Writing and the End of St Petersburg in Mandel'shtam's The Egyptian Stamp (1928)

Abstract

The 1928 novella The Egyptian Stamp by the important modernist writer Osip Mandel'shtam is explored as offering an innovative way of thinking about 'the end of St Petersburg', which is understood in two senses, as the historical demise of the imperial capital post-1917, as well as a long-standing literary tradition of imagining the apocalyptic fall of the city. It is proposed that writing, writing instruments and texts are linked to revolutionary Petersburg and used as tropes of violence in a way that opens up suggestive subtexts in the Book of Revelation, the Book of Daniel and other historical and revolutionary works. Mandel'shtam's The Egyptian Stamp is situated within the Petersburg text theory of V. N. Toporov and proposed as offering a way to re-think and extend that theory beyond the Silver Age.     

Of Race/Religion,Nation and Violence: Incident at Vichy and Final Solutions

Abstract

Arthur Miller's Incident at Vichy (1964) and Indian English playwright Mahesh Dattani's Final Solutions (1992) invite comparison in that they each deal with a historic moment that demonstrates contextually how violence can be common to racism, (organized) religion, and national imagining. While Miller's play externalizes human cruelty by locating it in the Nazi experience, Dattani's — centred around the recent Hindutva movement in India — clearly evokes the image of the Holocaust, without equating it with Nazism, though. Yet similarities between the plays abound — suspect secularity of the nation-state, insecurities around one's racial/ethnic/religious identity, denial of responsibility, and the eventual need for human communication. The endings of both plays posit a certain notion of justice, but without clarifying whether it can be realized through 'the true humanly valuable concepts' of decency and love or whether it functions more as 'a claim made by the oppressed'. This tone of self-criticality underscores the persistent need for restraint in the exercise of power.     

The Bengal Connection: Transnationalising America in The Namesake and The Tree Bride

Abstract

A reading is presented of The Namesake and The Tree Bride as diasporic novels that transnationalise the host culture by inscribing the ethnicity and history of Bengal on to the cultural topography of America. This interpolation is contextualised both in terms of the 'Bengal connection' — the now occluded saga of Bengal's rich commercial and intellectual contacts with New England from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries — and the changing paradigms of immigrant socialisation from the melting pot to multiculturalism and beyond. The inference drawn is that the non-Eurocentric and non-Atlantic 'Bengal connection', which may be taken as emblematic of other such strands in American society, not only troubles monologic myths of 'Americanness', but simultaneously interrogates the sufficiency of the 'Atlantic' template as the marker of a multi-ethnic nation. A suggested alternative is Tagore's 'vernacular nationalism' that admits intrinsic otherness as integral to its conception of national identity.     

Window to the West: From the Collection of Readers' Letters to the Journal Internatsional'naia literatura

Abstract

Internatsional'naia literatura was the only thick journal during the Stalin period that was entirely devoted to translated literature and it was also the main source that provided Soviet citizens with information about cultural life abroad. Not only pro-Soviet and proletarian foreign authors but also representatives of Western modernism were published in this unique journal. The readers' letters selected for the current publication were written to the editorial board of Internatsional'naia literatura between 1938 and 1940. Now, they are kept in the Russian State Archive of Literature and Art (RGALI) in Moscow. These archival documents demonstrate that readers' worldviews were more complex and diverse than was often presented in the official press at that time. The readers evaluate various aspects of the periodical's work and they also criticise cultural policies of the Party-state and the existing system of control over translated literature. These letters offer important insights into cultural life and, more broadly, everyday life on the eve of the Second World War; and they problematize our understanding of Stalinist cultural politics as both monolithic and isolated from the West. Most importantly, the letters demonstrate the appearance in the late 1930s of a category of readers whom we propose to define as 'creative readers'. These readers were ready to express openly opinions that were at odds with the official propaganda of the time. The publication of letters by such reader s is the first step toward a systematic study of this important category of Soviet citizens.     

Eloquent Silence: Akhmatova,Mandel’shtam,Early Cinema,and Modernism

Abstract

Given the conservative nature of the Acmeism movement, which placed emphasis on ‘high’ cultural production, it might be expected that a mechanical medium such as cinema would engender a hostile reaction. Through readings of selected early lyrics it is demonstrated that, despite a measure of suspicion towards cinema as a manifestation of mass culture, both Mandel’shtam and Akhmatova engaged creatively with film from the outset. Readings of later poems which invoke popular mass icon Charlie Chaplin show that ‘low’ and ‘high’ culture are now drawn into much closer proximity. Overall, the lyrics discussed serve to illuminate some of the complexities and tensions inherent to the interaction between modernist literature and the cinema, as well as providing examples of their convergence.     

