scholarly journals “She hangs on the western wall”: Breaking the Myth of the Renaissance in Thomas Pynchon’s V.

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francesca Razzi
Keyword(s):  
Contemporary Literature ◽  
Western World ◽  
Italian Renaissance ◽  
Literary Field ◽  
Present Contribution ◽  
Historiographic Metafiction ◽  
Late Twentieth ◽  
Late Twentieth Century

Since the time of its publication in 1963, Pynchon’s first novel V. has been triggering an intense and still ongoing critical debate upon the function of history and tradition in contemporary literature. As a specimen of postmodern historiographic metafiction, V. enacts complex intertextual strategies, directed at debunking the Western literary tradition, thus questioning its significance in contemporary society. The present contribution aims at extending previous scholarship on the problem of tradition in Pynchon’s fiction, by focusing on the use of the Renaissance in the seventh chapter of V. selected as a case study. Far from marginal, Pynchon’s parodic references to the Italian Renaissance tradition and its cultural artifacts, whether through the artistic productions, or the idea of the Renaissance seen as a pivotal moment of the socio-historical development of the Western world, testify to the process of deconstruction of the paradigmatic role of the Renaissance for the American literary field in the late twentieth century, also in its global and transnational dimension.

Institutions Protecting Democracy: A Preliminary Inquiry

2018 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 181-202
Author(s):  
Mark Tushnet
Keyword(s):  
Political Institutions ◽  
Conflicts Of Interest ◽  
Constitutional Courts ◽  
Additional Function ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
Political Outcomes ◽  
Late Twentieth ◽  
Late Twentieth Century

Abstract In the late twentieth century constitution-designers came to understand that, in addition to the three classic Montesquiean functions of law-making, law-applying, and law-interpreting, constitutional institutions had to perform an additional function, that of protecting the constitution itself. That function is performed by constitutional courts, but also by agencies concerned with elections and with corruption. A case study of an important anti-corruption inquiry in South Africa illustrates the proposition that institutions protecting the constitution must combine independence from other political actors with some degree of accountability to them. Following the case study, the Article examines some general characteristics of these institutions, sketching some of the questions about independence and accountability that constitution-designers must consider. Among those questions are the possibility of too much independence, with the institutions having a greater impact on political outcomes than is appropriate, too much responsiveness to non-political but professional concerns such as legality and the details of accounting conventions, and of course too much accountability to the very political institutions that these agencies are designed to regulate. Throughout the Article emphasizes the role of conflicts of interest both in setting the agenda for these agencies and in posing the risk that the agencies will undermine rather than protect the constitution.

Chakras and Endocrine Glands

2010 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 21-25
Author(s):  
Andrea Jain
Keyword(s):  
Well Being ◽  
Scientific Discourse ◽  
Body Parts ◽  
Endocrine Glands ◽  
Subtle Body ◽  
Modern Yoga ◽  
Unique System ◽  
Late Twentieth ◽  
Late Twentieth Century

This paper is an exploration of preksha dhyana as a case study of modern yoga. Preksha is a system of yoga and meditation introduced by Acarya Mahaprajna of the Jain Svetambara Terapanth in the late twentieth century. I argue that preksha is an attempt to join the newly emerging transnational yoga market whereby yoga has become a practice oriented around the attainment of physical health and psychological well-being. I will evaluate the ways in which Mahaprajna appropriates scientific discourse and in so doing constructs a new and unique system of Jain modern yoga. In particular, I evaluate the appropriation of physical and meditative techniques from ancient yoga systems in addition to the explanation of yoga metaphysics by means of biomedical discourse. I will demonstrate how, in Mahaprajna’s preksha system, the metaphysical subtle body becomes somaticized. In other words, Mahaprajna uses the bio-medical understanding of physiology to locate and identify the functions of metaphysical subtle body parts and processes in the physiological body.

‘A Victorian community overseas’ transformed: demographic and morphological change in suburban Melbourne, Australia, 1947–1981

Urban History ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 42 (3) ◽  
pp. 463-482
Author(s):  
SEAMUS O’HANLON
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Morphological Change ◽  
Metropolitan Area ◽  
Building Industry ◽  
Victorian Era ◽  
Late Twentieth ◽  
Post War ◽  
Late Twentieth Century

ABSTRACTOne of the world's great Victorian-era suburban metropolises, Melbourne, Australia, was transformed by mass immigration and the redevelopment of some of its older suburbs with low-rise flats and apartments in the post-war years. Drawing on a range of sources, including census material, municipal rate and valuation books, immigration and company records, as well as building industry publications, this article charts demographic and morphological change across the Melbourne metropolitan area and in two particular suburbs in the mid- to late twentieth century. In doing so, it both responds to McManus and Ethington's recent call for more histories of suburbs in transition, and seeks to embed the role of immigration and immigrants into Melbourne's urban historiography.

