World-Ecological Satire: Peat, Brian O'Nolan, and the Irish Free State's Energy Regime

2019 ◽  
Vol 49 (1) ◽  
pp. 90-104
Author(s):  
Robert Kiely
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Production ◽  
Ecological Perspective ◽  
Energy Regime ◽  
Energy History ◽  
History Of ◽  
External Site ◽  
Ecological Relations ◽  
Nature And Society ◽  
Human Actors ◽  
The Relationship

A world-ecological perspective of cultural production refuses a dualist conception of nature and society – which imagines nature as an external site of static outputs  – and instead foregrounds the fact that human and extra-human natures are completely intertwined. This essay seeks to reinterpret the satirical writing of a canonical figure within the Irish literary tradition, Brian O'Nolan, in light of the energy history of Ireland, understood as co-produced by both human actors and biophysical nature. How does the energy imaginary of O'Nolan's work refract and mediate the Irish environment and the socio-ecological relations shaping the fuel supply-chains that power the Irish energy regime dominant under the Irish Free State? I discuss the relationship between peat as fuel and Brian O'Nolan's pseudonymous newspaper columns, and indicate how questions about energy regimes and ecology can lead us to read his Irish language novel An Béal Bocht [The Poor Mouth] (1941) in a new light. The moments I select and analyze from O'Nolan's output feature a kind of satire that exposes the folly of separating society from nature, by presenting an exaggerated form of the myth of nature as an infinite resource.

PIOPLE. INFORMATION. DEGRADATION

2019 ◽  
pp. 44-53
Author(s):  
Andrey Varlamov ◽  
Vladimir Rimshin
Keyword(s):  
Information Theory ◽  
Mathematical Theory ◽  
Maximum Information ◽  
Building Models ◽  
Man And Nature ◽  
History Of ◽  
Nature And Society ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
Link Information ◽  
The Relationship

Considered the issues of interaction between man and nature. Noted that this interaction is fundamental in the existence of modern civilization. The question of possible impact on nature and society with the aim of preserving the existence of human civilization. It is shown that the study of this issue goes towards the crea-tion of models of interaction between nature and man. Determining when building models is information about the interaction of man and nature. Considered information theory from the viewpoint of interaction between nature and man. Noted that currently information theory developed mainly as a mathematical theory. The issues of interaction of man and nature, the availability and existence of information in the material sys-tem is not studied. Indicates the link information with the energy terms control large flows of energy. For con-sideration of the interaction of man and nature proposed to use the theory of degradation. Graphs are pre-sented of the information in the history of human development. Reviewed charts of population growth. As a prediction it is proposed to use the simplest based on the theory of degradation. Consideration of the behav-ior of these dependencies led to the conclusion about the existence of communication energy and information as a feature of the degradation of energy. It justifies the existence of border life ( including humanity) at the point with maximum information. Shows the relationship of energy and time using potential energy.

Framing The Fosters: jokes, racism and Black and Asian voices in British comedy television

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gavin Schaffer
Keyword(s):  
Social History ◽  
Cultural Production ◽  
Racial Politics ◽  
Black British ◽  
Stand Up Comedy ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Post War ◽  
Cultural Leaders ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter interrogates the relationship between television comedy, power and racial politics in post-war Britain. In a period where Black and Asian Britons were forced to negotiate racism as a day-to-day reality, the essay questions the role played by television comedy in reflecting and shaping British multicultural society. Specifically, this chapter probes Black and Asian agency in comedy production, questioning who the joke makers were and what impact this had on the development of comedy and its reception. The work of scholars of Black and Asian comedy television such as Sarita Malik, and of Black stand-up comedy such as Stephen Small, has helped us to understand that Black- and Asian-led British comedy emerged belatedly in the 1980s and 1990s, hindered by the historical underrepresentation of these communities in British cultural production and the disinclination of British cultural leaders to address this problem. This chapter uses these scholarly frames of reference, alongside research that addresses the social and political functions of comedy, to re-open the social history of Black British communities in post-war Britain through the story of sitcom.

scholarly journals Assembling the multitude: questions about agency in the urban environment

Urban History ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
pp. 130-136 ◽  
Author(s):  
DOROTHEE BRANTZ
Keyword(s):  
Social Change ◽  
Urban Environment ◽  
Urban History ◽  
Technological Systems ◽  
Political Concern ◽  
History Of ◽  
Human Actors ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The City

In recent years, urban history has witnessed an expansion of actors. Historians have substantially and continuously extended their perspectives when it comes to examining the forces that drive urban developments. This expansion to an ever-broader range of human and increasingly also non-human actors (e.g. animals, technological systems and resources such as water) has opened up many new venues for investigations. It has also raised new questions about the role of cities in the history of social change. One of the most provocative ideas involves the claim that cities themselves should be considered agents and proprietors of change. Such notions of urban agency are premised on the assumption that, on the whole, cities are more than the sum of their parts. In this context, urbanization is not just viewed as the outcome of other determining societal forces, most notably capitalism. Instead, cities themselves are understood as determining entities and powerful enablers or preventers of material transformations. The investigative potential of such a perspective is tremendous, but the possible pitfalls should also not be underestimated. Exploring the explanatory prospects of urban agency requires, first of all, a critical engagement with both of the terms ‘agency’ and ‘the urban’. In my brief contribution to this roundtable, I would like to offer two points to the discussion: the first centres on the relationship between agency and intentionality/responsibilities, which is ultimately a political concern; the second aims to differentiate between the city as an entity and the urban as a process. Such a distinction, in turn, poses conceptual as well as methodological questions regarding the efficacy of agency as an urban concept.

