along with the account from Pepys’s diary mentioned at the outset of this study, letters from Rochester to his wife survive that provide a prosaic account of the couple’s married life. For instance, Rochester writes to her: “I love not myself as much as you do” (quoted in Green 159). Letters from Rochester to his wife typically showcase his playfulness, wit, and ribaldry (in one letter, he berates the artist responsible for two miniatures of Wilmot in strokes that are humorous yet also charged with a satire that borders on invective). The couple’s relationship was beleaguered by the doubts, infidelities, and sexual double standards that an autobiographical reading of Wilmot’s songs yields up, therefore it seems as counterproductive for feminist literary theory, criticism, and recovery work to entirely dispense with the autobiographical readings as it seems reductive to entirely rely on them. When approaching works like these manuscript poems, then, I propose using a model of erotic exchange and erotic espionage in tandem with more text-bound modes of literary criticism. To make this maneuver, we might begin by considering Gayle Rubin’s proposition that “If women are the gifts, then it is men who are the exchange partners. And it is the partners, not the presents, upon whom reciprocal exchange confers its quasi-mystical power of social linkage” (398). Wilmot’s poetry relentlessly unsettles the binary set up between partner and present, thereby demanding a more pluralistic identification of sexual and textual economies. Wilmot constructs Rochester as absent (“Thats caused by absence norished by despaire”), which is an explicit inversion of the gendered terms stereotypically deployed in poetry (the absent woman in works by Rochester as well as later satirists like Jonathan Swift and Alexander Pope often catalyzes sexual desire) that also registers Wilmot’s autobiographical contexts. She was, during most of her married life, living with his mother, her own mother, and Rochester’s nieces in his house at Adderbury while he stayed in London. The desire in Wilmot’s poetry is textualised as much as it is sexualised; weaving this doublebraid of desires and designs together ultimately provides the most complete interpretation of the verses. I read the verses as offering a literary form of erotic espionage in which Wilmot serves simultaneously as erotic object and author. That is, she both is and is not the Cloris of her (and Rochester’s) poetry, capable of looking on and authorizing her desired and desiring body. The lyric in which Wilmot writes “He would return the fugitive with Shame” provides the clearest example of the interpretive tactic that I am proposing. The line, from Wilmot’s song “Cloris misfortunes that can be exprest,” refers to the deity of Love in its complete context:Such conquering charmes contribute to my chainAnd ade fresh torments to my lingering painThat could blind Love juge of my faithful flameHe would return the fugitive with ShameFor having bin insenceable to loveThat does by constancy it merritt prove. (232)The speaker of the poem invokes Cupid and calls on “blind Love” to judge “my faithful flame.” The beloved would then be returned “fugitive with Shame” because “blind Love” would have weighed the lover’s passion and the beloved’s insensibility. Interestingly, the gender of the beloved and the lover are not marked in this poem. Only Cupid is marked as male. Although the lover is hypothetically associated with femaleness in the final stanza (“She that calls not reason to her aid / Deserves the punishmentt”), the ascription could as easily be gendering the trait of irrationality as gendering the subject/author of the poem. Desire, complaint, and power circulate in the song in a manner that lacks clear reference; the reader receives glimpses into an erotic world that is far more ornately literary than it is material. That is, reading the poem makes one aware of tropes of power and desire, whereas actual bodies recede into the margins of the text—identifiable because of the author’s handwriting, not a uniquely female perspective on sexuality or (contrary to Moody’s interpretation) a specifically feminine acquiescence to gender norms. Strategies for Reading a Body of VerseWilmot’s poetry participates in what might be described as two distinct poetic and political modes. On one hand, her writing reproduces textual expectations about Restoration answer poems, songs and lyrics, and romantic verses. She crafts poetry that corresponds to the same textual conventions that men like Rochester, John Dryden, Abraham Cowley, and William Cavendish utilised when they wrote in manuscript. For Wilmot, as for her male contemporaries, such manuscript writing would have been socially circulated; at the same time, the manuscript documents had a fluidity that was less common in print texts. Dryden and Behn’s published writings, for instance, often had a more literary context (“Love Arm’d” refers to Abdelazer, not to Behn’s sexual identity), whereas manuscript writing often referred to coteries of readers and writers, friends and lovers.As part of the volatile world of manuscript writing, Wilmot’s poetry also highlights her embodied erotic relationships. But over-reading—or only reading—the poetry as depicting a conjugal erotics limits our ability to recover Wilmot as an author and an agent. Feminist recovery work has opened many new tactics for incorporating women’s writing into existing literary canons; it has also helped us imagine ways of including female domestic work, sexuality, and other embodied forms into our understanding of early modern culture. By drawing together literary recovery work with a more material interest in recuperating women’s sexual bodies, we should begin to recuperate women like Wilmot not simply as authors or bodies but as both. The oscillations between the sexual and textual body in Wilmot’s poetry, and in our assessments of her life and writings, should help us approach her works (like the works of Rochester) as possessing a three-dimensionality that they have long been denied. ReferencesBartky, Sandra Lee. “Foucault, Femininity, and the Modernization of Patriarchal Power.” In Writing on the Body: Female Embodiment and Feminist Theory. Ed. Katie Conboy, Nadia Medina, and Sarah Stanbury. New York: Columbia University Press, 1997. 129-54.Behn, Aphra. “Song. Love Arm’d.” The Works of Aphra Behn. Volume 1: Poetry. Ed. Janet Todd. London: William Pickering, 1992. 53.Clarke, Elizabeth. “Introducing Hester Pulter and the Perdita Project.” Literature Compass 2.1 (2005). ‹http://www.blackwell-compass.com/subject/literature/article_view?article_id=lico_articles_bsl159›. Deutsch, Helen. Loving Doctor Johnson. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005.Diamond, Irene, Ed. Feminism and Foucault: Reflections on Resistance. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1988.Ezell, Margaret J. M. Social Authorship and the Advent of Print. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999.Farley-Hill, David. Rochester’s Poetry. Totowa: Rowman and Littlefield, 1978. Greene, Graham. Lord Rochester’s Monkey. New York: Penguin, 1974. Greer, Germaine, Susan Hastings, Jeslyn Medoff, and Melinda Sansone, Ed. Kissing the Rod: An Anthology of Seventeenth-Century Women’s Verse. New York: Noonday Press, 1988. Kemp, Theresa D. “Early Women Writers.” Feminist Teacher 18.3 (2008): 234-39.King, Kathryn. “Jane Barker, Poetical Recreations, and the Sociable Text.” ELH 61 (1994): 551-70.Love, Harold, and Arthur F. Marotti. "Manuscript Transmission and Circulation." The Cambridge History of Early Modern English Literature. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 2002. 55-80. Love, Harold. "Systemizing Sigla." English Manuscript Studies 1100-1700. 11 (2002): 217-230. Marotti, Arthur F. "Shakespeare's Sonnets and the Manuscript Circulation of Texts in Early Modern England." A Companion to Shakespeare's Sonnets. Oxford: Blackwell, 2007. 185-203.McNay, Lois. Foucault And Feminism: Power, Gender, and the Self. Boston: Northeastern, 1992.Moody, Ellen. “Elizabeth Wilmot (neé Mallet), Countess of Rochester, Another Woman Poet.” Blog entry 16 March 2006. 11 Nov. 2008 ‹http://server4.moody.cx/index.php?id=400›. Pepys, Samuel. The Diary of Samuel Pepys. 23 Aug. 2008 ‹http://www.pepysdiary.com/archive/1665/05/28/index.php›. Rubin, Gayle. “The Traffic in Women: Notes on the ‘Political Economy’ of Sex.” Feminist Literary Theory and Criticism: A Norton Reader, ed. Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar, 392-413. New York: Norton, 2007.Russell, Anne. “Aphra Behn, Textual Communities, and Pastoral Sobriquets.” English Language Notes 40.4 (June 2003): 41-50.———. “'Public' and 'Private' in Aphra Behn's Miscellanies: Women Writers, Print, and Manuscript.” Write or Be Written: Early Modern Women Poets and Cultural Constraints. Ed. Barbara Smith and Ursula Appelt. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2001. 29-48. Sawicki, Jana. Disciplining Foucault: Feminism, Power and the Body. New York: Routledge, 1991.Seal, Jill. "The Perdita Project—A Winter's Report." Early Modern Literary Studies 6.3 (January, 2001): 10.1-14. ‹http://purl.oclc.org/emls/06-3/perdita.htm›.Wilders, John. “Rochester and the Metaphysicals.” In Spirit of Wit: Reconsiderations of Rochester. Ed. Jeremy Treglown. Hamden: Archon, 1982. 42-57.Wilmot, Elizabeth, Countess of Rochester. “Song” (“Nothing Ades to Love's Fond Fire”) and “Song” (“Cloris Misfortunes That Can Be Exprest”) in Kissing the Rod. 230-32.
APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles
22

Marshall, Jonathan. "Inciting Reflection." M/C Journal 8, no. 5 (October 1, 2005). http://dx.doi.org/10.5204/mcj.2428.

Full text
Abstract:
Literary history can be viewed alternately in a perspective of continuities or discontinuities. In the former perspective, what I perversely call postmodernism is simply an extension of modernism [which is], as everyone knows, a development of symbolism, which … is itself a specialisation of romanticismand who is there to say that the romantic concept of man does not find its origin in the great European Enlightenment? Etc. In the latter perspective, however, continuities [which are] maintained on a certain level of narrative abstraction (i.e., history [or aesthetic description]) are resisted in the interests of the quiddity and discreteness of art, the space that each work or action creates around itself. – Ihab Hassan Ihab Hassan’s words, published in 1975, continue to resonate today. How should we approach art? Can an artwork ever really fully be described by its critical review, or does its description only lead to an ever multiplying succession of terms? Michel Foucault spoke of the construction of modern sexuality as being seen as the hidden, irresolvable “truth” of our subjectivity, as that secret which we must constantly speak about, and hence as an “incitement to discourse” (Foucault, History of Sexuality). Since the Romantic period, the appreciation of aesthetics has been tied to the subjectivity of the individual and to the degree an art work appeals to the individual’s sense of self: to one’s personal refinement, emotions and so on. Art might be considered part of the truth of our subjectivity which we seem to be endlessly talking about – without, however, actually ever resolving the issue of what a great art work really is (anymore than we have resolved the issue of what natural sexuality is). It is not my aim to explicate the relationship between art and sex but to re-inject a strategic understanding of discourse, as Foucault understood it, back into commonplace, contemporary aesthetic criticism. The problems in rendering into words subjective, emotional experiences and formal aesthetic criteria continue to dog criticism today. The chief hindrances to contemporary criticism remain such institutional factors as the economic function of newspapers. Given their primary function as tools for the selling of advertising space, newspapers are inherently unsuited to sustaining detailed, informed dialogue on any topic – be it international politics or aesthetics. As it is, reviews remain short, quickly written pieces squeezed into already overloaded arts pages. This does not prevent skilled, caring writers and their editorial supporters from ensuring that fine reviews are published. In the meantime, we muddle through as best we can. I argue that criticism, like art, should operate self-consciously as an incitement to discourse, to engagement, and so to further discussion, poetry, et cetera. The possibility of an endless recession of theoretical terms and subjective responses should not dissuade us. Rather, one should provisionally accept the instrumentality of aesthetic discourse provided one is able always to bear in mind the nominalism which is required to prevent the description of art from becoming an instrument of repression. This is to say, aesthetic criticism is clearly authored in order to demonstrate something: to argue a point, to make a fruitful comparison, and so on. This does not mean that criticism should be composed so as to dictate aesthetic taste to the reader. Instead, it should act as an invitation to further responses – much as the art work itself does. Foucault has described discourse – language, terminologies, metaphorical conceits and those logical and poetic structures which underpin them – as a form of technology (Foucault, Archaeology of Knowledge and History of Sexuality). Different discursive forces arise in response to different cultural needs and contexts, including, indeed, those formulated not only by artists, but also by reviewers. As Hassan intimates, what is or is not “postmodernism”, for example, depends less on the art work itself – it is less a matter of an art work’s specific “quiddity” and its internal qualities – but is, rather, fundamentally dependent upon what one is trying to say about the piece. If one is trying to describe something novel in a work, something which relates it to a series of new or unusual forms which have become dominant within society since World War Two, then the term “postmodernism” most usefully applies. This, then, would entail breaking down the “the space that each work … creates around itself” in order to emphasise horizontal “continuities”. If, on the other hand, the critic wishes to describe the work from the perspective of historical developments, so as to trace the common features of various art works across a genealogical pattern running from Romanticism to the present day, one must de-emphasise the quiddity of the work in favour of vertical continuities. In both cases, however, the identification of common themes across various art works so as to aid in the description of wider historical or aesthetic conditions requires a certain “abstraction” of the qualities of the aesthetic works in question. The “postmodernism”, or any other quality, of a single art work thus remains in the eye of the beholder. No art work is definitively “postmodern” as such. It is only “postmodern” inasmuch as this description aids one in understanding a certain aspect of the piece and its relationship to other objects of analysis. In short, the more either an art work or its critical review elides full descriptive explication, the more useful reflections which might be voiced in its wake. What then is the instrumental purpose of the arts review as a genre of writing? For liberal humanist critics such as Matthew Arnold, F.R. Leavis and Harold Bloom, the role of the critic is straight forward and authoritative. Great art is said to be imbued with the spirit of humanity; with the very essence of our common subjectivity itself. Critics in this mode seek the truth of art and once it has been found, they generally construct it as unified, cohesive and of great value to all of humanity. The authors of the various avant-garde manifestoes which arose in Europe from the fin de siècle period onwards significantly complicated this ideal of universal value by arguing that such aesthetic values were necessarily abstract and so were not immediately visible within the content of the work per se. Such values were rather often present in the art work’s form and expression. Surrealism, Futurism, Supremacism, the Bauhaus and the other movements were founded upon the contention that these avant-garde art works revealed fundamental truths about the essence of human subjectivity: the imperious power of the dream at the heart of our emotional and psychic life, the geometric principles of colour and shape which provide the language for all experience of the sublime, and so on. The critic was still obliged to identify greatness and to isolate and disseminate those pieces of art which revealed the hidden truth of our shared human experience. Few influential art movements did not, in fact, have a chief theoretician to promote their ideals to the world, be it Ezra Pound and Leavis as the explicators of the works of T.S. Eliot, Martin Esslin for Beckett, or the artist her or himself, such as choreographers Martha Graham or Merce Cunningham, both of whom described in considerable detail their own methodologies to various scribes. The great challenge presented in the writings of Foucault, Derrida, Hassan and others, however, is to abandon such a sense of universal aesthetic and philosophical value. Like their fellow travellers within the New Left and soixante huit-ièmes (the agitators and cultural critics of 1968 Paris), these critics contend that the idea of a universal human subjectivity is problematic at best, if not a discursive fiction, which has been used to justify repression, colonialism, the unequal institutional hierarchies of bourgeois democratic systems, and so on. Art does not therefore speak of universal human truths. It is rather – like aesthetic criticism itself – a discursive product whose value should be considered instrumentally. The kind of a critical relationship which I am proposing here might provisionally be classified as discursive or archaeological criticism (in the Foucauldian sense of tracing discursive relationships and their distribution within any given cross-section or strata of cultural life). The role of the critic in such a situation is not one of acknowledging great art. Rather, the critic’s function becomes highly strategic, with interpretations and opinions regarding art works acting as invitations to engagement, consideration and, hence, also to rejection. From the point of view of the audience, too, the critic’s role is one of utility. If a critical description prompts useful, interesting or pleasurable reflections in the reader, then the review has been effective. If it has not, it has no role to play. The response to criticism thus becomes as subjective as the response to the art work itself. Similarly, just as Marcel Duchamp’s act of inverting a urinal and calling it art showed that anyone could be an artist provided they adopted a suitably creative vision of the objects which surrounded them, so anyone and everyone is a legitimate critic of any art work addressed to him or her as an audience. The institutional power accorded to critics by merit of the publications to which they are attached should not obfuscate the fact that anyone has the moral right to venture a critical judgement. It is not actually logically possible to be “right” or “wrong” in attributing qualities to an art work (although I have had artists assert the contrary to me). I like noise art, for example, and find much to stimulate my intellect and my affect in the chaotic feedback characteristic of the work of Merzbow and others. Many others however simply find such sounds to constitute unpleasant noise. Neither commentator is “right”. Both views co-exist. What is important is how these ideas are expressed, what propositions are marshalled to support either position, and how internally cohesive are the arguments supplied by supporters of either proposition. The merit of any particular critical intervention is therefore strictly formal or expressive, lying in its rhetorical construction, rather than in the subjective content of the criticism itself, per se. Clearly, such discursive criticism is of little value in describing works devised according to either an unequivocally liberal humanist or modernist avant-garde perspective. Aesthetic criticism authored in this spirit will not identify the universal, timeless truths of the work, nor will it act as an authoritative barometer of aesthetic value. By the same token though, a recognition of pluralism and instrumentality does not necessarily entail the rejection of categories of value altogether. Such a technique of aesthetic analysis functions primarily in the realm of superficial discursive qualities and formal features, rather than subterranean essences. It is in this sense both anti-Romantic and anti-Platonic. Discursive analysis has its own categories of truth and evaluation. Similarities between works, influences amongst artists and generic or affective precedents become the primary objects of analysis. Such a form of criticism is, in this sense, directly in accord with a similarly self-reflexive, historicised approach to art making itself. Where artists are consciously seeking to engage with their predecessors or peers, to find ways of situating their own work through the development of ideas visible in other cultural objects and historic aesthetic works, then the creation of art becomes itself a form of practical criticism or praxis. The distinction between criticism and its object is, therefore, one of formal expression, not one of nature or essence. Both practices engage with similar materials through a process of reflection (Marshall, “Vertigo”). Having described in philosophical and critical terms what constitutes an unfettered, democratic and strategic model of discursive criticism, it is perhaps useful to close with a more pragmatic description of how I myself attempt to proceed in authoring such criticism and, so, offer at least one possible (and, by definition, subjective) model for discursive criticism. Given that discursive analysis itself developed out of linguistic theory and Saussure’s discussion of the structural nature of signification, it is no surprise that the primary methodology underlying discursive analysis remains that of semiotics: namely how systems of representation and meaning mutually reinforce and support each other, and how they fail to do so. As a critic viewing an art work, it is, therefore, always my first goal to attempt to identify what it is that the artist appears to be trying to do in mounting a production. Is the art work intended as a cultural critique, a political protest, an avant-garde statement, a work of pure escapism, or some other kind of project – and hence one which can be judged according to the generic forms and values associated with such a style in comparison with those by other artists who work in this field? Having determined or intuited this, several related but nominally distinct critical reflections follow. Firstly, how effectively is this intent underpinning the art work achieved, how internally consistent are the tools, forms and themes utilised within the production, and do the affective and historic resonances evoked by the materials employed therein cohere into a logical (or a deliberately fragmented) whole? Secondly, how valid or aesthetically interesting is such a project in the first place, irrespective of whether it was successfully achieved or not? In short, how does the artist’s work compare with its own apparent generic rules, precedents and peers, and is the idea behind the work a contextually valid one or not? The questions of value which inevitably come into these judgements must be weighed according to explicit arguments regarding context, history and genre. It is the discursive transparency of the critique which enables readers to mentally contest the author. Implicitly transcendental models of universal emotional or aesthetic responses should not be invoked. Works of art should, therefore, be judged according to their own manifest terms, and, so, according to the values which appear to govern the relationships which organise materials within the art work. They should also, however, be viewed from a position definitively outside the work, placing the overall concept and its implicit, underlying theses within the context of other precedents, cultural values, political considerations and so on. In other words, one should attempt to heed Hassan’s caution that all art works may be seen both from the perspective of historico-genealogical continuities, as well as according to their own unique, self-defining characteristics and intentions. At the same time, the critical framework of the review itself – while remaining potentially dense and complex – should be as apparent to the reader as possible. The kind of criticism which I author is, therefore, based on a combination of art-historical, generic and socio-cultural comparisons. Critics are clearly able to elaborate more parallels between various artistic and cultural activities than many of their peers in the audience simply because it is the profession of the former to be as familiar with as wide a range of art-historical, cultural and political materials as is possible. This does not, however, make the opinions of the critic “correct”, it merely makes them more potentially dense. Other audiences nevertheless make their own connections, while spectators remain free to state that the particular parallels identified by the critic were not, to their minds, as significant as the critic would contend. The quantity of knowledge from which the critic can select does not verify the accuracy of his or her observations. It rather enables the potential richness of the description. In short, it is high time critics gave up all pretensions to closing off discourse by describing aesthetic works. On the contrary, arts reviewing, like arts production itself, should be seen as an invitation to further discourse, as a gift offered to those who might want it, rather than a Leavisite or Bloom-esque bludgeon to instruct the insensitive masses as to what is supposed to subjectively enlighten and uplift them. It is this sense of engagement – between critic, artist and audience – which provides the truly poetic quality to arts criticism, allowing readers to think creatively in their own right through their own interaction with a collaborative process of rumination on aesthetics and culture. In this way, artists, audiences and critics come to occupy the same terrain, exchanging views and constructing a community of shared ideas, debate and ever-multiplying discursive forms. Ideally, written criticism would come to occupy the same level of authority as an argument between an audience member and a critic at the bar following the staging of a production. I admit myself that even my best written compositions rarely achieve the level of playful interaction which such an environment often provokes. I nevertheless continue to strive for such a form of discursive exchange and bibulous poetry. References Apollonio, Umbro, ed. Futurist Manifestos. London: Thames and Hudson, 1973. Arnold, Matthew. Essays in Criticism. London: Macmillan, 1903-27, published as 2 series. Barthes, Roland. Mythologies. Trans. by Annette Lavers. London: Vintage, 1993. Bloom, Harold. Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human. New York: Riverhead, 1998. Benjamin, Walter. Reflections: Essays, Aphorisms, Autobiographical Writings. Trans. by Edmund Jephcott. New York: Harcourt, 1978. Breton, André. Manifestoes of Surrealism. Trans. by Richard Seaver and Helen Lane. Ann Arbor: Michigan UP, 1972. Eliot, T.S. Collected Poems 1909-1962. London: Faber, 1963. Esslin, Martin. Theatre of the Absurd. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1968. Foucault, Michel. The Archaeology of Knowledge. Trans. by A.M. Sheridan Smith. London: Tavistock, 1972. ———. The History of Sexuality: Volume I: An Introduction. Trans. by Robert Hurley. London: Penguin, 1990. Fukuyama, Francis. The End of History and the Last Man. London: Penguin, 1992. Graham, Martha. Blood Memory. New York: Doubleday, 1991. Hassan, Ihab. “Joyce, Beckett and the Postmodern Imagination.” Triquarterly 32.4 (1975): 192ff. Jameson, Fredric. “Postmodernism, or the Cultural Dominant of Late Capitalism,” New Left Review 146 (1984): 53-92. Leavis, F.R. F.R. Leavis: Essays and Documents. Eds. Ian MacKillop and Richard Storer. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995. Malevich, Kazimir. In Penny Guggenheim, ed. Art of This Century – Drawings – Photographs – Sculpture – Collages. New York: Art Aid, 1942. Marshall, Jonathan. “Documents in Australian Postmodern Dance: Two Interviews with Lucy Guerin,” in Adrian Kiernander, ed. Dance and Physical Theatre, special edition of Australasian Drama Studies 41 (October 2002): 102-33. ———. “Operatic Tradition and Ambivalence in Chamber Made Opera’s Recital (Chesworth, Horton, Noonan),” in Keith Gallasch and Laura Ginters, eds. Music Theatre in Australia, special edition of Australasian Drama Studies 45 (October 2004): 72-96. ———. “Vertigo: Between the Word and the Act,” Independent Performance Forums, series of essays commissioned by Not Yet It’s Difficult theatre company and published in RealTime Australia 35 (2000): 10. Merzbow. Venereology. Audio recording. USA: Relapse, 1994. Richards, Alison, Geoffrey Milne, et al., eds. Pearls before Swine: Australian Theatre Criticism, special edition of Meajin 53.3 (Spring 1994). Tzara, Tristan. Seven Dada Manifestos and Lampisteries. Trans. by Barbara Wright. London: Calder, 1992. Vaughan, David. Merce Cunningham: Fifty Years. Ed. Melissa Harris. New York: Aperture, 1997. Citation reference for this article MLA Style Marshall, Jonathan. "Inciting Reflection: A Short Manifesto for and Introduction to the Discursive Reviewing of the Arts." M/C Journal 8.5 (2005). echo date('d M. Y'); ?> <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0510/08-marshall.php>. APA Style Marshall, J. (Oct. 2005) "Inciting Reflection: A Short Manifesto for and Introduction to the Discursive Reviewing of the Arts," M/C Journal, 8(5). Retrieved echo date('d M. Y'); ?> from <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0510/08-marshall.php>.
APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles
23

Janowski, Andrzej, and Piotr Kotowicz. "Stan badań nad uzbrojeniem wczesnośredniowiecznym w Polsce – w 65 lat po studiach Andrzeja Nadolskiego." Światowit. Supplement. Series B. Barbaricum, January 1, 2021, 85–121. http://dx.doi.org/10.47888/uw.2720-0817.2021.13.pp.85-121.

