Angelos Chaniotis
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- January 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780197265062
- eISBN:
- 9780191754173
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197265062.003.0014
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, European History: BCE to 500CE
This chapter explores how the gamut of responses to the presence of an inscription has to include not just sight and touch but also imagination and vocalisation. Being meant to be read aloud, they ...
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This chapter explores how the gamut of responses to the presence of an inscription has to include not just sight and touch but also imagination and vocalisation. Being meant to be read aloud, they convey a reader's voice as well as that of the inscription itself or that of the dead person commemorated on a gravestone. Even more immediate is the potential impact when a person's actual words are preserved and displayed. They may be in direct speech, illustrated by letters and confessions, or in indirect speech as records of manumissions, minutes of meetings, or jokes. They may alternatively be performative speech, in the form of acclamations, formal declarations, oaths, prayers or hymns; and can equally be reports of oral events such as meetings or even public demonstrations. They can also be couched in various forms of emotional language, whether uttered by individuals (graffiti, prayers or the edicts of angry rulers) or more collectively and formally in secular or religious acclamations, and even in decrees of state. A final section emphasises the need for practitioners of the discipline of epigraphy to be missionaries — to spread the word about the value of visible words.Less
This chapter explores how the gamut of responses to the presence of an inscription has to include not just sight and touch but also imagination and vocalisation. Being meant to be read aloud, they convey a reader's voice as well as that of the inscription itself or that of the dead person commemorated on a gravestone. Even more immediate is the potential impact when a person's actual words are preserved and displayed. They may be in direct speech, illustrated by letters and confessions, or in indirect speech as records of manumissions, minutes of meetings, or jokes. They may alternatively be performative speech, in the form of acclamations, formal declarations, oaths, prayers or hymns; and can equally be reports of oral events such as meetings or even public demonstrations. They can also be couched in various forms of emotional language, whether uttered by individuals (graffiti, prayers or the edicts of angry rulers) or more collectively and formally in secular or religious acclamations, and even in decrees of state. A final section emphasises the need for practitioners of the discipline of epigraphy to be missionaries — to spread the word about the value of visible words.
Anna J. Clark
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- January 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780199226825
- eISBN:
- 9780191710278
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199226825.003.0007
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, European History: BCE to 500CE
This chapter first draws together conclusions about the range of claims and counter‐claims made about divine qualities during the Republican period by individuals and groups from a range of social ...
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This chapter first draws together conclusions about the range of claims and counter‐claims made about divine qualities during the Republican period by individuals and groups from a range of social strata. It highlights the importance both of physical resources and of oral culture in the ways the cognitive vocabulary of divine qualities was used in Republican society. It then explores engagements with such qualities in the early empire. The capacity to restrict meanings and associations increased with the existence of an imperial family, but divine qualities also continued to be important in this period because alternative readings and associations could still be made, and such qualities were useful to senators and other people as well as to emperors. Imperial case studies include episodes found in Suetonius, Tacitus, and Dio, acclamations, Pompeian graffiti, ships, slave names, and the tomb of Claudia Semne.Less
This chapter first draws together conclusions about the range of claims and counter‐claims made about divine qualities during the Republican period by individuals and groups from a range of social strata. It highlights the importance both of physical resources and of oral culture in the ways the cognitive vocabulary of divine qualities was used in Republican society. It then explores engagements with such qualities in the early empire. The capacity to restrict meanings and associations increased with the existence of an imperial family, but divine qualities also continued to be important in this period because alternative readings and associations could still be made, and such qualities were useful to senators and other people as well as to emperors. Imperial case studies include episodes found in Suetonius, Tacitus, and Dio, acclamations, Pompeian graffiti, ships, slave names, and the tomb of Claudia Semne.
Jane Stevenson
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780198185024
- eISBN:
- 9780191714238
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198185024.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, Women's Literature
The case for epigraphy as a source for women's verse production in Imperial Rome is considered. Evidence for women's literacy in the Roman empire, including non-literary sources such as graffiti and ...
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The case for epigraphy as a source for women's verse production in Imperial Rome is considered. Evidence for women's literacy in the Roman empire, including non-literary sources such as graffiti and curse-tablets, is presented. The circumstances of production of epigraphic poetry are examined. The chapter also considers a variety of specific poems attributed to women, and the evidence they reveal of interpersonal relations, particularly Terentia's poem on the death of her brother.Less
The case for epigraphy as a source for women's verse production in Imperial Rome is considered. Evidence for women's literacy in the Roman empire, including non-literary sources such as graffiti and curse-tablets, is presented. The circumstances of production of epigraphic poetry are examined. The chapter also considers a variety of specific poems attributed to women, and the evidence they reveal of interpersonal relations, particularly Terentia's poem on the death of her brother.
