Douglas LePan: Poet of the New and Old Worlds

2021 ◽  
Vol 90 (4) ◽  
pp. 736-756
Author(s):  
Jonathan Locke Hart

C. Day Lewis said of The Wounded Prince (1948) that Douglas LePan was a poet “in whom the New and the Old World have met.” Like the other New World/Old World or Atlantic world poets, such as T.S. Eliot and W.H. Auden, LePan represents the individual in nature and the modern world. The other transatlantic poets had a United States-Britain axis, whereas LePan had a Canada- Britain connection. LePan and poets like him deserve study as part of a diversity of voices from smaller literatures, for the sound of beauty and not the noise of fame. During LePan’s life, others knew of his accomplishments, but, since his death, still others may have forgotten what Northrop Frye and Margaret Atwood knew – that LePan’s poetry warranted close and considered attention. Before a close reading of some of his most lyrical poems, I provide a context, the critical reception of LePan as a poet, particularly in the years from 1948 to 1987, and some germane discussions of LePan’s poetry in subsequent years.

2008 ◽  
Vol 65 (1) ◽  
pp. 35-62 ◽  
Author(s):  
Caitlin A. Fitz

A new order for the New World was unfolding in the early nineteenth century, or so many in the United States believed. Between 1808 and 1825, all of Portuguese America and nearly all of Spanish America broke away from Europe, casting off Old World monarchs and inaugurating home-grown governments instead. People throughout the United States looked on with excitement, as the new order seemed at once to vindicate their own revolution as well as offer new possibilities for future progress. Free from obsolete European alliances, they hoped, the entire hemisphere could now rally together around republican government and commercial reciprocity. Statesmen and politicians were no exception, as men from Thomas Jefferson and James Monroe to John Quincy Adams and Henry Clay tried to exclude European influence from the hemisphere while securing new markets for American manufactures and agricultural surplus.


2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abdel H. Halloway ◽  
Christopher J. Whelan ◽  
Çağan H. Şekercioğlu ◽  
Joel S. Brown

AbstractAdaptations can be thought of as evolutionary technologies which allow an organism to exploit environments. Among convergent taxa, adaptations may be largely equivalent with the taxa operating in a similar set of environmental conditions, divergent with the taxa operating in different sets of environmental conditions, or superior with one taxon operating within an extended range of environmental conditions than the other. With this framework in mind, we sought to characterize the adaptations of two convergent nectarivorous bird families, the New World hummingbirds (Trochilidae) and Old World sunbirds (Nectariniidae), by comparing their biogeography. Looking at their elevational and latitudinal gradients, hummingbirds not only extend into but also maintain species richness in more extreme environments. We suspect that hummingbirds have a superior key adaptation that sunbirds lack, namely a musculoskeletal architecture that allows for hovering. Through biogeographic comparisons, we have been able to assess and understand adaptations as evolutionary technologies among two convergent bird families, a process that should work for most taxa.


1975 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 391-394 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard G. Klein

Archeological evidence from the USSR suggests that cultural adaptations to the most rigorous (most continental) environments of northern Eurasia were not achieved until 35–40,000 BP. This presumably sets an absolute basement date for the entry of man into Alaska through the region of Beringia. The absence of evidence for pre-14,000 yr old man in the 48 adjacent United States comparable in any sense to the evidence that has been developed for man prior to 14,000 y.a. in the Old World suggests that movement south out of Alaska only occurred after 14,000 BP.


2019 ◽  
pp. 272-301
Author(s):  
Lydia L. Moland

Hegel’s analysis of poetry’s genres begins with epic poetry, which is the action-based articulation of a nation’s dawning self-awareness. Lyric poetry, by contrast, allows poets to express their deepest subjectivity and interpret the world through their own experience. Drama brings action back into art, allowing actors themselves to emerge as artists and correcting for the vanishing subjectivity in painting and music. Drama also incorporates the two other poetic genres, as well as the other arts. Because it achieves these syntheses, it is, according to Hegel, the highest art. Hegel gives special consideration to tragedy and comedy, assessing both in their ancient and modern forms. His conclusion is that although both subgenres are more difficult to achieve in the modern world, successful examples are possible, ensuring that poetry will continue. With these poetic subgenres, the individual arts reach their conceptual end.


2017 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-22
Author(s):  
Lloyd E. Ambrosius

One hundred years ago, on April 6, 1917, President Woodrow Wilson led the United States into the First World War. Four days earlier, in his war message to Congress, he gave his rationale for declaring war against Imperial Germany and for creating a new world order. He now viewed German submarine attacks against neutral as well as belligerent shipping as a threat to the whole world, not just the United States. “The present German submarine warfare against commerce is a warfare against mankind,” he claimed. “It is a war against all nations.” He now believed that Germany had violated the moral standards that “citizens of civilized states” should uphold. The president explained: “We are at the beginning of an age in which it will be insisted that the same standards of conduct and responsibility for wrong done shall be observed among nations and their governments that are observed among the individual citizens of civilized states.” He focused on protecting democracy against the German regime of Kaiser Wilhelm II. “A steadfast concert for peace,” he said, “can never be maintained except by a partnership of democratic nations. No autocratic government could be trusted to keep faith within it or observe its covenants.” Wilson called on Congress to vote for war not just because Imperial Germany had sunk three American ships, but for the larger purpose of a new world order. He affirmed: “We are glad, now that we see the facts with no veil of false pretense about them, to fight thus for the ultimate peace of the world and for the liberation of its peoples, the German peoples included: for the rights of nations great and small and the privilege of men everywhere to choose their way of life and of obedience. The world must be made safe for democracy. Its peace must be planted upon the tested foundation of political liberty.”


