scholarly journals What's ‘French’ about French Studies?

2015 ◽  
Vol 54 (3) ◽  
pp. 312-327
Author(s):  
Charles Forsdick
Keyword(s):  
First Century ◽  
Past Century ◽  
French Studies ◽  
The Past ◽  
Early Twenty ◽  
The World ◽  
French Speaking ◽  
Disciplinary Field ◽  
Twenty First Century

Those reflecting on what is ‘French’ about ‘French studies’ in the early twenty-first century must consider the transformations evident in the disciplinary field over the past century. This article gives an overview of these shifts, but focuses in particular on the increasingly pluralized and diversified objects of study now addressed in explorations of the French-speaking world, as well as on the radical changes in the ways in which those objects are now approached. Central to the analysis is an awareness of a wider Francosphere, which has served to locate France in relation to a wider network of countries and communities, and may be seen to have provincialized, as a result, in a transnational and postcolonial frame, the former colonial centre. The article concludes with a reflection on Mary Louise Pratt's designation of Modern Languages as ‘knowing languages and […] knowing the world through languages’ (2002), and – in the context of French studies in the twenty-first century – asks: which languages? which world? and what forms of knowing?

Theodicy Sociologised: Suffering Smart in the Twenty-First Century

2011 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 93-115 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steve Fuller
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Social Attitudes ◽  
First Century ◽  
Human Suffering ◽  
Early Twenty ◽  
Cosmic Order ◽  
The World ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
Normative Order

Theodicy is the branch of theology traditionally concerned with justifying palpable injustices in the world that are presumably the product of a just deity. The classical sociologists appreciated theodicy's relevance in terms of different social attitudes towards human suffering: is it to be tolerated, minimised, redressed or somehow transcended? Each answer implies a different view about the place of humanity in some larger cosmic order. In modern political theory, the question is normally specified in terms of the problem of distributive justice. However, the re-negotiation of the boundary between biology and sociology in the early twenty-first century is forcing a re-engagement with theodicy in its original broad sense, especially as we are increasingly asked to set resource distribution policies that bind across generations of humans and non-humans alike. In this context, as humans acquire an increasingly ‘godlike’ perspective on the normative order, suffering may come to be seen in more strictly instrumental terms – indeed, as itself a resource that might be recycled to produce good in the long term. Thus, we may be entering an era of ‘moral entrepreneurship’.

Industrialization, Hubs, and Catch-up

2020 ◽  
pp. 145-161
Author(s):  
Deepak Nayyar
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Industrial Revolution ◽  
The United States ◽  
First Century ◽  
Rapid Decline ◽  
The Past ◽  
Early Twenty ◽  
The World ◽  
Catch Up

This chapter analyses the striking changes in the geographical distribution of manufacturing production amongst countries and across continents since 1750, a period that spans more than two-and-a-half centuries, which could be described as the movement of industrial hubs in the world economy over time. Until around 1820, world manufacturing production was concentrated in China and India. The Industrial Revolution, followed by the advent of colonialism, led to deindustrialization in Asia and, by 1880, Britain became the world industrial hub that extended to northwestern Europe. The United States surpassed Britain in 1900, and was the dominant industrial hub in the world until 2000. During 1950 to 2000, the relative, though not absolute, importance of Western Europe diminished, and Japan emerged as a significant industrial hub, while the other new industrial hub, the USSR and Eastern Europe, was short lived. The early twenty-first century, 2000–2017, witnessed a rapid decline of the United States, Western Europe, and Japan as industrial hubs, to be replaced largely by Asia, particularly China. This process of shifting hubs, associated with industrialization in some countries and deindustrialization in other countries in the past, might be associated with premature deindustrialization in yet other countries in the future.

in your ear: hearing art in the twenty-first century

2005 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 91-96 ◽  
Author(s):  
laura heon
Keyword(s):  
Visual Art ◽  
Space Time ◽  
Sound Art ◽  
First Century ◽  
Past Century ◽  
The Past ◽  
Space And Time ◽  
Art Form ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
Sister Arts

over the past century, an art form has emerged between the realms of visual art and music. created by composers and sculptors, ‘sound art’ challenges fundamental divisions between these two sister arts and may be found in museums, festivals or public sites. works of sound art play on the fringes of our often-unconscious aural experience of a world dominated by the visual. this work addresses our ears in surprising ways: it is not strictly music, or noise, or speech, or any sound found in nature, but often includes, combines and transforms elements of all of these. sound art sculpts sound in space and time, reacts to environments and reshapes them, and frames ambient ‘found sound’, altering our concepts of space, time, music and noise.

