The paper considers Percival Everett’s novel James (2024) and its peculiar technique as an example of resignification and a contemporary reworking of Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and American minstrel shows. The theoretical framework is based on Judith Butler’s idea of resignification and Eric Lott’s considerations of the notion of minstrelsy, highlighting the connections between the two. As the key aspect of both Everett’s novel and a minstrel show is performativity/performance, this notion is discussed in detail with a special emphasis on its use in the novel. We argue that Everett’s innovative and subversive use of language, and his decision to tell the story of the birth of a hero from the point of view of Jim/James, the (in)famous stereotypical slave character of Twain’s narrative, represents an instance of anti-minstrel fiction and thus sets new standards in contemporary (African) American literature. We argue that Jim’s/James’ journey from a runaway slave and a comic relief in Twain’s classic to a hero of his own narrative can be interpreted as an example of resignification, i.e., ‘enacted critique’, a deliberate, deviant, mis-performance (Loxley, 2006, 127) which paves the way for new roles and meanings in contemporary (African) American literature.
Nataliia POSIKIRA-OMELCHUK, Tymur IVANNIKOV, Ulyana MOLCHKO
et al.
The subject of this research is the essence of performing interpretation, which is considered an integral part of the functioning of a musical work from its creation to its presentation to the audience. The research methodology is based on a comparative analysis of historical and music-theoretical sources, an analysis of approaches to the definition and classification of different types of interpretation. The research compares the performing interpretation with other types of interpretation of contemporary music – composer’s and sound director’s interpretation. Interpretation is considered in relation to the concept of performance – if performance implies the physical act of playing a musical instrument or singing, the concept of interpretation is the ideal image of a musical work formed by the performer in the process of studying it. A comparative analysis of various definitions of the concept of interpretation allows us to conclude that the basis of interpretation is a thought process, understanding of its intonational features, including the analysis of the musical text, studying the circumstances of the composition of the work, stylistic and genre features. The issue of the correlation between the individual and the traditional in the course of forming an interpretation is important: the performer must take into account all the features of the musical text, the traditions of performing music of the relevant era and the relevant genres, while within the framework of traditions, the performer always has the space to bring his or her own individual understanding and performance characteristics. The issue of objective analysis of interpretations based on sound recordings is raised. Given the complexity of objective auditory analysis, we believe that the development of software that will allow us to identify agogic and dynamic features of performance at the level of individual sounds in musical phrases is a promising direction.
La emblemática heráldica tuvo unos orígenes eminentemente prácticos. Ya fuera por diferenciarse en campos de batalla y torneos, reconocer a las huestes o por dar una señal de identidad a productos elaborados, se trataba de una realizar una distinción rápida y visual. Sin embargo, la evolución de la sociedad medieval hace de la heráldica un elemento de diferenciación del estatus nobiliario frente al resto del corpus social. Los elementos gráficos que fueron pensados de una manera eminentemente práctica, pasan a convertirse en definidores de un rango social. Puesto que este rango debía tener unos cimientos basados en la mejor condición del linaje del que eran titulares, las diferentes familias van a hacer un esfuerzo en trasladar el relato de mitificación del linaje al campo de la literatura heráldica, dando origen a un género que se aparta de los tradicionales armoriales para acercarse a las genealogías. Serán los libros de armerías. Así, en ellos se utilizan leyendas que enlazan el origen mítico del linaje a través de los elementos iconográficos del emblema familiar.
SURYA BOWYER, SHREYA GUPTA, LIBERTY PATERSON
et al.
AbstractThis article considers the state of the field of the history of collecting and its institutions. Following on from a 2021 ‘state of the field’ article, also published in this journal, the present piece looks towards the future of this evolving field. The authors pay particular attention to work being undertaken from the perspective of collecting institutions rather than individual collectors. Our principal corpus is the series of Collaborative Doctoral Partnership projects that, over the past decade, have been run under the aegis of the UK's Arts and Humanities Research Council. The article considers, in turn, the following areas of research within the field: histories of empire, slavery and gender; investigations of stakeholders; digital collections research; and commercial histories of collecting. The article ends by looking beyond academia, to consider the recent wider impact of research into the history of collections and its institutions.
