HABITS OF SEDUCTION: ACCOUNTS OF PORTUGUESE NUNS IN BRITISH OFFICERS' PENINSULAR WAR MEMOIRS

2015 ◽  
Vol 58 (3) ◽  
pp. 733-756 ◽  
Author(s):  
JENNINE HURL-EAMON
Keyword(s):  
Travel Literature ◽  
Life Writing ◽  
The Political ◽  
Military Life ◽  
Cultural Climate ◽  
Peninsular War ◽  
War Memoirs

ABSTRACTIn their published memoirs of the Peninsular War, a surprising number of British officers mentioned visits to Portuguese convents and openly confessed to having flirted with the sisters – occasionally to the point of outright seduction – and abandoned them when the regiment moved on. This seems like a very negative self-fashioning to modern readers, but can best be understood in the context of the political and cultural climate in which these memoirs were produced. This article argues that officers' descriptions of convent visiting and their professions of sympathy for cloistered women revealed the influence of gothic, erotic, romantic, and travel literature on military life writing. Their depiction of nuns differed from nuns’ portrayal by common soldiers due to its infusion with masculine ideals of chivalry and sensibility. Elite memoirists saw no need to justify their abandonment of nuns because they viewed it in light of other literary accounts of soldiers who broke nuns’ hearts. At the same time, they contrasted themselves with the barbarism of the French, believing themselves to be far more compassionate and tolerant of Catholic strictures. Officers’ portrayals of Portuguese sisters can thus also be seen as an expression of Britons’ sense of their relationship with Portugal in the war.

WESTERN NOMADIC DISCOURSE AND THE DISCOVERY OF THE OTHER

2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 244-252
Author(s):  
Brahim BOUKHALFA
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Travel Literature ◽  
Arab Countries ◽  
The Body ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
Human Sciences ◽  
Political Consciousness ◽  
Ancient Times ◽  
Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries

The yearning for a journey towards the places of strangers, the longing to mingle with them and immerse themselves in their lives, and to record everything that is strange and wondrous about their lifestyle, their ways of thinking, their customs and traditions, that is the nature that characterizes man, since ancient times. The lives of the prophets, may blessings and peace be upon them, were frenetic migrations, and a constant movement, length and breadth, in search of a place of intimacy, a comfortable life, and a bright truth. Western poets, writers, philosophers and travelers have also been fond of the journey to the Naked and Islamic East, from the Middle Ages to the present day; The desire to get to know the Easterners closely, to mix with them, and then to dominate them, was evident in the so-called travel literature. It is the writing emanating from the experiences of travelers in the eastern "One Thousand and One Nights". However, these travelers have always hidden the true intentions that drove them on the journey, which, as we will present in the body of this study, are colonial motives deposited in the political consciousness of Western governments that stand behind the colonial phenomenon. It is from this perspective in the research that urgent questions come to the surface, which we are trying to answer. What are the real motives for the trip for Western writers in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries? What is their relationship with the Western governments that were colonizing large areas of the Arab countries? What are the representations of Arabs and Muslims in so-called travel literature? The answer to these questions is to reveal to us the colonial nature of the modern West, and the extent of its contempt for non-Westerners, which is supported by myths of racial superiority and self-centeredness in that. It is a belief that has not been affected by the tremendous development in the field of human sciences that our time has witnesse

scholarly journals Online Life Writing

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 147-150
Author(s):  
Silvia Schultermandl
Keyword(s):  
Life Style ◽  
Asylum Seekers ◽  
Life Writing ◽  
The Political ◽  
Online Media ◽  
The Past ◽  
Everyday Lives ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Literary Market ◽  
Do So

In lieu of an abstract, here is the first paragraph of this contribution to this forum: The advent of Facebook in 2004, Twitter in 2006, Tumblr in 2007, Instagram and Pinterest in 2010, and Snapchat and Google+ in 2011 facilitated the emergence of “everyday” autobiographies out of keeping with memoir practices of the past.[1] These “quick media” enable constant, instantaneous, and seemingly organic expressions of everyday lives.[2] To read quick media as “autobiographical acts” allows us to analyze how people mobilize online media as representations of their lives and the lives of others.[3] They do so through a wide range of topics including YouTube testimonials posted by asylum seekers (Whitlock 2015) and the life-style oriented content on Pinterest.[4] To be sure, the political content of these different quick media life writing varies greatly. Nevertheless, in line with the feminist credo that the personal is political, these expressions of selfhood are indicative of specific societal and political contexts and thus contribute to the memoir boom long noticed on the literary market.[5]

scholarly journals Spanish Politicking in British Periodical Reviews, 1808-1814

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan Valladares
Keyword(s):  
The Political ◽  
First Year ◽  
Political Opinion ◽  
Political Ideologies ◽  
Peninsular War ◽  
Edinburgh Review ◽  
Quarterly Review ◽  
Post War

