bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Nathaniel Wells: The Making of a Black Country Gentleman
Authors: Rainsbury Anne
Published: September 2021

In this chapter, Anne Rainsbury examines the surprising life of Nathaniel Wells whose story defies many of the assumed narratives of black life in 18th century England. Born enslaved in St Kitts, he was freed by his father, Williams Wells, a wealthy merchant who owned three sugar plantations. He was educated in London and inherited the bulk of his father’s estate at the age of twenty-one which included three plantations and the hundreds of slaves who worked them. He married Harriet Este, a white woman (after her death he would marry Esther Owen, also white), and bought a large estate, Piercefield, in Monmouthshire. Rainsbury explains that unlike the limited political rights and social barriers Wells would have faced in St Kitts, he was able to play a prominent role in local public life including becoming a magistrate and deputy lieutenant of the county of Monmouth. His social and political status contradicted the racism blacks faced in Britain, yet the irony that his wealth and standing were built on the profits of slavery and suffering of black people, Rainsbury says, cannot be overlooked.
‘Fermentation will be universal’: Intersections of Race and Class in Robert Wedderburn’s Black Atlantic Discourse of Transatlantic Revolution
Authors: Hoermann Raphael
Published: September 2021

The speeches and writings of Robert Wedderburn are the subject of this chapter by Raphael Hoermann who contrasts Wedderburn’s radical brand of abolitionism, rooted in self-emancipation and slave agency, to the conservative, Evangelical approach of William Wilberforce’s moral appeals to white liberators. Hoermann recounts some of the biographical background Wedderburn provides in his self-published pamphlet, The Horrors of Slavery, and draws connections between Wedderburn’s life—as the progeny of a white slaveholder father and black slave mother, and his impoverished life in London eking out a living as a tailor—and the political ideologies he promoted. Hoermann highlights Wedderburn’s provocative argument for a violent overthrow of slavery and his critique of British capitalism that interlinked class and race exploitation as ideas that kept him on the fringes of both the abolitionist and working class movements during his lifetime and have kept him an understudied, obscure historical figure.
Genealogy and the Black Past
Authors: Chater Kathleen
Published: September 2021

In this chapter, Kathleen Chater, an independent historian, enumerates many of the local history projects and academic efforts that have attempted to collect evidence of black lives in pre-twentieth-century Britain, often resulting in the creation of databases and digitized records. She describes the overlapping incentives and challenges of family historians and scholars who work to illuminate black British experiences, but also the mistrust between these groups as they compete for funding and undervalue aspects of each other’s work. Chater describes her own contribution to this field of study—a database of black people she has amassed using public records as part of her doctorate which she has continued to add to. Finally, Chater makes recommendations for how genealogists and local historians can work better with academic scholars toward their common goal including inviting each other to conferences, sharing knowledge of potential funding sources, and asking academics to share their work at smaller, local venues and via more accessible publications.
Losing the Thread
Authors: Powell Jim
Published: September 2021

Losing the Thread is the first full-length study of the effect of the American Civil War on Britain’s raw cotton trade and on the Liverpool cotton market. It details the worst crisis in the British cotton trade in the 19th century. Before the civil war, America supplied 80 per cent of Britain’s cotton. In August 1861, this fell to almost zero, where it remained for four years. Despite increased supplies from elsewhere, Britain’s largest industry received only 36 per cent of the raw material it needed from 1862 to 1864. This book establishes the facts of Britain’s raw cotton supply during the war: how much there was of it, in absolute terms and in relation to the demand, where it came from and why, how much it cost, and what effect the reduced supply had on Britain’s cotton manufacture. It includes an enquiry into the causes of the Lancashire cotton famine, which contradicts the historical consensus on the subject. Examining the impact of the civil war on Liverpool and its cotton market, the book disputes the historic portrayal of Liverpool as a solidly pro-Confederate town. It also demonstrates how reckless speculation infested and distorted the raw cotton market, and lays bare the shadowy world of the Liverpool cotton brokers, who profited hugely from the war while the rest of Lancashire starved.
Introduction
Authors: Powell Jim
Published: September 2021

This chapter describes the objectives of the book. No full-length work exists on the crisis in the British cotton trade during the American Civil War, and the only substantial study of the raw cotton market in Liverpool was made by Thomas Ellison 130 years ago. The book remedies these omissions. It has two objectives. First, to establish the factual record of Britain’s raw cotton supply during the civil war. Second, to examine the impact of the civil war on Liverpool, and on the operation of the raw cotton trade there, with specific reference to the role of the cotton brokers. The chapter discusses the existing historiography and its deficiencies, and describes the primary sources that underpin this study. It establishes the crucial, and neglected, importance of price to the trade in raw cotton.
A Toll Booth on the Mersey
Authors: Powell Jim
Published: September 2021

