From Otello to Porgy

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Naomi André
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
African American ◽  
The Other ◽  
European Ancestry ◽  
Male Roles ◽  
Porgy And Bess ◽  
Black Characters ◽  
Peter Grimes ◽  
The Way

This chapter explores representations of blackness in opera in relation to masculinity and morality. More specifically, it considers the changing codes of masculinity in leading male roles and how they are calibrated differently for white European characters and nonwhite characters with non-European ancestry. It also looks at the ways in which masculinity and heroism are brought together differently for black and non-black characters. In order to elucidate these issues, the chapter analyzes Giuseppe Verdi's Otello (1887), focusing on its references to getting the “chocolate” ready and the way Verdi dramatizes Otello's vicious murder of Desdemona. Four other operas written in the first half of the twentieth century, two of which feature white European title characters and the other two feature African American protagonists, are examined: Alban Berg's Wozzeck (1925), Ernst Krenek's Jonny spielt auf (1927), George Gershwin's Porgy and Bess (1935), and Benjamin Britten's Peter Grimes (1945).

Initial Success in Italy

2019 ◽  
pp. 103-117
Author(s):  
Michael E. Lynch
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
The Other ◽  
Combat Experience ◽  
Personal Tragedy ◽  
The Way

After more than a year of training, Almond and the 92nd Infantry Division deployed to Italy, . where it initially performed well. The 370th Infantry Regiment led the way to Italy, and paired with the 1st Armored Division for its introduction to combat. The regiment acquitted itself well in its initial combat experience, but the other two regiments did not fare as well. Along with the arrival of the rest of the division and the nondivisional units that would support it, Almond gained the 366th Infantry Regiment, another African American regiment that had been used to guard airbases. The addition of this unit, and its own lack comprehension proved to be a disruptive influence in the division. This chapter also carries the story of personal tragedy, as Almond discovers that his son in law has been killed in combat.

scholarly journals “Brutti, Sporchi & Cattivi”: Towards a Non-Abyssal Curriculum

2016 ◽  
Vol 9 (18) ◽  
pp. 75-90
Author(s):  
João M. Paraskeva
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Social Issues ◽  
Curriculum Theory ◽  
The Other ◽  
Curriculum Studies ◽  
The Way

The Western Cartesian Modernity model as an hegemonic model with its arrogant claim to address global social issues is not just moribund, it is dead. This article claims the twentieth century as ‘the last Eurocentric century’. Relying on the work of some key decolonial thinkers, such as Sousa Santos, the article denounces the way Western eugenic curriculum of modernity created an abyssal thinking in which ‘this side’ of the line is legitimate and ‘the other side’ has been produced as ‘non-existent’. In so doing curriculum as we knowing is part of the ‘epistemicide’. The article argues for an Itinerant Curriculum Theory that will help create new avenues to understand the field in the light of the classes within and beyond Eurocentrism, paying attention to other epistemologies beyond the Western framework. The article echoes Ettore Scola metaphor “Brutti, Sporchi & Cattivi” to challenge how hegemonic and specific (or so called) counter hegemonic curriculum platforms – so connected with Western Eurocentric Modernity - have been able to colonize the field without any prudency to “fabricate” and impose a classed, raced and gendered philosophy of praxis, as unique, that drives the field to an ideological surrealism and collective suicide. The article challenges curriculum studies to assume a non-abyssal position one that respects epistemological diversity. This requires an Itinerant Curriculum Theory, which is a commitment with da ruthless epistemological critique of every existing epistemology.

Making Sense of Multiple Interpretations

2004 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
pp. 105-108 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jack Dougherty
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
African American ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
School Desegregation ◽  
The Other ◽  
Historical Case ◽  
Fall Semester ◽  
Making Sense ◽  
Race And Education ◽  
The Many

Some teaching innovations arise from a combination of good intentions, last-minute planning, and incredible luck. Colgate University hired me in late July 1997 as a visiting professor for the fall semester. As I scrambled to finish my dissertation and move my family, only a few days remained to pull together the syllabus for a course on Race and Education. I wanted to begin this contemporary course with an historical focus, delving into African-American experiences with school desegregation during the mid twentieth century, but could not decide on which of the many excellent historical case studies to assign. The bookstore wanted my order as soon as possible. So I ordered two books—David Cecelski's Along Freedom Road and Vanessa Siddle Walker's Their Highest Potential—hoping that at least one would arrive on time. When both magically appeared on the bookstore shelves a day before the first class, I decided to innovate and revised the syllabus. Half of the students would read Cecelski; the other half would read Walker. Despite some initial confusion, my students began to engage in serious discussions over historical interpretations of school desegregation, demonstrating a level of depth that would not have happened had I assigned only one book to the entire class.

From Propagandistic Exploitation to Post-Communist Sensationalism: Beethoven Reception in Twentieth- and Twenty-First-Century Romania

2021 ◽  
Vol 61 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 113-128
Author(s):  
Florinela Popa
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
First Century ◽  
The Other ◽  
Political Regimes ◽  
World War ◽  
Adolf Hitler ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
The Way

This paper mainly investigates the way Beethoven’s image was turned, during the totalitarian political regimes of twentieth-century Romania, into a tool of propaganda. Two such ideological annexations are striking: one took place in the period when Romania, as Germany’s ally during World War II and led by Marshall Ion Antonescu, who was loyal to Adolf Hitler, to a certain extent copied the Nazi model (1940–1944); the other, much longer, began when Communists took power in 1947 and lasted until 1989, with some inevitable continuations. The beginnings of contemporary Romanian capitalism in the 1990s brought, in addition to an attempt to depoliticize Beethoven by means of professional, responsible musicological enquiries, no longer grounded in Fascist or Communist ideologies, another type of approach: sensationalist, related to the “identification” of some of Beethoven’s love interests who reportedly lived on the territory of present-day Romania.

