scholarly journals Stage or Page? A Dub Performer or A Dub Poet? A Study of Linton Kwesi Johnson’s Political Activism in “Five Nights of Bleeding” and “Di Great Insohreckshan”

2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 11
Author(s):  
Yasser K. R. Aman

This paper investigates Linton Kwesi Johnson’s political activism in “Five Nights of Bleeding” and “Di Great Insohreckshan” in order to answer the much-debated question: which is more effective in conveying Johnson’s political message: the performed song or the scribed poem? First, the paper gives a brief history of dub music which started in Jamaica, Johnson’s motherland. A discussion of dub poetry follows highlighting the pioneers such as Johnson and Mutabaruka. I argue that the performed songs and the scribed poems under study are effective in convey Johnson’s message each in its own way; however, the scribed form has a stronger, more longstanding impact on imparting the message than stage performance because it relies on the musicality of the words created by sounds and aural images easily grasped even by an international readership alien to the heritage of dub music. An analysis of political events in the two poems shows that a scribed poem, which, as in “Five Nights of Bleeding”, graphically represents a tension between Standard English, and Jamaican Creole and Jamaican English, and which highlights sounds at play as in “Di Great Insohreckshan”, asserting identity, can do without stage performance. 

Author(s):  
Nurit Yaari

This chapter surveys the history of classical Greek drama productions at the Department of Theatre Arts of Tel Aviv University as the basis for an exploration of the issue of theatre and art education. By analysing the students’ approach to classical Greek drama, we can see how they deal with the interpretative reading, translation, and performance of such texts on stage. We also see how the ancient works invite the students to delve more deeply into their distinctive content and forms; to draw links between theory and practice, and between text and context; to gain a deeper understanding of the issues of style and styling; and to engage in a richer experimentation with various aspects of stage performance—such as pronunciation, diction, voice, movement, music, and mise-en-scène.


Author(s):  
Alessandro Portelli

This article centers around the case study of Rome's House of Memory and History to understand the politics of memory and public institutions. This case study is about the organization and politics of public memory: the House of Memory and History, established by the city of Rome in 2006, in the framework of an ambitious program of cultural policy. It summarizes the history of the House's conception and founding, describes its activities and the role of oral history in them, and discusses some of the problems it faces. The idea of a House of Memory and History grew in this cultural and political context. This article traces several political events that led to the culmination of the politics of memory and its effect on public institutions. It says that the House of Memory and History can be considered a success. A discussion on a cultural future winds up this article.


2019 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 1-1
Author(s):  
Agnieszka Bień

<p><strong>Abstract.</strong> A cartographic map of Gdańsk in the years of 1918&amp;ndash;1939 was very different from the other maps of Polish cities. The reasons for some differences were, among others, the proximity of the sea, the multicultural mindset of the inhabitants of Gdańsk from that period, and some historical events in the interwar period (the founding of the Free City of Gdańsk and the events preceding World War II). Its uniqueness came from the fact that the city of Gdańsk combined the styles of Prussian and Polish housing, as well as form the fact that its inhabitants felt the need for autonomy from the Second Polish Republic. The city aspired to be politically, socially and economically independent.</p><p>The aim of my presentation is to analyze the cartographic maps of Gdańsk, including the changes that had been made in the years of 1918&amp;ndash;1939. I will also comment on the reasons of those changes, on their socio-historical effects on the city, the whole country and Europe.</p>


2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 234-238
Author(s):  
Malika S. Tovsultanova ◽  
Rustam A. Tovsultanov ◽  
Lilia N. Galimova

In the 1970s, Turkey was in a state of political turbulence. Weak coalition governments changed frequently and could not bring order to the country. The city streets turned into an arena of battles for various armed radical groups of nationalist, communist, Islamist and separatist persuasions. For 9 years from 1971 to 1980, 10 governments changed in Turkey. The political crisis was accompanied by an economic downturn, expressed in hyperinflation and an increase in external debt. Chaos and anarchy caused discontent among Turkish financial circles and generals with the situation in the country and led to the idea of a military coup, already the third in the republican history of Turkey. The US State Department was extremely concerned about the situation in Turkey, hoping to find a reliable cover against further exports of communism and Islamism to the Middle East, approving the possibility of a coup. The coup was led by the chief of the General Staff K. Evren. Political events of the second half of the 1970s allow us to conclude that, despite the interest of the financial and military circles of the United States in it, the military coup on September 12, 1980 had mainly domestic political reasons.


