A Tonic to the Empire?: The 1951 Festival of Britain and the Empire-Commonwealth

2015 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 76-99
Author(s):  
Alayna Heinonen
Keyword(s):  
Economic Recovery ◽  
Global Changes ◽  
Total War ◽  
Science Technology ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Festival Of Britain ◽  
Inferior Status ◽  
Post War ◽  
National Framework ◽  
Centrifugal Development

A unique feat of an economically and physically ravaged post-war Britain, the 1951 Festival of Britain produced an ‘autobiography of a nation’ intended to instill a nationalistic sense of recovery after total war. Centrally located on the South Bank, the Festival hosted a series of exhibitions celebrating British achievements in the fields of industry, science, technology, architecture, and the arts. With few exceptions, the vast majority of scholarship assesses the Festival through its national framework, and as an attempt to facilitate post-war economic recovery under the Labour government. This article re-examines the imperial concerns underlying the Festival amidst profound global changes in the post-war era. The ‘centrifugal’ development of the inter- and post-war Commonwealth fatally compromised administrative efforts to cultivate a tonic to the Empire through Festival exhibits. Former colonies and Dominions, emboldened by their independence from the metropole, refused to partake in an event that idealised a modernity that rested only in Britain. Representatives from India, Pakistan, and Ceylon, as new Commonwealth members, dissented against indications of their inferior status. These complications during the Festival's organisation expose the fractures in the transition from an exclusive, British-led Commonwealth to a multiracial Commonwealth.

Insane Acquaintances

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Moore
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Cultural Impact ◽  
Art And Design ◽  
The Arts ◽  
The Social ◽  
Festival Of Britain ◽  
Post War

Insane Acquaintances charts the varied encounters between artistic modernism and the British public in the years between ‘Manet and the Post-Impressionists’ (1910) and the Festival of Britain (1951). Through a range of case studies which explore the work of the ‘mediators’ of modernism in Britain – those individuals, groups and organisations which facilitated the introduction of modernist art and design to public audiences during the first part of the twentieth century – Insane Acquaintances explores the social, political and cultural impact of visual modernism over the course of four decades. Focusing on the efforts to legitimise, explain and make authentic the abstract (and often continental) modernist aesthetics that shaped British artistic culture during the years 1910-1951, this study charts the changing taste of the nation, through chapters on Postimpressionist art and crafts, modernist art in schools, the home design and decoration, Surrealism and revolution and the post-War institutionalisation and funding of the arts.

Daily Life of the American Embassy in Czechoslovakia in 1945—1948

Istoriya ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (6 (104)) ◽  
pp. 0
Author(s):  
Valery Yungblyud
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Central Europe ◽  
Daily Life ◽  
Primary Sources ◽  
Economic Recovery ◽  
The Us ◽  
Post War ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Leadership Interactions

The article is devoted to the study of various aspects of daily life of the US Embassy in Czechoslovakia in 1945—1948. The author considers the main areas of its work, major problems and difficulties that American diplomats had to overcome being in difficult conditions of the post-war economic recovery and international tension growth. Special attention is paid to the role of Ambassador L. A. Steinhardt, his methods of leadership, interactions with subordinates, with the Czechoslovak authorities and the State Department. This allows to reveal some new aspects of American diplomacy functioning, as well as to identify poorly explored factors that influenced American politics in Central Europe during the years when the Cold War was brewing and tensions between Moscow and Washington were rising. The article is based on unpublished primary sources from the American archives.

scholarly journals Introduction: The First World War and its Aftermath: Literary Networks and Cultural Encounters

2021 ◽  
Vol 51 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 184-191
Author(s):  
Philip Ross Bullock ◽  
Sofia Permiakova ◽  
Gesa Stedman
Keyword(s):  
First World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Cultural Encounters ◽  
The Arts ◽  
The First World War ◽  
Critical Approaches ◽  
Post War ◽  
Literary Networks ◽  
First World ◽  
Recurrent Theme

This introduction offers a survey of some important critical approaches to the ways in which the First World War and its aftermath have been studied, conceptualized, represented and commemorated. In particular, it notes recent scholarly interest in issues of gender, as well as a focus on widening the geographical range of the conflict beyond a dominant European paradigm. A recurrent theme is the emergence of new types of modernity in the post-war era, and the ways in which literature and the arts do not merely reflect that modernity, but actively shape and constitute it.