Affective Narratives: Harlem and the Lower East Side

2010 ◽  
Vol 44 (4) ◽  
pp. 777-793 ◽  
Author(s):  
CATHERINE ROTTENBERG
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
African American ◽  
Sacred Space ◽  
Literary Tradition ◽  
Jewish American ◽  
Lower East Side ◽  
East Side ◽  
American Novels ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
The Way

This paper begins by juxtaposing contemporary discourses on Harlem and the Lower East Side, arguing that the processes of iconization of these two neighborhoods have been very different. Whereas the iconicity of Harlem has always been shot through with ambivalence, the Lower East Side has come to signify a relatively unambivalent sacred space for US Jewry. The second part of the essay then traces the representations of Harlem and the Lower East Side back to early twentieth-century African American and Jewish American novels, claiming that critically analyzing the theme of ambivalence in these texts – and, more specifically, how ambivalence manifests itself differently within each literary tradition – is key to understanding not only why Harlem and the Lower East Side have undergone parallel but divergent processes of iconization, but also the way Jews and blacks have been positioned and have attempted to position themselves in relation to dominant white US society.

scholarly journals Aleksandar Deroko: Between tradition and modernity

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 157-190
Author(s):  
Renata Jadrešin-Milić
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Research Work ◽  
The Other ◽  
Architectural Discourse ◽  
Systematic Theory ◽  
Methodical Approach ◽  
Essential Questions ◽  
The Way

Although numerous writings by professor Aleksandar Deroko raise essential questions about nature, history, and methodology of architecture, he never provided a systematic theory, and his assertions did not belong to any mainstream architectural discourse. However, his romantic visions of remote, medieval monasteries and their origin on one hand, and on the other, the rational and methodical approach to heritage surveying evident in both his early texts and later architectural textbooks, resulted in some very novel theoretical ideas in architecture of the twentieth century. This paper examines the understanding of the tradition and modernity in the work of professor Deroko, investigates reasons behind his duality, explores the way he synthesised his research work with his pedagogical work, and tries to systematise his theoretical ideas.

Introduction

2018 ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Kevin D. Greene
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
African American ◽  
Black Consciousness ◽  
The South ◽  
New Negro ◽  
Blues Music ◽  
New Negro Renaissance ◽  
The Way

The invention and reinvention of Big Bill Broonzy reveals numerous pathways African American entertainers faced during the first half of the twentieth century. After Broonzy left the South for Chicago, his 30-year career as a pioneer in blues music would be shaped by his own ambitions and those held by others. Both consciously and unconsciously, Big Bill became a full participant in Chicago and America’s critically vital New Negro Renaissance. Along the way, his reinventions would help negotiate African American celebrity and modernity in a manner that would hasten the transformation of his ever-expanding black consciousness.

The Gospel Caravan

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert M. Marovich
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
African American ◽  
Gospel Music ◽  
The Other ◽  
Mass Consumption ◽  
African American Churches ◽  
The 1950S ◽  
American Churches ◽  
Record Company

This chapter examines the continued evolution of the Chicago gospel music in the mid-twentieth century, led by the Good Shepherd Singers, re-christened the Gospel Caravan or simply Caravans. By the 1950s, gospel music had become the predominant sound of the semi-demonstrative, as well as some deliberative, or sermon-centered, African American churches in the urban North. Recognizing the financial upside of gospel music, independent record company owners, religious disk jockeys, and promoters sought to commodify it for mass consumption. This chapter first discusses the performances and recordings of the Caravans, along with members who came and went, before turning to some of the other important figures on the gospel music circuit, including Alex Bradford and his Bradford Specials, the Maceo Woods Singers, the Staple Singers, artists under Vee Jay Records, the Duncanaires, the Little Lucy Smith Singers, Sammy Lewis, and Mahalia Jackson.

The “Delaware Horror”

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dennis B. Downey
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
African American ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Jim Crow ◽  
The Other ◽  
The North ◽  
North And South ◽  
Insight Into

This chapter provides a case study of a lynching at the other end of the northeastern seaboard: the mass mob execution by burning of George White, an African American, in Wilmington, Delaware, in June 1903. Delaware had been a slave state that did not join the Confederacy, and while it implemented a Jim Crow system similar to those in neighboring lower Mid-Atlantic states Maryland and Virginia, the state experienced less lynching. Delaware's evolving economy and social relations were strongly tied to the rapidly urbanizing regions of southeastern Pennsylvania and New Jersey. The chapter's analysis of the role of white and black Protestant ministers in the Wilmington mob execution and its aftermath offers significant insight into a well-publicized early-twentieth-century lynching that occurred somewhere between the North and South.

CREDIT, DEBT, AND HONOR IN CASTILE, 1600-1650

2003 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 8-27 ◽  
Author(s):  
Scott Taylor
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
The Other ◽  
Criminal Cases ◽  
Early Modern Spain ◽  
The Mediterranean ◽  
The One ◽  
Traditional Understanding ◽  
The Way

AbstractBased largely on the findings of anthropologists of the Mediterranean in the twentieth century, the traditional understanding of honor in early modern Spain has been defined as a concern for chastity, for women, and a willingness to protect women's sexual purity and avenge affronts, for men. Criminal cases from Castile in the period 1600-1650 demonstrate that creditworthiness was also an important component of honor, both for men and for women. In these cases, early modern Castilians became involved in violent disputes over credit, invoking honor and the rituals of the duel to justify their positions and attack their opponents. Understanding the connection between credit, debt, and honor leads us to update the anthropological models that pre-modern European historians employ, on the one hand, and to a new appreciation for the way seventeenth-century Castilians understood their public reputations and identity, on the other.

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