Bataille/Athey: Solar Anus

Maska ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 35 (200) ◽  
pp. 100-110
Author(s):  
Robert Bobnič

The subject of the article, which is a revised version of the radio segment Object of the Month at Radio Študent, is the Solar Anus, short early text of the French sociologist and writer George Bataille. Solar Anus is also the object, concept and title of the masochistic performance of the US artist Ron Athey. If this serves as an opening question of the actualization of Bataille’s text in the specific cultural context and a parallel interpretation, the article departs from the understanding of the Solar Anus as a more radical and ineradicable form of currently topical ecological, systemic and elemental thinking. In this, the concept of general economy and non-productive consumption is a crucial part along with the materialistic understanding of transgression and excess and the links between the fact of cosmic annihilation and the political-economic order.

2014 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 271-287
Author(s):  
Amanda Eubanks Winkler

AbstractThis article analyses the complicated and conflicted critical response to Andrew Lloyd Webber’sThe Phantom of the Operawithin the political, economic and cultural context of the Thatcher/Reagan era. British critics writing for Conservative-leaning broadsheets and tabloids took nationalist pride in Lloyd Webber’s commercial success, while others on both sides of the Atlantic claimed thatPhantomwas tasteless and crassly commercial, a musical manifestation of a new Gilded Age. Broader issues regarding the relationship between the government and ‘elite’ culture also affected the critical response. For some,Phantomforged a path for a new kind of populist opera that could survive and thrive without government subsidy, while less sympathetic critics heardPhantom’s ‘puerile’ operatics as sophomoric jibes against an art form they esteemed.


Author(s):  
Giuliano Garavini

Chapter 4 describes the rapid shift from a “consumer” to a “producer” market at the end of the 1960s. This shift was characterized by the radicalization of the political and social climate in most petrostates, by the emergence “peak” oil production in two crucial producers such as the US and Venezuela, and generally by the passage from the era of “cheap oil” to that of “expensive oil.” The chapter will also explain the cultural context of this passage with the rise of environmentalist movements and criticism towards overconsumption that had characterized the societies in industrialized countries. All of these factors led to the first two major victories of OPEC during the Tehran and Tripoli negotiation with the international oil companies in 1971.


2020 ◽  
Vol 28 (4) ◽  
pp. 67-101
Author(s):  
Zachary Davis Cuyler

Abstract This paper examines a 1969 infrastructure-sabotage campaign by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) as reported in the pages of its weekly newspaper, al-Hadaf. While academic and policy discourse conceptualises sabotage in a way that emphasises its disruptive effects and sometimes obscures the positive political ends toward which acts of sabotage are directed, the PFLP conceptualised sabotage as a practice of revealing the political and economic relations that infrastructures sustain by disrupting them and marking progress toward an alternative political-economic order. For the PFLP, sabotage constituted a kind of concrete critique, a communicative act that conveys a theoretical analysis of processes of extraction, exploitation, and dispossession by physically interrupting them.


Author(s):  
Alexandra Chavarría Arnau

This chapter traces the material evidence for the spread of Christianity in the Iberian peninsula (including Spain and Portugal) between the third and seventh centuries, focusing on a critical review of traditional interpretations and identifications frequently based on inconsistent chronological references, fragile and poorly surviving materials, and often contradictory textual and archaeological evidence. The result is a new perspective on the subject that is much more comparable to that seen in other areas of the Mediterranean. The chapter will analyze the development of Christianization in cities and the countryside, taking into account when churches were built, who built them, and the political, economic, and social context in which Christian topography was created.


2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 149-164
Author(s):  
Wioletta Husar-Poliszuk

AbstractThe Corrida de tores, as an important component of Spanish culture, has also been the subject of a dispute between the aficionados (supporters of the corrida) and the antitaurinos (opponents of the corrida) for centuries. Naturally, the spectacle has become an object of interest for researchers not only in the socio-cultural context, where it is becoming a spectacle full of artistry, accompanied by great emotions, or a tradition in some aspects resembling the Fiesta Nacional, but also becoming increasingly important on the political, moral and ethical level. The latter is related to the issue of animal protection and their humane treatment, while in the political dimension the links between the taurammatic tradition and the actions of political decision-makers are mainly analysed. Importantly, in the Catalan and Spanish public spaces, the corrida has become a national sporting role, with similar links to politics. In the light of the Catalan-Spanish antagonisms, this perspective is gaining particular importance, as evidenced, for example, by the flashback of football competition (Real Madrid FC vs. FC Barcelona) in the country under Francisco Franco’s regime, where sporting competition became an exemplary political game.The aim of the article is to analyze the dispute between politicians in Madrid and Catalanists and independents in the region in the context of the banning of the de toros corrida in Catalonia in 2010 and the reaction of the centre’s decision making centre to these actions. Moreover, the motives for this ban are sought, whether they are of an autotelic nature - in this case, the protection of animal rights -or whether they show the traits of instrumental use of tradition, de facto considered to be a “foreign”, because Spanish, part of the rhetoric and real policy pursued by Catalan nationalists and independents in the era of radicalisation of the independence movement in Catalonia.


