Conflicting Identities

2021 ◽  
pp. 117-140
Author(s):  
Doris Kadish
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
Franz Kafka ◽  
Saul Bellow ◽  
Mary Mccarthy ◽  
Language And Culture ◽  
Bernard Malamud ◽  
Isaac Bashevis Singer ◽  
The 1950S ◽  
Jewish Descent

This chapter traces Rahv’s role in forming the canon of 20th century Jewish writing: to use his words, works by writers of Jewish descent. It considers his championing of Franz Kafka, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Bernard Malamud, and Saul Bellow. The significance of modernism, Zionism, and Yiddish in their works is foregrounded. Their stories of Jewishness are interwoven with Rahv’s to illuminate his affirmation of Jewish language and culture, which was marked, however, with ambivalence and irony. To explain Rahv’s ambivalent Jewishness in the 1940s and 50s, this chapter considers what two of his closest friends and associates had to say about him: William Barrett and Mary McCarthy, whose satirical depiction of him in the 1949 “roman à clef” The Oasis provoked Rahv to initiate a law suit. The chapter closes with reflections on what Jewishness meant in Rahv’s world and my own during the 1950s.

scholarly journals Between Homeland and Emigration. Tuwim’s Struggle for Identity

2017 ◽  
Vol 36 (6) ◽  
pp. 35-47
Author(s):  
Hans-Christian Trepte
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
World War ◽  
Political Activities ◽  
Language And Culture ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
Language And Literature ◽  
Polish Language ◽  
Polish Jews ◽  
Jewish Descent

Julian Tuwim belongs to the pantheon of the greatest Polish writes of the 20th century. His Polish-Jewish descent, his attitude towards the Polish language, towards Jews in Poland, his political activities as an emigrant as well as his controversial involvement with the communist Poland still fuel many critical discussions. Polish language and culture were for him much more important than the categories of nation or state. However, whereas for Polish nationalists and antisemites Tuwim remained “only” a Jew, Jewish nationalists considered him a traitor. It was in exile that his attitude towards his Jewish countrymen began to change, especially after he learnt about the horror of the Holocaust in occupied Poland. Thus, he began writing his famous, dramatic manifesto, We, the Polish Jews. After World War II, Tuwim came back to Poland, hoping to continue his prewar career as a celebrated poet. His manifold contributions to the development of the Polish language and literature, within the country and abroad, cannot be questioned, and the dilemmas concerning his cultural and ethnic identity only make him a more interesting writer. Julian Tuwim belongs to the pantheon of the greatest Polish writes of the 20th century. His Polish-Jewish descent, his attitude towards the Polish language, towards Jews in Poland, his political activities as an emigrant as well as his controversial involvement with the communist Poland still fuel many critical discussions. Polish language and culture were for him much more important than the categories of nation or state. However, whereas for Polish nationalists and antisemites Tuwim remained “only” a Jew, Jewish nationalists considered him a traitor. It was in exile that his attitude towards his Jewish countrymen began to change, especially after he learnt about the horror of the Holocaust in occupied Poland. Thus, he began writing his famous, dramatic manifesto, We, the Polish Jews. After World War II, Tuwim came back to Poland, hoping to continue his prewar career as a celebrated poet. His manifold contributions to the development of the Polish language and literature, within the country and abroad, cannot be questioned, and the dilemmas concerning his cultural and ethnic identity only make him a more interesting writer.

Latviešu valodas kā svešvalodas apguve Āzijā

2020 ◽  
pp. 55-62
Author(s):  
Inga Laizāne
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Higher Education Institutions ◽  
State University ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Self Directed Learning ◽  
Language And Culture ◽  
Study Programs ◽  
Directed Learning ◽  
The Republic

