First Love in the Egodocuments of Girls in Interwar Poland. A Case Study of Texts by Irena Kwiatkowska and Sonia Caplan

This article examines the gendered politics of public health initiatives among Jews in interwar Poland by focusing on the establishment and activity of the Warsaw School of Nursing (Szkola Pielegniarstwa przy Szypitalu Starozakonnych w Warszawie). Founded in 1923 and funded by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, the school’s staff believed that they could shape the attitudes and behaviors of Polish Jewish women and use them as a conduit to advance their vision for a Polish state committed to the protection of Jews and their equality before the law. Drawing upon the voices of JDC officials, local Jewish health activists, Polish government officials, and young Jewish women in the Second Polish Republic, the article highlights the multiple and frequently conflicting ways in which gender figured in their political imagination. It also sheds light on the efforts of American Jewish humanitarian activists and Polish Jewish women alike—much like their counterparts throughout Europe and North America—to reframe traditional gendered expectations for women in order to expand their range of professional choices and the roles they could play in public life. The final section of this article recounts the school’s decline and compares its fate to a Jewish nursing school initiative in the city of Vilna. In doing so, it assesses the limits of the Joint Distribution Committee’s interethnic bridge-building initiatives in interwar Poland.

Markmið þessarar rannsóknar var að greina hugmyndir ungra kvenna (18-24 ára) um vægi holdafars í tengslum við stefnumót. Fræðilega sjónarhornið er femíniskur póststrúktúralismi en gagna var aflað með sögulokaaðferð þar sem þátttakendur fengu upphaf að sögu sem þeir voru beðnir um að ljúka. Þátttakendur fengu ýmist söguupphaf þar sem söguhetja, sem var að fara á stefnumót, hafði grennst eða fitnað. Alls voru 72 sögur þemagreindar. Í sögum þátttakenda voru póstfemíniskar hugmyndir áberandi en fjögur þemu voru greind: (1) Líkaminn má ekki valda (honum) vonbrigðum. Þar kom fram að grannir líkamar hafa meira virði en feitir á vettvangi stefnumótamenningar og að það sé á ábyrgð sögupersónunnar að tryggja að virði hans sé sem mest. (2) Sjálfstraust og líðan tengist ánægju sögupersónu með útlit sitt. Í því þema kom fram að tilhugsunin um að fitna eða vera feit fyllti sögupersónuna kvíða og óöryggi. Þegar hún grenntist einkenndust sögurnar aftur á móti af gleði og aukinni eftirvæntingu fyrir stefnumótinu. Nokkrar sögur greindu einnig frá vonleysi sögupersónunnar þegar hún áttaði sig á því að sama hversu mikið hún grenntist þá var það aldrei nóg. (3) Líkaminn og sjálfið sem verkefni. Í því þema kom fram að vinnan og eftirlitið með líkamanum er stöðugt ferli og ekki hægt að slá slöku við. (4) Andóf gegn útlitskröfum felst í að taka líkamann í sátt. Í því þema mátti greina andóf gagnvart ríkjandi útlitskröfum, sérstaklega í sögum þar sem sögupersónan hafði fitnað. Áhersla var lögð á að gefa ríkjandi hugmyndum langt nef og taka líkama sinn í sátt. Rannsóknin gefur innsýn í flókin tengsl ungra kvenna við menningarbundnar hugmyndir um líkamann og hversu mikillar vinnu við líkamann kvenleikinn krefst af þeim. Hún sýnir einnig hversu gagnleg sögulokaaðferðin er til að fá innsýn í kynjaðar menningarbundnar hugmyndir og þau tök sem þær hafa á ungum konum.

