Black Figures Research Articles

Born Again Black Panther: Race, Christian Conservatism, and the Remaking of Eldridge Cleaver

ABSTRACTWhen Eldridge Cleaver, the former Black Panther Party Minister of Information, returned to the United States in November 1975, he claimed to have surrendered his life to Christ and conservatism. Utilizing the Eldridge Cleaver Papers housed at the Bancroft Library, this article recounts the transformation of Eldridge Cleaver from radical Black Panther to born-again Christian and anticommunist crusader. Cleaver's story of transformation demonstrates the pervasive power of the twentieth-century crusade against communism and the manner in which American conservatism created distinct categories of race that were written on the mind, body, religious belief, and practice of Eldridge Cleaver. This article highlights how conservatives enacted a program of racial respectability, remaking Eldridge in the image of conservative, capitalist, Christian whiteness. Cleaver was stripped of his “blackness,” a conservative effort to distance him from the “volatile black figures” of the mid-twentieth century. If Cleaver held on to any vestige of his old life—his leather jacket, “regional euphemisms,” liberationist ideology, and even his Afro hairstyle—his new life would be useless to conservatives. This article illustrates how Cleaver participated in a global crusade that sought to maintain and extend the unifying commitments of twentieth-century religious conservatism. Those commitments included (1) the commercial, economic, and political interests that produced, funded, and policed conservatism; (2) traditional white, middle-class family values; and (3) political, racial, gendered, and religious understandings of the citizen subject. Eldridge Cleaver and his anticommunist crusade are windows into the distinct categories of religion, politics, and race—Christianity, conservatism, and white respectability—constructed and enacted by American conservatives in the twentieth century.

"For the Undefeated": The 2020 Lion and the Unicorn Award for Excellence in North American Poetry

"For the Undefeated":The 2020 Lion and the Unicorn Award for Excellence in North American Poetry Krystal Howard (bio), Catherine Kyle (bio), and Rachel L. Rickard Rebellino (bio) Winner: Kwame Alexander. The Undefeated. Illustrated by Kadir Nelson. Versify, 2019. Honor Books: Nikki Grimes. Ordinary Hazards: A Memoir. WordSong, 2019. Aida Salazar. The Moon Within. Scholastic, 2019. Patrice Vecchione and Alyssa Raymond, editors. Ink Knows No Borders: Poems of the Immigrant and Refugee Experience. Seven Stories P, 2019. Though many of the works of poetry published for young readers in 2019 were imaginative, engaging, and delightful, a few stood out as particularly excellent contributions to the larger field. Written by both veteran and debut poets, these works—picture books, memoirs in verse, verse novels, and collections of voices for all ages—by and large sought to bear witness to our unique moment in history, and to celebrate, in the words of our winner, "the undefeated." The poetry published in 2019 was part of a larger project undertaken by poets seeking to reflect upon and recover histories, cultures, traumas, and triumphs of the past. Speaking of the blurry line between poetry and politics, Major Jackson asserts in his introduction to The Best American Poetry 2019 that "poets today write in the wake of a long tradition of resistance in American poetry. They heed the ethical imperative to [End Page 317] bear witness, to speak out, to advocate for social and economic equality, to combat the forces of various '-isms,' yet not at the expense of artful language or a loyalty to self—a duality of purpose that is consistent from generation to generation" (xxviii–xxix). While Jackson's comments are focused specifically on poets writing for adults, his assessment holds true for poets writing for young readers as well, who—as is evidenced by the works published this year—are very clearly working in that same rich tradition of resistance. Our winner this year is Kwame Alexander's The Undefeated, a powerful poem—an ode in picture book form—illustrated by Kadir Nelson in his signature figurative-style oil paintings against white backgrounds. Winner of the 2020 Caldecott Medal and a Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award, as well as a Newbery Honor, The Undefeated is striking not only narratively and visually, but also poetically. The poem makes use of anaphora, intertextuality, repetition, imagery, and lyricism, examining the African American experience throughout history and into the present moment. It is, as the book's dust jacket proclaims, "a love letter to America. To black America," creating a woven tapestry and celebration of Black history, resilience, and joy. This love letter, as both a poem and a picture book, aches to be read aloud–a plea which is not lost on Alexander, who includes a link to an audio version of the poem on the copyright page. Across the book as a whole and within individual double-page spreads, Alexander's poetry and Nelson's images create a collage of the past and present. Many of Nelson's illustrations are literal collages of notable figures from Black history and culture, as when artists and writers such as Romare Bearden, Zora Neal Hurston, Phillis Wheatley, and Langston Hughes mingle across two pages. The figures are identified in The Undefeated's substantive paratextual material, which provides details about the people and events depicted in the book's pages. Alexander's poetry similarly pulls together the writings of Black figures, highlighting this intertextuality through the use of italics and capitalization. He utilizes words from Frantz Fanon made famous during the Civil Rights Movement by Malcom X as he writes that the poem is for "the ones who survived / America / by any means necessary" (emphasis original), accompanied by an image of an unnamed family. Langston Hughes's poem "Weary Blues" is juxtaposed with Nelson's illustration of a Black Union soldier during the Civil War, one of The audacious oneswho carried the red, white, and Weary Blueson the battlefieldto save an imperfect Union. (emphasis original) The linkage of past to present is powerfully accomplished in three separate double-page spreads that each contain the phrase, "This is for the unspeakable." [End Page 318] Each spread...

