Gospel on the Box: Can Television Drama be Missional?

2018 ◽  
Vol 35 (3) ◽  
pp. 431-451
Author(s):  
Colin Heber-Percy
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Cultural Transformation ◽  
Television Drama ◽  
World War ◽  
Truth Telling ◽  
Bearing Witness ◽  
The North ◽  
Young Carer

Abstract In 2011 I wrote the television drama The Preston Passion for the BBC. The aim was to retell the story of Christ’s Passion in a series of provoking and unexpected ways. Pilate becomes a town mayor during a mill workers’ strike in nineteenth century England; Mary becomes a mother awaiting news of her son during World War I; Jesus is a young carer in contemporary Preston, a city in the north of England. Drawing on the experience of writing the drama, I aim to show how drama and mission are related enterprises, having a complex and nuanced relationship with one another and with the prevailing culture. These putative relationships find expression in shared prophetic modalities: truth-telling, challenge, and love. The article explores how these modalities are expressed in television drama and mission. I conclude by suggesting that both drama and mission also share a goal: personal and cultural transformation through bearing witness to the truth understood in a particular way.

Enemies within, Enemies without: the Ideology of a Conservative West-Russianist Newspaper During World War I (1914–1915)

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 74-103
Author(s):  
Aliaksandr Bystryk
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
Nation Building ◽  
Russian Empire ◽  
Russian Society ◽  
World War ◽  
The West ◽  
The North ◽  
National Solidarity ◽  
North Western

Abstract This paper deals with the topic of conservative West-Russianist ideology and propaganda during World War I. The author analyzes the most prominent newspaper of the movement at the time – Severo-Zapadnaia Zhizn (The North-Western Life). The discourse of the newspaper is analyzed from the perspective of Belarusian nation-building, as well as from the perspective of Russian nationalism in the borderlands. The author explores the ways in which the creators of the periodical tried to use the rise of the Russian patriotic feelings to their advantage. Appealing to the heightened sense of national solidarity which took over parts of Russian society, the periodical tried to attack, delegitimize and discredit its ideological and political opponents. Besides the obvious external enemy – Germans, Severo-Zapadnaia Zhizn condemned socialists, pacifists, Jews, borderland Poles, Belarusian and Ukrainian national activists, Russian progressives and others, accusing them of disloyalty, lack of patriotism and sometimes even treason. Using nationalist loyalist rhetoric, the West-Russianist newspaper urged the imperial government to act more decisively in its campaign to end ‘alien domination’ in Russian Empire, and specifically to create conditions for domination of ‘native Russian element’ – meaning Belarusian peasantry, in the Belarusian provinces of the empire.

The Tragedy of Lebanon

1984 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-52
Author(s):  
Mahmud A. Faksh
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
World War ◽  
Land Area ◽  
Henry Kissinger ◽  
The North ◽  
Northern Cyprus ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Status ◽  
New States