This chapter describes how the raw cotton trade was financed, before showing that – despite a drastically reduced volume – the vast rise in price meant that the value of raw cotton imports was greater than at any time in the 19th century and, in terms of the cotton traded, possibly the greatest ever. The implications for the earnings of the cotton brokers are demonstrated, together with the fury in Manchester that Liverpool was enriching itself while the rest of the industry starved. Two elements of Thomas Ellison’s etiquette are considered: that cotton brokers were not simultaneously buying and selling brokers, and that they did not trade cotton on their own account. Evidence is produced to suggest that both contentions are false. The chapter shows how cotton speculation infested the market during the war, but also how the spinners were implicated in it themselves. It concludes with the conflict that erupted towards the end of the war between the Liverpool Cotton Brokers’ Association and the Cotton Spinners’ Association, led by Hugh Mason.
Introduction: Transcultural Italies
Authors: Burdett Charles , Polezzi Loredana , Spadaro Barbara
Published: September 2021

The history of Italians and of Italian culture stems from multiple experiences of mobility and migration. While those experiences mark the history of the peninsula well before the formation of the Italian state, since the time of unification, in particular, a series of narratives about mobility and nation has been produced both inside and outside the boundaries of Italy by agents such as the Italian state, international organizations or migrant communities themselves. Statistical data, disciplinary canons and historical accounts are just some of the instruments that have been deployed to construct representations of what it means to be ‘Italian’. Notions of citizenship and national borders have been variously constructed by essentializing conceptualizations of language, culture or heritage. Narratives may have converged or diverged over time, but they have all aimed to stabilize and fix the inherently dynamic and plural nature of Italian identities and cultures. And, while mobility is at the heart of all these narratives, the value attached to it can be positive or negative, and is often ambivalent....
Porteña Identity and Italianità: Language, Materiality and Transcultural Memory in Valparaíso’s Italian Community
Authors: Wells Naomi
Published: September 2021

Drawing primarily on the personal narratives of two self-identifying Italo-Chileans, Wells investigates the tangible and intangible traces of Italianness in the city of Valparaíso.
The chapter explores the ways the cultural memory of language is interwoven with the embodied and material life of the city and its residents. By combining the analysis of public representations of Italianness with an ethnographic attention to quotidian practices, the chapter illustrates how Italianness has permeated a broader transcultural sense of Porteña identity and heritage.
Italian Identity, Global Mediterranean: Tourism and Cultural Heritage in Post-Colonial Rhodes
Authors: McGuire Valerie
Published: September 2021

Valerie McGuire examines how the construction of a ‘Mediterranean’ resort aesthetic on Rhodes during Italian imperial rule of the island (1912–43) endures in contemporary postcolonial legacies and today supports new local demands for greater European inclusion and post-national identities. The chapter sets these demands into the larger context of the persistence of conflictual histories about the island’s minority communities and on the concurrent bleaching of all reference to Italian Fascism or the imperialist state that led to the Italian collaboration with the expulsion and destruction of these minority communities. The chapter suggests that Rhodes survives into the twenty-first century as both an example of the selective memory of the Italian colonial past and an example of the transnational dimensions of modern Italian culture.
Italy and Africa: Post-War Memories of Life in Eritrea and Ethiopia
Authors: Burdett Charles
Published: September 2021

Charles Burdett addresses the representation of the Italian presence in East Africa in the decades following the Second World War, the demise of Fascism and the end of Italian colonialism. The chapter looks in depth at the publications of the former Italian residents of Eritrea and Ethiopia, written memories of life in Africa, commentaries on current events, works of fiction and an extensive collection of photographs. Rather than as straightforward narrations or as transparent reproductions of people’s experiences, these materials are seen as complex evocations of multifaceted psychic realities, intimately bound up with unseen temporal processes. This cultural production is seen as a means of discovering how the past can return to trouble the present and reveal the individual’s unknowing participation in some of the most deeply layered practices of society.
‘The Path that Leads Me Home’: Eduardo Paolozzi and the Arts of Transnationalizing
Authors: Duncan Derek
Published: September 2021

Duncan’s chapter examines how the life and work of Eduardo Paolozzi were the inspiration for a series of research-based art projects carried out at Drummond and Castlebrae Community High Schools in Edinburgh. The projects drew on ideas and practices of intercultural translation to respond creatively to Paolozzi’s life-long fascination with popular culture, found and waste materials, and innovation. The chapter gives an account of the different media and techniques used, each of which sheds new light on cross-cultural mobility. These accounts are mediated by the reflective commentary of participants and the work of cultural theorists such as Mieke Bal, Eve Sedgwick and Doris Sommer, as well as Paolozzi himself.
Moving Objects: Memory and Material Culture
Authors: Zárate Margaret Hills de
Published: September 2021

