Georgina Waylen
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199248032
- eISBN:
- 9780191714894
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199248032.003.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, Political Theory
Part One sets up the analytical framework which informs the analysis in the rest of the book. It begins by bringing together key elements from relevant bodies of literature. The first section ...
More
Part One sets up the analytical framework which informs the analysis in the rest of the book. It begins by bringing together key elements from relevant bodies of literature. The first section discusses key concepts from the gender and politics literature, looking at women as political actors and how political institutions and policies are gendered. The second section considers some of the key elements of the democratization literature that are useful for any gendered analysis of transitions. It divides processes of democratization into stages, and then examines central themes such as institutional choice, political parties, economic reform and the international environment. On the basis of the preceding discussions, the final section of this part outlines the framework of analysis and the case selection operationalized in subsequent parts.Less
Part One sets up the analytical framework which informs the analysis in the rest of the book. It begins by bringing together key elements from relevant bodies of literature. The first section discusses key concepts from the gender and politics literature, looking at women as political actors and how political institutions and policies are gendered. The second section considers some of the key elements of the democratization literature that are useful for any gendered analysis of transitions. It divides processes of democratization into stages, and then examines central themes such as institutional choice, political parties, economic reform and the international environment. On the basis of the preceding discussions, the final section of this part outlines the framework of analysis and the case selection operationalized in subsequent parts.
Rebecca Braun
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- September 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780199542703
- eISBN:
- 9780191715372
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199542703.003.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century and Contemporary Literature, Prose (inc. letters, diaries)
The introduction briefly sets out the wider context and import of the study. It details the background of media engagement with Grass's public image and suggests that the author has developed various ...
More
The introduction briefly sets out the wider context and import of the study. It details the background of media engagement with Grass's public image and suggests that the author has developed various strategies of self-presentation in both his fiction and non-fiction to help him deal with such acute public interest. It explains how the predominantly aesthetic approach taken throughout this study offers a new perspective in Grass studies, leading away from conventional political readings of the author and focusing instead on his ability to negotiate his own authorial persona within the media-led public sphere. It is argued that this ability has gone on to inform his writing on both structural and thematic levels.Less
The introduction briefly sets out the wider context and import of the study. It details the background of media engagement with Grass's public image and suggests that the author has developed various strategies of self-presentation in both his fiction and non-fiction to help him deal with such acute public interest. It explains how the predominantly aesthetic approach taken throughout this study offers a new perspective in Grass studies, leading away from conventional political readings of the author and focusing instead on his ability to negotiate his own authorial persona within the media-led public sphere. It is argued that this ability has gone on to inform his writing on both structural and thematic levels.
Rebecca Braun
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- September 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780199542703
- eISBN:
- 9780191715372
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199542703.003.0005
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century and Contemporary Literature, Prose (inc. letters, diaries)
This chapter continues the focus on narrative positions, now with respect to the fictional works Der Butt (1977) and Die Rättin (1986). Through close readings of each text, it is argued that Grass ...
More
This chapter continues the focus on narrative positions, now with respect to the fictional works Der Butt (1977) and Die Rättin (1986). Through close readings of each text, it is argued that Grass uses these works to explore the limits of authorship as a kind of textual response to attacks on the socio-political model of authorship. As politics impinges on the literary realm, Grass's interest in literary self-presentation takes on an existential aspect. Within both texts the narrator represents authorship against the odds, struggling to retain his position within the text and yet implicitly defining the authorial role as the only way in which he might be able to ensure his survival. The insight yielded by these two challenging works not only accounts for their highly complex narrative structures, it introduces to Grass's later works a distinct sense of the literary author's limitations within the text on which he depends.Less
This chapter continues the focus on narrative positions, now with respect to the fictional works Der Butt (1977) and Die Rättin (1986). Through close readings of each text, it is argued that Grass uses these works to explore the limits of authorship as a kind of textual response to attacks on the socio-political model of authorship. As politics impinges on the literary realm, Grass's interest in literary self-presentation takes on an existential aspect. Within both texts the narrator represents authorship against the odds, struggling to retain his position within the text and yet implicitly defining the authorial role as the only way in which he might be able to ensure his survival. The insight yielded by these two challenging works not only accounts for their highly complex narrative structures, it introduces to Grass's later works a distinct sense of the literary author's limitations within the text on which he depends.
Simon J. James
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199606597
- eISBN:
- 9780191738517
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199606597.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century Literature and Modernism, 19th-century and Victorian Literature
Wells’s utopian writing articulates his ideas towards the planning of the society of the future at their most explicit. Utopia is a literary genre with a dialectical relationship to reality: Wells ...
