Unbearable Burdens: Aleksandr Blok and the Modernist Resistance to Progeny and Domesticity

Slavic Review ◽  
2004 ◽  
Vol 63 (1) ◽  
pp. 6-25 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jenifer Presto

Drawing on contemporary critical theory, as well as on the works of a wide variety of Russian modernists, Jenifer Presto discusses the ways in which the symbolist poet Aleksandr Blok responded to what Edward Said has termed the modernist “crisis of filiation.” This essay contends that despite the fact that Blok was consecrated as one of the poetic sons of Russian modernism, he envisioned modern poetic history as a violent family romance that involved murderous impulses not just, as Harold Bloom would suggest, toward his literary forefathers, but also toward his imagined children. Although Blok's complicated reaction to the appearance of a new generation of children has received far less critical attention than that of the futurist Vladimir Maiakovskii, it is Blok—not Maiakovskii—who can be credited with inaugurating a filicidal model of poetic creativity that would come to dominate the more radical flank of Russian modernism, the avant-garde. By examining Blok's resistance to progeny within the larger context of Russian modernism, this article reveals the existence of an antigenerative male poetic tradition that extends from Blok to the futurists, reflecting the writers' growing sense of rupture with the past in the period leading up to and immediately following the revolution.

Author(s):  
John L. Hutchison

Over the past five years or so the development of a new generation of high resolution electron microscopes operating routinely in the 300-400 kilovolt range has produced a dramatic increase in resolution, to around 1.6 Å for “structure resolution” and approaching 1.2 Å for information limits. With a large number of such instruments now in operation it is timely to assess their impact in the various areas of materials science where they are now being used. Are they falling short of the early expectations? Generally, the manufacturers’ claims regarding resolution are being met, but one unexpected factor which has emerged is the extreme sensitivity of these instruments to both floor-borne and acoustic vibrations. Successful measures to counteract these disturbances may require the use of special anti-vibration blocks, or even simple oil-filled dampers together with springs, with heavy curtaining around the microscope room to reduce noise levels. In assessing performance levels, optical diffraction analysis is becoming the accepted method, with rotational averaging useful for obtaining a good measure of information limits. It is worth noting here that microscope alignment becomes very critical for the highest resolution.In attempting an appraisal of the contributions of intermediate voltage HREMs to materials science we will outline a few of the areas where they are most widely used. These include semiconductors, oxides, and small metal particles, in addition to metals and minerals.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lungwani Muungo

The purpose of this review is to evaluate progress inmolecular epidemiology over the past 24 years in canceretiology and prevention to draw lessons for futureresearch incorporating the new generation of biomarkers.Molecular epidemiology was introduced inthe study of cancer in the early 1980s, with theexpectation that it would help overcome some majorlimitations of epidemiology and facilitate cancerprevention. The expectation was that biomarkerswould improve exposure assessment, document earlychanges preceding disease, and identify subgroupsin the population with greater susceptibility to cancer,thereby increasing the ability of epidemiologic studiesto identify causes and elucidate mechanisms incarcinogenesis. The first generation of biomarkers hasindeed contributed to our understanding of riskandsusceptibility related largely to genotoxic carcinogens.Consequently, interventions and policy changes havebeen mounted to reduce riskfrom several importantenvironmental carcinogens. Several new and promisingbiomarkers are now becoming available for epidemiologicstudies, thanks to the development of highthroughputtechnologies and theoretical advances inbiology. These include toxicogenomics, alterations ingene methylation and gene expression, proteomics, andmetabonomics, which allow large-scale studies, includingdiscovery-oriented as well as hypothesis-testinginvestigations. However, most of these newer biomarkershave not been adequately validated, and theirrole in the causal paradigm is not clear. There is a needfor their systematic validation using principles andcriteria established over the past several decades inmolecular cancer epidemiology.


