Havana

Author(s):  
Guadalupe García

The Cuban city of San Cristóbal de la Habana has been a nodal point of economic, commercial, political, and cultural exchange since its 1519 founding on Cuba’s northern shore. Residents’ decision to locate the city next to the natural deepwater harbor that became today’s harbor, illustrates the importance of geography, space, and environment in Havana’s early history. Through the distinct environs of Havana, enslaved, free black, Spanish, immigrant, criollo (and later Cuban) residents defined and gave new meaning to a geography marked by the city’s colonial origins. The end of the 19th century and early 20th century marked the end of Spanish colonialism in Cuba (1898) and the beginning of the US occupation of the island (1899–1902). The political transition solidified the importance of Havana as the economic and political center of Cuba. The city became a broker of a new set of cultural, social, and political exchanges as the country’s economic prosperity—the result of an affinity for US and global capitalist markets—also inaugurated a booming and pervasive tourist economy. Western influence and a neocolonial relationship between Cuba and the United States engendered an urban renaissance that emphasized cosmopolitanism and a dynamic, highly mobile urban population. Havana’s built environment oriented residents and visitors alike to its modern architecture, seaside resorts, and dynamic nightlife. The city’s concentration of wealth, however, underscored continued disparities between Cuba’s urban and rural populations as well as within sectors of the urban population. There is a well-developed body of scholarship that addresses the complicated history of the city, especially for the colonial period and the early 20th century. Until recently, there was a scarcity of literature on the city following the revolutionary transition of 1959. This changed, however, with the onset of the 1980s. In 1982 UNESCO declared the colonial core city of Havana a World Heritage Site. Urban renewal and preservation became topics of scholarly discussions around administrative efforts to preserve, restore, and orient the direction of the city. Then, in the early 1990s, urban development in Havana (like all development in Cuba) come to an immediate halt after the dissolution of the USSR ended Soviet subsidies and precipitated one of the worst economic disasters in Cuban history. The country’s political and economic situation and the liberalization of the economy and the growth of tourism brought an ever-increasing interest in the issues and environment of the city, with scholars taking up the now familiar themes of access to the city, political inclusion and exclusion, and urban patrimony in their scholarship. As a field of study the literature on Havana mirrors the frameworks found in the broader field of urban history. The literature breaks down into two distinct subfields; those studies that examine “the history of the city” and those that examine “histories that unfold within cities” (See Brodwyn Fisher’s article Urban History in Oxford Bibliographies). The former has long dominated the literature on Havana, and only recently has new scholarship begun to approach the city as a subject in its own right or from the vantage points of disciplinary perspectives outside of history, architecture, and planning. In this essay I have chosen to introduce readers to the vast literature that centers explicitly on the development of the city, much of which was published in Cuba from the 19th century onward. This literature forms part of a well-known cannon in Cuba (including work in the Spanish-language press produced outside of the island) but might be lesser known to non-specialists. I have also included well-established, as well as recent and emerging, works where Havana assumes a central role in the narrative. I have done this in order to broaden the categorical analysis of what constitutes a history of or about Havana. As with any bibliographic essay, I have excluded much in order to provide an overview of Havana and familiarize readers with scholars who explore thematic interests in questions of race, slavery, or culture through the social fabric of the city. Where appropriate, I have organized the essay according to time period or publication date (in order to give the reader an idea of the scholarship on colonial architecture, for example). Finally, most titles on this list can easily be placed in more than one of the categories listed in the Table of Contents; for the sake of space I have cross-listed only a few of these works, but indicated when readers might find other sections of the essay useful.

Classics ◽  
2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Macaulay-Lewis