The cultural production of Cabaret Voltaire: Marxism, the politics of modernism and post-punk

2021 ◽  
Vol 00 (00) ◽  
pp. 1-17
Author(s):  
Nick Stevenson
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Cultural Production ◽  
Electronic Music ◽  
Critical Assessment ◽  
Aesthetic Theory ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
History Of ◽  
Critical Understanding ◽  
Post Industrial ◽  
The Relationship

This article explores the contribution of Cabaret Voltaire to the history of industrial and electronic music in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Heavily influenced by the music of Kraftwerk, the Cabs drew upon the dystopian landscapes of William Burroughs to create a paranoid soundscape. Like Kraftwerk, Cabaret Voltaire’s music was influenced by the artistic movements of the twentieth century (most prominently Dada) and drew upon modernist techniques. Especially significant in this regard was their location within post-industrial Sheffield and the ideologies of post-punk more generally. This discussion offers a critical assessment of Cabaret Voltaire as a form of avant-garde music that sought to carefully position itself in the context of the cultural politics of the late 1970s and early 1980s. Primarily through the work of Marxist aesthetic theory, I seek to offer a critical appreciation of the relationship between Cabaret Voltaire and the influence of Dada and modernism. The aim of the discussion is to reclaim a more critical understanding of Marxism while exploring its arguments in relation to artistic forms of modernism and popular culture. Especially important at this juncture is the rejection of the cultural populism of postmodernism and the reclaiming of a more critical language of evaluation and critique. Here the argument is that whatever Cabaret Voltaire’s limitations they continue to remind us of modernism’s ongoing capacity to offer arresting forms of art and critique.

The Cultural Dynamics of Reception

2020 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-12
Author(s):  
Marie-Louise Coolahan
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Production ◽  
Critical Study ◽  
Reception Studies ◽  
Cultural Dynamics ◽  
Low Countries ◽  
Geographical Regions ◽  
History Of ◽  
New Material ◽  
International Comparative ◽  
The Relationship

The cultural dynamics of reception are best understood as a reiterative process of reshaping and reframing. Reception as an object of critical study embraces first the history of how texts were read, disseminated, and consumed across media, languages, and geographical regions. But if this is the first port of call, such analysis quickly draws in questions about the relationship between reception and production, audience and agency, about contemporary and posthumous reputation. This special issue investigates the ways in which the act of reception is a reiterative process on a continuous spectrum with cultural production. Receivers — of texts, events, reputations — are mediators, creatively reconstituting that which they receive according to their own agendas and contemporary imperatives. The articles in this collection embrace international, comparative, and new material contexts for early modern reception studies as they address poetry, romance, letters, history, hagiography, autobiography, and literary reviews. The transnational perspectives that emerge lead from the Low Countries to Italy, Ireland to France and the Spanish Netherlands, Spain to England, and England to France. The introductory essay for the issue additionally examines recent digital projects concerned with the history of reading and reception, exploring in particular how digital resource design foregrounds questions of representation and our immersion, as critics, in the act of reception.

scholarly journals Undivided object: language, ethnography and sources

2011 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 510-535
Author(s):  
Heloisa Pontes
Keyword(s):  
Social History ◽  
Cultural Production ◽  
Social Processes ◽  
Intellectual Life ◽  
Object Language ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
Basic Argument ◽  
The Relationship

This article argues that anthropology should not avoid studying the world of art and the specialized fields of cultural production. To do this it is necessary to examine the relationship between ethnography, language and social processes, as well as the way in which we make use o four sources (written, oral and visual) in our research. While this is the basic argument of the text, it also moves into a discussion of the sources that are available for the social history of the theater and Brazilian intellectual life from 1940 to 1960: photographs, interviews, reminiscences, biographies, autobiographies as well as books and theater repertories.

Introduction: The stories of American history and why they matter

2018 ◽  
pp. 1-7
Author(s):  
Eric Avila
Keyword(s):  
Cultural History ◽  
Cultural Production ◽  
American History ◽  
Driving Force ◽  
Spatial Context ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
National Boundaries ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
The Relationship

The book opens in explaining that this very short introduction to American cultural history emphasizes culture as a driving force in American history. Cultural history is the history of stories, their origins, transmission, and significance in time. However, no work of cultural history can disentangle the cultural from political, economic, and social processes of change. The relationship between culture and identity needs to be understood along with the spatial context of cultural production and its physical location within distinct geographies. American culture has been the sum of diverse global influences, from almost every part of the world, but it has not contained itself within national boundaries.