Margaret Hills de Zárate’s chapter focuses on participatory ethnographic research and the role of objects as a vehicle of translation in relation to the transmission of Italian transgenerational identity in the Argentine province of Buenos Aires. It considers a series of objects, the narratives they embody and those they evoke within the context of events, discussion groups and individual interviews with narrators/participants who self-identified as being of Italian descent. These objects are referred to as ‘moving objects’ to include the performative and emphasize their shifting meanings through space and time, as well as their affective potential.
An Exhibition about Italian Identities: Beyond Borders
Authors: Gravano Viviana , Grechi Giulia
Published: September 2021

The chapter presents Beyond Borders: Transnational Italy/Oltre i Confini: Italia Transnazionale, the exhibition that was the result of a close collaboration between TML’s research team and Routes Agency: Cura of Contemporary Arts, a contemporary art curatorial collective founded by art historian Gravano and visual anthropologist Grechi. Assuming the form of a usable ‘object’, the exhibition sought to represent not only the research material but also the innovative methodology proposed by the TML team. The essay aims to explain the theoretical framework informing the organization of the exhibition from a curatorial perspective and presents the process of sharing and negotiation in which the curators and the TML researchers were engaged.
Natalie Barney’s Missed Marriages
Authors: Hawthorne Melanie C.
Published: September 2021

Although a coeval of Romaine Brooks, Natalie Barney (1876-1972) managed to steer a happier middle course in which she openly embraced a lesbian identity while avoiding (for the most part) questions of national belonging. The celebrated hostess of an international salon in interwar Paris, Barney retained more autonomy by remaining unmarried and nationally unattached. She flirted with marriage proposals, others claimed she was married, and she indeed once signed a marriage contract with another woman (though a legally unenforcable one), but she remained unattached, a status reflected in her transnational situation as an American citizen living as a denizen of Paris.
Haiti in the British Imagination
Authors: Webb Jack Daniel
Published: September 2021

In 1804, Haiti declared its independence from France to become the world’s first ‘black’ nation state. Throughout the nineteenth century, Haiti maintained its independence, consolidating and expanding its national and, at times, imperial projects. In doing so, Haiti joined a host of other nation states and empires that were emerging and expanding across the Atlantic World. The largest and, in many ways, most powerful of these empires was that of Britain. Haiti in the British Imagination is the first book to focus on the diplomatic relations and cultural interactions between Haiti and Britain in the second half of the nineteenth century. As well as a story of British imperial aggression and Haitian ‘resistance’, it is also one of a more complicated set of relations: of rivalry, cultural exchange and intellectual dialogue. At particular moments in the Victorian period, ideas about Haiti had wide-reaching relevancies for British anxieties over the quality of British imperial administration, over what should be the relations between ‘the British’ and people of African descent, and defining the limits of black sovereignty. Haitians were key in formulating, disseminating and correcting ideas about Haiti. Through acts of dialogue, Britons and Haitians impacted on the worldviews of one another, and with that changed the political and cultural landscapes of the Atlantic World.
Introduction
Authors: Webb Jack Daniel
Published: September 2021

This chapter situates the book in relation to existing scholarship on Haiti and the British Empire. In particular, it details the work’s central concern that relations between Britain and Haiti in this period were characterised by dialogue. Through cultural and intellectual exchange, Haitians and Britons impacted on the worldview’s of one another. British representations of Haiti were thus constructed in relation to the concerns and actions of Haitians as well as British domestic and imperial anxieties. To illustrate this dynamic, the chapter delves into correspondence between Haitian and British state actors and specific examples of people moving between the two. Varying instances of such migrants include Antoinette, or the ‘Woolly Woman of Hayti’ as she advertised herself to London’s crowds; or General Dubois who inspired cheers from abolitionists in his talk on Haiti. In these interactions, the chapter demonstrates, we see multiple and flexible versions of Haiti as they are negotiated between interlocutors.
Foreword
Authors: Abu-Manneh Bashir
Published: September 2021

The Foreword contends that the post-Oslo moment will be recounted not the way the Palestinian elite see it: as peace negotiations and diplomatic recognitions. Rather, the last quarter of a century in Palestinian history will be remembered in a manner closer to how it is articulated by contemporary Palestinian writers and poets: as an attack on Palestinian life and limb; a negation by force of ordinary existence. The Foreword addresses the importance of taking a closer look at a new generation of writers, who have taken up the mantle of representing Palestinian reality in all its socio-political and moral complexity, and this proliferation of contemporary Palestinian writing represents an act of literary solidarity and resistance.
The Exile’s Memory and the Chronotope in Ghada Karmi’s Return: A Palestinian Memoir
Authors: Qabaha Ahmad
Published: September 2021

This chapter explores the role of memory in Ghada Karmi’s Return: A Palestinian Memoir (2015). Building on theorizations of exile and memory, alongside Mikhail Bakhtin’s theoretical concept of the chronotope, this chapter assesses how memories conceive of a particular place in time. The chapter suggests that Karmi’s memories of Palestine function as the main component of her incoherent and transient national experience, and it explores the potential for resistant acts contained within her narrative of personal memory. Visiting Palestine for the first time since her childhood, Karmi ponders the power of memory, and explores how its articulation across time and space provides opportunities to resist Palestine’s political and historical negation. The chapter contends that, within her memoir, Karmi illustrates how (exilic) Palestinian writing can serve as a ‘custodian’ of Palestinian national history.
Confronting the Mythic?
Authors: Irving Sarah
Published: September 2021