Full text
Abstract:
The State of Research on Early Medieval Weaponry in Poland – 65 Years After Studies by Andrzej NadolskiAndrzej. Nadolski’s monograph “Studies of the early medieval arms and armour from the Polish lands in the 10th-12th centuries” that was published in 1954 was the first major work in Polish scholarship that made use of archaeological sources in studies on military affairs. Earlier works by Józef Łepkowski, Tadeusz Korzon and Władysław Dziewanowski were actually solely based on written and iconographic sources. The period of 65 years which has passed since the publication of Andrzej Nadolski’s book is a good moment for undertaking an attempt at confronting it with the present state of research on early medieval weaponry in Poland. Nadolski’s typological proposals are still in use; on the other hand, due the growth in the number of finds the source basis of his book has become significantly obsolete. It is possible to isolate two periods in studies on early medieval arms and armour: until 1989 and after this date. This caesura is not a matter of incident. There is no doubt that democratisation of public life after the fall of communism in Poland significantly influenced the mentality of subsequent generations of researchers. Furthermore, it facilitated access to foreign literature, which was manifested in a broader research perspective. In the first period, activities in the Łódź research centre come to the forefront. These were examinations undertaken both by Andrzej Nadolski himself (in the years 1947–1993 he published about 70 works on weaponry and military affairs) or by his students gathered in the Atelier for History of Old Weaponry in the Institute of History of Material Culture of the Polish Academy of Sciences. A research team that was formed here was termed “the Łódź school of archaeological arms and armour studies”. Within the framework of this Atelier a few research works originated which became canonical in Central European arms and armour literature. What is more, Nadolski was one of initiators and authors of the first arms and armour exhibition in the history of post-war Poland (1978). He was also a founder and the first editor of the Fasciculi Archaeologiae Historicae periodical. It has been issued since 1986 by the Łódź Branch of the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology of the Polish Academy of Sciences. Papers on weaponry and military issues have constituted a significant part of each volume of this journal. Archaeological arms and armour studies before 1989 were also pursued in other research centres. In Poznań, it was as early as the 1950s that Zofia Hilczerówna and Jan Żak were carrying out studies on equestrian equipment and parts of horse tack. Among researchers who were active in Wrocław one must mention Wanda Sarnowska and later on Krzysztof Wachowski. A dozen of so works also originated in other research centres; these works, however, were rather short (sometimes a few sentences long) mentions or papers which could be now termed case studies. Among these studies, the greatest number concerned swords, parts of horse tack and spurs. It must be underlined that it was as early as in the late 1950s that metallurgical examinations and analyses commenced to be used in order to answer questions concerning the technology and methods of weaponry manufacture. To sum up the first period of post-war arms and armour studies, the very fact that such research was undertaken and that archaeological finds were taken into consideration was of significance. What also deserves attention was the use of results of analyses of medieval iconography in formal and typological studies, as well as the first cases of technological examinations. As regard deficiencies, one must mention an almost complete absence of research works on battlefields, a rather low interest in studies on staff and butt weapons, as well as in research concerning the period before the 10th c. After the fall of communism in 1989 certain changes took place in the structure of the community of weaponry researchers. Students of Nadolski formed arms and armour research centres at the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń and at the University of Łódź. The 1990s first of all brought a number of studies which critically assessed early medieval archaeological sources that had been gathered so far. Their criticism especially concerned the importance of weapons as chronology markers, with special reference to spurs with hook-shaped terminals. In the Łódź centre a study of Polish military technique until 1500 and two volumes of history of late medieval weaponry were completed in this time. Furthermore, research on stirrups and weaponry of nomadic peoples were also carried out. On the other hand, the most important issue in the Poznań centre was the presence of Scandinavian weaponry and warriors in the territory of the Piast State. Furthermore, individual finds of weaponry were still published in various regions of Poland. Sometimes these finds underwent more in-depth specialist analyses, aimed at identifying their technology of manufacture. More extensive studies on pre-Romanesque spurs and swords can be seen as exceptions. The post-millennium period is remarkable for an intensification of studies on early medieval weaponry. This intensification was spurred by three initiatives which were undertaken independently in various research centres. The first of these came into being in the Łódź centre and concerned a new study on early medieval weaponry from various regions of Poland. This ambitious plan was only partially fulfilled by means of publications of arms and armour from Western Pomerania and Lesser Poland. The second initiative was related to the fact of undertaking systematic underwater examinations in Lake Lednica by the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń. The assemblage of weaponry that was gathered in the course of this research is one of the most numerous in Poland. Apart from papers of various size, it was also discussed in three monographs concerning axes, swords as well as staff weapons and protective equipment. The third initiative is the foundation of anew periodical “Acta Militaria Mediaevalia” which focuses on medieval weaponry. The idea of this journal was proposed by Piotr Kotowicz and the first volume was published in 2005. Due to these initiatives it came to a sort of “changing of the guard” in the arms and armour research community. Researchers from a new generation came into prominence. They were focusing both on regional research, related to place of their employment, but were also undertaking more general studies. This resulted in a number of new works. Apart from swords and axes, which were also often dealt with in previous studies, more attention was paid to spur thong fittings, sword scabbard chapes, mace heads, flail striking ends and to shields. A separate research trend were works devoted to ideological significance of weapons, their religious and symbolic meanings as well as studies on trauma inflicted by weapons. Cyclical meetings within the framework of the Andrzej Nadolski Colloquia have become an opportunity for exchange of ideas and presentation of research results. The same role has been fulfilled by Festschriften for doyens of Polish arms and armour studies. Analogously to the previous period, however, a number of weaponry studies came into being beyond the main trends. In result of this, numerous arms and armour papers sometimes appeared in niche publications. Regrettably, the last two decades have also brought an increase in activity of illegal treasure hunters equipped with advanced metal detectors. Their activity has led to a discovery of an unspecified number of finds of weaponry (hundreds, if not thousands). Out of these, only few found their way to the academic discourse and (sometimes) to collections of museum institutions. Discoveries of the last 65 years have dramatically enlarged the source basis of weaponry finds. For instance, the number of axes (178 specimens were known to Nadolski) has increased five times (891 finds in 2014). This is also the case with other categories of finds. In such a huge assemblage of artefacts there are finds which cannot be classified with the use of existing typologies. This enforced corrections of typologies which are in use or creations of new ones. The recent period has also brought numerous works discussing multi-aspect specialist analyses of arms and armour, also including studies on weapon parts made from organic materials (leather, wood and textiles). On the other hand, as compared with archaeological finds, much less attention was paid to iconographic depictions of weaponry and interpretation of written sources. This overview of issues in research on early medieval weaponry in the territory of Poland demonstrates an enormous progress which has taken place since the publication of Nadolski’s monograph. This is first of all a quantitative progress – it can be speculated that about a dozen or so thousand of various finds related to military equipment of 8th–mid-13th c. warriors have been discovered so far in the territory of Poland. Due to international contacts, access to the most recent literature and a possibility of a more and more precise dating of artefacts, this progress is also qualitative in its nature. In the discussed period, some categories of weapons became subjects of separate studies (e.g., axes or swords), while other still wait for their monographers. Concerning other research postulates, one must mention a need for a comprehensive analysis of sources from the so-called tribal period or weapons from eastern borderlands of present-day Poland. It is also necessary to renew monographic studies for individual regions of the country. As it can be seen, the community of students of early medieval weaponry in Poland still face a great deal of work and numerous challenges.
APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles
24

Morgan, Carol. "Capitalistic Ideology as an 'Interpersonal Game'." M/C Journal 3, no. 5 (October 1, 2000). http://dx.doi.org/10.5204/mcj.1880.

Full text
Abstract:
"Outwit, Outplay, Outlast" "All entertainment has hidden meanings, revealing the nature of the culture that created it" ( 6). This quotation has no greater relevance than for the most powerful entertainment medium of all: television. In fact, television has arguably become part of the "almost unnoticed working equipment of civilisations" (Cater 1). In other words, TV seriously affects our culture, our society, and our lives; it affects the way we perceive and approach reality (see Cantor and Cantor, 1992; Corcoran, 1984; Freedman, 1990; Novak, 1975). In this essay, I argue that the American television programme Survivor is an example of how entertainment (TV in particular) perpetuates capitalistic ideologies. In other words, Survivor is a symptom of American economic culture, which is masked as an "interpersonal game". I am operating under the assumption that television works "ideologically to promote and prefer certain meanings of the world, to circulate some meanings rather than others, and to serve some interests rather than others" (Fiske 20). I argue that Survivor promotes ideals on two levels: economic and social. On the economic level, it endorses the pursuit of money, fame, and successful careers. These values are prevalent in American society and have coalesced into the myth of the "American Dream", which stands for the opportunity for each individual to get ahead in life; someone can always become wealthy (see White, 1988; Cortes, 1982; Grambs, 1982; Rivlin, 1992). These values are an integral part of a capitalistic society, and, as I will illustrate later, Survivor is a symptom of these ideological values. On the second level, it purports preferred social strategies that are needed to "win" at the game of capitalism: forming alliances, lying, and deception. Ideology The discussion of ideology is critical if we are to better understand the function of Survivor in American culture. Ideologies are neither "ideal" nor "spiritual," but rather material. Ideologies appear in specific social institutions and practices, such as cultural artefacts (Althusser, For Marx 232). In that way, everyone "lives" in ideologies. Pryor suggests that ideology in cultural practices can operate as a "rhetoric of control" by structuring the way in which people view the world: Ideology `refracts' our social conditions of existence, structuring consciousness by defining for us what exists, what is legitimate and illegitimate, possible and impossible, thinkable and unthinkable. Entering praxis as a form of persuasion, ideology acts as a rhetoric of control by endorsing and legitimising certain economic, social and political arrangements at the expense of others and by specifying the proper role and position of the individual within those arrangements. (4) Similarly, Althusser suggests, "ideology is the system of ideas and representations which dominate the mind of a man or a social group" (Ideology 149). Thus, ideology, for Althusser, represents the way individuals "live" their relations to society (Eagleton 18). Grossberg suggests, "within such positions, textuality is a productive practice whose (imaginary) product is experience itself. Experience can no longer serve as a mediation between the cultural and the social since it is not merely within the cultural but is the product of cultural practices" (409). The "text" for study, then, becomes the cultural practices and structures, which determine humans. Althusser concludes that ideology reifies our affective, unconscious relations with the world, and determines how people are pre-reflectively bound up in social reality (Eagleton 18). Survivor as a Text In the United States, the "reality TV" genre of programming, such as The Real World, Road Rules, and Big Brother (also quite famous in Europe), are currently very popular. Debuting in May, 2000, Survivor is one of the newest additions to this "reality programming." Survivor is a game, and its theme is: "Outwit, Outplay, Outlast". The premise is the following: Sixteen strangers are "stranded" on a remote island in the South China Sea. They are divided into two "tribes" of eight, the "Pagong" and "Tagi." They have to build shelter, catch food, and establish a "new society". They must work together as a team to succeed, but ultimately, they are competitors. The tribes compete in games for "rewards" (luxury items such as food), and also for "immunity". Every third day, they attend a "tribal council" in which they vote one member off the island. Whoever won the "immunity challenge" (as a tribe early in the show, later, as an individual) cannot be voted off. After several episodes, the two tribes merge into one, "Rattana," as they try to "outwit, outlast, and outplay" the other contestants. The ultimate prize is $1,000,000. The Case of Survivor As Althusser (For Marx) and Pryor suggest, ideology exists in cultural artefacts and practices. In addition, Pryor argues that ideology defines for us what is "legitimate and illegitimate," and "thinkable and unthinkable" by "endorsing certain economic and social arrangements" (4). This is certainly true in the case of Survivor. The programme is definitely a cultural artefact that endorses certain practices. In fact, it defines for us the "preferred" economic and social arrangements. The show promotes for us the economic arrangement of "winning" money. It also defines the social arrangements that are legitimate, thinkable, and necessary to win the interpersonal and capitalistic game. First, let us discuss the economic arrangements that Survivor purports. The economic arrangements that Survivor perpetuates are in direct alignment with those of the "game" of capitalism: to "win" money, success, and/or fame (which will lead to money). While Richard, the $1,000,000 prize winner, is the personification of the capitalistic/American Dream come true, the other contestants certainly have had their share of money and fame. For example, after getting voted off the island, many of the former cast members appeared on the "talk show circuit" and have done many paid interviews. Joel Klug has done approximately 250 interviews (Abele, Alexander and Lasswell 62), and Stacey Stillman is charging $1200 for a "few quotes," and $1800 for a full-length interview (Millman et al. 16). Jenna Lewis has been busy with paid television engagements that require cross country trips (Abele, Alexander and Lasswell 63). In addition, some have made television commercials. Both B. B. Andersen and Stacey Stillman appeared in Reebok commercials that were aired during the remaining Survivor episodes. Others are making their way even farther into Hollywood. Most have their own talent agents who are getting them acting jobs. For example, Sean Kenniff is going to appear in a role on a soap opera, and Gervase Peterson is currently "sifting through offers" to act in television situation comedies and movies. Dirk Been has been auditioning for movie roles, and Joel Klug has moved to Los Angeles to "become a star". Even Sonja Christopher, the 63-year-old breast cancer survivor and the first contestant voted off, is making her acting debut in the television show, Diagnosis Murder (Abele, Alexander and Lasswell 57). Finally, two of the women contestants from Survivor were also tempted with a more "risky" offer. Both Colleen Haskell and Jenna Lewis were asked to pose for Playboy magazine. While these women are certainly attractive, they are not the "typical-looking" playboy model. It is obvious that their fame has put them in the mind of Hugh Heffner, the owner of Playboy. No one is revealing the exact amount of the offers, but rumours suggest that they are around $500,000. Thus, it is clear that even though these contestants did not win the $1,000,000, they are using their famous faces to "win" the capitalistic game anyway. Not only does Survivor purport the "preferred" economic arrangements, it also defines for us the social arrangements needed to win the capitalistic game: interpersonal strategy. The theme of the strategy needed to win the game is "nice guys don't last". This is demonstrated by the fact that Gretchen, a nice, strong, capable, and nurturing "soccer mother" was the seventh to be voted off the island. There were also many other "nice" contestants who were eventually voted off for one reason or another. However, on the other hand, Richard, the million-dollar winner, used "Machiavellian smarts" to scheme his way into winning. After the final episode, he said, "I really feel that I earned where I am. The first hour on the island I stepped into my strategy and thought, 'I'm going to focus on how to establish an alliance with four people early on.' I spend a lot of time thinking about who people are and why they interact the way they do, and I didn't want to just hurt people's feelings or do this and toss that one out. I wanted this to be planned and I wanted it to be based on what I needed to do to win the game. I don't regret anything I've done or said to them and I wouldn't change a thing" (Hatch, n.pag.). One strategy that worked to Richard's advantage was that upon arriving to the island, he formed an alliance with three other contestants: Susan, Rudy, and Kelly. They decided that they would all vote the same person off the island so that their chances of staying were maximised. Richard also "chipped in", did some "dirty work", and ingratiated himself by being the only person who could successfully catch fish. He also interacted with others strategically, and decided who to vote off based on who didn't like him, or who was more likeable than him (or the rest of the alliance). Thus, it is evident that being part of an alliance is definitely needed to win this capitalistic game, because the four people who were part of the only alliance on the island were the final contestants. In fact, in Rudy's (who came in third place) final comments were, "my advice for anybody who plays this game is form an alliance and stick with it" (Boesch, n.pag.). This is similar to corporate America, where many people form "cliques", "alliances", or "particular friendships" in order to "get ahead". Some people even betray others. We definitely saw this happen in the programme. This leads to another essential ingredient to the social arrangements: lying and deception. In fact, in episode nine, Richard (the winner) said to the camera, "outright lying is essential". He also revealed that part of his strategy was making a big deal of his fishing skills just to distract attention from his schemings. He further stated, "I'm not still on the island because I catch fish, I'm here because I'm smart" (qtd. in Damitol, n.pag.). For example, he once thought the others did not appreciate his fishing skills. Thus, he decided to stop fishing for a few days so that the group would appreciate him more. It was seemingly a "nasty plan", especially considering that at the time, the other tribe members were rationing their rice. However, it was this sort of behaviour that led him to win the game. Another example of the necessity for lying is illustrated in the fact that the alliance of Richard, Rudy, Sue, and Kelly (the only alliance) denied to the remaining competitors that they were scheming. Sue even blatantly lied to the Survivor host, Jeff Probst, when he asked her if there was an alliance. However, when talking to the cameras, they freely admitted to its existence. While the alliance strategy worked for most of the game, in the end, it was destined to dissolve when they had to start voting against each other. So, just as in a capitalistic society, it is ultimately, still "everyone for her/himself". The best illustration of this fact is the final quote that Kelly made, "I learned early on in the game [about trust and lying]. I had befriended her [Sue -- part of Kelly's alliance]; I trusted her and she betrayed me. She was lying to me, and was plotting against me from very early on. I realised that and I knew that. Therefore I decided not to trust her, not to be friends with her, not to be honest with her, for my own protection" (Wiglesworth, n.pag.). Therefore, even within the winning alliance, there was a fair amount of distrust and deception. Conclusion In conclusion, I have demonstrated how Survivor promotes ideals on two levels: economic and social. On the economic level, it endorses the pursuit of money, fame, and successful careers. On the social level, it purports preferred interpersonal strategies that are needed to "win" at the game of capitalism. In fact, it promotes the philosophy that "winning money at all costs is acceptable". We must win money. We must lie. We must scheme. We must deceive. We must win fame. Whether or not the audience interpreted the programme this way, what is obvious to everyone is the following: six months ago, the contestants on Survivor were ordinary American citizens; now they are famous and have endless opportunities for wealth. References Abele, R., M. Alexander and M. Lasswell. "They Will Survive." TV Guide 48.38 (2000): 56-63. Althusser, L. For Marx. Trans. Ben Brewster. New York: Vintage Books, 1969, 1970. ---. "Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses." Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays. Trans. Ben Brewster. London: New Left Books, 1971. ---. Philosophy and the Spontaneous Philosophy of the Scientists. Trans. Ben Brewster. London: Verso, 1990. Boesch, R. "Survivor Profiles: Rudy." CBS Survivors Website. 2000. 26 Sep. 2000 <http://www.cbs.com/primetime/survivor/survivors/rudy_f.shtml>. Cantor, M.G., and J. M. Cantor. Prime Time Television Content and Control. Newbury Park: Sage Publications, 1992. Cater, D. "Television and Thinking People." Television as a Social Force: New Approaches to TV Criticism. Ed. D. Cater and R. Adler. New York: Praeger Publications, 1975. 1-8. Corcoran, F. "Television as Ideological Apparatus: The Power and the Pleasure." Critical Studies in Mass Communication 1 (1984): 131-45. Cortes, C. E. "Ethnic Groups and the American Dream(s)." Social Education 47.6 (1982): 401-3. Damitol. "Episode 9A -- 'Oh God! My Eyes! My Eyes!' or 'Richard Gets Nekkid'." Survivorsucks.com. 2000. 16 Oct. 2000 <http://www.survivorsucks.com/summaries.s1.9a.php>. Eagleton, T. Ideology: An Introduction. London: Verso, 1991. Ellis, K. "Queen for One Day at a Time." College English 38.8 (1977): 775-81. Freedman, C. "History, Fiction, Film, Television, Myth: The Ideology of M*A*S*H." The Southern Review 26.1 (1990): 89-106. Grambs, J. D. "Mom, Apple Pie, and the American Dream." Social Education 47.6 (1982): 405-9. Grossberg, L. "Strategies of Marxist Cultural Interpretation." Critical Studies in Mass Communication 1 (1984): 392-421. Jones, G. Honey, I'm Home! Sitcoms Selling the American Dream. New York: Grove Weidenfeld, 1992. Hatch, R. "Survivor Profiles: Richard." CBS Survivors Website. 2000. 26 Sep. 2000 <http://www.cbs.com/primetime/survivor/survivors/richard_f.shtml>. Hofeldt, R. L. "Cultural Bias in M*A*S*H." Society 15.5 (1978): 96-9. Lichter, S. R., L. S. Lichter, and S. Rothman. Watching America. New York: Prentice Hall, 1991. Millman, J., J. Stark, and B. Wyman. "'Survivor,' Complete." Salon Magazine 28 June 2000. 16 Oct. 2000 <http://www.salon.com/ent/tv/feature/2000/06/28/survivor_episodes/index.php>. Novak, M. "Television Shapes the Soul." Television as a Social Force: New Approaches to TV Criticism. Ed. D. Cater and R. Adler. New York: Praeger Publications, 1975. 9-20. Pryor, R. "Reading Ideology in Discourse: Charting a Rhetoric of Control." Unpublished Essay. Northern Illinois University, 1992. Rivlin, A. M. Reviving the American Dream. Washington, D. C.: The Brookings Institution, 1992. White, J. K. The New Politics of Old Values. Hanover: UP of New England, 1988. Wiglesworth, K. "Survivor Profiles: Kelly." CBS Survivors Website. 2000. 26 Sep. 2000 <http://www.cbs.com/primetime/survivor/survivors/kelly_f.shtml>. Citation reference for this article MLA style: Carol Morgan. "Capitalistic Ideology as an 'Interpersonal Game': The Case of Survivor." M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 3.5 (2000). [your date of access] <http://www.api-network.com/mc/0010/survivor.php>. Chicago style: Carol Morgan, "Capitalistic Ideology as an 'Interpersonal Game': The Case of Survivor," M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 3, no. 5 (2000), <http://www.api-network.com/mc/0010/survivor.php> ([your date of access]). APA style: Carol Morgan. (2000) Capitalistic Ideology as an 'Interpersonal Game': The Case of Survivor. M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 3(5). <http://www.api-network.com/mc/0010/survivor.php> ([your date of access]).
APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles
25

West, Patrick Leslie. "Towards a Politics and Art of the Land: Gothic Cinema of the Australian New Wave and Its Reception by American Film Critics." M/C Journal 17, no. 4 (July 24, 2014). http://dx.doi.org/10.5204/mcj.847.

