From the genius of man to the man of genius, part one: A slippery subject

The two articles that comprise this analysis springboard from the availability and increased popularity of the term genius to nineteenth and twentieth century educational scholars and its (temporary) location along a continuum of mindedness that was relatively new (i.e., as opposite to insanity). Three generations of analysis playfully structure the argument, taking form around the gen‐ root’s historical association with tropes of production and reproduction. Of particular interest in the analysis is how subject‐formation, including perceptions of non‐formation and elusivity, occurs. I examine this process of (non)formation within and across key texts on genius, especially in relation to their narrative structures, key binaries and sources of authority that collectively produce and embed specific cosmologies and their moral boundaries. The argument is staged across two articles that embody the three generations of analysis.

William James, Sciences of Mind, and Anti-imperial Discourse

In the past few decades, the humanities and social sciences have developed new methods of reorienting their conceptual frameworks in a “world without frontiers.” In this book, Bernadette M. Baker offers an innovative approach to rethinking sciences of mind as they formed at the turn of the twentieth century, via the concerns that have emerged at the turn of the twenty-first. The less-visited texts of Harvard philosopher and psychologist William James provide a window into contemporary debates over principles of toleration, anti-imperial discourse, and the nature of ethics. Baker revisits Jamesian approaches to the formation of scientific objects including the child mind, exceptional mental states, and the ghost to explore the possibilities and limits of social scientific thought dedicated to mind development and discipline formation around the construct of the West.

Dystopian fiction for young people: Instructive tales of resilience

The rise and popularity of dystopian fiction in recent years is quite marked and critics often attribute such high sales of books and box office as being linked to the impact September 11 has had on the world, especially in the United States. While the events of September 11, 2001 saw a heightened anxiety by nations and their citizens about the fear and threat of terrorism – an anxiety which is paradoxically lowered and raised by increased surveillance practices, security checks and warnings – other changes since the last stages of the twentieth century have also raised concerns and anxieties. In this paper I use examples of Young Adult (YA) dystopian fiction to illustrate the potential these texts have for providing their readers with alternative ways of thinking about the challenges that others face and their capacity for resilience.

Empire, Tourism, Nostalgia: Joseph Brodsky and Travel Writing

Joseph Brodsky, one of the most influential Russian intellectuals of the late Soviet period, was born in Leningrad in 1940, emigrated to the United States in 1972, received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1987, and died in New York City in 1996. Brodsky was one of the leading public figures of Soviet emigration in the Cold War period, and his role as a model for the constructing of Russian cultural identities in the last years of the Soviet Union was, and still is, extremely important. One of Joseph Brodsky’s great contributions to Russian culture of the latter half of the twentieth century is the wide geographical scope of his poetic and prose works. Brodsky was not a travel writer, but he was a traveling writer who wrote a considerable number of poems and essays which relate to his trips and travels in the Soviet empire and outside it. Travel writing offered for Brodsky a discursive space for negotiating his own transculturation, while it also offered him a discursive space for making powerful statements about displacement, culture, history and geography, time and space—all major themes of his poetry. In this study of Joseph Brodsky’s travel writing I focus on his travel texts in poetry and prose, which relate to his post-1972 trips to Mexico, Brazil, Turkey, and Venice. Questions of empire, tourism, and nostalgia are foregrounded in one way or another in Brodsky’s travel writing performed in emigration. I explore these concepts through the study of tropes, strategies of identity construction, and the politics of representation. The theoretical premises of my work draw on the literary and cultural criticism which has evolved around the study of travel and travel writing in recent years. These approaches have gained much from the scholarly experience provided by postcolonial critique. Shifting the focus away from the concept of exile, the traditional framework for scholarly discussions of Brodsky’s works, I propose to review Brodsky’s travel poetry and prose as a response not only to his exilic condition but to the postmodern and postcolonial landscape, which initially shaped the writing of these texts. Discussing Brodsky’s travel writing in this context offers previously unexplored perspectives for analyzing the geopolitical, philosophical, and linguistic premises of his poetic imagination. By situating Brodsky’s travel writing in the geopolitical landscape of postcolonial postmodernity, I attempt to show how Brodsky’s engagement with his contemporary cultural practices in the West was incorporated into his Russian-language travel poetry and prose and how this engagement thus contributed to these texts’ status as exceptional and unique literary events within late Soviet Russian cultural practices.