The mythic can be seen as offering a grammar of symbolism and resonance which renders the subject of a poem both more comprehensible within a certain moral framework and rich on a cultural and aesthetic level. This chapter focuses on the recent works of Najwan Darwish and argues that, despite his apparent iconoclasm, he remains obliged to confront a constellation of the mythic which closely resembles the themes made famous in the work of an earlier generation of Palestinian poets, such as that of Mahmoud Dawish (no relation). This perspective on Darwish's work analyses the extent to which the newcomer represents a new identity and trajectory in Palestinian poetry. It suggests that his poetry, however rebellious, is in many senses a continuity on earlier themes, but utilises an aesthetic approach which speaks to the concerns and sensibilities of a post-millennial readership.
Enduring Palestine
Authors: Pritchard Michael
Published: September 2021

This chapter considers the ways in which Adania Shibli’s Touch, an imagistic novella, offers a haptic understanding of the Palestinian experience of violence. Whereas much of the recent literature emerging about Palestine/Israel takes a
contextually direct approach, setting their stories amid concurrent events, Touch broaches Palestinian subjectivity in a more unorthodox fashion, breaking new ground in the Palestinian literary canon. Rather than foregrounding the bloody violence endemic to the First Intifada milieu, Shibli’s novella gives an intimate portrayal of childhood and adolescence as discreetly violent. This focus on the private allows the reader to discover how the violence of living under occupation is present in seemingly innocuous, yet irreparably damaging ways.
‘I Can Only Get There Now on the Rafts of Memories’
Authors: Fox Rachel Gregory
Published: September 2021

This chapter focuses on the novels of Susan Abulhawa, Mornings in Jenin (2006) and The Blue Between Sky and Water (2015). Each novel follows the lives of a particular family, spanning across generations, beginning in a time before the Nakba and moving all the way through to the twenty-first century. The chapter examines the ways in which the early events of Israeli settler-colonialism continue to haunt the Palestinian characters in an ever-treacherous present. It argues that Abulhawa’s novels present narratives that are constructed as palimpsests: negotiating past and present, across generations, across borders, and amongst acts of departure and return. Identity—individual, familial, and national—is similarly palimpsestic, formed out of memories which are continually enfolded and unfolded across generations.
Unfinished Work
Authors: Sperlinger Tom
Published: September 2021

Where education opportunities in Palestine continue to narrow, this chapter considers Selma Dabbagh’s Out Of It as a work of fiction that is particularly attentive to scenes of education and as offering a critique of colonial modes of teaching. Modes of informal and formal education are a recurrent theme in the book and one that illuminates the wider hopes and experiences of the central characters, as they respond to the colonial character of their situation. The chapter reads the novel in light of Paulo Freire’s theories in Pedagogy of Freedom (1996), which emphasises the unfinished nature of the individual as a necessary condition for learning, and offers a model for anticolonial learning. Following this, the chapter contends that the subjective and unfinished work of some of the characters in Out Of It represents an alternative aesthetic response to the situation in Gaza, compared to that which is aesthetically ‘perfect,’ but that mimics a colonial voice with its apparent objectivity.
Ex Machina
Authors: Grimm Joshua
Published: September 2021

Ex Machina (2014) impressed critics and audiences alike with its bold ideas and all-too-realistic depiction of the unexpected consequences of constructing a sentient being. In his feature directorial debut, Alex Garland uses efficient storytelling, a compelling narrative, and heady concepts to create a modern science fiction masterpiece that explores gender, scientific advancement, and the very concept of humanity, all in a compelling, suspenseful film. Artificial intelligence has long been a sci-fi staple, but here, Garland posits what would happen if, for once, humans, rather than AI, were the real villains. In exploring Ex Machina's ideas about consciousness, embodiment, and masculinity, all through the lens of a misogynist mad scientist, Joshua Grimm argues the result is a fascinating, truly unique film that immediately established Garland as a breakout voice in the landscape of science fiction film.
‘The History of Gods’
Authors: Grimm Joshua
Published: September 2021

The evolution of artificial intelligence in science fiction film has showcased an array of technological marvels, and yet each reflects the era in which the films were made, be it what the device looks like, the extent of its power, or the ethical/moral issues surrounding its existence. Ex Machina is no different, with the development of AI firmly embedded in the tech industry. Caleb’s entire purpose for being at Nathan’s compound is to determine whether Nathan has, in fact, created artificial intelligence or if Ava is simply imitating human interactions. This is called the Turing Test, which has been around for nearly 70 years, and it has been rigorously debated for almost its entire existence. Ex Machina pushes this debate by accepting and challenging key assumptions of the Turing Test while positing its own: The role affection/attraction/love might play in the entire process. As such, by considering these emotional components (as expressed toward the creation rather than from it) grounds the discussion in terms of morality and soul, something previous films have treated more as a by-product of artificial intelligence.
‘The Women They Dream Up’
Authors: Grimm Joshua
Published: September 2021

