The Haunting of Mary Hutchinson

2020 ◽  
pp. 55-96
Author(s):  
Jane Garrity
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Central Place ◽  
Cultural Analysis ◽  
Archival Research ◽  
Early Twentieth Century

This chapter argues that earlier assessments of Mary Hutchinson’s writing have tended to conflate her status as a feminine arbiter of taste with her work, seeing the two as similarly irrational and slight. Such assessments have contributed to the pervasive assumption that Hutchinson is not a writer of substance and they have been instrumental in facilitating her obscurity and associating her work with a conservative concept of femininity. Instead, this chapter situates Hutchinson’s writing in relation to the Bloomsbury group’s interest in art and argues that her complex articulation of early twentieth-century femininity in Fugitive Pieces (1927) has been unjustly trivialized because of its association with the realm of fashion. Drawing from extensive archival research, this chapter shows how Hutchinson repeatedly puts femininity and modernity into conversation as she interrogates what it would mean if feminine phenomena were given a central place in our cultural analysis of modernity.

Modernism, Fiction and Mathematics

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nina Engelhardt
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Cultural Studies ◽  
Science Studies ◽  
Central Place ◽  
Cultural Analysis ◽  
Literature And Science ◽  
Literary Modernism ◽  
Interdisciplinary Perspective ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
And Mathematics

Modernism in mathematics – this unusual notion turns out to provide new perspectives on central questions in and beyond literary modernism. This books draws on prose texts by mathematicians and on historical and cultural studies of mathematics to introduce the so-called ‘foundational crisis of mathematics’ in the early twentieth century, and it analyses major novels that employ developments in mathematics as exemplary of wider modernist movements. The monograph focuses on Thomas Pynchon’s Against the Day (2006) and Gravity’s Rainbow (1973), Hermann Broch’s novel trilogy The Sleepwalkers (1930-32), and Robert Musil’s The Man without Qualities (1930/32). These novels accord mathematics and its modernist transformation a central place in their visions and present it as interrelated with political, linguistic, epistemological and ethical developments in the modern West. Not least, the texts explore the freedoms and opportunities that the mathematical crisis implies and relate the emerging notion of ‘fictional’ characteristics of mathematics to the possibilities of literature. By exploring how the novels accord mathematics a central role as a particularly telling indicator of modernist transformations, this book argues that imaginative works contribute to establishing mathematics as part of modernist culture. The monograph thus opens up new frames of textual and cultural analysis that help understand the modernist condition from the interdisciplinary perspective of literature and mathematics studies, and it demonstrates the necessity to account for the specificity of mathematics in the field of literature and science studies.

Rooted in Place, Constructed in Movement

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 38-53
Author(s):  
Sonia Hernández
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Mexico City ◽  
Labor Movement ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Washington Dc ◽  
Labor Movements ◽  
Archival Research ◽  
Nuevo Leon ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Early Twentieth Century

Since the turn of the twentieth century, men and women from the greater Mexican borderlands have shared labor concerns, engaged in labor solidarities, and employed activist strategies to improve their livelihoods. Based on findings from archival research in Mexico City, Washington, DC; Texas; Tamaulipas; and Nuevo León and by engaging in transnational methodological and historiographical approaches, this article takes two distinct but related cases of labor solidarities from the early twentieth century to reveal the class and gendered complexities of transnational labor solidarities. The cases of Gregorio Cortez, a Mexican farmer and immigrant from Tamaulipas living and working in Texas in 1901, and Caritina Piña, a Tamaulipas-born woman engaged in anarcho-syndicalism in the 1920s, reveal the potential of cross-class and gendered solidarities and underscore how a variety of social contexts informed and shaped labor movements. Excavating solidarities from a transnational perspective while exposing important limitations of the labor movement sheds light on the gendered, racial, and class complexities of such forms of shared struggle; but, equally important, reminds us of how much one can learn about the power of larger, global labor movements by closely examining the experiences of those residing on nations’ edges.

Conclusion

2019 ◽  
pp. 194-198
Author(s):  
Cees Heere
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Central Place ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
Conflicting Demands ◽  
Late Nineteenth

The conclusion reflects on how questions of race and empire came to occupy a central place in Anglo-Japanese relations during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Reviewing some of the study’s main arguments, it dwells on what the inter-imperial debates on Anglo-Japanese relations reveal about contemporary thinking on race and empire, and the often-conflicting demands and perspectives of policymakers in London and the settler colonies. Immigration and naval defence were particular areas where disagreements were liable to arise, with the dominions seeking imperial support for their vision of a ‘white empire’, while the British strove to insulate the ‘imperial’ business of diplomacy from colonial interference.