Slovo ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol To the East of Pixar :... ◽  
Author(s):  
Pascal Vimenet

International audience Новый Гулливер (1935), первый черно-белый советскиймультипликационно-игровой фильм, режиссера Александра Птушко, не былдо сих пор предметом специального исследования. Нижеследующее являетсяего контекстуальным, биографическим, равно как и кинематографическим анализом. Творческий путь Птушко (1900-1973) дается в новом освещении, особенно 1920-30 годы, на которые приходится становление его кино.Осуществив постановку Это случилось на стадионе (1928) и Властелинбыта (1932), Птушко принял руководство секцией мультипликационногофильма на студии Совкино, ставшей Москинокомбинат, затем Мосфильм.Подробно рассматривается политико-культурный контекст, в период созданияего игрового фильма, между 1927 и 1935 годами, который сводит воедино всёмногообразие советского авангарда, но и является свидетелем торжествадогмы соцреализма. Фильм Птушко оказался восприимчив к теориям бурлескаоснователей Фабрики эксцентрического актера (ФЭКС). Превращениеперсонажей фильма Птушко в кукол-марионеток, символическое обыгрываниемасштабов могло зародиться в недрах этого движения. Но как сумел «НовыйГулливер», этот «фильм-сказка» обмануть политический контекст ипротивостоять сиренам соцреализма или отклониться от известныхшаблонных кодов? Птушко избирает философскую повесть, усугубленнуюполитическим памфлетом, что дает ему законное основание привязать чудесноек политическому. Смелая экранизация Свифта, московский дорогостоящийкинофильм, с его полуторатысячей шарнирных кукол, сотнями пластилиновыхфигурок, их сочетание с игровым кино, и два десятка массовых сцен претендуетна соперничество с «Кинг Конгом». Своим остроумием и развлекательностьюфильм Птушко вызывал восхищение Чарли Чаплина. Данное исследованиепрепарирует аллегорию – держащий каркас фильма, и стремитсяидентифицировать в кинопостановке всё то, в чем отголоском дают о себе знатьсоветские времена. И когда оказывается, что гимн лиллипутов, это воспеваниеотвратительного монархизма, жутковатым образом предвосхищает ОдуСталину 1939 года, то совершенно внятно становится, что Новый Гулливерне столько выставляет на показ всепобедительность homo sovieticus, сколькоделает из истории опасный аттракцион падений и взлетов и внедряет в неёсубверсивное понятие ухронии. The New Gulliver (1935), the first black and white Soviet animatedfeature film directed by Alexander Ptusko, has not been the subject of a specific studyso far. The following is contextual, biographical, as well as filmic analysis. It offers anew light on the route of Ptusko (1900-1973), especially on the 1920-1930 whichsees emerge his cinema. After having realized It Arrived at the Stadium (1928)and The Master of Everyday Life (1932), Ptusko took the lead of the section of theanimated film of the Sovkino studios become Moskinokombinat, then Mosfilm. Thepolitico-cultural context of the emergence of his feature film, 1927 and 1935, whichbrings together all the diversity of the Soviet avant-garde but sees the triumph of thedogma of socialist realism, is examined at length. Ptusko’s film seems receptive to theburlesque theories of the founders of the FEKS. The puppetisation of the characters inPtusko’s film, the symbolic games of scale, may have originated in this movement. Buthow could The New Gulliver, this « film-tale », have imposed itself in the politicalcontext and resist the realistic socialist sirens or divert certain codes? Ptusko choosesa philosophical tale doubled by a political pamphlet that authorizes him to link themarvelous to the political. An audacious adaptation of Swift, a Muscovite spectacular,The New Gulliver aims to compete, with its 1 500 puppets articulated, hundreds ofplastic figurines, their combination to the real shot and its 20 sets, with King Kong.Ptusko’s film provokes Chaplin’s admiration for his facetiousness. The study dissects theallegory that structures the film and seeks to identify in the staging of everything thatechoes the Soviet present. And when it appears that the Lilliputian hymn, the songof the hated kingship, anticipates in an unsettling way The Ode to Stalin of 1939, itbecomes certain that The New Gulliver, more than to demonstrate the invincibility ofthe homo sovieticus, transforms the history in a roller coaster and makes penetrate theexplosive concept of uchronia. Le Nouveau Gulliver (1935), premier long métrage d’animationsoviétique noir et blanc, réalisé par Aleksandr Ptouchko, n’a pas fait l’objetd’études spécifiques jusqu’ici. Celle qui suit est contextuelle, biographique, toutautant qu’analyse filmique. Elle propose un nouvel éclairage sur l’itinéraire dePtouchko (1900-1973), particulièrement sur les années 1920-1930 qui voitémerger son cinéma. Après avoir réalisé C’est arrivé au stade (1928) et Le Maîtredu quotidien (1932), Ptouchko prend la tête de la section du film animé des studiosSovkino devenus Moskinokombinat, puis Mosfilm. Le contexte politico-cultureld’émergence de son long métrage, entre 1927 et 1935, qui met en présence toutela diversité de l’avant-garde soviétique mais voit triompher le dogme du réalismesocialiste, est longuement examiné. Le film de Ptouchko semble réceptif aux théoriesburlesques des fondateurs de la FEKS. La marionnettisation des personnages dufilm de Ptouchko, les jeux symboliques d’échelle ont peut-être pris leur sourcedans ce mouvement. Mais comment Le Nouveau Gulliver, ce « ciné-conte », a-t-ilpu s’imposer dans le contexte politique et résister aux sirènes réalistes socialistesou en détourner certains codes ? Ptouchko choisit un conte philosophiquedoublé d’un pamphlet politique qui l’autorise à lier le merveilleux au politique.Audacieuse adaptation de Swift, superproduction moscovite, Le Nouveau Gulliverambitionne de rivaliser, avec ses 1 500 marionnettes articulées, ses centaines defigurines en plastiline, leur combinaison à la prise de vue réelle et ses vingt décors,avec King-Kong. Le film de Ptouchko provoque l’admiration de Chaplin, quien apprécie l’esprit facétieux. L’étude dissèque l’allégorie qui structure le film ets’attache à repérer dans la mise en scène tout ce qui fait écho au présent soviétique.Et quand il apparaît que l’hymne lilliputien, chant de la royauté honnie, anticipede manière troublante L’Ode à Staline de 1939, il devient certain que Le NouveauGulliver, plus que de démontrer l’invincibilité de l’homo sovieticus, transformel’histoire en montagnes russes et y fait pénétrer le concept explosif de l’uchronie.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-38
Author(s):  
Lyndsey Jenkins

