The New Realism and a National Literature

PMLA ◽  
1941 ◽  
Vol 56 (4) ◽  
pp. 1116-1132 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin T. Spencer

By the middle of the nineteenth century the controversy over the possibility and desirability of a national American literature had diminished to a somewhat feeble reiteration of old pros and cons. Moreover, Whitman's vigorous renewal of the demand for a distinctly national literature in his 1855 Preface to Leaves of Grass went virtually unnoticed by reason of his own obscurity and the disruption of national unity by sectional disputes. In the upsurge of nationalistic optimism following the Civil War, however, in the promises afforded by a strong and humanitarian Union, the sentiment for a literature distinct through its expression of the new national idealism was both widespread and ardent. But this post-war literary nationalism was short-lived. Before the skeptical attacks of many literary critics and the rising materialism of the Gilded Age, hope for a national literature once more gave way to indifference or despair. If the controversy was to be revived, some new literary stimulus, some new mode or approach toward the achievement of an American literature would have to be forthcoming. Such a stimulus was provided in the rise of realism. The conflict between the new realism and the old romanticism in the 1870's and 1880's is a well-known chapter in the history of American criticism, but the relationship of this new realism to the production of a national literature as it was viewed in the two decades before Whitman's death has not received adequate attention.

Author(s):  
Temenuga Trifonova

A number of studies have explored the notions of “medium specificity” and “intermediality,” while others have analyzed the different ways in which photographs and films signify or the different phenomenological experiences they make possible. The notions of “photographic truth,” “indexicality,” “stillness,” and “movement,” and the relationship of photography and cinema to life, death, history, memory, and the unconscious, are recurring themes. The scholarship on photography and that on cinema trace two parallel tendencies in the history of the two media: on the one hand, the photograph as “trace” versus the tradition of staged photography; on the other hand, the “realist” versus “formalist” tendency in cinema. For most of its history, photography has been said to enjoy a privileged relationship to reality: the photograph has been described as “an imprint,” “a mold,” or “a trace” of reality. Parallel to the idea of the photographic index and the photography of spontaneous witness it gave rise to, however, is another tradition of photography, one that runs from early staged photography and pictorialist photography, through surrealist photography, to “cinematic photography”—this tradition foregrounds the discursive character of the photographic image, its origins in other images. While the history of photography has been defined by the tension between these two parallel traditions, the balance of power shifting from one to the other and back again, the digital turn is generally believed to have put an end to the idea of photography as “witness,” even as a number of early-21st-century photographers claim to pursue “new documentary” or “new realism” within a highly stylized, staged photography. The digital has provoked similar anxieties among film historians and theorists, who continue to debate whether the digital has brought about the disappearance of “cinema” or just the disappearance of “film.” The tension between these two parallel traditions in scholarship on photography and cinema has been complicated by a third criterion, according to which the two media have been theorized: stillness/movement. If indexicality and stillness have been the two key concepts in photography scholarship, movement has played a similar structuring role in the case of cinema. And just as the two dichotomies undergirding photography and cinema scholarship—the indexical versus discursive nature of the photographic image, and the realist versus formative tendency in cinema—are increasingly losing their credibility and usefulness, the still/moving distinction has also been challenged by the proliferation of hybrid artistic practices. This article is organized around four categories: (1) photography and cinema in their relation to modernity, (2) debates on medium specificity and the challenge of the digital both to photography and cinema, (3) cinematic photography, and (4) photography and cinema as “spectral” media.


