Shinpa

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Jortner
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Domestic Life ◽  
New School ◽  
Documentary Theater ◽  
Japanese Word ◽  
Historical Dramas ◽  
The Creation

Shinpa, the shortened version of the Japanese word shinpageki, or new school drama, was an early Japanese attempt at reforming the theater along modernist lines. The plays featured flamboyant kabuki performance styles and modern realistic dialog; they were a mélange of plays from domestic dramas, to documentary theater to the early Japanese adaptations of Shakespeare. Shinpa dramas were generally based on stories of contemporary domestic life instead of historical dramas. Its plays often exploited the traditional kabuki devices of social obligations conflicting with love or other emotions (giri vs. ninjō). Initially, plays were composed by company actors and modified during performance runs. Many shinpa playwrights were essentially adapters who took serialized fiction novels and rewrote them for the stage. Shinpa also staged adaptations of Western drama including works of Shakespeare, Maeterlinck, and Sardou. These plays were often heavily adapted attempts at interweaving classical Japanese performance forms with Western texts. Other authors focused on the creation of gendaigeki [contemporary plays], which were about domestic problems among Japan’s growing middle class.

Ordering Empire and Democracy, 1902–1921

2020 ◽  
pp. 24-67
Author(s):  
Tobias Harper
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
British Empire ◽  
British Society ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
New Order ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Opening Up

This chapter examines the creation of new orders at the beginning of the twentieth century, which was the culmination of a prolonged period of “unprecedented honorific inventiveness” starting in the late nineteenth century. In Britain the new Order of the British Empire was branded the “Order of Britain’s Democracy” in recognition of the fact that it extended far deeper into non-elite classes in British society than any previous honour. Between 1917 and 1921 more than 20,000 people in Britain and throughout the British Empire were added to this new Order. This was an unprecedented number, orders of magnitude larger than honours lists in previous years. While the new Order was successful in reaching a wider, more middle-class audience than the honours system before the war, which was socially narrow, there was a substantial backlash to what was widely perceived by elites to be an excessive (and diluting) opening-up of the “fount of honour.” This backlash was connected to political controversies about the sale of honours that eventually helped bring about Lloyd George’s downfall. This chapter also contains a brief description of all the components of the British honours system at the beginning of the twentieth century.

The Country Book

2021 ◽  
pp. 129-161
Author(s):  
John Evelev
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Herman Melville ◽  
Rapid Growth ◽  
Domestic Life ◽  
National Space ◽  
The Social ◽  
Suburban Development ◽  
A Site ◽  
Suburban Life

Picturesque aesthetics and an increased focus on men’s domestic life shaped the rapid growth of the suburbs in the mid-nineteenth century, one of the most consequential reconfigurations of American understandings of national space. This suburban development had its own popular literary genre in the period, the country book. Although the country book is now largely forgotten and many of its more prominent examples have lapsed into obscurity, canonical writers such as Herman Melville wrote in the genre, and Thoreau’s Walden can also be understood in the context of this genre. The country book’s vision of the suburbs as a site of picturesque male domesticity that allowed for both privacy and homosocial intimacy countered a dominant vision of urban masculinity as public, individualistic, and competitive. Although the country book in general offers an idealized vision of male suburban life, individual texts also often feature deferrals, debility, and even death that threaten both male privacy and intimacy. The country book promoted the imaginative investments in suburban development at the same time that it hinted at the contradictions at the heart of middle-class masculine identity that foreclosed on that dream. In this way, as with the park movement texts discussed in Chapter 3, the country books that supported mid-nineteenth-century suburban development expressed both the social aspirations and fears of bourgeois men.

scholarly journals Searching for Solace

1997 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 118-120
Author(s):  
Mahmoud Dhaouadi
Keyword(s):  
British Empire ◽  
Civil Service ◽  
Western India ◽  
Great Work ◽  
Domestic Life ◽  
The West ◽  
New School ◽  
The World ◽  
Strong Commitment ◽  
Missionary School

Searching for Solace consists of two parts, two appendixes, and a sectiondisplaying documents and photos of Yusuf Ali and those with whom he hadcontact.The author devotes the first part to A. Yusuf Ali's life and his service tothe British. He was born in 1872 in Surat, western India, into the Bohra mercantilecommunity, whose members trace their Muslim ancestry to the effonsof preachers sent by the FaJimid caliphs in Cairo. Ali was sent to Bombay forhis education. While there, he attended the new school of the Anjuman-e-Islamand, subsequently, a missionary school named after its founder, John Wilson.He was barely eight or nine years old when he left home. Classes were taughtin both Urdu and English. When he was fifteen, Ali left Wilson's school andentered its senior section, Wilson College, which was affiliated to the Universityof Bombay. Sherif thinks that Ali's education in the Anjuman schoolhelped him resist the cultural onslaught of the dominant British colonizer.Ali arrived in Britain in 1891 to study law at St. John College. He eventuallybecame one of its best students, which predisposed him to work in theIndian Civil Service (ICS), a much prized career. His first appointment, on 23January 1896, was assistant magistrate and collector in Saharanpur, India. Aftera few years in India, he returned to Britain in 1905 for a leave. While there, hemarried Teresa Mary Shalders. Sherif thinks that his marriage to an Englishwoman symbolizes Ali's desire to establish a bridge between India and the West.But this marriage ended in divorce in 1912 following his wife's an exttamaritalaffair. Their children were left in her custody. The affairs of his children are consideredto be one reason that pushed Ali to resign from ICS. But his loyalty tothe British empire remained sttong. When Britain declared war on Germany inAugust 1914, he reaffirmed his commitment: "I am prepared and shall bepleased to volunteer to temporary service, in any capacity in which I can be usefulon account of the War" (p. 32).Ali's strong commitment to the British was based on his belief that Indiacould learn a lot from Britain. But he also had a strong faith in Islam as a religionand civilization that could contribute much to the West. This should havebeen among the strong reasons that motivated him to ttanslate the Qur'an intoEnglish. His Interpretation of the Qur'an has made him famous among Muslimspeakers of English throughout the world. The author underlines a number offactors that helped Ali achieve this great work: "A troubled domestic life, ear ...