Playing with Lynching: Fandom Violence and the Black Athletic Body

This article traces the parallel development of lynching culture and the fandom surrounding the black athletic body. While only recently have fan studies scholars started to theorize the relationship between racism, sports, and fandom activity, their shared history goes back to at least Jack Johnson, the first black boxer to win the heavyweight championship. From this first encounter with the black athletic body, sports fans with white supremacist leanings have employed lynching iconography and rhetoric to discipline athletes who challenged the general perception of how a public black figure out to behave. I argue that not only is racialized fan violence directed toward black athletes a common occurrence, but that the logics of lynching culture are deeply and perhaps irrevocably intertwined with those of sports fandom writ large.

Adrienne L. Childs, and Susan H. Libby. The Black Figure in the European Imaginary. Winter Park, FL: Rollins College, 2017. Pp. 80. $30.00 (paper).

Previous articleNext article No AccessBook ReviewsAdrienne L. Childs, and Susan H. Libby. The Black Figure in the European Imaginary. Winter Park, FL: Rollins College, 2017. Pp. 80. $30.00 (paper).Samuel W. BlackSamuel W. BlackSenator John Heinz History Center, Pittsburgh Search for more articles by this author Senator John Heinz History Center, PittsburghPDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by The Journal of African American History Volume 104, Number 4Fall 2019 A journal of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/705270 Views: 50Total views on this site For permission to reuse, please contact [email protected]PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

Race Leaders, Race Traitors, and the Necropolitics of Black Exceptionalism in Paul Beatty’s Fiction

Abstract This essay examines two oppositional figures in Paul Beatty’s debut novel, The White Boy Shuffle (1996), and most recent novel, The Sellout (2015): the exalted race leader and the excoriated race traitor. Positioned at extreme ends of the spectrum of exceptionalism, these figures function to perpetuate a phenomenon that the essay’s author terms the necropolitics of black exceptionalism, the paradox of justifying the violent oppression of the majority of black people by celebrating or censuring a single black figure. In exploring the absurd dimensions of these extreme figures through the lens of satire, both novels denounce black exceptionalism as a necropolitical tool of oppression that entrenches the social death and civic exclusion of black people in a modern US society that purports to be color-blind and postracial. Emerging within the postmodern turn of the African American literary tradition, these novels take on a nihilistic tone to raise questions about how the black community might effectively (if at all) achieve civil progress in the contemporary age. Ultimately, these satirical novels reimagine historically necropolitical spaces, such as the basketball court, the plantation, and the segregated urban neighborhood, as potential, albeit vexed sites of black agency, empowerment, and community building.

