From Objects to Actors: Knud Rasmussen’s Ethnographic Feature Film The Wedding of Palo

Films on Ice ◽  
2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ebbe Volquardsen
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Cultural Relations ◽  
Historical Document ◽  
Feature Film ◽  
Cultural Traditions ◽  
The North ◽  
Feature Films ◽  
Ethnographic Fiction

This chapter examines one of Denmark’s best-known ethnographic fiction feature films, Knud Rasmussen’s The Wedding of Palo (1934), directed by Friedrich Dalsheim, and shot in Western Greenland. While in many ways a documentary in the salvage ethnography tradition of the first part of the twentieth century, and sharing many similarities with Robert Flaherty’s Nanook of the North (1922), Volquardsen examines the significance of this film for the contested geopolitical status of Greenland in the early 1930s. Foregrounding the venerable status of Knud Rasmussen as an explorer and ethnographer in Danish history, this chapter shows how the film continues to be both cherished and mocked as a thwarted historical document for the Greenlandic population. The legacy of this film, showcasing seal-hunts, kayaking tricks, and domestic and cultural traditions (including drum-dancing), has remained significant and occupies a complex position in Denmark-Greenland cultural relations.

A Marginalized Voice in the History of ‘Hindi’

2013 ◽  
Vol 47 (5) ◽  
pp. 1706-1746
Author(s):  
AISHWARJ KUMAR
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Historical Development ◽  
North India ◽  
Indian Language ◽  
Cultural Traditions ◽  
The North ◽  
History Of ◽  
Colonial Government ◽  
Regional Languages ◽  
North Western

AbstractThis paper examines the history of ‘Hindi’1 as a modern Indian language in Bihar between 1850 and 1900. It looks beyond the North-Western Provinces, hitherto the focus of most studies of Hindi, and issues that were important here but not in Bihar like, for example, the ‘Hindi’-Urdu conflict. Instead, it looks at how the ways in which the history of ‘Hindi’ unfolded in Bihar and was distinct from that in other parts of North India. It demonstrates how the regional languages of Bihar were more crucial to the development of ‘Hindi’ in this region than standardized ‘Hindi’, at least until the early twentieth century. A prime focus in this paper is Sir George Abraham Grierson who postulated the theory of an independent ‘Bihari’ language and collected materials to support it. These materials reflect the continuing popularity of Bihari cultural traditions throughout the nineteenth century despite the avowed support for a standardized ‘Hindi’ by the colonial government and the intelligentsia of Bihar. They add a dimension to the historical development of ‘Hindi’ that was distinctive to Bihar. Focussing on this, this paper stresses the part played in the history of ‘Hindi’ by an agent whose voice was marginalized and later ignored or suppressed in canonical accounts of its development as a modern Indian language.

The Formation of a Budding Man Alone: The God Boy (Murray Reece, 1976)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alistair Fox
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
Religious Beliefs ◽  
Coming Of Age ◽  
World War ◽  
Value System ◽  
Feature Films ◽  
The Family

This chapter analyses the earliest of the New Zealand coming-of-age feature films, an adaptation of Ian Cross’s novel The God Boy, to demonstrate how it addresses the destructive impact on a child of the puritanical value-system that had dominated Pākehā (white) society through much of the twentieth century, being particularly strong during the interwar years, and the decade immediately following World War II. The discussion explores how dysfunction within the family and repressive religious beliefs eventuate in pressures that cause Jimmy, the protagonist, to act out transgressively, and then to turn inwards to seek refuge in the form of self-containment that makes him a prototype of the Man Alone figure that is ubiquitous in New Zealand fiction.

