Ritual, Legend, and Metaphor: Narratives of the Willow in Yuan Zaju

Narratives of willow trees in Yuan zaju 雜劇, or variety play, largely come in three types, namely, the ritual performance of shooting willows; the deliverance of willow spirits by Lü Dongbin, one of the Eight Immortals of Daoism; and the use of the word willow to refer to women. The willow shooting ritual depicted in Yuan zaju was highly reminiscent of the willow shooting ritual popular throughout the Song (960–1279), Liao (916–1125), Jin (1115–1234), and Yuan (1271–1368) dynasties, with its conceptual origins traceable to the ancient shamanic belief in the willow as a sacred tree prevalent among the Khitans and Jurchens who lived in what is now northeastern China. The legend of Lü Dongbin delivering a willow spirit to immortality is a recurring motif in Han Chinese folklore and Daoist hagiography, which also finds expression in the iconic image of Guanyin Pusa or Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara holding a willow branch with which they cure diseases for people and bring fulfillment to their wishes. The frequent use of “willow leaf-shaped eyebrows” (liumei 柳眉) and “willow-like waist” (liuyao 柳腰) in Yuan zaju as metaphorical references to women can be seen as a continuation of the great literary tradition of Shijing 詩經 (The Book of Songs) and also as a dramatic enactment of the fertility cult of the willow and women in Chinese folk religion. Evidence abounds that the narratives about the willow in Yuan zaju were not a new creation but an artistic manifestation of centuries-old folk belief and literary tradition.

Iconic war images and the myth of the ‘good American Soldier’

This article explores the ‘good American soldier’ as a gendered ideal type shaped by, and reproductive of, myths about American military success, romantic notions of small-town working and white America, notions of heterosexual virility, and ableist stereotypes about personal resilience. Drawing from an analysis of 10 years of media coverage of an iconic image dubbed the ‘Marlboro Marine’, the article outlines three specific myths linked to the ‘good American soldier’, in order to provide an insight into ideals of militarized masculinity and the gendered myths that shape American nationalism and identity. In developing this analysis, the article extends existing work on military masculinities by introducing the ‘good American soldier’ ideal type and explores the multiple myths associated with this ideal type. The article also demonstrates how a media narrative analysis that covers an extended period of time makes it possible to observe shifting narratives associated with the ‘good American soldier’.

How the Dutch Miss Merkus became the Joan of Arc of insurgent Herzegovina

Much has remained unclear as to how and when Jeanne (Jenny) Merkus came to Herzegovina, where her spectacular, yet tragic career as the Joan of Arc of the Serbian insurrection and where the subsequent war against Turkish and Muslim domination started. Facing the seeming non-existence of any relevant documentation, numerous unsubtantiated claims have been proposed for the Dutch lady's arrival shortly after the rebellion broke out in the summer of 1875. As if it would do harm to the iconic image of female heroism, the possibility of a strongly delayed accession was hardly ever seriously considered. Instead of meticulously researching newspapers and other contemporaneous sources for the first traces of her presence there, self-proclaimed experts spun fanciful stories, which were eagerly consumed as true. Mainly using nearly forgotten revelations of Italian correspondents among the insurgents, this contribution demonstrates that Miss Merkus did not join the insurrection before December of that year, but also that, once inside Herzegovina, she seized the opportunity to transform her purported humanitarian mission into a straightforward military one, adopting male attire and arms.

شریعت اسلام کی رُو سے خواتین کے بالوں کی زیب و زینت :ایک تحقیقی جائزہ

Allah is beautiful and He loves beauty. There is no doubt that in Islam, beauty is a very important characteristic but also a quality of the body and heart. In a world where the criteria of beauty seem to change from year to year according to trends and people nothing like a homecoming. This article identifies the concept of women’s hair beautification in the frame world of Islam. This research paper raises a very important question to ponder upon: What are the permissible ways of women’s beautification in Islam.? The article beautification of women and its concept in the main sources of Islam. Quran verses and Prophet's Saying Hadith/Sunnah (Blessing of Almighty Allah SHW) in addition to the opinions saying of Islamic scholars. Written as a narrative literature review. The paper aims to study design and spatial relationships in health and beauty treatment by blending modern settings within the Islamic perspective. A beauty salon or beauty parlor means a business dealing with cosmetic treatment for men and women, which is from the hair to toes. Other variations of this type of business are including hair salons and spas. A beauty salon has become an almost iconic image in Pakistan and other countries. A beauty salon and beauty products are also a center for community news and confessions. This article focuses on Islam and issues due to Beautification effects in our society, religious.