Modernismens förespråkare : Gösta Stenman och hans konstsalong

This dissertation, based on material from Stenman s vast private archive, examines the role played by Swedish-speaking Finnish art dealer Gösta Stenman (1888-1947) and his art gallery, Stenmans Konstsalong, in the Finnish and Swedish art worlds from 1911 to 1947. This archive is examined here for the first time. The analytical framework used for this empirical study derives from Pierre Bourdieu s sociological theories. An art-sociological approach allows for the inclusion of more mechanisms at work in the art world than are typically embraced in such inquiries. This approach provides a fuller understanding of how Stenman attained his standing and central role in the art world in Finland as well as Sweden; enabling us to appreciate how he came to occupy such a prominent position in current art historical writing. All of these issues constitute new areas of research. Taking his cues from the contemporary art world of Paris, Stenman became the year 1914 a modern art dealer like no other in the Nordic countries. This dissertation represents the first academic investigation into his operations, strategies, and objectives, offering insight into not only the art dealer himself but also the functioning of the art market one of the most vital aspects of the art world. A by-product of this work, is that the modern art market in Finland is portrayed, including essential issues related to its growth and development as well as how it altered the conditions under which art could be produced, exhibited and promoted and what this entailed for the art world at large, artists and patrons alike. This first systematic analysis of the operations of Stenman s Konstsalong offers greater understanding of the art worlds of Sweden and Finland in the early twentieth century. The work also looks at how an agent of the art market could move between the fields of art in Sweden and Finland. The manner in which Stenman promoted individual artists, including his relationships with Tyko Sallinen, Helene Schjerfbeck, Juho Mäkelä, Jalmari Ruokokoski, Siri Derkert, Esther Kjerner, Eva Bagge, and many others, also falls within this purview. Stenman s contract with Sallinen from 1913 stands out as a new phenomenon in Finnish art promotion, whereby an artistic career became established via a far-sighted, strategic promotional program. The case study of Stenman s promotion of Schjerfbeck in Sweden provides evidence of the increasingly advanced nature of Stenman s strategies. The title of the dissertation, The Promoter of Modernism, attempts to convey that Stenman was the consummate modernist, modern in his thoughts, his actions, and his approach to art. Keywords: Gösta Stenman, Stenmans konstsalong, Stenmans dotter, art market, modernism, collecting, Novembergruppen, Helene Schjerfbeck, Tyko Sallinen, Juho Mäkelä, Jalmari Ruokokoski, Wäinö Aaltonen, Siri Derkert, Åke Göransson, Esther Kjerner, Eva Bagge.

Canon and Beyond : Edvard Fazer and the Imperial Russian Ballet 1908 - 1910

The study explores the first appearances of Russian ballet dancers on the stages of northern Europe in 1908 1910, particularly the performances organized by a Finnish impresario, Edvard Fazer, in Helsinki, Stockholm, Copenhagen and Berlin. The company, which consisted of dancers from the Imperial Theatres of St. Petersburg, travelled under the name The Imperial Russian Ballet of St. Petersburg. The Imperial Russian Ballet gave more than seventy performances altogether during its tours of Finland, Sweden, Denmark and central Europe. The synchronic approach of the study covers the various cities as well as genres and thus stretches the rather rigid geographical and genre boundaries of dance historiography. The study also explores the role of the canon in dance history, revealing some of the diversity which underlies the standard canonical interpretation of early twentieth-century Russian ballet by bringing in source material from the archives of northern Europe. Issues like the central position of written documentation, the importance of geographical centres, the emphasis on novelty and reformers and the short and narrow scholarly tradition have affected the formation of the dance history canon in the west, often imposing limits on the historians and narrowing the scope of research. The analysis of the tours concentrates on four themes: virtuosity, character dancing, the idea of the expressive body, and the controversy over ballet and new dance. The debate concerning the old and new within ballet is also touched upon. These issues are discussed in connection with each city, but are stressed differently depending on the local art scene. In Copenhagen, the strong local canon based on August Bournonville s works influenced the Danish criticism of Russian ballet. In Helsinki, Stockholm and Berlin, the lack of a solid local canon made critics and audiences more open to new influences, and ballet was discussed in a much broader cultural context than that provided by the local ballet tradition. The contemporary interest in the more natural, expressive human body, emerging both in theatre and dance, was an international trend that also influenced the way ballet was discussed. Character dancing, now at low ebb, played a central role in the success of the Imperial Russian Ballet, not only because of its exoticism but also because it was considered to echo the kind of performing body represented by new dance forms. By exploring this genre and its dancers, the thesis brings to light artists who are less known in the current dance history canon, but who made considerable careers in their own time.

