Ballroom Dance and Other Technologies of Sexuality and Desire

Traversing ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 80-109
Author(s):  
Susanna Trnka
Keyword(s):  
Coming Of Age ◽  
Male Dominance ◽  
Sexual Objectification ◽  
Male Violence ◽  
Sexual Imagery ◽  
Dance Floor ◽  
The World ◽  
Ballroom Dance ◽  
Self Transcendence ◽  
The Erotic

This chapter describes the world of sex and the erotic. It discusses movement and interrelationality by means of observing ballroom dance lessons, which is a required part of coming of age for many Czech youth. Following a daughter and her mother through the first steps of becoming a cultured ballroom dancer, the chapter looks at how sexuality, male dominance, and female sexual objectification are both encouraged and circumscribed on the dance floor. It considers the universality of sexual imagery and the prevalence of male violence across a range of domestic and public sites. The chapter also questions what sexuality means in terms of women's agency and whether or not, as Jan Patocka suggested, there is indeed an inherent liberatory potential to deeply intimate, erotic relations. It analyzes whether sex is a possible path to self-transcendence.

A Māori Girl Watches, Listens, and Learns – Coming of Age from an Indigenous Viewpoint: Mauri (Merata Mita, 1988)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alistair Fox
Keyword(s):  
Indigenous People ◽  
Coming Of Age ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Feature Film ◽  
Indigenous Woman ◽  
Spiritual Dimension ◽  
The World ◽  
Life Force ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter examines Merata Mita’s Mauri, the first fiction feature film in the world to be solely written and directed by an indigenous woman, as an example of “Fourth Cinema” – that is, a form of filmmaking that aims to create, produce, and transmit the stories of indigenous people, and in their own image – showing how Mita presents the coming-of-age story of a Māori girl who grows into an understanding of the spiritual dimension of the relationship of her people to the natural world, and to the ancestors who have preceded them. The discussion demonstrates how the film adopts storytelling procedures that reflect a distinctively Māori view of time and are designed to signify the presence of the mauri (or life force) in the Māori world.

Amílcar Cabral

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
António Tomás
Keyword(s):  
Coming Of Age ◽  
Cape Verde ◽  
The Political ◽  
African Continent ◽  
Guinea Bissau ◽  
Independence Movement ◽  
The World ◽  
Portuguese Colonialism ◽  
Cape Verdeans

The Guinean-born Amílcar Cabral has been hailed as one of the most original voices in revolutionary processes on the African continent. He was not only behind one of the most resourceful independence movement in Africa, the PAIGC (African Party for the Liberation of Guinea and Cape Verde). But the challenge he posed against the colonial military might was also instrumental to end of Portuguese colonialism altogether. For reaction against Estado Novo brewed mostly in Bissau, on the account of a war the Portuguese was waging against the guerrilla and could not win. This biography describes Cabral’s upbringing in Cape Verde, his political coming of age in Lisbon, as a student in agronomy and anticolonial activist, as well as his transformation into one of the most revered revolutionaries in the world. However, contrary to most studies on Cabral, which tend to rely on the materials produced during the liberation war, this book approaches the life of Cabral from a slightly different perspective. It explores a trove of Lusophone sources, particularly those ones that use contemporary issues to illuminate historical conundrums. The political trajectory Cape Verde and Guinea-Bissau have followed sheds light not only on Cabral’s quest for identity – being born in Guinea-Bissau from Cape Verdeans parents – But also on the day-to-day conduction of the anti-colonial war itself.