Straipsnyje analizuojamas iki šiol netyrinėtas paveikslų ciklas Šv. Augustino gyvenimas. Jis atributuojamas, iškeliama hipotezė apie užsakovą. Kaip atskleidė tyrimas, šį ciklą kitados sudarė dešimt paveikslų, iš kurių keturi 2000 m. pateko į Kauno arkivyskupijos muziejų, vienas atrastas privačioje kolekcijoje, keturių buvimo vieta nežinoma, vienas dingęs negrįžtamai. Atvaizdus papildančios inskripcijos leido identifikuoti paveikslų ciklo grafinius pirmavaizdžius, vaizduojamas scenas, jų rašytinius šaltinius, nuosekliai išnagrinėti ikonografiją. Kadangi XX a. pirmoje pusėje šis paveikslų ciklas puošė Žemaičių kunigų seminarijos Didžiąją aulą Kaune, straipsnyje pirmą kartą identifikuojama šios 1895–1957 m. egzistavusios reprezentacinės patalpos tiksli buvimo vieta ir kaita, kartu su paveikslų ciklu užfiksuota archyvinėse nuotraukose.
This article describes Picasso’s first visit to the French capital in 1900, and the events that led to his first major exhibition at the acclaimed Galerie Ambroise Vollard in Paris in 1901. The first section provides a narrative of his early experiences abroad as a young unknown artist, his influences, and the contacts he established with friends, artists and dealers during this important period of his career; the second section traces the histories of the sixty-five artworks that were exhibited, identifying the collections those items went through after they were exhibited, their current locations, as well as the exhibitions in which they have been featured since Vollard first displayed them in his gallery. The last section elaborates on some of the immediate repercussions of the exhibition. The reported findings are the result of extensive research on hundreds of books and catalogs published on Pablo Picasso from 1901 to the present. The new facts we have uncovered are published here for the first time. Readers of the article will learn that the works included in Picasso’s first exhibition in France have been part of the most prestigious art collections, such as those of Justin K. Thannhauser, Gertrude Stein, Chester Dale, Paul Guillaume, Walter P. Chrysler, Jr., Paul Mellon, Helena Rubinstein, Alfred Flechtheim, Walter C. Arensberg, among others. The works have also been featured in such important overviews of his career as “Picasso, 75th Anniversary” 1957–1958, and “Picasso: An American Tribute”, 1962. Thus, while Vollard claimed that the exhibition at his gallery had no major impact, the facts show that it not only played an important role in Picasso’s acceptance as a groundbreaking newcomer, but also left a significant mark on the rest of his career, as evidenced by the works’ inclusion in the retrospectives held in Paris and Zürich in 1932, and New York in 1980.
T. Handayani, P. Hidayah, Aulya Safiyna Nuuril Anwari
et al.
Palang Pintu is one of the traditions among the Betawi community, which combines martial arts with Pantun literature passed down from generation to generation by the Betawi tribe. However, with the current culture acculturation, the district has begun to forget this tradition. This qualitative research aims to explore the philosophical value of the Palang Pintu to strengthen the rules and arts of the sport of the Betawi people. This study was conducted at Sanggar Golok Jaya, Bekasi City. Data were collected by observations and in-depth interviews with prominent cultural conservationists, the sports government, and the general public. These research findings revealed various philosophical values in the traditional sports movement of Palang Pintu consist of religious, spiritual, cultural, traditional, politeness, morals, respect, noble, learning, solidarity, beauty, aesthetic, and material value. Promote the Palang Pintu culture by adding materials to history lessons and carrying out various annual Cultural Festival events are highly recommended, thus increasing efforts to teach the philosophical values of the Palang Pintu that can shape the community's character in preserving culture.