Reading and Writing, Singing and Playing on Three Early Red-Figure Vases

Abstract The tools for reading and writing, the writing tablets and the papyrus scroll, were inherited by Greece from the East together with the Phoenician alphabet. The oldest papyrus scroll and writing tablets with Greek text were found in the tomb of a musician in Daphne dated to 430 BC. After 700 BC writing tablets were ubiquitous in Greece. However, black figure vases do not depict them. The first writing tablet appears on a red figure kylix of the Euergides Painter from Vulci (520). The first papyrus scrolls appear, together with writing tablets and the lyre, on a kylix from Ferrara (c. 480-70). Papyrus scrolls, writing tablets, the lyre and aulos appear together on the famous Berlin kylix of Douris from Caere (480).

An unknown “classic cave”: Re-evaluation of El Salitre (Ajanedo, Cantabria, Spain) rock art with 3D digital recording methodologies

El Salitre Cave is a classic rock art site in Cantabrian Spain, discovered by L. Sierra in 1903. Except for specific studies focused on particular graphic evidence recording, no research has undertaken an integral study of its rock art ensemble. This paper reports the results of the cave re-study in which 3D digital recording methodologies were applied. The ensemble of dotted depictions typical of Cantabrian Spain has been enlarged through the identification of new graphic evidence. Furthermore, a new chronological proposal is presented for the black figures located at the end of the cave. In short, the revision of classic rock art sites is necessary to obtain a better understanding of the Palaeolithic graphic phenomenon.

Set Thine House in Order: Black Feminism and the Sermon as Sonic Art in The Amen Corner

In The Souls of Black Folk, W.E.B. DuBois discusses the historical and cultural beginnings of the black preacher as “the most unique personality developed on American soil.” He writes, “[the black preacher] found his functions as the healer of the sick, the interpreter of the Unknown, the comforter of the sorrowing, the supernatural avenger of wrong…Thus as bard, physician, judge, and priest within the narrow limits allowed by the slave system rose the Negro preacher.” Far from being a monolith, the preacher figure embodies many complexities and variances on how the preached Word can be delivered. This begs the question, in what ways can we reimagine DuBois’s black preacher figure in his words, “the most unique personality developed on American soil,” as a black woman? What remains to be seen in scholarship of the mid-twentieth century is an articulation of the black woman preacher in African American literature. By reimagining and refiguring a response to DuBois’s assertion above, how is the role of the black woman preacher and impact of her sermons portrayed in African American literature? Using the art of the sermon, the intersection of music, and James Baldwin’s The Amen Corner as a central text, this article examines the black woman preacher in character and African American women’s spirituality in twentieth century literature. I argue that the way in which Margaret Alexander, as a black woman preacher in the text, creates sermonic spaces of healing and restoration (exegetically and eschatologically) for herself and others outside of the church becomes a new mode of social and cultural resistance. This article works to re-envision the black woman and reposition her in the center of religious discourse on our way to unearthing the modes of transfiguration black women preachers evoke in and out of the pulpit.

In the Life: On Black Queer Kinship

Abstract In this short piece, the author stages a poetic and performative conversation between himself and the black queer figures he imagines as his chosen-family tree. This piece is an attempt to linger in the black queer inventiveness that is as much tethered to a real and imagined past as it is to all possible radical black futures.

Abstract TMP76: Direct Assessment of Health Utilities Among Patients With Intracerebral Hemorrhage Using the Standard Gamble Method

