Three Plays by Deborah Levy: a Brief Introduction

1993 ◽  
Vol 9 (35) ◽  
pp. 230-232
Author(s):  
Irini Charitou
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Women Characters ◽  
Focal Point ◽  
Women's Theatre ◽  
Twentieth Century Europe

DEBORAH LEVY wrote Pax as the result of a commission from the Women's Theatre Group to write an ‘anti-nuclear’ play. In her own words, she detests ‘those last-two-minutes-in-a-bunker-type scenarios’, so she decided to write an epic play with Europe in the twentieth century as a focal point. Pax takes on board Europe's past, present, and future. There are four women characters in the play, The Keeper, The Hidden Daughter, The Mourner, and The Domesticated Woman. In the published edition of Pax (Plays by Women, Vol. VI, ed. Mary Remnant, Methuen, 1987), Levy describes how she envisaged these characters:I found four archetypes, who represented twentieth-century Europe for me.

scholarly journals Problematizing Olympic Nationality

AJIL Unbound ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 114 ◽  
pp. 374-379
Author(s):  
Peter J. Spiro
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
National Identity ◽  
Focal Point ◽  
Professional Sports ◽  
Sports Teams ◽  
Olympic Athletes ◽  
Nation States ◽  
International Solidarity

One can hope that the convening of the Tokyo Olympics will be a cause for global celebration. Tokyo could prove a focal point for international solidarity, a moment of relief and release after all of humanity faced down an insidious, invisible, and largely indiscriminate attacker. Unified as we otherwise may be, athletes will still come to the Games as representatives of nation-states. That may be an unavoidable organizing principle. Less justifiable will be the requirement that athletes be nationals of the states they play for. Under the Olympic Charter and the rules of particular sporting federations, athletes are subject to a non-state nationality regime that restricts the capacity of individuals to compete for countries for whose delegations they would otherwise qualify. This regime looks to maintain the putative integrity of Olympic competition by maintaining the unity of sporting and sociological national identity. But that legacy of the twentieth century no longer works in the twenty first. Nationality and associated criteria for participant eligibility undermine the autonomy of athletes and the quality of participation. The rules can no longer guarantee any affective tie between athlete and nation, instead arbitrarily enabling some, but not all, to compete on the basis of citizenship decoupled from identity. We don't require that athletes playing for our professional sports teams hale from the cities they represent. There's no reason why we need to require more of our Olympic athletes.

Tastes of Homes: Exploring Food and Place in Twentieth-Century Europe

2015 ◽  
Vol 23 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 1-13
Author(s):  
Olivier de Maret ◽  
Anneke Geyzen
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century Europe

“Deeds, Not Words”: Right-Wing Terrorism in Twentieth-Century Europe

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Schmidt ◽  
Michael Sturm
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Decisive Factor ◽  
Comparative Perspective ◽  
The Political ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Central Characteristic ◽  
Twentieth Century Europe

This chapter focuses on the manifestations and characteristics of right-wing terrorism in twentieth-century Europe, particularly on developments in Germany and Italy. When viewed from a comparative perspective, a central characteristic for right-wing terrorism is the Tatglaube, the faith in deeds. Although the worldview justifying such terrorism is grounded in racism, ethnocentrism, and nationalistic concepts of superiority, the decisive factor is violence as an end in itself, a violence that generally forgoes any justifying pattern of argument and strives to annihilate the enemy physically. The repertoire of actions taken and the formulized language of right-wing terrorism have remained largely unchanged throughout the twists and turns of twentieth-century history. Nevertheless, it is possible to differentiate various phases of right-wing terrorism, which were also influenced, in turn, by the political and societal environment. Despite the ethnocentric and nationalistic worldview from which this terrorism springs, it also becomes evident here that right-wing terrorism has always been marked by transnational influences, particularly since the end of the twentieth century.

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