Search Results

Amputated Memory and the Turning Point of 1989

Gregor Thum

in Uprooted: How Breslau Became Wroclaw during the Century of Expulsions

This chapter discusses how the Polish state and the people who came to Wroclaw after the Second World War managed to rebuild and revive this city. Considering the situation at the end of the war—the ... More

This chapter discusses how the Polish state and the people who came to Wroclaw after the Second World War managed to rebuild and revive this city. Considering the situation at the end of the war—the devastation, the complete collapse of the previous order, the evacuation of its entire population—this achievement borders on a miracle. If that were not enough, after overcoming its tremendous postwar challenges Wroclaw has gone on to become more than simply a functioning Polish city. The secret capital of the western territories ranks next to Warsaw and Krakow as one of Poland's leading cultural metropolises. Furthermore, Wroclaw's cultural life extends beyond the reach of direct state sponsorship. The chapter also shows how, in the 1980s, Polish inhabitants of the western territories began to show a growing interest in the silenced history of their homeland.Less

Church and Court: Culture in the Age of Christian IV

Paul Douglas Lockhart

in Denmark, 1513–1660: The Rise and Decline of a Renaissance Monarchy

This chapter focuses on Danish culture during the reign of Christian IV. Topics covered include the age of Resen, Christian IV's active interest in church affairs, education and learning, and the ... More

This chapter focuses on Danish culture during the reign of Christian IV. Topics covered include the age of Resen, Christian IV's active interest in church affairs, education and learning, and the role of the court.Less

Cultural and Intellectual Life

Glanmor Williams

in The Foundations of Modern Wales: Wales 1642-1780

This chapter discusses the literary traditions of Wales and describes two major elements which helped inject new life into the cultural life of the Welsh. It discusses the development of the ... More

This chapter discusses the literary traditions of Wales and describes two major elements which helped inject new life into the cultural life of the Welsh. It discusses the development of the provincial printing-press and the scholarly zeal of Edward Lhuyd, the versatile Oxford scholar, who sought to broaden the intellectual horizons of his countrymen and sow the seeds of ideological concepts which would grow luxuriantly in the future. The Welsh press provided native culture with a new momentum by publishing and selling cheap books that stimulated demand for Welsh books. New ventures sprang up, sponsored by practical men of enterprise who were keen to stimulate and satisfy the demands of the swelling ranks of the reading public.Less

Coming to Our Senses: Anthropology and Genocide

Nancy Scheper-Hughes

in Annihilating Difference: The Anthropology of Genocide

This chapter considers several issues on the anthropological insights taken from a study of structural dynamics. It shows that anthropologists have been influenced to overlook the forms of political ... More

This chapter considers several issues on the anthropological insights taken from a study of structural dynamics. It shows that anthropologists have been influenced to overlook the forms of political terror and “everyday violence” that often affects the peoples whom they study. It analyzes the relationship of Alfred Kroeber and Ishi, the “last California aborigine”, in order to show how anthropologists also took an active role in preserving and recording the cultural life of indigenous peoples. This chapter also emphasizes that anthropologists should directly confront the question of what makes genocide possible.Less

Background: IRCAM's Conditions of Existence

Born Georgina

in Rationalizing Culture: IRCAM, Boulez, and the Institutionalization of the Musical Avant-Garde

This chapter provides the historical background of the Institut de Recherche et de Coordination Acoustique/Musique (IRCAM) and its conditions of existence, suggesting that the IRCAM culture is ... More

This chapter provides the historical background of the Institut de Recherche et de Coordination Acoustique/Musique (IRCAM) and its conditions of existence, suggesting that the IRCAM culture is situated in a space which is crossed by both artistic and technological inflections of the rhetoric of modern French nationalism. It also explains that the experience of American researchers at IRCAM shows that it is the more immediate context of French cultural life which resonates with and converges to produce IRCAM's character.Less

The Human Psyche at Work

Roy F. Baumeister

in The Cultural Animal: Human Nature, Meaning, and Social Life

This chapter discusses the basic ideas about nature and culture. It explains what is special about culture, of what culture is made, and what are some of the psychological requirements for ... More

This chapter discusses the basic ideas about nature and culture. It explains what is special about culture, of what culture is made, and what are some of the psychological requirements for participating in culture. It gives special attention to the role of language and meaning, in view of its central importance to cultural life. The organization of the psyche into two parts (conscious and automatic) is emphasized as a crucial theme that every other chapter needs in order to explain human functioning within culture.Less

Town and Country

Richard Stites

in Serfdom, Society, and the Arts in Imperial Russia: The Pleasure and the Power

This chapter examines the role of the arts in the culture and society of towns and countryside in imperial Russia. It describes the private and public cultural places during the decades between the ... More

This chapter examines the role of the arts in the culture and society of towns and countryside in imperial Russia. It describes the private and public cultural places during the decades between the reign of Catherine II and the end of serfdom, and discusses the role of the arts in presenting and representing topography and various elements of the population on stage and on canvas. The chapter also considers the role of the provincial intelligentsia in cultural life and in the links between the countryside and the capitals.Less

Alexis de Tocqueville

Alan Ryan

in The Making of Modern Liberalism

This chapter offers a reading of Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America, arguing that the book was not a philosophical analysis of the concept of democracy, nor a simple narrative of the ... More

