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Activists in Their Forties

Rachel F. Seidman

in Speaking of Feminism: Today's Activists on the Past, Present, and Future of the U.S. Women's Movement

The seven women in this section were born between 1966 and 1976, at the height of the burgeoning feminist movement. They discuss not only the impact of feminism on their own lives, but on their ... More

The seven women in this section were born between 1966 and 1976, at the height of the burgeoning feminist movement. They discuss not only the impact of feminism on their own lives, but on their mothers as well. Some reflect on whether or not the world is a better place for their daughters than when they were growing up. Coming of age in the 1980s and 90s, these interviewees reached maturity during the rise of Reagan Republicanism and what Susan Faludi termed the “backlash” against feminism. None of these women set out at the beginning of their careers to be professional feminists; it never crossed their minds as a possibility. About half of the women in this chapter have been involved in one way or another with the intersecting worlds of journalism, academia, social media, and business, and half—all of them women of color—have worked in direct-service and non-profit organizations. With long careers and experience in a variety of contexts, these women help us understand how feminism has changed over the past twenty years, where the movement is headed, and some of the reasons why even those who undertake its work do not always embrace it wholeheartedly.Less

The Theology of Archetypes in “Taras Bul'ba”

in The Jewish Persona in the European Imagination: A Case of Russian Literature

This chapter analyzes the theology of archetypes in Nikolai Gogol's “Taras Bul'ba.” It suggests that the character of Taras represents both faces of the “the Jews'” archetype of the Wise Old Man, and ... More

This chapter analyzes the theology of archetypes in Nikolai Gogol's “Taras Bul'ba.” It suggests that the character of Taras represents both faces of the “the Jews'” archetype of the Wise Old Man, and describes his confrontation with his sons Ostap and Andrii. The chapter examines the sacrificial symbolism in the novella and argues that the exclusion of empathetic females from the execution of Ostap and Taras violated traditional Crucifixion imagery.Less

The Temptation of Taras

in The Jewish Persona in the European Imagination: A Case of Russian Literature

This chapter analyses the temptation experienced by the character of Taras in Nikolai Gogol's “Taras Bul'ba.” It suggests that Taras's journey through temptation parallels the crusade of the ... More

This chapter analyses the temptation experienced by the character of Taras in Nikolai Gogol's “Taras Bul'ba.” It suggests that Taras's journey through temptation parallels the crusade of the Cossacks, whose initial venture outside Zaporozh'e fails because they are not spiritually ready for an exploit, as illustrated by Andrii's Judas act or defection. The chapter also contends that Taras' martyrdom is an emulation of Christ and a salvific event for those putting faith in him, and considers the influence of Gogol's spiritual evolution on the plot of “Taras Bul'ba.”Less

Finding Herself

Joel Lobenthal

in Alla Osipenko: Beauty and Subversion in Soviet Ballet

Returning from her injury, Osipenko made her debut in Swan Lake, a ballet with which she was identified for the next twenty years. This was followed by a breakthrough performance in Boris Fenster’s ... More

Returning from her injury, Osipenko made her debut in Swan Lake, a ballet with which she was identified for the next twenty years. This was followed by a breakthrough performance in Boris Fenster’s new balletic adaptation of Gogol’s novella Taras Bulba. Also discussed here is her resuming the role of the Lilac Fairy in Sleeping Beauty, another classic role that she would make her own.Less

The Trauma of Partition: Meghe Dhaka Tara (The Cloud Capped Star, 1960, Dir. Ritwik Ghatak)

Omar Ahmed

in Studying Indian Cinema

This chapter shifts the focus to Indian art cinema with the Marxist work of Bengali director and iconoclast Ritwik Ghatak. The impressive Meghe Dhaka Tara (The Cloud Capped Star, 1960) is his ... More

This chapter shifts the focus to Indian art cinema with the Marxist work of Bengali director and iconoclast Ritwik Ghatak. The impressive Meghe Dhaka Tara (The Cloud Capped Star, 1960) is his best-known film. Dealing directly with the trauma of partition and its effects on a Bengali family, Ghatak's cinema is bold, uncompromising, and occupies a unique position in Indian cinema. Although his work is still somewhat overshadowed by that of Satyajit Ray, another masterful Bengali film-maker, and though many of his films are still sadly unavailable on DVD in the UK, Megha Dhaka Tara is now recognised as one of the key works of Indian art cinema. The chapter discusses numerous aspects, including Ghatak's position as a film-maker; the wider historical context such as the partition of Bengal; the relationship between melodrama and feminist concerns; the film's categorisation as an example of 1960s counter cinema; and the thematic importance of the family to the film's narrative.Less