More
Wells’s utopian writing articulates his ideas towards the planning of the society of the future at their most explicit. Utopia is a literary genre with a dialectical relationship to reality: Wells keeps writing and rewriting literary utopias until actual utopia is achieved. Even then, utopia is not imagined as a perfect equilibrium, which must continue to evolve in order to renew itself and survive. Wells imagines a World State constructed on scientific, rather than nationalistic, principles, in which every individual is educated and encouraged to specialize and thrive. The utopian desire arises originally from dissatisfaction with the real world, and nothing in society is free from utopian improvement: from architecture to literature, from national identity to dusting, from the width of roads to sexual life. Texts such as The First Men in the Moon and The Food of the Gods hybridize utopia with scientific romance.Less
Wells’s utopian writing articulates his ideas towards the planning of the society of the future at their most explicit. Utopia is a literary genre with a dialectical relationship to reality: Wells keeps writing and rewriting literary utopias until actual utopia is achieved. Even then, utopia is not imagined as a perfect equilibrium, which must continue to evolve in order to renew itself and survive. Wells imagines a World State constructed on scientific, rather than nationalistic, principles, in which every individual is educated and encouraged to specialize and thrive. The utopian desire arises originally from dissatisfaction with the real world, and nothing in society is free from utopian improvement: from architecture to literature, from national identity to dusting, from the width of roads to sexual life. Texts such as The First Men in the Moon and The Food of the Gods hybridize utopia with scientific romance.
Kathleen Parthé
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- October 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780300098518
- eISBN:
- 9780300138221
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300098518.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, Cultural History
This chapter, which examines the relation between politics and literature in Russia, identifies ten historically powerful beliefs about the relationship between literature, politics, and national ...
More
This chapter, which examines the relation between politics and literature in Russia, identifies ten historically powerful beliefs about the relationship between literature, politics, and national identity in Russia. These include the belief that Russians read more than any other people; that literature is where the formation of politics, prophecy, and national identity took place in Russia; and that one text would be on everyone's mind at a given time. The chapter also explores the struggle between texts and the state over the centuries in an archetypal Russian contest of kto kogo? (who will prevail over whom?).Less
This chapter, which examines the relation between politics and literature in Russia, identifies ten historically powerful beliefs about the relationship between literature, politics, and national identity in Russia. These include the belief that Russians read more than any other people; that literature is where the formation of politics, prophecy, and national identity took place in Russia; and that one text would be on everyone's mind at a given time. The chapter also explores the struggle between texts and the state over the centuries in an archetypal Russian contest of kto kogo? (who will prevail over whom?).
Rachel Sagner Buurma and Laura Heffernan
- Published in print:
- 2021
- Published Online:
- May 2021
- ISBN:
- 9780226735948
- eISBN:
- 9780226736273
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226736273.003.0006
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
Disciplinary historians imagine the classrooms around mid-century as filled with rows of GI Bill students holding mimeographed poems and listening intently while a New Critic charismatically ...
More
Disciplinary historians imagine the classrooms around mid-century as filled with rows of GI Bill students holding mimeographed poems and listening intently while a New Critic charismatically dispenses with turgid scholarship in order to lead the class through a masterful close reading that awakens students’ appreciation of the poem on the page. Yet, turning to Cleanth Brooks’s teaching materials from Contemporary Poetic Theory and Practice at Yale University in 1963, we find a more uncertain and varied teaching method: discussions of historical references, off-the-cuff paraphrasing, and the sketching of author biography as often as the masterful formalist reading familiar to us from books like The Well Wrought Urn. In the second half of this chapter, Edmund Wilson’s teaching materials further challenge our received sense that a literature free from politics and history dominated mid-century classrooms. In Wilson’s courses on James Joyce, Charles Dickens, Civil War literature, and The Use of Language in Literature, we see how historical inquiry creates its own aesthetic and mode of value—one that links texts to life experience rather than sanctifying them within a timeless canon, one that sees literary value accrue to texts as they are read and reinterpreted over time by varying readerships.Less
Disciplinary historians imagine the classrooms around mid-century as filled with rows of GI Bill students holding mimeographed poems and listening intently while a New Critic charismatically dispenses with turgid scholarship in order to lead the class through a masterful close reading that awakens students’ appreciation of the poem on the page. Yet, turning to Cleanth Brooks’s teaching materials from Contemporary Poetic Theory and Practice at Yale University in 1963, we find a more uncertain and varied teaching method: discussions of historical references, off-the-cuff paraphrasing, and the sketching of author biography as often as the masterful formalist reading familiar to us from books like The Well Wrought Urn. In the second half of this chapter, Edmund Wilson’s teaching materials further challenge our received sense that a literature free from politics and history dominated mid-century classrooms. In Wilson’s courses on James Joyce, Charles Dickens, Civil War literature, and The Use of Language in Literature, we see how historical inquiry creates its own aesthetic and mode of value—one that links texts to life experience rather than sanctifying them within a timeless canon, one that sees literary value accrue to texts as they are read and reinterpreted over time by varying readerships.
