Writing self and kin: diasporic mourning in Jackie Kay’s Trumpet

2019 ◽  
pp. 151-174
Author(s):  
Gigi Adair
Keyword(s):  
Black Atlantic ◽  
Atlantic History ◽  
The Novel ◽  
History Of ◽  
Late Twentieth ◽  
The Dead ◽  
Queer Diaspora ◽  
Kinship Bonds ◽  
Late Twentieth Century ◽  
Contemporary Britain

This chapter considers how queer diaspora may be generated via mourning. Jackie Kay’s novel shows how mourning makes visible and performatively constructs kinship bonds, and that it is also an active process which rewrites the lives of the dead and living. This process of mourning and the constitution of self and kin in the novel takes place in the ‘diaspora space’ of contemporary Britain. Mourning is a force which creates queer diasporic bonds, affirming connections with the dead and transforming the living, enfolding the past into the future. It becomes clear that mourning and kinship are not only individually determined, but also influenced by a shared Black Atlantic history of loss, displacement and racialization. The novel suggests that two modes of kinship – one state-recognized, governed by genealogy or legal recognition, the other mobile, performative and created by shared experience and aesthetic creation – coexist in the context of late twentieth-century Britain, and that these latter, queerly diasporic notions of kinship have shaped contemporary Britain in numerous ways.

In My Time of Dying

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Parker
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Historical Perspective ◽  
Colonial Rule ◽  
Diverse Range ◽  
History Of ◽  
Late Twentieth ◽  
The Dead ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Late Twentieth Century ◽  
Over Time

This book is the first detailed history of death and the dead in Africa south of the Sahara. Focusing on a region that is now present-day Ghana, the book explores mortuary cultures and the relationship between the living and the dead over a 400-year period spanning the seventeenth to twentieth centuries. The book considers many questions from the African historical perspective, including why people die and where they go after death, how the dead are buried and mourned to ensure they continue to work for the benefit of the living, and how perceptions and experiences of death and the ends of life have changed over time. From exuberant funeral celebrations encountered by seventeenth-century observers to the brilliantly conceived designer coffins of the late twentieth century, the book shows that the peoples of Ghana have developed one of the world's most vibrant cultures of death. The book explores the unfolding background of that culture through a diverse range of issues, such as the symbolic power of mortal remains and the dominion of hallowed ancestors, as well as the problem of bad deaths, vile bodies, and vengeful ghosts. The book reconstructs a vast timeline of death and the dead, from the era of the slave trade to the coming of Christianity and colonial rule to the rise of the modern postcolonial nation. With an array of written and oral sources, the book richly adds to an understanding of how the dead continue to weigh on the shoulders of the living.

scholarly journals ‘Op die limiete’: Karel Schoeman se Verkenning (1996)

Literator ◽  
1997 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 57-78 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. Van Vuuren
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
French Revolution ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Creative Imagination ◽  
Intercultural Relationships ◽  
Colonial Era ◽  
New Era ◽  
History Of ◽  
Late Twentieth ◽  
Late Twentieth Century

‘At the limits’: Karel Schoeman’s Verkenning (1996)Written from the postcolonial vantage point of the new South Africa, Karel Schoeman's Verkenning (Reconnaissance) deals with the colonial era of the early nineteenth century. Through metafictional commentary the reader is alerted to the provisionality and tentativeness of historical fiction, as fiction and historical facts are constantly juxtaposed. At the same time the novel can be read as an attempt to fathom the ‘darkness’ of the bygone era, and to throw ‘light’ on the nature of intercultural relationships during the period of the Batavian Republic (1803-1806). Of central importance, however, is the way in which the consciousness of a new era is suggested through the subtle functioning of numerous intertexts. These intertexts deal with various forms of transitional consciousness, such as those associated with the French Revolution. A remarkable characteristic of the novel is its historiographic metafictionality, an innovative element in Schoeman’s oeuvre. Verkenning (Reconnaissance) is a polyphonic novel in which a collage of voices is foregrounded and presented in the process of ‘exploring’. From within the politically transformed multicultural South Africa of the late twentieth century, the creative imagination explores the roots of this society in the history of almost two centuries ago. In this respect Verkenning may be characterised as a postcolonial narrative construct and thus part of "oorgangsliteratuur" or “Wendeliteratur”, a term coined for the literature produced after the political change in 1989/1990 in Germany.