This article discusses the significance of gender in the encounter between an injured body and cultural discourses. When young women who self-harm present bodies that deviate from the norms for what female bodies should look like, they face sanctions. Young women who injure their own bodies are affected by social discourses about expectations for women and women’s bodies, which in turn affect their gender identities. This article builds on interviews with 12 young women who injure or have injured their own bodies

This study aims to analyze the representation of social, political, and cultural discourse in the film Gadis Kretek using the Discourse-Historical Approach (DHA) developed by Ruth Wodak. This film not only presents a fictional story, but also reflects the historical conditions and socio-political dynamics of Indonesia, especially related to issues of gender inequality, class conflict, political repression, and cultural identity. This research is a qualitative study using the critical discourse analysis method. The DHA approach is used to examine the relationship between text, socio-historical context, and discourse practices. Data were collected through observation of film narratives, dialogues between characters, and visual elements containing ideological representations. The results of the study show that the film Gadis Kretek contains various discourses that reflect the reality of Indonesian society. Social discourse is seen in the representation of gender inequality and class relations. Political discourse is present through the depiction of state repression, historical silencing, and past trauma. Cultural discourse is reflected in the symbol of kretek, traditional values, and the struggle for meaning in forming a national identity. Through these three realms of discourse, this film reveals how power, ideology, and identity are reproduced and negotiated through cultural media. This study concludes that Gadis Kretek is a critical and reflective cultural text, which can be used as a tool to understand the dynamics of discourse in Indonesian society. In addition, this study also shows the effectiveness of the DHA approach in analyzing popular cultural texts that are full of socio-political and historical meanings.

In 1929, the Polish-Jewish newspaper “Nasz Przegląd” announced “Miss Judaea Contest” – Beauty Pageant exclusively for Jewish ladies. In the following year, the Yiddish newspaper “Unzer Express” launched an additional similar contest. This article focuses on two elements related to the Jewish Beauty Pageants in Interwar Poland: First, by using quantitative research methods, it reveals the esthetics and fashionable elements of the typical Jewish young women. Despite the differences between different groups in Polish Jewry, they shared similar attributes and influences which were manifested in the fashionable choices. In addition the article presents the vivid discussions that the contest aroused both in the Jewish community in Poland and in other Jewish communities abroad. The Jewish beauty pageants, as the discussions that followed, were representative of the process of change that Polish Jewry underwent in the interwar years. These pageants represented more than just pure entertainment and symbolized more than just modernity processes. For the Jewish community, as a national minority dispersed throughout Poland, such ethno-specific entertainment activities played an important role in shaping national identity.

The author, sharing the opinion of transitionologists about value turbulence in a transitional society, considers the cultural media discourse of the present time as an object of research. Propagating eternal values, it stands above all other thematic acute social discourses, is indicative precisely because of its neutrality, supra-situationality, reflexivity. The subject of the analysis is the cognitive mechanisms of axiomarkation and axioconstruction in the cultural media discourse of the transition period, the purpose of the work is to identify certain patterns of axiomarkation and axioforming. The material was published on two value–relevant events in 2023– Anastasia Ivleeva’s party and the release of the TV series “The Word of the Kid. Blood on the asphalt”, they were extracted from official sources of information, as well as from the media claiming to have unbiased coverage.Using the content analysis method, the author comes to the main conclusions: 1)in the cultural discourse of the transitive period, transition zones are formed in which other thematic discourses are localized; 2)the proportion of the presence of other thematic discourses in it and the degree of manifestation of the assessment depends on the type of media. In the official media, cultural discourse is increasingly marginalized, moving away from the supra-temporal, begins to function like highly social discourses, and rigid value categorization and structuring of information are becoming more and more clearly manifested in it. In the discourse of culture of independent media, axiomarkation and axioconstruction are carried out in a factual coordinate system; 3)the main cognitive mechanisms of value categorization are, firstly, opposition using various kinds of binary oppositions that go far beyond the sphere of culture, and secondly, staging; 4)the addressee of the cultural discourse of the transition period becomes a witness to several value programs – “old” and “new”, which are in conflict and competitive relations, while in the official media the new axiological project is spoken of as already approved and the only possible one, which is inherent in design, competitiveness.