Anna Pilz and Whitney Standlee
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- January 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780719097584
- eISBN:
- 9781526115225
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719097584.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
Irish women writers entered the international publishing scene in unprecedented numbers in the period between 1878 and 1922. This collection of new essays explores how Irish women, officially ...
More
Irish women writers entered the international publishing scene in unprecedented numbers in the period between 1878 and 1922. This collection of new essays explores how Irish women, officially disenfranchised through much of that era, felt inclined and at liberty to exercise their political influence through the unofficial channels of their literary output.
By challenging existing and often narrowly-defined conceptions of what constitutes ‘politics’, the chapters investigate Irish women writers’ responses to, expressions of, and dialogue with a contemporary political landscape that included not only the debates surrounding nationalism and unionism, but also those concerning education, cosmopolitanism, language, Empire, economics, philanthropy, socialism, the marriage ‘market’, the publishing industry, the commercial market, and employment. The volume demonstrates how women from a variety of religious, social, and regional backgrounds – including Emily Lawless, L. T. Meade, Katharine Tynan, Lady Gregory, Rosa Mulholland, and the Ulster writers Ella Young, Beatrice Grimshaw, and F. E. Crichton – used their work to advance their own private and public political concerns through astute manoeuvrings both in the expanding publishing industry and against the partisan expectations of an ever-growing readership. Close readings of individual texts are framed by new archival research and detailed historical contextualisation. Offering fresh critical perspectives by internationally-renowned scholars including Lauren Arrington, Heidi Hansson, Margaret Kelleher, Patrick Maume, James H. Murphy, and Eve Patten, Irish Women’s Writing, 1878-1922: Advancing the Cause of Liberty is an innovative and essential contribution to the study of Irish literature as well as women’s writing at the turn of the twentieth century.Less
Irish women writers entered the international publishing scene in unprecedented numbers in the period between 1878 and 1922. This collection of new essays explores how Irish women, officially disenfranchised through much of that era, felt inclined and at liberty to exercise their political influence through the unofficial channels of their literary output.
By challenging existing and often narrowly-defined conceptions of what constitutes ‘politics’, the chapters investigate Irish women writers’ responses to, expressions of, and dialogue with a contemporary political landscape that included not only the debates surrounding nationalism and unionism, but also those concerning education, cosmopolitanism, language, Empire, economics, philanthropy, socialism, the marriage ‘market’, the publishing industry, the commercial market, and employment. The volume demonstrates how women from a variety of religious, social, and regional backgrounds – including Emily Lawless, L. T. Meade, Katharine Tynan, Lady Gregory, Rosa Mulholland, and the Ulster writers Ella Young, Beatrice Grimshaw, and F. E. Crichton – used their work to advance their own private and public political concerns through astute manoeuvrings both in the expanding publishing industry and against the partisan expectations of an ever-growing readership. Close readings of individual texts are framed by new archival research and detailed historical contextualisation. Offering fresh critical perspectives by internationally-renowned scholars including Lauren Arrington, Heidi Hansson, Margaret Kelleher, Patrick Maume, James H. Murphy, and Eve Patten, Irish Women’s Writing, 1878-1922: Advancing the Cause of Liberty is an innovative and essential contribution to the study of Irish literature as well as women’s writing at the turn of the twentieth century.
Kevin M. Jones
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- January 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781503613393
- eISBN:
- 9781503613874
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9781503613393.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Middle East History
Poetry has long dominated the cultural landscape of modern Iraq, simultaneously representing the literary pinnacle of high culture and giving voice to the popular discourses of mass culture. As the ...
More
Poetry has long dominated the cultural landscape of modern Iraq, simultaneously representing the literary pinnacle of high culture and giving voice to the popular discourses of mass culture. As the favored genre of culture expression for religious clerics, nationalist politicians, leftist dissidents, and avant-garde intellectuals, poetry critically shaped the social, political, and cultural debates that consumed the Iraqi public sphere in the twentieth century. The popularity of poetry in modern Iraq, however, made it a dangerous practice that carried serious political consequences and grave risks to dissident poets.
