Introduction

This paper explores the influence and reflection of the French writer Henri Barbusse’s literary and sociopolitical activities within the Georgian cultural space. It presents a comparative analysis of his works and how they were perceived in Soviet Georgia. Henri Barbusse emerged in the literary field in the 1890s as a symbolist poet, later becoming the author of neo-naturalist novels and psychological short stories, as well as a publicist and political figure. World War I radically transformed his worldview. He volunteered for the front in 1914 as a true pacifist. The social-economic crises and the subsequent rise of fascism convinced him that there was no visible solution – thus he turned his hopes toward the events unfolding in the first socialist state, Soviet Russia. The paper analyzes Barbusse’s impressions of his travels in Georgia and the Georgian translations of his works. It also evaluates how the Georgian press reacted to his writing and visits. In the late 1920s, the Soviet authorities made particular efforts to attract Western intellectuals and cultural figures in order to portray socialism as a global success. Barbusse was one of the first intellectuals to depict the Soviet Union as the symbol of a “new world.” His literary and publicist activities contributed to the reinforcement of Soviet socialism. His deep ties to communist ideo- logy are clearly reflected in his works; however, at the same time, he also vividly portrays the brutal reality of imperialist militarism. At that time, speaking out against war was considered a betrayal of national interests and provoked nationalist outrage – such as in the case of Jean Jaurès’ assassination. Barbusse was one of the first in European literature to depict the cruelty of war in his novel Le Feu (Under Fire) and psychological stories, revealing the harsh and absurd conditions on the frontlines. Barbusse’s travelogue “This is What They Did to Georgia,” written after his October 1927 visit to Georgia, unfortunately does not objectively reflect the ideological pressure and dire socio-economic conditions in the country at the time. Party workers accompanied him everywhere, providing fabricated and glorified reports of success. The text contains inaccuracies about the First Democratic Republic of Georgia, which can be considered slanderous. The Georgian intelligentsia was divided in response to his visit: supporters of the Soviet regime (Platon Kikodze, Silibistro Todria, Tedo Sakhokia, Aristo Chumbadze) endorsed Barbusse’s evaluations and believed in the restoration of justice and equality under the Soviet system. Opponents, including émigrés (e.g., David Sharashidze), harshly criticized him, while others avoided expressing opinions. These differing attitudes influenced how his works were translated and interpreted, and how his political and literary contributions were addressed in essays and critiques. Barbusse’s novel Le Feu (Under Fire) was first translated into Georgian in 1923 by Tedo Sakhokia (with a second edition in 1930). His short stories were translated by Aristo Chumbadze in 1930, successfully capturing the tone and style of the original. Barbusse’s poetic vocabulary, use of antithesis, grotesque, irony, and sarcasm were preserved. Aristo Chumbadze, a brilliant stylist, produced translations that are both natural and refined, maintaining syntactical harmony with the original. During the 1950s–1970s, Barbusse’s 1914 collection of psychological short stories drew attention from Georgian writers and readers. The stories are grouped around themes: 1. Fate; 2. Mad love; 3. Compassion. Many translations were published in Tbilisi-based and regional journals and newspapers. Roena Kenia’s translations such as La Tendresse, Hallali, Le Vrai Juge (The True Judge), Le Premier Amour (First Love), and Le Frère (The Brother)—are noted for their artistic quality and fidelity to the original. The paper also presents a typological analysis comparing Henri Barbusse’s and Sergo Kldiashvili’s attitudes toward World War I and their respective works: Barbusse’s novel Under Fire and story “One Weeps, Another Laughs,” with Kldiashvili’s Ashes and “The Goblin Boys.” Regrettably, Henri Barbusse failed to see the persecution of the Georgian intelligentsia and the ideological control over culture. He contributed to the integration of Georgian literature into socialist aesthetics and brought Georgian writers closer to European proletarian literature. Barbusse did not envision any better way out of the crisis of his time and blindly believed that democracy could only be expanded through revolution. Nevertheless, it must be emphasized that his novel Under Fire is an anti-war work that no political agenda can justify. His psychological stories are not ideologically driven; rather, they are filled with compassion for humanity and a deep desire to reveal human nature and promote goodness.