2017 ◽  
Vol 41 (S1) ◽  
pp. S515-S516
Author(s):  
E. Molchanova ◽  
R. Tsoy ◽  
I. Sim

Psychopathological signs reflect general and significant phenomenon, the whole “extract” of a particular historical time, consisting of a bizarre set of events, influential characters twisted in an individual history of a patient. Except detailed “real” clinical picture reflecting socio-political events, authors consider formatting mechanisms of “unreal” content of hallucinatory-delusional symptoms. In such cases, main heroes are mythological characters for example gins or intimidating heroes of modern movies like vampires and zombies. Events in the social sets, such as Facebook and Instagram are also reflected in experiences of patients. Authors focus their attention on a paradox of logical reflection of events in the context of delusional symptoms versus paralogical interpretations. Research is based on clinical cases, and shows up a spectrum of mechanisms of how events are either included or ignored in the forming a content of psychopathological experiences.Disclosure of interestThe authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.


Author(s):  
Yana E. Kanevskaya ◽  
◽  
David M. Feldman ◽  

The article considers the history of the term “wrecking.” The study allows describing and analyzing political events which the chosen terms correlate with. The authors manage to trace the functions of the term “wrecking” at different historical times, as well as to establish a connection between the function of the term and the political tasks of the leadership.


Author(s):  
Ekaterina A. Zavidovskaya

The paper discusses two types of Chinese calendars – a traditional agricultural calendar “nongli” which existed in China since the 9th century and a Westernized “yuefenpai” calendar that emerged in Shanghai in the late 19th century and flourished until the 30-40s of the 20th century. Apart from the lunar and solar calendars and a table of 24 seasons woodblock “nongli” calendar featured a Stove God Zao-wang alone or with a spouse surrounded by a suite, fortune bringing deities and auspicious symbols, Stove God was believed to ascend to heaven and report good and bad deeds of the family members to the Jade Emperor. New standards of “peoples`” art in PRC borrowed the aesthetics of the traditional woodblock popular prints by proclaiming “new nianhua” as a new tool of propaganda and criticizing “yuefenpai”.“Yuefenpai” differed from “nongli” by modern technology of production and acting as an advertisement, yet early pieces of Shanghai calendars either feature auspicious characters and motifs or introduce current political events, such as accession of the Pu Yi emperor on the throne in 1908 (reigned in 1908–1912). These calendars were seen to be a cheap and easily available media suitable for informing population about news and innovations. The paper attempts to revisit previously established interpretations of some “yuefenpai” calendars. The research is based unpublished pieces from the collections of the State Hermitage, the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography, academic library of the St.-Petersburg State University, the State Museum of the History of Religion mostly acquired by V.M. Alekseev (1881–1951) during his stays to China.


Author(s):  
Walter Armbrust

This chapter looks at several vignettes through which one sees the history of a crucial swathe of the revolution told through performances of martyrdom. These link to important political events in the revolution, but also to a dense network of textual and spatial anchors far beyond the scope of discrete acts of political contention. The experience of uncloseable liminality in the revolution was disorienting and uncomfortable, but it was also truly liminal in the sense that it enabled new forms of agency, or one might just say that “thinking outside the box” becomes obligatory when the status of the box itself is thrown into doubt. For some, this absence-of-the-box agency was a source of creativity. When a contest for power ensued after the collapse of communitas it did not mean that all forms of history and prior social attachments disappeared, but it did allow revolutionaries much greater license as bricoleurs who could do things in performance spaces that could not have been previously thinkable, and join things together that could not have been joined. But it must not be forgotten that ritual exists for a reason, namely as a means for controlling the dangers of liminality.


Author(s):  
Olivia Custer

Derrida reacted to Foucault’s History of Madness by insisting that the very project of that work, namely to “make madness speak,” was as mad as it was necessary. Sharing the commitments which gave sense and force to the gesture of the book, Derrida was drawn to identify the difficulties Foucault’s project could not, on his analysis, avoid. An untenable reading of Descartes, Derrida argued, was the symptom of the conflict between project and accomplishment; unsustainable by other standards, it held up the book’s architecture and claims. Thirty years later, Derrida professed not to want to return to the quarrel, declaring that those interested should refer to the archive already constituted. Exploring what Custer takes to be a delayed reactivation of the exchange, she considers why Derrida’s posthumous publications – notably his seminar on the Death Penalty and The Animal that therefore I am – should be added to this archive. Some implicit arguments in these works sound eerily the same as those with which Derrida had taken issue in his debate with Foucault. Custer suggests that this does not mark the possibility of a reconciliation but does offer a productive place from which to revisit the problem for which “Descartes” came to stand as a symbol. Today, when the project of giving voice to those who have been silenced has become a cliché of political activism and reading practices, it is useful to reactivate Derrida’s warnings about the mad nature of Foucault’s project.


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