Religious mysticism of the “American Dream” in the tale “The King's Indian” by John Champlin Gardner Jr.

The metanarrative of the “American Dream” has a comprehensive impact on the social, political and cultural life of the United States, it attracts unflagging attention of researchers and it is interpreted in a significant number of works of art. This article analyses the functioning of the religious and mystical experience as a factor in achieving the “American Dream” “American Dream” in the tale “The King's Indian” (1974) by John Champlin Gardner Jr. (1933-1982), and it also attempts to determine the mechanism for the embodiment of the national utopian project in this work of fiction. The analysis examines the constituent elements of the project in synchronic and diachronic projections, it highlights the levels of the project actualisation in the work, it analyses how the characters try to implement it in relation to their worldview and individual existential plans; thus, successful and unsuccessful models of the achieving the “American Dream” are found. As a result, it is proved that the failure is due to the lack of religious mysticism. The failure leads to the destruction of the character's existential plan, built in accordance with the utopian project, and to its possible subsequent reconstruction. The successful realisation of the “American Dream” is possible only when the character follows “self-reliance" and trusts the transcendental forces. “The King's Indian” also reflects the philosophical and aesthetic program of “moral literature”, later formulated by Gardner in the essay of the same name.

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Finding the American Dream Abroad? Narratives of Return Among 1.5 and Second Generation Vietnamese American Skilled Migrants in Vietnam

Journal of Vietnamese Studies ◽

10.1525/jvs.2016.11.2.96 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 11 (2) ◽

pp. 96-121 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Mytoan Nguyen-Akbar

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

National Identity ◽

Social Class ◽

Personal Growth ◽

American Dream ◽

Second Generation ◽

The United States ◽

Vietnamese American ◽

The Social ◽

Migrant Selectivity

This essay, using multi-sited ethnographic methods, discusses the motivations for the en masse longer-term migration of 1.5 and second generation Vietnamese American professionals to their parents’ ancestral homeland during the 2000s. Social class dynamics, gender, racial, and national identity in the United States and migrant selectivity inform their decisions to migrate to the ancestral homeland for personal growth and to help develop the country. The interviewees’ framing of return experiences reflects the social ambivalence of returning as “in between” subjects in pursuit of a liberal capitalist American Dream abroad.

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Iran’s Second Revolution; A Millennial Challenge to the House of Saud

Cold War in the Islamic World ◽

10.1093/oso/9780190944650.003.0005 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 71-92

Author(s):

Dilip Hiro

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

Middle East ◽

The United States ◽

Jimmy Carter ◽

Remedial Action ◽

Cultural Life ◽

The Social ◽

State And Society ◽

The Government ◽

Iranian State

Having overthrown the pro-Washington Shah, Khomeini set out to purge the Iranian state and society of American influence. He was aided by the surprise occupation of the United States Embassy in Tehran in November 1979 by militant students. The capture of secret CIA reports on the Middle East by the Iranian occupiers gave credibility to the regime’s description of the Embassy as a “nest of spies,” and created a rationale for taking 52 US diplomats as hostage. The crisis lasted 444 days and ended with Ronald Reagan’s inauguration as president in January 1981 after his defeat of the incumbent Jimmy Carter, a Democrat. Quite independently, Saudi King Khalid faced an unprecedented challenge to the legitimacy of the House of Saud when on the eve of .the Islamic New Year of 1400 – 20 November 1979 – hundreds of armed militant Wahhabis, led by Juheiman al Utaiba seized the Grand Mosque in Mecca. Utaiba called for the overthrow of the royal family for deviating from Wahhabism. Aided by the American and French intelligence agencies and Pakistani soldiers, the government regained control of the Grand Mosque. It then took remedial action by imposing strict Wahhabi rules on the social-cultural life of citizens.

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Distinctively queer in the Parish: Performances of distinction and LGBTQ+ representations in Flemish prestige television fiction

European Journal of Cultural Studies ◽

10.1177/1367549418821844 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 23 (4) ◽

pp. 548-563

Author(s):