Filippo De Vivo
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- September 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780199227068
- eISBN:
- 9780191711114
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199227068.003.0005
- Subject:
- History, European Early Modern History
Each of the communication spheres presented so far also needed to communicate with the others. This chapter analyses their contacts and conflicts. First, it discusses the interaction between literate ...
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Each of the communication spheres presented so far also needed to communicate with the others. This chapter analyses their contacts and conflicts. First, it discusses the interaction between literate and oral communication, suggesting that literacy was itself a drive for social transactions. It then addresses the official publication of laws and decrees: for all its secretiveness, the government's authority rested on its capacity to reach out to the subjects. Yet official publication also often led to resistance, as people prevented publication and destroyed decrees. Thus, normative messages never dominated the city's public space, but had to compete with alternative forms of public communication, for example graffiti and posted texts (Venice's equivalent of the Roman pasquinades). The chapter concludes with a case study of one such texts, the Paternoster degli Spagnoli, which circulated widely during the French wars of religion and beyond, as a critical parody of political domination.Less
Each of the communication spheres presented so far also needed to communicate with the others. This chapter analyses their contacts and conflicts. First, it discusses the interaction between literate and oral communication, suggesting that literacy was itself a drive for social transactions. It then addresses the official publication of laws and decrees: for all its secretiveness, the government's authority rested on its capacity to reach out to the subjects. Yet official publication also often led to resistance, as people prevented publication and destroyed decrees. Thus, normative messages never dominated the city's public space, but had to compete with alternative forms of public communication, for example graffiti and posted texts (Venice's equivalent of the Roman pasquinades). The chapter concludes with a case study of one such texts, the Paternoster degli Spagnoli, which circulated widely during the French wars of religion and beyond, as a critical parody of political domination.
Anne Marie Oliver and Paul F. Steinberg
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195305593
- eISBN:
- 9780199850815
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195305593.003.0022
- Subject:
- Religion, Islam
Intifada graffiti was preoccupied with things such as announcements of strike days, instructions on boycotts and demonstrations. The intifada was young and people hadn't yet learned what they were ...
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Intifada graffiti was preoccupied with things such as announcements of strike days, instructions on boycotts and demonstrations. The intifada was young and people hadn't yet learned what they were supposed to be doing and thinking. Many of the slogans of the intifada can be traced at least as far back as the Palestinian revolts of 1929 and 1936 and the war of 1948. Al–Ansari holds a particularly high place of honor in the Islamic pantheon of martyrs because he lent Islamic ritual form to the act of dying in the hands of one's enemy.Less
Intifada graffiti was preoccupied with things such as announcements of strike days, instructions on boycotts and demonstrations. The intifada was young and people hadn't yet learned what they were supposed to be doing and thinking. Many of the slogans of the intifada can be traced at least as far back as the Palestinian revolts of 1929 and 1936 and the war of 1948. Al–Ansari holds a particularly high place of honor in the Islamic pantheon of martyrs because he lent Islamic ritual form to the act of dying in the hands of one's enemy.
John Baxter
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780813126012
- eISBN:
- 9780813135601
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Kentucky
- DOI:
- 10.5810/kentucky/9780813126012.003.0003
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
Jonas claimed to be indifferent, as he was to the men who pressed themselves against him on crowded streetcars. Obscene graffiti gave him knowledge of anatomy, which improved when he gathered in a ...
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Jonas claimed to be indifferent, as he was to the men who pressed themselves against him on crowded streetcars. Obscene graffiti gave him knowledge of anatomy, which improved when he gathered in a cellar with some other boys to watch a girl on a swing show herself naked under her skirt. He had a few brushes with homosexuality. Because his work deals so frequently but often obliquely with sex, this has invited speculation about von Sternberg's sexuality. Superficially, he was almost obsessively heterosexual.Less
Jonas claimed to be indifferent, as he was to the men who pressed themselves against him on crowded streetcars. Obscene graffiti gave him knowledge of anatomy, which improved when he gathered in a cellar with some other boys to watch a girl on a swing show herself naked under her skirt. He had a few brushes with homosexuality. Because his work deals so frequently but often obliquely with sex, this has invited speculation about von Sternberg's sexuality. Superficially, he was almost obsessively heterosexual.