Integrating STEM with Music

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shawna Longo ◽  
Zachary Gates
Keyword(s):  
Digital Media ◽  
Stem Learning ◽  
Positive Direction ◽  
Content Areas ◽  
Media Arts ◽  
Science Technology ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Mixed Messages ◽  
K 12 ◽  
Creativity And Innovation

This book explores how science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (or STEM) initiatives are becoming more common in our educational system while depicting what it means to teach not only the students of today, but the citizens of tomorrow. This resource will provide 15 fully-developed and classroom-vetted instructional plans with assessments that are aligned to articulate learning from kindergarten through grade 12. With these instructional lessons and adaptations for K-12 music and STEM classes, pre-service educators, in-service educators, and administrators can better understand and immediately use tools for planning, assessing, and the practical integrating of STEM with Music. The arts, which includes music, visual art, dance, theater, and digital/media arts, bring creativity and innovation to the forefront in STEM learning. STEM learning can move teachers of the arts in a positive direction, but there are mixed messages about what that means and looks like. Many natural connections can be made between science, technology, engineering, math, and music. Twenty-first century learning skills and career-ready practices are framed so that the creativity and innovation necessary to succeed in STEM content areas and careers can be directly addressed by the educational community. The connection that is made between STEM content areas and music stimulates inquiry, dialogue, and critical thinking.

‘A new image of the living theatre’: the Genesis and Design of the Belgrade Theatre, Coventry, 1948–58

2011 ◽  
Vol 54 ◽  
pp. 347-382 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alistair Fair
Keyword(s):  
Modern Architecture ◽  
City Council ◽  
Local Context ◽  
Eastern European ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Living Theatre ◽  
History Of ◽  
New Ideas ◽  
Post War ◽  
The City

When it opened in March 1958, the Belgrade Theatre, Coventry, was the first new professional theatre to be constructed in Britain for nearly two decades and the country’s first all-new civic theatre (Figs 1 and 2). Financially supported by Coventry City Council and designed in the City Architect’s office, it included a 910-seat auditorium with associated backstage facilities. Two features of the building were especially innovative, namely its extensive public foyers and the provision of a number of small flats for actors. The theatre, whose name commemorated a major gift of timber to the city of Coventry from the Yugoslav authorities, was regarded as the herald of a new age and indeed marked the beginning of a boom in British theatre construction which lasted until the late 1970s. Yet its architecture has hitherto been little considered by historians of theatre, while accounts of post-war Coventry have instead focused on other topics: the city’s politics; its replanning after severe wartime bombing; and the architecture of its new cathedral, designed by Basil Spence in 1950 and executed amidst international interest as a symbol of the city’s post-war recovery. However, the Belgrade also attracted considerable attention when it opened. The Observer’s drama critic, Kenneth Tynan, was especially effusive, asking ‘in what tranced moment did the City Council decided to spend £220,000 on a bauble as superfluous as a civic playhouse?’ For him, it was ‘one of the great decisions in the history of local government’. This article considers the architectural implications of that ‘great decision’. The main design moves are charted and related to the local context, in which the Belgrade was intended to function as a civic and community focus. In this respect, the Labour Party councillors’ wish to become involved in housing the arts reflected prevailing local and national party philosophy but was possibly amplified by knowledge of eastern European authorities’ involvement in accommodating and subsidizing theatre. In addition, close examination of the Belgrade’s external design, foyers and auditorium illuminates a number of broader debates in the architectural history of the period. The auditorium, for example, reveals something of the extent to which Modern architecture could be informed by precedent. Furthermore, the terms in which the building was received are also significant. Tynan commented: ‘enter most theatres, and you enter the gilded cupidacious past. Enter this one, and you are surrounded by the future’. Although it was perhaps inevitable that the Belgrade was thought to be unlike older theatres, given that there had been a two-decade hiatus in theatre-building, the resulting contrast was nonetheless rather appropriate, allowing the building to connote new ideas whilst also permitting us to read the Belgrade in terms of contemporary debates about the nature of the ‘modern monument’.

scholarly journals Planetary Health: A New Reality

Challenges ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 7 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Salk
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Communicable Disease ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Effective Vaccine ◽  
Planetary Health ◽  
Science Technology ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Disease Rates ◽  
Health And Well Being ◽  
Non Communicable Disease

The grand challenges of our time—climate change, biodiversity losses, and global non-communicable disease rates—underscore that humanity and the planet are in crisis. Planetary health provides a unifying concept wherein efforts toward remediation and survival can be concentrated. Evidence derived from the animal kingdom and from human demography suggest that there is cause for optimism in planetary health. With proper navigation, a transition toward a new epoch—one of symbiotic flourishing—is possible. Responses to the current challenges can usher in a new reality, one in which the core value is the well-being of all. This paper presents the philosophies and perspectives of renown biophilosopher, Jonas Salk, who—after developing the first effective vaccine to prevent polio, one of the great achievements in public health—expanded his vision beyond the prevention of individual diseases to that of addressing the basic problems of humankind. This vision is very much in line with our current understanding of and approach to planetary health. In response to changing conditions, planetary limits, and evolutionary pressure, new values, new communities, and new modes of interacting will likely emerge and be integrated with developments in science, technology, economics, the arts, and international relations, resulting in our survival and enhanced health and well-being.