Introduction: EuroQoL-5 Dimension (EQ-5D) is a validated albeit indirect method to derive health utilities (HU). Conversely, Standard Gamble (SG) directly measures patients’ valuation of their health state. We compare in-hospital and day-90 SG Utilities (SGU) among intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH) patients and report a three-way association between SGU, EQ-5D and mRS at day-90. Methods: Primary ICH patients were enrolled in a multisite cohort and underwent in-hospital and day-90 assessments for the mRS, EQ-5D, and SG. SG entails providing patients a choice between their current health state and a hypothetical treatment (a pill) with varying chances of either perfect health or a painless death. Higher SGU (scale 0 - 1) indicates a lower risk-tolerance for death; thus, a higher valuation of one’s health state. Median and interquartile range (IQR) are reported. Logistic regression was used to estimate the likelihood of low SGU (≤ 0.6) and Wilcoxson paired signed rank test compared in-hospital and day-90 SGU. Results: In-hospital and day-90 SG was obtained from 381 and 280 patients respectively (including 236 paired observations). Median (IQR) in-hospital and day-90SGU were 0.85 (0.40-0.98) and 0.98 (0.75-1.00) (p < 0.001). In-hospital SGU were lower with advancing age (p = 0.007), with higher NIHSS and ICH scores (p < 0.001), and with greater treatment intensity. Proxies evaluated lower SGU (p < 0.001). In the adjustedmodel, higher NIHSS and proxy assessments were independently associated with lower SGU, along with an interaction between age and SGU by race (white vs. black) (Figure). Day-90 SGU and mRS were correlated (p < 0.001), however SGU were increasinglyhigher than the EQ-5D HU at higher mRS scores (Figure). Conclusion: Divergence between directly and in-directly assessed HU at high levels of functional disability warrant careful prognostication of ICH outcomes, and should be considered in designing early end-of-life care discussions with families and patients.

William Dorsey and the construction of an African American history archive

ABSTRACTThis article investigates the collecting philosophies and practices of William Henry Dorsey, a nineteenth-century African American collector and archivist in Philadelphia. Over many decades, Dorsey created an archive that documented black professional, artistic, and political accomplishments in order to preserve these histories, influence public perception of African Americans, and enable future research on historical black figures. In doing so, he established and strengthened networks between individuals and associations that shared the goal of celebrating and preserving black history. This article focuses on how Dorsey’s archive enabled forms of sociability among the many individuals and groups that used the materials in Dorsey’s collection. In focusing on the role that Dorsey played in collating, editing, and disseminating information about black achievements and contributions to world history, this article argues that Dorsey preserved – and therefore helped create – black histories that could be remembered, studied, and shared to refute the illusion of white supremacy.

L’effet Josephine Baker. Récit d’une contribution méconnue mais décisive aux théories psychanalytiques de la sublimation