Remember or Revive: Alice Payne and the Gold Coast and Hinterland Historical Society

In this creative practice work, designer Alice Payne examines the history of twentieth century Queensland fashion icon Paula Stafford, and interprets her story into an illustrated narrative and textile print. Paula Stafford was a swimwear designer operating in the Gold Coast, Queensland Australia 1940s to 1980s, and is credited with bringing the bikini to Australia. This project was commissioned by The Fashion Archives as part of their series Remember or Revive, in which the curators partnered designers with museums to reinterpret historical costume for a contemporary fashion audience. To develop the project, Payne visited The Gold Coast and Hinterland Historical Society to view Paula Stafford’s swimwear, resortwear, photographs, newspaper articles, fabric swatches and other artefacts relating to Stafford’s practice. Through examining Stafford’s work and history, Payne developed a series of designs based on the story and the experience of viewing and handling the garments. Research statement Fashion history is often experienced via static museum displays of garments and photographs from the period, and this research examines other means through which the archive and the fashion museum collection may be reinterpreted and made fresh. It does this in two ways: first, the work interprets a story from fashion history for a contemporary audience. Second, the project illuminates the fashion design process by demonstrating how garments from the past may be reinterpreted to inspire contemporary textile prints. The Paula Stafford collection at The Gold Coast and Hinterland Historical Society has a number of garments and photographs on display, however these only show a partial picture of the richness of Stafford’s work and legacy. Undertaking a practice-led methodology, in the course of developing the work, Payne examined the archive in order to interpret Stafford’s contribution to Queensland fashion through photography, narrative, and illustration. The work contributes to research into historical fashion curation and interpretation. The work appeared in Issue 11, March 2014 of the The Fashion Archives, an online publication by fashion curators Nadia Buick and Madeline King. The Fashion Archives has received funding from Arts Queensland, State Library Queensland and Creative Partnerships Australia and has published over 200 articles and projects related to Queensland Style. The Fashion Archives is the first project to examine in depth Queensland fashion history. As Paula Stafford is one of Queensland’s most iconic designers, this project is significant in being the first to examine her legacy through creative practice. The Fashion Archives was established in 2013 and involvement is by invitation from the curators.

War and Revolution in St. Petersburg : Modernist Links in the Poetry of Edith Södergran and Anna Andreevna Akhmatova

Important modernists in their own countries, Anna Akhmatova and Edith Södergran are compared in this dissertation as poets whose poetry reflects the climactic events of the early twentieth century in Finland and Russia. A comparatist, biographical and historical approach is used to uncover the circumstances surrounding these events. First the poets’ early works are reviewed and their contemporaries are mentioned to provide a poetic context. Then a brief review of Finnish and Russian history situates them historically. Next, the rich literary diversity of St. Petersburg’s Silver Age is presented and the work of the poets is viewed in context before their poetry is compared, as the First World War, October Revolution and subsequent Finnish Civil War impact their writing. While biography is not the primary focus, it becomes important as inevitably the writers’ lives are changed by cataclysmic events and the textual analysis of the poems in Swedish, Russian and English shows the impact of war on their poetry. These two poets have not been compared before in a critical review in English and this work contributes to needed work in English. They share certain common modernist traits: attention to the word, an intimate, unconventional voice, and a concern with audience. In addition, they both reject formal traditions while they adopt new forms and use modern, outside influences such as art, architecture and philosophy as subject matter and a lens through which to focus their poetry. While it may seem that Anna Akhmatova was the most socially aware poet, because of the censorship she endured under Stalin, my research has revealed that actually Edith Södergran showed the most social consciousness. Thus, a contrast of the poets’ themes reveals these differences in their approaches. Both poets articulated a vibrant response to war and revolution becoming modernists in the process. In their final works created in the years before their deaths, they reveal the solace they found in nature as well as final mentions of the violent events of their youth. Keywords: St. Petersburg, Modernism, Symbolism, Acmeism, Silver Age, Finland-Swedish literature