Problems of cliche in the context of creativity of choreographer-director of modern dance

The purpose of the article is to identify the specifics of the use of clichéd expressive means in the process of creating a production of modern choreography and to determine the ways to get rid of clichés in the context of philosophical and worldview types of choreographic life. Methodology. In order to identify the peculiarities of the use of clichéd means of expression in the performances of modern dance, the typological method, the method of structural-semantic and textual analysis was applied. Scientific novelty. The problem of the use of clichéd expressive means by choreographers-directors of modern dance is investigated; the features of the use of clichéd forms of visual expressiveness are considered on the basis of modern choreography productions; based on the analysis of the theoretical works of the leading choreographers of the 20th century. the approaches to avoiding the use of clichés in the process of staging modern dance have been identified. Conclusions. Certain lexical elements of modern dance, compositional features, and visual means of expressiveness of choreographic performances in their own semantics are clichéd, since, as a result of the frequent use of choreographers-directors (usually due to positioning as necessary elements of the text of the choreographic performance, which provide an easy and accurate way of transmitting the encoded information) have lost their imagery, and their semantic content has gradually decreased. In contemporary dance productions, the cliché is a kind of sign of the choreographic text, which has its own conceptual content and structurally organized form, providing a certain meaning to the concept placed in this cliché. This meaning can be interpreted as an element of the semantic system, the internal structure of which is associated with its relationship with other elements of this structure and reflect the system of connections and relationships between objects and phenomena of reality existing outside a separate sign in the form of a converted form of this objective content, which largely depends on the projected on the iconic image created by the choreographer of the viewer's social experience. The meaning of the choreographic cliché is considered as a result of the process of determination, when a “psychic image” appears in the viewer's mind, the presence of which is manifested through a visual signification and is fixed in the signs of the dance text. Changes in the content of the cliché as a sign (its meaning) create differences of an individual and social nature, reflecting the choreographer's ideas about the surrounding reality. The choreographer-director of contemporary dance comprehends and rethinks life in accordance with his own philosophical and worldview principles, revealing life concepts that are closer to a paradox and distant from the established logic. Seeing life as a force, the choreographer constantly strives for awakening in order to free himself from disciplinary individualizations.

State Management of National Resources at the Conceptual Level - Images and Meanings of State Symbols

This article is a further continuation of the work on the review of the basics of state management of national resources (state and use), in relation to its system - forming function-state policy and political symbols (the conceptual level of management). From the system positions of the general theory of classification and systematization, the functions of state management of national resources are considered and the role and place of each of them in a single universal management circuit is determined. The role and place of political symbols (a sub-function of the conceptual-strategic level) are considered on the basis of the proposed invariant structure of the typical contour of state management of the state of national resources (operational-tactical level). From the modern state symbols of the Russian Federation, the iconic image two - headed eagle is selected and its prototypes and the origins of their origin, which are located in ancient times, are considered. To consider the evolution of the iconic images of state symbols of modern Russia, it is proposed to systematize and analyze them at different historical stages, to this end, systematize and analyze the following Old Testament images of power (state symbols) of various countries of the world: non-predatory bird, bird of prey, griffin, two-headed eagle, systematize and analyze the sacred images of power double-headed eagle and griffin in the symbolism of the countries of the world with the identification of their sacred meanings-binary (binary). Conclusions are drawn about the common origins of the origin and distribution of these Old Testament images of state symbols in the countries of the Indo-European community, the systematization and analysis of the Old Testament images of power (state symbols) of various countries of the world: non-predatory bird, bird of prey, griffon, double - headed eagle allows us to trace the evolution of the origin and formation of the main state symbol of Russia double-headed eagle, at the heart of the Old Testament images of power griffin and double-headed eagle in the symbolism of the countries of the world lie the sacred meanings of the universal and fundamental principle of reality (world, reality, being) - the duality (duality) of opposite, proportionate and balanced entities.