Author(s):  
Ieva Rodiņa

The aim of the research “Historical Memory in the Works of the New Generation of Latvian Theater Artists: The Example of “The Flea Market of the Souls” is to focus on the current but at the same time little discussed topic in Latvian theater – the change of generations and the social processes connected to it, that are expressed on the level of world views, experiences, intergenerational relationships. Most directly, these changes are reflected in the phenomenon of historical memory. The concept of “postmemory” was defined by German professor Marianne Hirsch in 1992, suggesting that future generations are closely related to the personal and collective cultural traumas of previous generations, which are passing on the past experience through historical memory, thus affecting the present. Grotesque, self-irony, and focusing on socio-political, provocative questions and themes are the connecting point of the generation of young Latvian playwrights born in the late 1980s and early 1990s, including such personalities as Jānis Balodis, Rasa Bugavičute-Pēce, Matīss Gricmanis, Justīne Kļava, etc. However, unlike Matīss Gricmanis or Janis Balodis who represent the aesthetics of political theater, in Justīne Kļava’s works, sociopolitical processes become the background of a generally humanistic study of the relationships between generations. This theme is represented not only in “The Flea Market of the Souls”, but also in other plays, like “Jubilee ‘98” and “Club “Paradise””. The tendency to investigate the traces left by the Soviet heritage allows to define these works as autobiographical researches of the identity of the post-Soviet generation, analyzing life in today's Latvia in terms of historical memory. Using the semiotic, hermeneutic, phenomenological approach, the play “The Flea Market of the Souls” and its production in Dirty Deal Teatro (2017) are analyzed as one of the most vivid works reflecting the phenomenon of historical memory in recent Latvian original drama.


Author(s):  
Alexander Gillespie

The cumulative environmental challenge of sustainable development in the twenty-first century is larger than anything humanity has ever had to deal with in the past. The good news is that solid progress is being reached in the understanding of issues in scientific terms and understanding what needs to be done. The bad news is twofold. First, although many of the environmental problems of earlier centuries are now being confronted, a new generation of difficulties is eclipsing what were the older difficulties. Secondly, much of the progress is being achieved by the wealthier parts of the planet, rather than the developing world. From population growth to climate change to unprecedented habitat and species loss, whether environmental sustainability can be achieved in the twenty-first century is an open question.


BJHS Themes ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-23
Author(s):  
Erika Lorraine Milam

Abstract Charles Darwin's Descent of Man was suffused with questions of courtship, mating and sex. Following in his footsteps, biologists throughout the twentieth century interrogated the sexual behaviour of humans and animals. This paper charts the fate of evolutionary theories of sexuality to argue that – despite legal and social gains of the past century – when biologists used sexual selection as a tool for theorizing the evolution of homosexual behaviour (which happened only rarely), the effect of their theories was to continuously reinscribe normative heterosexuality. If, at the end of the nineteenth century, certain sex theorists viewed homosexuality as a marker of intermediate sex, by the late twentieth a new generation of evolutionary theorists idealized gay men as hyper-masculine biological males whose sexual behaviours were uncompromised by the necessity of accommodating women's sexual preferences. In both cases, normative assumptions about gender were interwoven with those about sexuality. By the twenty-first century, animal exemplars were again mobilized alongside data gathered about human sexual practices in defence of gay rights, but this time by creating the opportunity for naturalization without recourse to biological determinism.


Author(s):  
Paul I Palmer

We have been observing the Earth's upper atmosphere from space for several decades, but only over the past decade has the necessary technology begun to match our desire to observe surface air pollutants and climate-relevant trace gases in the lower troposphere, where we live and breathe. A new generation of Earth-observing satellites, capable of probing the lower troposphere, are already orbiting hundreds of kilometres above the Earth's surface with several more ready for launch or in the planning stages. Consequently, this is one of the most exciting times for the Earth system scientists who study the countless current-day physical, chemical and biological interactions between the Earth's land, ocean and atmosphere. First, I briefly review the theory behind measuring the atmosphere from space, and how these data can be used to infer surface sources and sinks of trace gases. I then present some of the science highlights associated with these data and how they can be used to improve fundamental understanding of the Earth's climate system. I conclude the paper by discussing the future role of satellite measurements of tropospheric trace gases in mitigating surface air pollution and carbon trading.