Florian Vanlee ◽

Sofie Van Bauwel ◽

Frederik Dhaenens

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

Gender Diversity ◽

The United States ◽

Target Audience ◽

The Other ◽

Domestic Fiction ◽

Social Deficit ◽

Cultural Life ◽

The Social ◽

And Gender

This article troubles the intuitive link between emancipatory portrayals of sexual and gender diversity and ‘quality television’ by focusing on three Flemish ‘prestige’ dramas: Met Man en Macht (VIER, 2013), Bevergem (Canvas, 2015) and Den Elfde Van Den Elfde (één, 2016). Contrary to the United States, Flemish quality television portrays fewer LGBTQ+ characters and narratives than less ‘prestigious’ content. Approached from a Bourdieusian perspective, the cases discussed show that when LGBTQ+ characters are featured in prestigious domestic fiction content, they function as distinctive queers. This article argues that, whereas LGBTQ+ characters in US quality television affirm the socio-cultural disposition of the target audience, Flemish prestige television fiction delegitimizes that of the group from which the imagined audience distinguishes itself. Distinctive queers circulate in a larger cultural repertoire associated with Flemish prestige television fiction, recasting markers of ordinary Flemishness found in domestic content. This repertoire is organized around the motif of the parish, and discursively separates Flanders into two distinct temporal configurations: one decidedly pre-modern and inferior, the other expressively modern and superior. A synecdoche for ‘common Flanders’, the parish constructs the majority of Flemings as culturally coarse, backwards and innately unable to be legitimately modern. As the analysis shows, distinctive queers accentuate the social deficit of mundane communities, and textually perform the distinction of fashionable, socially liberal urban-minded Flemings. In consonance with the hyperbolic representations that recast ‘ordinary Flemish cultural life’ as grotesque and ridiculous, distinctive queers frame LGBTQ+ inclusivity as the prerogative of conspicuously absent urban, socio-culturally progressive Flemings.

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THE CONTRIBUTION OF THE MOSHYTSKY FAMILY TO THE SOCIAL AND CULTURAL LIFE OF THE UKRAINIAN DIASPORA IN THE SECOND HALF OF THE ХХ CENTURY

Problems of humanities. History ◽

10.24919/2312-2595.6/48.228524 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 381-394

Author(s):

Oleksandr Muzychko

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

System Analysis ◽

The United States ◽

Ideal Model ◽

National Interests ◽

Cultural Life ◽

The Social ◽

The Family ◽

Cultural Processes ◽

Scientific Approach

Summary. The purpose of this article is to study the participation of Moszynski family in the social and cultural processes of Europe and the United States in the ХХ century. The methodological basis was chosen taking into account the objective and specificity of the object and subject of study. The basis is the system of methods of scientific of scientific knowledge: formal logic (analysis, synthesis, deduction, induction, analogy, abstraction) in order to clarify the content of the studied issues; theoretical – for the analysis of scientific literature; method of system analysis – to generalize the features of the historiographical and memorial situation. Problem-chronological, empirical, comparative and source methods are also used. The scientific approach of the publication is the formulation of new provisions on the peculiarities of the participation of Moshynski family in the social and cultural processes of Europe and the United States in the ХХ century. Conclusions. The Moshynsky family embodies the phenomenon of preserving the Ukrainian mentality and culture outside the homeland. Art studios became a nourishing source for the family members, the content and meaning of which was to combine modern art trends with traditional, folk, and Ukrainian ones. All members of the family demonstrated an example of a successful combination of the realization of artistic inspiration with public activities aimed at protecting the national interests of Ukrainians. Of great importance was the family’s experience in defending conservative, religious, and values. The phenomenon of the Moshynski family was already realized by contemporaries, who considered it as an ideal model for Ukrainian families in the diaspora. Prospects for further research are to expand the source base, recourse to oral sources, family archives.

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Rest Notes: On Black Sleep Aesthetics

October ◽

10.1162/octo_a_00422 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 7-24

Author(s):

Josie Roland Hodson

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

Black People ◽

Visual Representations ◽

The United States ◽

Racial Group ◽

Works Of Art ◽

The Social ◽

Political Conditions

Abstract Science has shown that Black people in the United States sleep more poorly than any other racial group. Relatedly, contradictory racial myths that depict Black people as simultaneously indolent and super-industrious persist in contemporary discourse. Confronting a culture that celebrates endurance over rest, this paper attends to works of art that visualize or create conditions for Black sleep, thereby resisting its biopolitical regulation and the lethal expectation of perpetual industry. This essay speculates about how visual representations of Black sleep can constitute quiet gestures that enact fugitivity and provide reparation for racial time—in part through the reclamation of interiority. Although sleep is a decidedly solitary act, this paper highlights artistic projects bound by an ethos of collectivity, arguing that the project of transforming the social and political conditions that reproduce Black sleeplessness cannot be pursued in isolation.