Coda: New Directions: Jatinder Verma and Tara Arts

Justine McConnell

in Black Odysseys: The Homeric Odyssey in the African Diaspora since 1939

This chapter concentrates on the cross-cultural work of theatre director Jatinder Verma, whose theatre company Tara Arts was founded in the 1970s to ‘achieve presence’ in the midst of the strife ... More

This chapter concentrates on the cross-cultural work of theatre director Jatinder Verma, whose theatre company Tara Arts was founded in the 1970s to ‘achieve presence’ in the midst of the strife embodied in the London race riots. Born in Tanzania to parents who had emigrated from India, his family lived in Kenya before moving to the UK in the late 1960s. Verma’s work exemplifies the syncretic theatre that can do so much to decolonize the stage. His Ramayan Odyssey, as well as his Tempest and Oedipus the King, all work towards this, exploring the position and contested identity of the migrant. Verma’s own words, drawn from an interview conducted by the author, form an illuminating basis of the chapter.Less

Genealogies of the Folk Concept in Colonial Uttarakhand

Stefan Fiol

in Recasting Folk in the Himalayas: Indian Music, Media, and Social Mobility

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, indigenous and British colonial elites gathered local knowledge from low-status (Shilpkar) performers and inscribed this knowledge within the ... More

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, indigenous and British colonial elites gathered local knowledge from low-status (Shilpkar) performers and inscribed this knowledge within the emerging discipline of folklore studies. Depending on the shifting ideological and political positions with respect to local caste hierarchies, Indo-Aryan migration theories, and colonial administrative agendas, scholars utilized folklore to call attention alternately to the exceptional character of central Himalayan society as a whole and to the backward and superstitious character of particular castes and communities. This chapter illuminates the ways in which the folk concept was a critical instrument of colonial domination even as it offered local Indian elites the opportunity to compare Himalayan societies favorably with European societies. Less

Introduction: Historiographical Legacy and Our Approach

J.S. Grewal

in Master Tara Singh in Indian History: Colonialism, Nationalism, and the Politics of Sikh Identity

Master Tara Singh became a subject of study in his lifetime. A wide range of historical writing on Master Tara Singh has been produced in Punjabi and English in the past three quarters of a century, ... More

Master Tara Singh became a subject of study in his lifetime. A wide range of historical writing on Master Tara Singh has been produced in Punjabi and English in the past three quarters of a century, both by his admirers and his critics. However, this historiography has been based on a small part of the total evidence now available on Master Tara Singh, including archival sources and his own works. The range of evidence used in the present study is much larger. Furthermore, ample space has been given not only to Master Tara Singh but also to his opponents. Consequently, the image of Master Tara Singh that emerges from this comprehensive study is likely to be more authentic and refreshing.Less

“Taras Bul'ba” in Context

in The Jewish Persona in the European Imagination: A Case of Russian Literature

This chapter examines the character of Iankel in Russian author Nikolai Gogol's romanticized historical novella “Taras Bul'ba.” It suggests that Iankel became the main reference point for the ... More

This chapter examines the character of Iankel in Russian author Nikolai Gogol's romanticized historical novella “Taras Bul'ba.” It suggests that Iankel became the main reference point for the depiction of “the Jews” in Russian literature because of the reliance of Gogol's oeuvre on blend of myth, religion, folklore, and archetypal logic. The chapter also argues that everything in the novella looked realistic because it corresponded to the aesthetic and cultural expectations of Gogol's interpretive community. It also contends that the religious dynamics of the novella left Gogol with no choice but to portray “the Jews” based as Christianity's paradigmatic Other.Less

The Opponent

in The Jewish Persona in the European Imagination: A Case of Russian Literature

This chapter examines the opponents or protagonists in Nikolai Gogol's “Taras Bul'ba,” discusses Gogol's depiction of the Jews in effeminate dresses, and highlights the fact that the Catholic clergy ... More

This chapter examines the opponents or protagonists in Nikolai Gogol's “Taras Bul'ba,” discusses Gogol's depiction of the Jews in effeminate dresses, and highlights the fact that the Catholic clergy in his novella never shaped up as individual characters like “the Jews” and women. It suggests that the character of Andrii is comparable to Judas and that his damnation is linked to that of “the Jews,” who are considered to be the only sinners who cannot be freed from hell. The chapter discusses the view that cowardice of “the Jews” in this novella is a theologically motivated obfuscation of Jewish resistance to Christian persecution and of the historical participation of Jews in European warfare.Less