The Dangers of Poetry is the first book to narrate the social history of poetry in the modern Middle East. Moving beyond the analysis of poems as literary and intellectual texts, Kevin Jones shows how poems functioned as social acts that critically shaped the cultural politics of revolutionary Iraq. He narrates the history of three generations of Iraqi poets who navigated the fraught relationship between culture and politics in pursuit of their own ambitions and agendas. Through this historical analysis of thousands of poems published in newspapers, recited in popular demonstrations, and disseminated in secret whispers, this book reveals the overlooked contribution of these poets to the spirit of rebellion in modern Iraq.Less
Poetry has long dominated the cultural landscape of modern Iraq, simultaneously representing the literary pinnacle of high culture and giving voice to the popular discourses of mass culture. As the favored genre of culture expression for religious clerics, nationalist politicians, leftist dissidents, and avant-garde intellectuals, poetry critically shaped the social, political, and cultural debates that consumed the Iraqi public sphere in the twentieth century. The popularity of poetry in modern Iraq, however, made it a dangerous practice that carried serious political consequences and grave risks to dissident poets.
The Dangers of Poetry is the first book to narrate the social history of poetry in the modern Middle East. Moving beyond the analysis of poems as literary and intellectual texts, Kevin Jones shows how poems functioned as social acts that critically shaped the cultural politics of revolutionary Iraq. He narrates the history of three generations of Iraqi poets who navigated the fraught relationship between culture and politics in pursuit of their own ambitions and agendas. Through this historical analysis of thousands of poems published in newspapers, recited in popular demonstrations, and disseminated in secret whispers, this book reveals the overlooked contribution of these poets to the spirit of rebellion in modern Iraq.
Kevin M. Jones
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- January 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781503613393
- eISBN:
- 9781503613874
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9781503613393.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, Middle East History
The introduction outlines the concept of rebel poetry and the relationship between poetry and the political struggles against colonialism and dictatorship in modern Iraq. It traces the broad contours ...
More
The introduction outlines the concept of rebel poetry and the relationship between poetry and the political struggles against colonialism and dictatorship in modern Iraq. It traces the broad contours of Iraqi political history and explains how poets shaped the cultural politics of important national debates and discourses. It challenges the traditional distinctions between high culture and mass culture that have traditionally consigned poetry to intellectual and literary history and shows how the unique cultural landscape of modern Iraq allowed poetry to maintain a liminal position between these distinct cultural strata. The introduction argues that the public role of poetry in modern Iraq made poems social acts as well as literary texts and that the very popularity of poetry made it a dangerous cultural endeavor.Less
The introduction outlines the concept of rebel poetry and the relationship between poetry and the political struggles against colonialism and dictatorship in modern Iraq. It traces the broad contours of Iraqi political history and explains how poets shaped the cultural politics of important national debates and discourses. It challenges the traditional distinctions between high culture and mass culture that have traditionally consigned poetry to intellectual and literary history and shows how the unique cultural landscape of modern Iraq allowed poetry to maintain a liminal position between these distinct cultural strata. The introduction argues that the public role of poetry in modern Iraq made poems social acts as well as literary texts and that the very popularity of poetry made it a dangerous cultural endeavor.
Christopher D'Addario and Matthew Augustine (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- January 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781526113894
- eISBN:
- 9781526138897
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9781526113894.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
Texts and Readers in the Age of Marvell offers fresh perspectives from leading and emerging scholars of seventeenth-century British literature, focusing on the surprising ways that texts interacted ...