Changing Theorizations of Cultural Production in Canada and Quebec: A Review of Some Recent Literature on the Cultural IndustriesLA SOCIETE DE L’INFORMATION: DU FORDISME AU GATESISME. Gaetan Tremblay. Montreal: Southam Conference, Canadian Communication Association/GRICIS.UQAM, 1995.L’ETAT DE CULTURE: GENEALOGIE DISCURSIVE DES POLITIQUES CULTURELLES QUEBECOISES. Martin AUor and Michelle Gagnon Montreal: GRECC/Concordia University, 1994.MISSED OPPORTUNITIES: THE STORY OF CANADA’S BROADCASTING POLICY. Marc Raboy. Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1990.THE MEDIUM AND THE MUSE: CULTURE, TELECOMMUNICATIONS AND THE INFORMATION HIGHWAY. Charles Sirois and Claude E. Forget. Montreal: The Institute for Research on Public Policy, 1995.HOLLYWOOD’S OVERSEAS CAMPAIGN: THE NORTH ATLANTIC MOVIE TRADE, 1920-1950. Ian Jarvie. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992.A CANADIAN JOURNEY: CONVERSATIONS WITH TIME. Peter Harcourt,Toronto 1994: Oberon Press.CANADA’S HOLLYWOOD: THE CANADIAN STATE AND FEATURE FILMS. Ted Madger, Toronto 1993: University of Toronto Press.

1997 ◽  
Vol 31 (4) ◽  
pp. 178-194 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Dorland
Keyword(s):  
North Atlantic ◽  
Cultural Production ◽  
Recent Literature ◽  
Missed Opportunities ◽  
Cambridge University ◽  
University Of Toronto ◽  
The North ◽  
Feature Films ◽  
Concordia University ◽  
The North Atlantic

Levantine Art in the “Orientalizing” Period

2019 ◽  
pp. 369-383
Author(s):  
Marian H. Feldman
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Cultural Relations ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
The West ◽  
False Dichotomy ◽  
First Millennium

The “Orientalizing period” represents a scholarly designation used to describe the eighth and seventh centuries bce when regions in Greece, Italy, and farther west witnessed a flourishing of arts and cultures attributed to contact with cultural areas to the east—in particular that of the Phoenicians. This chapter surveys Orientalizing as an intellectual and historiographic concept and reconsiders the role of purportedly Phoenician arts within the existing scholarly narratives. The Orientalizing period should be understood as a construct of nineteenth- and twentieth-century scholarship that was structured around a false dichotomy between the Orient (the East) and the West. The designation “Phoenician” has a similarly complex historiographic past rooted in ancient Greek stereotyping that has profoundly shaped modern scholarly interpretations. This chapter argues that the luxury arts most often credited as agents of Orientalization—most prominent among them being carved ivories, decorated metal bowls, and engraved tridacna shells—cannot be exclusively associated with a Phoenician cultural origin, thus calling into question the primacy of the Phoenicians in Orientalizing processes. Each of these types of objects appears to have a much broader production sphere than is indicated by the attribute as Phoenician. In addition, the notion of unidirectional influences flowing from east to west is challenged, and instead concepts of connectivity and networking are proposed as more useful frameworks for approaching the problem of cultural relations during the early part of the first millennium bce.

Kampungs and Conflict in Colonial Semarang

1988 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 266-291 ◽  
Author(s):  
James L. Cobban
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
The United States ◽  
City Council ◽  
Economic Life ◽  
North Coast ◽  
The North ◽  
Central Java ◽  
The Government ◽  
The City