Caleb and Nathan have two different understandings of maleness, but both are internalized and fall on the same problematic spectrum. However, it’s Ava maneuvering of this masculine minefield that allows her to emerge triumphant. This chapter will discuss Ava’s intentions and how she positions herself in the film, exploring her motivations. Some have interpreted her actions as an ultra-modern femme-fatale who manipulated Caleb into freeing her, all with the intent of trapping him in Nathan’s empty compound. Yet that mindset once again places the focus on the male perspective. Analyzing what else might be motivating Ava, particularly as she is confronted with garish reminders of what could be a nightmarish existence for her, is key to understanding her character.
The Lotus Blossom and the Dragon Lady
Authors: Grimm Joshua
Published: September 2021

While gender is particularly prominent in Ex Machina, there is an undercurrent of racial discourse as well, most notably in the character of Kyoko. She’s demure, silent, small, and seems to be perceived (ultimately incorrectly) by Nathan not to be a threat. These are all attributes of two larger stereotypes of Asian women portrayed throughout the history of film: the “Dragon Lady” – a feminized but sinister, deceitful woman– and the “Lotus Blossom” – a diminutive, obedient, sexually-desired woman. This chapter analyzes how Kyoko’s character is written to embody – and ultimately challenge – both stereotypes to create a refreshing, unique perspective on race in a genre too often bathed in Whiteness.
Life Through a Lens
Authors: Bullock Paul
Published: September 2021

This chapter looks at the role of cinematic fantasy and how it shapes the audience’s views of reality. First, it explores Steven Spielberg’s relationship with his audience. It explains that prior to Jurassic Park he had often spoken of his determination to please audiences and build films that drew them into the film world. It offers up examples and autobiographical detail to examine this claim and then details some of the key cinematic techniques he used to achieve it, the most notable of which is The Spielberg Face. As his career progressed, however, Spielberg grew frustrated by these techniques and by the time he was working on Jurassic Park, he was eager to alter his approach. The chapter concludes by investigating how the theme park location of Jurassic Park offered Spielberg the perfect opportunity to critique these techniques (and by extension both his career and cinema as a whole) and ultimately find a new way to explore his relationship with his audience.
Dinosaurs Eat Man
Authors: Bullock Paul
Published: September 2021

This chapter explores the role of masculinity in Jurassic Park. It first seeks to understand Steven Spielberg’s childhood, during which he was subjected to bullying, and how his difficulties influenced the early part of his career. In his first few films, Spielberg routinely depicts male-coded characters who fit one of two archetypes: the physically strong bully (the truck in Duel, the shark in Jaws) and the physically weak everyman (David Mann, Martin Brody). In these films, the bully torments the everyman, who must become stronger without becoming a bully himself in order to succeed. The chapter then applies this approach to Jurassic Park and argues that Spielberg subverted it by depicting typical bully characters who are good men (for example, Muldoon) and typical everymen who have a streak of darkness to them (Hammond and Grant). In doing so, the chapter argues, Spielberg asks his audience to question the nature of masculinity and addresses the things men need to do to avoid sliding into the aggression that his heroes in Jurassic Park display.
The Aesthetics of Stalker
Authors: Hoel Jon
Published: September 2021

This chapter examines the elements of cinema and how Tarkovsky carefully approaches them. In turn, color, composition, meaning, silence, and sound are investigated as presented in the film and Tarkovsky’s journals. Color and sound and their intentional absences in particular, are of note in this chapter, due to Tarkovsky’s films for their deliberate precision with regard to the use of silence and black and white sequences. For him, the use of color in film feels gimmicky, and only through the absence of color, does its usage have cinematic relevance. Similarly, Tarkovsky emphasizes silence in Stalker to reintroduce sound with further emphasis, which this chapter compares to other Tarkovsky films like Solaris and The Mirror. Finally, the chapter concludes with an examination of the usage of Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” in the film, and its ideological implications.
The Poetics of Stalker (Poetic Cinema)
Authors: Hoel Jon
Published: September 2021

This chapter examines the film’s classification as ‘poetic cinema’, defining that term in comparison to other films within that genre--notably Sergei Parajanov’s cinema, and juxtaposing this against the literal use of poetry in the film, and the history of the specific poetry of the film. This mostly focuses on Andrei Tarkovsky’s penchant for utilizing the poetry of his father Arseny Tarkovsky in nearly all of his films, and compares various translations of his poems. The film also prominently utilizes a poem by Fyodor Tyutchev, which is analyzed in this chapter as well, in comparison to a recent reimagining of the same poem in a musical composition by the popular Icelandic art-pop musician Björk.
The Witch
Authors: Grafius Brandon
Published: September 2021