More
Texts and Readers in the Age of Marvell offers fresh perspectives from leading and emerging scholars of seventeenth-century British literature, focusing on the surprising ways that texts interacted with writers and readers at precise cultural moments. With particular interest in how texts entered the seventeenth-century public world, some of these essays emphasise the variety of motivations – from generic distaste to personal frustration – that explain how ideology and form fuse together in various works. Others offer fine-grained and multi-sided contextualisations of familiar texts and cruxes. With an eye to the elusive and complicated Andrew Marvell as tutelary figure of the age, the contributors provide novel readings of a range of seventeenth-century authors, often foregrounding the complexities these writers faced as the remarkable events of the century moved swiftly around them. The essays make important contributions, both methodological and critical, to the field of early modern studies and include examinations of prominent seventeenth-century figures such as John Milton, Andrew Marvell, John Dryden, and Edmund Waller. New work appears here by Nigel Smith and Michael McKeon on Marvell, Michael Schoenfeldt on new formalism, Derek Hirst on child abuse in the seventeenth century, and Joad Raymond on print politics. Because of their relevance to contemporary critical debates, the studies here will be of interest to postgraduate students and scholars working on seventeenth-century British literature, culture, and history.Less
Texts and Readers in the Age of Marvell offers fresh perspectives from leading and emerging scholars of seventeenth-century British literature, focusing on the surprising ways that texts interacted with writers and readers at precise cultural moments. With particular interest in how texts entered the seventeenth-century public world, some of these essays emphasise the variety of motivations – from generic distaste to personal frustration – that explain how ideology and form fuse together in various works. Others offer fine-grained and multi-sided contextualisations of familiar texts and cruxes. With an eye to the elusive and complicated Andrew Marvell as tutelary figure of the age, the contributors provide novel readings of a range of seventeenth-century authors, often foregrounding the complexities these writers faced as the remarkable events of the century moved swiftly around them. The essays make important contributions, both methodological and critical, to the field of early modern studies and include examinations of prominent seventeenth-century figures such as John Milton, Andrew Marvell, John Dryden, and Edmund Waller. New work appears here by Nigel Smith and Michael McKeon on Marvell, Michael Schoenfeldt on new formalism, Derek Hirst on child abuse in the seventeenth century, and Joad Raymond on print politics. Because of their relevance to contemporary critical debates, the studies here will be of interest to postgraduate students and scholars working on seventeenth-century British literature, culture, and history.
Lisa Nanney
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- January 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781942954873
- eISBN:
- 9781789629781
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3828/liverpool/9781942954873.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, American, 20th Century Literature
John Dos Passos & Cinema, the first study to use the novelist’s little-known writing for the screen to assess the trajectory of his prolific career, explores both how film aesthetics shaped his ...
More
John Dos Passos & Cinema, the first study to use the novelist’s little-known writing for the screen to assess the trajectory of his prolific career, explores both how film aesthetics shaped his revolutionary modernist narratives and how he later reshaped them directly into film form. The book features previously unpublished manuscripts and correspondence illustrating case studies of his screen writing during the 1930s for Hollywood feature films and in an innovative independent treatment; it examines the complexities of his role in the 1937 political documentary The Spanish Earth; and it explores the unproduced screen treatment of his attempts from the 1940s on to adapt his epic trilogy U.S.A. directly for the screen and to realign its leftist politics toward the anti-Communist conservatism reflected in his work and activism of that period. John Dos Passos & Cinema thus provides a new context for and reading of his modernist literary innovations and his conservative political reorientation in the 1930s that redefined his literary career.Less
John Dos Passos & Cinema, the first study to use the novelist’s little-known writing for the screen to assess the trajectory of his prolific career, explores both how film aesthetics shaped his revolutionary modernist narratives and how he later reshaped them directly into film form. The book features previously unpublished manuscripts and correspondence illustrating case studies of his screen writing during the 1930s for Hollywood feature films and in an innovative independent treatment; it examines the complexities of his role in the 1937 political documentary The Spanish Earth; and it explores the unproduced screen treatment of his attempts from the 1940s on to adapt his epic trilogy U.S.A. directly for the screen and to realign its leftist politics toward the anti-Communist conservatism reflected in his work and activism of that period. John Dos Passos & Cinema thus provides a new context for and reading of his modernist literary innovations and his conservative political reorientation in the 1930s that redefined his literary career.
Kevin M. Jones
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- January 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781503613393
- eISBN:
- 9781503613874
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9781503613393.003.0006
- Subject:
- History, Middle East History
This chapter describes the era of the poetry of public spaces, when dissident leftist poets participated in massive popular protests and galvanized their audiences with defiant acts of public ...
More
This chapter describes the era of the poetry of public spaces, when dissident leftist poets participated in massive popular protests and galvanized their audiences with defiant acts of public dissidence. The chapter also documents the rise of free verse poetry and analyzes the relationship between modernist aesthetics and the politics of commitment in Iraq. It shows how a young generation of modernist poets joined the Iraqi Communist Party and embraced the socialist internationalism promoted by communist poets in Europe, Asia, and Latin America. The chapter also addresses how a new generation of nationalist poets increasingly gravitated toward socialist ideals, embracing the Sartrean ethos of commitment and joining their communist comrades and rivals in articulating the new cultural politics of the national front.Less
This chapter describes the era of the poetry of public spaces, when dissident leftist poets participated in massive popular protests and galvanized their audiences with defiant acts of public dissidence. The chapter also documents the rise of free verse poetry and analyzes the relationship between modernist aesthetics and the politics of commitment in Iraq. It shows how a young generation of modernist poets joined the Iraqi Communist Party and embraced the socialist internationalism promoted by communist poets in Europe, Asia, and Latin America. The chapter also addresses how a new generation of nationalist poets increasingly gravitated toward socialist ideals, embracing the Sartrean ethos of commitment and joining their communist comrades and rivals in articulating the new cultural politics of the national front.