Full text
Abstract:
Many films of the Australian New Wave (or Australian film renaissance) of the 1970s and 1980s can be defined as gothic, especially following Jonathan Rayner’s suggestion that “Instead of a genre, Australian Gothic represents a mode, a stance and an atmosphere, after the fashion of American Film Noir, with the appellation suggesting the inclusion of horrific and fantastic materials comparable to those of Gothic literature” (25). The American comparison is revealing. The 400 or so film productions of the Australian New Wave emerged, not in a vacuum, but in an increasingly connected and inter-mixed international space (Godden). Putatively discrete national cinemas weave in and out of each other on many levels. One such level concerns the reception critics give to films. This article will drill down to the level of the reception of two examples of Australian gothic film-making by two well-known American critics. Rayner’s comparison of Australian gothic with American film noir is useful; however, it begs the question of how American critics such as Pauline Kael and Andrew Sarris influentially shaped the reception of Australian gothic in America and in other locations (such as Australia itself) where their reviews found an audience either at the time or afterwards. The significance of the present article rests on the fact that, as William McClain observes, following in Rick Altman’s footsteps, “critics form one of the key material institutions that support generic formations” (54). This article nurtures the suggestion that knowing how Australian gothic cinema was shaped, in its infancy, in the increasingly important American market (a market of both commerce and ideas) might usefully inform revisionist studies of Australian cinema as a national mode. A more nuanced, globally informed representation of the origins and development of Australian gothic cinema emerges at this juncture, particularly given that American film reviewing in the 1970s and 1980s more closely resembled what might today be called film criticism or even film theory. The length of individual reviews back then, the more specialized vocabulary used, and above all the tendency for critics to assume more knowledge of film history than could safely be assumed in 2014—all this shows up the contrast with today. As Christos Tsiolkas notes, “in our age… film reviewing has been reduced to a thumbs-up or a thumbs-down” (56)! The 1970s and 1980s is largely pre-Internet, and critical voices such as Kael and Sarris dominated in print. The American reviews of Australian gothic films demonstrate how a different consciousness suffuses Kael’s and Sarris’s engagements with “Antipodean” (broadly Australian and New Zealand) cinema. Rayner’s locally specific definition of Australian gothic is distorted in their interpretations of examples of the genre. It will be argued that this is symptomatic of a particular blindspot, related to the politics and art of place, in the American reception of Wake in Fright (initially called Outback in America), directed by the Canadian Ted Kotcheff (1971) and The Year of Living Dangerously, directed by Peter Weir (1982). Space and argument considerations force this article to focus on the reviews of these films, engaging less in analysis of the films themselves. Suffice to say that they all fit broadly within Rayner’s definition of Australian gothic cinema. As Rayner states, three thematic concerns which permeate all the films related to the Gothic sensibility provide links across the distinctions of era, environment and character. They are: a questioning of established authority; a disillusionment with the social reality that that authority maintains; and the protagonist’s search for a valid and tenable identity once the true nature of the human environment has been revealed. (25) “The true nature of the human environment….” Here is the element upon which the American reviews of the Australian gothic founder. Explicitly in many films of this mode, and implicitly in nearly all of them, is the “human environment” of the Australian landscape, which operates less as a backdrop and more as a participating element, even a character, in the drama, saturating the mise-en-scène. In “Out of Place: Reading (Post) Colonial Landscapes as Gothic Space in Jane Campion’s Films,” Eva Rueschmann quotes Ross Gibson’s thesis from South of the West: Postcolonialism and the Narrative Construction of Australia that By featuring the land so emphatically… [Australian] films stake out something more significant than decorative pictorialism. Knowingly or unknowingly, they are all engaging with the dominant mythology of white Australia. They are all partaking of the landscape tradition which, for two hundred years, has been used by white Australians to promote a sense of the significance of European society in the “Antipodes”. (Rueschmann) The “emphatic” nature of the land in films like Wake in Fright, Mad Max 2 and Picnic at Hanging Rock actively contributes to the “atmosphere” of Australian gothic cinema (Rayner 25). This atmosphere floats across Australian film and literature. Many of the films mentioned in this article are adaptations from books, and Rayner himself stresses the similarity between Australian gothic and gothic literature (25). Significantly, the atmosphere of Australian gothic also floats across the fuzzy boundary between the gothic and road movies or road literature. Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior is obviously a road movie as well as a gothic text; so is Wake in Fright in its way; even Picnic at Hanging Rock contains elements of the road movie in all that travelling to and from the rock. Roads, then, are significant for Australian gothic cinema, for the road traverses the Australian (gothic) landscape and, in the opportunity it provides for moving through it at speed, tantalizes with the (unfulfillable) promise of an escape from its gothic horror. Australian roads are familiar, part of White European culture referencing the geometric precision of Roman roads. The Australian outback, by contrast, is unfamiliar, uncanny. Veined with roads, the outback invites the taming by “the landscape tradition” that it simultaneously rejects (Rueschmann). In the opening 360° pan of Wake in Fright the land frightens with its immensity and intensity, even as the camera displays the land’s “conquering” agent: not a road, but the road’s surrogate—a railway line. Thus, the land introduces the uncanny into Australian gothic cinema. In Freudian terms, the uncanny is that unsettling combination of the familiar and the unfamiliar. R. Gray calls it “the class of frightening things that leads us back to what is known and familiar” (Gray). The “frightening” land is the very condition of the “comforting” road; no roads without a space for roads, and places for them to go. In her introduction to The Penguin Book of the Road, Delia Falconer similarly sutures the land to the uncanny, linking both of these with the first peoples of the Australian land: "Of course there is another 'poetry of the earth' whispering from the edges of our roads that gives so many of our road stories an extra charge, and that is the history of Aboriginal presence in this land. Thousands of years of paths and tribal boundaries also account for the uncanny sense of being haunted that dogs our travellers on their journeys (xvii). White Australia, as the local saying goes, has a black past, played out across the land. The film The Proposition instances this, with its gothic portrayal of the uncanny encroachments of the Australian “wilderness” into the domain of “civilization”. Furthermore, “our” overweening literal and metaphoric investment in the traditional quarter-acre block, not to mention in our roads, shows that “we” haven’t reconciled either with the land of Australia or with its original inhabitants: the Aboriginal peoples. Little wonder that Kael and Sarris couldn’t do so, as White Americans writing some forty years ago, and at such a huge geographic remove from Australia. As will be seen, the failure of these American film critics to comprehend the Australian landscape comes out—as both a “critical reaction” and a “reactive compensation”—in two, interwoven strands of their interpretations of Australian New Wave gothic cinema. A repulsion from, and an attraction to, the unrecognized uncanny is evidenced. The first strand is constituted in the markedly anthropological aspect to the film reviews: anthropological elements of the text itself are either disproportionately magnified or longed for. Here, “anthropological” includes the sociological and the historical. Secondly, Kael and Sarris use the films they review from Australian gothic cinema as sites upon which to trial answers to the old and persistent question of how the very categories of art and politics relate. Initially sucked out of the reviews (strand one), politics and art thus rush back in (strand two). In other words, the American failure to engage deeply with the land triggers an initial reading of films like Wake in Fright less as films per se and more as primary texts or one-to-one documentations of Australia. Australia presents for anthropological, even scientific atomization, rather than as a place in active, creative and complex relationship with its rendering in mise-en-scène. Simultaneously though, the absence of the land nags—eats away at the edges of critical thinking—and re-emerges (like a Freudian return of the repressed) in an attempt by the American critics to exploit their film subjects as an opportunity for working out how politics and art (here cinema) relate. The “un-seen” land creates a mis-reading amongst the American critics (strand one), only to force a compensatory, if somewhat blindsided, re-reading (strand two). For after all, in this critical “over-looking” of the land, and thus of the (ongoing) Aboriginal existence in and with the land, it is politics and art that is most at stake. How peoples (indigenous, settler or hybrid peoples) are connected to and through the land has perhaps always been Australia’s principal political and artistic question. How do the American reviews speak to this question? Sarris did not review Wake in Fright. Kael reviewed it, primarily, as a text at the intersection of fiction and documentary, ultimately privileging the latter. Throughout, her critical coordinates are American and, to a degree, literary. Noting the “stale whiff of Conrad” she also cites Outback’s “additional interest” in its similarity with “recent American movies [about] American racism and capitalist exploitation and the Vietnam war” (415). But her most pointed intervention comes in the assertion that there is “enough narrative to hold the social material together,” as if this were all narrative were good for: scaffolding for sociology (416). Art and culture are left out. Even as Kael mentions the “treatment of the Aborigines,” she misses the Aboriginal cultural moment of the opening shot of the land; this terrain, she writes, is “without a trace of culture” (416). Then, after critiquing what she sees as the unconvincing lesson of the schoolteacher’s moral demise, comes this: “But a more serious problem is that (despite the banal photography) the semi-documentary aspects of the film are so much more vivid and authentic and original than the factitious Conradian hero that we want to see more of that material—we want to learn more” (416-417). Further on, in this final paragraph, Kael notes that, while “there have been other Australian films, so it’s not all new” the director and scriptwriter “have seen the life in a more objective way, almost as if they were cultural anthropologists…. Maybe Kotcheff didn’t dare to expand this vision at the expense of the plot line, but he got onto something bigger than the plot” (417). Kael’s “error”, as it were, is to over-look how the land itself stretches the space of the film, beyond plot, to occupy the same space as her so-called “something bigger”, which itself is filled out by the uncanniness of the land as the intersections of both indigenous and settler (road-based) cultures and their representations in art (417). The “banal photography” might be better read as the film’s inhabitation of these artistic/cultural intersections (416). Kael’s Wake in Fright piece illustrates the first strand of the American reviews of Australian gothic cinema. Missing the land’s uncanniness effectively distributes throughout the review an elision of culture and art, and a reactive engagement with the broadly anthropological elements of Kotcheff’s film. Reviews of The Year of Living Dangerously by Kael and Sarris also illustrate the first strand of the American-Australian reviewing nexus, with the addition, also by each critic, of the second strand: the attempt to reconnect and revitalize the categories of politics and art. As with Wake in Fright, Kael introduces an anthropological gambit into Weir’s film, privileging its documentary elements over its qualities as fiction (strand one). “To a degree,” she writes, “Weir is the victim of his own skill at creating the illusion of authentic Third World misery, rioting, and chaos” (454). By comparison with “earlier, studio-set films” (like Casablanca [452]), where such “backgrounds (with their picturesque natives) were perfectly acceptable as backdrops…. Here… it’s a little obscene” (454). Kael continues: “Documentaries, TV coverage, print journalism, and modern history itself have changed audiences’ responses, and when fake dilemmas about ‘involvement’ are cooked up for the hero they’re an embarrassment” (454-455). Film is pushed to cater to anthropology besides art. Mirroring Kael’s strand-one response, Sarris puts a lot of pressure on Weir’s film to “perform” anthropologically—as well as, even instead of, artistically. The “movie”, he complains “could have been enjoyed thoroughly as a rousingly old-fashioned Hollywood big-star entertainment were it not for the disturbing vistas of somnolent poverty on view in the Philippines, the location in which Indonesian poverty in 1965 was simulated” (59). Indeed, the intrusive reality of poverty elicits from Sarris something very similar to Kael’s charge of the “obscenity of the backdrop” (454): We cannot go back to Manderley in our movie romances. That much is certain. We must go forward into the real world, but in the process, we should be careful not to dwarf our heroes and heroines with the cosmic futility of it all. They must be capable of acting on the stage of history, and by acting, make a difference in our moral perception of life on this planet. (59) Sarris places an extreme, even outrageous, strand-one demand on Weir’s film to re-purpose its fiction (what Kael calls “romantic melodrama” [454]) to elicit the categories of history and anthropology—that last phrase, “life on this planet”, sounds like David Attenborough speaking! More so, anthropological atomization is matched swiftly to a strand-two demand, for this passage also anticipates the rapprochement of politics and art, whereby art rises to the level of politics, requiring movie “heroes and heroines” to make a “moral difference” on a historical if not on a “cosmic” level (59). It is precisely in this, however, that Weir’s film falls down for Sarris. “The peculiar hollowness that the more perceptive reviewers have noted in The Year of Living Dangerously arises from the discrepancy between the thrilling charisma of the stars and the antiheroic irrelevance of the characters they play to the world around them” (59). Sarris’s spatialized phrase here (“peculiar hollowness”) recalls Kael’s observation that Wake in Fright contains “something bigger than the plot” (417). In each case, the description is doubling, dis-locating—uncanny. Echoing the title of Eva Rueschmann’s article, both films, like the Australian landscape itself, are “out of place” in their interpretation by these American critics. What, really, does Sarris’s “peculiar hollowness” originate in (59)? In what “discrepancy” (59)? There is a small but, in the context of this article, telling error in Sarris’s review of Weir’s film. Kael, correctly, notes that “the Indonesian settings had to be faked (in the Philippines and Australia)” (inserted emphasis) (452). Sarris mentions only the Philippines. From little things big things grow. Similar to how Kael overlooks the uncanny in Wake in Fright’s mise-en-scène, Sarris “sees” a “peculiar hollowness” where the land would otherwise be. Otherwise, that is, in the perspective of a cinema (Kotcheff’s, Weir’s) that comprehends “the true nature of the [Australian, gothic] human environment” (Rayner 25). Of course, it is not primarily a matter of how much footage Weir shot in Australia. It is the nature of the cinematography that matters most. For his part, Sarris damns it as “pretentiously picturesque” (59). Kael, meanwhile, gets closer perhaps to the ethics of the uncanny cinematography of The Year of Living Dangerously in her description of “intimations, fragments, hints and portents… on a very wide screen” (451). Even so, it will be remembered, she does call the “backgrounds… obscene” (454). Kael and Sarris see less than they “see”. Again like Sarris, Kael goes looking in Weir’s film for a strand-two rapprochement of politics and art, as evidenced by the line “The movie displays left-wing attitudes, but it shows no particular interest in politics” (453). It does though, only Kael is blind to it because she is blind to the land and, equally, to the political circumstances of the people of the land. Kael likely never realized the “discrepancy” in her critique of The Year of Living Dangerously’s Billy Kwan as “the same sort of in-on-the-mysteries-of-the-cosmos character that the aborigine actor Gulpilil played in Weir’s 1977 The Last Wave” (455). All this, she concludes, “might be boiled down to the mysticism of L.A.: ‘Go with the flow’” (455)! Grouping characters and places together like this, under the banner of L.A. mysticism, brutally erases the variations across different, uncanny, gothic, post-colonial landscapes. It is precisely here that politics and art do meet, in Weir’s film (and Kotcheff’s): in the artistic representation of the land as an index of the political relations of indigenous, settler and hybrid communities. (And not down the rabbit hole of the “specifics” of politics that Kael claims to want [453]). The American critics considered in this article are not in “bad faith” or a-political. Sarris produced a perceptive, left-leaning study entitled Politics and Cinema, and many of Kael’s reviews, along with essays like “Saddle Sore: El Dorado, The War Wagon, The Way West,” contain sophisticated, liberalist analyses of the political circumstances of Native Americans. The crucial point is that, as “critics form[ing] one of the key material institutions that support generic formations,” Sarris and Kael impacted majorly on the development of Australian gothic cinema, in the American context—impacted especially, one could say, on the (mis-)understanding of the land-based, uncanny politics of this mode in its Australian setting (McClain 54). Kael’s and Sarris’s reviews of My Brilliant Career, along with Judith Maslin’s review, contain traits similar to those considered in depth in the reviews studied above. Future research might usefully study this significant impact more closely, weaving in an awareness of the developing dynamics of global film productions and co-productions since the 1970s, and thereby focusing on Australian gothic as international cinema. Was, for example, the political impact of later films like The Proposition influenced, even marginally, by the (mis-)readings of Sarris and Kael? In conclusion here, it suffices to note that, even as the American reviewers reduced Australian cinema art to “blank” documentary or “neutral” anthropology, nevertheless they evidenced, in their strand-two responses, the power of the land (as presented in the cinematography and mise-en-scène) to call out—across an increasingly globalized domain of cinematic reception—for the fundamental importance of the connection between politics and art. Forging this connection, in which all lands and the peoples of all lands are implicated, should be, perhaps, the primary and ongoing concern of national and global cinemas of the uncanny, gothic mode, or perhaps even any mode. References Casablanca. Dir. Michael Curtiz. Warner Bros, 1942. Falconer, Delia. “Introduction.” The Penguin Book of the Road. Ed. Delia Falconer. Melbourne: Viking-Penguin Books, 2008. xi-xxvi. Gibson, Ross. South of the West: Postcolonialism and the Narrative Construction of Australia. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1992. Godden, Matt. “An Essay on Australian New Wave Cinema.” 9 Jan. 2013. 18 Aug. 2014 ‹http://www.golgotha.com.au/2013/01/09/an-essay-on-australian-new-wave-cinema/›. Gray, R. “Freud, ‘The Uncanny.’” 15 Nov. 2013. 18 Aug. 2014 ‹http://courses.washington.edu/freudlit/Uncanny.Notes.html›. Kael, Pauline. “Australians.” Review of My Brilliant Career. 15 Sep. 1980. Taking It All In. London: Marion Boyars, 1986. 54-62. Kael, Pauline. “Literary Echoes—Muffled.” Review of Outback [Wake in Fright]. 4 March 1972. Deeper into Movies. Boston: Atlantic Monthly Press-Little, Brown and Company, 1973. 413-419. Kael, Pauline. “Saddle Sore: El Dorado, The War Wagon, The Way West.” Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. London: Arrow Books, 1987. 38-46. Kael, Pauline. “Torrid Zone.” Review of The Year of Living Dangerously. 21 Feb. 1983. Taking It All In. London: Marion Boyars, 1986. 451-456. Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior. Dir. George Miller. Warner Bros, 1981. Maslin, Janet. “Film: Australian ‘Brilliant Career’ by Gillian Armstrong.” Review of My Brilliant Career. New York Times (6 Oct. 1979.): np. McClain, William. “Western, Go Home! Sergio Leone and the ‘Death of the Western’ in American Film Criticism.” Journal of Film and Video 62.1-2 (Spring/Summer 2010): 52-66. My Brilliant Career. Dir. Gillian Armstrong. Peace Arch, 1979. Picnic at Hanging Rock. Dir. Peter Weir. Picnic Productions, 1975. Rayner, Jonathan. Contemporary Australian Cinema: An Introduction. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000. Rueschmann, Eva. “Out of Place: Reading (Post) Colonial Landscapes as Gothic Space in Jane Campion’s Films.” Post Script (22 Dec. 2005). 18 Aug. 2014 ‹http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Out+of+place%3A+reading+%28post%29+colonial+landscapes+as+Gothic+space+in...-a0172169169›. Sarris, Andrew. “Films in Focus.” Review of My Brilliant Career. Village Voice (4 Feb. 1980): np. Sarris, Andrew. “Films in Focus: Journalistic Ethics in Java.” Review of The Year of Living Dangerously. Village Voice 28 (1 Feb. 1983): 59. Sarris, Andrew. “Liberation, Australian Style.” Review of My Brilliant Career. Village Voice (15 Oct. 1979): np. Sarris, Andrew. Politics and Cinema. New York: Columbia University Press, 1978. The Last Wave. Dir. Peter Weir. Ayer Productions, 1977. The Proposition. Dir. John Hillcoat. First Look Pictures, 2005. The Year of Living Dangerously. Dir. Peter Weir. MGM, 1982. Tsiolkas, Christos. “Citizen Kael.” Review of Pauline Kael: A Life in the Dark by Brian Kellow. The Monthly (Feb. 2012): 54-56. Wake in Fright. Dir. Ted Kotcheff. United Artists, 1971.
APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles
26

Cuningham, Phillip Lamarr, and Melinda Lewis. "“Taking This from This and That from That”: Examining RZA and Quentin Tarantino’s Use of Pastiche." M/C Journal 16, no. 4 (August 11, 2013). http://dx.doi.org/10.5204/mcj.669.