The female quest for the Celtic tongues of Ireland, Scotland, and Wales

2020 ◽  
pp. 305-318
Author(s):  
Bernhard Maier
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Formative Period ◽  
Archival Research ◽  
Irish Studies ◽  
Historical Texts ◽  
Language Activism ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
The Social ◽  
Celtic Studies

This chapter highlights the female contribution to Celtic studies. It begins by expounding the context of the discipline in relation to nineteenth-century nationalism, surveying the predominantly male contributions during its formative period from the Renaissance to the early twentieth century. It then examines the four main fields in which female scholars have made significant contributions, namely the collection of oral material, the publication of editions and translations, language activism including the production of grammars and textbooks, and linguistic studies of modern dialects and historical texts. The chapter concludes by discussing the social, political, religious, and educational reasons both for the comparatively small percentage of female scholars within the Celtic-speaking countries in general and for their comparatively high percentage in Irish studies. The chapter concludes by suggesting ways in which archival research might improve our understanding and appreciation of the female contribution to Celtic studies.

scholarly journals The Forgotten Soundtrack of Maoriland: Imagining the Nation Through Alfred Hill’s Songs for Rewi's Last Stand

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Melissa Cross
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
Identity Formation ◽  
Film Music ◽  
Cultural Analysis ◽  
Cultural Form ◽  
Popular Songs ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Tangible Evidence

<p>Alfred Hill’s songs based on collected Māori musical materials and narrative themes are artefacts of cultural colonisation that represent individual identities and imagined communities. They are tangible evidence of the site of identity formation known as Maoriland within which Pākehā construct imaginings of ‘Māoriness’ to create their own sense of indigeneity and nationhood. Although early twentieth-century Maoriland has been discussed widely in the arts and literature, scholars have not addressed the music of Maoriland, perhaps because it is heard today as the cultural form that most clearly expresses racialised sentimentality and colonial hegemony. However, Maoriland music can tell us much about New Zealand society if it is recognised as inhabiting an ‘in-between’ place where Pākehā fascination for the racial other was often inseparable from an admiration for Māori promoted by a knowledgeable group of Māori and Pākehā cultural go-betweens.  This thesis presents a critical cultural analysis of the ethnic, racial, gendered, and national identities represented in Hill’s ‘Māori’ songs, viewed through the lens of his use of these in his score for Rudall Hayward’s film Rewi’s Last Stand (1940). This analysis shows that these popular songs contributed, and continue to contribute, to the nexus of Māori, war, and music in Pākehā narrations of the nation. By applying a bicultural approach to the study of Hill’s Maoriland songs, this research also shows these ‘in-between’ songs represent individual, tribal, and national Māori identities too. While this work adds music to the discourse of Maoriland, and Maoriland to the discourse of New Zealand music and national identity, Hill’s ‘Māori’ music, early twentieth-century New Zealand music, and New Zealand film music all remain severely under-researched areas of New Zealand music studies.</p>

The Eugenesis of Beauty

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alvaro Jarrín
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Plastic Surgery ◽  
Future Generations ◽  
Archival Research ◽  
Central Concern ◽  
Female Beauty ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
Racial Mixture ◽  
Eugenics Movement

This chapter, which is based on archival research, demonstrates that beauty developed as a central concern for the Brazilian eugenics movement in the early twentieth century as it became associated with improved hygienic practices and ongoing racial mixture, which eugenicists believed would inevitably whiten the nation as whole. The beauty of women—as the imagined bearers of future generations and as the objects of (male) medical scrutiny—was of particular concern. In other words, female beauty came to be understood as a symbol of the nation's progress, and beautification practices such as plastic surgery were lauded as sensible hygienic practices that aided the work of miscegenation.