Kevin M. Jones
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- January 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781503613393
- eISBN:
- 9781503613874
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9781503613393.003.0007
- Subject:
- History, Middle East History
This chapter explores the collapse of national front politics and the violent cultural conflict that followed the revolution of July 14, 1958. It shows how relatively minor ideological disputes over ...
More
This chapter explores the collapse of national front politics and the violent cultural conflict that followed the revolution of July 14, 1958. It shows how relatively minor ideological disputes over the meaning of “Arab unity” evolved into a vicious cultural confrontation between communists and nationalists. The chapter documents the role of nationalist poets in constructing an anticommunist cultural discourse that emphasized the sexual immorality of their rivals. Their own vision of “muscular nationalism” portrayed the nationalist Baʿth Party as custodians of national honor and progressive advocates of women’s liberation. Communist poets struggled to combat these allegations by defending the progressive aspects of their agenda, but they remained hesitant to address questions of gender and sexuality directly. The poetry wars of this period critically shaped the cultural politics of national liberation and presaged the sectarian violence of the coming decades.Less
This chapter explores the collapse of national front politics and the violent cultural conflict that followed the revolution of July 14, 1958. It shows how relatively minor ideological disputes over the meaning of “Arab unity” evolved into a vicious cultural confrontation between communists and nationalists. The chapter documents the role of nationalist poets in constructing an anticommunist cultural discourse that emphasized the sexual immorality of their rivals. Their own vision of “muscular nationalism” portrayed the nationalist Baʿth Party as custodians of national honor and progressive advocates of women’s liberation. Communist poets struggled to combat these allegations by defending the progressive aspects of their agenda, but they remained hesitant to address questions of gender and sexuality directly. The poetry wars of this period critically shaped the cultural politics of national liberation and presaged the sectarian violence of the coming decades.
W. H. Shearin
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- November 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780190202422
- eISBN:
- 9780190202446
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190202422.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Ancient Greek, Roman, and Early Christian Philosophy
The Language of Atoms argues that ancient Epicurean writing on language offers a theory of performative language. Such a theory describes how languages acts, providing psychic therapy or creating new ...
More
The Language of Atoms argues that ancient Epicurean writing on language offers a theory of performative language. Such a theory describes how languages acts, providing psychic therapy or creating new verbal meanings, rather than passively describing the nature of the universe. This observation allows us new insight into how Lucretius, our primary surviving Epicurean author, uses language in his great poem, De rerum natura (On the Nature of Things). The bulk of the book then studies Lucretius’ work in the light of performative language, looking at promising, acts of naming, and the larger political implications of these linguistic acts. At the center of De rerum natura is a persistent juxtaposition of humans and atoms that carries implications for both the creative potential of language and its deceptive powers.Less
The Language of Atoms argues that ancient Epicurean writing on language offers a theory of performative language. Such a theory describes how languages acts, providing psychic therapy or creating new verbal meanings, rather than passively describing the nature of the universe. This observation allows us new insight into how Lucretius, our primary surviving Epicurean author, uses language in his great poem, De rerum natura (On the Nature of Things). The bulk of the book then studies Lucretius’ work in the light of performative language, looking at promising, acts of naming, and the larger political implications of these linguistic acts. At the center of De rerum natura is a persistent juxtaposition of humans and atoms that carries implications for both the creative potential of language and its deceptive powers.
Kevin M. Jones
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- January 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781503613393
- eISBN:
- 9781503613874
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9781503613393.003.0002
- Subject:
- History, Middle East History
This chapter details the engagement of Iraqi poets with the Arab Nahda of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It provides a brief account of the social role of poetry in late Ottoman ...
