The Klezmer Accordion

Author(s):  
Joshua Horowitz

This chapter takes a closer look at the role of the accordion in klezmer music. Like the pioneering Italian American virtuoso accordionists, Jewish musicians felt equally at home playing classical and folk music. The select analysis of early accordion playing styles and stylistic characteristics sheds light on the interaction and interplay of klezmer musicians with their surrounding worlds—Old and New. A distinctive feature of the early “klezmer sound” was the accordion's imitation of the human voice heard in liturgical, paraliturgical, and Yiddish song. By the late 1930s, the accordion was often used for chordal accompaniment (rather than as a solo instrument). It was an integral element of the popular Hasidic bands of the 1960s and the “klezmer ensembles” that embraced the new Israeli music as well as earlier “Palestinian” music. Although it was often deemed “an outsider,” for the revivalists of the 1980s and beyond, the accordion has been characteristic of the klezmer style.

Author(s):  
C. Claire Thomson

The first book-length study in English of a national corpus of state-sponsored informational film, this book traces how Danish shorts on topics including social welfare, industry, art and architecture were commissioned, funded, produced and reviewed from the inter-war period to the 1960s. For three decades, state-sponsored short filmmaking educated Danish citizens, promoted Denmark to the world, and shaped the careers of renowned directors like Carl Th. Dreyer. Examining the life cycle of a representative selection of films, and discussing their preservation and mediation in the digital age, this book presents a detailed case study of how informational cinema is shaped by, and indeed shapes, its cultural, political and technological contexts.The book combines close textual analysis of a broad range of films with detailed accounts of their commissioning, production, distribution and reception in Denmark and abroad, drawing on Actor-Network Theory to emphasise the role of a wide range of entities in these processes. It considers a broad range of genres and sub-genres, including industrial process films, public information films, art films, the city symphony, the essay film, and many more. It also maps international networks of informational and documentary films in the post-war period, and explores the role of informational film in Danish cultural and political history.


Author(s):  
Timur Gimadeev

The article deals with the history of celebrating the Liberation Day in Czechoslovakia organised by the state. Various aspects of the history of the holiday have been considered with the extensive use of audiovisual documents (materials from Czechoslovak newsreels and TV archives), which allowed for a detailed analysis of the propaganda representation of the holiday. As a result, it has been possible to identify the main stages of the historical evolution of the celebrations of Liberation Day, to discover the close interdependence between these stages and the country’s political development. The establishment of the holiday itself — its concept and the military parade as the main ritual — took place in the first post-war years, simultaneously with the consolidation of the Communist regime in Czechoslovakia. Later, until the end of the 1960s, the celebrations gradually evolved along the political regime, acquiring new ritual forms (ceremonial meetings, and “guards of memory”). In 1968, at the same time as there was an attempt to rethink the entire socialist regime and the historical experience connected with it, an attempt was made to reconstruct Liberation Day. However, political “normalisation” led to the normalisation of the celebration itself, which played an important role in legitimising the Soviet presence in the country. At this stage, the role of ceremonial meetings and “guards of memory” increased, while inventions released in time for 9 May appeared and “May TV” was specially produced. The fall of the Communist regime in 1989 led to the fall of the concept of Liberation Day on 9 May, resulting in changes of the title, date and paradigm of the holiday, which became Victory Day and has been since celebrated on 8 May.


Author(s):  
Sunil Bhatia

This chapter documents the ethnographic context in which the interviews and participant observation were conducted for the study presented in this book. It also situates the study within the context of narrative inquiry and develops arguments about the role of self-reflexivity in doing ethnography at “home” and producing qualitative forms of knowledge that are based on personal, experiential, and cultural narratives. It is argued that there is significant interest in the adoption of interpretive methods or qualitative research in psychology. The qualitative approaches in psychology present a provocative and complex vision of how the key concepts related to describing and interpreting cultural codes, social practices, and lived experience of others are suffused with both poetical and political elements of culture. The epistemological and ontological assumptions undergirding qualitative research reflect multiple “practices of inquiry” and methodologies that have different orientations, assumptions, values, ideologies, and criterion of excellence.


Geographies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-62
Author(s):  
Ujjwal Das ◽  
Barkha Chaplot ◽  
Hazi Mohammad Azamathulla

Skilled birth attendance and institutional delivery have been advocated for reducing maternal, neonatal mortality and infant mortality (NMR and IMR). This paper examines the role of place of delivery with respect to neo-natal and infant mortality in India using four rounds of the Indian National Family Health Survey conducted in 2015–2016. The place of birth has been categorized as “at home” or “public and private institution.” The role of place of delivery on neo-natal and infant mortality was examined by using multivariate hazard regression models adjusted for clus-tering and relevant maternal, socio-economic, pregnancy and new-born characteristics. There were 141,028 deliveries recorded in public institutions and 54,338 in private institutions. The esti-mated neonatal mortality rate in public and private institutions during this period was 27 and 26 per 1000 live births respectively. The study shows that when the mother delivers child at home, the chances of neonatal mortality risks are higher than the mortality among children born at the health facility centers. Regression analysis also indicates that a professionally qualified provider′s antenatal treatment and assistance greatly decreases the risks of neonatal mortality. The results of the study illustrate the importance of the provision of institutional facilities and proper pregnancy in the prevention of neonatal and infant deaths. To improve the quality of care during and imme-diately after delivery in health facilities, particularly in public hospitals and in rural areas, accel-erated strengthening is required.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-15
Author(s):  
Helena Ross ◽  
Ryan Dritz ◽  
Barbara Morano ◽  
Sara Lubetsky ◽  
Pamela Saenger ◽  
...  

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Catherine A. Nikiel ◽  
Elfatih A. B. Eltahir

AbstractFor millennia the Nile supplied Egypt with more water than needed. As the population grew and the economy expanded, demand on water increased accordingly. Here, we present a comprehensive analysis to reconstruct how total demand on water outstripped supply of the Nile water in the late 1970s, starting from a surplus of about 20 km3 per year in the 1960s leading to a deficit of about 40 km3 per year by the late 2010s. The gap is satisfied by import of virtual water. The role of economic growth in driving per capita demand on water is quantified based on detailed analysis of water use by agriculture and other sectors. We develop and test an empirical model of water demand in Egypt that relates demand on water to growth rates in the economy and population. Looking forward, we project that within this decade of the 2020 s, under nominal scenarios of population and economic growth, Egypt is likely to import more virtual water than the water supplied by the Nile, bringing into question the historical characterization of Egypt as “the gift of the Nile”.


Author(s):  
Bhuma Krishnamachari ◽  
Alexander Morris ◽  
Diane Zastrow ◽  
Andrew Dsida ◽  
Brian Harper ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 97-118
Author(s):  
Theo van Leeuwen

The paper presents a framework for the distinctive feature analysis of movement and mobility in texts, performances and semiotic artefacts, showing its applicability to the analysis of meaning-making in dance, music, animated and live action film and video, and product design. Emphasis is placed on the role of movement and mobility in identity design. Identity design is realized by the style in which movements are performed and can be analysed in terms of the gradable distinctive features present in any movement – direction, expansiveness, velocity, force, angularity, fluidity, directedness and regularity. The paper includes a historical dimension, focusing on the development of movement and mobility as semiotic resources, and argues for the pioneering role of modernist artists in this development.


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