scholarly journals ‘… With a Book in Your Hands’: A Reflection on Imaging, Reading, Space, and Female Agency

Religions ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 178
Author(s):  
Diane Apostolos-Cappadona
Keyword(s):  
Cultural History ◽  
Church Fathers ◽  
Female Agency ◽  
Christian Women ◽  
Western Art ◽  
Johannes Vermeer ◽  
Divine Inspiration ◽  
Women's Literacy ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
History Of

The Dutch artist, Johannes Vermeer (1632–1675), created a series of singular paintings that might be identified as feminine soliloquies of solitude, silence, and space. Like seeing, reading is a mediated practice that occurs within the cultural matrix that promotes the appropriate social mores of how to read, what to read, and who is able to read. Over the millennia of Western cultural history, books have been ambiguous symbols of power that have signified authorship, divine inspiration, wisdom, social position, and literacy. This led to the initiation of a singular Christian form of literature—the advice manual—specifically prepared for Christian women by Jerome (347–420), perhaps best known as one of the church fathers, translator of the Vulgate, and penitential saint. Simultaneously, an iconography of women reading evolved from these theological advisories, and paralleled the history of women’s literacy, particularly within Western Christian culture. The dramatic division that has always existed between male readers and female readers was highlighted during the Reformation when Protestant artists recorded the historical reality that readers were predominantly men of all ages but only old women, that is, those women who were relieved form the duties of childbearing and housekeeping, and who, as a form of spiritual preparation for death, meditated upon the scriptures. The magisterial art historian Leo Steinberg documented the tradition of what he termed “engaged” readers in Western art. Engaged male readers dominated numerically over female readers as reading, Steinberg determined, was not a primary, or perhaps better said appropriate, activity for women. Yet Vermeer’s portrayal of a young woman absorbed in textual engagement with a letter was an exquisitely nuanced visual immediacy of intimacy merging with reality that was highlighted by a refined light that illumined the soft, diffuse ambiance of this woman’s world. How Vermeer was able to focus the viewer’s attention on his female subject and her innermost thoughts as she is “lost in space” reading provides a starting point of this discussion of the images, reading, space, and female agency in Christian and in secular art.

scholarly journals “Wir Arme Leut”: Undignified Death and Madness in Berg’s Wozzeck

2013 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Meaghan Parker
Keyword(s):  
Lived Experiences ◽  
Social Stigma ◽  
Western Society ◽  
Class Structure ◽  
Western Art ◽  
Tragic Hero ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The Social ◽  
Death Experience ◽  
History Of

Images in Western art of the tragic hero meeting his end typically conjure Romantic topics of honour, stoicism, and transcendence, yet it is questionable whether these projections of artistic death translate to the lived experiences of the dying. The titular protagonist of Alban Berg’s 1922 opera, Wozzeck, experiences death in a way that starkly contrasts Romantic ideals. Wozzeck does not die the honourable, ‘masculine’ death that might be expected from a tragic hero; rather, he capitulates to madness, misery, and poverty. Spurned by those who socially outrank him, Wozzeck is condemned to a shameful death, his fate sealed by his destitution and the sanctimonious prejudice against his ‘immoral’ life. These considerations provide a fascinating starting point for an examination of Berg’s poignant representation of Wozzeck’s death — a death that reflects early twentieth century attitudes that shaped and stigmatized the death experience. In this article I will frame my discussion of Wozzeck by considering the history of death in Western society, particularly the stigmas surrounding the gender and class of the dying individual. This history will inform my analysis of the symbolism in Berg’s music. Detailed analysis of Wozzeck sheds a critical light on the social stigma and class structure mapped onto the suffering, madness, and death of Wozzeck and his lover Marie.

Locating the Black archive

2020 ◽  
pp. 207-218
Author(s):  
Hannah Ishmael ◽  
Ego Ahaiwe Sowinski ◽  
Kelly Foster ◽  
Etienne Joseph ◽  
Nathan E. Richards
Keyword(s):  
Cultural History ◽  
Archival Science ◽  
Archival Practice ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Intellectual Traditions ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Caribbean ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Archival Practices

This chapter takes the concept of ‘living heritage’ as a starting point to show the ways in which focusing on tangibility and intangibility, the formal and the informal, can be used to stretch the concepts of archival practice. It highlights the cultural and intellectual traditions, tangible and intangible, found within the Caribbean, Africa, and across the Diaspora. Accordingly, the institutions, organisations, concepts, and practices discussed here have a ‘pre-history’ both internationally and in the UK — a prehistory inseparable from the development of the intellectual and cultural history of African and Caribbean communities in the Diaspora. Despite this, an archival science capable of dealing with these complexities has yet to be developed. The chapter thus considers the ways in which Black-led archival practices in the UK have historically sought to both disrupt and define heritage practices. It makes a claim for the active, political and cultural incursions, disruptions, and interventions in the heritage sector by Black-led archives and heritage practitioners.