I.Since the end of World War 11, approximately eighty new states havebeen established. Only two, Pakistan and Cyprus, have undergone theagony of dismemberment when Bangladesh broke off in 1973 and theTurkish Republic of Northern Cyprus was declared in 1983. The worldmay now be witnessing the possible breakup of yet a third state:Lebanon, whose disintegration has been accelerated since the June 1982Israeli invasion.Shortly after the invasion began, Henry Kissinger assessed itsconsequence for Lebanon’s future, concluding, “It is neither desirablenor possible to return to the status quo ante in Lebanon.” One possibleoutcome was that some Syrian and Israeli forces would remain in thenorthern and southern ends, respectively, and the central government’sauthority would ostensibly cover the rest of the country. Implicit in theKissinger diagnosis is the possibility of eventual partition.Though the gloomy assessment by the “wizard” of US. foreign policyshould by no means be construed as a portent of an official shift awayfrom the publicly stated US. support of “Lebanon’s sovereignty andterritorial integrity,” a shadow was cast on the country’s prospects.Subsequent developments have seemed to indicate that Lebanon’sdemise looms larger than at any time since the beginning of the civil warin 1975-76.For over a year and a half national fragmentation has proceededinexorably. What many people once could imagine only with difficulty,they now acknowledge: in reality, Lebanon is facing possible death. TheSouth (35 percent of the land area) is occupied by Israel; the North andthe Biqa’ (45 percent) are controlled by Syria; Kasrawan (15 percent) iscontrolled by the Christian Maronite forces (the Lebanese Front forces),which are not subject to the government’s authority. The rest of thecountry-beleaguered Beirut and environs-was until the February1984 breakdown under the government’s shaky control supported bysymbolic US., French, Italian, and British units. The Multi-NationalForce (MNF) was subject to increasing attacks by Muslim leftist factions,as witnessed in the October 23 bombing of the quarters of U.S.Marines and French troops. Thus, instead of keeping peace, the MNFbecame ,a partisan force trying to protect itself. The US. and Frenchforces in particular seemed to have outlived their usefulness as“peacekeepers.” Recurrent fighting in southern Beirut and in theadjacent Chouf mountains, that pitted Christian Maronites and armyunits against Shi‘ite and Druse Muslims constantly threatened theexistence of President Amin Gemayel’s government and consequently arenewal of the civil war. This situation culminated in February 1984 inthe resignation of the Shafiq al-Wazzan’s cabinet, the loss ofgovernment’s control of West Beirut to Muslim-leftist militias, and theimminent collapse of Amin Gemayel’s presidency ...

The Fascist Turn in the Dance of Serge Lifar

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Franko
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
World War I ◽  
Critical Reception ◽  
World War ◽  
Close Attention ◽  
Before And After ◽  
Gradual Development ◽  
Critical Discourses

This book is an examination of neoclassical ballet initially in the French context before and after World War I (circa 1905–1944) with close attention to dancer and choreographer Serge Lifar. Since the critical discourses analyzed indulged in flights of poetic fancy a distinction is made between the Lifar-image (the dancer on stage and object of discussion by critics), the Lifar-discourse (the writings on Lifar as well as his own discourse), and the Lifar-person (the historical actor). This topic is further developed in the final chapter into a discussion of the so-called baroque dance both as a historical object and as a motif of contemporary experimentation as it emerged in the aftermath of World War II (circa 1947–1991) in France. Using Lifar as a through-line, the book explores the development of critical ideas of neoclassicism in relation to his work and his drift toward a fascist position that can be traced to the influence of Nietzsche on his critical reception. Lifar’s collaborationism during the Occupation confirms this analysis. The discussion of neoclassicism begins in the final years of the nineteenth-century and carries us through the Occupation; then track the baroque in its gradual development from the early 1950s through the end of the 1980s and early 1990s.

International Opera in Nineteenth-century New York

2020 ◽  
pp. 244-269
Author(s):  
Karen Ahlquist
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
World War I ◽  
Buenos Aires ◽  
Considerable Extent ◽  
World War ◽  
Metropolitan Opera ◽  
The City

This chapter charts how canonic repertories evolved in very different forms in New York City during the nineteenth century. The unstable succession of entrepreneurial touring troupes that visited the city adapted both repertory and individual pieces to the audience’s taste, from which there emerged a major theater, the Metropolitan Opera, offering a mix of German, Italian, and French works. The stable repertory in place there by 1910 resembles to a considerable extent that performed in the same theater today. Indeed, all of the twenty-five operas most often performed between 1883 and 2015 at the Metropolitan Opera were written before World War I. The repertory may seem haphazard in its diversity, but that very condition proved to be its strength in the long term. This chapter is paired with Benjamin Walton’s “Canons of real and imagined opera: Buenos Aires and Montevideo, 1810–1860.”

