The Documentary Imagination in Twentieth-Century French Literature

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alison James
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
French Literature ◽  
Literary Work ◽  
Visual Media ◽  
Visual Evidence ◽  
Current Events ◽  
Twentieth Century French Literature ◽  
A Site ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship

This book studies the documentary impulse that plays a central role in twentieth-century French literature. Focusing on nonfiction narratives, it analyzes the use of documents—pieces of textual or visual evidence incorporated into the literary work to relay and interrogate reality. It traces the emergence of an enduring concern with factual reference in texts that engage with current events or the historical archive. Writers idealize the document as a fragment of raw reality, but also reveal its constructed and mediated nature and integrate it as a voice within a larger composition. This ambivalent documentary imagination, present in works by Gide, Breton, Aragon, Yourcenar, Duras, and Modiano (among others), shapes the relationship of literature to visual media, testimonial discourses, and self-representation. Far from turning away from realism in the twentieth century, French literature often turns to the document as a site of both modernist experiment and engagement with the world.

Colonialism and the Highland Clearances

2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 22-48 ◽  
Author(s):  
Iain Mackinnon
Keyword(s):  
Industrial Development ◽  
Comparative Approach ◽  
Indigenous Research ◽  
Internal Colonialism ◽  
New Approach ◽  
A Site ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Imperial State ◽  
Late Modern

This article employs a new approach to studying internal colonialism in northern Scotland during the 18th and 19th centuries. A common approach to examining internal colonial situations within modern state territories is to compare characteristics of the internal colonial situation with attested attributes of external colonial relations. Although this article does not reject the comparative approach, it seeks to avoid criticisms that this approach can be misleading by demonstrating that promoters and managers of projects involving land use change, territorial dispossession and industrial development in the late modern Gàidhealtachd consistently conceived of their work as projects of colonization. It further argues that the new social, cultural and political structures these projects imposed on the area's indigenous population correspond to those found in other colonial situations, and that racist and racialist attitudes towards Gaels of the time are typical of those in colonial situations during the period. The article concludes that the late modern Gàidhealtachd has been a site of internal colonization where the relationship of domination between colonizer and colonized is complex, longstanding and occurring within the imperial state. In doing so it demonstrates that the history and present of the Gaels of Scotland belongs within the ambit of an emerging indigenous research paradigm.

On Metaphysics and the Political: A Polemics of Reading Baudelaire in the 1930s

2019 ◽  
Vol 58 (2) ◽  
pp. 249-259
Author(s):  
Joseph Acquisto
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Political Crisis ◽  
The Political ◽  
Modern Poetry ◽  
Progressive Politics ◽  
The World ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Insight Into

This essay examines a polemic between two Baudelaire critics of the 1930s, Jean Cassou and Benjamin Fondane, which centered on the relationship of poetry to progressive politics and metaphysics. I argue that a return to Baudelaire's poetry can yield insight into what seems like an impasse in Cassou and Fondane. Baudelaire provides the possibility of realigning metaphysics and politics so that poetry has the potential to become the space in which we can begin to think the two of them together, as opposed to seeing them in unresolvable tension. Or rather, the tension that Baudelaire animates between the two allows us a new way of thinking about the role of esthetics in moments of political crisis. We can in some ways see Baudelaire as responding, avant la lettre, to two of his early twentieth-century readers who correctly perceived his work as the space that breathes a new urgency into the questions of how modern poetry relates to the world from which it springs and in which it intervenes.

Kajian Sosiologis Terhadap Tema Lakon ‘Domba-domba Revolusi’ Karya Bambang Soelarto

Panggung ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nur Sahid
Keyword(s):  
Sociological Theory ◽  
Essential Element ◽  
Literary Work ◽  
The Political ◽  
Basic Principles ◽  
Historical Figures ◽  
Sociology Of Art ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship

