Winifred Holtby and the Fevered (Middle)Brow

Author(s):  
Peter Fifield

Placing Holtby’s writing in extended dialogue with Woolf’s, this chapter argues that the pathological canon missed in ‘On Being Ill’ is partly realized in the period’s middlebrow writing, which contests the topic of embodiment with Woolf’s preferred highbrow. The gendered category of middlebrow—associated by Woolf with ‘invalidish ladies’—is linked to the gendering of illness as female. The chapter also discusses the role of cinema in distinguishing brows, and its use in South Riding as an opposing artistic force to sickness, signifying illusion and insubstantiality. Reading Holtby’s popular journalism the author argues that illness provides a way of gently satirizing middle-class moral domestic values. South Riding and Anderby Wold show models of female identity that are identified with illness and its care. These are not, however, oppressive but often liberating, providing a field in which women acquire and enact expertise, authority, and power in the interwar period.

2019 ◽  
Vol 49 (2) ◽  
pp. 276-289
Author(s):  
Naoise Murphy

Feminist critics have celebrated Kate O'Brien's pioneering approach to gender and sexuality, yet there has been little exploration of her innovations of the coming-of-age narrative. Creating a modern Irish reworking of the Bildungsroman, O'Brien's heroines represent an idealized model of female identity-formation which stands in sharp contrast to the nationalist state's vision of Irish womanhood. Using Franco Moretti's theory of the Bildungsroman, a framing of the genre as a thoroughly ‘modern’ form of the novel, this article applies a critical Marxist lens to O'Brien's output. This reading brings to light the ways in which the limitations of the Bildungsroman work to constrain O'Brien's subversive politics. Their middle-class status remains an integral part of the identity of her heroines, informing the forms of liberation they seek. Fundamentally, O'Brien's idealization of aristocratic culture, elitist exceptionalism and ‘detachment of spirit’ restricts the emancipatory potential of her vision of Irish womanhood.


Author(s):  
Roman Kotsan

The article considers smuggling as economic crime in the Soviet-Polish border in the interwar period. The reasons for smuggling activities are studied and summarized. Range of smuggled goods is shown. The number of arrested smugglers, their nationality, the value of seized goods both from Poland and the Soviet Union are investigated. Smuggling as a political phenomenon in the Soviet-Polish border in 1921-1939 is under study. The use of smugglers by the intelligence agencies of both Poland and the USSR are emphasized. The role of public authorities of both abovementioned countries in the fight against smuggling, namely Border Guard Corps from Poland; border guards, customs, security services and local Soviet authorities on the part of the USSR are studied. The influence of anti smuggling measures (increased criminal liability, limitation of private capital in trade, strengthen of the state borders protection) on its amount decrease is studied. Keywords: State border, smuggling, crime, scouting, Poland, USSR


2019 ◽  
pp. 44-79
Author(s):  
Marina Shcherbakova

The article explores the development of the Jewish museums and Ethnographic Studies of Jewish culture in the Soviet Ukraine within the framework of the state ethnic policies and local scholarly and cultural initiatives. After 1917, the state’s gradually increased attention – as ambivalent as it was – to Jewish exhibitions can be seen in a number of projects conceived and in part realized in Kyev.The Mendele Moicher Sforim Museum of Jewish culture, opened in Odessa in 1927, was meant to become the central representation of the Soviet Jewish culture. However, despite the initial support of the Soviet administration,the change of the political situation in the early 1930s jeopardized the existence of the museum collections. Numerous displays of Judaica objects in local museums of Ukrainian towns provide insight into the role of the korenization (“giving roots”, indigenization) campaign and the legacy of the pre-revolutionary national movements. The article investigates the process of the museumization of Jewish culture in the interwar period as a confluence of factors of national identity, social construction, and relations between the center and the periphery.


Author(s):  
Martina S. Balat ◽  
Saurabh Kumar Sahu

Background: Congenital heart diseases (CHD) is the second leading cause of death in infancy and childhood. So the purpose of this study to know socio-demographic profile and the maternal risk factors affecting CHD, and the role of RBSK in screening with respect to CHD.Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted during June to October 2016 in Ahmedabad city. Parents of 169 children with CHD who were beneficiaries of RBSK during the previous 3 months were interviewed.Results: The majority of children were in the age group of 0-3 years 49.7% (mean±SD= 4.26±4). Majority of families belonged to the lower middle class IV (41.4%). 44% of mothers had primary education. Mothers with age >30 yrs were 55.6%. Only 30.9% of mothers had taken folic acid during the periconceptional period. Mothers with previous adverse pregnancy outcome were 40.2%. Maternal stress and high blood pressure were present in 33.7% and 24.8% of the mothers respectively. 48% of children were diagnosed through Rashtriya Bal Swasthya Karyakram (RBSK).Conclusions: Lower middle class, lower maternal education, advanced maternal age, low folic acid intake, previous adverse pregnancy outcome, maternal stress and high blood pressure were the leading risk factors for CHD. RBSK is playing important role in screening and diagnosing of patients.