Most literary scholars believe that Irish literary nationalism originated in the 1840s with the Young Ireland movement. Mary Helen Thuente sets out to refute this claim and to demonstrate that Irish literary nationalism began instead with the United Irish movement of the 1790s. By re-evaluating the writings associated with the United Irish movement, their context within the culture, and their impact on subsequent Irish nationalistic writing, the author establishes that the movement played a pivotal role in the development of Irish literary nationalism. She provides balance in her treatment of elite and popular cultures, salvages information previously ignored by critics, and invites readers to look anew at the history and propaganda of the movement. The United Irishmen began as a club of parliamentary reformers in Belfast in 1791. Influenced by the French Revolution and related movements, these sons of the Enlightenment became ever more radical. Within five or six years, what had been a small club of intellectuals and political agitators resulted in a mass movement (largely composed of middle-class extremists) that was committed to overthrowing British rule in Ireland. This group published a substantial amount of verse and satire in their newspapers and produced four songbooks (Paddy's Resource), which represented an important stage in the evolution of Irish literary nationalism. Their literary endeavours synthesised multiple aspects of the 18th-century culture, including English literary tradition, Celticism and antiquarianism, political literature, music and popular culture. The pluralistic conception of Irish culture and society embodied in United Irish literary nationalism challenges the increasingly xenophobic and sectarian nationalism that developed in the course of the 19th century. The conventional view of this group overlooks their literary contributions and thus the full significance of their cause. Thuente seeks to recover both the writings associated with the United Irishmen and the cultural contexts to their movement to demonstrate that the literary contribution was as significant as their political effect. By making available to scholars an impressive array of little-known material, the author calls for a reassessment of the origins of Irish national literature.

<i>Cultural Capital</i>: Reflections from a Latin Americanist

Poor air quality in Utah creates an array of economic, environmental, and health-related impacts that merit investigation and informed political responses. Air pollution is known to cause a variety of health problems, ranging from increased rates of asthma to cardiovascular and lung disease. Our research investigates the extent of Utahn’s understanding of the health risks associated with long-term and short-term impacts of air quality. To assess the degree to which Utahn’s perceive the health risks of air pollution, we performed an ordinal logistic regression analysis using responses to the Utah Air Quality Risk and Behavioral Action Survey, a representative panel survey administered between November 2018 and January 2020 (n = 1160), to determine how socioeconomic status impacts risk perception. Socioeconomic status is not a predictor of perceiving air’s short-term risks to health. Those with more conservative political orientation, as well as those with higher religiosity scores, were less likely than those with more liberal political orientation or those with lower religiosity scores to strongly agree that air pollution poses short-term health risks. We find that for short-term health risks from air pollution, Utahns in the middle-income category are more likely than those in the low-income category to strongly agree that air pollution poses long-term health risks. In addition, those with more conservative political orientation were less likely than those with more liberal political orientation to strongly agree that air pollution poses long-term health risks.

A large body of research shows that police officers hold more conservative political orientations than the general population, both across countries and over time. Studies seeking to explain this phenomenon report inconclusive findings. This paper studies two possible explanations: self-selection of politically conservative individuals into the police force (selection hypothesis) and growing conservatism over the course of police work (occupational socialization hypothesis). We focus on Germany, a police force with an authoritarian history and extensive modernization in the past decades, thereby representing an important case study for the long-term interplay between conservative political orientation and police service. For our analysis, we are relying on longitudinal data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP), a large-scale representative panel study of German households, covering the years 1984–2020. In line with previous research, our results show that the police force differs significantly from individuals in other occupations as well as the general population, reporting more politically conservative attitudes in left–right self-placement and stronger identification with conservative parties. Furthermore, we find evidence that selection effects contribute to attitudinal differences in party orientation.