This study examines views and experiences of young Shanghai women with respect to masturbation. Through in-depth interviews with forty young women in Shanghai aged 22 to 39 from May 2004 to July 2007, the study explores women's understandings of masturbation, their desires and their lives as modern Chinese women. The focus of the analysis is on how women talk about their masturbation experiences and make sense of their experiences in the context of their sexual relationships and lifestyle choices. By analysing women's narratives about masturbation, the paper suggests that women's self-articulation is actually an engagement in self-image construction. The strategies they use to position themselves in relation to different social discourses on masturbation, how they describe and perform the acts and how they articulate their experiences of masturbation are examined to illustrate how young women in Shanghai perform gender and sexual intimacies in a fast changing city.

The aging society and changes in living arrangements significantly impact family caregiving patterns, particularly in older spousal caregivers. This study examined how the subjectivities of older spousal caregivers have been shaped by social discourse and practices. A qualitative research approach was adopted in rural northern villages in Thailand. Data collection included 1) narrative interviews with eight older primary spousal caregivers and eight family members and neighbors, 2) in-depth interviews with ten healthcare providers, and 3) participatory observation. Both thematic and inductive methods of data analysis were applied. The finding demonstrated three distinct subjectivities regarding caregivers: older persons, medical, and sociocultural discourse. Medical and older people’s discourses influenced negative subjectivity on older caregivers regarding their physical decline with age; however, positive subjectivity of being a compassionate and capable caregiver was regarded as a valuable role. The findings reflected the changing sociocultural discourse in the northern region of Thailand. A caregiver is perceived as kon jàa, which refers to the committed role of both wife and husband, who care for their spouse for the rest of their lives. The implications of this study can benefit community-based care systems by enhancing the understanding of social and cultural discourse on caring and couplehood and incorporating caregiver needs into the care plan of older people with chronic illnesses.

Body Image and Televised Images of Thinness and Attractiveness: A Controlled Laboratory Investigation

Respite. Quiet. A House of Dreams.

This article explores constructions of risk and safety in the leisure lives of young women. Drawing upon qualitative data from two action research projects based in the north-east of England, we analyse the risk narratives of two groups of young women, one white and one South Asian, in order to ground theoretical perspectives on risk. Adopting an interdisciplinary approach, we address the ways in which risk emotions, risk calculations and management strategies are perceived as embodied, temporal and spatially located, arguing that risk is also deeply embedded in social and cultural discourses around female ‘respectability’. Young women share some common risk perceptions and experiences, in particular linked to male violence, many choosing to inhabit inside ‘safe’ spaces for leisure. What is also clear is that taking a risk can be a fun and desirable aspect of leisurely activity, ‘risky’ behaviour providing a way for young women to negotiate and contest dominant discourses around feminine, cultural identities.

