Homophobia and Antisemitism in Otto Julius Bierbaum’s Prinz Kuckuck (1907/08)

2021 ◽  
Vol 57 (2) ◽  
pp. 97-113
Author(s):  
Benedikt Wolf

Starting from existing scholarship on the relationship among masculinity, sexuality, and Jewishness in the German-language cultural sphere, this article analyzes the connection between antisemitism and homophobia in Otto Julius Bierbaum’s fin-de-siècle novel Prinz Kuckuck. By tracing the respective paths of the Jewish protagonist and his male homosexual counterpart, the article elaborates on the specific versions of Jewishness and male homosexuality that Bierbaum’s novel creates. It can be shown that the novel exposes both the Jewish and the homosexual character as deficient and harmful. The novel, however, does not restrict itself to mere parallelization but establishes an intrinsic connection between the Jewish and the male homosexual character by integrating homosexual codes into the Jew’s “parasitic” repertoire. The article concludes by offering an explanation of this connection that draws on Moishe Postone’s critique of modern antisemitism. Antisemitism and homophobia are shown as two complementary and intrinsically connected ways of dealing with two dimensions of the experience of modernity: capitalism and social contingency.

Author(s):  
Ailise Bulfin

This chapter analyses the relationship between Marsh’s bestselling novel of Egyptian malevolence, The Beetle: A Mystery (1897), and a subgenre of Gothic Egyptian fiction which developed partially in response to contentious Anglo-Egyptian political relations. Marsh began writing his novel in 1895, the same year General Herbert Kitchener launched his famous and ultimately successful campaign to quell Islamic-nationalist rebellion in northern Sudan, then indirectly under Anglo-Egyptian control. This chapter exposes the links between the novel and colonial politics, placing The Beetle within the context of Anglo-Egyptian and Sudanese conflict, rather than broadly reading it against general imperial concerns. The chapter provides a fuller picture of both the remarkable revival of the Gothic literary mode at the fin de siècle and the society in which this literary phenomenon occurred. The chapter also reveals how Marsh’s text dramatically exceeded Gothic Egyptian genre conventions in its emphasis on pagan as well as colonial monstrosity.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Agnieszka Wykowska ◽  
Jairo Pérez-Osorio ◽  
Stefan Kopp

This booklet is a collection of the position statements accepted for the HRI’20 conference workshop “Social Cognition for HRI: Exploring the relationship between mindreading and social attunement in human-robot interaction” (Wykowska, Perez-Osorio & Kopp, 2020). Unfortunately, due to the rapid unfolding of the novel coronavirus at the beginning of the present year, the conference and consequently our workshop, were canceled. On the light of these events, we decided to put together the positions statements accepted for the workshop. The contributions collected in these pages highlight the role of attribution of mental states to artificial agents in human-robot interaction, and precisely the quality and presence of social attunement mechanisms that are known to make human interaction smooth, efficient, and robust. These papers also accentuate the importance of the multidisciplinary approach to advance the understanding of the factors and the consequences of social interactions with artificial agents.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Serena Stefani ◽  
Gabriele Prati

Research on the relationship between fertility and gender ideology revealed inconsistent results. In the present study, we argue that inconsistencies may be due to the fact that such relationship may be nonlinear. We hypothesize a U- shaped relationship between two dimensions of gender ideology (i.e. primacy of breadwinner role and acceptance of male privilege) and fertility rates. We conducted a cross-national analysis of 60 countries using data from the World Values Survey as well as the World Population Prospects 2019. Controlling for gross domestic product, we found support for a U-shaped relationship between gender ideology and fertility. Higher levels of fertility rates were found at lower and especially higher levels of traditional gender ideology, while a medium level of gender ideology was associated with the lowest fertility rate. This curvilinear relationship is in agreement with the phase of the gender revolution in which the country is located. Traditional beliefs are linked to a complementary division of private versus public sphere between sexes, while egalitarian attitudes are associated with a more equitable division. Both conditions strengthen fertility. Instead, as in the transition phase, intermediate levels of gender ideology’s support are associated with an overload and a difficult reconciliation of the roles that women have to embody (i.e. working and nurturing) so reducing fertility. The present study has contributed to the literature by addressing the inconsistencies of prior research by demonstrating that the relationship between gender ideology and fertility rates is curvilinear rather than linear.


2020 ◽  
Vol 35 (3) ◽  
pp. 31-51
Author(s):  
Yoram Ida ◽  
Amir Hefetz ◽  
Assaf Meydani ◽  
Gila Menahem ◽  
Elad Cohen

What innovative policy tools can be introduced so that the provision of local services will mitigate inequality among residents of different localities? Based on the ‘new localism’ approach, this article examines one such tool—a mandatory national standard for services provided by local authorities (a ‘service basket’)—and suggests that the implementation process should consider local variation and autonomy. The novelty of our approach lies in including both objective and normative considerations in the methodological instrument that we developed to capture these two dimensions. This innovative methodology also enabled us to estimate existing service gaps among local authorities and the burdens some will face upon instituting a mandatory service basket.