More
This chapter details the engagement of Iraqi poets with the Arab Nahda of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It provides a brief account of the social role of poetry in late Ottoman Iraq and a survey of the neoclassical poetry revival in Egypt and Syria. The chapter shows how Iraqi poets used the Nahda press to articulate their own relationship to modernity and reveals how new appreciations of the singularity of Iraq’s poetry tradition inspired proto-nationalist conceptions of Iraqi culture. Finally, the chapter examines the efforts of a new generation of young Najafi poets to promote the pioneering role of their own Najafi predecessors and reconstruct the historiography of the Arab Nahda for a broader Arab audience in the early twentieth century.Less
This chapter details the engagement of Iraqi poets with the Arab Nahda of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It provides a brief account of the social role of poetry in late Ottoman Iraq and a survey of the neoclassical poetry revival in Egypt and Syria. The chapter shows how Iraqi poets used the Nahda press to articulate their own relationship to modernity and reveals how new appreciations of the singularity of Iraq’s poetry tradition inspired proto-nationalist conceptions of Iraqi culture. Finally, the chapter examines the efforts of a new generation of young Najafi poets to promote the pioneering role of their own Najafi predecessors and reconstruct the historiography of the Arab Nahda for a broader Arab audience in the early twentieth century.
Kevin M. Jones
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- January 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781503613393
- eISBN:
- 9781503613874
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9781503613393.003.0005
- Subject:
- History, Middle East History
This chapter argues that the rhetoric of “patriotism” and “treason” that dominated nationalist politics evolved in the public poetry surrounding two seminal events in modern Iraqi political history, ...
More
This chapter argues that the rhetoric of “patriotism” and “treason” that dominated nationalist politics evolved in the public poetry surrounding two seminal events in modern Iraqi political history, the Bakr Sidqi coup d’état of October 1936 and the Rashid ʿAli movement of April 1941. The chapter documents the popularity of each movement and shows how partisan support for military intervention was shaped by the shared logic of anticolonial nationalism. It documents the social and political consequences that socialist and nationalist poets faced and examines how political persecution inspired the new socialist-nationalist alliance of the “national front” politics that would dominate opposition politics in the 1950s. The chapter also shows how the relaxation of state censorship of the Left during the World War II allowed leftist poets to articulate a new political vision that fused anticolonial nationalism and socialist internationalism.Less
This chapter argues that the rhetoric of “patriotism” and “treason” that dominated nationalist politics evolved in the public poetry surrounding two seminal events in modern Iraqi political history, the Bakr Sidqi coup d’état of October 1936 and the Rashid ʿAli movement of April 1941. The chapter documents the popularity of each movement and shows how partisan support for military intervention was shaped by the shared logic of anticolonial nationalism. It documents the social and political consequences that socialist and nationalist poets faced and examines how political persecution inspired the new socialist-nationalist alliance of the “national front” politics that would dominate opposition politics in the 1950s. The chapter also shows how the relaxation of state censorship of the Left during the World War II allowed leftist poets to articulate a new political vision that fused anticolonial nationalism and socialist internationalism.
Kevin M. Jones
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- January 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781503613393
- eISBN:
- 9781503613874
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9781503613393.003.0004
- Subject:
- History, Middle East History
This chapter explores the patronage relationships between poets and political elites through the evolution of the panegyric in the colonial state. It looks at how the Hashemite state subsidized ...
More
This chapter explores the patronage relationships between poets and political elites through the evolution of the panegyric in the colonial state. It looks at how the Hashemite state subsidized popular poets in order to cultivate their own political legitimacy and how dissident poets challenged the state through creative public performances. It argues that modern protest poetry emerged from the dissident panegyric, which became subversive when poets praised political elites for their commitment to policies that those elites could not or would not actually support. The chapter also shows how poetic engagement with social issues like women’s education and veiling shaped popular opinion and contributed to growing social cleavages between generations and how patronage rivalries contributed to new sectarian tensions in Iraqi political life.Less
This chapter explores the patronage relationships between poets and political elites through the evolution of the panegyric in the colonial state. It looks at how the Hashemite state subsidized popular poets in order to cultivate their own political legitimacy and how dissident poets challenged the state through creative public performances. It argues that modern protest poetry emerged from the dissident panegyric, which became subversive when poets praised political elites for their commitment to policies that those elites could not or would not actually support. The chapter also shows how poetic engagement with social issues like women’s education and veiling shaped popular opinion and contributed to growing social cleavages between generations and how patronage rivalries contributed to new sectarian tensions in Iraqi political life.
Kevin M. Jones
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- January 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781503613393
- eISBN:
- 9781503613874
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9781503613393.003.0008
- Subject:
- History, Middle East History
The conclusion documents the tragic fate of many poets who participated in the anticolonial struggle for national liberation during preceding decades. It documents the experience of torture, ...