URBAN DISPLACEMENT AND LOW-INCOME COMMUNITIES: THE CASE OF THE AMERICAN CITY FROM THE LATE TWENTIETH CENTURY

2016 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 06 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jason Knight ◽  
Mohammad Gharipour
Keyword(s):  
Urban Communities ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Urban Redevelopment ◽  
Minority Populations ◽  
The People ◽  
History Of ◽  
Late Twentieth ◽  
Cultural Connections ◽  
American Cities ◽  
Late Twentieth Century

How can urban redevelopment benefit existing low-income communities? The history of urban redevelopment is one of disruption of poor communities. Renewal historically offered benefits to the place while pushing out the people. In some cases, displacement is intentional, in others it is unintentional. Often, it is the byproduct of the quest for profits. Regardless of motives, traditional communities, defined by cultural connections, are often disrupted. Disadvantaged neighborhoods include vacant units, which diminish the community and hold back investment. In the postwar period, American cities entered into a program of urban renewal. While this program cleared blight, it also drove displacement among the cities’ poorest and was particularly hard on minority populations clustered in downtown slums. The consequences of these decisions continue to play out today. Concentration of poverty is increasing and American cities are becoming more segregated. As neighborhoods improve, poorer residents are uprooted and forced into even more distressed conditions, elsewhere. This paper examines the history of events impacting urban communities. It further reviews the successes and failures of efforts to benefit low-income communities.

The Birth of the Prophet Muhammad

2009 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 97-99
Author(s):  
Frederick S. Colby
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Middle Eastern ◽  
Formative Period ◽  
Central Importance ◽  
Islamic Studies ◽  
Critical Scholarship ◽  
History Of ◽  
Late Twentieth ◽  
Modern Era ◽  
Late Twentieth Century

Despite the central importance of festival and devotional piety to premodernMuslims, book-length studies in this field have been relatively rare.Katz’s work, The Birth of the Prophet Muhammad, represents a tour-deforceof critical scholarship that advances the field significantly both throughits engagement with textual sources from the formative period to the presentand through its judicious use of theoretical tools to analyze this material. Asits title suggests, the work strives to explore how Muslims have alternativelypromoted and contested the commemoration of the Prophet’s birth atdifferent points in history, with a particular emphasis on how the devotionalistapproach, which was prominent in the pre-modern era, fell out of favoramong Middle Eastern Sunnis in the late twentieth century. Aimed primarilyat specialists in Middle Eastern and Islamic studies, especially scholarsof history, law, and religion, this work is recommended to anyone interestedin the history of Muslim ritual, the history of devotion to the Prophet, andthe interplay between normative and non-normative forms ofMuslim beliefand practice ...

The Myth of the Perfect Pregnancy

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lara Freidenfelds
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Health Care Providers ◽  
Maternal Education ◽  
Colonial America ◽  
Care Providers ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
Unrealistic Expectation ◽  
History Of ◽  
Late Twentieth ◽  
Late Twentieth Century

The Myth of the Perfect Pregnancy is a history of why Americans came to have the unrealistic expectation of perfect pregnancies and to mourn even very early miscarriages. The introduction explains that miscarriage is a common phenomenon and a natural part of healthy women’s childbearing: approximately 20 percent of confirmed pregnancies spontaneously miscarry, mostly in the first months of gestation. Eight topical chapters describe childbearing and pregnancy loss in colonial America; the rise of birth control from the late eighteenth century to the present; changes in parenting from the early nineteenth century to the present that increasingly focused attention on the emotional relationship between parent and child; the twentieth-century rise of prenatal care and maternal education about embryonic growth; the twentieth-century blossoming of a consumer culture that marketed baby items to pregnant women; the abortion debates from the mid-twentieth century to the present; the late twentieth-century introduction of obstetric ultrasound and its evolution into a pregnancy ritual of “meeting the baby” as early as eight weeks’ gestation; and the late twentieth-century introduction of home pregnancy testing and the identification of pregnancy as early as several days before a missed period. The conclusion offers suggestions for how women and their families, health-care providers, and the maternity care industry can better handle pregnancy and address miscarriage.

scholarly journals Adapting Wives and Daughters for Television: Reimagining Women, Travel, Natural Science, and Race

Adaptation ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gill Ballinger
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Natural Science ◽  
Black People ◽  
Racial Politics ◽  
The Novel ◽  
African People ◽  
Female Protagonist ◽  
Late Twentieth ◽  
Late Twentieth Century