Landscape and Ecology

2020 ◽  
pp. 342-368
Author(s):  
Daniel M. Grimley
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Economic Development ◽  
Cultural Transformation ◽  
Colonial Era ◽  
Musical Thought ◽  
The Social ◽  
Representational Practice ◽  
Raymond Williams ◽  
The City ◽  
Privileged Site

Images of landscape lie at the heart of nineteenth-century musical thought. From frozen winter fields, mountain echoes, distant horn calls, and the sound of the wind moving among the pines, landscape was a vivid representational practice, a creative resource, and a privileged site for immersion, gothic horror, and the Romantic sublime. As Raymond Williams observed, however, the nineteenth century also witnessed an unforeseen transformation of artistic responses to landscape, which paralleled the social and cultural transformation of the country and the city under processes of intense industrialization and economic development. This chapter attends to several musical landscapes, from the Beethovenian “Pastoral” to Delius’s colonial-era evocation of an exoticized American idyll, as a means of mapping nineteenth-century music’s obsession with the idea of landscape and place. Distance recurs repeatedly as a form of subjective presence and through paradoxical connections with proximity and intimacy.

Kampungs and Conflict in Colonial Semarang

1988 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 266-291 ◽  
Author(s):  
James L. Cobban
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
The United States ◽  
City Council ◽  
Economic Life ◽  
North Coast ◽  
The North ◽  
Central Java ◽  
The Government ◽  
The City

By the beginning of the twentieth century, Semarang was a major port city and administrative centre on Java. Attainment of this position was due partly to the expansion of its hinterland during the nineteenth century. This expansion was closely related to developments in the means of transportation and the consequent ability of plantation owners to bring the products of their plantations to the port for shipment to foreign markets. By the end of the century virtually the whole economic life of central Java focused upon Semarang. The city also exercised administrative functions in the Dutch colonial administration and generally had been responsible for Dutch interests in the middle and eastern parts of the island. The importance of Semarang as an administrative centre increased after 1906. In that year the government incorporated the city as an urban municipality (stadsgemeente). In 1914 it had consular representation from the United States, Belgium, Denmark, France, Great Britain, Italy, Norway, Germany, and Thailand. Subsequently, in 1926 it became the capital of the Province of Central Java under the terms of an administrative reform fostered by the colonial government at Batavia. Status as an urban municipality meant that local officials sitting on a city council would govern the domestic affairs of the city. The members of the city council at first were appointed from Batavia, subsequently some of them were elected by residents of the city. By the beginning of the twentieth century Semarang had enhanced its position as a major port on the north coast of the island of Java. It was one of the foremost cities of the Dutch East Indies, along with Batavia and Surabaya, a leading port and a centre of administration and trade. This article outlines the growth of the port of Semarang during the nineteenth century and discusses some of the conflict related to this growth over living conditions in parts of the city during the twentieth century, a conflict which smouldered for several decades among the government, members of the city council, and the non-European residents of the city, one which remained unresolved at the end of the colonial era.

scholarly journals The Westphalian model and sovereign equality

2011 ◽  
Vol 38 (3) ◽  
pp. 641-660 ◽  
Author(s):  
PETER M. R. STIRK
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
World War ◽  
Sovereign Equality ◽  
Normative Principle ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
Second World

AbstractAlthough the Westphalian model takes many forms the association of Westphalian and sovereign equality is a prominent one. This article argues firstly that sovereign equality was not present as a normative principle at Westphalia. It argues further that while arguments for sovereign equality were present in the eighteenth century they did not rely on, or even suggest, a Westphalian provenance. It was, for good reasons, not until the late nineteenth century that the linkages of Westphalia and sovereign equality became commonplace, and even then sovereign equality and its linkage with Westphalia were disputed. It was not until after the Second World War, notably through the influential work of Leo Gross that the linkage of Westphalia and sovereign equality became not only widely accepted, but almost undisputed until quite recently. The article concludes by suggesting that not only did Gross bequeath a dubious historiography but that this historiography is an impediment to contemporary International Relations.

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