scholarly journals Photoblogs: the immediate need to document early twenty-first century photography practices

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephanie Atwood
Keyword(s):  
First Century ◽  
Future Generations ◽  
Hard Copy ◽  
Digital Cameras ◽  
Collections Management ◽  
Camera Phones ◽  
The People ◽  
Early Twenty ◽  
The World ◽  
Twenty First Century

This thesis attempts to suggest ways in which museums might better understand and make informed decisions about acquiring, preserving, and cataloguing photoblogs, which are an early twenty-first century photography practice. Photographers can now use the World Wide Web to show and share their images, because of the advent of digital cameras, camera phones, and cheap, open-source photo-blogging tools available to the general population. This thesis will help museums to better understand and be comfortable in acquiring digital artefacts, such as photoblogs, that will enrich their photographic collections for future generations. Acquisition tools and preservation methods are defined and discussed. The process of cataloguing photoblogs in current collections-management databases is not much different from cataloguing hard-copy photographs. The "People of Walmart" photoblog is used as an example and an illustration to clearly define the difficult technical jargon separating curatorial and collections management departments from information technology departments.

scholarly journals Leading Beautifully: The Creative Economy and Beyond

2018 ◽  
Vol 50 (4) ◽  
pp. 11-39
Author(s):  
Nancy J. Adler
Keyword(s):  
First Century ◽  
Creative Economy ◽  
The Past ◽  
The World ◽  
The Future ◽  
Passionate Commitment ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
Traditional Structures ◽  
First Time

<p align="right">Only by investing in the artistry of our humanity <br/>will we create a peaceful, prosperous planet</p> “These times are riven with anxiety and uncertainty” asserts John O’Donohue.<sup>1</sup> “In the hearts of people some natural ease has been broken. … Our trust in the future has lost its innocence. We know now that anything can happen. … The traditional structures of shelter are shaking, their foundations revealed to be no longer stone but sand. We are suddenly thrown back on ourselves. At first, it sounds completely naïve to suggest that now might be the time to invoke beauty. Yet this is exactly what … [we claim]. Why? Because there is nowhere else to turn and we are desperate; furthermore, it is because we have so disastrously neglected the Beautiful that we now find ourselves in such a terrible crisis.”<sup>2</sup> Twenty‑first century society yearns for a leadership of possibility, a leadership based more on hope, aspiration, innovation, and beauty than on the replication of historical patterns of constrained pragmatism. Luckily, such a leadership is possible today. For the first time in history, leaders can work backward from their aspirations and imagination rather than forward from the past.<sup>3</sup> “The gap between what people can imagine and what they can accomplish has never been smaller.”<sup>4</sup> Responding to the challenges and yearnings of the twenty‑first century demands anticipatory creativity. Designing options worthy of implementation calls for levels of inspiration, creativity, and a passionate commitment to beauty that, until recently, have been more the province of artists and artistic processes than the domain of most managers. The time is right for the artistic imagination of each of us to co‑create the leadership that the world most needs and deserves.

The Prime Minister

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anthony Trollope
Keyword(s):  
Prime Minister ◽  
First Century ◽  
Political Life ◽  
British Society ◽  
Early Twenty ◽  
The World ◽  
Twenty First Century

‘Though a great many men and not a few women knew Ferdinand Lopez very well, none of them knew whence he had come.’ Despite his mysterious antecedents, Ferdinand Lopez aspires to join the ranks of British society. An unscrupulous financial speculator, he determines to marry into respectability and wealth, much against the wishes of his prospective father-in-law. One of the nineteenth century’s most memorable outsiders, Lopez’s story is set against that of the ultimate insider, Plantagenet Palliser, Duke of Omnium. Omnium reluctantly accepts the highest office of state; now, at last, he is ‘the greatest man in the greatest country in the world’. But his government is a fragile coalition and his wife’s enthusiastic assumption of the role of political hostess becomes a source of embarrassment. Their troubled relationship and that of Lopez and Emily Wharton is a conjunction that generates one of Trollope’s most complex and substantial novels. Part of the Palliser series, The Prime Minister’s tale of personal and political life in the 1870s has acquired a new topicality in the early twenty-first century.

