‘The Rule of Men Entirely Great’: Republicanism,Ritual, and Richelieu in Melville’s ‘The Two Temples’

Abstract

This article explores the complex and multifarious reasons behind Herman Melville’s decision to refer to the English playwright Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s 1839 work Richelieu, or The Conspiracy in his 1854 diptych ‘The Two Temples’. It responds to a critical consensus that has seen the reference merely as a sarcastic attack on William Macready (whose rivalry with the American actor Edwin Forrest was the nominal cause of the bloody 1849 Astor Place Riot in New York), by contextualizing the play within traditions of antebellum American Anglophilia. By using a combination of new critical work on Anglo-Americanism and anthropological ritual theory, I show how Bulwer-Lytton’s play was significant to Melville’s artistic development. In particular, I demonstrate how the play influenced his increasing engagement with republican and theatrical forms of expression that emphasized the importance of filial relationships between America and Britain in a period of increasing hostility between the two nations.     

Social work and applied theatre: creative experiences with a group of homeless people in the city of Seville

This article presents a series of creative social intervention experiences developed with a group of homeless people in the Spanish city of Seville. These experiences are part of an applied research project that uses theatre as a tool to aid social work, and they are led by a group of homeless people who have become actors through this initiative. The group is known as ‘Theatre of Inclusion’ and has been running for a decade now. Using group social work and applied theatre techniques, this initiative creatively exposes the needs of this collective and also generates spaces in which they can reclaim their dignity. The systematisation of these experiences highlights the potential of combining disciplines such as social work and theatre to work with vulnerable collectives, in the same way Jane Addams did. The aim is also to move beyond the dominant welfare proposals in place in Spain currently, which are intended to meet the needs of homeless people.     

抗战时期桂糊社团的演进及其贡献

抗战时期桂林文化城戏剧社团的组织形式及特点,不仅反映了抗战时期戏剧体制和机制的发展特色,而且体现了中国戏剧现代化的历史面貌。桂林文化城的戏剧刊物,在传播戏剧理论、总结戏剧艺术实践经验方面,积极地推动过中国抗战戏剧运动。     

荒诞派戏剧的荒诞性

兴起于二战前后的荒诞派戏剧与传统戏剧有很大的区别,即以荒诞的形式表达荒诞的内容。荒诞的形式主要体现在:第一,没有通常的戏剧情节,只有一种情势;第二,没有人物刻画;第三,舞台的象征化。其形式表达了荒诞的主题:人的异化;深刻的虚无感;人荒诞的生存状态。     

《恋爱的犀牛》与孟京辉的戏剧探索

孟京辉导演的《恋爱的犀牛》一剧让人看到了中国先锋戏剧在商业上的巨大成功,从1999年到现在,该剧已经有了四个版本。本文试图对新版本与之前版本的不同做一些比较。通过分析可以看出,该剧的最大特点在于诗化与狂欢的交杂,以及形式上的不断做加法。尽管这种改变有得失,然而,孟京辉在实践中达成了自己关于人民戏剧的理想,他的这种努力值得我们肯定。     

《梨园春》对文化艺术事业的影响和启示

文章针对河南卫视推出的电视栏目《梨园春》走红这一文化现象，利用大量的实地考察资料，探讨了该现象所涉及的戏曲艺术的创作、戏曲文化与电视传媒的联姻、文化市场的发展和规范以及电视观众的审美导向等诸多问题。     

《穿戴题纲》与清代宫廷演剧

《穿戴题纲》是一部非常珍贵的清代宫廷戏剧史料,记录了演出戏服、演出剧目和演出节令等信息,对于研究清代宫廷演剧形态弥足珍贵。它既有助于我们了解清宫的演剧历史、演剧服饰、演剧习俗,还有助于研究宫廷演剧对民间演剧乃至整个中国戏剧发展史的影响。     

Decrypting cultural nuances: using drama techniques from the theatre of the oppressed to strengthen cross cultural communication in social work students

ABSTRACT

Despite widening participation in social work education in the UK, social work students from black and minority ethnic (BME) backgrounds can find that they have less positive experiences on social work courses than their counterparts. This can happen when courses do not equip students to navigate the subtle rules of communication with service users that are premised on dominant UK values. As a consequence BME students can be assessed as having poor interpersonal skills and poor skills in engaging service users. However, the issue is often more one of cultural differences and high expectations of cultural integration than one of incompetence.

This paper reports on a drama workshop using techniques from the Theatre of the Oppressed to foster awareness of the complexities of cross cultural communication that BME students may face. The workshop facilitates insight into the nuances of culturally informed values that differ from dominant UK values.

Drawing on student workshop evaluations, the authors highlight the positive use of techniques from the Theatre of the Oppressed as a pro-active pedagogical approach to equipping BME students with insight and skill to circumnavigate cross cultural communication in practice and develop awareness of empowering strategies to combat negative paradigms about BME cultures.     

The household inventory as urban ‘theatre’ in late medieval Burgundy

In 1413 at the death of his wife Guillemot, Jean Aubert, a group of witnesses and a clerk of the local mayoralty met to value the possessions of their residence, resulting in an inventory full of notes and values on rooms and their objects. Within the existing historiography of the Burgundian Netherlands and its northern European neighbours, inventories and their objects tend to be analysed from two perspectives: the Burgundian court and the ‘consumer revolution’. Applying insights from Erving Goffman and Bruno Latour, this article suggests a third perspective should have priority: the urban ‘theatre’ within which objects were documented and placed. Therefore it sets up an alternate methodology which begins with the inventory to build a picture of the theatre (the urban context and residence), the actors (the Aubert family) and the audience (the witnesses of the inventory) to establish new insights into the operation of Burgundian power and the dynamics of the ‘consumer revolution’.     

清末民初京剧编演新戏运动及启示

清末民初京剧编演新戏成为近代中国戏曲文化鼎盛时期的一个标志性现象。它至少在四个方面形成了重要的影响：一是成为同时期启蒙运动的组成部分;二是新构了具有“南北差异”的新兴戏曲文化;三是催进了京剧新生代的崛起;四是启发了京剧演出体制的“现代”转型。