Revolutionary insurgencies, paradigmatic cases

This essay will examine and compare the production of women's writing during and after the Nicaraguan and Cuban Revolutions, a corpus that includes novels, poetry, and testimonies, but also features considerable generic hybridity. Since both revolutions are separated by some twenty years, each must be understood in the context of the specific ideological conditions that framed women’s participation in culture and revolution, and must also be considered in light of evolving gender discourses, both national and international. As such, these texts respond to both local and transnational paradigms of feminine subjectivity, and highlight the particular problems that arise from women’s insertion into the revolution and its representation in literature. These writers also have to negotiate the evolving context of revolution itself, with its moments of euphoria and disenchantment – and it is here that the greatest contrasts can be found between the two revolutionary instances and their political features: whilst Cuba’s revolutionary process has somehow survived economic crisis and created a level of political stability and continuity (not without its own problems), the Nicaraguan case is characterised by ruptures and resentments which are clearly reflected in the work of writers before, during, and after the Sandinista revolution, and which continue to the present day. This chapter will address the work of the most prominent woman writer of the Nicaraguan revolution, Gioconda Belli, whose main work reflects her involvement in the Sandinista struggle; ex-commander Mónica Baltodano has recently compiled a four volume piece with testimonials of men and women who participated in the organization and actions led by the Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional, and Violeta Barrios de Chamorro, former president of Nicaragua, who has recently co-authored an autobiography. There are other women poets to consider, especially under the auspices of the Asociación de Mujeres Nicaraguenses Luisa Amanda Espinoza, such as Vidaluz Meneses, Michele Najlis and Daisy Zamora. The testimonios compiled by Margaret Randall are also important pieces to consider for both Nicaragua and Cuba. The most important voices of the Cuban revolution still resident on the island are poet Nancy Morejón and writers Mirta Yáñez and Aida Bahr, with younger writers such as Adelaida Fernández de Juan and Marilyn Bobes representing a more recent generation.

Arthur et ses barons rebelles: la fin remaniée et abrégée de la Suite Vulgate dans le manuscrit du cycle du Graal, Paris, BNF fr. 344

The ms. Paris, BnF, fr. 344 was produced in Lorraine at the end of the thirteenth century and contains the whole Lancelot-Grail cycle. It presents an abridged version of the end of the Vulgate Sequel to Merlin. The rewriting of the end of the sequel glosses over the romantic episodes of the common version and focuses on the figure of Arthur, a legitimate sovereign and skilful war leader confronted by his barons’ dissidence. From the end of f° 182 to f° 184v°, BnF, fr. 344, narrates the departure of Kings Ban and Bohort for the Continent, the embassy of King Loth and his sons, and the fight against the Saxons of the Christian coalition gathered at Logres for the feast of the Holy Cross. This article shows the ideological implications of the abridgement and the illustration used at the end of the Vulgate Sequel in ms. fr. 344, as it exalts Arthur’s kingship and insists on the rallying, penance and submission of his rebelled vassals.

Accountability and ideology: when left looks right and right looks left

Abstract Managers face hard choices between process and outcome systems of accountability in evaluating employees, but little is known about how managers resolve them. Building on the premise that political ideologies serve as uncertainty-reducing heuristics, two studies of working managers show that: (1) conservatives prefer outcome accountability and liberals prefer process accountability in an unspecified policy domain; (2) this split becomes more pronounced in a controversial domain (public schools) in which the foreground value is educational efficiency but reverses direction in a controversial domain (affirmative action) in which the foreground value is demographic equality; (3) managers who discover employees have subverted their preferred system favor tinkering over switching to an alternative system; (4) but bipartisan consensus arises when managers have clear evidence about employee trustworthiness and the tightness of the causal links between employee effort and success. These findings shed light on ideological and contextual factors that shape preferences for accountability systems.