Even though conspiracy theories are diverse, they are typically construed as a homogeneous phenomenon. Using classic theorizations of conspiracy theories by Popper and Moscovici, we propose to distinguish between belief in upward conspiracy theories (i.e., targeting relatively powerful groups) and downward conspiracy theories (i.e., targeting relatively powerless groups). The former are theorized as power‐challenging beliefs and the latter are theorized as being underpinned by conservative ideology. Across three studies conducted in Belgium (totalN = 2363), we show that these two types of conspiracy beliefs indeed relate differently to power‐challenging attitudes (i.e., political extremism, feelings of leadership breakdown) and conservative ideology. Specifically, upward conspiracy beliefs were characterized by a U‐shaped relationship with political orientation (i.e., an “extremism” bias), and a strong relationship with feelings of leadership breakdown. By contrast, downward conspiracy beliefs were strongly associated with conservative ideology. Both types of conspiracy beliefs were, however, positively correlated.

Although C. S. Lewis (1898-1963) achieved a level of popularity as a fiction writer, literary scholars have tended to view him as a minor figure working in an insignificant genre-science fiction-or have pigeonholed him as a Christian apologist and moralist. In C. S. Lewis in Context, Doris T. Myers places his work in the literary milieu of his times and the public context of language rather than in the private realm of personal habits or relationships. A central debate early in the 20th century concerned the nature of language: was it primarily objective and empirical, as Charles K. Ogden and Ivor A. Richards argued in The Meaning of Meaning, or essentially metaphorical and impressionistic, the approach of Owen Garfield in Poetic Diction? Lewis espoused the latter theory and integrated it into the purpose and style of his fiction. Myers therefore argues that he was not out of touch with his time as some critics claim, but a 20th-century literary figure engaged in the issues of his day. New readings of many of Lewis's best known works reflect this linguistic approach. For example, Myers analyzes The Pilgrim's Regress (1933) in terms of a distinction between archetypal and individual metaphor to highlight the work's strengths and weaknesses. Instead of interpreting That Hideous Strength (1945) conventionally as a defense of Christianity, she reformulates the debate as that of language the facilitator of rule versus language the instrument of tyranny. She also draws a new parallel between the Chronicles of Narnia and Spenser's Faerie Queen, showing that they are modeled on similar heroic ideals and narrative technique. Out of the Silent Planet (1938), Perelandra (1943), and Till We Have Faces (1956) are discussed in a new light as well. By approaching Lewis's fiction through the linguistic controversies of his day, Myers not only develops a new framework within which to evaluate his works, but also clarifies his literary contributions. This valuable study will appeal to literary and linguistic scholars as well as to general enthusiasts of Lewis's fiction.

Pyarichand Mitra (1816–1883), a pioneering figure of the Bengal Renaissance and an early architect of Bengali prose fiction, played a significant role in shaping the cultural and educational landscape of nineteenth-century Bengal. This study critically examines the impact of Pyarichand Mitra’s writings on the curriculum and pedagogical practices of Bengali schools, tracing how his literary contributions helped transform the medium and content of formal education during and after his lifetime. By foregrounding secular themes, social realism, and colloquial Bengali in works such as Alaler Gharer Dulal, Pyarichand Mitra challenged the dominance of classical and Sanskritized learning, promoting instead a vernacular-based curriculum that reflected everyday social experience and middle-class aspirations. Through a historical-analytical methodology, the research evaluates curricular archives, early Bengali textbooks, and educational reports to assess the integration of Pyarichand Mitra’s works into school syllabi and language instruction. The findings indicate that his influence extended beyond literary selection; it fostered modern pedagogical shifts—encouraging comprehension-based learning, moral education through relatable narratives, and enhanced student engagement with prose literature. Even in contemporary curricula, Pyarichand Mitra’s presence signifies the continuity of a pedagogical legacy rooted in cultural identity and literary modernity. Ultimately, the study argues that Pyarichand Mitra was not merely a literary innovator but a transformative educational reformer whose writings substantially contributed to the democratization of knowledge and the evolution of Bengali school education.