Activists in Their Forties

2019 ◽  
pp. 11-70
Author(s):  
Rachel F. Seidman
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Women Of Color ◽  
Coming Of Age ◽  
Feminist Movement ◽  
Growing Up ◽  
Direct Service ◽  
Non Profit ◽  
The Past ◽  
The World ◽  
The Impact

The seven women in this section were born between 1966 and 1976, at the height of the burgeoning feminist movement. They discuss not only the impact of feminism on their own lives, but on their mothers as well. Some reflect on whether or not the world is a better place for their daughters than when they were growing up. Coming of age in the 1980s and 90s, these interviewees reached maturity during the rise of Reagan Republicanism and what Susan Faludi termed the “backlash” against feminism. None of these women set out at the beginning of their careers to be professional feminists; it never crossed their minds as a possibility. About half of the women in this chapter have been involved in one way or another with the intersecting worlds of journalism, academia, social media, and business, and half—all of them women of color—have worked in direct-service and non-profit organizations. With long careers and experience in a variety of contexts, these women help us understand how feminism has changed over the past twenty years, where the movement is headed, and some of the reasons why even those who undertake its work do not always embrace it wholeheartedly.

‘To Let To Let To Let’

2020 ◽  
pp. 93-143
Author(s):  
Ushashi Dasgupta
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Coming Of Age ◽  
Rite Of Passage ◽  
Growing Up ◽  
Great Expectations ◽  
Private House ◽  
The World ◽  
David Copperfield ◽  
A Site

This chapter explores the significance of rented spaces in the nineteenth-century Bildungsroman, reading David Copperfield and Great Expectations alongside novels by Catherine Gore and WM Thackeray. Some of the most memorable characters in these coming-of-age narratives are landlords and landladies, who act as mentors to the protagonist as he tries to find his place in the world. Dickens interrogates the idea that it is a rite of passage for a young man to take lodgings before he moves into a private house. The chapter reveals that Dickens uses spatial and architectural metaphors, including images drawn from the world of tenancy, to articulate the process of growing up. It ends with a section on the window tax debate of the 1840s and 1850s and the traces it leaves in the fiction of the period; the window is a site charged with symbolism for characters preoccupied with their ‘prospects’.

scholarly journals Buddhist Precepts and the Diagnosis of Women’s suffering in Doris Lessing’s The Golden Notebook

2016 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 42
Author(s):  
Shaereh Shaereh Shaerpooraslilankrodi ◽  
Ruzy Suliza Hashim
Keyword(s):  
The Novel ◽  
Female Characters ◽  
Female Self ◽  
The Core ◽  
Self Development ◽  
The World ◽  
Self Transcendence ◽  
Dependent Arising ◽  
Mahāyāna Buddhism ◽  
Universal Nature

<p>In Doris Lessing’s fictions, the effects of the world outside on the female self-transcendence are invariably lost, and instead the journey in the world within is notably emphasized. Similarly in <em>The Golden Notebook</em> the didactic bend of the female enlightenment is firmly entrenched to the world within where personal harmonies parallel the mystical patterns of self-development. Moreover, the detailed exploration of the novel foregrounds the female characters’ hard effort to end their suffering which is the core of Buddhist teachings. Hence, while Lessing is not specifically attempting to portray Buddhist principles in her novel, her vision captures the universal nature of humankind’s attempts to overcome suffering which is the most emphasized concept in Buddhism. Accordingly, the purpose of this paper is to use Buddhist philosophical thoughts, particularly the founding of the pioneer of Mahayana Buddhism, Nagarjuna, in his book <em>Mulamadhyamakakarika </em>to look more closely at the root of women’s suffering and their prescription to overcome it. The methodology appropriated entails depiction of clinging as the root of female suffering which is overtly discussed in Nagarjuna’s philosophy. After diagnosis of clinging disease as the root of suffering, this paper presents Nagarjuna’s prescription to end suffering through viewing the “empty” nature of beings and “dependent arising”. By examining the root of female suffering and offering the method for its eradication, we depart from other critics who examine Lessing’s works under Sufi mystic thoughts. This departure is significant since we reveal, unlike Sufi patterns within which the suffering is only diagnosed, Lessing’s mystic aim in shaping her female characters is not only to detect their suffering, but like Buddhism, to suggest a prescription for it. </p>