Since the Western Roman Empire collapsed, classical, or Greco-Roman, architecture has served as a model to articulate the cultural, artistic, political, and ideological goals of later civilizations, empires, nations, and individuals. The Renaissance marked the first major, widespread re-engagement with classical antiquity in art, literature, and architecture. Debates over classical antiquity and its relation to the modern world continued ever since. One such important debate was that of the quarrel between the Ancients and Moderns, which resulted when Charles Perrault published his Parallèles des anciens et des modernes in 1688. This dispute focused on whether the modern age could surpass antiquity, especially in literature. The Greco-Roman controversy (1750s and 1760s) was another example of Europeans engaging with the classical past; this debate focused on whether Greek or Roman art was of greater historical value; an argument has continued unabated to this day. Figures like Johann Joachim Winckelmann argued (in publications such as Winckelmann 1764, cited under Early Archaeological Publications on Greece and Classical Ruins in the Roman East, on Greek art) for the supremacy of Greek forms, while others like Giovanni Battista Piranesi (whose 1748–1778 views of Rome are reproduced in Ficacci 2011, cited under Early Archaeological Publications on Italy) advocated for Rome’s preeminence. Such debates demonstrate how classical antiquity was an essential part of the intellectual and artistic milieu of 18th-century Europe. This bibliography focuses on the appropriation of classical architecture in the creation of built forms from 1700 to the present in Europe and North America, which is typically called neoclassical or neo-classical, both of which are acceptable. Scholars often define the neoclassical period as lasting from c. 1750 to 1830, when European art and architecture predominantly appropriated classical forms and ideas. The influence of classical architecture continued in popularity throughout the 19th century and early 20th century in the United States. The early 19th century saw the flourishing of the Greek Revival, where Greek forms dominated artistic and architectural production, both in Europe and the United States. The ascendance of Queen Victoria in 1837 marked a shift toward a preference for the Gothic and Medieval forms. Neoclassical forms saw a resurgence in the second half of the 19th century, as Roman architectural forms became increasingly popular as an expression of empire. The term “Neo-classical” was coined as early as January 1872 by Robert Kerr, who used the term positively. It later took on certain negative overtones, when it was used as a derogatory epithet by an unknown writer in the Times of London in 1892. Neoclassical architecture has fared no better with the rise of modernism in the early 20th century onward and since then it has been seen as old-fashioned and derivative. Neoclassical architecture was not a mindless imitation of classical architectural forms and interiors. The interest in classical architecture and the creation of neoclassical architecture was spurred on by important archaeological discoveries in the mid-18th century, which widened the perception of Greek and Roman buildings. The remarkable flexibility of ancient architecture to embody the grandeur of an empire, as well as the principles of a nascent democracy, meant that it had great potential to be interpreted and reinterpreted by countless architects, patrons, empires, and nation states—in different ways and at different times from the 18th to the 20th century. This bibliography is organized thematically (e.g., General Overviews; Companions, Handbooks, and Theoretical Works; Reference Works; Early General Archaeological Publications; The Reception of Pompeii, Herculaneum, and the Bay of Naples; and World’s Fairs and Expositions) and then geographically, creating country- or region-specific bibliographies. While this model of organization has some flaws, it aims to avoid repetition and highlights the interconnected nature and process of the reception of classical architecture in later periods.


2013 ◽  
Vol 19 ◽  
pp. 51-67
Author(s):  
И.В. Хоменко

This paper traces the development of history of logic in Ukraine in the 19th century and early 20th century. The author particularly discusses and compares the logical concepts of representatives of Kyiv philosophies, who made their contribution to the development of logic as a science and academic discipline. Some of them had sunk into oblivion for a long time and their names are still unknown in the logic community.


ENDOXA ◽  
2017 ◽  
pp. 103
Author(s):  
Kurt Plischke ◽  
Alfons Labisch

Contemporary philosophy of science sets the origins of the predominantattributes of the term “gene” in the year 1900 when Gregor Mendel’s work was rediscovered. Yet it was the speculative biology of the second half of the 19th century that opened up the epistemic sphere for a new conception of heredity: heredity as the transmission of particulate, hereditable material units with a tendency for self-preservation. The then young discipline of biology dissociated its terminology from the preconceptions of natural philosophy. In the early 20th century, the postulated hereditary particles were associated with the chromosome and, at least in the 1940s, with nucleic acid: which was being stable and, at the same time, mutable, as well as capable of self-reproduction, self-selectivity, and memory. DNA epitomizes the perfect biological principle. But the most recent conception of the gene is not free from anthropomorphisms.


Author(s):  
Beloglazov I.A. ◽  
Biryukova N.V. ◽  
Nesterova N.V.

The authors of the work analyzed the sources that characterize the influence of absinthe on human culture. Absinthe, an alcoholic drink containing wormwood (Artemisia absinthium L.), was banned in the early 20th century due to unusual properties attributed to the side effects of drinking this alcohol. This review contains information about the history of the drink. On the one hand, absinthe left its mark in the culture as a “muse” for the creators, remaining forever imprinted in the works of various types of art, on the other hand, it became the main enemy for the most part of society because of the harmful properties that was characterized by researchers of the 19th century.


Spatium ◽  
2012 ◽  
pp. 53-59 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dragana Corovic ◽  
Ljiljana Blagojevic

This paper traces urban history of Belgrade in the 19th century by looking into its waterscape in the context of its transformation as the capital of the Princedom of Serbia. Aiming to underline the importance of water as a resource, with the view to contemporary environmental concerns, we explore how citizens historically related to waterscape in everyday life and created a specific socio-spatial water network through use of public baths on the river banks and public fountains, water features and devices in the city. The paper outlines the process of establishing the first modern public water supply system on the foundations of the city?s historical Roman, Austrian and Ottoman waterworks. It also looks at the Topcider River as the most telling example of degradation of a culturally and historically significant urban watercourse from its natural, pastoral and civic past to its current polluted and hazardous state. Could the restitution of the Topcider River be considered as a legacy of sustainability for future generations, and are there lessons to be learned from the urban history which can point to methods of contemporary water management?


Gesnerus ◽  
1994 ◽  
Vol 51 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 84-100
Author(s):  
Josef M. Schmidt

After an enormous spread in the United States of America during the 19th century homeopathy had almost completely vanished from the scene by the beginning of the 20th century. For the past two decades, however, it seems once again to experience a kind of renaissance. Major aspects of this development—in terms of medical and cultural history, sociology, politics, and economics—are illustrated on the basis of a general history of homeopathy in the United States. Using original sources, a first attempt is made to reconstruct the history of homeopathy in San Francisco which has some institutional peculiarities that make it unique within the whole country.