The Eschatology of “Taras Bul'ba”

in The Jewish Persona in the European Imagination: A Case of Russian Literature

This chapter analyzes the eschatology of Nikolai Gogol's “Taras Bul'ba.” It suggests that the Cossack crusade in this novella must be measured by its spiritual rather than military triumph and ... More

This chapter analyzes the eschatology of Nikolai Gogol's “Taras Bul'ba.” It suggests that the Cossack crusade in this novella must be measured by its spiritual rather than military triumph and describes how the Cossacks respond to the news of the “sinful” state of their church in Zaporozh'e by promising to die for their faith. The chapter also argues that the eschatological dynamic of “Taras Bul'ba” inverts the messianic interpretations of Ukrainian history in the poetry of Bohdan Zaleski and that Gogol's treatment of the Last Days trope subverts Adam Mickiewicz's pet idea of Poland as a divinely chosen Christ-nation.Less

The Helper

in The Jewish Persona in the European Imagination: A Case of Russian Literature

This chapter examines the role of the Jewish character of Iankel as a helper-figure in Nikolai Gogol's “Taras Bul'ba.” It explains the archetypal conception of “the Jews” as keepers of knowledge and ... More

This chapter examines the role of the Jewish character of Iankel as a helper-figure in Nikolai Gogol's “Taras Bul'ba.” It explains the archetypal conception of “the Jews” as keepers of knowledge and traffickers of information in this story and highlights their use of information not only a commodity but a weapon. The chapter discusses how Gogol conveyed the demonic nature of the “Jewish” Helper-figure based on the descriptive vocabulary furnished by the generative model of “the Jews,” and describes the alterity in the language spoken by Iankel and his kind in the story.Less

Ivan Turgenev's Crime and Punishment

in The Jewish Persona in the European Imagination: A Case of Russian Literature

This chapter analyzes the depiction of crime and punishment in Ivan Turgenev's “Zhid.” It suggests that Turgenev was able to handle his racy subject by assigning blame to the greedy and immoral ... More

This chapter analyzes the depiction of crime and punishment in Ivan Turgenev's “Zhid.” It suggests that Turgenev was able to handle his racy subject by assigning blame to the greedy and immoral “Jews” while making a compassionate Christian the functional savior of the girl who was taken into prostitution by his father. The chapter argues that Turgenev disregarded evidence of the systematic assistance which the Russian army received from Polish and Lithuanian Jews opposed to Napoleon on ideological grounds when he made his “Jews” side with the French. It also mentions that this story was clearly based on Nikolai Gogol's “Taras Bul'ba.”Less

Introduction

in The Ridiculous Jew: The Exploitation and Transformation of a Stereotype in Gogol, Turgenev, and Dostoevsky

This introductory chapter first sets out the book's purpose, to explore the Jewish stereotype in the works of three prominent Russian writers of the nineteenth century—Nikolai Gogol's Taras Bulba, ... More

This introductory chapter first sets out the book's purpose, to explore the Jewish stereotype in the works of three prominent Russian writers of the nineteenth century—Nikolai Gogol's Taras Bulba, Ivan Turgenev's “The Jew,” and Fyodor Dostoevsky's Notes from the House of the Dead. The focus is on the ways in which Gogol, Turgenev, and Dostoevsky exploit the stereotype of the ridiculous Jew for different literary and cultural ends. The chapter then discusses representations of the Jew as devil and homo economicus, the good Jew, the inscribable Jew, Jewish assimilation and conversion, and the Jewish body. An overview of the subsequent chapters is also presented.Less

Notes from the House of the Dead: The Other Isay Fomich: Subversion and the Revenge of the Stereotype

in The Ridiculous Jew: The Exploitation and Transformation of a Stereotype in Gogol, Turgenev, and Dostoevsky

This chapter argues that the text of Notes from the House of the Dead does not completely enclose Isay Fomich, inextricably tying him to the ridiculous role for which he was ostensibly conceived; but ... More

This chapter argues that the text of Notes from the House of the Dead does not completely enclose Isay Fomich, inextricably tying him to the ridiculous role for which he was ostensibly conceived; but that there is a creditable deconstructive alternative for Dostoevsky's Isay Fomich similar to the one proposed for Gogol's Jewish characters. It shows that just as Gogol was not able to control the damage that Yankel did to the status of his epic hero, Taras Bulba, so Dostoevsky is often unable to control the far more serious damage that Isay Fomich does to his narrator, and by extension to the author of the semi-autobiographical novel who stands behind him.Less

Where Are the Peanut Butters of Yesteryear?