More
The conclusion documents the tragic fate of many poets who participated in the anticolonial struggle for national liberation during preceding decades. It documents the experience of torture, imprisonment, and exile suffered by communist poets after the Baʿthist coup d’état of February 1963 and shows how the legacy of communist poetry was systemically erased from the historical and literary record in subsequent decades. The conclusion also discusses why the singular historical phenomenon of rebel poetry was ever possible in Iraqi and why it was no longer possible after 1963. It concludes with a discussion of poetry and dissent in contemporary Iraqi society.Less
The conclusion documents the tragic fate of many poets who participated in the anticolonial struggle for national liberation during preceding decades. It documents the experience of torture, imprisonment, and exile suffered by communist poets after the Baʿthist coup d’état of February 1963 and shows how the legacy of communist poetry was systemically erased from the historical and literary record in subsequent decades. The conclusion also discusses why the singular historical phenomenon of rebel poetry was ever possible in Iraqi and why it was no longer possible after 1963. It concludes with a discussion of poetry and dissent in contemporary Iraqi society.
Henrike Krause
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- September 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781474448475
- eISBN:
- 9781474496070
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474448475.003.0007
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
Against the background of the Cold War and a period of elevated tension between the East and West Bloc states at the end of the 1970s, this chapter explores the fascination of the East German writer ...
More
Against the background of the Cold War and a period of elevated tension between the East and West Bloc states at the end of the 1970s, this chapter explores the fascination of the East German writer Christa Wolf for Virginia Woolf’s Three Guineas. By introducing findings from Christa Wolf’s private library, the chapter offers evidence that Wolf turned her attention to Woolf’s book-length essay while she started to write her novel Cassandra and pre-pared her Lectures on Poetics, also known as the Cassandra Project. I argue that Woolf and Wolf were strongly influenced by their reflections on politics under the threat of war. In order to promote new ideas both writers searched for innovative literary forms that involved their audiences and readers with their arguments. The essay and autobiographical forms become crucial parts of their writing. Both writers drew their attention to female protagonists from ancient mythology like Cassandra and Antigone and brought these stories into communication with their own questions during intense political contexts. I show how both writers put feminist community-building at the centre of anti-militarism and were both convinced that writers have a social responsibility, and how literature can bring about a change in thinking.Less
Against the background of the Cold War and a period of elevated tension between the East and West Bloc states at the end of the 1970s, this chapter explores the fascination of the East German writer Christa Wolf for Virginia Woolf’s Three Guineas. By introducing findings from Christa Wolf’s private library, the chapter offers evidence that Wolf turned her attention to Woolf’s book-length essay while she started to write her novel Cassandra and pre-pared her Lectures on Poetics, also known as the Cassandra Project. I argue that Woolf and Wolf were strongly influenced by their reflections on politics under the threat of war. In order to promote new ideas both writers searched for innovative literary forms that involved their audiences and readers with their arguments. The essay and autobiographical forms become crucial parts of their writing. Both writers drew their attention to female protagonists from ancient mythology like Cassandra and Antigone and brought these stories into communication with their own questions during intense political contexts. I show how both writers put feminist community-building at the centre of anti-militarism and were both convinced that writers have a social responsibility, and how literature can bring about a change in thinking.
Kevin M. Jones
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- January 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781503613393
- eISBN:
- 9781503613874
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9781503613393.003.0003
- Subject:
- History, Middle East History
This chapter uses the concept of rebel poetry to illustrate the utility of anticolonial poetry as a method of public protest and public communication in the aftermath of World War I and the British ...
More
This chapter uses the concept of rebel poetry to illustrate the utility of anticolonial poetry as a method of public protest and public communication in the aftermath of World War I and the British occupation of Iraq. The chapter shows how Iraqi poets navigated divided political loyalties to rally popular support for the Ottoman Empire or the nascent Arab nationalist movement during the war and how poets accepted or rejected colonial patronage to support the British occupation. Most important, the chapter shows how prominent rebel poets challenged colonial rule and how the colonial state responded by regulating both public space and culture discourse. It also examines how Iraqi poets employed the new secular vocabulary of nationalism to challenge sectarianism and articulate their own vision of anticolonial modernity.Less
This chapter uses the concept of rebel poetry to illustrate the utility of anticolonial poetry as a method of public protest and public communication in the aftermath of World War I and the British occupation of Iraq. The chapter shows how Iraqi poets navigated divided political loyalties to rally popular support for the Ottoman Empire or the nascent Arab nationalist movement during the war and how poets accepted or rejected colonial patronage to support the British occupation. Most important, the chapter shows how prominent rebel poets challenged colonial rule and how the colonial state responded by regulating both public space and culture discourse. It also examines how Iraqi poets employed the new secular vocabulary of nationalism to challenge sectarianism and articulate their own vision of anticolonial modernity.