We report a strange and very real story that contributed in a decisive way to the construction of the notion of sublimation. Resuming this notion as worked by Sigmund Freud, Edward Glover and others, Lacan comes to a halt on an article by Melanie Klein where she reports an almost miraculous therapeutic effect felt by a Danish woman – Ruth Weber Leigh-Kjær. Indeed, in the middle of a depressive period, this woman who had never studied painting became a painter by creating a particularly successful female nude, that of Josephine Baker. The triggering event was the sale of a painting that, in the series of paintings hung on the wall, gave off an “empty space” all of a sudden; this event brutally precipitated a characterized depressive episode, then, in response, a creative mechanism that provoked the surprise of the circle of acquaintances and initiated a career as a painter. This miracle provoked at the time the stupefaction of her incredulous entourage. Miracle of tomme plads (empty place, in Danish), it is published by a friend, the writer and journalist Karen Michaelis, then in its wake commented by Melanie Klein. Reading Karen Michaelis, the very year of her publication, was a source of inspiration for Melanie Klein, who writes Infantile Anxiety-Situations Reflected in a Work of Art and Creative Impulse (also published in 1929). The question, says Klein, is to grasp what is the “empty space” in Ruth Kjär, “or more precisely, what is the sense of that feeling that something is missing in her body?”. For Klein, the answer, already described in the previous psychoanalysis Congress (1927), is the feminine equivalent of anxiety of castration in boys. Melanie Klein notes that the first painting by Ruth Weber Kjär was a “Negress”. After reading the article by E. Glover (1931) on sublimation, Lacan reads the article by Melanie Klein and believes that Michaelis is a psychoanalyst. Although Lacan did not see the painting in question, he suspects that it is about Josephine Baker but above all he makes of this painting the paradigm of his theory of the vase incarnating das Ding which is precisely what represents the picture! Our article gives a place to the fantasies induced by Josephine Baker's world-famous spectacles at that time: figures of the absence of limits, figures of the distant, of exoticism, of our animality and daring sensuality. Did these figures favor the process of sublimation? Indeed, in Ruth Weber Kjaer's painting, the “Negress” Josephine Baker sits, her left thigh bent so as to show her sex; she looks to her left, and contemplates precisely a vase, placed in full light. In reference to Freud's Sketch, Lacan evokes the function of the vase: “It is indeed the void that it creates, the something that introduces the notion, the very prospect of filling it. The void and the full, in the vase, by the vase, are introduced into a world, which, of itself, knows nothing of such”. “The repair of sadistic impulses against the body of the mother”, (Klein) the royal road to sublimation, is possible only through the interposition of a vase, a vacuum structure Creator, placed in some way in equivalence with Josephine Baker. The latter is used as an “operator” against her depressive experience by K. Weber Kjaer in so far as she makes it, that she creates it equivalent of a vase. So neither Michaelis nor Melanie Klein saw the vase. On the other hand, Lacan, who takes Michaelis for an analyst, reconstructs the function of the vase without having seen it! Jean Walton, American, in an article entitled “Race and psychoanalysis” (1995), makes a fine point that with this event, as in the masquerade of Joan Riviere, the figure of the “Other race” plays an eminent role, even if it is generally ignored in psychoanalytic research on sexuation. For J. Walton, it is repeatedly observed that feminine fantasy is occupied not only by figures of emptiness, in response to the rivalry between the sexes and the prevalence of the power of the “white male”, but especially by a degrading instrumentalization of the black figures. These black figures are repeatedly used as global instruments, never recognized in their individuality. Using finely Frantz Fanon's work, she notes the “unconsciously racialized” character of these two famous cases, on the one hand Joan Riviere and the fantasy that she describes being raped by a black she would have sniffed, to denounce him and have him executed, so as to call into question a paternal imago, on the other hand the use that she knows degrading, of a “negress” by Ruth Weber, term taken again, she said, without further comment by Melanie Klein and whose “negativity” would be used by Weber's sublimation process so that she finally has access to a masculine universe, that of painting.

Promoting intergroup openness and support for equality in a new cultural context: Replicating the effects of internal criticism

ABSTRACTExposure to an outgroup member voicing criticism of his or her own group fosters greater openness to the outgroup’s perspective. Research suggests that this effect owes its influence to a serial process in which participants’ perception of the risk involved in voicing internal criticism leads to an increase in the perceived credibility of the speaker. The credibility makes it possible for the speaker to be viewed as open-minded, which subsequently inspires greater hope. This process culminates in an increased openness to the outgroup. These findings have been restricted to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but here we examine their generalizability to racial conflict in the United States. Results reveal that White Americans exposed to internal criticism expressed by a Black authority figure express greater openness to African-American perspectives on race relations and are more willing to support policies of racial equality. Replicating past research, this effect is serially mediated by risk, credibility, and hope.

The quest for a Pan-African groove: saxophones and stories from the Pan-African Festival of Algiers (1969)

In a 2014 interview, African-American saxophonist Archie Shepp reflected on his star performance with Touareg musicians at the Pan-African Festival of Algiers of 1969. ‘The Touaregs are a bit different from playing in the Congo, the groove is different’, he mused. ‘I’m not sure when we first got together that the people on the Touareg side understood what I was trying to do. I think I might have been closer to the traditional African where the drums are much more important’ (Archie Shepp, interview with Eloi Ficquet; Archives des Festivals Panafricains. https://archive.org/details/PANAFESTArchieShepp). Black people from across Africa and from around the world flocked to participate in an event dedicated to exhibiting and constructing African culture. In Algeria, they hoped to find the key to African unity and, for some, a homeland. But North Africa’s central role in the festival served to radically challenge and transform the foundations on which many participants believed pan-Africanism rested. With the help of interviews, press releases, personal journals, visuals arts, poetry, and music I explore how these Black figures encountered North African culture, as well as the effects their time in Algeria had both on their sense of race and on the ways they expressed race through their art. The experience of art-making in Algeria triggered, sometimes unconsciously, many of these artists and intellectuals to rethink ingrained notions of race and racial hierarchies. Archie Shepp is but one of the Black artists present at the Pan-African Festival of Algiers, who, under the cover of a conversation about instruments and ‘groove’, is reconfiguring his own and others’ racial identity.