Public history, private memories: Historical imagination in the new Italian cinema 1988-1999

The concern with the following arguments started during a study of national and international cinemas, from the desire to account for a cinema that internationally was doing well, but was undervalued domestically. The aims were to account for the renewal of Italian filmmaking from 1988, the New Italian cinema, and understand the conditions behind this renewal. The thesis identifies in the historical theme and in the recurrence of features from Italian cinema history elements of coherence with previous cinema production. The first consideration that emerges is that a triangulation between a new generation of filmmakers, their audience and recent history shaped the recovery of Italian cinema from 1988. A second consideration is that no discussion of Italian cinema can be separated from a discussion of that which it represents: Italian society and politics. This representation has not only addressed questions of identity for a cohort of spectators, but on occasions has captured the attention of the international audience. Thus the thesis follows a methodologic approach that positions texts in relation to certain traditions in Italian filmmaking and to the context by taking into consideration also industrial factors and social and historical changes. By drawing upon a range of disciplines, from political history to socio-psychological studies, the thesis has focussed on representation of history and memory in two periods of Italian film history: the first and the last decade of twentieth century. The concern has been not so much to interpret the films, but to understand the processes that made the films and how spectarors have applied their knowledge structures to make meaning of the films. Thus the thesis abstains from ascribing implicit meanings to films, but acknowledges how films project cultural contingencies. This is beacause film is shaped by production conditions and cultural and historical circumstances that make the film intelligible. As Bordwell stated in Making Meaning, "One can do other things with films besides 'reading' them" (1989, p. xiii). Within this framework, the thesis proposes a project that understands history films with the norms that govern Italian filmic output, those norms that regulate conditions of production and consumption and the relation between films from various traditions.

Antisemitic literature collection.

The antisemitic literature collection contains publications and illustrations related primarily to the subject of antisemitism in the United States in the twentieth century. The bulk of the materials are in English and in good condition. The materials were collected over several decades primarily by Nathan Kaganoff, librarian of the American Jewish Historical Society.

Editorial of "International Journal of Critical Indigenous Studies, Volume 8, Number 2, 2015"

The articles in this edition address two critical concerns that can be broadly characterised as Indigeneity as a spectacle and the elision of Indigenous sovereignty by multiculturalism and diversity. The first article, by Maryrose Casey, examines nineteenth and early twentieth century Indigenous performances that drew on cultural practices for entertainment. She highlights how these commercially driven performances were, in fact, demonstrations of sovereignty that white colonisers paid to observe. A measure of the success of these demonstrations can be found in the reactions of audiences, which often involved disrupting the spectacle by physically occupying the performance space.

Critical Indigenous Studies: Engagements in First World Locations

With increasing speed, the emerging discipline of critical Indigenous studies is expanding and demarcating its territory from Indigenous studies through the work of a new generation of Indigenous scholars. Critical Indigenous Studies makes an important contribution to this expansion, disrupting the certainty of disciplinary knowledge produced in the twentieth century, when studying Indigenous peoples was primarily the domain of non-Indigenous scholars. Aileen Moreton-Robinson's introductory essay provides a context for the emerging discipline. The volume is organized into three sections: the first includes essays that interrogate the embedded nature of Indigenous studies within academic institutions; the second explores the epistemology of the discipline; and the third section is devoted to understanding the locales of critical inquiry and practice. Each essay places and contemplates critical Indigenous studies within the context of First World nations, which continue to occupy Indigenous lands in the twenty-first century. The contributors include Aboriginal, Metis, Maori, Kanaka Maoli, Filipino-Pohnpeian, and Native American scholars working and writing through a shared legacy born of British and later U.S. imperialism. In these countries, critical Indigenous studies is flourishing and transitioning into a discipline, a knowledge/power domain where distinct work is produced, taught, researched, and disseminated by Indigenous scholars.

