✦ Introduction ✦

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
Kathleen Sprows Cummings
Keyword(s):  
American Culture ◽  
Holy See ◽  
New Models ◽  
History Of ◽  
American Nation

The introduction explains the Catholic concept of patronage, reviews the broad history of the canonization process, and explains the book’s historiographical interventions and transnational approach. It highlights the dissonance U.S. Catholics felt between belonging to a church that moves slowly, such as in a painstakingly sluggish process, and living in an American culture that adapts easily and quickly. Because new moments generated new models of holiness, U.S. Catholics’ attachment to a newly-canonized saint rarely matched the enthusiasm shown by the generation that had originally proposed him or her as a candidate. What remained constant was U.S. Catholics’ desire to use holy figures to cement their connection to the Holy See and to affirm their place in the American nation.

scholarly journals The City-State of Boston: The Rise and Fall of an Atlantic Power, 1630–1865

2020 ◽  
Vol 94 (3) ◽  
pp. 631-636
Author(s):  
Noam Maggor
Keyword(s):  
New England ◽  
British Empire ◽  
American Revolution ◽  
Regional Autonomy ◽  
Atlantic Trade ◽  
History Of ◽  
British Colonial ◽  
City State ◽  
The City ◽  
American Nation

Mark Peterson's The City-State of Boston is a formidable work of history—prodigiously researched, lucidly written, immense in scope, and yet scrupulously detailed. A meticulous history of New England over more than two centuries, the book argues that Boston and its hinterland emerged as a city-state, a “self-governing republic” that was committed first and foremost to its own regional autonomy (p. 6). Rather than as a British colonial outpost or the birthplace of the American Revolution—the site of a nationalist struggle for independence—the book recovers Boston's long-lost tradition as a “polity in its own right,” a fervently independent hub of Atlantic trade whose true identity placed it in tension with the overtures of both the British Empire and, later, the American nation-state (p. 631).

Mahjong

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Annelise Heinz
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
American Culture ◽  
The United States ◽  
Jewish American ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
Women's Culture ◽  
History Of ◽  
American Heritage ◽  
Cultural Origins ◽  
Definition Of

Mahjong: A Chinese Game and the Making of Modern American Culture illustrates how the spaces between tiles and the moments between games have fostered distinct social cultures in the United States. When this mass-produced game crossed the Pacific it created waves of popularity over the twentieth century. Mahjong narrates the history of this game to show how it has created a variety of meanings, among them American modernity, Chinese American heritage, and Jewish American women’s culture. As it traveled from China to the United States and caught on with Hollywood starlets, high society, middle-class housewives, and immigrants alike, mahjong became a quintessentially American pastime. This book also reveals the ways in which women leveraged a game for a variety of economic and cultural purposes, including entrepreneurship, self-expression, philanthropy, and ethnic community building. One result was the forging of friendships within mahjong groups that lasted decades. This study unfolds in two parts. The first half is focused on mahjong’s history as related to consumerism, with a close examination of its economic and cultural origins. The second half explores how mahjong interwove with the experiences of racial inclusion and exclusion in the evolving definition of what it means to be American. Mahjong players, promoters, entrepreneurs, and critics tell a broad story of American modernity. The apparent contradictions of the game—as both American and foreign, modern and supposedly ancient, domestic and disruptive of domesticity—reveal the tensions that lie at the heart of modern American culture.

Violence and Hopelessness in the Colombian Novels La Virgen de Los Sicarios and Satanás

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 48-65
Author(s):  
Alan G. Hartman
Keyword(s):  
Literary History ◽  
Gabriel Garcia Marquez ◽  
South American ◽  
Jose Asuncion Silva ◽  
Virgen De Los Sicarios ◽  
History Of ◽  
Drug Lord ◽  
History Of Violence ◽  
Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries ◽  
American Nation

Abstract Colombia is a South American nation that has captured the imagination of the world. It is a land of beautiful colonial cities and towns, famous for coffee production, rich emerald mines, and the literature of José Asunción Silva and Gabriel García Márquez. Colombia’s beauty and rich literary history, however, are often overshadowed by the memory of Pablo Escobar, a notorious drug lord, and numerous deadly guerilla groups. Their roles in the international drug trade made Colombia the top producer and exporter of cocaine, which resulted in terrorism and violence that left the country one of the world’s most dangerous.1 In this article, I will explore how violence in Colombia has perpetuated the theme of hopelessness in the nation’s literature beginning in the mid-twentieth century. I will show this in three parts. Firstly, I will trace the history of violence in Colombia through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and show that a literary genre of violence was absent in the nation until 1946, when the period known as “la Violencia” commenced. Secondly, I will explore how hopelessness resulted from violence in Colombia beginning in the period of “la Violencia.” Thirdly, I will show how violence is depicted as an evil that traps the protagonists of the contemporary Colombian novels La Virgen de Los Sicarios and Satanás in a state of hopelessness due to their powerlessness to truly change themselves because of the frustrated society in which they live.

scholarly journals Argentine Concordat as an International Agreement Regulating the Law of Patronage

2020 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 89-109
Author(s):  
Marta Zuzanna Osuchowska
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Historical Background ◽  
International Agreement ◽  
Holy See ◽  
Bilateral Relations ◽  
Legal Method ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The Right

In the history of relations between the Argentinean government and the Holy See, two ideas are permanently intertwined: signing the Concordat and defending national patronage. The changes that occurred in the 1960s indicated that exercising the right of patronage, based on the principles outlined in the Constitution, was impossible, and the peaceful establishment of the principles of bilateral relations could only be indicated through an international agreement. The Concordat signed by Argentina in 1966 removed the national patronage, but the changes to the content of the Constitution were introduced only in 1994. The aim of the study is to show the concordat agreement concluded in 1966 by Argentina with the Holy See as an example of an international agreement. The main focus is the presentation of concordat standards for the institution of patronage. Due to the subject and purpose of the study, the work uses methods typical of social sciences in the legal science discipline. The dogmatic-legal method is the basis for consideration of the Concordat as a source of Argentine law, and as an auxiliary method, the historical-legal method was used to show the historical background of the presented issue.

A Brief History of American Culture

1995 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 148-148
Author(s):  
Kenneth J. Bindas
Keyword(s):  
American Culture ◽  
History Of

“A Winged but Grounded Bird”: Morrison’s Mixed Treatment of Animality in The Bluest Eye

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Rachel Warner
Keyword(s):  
Animal Studies ◽  
Literary Analysis ◽  
Bluest Eye ◽  
Language History ◽  
Interdisciplinary Field ◽  
Mixed Treatment ◽  
Black Girlhood ◽  
New Models ◽  
History Of ◽  
Human Animal

Abstract This literary analysis of Toni Morrison’s first novel, The Bluest Eye (1970), answers the call issued by scholars in the growing interdisciplinary field of animal studies to privilege nonhuman animal others as its central analytical focus. It thus examines the productive and harmful overlaps between Black subjects and animality and determines how Morrison speaks to both a history of racist dehumanization as well as manners of ameliorating such oppression. In prioritizing the intersection of human subjectivity and nonhuman others, the article explores new models for human-animal relationships, including animals as sensual partners and animals as looking subjects. Ultimately, this article looks to Morrison’s canonical novel portraying the scapegoating practices that can destroy Black girlhood to unearth the profound significance of nonhuman others to language, history, and communities.

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