Full text
Abstract:
In his directorial debut, The Man with the Iron Fists (2012), RZA not only evokes the textual borrowing techniques he has utilised as a hip-hop producer, but also reflects the influence of filmmaker Quentin Tarantino, who has built a career upon acknowledging mainstream and cult film histories through mise-en-scene, editing, and deft characterisation. The Man with the Iron Fists was originally to coincide with Tarantino’s rebel slave narrative Django Unchained (2012), which Tarantino has discussed openly as commentary regarding race in contemporary America. In 2011, Variety reported that RZA had joined the cast of Tarantino’s anticipated Django Unchained, playing “Thaddeus, a violent slave working on a Mississippi plantation” (Sneider, “Rza Joins ‘Django Unchained’ Cast”). Django Unchained follows Tarantino’s pattern of generic and trope mixology, combining elements of the Western, blaxploitation, and buddy/road film. He famously stated: “[If] my work has anything it's that I'm taking this from this and that from that and mixing them together… I steal from everything. Great artists steal; they don't do homages” (“The Directors of Our Lifetime: In Their Own Words”). He sutures iconography from multiple films in numerous genres to form new texts that stand alone, albeit as amalgamations of references. In considering meanings attached particularly to exploitation films, this article addresses the significance of combining influences within The Man with the Iron Fists and Tarantino’s Django Unchained, and the ideological threads that emerge in fusing exploitation film aesthetics. Ultimately, these films provide a convergence not only of texts, but also of the collective identities associated with and built upon those texts, feats made possible through the filmmakers’ use of pastiche. Pastiche in Identity Formation as Subversive A reflection of the postmodern tendency towards appropriation and borrowing, pastiche is often considered less meaningful than its counterpart, parody. Fredric Jameson suggests that though pastiche and parody share commonalities (most notably the mimicry of style and mannerisms), they do so to different effects. Jameson asserts that parody mimics in an effort to mock the idiosyncrasies within a text, whereas pastiche is “neutral parody” of “dead styles” (114). In short, as Susan Hayward writes, “In its uninventiveness, pastiche is but a shadow of its former thing” (302). For Jameson, the most ubiquitous form of pastiche is the nostalgia film, which attempts to recapture the essence of the past. As examples, he points to the George Lucas films American Graffiti (1973), which is staged in the United States of the 1950s, and Star Wars (1977), which reflects the serials of the 1930s-1950s (114-115). Though scholars such as Jameson and Hayward are contemptuous of pastiche, a growing number see its potential for the subversion and critique that the aforementioned suggest it lacks. For instance, Sarah Smith reminds us that pastiche films engage in “complicitous critique”: the films maintain the trappings of original texts, yet do so in order to advance critique (209). For Smith and other scholars, such as Judith Butler and Richard Dyer, Jameson’s criticism of pastiche is dismissive, for while these scholars largely agree that pastiche is a form of mimicry in which the distance between original and copy is minimal, they recognise that a space still exists for it to be critical. Smith writes: “[W]hile there may be greater distance between the parody and its target text than there is between the pastiche and the text it imitates, a prescribed degree of distance is not a prerequisite for critical engagement with the ur-text” (210). In this regard, fidelity to the original texts is not only required but to be revered, for these likenesses to the original “act as a guarantee of the critique of those origins and provide an opportunity for the filmmaker to position [himself or herself] in relation to them” (Smith 211). Essentially, pastiche is a useful technique in which to construct hybrid identities. Keri E. Iyall Smith suggests that hybrid identities emerge from “a reflexive relationship between local and global” (3). According to popular music scholar Brett Lashua, hybrid identities “make and re-make culture through appropriating the cultural ‘raw materials’ of life in order to construct meaning in their own specific cultural localities. In a sense, they are ‘sampling’ from broader popular culture and reworking what they can take into their own specific local cultures” (“The Arts of the Remix: Ethnography and Rap”). As will be evidenced here, Tarantino utilises pastiche as an unabashed genre poacher; similarly, as a self-avowed Tarantino student and hip-hop producer known for his sampling acumen, RZA invokes pastiche to reflect mastery of his craft and a hybridised identity his multifaceted persona. Plagiarism, Poaching, and Pastiche: Tarantino Blurs Boundaries As a filmmaker, Tarantino is known for indulging in excess: violence, language, and aesthetics. Edward Gallafent characterised the director’s work as having a preoccupation with settings and journeys, violence (both emotional and physical), complicated chronological structures, and dissatisfying conclusions (3-4). Additionally, pieces of Tarantino’s cinematic fandom are inserted into his own films. Academic and popular critics continually note Tarantino’s rise as an obsessive video store clerk turned respected and eccentric auteur. Tarantino’s authorship lies mostly in his ability to borrow (or in his words, steal) narrative arcs, characterisations, and camera work from other filmmakers, and use them in ways that feel innovative and different from those past works. It is not that he borrows generally from movements, films, and filmmakers, but that he conscientiously lifts segments from works to incorporate into his text. In Postmodern Hollywood: What’s New in Film and Why It Makes Us Feel So Strange, Keith M. Booker contends that Tarantino’s work often straddles lines between simplistic reference for reference’s sake and meditations upon the roles of cinema (90). Booker dismisses claims for the latter, citing Tarantino’s unwillingness to contextualise the references in Pulp Fiction, such that the film is best described not an act of citation so much as a break with the historical. Tarantino’s lack of reverence provides him freedom to intermingle texts and tropes to fit his goals as a filmmaker, rather than working within the confines of generic narratives. Each film feels both apart and distinct from genre categories. Jackie Brown, for example, has many of the traits attached to blaxploitation, from its focus on drug culture, the casting of Pam Grier who gained status playing female leads in blaxploitation films, and extreme violence. Tarantino’s use of humour throughout, particular in his treatment of character types, plot twists, and self-aware musical cues distances the film from easy characterisation. It is, but isn’t. What is gained is a remediated conception of cinematic reality. The fictions created in films of the past are noted in Tarantino’s play with tropes. His mixes produce an extreme form of mediated reality – one that is full of excess, highly exaggerated, and completely composed of stolen frameworks. Tarantino continues his generic play in Django Unchained. While much of it does borrow heavily from 1960s and 1970s Western filmmakers like Leone, Corbucci, and Peckinpah (the significance of desolate landscapes, long takes, extreme violence), it also incorporates strands of buddy cop (partners with different backgrounds working together to correct wrongs), early blaxploitation (Broomhilda’s last name is von Shaft suggesting that she is an ancestor of blaxploitation icon John Shaft, the characterisation of Django as black antihero enacting revenge on white racists in power), and kung fu (revenge narrative, in addition to the extensive training moments between Dr. Schultz and Django). The familiar elements highlight the transgressions of genre adherence. The comfort of the western genre and its tropes eases the audience, only for Tarantino to incorporate those elements from outside the genre to spark interest, to shock, to remind audiences of the mediated reality onscreen. Tarantino has been criticised for his lack of depth and understanding regarding women and people of colour, despite his attempts to provide various leading and supporting roles for both. Django Unchained was particularly criticised for Tarantino’s use of the term nigger - over 100 instances in the film. Tarantino defended his decision by claiming historical accuracy, poetic license, and his desire to confront audiences with various levels of racism. Many, including Spike Lee, disagreed, arguing Tarantino had no claim to making a film about slavery. Lee stated through Twitter: “American Slavery Was Not A Sergio Leone Spaghetti Western. It Was A Holocaust. My Ancestors Are Slaves. Stolen From Africa. I Will Honor Them” (“Spike Lee on Django Unchained: Filmmaker Calls Movie ‘Disrespectful’”). Not only does Lee evoke the tragedy of the American slave trade and the significance of race within contemporary filmmaking, but he uses genre to underscore what he perceives is Tarantino’s lack of reverence to the issue of slavery and its aftermath in American culture. Django Unchained is both physically and emotionally brutal. The world created by Tarantino is culturally messy, as Italian composers rub elbows with black hip-hop artists, actors from films’ referenced in Django Unchained interact with new types of heroes. The amounts of references, people, and spectacles in his films have created a brand that is both hyperaware, but often critiqued as ambivalent. This is due in part to the perception of Tarantino as a filmmaker with no filter. His brand as a filmmaker is action ordered, excessive, and injected with his own fandom. He is an ultimate poacher of texts and it is this aesthetic, which has also made him a fan favourite amongst young cinephiles. Not only does he embrace the amount of play film offers, but he takes the familiar and makes it strange. The worlds he creates are hazier, darker, and unstable. Creating such a world in Django Unchained provides a lot of potential for reading race in film and American culture. He and his defenders have discussed this film as an “honest” portrayal of the effects of slavery and racial tension in the United States. This is also the world which acts as context for RZA’s The Man with the Iron Fists. Though a reference abandoned in Django Unchained, the connection between both films and both filmmakers pleasure in pastiche provide further insight to connections between film and race. Doing the Knowledge: RZA Pays Homage As a filmmaker, RZA utilises Tarantino’s filmmaking brand techniques to build his own homage and add to the body of kung-fu films. Doing so furnishes him the opportunity to rehash and reform narratives and tropes in ways that change familiar narrative structures and plot devices. In creating a film which relies on cinematic allusions to kung fu, RZA—as a fan, practitioner, and author—reconfigures kung fu from being an exploitative genre and reshapes its potential for representational empowerment. While Tarantino considers himself an unabashed thief of genre tropes, RZA envisions himself more as a student who pays homage to masters—among whom he includes Tarantino. Indeed, in an interview with MTV, RZA refers to Tarantino as his Sifu (a Chinese term for master or teacher) and credits him not only for teaching RZA about filmmaking, but also for providing him with his blessing to make his first feature length film (Downey, “RZA Recalls Learning from ‘The Master’ Quentin Tarantino”). RZA implies that mastery of one’s craft comes from incorporating influences while creating original work, not theft. For instance, he states that the Pink Blossom brothel—the locus for most of the action in the film—was inspired by the House of Blue Leaves restaurant, which functions in a similar capacity in Tarantino’s Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (“RZA Talks Sampling of Kung Fu Films for Movie & The Difference Between Biting vs. Influence”). Hip-hop is an art form in which its practitioners “partake of a discursive universe where skill at appropriating the fragments of a rapidly-changing world with verbal grace and dexterity is constituted as knowledge” (Potter 21). This knowledge draws upon not only the contemporary moment but also the larger body of recorded music and sound, both of which it “re-reads and Signifies upon through a complex set of strategies, including samplin’, cuttin’ (pastiche), and freestylin’ (improvisation)” (Potter 22). As an artist who came of age in hip-hop’s formative years and whose formal recording career began at the latter half of hip-hop’s Golden Age (often considered 1986-1993), RZA is a particularly adept cutter and sampler – indeed, as a sampler, RZA is often considered a master. While RZA’s samples run the gamut of the musical spectrum, he is especially known for sampling obscure, often indeterminable jazz and soul tracks. Imani Perry suggests that this measure of fidelity to the past is borne out of hip-hop’s ideological respect for ancestors and its inherent sense of nostalgia (54). Hallmarks of RZA’s sampling repertoire include dialog and sound effects from equally obscure kung fu films. RZA attributes his sampling of kung fu to an affinity for these films established in his youth after viewing noteworthy examples such as The 36th Chamber of Shaolin (1978) and Five Deadly Venoms (1978). These films have become a key aspect of his identity and everyday life (Gross, “RZA’s Edge: The RZA’s Guide to Kung Fu Films”). He speaks of his decision to make kung fu dialog an integral part of Wu-Tang Clan’s first album Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers): “My fantasy was to make a one-hour movie that people were just going to listen to. They would hear my movie and see it in their minds. I’d read comic books like that, with sonic effects and kung fu voices in my head. That makes it more exciting so I try to create music in the same way” (Gross, ““RZA’s Edge: The RZA’s Guide to Kung Fu Films”). Much like Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) and his other musical endeavours, The Man with the Iron Fists serves as further evidence of RZA’s hybrid identity., which sociologist Keri E. Iyall Smith suggests emerges from “a reflexive relationship between local and global” (3). According to popular music scholar Brett Lashua, hybrid identities “make and re-make culture through appropriating the cultural ‘raw materials’ of life in order to construct meaning in their own specific cultural localities. In a sense, they are ‘sampling’ from broader popular culture and reworking what they can take into their own specific local cultures” (“The Arts of the Remix: Ethnography and Rap”). The most overt instance of RZA’s hybridity is in regards to names, many of which are derived from the Gordon Liu film Shaolin and Wu-Tang (1983), in which the competing martial arts schools come together to fight a common foe. The film is the basis not only for the name of RZA’s group (Wu-Tang Clan) but also for the names of individual members (for instance, Master Killer—after the series to which the film belongs) and the group’s home base of Staten Island, New York, which they frequently refer to as “Shaolin.” The Man with the Iron Fists is another extension of this hybrid identity. Kung fu has long had meaning for African Americans particularly because these films frequently “focus narratively on either the triumph of the ‘little guy’ or ‘underdog’ or the nobility of the struggle to recognise humanity and virtue in all people, or some combination of both” (Ongiri 35). As evidence, Amy Obugo Ongiri points to films such as The 36th Chamber of Shaolin, a film about a peasant who learns martial arts at the Shaolin temple in order to avenge his family’s murder by the Manchu rulers (Ongiri 35). RZA reifies this notion in a GQ interview, where he speaks about The 36th Chamber of Shaolin specifically, noting its theme of rebellion against government oppression having relevance to his life as an African American (Pappademus, “This Movie Is Rated Wu”). RZA appropriates the humble origins of the peasant San Te (Gordon Liu), the protagonist of The 36th Chamber of Shaolin, in Thaddeus (whom RZA plays in the film), whose journey to saviour of Jungle Village begins with his being a slave in America. Indeed, one might argue that RZA’s construction of and role as Thaddeus is the ultimate realisation of the hybrid identity he has developed since becoming a popular recording artist. Just as Tarantino’s acting in his own films often reflects his identity as genre splicer and convention breaker (particularly since they are often self-referential), RZA’s portrayal of Thaddeus—as an African American, as a martial artist, and as a “conscious” human being—reflects the narrative RZA has constructed about his own life. Conclusion The same amount of play Tarantino has with conventions, particularly in characterisations and notions of heroism, is present in RZA’s Man with the Iron Fists. Both filmmakers poach from their favourite films and genres in order to create interpretations that feel both familiar and new. RZA follows Tarantino’s aesthetic of borrowing scenes directly from other films. Both filmmakers poach from films for their own devices, but in those mash-ups open up avenues for genre critique and identity formation. Tarantino is right to say that they are not solely homages, as homages honour the films in which they borrow. Tarantino and RZA do more through their poaching to stretch the boundaries of genres and films’ abilities to communicate with audiences. References “The Directors of Our Lifetime: In Their Own Words.” Empire Online. N.d. 8 May 2013 ‹http://www.empireonline.com/magazine/250/directors-of-our-lifetime/5.asp›. Booker, Keith M. Postmodern Hollywood: What’s New in Film and Why It Makes Us Feel So Strange. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2007. Downey, Ryan J. “RZA Recalls Learning from ‘The Master’ Quentin Tarantino.” MTV. 30 August 2012. 14 July 2013 ‹http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1692872/rza-man-with-the-iron-fists-quentin-tarantino.jhtml›. Gallefent, Edward. Quentin Tarantino. London: Longman. 2005. Gross, Jason. “RZA’s Edge: The RZA’s Guide to Kung Fu Films.” Film Comment. N.d. 5 June 2013 ‹http://www.filmcomment.com/article/rzas-edge-the-rzas-guide-to-kung-fu-films›. Iyall Smith, Keri E. “Hybrid Identities: Theoretical Examinations.” Hybrid Identities: Theoretical and Empirical Examinations. Ed. Keri E. Iyall Smith and Patricia Leavy. Leiden: Brill, 2008. 3-12. Jameson, Fredric. “Postmodernism and Consumer Society.” Postmodern Culture. Ed. Hal Foster. London: Pluto, 1985. 111-125. Lashua, Brett. “The Arts of the Remix: Ethnography and Rap.” Anthropology Matters 8.2 (2006). 6 June 2013 ‹http://www.anthropologymatters.com›. “The Man with the Iron Fists – Who in the Cast Can F-U Up?” IronFistsMovie 21 Sep. 2012. YouTube. 8 May 2013 ‹http://youtu.be/bhJOQZFJfqA›. Pappademus, Alex. “This Movie Is Rated Wu.” GQ Nov. 2012. 6 June 2013 ‹http://www.gq.com/entertainment/movies-and-tv/201211/the-rza-man-with-the-iron-fists-wu-tang-clan›. Perry, Imani. Prophets of the Hood: Politics and Poetics in Hip Hop. Durham, NC: Duke UP, 2004. Potter, Russell. Spectacular Vernaculars: Hip-Hop and the Politics of Postmodernism. Albany, NY: SUNY P, 1995. “RZA Talks Sampling of Kung Fu Films for Movie & The Difference between Biting vs. Influence.” The Well Versed. 2 Nov. 2012. 5 June 2013 ‹http://thewellversed.com/2012/11/02/video-rza-talks-sampling-of-kung-fu-films-for-movie-the-difference-between-biting-vs-influence/›. Smith, Sarah. “Lip and Love: Subversive Repetition in the Pastiche Films of Tracey Moffat.” Screen 49.2 (Summer 2008): 209-215. Snedier, Jeff. “Rza Joins 'Django Unchained' Cast.” Variety 2 Nov. 2011. 14 June 2013 ‹http://variety.com/2011/film/news/rza-joins-django-unchained-cast-1118045503/›. “Spike Lee on Django Unchained: Filmmaker Calls Movie ‘Disrespectful.’” Huffington Post 24 Dec. 2012. 14 June 2013 ‹http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/23/spike-lee-django-unchained-movie-disrespectful_n_2356729.html›. Wu-Tang Clan. Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers). Loud, 1993. Filmography The 36th Chamber of Shaolin. Dir. Chia-Liang Lui. Perf. Chia Hui Lui, Lieh Lo, Chia Yung Lui. Shaw Brothers, 1978. Django Unchained. Dir. Quentin Tarantino. Perf. Jamie Foxx, Leonardo DiCaprio, Christoph Waltz. Miramax, 2012. Five Deadly Venoms. Dir. Cheh Chang. Perf. Sheng Chiang, Philip Kwok, Feng Lu. Shaw Brothers, 1978. Jackie Brown. Dir. Quentin Tarantino. Perf. Pam Grier, Samuel L. Jackson, Robert Forster. Miramax, 1997. Kill Bill: Vol. 1. Dir. Quentin Tarantino. Perf. Uma Thurman, David Carradine, Darryl Hannah. Miramax, 2003. The Man with the Iron Fists. Dir. RZA. Perf. RZA, Russell Crowe, Lucy Liu. Arcade Pictures, 2012. Pulp Fiction. Dir. Quentin Tarantino. Perf. John Travolta, Uma Thurman, Samuel L. Jackson. Miramax, 1994. Shaolin and Wu-Tang. Dir. Chiu Hui Liu. Perf. Chiu Hui Liu, Adam Cheng, Li Ching.
APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles
27

Lorenzetti, Diane L., Bonnie Lashewicz, and Tanya Beran. "Mentorship in the 21st Century: Celebrating Uptake or Lamenting Lost Meaning?" M/C Journal 19, no. 2 (May 4, 2016). http://dx.doi.org/10.5204/mcj.1079.

Full text
Abstract:
BackgroundIn the centuries since Odysseus entrusted his son Telemachus to Athena, biographical, literary, and historical accounts have cemented the concept of mentorship into our collective consciousness. Early foundational research characterised mentors as individuals who help us transition through different phases of our lives. Chief among these phases is the progression from adolescence to adulthood, during which we “imagine exciting possibilities for [our lives] and [struggle] to attain the ‘I am’ feeling in this dreamed-of self and world” (Levinson 93). Previous research suggests that mentoring can positively impact a range of developmental outcomes including emotional/behavioural resiliency, academic attainment, career advancement, and organisational productivity (DuBois et al. 57-91; Eby et al. 441-76; Merriam 161-73). The growth of formal mentoring programs, such as Big Brothers-Big Sisters, has further strengthened our belief in the value of mentoring in personal, academic and career contexts (Eby et al. 441-76).In recent years, claims of mentorship uptake have become widespread, even ubiquitous, ranging from codified components of organisational mandates to casual bragging rights in coffee shop conversations (Eby et al. 441-76). Is this a sign that mentorship has become indispensable to personal and professional development, or is mentorship simply in vogue? In this paper, we examine uses of, and corresponding meanings attached to, mentorship. Specifically, we compare popular news portrayals of mentoring with meanings ascribed to mentoring relationships by academics who are part of formal mentoring programs.MethodsWe searched for articles published in the New York Times between July and December 2015. Search terms used included: mentor, mentors, mentoring or mentorship. This U.S. national newspaper was chosen for its broad focus, and large online readership. It is among the most widely read online newspapers worldwide (World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers). Our search generated 536 articles. We conducted a qualitative thematic contentan alysis to explore the nature, scope, and importance of mentorship, as depicted in these media accounts. We compared media themes identified through this analysis with those generated through in-depth interviews previously conducted with 23 academic faculty in mentoring programs at the University of Calgary (Canada). Data were extracted by two authors, and discrepancies in interpretation were resolved through discussion with a third author.The Many Faces of MentorshipIn both interviews and New York Times (NYT) accounts, mentorship is portrayed as part of the “fabric” of contemporary culture, and is often viewed as essential to career advancement. As one academic we interviewed commented: “You know the worst feeling in the world [as a new employee] is...to feel like you’re floundering and you don’t know where to turn.” In 322 NYT articles, mentorship was linked to professional successes across a variety of disciplines, with CEOs, and popular culture icons, such as rap artists and sports figures, citing mentorship as central to their achievements. Mentorship had a particularly strong presence in the arts (109 articles), sports (62 articles) business (57 articles), politics (36 articles), medicine (26 articles), and law (21 articles).In the NYT, mentorship was also a factor in student achievement and social justice issues including psychosocial and career support for refugees and youth from low socioeconomic backgrounds; counteracting youth radicalisation; and addressing gender inequality in the workplace. In short, mentorship appears to have been taken up as a panacea for a variety of social and economic ills.Mentor Identities and RolesWhile mentors in academia were supervisors or colleagues, NYT articles portrayed mentors more broadly, as family members, employers, friends and peers. Mentoring relationships typically begin with a connection which often manifests as shared experiences or goals (Merriam). One academic interviewee described mentorship in these terms: “There’s something there that you both really respect and value.” In many NYT accounts, the connection between mentors and mentees was similarly emphasized. As a professional athlete noted: “To me, it's not about collecting [mentors]...It's if the person means something to me...played some type of role in my life” (Shpigel SP.1).While most mentoring relationships develop organically, others are created through formal programs. In the NYT, 33 articles described formal programs to support career/skills development in the arts, business, and sports, and behaviour change in at-risk youth. Although many such programs relied on volunteers, we noted instances in professional sports and business where individuals were hired to provide mentorship. We also saw evidence to suggest that formal programs may be viewed as a quick fix, or palatable alternative, to more costly, or long-term organisational or societal change. For instance, one article on operational challenges at a law firm noted: “The firm's leadership...didn't want to be told that they needed to overhaul their entire organizational philosophy.... They wanted to be told that the firm's problem was work-family conflict for women, a narrative that would allow them to adopt a set of policies specifically aimed at helping women work part time, or be mentored” (Slaughter SR.1).Mutuality of the RelationshipEffective mentoring occurs when both mentors and mentees value these relationships. As one academic interviewee noted: “[My mentor] asked me for advice on certain things about where they’re going right career wise... I think that’s allowed us to have a stronger sort of mentoring relationship”. Some NYT portrayals of mentorship also suggested rich, reciprocal relationships. A dancer with a ballet company described her mentor:She doesn't talk at you. She talks with you. I've never thought about dancing as much as I've thought about it working with her. I feel like as a ballerina, you smile and nod and you take the beating. This is more collaborative. In school, I was always waiting to find a professor that I would bond with and who would mentor me. All I had to do was walk over to Barnard, get into the studio, and there she was. I found Twyla. Or she found me. (Kourlas AR.7)The mutuality of the mentorship evident in this dancer’s recollection is echoed in a NYT account of the role of fashion models in mentoring colleagues: “They were...mentors and connectors and facilitators, motivated...by the joy of discovering talent and creating beauty” (Trebay D.8). Yet in other media accounts, mentorship appeared unidirectional, almost one-dimensional: “Judge Forrest noted in court that he had been seen as a mentor for young people” (Moynihan A.21). Here, the focus seemed to be on the benefits, or status, accrued by the mentor. Importance of the RelationshipAcademic interviewees viewed mentors as sources of knowledge, guidance, feedback, and sponsorship. They believed mentorship had profoundly impacted their careers and that “finding a mentor can be one of the most important things” anyone could do. In the NYT portrayals, mentors were also recognized for the significant, often lasting, impact they had on the lives of their mentees. A choreographer said “the lessons she learned from her former mentor still inspire her — ‘he sits on my shoulder’” (Gold CT 11). A successful CEO of a software firm recollected how mentors enabled him to develop professional confidence: “They would have me facilitate meetings with clients early on in my career. It helped build up this reservoir of confidence” (Bryant, Candid Questions BU.2).Other accounts in academic interviews and NYT highlighted how defining moments in even short-term mentoring relationships can provoke fundamental and lasting changes in attitudes and behaviours. One interviewee who recently experienced a career change said she derived comfort from connecting with a mentor who had experienced a similar transition: “oh there’s somebody [who] talks my language...there is a place for me.” As a CEO in the NYT recalled: “An early mentor of mine said something to me when I was going to a new job: ‘Don't worry. It's just another dog and pony show.’ That really stayed with me” (Bryant, Devil’s Advocate BU.2). A writer quoted in a NYT article also recounted how a chance encounter with a mentor changed the course of his career: “She said... that my problem was not having career direction. ‘You should become a teacher,’ she said. It was an unusual thing to hear, since that subject had never come up in our conversations. But I was truly desperate, ready to hear something different...In an indirect way, my life had changed because of that drink (DeMarco ST.6).Mentorship was also celebrated in the NYT in the form of 116 obituary notices as a means of honouring and immortalising a life well lived. The mentoring role individuals had played in life was highlighted alongside those of child, parent, grandparent and spouse.Metaphor and ArchetypeMetaphors imbue language with imagery that evokes emotions, sensations, and memories in ways that other forms of speech or writing cannot, thus enabling us communicate complex ideas or beliefs. Academic interviewees invoked various metaphors to illustrate mentorship experiences. One interviewee spoke of the “blossoming” relationship while another commented on the power of the mentoring experience to “lift your world”. In the NYT we identified only one instance of the use of metaphor. A CEO of a non-profit organisation explained her mentoring philosophy as follows: “One of my mentors early on talked about the need for a leader to be a ‘certain trumpet’. It comes from Corinthians, and it's a very good visualization -- if the trumpet isn't clear, who's going to follow you?” (Bryant, Zigzag BU.2).By comparison, we noted numerous instances in the NYT wherein mentors were present as characters, or archetypes, in film, performing arts, and television. Archetypes exhibit attributes, or convey meanings, that are instinctively understood by those who share common cultural, societal, or racial experiences (Lane 232) For example, a NYT film review of The Assassin states that “the title character [is] trained in her deadly vocation by a fierce, soft-spoken mentor” (Scott C.4). Such characterisations rely on audiences’ understanding of the inherentfunction of the mentor role, and, like metaphors, can help to convey that which is compelling or complex.Intentionality and TrustIn interviews, academics spoke of the time and trust required to develop mentoring relationships. One noted “It may take a bit of an effort... You don’t get to know a person very well just meeting three times during the year”. Another spoke of trust and comfort as defining these relationships: “You just open up. You feel immediately comfortable”. We also found evidence of trust and intentionality in NYT accounts of these relationships. Mentees were often portrayed as seeking out and relying on mentorship. A junior teacher stated that “she would lean on mentors at her new school. You are not on that island all alone” (Rich A1). In contrast, there were few explicit accounts of intentionality and reflection on the part of a mentor. In one instance, a police officer who participated in a mentorship program for street kids mused “it's not about the talent. It was just about the interaction”. In another, an actor described her mentoring experiences as follows: “You have to know when to give advice and when to just be quiet and listen...no matter how much you tell someone how it goes, no one really wants to listen. Their dreams are much bigger than whatever fear or whatever obstacle you say may be in their path” (Syme C.5).Many NYT articles present career mentoring as a role that can be assumed by anyone with requisite knowledge or experience. Indeed, some accounts of mentorship arguably more closely resembled role model relationships, wherein individuals are admired, typically from afar, and emulated by those who aspire to similar accomplishments. Here, there was little, if any, apparent awareness of the complexity or potential impact of these relationships. Rather, we observed a casualness, an almost striking superficiality, in some NYT accounts of mentoring relationships. Examples ranged from references to “sartorial mentors” (Pappu D1) to a professional coach who shared: “After being told by a mentor that her scowl was ‘setting her back’ at work, [she] began taking pictures of her face so she could try to look more cheerful” (Bennett ST.1).Trust, an essential component of mentorship, can wither when mentors occupy dual roles, such as that of mentor and supervisor, or engage in mentoring as a means of furthering their own interests. While some academic interviewees were mentored by past and current supervisors, none reported any instance of role conflict. However in the NYT, we identified multiple instances where mentorship programs intentionally, or unintentionally, inspired divided loyalties. At one academic institution, peer mentors were “encouraged to befriend and offer mentorship to the students on their floors, yet were designated ‘mandatory reporters’ of any incident that may violate the school policy” (Rosman ST.1). In another media story, government employees in a phased-retirement program received monetary incentives to mentor colleagues: “Federal workers who take phased retirement work 20 hours a week and agree to mentor other workers. During that time, they receive half their pay and half their retirement annuity payout. When workers retire completely, their annuities will include an increase to account for the part-time service” (Hannon B.1). More extreme depictions of conflict of interest were evident in other NYT reports of mentors and mentees competing for job promotions, and mentees accusing mentors of sexual harassment and rape; such examples underscore potential for abuse of trust in these relationships.Discussion/ConclusionsOur exploration of mentorship in the NYT suggests mentorship is embedded in our culture, and is a means by which we develop competencies required to integrate into, and function within, society. Whereas, traditionally, mentorship was an informal relationship that developed over time, we now see a wider array of mentorship models, including formal career and youth programs aimed at increasing access to mentorship, and mentor-for-hire arrangements in business and professional sports. Such formal programs can offer redress to those who lack informal mentorship opportunities, and increased initiatives of this sort are welcome.Although standards of reporting in news media surely account for some of the lack of detail in many NYT reports of mentorship, such brevity may also suggest that, while mentoring continues to grow in popularity, we may have compromised substance for availability. Considerations of the training, time, attention, and trust required of these relationships may have been short-changed, and the tendency we observed in the NYT to conflate role modeling and mentorship may contribute to depictions of mentorship as a quick fix, or ‘mentorship light’. Although mentorship continues to be lauded as a means of promoting personal and professional development, not all mentoring may be of similar quality, and not everyone has comparable access to these relationships. While we continue to honour the promise of mentorship, as with all things worth having, effective mentorship requires effort. This effort comes in the form of preparation, commitment or intentionality, and the development of bonds of trust within these relationships. In short, overuse of, over-reference to, and misapplication of the mentorship label may serve to dilute the significance and meaning of these relationships. Further, we acknowledge a darker side to mentorship, with the potential for abuses of power.Although we have reservations regarding some trends towards the casual usage of the mentorship term, we are also heartened by the apparent scope and reach of these relationships. Numerous individuals continue to draw comfort from advice, sponsorship, motivation, support and validation that mentors provide. Indeed, for many, mentorship may represent an essential lifeline to navigating life’s many challenges. We, thus, conclude that mentorship, in its many forms, is here to stay.ReferencesBennett, Jessica. "Cursed with a Death Stare." New York Times (East Coast) 2 Aug. 2015, late ed.: ST.1.Bryant, Adam. "Designate a Devil's Advocate." New York Times (East Coast) 9 Aug. 2015, late ed.: BU.2.Bryant, Adam. "The Power of Candid Questions." New York Times (East Coast) 16 Aug. 2015, late ed.: BU. 2.Bryant, Adam. "Zigzag Your Way to the Top." New York Times (East Coast) 13 Sept. 2015, late ed.: BU.2.DeMarco, Peter. "One Life, Shaken and Stirred." New York Times (East Coast) 23 Aug. 2015, late ed.: ST.6.DuBois, David L., Nelson Portillo, Jean E. Rhodes, Nadia Silverhorn and Jeffery C. Valentine. "How Effective Are Mentoring Programs for Youth? A Systematic Assessment of the Evidence." Psychological Science in the Public Interest 12.2 (2011): 57-91.Eby, Lillian T., Tammy D. Allen, Brian J. Hoffman, Lisa E. Baranik, …, and Sarah C. Evans. "An Interdisciplinary Meta-analysis of the Potential Antecedents, Correlates, and Consequences of Protégé Perceptions of Mentoring." Psychological Bulletin 139.2 (2013): 441-76.Gold, Sarah. "Preserving a Master's Vision of Sugar Plums." New York Times (East Coast) 6 Dec. 2015, late ed.: CT 11.Hannon, Kerry. "Retiring, But Not All at Once." New York Times (East Coast) 22 Aug. 2015, late ed.: B.1.Kourlas, Gia. "Marathon of a Milestone Tour." New York Times Late Edition (East Coast) 6 Sept. 2015: AR.7.Lane, Lauriat. "The Literary Archetype: Some Reconsiderations." The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 13.2 (1954): 226-32.Levinson, Daniel. J. The Seasons of a Man's Life. New York: Ballantine, 1978.Merriam, Sharan. "Mentors and Protégés: A Critical Review of the Literature." Adult Education Quarterly 33.3 (1983): 161-73.Moynihan, Colin. "Man's Cooperation in Terrorist Cases Spares Him from Serving More Time in Prison." New York Times (East Coast) 24 Oct. 2015, late ed.: A.21.Pappu, Sridhar. "Tailored to the Spotlight." New York Times (East Coast) 27 Aug. 2015, late ed.: D1.Rich, Motoko. "Across Country, a Scramble Is On to Find Teachers." New York Times (East Coast) 10 Aug. 2015, late ed.: A1.Rosman, Katherine. "On the Campus Front Line." New York Times (East Coast) 27 Sept. 2015, late ed.: ST.1.Scott, AO. "The Delights to Be Found in a Deadly Vocation." New York Times (East Coast) 16 Oct. 2015, late ed.: C.4.Shpigel, Ben. "An Exchange of Respect in the Swapping of Jerseys." New York Times (East Coast) 18 Oct. 2015, late ed.: SP.1.Slaughter, Ann-Marie. "A Toxic Work World." New York Times (East Coast) 20 Sept. 2015, late ed.: SR.1.Syme, Rachel. "In TV, Finding a Creative Space with No Limitations." New York Times (East Coast) 26 Aug. 2015, late ed.: C.5.Trebay, Guy. "Remembering a Time When Fashion Shows Were Fun." New York Times (East Coast) 10 Sept. 2015, late ed.: D.8.World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers. World Press Trends Report. Paris: WAN-IFRA, 2015.
APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles
28