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Fragments of the American Dream: Immigration, Race, and Medical Care in the Segregated South, 1929

Public Voices ◽

10.22140/pv.111 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 13 (2) ◽

pp. 1

Author(s):

John R Phillips

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

American Dream ◽

Black Population ◽

The United States ◽

Single Woman ◽

Future Research ◽

Legal Doctrine ◽

Quarter Century ◽

History Of ◽

Sunflower County

The cover photograph for this issue of Public Voices was taken sometime in the summer of 1929 (probably June) somewhere in Sunflower County, Mississippi. Very probably the photo was taken in Indianola but, perhaps, it was Ruleville. It is one of three such photos, one of which does have the annotation on the reverse “Ruleville Midwives Club 1929.” The young woman wearing a tie in this and in one of the other photos was Ann Reid Brown, R.N., then a single woman having only arrived in the United States from Scotland a few years before, in 1923. Full disclosure: This commentary on the photo combines professional research interests in public administration and public policy with personal interests—family interests—for that young nurse later married and became the author’s mother. From the scholarly perspective, such photographs have been seen as “instrumental in establishing midwives’ credentials and cultural identity at a key transitional moment in the history of the midwife and of public health” (Keith, Brennan, & Reynolds 2012). There is also deep irony if we see these photographs as being a fragment of the American dream, of a recent immigrant’s hope for and success at achieving that dream; but that fragment of the vision is understood quite differently when we see that she began a hopeful career working with a Black population forcibly segregated by law under the incongruously named “separate but equal” legal doctrine. That doctrine, derived from the United States Supreme Court’s 1896 decision, Plessy v. Ferguson, would remain the foundation for legally enforced segregation throughout the South for another quarter century. The options open to the young, white, immigrant nurse were almost entirely closed off for the population with which she then worked. The remaining parts of this overview are meant to provide the following: (1) some biographical information on the nurse; (2) a description, in so far as we know it, of why she was in Mississippi; and (3) some indication of areas for future research on this and related topics.

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The American Federal Executive: A Study of the Social and Personal Characteristics of the Civilian and Military Leaders of the United States Federal Government.W. Lloyd Warner , Paul P. Van Riper , Norman H. Martin , Orvis F. Collins

The Journal of Politics ◽

10.2307/2127535 ◽

1964 ◽

Vol 26 (3) ◽

pp. 712-715

Author(s):

Herbert Emmerich

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

Personal Characteristics ◽

The United States ◽

Military Leaders ◽

The Social

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An Attack on the Separation of Powers? Strategic Climate Litigation in the Eyes of U.S. Judges

Sustainability ◽

10.3390/su13158335 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 13 (15) ◽

pp. 8335

Author(s):

Jasmina Nedevska

Keyword(s):

Social Sciences ◽

Climate Change ◽

United States ◽

Separation Of Powers ◽

The United States ◽

Checks And Balances ◽

Climate Politics ◽

The Social ◽

Domestic Courts ◽

Research Plan

Climate change litigation has emerged as a powerful tool as societies steer towards sustainable development. Although the litigation mainly takes place in domestic courts, the implications can be seen as global as specific climate rulings influence courts across national borders. However, while the phenomenon of judicialization is well-known in the social sciences, relatively few have studied issues of legitimacy that arise as climate politics move into courts. A comparatively large part of climate cases have appeared in the United States. This article presents a research plan for a study of judges’ opinions and dissents in the United States, regarding the justiciability of strategic climate cases. The purpose is to empirically study how judges navigate a perceived normative conflict—between the litigation and an overarching ideal of separation of powers—in a system marked by checks and balances.

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“The Future of Archaeology Is Antiracist”: Archaeology in the Time of Black Lives Matter

American Antiquity ◽

10.1017/aaq.2021.18 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 1-20

Author(s):

Ayana Omilade Flewellen ◽

Justin P. Dunnavant ◽

Alicia Odewale ◽

Alexandra Jones ◽

Tsione Wolde-Michael ◽

...

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

North American ◽

The United States ◽

Heritage Preservation ◽

Social Unrest ◽

Black Lives Matter ◽

The North ◽

Road Map ◽

The Social ◽

The Future

This forum builds on the discussion stimulated during an online salon in which the authors participated on June 25, 2020, entitled “Archaeology in the Time of Black Lives Matter,” and which was cosponsored by the Society of Black Archaeologists (SBA), the North American Theoretical Archaeology Group (TAG), and the Columbia Center for Archaeology. The online salon reflected on the social unrest that gripped the United States in the spring of 2020, gauged the history and conditions leading up to it, and considered its rippling throughout the disciplines of archaeology and heritage preservation. Within the forum, the authors go beyond reporting the generative conversation that took place in June by presenting a road map for an antiracist archaeology in which antiblackness is dismantled.

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