Historical borders and maps as symbolic supports to master narratives and history education

2020 ◽  
pp. 095935432096222
Author(s):  
Cristian Parellada ◽  
Mario Carretero ◽  
María Rodríguez-Moneo
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Production ◽  
History Education ◽  
Border Studies ◽  
Historical Maps ◽  
Sociocultural Perspective ◽  
Master Narratives ◽  
History Of Cartography ◽  
Production And Consumption ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Relationship

This article represents an attempt to establish a fruitful dialogue among the field of border studies, history education, sociocultural psychology, and the history of cartography. Seminal studies on borders have asserted that the historical maps included in textbooks are basically an imagined representation. This paper will consider the extent to which cultural and educational origins and uses of these maps, particularly in school settings, act as a support to historical essentialist views. Via the example of history education in Argentina, we carried out an empirical and theoretical examination of the processes of cultural production and consumption of historical maps and their relationship to historical master narratives. Results show that most laypeople largely think of national borders as possessing an essential and immutable character. We consider that closer study, from a sociocultural perspective, of the relationship between master narratives and historical maps may add an enriching element to the existing body of work produced by border studies.

scholarly journals Chanchadas and intermediality

2020 ◽  
pp. 28-30
Author(s):  
Flávia Cesarino Costa ◽  
John Gibbs
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Production ◽  
Film Studies ◽  
Musical Performances ◽  
Musical Comedy ◽  
Brazilian Cinema ◽  
History Of ◽  
Domestic Influence ◽  
Is Integration ◽  
Brazilian Film ◽  
The Relationship

This audiovisual essay investigates the intermedial nature of Brazilian film comedies produced during the 1940s and 50s by exploring the musical numbers of Aviso aos navegantes (Calling All Sailors, Watson Macedo, 1950). Brazilian cinema of this period is a privileged arena of different media strategies. Its “mixed” style is informed by Hollywood cinema but also by the domestic influence of radio, Carnival, and by the local forms of comic staging of the teatro de revista (the Brazilian equivalent of music hall or vaudeville). Of particular interest in this regard are the chanchadas, a body of films made between the mid-1930s and the early 1960s, that presented musical performances intertwined with comic situations, slender narrative lines and strong connections with the world of Carnival. Our aim is to show how the relationships between the different forms of cultural production in 1950s Brazil can be identified in a specific chanchada, opening a dialogue between musical performances on stage, over the radio, at Carnival and on screen. The essay also examines similarities and differences between chanchadas and the Hollywood musical comedy tradition. One area explored is integration, both in the sense in which it is often used in film studies, to discuss the relationship between the numbers and the narrative, and in reflecting on whether the different elements which feed into the numbers of Aviso aos navegantes are seamlessly combined in the film. Despite the huge popular success of his films, Watson Macedo was considered by many as the most “Americanised” of the directors of that period, adhering less to the critical mechanisms of parody than was the case with his contemporaries. However, if we pay attention to Macedo’s musical numbers, it is evident that these performances are not imperfect copies of Hollywood originals, but have a logic of their own. This audiovisual essay complements Flávia Cesarino Costa’s other contribution to this issue of Alphaville, the article “Building an Integrated History of Musical Numbers in Brazilian Chanchadas”, by exploring related ideas in the context of a single film. As well as the interest of the video essay’s own exploration and argument, the pairing of essays—traditional and videographic—enables readers of this issue to pursue their thinking about chanchadas and intermediality with specific audiovisual material in front of them

The relationship of the scleractinian corals to the rugose corals

Paleobiology ◽  
1980 ◽  
Vol 6 (02) ◽  
pp. 146-160 ◽  
Author(s):  
William A. Oliver
Keyword(s):  
Critical Points ◽  
Scleractinian Corals ◽  
Convincing Evidence ◽  
Early Triassic ◽  
Rugose Corals ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Biologic Factors

The Mesozoic-Cenozoic coral Order Scleractinia has been suggested to have originated or evolved (1) by direct descent from the Paleozoic Order Rugosa or (2) by the development of a skeleton in members of one of the anemone groups that probably have existed throughout Phanerozoic time. In spite of much work on the subject, advocates of the direct descent hypothesis have failed to find convincing evidence of this relationship. Critical points are:(1) Rugosan septal insertion is serial; Scleractinian insertion is cyclic; no intermediate stages have been demonstrated. Apparent intermediates are Scleractinia having bilateral cyclic insertion or teratological Rugosa.(2) There is convincing evidence that the skeletons of many Rugosa were calcitic and none are known to be or to have been aragonitic. In contrast, the skeletons of all living Scleractinia are aragonitic and there is evidence that fossil Scleractinia were aragonitic also. The mineralogic difference is almost certainly due to intrinsic biologic factors.(3) No early Triassic corals of either group are known. This fact is not compelling (by itself) but is important in connection with points 1 and 2, because, given direct descent, both changes took place during this only stage in the history of the two groups in which there are no known corals.

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