This chapter explores the imbrication of literary and political ideologies that rendered periodical reviews such as the Edinburgh Review and Quarterly Review powerful – if combative – organs of political opinion during the Peninsular War. Covering the period 1808 (the year of the Anglo-Spanish alliance against Napoleon) to 1814 (the first year of Ferdinand VII’s post-war regime), it explores the tensions inherent in acts of both prophetizing and memorializing the outcomes of the war, and how rival reviewers negotiated inherited and newly forged narratives of Hispanophobia and Hispanophilia. It also examines the political and aesthetic threats levelled against the Edinburgh by Robert Southey’s Carmen Triumphale (1814), and asks to what extent periodical reviews afforded a unique medium for shaping the unstable discourse of Anglo-Spanish prejudices and sympathies advanced during the Peninsular War.

scholarly journals Shifting Perceptions of Orient and Occident in Nineteenth-Century Arabic Travel Writing

2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 5
Author(s):  
Ibrahem Almarhaby
Keyword(s):  
Travel Literature ◽  
Pure Gold ◽  
The Political ◽  
Medieval Period ◽  
Thematic Approach ◽  
The 19Th Century ◽  
Modern Arabic ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Shed Light

This study investigates the relationship between the Eastern Self and the Western Other by focusing on the influence of the French Other on the ideology of the Arab Self in modern Arabic travel literature. As a case study, the analysis has been conducted on Takhlīṣ al-Ibriz fī Talkhīṣ Paris [‘The extraction of pure gold in the abridgement of Paris’]. The 19th century, from which this source originates, is considered to be significant in terms of distinguishing modern travelogue literature from that of the medieval period, where the image of the Western Other in Arabs’ imagination dramatically changed due to colonialism. As one of the richest and most open approaches in textual analysis, the study adopts the thematic approach to shed light on the extent to which the ideological impact of the Other on the political, religious, civil and social domains of the Self can be seen in this wide-ranging travel source. The study infers that al-Ṭahṭāwī was greatly ideologically impacted by West in all of the allocated domains, as can be seen clearly in his comprehensive comparisons, descriptions and explanations. This influence is indeed what distinguishes this modern travelogue literature from the medieval ones.

scholarly journals Ironic inversions: Geographical and political islands in F.C. Delius’ Stroll from Rostock to Syracuse (1995)

2022 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Katrin Dautel
Keyword(s):  
Travel Literature ◽  
18Th Century ◽  
The Political ◽  
Discursive Construction ◽  
Socialist State ◽  
Mediterranean Island ◽  
The Mediterranean

The paper analyses Friedrich Christian Delius’ story Der Spaziergang von Rostock nach Syrakus (1995) in the context of island discourses and the discursive construction of insular spaces. It argues that, in a satirical adaptation of Seume’s Stroll to Syracuse (1803), Delius reconceptualises the Mediterranean island of Sicily as the traditionalplace of longing in German travel literature since the 18th century by contrasting it to the political ‘island’ of the GDR. He constructs the socialist state as a place of yearning and develops a counter-discourse to the established European island imaginary.

scholarly journals Apeniny we wspomnieniach Anieli Walewskiej

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 ◽  
pp. 333-341
Author(s):  
Katarzyna Król
Keyword(s):  
Travel Literature ◽  
The Political ◽  
Aesthetic Evaluation ◽  
Political Situation ◽  
Literary Expression ◽  
Natural Landscapes ◽  
Aesthetic Attitude ◽  
Romantic Era ◽  
History Of ◽  
Mountain Landscapes