The book offers an overview of the religious history, generic background, and folklore influences on Robert Eggers’ film The Witch (2015). In addition, it provides close readings of the film and the individual characters which argues for the film as a critique of patriarchal family structures. The religious background of the film’s Puritan context is explored, including a discussion of some of the documents which Eggers used for his screenplay. The film is placed in the context of 21st century horror cinema, with an argument for its place in the context of the current wave of folk horror.
William Friedkin’s ‘Infernal Trilogy’: Contextualizing Cruising
Authors: Ercolani Eugenio , Stiglegger Marcus
Published: September 2021

In this chapter Cruising is contextualized as part of an ‘infernal trilogy’, comprised of the subsequent To Live and Die in L.A. and Jade. Each film is set in a different American city and deals with deviant sexuality and excessive violence. All three cop films paint an infernal image of American society staring into its own abyss. With this trilogy Friedkin invokes his earlier classics: The French Connection, The Exorcist, and Sorcerer, all of which have strong connections to Cruising.
Peeping Tom in 1960
Authors: Walden Kiri Bloom
Published: September 2021

This chapter gives an overview of British popular culture in 1960, looking at society in post-war Britain and showing how different Peeping Tom was to other films released that year. It then looks in detail at the critical response to the film at the time it came out, trying to unpick why the most influential critics of the time responded to it in such a negative way, writing damning reviews that had a devastating effect on the future of the film and its director Michael Powell. We also look at the lesser known, more positive reviews from foreign and trade publication film critics.
The Panama Papers
Authors: Yeoman James Michael
Published: September 2021

This chapter presents a case study of grassroots networks between the Spanish anarchist movement and migrant laborers working on the construction of the Panama Canal (1904-1914). Sources provided by the anarchist press of both areas reveal sustained material and ideological exchange across the Atlantic in these years, with print materials, remittances, solidarity campaigns and public debates binding radical workers in a new and challenging context to the one they had left behind. Sites of global industrial capital, such as the Canal Zone, are thus revealed to form a central locale in the conception and functioning of an alternative, radical geography in the early twentieth century, marked by the horizontal connections sustained by the publishers, contributors and readers of anarchist print.
Ossip K. Flechtheim (1909-1998)
Authors: Keßler Mario
Published: September 2021

The political scientist Ossip Kurt Flechtheim (1909-1998) lived in different countries on both sides of the Atlantic: Germany, France, Switzerland, and the United States. He specialized in various fields of research: contemporary history, political science, and future studies, and he taught and wrote in several languages. Flechtheim belonged to three different parties of the left: before 1933 he was a member of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD). After his return to Berlin in 1952 he had joined the Social Democratic Party (SPD), which he then left in 1962. From 1979 until his death Flechtheim was a member of the Alternative Liste that was part of the ecological Green Party. Flechtheim’s work, which includes nearly twenty books and a great number of edited volumes, is devoted to crucial problems of the twentieth and the twenty-first century: to war and peace, democracy and dictatorship, fascism and anti-fascism, the north-south conflict, and capitalism and Communism in its various forms. The last chapter of the volume gives a biographical overview and tries to explain how Flechtheim’s life’s path between Europe and America influenced his thinking as a versatile scholar and radical socialist.
Stirring the Pot of Haitian History
Authors: Past Mariana F. , Hebblethwaite Benjamin
Published: September 2021

Stirring the Pot of Haitian History is an original translation of Ti difé boulé sou istoua Ayiti (1977), the first book written by Haitian anthropologist Michel-Rolph Trouillot. Challenging understandings of Haitian history, Trouillot analyzes the pivotal role of self-emancipated revolutionaries in the Haitian Revolution and War of Independence (1791-1804), a generation of people who founded the modern Haitian state and advanced Haiti’s vibrant contemporary cultures. This book confronts the problems of self-serving politicians and the racial mythologizing of historical figures like Jean-Jacques Dessalines, Toussaint Louverture and André Rigaud. The author denounces corruption and racism as hereditary maladies received from the hyper-racist slave society of the French colony of Saint-Domingue. Trouillot also examines the socio-economic and political contradictions and inequalities of Saint-Domingue, traces the unravelling of the colony’s racist economic system after the revolts of 1791, and argues that Haitian Creole language and Haitian Vodou religion provided the bedrock cultural cohesion needed to fuel the resistance, revolt and warfare that led to Haitian independence on January 1, 1804.
Trouillot blends Marxist criticism, deep readings in Haitian historiography, anthropological insights, and skilful handling of Haiti's rich oral traditions of storytelling, proverbs and wisdom sayings to provide a sharp and earthy account of Haitian social and political thought rooted in the style and culture of Haitian Creole speakers. Each chapter opens with a line of verse, song or a proverb that pulls readers into a historical oral performance. Haitian oral tradition from popular culture and Vodou religion mingle with explorations of complex social and political realities and historical hypotheses. Although the Haitian Creole majority language still plays second fiddle to French in government and education, Ti difé boulé sou istoua Ayiti is a major contribution in the effort to demonstrate the power of Haitian Creole scholarship. Stirring the Pot of Haitian History holds a preeminent place in the expanding canon of Haitian Creole and Caribbean literature, especially as it shows how historical problems continue to insinuate themselves within the contemporary moment.
Alliances from Above and Below
Authors: Owen Nicholas
Published: September 2021