Stewart, Jon. "Oh Blessed Holy Caffeine Tree: Coffee in Popular Music." M/C Journal 15, no. 2 (May 2, 2012). http://dx.doi.org/10.5204/mcj.462.

Full text
Abstract:
Introduction This paper offers a survey of familiar popular music performers and songwriters who reference coffee in their work. It examines three areas of discourse: the psychoactive effects of caffeine, coffee and courtship rituals, and the politics of coffee consumption. I claim that coffee carries a cultural and musicological significance comparable to that of the chemical stimulants and consumer goods more readily associated with popular music. Songs about coffee may not be as potent as those featuring drugs and alcohol (Primack; Schapiro), or as common as those referencing commodities like clothes and cars (Englis; McCracken), but they do feature across a wide range of genres, some of which enjoy archetypal associations with this beverage. m.o.m.m.y. Needs c.o.f.f.e.e.: The Psychoactive Effect of Coffee The act of performing and listening to popular music involves psychological elements comparable to the overwhelming sensory experience of drug taking: altered perceptions, repetitive grooves, improvisation, self-expression, and psychological empathy—such as that between musician and audience (Curry). Most popular music genres are, as a result, culturally and sociologically identified with the consumption of at least one mind-altering substance (Lyttle; Primack; Schapiro). While the analysis of lyrics referring to this theme has hitherto focused on illegal drugs and alcoholic beverages (Cooper), coffee and its psychoactive ingredient caffeine have been almost entirely overlooked (Summer). The most recent study of drugs in popular music, for example, defined substance use as “tobacco, alcohol, marijuana, cocaine and other stimulants, heroin and other opiates, hallucinogens, inhalants, prescription drugs, over-the-counter drugs, and nonspecific substances” (Primack 172), thereby ignoring a chemical stimulant consumed by 90 per cent of adult Americans every day (Lovett). The wide availability of coffee and the comparatively mild effect of caffeine means that its consumption rarely causes harm. One researcher has described it as a ubiquitous and unobtrusive “generalised public activity […] ‘invisible’ to analysts seeking distinctive social events” (Cooper 92). Coffee may provide only a relatively mild “buzz”—but it is now accepted that caffeine is an addictive substance (Juliano) and, due to its universal legality, coffee is also the world’s most extensively traded and enthusiastically consumed psychoactive consumer product (Juliano 1). The musical genre of jazz has a longstanding relationship with marijuana and narcotics (Curry; Singer; Tolson; Winick). Unsurprisingly, given its Round Midnight connotations, jazz standards also celebrate the restorative impact of coffee. Exemplary compositions include Burke/Webster’s insomniac torch song Black Coffee, which provided hits for Sarah Vaughan (1949), Ella Fitzgerald (1953), and Peggy Lee (1960); and Frank Sinatra’s recordings of Hilliard/Dick’s The Coffee Song (1946, 1960), which satirised the coffee surplus in Brazil at a time when this nation enjoyed a near monopoly on production. Sinatra joked that this ubiquitous drink was that country’s only means of liquid refreshment, in a refrain that has since become a headline writer’s phrasal template: “There’s an Awful Lot of Coffee in Vietnam,” “An Awful Lot of Coffee in the Bin,” and “There’s an Awful Lot of Taxes in Brazil.” Ethnographer Aaron Fox has shown how country music gives expression to the lived social experience of blue-collar and agrarian workers (Real 29). Coffee’s role in energising working class America (Cooper) is featured in such recordings as Dolly Parton’s Nine To Five (1980), which describes her morning routine using a memorable “kitchen/cup of ambition” rhyme, and Don't Forget the Coffee Billy Joe (1973) by Tom T. Hall which laments the hardship of unemployment, hunger, cold, and lack of healthcare. Country music’s “tired truck driver” is the most enduring blue-collar trope celebrating coffee’s analeptic powers. Versions include Truck Drivin' Man by Buck Owens (1964), host of the country TV show Hee Haw and pioneer of the Bakersfield sound, and Driving My Life Away from pop-country crossover star Eddie Rabbitt (1980). Both feature characteristically gendered stereotypes of male truck drivers pushing on through the night with the help of a truck stop waitress who has fuelled them with caffeine. Johnny Cash’s A Cup of Coffee (1966), recorded at the nadir of his addiction to pills and alcohol, has an incoherent improvised lyric on this subject; while Jerry Reed even prescribed amphetamines to keep drivers awake in Caffein [sic], Nicotine, Benzedrine (And Wish Me Luck) (1980). Doye O’Dell’s Diesel Smoke, Dangerous Curves (1952) is the archetypal “truck drivin’ country” song and the most exciting track of its type. It subsequently became a hit for the doyen of the subgenre, Red Simpson (1966). An exhausted driver, having spent the night with a woman whose name he cannot now recall, is fighting fatigue and wrestling his hot-rod low-loader around hairpin mountain curves in an attempt to rendezvous with a pretty truck stop waitress. The song’s palpable energy comes from its frenetic guitar picking and the danger implicit in trailing a heavy load downhill while falling asleep at the wheel. Tommy Faile’s Phantom 309, a hit for Red Sovine (1967) that was later covered by Tom Waits (Big Joe and the Phantom 309, 1975), elevates the “tired truck driver” narrative to gothic literary form. Reflecting country music’s moral code of citizenship and its culture of performative storytelling (Fox, Real 23), it tells of a drenched and exhausted young hitchhiker picked up by Big Joe—the driver of a handsome eighteen-wheeler. On arriving at a truck stop, Joe drops the traveller off, giving him money for a restorative coffee. The diner falls silent as the hitchhiker orders up his “cup of mud”. Big Joe, it transpires, is a phantom trucker. After running off the road to avoid a school bus, his distinctive ghost rig now only reappears to rescue stranded travellers. Punk rock, a genre closely associated with recreational amphetamines (McNeil 76, 87), also features a number of caffeine-as-stimulant songs. Californian punk band, Descendents, identified caffeine as their drug of choice in two 1996 releases, Coffee Mug and Kids on Coffee. These songs describe chugging the drink with much the same relish and energy that others might pull at the neck of a beer bottle, and vividly compare the effects of the drug to the intense rush of speed. The host of “New Music News” (a segment of MTV’s 120 Minutes) references this correlation in 1986 while introducing the band’s video—in which they literally bounce off the walls: “You know, while everybody is cracking down on crack, what about that most respectable of toxic substances or stimulants, the good old cup of coffee? That is the preferred high, actually, of California’s own Descendents—it is also the subject of their brand new video” (“New Music News”). Descendents’s Sessions EP (1997) featured an overflowing cup of coffee on the sleeve, while punk’s caffeine-as-amphetamine trope is also promulgated by Hellbender (Caffeinated 1996), Lagwagon (Mr. Coffee 1997), and Regatta 69 (Addicted to Coffee 2005). Coffee in the Morning and Kisses in the Night: Coffee and Courtship Coffee as romantic metaphor in song corroborates the findings of early researchers who examined courtship rituals in popular music. Donald Horton’s 1957 study found that hit songs codified the socially constructed self-image and limited life expectations of young people during the 1950s by depicting conservative, idealised, and traditional relationship scenarios. He summarised these as initial courtship, honeymoon period, uncertainty, and parting (570-4). Eleven years after this landmark analysis, James Carey replicated Horton’s method. His results revealed that pop lyrics had become more realistic and less bound by convention during the 1960s. They incorporated a wider variety of discourse including the temporariness of romantic commitment, the importance of individual autonomy in relationships, more liberal attitudes, and increasingly unconventional courtship behaviours (725). Socially conservative coffee songs include Coffee in the Morning and Kisses in the Night by The Boswell Sisters (1933) in which the protagonist swears fidelity to her partner on condition that this desire is expressed strictly in the appropriate social context of marriage. It encapsulates the restrictions Horton identified on courtship discourse in popular song prior to the arrival of rock and roll. The Henderson/DeSylva/Brown composition You're the Cream in My Coffee, recorded by Annette Hanshaw (1928) and by Nat King Cole (1946), also celebrates the social ideal of monogamous devotion. The persistence of such idealised traditional themes continued into the 1960s. American pop singer Don Cherry had a hit with Then You Can Tell Me Goodbye (1962) that used coffee as a metaphor for undying and everlasting love. Otis Redding’s version of Butler/Thomas/Walker’s Cigarettes and Coffee (1966)—arguably soul music’s exemplary romantic coffee song—carries a similar message as a couple proclaim their devotion in a late night conversation over coffee. Like much of the Stax catalogue, Cigarettes and Coffee, has a distinctly “down home” feel and timbre. The lovers are simply content with each other; they don’t need “cream” or “sugar.” Horton found 1950s blues and R&B lyrics much more sexually explicit than pop songs (567). Dawson (1994) subsequently characterised black popular music as a distinct public sphere, and Squires (2002) argued that it displayed elements of what she defined as “enclave” and “counterpublic” traits. Lawson (2010) has argued that marginalised and/or subversive blues artists offered a form of countercultural resistance against prevailing social norms. Indeed, several blues and R&B coffee songs disregard established courtship ideals and associate the product with non-normative and even transgressive relationship circumstances—including infidelity, divorce, and domestic violence. Lightnin’ Hopkins’s Coffee Blues (1950) references child neglect and spousal abuse, while the narrative of Muddy Waters’s scorching Iodine in my Coffee (1952) tells of an attempted poisoning by his Waters’s partner. In 40 Cups of Coffee (1953) Ella Mae Morse is waiting for her husband to return home, fuelling her anger and anxiety with caffeine. This song does eventually comply with traditional courtship ideals: when her lover eventually returns home at five in the morning, he is greeted with a relieved kiss. In Keep That Coffee Hot (1955), Scatman Crothers supplies a counterpoint to Morse’s late-night-abandonment narrative, asking his partner to keep his favourite drink warm during his adulterous absence. Brook Benton’s Another Cup of Coffee (1964) expresses acute feelings of regret and loneliness after a failed relationship. More obliquely, in Coffee Blues (1966) Mississippi John Hurt sings affectionately about his favourite brand, a “lovin’ spoonful” of Maxwell House. In this, he bequeathed the moniker of folk-rock band The Lovin’ Spoonful, whose hits included Do You Believe in Magic (1965) and Summer in the City (1966). However, an alternative reading of Hurt’s lyric suggests that this particular phrase is a metaphorical device proclaiming the author’s sexual potency. Hurt’s “lovin’ spoonful” may actually be a portion of his seminal emission. In the 1950s, Horton identified country as particularly “doleful” (570), and coffee provides a common metaphor for failed romance in a genre dominated by “metanarratives of loss and desire” (Fox, Jukebox 54). Claude Gray’s I'll Have Another Cup of Coffee (Then I’ll Go) (1961) tells of a protagonist delivering child support payments according to his divorce lawyer’s instructions. The couple share late night coffee as their children sleep through the conversation. This song was subsequently recorded by seventeen-year-old Bob Marley (One Cup of Coffee, 1962) under the pseudonym Bobby Martell, a decade prior to his breakthrough as an international reggae star. Marley’s youngest son Damian has also performed the track while, interestingly in the context of this discussion, his older sibling Rohan co-founded Marley Coffee, an organic farm in the Jamaican Blue Mountains. Following Carey’s demonstration of mainstream pop’s increasingly realistic depiction of courtship behaviours during the 1960s, songwriters continued to draw on coffee as a metaphor for failed romance. In Carly Simon’s You’re So Vain (1972), she dreams of clouds in her coffee while contemplating an ostentatious ex-lover. Squeeze’s Black Coffee In Bed (1982) uses a coffee stain metaphor to describe the end of what appears to be yet another dead-end relationship for the protagonist. Sarah Harmer’s Coffee Stain (1998) expands on this device by reworking the familiar “lipstick on your collar” trope, while Sexsmith & Kerr’s duet Raindrops in my Coffee (2005) superimposes teardrops in coffee and raindrops on the pavement with compelling effect. Kate Bush’s Coffee Homeground (1978) provides the most extreme narrative of relationship breakdown: the true story of Cora Henrietta Crippin’s poisoning. Researchers who replicated Horton’s and Carey’s methodology in the late 1970s (Bridges; Denisoff) were surprised to find their results dominated by traditional courtship ideals. The new liberal values unearthed by Carey in the late 1960s simply failed to materialise in subsequent decades. In this context, it is interesting to observe how romantic coffee songs in contemporary soul and jazz continue to disavow the post-1960s trend towards realistic social narratives, adopting instead a conspicuously consumerist outlook accompanied by smooth musical timbres. This phenomenon possibly betrays the influence of contemporary coffee advertising. From the 1980s, television commercials have sought to establish coffee as a desirable high end product, enjoyed by bohemian lovers in a conspicuously up-market environment (Werder). All Saints’s Black Coffee (2000) and Lebrado’s Coffee (2006) identify strongly with the culture industry’s image of coffee as a luxurious beverage whose consumption signifies prominent social status. All Saints’s promotional video is set in a opulent location (although its visuals emphasise the lyric’s romantic disharmony), while Natalie Cole’s Coffee Time (2008) might have been itself written as a commercial. Busting Up a Starbucks: The Politics of Coffee Politics and coffee meet most palpably at the coffee shop. This conjunction has a well-documented history beginning with the establishment of coffee houses in Europe and the birth of the public sphere (Habermas; Love; Pincus). The first popular songs to reference coffee shops include Jaybird Coleman’s Coffee Grinder Blues (1930), which boasts of skills that precede the contemporary notion of a barista by four decades; and Let's Have Another Cup of Coffee (1932) from Irving Berlin’s depression-era musical Face The Music, where the protagonists decide to stay in a restaurant drinking coffee and eating pie until the economy improves. Coffee in a Cardboard Cup (1971) from the Broadway musical 70 Girls 70 is an unambiguous condemnation of consumerism, however, it was written, recorded and produced a generation before Starbucks’ aggressive expansion and rapid dominance of the coffee house market during the 1990s. The growth of this company caused significant criticism and protest against what seemed to be a ruthless homogenising force that sought to overwhelm local competition (Holt; Thomson). In response, Starbucks has sought to be defined as a more responsive and interactive brand that encourages “glocalisation” (de Larios; Thompson). Koller, however, has characterised glocalisation as the manipulative fabrication of an “imagined community”—whose heterogeneity is in fact maintained by the aesthetics and purchasing choices of consumers who make distinctive and conscious anti-brand statements (114). Neat Capitalism is a more useful concept here, one that intercedes between corporate ideology and postmodern cultural logic, where such notions as community relations and customer satisfaction are deliberately and perhaps somewhat cynically conflated with the goal of profit maximisation (Rojek). As the world’s largest chain of coffee houses with over 19,400 stores in March 2012 (Loxcel), Starbucks is an exemplar of this phenomenon. Their apparent commitment to environmental stewardship, community relations, and ethical sourcing is outlined in the company’s annual “Global Responsibility Report” (Vimac). It is also demonstrated in their engagement with charitable and environmental non-governmental organisations such as Fairtrade and Co-operative for Assistance and Relief Everywhere (CARE). By emphasising this, Starbucks are able to interpellate (that is, “call forth”, “summon”, or “hail” in Althusserian terms) those consumers who value environmental protection, social justice and ethical business practices (Rojek 117). Bob Dylan and Sheryl Crow provide interesting case studies of the persuasive cultural influence evoked by Neat Capitalism. Dylan’s 1962 song Talkin’ New York satirised his formative experiences as an impoverished performer in Greenwich Village’s coffee houses. In 1995, however, his decision to distribute the Bob Dylan: Live At The Gaslight 1962 CD exclusively via Starbucks generated significant media controversy. Prominent commentators expressed their disapproval (Wilson Harris) and HMV Canada withdrew Dylan’s product from their shelves (Lynskey). Despite this, the success of this and other projects resulted in the launch of Starbucks’s in-house record company, Hear Music, which released entirely new recordings from major artists such as Ray Charles, Paul McCartney, Joni Mitchell, Carly Simon and Elvis Costello—although the company has recently announced a restructuring of their involvement in this venture (O’Neil). Sheryl Crow disparaged her former life as a waitress in Coffee Shop (1995), a song recorded for her second album. “Yes, I was a waitress. I was a waitress not so long ago; then I won a Grammy” she affirmed in a YouTube clip of a live performance from the same year. More recently, however, Crow has become an avowed self-proclaimed “Starbucks groupie” (Tickle), releasing an Artist’s Choice (2003) compilation album exclusively via Hear Music and performing at the company’s 2010 Annual Shareholders’s Meeting. Songs voicing more unequivocal dissatisfaction with Starbucks’s particular variant of Neat Capitalism include Busting Up a Starbucks (Mike Doughty, 2005), and Starbucks Takes All My Money (KJ-52, 2008). The most successful of these is undoubtedly Ron Sexsmith’s Jazz at the Bookstore (2006). Sexsmith bemoans the irony of intense original blues artists such as Leadbelly being drowned out by the cacophony of coffee grinding machines while customers queue up to purchase expensive coffees whose names they can’t pronounce. In this, he juxtaposes the progressive patina of corporate culture against the circumstances of African-American labour conditions in the deep South, the shocking incongruity of which eventually cause the old bluesman to turn in his grave. Fredric Jameson may have good reason to lament the depthless a-historical pastiche of postmodern popular culture, but this is no “nostalgia film”: Sexsmith articulates an artfully framed set of subtle, sensitive, and carefully contextualised observations. Songs about coffee also intersect with politics via lyrics that play on the mid-brown colour of the beverage, by employing it as a metaphor for the sociological meta-narratives of acculturation and assimilation. First popularised in Israel Zangwill’s 1905 stage play, The Melting Pot, this term is more commonly associated with Americanisation rather than miscegenation in the United States—a nuanced distinction that British band Blue Mink failed to grasp with their memorable invocation of “coffee-coloured people” in Melting Pot (1969). Re-titled in the US as People Are Together (Mickey Murray, 1970) the song was considered too extreme for mainstream radio airplay (Thompson). Ike and Tina Turner’s Black Coffee (1972) provided a more accomplished articulation of coffee as a signifier of racial identity; first by associating it with the history of slavery and the post-Civil Rights discourse of African-American autonomy, then by celebrating its role as an energising force for African-American workers seeking economic self-determination. Anyone familiar with the re-casting of black popular music in an industry dominated by Caucasian interests and aesthetics (Cashmore; Garofalo) will be unsurprised to find British super-group Humble Pie’s (1973) version of this song more recognisable. Conclusion Coffee-flavoured popular songs celebrate the stimulant effects of caffeine, provide metaphors for courtship rituals, and offer critiques of Neat Capitalism. Harold Love and Guthrie Ramsey have each argued (from different perspectives) that the cultural micro-narratives of small social groups allow us to identify important “ethnographic truths” (Ramsey 22). Aesthetically satisfying and intellectually stimulating coffee songs are found where these micro-narratives intersect with the ethnographic truths of coffee culture. Examples include the unconventional courtship narratives of blues singers Muddy Waters and Mississippi John Hurt, the ritualised storytelling tradition of country performers Doye O’Dell and Tommy Faile, and historicised accounts of the Civil Rights struggle provided by Ron Sexsmith and Tina Turner. References Argenti, Paul. “Collaborating With Activists: How Starbucks Works With NGOs.” California Management Review 47.1 (2004): 91–116. Althusser, Louis. “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses.” Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays. London: Monthly Review Press, 1971. Bridges, John, and R. Serge Denisoff. “Changing Courtship Patterns in the Popular Song: Horton and Carey revisited.” Popular Music and Society 10.3 (1986): 29–45. Carey, James. “Changing Courtship Patterns in the Popular Song.” The American Journal of Sociology 74.6 (1969): 720–31. Cashmere, Ellis. The Black Culture Industry. London: Routledge, 1997. “Coffee.” Theme Time Radio Hour hosted by Bob Dylan, XM Satellite Radio. 31 May 2006. Cooper, B. Lee, and William L. Schurk. “You’re the Cream in My Coffee: A Discography of Java Jive.” Popular Music and Society 23.2 (1999): 91–100. Crow, Sheryl. “Coffee Shop.” Beacon Theatre, New York City. 17 Mar. 1995. YouTube 1 Feb. 2012 ‹http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_-bDAjASQI ›. Curry, Andrew. “Drugs in Jazz and Rock Music.” Clinical Toxicology 1.2 (1968): 235–44. Dawson, Michael C. “A Black Counterpublic?: Economic Earthquakes, Racial Agenda(s) and Black Politics.” Public Culture 7.1 (1994): 195–223. de Larios, Margaret. “Alone, Together: The Social Culture of Music and the Coffee Shop.” URC Student Scholarship Paper 604 (2011). 1 Feb. 2012 ‹http://scholar.oxy.edu/urc_student/604›. Englis, Basil, Michael Solomon and Anna Olofsson. “Consumption Imagery in Music Television: A Bi-Cultural Perspective.” Journal of Advertising 22.4 (1993): 21–33. Fox, Aaron. Real Country: Music and Language in Working-Class Culture. Durham: Duke UP, 2004. Fox, Aaron. “The Jukebox of History: Narratives of Loss and Desire in the Discourse of Country Music.” Popular Music 11.1 (1992): 53–72. Garofalo, Reebee. “Culture Versus Commerce: The Marketing of Black Popular Music.” Public Culture 7.1 (1994): 275–87. Habermas, Jurgen. The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry Into a Category of Bourgeois Society. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1989. Hamilton, Andy. Aesthetics and Music. London: Continuum, 2007. Harris, Craig. “Starbucks Opens Hear Music Shop in Bellevue.” Seattle Post Intelligencer 23 Nov. 2006. 1 Feb. 2012 ‹http://www.seattlepi.com/business/article/Starbucks-opens-Hear-Music-shop-in-Bellevue-1220637.php›. Harris, John. “Lay Latte Lay.” The Guardian 1 Jul. 2005. 1 Feb. 2012 ‹http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2005/jul/01/2?INTCMP=SRCH›. Holt, Douglas. “Why Do Brands Cause Trouble? A Dialectical Theory of Consumer Culture and Branding.” Journal of Consumer Research 29 (2002): 70–90. Horton, Donald. “The Dialogue of Courtship in Popular Songs.” American Journal of Sociology 62.6 (1957): 569–78. Jameson, Fredric. Postmodernism, or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism. Durham: Duke UP, 1991. Juliano, Laura, and Roland Griffiths. “A Critical Review of Caffeine Withdrawal: Empirical Validation of Symptoms and Signs, Incidence, Severity, and Associated Features.” Psychopharmacology 176 (2004): 1–29. Koller, Veronika. “‘The World’s Local Bank’: Glocalisation as a Strategy in Corporate Branding Discourse.” Social Semiotics 17.1 (2007): 111–31. Lawson, Rob A. Jim Crow’s Counterculture: The Blues and Black Southerners, 1890-1945 (Making the Modern South). Baton Rouge: Louisiana State UP, 2010. Love, Harold. “How Music Created A Public.” Criticism 46.2 (2004): 257–72. “Loxcel Starbucks Map”. Loxcel.com 1 Mar. 2012 ‹loxcel.com/sbux-faq.hmtl›. Lovett, Richard. “Coffee: The Demon Drink?” New Scientist 2518. 24 Sep. 2005. 1 Apr. 2012 ‹http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg18725181.700›. Lynskey, Dorian. “Stir It Up: Starbucks Has Changed the Music Industry with its Deals with Dylan and Alanis. What’s Next?”. The Guardian 6 Oct. 2005: 18. 1 Feb. 2012 ‹http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2005/oct/06/popandrock.marketingandpr›. Lyttle, Thomas, and Michael Montagne. “Drugs, Music, and Ideology: A Social Pharmacological Interpretation of the Acid House Movement.” The International Journal of the Addictions 27.10 (1992): 1159–77. McCracken, Grant. “Culture and Consumption: A Theoretical Account of the Structure and Movement of the Cultural Meaning of Consumer Goods.” Journal of Consumer Research 13.1 (1986): 71–84. McNeil, Legs, and Gillian McCain. Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk. London: Abacus, 1997. “New Music News” 120 Minutes MTV 28 Sep. 1986. 1 Feb. 2012 ‹http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TnqjqXztc0o›. O’Neil, Valerie. “Starbucks Refines its Entertainment Strategy.” Starbucks Newsroom 24 Apr. 2008. 1 Feb. 2012 ‹http://news.starbucks.com/article_display.cfm?article_id=48›. Pincus, Steve. “‘Coffee Politicians Does Create’: Coffeehouses and Restoration Political Culture.” The Journal of Modern History 67 (1995): 807–34. Primack, Brian, Madeline Dalton, Mary Carroll, Aaron Agarwal, and Michael Fine. “Content Analysis of Tobacco, Alcohol, and Other Drugs in Popular Music.” Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine 162.2 (2008): 169–75. 1 Feb. 2012 ‹http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3004676/›. Ramsey, Guthrie P. Race Music: Black Cultures from Bebop to Hip-Hop. Berkeley: U of California P, 2003. Rojek, Chris. Cultural Studies. Cambridge: Polity P, 2007. Rosenbaum, Jill, and Lorraine Prinsky. “Sex, Violence and Rock ‘N’ Roll: Youths’ Perceptions of Popular Music.” Popular Music and Society 11.2 (1987): 79–89. Shapiro, Harry. Waiting for the Man: The Story of Drugs and Popular Music. London: Quartet Books, 1988. Singer, Merrill, and Greg Mirhej. “High Notes: The Role of Drugs in the Making of Jazz.” Journal of Ethnicity in Substance Abuse 5.4 (2006):1–38. Squires, Catherine R. “Rethinking the Black Public Sphere: An Alternative Vocabulary for Multiple Public Spheres.” Communication Theory 12.4 (2002): 446–68. Thompson, Craig J., and Zeynep Arsel. “The Starbucks Brandscape and Consumers’ (Anticorporate) Experiences of Glocalization.” Journal of Consumer Research 31 (2004.): 631–42. Thompson, Erik. “Secret Stash Records Releases Forgotten Music in Stylish Packages: Meet Founders Cory Wong and Eric Foss.” CityPages 18 Jan. 2012. 1 Feb. 2012 ‹http://www.citypages.com/2012-01-18/music/secret-stash-records-releases-forgotten-music-in-stylish-packages/›.Tickle, Cindy. “Sheryl Crow Performs at Starbucks Annual Shareholders Meeting.” Examiner.com24 Mar. 2010. 1 Feb. 2012 ‹http://www.examiner.com/starbucks-in-national/sheryl-crow-performs-at-starbucks-annual-shareholders-meeting-photos›.Tolson, Gerald H., and Michael J. Cuyjet. “Jazz and Substance Abuse: Road to Creative Genius or Pathway to Premature Death?”. International Journal of Law and Psychiatry 30 (2007): 530–38. Varma, Vivek, and Ben Packard. “Starbucks Global Responsibility Report Goals and Progress 2011”. Starbucks Corporation 1 Apr. 2012 ‹http://assets.starbucks.com/assets/goals-progress-report-2011.pdf›. Werder, Olaf. “Brewing Romance The Romantic Fantasy Theme of the Taster’s Choice ‘Couple’ Advertising Campaign.” Critical Thinking About Sex, Love, And Romance In The Mass Media: Media Literacy Applications. Eds. Mary-Lou Galician and Debra L. Merskin. New Jersey: Taylor & Francis, 2009. 35–48. Wilson, Jeremy “Desolation Row: Dylan Signs With Starbucks.” The Guardian 29 Jun. 2005. 1 Feb. 2012 ‹http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2005/jun/29/bobdylan.digitalmedia?INTCMP=SRCH›. Winick, Charles. “The Use of Drugs by Jazz Musicians.” Social Problems 7.3 (1959): 240–53.
APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles
29