Striking a balance: cultural conflicts or cultural adaptation

This paper explores the cultural representations embedded in the EFL textbooks for Primary English language education in China. In particular, it examines how cultural globalisation and localisation are competing with each other as the educational policy in English attempts to strike a balance between the local culture and ‘western’ culture. Using discourse analysis as an analytical framework, this paper argues that culture as a social construct is constantly evolving and traditions are fused with new cultural values and worldviews brought about by globalisation. As such, the analysis of the textbooks illustrates that culture as a social phenomenon has changed over the decades and glocalisation is gaining new perspectives in English language education in China. Importantly, the analysis shows that new cultural elements have been established and cultural globalisation has taken place when local culture adapt ‘foreign’ cultures to suit local needs. Acknowledging that there are cultural conflicts and competing ideologies in the texts, the paper argues that these conflicts and contradictories can be used to develop students’ critical language awareness and foster their critical analytical abilities. Importantly, the analysis can facilitate the students’ English language learning by providing them with opportunities to read beyond texts per se to cultural politics and practices. Juxtaposing different cultural and ideological perspectives can help students understand that cultural values are socially and politically constructed when they are confronted with complex linguistic and cultural environments in reality.

Living the Revolution: urban communes & soviet socialism, 1917-1932

This book follows a revolutionary trend popular among young activists and would-be radicals after 1917, the formation of collective units of cohabitation and association known as 'urban communes'. In these spaces, activists tried to live what they understood as the 'socialist lifestyle', self-consciously putting Marxist and Bolshevik theories into practice. By telling the story of the urban communes, this book reveals how grand revolutionary ideals, such as collectivism, equality, proletarian ethics, and modern practice, were experienced, understood, and appropriated on a human level. This enables us to better understand the messy realities of the early Soviet state, showing how ideological beliefs and revolutionary contingencies actually came into being during this time.

The kommuna impulse: collective mechanisms and commune-ists in the early Soviet State

This study examines the creation of the urban kommuna (commune) and the ideals that stimulated this social phenomenon – the kommuna impulse of the nascent Soviet state. Collective idealism affected Soviet housing, architecture and even urban planning, but little is known of social experiments in commune‐ism. As a result, these collective cells have been dismissed as utopian anomalies or the product of a housing shortage. Here it is argued that these discursive assessments are unsatisfactory and isolated from the historical narrative. While utopian ideals and domestic necessity were central to the formation of collective living, the kommuna was also involved in an active discourse with collectivism and socialist ideology. The kommuna cell was a dynamic entity that required considerable formative planning. The activists who forged these cells – the self‐identified ‘communards’ – turned their everyday domestic life into a socialist battleground, in which they struggled with the key debates of the early Soviet state. This article examines the communard as a social activist in order to better understand this phenomenon. It clarifies the coexistence of ideological and idealist trends among Soviet youth with practical contingencies for socialism. Furthermore, it reveals the process by which the kommuna impulse and these contingencies developed throughout the 1920s and early 1930s.

Of tropics, prisons and bicycles: a conversation with David Arnold

David Arnold who retired this year as the Professor of Asian and Global History at the University of Warwick remains one of the most prolific historians of colonial medicine and modern South Asia. A founding member of the subaltern studies collective, he is considered widely as a pioneer in the histories of colonial medicine, environment, penology, hunger and famines within South Asian studies and beyond. In this interview he recalls his formative inspirations, ideological motivations and reflects critically on his earlier works, explaining various shifts as well as map- ping the possible course of future work. He talks at length about his forthcoming works on everyday technology, food and monsoon Asia. Finally, he shares with us his desire of initiating work on an ambitious project about the twin themes of poison and poverty in South Asian his- tory, beginning with the Bengal famine in the late eighteenth century and ending with the Bhopal gas tragedy of the early 1980s. This conversation provides insights into the ways in which the field of medical history in modern South Asia has been shaped over the past three decades through interactions with broader discussions on agency, resistance, power, everydayness, subal- tern studies, global and spatial histories. It hints further at the newer directions which are being opened up by such persisting intellectual entanglements.