Abstract This essay examines the depiction of women, travel, natural science, and race in Elizabeth Gaskell’s Wives and Daughters (1864–66) and Andrew Davies’s BBC adaptation of the novel (1999). It argues that the adaptation offers a recognizable transposition of Gaskell’s text, but makes some significant adjustments that reveal its contemporary reimagining of the novel’s gender and racial politics. In particular, Davies transforms Gaskell’s unexceptional female protagonist Molly Gibson into a proto-feminist naturalist adventurer, and revisions the casual racism the novel expresses towards black people in line with late-twentieth-century sensibilities. Each text, novel and film, reveals the period-specific ideological forces that shape its portrayal of Englishwomen and African people.

scholarly journals Предательство человечности. Красный террор большевиков в Крыму во время гражданской войны 1918–1920 гг. в повести Ивана Шмелева „Солнце мертвых”

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 383-396
Author(s):  
Svetlana Kravchenko
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
The Sun ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Historical Events ◽  
Extreme Situation ◽  
Human Survival ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Dead ◽  
The Rich

[Betrayal of humanity. The red terror of the Bolsheviks in Crimea during the civil war in 1918–1920 in the light of Ivan Szmielev’s novel “The Sun of the Dead”] The article analyzes the novel by the Russian writer Ivan Szmielev “The Sun of the Dead” (1923). It was written on the basis of historical events. I analyze the composition of the work, which is based on two symbols – the sun and death. The sun symbolizes the rich and beautiful Crimea, and deathis a symbol of the new power – the power of the Bolsheviks who destroyed this wonderful land of Crimea. The author of the article emphasizes the autobiographical nature of the story “The Sun of the Dead”. Its narration is based on a firstperson story by Ivan Szmielev. This is a feature of lyrical prose. Describing the tragic events of total red terror, hunger and the struggle for survival, Ivan Szmielevs howsthat death affects everyone – people, animals, birds, trees, plants. The author of the article also emphasizes the philosophical and humanistic aspect of the work, which shows the history of humanity and human survival in an extreme situation, when very few are lucky enough to resist and not become victims of brutal murders of the Bolsheviks or starvation. In the process of the story, the image of the desert appears – a metaphor with which the writer emphasizes the scale of the destructive activity of the Bolsheviks.

EXODUCTION

2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Schechner
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Oral Transmission ◽  
Transmission Of Knowledge ◽  
History Of ◽  
Late Twentieth ◽  
Late Twentieth Century

This essay by Richard Schechner dedicated to a mythical figure of the theater of the late twentieth century; a work of critical reconstruction that has contributed decisively to consolidating the legacy of Grotowski, just a few months after his death. In addition to fixing some essential terms of the vocabulary, together with the contents and the periodization of the Grotowskian work (aspects that Grotowski in life were entrusted exclusively to oral transmission), the essay retraces the formation of Grotowski, the aspects linked to his character, the specific forms of his research and his transmission of knowledge, the exercise of leadership, the role of his collaborators, the sources, the mystical side, his relationship with the spirit of time, the importance (and weakness) of his opera, in the history of twentieth century theater.

Mourning Otherwise

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Athena Athanasiou
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Armed Conflicts ◽  
Former Yugoslavia ◽  
Central Aspect ◽  
Military Violence ◽  
History Of ◽  
Late Twentieth ◽  
A Site ◽  
Late Twentieth Century

This chapter engages the discursive conditions that made ethno-nationalist ideologies and armed conflicts of the 1990s possible and probable. Indeed, the question of how to recall the late twentieth-century history of former Yugoslavia constitutes a central aspect of the Women in Black labour of memory. The dissolution of Yugoslavia, especially the normalization of nationalist military violence in the mid-1990s, has manifested gendered norms as constitutive of nationalist discourses. Drawing on the ways in which the movement performatively brings forth an alternative public to embody the potentiality of displaced memory, this chapter argues in favor of breaking through the universalist, moralist, and humanist scripts of mourning. It seeks to make sense of the politically enabling ways in which these activists stage mourning as a site of agonistic resignification in order to interrogate the injustices and foreclosures which sustain dominant regimes of grievability, in Judith Butler’s terms.

My Path

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jean-Luc Marion
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Intellectual Life ◽  
Religious Background ◽  
Academic System ◽  
History Of ◽  
Late Twentieth ◽  
New Philosophers ◽  
French Intellectuals ◽  
Late Twentieth Century

This chapter explains Marion’s intellectual, cultural, and religious background and academic pathway. It provides an account of French intellectual life in the late twentieth century, including the student revolutions and the movement of the “New Philosophers.” It also discusses the contribution of several prominent French intellectuals. Marion outlines the history of the founding of the Catholic lay journal Communio and comments on the importance of several twentieth-century theologians. He also discusses the French academic system and its future.

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