Geriatric Hospitals in India,Today and in the Future

Summary

In a country that shuns hospitalization of the elderly, regarding it as disrespect of those who helped youngsters evolve, Heritage Hospital (HH)is a welcome change, a model and pioneer stand-alone geriatric hospital. With its non-ambulatory services looking after sick elderly, HH is like an extended family of seniors. HH's love and fresh air complement its Meals-on-Wheels program, guided by the nutritionist's healthy food. HH's Volunteer Guild; its Diabetes Club, ever growing with India's dramatic rise in the number of diabetics; its Senior Net Club's Click@50, making elders computer savvy; and Grandparent-Grandchild and Golden and Silver Couple contests celebrated on October 1st, are all widely appreciated, enforcing strong values Indians still share on marriage and family. Heritage brings together 10,000 seniors in Hyderabad, strengthening its motto of Eastern philosophy with its strong emphasis on care for the elderly.     

Nothing to give at all

Abstract

Adlerian psychology has been publicly neglected for many years but has been used covertly in many modern psychologies. Social work theory owes much to Adler's philosophy and many social workers probably unknowingly use it — in whatever guise — as their starting-point. But if Individual Psychology is their spring-board, the casework relationship may be their life-raft — to the detriment of creative and therapeutic work with people. Adler's ideas and social work theory are of value only in so far as they are expressed in the relationship of the worker with the client. For the most part, certainly in statutory agencies, other demands make it difficult for workers to operate from anything other than a defensive position. Therapeutic community practice, in contrast, reflects both Adlerian psychology and the best of social work theory: an egalitarian approach springing from a commitment to self-determination for both clients and workers.     

Age Concerns

Summary

Age Concerns is a proprietary care management firm serving the elderly. Established in 1982, the firm has prospered by employing an integrated model of care whereby the caregivers are employees of Age Concerns. In addition, the firm's ability to keep the elderly at home, out of institutional care, has resonated with consumers. Various features of Age Concernsorganizational format, characteristics of consumers, and economic considerationsare described. In 2001, Age Concerns was acquired by the Senior Care Action Network, a social health maintenance organization. In an increasingly commercial environment in which the elderly are a burgeoning market, Age Concerns may be a prototype of future elder-care service delivery.     

China's Experience in Population Control: The Elusive Model

Abstract

Professor Tien's review article is the first in a series of such articles on public policy documents. As we indicated in the last issue (Vol. 8, No. 1, pp. 1–2), our aim is to compile—over a period of time—a sort of overall report card on the quality of such documents by submitting them to the scrutiny of academic professionals. Our instructions to Professor Tien were two. First, he was to examine the information contained in the report. Is it the best information available? Secondly, we asked Professor Tien to assess the logical connection between the report's data and its conclusions. We think that he has tackled both points well in his comments.

Professor Tien is well qualified to write a review article on a report on techniques of family planning in China. He is the author of the recent China's Population Struggle (Ohio State University Press, 1973), as well as many articles on the same theme. [Eds.]     

‘Behemoth Pulls the Peasant’s Plough’: Convergence and Resistance to Business Civilization in China

Abstract

It has been widely held that China’s development was forged from a unique pathway to that of Western countries. As a result, it has been assumed that China’s historical experience of modernization contains important lessons for other developing states. However, as we show, modernization in China can be seen as sharing many of the same assumptions of development as the West. Using insights from Cox’s work on civilizations—particularly the notion of ‘Business Civilization’ (adapted from Susan Strange)—our paper examines how modernization theoretic assumptions underpin both Chinese and World Bank perspectives on agricultural development not only within China but also across their engagements, policies, and practices of development throughout Africa. We argue that development constitutes a political project historically inseparable from La mission civilisatrice of Business Civilization, extending a form of intersubjectivity and materiality, power and rationality, based on a specific civilizational worldview. This process retains a number of contradictions and points of conflict and we focus on the resistances of traditional forms of civilization in contestations around the imposition of commercialized agriculture.     

Between Philosophy and Art: The Avant-Garde Work of Debora Vogel

ABSTRACT

Debora Vogel (1900–1942) helped develop modernism in Lviv in the interwar period. As a philosopher and writer, she was able to make connections between the dominant Polish school of philosophical logic (the so-called Lviv-Warsaw School) and the artistic circles in Lviv, to which Bruno Schulz, Stanis?aw Ignacy Witkiewicz and Leon Chwistek belonged.

Inspired by Cubism and Surrealism, but also by recent philosophical discussions, Vogel developed a writing technique called montage. In her poems and prose written in Yiddish and Polish, she reflected on the relationship between humans and modern urban architecture, playing with mathematical or geometric words and color predicates. At the same time she abandoned traditional narrative models with her style of writing.