By the beginning of the twentieth century, Semarang was a major port city and administrative centre on Java. Attainment of this position was due partly to the expansion of its hinterland during the nineteenth century. This expansion was closely related to developments in the means of transportation and the consequent ability of plantation owners to bring the products of their plantations to the port for shipment to foreign markets. By the end of the century virtually the whole economic life of central Java focused upon Semarang. The city also exercised administrative functions in the Dutch colonial administration and generally had been responsible for Dutch interests in the middle and eastern parts of the island. The importance of Semarang as an administrative centre increased after 1906. In that year the government incorporated the city as an urban municipality (stadsgemeente). In 1914 it had consular representation from the United States, Belgium, Denmark, France, Great Britain, Italy, Norway, Germany, and Thailand. Subsequently, in 1926 it became the capital of the Province of Central Java under the terms of an administrative reform fostered by the colonial government at Batavia. Status as an urban municipality meant that local officials sitting on a city council would govern the domestic affairs of the city. The members of the city council at first were appointed from Batavia, subsequently some of them were elected by residents of the city. By the beginning of the twentieth century Semarang had enhanced its position as a major port on the north coast of the island of Java. It was one of the foremost cities of the Dutch East Indies, along with Batavia and Surabaya, a leading port and a centre of administration and trade. This article outlines the growth of the port of Semarang during the nineteenth century and discusses some of the conflict related to this growth over living conditions in parts of the city during the twentieth century, a conflict which smouldered for several decades among the government, members of the city council, and the non-European residents of the city, one which remained unresolved at the end of the colonial era.

Vinayak Damodar Savarkar’s Essentials of Hindutva: A Study of Its Philosophical Elements to Hindu Nationalism

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 151-160
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
National Identity ◽  
Hindu Nationalism ◽  
British Imperialism ◽  
Cultural Traditions ◽  
Rhetorical Style ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
Jawaharlal Nehru ◽  
Extended Essay

In the early twentieth-century, the concepts of Hindutva, Samyavada or Nationalism and national identity, reconstructed amid currents of globalization and neo-colonialism. During this period, the calls for an independent India reached its height. While, Mohandas Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru believed modern India’s strength depended on incorporating the solidarities of all Indians as they stood on the precipice of the postcolonial age, Veer Vinayak Damodar Savarkar (1883-1966), an ethnocentric nationalist, held that a strong Hindu nation was the only way to guarantee India’s security against the Muslim other and the British imperialism. Being the philosopher of Hindutva, Savarkar represented the ethno-nationalistic component to Hindu nationalism and looked to cultural motifs in order to unify the “true” people of India. He, therefore, wrote glorified histories of India and its millennia-old cultural traditions in his essays. This article analyzes and historically contextualizes the timing and the rhetorical style of V. D. Savarkar’s infamous extended essay “Essentials of Hindutva”. Received 9th December 2020; Revised 2nd March 2021; Accepted 20th March 2021

Ugliness and Beauty: the Politics of Landscape in Walter Greenwood's Love on the Dole

2013 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 35-47
Author(s):  
Claire Warden
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Working Class ◽  
The Other ◽  
Surrounding Area ◽  
North West ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
The North ◽  
The One ◽  
The University ◽  
Open Fields

The multi-spatial landscape of the North-West of England (Manchester–Salford and the surrounding area) provides the setting for Walter Greenwood's 1934 play Love on the Dole. Both the urban industrialized cityscape and the rural countryside that surrounds it are vital framing devices for the narrative – these spaces not simply acting as backdrops but taking on character roles. In this article Claire Warden reads the play's presentation of the North through the concept of landscape theatre, on the one hand, and Raymond Williams's city–country dialogism on the other, claiming that Love on the Dole is imbued with the revolutionary possibility that defines the very landscape in which it is set. From claustrophobic working-class kitchen to the open fields of Derbyshire, Love on the Dole has a sense of spatial ambition in which Greenwood regards all landscapes as tainted by the industrial world while maintaining their capacity to function independently. Ugliness and beauty, capitalist hegemony and socialistic hopefulness reside simultaneously in this important under-researched example of twentieth-century British theatre, thereby reflecting the ambivalent, shifting landscape of the North and producing a play that cannot be easily defined artistically or politically. Claire Warden is a Lecturer in Drama at the University of Lincoln. Her work focuses on peripheral British performances in the early to mid-twentieth century. She is the author of British Avant-Garde Theatre (Palgrave MacMillan, 2012) and is currently writing Modernist and Avant-Garde Performance: an Introduction for Edinburgh University Press, to be published in 2014.

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