“Beyond the Rainbow”

2018 ◽  
pp. 223-240
Author(s):  
Walter Frisch
Keyword(s):  
Social Contexts ◽  
First Century ◽  
The Political ◽  
Special Focus ◽  
Wizard Of Oz ◽  
The Past ◽  
Early Twenty ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
Iconic Status

To paraphrase one of the most famous lines in movie history, we are not in Kansas—or in Oz—anymore. Nevertheless, the songs of The Wizard of Oz have continued to resonate well beyond the 1939 MGM film, extending deep into the political, cultural, and social contexts of the early twenty-first century. This chapter explores something of the afterlives of the songs, with a special focus on the most popular one, “Over the Rainbow,” which has achieved iconic status over the past eighty years. And if there is any overarching legacy of the songs, it is perhaps the idea that however much we dream or hope, we should not give up our home, our roots.

6. The Global Wave of Democratization

2018 ◽  
pp. 82-100
Author(s):  
John Markoff ◽  
Daniel Burridge
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
First Century ◽  
Colonial Rule ◽  
Authoritarian Rule ◽  
Early Twenty ◽  
The World ◽  
Mediterranean Europe ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
Eastern Half

This chapter focuses on the great wave of democracy that had touched every continent. In the early 1970s, Western Europe was home to several non-democratic countries, most of Latin America was under military or other forms of authoritarian rule, the eastern half of Europe was ruled by communist parties, much of Asia was undemocratic, and in Africa colonial rule was largely being succeeded by authoritarian regimes. By the early twenty-first century, things had changed considerably, albeit to different degrees in different places. The chapter looks at regions of the world that underwent significant change in democracy between 1972 and 2004, including Mediterranean Europe, Latin America, Soviet/Communist Bloc, Asia, and Africa. It considers what was distinctive about each region’s democratization and what they had in common. It concludes with an overview of challenges faced by democracy in the early twenty-first century.

Generation fables and the ‘end of history’

2019 ◽  
pp. 87-112
Author(s):  
Jennie Bristow
Keyword(s):  
First Century ◽  
Historical Period ◽  
End Of History ◽  
The Past ◽  
Early Twenty ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Sixties ◽  
The End Of History ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
Outside The Box

This chapter examines ‘generationalism’ — using the language of generations to narrate the social and political. It argues that generationalism means that we are in danger of taking historical stories way too personally. The chapter shows that the generationalism of the Sixties was as much about the failure of established institutions and ideologies to grasp what was happening as it was about the experience of the kids and the counterculture. Moving on half a century, the generationalism of the early twenty-first century tells us as much about our present anxieties as it does about the Sixties as a historical period. Whereas the Sixties Boomer was, until fairly recently, a source of wistful fascination, often bringing with it a romanticised nostalgia for a time when people felt they could think and live outside the box, the Boomer-blaming of the present day mobilises the stereotype as an example of everything that is seen to be wrong with the past.

Reconsidering policy – our agenda

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
Kate Crowley ◽  
Jenny Stewart ◽  
Adrian Kay ◽  
Brian W. Head
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Policy Development ◽  
First Century ◽  
Current Policy ◽  
Policy Studies ◽  
The Past ◽  
Modes Of Action ◽  
The World ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
Policy Problems

Policy studies are in a rut. Just as politics in both the global and domestic spheres have been taking more partisan forms, policy studies itself has become more inward looking, and less interested in politics and practice than in the past. The authors suggest that making public policy relevant again, requires an understanding, not just of policy development and selected policy-related themes, but a broader engagement with structure, process and system: as a way of depicting not just the formation of policy, but also its modes of action in the world. Doing this involves building on earlier iterations of policy thought and relating them, not only to the complexity of current policy problems, but also to the immense technological and political changes that have occurred in the twenty-first century.

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