In view of the above, this article presents Vogel's experimental writing practices and aesthetics concepts by locating her work in Lviv's culture of knowledge.     

Defending the city

Abstract

In ‘Defending the City’ George Pattison seeks to defend the modern city against the charge — made, for example, by Graham Ward — that it is a merely secular phenomenon. Instead, he argues that, in its essence, it is multi‐dimensional and pluralistic, representing a range of diverse possibilities, creative as well as destructive. Also, the modern city is shown to anticipate the essential features of the postmodern city. The argument is illustrated by references to Pugin's critique of architectural eclecticism, to Dostoevsky's invocation of the fantastical reality of St. Petersburg, to Kierkegaard and to Murnau's film Sunrise. It is claimed that the best Christian response to the city is to defend, not to subvert, its pluralism.     

Repronormativity and the Reproduction of the Nation-State: The State and Sexuality Collide

ABSTRACT

This article seeks to explain the consistent margins between popular support for same-sex marriage and same-sex adoption/parenting. I posit that the paradigm of repronormativity explains these differences, in permitting only “legitimate,” state-sanctioned, heteronormative reproduction. Through three case studies—Poland's strict abortion policies, France's law against lesbians utilizing artificial reproduction technologies, and Sweden's history of sterilizing trans individuals—I will demonstrate how not only does repronormativity select and enforce an inside/outside, in-group(s)/out-group(s) binary and legitimize only certain reproduction, it also tethers female sexuality to reproduction and creates an inevitability of reproduction.     

Locating an American romanticism: Emerson,Cavell, 'Experience'

Abstract

This article reads Ralph Waldo Emerson's 1844 essay 'Experience' as a work of mourning that gives rise to critical reaction in the romantic tradition to specific philosophical ideas New England had imported from Europe early in the 19th century. The author reads this transatlantic interaction in the wider context of journal entries, arguing that the death of Emerson's son is a test to Emerson's philosophy and his literary form, indeed, the highest challenge, against which the claims of philosophy and literature could only fail. Moreover, it is the failure of his philosophy to contain his son's death, to express it, that makes Emerson's essay romantic. Defining romanticism as incompletion: the impossibility of a total system which would include, for example, the death of the other (Cavell, Lacoue-Labarthe, Nancy, Blanchot). This, the author argues, proposes a 'location' for American romanticism that constitutes an adequate response to Critchley's contention, in his reading of Cavell, that Emerson is not, in fact, romantic.     

Modernism,postmodernism and global standards setting

This paper discusses the key features of modernism and postmodernism, and critiques global standards setting from a postmodern theoretical perspective. The main areas of critique consist of the possibility of the creation of yet another totalizing discourse or grand narrative; debates around the particular and the universal; issues around representation; and power, knowledge and discursive formations. We argue that to treat modernism and postmodernism as a linear progression and as a bi‐polar categorization is to fall within the traps of modernism itself. We have thus avoided making a choice between modernism and postmodernism—between justification, objectivity, reason, universalism, proof and unity of science on the one hand and the postmodern emphases on language, power, and the particular, contingent and relational on the other hand.     

Resiliency in Divorced Families

Abstract

The aim of this cross-sectional and exploratory study was to identify resiliency factors that are associated with family adaptation after divorce. Questionnaires (The Family Hardiness Index, The Family Crisis Oriented Personal Evaluation Scales, The Relative and Friend Support Index, The Social Support Index, The Family Sense of Coherence Scale) and an open-ended question were used to collect data independently from parents and children belonging to 68 divorced families in Belgium. Results indicate that there is a significant positive correlation between the three components of family hardiness (commitment, challenge, and control—according to the parents) and the family's adaptation to its changed circumstances. There are also positive correlations for both parents and children between the positive redefining of stressful situations by the family, the social support of the family, and the family's adaptation after divorce. According to the children there are also significant positive relationships between the family's use of avoidance strategies, the parents' educational level, the number of years that the parent had been divorced, and the family's adaptation.     

The Design of Mainstream Housing for Downsizers

ABSTRACT

In the United Kingdom, the supply of new homes to the housing market tends to be focused either on “general-needs” housing on the one hand, or on special-needs housing for the elderly on the other, with relatively few people moving into homes that will support their independence as they age. Against the backdrop of the UK's chronic housing shortage and the UK government's recent Housing Standards Review, this case study of a mainstream housing development—which meets so-called “Lifetime Homes” in “Lifetime Neighborhoods” standards—identifies specific design and locational features that have attracted “downsizers” to buy into it, as well as those they subsequently found problematic.