2018 ◽  
Vol 285 (1885) ◽  
pp. 20181523 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jinwei Wu ◽  
Hengwu Jiao ◽  
Nancy B. Simmons ◽  
Qin Lu ◽  
Huabin Zhao

Detection of evolutionary shifts in sensory systems is challenging. By adopting a molecular approach, our earlier study proposed a sensory trade-off hypothesis between a loss of colour vision and an origin of high-duty-cycle (HDC) echolocation in Old World bats. Here, we test the hypothesis in New World bats, which include HDC echolocators that are distantly related to Old World HDC echolocators, as well as vampire bats, which have an infrared sensory system apparently unique among bats. Through sequencing the short-wavelength opsin gene ( SWS1 ) in 16 species (29 individuals) of New World bats, we identified a novel SWS1 polymorphism in an HDC echolocator: one allele is pseudogenized but the other is intact, while both alleles are either intact or pseudogenized in other individuals. Strikingly, both alleles were found to be pseudogenized in all three vampire bats. Since pseudogenization, transcriptional or translational changes could separately result in functional loss of a gene, a pseudogenized SWS1 indicates a loss of dichromatic colour vision in bats. Thus, the same sensory trade-off appears to have repeatedly occurred in the two divergent lineages of HDC echolocators, and colour vision may have also been traded off against the infrared sense in vampire bats.


2019 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
pp. 165-180
Author(s):  
Agnieszka Morawiak

Innovation in creating consumer values as an important factor in socio-economic selection making  Consumption concerns many aspects of human life in both material and non-material dimensions. It shapes the attitude towards the family, spare time management, religion or culture. It sets the shape of our dreams, desires and life aspirations. On the one hand, it affects the system of our values, on the other hand, it is inspired by this system. Opponents of consumption, treating it as a secondary value and value in itself, accuse it of leading to the development of such phenomena as: mass entertainment, commercialization of culture or devel­opment of quite unnecessary, apparent needs. Instead, it removes the values generally respected in so­ciety, such as: interest in the fate of others, solidarity, care for the environment or the future of next gen­erations. Today’s consumer is not a mindless human being subject to the rules of the market, they are increasingly educated, aware and responsible. They make choices based not only on their own needs but based on values existing in a given society. They purchase wisely and respectfully, remembering that today’s choices will be the legacy for future generations, thus the consumer’s interest must be synchronized with these generations. Nowadays, it is the consumer who creates the image of the company, forcing it to take ethical and moral actions, and also heading for conscious consumption. Such an attitude creates the opportunity to include the consumer in the processes of companies’ activities and their innovations, as well as treating them personally and more like a partner. In the realities of the new economic, political, and social system, new values of individuals, as well as of entire social groups associated with the behaviour of consumers of the modern world are developing. Consumption, on the one hand, determines the shape of dreams, desires and the way of life. On the other hand, based on an innovative approach to it, it performs a symbolic function that gives a deeper and wider perspective to existing products, emphasizing them as exceeding their useful functions. Consumers becoming more aware of their choices take into account not only the system of their own values but also the values existing in a given society. This innovative approach to consumption creates new quality, a new lifestyle, it shapes new roles, it draws attention to the environment around us, and it cares about the sensible use of its resources and its means. Following values in the selection of products reveals responsibility connected to decision making, its impact on the environment and on entire social groups. They allow the individual to real­ize themselves in the group and the human community, they enable human development, achieving customer satisfaction, and avoiding the plundering economy. 


2021 ◽  
Vol 23 ◽  
pp. 9-20
Author(s):  
Ferrarotti Franco

Arriving to the «new world» across the Atlantic Ocean from England, the Founding Fathers, as an act of thankfullness to God’s guidance, called the United States the «God’s Country». On the other hand, serious scholars would call them the «unfinished country» and quite a few political scientists would talk about «our more perfect Union», touching on the variety and contradictions of the Two-centuries and a half old «nation of nations».


Author(s):  
Tresa Randall

Hanya Holm arrived in the United States in September 1931 to open the New York Wigman School, created under the patronage of impresario Sol Hurok. On the heels of Mary Wigman's first, highly acclaimed U.S. tour from 1930 to 1931, interest in the Wigman method was high among American dancers, and a small staff from the Wigman Central Institute in Dresden, led by Holm, were sent to New York to capitalize on it. This chapter counters the standard narrative of Holm's assimilation and Americanization. Focusing on Holm's writings during her early years in the United States, it demonstrates how she saw her New World milieu through an Old World lens, conceptualizing the United States as a fragmented society (Gesellschaft) in need of a community that integrated its members and that dance could provide (Tanzgemeinschaft).


1953 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 25-39 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Tolstoy

Asiatic origins have, at one time or another, been suggested or at least considered for a number of traits connected with the manufacture and decoration of the earlier New World pottery. The well-known paper by McKern (1937) is among the most explicit statements on the subject. Griffin (1946; Sears and Griffin 1950a) has held similar views for some time. Like McKern, he has primarily in mind traits of the Woodland pattern of eastern North America, although he also mentions some non-Woodland traits among those which have counterparts in the Old World (1946, p. 45).Since McKern's paper, the distribution in time of the traits involved has become a lot better established. With the help of the still suspiciously regarded radiocarbon dates, our perspective on ceramic history in the United States has been extended over a span which appears to be that of some four millennia. Among the more significant additions to the Asiatic half of the distributional picture first place must be given to recent Soviet work in eastern Siberia.


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