The Latvian language as a foreign language (LATS) is learned both in Latvia and abroad. It can be done in higher education institutions, as well as in different courses and self-directed learning. Outside Latvia, there are many countries and higher education institutions where it is possible to acquire LATS. In some higher education institutions, the Latvian language has been taught since the beginning of the 20th century. The oldest LATS teaching traditions are in North America, Germany, Sweden, Lithuania and Australia. In some universities, such as Stockholm University, Masaryk University, Saint Petersburg State University, etc., academically strong study programs in Baltic Studies were established. Over time, study programs have been closed for various reasons, at most leaving the Latvian language as an optional course. At some universities, the Latvian language course has been discontinued. Although in some higher education institutions outside Latvia LATS could be acquired starting from the beginning of the 20th century, the most significant interest in the Latvian language was after the restoration of independence of the Republic of Latvia. Then many higher education institutions in Europe established Latvian language and culture study programs. This interest was related to the geopolitical situation. People tried to get to know the post-Soviet countries through the language. When Latvia joined the European Union, interest in the Latvian language decreased in Europe. Nowadays, interest in the Latvian language has increased in Asia, especially in China. In Asia, it is possible to acquire the Latvian language in China and Japan. There are established different Latvian language bachelor programs in universities of China while in Japan the Latvian language is taught for somebody interested in Latvian culture and traditions more than in the Latvian language.

The Apprentice

2017 ◽  
pp. 1-36
Author(s):  
Wheeler Winston Dixon
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Critical Appraisal ◽  
The Other ◽  
John Ford ◽  
The 1950S

This chapter provides a background on Terence Fisher's career that is regarded by most as that of a journeyman director and by French critics that argued that Fisher was a master filmmaker since the 1950s. It looks at the efforts of David Pirie and others who brought about the first serious critical appraisal of Fisher's work beginning in the late 1960s. It also describes Fisher as the greatest Gothic filmmaker of the second half of the 20th century and British equivalent in terms of style and seriousness of the great American myth-master, John Ford. The chapter mentions The Curse of Frankenstein, in which Fisher creates a real, believable world, and does superb work with Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, and the other members of the cast. It talks about Fisher's admission toward the end of his life about he had very little affection for science fiction.

5. Into the mainstream

2021 ◽  
pp. 50-60
Author(s):  
Ilan Stavans
Keyword(s):  
International Literature ◽  
Anzia Yezierska ◽  
Jewish Literature ◽  
Philip Roth ◽  
Saul Bellow ◽  
Abraham Cahan ◽  
Cynthia Ozick ◽  
Isaac Bashevis Singer ◽  
Grace Paley ◽  
Jewish Writers

“Into the mainstream” looks at immigrant Jewish writers in America, such as Abraham Cahan (The Rise of David Levinsky), Anzia Yezierska (Bread Givers), and Isaac Bashevis Singer (Gimpel the Fool and Other Stories), all of whom transitioned from Yiddish into English, and analyzes Henry Roth’s Call It Sleep as a transitional novel. We notice here the transition from “ethnic” to “national” writer in the careers of Bashevis Singer, Saul Bellow, Philip Roth, Grace Paley, and Cynthia Ozick. Much was gained and lost in Jewish literature as a result of Jews becoming a “successful minority” in America. Jewish readers have always been a voracious audience of international literature.

Sørensen, Villy (1929–2001)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Søren R. Fauth
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
German Literature ◽  
Franz Kafka ◽  
Thomas Mann ◽  
Greek Mythology ◽  
Literary Critic ◽  
Social Commentary ◽  
Philosophy And Literature ◽  
Philosophy Of Culture ◽  
Hermann Broch

Villy Sørensen was a prominent intellectual figure of 20th-century Denmark. His work spanned social commentary, philosophy, and literature. He was a sophisticated literary critic, author of tales based on Norse and Greek mythology, and an outstanding translator of Latin and German literature, particularly of modernist writers of the German-language tradition such as Franz Kafka and Hermann Broch. His fiction comprises only a small part of his oeuvre, the most notable being the early tales Sære historier (1953) and Ufarlige historier [Harmless Tales] (1955), and a later collection of short prose, Formynderfortællinger [Tutelary Tales] (1964). The remainder of his legacy consists of philosophical and cultural treatises, and literary criticisms such as Digtere og dæmoner (1959). In this latter work, Sørensen, who was especially oriented towards German letters, provides in-depth perspectives on such modernist writers as Franz Kafka, Hermann Broch, and Thomas Mann. To the philosophy of culture belongs Seneca—humanisten ved Neros hof [Seneca: The Humanist at the Court of Nero] (1976), in which Sørensen’s impressive scholarship and overview are displayed to the full. Moreover, his body of work includes a number of renderings, collections of lectures, speeches and essays, and newspaper commentaries.