Patrick Major
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- February 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199243280
- eISBN:
- 9780191714061
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199243280.003.0009
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History
Considers how the Wall has thrown shadows into the post‐1989 era, both in the wave of nostalgic and critical films and novels, but also in the trials of border guards which took place in the 1990s. ...
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Considers how the Wall has thrown shadows into the post‐1989 era, both in the wave of nostalgic and critical films and novels, but also in the trials of border guards which took place in the 1990s. The bulk of the chapter concerns the politics surrounding memorials to the Wall. The aestheticization of the Wall through graffiti before its fall reflected a ‘western’ vision of the edifice as Cold War absurdity, but also a message board for an eclectic range of libertarian causes. Likewise, the artistic commemoration of the Wall since 1989 has been driven largely be western architects who have sometimes unwittingly prioritized the Wall ‘under western eyes'; for instance in marking in Berlin's pavements the line where the western ‘frontline’ wall ran, rather than the eastern wall which confronted East Germans. This final chapter reinforces the book's overall message of looking at the Wall with eastern eyes, both those of the party, but those of ordinary East Germans caught up in a system of real and invisible walls which deeply marked their life stories.Less
Considers how the Wall has thrown shadows into the post‐1989 era, both in the wave of nostalgic and critical films and novels, but also in the trials of border guards which took place in the 1990s. The bulk of the chapter concerns the politics surrounding memorials to the Wall. The aestheticization of the Wall through graffiti before its fall reflected a ‘western’ vision of the edifice as Cold War absurdity, but also a message board for an eclectic range of libertarian causes. Likewise, the artistic commemoration of the Wall since 1989 has been driven largely be western architects who have sometimes unwittingly prioritized the Wall ‘under western eyes'; for instance in marking in Berlin's pavements the line where the western ‘frontline’ wall ran, rather than the eastern wall which confronted East Germans. This final chapter reinforces the book's overall message of looking at the Wall with eastern eyes, both those of the party, but those of ordinary East Germans caught up in a system of real and invisible walls which deeply marked their life stories.
Ivy G. Wilson
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195337372
- eISBN:
- 9780199896929
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195337372.003.0007
- Subject:
- Literature, African-American Literature, American, 19th Century Literature
This chapter interrogates the idea of visuality in Herman Melville's short story “Benito Cereno” (1855) by examining the arrangement of space about the slave ship San Dominick. Turning away from the ...
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This chapter interrogates the idea of visuality in Herman Melville's short story “Benito Cereno” (1855) by examining the arrangement of space about the slave ship San Dominick. Turning away from the prevailing New Historicist readings, it argues that the text's fraught aesthetic sensibility needs to be correlated to the ambiguous social position of the African slaves. In Melville's story, the Spanish ship is riddled with improperly placed things, half-finished pieces of art, rude performances, and graffiti scrawling. “Benito Cereno” is best understood through its staging of art that are put into high relief if one thinks about the Africans as curators of sorts; the story sets the American Captain Delano's desire to restore law and order against the statelessness of the slaves whose insurrection is fashioned as a veritable example of Outsider Art.Less
This chapter interrogates the idea of visuality in Herman Melville's short story “Benito Cereno” (1855) by examining the arrangement of space about the slave ship San Dominick. Turning away from the prevailing New Historicist readings, it argues that the text's fraught aesthetic sensibility needs to be correlated to the ambiguous social position of the African slaves. In Melville's story, the Spanish ship is riddled with improperly placed things, half-finished pieces of art, rude performances, and graffiti scrawling. “Benito Cereno” is best understood through its staging of art that are put into high relief if one thinks about the Africans as curators of sorts; the story sets the American Captain Delano's desire to restore law and order against the statelessness of the slaves whose insurrection is fashioned as a veritable example of Outsider Art.
David Ashford
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9781846318597
- eISBN:
- 9781846318016
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/liverpool/9781846318597.001.0000
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Cultural Studies
Engaging with the rich catalogue of cultural material relating to the London Underground, this cultural geography sets out to explore one of the strangest spaces of the modern world. The first to ...
