Writing Her “Self”

2021 ◽  
pp. 186-210
Author(s):  
Mundoli Narayanan
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Historical Perspective ◽  
Female Characters ◽  
Solo Performance ◽  
Late Twentieth ◽  
Late Twentieth Century

This chapter provides a historical perspective on the evolution and contemporary significance of Nangyarkuttu, the “female” derivative of Kutiyattam, which developed into an independent solo performance form by the late twentieth century. Against this background, the author focuses on the artistry and innovations of one of Nangyarkuttu’s leading performers, Usha Nangiar, who has succeeded over the years in recovering and reinstating several major female characters who had disappeared from the Kutiyattam stage. Calling attention to two marginalized female characters from the Ramayana repertoire, notably Mandodari and Ahalya, the essay delves deeply into Usha Nangiar’s process of research as she recreates performances around them, combining an approach that is both deeply subjective and scholarly. Through excerpts from a detailed interview with the artist, the author demonstrates how Usha Nangiar’s interpretations of these roles, while drawing primarily on the performative tradition of Kutiyattam, constitutes a radical revisioning of the same tradition.

The History of Scientific Expert Testimony in the English Courtroom

1999 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-32 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tal Golan
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Expert Testimony ◽  
Historical Perspective ◽  
Common Law ◽  
Scientific Communities ◽  
History Of ◽  
Late Twentieth ◽  
Law Courts ◽  
The One ◽  
Late Twentieth Century

The ArgumentThis paper provides a historical perspective to one of the liveliest debates in common law courts today — the one over scientific expert testimony. Arguing against the current tendency to present the problem of expert testimony as a late twentieth-century predicament which threatens to spin out of control, the paper shows that the phenomena of conflicting scientific testimonies have been perennial for at least two centuries, and intensely debated in both the legal and the scientific communities for at least 150 years.

Feminine identities in Ann Oakley’s novels: A gender challenge or a cultural shock?

2021 ◽  
Vol 51 (2) ◽  
pp. 129-138
Author(s):  
Alla Marchyshyna ◽  
Anatolii Skrypnyk
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Broad Spectrum ◽  
Female Characters ◽  
Gender Identities ◽  
Verbal Form ◽  
Cultural Milieu ◽  
Cultural Shock ◽  
Late Twentieth ◽  
Late Twentieth Century

The late twentieth century is notable for the outburst of interest in gender as a construct formed by a definite social and cultural milieu and existing in certain discourses. The discourse of Ann Oakley’s fiction presents a broad spectrum of gender identities mirroring societal mores. The present study qualifies feminine identities in terms of autonomy–connectedness as stereotyped attributes. The transformation of deep-rooted patterns of behaviourist and speech practices results in a specific verbal form and character depiction. The female characters in question differ from the generally acknowledged model of women subject to masculine dominance. Oakley’s feminine characters are active in constructing their own lives: they are strong and decisive, self-confident and determined. These traits are verbally represented in relevant lexical and stylistic ways, directing an interpretation of the contents of the texts.

Nine Centuries of Man

2017 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Diverse Range ◽  
Gender Expectations ◽  
Court Records ◽  
The Past ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Police Reports ◽  
Late Twentieth ◽  
Scottish History ◽  
Late Twentieth Century

What did it mean to be a man in Scotland over the past nine centuries? Scotland, with its stereotypes of the kilted warrior and the industrial ‘hard man’, has long been characterised in masculine terms, but there has been little historical exploration of masculinity in a wider context. This interdisciplinary collection examines a diverse range of the multiple and changing forms of masculinities from the late eleventh to the late twentieth century, exploring the ways in which Scottish society through the ages defined expectations for men and their behaviour. How men reacted to those expectations is examined through sources such as documentary materials, medieval seals, romances, poetry, begging letters, police reports and court records, charity records, oral histories and personal correspondence. Focusing upon the wide range of activities and roles undertaken by men – work, fatherhood and play, violence and war, sex and commerce – the book also illustrates the range of masculinities that affected or were internalised by men. Together, the chapters illustrate some of the ways Scotland’s gender expectations have changed over the centuries and how, more generally, masculinities have informed the path of Scottish history

Trey Ellis's Platitudes: Redefining Black Voices

2009 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-76
Author(s):  
Quan Manh Ha
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
African American ◽  
American Literature ◽  
African American Literature ◽  
Black Experience ◽  
Racial Issues ◽  
Black Voices ◽  
Late Twentieth ◽  
One Year ◽  
Late Twentieth Century

Trey Ellis has emerged as a prominent African American writer of the late-twentieth century, despite the small number of his published works. “The New Black Aesthetic,” an essay that he first published in CaUaloo in 1989, one year after the publication of his first novel, Platitudes, stands as a manifesto that defines and articulates his perspective on the emerging black literary voices and culture of the time, and on “the future of African American artistic expression” in the postmodern era.1 According to Eric Lott, Ellis's novel parodies the literary and cultural conflict between such male experimental writers as lshmael Reed and such female realist writers as Alice Walker.2 Thus, Ellis's primary purpose in writing Platitudes is to redefine how African Americans should be represented in fiction, implying that neither of the dominant approaches can completely articulate late-twentieth-century black experience when practiced in isolation. In its final passages, Platitudes represents a synthesis of the two literary modes or styles, and it embodies quite fully the diversity of black cultural identities at the end of the twentieth century as it extends African American literature beyond racial issues. In this way, the novel exemplifies the literary agenda that Ellis suggests in his theoretical essay.

A New Denominational Historiography?

1995 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 249-263
Author(s):  
John F. Wilson
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Recent Analysis ◽  
General Factor ◽  
Religious Organization ◽  
Religious Institution ◽  
Large Numbers ◽  
The Status ◽  
Late Twentieth ◽  
American Society ◽  
Late Twentieth Century

Over the last decade, a noteworthy number of published studies have, in one fashion or another, been defined with reference to religious denominations. This is an arresting fact, for, coincidentally, the status of religious denominations in the society has been called into question. Some formerly powerful bodies have lost membership (at least relatively speaking) and now experience reduced influence, while newer forms of religious organization(s)—e.g., parachurch groups and loosely structured movements—have flourished. The most compelling recent analysis of religion in modern American society gives relatively little attention to them. Why, then, have publications in large numbers appeared, in scale almost seeming to be correlated inversely to this trend?No single answer to this question is adequate. Surely one general factor is that historians often “work out of phase” with contemporary social change. If denominations have been displaced as a form of religious institution in society in the late twentieth century, then their prominence in earlier eras is all the more intriguing.

Archaeology, Historicity, and Homosexuality in the New Cultus of Antinous

2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 237-259
Author(s):  
Ethan White
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Gay Men ◽  
Second Century ◽  
Roman Emperor ◽  
Late Twentieth ◽  
Late Twentieth Century

In the second century, the Roman Emperor Hadrian deified his male lover, Antinous, after the latter drowned in the Nile. Antinous’ worship was revived in the late twentieth century, primarily by gay men and other queer-identified individuals, with Antinous himself being recast as “the Gay God.”

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