César Moscoso Carrasco and Malaria Eradication in Bolivia

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicole L. Pacino
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
World Health Organization ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Healthcare System ◽  
Rockefeller Foundation ◽  
World Health ◽  
The World ◽  
Malaria Eradication ◽  
The 1950S ◽  
Health Organization

César Moscoso Carrasco (1904–1966), a central figure in Bolivia’s mid-20th-century public health system, wanted to liberate Bolivia from malaria. In a career that spanned three decades, he came close to achieving this goal, but ultimately did not live to see successful eradication. Moscoso was one of the first Bolivian public health specialists in malariology, and was recognized by the World Health Organization for his contributions to the field in 1963. At all stages of his career, he fortuitously aligned himself with the individual or organization that could help him accomplish his professional ambitions and his mission of eradicating malaria in Bolivia. He was the founder and director of the National Anti-Malaria Service in 1929, where he made a name for himself working to halt the spread of malaria in Mizque, in the Cochabamba region. In the 1940s, he secured a position with the Rockefeller Foundation, where he had access to resources beyond the scope of the Bolivian government and an international network of public health specialists. Finally, in the 1950s, he headed the newly formed National Service for Malaria Eradication, which was a Bolivian government initiative supported by international organizations, such as the World Health Organization and the Pan-American Sanitary Bureau. In the 1950s and 1960s, he came the closest to achieving his goal. Unfortunately, he died the same way he lived: fighting a disease, possibly malaria, which he contracted on a visit to Ceylon as a malaria expert and consultant. Moscoso’s life is a window into many aspects of Bolivia’s 20th-century history. First, his life story illustrates both the potential and limitations of the Bolivian healthcare system. Indeed, Moscoso often had to work with international or binational organizations to accomplish the work that he saw as necessary and important. Second, his career shows how political changes in Bolivia impacted healthcare. Since his career spans the Chaco War of 1932–1935, the politically tumultuous 1940s, and the 1952 National Revolution, it provides a personal account of how these events changed healthcare in Bolivia. His story demonstrates the hardships that Bolivian doctors faced as they worked to improve their healthcare system, including low pay, few resources, and little respect from their foreign colleagues.

‘Tutt' ora vivente’: Petrassi and the concerto principle

Tempo ◽  
1995 ◽  
pp. 2-11
Author(s):  
Calum MacDonald
Keyword(s):  
Old Age ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Musical Life ◽  
10Th Anniversary ◽  
The Third ◽  
International Reputation ◽  
The 1950S ◽  
Santa Cecilia ◽  
Peter Maxwell Davies

Italian masters seem habitually to survive to a ripe old age. The proverbial example is Verdi, dying at 87, but Gianfrancesco Malipiero had turned 91 by his death in 1973, and his longevity has now been equalled, and seems likely to be surpassed, by Goffredo Petrassi. Long an eminent and respected figure in Italian musical life, and routinely named in the reference books as a significant 20th-century composer, Petrassi has never been well known in this country. His international reputation was at its height in the 1950s and 60s, and probably reached its apogee here with the London premiere, in 1957, of his Sixth Concerto for Orchestra, commissioned by the BBC for the 10th anniversary of the Third Programme. During those decades he travelled, conducted and adjudicated widely; he was closely associated with the ISCM (and was its President in the years 1954–56); as Professor of Composition at the Conservatorio di Santa Cecilia in Rome, he exercised a powerful influence on his country's musical life. He is especially celebrated as a teacher: his Italian pupils have included Aldo Clementi, Riccardo Malipiero, the film composer Enrico Morricone and the conductor Zoltán Pesko, but composers of many nations have studied with him. Among his British pupils, one need only instance Peter Maxwell Davies, Cornelius Cardew, and the late Kenneth Leighton to see that his teaching was never stylistically prescriptive.

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