ABSTRACTRevolutionary struggle in order to compete for the independence of Indonesia has been a source of inspiration Indonesian artists, including Bambang Soelarto who wrote drama Domba-domba Re- volusi (DDR). DDR studied drama is quite interesting because it tries to criticize the freedom fight- ers. This study aims to: first to know the theme and the problem plays DDR; second to determine the relationship of the socio - historical struggle in 1948 with the sociological elements of drama DDR themes and issues. This study uses sociological theory of art. The basic principles of the sociology of art is the fact that the creation of works of art influenced by the historical social conditions where the work was created. Research using content analysis of Krippendorf, the methods used to examine the symbolic phenomena with the aim to explore and express the observed phenomenon which is the content, meaning, and an essential element of the literary work. Based results of this research is that Bambang Soelarto as the author tries to capture di?erence between fighters during the struggle for the political aspirations for 1948 are expressed in a work of drama. Historical events inspired the creation of drama DDR. Soelarto want to respond to the political aspirations of the di?erence between historical figures and wanted to provide an assessment and outlook through DDR.Keywords: themes, drama, sociology of art, social historical ABSTRAKRevolusi perjuangan dalam rangka memperebutkan kemerdekaan Indonesia telah men- jadi sumber inspirasi para seniman Indonesia, termasuk Bambang Soelarto yang menulis drama Domba-domba Revolusi (DDR). Drama DDR cukup menarik diteliti karena mencoba mengkritisi para pejuang kemerdekaan. Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk: pertama, mengeta- hui tema dan permasalah drama DDR; kedua, mengetahui hubungan kondisi sosio-histo- ris perjuangan pada tahun 1948 dengan unsur-unsur sosiologis terimplisir pada unsur tema dan masalah drama DDR. Penelitian ini menggunakan teori sosiologi seni. Prinsip dasar dari sosiologi seni adalah adanya fakta bahwa penciptaan karya seni dipengaruhi oleh kon- disi sosial historis tempat karya itu diciptakan. Penelitian ini menggunakan metode con- tent analysis dari Krippendorf, yakni metode yang dipergunakan untuk meneliti fenome- na-fenomena simbolik dengan tujuan untuk menggali dan mengungkapkan fenomena yang teramati yang merupakan isi, makna, dan unsur esensial karya sastra. Berdasarkan hasil penelitian dapat diketahui bahwa Bambang Soelarto sebagai penulis mencoba un- tuk menangkap perbedaan antara pejuang aspirasi politik selama perjuangan tahun 1948 untuk diekspresikan dalam sebuah karya drama. Peristiwa sejarah mengilhami penciptaan drama DDR. Soelarto ingin menanggapi aspirasi politik perbedaan antara tokoh-tokoh se- jarah dan ingin memberikan penilaian dan pandangan pandangannnya melalui DDR.Kata kunci: tema, drama, sosiologi seni, sosial historis

The Gallic Singularity and the Royal Mistress

2020 ◽  
Vol 38 (1) ◽  
pp. 44-66
Author(s):  
Christine Adams
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Soft Power ◽  
Political Power ◽  
The Political ◽  
Marie Antoinette ◽  
Louis Xvi ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Political Realm

The relationship of the French king and royal mistress, complementary but unequal, embodied the Gallic singularity; the royal mistress exercised a civilizing manner and the soft power of women on the king’s behalf. However, both her contemporaries and nineteenth- and early twentieth-century historians were uncomfortable with the mistress’s political power. Furthermore, paradoxical attitudes about French womanhood have led to analyses of her role that are often contradictory. Royal mistresses have simultaneously been celebrated for their civilizing effect in the realm of culture, chided for their frivolous expenditures on clothing and jewelry, and excoriated for their dangerous meddling in politics. Their increasing visibility in the political realm by the eighteenth century led many to blame Louis XV’s mistresses—along with Queen Marie-Antoinette, who exercised a similar influence over her husband, Louis XVI—for the degradation and eventual fall of the monarchy. This article reexamines the historiography of the royal mistress.

Trends and Styles in Twentieth Century French Literature

1959 ◽  
Vol 54 (1) ◽  
pp. 123
Author(s):  
Ian W. Alexander ◽  
Helmut Hatzfeld
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
French Literature ◽  
Twentieth Century French Literature

Afghanistan Enters the Twenty-first Century

Afghanistan ◽  
2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Barfield
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
International Community ◽  
Local Communities ◽  
National Government ◽  
First Century ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter looks at the first decade of the twenty-first century in Afghanistan. As the twentieth century ended, ever-larger numbers of Afghans had become caught up in political and military struggles from which they had been previously isolated. Whether as fighters, refugees, or just victims of war and disorder, few escaped the turmoil that roiled the country. Ethnic and regional groups in Afghanistan had become politically and militarily empowered, reversing the process of centralization that had been imposed by Amir Abdur Rahman. Yet when the international community set about creating the new Afghan constitution, it did not start afresh but attempted to restore the institutions of old. This brought to the surface long-simmering disputes about the relationship of the national government to local communities, the legitimacy of governments and rulers, and the relationship that Afghanistan should have with the outside world.

‘Even If You Don’t Want to Drink, You Still Have to Drink’

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph Lawson
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Historical Perspective ◽  
Historical Narratives ◽  
Historical Texts ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
Invented Tradition ◽  
History Of ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter considers the history of alcohol in Nuosu Yi society in relation to the formal codification of a Yi heritage of alcohol-related culture, and the question of alcohol in Yi health. The relationship of newly invented tradition to older practice and thought is often obscure in studies that lack historical perspective. Examining the historical narratives associated with the exposition of a Yi heritage of alcohol, this study reveals that those narratives are woven from a tapestry of threads with histories of their own, and they therefore shape present-day heritage work. After a brief overview of ideas about alcohol in contemporary discourses on Yi heritage, the chapter then analyses historical texts to argue that many of these ideas are remarkably similar to ones that emerged in the context of nineteenth and early twentieth century contact between Yi and Han communities.

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