The Spanish Guerrilla 1808-1814 as a model for people’s wars and resistance movements

Transforming the meaning of the term 'guerrilla' which had once meant feud or private warfare, and then irregular war conducted by special forces on behalf of a state or government, the Spanish Guerrilla (part of the Peninsular War) against Napoleon became the model to be emulated by insurgency movements across the world. Even though the term itself continued to be used, even in Spanish, for special operations, in henceforth became imbued with an ideological dimension, which is how it would be used especially in the 20th century.

Integrating archaeology and palaeoecology to understand Jê landscapes in southern Brazil

Around AD 1000, the southern Brazilian highlands witnessed a convergence of phenomena: climatic change, the abrupt expansion of Araucaria forest and the appearance of large pit-houses and monumental mound and enclosure complexes, which signal fundamental socio-political and ideological change amongst southern proto-Jê (SPJ) groups. These developments raise intriguing questions regarding the relationships between people, vegetation and climate over the last 2000 years.

Imagined Comrades and Imaginary Protections

This paper describes the recent development of identity and community among gay men in China. It focuses both on the ways emerging forms of gay identity relate to larger ideological and discursive shifts within society, and on the ways these new forms of identity and community affect situated social interaction among gay men themselves. In particular, it addresses the question of how these emerging forms of gay identity and gay community affect the ways gay men in China understand the threat of HIV and make concrete decisions about sexual risk and safety. Among the chief tactics used by gay men in China to forge identity and community involves appropriating and adapting elements from dominant discourses of the Party-State and the mass media. This strategy has opened up spaces within which gay men can claim “cultural citizenship” in a society in which they have been heretofore marginalized. At the same time, this strategy also implicated in the formation of attitudes and social practices that potentially increase the vunerability of Chinese gay men to HIV infection.

Opening movements in Ophuls: Caught (and Madame de …)

This audiovisual essay was created at the wonderful NEH-funded workshop in videographic criticism at Middlebury College, ‘Scholarship in Sound and Image’. The essay provides an analysis of the orchestration of long takes and camera movement in the opening of Caught (Ophuls, 1949), and develops a comparison with the opening of Madame de… (Ophuls, 1953 – U.S. release title The Earrings of Madame de…), not least through a series of juxtapositions, which can be directly presented and compared in an audiovisual essay. The openings share a concern with the subjectivity of the female protagonists and our relationship toward it, evoking the women’s experience while balancing this with other kinds of perspective. As has been noted in the critical literature on Ophuls, and on melodramas of passion more generally, such views enable us to perceive the women concerned to be caught in material and ideological frameworks of which they are at best partially aware. Among the interests of this particular comparison, however, is the extent to which the dynamic around female subjectivity is played in relation to luxury goods, imagined, owned or admired. Tensions between on- and off-screen spaces and sounds are critical to the interest of the long takes under discussion. Camera movements subtly inflect the extent to which we are aligned (or otherwise) with the characters and the ways in which their material circumstances are revealed to us.

Frontline safety: understanding the workplace as a site of regulatory engagement

The concept of frontline safety encapsulates an approach to occupational health and safety that emphasizes the 'other side of the regulatory relationship' – the ways in which safety culture, individual responsibility, organizational citizenship, trust, and compliance are interpreted and experienced at the local level. By exploring theoretical tensions over the most appropriate way of conceptualizing and framing frontline regulatory engagement, we can better identify the ways in which conceptions of individuals (as rational, responsible, economic actors) are constructed and maintained through workplace interactions and decision-making, as part of the fulfilment of the ideological and constitutive needs of neoliberal labor markets.