This chapter concerns the campaigning of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) and its attempt to recruit British workers in solidarity with the Indian anti-imperialist struggle in the 1920s and 1930s. It begins by distinguishing three possible obstacles to a mass anti-imperialism in Britain: compromising interests, low salience, and poor political articulation. It argues that the first two were largely indeterminate – they had no single, directional implication for anti-imperialism – and that the weight of explanation must fall on the third, which was more determinate. It then examines the inter-relationships between four groups of political actors: the Communist International, the Indian émigré revolutionary groups directed – or in rivalry with – the Bengali revolutionary M.N. Roy to whom Comintern initially assigned its Indian work; the Communist Party of India (CPI) founded by Roy in October 1920, and the CPGB itself which was given first informal and from 1925 to 1934 formal responsibility for communist work in India. In each case it explores the strengths and weaknesses of their political work. It identifies the relationships between Indian and non-Indian actors as the key explanation, and the main difficulty in these relationships as the tension between communist internationalism and Indian nationalism’s commitment to self-directed and self-reliant national struggle. Terms such as sympathy, help and solidarity, the chapter argues, are not neutral: they define distinct, uneven relationships between those who act and those who benefit which are sometimes (not always) problematic.
A Comparative and Transnational Approach to Socialist Anti-Colonialism
Authors: Gasteuil Quentin
Published: September 2021

From the 1930s to the 1950s, Fenner Brockway (1888-1988) and Marceau Pivert (1895-1958), both ‘left-wing’ socialists, were deeply committed to anti-colonialism. Brockway lived mostly in the United Kingdom and Pivert in France, but their involvement was not restricted by national boundaries. Regarding colonial issues, both men conceived of the militant activities they pursued in transnational terms. This was a feature of their distinct internationalist approach of politics. Their relationship was part of a wider European network of militants, and their strife against colonial imperialism was embodied in various collective forms of action. The Brockway–Pivert connection thus illustrates the way two anti-colonialist stances met and interacted on different scales and levels. The ideas, the initiatives and the practices of this specific form of socialist anti-colonialism are at the heart of this chapter.
Shtrayml
Authors: Cooper Levi
Published: September 2021

This chapter highlights the Hasidic fur hats spodik, kolpik, and shtrayml, which are worn by married men and are reserved for the sabbath, festivals, and other significant days, such as the wedding of a son or daughter. It refers to groups of Hasidim that have adopted particular types of headwear that distinguish individual communities and are used as cultural markers of identity. Hasidic groups that trace their roots to Poland sport spodik, which is made from pieces of black or dyed-black animal fur, while Hasidic groups that originate in Ukraine, Galicia, Hungary, or Romania don the shtrayml, which is traditionally made from animal tails. The kolpik is worn by Hasidic masters on noteworthy non-festival days, such as the commemoration of the death of a saintly ancestor. The chapter traces how shtrayml fashions have changed over the last century as it made way for the meticulously groomed shtraymlekh.
Health as a Value
Authors: Tuszewicki Marek
Published: September 2021

This chapter discusses how health is viewed and valued by the Jewish community. Popular views within the Jewish community on matters of health fell into three main categories of complaint: general (problems that might afflict anyone in the adult population, irrespective of age or sex), female (those connected with fertility, birth, nursing, etc.), and childhood (those specific to infants and children up to the age of religious maturity). In east European folk culture, including its Jewish variant, the term 'health' was colloquially understood as the state of full vitality. Attributes that fell within the scope of this concept included vigour, energy, ruddiness, and even the broader quality of longevity. The epithet a gezunter yid (a healthy Jew) designated not so much a person free of illnesses, but rather someone strong and fit, even in some contexts exuberant. Aside from vitality, another constituent element in the state of full health in Jewish folk phraseology was one's aesthetic appearance. A fundamental indication of illness was the loss of 'colour', a pale physiognomy. For the traditional Jewish population, health was one of the most significant factors in everyday life. And this conviction was echoed in everyday greetings and language. Poverty was spoken of as a fever, and, in general, physical ailments were used as synonyms for all misfortunes, regardless of whether these 'plagues' were material in character or not.
Diseases as Demonic Beings
Authors: Tuszewicki Marek
Published: September 2021

