Generation fables and the ‘end of history’

2019 ◽  
pp. 87-112
Author(s):  
Jennie Bristow
Keyword(s):  
First Century ◽  
Historical Period ◽  
End Of History ◽  
The Past ◽  
Early Twenty ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Sixties ◽  
The End Of History ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
Outside The Box

This chapter examines ‘generationalism’ — using the language of generations to narrate the social and political. It argues that generationalism means that we are in danger of taking historical stories way too personally. The chapter shows that the generationalism of the Sixties was as much about the failure of established institutions and ideologies to grasp what was happening as it was about the experience of the kids and the counterculture. Moving on half a century, the generationalism of the early twenty-first century tells us as much about our present anxieties as it does about the Sixties as a historical period. Whereas the Sixties Boomer was, until fairly recently, a source of wistful fascination, often bringing with it a romanticised nostalgia for a time when people felt they could think and live outside the box, the Boomer-blaming of the present day mobilises the stereotype as an example of everything that is seen to be wrong with the past.

“Beyond the Rainbow”

2018 ◽  
pp. 223-240
Author(s):  
Walter Frisch
Keyword(s):  
Social Contexts ◽  
First Century ◽  
The Political ◽  
Special Focus ◽  
Wizard Of Oz ◽  
The Past ◽  
Early Twenty ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
Iconic Status

To paraphrase one of the most famous lines in movie history, we are not in Kansas—or in Oz—anymore. Nevertheless, the songs of The Wizard of Oz have continued to resonate well beyond the 1939 MGM film, extending deep into the political, cultural, and social contexts of the early twenty-first century. This chapter explores something of the afterlives of the songs, with a special focus on the most popular one, “Over the Rainbow,” which has achieved iconic status over the past eighty years. And if there is any overarching legacy of the songs, it is perhaps the idea that however much we dream or hope, we should not give up our home, our roots.

Introduction

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elana Levine
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
First Century ◽  
Cultural Products ◽  
Feminine Identity ◽  
Scholarly Literature ◽  
Early Twenty ◽  
The Social ◽  
Economic Forces ◽  
Twenty First Century

This introductory chapter briefly tackles the broad scope of scholarly literature on feminized popular culture, and also provides an overview of this area in the twenty-first century. Its focus is on forms of early-twenty-first-century popular culture that are strongly associated with femininity—the social and economic forces that create such culture, the ways these cultural products speak to and about feminine identity, and the ways that audiences, readers, and users engage with and experience this culture. In addition, the chapter details in brief the influences, both current and historic, which inform the central themes of this volume, as well as the aims and specific lines of inquiry that this volume seeks to pursue.

scholarly journals What's ‘French’ about French Studies?

2015 ◽  
Vol 54 (3) ◽  
pp. 312-327
Author(s):  
Charles Forsdick
Keyword(s):  
First Century ◽  
Past Century ◽  
French Studies ◽  
The Past ◽  
Early Twenty ◽  
The World ◽  
French Speaking ◽  
Disciplinary Field ◽  
Twenty First Century

Those reflecting on what is ‘French’ about ‘French studies’ in the early twenty-first century must consider the transformations evident in the disciplinary field over the past century. This article gives an overview of these shifts, but focuses in particular on the increasingly pluralized and diversified objects of study now addressed in explorations of the French-speaking world, as well as on the radical changes in the ways in which those objects are now approached. Central to the analysis is an awareness of a wider Francosphere, which has served to locate France in relation to a wider network of countries and communities, and may be seen to have provincialized, as a result, in a transnational and postcolonial frame, the former colonial centre. The article concludes with a reflection on Mary Louise Pratt's designation of Modern Languages as ‘knowing languages and […] knowing the world through languages’ (2002), and – in the context of French studies in the twenty-first century – asks: which languages? which world? and what forms of knowing?

scholarly journals IMPEACHMENT OR BACKSLIDING? Threats to democracy in the twenty-first century

2018 ◽  
Vol 33 (98) ◽  
Author(s):  
Aníbal Pérez-Liñán
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Executive Branch ◽  
Social Conditions ◽  
First Century ◽  
Surprising Result ◽  
Early Twenty ◽  
The Social ◽  
Functional Equivalent ◽  
Democratic Survival ◽  
Twenty First Century

The age of military coups has ended, but democracy still confronts major challenges in the early twenty-first century. What are the new threats for democratic survival? Is impeachment a functional equivalent to old-fashioned military coups? Using comparative data for Latin America, this paper shows that the institution of impeachment has been “stretched” for political purposes and that the social conditions that triggered military coups in the pasttrigger impeachments in the contemporary era. However, the paper argues that impeachments should not be confused with coups and presents a surprising result: even though legislators often manipulate the impeachment process to undermine elected presidents, the most common threat to democratic survival does not originate in legislatures, but in the executive branch. Concentration of power by the executive has undermined democracy in Latin Americaand elsewhere.

Epilogue

2018 ◽  
pp. 263-278
Author(s):  
Muhammad Qasim Zaman
Keyword(s):  
First Century ◽  
The Past ◽  
Early Twenty ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Religious Landscape ◽  
Islamic Modernism

This epilogue addresses the following questions: how significantly has Islam in Pakistan changed over the course of the country's history? More broadly, how different does the religious landscape look in the early twenty-first century in relation to how it had appeared a hundred or so years earlier? It begins with a discussion of what has not changed very much. It argues that despite modernist stereotypes, the `ulama are not necessarily averse to accommodating themselves and their norms to changing needs. Furthermore, Islamic modernism is not necessarily a thing only of the past. The Pakistani governing elite retain their modernist impulses. And modernism lives on, among other things, in the impact it has had on rival trends over the course of the past hundred years.

Grasping the Syrian War, a view from Albanians in the Balkans

2017 ◽  
Vol 45 (4) ◽  
pp. 540-559 ◽  
Author(s):  
Behar Sadriu
Keyword(s):  
Social Networking ◽  
Social Networking Site ◽  
First Century ◽  
Religious Leaders ◽  
The West ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Social ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
The Government

Reactions to the brutal Syrian War from European governments and Europe's Muslims have been diverse and subject to many shifts over the past few years. This paper focuses on how Albanian political and Islamic religious figures living in the Balkans have come to interpret the war. I focus on discourse, the ways in which these different agents communicate with their audience, and the wider contexts they evoke. Government sources and religiously themed lectures delivered by prominent imams on the social networking site YouTube are used to assess these trends. The most obvious aspect of these debates is the ways in which these agents use the war to press their own agendas, the government to affirm their commitment to the “West” and an ethnicized view of Islam, while Islamic religious leaders use it to reconnect their audiences to a more cosmopolitan vision of their past. War thus becomes a catalyst for a resurgent contestation between different groups vying for control over what it means to be “Albanian” and “Muslim” in the twenty-first century.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document