Class Struggle, Elitism and Social Collectivism in Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s Devil on the Cross : A Marxist Approach

Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s Devil on the Cross represents both an insightful interpretation and a scathing critique of Kenyan politics and society during the period of neo-colonialism. The present thesis aims to explore, with the help of Marxist ideology and criticism, the relevance of the issues of class struggle, elitism and social collectivism in the novel. At the same time, this study will attempt to define Devil on the Cross as a "national allegory" depicting situations that are common to almost all post-colonial societies, and in particular, how the novel's ideological and political commitment is an important feature as it reflects Ngugi’s effort to draw attention to how Kenya and Africa as a whole suffered from imperialism, neo-colonialism, and a corrupt and greedy capitalist society.

Skriftpraktiker i gymnasieskolan : Bygg- och omvårdnadselever skriver

Literacy Practices in Upper Secondary School. The Writing of Construction and Health CarePupilsThe aim of the dissertation is to demonstrate and explain the place and function writing has in allsubjects in two vocational classes in a Swedish upper secondary school. The material has beencollected through ethnographic field studies in construction and health care classes over one schoolyear. The material consists of literacy events, where pupils write, and the context of situation andtext are noted.In theoretical terms the study takes a discourse analysis perspective, where writing is seen fromwithin different frames. Writing is analysed based on an ideological view of literacy inspired byNew Literacy Studies using the context of situation and text with the aim of describing differentliteracy practices in both classes.The material was classified into three different situation types, two school-initiated and one nonschool-initiated. The first school-initiated situation type is orally-governed, the second writinggoverned,while it is less clear how the non-school-initiated type is inspired.In the writing situations we investigate the writing activities that are used, while texts areanalysed based on text acitivites. Writing and text activities are used together to explain the writingcompetences that are used in the writing situations.The conclusions are that writing gets little space and attention in both classes. The healthcare class writes in more situations and also writes longer texts than the construction class.Literacy practices differ between the classes. The health care class demonstrates one schoolgovernedwriting practice, while the construction class moves between two different schoolgovernedpractices. The literacy practices in the construction class are similar to the writing usagethat can be found at a building site. Writing is used in both classes mainly to structure and storeknowledge.The non-school-governed material also shows differences between the classes. Here too morewriting takes place in the health care class. The function of the non-school-governed writing is tocommunicate and inform through writing.

Skolutveckling som diskursiv praktik : Några ideologiska implikationer

This study aims at highlighting the ideological implications of school development as a discursive practice. More comprehensively the aim is also contributing to rearrangements and shifts in perspective when school development is the matter. One of today´s most widespread and dominant discourses are said to be the one which concerns development, and according to many interpreters, development is one of the most prominent commandments in the modern as well as the post-modern narratives. School development as a concept has for the last 15 years established itself firmly in both Swedish school policy and in Swedish school research. It may sound obvious and commendable but also such axioms may be questioned.The design of the study lies in the field of discourse research and more specifically within critical discursive psychology, which draws on both a post-structural and a postmodern conception of discourse. The study is based on the idea that the ideological potential of arguments occurs, develops and changes in discursive practices and not anywhere else or at any abstract level. The starting point is a perception that certain issues and topics within e.g. conversation, depending on time and context will be seen as controversial, while others will be taken for granted.One part of the basis of the study consists of texts with a direct bearing on a specific school research and development project which took place between 2003 and 2008. Participating partners in the collaboration were the Swedish National Agency for School Improvement, Karlstad University, Dalarna University and 13 municipalities in Sweden. Another part of the basis of the study consists of texts in which ‘school development’ is considered and negotiated in more general terms, usually without reference to the project. All texts derive from the period 2003 – 2006.The analysis shows that school development as discursive practice often rely on a set of stereotypical expressions and ways of arguing. Stereotypes, which among other things, tend to divide people into suitable and non-suitable, capable and non-capable, which may be regarded as a somewhat unexpected implication of school development. The material has been dramatized by an intrigue inspired by the sociologist Zygmunt Bauman´s texts. He has written extensively on the modern in relation to the postmodern and about the ambivalence which resides in between and school development as discursive practice can be understood in much the similar way.