2018 ◽  

Collections and "collecting" are keywords that have in recent years been reintroduced into the focus of library considerations – not least under the influence of the all-embracing present trend of "digitalization", but also because of the attention currently being paid to the cultural heritage, its preservation and presentation. Against this background, the retrospective consolidation of existing collections and the continuation of collecting traditions continue to be pursued by German regional libraries in particular. This book adheres to the goal of publicizing the special collections handed down in the regional libraries as a source for research projects. However, the volume's attention is directed towards those segments within the libraries’ inventories that one does not necessarily expect, that are sometimes considered curios, and sometimes even constitute a distinction of uniqueness. The collections presented in this volume embrace a great variety of subjects, ranging from collections of miscellanies pertaining to theater, dance and ballet, of New Year's wishes and leaflets issued by funfair operators, of death sentences, wall newspapers and numismatics to collections of socialist and anarchist literature of the 19th century, writings and memorabilia concerning the German South Sea and China missions of the early 20th century to the history of shorthand.


Author(s):  
Anne Humpherys

George William Macarthur Reynolds (b. 1814–d. 1879) was at his death labeled “the most popular writer of our time” by the Bookseller in its short obituary. This popularity rested on two achievements: first, the mammoth twelve-volume series of “mysteries” novels, The Mysteries of London (1846–1848) and The Mysteries of the Court of London (1848–1855), and, second, his involvement with Chartist politics, which led in 1850 to his founding and editing the radical Sunday newspaper Reynolds’s Newspaper, which lasted in some form until 1962. The Mysteries novels were also constantly in print in a variety of cheap formats for most of the 19th century. Reynolds was a controversial figure both among working-class radicals, who doubted his commitment, and among the middle-class literary establishment, which abhorred his popular sensationalist novels. Dickens was probably referring to him as the “draggled fringe on the Red Cap, Pander to the basest passions of the lowest natures—whose existence is a national reproach” in the opening number of Household Words in 1850. Sometime shortly after 1860, Reynolds essentially stopped writing and editing. But the influence of his mysteries series continued, especially in the United States, India, and other countries. His novels fell out of print in the early 20th century; he himself became relatively unknown among historians and literary critics. This neglect lasted until the second half of the 20th century, at which point a number of scholars began to analyze Reynolds’s importance in 19th-century popular literature, politics, and the periodical press, a development that gathered force in the first decade of the 21st century. There is now a G.W.M. Reynolds Society, available online.


2020 ◽  
pp. 026327642094280
Author(s):  
Vladimir Rizov

This paper focuses on the documentary photography of Eugène Atget in late 19th and early 20th-century Paris. I will begin by exploring Atget’s position as a pioneering documentary photographer in the field, followed by an engagement with the urban environment of Paris, in which Atget worked almost exclusively. Finally, I will analyse a single photograph in depth while discussing it in relation to the work of Charles Baudelaire and Jacques Rancière. This text is a contribution to a literature of critical engagement with documentary photography, urban history and the politics of class visibility. I will do so by arguing for the political significance of reading Atget’s images in a critical, political manner that engages with Rancière’s concept of the ‘anonymous multiple’. Atget is considered a key documentary photographer, and, as such, he is exemplary of the history of documentary photography and its treatment of its subjects.


2019 ◽  
Vol 31 ◽  
pp. 253
Author(s):  
Carmen de Tena Ramírez

Resumen: El objetivo de este artículo es ofrecer una visión general acerca de los estudios histórico-artísticos realizados y publicados en España a lo largo del siglo XIX, así como poner de manifiesto que estos trabajos dieron base y fundamento a la posterior institucionalización de la Historia del Arte en la universidad española a comienzos de la centuria siguiente. Comenzamos nuestro texto con un estado de la cuestión para subrayar la necesidad de acometer esta clase de estudios; seguidamente exponemos una amplia perspectiva diacrónica sobre las circunstancias históricas que rodearon la práctica historiográfica del siglo XIX, sus características y quiénes fueron sus artífices. Terminamos este trabajo con una breve reflexión acerca del alcance de la investigación decimonónica y sus efectos en la institucionalización de la Historia del Arte en España.Palabras clave: historiografía artística, historia de la Historia del Arte en España, Restauración borbónica, Historia del Arte y Arqueología, fuentes para la Historia del Arte.Abstract: This articles aims chiefly to provide an overview of the historical-artistic studies carried out and published in Spain throughout the 19th century and to show that these works provided the basis and foundation for the subsequent institutionalisation of Art History in Spanish universities in the early 20th century. It begins with a summary underlining the need for this kind of study, then paints a broad diachronic perspective on the historical circumstances surrounding the historiographic practice of the 19th century, its characteristics and its writers. It ends with a brief consideration of the scope of 19th century research and its effects on the institutionalisation of Art History in Spain.Key words: Art Historiography, history of Art History in Spain, Bourbon restoration, Art History and Archaeology, Sources for Art History.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document