Political orientation is an individual's preference for a particular style of government, often conceptualised through the left-right (liberal-conservative) axis. Previous studies suggest that the dark tetrad personality traits psychopathy, Machiavellianism, sadism, and narcissism may be positively associated with conservative political orientation. However, because these effect sizes in primary studies are heterogeneous, the present systematic review aimed to assess the relationships between dark tetrad traits and political orientation using meta-analysis. In total, 28 studies were identified that reported zero-order correlations between at least one dark tetrad trait and political orientation. Findings showed no associations between political orientation and psychopathy, narcissism, or Machiavellianism. Although sadism was very weakly associated with political orientation (r = 0.10), this estimate was derived from few samples (k = 5). Neither sample (student vs general), political orientation measure (single- vs multiple-item), or political orientation construct (liberalism vs conservatism) significantly moderated the association between psychopathy and political orientation, but limited evidence suggested that the dark trait scale used did. Limitations included poor measurement of political orientation, reliance on self-report for measuring dark tetrad traits, and largely western samples, which future studies should address. In conclusion, the dark tetrad is mostly unrelated to political orientation.

Reviewed by: “Who Needs Irish?” Reflections on the Importance of the Irish Language Today Brian Ó Conchubhair “Who Needs Irish?” Reflections on the Importance of the Irish Language Today, ed. Ciarán Mac Murchaidh ( Dublin: Veritas Publications, 2004), 192 pp. $21.95. Distributed by Irish Books and Media, Minneapolis, MN. The Irish language, it seems, provides endless disputes, ranging from the language's official status in the European Union, the construction of apartment complexes for English-speakers, the banning of Anglicized place-names in The Gaeltacht, the private schools doling out exemptions to opt out of Irish examinations, to the declining numbers studying higher-level Irish. If the language if not widely spoken, it is nonetheless widely debated. The arrival of 'Who Needs Irish?' Reflections on the Importance of the Irish Language Today, edited by Ciarán Mac Murchaidh, a lecturer at St. Patrick's College, Dublin, is both timely and welcome. Mac Murchaidh's introduction contends that two debates currently exist about the Irish language: a sporadic debate in English and a persistent debate in Irish. Who Needs Irish? focuses on the contemporary importance of Irish. The basic premise underpinning Who Needs Irish? is the "intrinsic worth in preserving the Irish language for ourselves, for our children and for all generations still to come—and that is the greatest challenge of all." Thirteen essayists explore what it means to be an Irish speaker, both in the Republic and in Northern Ireland; several, notably Alan Titley and Breandán Ó Doibhlin, explain why there is a need for Irish. Titley candidly and uncompromisingly argues that language is central to identity. For Titley, "if 'Irish' identity is to mean anything at all, it must mean something in the first place." Titley's key essay is one that every aspiring Irish Studies student would do well to read and genuinely consider, before regurgitating the clichés of Ascroft et al. in the topic sentence of their opening paragraphs. The length style, and tone of the articles varies widely: some are brief and clear-cut, while others, such as Ó Doibhlinn, are somber and complex. Donncha Ó hÉallaithe provides an excellent, if brief, overview of efforts to revive Irish in the twentieth century. Recalling his youth as a native-speaker in Donegal, Lillis Ó Laoire suggests that for Ireland to exist as a postcolonial entity "we need to learn how to do it better; to improve teaching; to realize that teaching alone is not enough to build bilingual communities; to shed our myopic monolithic [End Page 156] attachment to 'English only' together with our fear and suspicion of the Irish other." One of the more successful articles is Pádraig Ó Mianáin's critique of what it means to be "an ordinary man with ordinary interest" in Northern Ireland, where Irish is often perceived as "the language of the bomb and bullet." Lorcán Mac Gabhann contributes a useful discussion of the bias against Gaelscoileanna (all-Irish "charter" schools) exhibited by the Teachers' Union and the Catholic Primary School Management Association, which see the dramatic growth in such schools as a threat to the status quo. Anna Heusaff describes the interaction of recent refugees into Ireland and the language, and, in doing so breathes a welcome note of inclusiveness into a book where the pronoun "we" is used extensively, but often without much consideration. The literary contributions are the strongest in the volume. Scholars will revel in frank and enlightening articles by Éilís Ní Dhuibhne and Gabriel Rosenstock. Ní Dhuibhne's "Why Would Anyone Write in Irish" represents a major scoop for the editor; this essay alone makes the collection worth purchasing. Rosenstock's essay, "How I Discovered Irish or How Irish Discovered Me" offers those unfamiliar with his work an insight into the most prolific poet in modern Irish, a man of wide and catholic literary taste. Máirín Nic Eoin reviews Cathal Ó Searcaigh's poetry to examine hybridity in Irish language culture. Her reading of "Idir Dhá Theanga" serves as a wonderful introduction for anyone unfamiliar with her literary scholarship in Irish. Given the polarized and stereotyped nature of debate surrounding the Irish language, Who Needs Irish? makes the case for Irish. The...