scholarly journals Commentary: Serving the nation, serving the people: echoes of war in the early NHS

2020 ◽  
Vol 46 (2) ◽  
pp. 154-156
Author(s):  
Roberta Bivins
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
National Health Service ◽  
Health Service ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
State Institution ◽  
World War ◽  
Total War ◽  
The People ◽  
Post War ◽  
British People

It is something of a cliché to speak of Britain as having been transformed by the traumas of World War II and by its aftermath. From the advent of the ‘cradle to grave’ Welfare State to the end of (formal) empire, the effects of total war were enduring. Typically, they have been explored in relation to demographic, socioeconomic, technological and geopolitical trends and events. Yet as the articles in this volume observe across a variety of examples, World War II affected individuals, groups and communities in ways both intimate and immediate. For them, its effects were directly embodied. That is, they were experienced physically and emotionally—in physical and mental wounds, in ruptured domesticities and new opportunities and in the wholesale disruption and re-formation of communities displaced by bombing and reconstruction. So it is, perhaps, unsurprising that Britain’s post-war National Health Service, as the state institution charged with managing the bodies and behaviour of the British people, was itself permeated by a ‘wartime spirit’ long after the cessation of international hostilities.

scholarly journals Branches from the same tree: The case for integration in higher education

2019 ◽  
Vol 116 (6) ◽  
pp. 1865-1869 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Skorton
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Albert Einstein ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Public ◽  
Arts And Humanities ◽  
Science Technology ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Integration Of Disciplines ◽  
And Mathematics

The nature of work is changing rapidly in the digital age, increasing the demand for skills in specific disciplines. Across the United States and beyond, this evolution has led to an increased emphasis on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education at every level. Meanwhile, at US institutions of higher education, the proportion of undergraduate students who earn a degree in the humanities is declining. However, while the public discussion often pits the disciplines against one another, the sciences, arts, and humanities are—as Albert Einstein once wrote—“branches of the same tree” [(2006)The Einstein Reader]. They are mutually reinforcing. Therefore, the best way to prepare the next generation for the future of work, life, and citizenship is to provide broad, holistic educational experiences that integrate the STEM disciplines with the arts and humanities. A new study from the Board on Higher Education and Workforce of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine bolsters the case for such an approach, finding considerable evidence that the mutual integration of disciplines leads to improved educational and career outcomes for undergraduate and graduate students.

Alternative Remembrances

2016 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-27
Author(s):  
Nour K. Sacranie
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Visual Culture ◽  
Academic Writing ◽  
Peace Building ◽  
Critical Material ◽  
History And Memory ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Art Practices ◽  
Art Scene ◽  
Post War

Memory of the civil war in Lebanon is fractured if not completely broken, and its history remains officially unwritten. A lack of reconciliation or peace-building initiatives suggests that the causes for the conflict have simply been masked or ignored rather than cured. Existing scholarship has examined the absence of a national collective memory or unified history in Lebanon, with some speculation that the persistent fault lines in the country’s multi-factional and multi-religious society may lead to a relapse of the violence. While there have been some curatorial endeavors in the field, little popular criticism and even less academic writing focuses on contemporary visual culture in Lebanon or the wider Middle East. It is only in recent years that due attention has been paid to the vibrant art scene in the region, and the dearth in critical material has been addressed. With this in mind, this paper aims to contribute to the wider burgeoning conversation about critical art practices in the Middle East. In analyzing the work of three Lebanese ‘post-war’ artists, questions about the nature of wartime history and memory are asked in relation to visual culture. The article asks what art is doing in the context of Lebanese post-war society, and while it may not be possible to answer this question fully, there is an underlying need to re-evaluate the way the arts are viewed in contemporary discourse, as pioneered by Jacques Ranciere and Jill Bennet, among others.

20/X: Visuality, Representation and Epistemology in the Age of Intelligent Seeing Machines

Leonardo ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 51 (1) ◽  
pp. 71-74
Author(s):  
Shannon C. McMullen ◽  
Fabian Winkler
Keyword(s):  
Human Capabilities ◽  
Public Dialogue ◽  
Science Technology ◽  
The Arts ◽  
The Impact

To understand, critique and shape the impact of machines that can see in ways exceeding human capabilities, humans may need to learn to see like machines, to understand their abstractions and categorizations. The installation 20/X explores visuality, representation and epistemology in the age of intelligent seeing machines. This project is a collaboration between artists and biomedical researchers in an attempt to bring science, technology and the arts together to create an opportunity for public dialogue around an invention that will soon permeate the designed world.

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