scholarly journals Dueling, Conflicting Masculinities, and the Victorian Gentleman

2017 ◽  
Vol 56 (3) ◽  
pp. 605-628 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margery Masterson
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Cultural History ◽  
Interpersonal Violence ◽  
Multifaceted Approach ◽  
Multiple Modes ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Modern Britain ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Relationship

AbstractThis article takes an unexplored popular debate from the 1860s over the role of dueling in regulating gentlemanly conduct as the starting point to examine the relationship between elite Victorian masculinities and interpersonal violence. In the absence of a meaningful replacement for dueling and other ritualized acts meant to defend personal honor, multiple modes of often conflicting masculinities became available to genteel men in the middle of the nineteenth century. Considering the security fears of the period––European and imperial, real and imagined––the article illustrates how pacific and martial masculine identities coexisted in a shifting and uneasy balance. The professional character of the enlarging gentlemanly classes and the increased importance of men's domestic identities––trends often aligned with hegemonic masculinity––played an ambivalent role in popular attitudes to interpersonal violence. The cultural history of dueling can thus inform a multifaceted approach toward gender, class, and violence in modern Britain.

THEORY AND HISTORY OF FINANCIAL CRISES: EXPLAINING THE PANIC OF 1873

2018 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 221-240 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christoph Nitschke
Keyword(s):  
Cultural History ◽  
Financial Crises ◽  
Stock Exchange ◽  
Theoretical Models ◽  
History Of Capitalism ◽  
Joint Application ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Financial Panic ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Impact

This article demonstrates the value of a joint application of the theory and history of financial crises of 1873. It weaves together concepts of financial and banking panic theory with a narrative explanation of the causes and triggers of the Panic of 1873. Basic concepts of economic theory, it suggests, can act as both a framework and a starting point to the historical interpretation of a financial panic.Employing such theory, however, ultimately reinforces the need for contextual cultural explanations of financial panics. A theoretically grounded view of the cultural history of capitalism—and its sudden crises—can help explain why and how some structures of exchange systematized and conditioned human confidence within specific historical contexts.Drawing together theoretical models of banking panic and historical evidence, this article thus emphasizes the importance of Gilded Age money-making culture for understanding the impact of Philadelphia financier Jay Cooke upon the causes of the Panic of 1873. Cooke's sudden and unexpected bankruptcy caused the deconstruction of confidence on the stock exchange and throughout the country. The cultural idiosyncrasy of Cooke's outstanding position in all matters of American finance multiplied the asymmetry that occurred in the wake of a major information shock.

Endogenous misery: menopause in medicine, literature and culture

2019 ◽  
pp. 67-82
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Barry
Keyword(s):  
Cultural History ◽  
Virginia Woolf ◽  
Gender And Sexuality ◽  
The Political ◽  
Menopausal Woman ◽  
Attitudes And Practices ◽  
Second Sex ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Political Stance ◽  
History Of

This chapter addresses the changing conception of menopause in philosophy and culture—a particularly fraught example of the intersection of ageing, gender and sexuality. It takes as its starting point the oblique but revealing representation of the 'turn of life' in the work of Virginia Woolf, looking at how the cultural history of the menopause offers a context for today's attitudes and practices. It also considers Germaine Greer’s heated critique of Simone de Beauvoir’s conception of menopause, in particular the gap between the political stance in The Second Sex and the capitulation in Beauvoir’s memoirs to society’s construction of a disempowered menopausal woman. The chapter goes on to reflect on the way that both Beauvoir and Greer, however, unwittingly echo discredited scientific theories about menopause as ‘deficiency’, and to think about how Woolf’s fiction might offer a more nuanced account of the gains as well as losses of female midlife.

scholarly journals Probing the boundaries of Irish memory: from postmemory to prememory and back

2014 ◽  
Vol 39 (154) ◽  
pp. 296-307 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guy Beiner
Keyword(s):  
Cultural History ◽  
Memory Studies ◽  
Future Prospects ◽  
History And Memory ◽  
The Past ◽  
Great Famine ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Many ◽  
The Great War

It has long been accepted that memory plays a prominent role in the construction of Irish identities and yet historians of Ireland were relatively late in addressing the vogue for memory studies that emerged in the 1980s. Its arrival as a core theme in Irish historical studies was announced in 2001 with the publication ofHistory and memory in modern Ireland, edited by Ian McBride, whose seminal introduction essay – the essential starting point for all subsequent explorations – issued the promise that ‘a social and cultural history of remembering would unravel the various strands of commemorative tradition which have formed our consciousness of the past’. The volume originated in one of the many academic conferences held in the bicentennial year of the 1798 rebellion, which was part of a decade of commemorations that listed among its highlights the tercentenary of the battle of the Boyne, the sesquicentenary of the Great Famine, and the bicentenaries of the United Irishmen, the Act of Union, and Robert Emmet’s rising. The following years produced a boom of studies on Irish memory, which has anticipated another decade of commemorations. Eyes are now set on the centenaries of the Great War, the Irish Revolution and Partition, all of which will undoubtedly generate further publications on memory. It is therefore timely to take stock of this burgeoning field and consider its future prospects.