INTRODUCTION

Reviewed by: Tillie Olsen and the Dialectical Philosophy of Proletarian Literature by Anthony Dawahare Jennifer Forsberg TILLIE OLSEN AND THE DIALECTICAL PHILOSOPHY OF PROLETARIAN LITERATURE, by Anthony Dawahare. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2018. 148 pp. $90.00 cloth; $85.50 ebook. In Tillie Olsen and the Dialectical Philosophy of Proletarian Literature, Anthony Dawahare presents the "intellectual milieu" of proletarian literature in the twentieth century and aims to "disclose, historicize, and analyze" dialectical materialism in Tillie Olsen's work and legacy (pp. 9, xii). The book identifies Olsen as a representative author of proletarian literature, tracing the evolution of her writing alongside changing socialist thought. Dawahare emphasizes the every-day application of abstract philosophical ideas and connects them to feminist, Marxist, and humanist interventions both in Olsen's work and across public discourse more generally. This focus fully realizes the sophistication of Olsen's literary contributions, drawing on her fiction and poetry to "demystify" the academic discourse surrounding Marxist theory for both "casual readers and scholars alike" (pp. xvi, xii). Dawahare's approach to Olsen's body of work dedicates extensive time to unpacking the philosophical, political, and artistic context of proletarian literature. The first chapter, "Proletarian Literature and Dialectical Theory," is dense with social history but provides a purposeful introduction to the "omnipresence and importance of dialectical theory within the proletarian literary movement" as it existed in Olsen's 1930s (p. 2). Dawahare admits the challenging scope and attempts to distill the unruly content, covering both a broad philosophical history as well as an occasionally contentious critical treatment of theory and praxis by scholars. In several areas Dawahare substitutes breadth with quotes by major players, which tends to overwhelm and disorient the focus of the chapter. This in turn limits Dawahare's curation and close reading—two considerable strengths in subsequent chapters. Regardless, Dawahare is able to sift through concepts to advance a central definition to both the book and to Olsen's work: that the dialectic is an agent of change, "internal to social systems," able to use "contradiction as the motor of development" (pp. 11, 19). As a literary scholar, Dawahare utilizes a wealth of specialized literary discourses, drawing heavily on the work of Marxist critics such as Georg Lukács. Despite field-specific additions, the writing remains accessible, framed through a multi-disciplinary lens that successfully transforms the abstraction of theory into material application. Recognizing the dialectic-as-change as a key technique of proletarian writing, Dawahare demonstrates the ability of literary experimentation in the 1930s to expose "the systemic determinations of working-class life" (p. 35). The first of Dawahare's compelling and illustrative close readings analyzes Olsen's early work Yonnondio: From the Thirties (1974). Dawahare marks Olsen's [End Page 173] literary growth within literary debates of representation, most significantly the charged use of working-class representation as a feature of the opposing views of proletarian and modernist projects. Dawahare highlights the importance of literature's subject-object conflict in dialectical study, providing a foundation for the overall goal of the monograph: to denote how powerfully Olsen synthesized political debates within both the content and form of her art. At the core of the book is an examination of Olsen's work through the philosophy and technique of dialectical materialism. Dawahare's critical approach to Olsen's work clearly and deliberately historicizes the political thinking that influenced dialectical critique, as well as illustrates the development of new ideas within socialist thought and how they transformed mid-twentieth century narratives. This practice is well exemplified by Olsen's mid-century collection Tell Me A Riddle (1961). Dawahare's careful close readings of the stories "Tell Me a Riddle" (1960) and "Hey, Sailor, What Ship" (1957) especially provide clear indication that a dialectical style can articulate the universal condition of the exploited. By showcasing how Olsen "[reconnects] the fragment of experience," Dawahare effortlessly identifies proletarian literature's direct assault on modernist alienation in an effort to "comprehend reality" (p. 71). Dawahare's analysis of Tell Me A Riddle has command over both the literary text and the political contexts of the postwar as they are represented in art. Dawahare rightfully champions Tell Me A Riddle as...