Kilka chwil we Włoszech w latach 1847 i 1848 [A few Moments in Italy in 1847 and 1848], a volume of memoirs published in 1850 and written by Aniela Walewska — a forgotten author of the Romantic era — is a historically, culturally and socially interesting travel account which, in addition to notes devoted to the political situation at the time, also features descriptions of cultural and natural landscapes which Walewska had an opportunity to admire during her Italian voyage. Particularly worthy of note are her reflections concerning mountain landscapes reflecting the author’s romantic sensibility as well as her emotional and aesthetic attitude to new places. Spending a few weeks in the Tuscan resort of Bagni di Lucca, Aniela Walewska had an opportunity to admire the Apennines, which generated admiration and lofty feelings in her and prompted her to engage in existential, philosophical and religious reflection. Using a variety of means of literary expression, the writer sought to convey the varied aspects of the mountains: solemn beauty, picturesque charm, severe and wild appearance. Yet despite her lively interest in the Apennine landscapes, the Polish traveller was preoccupied primarily with the political situation in her distant homeland, which determined her perception of and feeling for the mountains so much that her observations often departed from purely aesthetic evaluation in favour of patriotic associations. However, the descriptions in her memoirs are vivid, full of admiration and rapture, which makes them worthy of being brought back from obscurity and analysed thoroughly. As evidence of individual and feminine way of experiencing the world of nature, they certainly make a valuable contribution to the Romantic travel literature and expand our knowledge of the history of mountain voyages of Polish women in that period.

scholarly journals Do No Harm: A Cross-Disciplinary, Cross-Cultural Climate Ethics

2014 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 5-21 ◽  
Author(s):  
Casey Rentmeester
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Environmental Impact ◽  
Ethical Issue ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Anthropogenic Climate Change ◽  
The Political ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Climate Ethics ◽  
Do No Harm ◽  
Cultural Climate

Anthropogenic climate change has become a hot button issue in the scientific, economic, political, and ethical sectors. While the science behind climate change is clear, responses in the economic and political realms have been unfulfilling. On the economic front, companies have marketed themselves as pioneers in the quest to go green while simultaneously engaging in environmentally destructive practices and on the political front, politicians have failed to make any significant global progress. I argue that climate change needs to be framed as an ethical issue to make serious progress towards the path to a sustainable human civilization. In an effort to motivate the urgency needed to confront climate change, I argue that climate change seriously affects human beings living here and now, and if one cares about unnecessarily harming fellow innocent living human beings, then one should care about one’s own environmental impact related to climate change. Since this argument does not depend upon any specific philosophical, religious, or ethical tradition but applies regardless of one’s particular background, I hope to induce genuine concern among all human beings regarding this issue.

Memory as the Continuation of Politics by Other Means. Yoshida Shigeru’s Japan’s Decisive Century

2020 ◽  
Vol 80 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 160-176
Author(s):  
Noemi Lanna
Keyword(s):  
Historical Narrative ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Leader ◽  
Modernization Theory ◽  
Postwar Japan ◽  
Cultural Climate ◽  
Modern Japan ◽  
The Government ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Shed Light

Abstract This article analyses the role that diplomat and political leader Yoshida Shigeru (1878–1967) played in shaping postwar Japan’s politics of commemoration, with a focus on the book Japan’s Decisive Century (1967). It identifies, first, the distinctive elements characterising the historical narrative of modern Japan proposed in the book. It then explores Yoshida’s arguments in the light of the political and cultural climate of the 1960s. In particular, it investigates the influence of modernization theory and it considers the analogies and differences between the narratives of war, postwar and modernity presented in Japan’s Decisive Century and the historical interpretations underpinning the government-sponsored initiatives for commemorating the Meiji Centennial (1968). Ultimately, this article seeks to shed light on the implications of Yoshida’s proposed representation of history on the process of identity building in postwar Japan.

"Questione morale" e costruzione pubblica di un giudizio nei processi ai politici degli anni Novanta

2009 ◽  
pp. 43-57
Author(s):  
Luigi Musella
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Historical Background ◽  
Political Crisis ◽  
The Political ◽  
Legal Proceedings ◽  
Cultural Climate

- The dynamics of the political crisis that did rock Italy from the first months of 1992 went far beyond mere legal proceedings. Actually, it was not only judicial inquiries that did trigger the collapse of the main political parties, but also a political and cultural climate that delegitimized them. The article expands upon this hypothesis, through the re-examination of the narratives of the events in which Andreotti, Craxi, and Gava were involved and of their historical background.

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