Abstract:Singapore's Asian Civilisations Museum houses a large collection of shadow puppets from Malaysia, but very little is known about them except that the originated in Kelantan during the period of British colonial rule. Scant records exist explaining how they ended up in the museum's ethnographic holdings, or the social significance of the collection for the museum and for Kelantanese theatrical arts. Examining the puppets through both an aesthetic and curatorial lens allows us to expand our knowledge of museology and cross-cultural encounters, and contributes to discussions on the interrelationship between history, the performing arts, and the politics of collecting at the periphery of colonial Malaya.
Abstract Wushu as a Chinese cultural inheritance has for centuries encountered the question of ‘what is to be inherited and how’? The question should always be answered in the light of fresh discoveries and current research on Wushu history. This article addresses the question and suggests how researchers in this field should focus on the approaches through which the various disciplines of Wushu have been developed. The aim is to return to a past milieu where martial arts creators, instructors and students were making joint efforts to innovate and develop over time. In addition, the article suggests that researchers should pay more attention to the history of martial arts schools and to the practitioners who belong to ‘the silent majority’. In the field of dissemination research, lessons can be drawn from the sinicization of Western culture in China and research on local dissemination of other cultural products.
شكلت الرواية البوليسية في الآونة الأخيرة مصدر إلهام للكثير من الروائيين, حيث تعتمد الرواية البوليسية على ثلاثة عناصر هي : القاتل, والضحية, والمحقق. وتعتبر تلك الأقطاب العناصر الأساسية في تشكيل بؤرة النص الروائي البوليسي. عموماً فقد تناولت هذه الدراسة نشأة الرواية البوليسية, وحددت جذورها التاريخية, ثم بعد ذلك ناقشت تأخر ظهورها عند العرب بذكر مجموعة من الأسباب للعديد من النقاد والروائيين, واعتمدت على توضيح المفاهيم الخاصة بهذا الجنس الأدبي الحديث. واعتمد الباحث في هذه الدراسة على المنهج التاريخي في الكشف عن تاريخ الرواية البوليسية في الأدب العالمي من جانب, ومن جانب آخر الأدب العربي , ثم توصل البحث إلى نتيجة مفادها, ان الرواية البوليسية بخصائصها الفنية ظهرت على يد الكاتب الأمريكي إدغار الآن بو.
History of scholarship and learning. The humanities, Arts in general
Vessel rattles were one of the first sound-producing tools made from clay. Throughout history, they were developed in many ancient cultures, convergently in many places around the world. To obtain a complete picture of the sounds produced by clay rattles, the short-time Fourier transform analysis is used. On top of that, to determine the full spectrum of their acoustical possibilities, numerical reconstruction of sound is done. The results provide us an opportunity to explore the soundscape of the past.
Prabhin Sukumaran, Dhananjay A. Sant, K. Krishnan
et al.
Analyses of a fluvial sedimentary sequence from the lower reaches of the Narmada River establish a record of rhythmic cycles of sediment facies that represent floods during the late Holocene. The south-west Indian monsoon strongly influences the study area, and heavy rainfall or cyclones which originate from either the Bay of Bengal or the Arabian Sea, also affect the region. Optically stimulated luminescence dating places the 8 m thick sediment sequence in the climate transition phase which ranges from the Medieval Warm Period to the Little Ice Age. Multi-proxy analyses including high-resolution granulometry, magnetic susceptibility, ferromagnetic mineral concentration, facies major oxide geochemistry, and micro-fossil records (from two sedimentary units) are used to study these late Holocene flood events. The latter are characterised by multiple sediment facies, depositional events, changes in channel morphology, and distinctive flood signatures. Integration of these records enables to identify two distinct aggradations viz. phase I and phase II, as well as a relative change in channel morphology. The study describes 11 flooding events and their imprints over multi-proxy records. Historic documents and instrumental records from the town of Bharuch referring to floods, movement of channel sand, channel shallowing, and the dysfunction of the ancient port of Bharuch further validate the inferences drawn from the sedimentary sequence. The study exemplifies the need to use high resolution and multi-proxy studies to interpret paleoflood records and climate signatures in order to build archives of monsoonal rivers.