2016 ◽  
Vol 9 (11) ◽  
pp. 80
Author(s):  
Ru Wang ◽  
Yunyun Tian

<p>Katherine Anne Porter (1890-1980) is an eminent novelist in the history of American literature, especially famous for her short novels. <em>Noon Wine </em>is her important masterpiece, its plot and motif always lead to reader’s deep meditation, and researches focus more on its narrative art, myth archetypes and themes. This paper tries to interpret <em>Noon Wine </em>from the perspective of deconstruction and selects several important characters to combine with the subversion of binary opposition in deconstruction, which aims to conclude that the relationship of good and evil in this story is consistent with Derrida’s definition for the relation of binary opposition---supplementation. Therefore, when people interpret things or person, it would be better to be more multiple, after all, between good and evil, there is not merely an arbitrary line but space for more possibilities.</p>


Paleobiology ◽  
1980 ◽  
Vol 6 (02) ◽  
pp. 146-160 ◽  
Author(s):  
William A. Oliver

The Mesozoic-Cenozoic coral Order Scleractinia has been suggested to have originated or evolved (1) by direct descent from the Paleozoic Order Rugosa or (2) by the development of a skeleton in members of one of the anemone groups that probably have existed throughout Phanerozoic time. In spite of much work on the subject, advocates of the direct descent hypothesis have failed to find convincing evidence of this relationship. Critical points are:(1) Rugosan septal insertion is serial; Scleractinian insertion is cyclic; no intermediate stages have been demonstrated. Apparent intermediates are Scleractinia having bilateral cyclic insertion or teratological Rugosa.(2) There is convincing evidence that the skeletons of many Rugosa were calcitic and none are known to be or to have been aragonitic. In contrast, the skeletons of all living Scleractinia are aragonitic and there is evidence that fossil Scleractinia were aragonitic also. The mineralogic difference is almost certainly due to intrinsic biologic factors.(3) No early Triassic corals of either group are known. This fact is not compelling (by itself) but is important in connection with points 1 and 2, because, given direct descent, both changes took place during this only stage in the history of the two groups in which there are no known corals.


Author(s):  
Ted Geier

Covers the long history of the Smithfield animal market and legal reform in London. Shows the relationship of civic improvement tropes, including animal rights, to animal erasure in the form of new foodstuffs from distant meat production sites. The reduction of lives to commodities also informed public abasement of the butchers.


Author(s):  
Terence Young ◽  
Alan MacEachern ◽  
Lary Dilsaver

This essay explores the evolving international relationship of the two national park agencies that in 1968 began to offer joint training classes for protected-area managers from around the world. Within the British settler societies that dominated nineteenth century park-making, the United States’ National Park Service (NPS) and Canada’s National Parks Branch were the most closely linked and most frequently cooperative. Contrary to campfire myths and nationalist narratives, however, the relationship was not a one-way flow of information and motivation from the US to Canada. Indeed, the latter boasted a park bureaucracy before the NPS was established. The relationship of the two nations’ park leaders in the half century leading up to 1968 demonstrates the complexity of defining the influences on park management and its diffusion from one country to another.


1990 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 89-90
Author(s):  
Dennis Michael Warren

The late Dr. Fazlur Rahman, Harold H. Swift Distinguished Service Professor of Islamic Thought at the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, has written this book as number seven in the series on Health/Medicine and the Faith Traditions. This series has been sponsored as an interfaith program by The Park Ridge Center, an Institute for the study of health, faith, and ethics. Professor Rahman has stated that his study is "an attempt to portray the relationship of Islam as a system of faith and as a tradition to human health and health care: What value does Islam attach to human well-being-spiritual, mental, and physical-and what inspiration has it given Muslims to realize that value?" (xiii). Although he makes it quite clear that he has not attempted to write a history of medicine in Islam, readers will find considerable depth in his treatment of the historical development of medicine under the influence of Islamic traditions. The book begins with a general historical introduction to Islam, meant primarily for readers with limited background and understanding of Islam. Following the introduction are six chapters devoted to the concepts of wellness and illness in Islamic thought, the religious valuation of medicine in Islam, an overview of Prophetic Medicine, Islamic approaches to medical care and medical ethics, and the relationship of the concepts of birth, contraception, abortion, sexuality, and death to well-being in Islamic culture. The basis for Dr. Rahman's study rests on the explication of the concepts of well-being, illness, suffering, and destiny in the Islamic worldview. He describes Islam as a system of faith with strong traditions linking that faith with concepts of human health and systems for providing health care. He explains the value which Islam attaches to human spiritual, mental, and physical well-being. Aspects of spiritual medicine in the Islamic tradition are explained. The dietary Jaws and other orthodox restrictions are described as part of Prophetic Medicine. The religious valuation of medicine based on the Hadith is compared and contrasted with that found in the scientific medical tradition. The history of institutionalized medical care in the Islamic World is traced to awqaf, pious endowments used to support health services, hospices, mosques, and educational institutions. Dr. Rahman then describes the ...