Reviewed by: Cinema and Social Discourse in Cameroon Françoise Pfaff Tcheuyap, Alexie , ed. 2005. Cinema and Social Discourse in Cameroon. Bayreuth, Germany: Bayreuth African Studies. 342 pp. Indigenous sub-Saharan African filmmaking began some fifty years ago. Initially studied within historical, sociopolitical, cultural, linguistic, or thematic paradigms, it was analyzed later from semiotic, structuralist, postmodern, and postcolonial perspectives. A number of books and journals have treated films by Cameroonian directors, but no volume on Cameroon appeared in the country series on African cinema edited by Victor Bachy in the 1980s and 1990s, and the only book on Cameroonian cinema was Guy Jérémie Ngansop's Le cinéma camerounais en crise (1987). [End Page 97] Cinema and Social Discourse in Cameroon, edited by Alexie Tcheuyap, professor of French and Francophone Studies at the University of Calgary, Canada, brings a timely contribution, especially on post-1980 films. The collection includes fourteen articles, most previously unpublished, by African and Western specialists in various fields. Tcheuyap's introduction describes the precariousness of Cameroonian film production and distribution under postcolonial autocratic governments intolerant of spoken, printed or cinematic challenges. Emphasizing the lack of coherent cultural policy and infrastructure such as film schools or postproduction facilities, Tcheuyap states that "producing a film in Cameroon, as in many African countries, is still something of a miracle" (p. 2). Films selected for inclusion were directed by Cameroonians, consider Cameroon as a category of analysis, or were filmed there. The chapters "attempt to address the aesthetic, ideological, and social problems related to images and their political significance in what is left of this rich country" (p. 4). Opening the first section, "The State, Images and Cultural Discourses," Gilbert Doho establishes a clear delineation between two groups of Cameroonian directors: (1) A self-censoring first generation, including Jean Pierre Dikongue-Pipa, Daniel Kamwa, and Alphonse Beni, that produced propagandistic documentaries celebrating the "father of the nation" or the prowess of soccer players, politically benign feature films on marriage and the dowry, and escapist action movies—all of which "refused to engage with burning national issues. This cinema was the site of a vicious collaboration between the state and independent filmmakers" (p. 22). (2) A second generation—Jean-Pierre Bekolo, Bassek Ba Kobhio, Jean-Marie Teno, and others "who deliberately use the camera not only to decolonize the gaze but also to deconstruct neocolonial political monsters" (p. 29). In contrast to the older, "apolitical" or "amnesic" directors, they question the past and present, and contribute to national reconstruction. Bole Butake explores local and cable television shows and the impact that imported Hollywood, Bollywood, Nigerian video, and Latin American telenovela productions have had on viewers' expectations. In the field of television, Butake foresees the success of private enterprise over government-sponsored initiatives. In contrast to these studies, other chapters consider individual films that, for multiple reasons, are screened more often at African, European, and U.S. festivals than in Cameroon, where U.S., French, and Asian movies predominate, except for an occasional commercial success, like Kamwa's Pousse Pousse (1975). Using semiotics and postmodern Western theories, Boulou E. de B'béri provides an interesting explanation of Duala cultural connotations in Dikongue-Pipa's Muna Moto (1975). Edmond Mfaboum keenly investigates self-censorship, "social cries," and "political silences" in the early films of Kamwa and Dikongue-Pipa. [End Page 98] In section two, "Postcolonial (De)Constructions," Jonathan Haynes and P. Julie Papaioannou offer informative postcolonial explorations of stylistically innovative works by Bekolo: Quartier Mozart (1992) and Aristotle's Plot (1996). Alain Patrice Nganang skillfully analyzes Teno's documentaries and feature films as "essays on power and authority in postcolonial Africa" (p. 140), and Sheila Petty aptly explores Teno'suse of space and camera angle as expressive vehicles in Clando (1996). Tcheuyap presents an innovative discussion of the occult in Bekolo's Quartier Mozart and Kamwa's Le cercle des pouvoirs (1997). He concludes that Kamwa "reveals the dark side of modernity and the invisible dynamics at work in the (dis)function of the postcolonial state, a veritable witch state" (p. 190). In the third section, "Writing Back and Theoretical Challenges," Sarah B. Buchanan convincingly demonstrates Bekolo's untraditional cinematic...

This chapter examines Yung Vilne (Young Vilna, 1929–1940). In the decade preceding the outbreak of the Second World War, a group of young, unknown Yiddish poets, writers, and artists helped turn Vilna into the dominant Yiddish cultural centre in Poland. These young men and women, the majority of them from Vilna itself or its neighbouring towns, emerged at a moment when Jewish Vilna's culture was defined by its commitment to Yiddish culture and youth. Drawn together under the rubric Yung Vilne, the group synthesized the aspirations of individual members for artistic experimentation and freedom of expression with a collective concern for the social, political, and cultural life of the city. In doing so, Yung Vilne earned the distinction of being both the last of the major Yiddish avant-garde movements in inter-war Poland, and the literary group most evocative of the pressures of time and place.