Eurocentrism is criticized in many academic fields, such as International Relations, History, and many other social science fields. Over the last decades, numerous scholars demonstrated relationships between inequalities and Eurocentric approaches towards many regional studies. Many scholars whose origins are from the Middle East have cited postcolonial literature, such as Said’s criticism of Orientalism, as examples of dominant Euro-centric perspectives. Others cited problems of dominant perspectives in social sciences of being Euro-centric, notably, Wallerstein (1997). Therefore, Eurocentric view, narrowing alternativist perspectives can become a problem in the aimed universality. This article does not intend to criticize the critiques of Euro-centric perspectives but rather caution on pitfalls of reactionary approaches to Eurocentric malaise. The discussion is centered on rhetoric that often criticizes Orientalism, to the expense of not contributing viable alternatives to social development. The article takes a threefold approach. First, Euro-centrism in IR, particularly IR Theory, and mainstream History and Social Sciences, in general, are discussed. The second part focuses on Orientalism and Postcolonial literature and warns on reactionary pitfalls. The third part emphasizes the importance of universalism in literature, arts, and sciences. In order to emphasize universalism, the difference of authors such as Amin Maalouf is provided as examples of those who raised awareness and alternative perspectives from the MENA regions without necessarily taking a reactionary approach. The conclusion discusses the analysis and makes recommendations.
This study is concerned with investigating the deliberative goals behind the use of popular slang expressions by the preachers of the Husseini pulpit in the context of delivering lectures addressed to the Iraqi people and the Islamic public in general. These preachers are considered social reformers, in addition to being descended from the religious establishment, as they put forward religious ideas, most of which derive from the Husseini issue, and use them as a basis for calling for reform. Hence, the popular colloquial language is employed by these Husseini preachers in their lectures and sermons, which are characterized - as the case may be - by a very formal context. However, after presenting a theoretical aspect of the deliberative aspect of the popular vernacular language, and after examining the deliberative functions in a number of lectures and by different preachers. The most commonly used and frequently used colloquial expressions were selected and then placed in a questionnaire according to the approved evidence chosen for this st
History of scholarship and learning. The humanities, Arts in general
Desde su constitución, a mediados del siglo XIX, el Museo Arqueológico de Tarragona se ha erigido en un referente esencial para la conservación, el conocimiento y la transmisión de todo lo relativo a una rica y compleja realidad histórica –la romanidad– que alcanzó en Tárraco, la actual ciudad de Tarragona, un destacado y unánimemente reconocido nivel de expresividad. A lo largo de los años –y a pesar de las muchas vicisitudes vividas– la Institución ha evolucionado para cumplir con la máxima solvencia, en las sucesivas etapas, sus objetivos fundacionales y para liderar una vocación y unos compromisos académicos y sociales irrenunciables.
History of the arts, Museums. Collectors and collecting
The Novohrad Museum and Gallery in Lučenec specializes in the regional history of enamel- and glass-making and visual arts. It holds a collection of over 30,000 art, archeo-logical, historical and ethnological objects. Since 1983, the musem and gallery have been a host to the annual Acquarelle Triennale and since 1989, it has hosted the oldest symposium of its kind in Slovakia, the International Ceramic Symposium, which showcases the contemporary ceramic production in Slovakia. This paper outlines the history of the museum and its focus, concentrating on the work done in the last decade.
We propose a novel convolutional architecture, named $gen$CNN, for word sequence prediction. Different from previous work on neural network-based language modeling and generation (e.g., RNN or LSTM), we choose not to greedily summarize the history of words as a fixed length vector. Instead, we use a convolutional neural network to predict the next word with the history of words of variable length. Also different from the existing feedforward networks for language modeling, our model can effectively fuse the local correlation and global correlation in the word sequence, with a convolution-gating strategy specifically designed for the task. We argue that our model can give adequate representation of the history, and therefore can naturally exploit both the short and long range dependencies. Our model is fast, easy to train, and readily parallelized. Our extensive experiments on text generation and $n$-best re-ranking in machine translation show that $gen$CNN outperforms the state-of-the-arts with big margins.