Paul H. D. Kaplan. Review of "The Black Figure in the European Imaginary" by Adrienne L. Childs and Susan H. Libby.

Paul H. D. Kaplan. Review of "The Black Figure in the European Imaginary" by Adrienne L. Childs and Susan H. Libby.

Review: The Virgin in Song: Mary and the Poetry of Romanos the Melodist, by Thomas Arentzen

Thomas Arentzen, The Virgin in Song: Mary and the Poetry of Romanos the Melodist . Divinations: Rereading Late Ancient Religion. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017. xiii, 265pp, 10 black and white figures. ISBN: 9780812249071. $59.95. Thomas Arentzen's new book, revised from his 2014 Lund University dissertation, investigates the portrayal of the Virgin Mary in the poetry of Romanos, the sixth-century Christian who wrote several dozen metered works on various topics. It joins an expanding scholarly conversation about the poet that has emerged in force in the last decade. Georgia Frank, Leena M. Peltomaa, and Sarah Gador-Whyte have contextualized and interpreted the corpus of Romanos, particularly its treatment of Mary, as has Derek Krueger, who has co-authored work with Arentzen and edits the series in which this book appears. Arentzen frames his contribution as a corrective to two other approaches he discerns among prior studies of Mary's role in Christian thought: those that emphasize Mary's special capacity to convey information about her child (which is to say, a Christological focus), and those that place depictions of the Virgin inside the framework of monastic ideology. By contrast, Arentzen proposes to see Mary as a “separate sacred persona,” irreducible to the limited domains of theology or asceticism (164). There was, he argues, a “geographically and temporally specific” figure of Mary, given a voice by Romanos, that is distinctive to sixth-century Constantinople (32). A long first chapter introduces several issues that are meant as general background to observations made later in the book, then culminates in a plan of the chapters to follow and an explanation of Arentzen's approach. Orienting the reader to the style of his work, Arentzen notes that, in place of a logically-progressing analysis that …

Rewritting a Pop Culture History

Rewritting a Pop Culture History Beverly C. Tomek (bio) Historians on Hamilton: How a Blockbuster Musical is Restaging America's Past Renee C. Romano and Claire Bond Potter Rutgers University Press www.rutgersuniversitypress.org 396 Pages; Print, $24.95 Playwright Lin-Manuel Miranda's impressive use of social media positioned Hamilton to be a Broadway hit well before it made its off-Broadway debut in January 2015. Starting with a 2008 tweet featuring a picture of himself relaxing in a hammock, while reading Ron Chernow's 2005 biography of Alexander Hamilton, Miranda created a cultural phenomenon that has audiences from multiple backgrounds singing catchy hip-hop tunes about the most capitalist of all American "founding fathers." Since making its way to Broadway about six months after its debut, the play has broken numerous records, from highest-grossing weekly box office in Broadway history to the most Tony nominations for a single show. (It was nominated for sixteen and won eleven.) It is now performed in Chicago and London, and touring companies will soon take it to other cities across the nation. It has become not just a cultural phenomenon but a commercial empire. Fans of the soundtrack have jokingly been diagnosed with "Hamilaria," a disorder that includes "an uncontrollable urge to sing lyrics" from the musical "when prompted by cue lines from everyday conversation." More impressive than its awards and commercial success is the play's ability to appeal to people on all sides of the political spectrum and to create enthusiasm for history among Americans of various age groups, socioeconomic backgrounds, and ethnicities, many of whom who have never seen (and likely will never see) the play live. Of course, as with any attempt to simplify history enough to appeal to a popular audience, particularly a history as complex and politically charged as that of the nation's founding, the project has created some controversy among academics. While some historians have praised the musical for awakening interest in those fortunate enough to see it in theaters as well as those enamored with its soundtrack and social media presence, others have criticized it for a number of reasons. Even positive assessments admit that some of the history is oversimplified at best and in some cases outright wrong. The question remains: "How much does it matter?" Historians Renee Romano and Claire Bond Potter, having been themselves afflicted with Hamilaria, brought together a number of historians, educators, and theater scholars to work through some of these issues while also helping "students and fans dig more deeply into the show." The result is a collection that provides a variety of insights and offers a venue for experts to decide how important the flaws really are. The controversies surrounding the play are many. For one matter, Miranda used nontraditional casting, having actors of color portraying white historical figures. Indeed, all of the main characters are played by black or Latinx actors. Miranda did this because he wanted to tell "a story about America then, told by America now." While there are many actors of color on the stage, there are no significant characters of color in the play. As a result, slavery is brought into the story not by enslaved people or significant black figures of the time but by the notion of Hamilton being an abolitionist. Much is made of Hamilton as an immigrant, and this is meant to resonate in today's political climate by celebrating the contributions of immigrants, but historians have pointed out that Hamilton, who simply moved from one part of the British empire to another, was not an immigrant in the same sense the term applies today. Finally, by focusing on a vision of the US today as more open and inclusive than perhaps it really is and portraying Alexander Hamilton as having some important role in setting the stage for the realization of that ideal, the main character comes off as what today would be called a "progressive." This is an odd way to characterize a "founding father" whose elitism led even some of his contemporaries to raise an eyebrow and whose absolute faith in the monied class and...

