scholarly journals The Mammies and Uncles of the South: The Subversive Tales of Joel Chandler Harris and Kate Chopin

2018 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-50
Author(s):  
Iulia Andreea Milică

Abstract The aim of this essay is to look at Southern racism from a different perspective, namely the subversive influence of the black uncles and mammies, depicted as kind, loyal and caring, in the racial education of the white Southern children. However, these narrators, though meant to comply with the racist requirements of their masters, take control of the stories and, with caution and dissimulation, attempt to educate the children they care for towards a more tolerant outlook on race. The dangers of such an endeavor, especially at the height of segregation and racial violence at the end of the nineteenth century (in the post-Reconstruction South), are evident in the ambiguous critical reception of Joel Chandler Harris’ Uncle Remus stories and Kate Chopin’s writings, the authors chosen for analysis. Oscillating from a belief in their compliance to their age’s prejudices and codes and a trust in their rebellious attitudes, critics and readers reacted to these stories in different, even contradictory manners. Our intention is to demonstrate that the use of the slave narrator is a subversive way of teaching the white child the truth about the plight of slavery and sway him/her into a more empathic attitude towards racial and class difference.

Author(s):  
Mark Franko

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.


Author(s):  
Paolo Bernat

100 years ago, Antarctica was still mostly unknown and unexplored. The first landings on the Antarctic coast took place in the early decades of the nineteenth century and were made by whalers and sealers. In the following years the first scientific expeditions began and European and US expeditions started the geographical discovery and the mapping of the Antarctic coasts. But it was only in the years 1911-1912 that two expeditions, very different but equally well prepared, arrived almost simultaneously at the South Pole. The events that happened in the Antarctic together with the different nature of the two leaders Roald Amundsen and Robert Scott determined the outcome of these expeditions and the fate of their teams. The centenary of the conquest of the South Pole (December 14, 1911) is an opportunity to remember the passion for science, the spirit of adventure and the fierce perseverance that characterized those extraordinary men and that even now form the basis of scientific research and of human progress, not only in Antarctica but in all areas of knowledge and life.


1965 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 704-706 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heywood Fleisig

A persistent problem in American economic history is the explanation of the failure of the South to mechanize cotton production. Summarily, the following argues that the failure to mechanize was due to a southern economic structure which operated to reduce the effectiveness of the factors in society conducive to invention and innovation.


2014 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 106-117
Author(s):  
REMINA SIMA

Abstract The aim of this paper is to illustrate the public and private spheres. The former represents the area in which each of us carries out their daily activities, while the latter is mirrored by the home. Kate Chopin and Charlotte Perkins Gilman are two salient nineteenth-century writers who shape the everyday life of the historical period they lived in, within their literary works that shed light on the areas under discussion.


2012 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-15
Author(s):  
William Gibbons

In December 1907, Gluck's opera Iphigénie en Aulide was produced in Paris at the Opéra-Comique, the last of his major operas to be revived in France. The ensuing critical reception pitted Vincent d'Indy, who harshly criticized the production, against its director, Albert Carré; d'Indy further responded by conducting the overture to Iphigénie only a few weeks later as a musical corrective to the performance at the Opéra-Comique. This unusual event highlights the historiographie problem Gluck presented to early twentieth-century critics in France: did his music look backwards to the tragédies lyriques of Lully and Rameau, or did it prefigure the Wagnerian music-dramas of the nineteenth century? The 1907 Opéra-Comique production of Iphigénie and its aftermath encapsulate the struggle to incorporate Gluck into newly developing and often competing narratives of music history.


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