scholarly journals From Satirical Piece to Commercial Product: The Mid-Victorian Opera Burlesque and its Bourgeois Audience

2017 ◽  
Vol 142 (1) ◽  
pp. 69-108
Author(s):  
Joanne Cormac
Keyword(s):  
Social Role ◽  
Commercial Product ◽  
The West ◽  
Commercial Development ◽  
Social Hierarchies ◽  
Low Culture ◽  
Great Exhibition

ABSTRACTCurrent studies of burlesque position it as a subversive genre that questioned cultural and social hierarchies and spoke to diverse audiences. Central to this interpretation are burlesque's juxtapositions of high and low culture, particularly popular and operatic music. This article problematizes this view, proposing that mid-Victorian burlesques lost their satirical bite. Demonstrating little concern for the tastes or interests of the poorer or the most elite members of the audience, they specifically targeted the bourgeoisie. The article places three mid-Victorian burlesques in the wider context of the commercial development of the West End following the 1851 Great Exhibition. It proposes that this broader context, and not the genre's perceived social role, provides the key to understanding the impulses driving the musical choices. It argues that juxtapositions of ‘high’ and ‘low’ music were far from subversive; rather they were included for commercial reasons, offering variety – but variety within strict bourgeois limits.

The Development of Political Consumerism in India

2018 ◽  
pp. 26-46
Author(s):  
Hari Sreekumar ◽  
Rohit Varman
Keyword(s):  
Colonial Period ◽  
Political Consumerism ◽  
Economic Nationalism ◽  
The West ◽  
Social Hierarchies ◽  
Major Point ◽  
Business Interests ◽  
Historical View ◽  
Vulnerable Consumers

This chapter provides a historical view of the development of political consumerism in India and details its present-day manifestations. Political consumerism in India emerged during the colonial period and was rooted in Gandhian ideologies such as swadeshi. The chapter highlights how swadeshi has been co-opted by political and business interests, which have recast it as a form of ascendant economic nationalism. Strategies such as boycotting have been employed, sometimes against vulnerable consumers. Food has emerged as a major point of contention and has been employed strategically to convey identity, reinforce social hierarchies, and even as a test of Indianness. The chapter concludes that political consumerism in India, due to its colonial origins, follows trajectories that are distinct from those in the West.

scholarly journals Does the onset of trends towards convergence within the differentiation of the global system confirm the general assumptions about the development of territorial and social hierarchies?

Geografie ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 119 (1) ◽  
pp. 26-49 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Hampl
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Developed Countries ◽  
World Politics ◽  
The Other ◽  
The West ◽  
Social Hierarchies ◽  
Global System ◽  
The Core ◽  
The Developed Countries

We are currently witnessing a significant turn in the evolution of the global system. The long term rise in the dominance of the “West” has been recently not only halted, but if fact reversed. Within the last two decades, close to a fifth of the world’s GDP has been transferred from the core to the semiperiphery, and increasingly also the periphery, of the global system. The hierarchic manner of the asymmetric geographic distribution of the world’s economy and population, and its transformation, remains a significant subject of scientific research and a key issue within the decision-making sphere of world politics. However, the discrepancy between the hierarchical differentiation of states and civilizations in terms of their size on one hand and their development (wealth) on the other remains an important issue. The degree of this discrepancy (or lack of) depends on the scale on which the differentiation is examined. At the macroregional level, it remains very pronounced, while it decreases in significance on the mezoregional and microregional levels – within the developed countries, a relative correspondence exists between both types of hierarchy. This article therefore intends to delineate the basic types of hierarchical differentiation to discuss the causal mechanisms of their formation and prospective change.

scholarly journals Peer Tutoring in Japan: A New Approach for a Unique Educational System

2015 ◽  
pp. 112-119
Author(s):  
Hinako Takeuchi
Keyword(s):  
Peer Tutoring ◽  
Education System ◽  
Writing Center ◽  
Social Hierarchy ◽  
Western World ◽  
Japanese Education ◽  
The West ◽  
Social Hierarchies ◽  
New Approach

Peer tutoring was first introduced in the Western world, where education systems are quite different from the East. While peer tutoring has brought much success as an alternative to educational instruction in the West, it is still in the process of being introduced in the East. As Japanese universities begin to use peer tutoring, we must search for methods that fit the unique Japanese education system, in which social hierarchy plays an important role. This essay will share some preliminary observations on how cultural and systemic aspects of the Japanese education system may impact peer tutoring in Japanese universities. It will first explore multiple definitions on peer tutoring, before analyzing the Japanese education system and social hierarchies. Finally, the essay will provide a case study on a writing center in a Westernized prefectural university in Japan and discuss further research options.

“Them's Fighting Words”: Violence, Masculinity, and the Texas Cowboy in the Late Nineteenth Century

2014 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 28-55
Author(s):  
Jacqueline M. Moore
Keyword(s):  
Social Behavior ◽  
Native Americans ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Social Regulation ◽  
Upper Class ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Social Harmony ◽  
The West ◽  
Social Hierarchies ◽  
Late Nineteenth

Violence inevitably plays a part in discussions of the cowboy, historical or mythical. Traditionalists celebrated his manly fighting as what tamed the West and saved American manhood; revisionists have castigated the brutality with which he dealt with Native Americans and the environment. It is important, however, to consider what purpose violence served for the cowboy himself. To the working-class cowboy, violence could preserve social harmony, both through defending personal honor and through regulating social behavior of women and minorities. Its use was a clear marker of masculinity, as it allowed him both to show his equal worth with the men around him and to maintain social hierarchies that gave him an advantage over other people. The middle- and upper-class townspeople and cattlemen around cowboys, however, increasingly saw violence as counterproductive. Although parents encouraged aggression in boyhood, they thought that in order to become a real man, one should learn proper restraint and channel that aggression into socially acceptable activities. More and more, respectable ideas of maintaining social order left no room for violence, and consequently cowboys faced increasing social regulation of their masculine self-identities.