Author(s):  
Andrey Varlamov ◽  
Vladimir Rimshin

Considered the issues of interaction between man and nature. Noted that this interaction is fundamental in the existence of modern civilization. The question of possible impact on nature and society with the aim of preserving the existence of human civilization. It is shown that the study of this issue goes towards the crea-tion of models of interaction between nature and man. Determining when building models is information about the interaction of man and nature. Considered information theory from the viewpoint of interaction between nature and man. Noted that currently information theory developed mainly as a mathematical theory. The issues of interaction of man and nature, the availability and existence of information in the material sys-tem is not studied. Indicates the link information with the energy terms control large flows of energy. For con-sideration of the interaction of man and nature proposed to use the theory of degradation. Graphs are pre-sented of the information in the history of human development. Reviewed charts of population growth. As a prediction it is proposed to use the simplest based on the theory of degradation. Consideration of the behav-ior of these dependencies led to the conclusion about the existence of communication energy and information as a feature of the degradation of energy. It justifies the existence of border life ( including humanity) at the point with maximum information. Shows the relationship of energy and time using potential energy.


Author(s):  
Cristina Vatulescu

This chapter approaches police records as a genre that gains from being considered in its relationships with other genres of writing. In particular, we will follow its long-standing relationship to detective fiction, the novel, and biography. Going further, the chapter emphasizes the intermedia character of police records not just in our time but also throughout their existence, indeed from their very origins. This approach opens to a more inclusive media history of police files. We will start with an analysis of the seminal late nineteenth-century French manuals prescribing the writing of a police file, the famous Bertillon-method manuals. We will then track their influence following their adoption nationally and internationally, with particular attention to the politics of their adoption in the colonies. We will also touch briefly on the relationship of early policing to other disciplines, such as anthropology and statistics, before moving to a closer look at its intersections with photography and literature.


2008 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 239-254 ◽  
Author(s):  
U Chit Hlaing

AbstractThis paper surveys the history of anthropological work on Burma, dealing both with Burman and other ethnic groups. It focuses upon the relations between anthropology and other disciplines, and upon the relationship of such work to the development of anthropological theory. It tries to show how anthropology has contributed to an overall understanding of Burma as a field of study and, conversely, how work on Burma has influenced the development of anthropology as a subject. It also tries to relate the way in which anthropology helps place Burma in the broader context of Southeast Asia.


2017 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 172-186
Author(s):  
Geoffrey Cox

Standard histories of electronic music tend to trace the lineage of musique concrète as lying mainly in the Futurists’ declarations of the 1910s, through Cage’s ‘emancipation’ of noise in the 1930s, to Schaeffer’s work and codifications of the late 1940s and early 1950s. This article challenges this narrative by drawing attention to the work of filmmakers in the 1930s that foreshadowed the sound experiments of Pierre Schaeffer and thus offers an alternative history of their background. The main focus of the article is on the innovations within documentary film and specifically the sonic explorations in early British documentary that prefigured musique concrète, an area ignored by electronic music studies. The theoretical and philosophical underpinnings of the documentary movement’s members, particularly their leader John Grierson, will be compared with those of Pierre Schaeffer, and the important influence of Russian avant-garde filmmaking on the British (and musique concrète) will be addressed. Case studies will focus on the groundbreaking soundtracks of two films made by the General Post Office Film Unit that feature both practical and theoretical correspondences to Schaeffer: 6.30 Collection (1934) and Coal Face (1935). Parallels between the nature and use of technologies and how this affected creative outputs will also be discussed, as will the relationship of the British documentary movement’s practice and ideas to post-Schaefferian ‘anecdotal music’ and the work of Luc Ferrari.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document