Harrison, Karey. "Building Resilient Communities." M/C Journal 16, no. 5 (August 24, 2013). http://dx.doi.org/10.5204/mcj.716.

Full text
Abstract:
This paper will compare the metaphoric structuring of the ecological concept of resilience—with its roots in Holling's 1973 paper; with psychological concepts of resilience which followed from research—such as Werner, Bierman, and French and Garmezy and Streitman) published in the early 1970s. This metaphoric analysis will expose the difference between complex adaptive systems models of resilience in ecology and studies related to resilience in relation to climate change; compared with the individualism of linear equilibrium models of resilience which have dominated discussions of resilience in psychology and economics. By examining the ontological commitments of these competing metaphors, I will show that the individualistic concept of resilience which dominates psychological discussions of resilience is incompatible with the ontological commitments of ecological concepts of resilience. Because the ontological commitments of the concepts of ecological resilience on the one hand, and psychological resilience on the other, are so at odds with one another, it is important to be clear which concept of resilience is being evaluated for its adequacy as a concept. Having clearly distinguished these competing metaphors and their ontological commitments, this paper will show that it is the complex adaptive systems model of resilience from ecology, not the individualist concept of psychological resilience, that has been utilised by both the academic discussions of adaptation to climate change, and the operationalisation of the concept of resilience by social movements like the permaculture, ecovillage, and Transition Towns movements. Ontological Metaphors My analysis of ontological metaphors draws on insights from Kuhn's (114) account of gestalt perception in scientific paradigm shifts; the centrality of the role of concrete analogies in scientific reasoning (Masterman 77); and the theorisation of ontological metaphors in cognitive linguistics (Gärdenfors). Figure 1: Object Ontological commitments reflect the shared beliefs within a community about the sorts of things that exist. Our beliefs about what exists are shaped by our sensory and motor interactions with objects in the physical world. Physical objects have boundaries and surfaces that separate the object from not-the-object. Objects have insides and outsides, and can be described in terms of more-or-less fixed and stable “objective” properties. A prototypical example of an “object” is a “container”, like the example shown in Figure 1. Ontological metaphors allow us to conceive of “things” which are not objects as if they were objects by picking “out parts of our experience and treat them as [if they were] discrete entities or substances of a uniform kind” (Lakoff and Johnson 25). We use ontological metaphors when we imagine a boundary around a collection of things, such as the members of a team or trees in a forest, and conceive of them as being in a container (Langacker 191–97). We can then think of “things” like a team or forest as if they were a single entity. We can also understand processes and activities as if they were things with boundaries. Whether or not we characterise some aspect of our experience as a noun (a bounded entity) or as a verb (a process that occurs over time) is not determined by the nature of things in themselves, but by our understanding and interpretation of our experience (Langacker 233). In this paper I employ a technique that involves examining the details of “concrete images” from the source domains for metaphors employed in the social sciences to expose for analysis their ontological commitments (Harrison, “Politics” 215; Harrison, “Economics” 7). By examining the ontological metaphors that structure the resilience literature I will show how different conceptions of resilience reflect different beliefs and commitments about the sorts of “things” there are in the world, and hence how we can study and understand these “things.” Engineering Metaphors In his discussion of engineering resilience, Holling (“Engineering Vs. Ecological” 33) argues that this conception is the “foundation for economic theory”, and defined in terms of “resistance to disturbance and the speed of return to the equilibrium” or steady state of the system. Whereas Holling takes his original example of the use of the engineering concept of resilience from economics, Pendall, Foster, & Cowell (72), and Martin-Breen and Anderies (6) identify it as the concept of resilience that dominates the field of psychology. They take the stress loading of bridges to be the engineering source for the metaphor. Figure 2: Pogo stick animation (Source: Blacklemon 67, CC http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Pogoanim.gif). In order to understand this metaphor, we need to examine the characteristics of the source domain for the metaphor. A bridge can be “under tension, compression or both forces at the same time [and] experiences what engineers define as stress” (Matthews 3). In order to resist these forces, bridges need to be constructed of material which “behave much like a spring” that “strains elastically (deforms temporarily and returns to its original shape after a load has been removed) under a given stress” (Gordon 52; cited in Matthews). The pogostick shown in Figure 2 illustrates how a spring returns to its original size and configuration once the load or stress is removed. WGBH Educational Foundation provides links to simple diagrams that illustrate the different stresses the three main designs of bridges are subject to, and if you compare Computers & Engineering's with Gibbs and Bourne's harmonic spring animation you can see how both a bridge under live load and the pogostick in Figure 2 oscillate just like an harmonic spring. Subject to the elastic limits of the material, the deformation of a spring is proportional to the stress or load applied. According to the “modern theory of elasticity [...] it [is] possible to deduce the relation between strain and stress for complex objects in terms of intrinsic properties of the materials it is made of” (“Hooke’s Law”). When psychological resilience is characterised in terms of “properties of individuals [that] are identified in isolation” (Martin-Breen and Anderies 12); and in terms of “behaviours and attributes [of individuals] that allow people to get along with one another and to succeed socially” (Pendall, Foster, and Cowell 72), they are reflecting this engineering focus on the properties of materials. Martin-Breen and Anderies (42) argue that “the Engineering Resilience framework” has been informed by ontological metaphors which treat “an ecosystem, person, city, government, bridge, [or] society” as if it were an object—“a unified whole”. Because this concept of resilience treats individuals as “objects,” it leads researchers to look for the properties or characteristics of the “materials” which individuals are “made of”, which are either elastic and allow them to “bounce” or “spring” back after stress; or are fragile and brittle and break under load. Similarly, the Designers Institute (DINZ), in its conference on “Our brittle society,” shows it is following the engineering resilience approach when it conceives of a city or society as an object which is made of materials which are either “strong and flexible” or “brittle and fragile”. While Holling characterises economic theory in terms of this engineering metaphor, it is in fact chemistry and the kinetic theory of gases that provides the source domain for the ontological metaphor which structures both static and dynamic equilibrium models within neo-classical economics (Smith and Foley; Mirowski). However, while springs are usually made out of metals, they can be made out of any “material [that] has the required combination of rigidity and elasticity,” such as plastic, and even wood (in a bow) (“Spring (device)”). Gas under pressure turns out to behave the same as other springs or elastic materials do under load. Because both the economic metaphor based on equilibrium theory of gases and the engineering analysis of bridges under load can both be subsumed under spring theory, we can treat both the economic (gas) metaphor and the engineering (bridge) metaphor as minor variations of a single overarching (spring) metaphor. Complex Systems Metaphors Holling (“Resilience & Stability” 13–15) critiques equilibrium models, arguing that non-deterministic, complex, non-equilibrium and multi-equilibrium ecological systems do not satisfy the conditions for application of equilibrium models. Holling argues that unlike the single equilibrium modelled by engineering resilience, complex adaptive systems (CAS) may have multi or no equilibrium states, and be non-linear and non-deterministic. Walker and Salt follow Holling by calling for recognition of the “dynamic complexity of the real world” (8), and that “these [real world] systems are complex adaptive systems” (11). Martin-Breen and Anderies (7) identify the key difference between “systems” and “complex adaptive systems” resilience as adaptive capacity, which like Walker and Salt (xiii), they define as the capacity to maintain function, even if system structures change or fail. The “engineering” concept of resilience focuses on the (elastic) properties of materials and uses language associated with elastic springs. This “spring” metaphor emphasises the property of individual components. In contrast, ecological concepts of resilience examine interactions between elements, and the state of the system in a multi-dimensional phase space. This systems approach shows that the complex behaviour of a system depends at least as much on the relationships between elements. These relationships can lead to “emergent” properties which cannot be reduced to the properties of the parts of the system. To explain these relationships and connections, ecologists and climate scientists use language and images associated with landscapes such as 2-D cross-sections and 3-D topology (Holling, “Resilience & Stability” 20; Pendall, Foster, and Cowell 74). Figure 3 is based on an image used by Walker, Holling, Carpenter and Kinzig (fig. 1b) to represent possible states of ecological systems. The “basins” in the image rely on our understanding of gravitational forces operating in a 3-D space to model “equilibrium” states in which the system, like the “ball” in the “basin”, will tend to settle. Figure 3: (based on Langston; in Walker et al. fig. 1b) – Tipping Point Bifurcation Wasdell (“Feedback” fig. 4) adapted this image to represent possible climate states and explain the concept of “tipping points” in complex systems. I have added the red balls (a, b, and c to replace the one black ball (b) in the original which represented the state of the system), the red lines which indicate the path of the ball/system, and the black x-y axis, in order to discuss the image. Wasdell (“Feedback Dynamics” slide 22) takes the left basin to represents “the variable, near-equilibrium, but contained dynamics of the [current] glacial/interglacial period”. As a result of rising GHG levels, the climate system absorbs more energy (mostly as heat). This energy can force the system into a different, hotter, state, less amenable to life as we know it. This is shown in Figure 3 by the system (represented as the red ball a) rising up the left basin (point b). From the perspective of the gravitational representation in Figure 3, the extra energy in the basin operates like the rotation in a Gravitron amusement ride, where centrifugal force pushes riders up the sides of the ride. If there is enough energy added to the climate system it could rise up and jump over the ridge/tipping point separating the current climate state into the “hot earth” basin shown on the right. Once the system falls into the right basin, it may be stuck near point c, and due to reinforcing feedbacks have difficulty escaping this new “equilibrium” state. Figure 4 represents a 2-D cross-section of the 3-D landscape shown in Figure 3. This cross-section shows how rising temperature and greenhouse gas (GHG) concentrations in a multi-equilibrium climate topology can lead to the climate crossing a tipping point and shifting from state a to state c. Figure 4: Topographic cross-section of possible climate states (derived from Wasdell, “Feedback” 26 CC). As Holling (“Resilience & Stability”) warns, a less “desirable” state, such as population collapse or extinction, may be more “resilient”, in the engineering sense, than a more desirable state. Wasdell (“Feedback Dynamics” slide 22) warns that the climate forcing as a result of human induced GHG emissions is in fact pushing the system “far away from equilibrium, passed the tipping point, and into the hot-earth scenario”. In previous episodes of extreme radiative forcing in the past, this “disturbance has then been amplified by powerful feedback dynamics not active in the near-equilibrium state [… and] have typically resulted in the loss of about 90% of life on earth.” An essential element of system dynamics is the existence of (delayed) reinforcing and balancing causal feedback loops, such as the ones illustrated in Figure 5. Figure 5: Pre/Predator model (Bellinger CC-BY-SA) In the case of Figure 5, the feedback loops illustrate the relationship between rabbit population increasing, then foxes feeding on the rabbits, keeping the rabbit population within the carrying capacity of the ecosystem. Fox predation prevents rabbit over-population and consequent starvation of rabbits. The reciprocal interaction of the elements of a system leads to unpredictable nonlinearity in “even seemingly simple systems” (“System Dynamics”). The climate system is subject to both positive and negative feedback loops. If the area of ice cover increases, more heat is reflected back into space, creating a positive feedback loop, reinforcing cooling. Whereas, as the arctic ice melts, as it is doing at present (Barber), heat previously reflected back into space is absorbed by now exposed water, increasing the rate of warming. Where negative feedback (system damping) dominates, the cup-shaped equilibrium is stable and system behaviour returns to base when subject to disturbance. [...]The impact of extreme events, however, indicates limits to the stable equilibrium. At one point cooling feedback loops overwhelmed the homeostasis, precipitating the "snowball earth" effect. […] Massive release of CO2 as a result of major volcanic activity […] set off positive feedback loops, precipitating runaway global warming and eliminating most life forms at the end of the Permian period. (Wasdell, “Topological”) Martin-Breen and Anderies (53–54), following Walker and Salt, identify four key factors for systems (ecological) resilience in nonlinear, non-deterministic (complex adaptive) systems: regulatory (balancing) feedback mechanisms, where increase in one element is kept in check by another element; modularity, where failure in one part of the system will not cascade into total systems failure; functional redundancy, where more than one element performs every essential function; and, self-organising capacity, rather than central control ensures the system continues without the need for “leadership”. Transition Towns as a Resilience Movement The Transition Town (TT) movement draws on systems modelling of both climate change and of Limits to Growth (Meadows et al.). TT takes seriously Limits to Growth modelling that showed that without constraints in population and consumption the world faces systems collapse by the middle of this century. It recommends community action to build as much capacity as possible to “maintain existence of function”—Holling's (“Engineering vs. Ecological” 33) definition of ecological resilience—in the face of failing economic, political and environmental systems. The Transition Network provides a template for communities to follow to “rebuild resilience and reduce CO2 emissions”. Rob Hopkins, the movements founder, explicitly identifies ecological resilience as its central concept (Transition Handbook 6). The idea for the movement grew out of a project by (2nd year students) completed for Hopkins at the Kinsale Further Education College. According to Hopkins (“Kinsale”), this project was inspired by Holmgren’s Permaculture principles and Heinberg's book on adapting to life after peak oil. Permaculture (permanent agriculture) is a design system for creating agricultural systems modelled on the diversity, stability, and resilience of natural ecosystems (Mollison ix; Holmgren xix). Permaculture draws its scientific foundations from systems ecology (Holmgren xxv). Following CAS theory, Mollison (33) defines stability as “self-regulation”, rather than “climax” or a single equilibrium state, and recommends “diversity of beneficial functional connections” (32) rather than diversity of isolated elements. Permaculture understands resilience in the ecological, rather than the engineering sense. The Transition Handbook (17) “explores the issues of peak oil and climate change, and how when looked at together, we need to be focusing on the rebuilding of resilience as well as cutting carbon emissions. It argues that the focus of our lives will become increasingly local and small scale as we come to terms with the real implications of the energy crisis we are heading into.” The Transition Towns movement incorporate each of the four systems resilience factors, listed at the end of the previous section, into its template for building resilient communities (Hopkins, Transition Handbook 55–6). Many of its recommendations build “modularity” and “self-organising”, such as encouraging communities to build “local food systems, [and] local investment models”. Hopkins argues that in a “more localised system” feedback loops are tighter, and the “results of our actions are more obvious”. TT training exercises include awareness raising for sensitivity to networks of (actual or potential) ecological, social and economic relationships (Hopkins, Transition Handbook 60–1). TT promotes diversity of local production and economic activities in order to increase “diversity of functions” and “diversity of responses to challenges.” Heinberg (8) wrote the forward to the 2008 edition of the Transition Handbook, after speaking at a TotnesTransition Town meeting. Heinberg is now a senior fellow at the Post Carbon Institute (PCI), which was established in 2003 to “provide […] the resources needed to understand and respond to the interrelated economic, energy, environmental, and equity crises that define the 21st century [… in] a world of resilient communities and re-localized economies that thrive within ecological bounds” (PCI, “About”), of the sort envisioned by the Limits to Growth model discussed in the previous section. Given the overlapping goals of PCI and Transition Towns, it is not surprising that Rob Hopkins is now a Fellow of PCI and regular contributor to Resilience, and there are close ties between the two organisations. Resilience, which until 2012 was published as the Energy Bulletin, is run by the Post Carbon Institute (PCI). Like Transition Towns, Resilience aims to build “community resilience in a world of multiple emerging challenges: the decline of cheap energy, the depletion of critical resources like water, complex environmental crises like climate change and biodiversity loss, and the social and economic issues which are linked to these. […] It has [its] roots in systems theory” (PCI, “About Resilience”). Resilience.org says it follows the interpretation of Resilience Alliance (RA) Program Director Brian Walker and science writer David Salt's (xiii) ecological definition of resilience as “the capacity of a system to absorb disturbance and still retain its basic function and structure.“ Conclusion This paper has analysed the ontological metaphors structuring competing conceptions of resilience. The engineering resilience metaphor dominates in psychological resilience research, but is not adequate for understanding resilience in complex adaptive systems. Ecological resilience, on the other hand, dominates in environmental and climate change research, and is the model of resilience that has been incorporated into the global permaculture and Transition Towns movements. References 2nd year students. Kinsale 2021: An Energy Descent Action Plan. Kinsale, Cork, Ireland: Kinsale Further Education College, 2005. 16 Aug. 2013 ‹http://transitionculture.org/wp-content/uploads/KinsaleEnergyDescentActionPlan.pdf>. Barber, Elizabeth. “Arctic Ice Continues to Thin, and Thin, European Satellite Reveals.” Christian Science Monitor 11 Sep. 2013. 25 Sep. 2013 ‹http://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/2013/0911/Arctic-ice-continues-to-thin-and-thin-European-satellite-reveals>. Bellinger, Gene. “Prey/Predator Model.” SystemsWiki 23 Nov. 2009. 16 Aug. 2013 ‹http://systemswiki.org/index.php?title=Prey/Predator_Model>. Blacklemon67. "Pogo Animation." Wikipedia 2007. 24 Sep. 2013 ‹http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Pogoanim.gif>. Computers & Engineering. Bridge Trucks Animated Stress Plot 1. 2003. GIF file. SAP2000 Bridge Design. ‹http://www.comp-engineering.com/announce/bridge/demo/truck_1.gif>. DINZ. “Resilience Engineering: 'Our Brittle Society' - The Sustainability Society - May 18th 2012.” The Designers Institute. 2013. 11 Aug. 2013 ‹http://www.dinz.org.nz/Events/2012/May/47965>. Gärdenfors, Peter. “Cognitive Semantics and Image Schemas with Embodied Forces.” Embodiment in Cognition and Culture. Ed. John Michael Krois et al. John Benjamins Publishing, 2007. 57–76. 8 Nov. 2012 ‹http://oddelki.ff.uni-mb.si/filozofija/files/Festschrift/Dunjas_festschrift/gardenfors.pdf>. Garmezy, N, and S Streitman. “Children at Risk: The Search for the Antecedents of Schizophrenia. Part I. Conceptual Models and Research Methods.” Schizophrenia Bulletin 8 (1974): 14–90. NCBI PubMed 14 Aug. 2013 ‹http://schizophreniabulletin.oxfordjournals.org/content/1/8/14.full.pdf>. Gibbs, Keith, and John Bourne. “The Helical Spring.” Schoolphysics 2013. 15 Aug. 2013 ‹http://www.schoolphysics.co.uk/animations/Helical_spring_shm/index.html>. Gordon, James Edward. Structures: Or, Why Things Don’t Fall Down. London: Plenum Press, 1978. Harrison, Karey. “Image Schemas and Political Ontology.” Communication, Cognition and Media: Political and Economic Discourse. Ed. Augusto Soares da Silva et al. Portugal: Aletheia, forthcoming. ———. “Ontological Commitments of Ethics and Economics.” Economic Thought 2.1 (2013): 1–19. 23 Apr. 2013 ‹http://et.worldeconomicsassociation.org/article/view/64>. Heinberg, Richard. Powerdown: Options and Actions for a Post-carbon World. New Society Publishers, 2004. Holling, Crawford Stanley. “Engineering Resilience versus Ecological Resilience.” Engineering within Ecological Constraints. Ed. Peter Schulze. Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 1996. 31–44. 11 Aug. 2013 ‹http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=4919&page=31>. ———. “Resilience and Stability of Ecological Systems.” Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics 4.1 (1973): 1–23. 11 Aug. 2013 ‹http://webarchive.iiasa.ac.at/Admin/PUB/Documents/RP-73-003.pdf>. Holmgren, David. Permaculture: Principles & Pathways beyond Sustainability. Holmgren Design Services, 2002. Hopkins, Rob. “Kinsale Energy Descent Action Plan (2005).” Transition Culture: an Evolving Exploration into the Head, Heart and Hands of Energy Descent. n.d. 16 Aug. 2013 ‹http://transitionculture.org/essential-info/pdf-downloads/kinsale-energy-descent-action-plan-2005/>. ———. The Transition Handbook: From Oil Dependency to Local Resilience. Green Books, 2008. Print. ———. The Transition Handbook: From Oil Dependency to Local Resilience. Free edit version. ‹http://www.appropedia.org/Category:The_Transition_Handbook: Appropedia.org> 2010. 16 Aug. 2010 ‹http://www.cs.toronto.edu/~sme/CSC2600/transition-handbook.pdf>. Kuhn, Thomas. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. 2nd ed. University of Chicago Press, 1962. Lakoff, George, and Mark Johnson. Metaphors We Live By. University of Chicago Press, 1980. Langacker, Ronald W. Foundations of Cognitive Grammar: Theoretical Prerequisites. Vol. 1. Stanford University Press, 1987. Langston, Art. “Tipping Point” or Bifurcation Between Two Attractor Basins. 2004. 