C. P. Cavafy as an Egyptiote

In contradistinction to Anglophone criticism's airbrushing of all things Egyptian/Arab from the iconic image of C. P. Cavafy, this essay dwells on the poet as an Egyptiote. An Egyptiote orientation, it is argued, variously informs given poems and prose texts in his later years. Probing Cavafy's knowledge of Arabic, the essay demonstrates his affinities and solidarities with Egyptians under colonial duress as witnessed in the choice of subject matter and in the intertextual Greek-Egyptian folkloric resonances in his poem “27 June 1906, 2 P.M.” Analyzing how the poem's tropes and temporality riposte to those in extraliterary discourses about the colonial incident it depicts, the essay reads “27 June 1906, 2 P.M.” in relation to other Cavafy poems that reveal an Egyptiote “transculturated” poetics. A set of prose texts—letters, essays, interviews—by Cavafy, it is demonstrated, vest Egyptiote literati with an intercultural literary agency of acquainting the Greek public with the outlines of Egyptian Arabophone literature and the Arabophone Egyptian literati with something of their own Greek language production.

Cultural Diplomacy and Europe's Twenty Years’ Crisis, 1919–1939: Introduction

Photographs of the German and Soviet pavilions facing off at the Paris International Exposition in 1937 offer an iconic image of the interwar period, and with good reason. This image captures the interwar period's great conflict of ideologies, the international interconnectedness of the age and the aestheticisation of political and ideological conflict in the age of mass media and mass spectacle. [Figure 1] Last but not least, it captures the importance in the 1930s of what we now call cultural diplomacy. Both pavilions – Germany's, in Albert Speer's neo-classical tower bloc crowned with a giant swastika, and the Soviet Union's, housed in Boris Iofan's forward-thrusting structure topped by Vera Mukhina's monumental sculptural group – represented the outcome of a large-scale collaboration between political leaders and architects, artists, intellectuals and graphic and industrial designers seeking to present their country to foreign visitors in a manner designed to advance the country's interests in the international arena. Each pavilion, that is, made an outreach that was diplomatic – in the sense that it sought to mediate between distinct polities – using means that were cultural – in the sense that they deployed refined aesthetic practices (like the arts and architecture) and in the sense that they highlighted the distinctive features, or ‘culture’, of a particular group (like the German nation or the Soviet state).

Picturing an industrial city: green and modern? Postcards from Chemnitz and Lodz (1880s–1980s)

A pictorial postcard condenses a cityscape into one iconic image, which claims to summarize the place, usually in a highly aestheticized version. If that is the case, how does one present an industrial city: with factories and worker housing or rather with churches and the palaces of industrial tycoons? Using four digitalized collections (over 700 postcards) this article analyses images of industrialized cities from the late nineteenth century until the end of the Cold War. The main argument is that this idealized depiction does not focus on industry, but rather taps into the imagination of the European city.

Between iconic image and (artificial) ruins: Shanghai Sihang Warehouse and World War II memory in China

Opened in 2015, the Sihang Warehouse Memorial Museum is an architectural relic of the fierce and famous ‘Defense of Sihang Warehouse’ that took place in the 1937 Battle of Shanghai during the Second Sino-Japanese War. Regarding the warehouse as a national war icon lost and found, the author examines the transformations of the symbolic meanings of the warehouse per se and how it has been represented visually in photography and film in relation to the vicissitudes of history. As the spatial history of the warehouse shows, the warehouse was forgotten for a long time. With the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II, its memory was revived, but as an artificial recreation that remains silent about the ruptures under the surface of historical continuity. The case shows how the meaning of commemorative space for modern and contemporary Chinese war memory has been constructed, deconstructed and reconstructed visually and physically.