Danilo Dolci a Poetic Modernizer

Worldview ◽  
1973 ◽  
Vol 16 (12) ◽  
pp. 28-34 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph A. Amato
Keyword(s):  
Economic Development ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Medical Clinic ◽  
Court Cases ◽  
New School ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Western Sicily ◽  
The Creation

An idealistic reformer in western Sicily, Danilo Dold, has for two decades employed demonstrations, court cases, petitions, fasts and clandestine radio in an imaginative series of nonviolent tactics aimed at feeding and housing the poor. He has also been key to the building of a dam, the opening of a medical clinic and the creation of a new school for Sicilian youth. He has effectively challenged the violence, poverty and fatalism that have ruled western Sicily for three centuries, and has won the reputation of being "the Gandhi of Sicily." Dolci preaches and practices nonviolence in an area that, until most recently, has been the heartland of the Sicilian Mafia. It is a territory that typifies the brutal realities and awesome problems of the entire Italian South, the Mezzogiorno. Dolci dares to envision a new Sicily, a Sicily which by its democracy and economic development would be the envy not only of the underdeveloped world but of many in Western Europe and America.

Re-scripting Riyadh’s historical downtown as a global destination: a sustainable model?

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Klingmann
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Urban Renewal ◽  
Adaptive Reuse ◽  
Symbolic Capital ◽  
Economic Transformation ◽  
World City ◽  
Urban Fabric ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Migrant Communities ◽  
The Creation

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the planned urban renewal and re-scripting of Riyadh’s downtown as part of the capital’s aim to become a globally recognized city. Specifically, this paper examines in how far internationally established values and narratives are leveraged in the creation of an urban mega-destination that seeks to attract a transnational class of knowledge workers and tourists. The question is explored, in how far and to what extent urban heritage sites and iconic architectural projects are used as strategic tools to promote a process of cultural and economic transformation and in how far the resulting symbolic capital is leveraged to create a status of singularization that appeals to a national and international audience. This study investigates several neighborhoods in the area, analyzing how these will be transformed by Riyadh’s plan to turn the downtown into a commercially viable mixed-use destination by means of designated heritage destinations and iconic architecture. Design/methodology/approach This paper examines the views and experiences of governmental agencies, architects, developers and residents who are directly or indirectly involved with the planned restructuring of Riyadh’s historical downtown. In total, 40 semi-structured interviews were drawn from this stakeholder group to investigate their current understanding of the downtown associated with the effort to convert Riyadh’s historical downtown into a profitable urban destination. Five of these interviews were conducted with involved planning offices, and 35 with current residents in the area. In addition, a detailed site survey was conducted through a series of maps to reveal existing land uses, building typologies, states of disrepair, activity levels, pedestrian and car circulation patterns, as well as landmarks, and public spaces in each of the areas. Findings The subsequent data show that despite many positive outcomes in terms of commercial redevelopment, the adaptive reuse of the existing urban fabric is not considered, nor the preservation of underutilized or abandoned buildings along with its resident diverse communities, activities and milieus, many of which carry on evolving traditions. Research limitations/implications This is significant because this paper presents a massive case study that ties into a larger debate on cultural globalization where similar practices around the world entail a spatial reorientation of urban districts to attract a transnational cosmopolitan middle class along with a simultaneous displacement of diverse and migrant communities, albeit on a much larger scale. While highlighting the rationale and effectiveness of this approach to create a well-packaged commodity, this paper also underscores the ambiguous consequences of this strategy, which entails the loss of a layered urban fabric that documents the city’s evolution through different economic periods, along with the dispersal of migrant communities and their vernacular practices. Social implications Within this context, the current cultural value of the downtown as a heterogeneous, dynamic and multilayered fabric is debated, which documents the socio-economic conditions of the times in which these layers were formed. Departing from the UNESCO’s 2011 Recommendation on the Historic Urban Landscape and globally accepted sustainability standards, this study contrasts the proposed top-down tabula rasa approach proposed by the local authorities with an inclusive bottom-up approach, which would focus on the adaptive reuse of existing structures by taking into consideration the social meanings of belonging that heritage has for contemporary communities while fostering a more inclusive understanding of heritage as an ongoing cultural process. Originality/value The implications of the planned conversion of Riyadh’s historical downtown into an urban destination have not been previously explored and as a result, there is a conflict of interest between the creation of a marketable image, the preservation of heritage values, sustainable urban practices, social inclusion and Riyadh’s aim to become a globally recognized city. Plain abstract This paper explores the employment of urban renewal and city branding within the context of Riyadh’s aim to become a world city. Within this framework, the paper examines the capital’s plan to convert the historic downtown into a mega-destination for the country’s middle class and national and international tourists.

'My own fireside': the creation of the middle-class home

2018 ◽  
pp. 357-396
Author(s):  
Leonore Davidoff ◽  
Catherine Hall
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
The Creation
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