25 Sep. 2013. ‹http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol9/iss2/art5/figure1.html>. Martin-Breen, Patrick, and J. Marty Anderies. Resilience: A Literature Review. Rockefeller Foundation, 2011. 8 Aug. 2013 ‹http://www.rockefellerfoundation.org/blog/resilience-literature-review>. Masterman, Margaret. “The Nature of a Paradigm.” Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge. Eds. Imre Lakatos & Alan Musgrave. Cambridge University Press, 1970. 59–89. Matthews, Theresa. “The Physics of Bridges.” Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute. 2013. 14 Aug. 2013 ‹http://www.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/units/2001/5/01.05.08.x.html>. Meadows, Donella H. et al. The Limits to Growth: A Report for the Club of Rome’s Project on the Predicament of Mankind. Universe Books, 1972. Mirowski, Philip. “From Mandelbrot to Chaos in Economic Theory.” Southern Economic Journal 57.2 (1990): 289–307. Mollison, Bill. Permaculture: A Designers’ Manual. Tagari Publications, 1988. PCI. “About.” Post Carbon Institute. 16 July 2012. 16 Aug. 2013 ‹http://www.postcarbon.org/about/>. ———. “About Resilience.org.” Resilience 16 July 2012. 16 Aug. 2013 ‹http://www.resilience.org/about>. Pendall, Rolf, Kathryn A. Foster, and Margaret Cowell. “Resilience and Regions: Building Understanding of the Metaphor.” Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society 3.1 (2010): 71–84. 4 Aug. 2013 ‹http://cjres.oxfordjournals.org/content/3/1/71>. RA. “About RA.” Resilience Alliance 2013. 16 Aug. 2013 ‹http://www.resalliance.org/index.php/about_ra>. Smith, Eric, and Duncan K. Foley. “Classical Thermodynamics and Economic General Equilibrium Theory.” Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control 32.1 (2008): 7–65. Transition Network. “About Transition Network.” Transition Network. 2012. 16 Aug. 2013 ‹http://www.transitionnetwork.org/about>. Walker, B. H., and David Salt. Resilience Thinking: Sustaining Ecosystems and People in a Changing World. Island Press, 2006. Walker, Brian et al. “Resilience, Adaptability and Transformability in Social–Ecological Systems.” Ecology and Society 9.2 (2004): 5. Wasdell, David. “A Topological Approach.” The Feedback Crisis in Climate Change: The Meridian Report. n.d. 16 Aug. 2013 ‹http://www.meridian.org.uk/Resources/Global%20Dynamics/Feedback%20Crisis/frameset1.htm?p=3>. ———. “Beyond the Tipping Point: Positive Feedback and the Acceleration of Climate Change.” The Foundation for the Future, Humanity 3000 Workshop. Seattle, 2006. ‹http://www.meridian.org.uk/_PDFs/BeyondTippingPoint.pdf>. ———. “Feedback Dynamics and the Acceleration of Climate Change.” Winterthur, 2008. 16 Aug. 2013 ‹http://www.crisis-forum.org.uk/events/Workshop1/Workshop1_presentations/wasdellpictures/wasdell_clubofrome.php>. Werner, Emmy E., Jessie M. Bierman, and Fern E. French. The Children of Kauai: A Longitudinal Study from the Prenatal Period to Age Ten. University of Hawaii Press, 1971.WGBH. “Bridge Basics.” Building Big. 2001. 14 Aug. 2013 ‹http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/buildingbig/bridge/basics.html>. Wikipedia contributors. “Gravitron.” Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia 20 Sep. 2013. 25 Sep. 2013 ‹http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitron>. ———. “Hooke’s Law.” Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia 8 Aug. 2013. 15 Aug. 2013 ‹http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hooke%27s_law>. ———. “Spring (device).” Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia 9 Aug. 2013. 24 Sep. 2013 ‹http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spring_(device)>. ———. “System Dynamics.” Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia 9 Aug. 2013. 13 Aug. 2013 ‹http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_dynamics>.
APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles
30

Emilio Faroldi. "The architecture of differences." TECHNE - Journal of Technology for Architecture and Environment, May 26, 2021, 9–15. http://dx.doi.org/10.36253/techne-11023.

Full text
Abstract:
Following in the footsteps of the protagonists of the Italian architectural debate is a mark of culture and proactivity. The synthesis deriving from the artistic-humanistic factors, combined with the technical-scientific component, comprises the very root of the process that moulds the architect as an intellectual figure capable of governing material processes in conjunction with their ability to know how to skilfully select schedules, phases and actors: these are elements that – when paired with that magical and essential compositional sensitivity – have fuelled this profession since its origins. The act of X-raying the role of architecture through the filter of its “autonomy” or “heteronomy”, at a time when the hybridisation of different areas of knowledge and disciplinary interpenetration is rife, facilitates an understanding of current trends, allowing us to bring the fragments of a debate carved into our culture and tradition up to date. As such, heteronomy – as a condition in which an acting subject receives the norm of its action from outside itself: the matrix of its meaning, coming from ancient Greek, the result of the fusion of the two terms ἕτερος éteros “different, other” and νόμος nómos “law, ordinance” – suggests the existence of a dual sentiment now pervasive in architecture: the sin of self-reference and the strength of depending on other fields of knowledge. Difference, interpreted as a value, and the ability to establish relationships between different points of observation become moments of a practice that values the process and method of affirming architecture as a discipline. The term “heteronomy”, used in opposition to “autonomy”, has – from the time of Kant onwards – taken on a positive value connected to the mutual respect between reason and creativity, exact science and empirical approach, contamination and isolation, introducing the social value of its existence every time that it returns to the forefront. At the 1949 conference in Lima, Ernesto Nathan Rogers spoke on combining the principle of “Architecture is an Art” with the demands of a social dimension of architecture: «Alberti, in the extreme precision of his thought, admonishes us that the idea must be translated into works and that these must have a practical and moral purpose in order to adapt harmoniously ‘to the use of men’, and I would like to point out the use of the plural of ‘men’, society. The architect is neither a passive product nor a creator completely independent of his era: society is the raw material that he transforms, giving it an appearance, an expression, and the consciousness of those ideals that, without him, would remain implicit. Our prophecy, like that of the farmer, already contains the seeds for future growth, as our work also exists between heaven and earth. Poetry, painting, sculpture, dance and music, even when expressing the contemporary, are not necessarily limited within practical terms. But we architects, who have the task of synthesising the useful with the beautiful, must feel the fundamental drama of existence at every moment of our creative process, because life continually puts practical needs and spiritual aspirations at odds with one another. We cannot reject either of these necessities, because a merely practical or moralistic position denies the full value of architecture to the same extent that a purely aesthetic position would: we must mediate one position with the other» (Rogers, 1948). Rogers discusses at length the relationship between instinctive forces and knowledge acquired through culture, along with his thoughts on the role played by study in an artist’s training. It is in certain debates that have arisen within the “International Congresses of Modern Architecture” that the topic of architecture as a discipline caught between self-sufficiency and dependence acquires a certain centrality within the architectural context: in particular, in this scenario, the theme of the “autonomy” and “heteronomy” of pre-existing features of the environment plays a role of strategic importance. Arguments regarding the meaning of form in architecture and the need for liberation from heteronomous influences did not succeed in undermining the idea of an architecture capable of influencing the governing of society as a whole, thanks to an attitude very much in line with Rogers’ own writings. The idea of a project as the result of the fusion of an artistic idea and pre-existing features of an environment formed the translation of the push to coagulate the antithetical forces striving for a reading of the architectural work that was at once autonomous and heteronomous, as well as linked to geographical, cultural, sociological and psychological principles. The CIAM meeting in Otterlo was attended by Ignazio Gardella, Ernesto Nathan Rogers, Vico Magistretti and Giancarlo De Carlo as members of the Italian contingent: the architects brought one project each to share with the conference and comment on as a manifesto. Ernesto Nathan Rogers, who presented the Velasca Tower, and Giancarlo De Carlo, who presented a house in Matera in the Spine Bianche neighbourhood, were openly criticised as none of the principles established by the CIAM were recognisable in their work any longer, and De Carlo’s project represented a marked divergence from a consolidated method of designing and building in Matera. In this cultural condition, Giancarlo De Carlo – in justifying the choices he had made – even went so far as to say: «my position was not at all a flight from architecture, for example in sociology. I cannot stand those who, paraphrasing what I have said, dress up as politicians or sociologists because they are incapable of creating architecture. Architecture is – and cannot be anything other than – the organisation and form of physical space. It is not autonomous, it is heteronomous» (De Carlo, 2001). Even more so than in the past, it is not possible today to imagine an architecture encapsulated entirely within its own enclosure, autoimmune, averse to any contamination or relationships with other disciplinary worlds: architecture is the world and the world is the sum total of our knowledge. Architecture triggers reactions and phenomena: it is not solely and exclusively the active and passive product of a material work created by man. «We believed in the heteronomy of architecture, in its necessary dependence on the circumstances that produce it, in its intrinsic need to exist in harmony with history, with the happenings and expectations of individuals and social groups, with the arcane rhythms of nature. We denied that the purpose of architecture was to produce objects, and we argued that its fundamental role was to trigger processes of transformation of the physical environment that are capable of contributing to the improvement of the human condition» (De Carlo, 2001). Productive and cultural reinterpretations place the discipline of architecture firmly at the centre of the critical reconsideration of places for living and working. Consequently, new interpretative models continue to emerge which often highlight the instability of built architecture with the lack of a robust theoretical apparatus, demanding the sort of “technical rationality” capable of restoring the centrality of the act of construction, through the contribution of actions whose origins lie precisely in other subject areas. Indeed, the transformation of the practice of construction has resulted in direct changes to the structure of the nature of the knowledge of it, to the role of competencies, to the definition of new professional skills based on the demands emerging not just from the production system, but also from the socio-cultural system. The architect cannot disregard the fact that the making of architecture does not burn out by means of some implosive dynamic; rather, it is called upon to engage with the multiple facets and variations that the cognitive act of design itself implies, bringing into play a theory of disciplines which – to varying degrees and according to different logics – offer their significant contribution to the formation of the design and, ultimately, the work. As Álvaro Siza claims, «The architect is not a specialist. The sheer breadth and variety of knowledge that practicing design encompasses today – its rapid evolution and progressive complexity – in no way allow for sufficient knowledge and mastery. Establishing connections – pro-jecting [from Latin proicere, ‘to stretch out’] – is their domain, a place of compromise that is not tantamount to conformism, of navigation of the web of contradictions, the weight of the past and the weight of the doubts and alternatives of the future, aspects that explain the lack of a contemporary treatise on architecture. The architect works with specialists. The ability to chain things together, to cross bridges between fields of knowledge, to create beyond their respective borders, beyond the precarity of inventions, requires a specific education and stimulating conditions. [...] As such, architecture is risk, and risk requires impersonal desire and anonymity, starting with the merging of subjectivity and objectivity. In short, a gradual distancing from the ego. Architecture means compromise transformed into radical expression, in other words, a capacity to absorb the opposite and overcome contradiction. Learning this requires an education in search of the other within each of us» (Siza, 2008). We are seeing the coexistence of contrasting, often extreme, design trends aimed at recementing the historical and traditional mould of construction by means of the constant reproposal of the characteristics of “persistence” that long-established architecture, by its very nature, promotes, and at decrypting the evolutionary traits of architecture – markedly immaterial nowadays – that society promotes as phenomena of everyday living. Speed, temporariness, resilience, flexibility: these are just a few fragments. In other words, we indicate a direction which immediately composes and anticipates innovation as a characterising element, describing its stylistic features, materials, languages and technologies, and only later on do we tend to outline the space that these produce: what emerges is a largely anomalous path that goes from “technique” to “function” – by way of “form” – denying the circularity of the three factors at play. The threat of a short-circuit deriving from discourse that exceeds action – in conjunction with a push for standardisation aimed at asserting the dominance of construction over architecture, once again echoing the ideas posited by Rogers – may yet be able to finding a lifeline cast through the attempt to merge figurative research with technology in a balanced way, in the wake of the still-relevant example of the Bauhaus or by emulating the thinking of certain masters of modern Italian architecture who worked during that post-war period so synonymous with physical – and, at the same time, moral – reconstruction. These architectural giants’ aptitude for technical and formal transformation and adaptation can be held up as paradigmatic examples of methodological choice consistent with their high level of mastery over the design process and the rhythm of its phases. In all this exaltation of the outcome, the power of the process is often left behind in a haze: in the uncritical celebration of the architectural work, the method seems to dissolve entirely into the finished product. Technical innovation and disciplinary self-referentiality would seem to deny the concepts of continuity and transversality by means of a constant action of isolation and an insufficient relationship with itself: conversely, the act of designing, as an operation which involves selecting elements from a vast heritage of knowledge, cannot exempt itself from dealing in the variables of a functional, formal, material and linguistic nature – all of such closely intertwined intents – that have over time represented the energy of theoretical formulation and of the works created. For years, the debate in architecture has concentrated on the synergistic or contrasting dualism between cultural approaches linked to venustas and firmitas. Kenneth Frampton, with regard to the interpretative pair of “tectonics” and “form”, notes the existence of a dual trend that is both identifiable and contrasting: namely the predisposition to favour the formal sphere as the predominant one, rejecting all implications on the construction, on the one hand; and the tendency to celebrate the constructive matrix as the generator of the morphological signature – emphasised by the ostentation of architectural detail, including that of a technological matrix – on the other. The design of contemporary architecture is enriched with sprawling values that are often fundamental, yet at times even damaging to the successful completion of the work: it should identify the moment of coagulation within which the architect goes in pursuit of balance between all the interpretative categories that make it up, espousing the Vitruvian meaning, according to which practice is «the continuous reflection on utility» and theory «consists of being able to demonstrate and explain the things made with technical ability in terms of the principle of proportion» (Vitruvius Pollio, 15 BC). Architecture will increasingly be forced to demonstrate how it represents an applied and intellectual activity of a targeted synthesis, of a complex system within which it is not only desirable, but indeed critical, for the cultural, social, environmental, climatic, energy-related, geographical and many other components involved in it to interact proactively, together with the more spatial, functional and material components that are made explicit in the final construction itself through factors borrowed from neighbouring field that are not endogenous to the discipline of architecture alone. Within a unitary vision that exists parallel to the transcalarity that said vision presupposes, the technology of architecture – as a discipline often called upon to play the role of a collagen of skills, binding them together – acts as an instrument of domination within which science and technology interpret the tools for the translation of man’s intellectual needs, expressing the most up-to-date principles of contemporary culture. Within the concept of tradition – as inferred from its evolutionary character – form, technique and production, in their historical “continuity” and not placed in opposition to one other, make up the fields of application by which, in parallel, research proceeds with a view to ensuring a conforming overall design. The “technology of architecture” and “technological design” give the work of architecture its personal hallmark: a sort of DNA to be handed down to future generations, in part as a discipline dedicated to amalgamating the skills and expertise derived from other dimensions of knowledge. In the exercise of design, the categories of urban planning, composition, technology, structure and systems engineering converge, the result increasingly accentuated by multidisciplinary nuances in search of a sense of balance between the parts: a setup founded upon simultaneity and heteronomous logic in the study of variables, by means of translations, approaches and skills as expressions of multifaceted identities. «Architects can influence society with their theories and works, but they are not capable of completing any such transformation on their own, and end up being the interpreters of an overbearing historical reality under which, if the strongest and most honest do not succumb, that therefore means that they alone represent the value of a component that is algebraically added to the others, all acting in the common field» (Rogers, 1951). Construction, in this context, identifies the main element of the transmission of continuity in architecture, placing the “how” at the point of transition between past and future, rather than making it independent of any historical evolution. Architecture determines its path within a heteronomous practice of construction through an effective distinction between the strength of the principles and codes inherent to the discipline – long consolidated thanks to sedimented innovations – and the energy of experimentation in its own right. Architecture will have to seek out and affirm its own identity, its validity as a discipline that is at once scientific and poetic, its representation in the harmonies, codes and measures that history has handed down to us, along with the pressing duty of updating them in a way that is long overdue. The complexity of the architectural field occasionally expresses restricted forms of treatment bound to narrow disciplinary areas or, conversely, others that are excessively frayed, tending towards an eclecticism so vast that it prevents the tracing of any discernible cultural perimeter. In spite of the complex phenomenon that characterises the transformations that involve the status of the project and the figure of the architect themselves, it is a matter of urgency to attempt to renew the interpretation of the activity of design and architecture as a coherent system rather than a patchwork of components. «Contemporary architecture tends to produce objects, even though its most concrete purpose is to generate processes. This is a falsehood that is full of consequences because it confines architecture to a very limited band of its entire spectrum; in doing so, it isolates it, exposing it to the risks of subordination and delusions of grandeur, pushing it towards social and political irresponsibility. The transformation of the physical environment passes through a series of events: the decision to create a new organised space, detection, obtaining the necessary resources, defining the organisational system, defining the formal system, technological choices, use, management, technical obsolescence, reuse and – finally – physical obsolescence. This concatenation is the entire spectrum of architecture, and each link in the chain is affected by what happens in all the others. It is also the case that the cadence, scope and intensity of the various bands can differ according to the circumstances and in relation to the balances or imbalances within the contexts to which the spectrum corresponds. Moreover, each spectrum does not conclude at the end of the chain of events, because the signs of its existence – ruins and memory – are projected onto subsequent events. Architecture is involved with the entirety of this complex development: the design that it expresses is merely the starting point for a far-reaching process with significant consequences» (De Carlo, 1978). The contemporary era proposes the dialectic between specialisation, the coordination of ideas and actions, the relationship between actors, phases and disciplines: the practice of the organisational culture of design circumscribes its own code in the coexistence and reciprocal exploitation of specialised fields of knowledge and the discipline of synthesis that is architecture. With the revival of the global economy on the horizon, the dematerialisation of the working practice has entailed significant changes in the productive actions and social relationships that coordinate the process. Despite a growing need to implement skills and means of coordination between professional actors, disciplinary fields and sectors of activity, architectural design has become the emblem of the action of synthesis. This is a representation of society which, having developed over the last three centuries, from the division of social sciences that once defined it as a “machine”, an “organism” and a “system”, is now defined by the concept of the “network” or, more accurately, by that of the “system of networks”, in which a person’s desire to establish relationships places them within a multitude of social spheres. The “heteronomy” of architecture, between “hybridisation” and “contamination of knowledge”, is to be seen not only an objective fact, but also, crucially, as a concept aimed at providing the discipline with new and broader horizons, capable of putting it in a position of serenity, energy and courage allowing it to tackle the challenges that the cultural, social and economic landscape is increasingly throwing at the heart of our contemporary world.
APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles
31