Classical Art: A Life History from Antiquity to the Present by Caroline Vout

BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS 195 (commonly temples and stoas) within the confines of sanctuaries, prior to its appearance on the Old Bouleuterion (198) requires some modification. The Doric order does appear on images of fountain houses on Black Figure vases (Hydria of the Priam Painter and the François vase) and the entrance to Peleus’ house on the François vase. Altogether, this volume is an admirable undertaking, which sets the standard for future syntheses of theory and methodology in Mediterranean archaeology during other time periods. As the first synthetic treatment with a unique approach to the subject matter it constitutes a valuable contribution to this area of study. University of New Brunswick Maria Papaioannou Classical Art: A Life History from Antiquity to the Present. By Caroline Vout. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press. 2018. Pp. 376, 80 colour and 132 b/w illustrations. Caroline Vout's latest work represents a refreshingly new approach to the discussion of classical Greek and Roman sculpture, using artworks to provide the insight that “comes from antiquities that carry their dirt with them” (3). She emphasises that only “if we can trace them back to where the ancients left them—better still, to where the ancients used them—can we appreciate what these artifacts meant and did—give them back their agency (sic)” (1). Vout divides her work into nine full chapters covering a multitude of objects, ranging from the antique to the modern. In her first chapter (“Setting the Agenda, or Putting the Art into Heritage”), she opens with the much discussed Tyrannicides, providing a fresh perspective on what could have been treated as an old chestnut by examining how their status and meaning changed over time. In this introductory chapter, Vout also clarifies some key terms, most saliently how “Art” and the ancient term ars correlate. “Context,” by which Vout means display contexts (12), is also highlighted, although it is not until Chapter Nine that the more traditional interpretation of this term is considered in detail. Chapter Two (“Finding the Classical in Hellenistic Greece”) begins with Nero’s theft of sculptures from Delphi. A comprehensive survey of Hellenistic art and its debt to classical precursors follows, ending with a section, entitled “Learning to Look” (39–42), which uses a discussion of the “Hellenistic gaze” to set the scene for the Romans’ utilisation of Greek themes, modified to their own tastes and palettes. Roman culture can be branded as indistinct from and overly reliant on the Greek, but Vout does not take this traditional approach in Chapter Three (“Making Greek Culture Roman Culture”). Instead she poses apt questions pertaining to the absorption of Greek visual culture. With an emphasis on imperial sculpture she concludes that Augustan classicism was inevitable and that Roman conquests could be configured into a Greek idiom. A short discussion of the impact of Greek painting on the Roman domestic environs allows space for a beautifully illustrated section on Roman mosaics and wall paintings. Chapter Four (“Roman Art, the Building Blocks of Empire”) opens up to a more grandiose vista, engaging with Rome and its shift “from repository of culture to tou Ellhnikoœ &Eynouw, t. 2 (Athens 1971) 196–200; W. Waal, “On the ‘Phoenician Letters’: The Case for an Early Transmission of the Greek Alphabet from an Archaeological, Epigraphic and Linguistic Perspective,” Aegean Studies 1 (2018) 83–125. 196 PHOENIX cultural exemplar” (71). One example is the Roman emphasis on collecting (75–80), in Vout’s phrasing, “like Caesar” (75). Appropriation of classical culture continues in pagan and Christian contexts, and Vout’s comments on Christianity’s need and use of pagan art to support and promote a new imperial narrative are astute. The following section on the Middle Ages is sadly brief, but does include an engaging equestrian statuette of a portly Charlemagne or Charles the Bald (91, fig. 4.15). Chapter Five (“Reviving Antiquity in Renaissance Italy”) examines the Renaissance view of classical art and its effect on Europe’s understanding of Greek and Roman culture up to the mid-eighteenth century. Vout considers “variations in practice, and evolving . . . attitudes to collecting, exhibition, and restoration” (97). There is a wealth of expertly managed material here, which Vout enriches...

