Gendered Norms and Family Roles in the Narratives of Hungarian Elite Members and Their Partners

Our paper contributes to studies on the enduring underrepresentation of women in elite positions through the analysis of elite members’ and their partners’ narratives on career and partnership. Using a dataset of 34 individual interviews (17 couples) among Hungary’s political, economic, and cultural elite, we explore how narrators project themselves in the context of their marital relationships and family roles. We identify three pairs of narratives during our analysis. Narratives show the positions from where narrators discuss the theme of career and partnership as elite member/partner, power couple/non-power couple, and male/female. Our findings show that narrative positioning is significantly gendered, and it is strongly connected to the traditional gendered role system. Having an elite position or pursuing a career calls for explanation only from women. In the meantime, a non-power couple position calls for explanation from men, which suggests the increasing presence of the norm of equality in the Hungarian elite.

Dual Nozzle Weapon Power Couple Vibration Controller With Delayed Rear Nozzle

Aiming at the problem that the firing accuracy of barrel weapon is affected by the violent vibration during continuous firing, a double-nozzle vibration controller using the energy of gunpowder gas in the chamber is proposed. The synchronous external injection of the double nozzles of the controller is realized by the delayed ejection of the rear nozzles, so as to generate a power couple to balance the recoil flipping torque of the barrel weapon to achieve the stable firing effect of reducing the bore vibration. A double-nozzle vibration controller with a delayed rear nozzle for a chain gun is designed. The rigid-flexible coupling dynamic model of a chain gun with a double-nozzles vibration controller was established considering the two-phase flow of propellant gas in the barrel and airway. The numerical simulation of the muzzle vibration characteristics of the original weapon and a chain gun equipped with a double-nozzles vibration controller is carried out respectively, and the effectiveness of the double-nozzles dynamic couple vibration controller for the continuous firing vibration control of the barrel weapon is verified.

Jacqueline du Pré as 'The Cellist' (2020)

Few musicians of the twentieth century are as recognisable as Jacqueline du Pré. Her dazzling and distinctive talent, said to have enraptured audiences the world over, was overcome by a tragic diagnosis of MS. This sense of tragedy was all the more heightened by Du Pré’s famed physicality on the stage, leading critics to use all manner of analogies in describing her playing as a physical (and even sexual) experience. Her status as a musical celebrity, further intensified as she became one half of a classical music power couple, has led to numerous dramatic retellings and reimaginings of her biography, played out in film and TV, and now on stage. The most recent example of this fascination with Du Pré is the ballet The Cellist, Cathy Marston’s new work for the Royal Ballet, premiered in February 2020 to much critical acclaim. Its score, composed by Philip Feeney, features a cello soloist and interweaved repertoire extracts that have become so associated with Du Pré. Along with the characters of Barenboim, Du Pré, and her family, her 1673 Stradivarius cello is given a starring role in the form of Marcelino Sambé, a new take that makes this a distinctive contribution to media representations of Du Pré. This article examines the interactions across this complex web of musical representations of musical personae engrained in the cultural consciousness. It considers acts of musical performance, the musical instrument as living companion, and the representation of classical musical culture of the 1960s and 1970s, drawing attention to key features of Du Pré’s narrative re-presented in a new artistic form.

Clare Boothe Luce

The ambassadorship of Clare Boothe Luce (Italy, 1953–1956) is the focus of this chapter. Editor, playwright, journalist, congresswoman, and, later, pundit, Luce was one of the most accomplished American women of the twentieth century. Marrying publishing mogul Henry R. Luce in 1935, Luce formed half of a highly influential Republican power couple. President Dwight D. Eisenhower named Luce ambassador to Italy in 1953, making her the first woman envoy to a major US ally. Known for her rapier wit, Luce was a controversial hire. In early Cold War Italy, shestruggled mightily against the Italian Left, with limited success. But she played a key role in helping resolve the dispute over Trieste, and with her combination of intelligence, diligence, and access to the president, Luce proved an effective ambassador. Her bizarre appointment and immediate withdrawal as ambassador to Brazil in 1959 is also discussed.