This chapter offers a reading of Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America, arguing that the book was not a philosophical analysis of the concept of democracy, nor a simple narrative of the origins of American political institutions, but a form of political theory that used historical evidence to teach general lessons about the prospects for politics in the present. The chapter first places Tocqueville in his times and among his family before discussing his journey to America in 1831. It then considers the three major themes that might be extracted from the second volume of Democracy: the quality of intellectual and cultural life in an egalitarian society; the stability or proneness to revolutionary upheaval of such societies; and Tocqueville's final and most distinctive thoughts on democratic despotism, or what one might term quiet totalitarianism.Less

Blue Solitudes: The Mediterranean and the Shaping of Victorian Britain, 1830–60

Robert Holland

in The Warm South: How the Mediterranean Shaped the British Imagination

This chapter details British engagement with the Mediterranean from 1830 to 1860. Any discussion of Victorian cultural life is hindered by a stereotype: that it was an age of intimidating confidence ... More

This chapter details British engagement with the Mediterranean from 1830 to 1860. Any discussion of Victorian cultural life is hindered by a stereotype: that it was an age of intimidating confidence and national, increasingly imperial, certainties. The truth was very different. Leading Victorians were wracked by fears of individual and collective decay and outright breakdown, often fomented by disturbing Mediterranean experience, real or imagined, which had religious, mental, and sexual connotations. There was also fear of political dissolution from the outset of this period. Moreover, aristocratic influences became enmeshed in the shibboleths of the emerging Victorian middle class. In their cultural form, those influences always had a deep Mediterranean imprint.Less

Introduction

Julian Johnson

in Who Needs Classical Music?: Cultural Choice and Musical Values

Classical music is currently undergoing apparent devaluation and this has consequences as a legitimation crisis. Assessing the relevance in the postmodern, plural, and multicultural world is merely ... More

Classical music is currently undergoing apparent devaluation and this has consequences as a legitimation crisis. Assessing the relevance in the postmodern, plural, and multicultural world is merely the starting point for examining classical music's claim to a distinctive value. This book's questions are not just all about music but they are about the nature of contemporary culture because change in perception to music is not that huge, at least compared to changes in cultural practices, values, and attitudes. Central to this argument is the attitude about classical music that makes it appear marginal to contemporary society. Also included in this book is how different people find different styles of music articulate in different values that correlates or contradicts other areas affecting both individually and collectively.Less

“Louisiana’s New Oil”: Planning for Culture on the New Gulf Coast

M. B. Hackler

in Culture after the Hurricanes: Rhetoric and Reinvention on the Gulf Coast

This chapter first talks about the devastations that were hurricanes Katrina and Rita, disasters that have struck a chord with the communities that they ravaged. In fact, the events were so ... More

This chapter first talks about the devastations that were hurricanes Katrina and Rita, disasters that have struck a chord with the communities that they ravaged. In fact, the events were so devastating that an overwhelmingly large number of books, articles, reports, and declarations came out, each with their own input on the subject. The contents of each of these books, articles, blogs, and editorials respond to sometimes drastically different visions of highly contested histories. This chapter thus introduces the ideas and events that have led to the study that is focused upon in this book: namely, a discourse of cultural policy with regard to the re-creation, revitalization, or reinvention of the cultural life of the Gulf Coast communities in the aftermath of the disaster of Hurricane Katrina.Less

Leopold Kompert and the Pleasures of Nostalgia:: Ghetto Fiction and the Creation of a Usable Past

in Middlebrow Literature and the Making of German-Jewish Identity

This chapter examines how it was that ghetto fiction came to gain such a central position in German-Jewish cultural life in the nineteenth century. The work of Leopold Kompert (1822–1886) provides a ... More

This chapter examines how it was that ghetto fiction came to gain such a central position in German-Jewish cultural life in the nineteenth century. The work of Leopold Kompert (1822–1886) provides a useful window into the genre as a whole both because of his pioneering role in establishing the ghetto tale as a reputable form of belles lettres and because his fiction left a particularly rich paper trail in the nineteenth-century press. In this sense, studying Kompert provides ample material which can be used to determine what it means that nostalgic tales about the ghetto became the dominant form of German-Jewish literature during this period.Less

Playing the Provinces

Richard Stites

in Serfdom, Society, and the Arts in Imperial Russia: The Pleasure and the Power

This chapter examines the history of theater in the provinces in imperial Russia. It explains that during the imperial period, theater ruled provincial cultural life and reached out to many more ... More

This chapter examines the history of theater in the provinces in imperial Russia. It explains that during the imperial period, theater ruled provincial cultural life and reached out to many more consumers than did literature, classical music, or fine art. The chapter also discusses the transformation of the theater from an elite engine of amusement and enlightenment in the capitals and on rural estates to a network of public entertainment centers open to all in scores of provincial and district towns. It suggests that the network of provincial theaters represented an expansion of public cultural space at the expense of the private sphere.Less

Beyond Modernist Culture

Donald J. Morse

in Faith in Life: John Dewey's Early Philosophy

This chapter shows how the early Dewey conceives of the concept of a community ideal, and how he uses it in particular to combat the modernism considered as a problematic form of cultural life. ... More

This chapter shows how the early Dewey conceives of the concept of a community ideal, and how he uses it in particular to combat the modernism considered as a problematic form of cultural life. Modernist thought insists on the socially detached individual, one who must draw on his or her own inner resources alone to determine how to live. Armed with his new idealism, in which the negation of one term leads to another, or in which the movement between the two terms gives them their meaning, Dewey argues for a new form of social life that relies on the interplay and continual movement between individual and society. The key to overcoming pessimism is to find joy in life in the struggle to create this meaningful world. This is the ultimate message of Dewey's early philosophy: life is worth living in the pursuit of this ideal of community life.Less