2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Meilutė Taljūnaitė

Each country has its own criteria for the upper middle class. On the other hand, it is clear that even the general principles that define the middle class in different countries differ markedly between them. The US and British criteria are often compared. The role of the family as an element of social stratification is important in the British upper middle class model. The article advocates the influence of family stratification on the formation of the upper (and not only) middle class in Lithuania. Not only does the upper middle class have self-employment, its income is above average and it has higher education, it also influences, identifies trends and fundamentally shapes public opinion (an aspect of its ‘social role’). The broad upper middle class is not so much a guarantor of the welfare state but of social stability in the country.


2010 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. 141
Author(s):  
María Isabel Romero Ruiz

The nineteenth century witnessed a huge increase in both private and public institutions to control and to contain two elements deemed to be the most dangerous in British society: the prostitute and the fallen woman. These individuals were considered deviant at a time when the middle-class exercised philanthropy supporting the double standard code of morality. Charity and state intervention were carried out by two kinds of institutions which were closely connected: lock hospitals and lock asylums. However, the role of lock hospitals was to cure venereal disease, whereas the role of the lock asylums was the reformation and instruction of these women. As a consequence, this paper seeks to examine the importance of the London Lock Hospital and Asylum Laws and By-laws of 1840, especially in relation to female patients and penitents, so as to ascertain the roles of these two institutions in the reproduction of the moral standards of the middle-class and of the religious discourse of the time. We shall see that these regulations reflect the ideas of industriousness, repentance and atonement for these women’s past lives, emphasizing the differences between the sexes as far as sexual and moral behaviour were concerned.


2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 260-264 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elena Marushiakova ◽  
Vesselin Popov

The editorial introduces the key ideas of this thematic issue, which originated within the European Research Council project ‘RomaInterbellum. Roma Civic Emancipation between the Two World Wars.’ The period between WWI and WWII in the region of Central, Southeastern and Eastern Europe was an era of worldwide significant changes, which marked the birth of the Roma civic emancipation movement and impacted Roma communities’ living strategies and visions about their future, worldwide. The aspiration of this thematic issue is to present the main dimensions of the processes of Roma civic emancipation and to outline the role of the Roma as active participants in the historical processes occurring in the studied region and as the creators of their own history. The editorial offers clarifications on the terminology and methodology employed in the articles included in this issue and their spatial and chronological parameters while also briefly introducing the individual authored studies of this issue.


2014 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 400-423 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tendai Chikweche ◽  
Richard Fletcher

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to expand knowledge about how middle class consumers in Sub-Saharan African markets behave, focusing on the potential role of social networks and the subsequent interactions that take place between these consumers and firms. Design/methodology/approach – A qualitative research method approach comprising personal interviews and observations targeted at consumers and business executives was used covering all four countries. Findings – Key findings include identification of middle of the pyramid (MOP) social networks, their impact on consumer behaviour and nature of consumer and firm interactions that take place as a result of the impact of social networks. Research limitations/implications – The sample size was restricted to 80 consumers in each of the four countries. This might limit generalisability. Practical implications – The study provides managers with insights on the potential role of social networks on marketing to the MOP in Africa. Social implications – The study provides managers with insights on the potential opportunities for corporate social responsibility solutions at the MOP. Originality/value – Research into the middle class in markets other than western advanced economies is a relatively new area of study. The majority of studies on the middle class have focused on North America and Europe ignoring the merging middle class in Africa. Hence, this research expands knowledge by providing basis for exploring new insights on the emerging marketing opportunity within the middle class in Africa.


2011 ◽  
Vol 42 (3) ◽  
pp. 435-457 ◽  
Author(s):  
Henk Schulte Nordholt

Conventional historiography presumes a linear development from urbanisation, the rise of indigenous middle classes and the spread of modernity towards nationalism as the logical outcome of this process. This article aims to disconnect modernity from nationalism by focusing on the role of cultural citizens in the late colonial period for whom modernity was a desirable lifestyle. The extent to which their desires and the interests of the colonial regime coincided is illustrated by a variety of advertisements and school posters, which invited members of the indigenous urban middle class to become cultural citizens of the colony.


1980 ◽  
Vol 42 (4) ◽  
pp. 465-503
Author(s):  
Robert Weiner

Karl Marx and the United States is a subject which immediately elicits interest, but also surprise. Interest, because of its contemporary importance; surprise, because Marx and America have appeared so remote from one another. Marx has definitely influenced America, but that will not be the theme of this essay —instead, we will concern ourselves with the role of America in the thought of Marx. The magnitude of this role is illustrated by a statement made in Marx's letter to Abraham Lincoln, written in 1864 on behalf of the International Workingmen's Association:The workingmen of Europe feel sure that as the American war of independence initiated a new era of the ascendency of the middle-class, so the American Anti-slavery war will do for the working-class.


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