This chapter explains who the Kenneys were, provides biographical detail about the family and the individual sisters, and sets out the political, economic, social, and cultural context in which they grew up. It shows that, despite the rhetoric of sisterhood which often characterizes feminist politics, friendship rather than family has been central to suffrage studies, and argues that the family needs to be given greater consideration. It also explains the place of class in suffrage historiography and the relationship between the women’s and labour movements as a way into understanding the relative lack of work on suffrage militants. The chapter sets out the source material which forms the basis for this study, explains the thematic biographical approach, and summarizes the chapters which follow.


2017 ◽  
Vol 111 (4) ◽  
pp. 819-834 ◽  
Author(s):  
INÉS VALDEZ

This article offers a new interpretation of Kant's cosmopolitanism and his anti-colonialism inToward Perpetual Peace. Kant's changing position has been the subject of extensive debates that have, however, not recognized the central place of colonialism in the political, economic, and military debates in Europe in Kant's writings. Based on historical evidence not previously considered alongsidePerpetual Peace, I suggest that Kant's leading concern at the time of writing is the negative effect of European expansionism and intra-European rivalry over colonial possessions on the possibility of peace in Europe. Because of the lack of affinity between colonial conflict and his philosophy of history, Kant must adjust his concept of antagonism to distinguish between war between particular dyads, in particular spaces, and with particular non-state actors. I examine the implications of this argument for Kant's system of Right and conclude that his anti-colonialism co-exists with hierarchical views of race.


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