Escravidão e loucura: uma leitura do conto "A escrava", de Maria Firmina dos Reis

Este trabalho se refere a um estudo sobre o conto “A Escrava”, da escritora brasileira Maria Firmina dos Reis, publicado na Revista Maranhense (1887:1 nº 3), o qual aborda a problemática da discriminação racial em nosso país, ainda na época da escravidão. São três as categorias de vozes do discurso no conto: a voz dos escravocratas, na qual aparece a figura do senhor; a voz dos abolicionistas, em que aparece a senhora, a narradora inicial; e a voz da escravizada, que é Joana, a escrava. Há, no conto, a falta de acordo entre o discurso religioso de igualdade/solidariedade e as vozes do discurso de relação de poder entre senhores e escravizados. O objetivo do trabalho é analisar as metáforas da desumanização: a figura do negro que fala da África, que só se enxerga livre quando olha para o passado vivido nas terras africanas. A abordagem está inserida no quadro teórico-metodológico da metáfora da alienação de Frantz Fanon, na qual a insanidade se revela como uma consequência do processo colonial.

Applying Path Analysis on Service Quality to Users’ Satisfaction and Intensity Using Delone and Mclean Method at Jember Paru Hospital in 2017

The management information system of hospital denotes an attempt to provide accurate, timely, and apt information so as to support managerial functions and decision making in providing health service at hospital. Manual data management is fraught with downsides, due to not only requiring long time, but also hardly acceptable accuracy as it error margin is so huge. Problems faced by the user of hospital management information system were obtained from interview results, inter alia, 1) service quality: users found it difficult to input data; 2) users’ and system users’ intensity: users did not implement hospital management information system using tablet (Android smartphone) provided by hospital management; 3) users’ satisfaction: the researcher’s survey finding as seen from the subjectivity of system users, from which 9 heads of installation voiced their opinion; 4 persons stated satisfaction , and 5 persons indicated disatisfaction. The present study was projected to analyze the influence of system quality to users’ satisfaction and intensity. The study was quantitative analytical in nature, which was coupled with cross-sectional approach. It delved into determining hypothesis concerning where there was direct influence of exogenous variable, system quality, to endogenous variable, users’ intensity. The findings evinced that service quality exerted significant influence to users’ satisfaction as corroborated by black figure of 5.22. Users’ satisfaction significantly influenced users’ intensity, indicated by black figure of 3.28. As a result, the study concludes that information quality is directly influential to users’ intensity. Bac k grounded by the research findings, the hospital is recommended to retain the service quality of its management information system for optimal service to patients.