This chapter discusses how Jews view diseases as manifestations of demons. The Jewish culture of eastern Europe saw diseases either as autonomous entities whose existence was closely bound up with that of humans or as entirely separate beings that could take possession of the human body and manifest themselves in the form of various symptoms (pain, stabbing sensations, swelling, redness, etc.). Some of these 'lived' in the body of their host as congenital to it, even vital for its proper functioning. Others were seen as harmful intruders. This anthropomorphization of physical misfortunes had a variety of consequences for therapeutic practices. The demonic character of diseases invading the human body occasioned the use of remedies designed to confuse, frighten away, disgust, bribe, or starve the anthropomorphized complaint. Diseases that were imagined as unclean beings would be treated with a vast arsenal of magical remedies, including popular apotropaics. In the popular conception the human body was the natural seat of all manner of beings, without which it could not exist. These were normally dormant, but in certain adverse conditions they would awake and make their presence painfully felt in some way. Jewish sources contain examples of magic incantations to drive out worms, conjurations in Yiddish borrowed from the language of the Christian environment, biblical quotes, and so on. In the folk understanding, it was in the nature of some diseases to 'attack' whole populations. Mystical methods were ubiquitously employed to combat plague, the most widespread being symbolic isolation.
Teaching Beat Little Magazines
Authors: Belletto Steven
Published: September 2021

The essay highlights the central role of little magazines, self-publishing, and the mimeograph revolution in the dissemination of Beat literature, Belletto provides guidance regarding how to select little magazines for classroom use to teach a Beat ethos and Beat canonicity
Gender, Race, and Narrative in On the Road
Authors: Johnson Ronna C.
Published: September 2021

Johnson explores a successful method for teaching the seminal Beat novel: Kerouac On the Road. She focuses on gender, sexuality, and race, using a feminist lens to reveal how Kerouac employed consistently deft moves of thematic installation and subversion to transform the canonical quest narrative into the postmodern.
Teaching Open Form Poetics through the Beat Generation and the Black Mountain School
Authors: Keenaghan Eric
Published: September 2021

Keenaghan discusses how in his upper-level literature course he pairs Beat and Black Mountain writers, introducing students to the genesis of open form poetics. The essay features a brief history of mid-twentieth-century cultural politics and presents a close of reading Diane di Prima’s “The Practice of Magical Evocation” as open form poetics.
Teaching the Techno-Poetics of Allen Ginsberg’s “Wichita Vortex Sutra”
Authors: Trigilio Tony
Published: September 2021

The essay reports on a three-stage method blending creative writing with critical literary analysis to teach Allen Ginsberg’s “Wichita Vortex Sutra,” revealing what the author, Tony Trigilio call Ginsberg’s “hybrid, techno-human voice,” created through what Ginsberg himself called “auto poesy,” a spontaneous, audio recorder-driven technique fused with Buddhist practices.
The Reciprocal Classroom
Authors: Quinn Roseanne Giannini
Published: September 2021

The essay presents a comprehensive overview of Diane di Prima’s life work as reflecting her Italian American heritage. The essay links di Prima’s multicultural heritage to other Beat texts and includes numerous examples of how she uses di Prima’s work to teach writing and literature to traditional and non-traditional college students, many of them first generation.
When the Beat in Beat Studies is the Beat in Offbeat Comedy
Authors: Friedman Amy L.
Published: September 2021

Amy Friedman discusses Beat comedy and its raw linguistic Anglo-American legacies in the then-burgeoning underground club scene and on television. She sketches ludic Beat voices from Kerouac to Kyger, connecting these to comedian such as the British Beyond the Fringe of the early 1960s, Monty Python, Lenny Bruce, George Carline, Richard Pryor, and Phyllis Diller. The essay includes sample online resources for classroom use.
Cooling Delays from Iron Sedimentation and Iron Inner Cores in White Dwarfs
Authors: Caplan M. E. , Freeman I. F. , Horowitz C. J. , Cumming A. , Bellinger E. P.
Published: September 2021

Do white dwarfs have inner cores made of iron? Neutron-rich nuclei like 56Fe experience a net gravitational force and sediment toward the core. Using new phase diagrams and molecular dynamics simulations, we show that 56Fe should separate into mesoscopic Fe-rich crystallites due to its large charge relative to the background. At solar abundances, these crystallites rapidly precipitate and form an inner core of order 100 km and 10−3
M
⊙ that may be detectable with asteroseismology. Associated cooling delays could be up to a Gyr for low-mass white dwarfs but are only ∼0.1 Gyr for massive white dwarfs, so while this mechanism may contribute to the Q-branch the heating is insufficient to fully explain it.
On the Demographics of Exoplanet Host Stars
Authors: Summers Verity , Howell Steve B.
Published: September 2021

The NASA TESS mission has provided the community with a plethora of new exoplanet host stars. These bright, nearby stars have been examined in detail in a number of studies and it has been determined that nearly one-half of the solar-like stars are binary. Two recent papers which examined 700 TESS exoplanet hosts have provided stellar properties for the stars, both single and binary. Herein, we provide a quantitative look at some properties of the stars, particularly searching for differences between the single versus binary (primary) host stars. We also compare the properties of the binary (primary) host stars themselves.