“When Women Do the Work of Men”: Representations of Gendered Occupational Identities on British Railways in World War I Cartoons

2019 ◽  
Vol 117 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-78
Author(s):  
Emma Robertson ◽  
Lee-Ann Monk
Keyword(s):  
Women Workers ◽  
World War I ◽  
Occupational Culture ◽  
World War ◽  
National Union ◽  
Late Twentieth ◽  
Traditional Work ◽  
Late Twentieth Century ◽  
Do So

During World War I in Britain, women workers took on previously men-only jobs on the railways. In response to this wartime development, the National Union of Railwaymen published a series of cartoons in their journal, Railway Review. These images depicted women employed as porters and guards, occupying the engine footplate, and acting in the role of station-mistress. Through a close reading of the cartoons, and related images in the journal, this article examines how the humorous portrayal of female railway workers reinforced masculine occupational identities at the same time as revealing ambiguities in (and negotiating anxieties over) the gendered nature of railway employment. Despite wartime labour shortages, certain occupations, notably the driving and firing of steam trains, remained stolidly men’s work and would do so until the late twentieth century. By scrutinising the construction of gendered occupational culture in union journals, we can better understand the tenacity of notions of “traditional” work for men and women on the railways.

EXODUCTION

2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Schechner
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Oral Transmission ◽  
Transmission Of Knowledge ◽  
History Of ◽  
Late Twentieth ◽  
Late Twentieth Century

This essay by Richard Schechner dedicated to a mythical figure of the theater of the late twentieth century; a work of critical reconstruction that has contributed decisively to consolidating the legacy of Grotowski, just a few months after his death. In addition to fixing some essential terms of the vocabulary, together with the contents and the periodization of the Grotowskian work (aspects that Grotowski in life were entrusted exclusively to oral transmission), the essay retraces the formation of Grotowski, the aspects linked to his character, the specific forms of his research and his transmission of knowledge, the exercise of leadership, the role of his collaborators, the sources, the mystical side, his relationship with the spirit of time, the importance (and weakness) of his opera, in the history of twentieth century theater.

Looking Again: The Critical Heritage

2017 ◽  
pp. 21-28
Author(s):  
Jessica Gildersleeve
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Contemporary Literature ◽  
Literary Text ◽  
Late Twentieth ◽  
Critical Heritage ◽  
Literature And Film ◽  
British Culture ◽  
Late Twentieth Century

This chapter examines Don't Look Now (1973) in the context of Daphne Du Maurier's Gothic narratives, with particular emphasis on those which had previously been adapted to film, and Nicolas Roeg's earlier films, particularly those which deal with themes of trauma and violence. It proposes that Du Maurier and Roeg's works should be read within the context of mid- to late-twentieth-century British culture, considering them as particularly concerned to depict the cultural traumas of the period. Although there are some distinctive differences between the film and the story from which it is adapted, one must not forget that Don't Look Now is adapted from a literary text, and that this may have implications for the representations and adaptations of trauma in contemporary literature and film. The chapter then reviews the existing studies of the film and the story from which it is adapted. It interrogates Don't Look Now's critical heritage as both avoiding and approaching the ever-retreating position of the trauma-text: a simultaneous recognition and avowal of the film's horror and its anxieties.

The rapid growth of Egypt’s agricultural output, 1890–1914, as an early example of the green revolutions of modern South Asia: some implications for the writing of global history

2006 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 81-99 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roger Owen
Keyword(s):  
Green Revolution ◽  
Global History ◽  
British India ◽  
Late Twentieth ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
The Rich ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Late Twentieth Century

The article uses comparative Indian material from British India and later, the Pakistani Punjab to ask new questions of the standard accounts of Egypt’s post-1890 cotton boom. It also argues for the particular relevance of the rich Punjabi green revolution data to the Egyptian case, and more generally, for the rewards to be obtained from an academic dialog between selected aspects of late nineteenth and of late twentieth century globalization. Topics analyzed include the impact of the various agricultural revolutions on social and regional inequalities, the issue of sustainability, the role of experts and the impact on health of long-term environmental degradation.

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