Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies: ‘Ethereal from the Waist Up and All Welsh Pony Down Below’

2011 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 203-214 ◽  
Author(s):  
Helen Grime
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Social Attitudes ◽  
Musical Drama ◽  
Self Presentation ◽  
Lesbian Identity ◽  
Political Position ◽  
Public Scrutiny ◽  
The University ◽  
Fragmented Identity

In this article Helen Grime examines the enduring epithet of ethereality and its persistent connection to the career of the actress Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies (1891–1992). Most closely associated with her portrayal of Etain in the much revived musical drama The Immortal Hour, ethereality is understood as a signifier of 1920s femininity. The offstage presentation of a domesticated femininity further evidences the apparent conventionality of this actress's self-presentation at a time of particular anxiety about the socio-political position of women. These notions of femininity hint at the prevailing social attitudes that confronted an actress whose on- and offstage appearances were subject to public scrutiny while her private lesbian identity remained obscured. It is suggested, however, that Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies's playful negotiation of her demonstrably fragmented identity evidences an agency and self-possession belied by her public conformity. Helen Grime completed her thesis, A Strange Omission: Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies, Twentieth-Century Shakespearean Actress, in 2008 and is currently a Lecturer in Drama at the University of Winchester.

Chekhov's Poetic and Social Realism on the Italian Stage, 1924–1964

2008 ◽  
Vol 24 (4) ◽  
pp. 363-378
Author(s):  
Anna Sica
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Social Attitudes ◽  
Social Realism ◽  
Commedia Dell'arte ◽  
The 1950S ◽  
The University ◽  
Arthur Penn

This article explores the introduction of Chekhov's plays to Italy through émigré circles in the first decades of the twentieth century, and traces how they were appropriated to suit the ideological exigencies of the time during the fascist period. It concludes with observations about Luchino Visconti's celebrated productions of the 1950s, which stressed the idea that Chekhov was first and foremost a political writer, and suggests how this particular view of the dramatist evolved in the early 1960s as the theatre once again reflected social attitudes and values. Anna Sica is a lecturer at the University of Palermo. She has published monographs in Italy on the commedia dell'arte (1997), Arthur Penn (2000), and theatre in New York (2005), as well as articles on Pirandello and contemporary Italian drama in various journals.

Italian Minor Theatre, 2000–14: the Development of ‘Short Forms’ and the Politics of the Stage

2019 ◽  
Vol 35 (03) ◽  
pp. 195-208
Author(s):  
Silvia Mei
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Visual Arts ◽  
Modern Dance ◽  
Minor Literature ◽  
Philosophical Concept ◽  
Short Forms ◽  
Research Fellow ◽  
History Of ◽  
Expressive Dimension ◽  
The University

Brevity in experimental Italian theatre is not merely an expressive dimension of scenic creation, but a forma mentis, a conceptual vocation of young companies. The 2000s produced a minor theatre in Italy – first because of the reduced stage size, and second because of the brevity of works such as installation pieces. Moving from the linguistic disintegration of the historical avant-gardes of the twentieth century, this theatre is especially inspired by the visual arts, even though its historical roots remain fragmented and art is still seen in the synthetic language of modern dance and Futurist variety. Short forms actually become a tool for crossing artistic genres and languages. Starting from Deleuze’s and Guattari’s philosophical concept of minor literature, in this article Silvia Mei explores and analyzes work by such Italian contemporary companies as gruppo nanou, Città di Ebla, Anagoor, Opera, ErosAntEros, and Teatro Sotterraneo – all representative of what can be called installation theatre, a new theatrical wave that crosses the boundaries and specificities of artistic language, leading to the deterritorialization of theatre itself, a rethinking of the artistic work as well as its relationship with the audience. Silvia Mei is Adjunct Professor of the History of Theatre Directing and Theatre Iconography at the University of Bologna, having been a Research Fellow at the University of Turin. Her recent publications include ‘La terza avanguardia: ortografie dell’ultima scena italiana’, in Culture Teatrali, No. 14 (2015), and Displace Altofest (Valletta: Malta 2018 Foundation).