The Rejection of Continental Drift

1999 ◽  
Author(s):  
Naomi Oreskes
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Continental Drift ◽  
Detailed Account ◽  
Causal Mechanism ◽  
Archival Research ◽  
Standards Of Practice ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
Scientific Fact ◽  
Basic Standards ◽  
Scientific Ideas

In the early twentieth century, American earth scientists were united in their opposition to the new--and highly radical--notion of continental drift, even going so far as to label the theory "unscientific." Some fifty years later, however, continental drift was heralded as a major scientific breakthrough and today it is accepted as scientific fact. Why did American geologists reject so adamantly an idea that is now considered a cornerstone of the discipline? And why were their European colleagues receptive to it so much earlier? This book, based on extensive archival research on three continents, provides important new answers while giving the first detailed account of the American geological community in the first half of the century. Challenging previous historical work on this episode, Naomi Oreskes shows that continental drift was not rejected for the lack of a causal mechanism, but because it seemed to conflict with the basic standards of practice in American geology. This account provides a compelling look at how scientific ideas are made and unmade.

Sight Readings: Photographers and American Jazz, 1900-1960

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan John Ainsworth
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
African American ◽  
Archival Research ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Different Types ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Way

This book explores the work of a wide range of American photographers attracted to jazz during the period 1900–60. It includes discussions of jazz as a visual subject, its attraction to different types of photographers and offers analysis of why and how they approached the subject in the way they did. While some of these photographers are widely recognized for their work, many African American photojournalists, studio photographers, early twentieth-century émigrés, the Jewish exiles of the 1930s and vernacular snapshots are frequently overlooked. Drawing on ideas from contemporary photographic theory backed up by extensive archival research, this book allows the reader to explore and understand twentieth-century jazz photography in both an engaging and comprehensive fashion.

South Caucasus from 1918 to 1921: history and historical parallels with the contemporary era

2017 ◽  
Vol 45 (5) ◽  
pp. 910-927 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Mkhoyan
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Historical Background ◽  
Archival Research ◽  
The South ◽  
South Caucasus ◽  
Regional Powers ◽  
Early Twentieth Century

The republics that make up the South Caucasus today gained brief independence after the fall of the Tsarist Empire, before the integration of the region into Bolshevik Russia. This period, even though short, gives interesting historical background to understand the present. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to study the South Caucasian republics from 1918 to 1921 at the regional and international levels, paying particular attention to the historical continuities with the contemporary era (since 1991). The results of the study show three main parallels between the early twentieth century (1918–1921) and the present. First, the region is still internally divided (e.g. the unresolved conflicts). Second, externally, it is torn between sometimes opposing powers (e.g. Russia and the Western powers). Finally, third, the partnerships with international or regional powers still remain asymmetrical; consequently, the need to cooperate with Russia exceeds the aspirations of the Western powers toward the South Caucasus. Based on archival research, this study contributes to the historiography of the region and gives a framework for understanding the South Caucasus in contemporary international relations.

scholarly journals The Forgotten Soundtrack of Maoriland: Imagining the Nation Through Alfred Hill’s Songs for Rewi's Last Stand

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Melissa Cross
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
Identity Formation ◽  
Film Music ◽  
Cultural Analysis ◽  
Cultural Form ◽  
Popular Songs ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Tangible Evidence

<p>Alfred Hill’s songs based on collected Māori musical materials and narrative themes are artefacts of cultural colonisation that represent individual identities and imagined communities. They are tangible evidence of the site of identity formation known as Maoriland within which Pākehā construct imaginings of ‘Māoriness’ to create their own sense of indigeneity and nationhood. Although early twentieth-century Maoriland has been discussed widely in the arts and literature, scholars have not addressed the music of Maoriland, perhaps because it is heard today as the cultural form that most clearly expresses racialised sentimentality and colonial hegemony. However, Maoriland music can tell us much about New Zealand society if it is recognised as inhabiting an ‘in-between’ place where Pākehā fascination for the racial other was often inseparable from an admiration for Māori promoted by a knowledgeable group of Māori and Pākehā cultural go-betweens.  This thesis presents a critical cultural analysis of the ethnic, racial, gendered, and national identities represented in Hill’s ‘Māori’ songs, viewed through the lens of his use of these in his score for Rudall Hayward’s film Rewi’s Last Stand (1940). This analysis shows that these popular songs contributed, and continue to contribute, to the nexus of Māori, war, and music in Pākehā narrations of the nation. By applying a bicultural approach to the study of Hill’s Maoriland songs, this research also shows these ‘in-between’ songs represent individual, tribal, and national Māori identities too. While this work adds music to the discourse of Maoriland, and Maoriland to the discourse of New Zealand music and national identity, Hill’s ‘Māori’ music, early twentieth-century New Zealand music, and New Zealand film music all remain severely under-researched areas of New Zealand music studies.</p>

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