Analyzing Gender Segregation in Comuting

2011 ◽  
pp. 25-30
Author(s):  
Leena Ghoshal ◽  
Katia Passerini
Keyword(s):  
Information Systems ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Gender Segregation ◽  
Male Dominance ◽  
It Industry ◽  
Female Participation ◽  
The World ◽  
Computing Industry ◽  
Technical Advances ◽  
The Difference

Gender appears to be a fundamental category for ordering and classifying social relations in the world (Evans, 1994). The first thing we are told about a newborn is whether it is a boy or a girl. Gender as defined by Acker, (1992, p. 250) is a “patterned, socially produced distinction between female and male, feminine and masculine” and is a key concept for understanding the degree of male and female participation in any field, including information systems. This review aims at developing an understanding of some of the reasons that underlie (a) the gender segregation that exists within the broad, interrelated fields of computing (information systems (IS), information technology (IT), and computer science (CS)) and (b) the declining levels of female participation in the computing industry across the continents. The three computing disciplines (IS, IT, CS) and the computing profession clearly appear gender segregated, with a male dominance at all levels. As Booth (1999) noted, while one of the first software ever written for a machine was produced by a woman—Ada Lovelace in 1840, it is a male, Charles Babbage—the inventor of the difference calculating machine—that is generally accepted as the founding father of computing. Booth concludes: “And that, in microcosm, has been how the IT industry developed over the next 160 years—a combination of rapid technical advances leading to skills crisis while half the nation’s workforce has been routinely overlooked” (p. 47).

Becoming Beautiful

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joanna Bosse
Keyword(s):  
Social Space ◽  
Personal Transformation ◽  
Ballroom Dancing ◽  
Dance Floor ◽  
Real People ◽  
Ballroom Dance ◽  
And Gender ◽  
First Time ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Aesthetic Values

This book explores the transformations undergone by the residents of a Midwestern town when they step out on the dance floor for the very first time. The book uses sensitive fieldwork as well as the author's own immersion in ballroom culture to lead readers into a community that springs up around ballroom dance. It demonstrates how the contemporary performance of ballroom dance among amateurs generates feelings of positive personal transformation, of becoming beautiful. The book also discusses the dance hall as a social space where disparate groups come together to move in synchrony, along with the ways in which race, class, and gender converge in ballroom dancing. The result is a portrait of the real people who connect with others, change themselves, and join a world that foxtrots to its own rules, conventions, and rewards. The author's eye for revealing, humorous detail adds warmth and depth to discussions around critical perspectives on the experiences the dance hall provides, the nature of partnership and connection, and the notion of how dancing allows anyone to become beautiful. The book also considers the relationship between aesthetic values and becoming beautiful.

Partnering Effects on Joint Motion Range and Step Length in the Competitive Waltz Dancers

2020 ◽  
Vol 24 (4) ◽  
pp. 168-174
Author(s):  
Yasuyuki Yoshida ◽  
Arunas Bizokas ◽  
Katusha Demidova ◽  
Shinichi Nakai ◽  
Rie Nakai ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
National Level ◽  
Step Length ◽  
Upper Body ◽  
Joint Motion ◽  
Salient Characteristic ◽  
The World ◽  
Ballroom Dance ◽  
Motion Range ◽  
World Champion ◽  
Pair Condition

Competitive dance, also known as DanceSport, is one of the official sports of the World Games. The most salient characteristic of ballroom dance is the closed-hold position, during which the upper body segments of partner-dancers are linked. This study aimed to investigate partnering effects on joint motion ranges of the lower extremity and step lengths during the waltz in 13 national level competitive dance couples and a world champion couple. A Xsens MVN system was used to record movement at 240 Hz. Solo and pair conditions were examined. Compared with the highly skilled couples, the world champion couple demonstrated superior dance skills for generating the first step length in the pair condition of the waltz. This was particularly evident in the step length and joint motion range of the champion female dancer.

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