Kirkko, Kekkonen ja kommunismi poliittisina kriisivuosina 1958-1962

This study explores the relationship of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland to communism and political power during the period of crises in Finnish foreign relations with the Soviet Union from 1958 to 1962. During this period the USSR repeatedly interfered in Finland´s domestic affairs and limited her foreign political freedom of action. The research subjects for this dissertation are the bishops of the Church of Finland and the newspaper Kotimaa, which can be regarded as the unofficial organ of the church at the time. A typical characteristic of the Church of Finland from the beginning of the twentieth century was patriotism. During the interwar years the church was strongly anti-communist and against the Soviet Union. This tendency was also evident during the Second World War. After the war the Finnish Church feared that the rise of the extreme left would jeopardize its position. The church, however, succeeded in maintaining its status as a state church throughout the critical years immediately following the war. This study indicates that, although the manner of expression altered, the political attitude of the church did not substantially change during the postwar period. In the late 1950s and early 1960s the church was still patriotic and fear of the extreme left was also evident among the leaders of the church. The victory of the Finnish People's Democratic League in the general election of 1958 was an unwelcome surprise to the church. This generated fear in the church that, with Soviet support, the Finnish communists might return to governmental power and the nation could become a people's democracy. Accordingly, the church tried to encourage other parties to set aside their disagreements and act together against the extreme left throughout the period under study. The main characteristics of the church´s political agenda during this period of crisis were to support the Finnish foreign policy led by the president of the republic, Urho Kekkonen, and to resist Finnish communism. The attitude of Finnish bishops and the newspaper Kotimaa to the Cold War in general was generally in agreement with the majority of western Christians. They feared communism, were afraid of the USSR, but supported peaceful co-existence because they did not want an open conflict with the Soviets. Because of uncertainties in Finland's international position the Finnish Church regarded it as necessary to support the Finnish policy of friendship towards the USSR. The Finnish Church considerer it unwise to openly criticize the Soviet Union, tried resist the spread of communism in Finnish domestic policy. This period of foreign policy crises was principally seen by the church as a time when there was a need to strengthen Finland's unstable national position.

One Word, One Body, One Voice : Studies in Apophatic Theology and Christocentric Anthropology in Gregory of Nyssa

The thesis consists of five international congress papers and a summary with an introduction. The overarching aim of the studies and the summary is to examine the inner coherency of the theological and anthropological thinking of Gregory of Nyssa (331-395). To the issue is applied an "apophatic approach" with a "Christological focus". It is suggested that the coherency is to be found from the Christological concept of unity between "true God" and "true man" in the one person of Jesus Christ. Gregory is among the first to make a full recognition of two natures of Christ, and to use this recognition systematically in his writings. The aim of the studies is pursued by the method of "identification", a combination of the modern critical "problematic method" and Gregory's own aphairetic method of "following" (akolouthia). The preoccupation with issues relating to the so-called Hellenization of Christianity in the patristic era was strong in the twentieth-century Gregory scholarship. The most discussed questions have been the Greek influence in his thought and his philosophical sources. In the five articles of the thesis it is examined how Gregory's thinking stands in its own right. The manifestly apophatic character of his theological thinking is made a part of the method of examining his thought according to the principles of his own method of following. The basic issue concerning the relation of theology and anthropology is discussed in the contexts of his central Trinitarian, anhtropological, Christological and eschatological sources. In the summary the Christocentric integration of Gregory's thinking is discussed also in relation to the issue of the alledged Hellenization. The main conclusion of the thesis concerns the concept of theology in Gregory. It is not indebted to the classical concept of theology as metaphysics or human speculation of God. Instead, it is founded to the traditional Judeo-Christian idea of God who speaks with his people face to face. In Gregory, theologia connotes the oikonomia of God's self-revelation. It may be regarded as the state of constant expression of love between the Creator and his created image. In theology, the human person becomes an image of the Word by which the Father expresses his love to "man" whom he loves as his own Son. Eventually the whole humankind, as one, gives the divine Word a physical - audible and sensible - Body. Humankind then becomes what theology is. The whole humanity expresses divine love by manifesting Christ in words and deeds, singing in one voice to the glory of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Training the natives as nurses in Australia: So what went wrong?

The story of the Aboriginal women who participated in Australias nursing history remains largely untold. In the first six decades of the twentieth century, Aboriginal people were confronted with harsh exclusionary practices that forced them to live in settlements, reserves and missions.¹ While many Aboriginal women worked in domestic roles (in white peoples homes and on rural properties), small numbers were trained at public hospitals and some Aboriginal women received training to be native nurses who worked in hospitals on settlements

In this chapter, an indigenous historical lens is applied to the status of Indigenous nurses and midwives in Australia.