Recently, an increasing number of students have been seeking international education to accumulate cosmopolitan cultural and social capital and realise upward social mobility. In addition to this pragmatic dimension, international education also enables international students to acquire dedicated cosmopolitan dispositions, providing them opportunities to appreciate diverse cultures, values, and gain intercultural/translocal learning experiences. Guided by a theoretical discussion on pragmatic and dedicated cosmopolitanism, this study employed the case study method to explore how 19 international students who studied in Chinese universities navigated their transnational mobility, academic learning, and social lives, and how multiple discourses in their transnational spaces influenced their development of dedicated cosmopolitan dispositions. The findings revealed that international educational programme arrangements, social discourses regarding accruing capital and upward social mobility, and cultural and educational discourses in transnational spaces converged to influence students’ development of dedicated cosmopolitan dispositions, affecting their emotions, practices, and choices. This study suggests that actors in international education provide students with more opportunities to connect with the host society and dialogical spaces. Not only international students, but all actors should engage in constant dialogue, and strive to acquire dedicated cosmopolitan dispositions, and promote a socially and culturally inclusive educational environment to support international students’ learning and well-being.

Valikuvoimalus (Option to Choose) is a 1978 novel by the prolific Estonian writer Aimee Beekman. The novel tells the story of Regina, a schoolteacher approaching her thirtieth birthday who feels the need to start a family. Not able to find a suitable husband, she marries the village drunkard but, to ensure her children will be healthy, she decides to procreate with other men, alpha-males with clean medical records. This article tries to map the tumultuous dynamics of the reception of the novel and to explain it in terms of the rhetorical ethics developed by James Phelan. The first part of the article, “A story of a freakish unwoman”, describes the first wave of reception. Reviewers were almost unanimously hostile and the novel was declared a failure. This can be explained by the unavoidable intertwining of the ethical and aesthetic aspects of any given literary work. Largely due to the social conventions in Estonia in the 1970s, the scheming protagonist was considered cold and almost inhuman. Thus the outraged reviewers were more inclined to judge the entire book negatively. This is contrasted by the more open-minded German reception (the translation was published in 1983), where Regina was often described as a pleasant and adventurous young woman. The second part of the article, “A model novel full of spirit”, describes a change in the reception. At the end of the decade, a boom in “everyday novels” emerged in Estonia. Due to thematic similarities, Option to Choose was often compared to them: many of these books featured young women who faced problems with weak, uneducated men, often alcoholics, and tried different strategies to deal with the situation. However, the everyday novels were generally considered simplistic and vulgar. Against that background, the model-like, conceptual nature of Option to Choose became evident and appreciated. Using Phelan’s terms, the novel was now rightly perceived as a didactic rather than mimetic piece of work; the contrast highlighted the different – and strong – ethical implications. The new basis of comparison worked in favour of the book. The third part, “A feminist manifesto (?)”, describes how Beekman's novel has lately been included in textbooks and literary histories. In a way, the understanding of the book has now been turned upside down: the feminist or emancipatory aspect is highlighted and glorified. However, this is a problematic notion since it is doubtful whether Regina is either an emancipated woman or a positive character. The novel’s relation to the emancipation discourse is complicated and ambivalent; the (implied) author’s ethical stance is difficult to pin down. According to Phelan, this is a big risk for the author: the reader expects to be able to detect an authorial position; otherwise, the message will be unclear and the work might be considered a failure. At the same time, the author shouldn’t be too judgemental or pedagogical because this, too, will discourage readers. Paradoxically, from the perspective of the current reader, Beekman seems to have made both mistakes at the same time: her style is moralistic, but the moral itself is unclear. The story of Option to Choose and its reception thus vividly illustrate the interaction of ethics and aesthetics in the reception of a literary work. Different social and literary situations produce fundamentally different readings and also fundamentally different opinions on the quality of a book. An unclear authorial stance only enhances the variety of differences.