Conservative ideology, broadly speaking, has been widely linked to greater happiness and meaning in life. Is that true of all forms of a good life? We examined whether a psychologically rich life is associated with political orientation, system justification, and Protestant work ethic, independent of two other traditional forms of a good life: a happy life and a meaningful life. Participants completed a questionnaire that assessed conservative worldviews and three aspects of well-being (N = 583 in Study 1; N = 348 in Study 2; N = 436 in Study 3; N = 1,217 in Study 4; N = 2,176 in Study 5; N = 516 in Study 6). Happiness was associated with political conservatism and system justification, and meaning in life was associated with Protestant work ethic. In contrast, zero-order correlations showed that psychological richness was not associated with conservative worldviews. However, when happiness and meaning in life were included in multiple regression models, the nature of the association shifted: Psychological richness was consistently inversely associated with system justification and on average less political conservatism, suggesting that happiness and meaning in life were suppressor variables. These findings suggest that happiness and meaning in life are associated with conservative ideology, whereas psychological richness is not.

women's participation in the struggle against apartheid. It is one which erroneously assumes that women, who must undertake almost complete responsibility for the welfare and survival of their families, are so limited by being passive, nurturing and motherly that they cannot at the same time be powerful, independent and politically active. Breaking the Silence, A Century of South African Women's Verse (Lockett 1991) forwards the cause of self-definition for the women and mothers of South Africa. The insight it provides into the political commitment and social orientation of women helps dispel the myth of Mother Africa, which, as editor Cecily Lockett describes it, seldom allows for any role other than those of wife and mother for the black woman, who continues to be a prisoner of gender, defined only in terms of black men. Similarly, the emphasis on courage, determination, and survival as positive qualities inherent in black women tends to glamorize their real suffering and oppression as, in many cases, sole breadwinner of single-parent families (1988, 35). Perhaps that underestimation of the power of South African women can be dispelled in light of their literary contributions, which are now surfacing with increasing momentum. The role of South African women in society, as seen in Cecily Lockett's anthology, Breaking the Silence, A Century of South African Women's Verse, is all encompassing and inherently proactive. With the slow dismantling of apartheid and rising hopes for reform in South Africa, sexual equality is becoming an issue of national attention as well (Nolawe 1992, 23-25). Not quite surprising, yet still amazing, is the fact that every single black woman poet in the modern period of Lockett's anthology focuses on the theme of mothers or the condition of motherhood in black South Africa-or at least mentions motherhood as a vehicle of resistance. As the spirit of social change and reform takes hold on the continent of Africa, women are not necessarily defining new roles for themselves. Instead, women's demand for power centers around active participation and a stronger voice in the decision-making processes that shape society. An African mother must, by necessity, be an

Richard Millet a été pendant de nombreuses années un écrivain confidentiel. Mais au tournant du siècle, il est devenu l'une des figures littéraires majeures du politiquement incorrect. Le but de cet article est de retracer son parcours et de montrer la corrélation entre l'évolution de sa position dans le champ littéraire (selon la terminologie définie par Bourdieu) et les transformations d'une parole qui aura gagné en liberté. Richard Millet a toujours été réticent devant le postmodernisme et les choix culturels et politiques de la France et ses premiers textes en témoignent, mais il s'agit de voir comment ses écrits ont pu être plus incisifs, plus combatifs à mesure qu'il étendait son pouvoir dans le monde des lettres. Dès lors, nous intégrons la question du politiquement incorrect dans le cadre plus large des stratégies de reconnaissance qui amènent l'un des plus écrivains les plus critiques sur son époque à participer à un jeu de rôles par lequel une position intellectuelle et posture médiatisée se rejoignent.