Out of the box, onto the web: Digitizing images in the Tuzin Archive for Melanesian Anthropology

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 251-268 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cristela Garcia-Spitz ◽  
Kathryn Creely
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
San Diego ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
First Century ◽  
University Of California ◽  
Online Access ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
The University ◽  
Archival Practices ◽  
The Web

How are ethnographic photographs from the twentieth century accessed and represented in the twenty-first century? This report from the Tuzin Archive for Melanesian Anthropology at the University of California San Diego Library provides an overview of the photographic materials, arrangements and types of documentation in the archive, followed by summaries of specific digitization projects of the photographs from physician Sylvester Lambert and anthropologists Roger Keesing and Harold Scheffler, among others. Through the process of digitization and online access, ethnographic photographs are transformed and may be discovered and contextualized in new ways. Utilizing new technologies and forming broad collaborations, these digitization projects incorporate both anthropological and archival practices and also raise ethical questions. This is an in-depth look at what is digitized and how it is described to re/create meaning and context and to bring new life to these images.

Hasan Eren - from Vidin to the Peaks of Turkology

2021 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 248-261
Author(s):  
Sadik Haci
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
The World ◽  
Etymological Dictionary ◽  
The University ◽  
Turkish Language ◽  
The Town

The study follows the life and scientific trajectories of the turkologist Hasan Eren from the town of Vidin, lecturer at the University of Ankara, editor and author of various dictionaries, including the first etymological dictionary of the Turkish language. It traces the preparation and growth of the world-famous Turkish linguist and lexicologist, who left Bulgaria to study and after his exceptional training among Hungarian orientalists such as Gyula Németh he grew up as one of the most famous Turkish scholars in the field of llinguistics. This study presents the conditions and possibilities for Turkish intelligentsia in Bulgaria in the twentieth century.

Book Reviews

Journeys ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 83-92
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
North Carolina ◽  
University Of Chicago ◽  
Machu Picchu ◽  
Chapel Hill ◽  
The University ◽  
Literary Encounters ◽  
University Of Chicago Press

Randy Malamud, The Importance of Elsewhere: The Globalist Humanist Tourist. Chicago/Intellect, The University of Chicago Press, 2018, vii + 236 pp., ISBN-13: 978-1783208746, $29.50 (paperback).Mark Rice, Making Machu Picchu: The Politics of Tourism in Twentieth Century Peru (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2018), xvi + 253 pp., ISBN 978-1-4696-4353-3, $28.75 (paperback).Jeffrey Mather, Twentieth-Century Literary Encounters in China: Modernism, Travel, and Form (New York: Routledge, 2020), ix + 182 pp., ISBN 978-1-03-208815-0, US $48.95 (paperback).

Ugliness and Beauty: the Politics of Landscape in Walter Greenwood's Love on the Dole

2013 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 35-47
Author(s):  
Claire Warden
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Working Class ◽  
The Other ◽  
Surrounding Area ◽  
North West ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
The North ◽  
The One ◽  
The University ◽  
Open Fields

The multi-spatial landscape of the North-West of England (Manchester–Salford and the surrounding area) provides the setting for Walter Greenwood's 1934 play Love on the Dole. Both the urban industrialized cityscape and the rural countryside that surrounds it are vital framing devices for the narrative – these spaces not simply acting as backdrops but taking on character roles. In this article Claire Warden reads the play's presentation of the North through the concept of landscape theatre, on the one hand, and Raymond Williams's city–country dialogism on the other, claiming that Love on the Dole is imbued with the revolutionary possibility that defines the very landscape in which it is set. From claustrophobic working-class kitchen to the open fields of Derbyshire, Love on the Dole has a sense of spatial ambition in which Greenwood regards all landscapes as tainted by the industrial world while maintaining their capacity to function independently. Ugliness and beauty, capitalist hegemony and socialistic hopefulness reside simultaneously in this important under-researched example of twentieth-century British theatre, thereby reflecting the ambivalent, shifting landscape of the North and producing a play that cannot be easily defined artistically or politically. Claire Warden is a Lecturer in Drama at the University of Lincoln. Her work focuses on peripheral British performances in the early to mid-twentieth century. She is the author of British Avant-Garde Theatre (Palgrave MacMillan, 2012) and is currently writing Modernist and Avant-Garde Performance: an Introduction for Edinburgh University Press, to be published in 2014.

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