Methodological Eclecticism: Feminist-Pragmatist Reflections on Re/centering Muslims in Research about Islam

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-45
Author(s):  
Sariya Cheruvallil-Contractor
Keyword(s):  
The West ◽  
Social Hierarchies ◽  
Research Paradigms ◽  
The People ◽  
Muslims In The West ◽  
Methodological Eclecticism ◽  
Epistemological Framework

For over a decade, researchers have consistently asserted that Muslims in the West are ‘research weary’ (Sangera and Thapar- Bjökert 2008: 544), ‘tired of too much research about them’ (Alvi et al. 2003: p. xv) and are concerned about ‘not being given the opportunity to shape research that is about them (Scott-Baumann et al. 2020). Research on Muslim in Britain and in the West are further complicated by social hierarchies and popular discourses that often position Muslims as the ‘different other’. Working within a feminist-pragmatist epistemological framework this chapter will bring together methodological reflections from a decade of research of Islam and Muslims in the West. It asserts the need for research paradigms that are grounded in partnership and positionality, and which maintain intellectual rigour while also being accountable to the people who are the subjects of research.

Introduction

2015 ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
Omar Ahmed
Keyword(s):  
New Media ◽  
Film Industry ◽  
Critical Discourse ◽  
The West ◽  
Indian Cinema ◽  
Current State ◽  
World Cinema ◽  
Low Culture ◽  
Film Language

This introductory chapter traces how critical discourse on Indian cinema has evolved over the last ten years. It addresses some of the factors that have played a part in accelerating the breadth of research on Indian cinema, particularly the proliferation of new media such as the Internet, YouTube, blogging, and DVDs. The chapter then provides some wider context to the current state of Indian cinema and how it has changed considerably in the new millennium. The term Bollywood, ‘a slang term for the commercial side of the Indian movie business’, continues to be a term of contention among those who work in the Indian film industry, conjuring up unpleasant connotations of low culture and trashy escapism. Yet there is no denying that Bollywood has entered the lexicon of film language and that, at least in the West, this derogatory term points to the film industry based in Mumbai (formerly Bombay). Like ‘world cinema’, Bollywood has become a catch-all term and a marketing-friendly one, but it fails to cover the sheer diversity and specificities offered by what is one of the world's leading film industries.

The Quaker “Invasion”

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adrian Chastain Weimer
Keyword(s):  
Native Americans ◽  
New England ◽  
West Indies ◽  
Universal Access ◽  
The West ◽  
Society Of Friends ◽  
Social Hierarchies ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Social Challenges ◽  
Loyalty Oaths

Founded in the late 1640s, Quakerism reached America in the 1650s and quickly took root due to the determined work of itinerant missionaries over the next several decades. Quakers, or members of the Society of Friends, faced different legal and social challenges in each colony. Many English men and women viewed Friends with hostility because they refused to bear arms in a colony’s defense or take loyalty oaths. Others were drawn to Quakers’ egalitarian message of universal access to the light of Christ in each human being. After George Fox’s visit to the West Indies and the mainland colonies in 1671–1672, Quaker missionaries followed his lead in trying to include enslaved Africans and native Americans in their meetings. Itinerant Friends were drawn to colonies with the most severe laws, seeking a public platform from which to display, through suffering, a joyful witness to the truth of the Quaker message. English Quakers then quickly ushered accounts of their sufferings into print. Organized and supported by English Quakers such as Margaret Fell, the Quaker “invasion” of itinerant missionaries put pressure on colonial judicial systems to define the acceptable boundaries for dissent. Nascent communities of Friends from Barbados to New England struggled with the tension between Quaker ideals and the economic and social hierarchies of colonial societies.

Jewels of the Occupation: Gold Wedding Jewelry in the West Bank

2010 ◽  
Vol 39 (4) ◽  
pp. 43-49
Author(s):  
Elena N. Hogan
Keyword(s):  
Social Role ◽  
West Bank ◽  
Growing Up ◽  
Cultural Meanings ◽  
The West ◽  
Public Display ◽  
Gold Jewelry ◽  
The Social ◽  
Long Term Impact

This article examines the social role and broader cultural meanings of gold jewelry used in Muslim weddings in the West Bank---"marriage jewelry" that by right belongs exclusively to the woman and whose socio-symbolic value extends far beyond its market value. Through interviews with muftis, gold dealers, and especially Palestinian women, the article explores the unwritten "rules" governing marriage jewelry's exchange, and how these rules are affected in a context of occupation and economic hardship. In particular, the author discusses the relatively new phenomenon of imitation (or "virtual") gold jewelry for public display in wedding rites, exploring the new rules growing up around it and speculating on its long-term impact on entrenched traditions.

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