Jon Krampner

in Creamy and Crunchy: An Informal History of Peanut Butter, the All-American Food

This chapter examines peanut butter brands which have disappeared from the U.S. market. The varieties of peanut butter available have expanded in recent years, but the peanut butter industry, like ... More

This chapter examines peanut butter brands which have disappeared from the U.S. market. The varieties of peanut butter available have expanded in recent years, but the peanut butter industry, like many sectors of the American economy, has become more concentrated. The numbers of peanut farmers, shellers, manufacturers, brands, and small independent factories have all declined. Many brands have fallen by the wayside in the more than 100 years since peanut butter was first developed, including regional stalwarts Dr. Schindler's (Baltimore and Washington, DC), Robb Ross (Sioux City, Iowa), Toner's Radiant Roast (Denver), Meadors Old Timey (South Carolina), and even the namesake brand of peanut butter pioneer George Bayle (St. Louis). Today Jif, Skippy, and Peter Pan dominate a highly concentrated peanut butter market, with Smart Balance and Planters rounding out the top tier. Perhaps the largest plant outside of the Big Three that is still making peanut butter is Kroger's Tara Foods plant in Albany, Georgia. New growth of the peanut butter industry will require a strong farm economy, but that may be in jeopardy in years to come.Less

Italy

Christopher de Lisle

in Agathokles of Syracuse: Sicilian Tyrant and Hellenistic King

The nature of the source material means that our understanding of Agathokles’ activities in Italy will always be patchy. This chapter reconstructs the course of events in the region during his reign ... More

The nature of the source material means that our understanding of Agathokles’ activities in Italy will always be patchy. This chapter reconstructs the course of events in the region during his reign as far as is possible. Agathokles’ activities in this region are best understood in the context of earlier Syracusan interventions in Italy. Like them, he entered the region as a result of the ideology of Sicilian tyranny, the absence of a clear border at the Straits of Messana, the pull of internal Italian conflicts, and the desire to have a forward defence against invasion from mainland Greece. The goal was not control of territory per se but the control of movement through that territory.Less

Gone with the Wind, Part IIThe Music of “Max Steiner and Co.”

Nathan Platte

in Making Music in Selznick's Hollywood

References to the music of Gone with the Wind usually acknowledge two facets: the use of Civil War melodies and the reliance upon recurring themes, particularly the inevitably “swelling” Tara theme. ... More

References to the music of Gone with the Wind usually acknowledge two facets: the use of Civil War melodies and the reliance upon recurring themes, particularly the inevitably “swelling” Tara theme. Drawing upon original analysis, this chapter addresses the history behind the Tara theme—which was neither entirely new nor entirely the work of one composer—and the score’s gendered and racialized attributes (as well as the triumph of Mammy’s theme over both). In addition, the collaborative (and sometimes rejected) efforts of Max Steiner, Hugo Friedhofer, Adolph Deutsch, Heinz Roemheld, and Lou Forbes are assessed to revise our understanding of the score’s function within the film.Less

Continuity and Change in the Third Century

Mark R. Thatcher

in The Politics of Identity in Greek Sicily and Southern Italy

This chapter uses two case studies to explore how identities both changed and stayed the same under the changing conditions of the Hellenistic period. First, in southern Italy, Hellenic identity ... More

This chapter uses two case studies to explore how identities both changed and stayed the same under the changing conditions of the Hellenistic period. First, in southern Italy, Hellenic identity gained increasing prominence, especially at Taras, which understood the growing presence of non-Greeks (including Rome) as a barbarian invasion and invited Pyrrhus to assist it in support of Greekness. This discourse was not universal, however, since other cities such as Thurii were more concerned with local identities and resisting Tarantine imperialism. Second, Syracusan identity in the age of King Hieron II was articulated by three major factors: its sense of Greekness, emphasizing its role as defender of the Sicilian Greeks against barbarian enemies; the memory of the city’s past greatness, especially under the Deinomenids; and pride in its Dorian, Corinthian, and Peloponnesian origins.Less