scholarly journals A COMIDA E A LINGUAGEM EM “FOLCLORE DA ALIMENTAÇÃO” (1963): CASCUDO, OS FOLCLORISTAS E A CULTURA ALIMENTAR

2018 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 64
Author(s):  
Ariza Maria Rocha
Keyword(s):  
Cultural History ◽  
Food System ◽  
Rich Source ◽  
Food Culture ◽  
Cultural Meanings ◽  
Everyday Language ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
History Of ◽  
Ancient Civilizations ◽  
The Relationship

Até que ponto o sistema alimentar de um povo está impregnado nos verbetes que usamos na linguagem cotidiana? Esta comunicação tem o objetivo de analisar os significados culturais atribuídos aos alimentos que expressam a relação com o corpo e o comportamento a partir da obra “Folclore da alimentação”, de Cascudo (1898-1986), publicada na Revista Brasileira de Folclore (1963). O estudioso compilou 135 palavras, expressões, frases feitas e imagens comparativas provenientes do vocabulário corrente do cotidiano associadas à alimentação. Faz-se mister esclarecer que a mesma produção foi inserida no livro a “História da Alimentação no Brasil” (1983). O folclorista empregou a pesquisa histórica, etnográfica, bibliográfica e documental, a exemplo, O Diário de Pernambuco, fundado em 1825, a obra Auto da Ave-Maria – Auto dos Cantarinhos: com uma notícia biográfica do autor, de Antônio Prestes (1530) e o diálogo com outros folcloristas, tais como, Francisco Manuel de Melo (1608-1666), João Loureiro (1717-1791), Hermann Urtel (1873-1926), Francisco Augusto Pereira da Costa (1851-1923), Valdomiro Silveira (1873-1941), Ataliba Amaral Leite Penteado (1875-1929), Hidelgardes Cantolino Vianna (1919-2006), Édison de Souza Carneiro (1912-1972) e Cornélio Pires (1884-1958). A obra é uma rica fonte de pesquisa e reflexão da cultura alimentar que revela a contribuição africana, portuguesa, asiática, árabe, francesa, além da civilização da Antiguidade. Nas linhas e entrelinhas da obra, o historiador revela a riqueza da linguagem e da cultura da alimentação. Para analisar o referido universo comunicativo empregou-se os estudos da história cultural do alimento e, metodologicamente, investiu-se na pesquisa documental da obra o “Folclore da alimentação”.Palavras-chave: Comida. Linguagem. Folclore.ABSTRACTTo what extent does a people’s food system permeate the words we use in everyday language? This communication aims to analyse the cultural meanings attributed to foods that express the relationship between body and behaviour having as a starting point the book “Folclore da Alimentação” – “Folklore of food”, by Cascudo (1898-1986), published in the Revista Brasileira do Folclore – Brazilian Magazine of Folklore (1963). The scholar compiled 135 words, idioms, phrases, and comparative images from the current everyday vocabulary associated with eating at that time. It is necessary to clarify that the same production was inserted in the book “História da Alimentação no Brasil” – “History of Food in Brazil” (1983). The folklorist employed the historical, ethnographic, bibliographical and documentary researching methods, for example, O Diário de Pernambuco, founded in 1825, the work Auto Da Ave-Maria - Auto dos Cantarinhos: with a biographical article by Antônio Prestes (1530) and dialogues with other folklorists, such as Francisco Manuel de Melo (1608-1666), João Loureiro (1717-1791), Hermann Urtel (1873-1926), Francisco Augusto Pereira da Costa (1851-1923), Valdomiro Silveira (1873-1941), Ataliba Amaral Leite Penteado (1875-1929), Hidelgardes Cantolino Vianna (1919-2006), Édison de Souza Carneiro (1912-1972) and Cornélio Pires (1884-1958). The book is a rich source of research and reflection on food culture that reveals the African, Portuguese, Asian, Arab and French contributions, besides the contributions made by ancient civilizations. Along and between the lines of the book, the historian reveals the richness of both language and food culture. In order to analyse the aforementioned communicative universe, the study of the cultural history of food was carried out and, methodologically, a documentary research of the book “Folclore da Alimentação” was conducted. Keywords: Food. Language. Folklore.

Review of The Curse: A Cultural History of Menstruation.

1989 ◽  
Vol 34 (4) ◽  
pp. 413-413
Author(s):  
No authorship indicated
Keyword(s):  
Cultural History ◽  
History Of
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