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Engaging with the rich catalogue of cultural material relating to the London Underground, this cultural geography sets out to explore one of the strangest spaces of the modern world. The first to complete that slow process of estrangement from the natural topography initiated by the Industrial Revolution, London Underground is shown to be what French anthropologist Marc Augé has called non-lieu: non-places, like the motorway, supermarket or airport lounge, compelled to interpret their relation to the invisible landscapes they traverse through the media of signs and maps. The tube-network is revealed to be a transitional form, linking spaces of alienation in Victorian England, such as the railway, and the fully virtual spaces of our contemporary consumer-capitalism. This history of alienation, and of the bold struggle to overcome it, recounted in London Underground: a cultural geography, is nothing less than the history of how people have attempted to make a home in the psychopathological spaces of the modern world. London Underground: a cultural geography taps the current enthusiasm for cultural history, for psychogeography, for books on modern urban space, and for all things relating to London, providing an account of the system's representation and reshaping in fiction, film, art, music, graffiti, connecting the long history of the tube-network to wider theoretical concerns relating to the Victorian City, Cultural Geography, Modernism, Post-modernism and Situationist Theory.Less
Engaging with the rich catalogue of cultural material relating to the London Underground, this cultural geography sets out to explore one of the strangest spaces of the modern world. The first to complete that slow process of estrangement from the natural topography initiated by the Industrial Revolution, London Underground is shown to be what French anthropologist Marc Augé has called non-lieu: non-places, like the motorway, supermarket or airport lounge, compelled to interpret their relation to the invisible landscapes they traverse through the media of signs and maps. The tube-network is revealed to be a transitional form, linking spaces of alienation in Victorian England, such as the railway, and the fully virtual spaces of our contemporary consumer-capitalism. This history of alienation, and of the bold struggle to overcome it, recounted in London Underground: a cultural geography, is nothing less than the history of how people have attempted to make a home in the psychopathological spaces of the modern world. London Underground: a cultural geography taps the current enthusiasm for cultural history, for psychogeography, for books on modern urban space, and for all things relating to London, providing an account of the system's representation and reshaping in fiction, film, art, music, graffiti, connecting the long history of the tube-network to wider theoretical concerns relating to the Victorian City, Cultural Geography, Modernism, Post-modernism and Situationist Theory.
Camilo D. Trumper
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780520289901
- eISBN:
- 9780520964303
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520289901.003.0008
- Subject:
- History, Latin American History
The concluding chapter returns to the book’s different subjects, and studies how they took new shape in the early moments of the regime that toppled Allende and inaugurated a military dictatorship ...
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The concluding chapter returns to the book’s different subjects, and studies how they took new shape in the early moments of the regime that toppled Allende and inaugurated a military dictatorship that ruled for close to two decades. It then turns to street photography as a case study for transformation and continuity in political practice and visual culture. It shows how photographers responded to political repression by fashioning a visual language that played upon the “objectivity” of the lens and the “transparency” of the image, fashioning an innovative genre of “creative testimony.” Street photographers ultimately turned images into the preeminent medium around which they could organize an active resistance movement. This perspective suggests that citizens responded to political violence by reimagining the tactics of political conflict they had developed in democracy into a rich visual and material culture of political resistance. In the absence of generalized armed conflict, ephemeral acts and visual culture became the most effective form of political engagement and resistance in Chile. They scrawled slogans and images on buildings, distributed leaflets, acted out fleeting forms of furtive political street theater, and crashed empty pots and pans as an ongoing form of aural protest. Developed in democracy but reimagined under dictatorship, these ephemeral practices were essential to the creation of clandestine networks of political association and organization after the coup.Less
The concluding chapter returns to the book’s different subjects, and studies how they took new shape in the early moments of the regime that toppled Allende and inaugurated a military dictatorship that ruled for close to two decades. It then turns to street photography as a case study for transformation and continuity in political practice and visual culture. It shows how photographers responded to political repression by fashioning a visual language that played upon the “objectivity” of the lens and the “transparency” of the image, fashioning an innovative genre of “creative testimony.” Street photographers ultimately turned images into the preeminent medium around which they could organize an active resistance movement. This perspective suggests that citizens responded to political violence by reimagining the tactics of political conflict they had developed in democracy into a rich visual and material culture of political resistance. In the absence of generalized armed conflict, ephemeral acts and visual culture became the most effective form of political engagement and resistance in Chile. They scrawled slogans and images on buildings, distributed leaflets, acted out fleeting forms of furtive political street theater, and crashed empty pots and pans as an ongoing form of aural protest. Developed in democracy but reimagined under dictatorship, these ephemeral practices were essential to the creation of clandestine networks of political association and organization after the coup.