2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (9) ◽  
pp. 1084-1101
Author(s):  
Tingjuan Wu ◽  
Xu Yao ◽  
Guan Wang ◽  
Xiaohe Liu ◽  
Hongfei Chen ◽  
...  

Background: Oleanolic Acid (OA) is a ubiquitous product of triterpenoid compounds. Due to its inexpensive availability, unique bioactivities, pharmacological effects and non-toxic properties, OA has attracted tremendous interest in the field of drug design and synthesis. Furthermore, many OA derivatives have been developed for ameliorating the poor water solubility and bioavailability. Objective: Over the past few decades, various modifications of the OA framework structure have led to the observation of enhancement in bioactivity. Herein, we focused on the synthesis and medicinal performance of OA derivatives modified on A-ring. Moreover, we clarified the relationship between structures and activities of OA derivatives with different functional groups in A-ring. The future application of OA in the field of drug design and development also was discussed and inferred. Conclusion: This review concluded the novel achievements that could add paramount information to the further study of OA-based drugs.


Author(s):  
Deirdre David

In the mid- to late 1950s, Pamela emerged as a critically acclaimed novelist, particularly after the family returned to London. In perhaps her best-known novel, The Unspeakable Skipton, she explores the life of a paranoid writer who sponges on English visitors to Bruges. The novel was hailed for its wit and sensitive depiction of the life of a writer. She also published a fine study of a London vicar martyred in marriage to a vain and selfish wife: The Humbler Creation is remarkable for its incisive and empathetic depiction of male despair. The Last Resort sealed her distinction as a brilliant novelist of domestic life in its frank depiction of male homosexuality. While continuing to publish fiction, Pamela maintained her reputation as a deft reviewer. In 1954, she and Charles travelled to the United States—the first of many trips that were to follow.


Author(s):  
Cleo Hanaway-Oakley

Stephen’s musings on the pre-cinematic ‘stereoscope’ are discussed in relation to Bloom’s contemplation of parallax and his mention of the ‘Mutoscope’. The three-dimensionality, tangibility, and tactility of stereoscopic perception is analysed alongside Bloom’s and Gerty’s encounter in ‘Nausicaa’ and the Merleau-Pontian concepts of ‘flesh’ and ‘intercorporeity’. The bodily effects of projected cinema—achieved through virtual film worlds, virtual film bodies, and the intercorporeity of film and spectator—are discussed through reference to panorama, phantom ride, and crash films. The dizzying effects of some of these films are compared to the vertiginous nature of the ‘Wandering Rocks’ episode of Ulysses; these cinematic and literary vestibular disturbances are elucidated through gestalt theory and the phenomenological concepts of ‘intention’, ‘attention’, and the ‘phenomenal field’. Finally, the relationship between the self and the other is considered, through a discussion of cinematic mirroring in Ulysses and in Mitchell and Kenyon’s fin de siècle Living Dublin films.


Author(s):  
Caroline Franklin

This chapter studies the novels of sensibility in the 1780s. The philosophy of John Locke, Anthony Ashley Cooper, third Earl of Shaftesbury, Adam Smith, and Francis Hutcheson had influenced the first wave of epistolary novels of sensibility beginning in the 1740s. These explored the interaction between emotion and reason in producing moral actions. Response to stimuli was minutely examined, especially the relationship between the psychological and physiological manifestations of feelings. Later in the century, and, in particular during the late 1780s when the novel enjoyed a surge in popularity, the capacity for fine feeling became increasingly valued for its own sake rather than moralized. Ultimately, sensibility should be seen as a long-lasting literary movement rather than an ephemeral fashion. It put paternal authority and conventional modes of masculinity under question.


Author(s):  
Elizabeth Gaskell

‘It's the masters as has wrought this woe; it's the masters as should pay for it.’ Set in Manchester in the 1840s - a period of industrial unrest and extreme deprivation - Mary Barton depicts the effects of economic and physical hardship upon the city's working-class community. Paralleling the novel's treatment of the relationship between masters and men, the suffering of the poor, and the workmen's angry response, is the story of Mary herself: a factory-worker's daughter who attracts the attentions of the mill-owner's son, she becomes caught up in the violence of class conflict when a brutal murder forces her to confront her true feelings and allegiances. Mary Barton was praised by contemporary critics for its vivid realism, its convincing characters and its deep sympathy with the poor, and it still has the power to engage and move readers today. This edition reproduces the last edition of the novel supervised by Elizabeth Gaskell and includes her husband's two lectures on the Lancashire dialect.


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.


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