PMLA ◽  
1967 ◽  
Vol 82 (1) ◽  
pp. 14-27
Author(s):  
Leon F. Seltzer

In recent years, The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade, a difficult work and for long an unjustly neglected one, has begun to command increasingly greater critical attention and esteem. As more than one contemporary writer has noted, the verdict of the late Richard Chase in 1949, that the novel represents Melville's “second best achievement,” has served to prompt many to undertake a second reading (or at least a first) of the book. Before this time, the novel had traditionally been the one Melville readers have shied away from—as overly discursive, too rambling altogether, on the one hand, or as an unfortunate outgrowth of the author's morbidity on the other. Elizabeth Foster, in the admirably comprehensive introduction to her valuable edition of The Confidence-Man (1954), systematically traces the history of the book's reputation and observes that even with the Melville renaissance of the twenties, the work stands as the last piece of the author's fiction to be redeemed. Only lately, she comments, has it ceased to be regarded as “the ugly duckling” of Melville's creations. But recognition does not imply agreement, and it should not be thought that in the past fifteen years critics have reached any sort of unanimity on the novel's content. Since Mr. Chase's study, which approached the puzzling work as a satire on the American spirit—or, more specifically, as an attack on the liberalism of the day—and which speculated upon the novel's controlling folk and mythic figures, other critics, by now ready to assume that the book repaid careful analysis, have read the work in a variety of ways. It has been treated, among other things, as a religious allegory, as a philosophic satire on optimism, and as a Shandian comedy. One critic has conveniently summarized the prevailing situation by remarking that “the literary, philosophical, and cultural materials in this book are fused in so enigmatic a fashion that its interpreters have differed as to what the book is really about.”


2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (15) ◽  
pp. 67-107
Author(s):  
Ines R. Artola

The aim of the present article is the analysis of Concerto for harpsichord and five instruments by Manuel de Falla – a piece which was dedicated by the composer to Wanda Landowska, an outstanding Polish harpsichord player. The piece was meant to commemorate the friendship these two artists shared as well as their collaboration. Written in the period of 1923-1926, the Concerto was the first composition in the history of 20th century music where harpsichord was the soloist instrument. The first element of the article is the context in which the piece was written. We shall look into the musical influences that shaped its form. On the one hand, it was the music of the past: from Cancionero Felipe Pedrell through mainly Bach’s polyphony to works by Scarlatti which preceded the Classicism (this influence is particularly noticeable in the third movement of the Concerto). On the other hand, it was music from the time of de Falla: first of all – Neo-Classicism and works by Stravinsky. The author refers to historical sources – critics’ reviews, testimonies of de Falla’s contemporaries and, obviously, his own remarks as to the interpretation of the piece. Next, Inés R. Artola analyses the score in the strict sense of the word “analysis”. In this part of the article, she quotes specific fragments of the composition, which reflect both traditional musical means (counterpoint, canon, Scarlatti-style sonata form, influence of old popular music) and the avant-garde ones (polytonality, orchestration, elements of neo-classical harmony).


2012 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 38-55
Author(s):  
Riikka Korppi-Tommola

Abstract The reception of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company and John Cage’s visit to Helsinki in 1964 revealed local, Finnish aesthetic priorities. In the dance critics’ texts, Cunningham’s style seemed to create confusion, for example, with its mixture of styles visà-vis avant-garde music. Music critics, mainly avant-garde and jazz musicians, had high expectations for this theatrical event. In their reviews, comparisons were made between Cunningham’s style and the productions of Anna Halprin. In this paper, I analyse the cultural perspectives of this encounter and utilize the theoretical framework of Thomas Postlewait’s pattern of cultural contexts. Additionally, I follow David M. Levin’s argumentation about changes in aesthetics. Local and foreign conventions become emphasized in this kind of a transnational, intercultural encounter. Time and place are involved in the interpretations of the past as well as later in the processes of forming periods.


2011 ◽  
Vol 69 (3) ◽  
pp. 552-554
Author(s):  
Daison Nelson Ferreira Dias

OBJECTIVE: Evaluate the laboral and intellectual contributions of a founder of Brazilian Neuroradiology to the development of specialty. METHOD: Interviews were conducted with Dr. Raupp and contemporary doctors. Then we made a literature review with the Raupp search term aiming to identify those papers which included major changes in the diagnostic and therapeutic neurosurgical. RESULTS: The colleagues consulted were unanimous in recognizing the work of avant-garde and the importance of Dr. Raupp to the development of neuroradiological methods, especially in the pre-computed tomography fase. CONCLUSION: The work of Dr. Raupp was fundamental for the consolidation of Brazilian Neuroradiological School over the past five decades. He developed diagnostic and therapeutic techniques in congruence with the practices of the specialty on the global stage and he promoted education through medical residency programs.


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