West, Patrick Leslie, and Cher Coad. "Drawing the Line: Chinese Calligraphy, Cultural Materialisms and the "Remixing of Remix"." M/C Journal 16, no. 4 (August 11, 2013). http://dx.doi.org/10.5204/mcj.675.

Full text
Abstract:
Western notions of authors’ Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs), as expressed within copyright law, maintain a potentially fraught relationship with a range of philosophical and theoretical positions on writing and authorship that have developed within contemporary Western thinking. For Roland Barthes, authorship is compromised, de-identified and multiplied by the very nature of writing: ‘Writing is that neutral, composite, oblique space where our subject slips away, the negative where all identity is lost, starting with the very identity of the body writing’ (142). Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari follow a related line of thought in A Thousand Plateaus: ‘Write, form a rhizome, increase your territory by deterritorialization, extend the line of flight to the point where it becomes an abstract machine covering the entire plane of consistency’ (11). Similarly, in Of Grammatology, Jacques Derrida suggests that ‘Writing is that forgetting of the self, that exteriorization, the contrary of the interiorizing memory’ (24). To the extent that these philosophical and theoretical positions emerge within the practices of creative writers as remixes of appropriation, homage and/or pastiche, prima facie they problematize the commercial rights of writers as outlined in law. The case of Kathy Acker often comes up in such discussions. Acker’s 1984 novel Blood and Guts in High School, for example, incorporates techniques that have attracted the charge of plagiarism as this term is commonly defined. (Peter Wollen notes this in his aptly named essay ‘Death [and Life] of the Author.’) For texts like Acker’s, the comeback against charges of plagiarism usually involves underscoring the quotient of creativity involved in the re-combination or ‘remixing’ of the parts of the original texts. (Pure repetition would, it would seem, be much harder to defend.) ‘Plagiarism’, so-called, was simply one element of Acker’s writing technique; Robert Lort nuances plagiarism as it applies to Acker as ‘pseudo-plagiarism’. According to Wollen, ‘as she always argued, it wasn’t really plagiarism because she was quite open about what she did.’ As we shall demonstrate in more detail later on, however, there is another and, we suggest, more convincing reason why Acker’s work ‘wasn’t really plagiarism.’ This relates to her conscious interest in calligraphy and to her (perhaps unconscious) appropriation of a certain strand of Chinese philosophy. All the same, within the Western context, the consistent enforcement of copyright law guarantees the rights of authors to control the distribution of their own work and thus its monetised value. The author may be ‘dead’ in writing—just the faintest trace of remixed textuality—but he/she is very much ‘alive’ as in recognised at law. The model of the author as free-standing citizen (as a defined legal entity) that copyright law employs is unlikely to be significantly eroded by the textual practices of authors who tarry artistically in the ‘de-authored territories’ mapped by figures like Barthes, Deleuze and Guattari, and Derrida. Crucially, disputes concerning copyright law and the ethics of remix are resolved, within the Western context, at the intersection of relatively autonomous creative and legal domains. In the West, it is seen that these two domains are related within the one social fabric; each nuances the other (as Acker’s example shows in the simultaneity of her legal/commercial status as an author and her artistic practice as a ‘remixer’ of the original works of other authors). Legal and writing issues co-exist even as they fray each other’s boundaries. And in Western countries there is force to the law’s operations. However, the same cannot be said of the situation with respect to copyright law in China. Chinese artists are traditionally regarded as being aloof from mundane legal and commercial matters, with the consequence that the creative and the legal domains tend to ‘miss each other’ within the fabric of Chinese society. To this extent, the efficacy of the law is muted in China when it comes into contact with circumstances of authorship, writing, originality and creativity. (In saying this though, we do not wish to fall into the trap of cultural essentialism: in this article, ‘China’ and ‘The West’ are placeholders for variant cultural tendencies—clustered, perhaps, around China and its disputed territories such as Taiwan on the one hand, and around America on the other—rather than homogeneous national/cultural blocs.) Since China opened its system to Western capitalist economic activity in the 1980s, an ongoing criticism, sourced mainly out of the West, has been that the country lacks proper respect for notions of authorship and, more directly, for authorship’s derivative: copyright law. Tellingly, it took almost ten years of fierce negotiations between elements of the capitalist lobby in China and the Legislative Bureau to make the Seventh National People’s Congress pass the first Copyright Law of the People’s Republic of China on 7 September 1990. A law is one thing though, and adherence to the law is another. Jayanthi Iyengar of Asia Times Online reports that ‘the US government estimates that piracy within China [of all types of products] costs American companies $20-24 billion a year in damages…. If one includes European and Japanese firms, the losses on account of Chinese piracy is in excess of $50 billion annually.’ In 2008, the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) reported that more than 99% of all music files in China are pirated. In the same year, Cara Anna wrote in The Seattle Times that, in desperation at the extent of Chinese infringement of its Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs), Microsoft has deployed an anti-piracy tactic that blacks out the screens of computers detected running a fake copy of Windows. The World Trade Organisation (WTO) has filed complaints from many countries against China over IPRs. Iyengar also reports that, under such pressure, the State Intellectual Property Office in Beijing has vowed it will continue to reinforce awareness of IPRs in order to better ensure their protection. Still, from the Western perspective at least, progress on this extremely contentious issue has been excruciatingly slow. Such a situation in respect of Chinese IPRs, however, should not lead to the conclusion that China simply needs to catch up with the more ‘morally advanced’ West. Rather, the problematic relations of the law and of creativity in China allow one to discern, and to trace through ancient Chinese history and philosophy, a different approach to remix that does not come into view so easily within Western countries. Different materialisms of writing and authorship come into play across global space, with different effects. The resistance to both the introduction and the policing of copyright law in China is, we think, the sign of a culture that retains something related to authorship and creativity that Western culture only loosely holds onto. It provides a different way of looking at remix, in the guise of what the West would tend to label plagiarism, as a practice, especially, of creativity. The ‘death’ of the author in China at law (the failure to legislate and/or police his/her rights) brings the author, as we will argue, ‘alive’ in the writing. Remix as anonymous composition (citing Barthes) becomes, in the Chinese example, remix as creative expression of singular feelings—albeit remix set adrift from the law. More concretely, our example of the Chinese writer/writing takes remix to its limit as a practice of repetition without variation—what the West would be likely to call plagiarism. Calligraphy is key to this. Of course, calligraphy is not the full extent of Chinese writing practice—not all writing is calligraphic strictly speaking. But all calligraphy is writing, and in this it influences the ethics of Chinese writing, whether character-based or otherwise, more generally. We will have more to say about the ‘pictorial’ material aspect of Chinese writing later on. In traditional Chinese culture, writing is regarded as a technical practice perfected through reproduction. Chinese calligraphy (visual writing) is learnt through exhaustively tracing and copying the style of the master calligrapher. We are tempted to say that what is at stake in Chinese remix/calligraphy is ‘the difference that cannot be helped:’ that is, the more one tries, as it were, to repeat, the more repetition becomes impossible. In part, this is explained by the interplay of Qing 情 (‘feelings’) and Yun 韵 (‘composed body movements’). Now, the order of the characters—Qing 情 (‘feelings’) before Yun 韵 (‘composed body movements’)—suggests that Qing creates and supports Yun. To this extent, what we have here is something akin to a Western understanding of creative writing (of the creativity of writing) in which individual and singular feelings are given expression in the very movement of the writing itself (through the bodily actions of the writer). In fact though, the Chinese case is more complicated than this, for the apprenticeship model of Chinese calligraphy cultivates a two-way interplay of Qing 情 (‘feelings’) and Yun 韵 (‘composed body movements’). More directly, the ‘composed body movements’ that one learns from the master calligrapher help compose one’s own ‘feelings’. The very repetition of the master’s work (its remixing, as it were…) enables the creativity of the apprentice. If this model of creativity is found somewhat distasteful from a Western perspective (that is, if it is seen to be too restrictive of originality) then that is because such a view, we think, depends upon a cultural misunderstanding that we will try to clear up here. To wit, the so-called Confucian model of rote learning that is more-or-less frowned upon in the West is not, at least not in the debased form that it adopts in Western stereotypes, the philosophy active in the case of Chinese calligraphy. That philosophy is Taoism. As Wing-Tsit Chan elucidates, ‘by opposing Confucian conformity with non-conformity and Confucian worldliness with a transcendental spirit, Taoism is a severe critic of Confucianism’ (136). As we will show in a moment, Chinese calligraphy exemplifies this special kind of Taoist non-conformity (in which, as Philip J. Ivanhoe limns it, ‘one must unweave the social fabric’). Chan again: ‘As the way of life, [Taoism] denotes simplicity, spontaneity, tranquility, weakness, and most important of all, non-action (wu-wei). By the latter is not meant literally “inactivity” but rather “taking no action that is contrary to Nature”—in other words, letting Nature take its own course’ (136). Thus, this is a philosophy of ‘weakness’ that is neither ‘negativism’ nor ‘absolute quietism’ (137). Taoism’s supposed weakness is rather a certain form of strength, of (in the fullest sense) creative possibilities, which comes about through deference to the way of Nature. ‘Hold fast to the great form (Tao), / And all the world will come’ illustrates this aspect of Taoism in its major philosophical tract, The Lao Tzu (Tao-Te Ching) or The Classic of the Way and its Virtue (section 35, Chan 157). The guiding principle is one of deference to the original (way, Nature or Tao) as a strategy of an expression (of self) that goes beyond the original. The Lao Tzu is full of cryptic, metaphoric expressions of this idea: ‘The pursuit of learning is to increase day after day. / The pursuit of Tao is to decrease day after day. / It is to decrease and further decrease until one reaches the point of taking no action. / No action is undertaken, and yet nothing is left undone’ (section 48, Chan 162). Similarly, The female always overcomes the male by tranquility, / And by tranquility she is underneath. / A big state can take over a small state if it places itself below the small state; / And the small state can take over a big state if it places itself below the big state. / Thus some, by placing themselves below, take over (others), / And some, by being (naturally) low, take over (other states) (section 61, Chan 168). In Taoism, it is only by (apparent) weakness and (apparent) in-action that ‘nothing is left undone’ and ‘states’ are taken over. The two-way interplay of Qing 情 (‘feelings’) and Yun 韵 (‘composed body movements’), whereby the apprentice copies the master, aligns with this key element of Taoism. Here is the linkage between calligraphy and Taoism. The master’s work is Tao, Nature or the way: ‘Hold fast to the great form (Tao), / And all the world will come’ (section 35, Chan 157). The apprentice’s calligraphy is ‘all the world’ (‘all the world’ being, ultimately in this context, Qing 情 [‘feelings’]). Indeed, Taoism itself is a subtle philosophy of learning (of apprenticeship to a master), unlike Confucianism, which Chan characterises as a doctrine of ‘social order’ (of servitude to a master) (136). ‘“Learn not learn”’ is how Wang Pi, as quoted by Chan (note 121, 170), understands what he himself (Chan) translates as ‘He learns to be unlearned’ (section 64, 170). In unlearning one learns what cannot be taught: this is, we suggest, a remarkable definition of creativity, which also avoids falling into the trap of asserting a one-to-one equivalence between (unlearnt) originality and creativity, for there is both learning and creativity in this Taoist paradox of pedagogy. On this, Michael Meehan points out that ‘originality is an over-rated and misguided concept in many ways.’ (There is even a sense in which, through its deliberate repetition, The Lao Tzu teaches itself, traces over itself in ‘self-plagiarising’ fashion, as if it were reflecting on the re-tracings of calligraphic pedagogy. Chan notes just how deliberate this is: ‘Since in ancient times books consisted of bamboo or wooden slabs containing some twenty characters each, it was not easy for these sentences… to be added by mistake…. Repetitions are found in more than one place’ [note 102, 166].) Thinking of Kathy Acker too as a learner, Peter Wollen’s observation that she ‘incorporated calligraphy… in her books’ and ‘was deeply committed to [the] avant-garde tradition, a tradition which was much stronger in the visual arts’ creates a highly suggestive connection between Acker’s work and Taoism. The Taoist model for learning calligraphy as, precisely, visual art—in which copying subtends creativity—serves to shift Acker away from a Barthesian or Derridean framework and into a Taoist context in which adherence to another’s form (as ‘un-learnt learning’) creatively unravels so-called plagiarism from the inside. Acker’s conscious interest in calligraphy is shown by its prevalence in Blood and Guts in High School. Edward S. Robinson identifies this text as part of her ‘middle phase’, which ‘saw the introduction of illustrations and diagrams to create multimedia texts with a collage-like feel’ (154). To our knowledge, Acker never critically reflected upon her own calligraphic practices; perhaps if she had, she would have troubled what we see as a blindspot in critics’ interpretations of her work. To wit, whenever calligraphy is mentioned in criticism on Acker, it tends to be deployed merely as an example of her cut-up technique and never analysed for its effects in its own cultural, philosophical and material specificity. (Interestingly, if the words of Chinese photographer Liu Zheng are any guide, the Taoism we’re identifying in calligraphy has also worked its way into other forms of Chinese visual art: she refers to ‘loving photographic details and cameras’ with the very Taoist term, ‘lowly’ 低级 [Three Shadows Photography Art Centre 187].) Being ‘lowly’, ‘feminine’ or ‘underneath’ has power as a radical way of learning. We mentioned above that Taoism is very metaphoric. As the co-writer of this paper Cher Coad recalls from her calligraphy classes, students in China grow up with a metaphoric proverb clearly inspired by Lao Tzu’s Taoist philosophy of learning: ‘Learning shall never stop. Black comes from blue, but is more than the blue.’ ‘Black comes from blue, but is more than the blue.’ What could this mean? Before answering this question with recourse to two Western notions that, we hope, will further effect (building on Acker’s example) a rapprochement between Chinese and Western ways of thinking (be they nationally based or not), we reiterate that the infringement of Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) in China should not be viewed only as an egregious denial of universally accepted law. Rather, whatever else it may be, we see it as the shadow in the commercial realm—mixed through with all the complexities of Chinese tradition, history and cultural difference, and most particularly of the Taoist strand within Confucianism—of the never-quite-perfect copying of calligraphic writing/remixing. More generally, the re-examination of stereotypical assumptions about Chinese culture cues a re-examination of the meaning behind the copying of products and technology in contemporary, industrialised China. So, ‘Black comes from blue, but is more than the blue.’ What is this ‘more than the blue of black’? Or put differently, why is calligraphic writing, as learnt from the master, always infused with the singular feelings of the (apprentice) writer? The work of Deleuze, Guattari and Claire Parnet provides two possible responses. In On the Line, Deleuze and Guattari (and Deleuze in co-authorship with Parnet) author a number of comments that support the conception we are attempting to develop concerning the lines of Chinese calligraphy. A line, Deleuze and Guattari suggest, is always a line of lines (‘Line of chance, line of hips, line of flight’ [57]). In the section of On the Line entitled ‘Politics’, Deleuze and Parnet outline the impossibility of any line being just one line. If life is a line (as it is said, you throw someone a life line), then ‘We have as many entangled lines in our lives as there are in the palm of a hand’ (71). Of any (hypothetical) single line it can be said that other lines emerge: ‘Black comes from blue, but is more than the blue.’ The feelings of the apprentice calligrapher (his/her multiple lines) emerge through the repeated copying of the lines and composed body movements of the master. The Deleuzean notion of repetition takes this idea further. Repetitive Chinese calligraphy clearly indexes what Claire Colebrook refers to as ‘Deleuze’s concept of eternal return. The only thing that is repeated or returns is difference; no two moments of life can be the same. By virtue of the flow of time, any repeated event is necessarily different (even if different only to the extent that it has a predecessor)’ (121). Now, it might be objected that Chinese calligraphic practices, because of the substantially ideographic nature of Chinese writing (see Kristeva 72-81), allow for material mutations that can find no purchase in Western, alphabetical systems of writing. But the materiality of time that Colebrook refers to as part of her engagement with Deleuzean non-repetitious (untimely) repetition guarantees the materiality of all modes of writing. Furthermore, Julia Kristeva notes that, with any form of language, one cannot leave ‘the realm of materialism’ (6) and Adrian Miles, in his article ‘Virtual Actual: Hypertext as Material Writing,’ sees the apparently very ‘unmaterial’ writing of hypertext ‘as an embodied activity that has its own particular affordances and possibilities—its own constraints and local actualisations’ (1-2). Calligraphic repetition of the master’s model creates the apprentice’s feelings as (inevitable) difference. In this then, the learning by the Chinese apprentice of the lines of the master’s calligraphy challenges international (both Western and non-Western) artists of writing to ‘remix remix’ as a matter—as a materialisation—of the line. Not the line as a self-identical entity of writing that only goes to make up writing more generally; rather, lines as a materialisation of lines within lines within lines. More self-reflexively, even the collaborative enterprise of this article, co-authored as it is by a woman of Chinese ethnicity and a white Australian man, suggests a remixing of writing through, beneath and over each other’s lines. Yun 韵 (‘composed body movements’) expresses and maximises Qing 情 (‘feelings’). Taoist ‘un-learnt learning’ generates remix as the singular creativity of the writer. Writers get into a blue with the line—paint it, black. Of course, these ideas won’t and shouldn’t make copyright infringement (or associated legalities) redundant notions. But in exposing the cultural relativisms often buried within the deployment of this and related terms, the idea of lines of lines far exceeds a merely formalistic practice (one cut off from the materialities of culture) and rather suggests a mode of non-repetitious repetition in contact with all of the elements of culture (of history, of society, of politics, of bodies…) wherever these may be found, and whatever their state of becoming. In this way, remix re-creates the depths of culture even as it stirs up its surfaces of writing. References Acker, Kathy. Blood and Guts in High School: A Novel. New York: Grove Press, 1978. Anna, Cara. ‘Microsoft Anti-Piracy Technology Upsets Users in China.’ The Seattle Times. 28 Oct. 2008 ‹http://seattletimes.com/html/businesstechnology/2008321919_webmsftchina28.html›. Barthes, Roland. ‘The Death of the Author.’ Barthes, Roland. Image-Music-Text. London: Fontana Press, 1977. 142-148. Chan, Wing-Tsit. A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1969. Colebrook, Claire. Gilles Deleuze. London: Routledge, 2002. Deleuze, Gilles, and Félix Guattari. On the Line. New York: Semiotext(e), 1983. Deleuze, Gilles, and Félix Guattari. A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1987. Derrida, Jacques. Of Grammatology. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1976. International Federation of the Phonographic Industry. ‘Recording Industry Steps Up Campaign against Internet Piracy in China.’ ifpi. 4 Feb. 2008 ‹http://www.ifpi.org/content/section_news/20080204.html›. Ivanhoe, Philip J. ‘Taoism’. The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy. Ed. Robert Audi. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995. 787. Iyengar, Jayanthi. ‘Intellectual Property Piracy Rocks China Boat.’ Asia Times Online. 16 Sept. 2004 ‹http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/FI16Ad07.html›. Kristeva, Julia. Language: The Unknown: An Initiation into Linguistics. New York: Columbia University Press, 1989. Lort, Robert. ‘Kathy Acker (1944-1997).’ Jahsonic: A Vocabulary of Culture. 2003 ‹http://www.jahsonic.com/KathyAcker.html›. Meehan, Michael. ‘Week 5a: Playing with Genres.’ Lecture notes. Unit ALL705. Short Stories: Writers and Readers. Trimester 2. Melbourne: Deakin University, 2013. Miles, Adrian. ‘Virtual Actual: Hypertext as Material Writing.’ Studies in Material Thinking 1.2 (April 2008) ‹http://www.materialthinking.org/papers/29›. Robinson, Edward S. Shift Linguals: Cut-up Narratives from William S. Burroughs to the Present. New York: Editions Rodopi, 2011. Three Shadows Photography Art Centre. ‘Photography and Intimate Space Symposium.’ Conversations: Three Shadows Photography Art Centre’s 2007 Symposium Series. Ed. RongRong, inri, et al. Beijing: Three Shadows Press Limited, 2008. 179-191. Wollen, Peter. ‘Death (and Life) of the Author.’ London Review of Books 20.3 (5 Feb. 1998). ‹http://www.lrb.co.uk/v20/n03/peter-wollen/death-and-life-of-the-author›.
APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles
We offer discounts on all premium plans for authors whose works are included in thematic literature selections. Contact us to get a unique promo code!

To the bibliography