Conservative Era Research Articles

Rewriting Melodrama: The Hidden Paradigm in Modern Spanish Theater by Wadda C. Ríos-Font

436Comparative Drama Wadda C. Ríos-Font. Rewriting Melodrama: The Hidden Paradigm in Modern Spanish Theater. Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press, 1997. Pp. xv + 198. $36.50. The task Wadda C. Ríos-Font undertakes in Rewriting Melodrama is almost encyclopedic. Not content with defining the formula of Spanish melodrama and tracing its origins, she attempts to prove its veiled presence —previously virtually undetected—in the drama of the second half ofthe nineteenth century. The author achieves these goals with uneven success. When she tracks the multiple historical uses of the term "melodrama" in Spanish literature, she does so with systematic zeal. This dry and diachronic glide through the plots of more than a hundred melodramas is, paradoxically, one of the major attractions of the work. The extensive survey results in a definition for the Spanish melodramatic formula, invented by Echegaray, which, eschewing the traditional obligatory combination ofmusic and speech, presents instead fixed inventories of sentimental plots, stock characters, and bombastic diction with a moral framework featuring "an emotional clash between virtue and evil." Rios-Font's text includes an attractive examination of melodrama 's modulations in light of documented critical reception. For instance , the survey of Galdos's apologetic attempts to defend his first realist experiments from the critics, his subsequent commercial failure, and the author's final submission to melodramatic forms is convincing and illuminating. However, other aspects ofRios-Font's study are problematic at best. She claims that virtually all of nineteenth century Spanish drama can be explained as variations on the success formula that Echegaray invented (and to which even the most rebellious authors, including Galdos, ended up succumbing for pragmatic reasons). The result of this mimetic tendency is a theater that "worked as a hegemonic force that appropriated the discourse of progress while simultaneously sustaining conventional ideologies." This superficial "appropriation" of forms that conceals traditional contents defines the "theater of impersonation," a term she coins to refer in general to late nineteenth century Spanish melodrama. The theater ofimpersonation is explained as emerging in times ofpolitical instability, when authors felt the need both to adopt attractive progressive positions and to maintain the perspectives of a morally ordered universe. Yet, the difficulty of establishing the actual intention of the authors, moral or otherwise, casts some troubling shadows on the term "impersonation." Ríos-Font justifies the term as follows: in the theater of impersonation "the donning of a mask is . . . not limited to the actors playing certain fictitious characters, but extends to the work itself, which plays the part of something else" (52). Even though the structuralist study of these works in terms of moral archetypes presents certain interest, the task of determining whether impersonations are meant to be progressive but fail to be so, or whether they intend to be only moderate variations Reviews437 on the formula, becomes self-defeating. For example, by portraying strong women who transgress social codes, even if they are finally defeated , authors enable the audience to perceive tensions that may be translated into alternatives. The validity of her notion of the "theater of impersonation" depends on its forceful definition as a failed attempt to depart from the moralizing, conservative formulas of melodramatic norm—rather than, for instance, as products of a transition period, as Hans Robert Jauss implies in his description of melodrama as a "process-like genre." Rewriting Melodrama also incorporates an assumption that dramatists , here depicted as a superior "Other," constitute the only dissenting voices in a conservative era. But their rebelliousness is depicted as, in effect, only a façade: "ultimately their theater worked according to the same traditional principles . . . and it worked as a hegemonic force that appropriated the discourse of progress while simultaneously sustaining conventional ideologies." This introduces us to another troubling aspect of Rios-Font's study: her totalizing vision of a Spanish public which, according to her, rejects ideological transformation and yet demands formal changes dictated by taste. In effect, the pervasive conservative spirit which demands the permanence of moralizing dramatic patterns becomes a ghostly and undefined presence that haunts the premise of the book. What Ríos-Font introduces as the theater of dissent ends up being no more than a formal variation of...

An Introduction to the Conservation of the Eastern Arc Mountains

It is 19 years ago, that I, as the organiser for the 4th East African Wildlife Symposium, which was hosted in Arusha by the University of Dar es Salaam, dared to add a section on forest biology and forest conservation. The conservation agenda then was concerned with issues of managing elephants and lions and other large hairy wildlife. Conservation then was about National Parks not Forest Reserves, it was about savannah grassland not forests, it was about elephants not camphor trees or African violets. Conservation then still had not got to grips with the involvement of people. Conservation was centred on wilderness areas, not on the people resource interface! Whilst the 1978 conference also had 150 participants from all over the world, few of them cared about forests. It is a sobering thought that today we can host a major conference on the Eastern Arc Forests alone! (Has the world changed? And are we about to see an era of real conservation?). In 1978, most participants were from overseas. In today's workshop, Tanzanians make up over half the active audience! It is instructive to think back 20 years and consider forest conservation issues in Tanzania in 1978: • The word 'conservation' was not in the University Forest Curriculum (not once!). • Forest students did not go to natural forests for training (not once in three years!). Logging and on-farm agro-forestry were the focus topics then. • Intense mechanical logging was underway in the East Usambara Forests, supported by government and foreign aid. • The word biodiversity did not exist. • The human population of Tanzania was half that of today, and the demand for forest products was less than half. Woodland resources were still available to meet much of that fuel wood need. • There were conservation arguments in the Usambara Forests. Much of the canopy had a cardamom understorey. We noted that Kenya with no cardamom growing areas exported twice our national output! • The Forest Department had money and capability-but little conservation concern. But now, there is much greater concern, but lost capacity and no money!

Keynote Addresses: What Makes Women Sick? Promoting Women's Health: The Changing Agenda for Health Promotion

The creation of a National Women's Health Policy in 1989 put Australia at the forefront of developments in women's health. By contrast, in the United Kingdom there is still no clear strategy for improving gender equity in the health service, and many of the principles taken for granted in Australia are not even on the National Health Service agenda. The current reforms of our health service do reflect a backing away from the 'quasi markets' of the Conservative era. However, little attention has been paid during this process to the specific needs of women. So Australia is still ahead, with Victoria in particular playing a key role in disseminating examples of good practice, both at home and internationally. The Australian Women's Health Policy and Program provides a fertile environment for innovation in good practice, but this does not mean that there is nothing left to achieve. Indeed, it may well require considerable effort just to maintain what has already been put in place. To move forward will mean continuing to confront those challenges in trying to improve women's health around the world. These are addressed by looking at three key themes: reconfiguring medicine; dealing with diversity; and gendering the social model of health. In each case these themes are placed in a global context.

Short Review

Gerald A. Epstein and Herbert M. Gintis (eds), Macroeconomic Policy after the Conservative Era

Women and the Family in the British Welfare State: The Thatcher/Major Legacy

This paper reviews the moral agenda of Thatcherism, in terms of maintaining traditional family structures, family roles and family responsibilities for economic support and personal care of family members. It asks to what extent and in what ways this agenda was promoted during the eighteen years of Conservative rule; to what extent contradictory forces within Thatcherism and elsewhere undermined this agenda; and what have been the consequences for women in family and public life. The marketization of life, pursued under Thatcherism, contributed to undermining the family form which has traditionally underpinned the market. Deregulated labour markets and spreading owner‐occupation in an unstable housing market have been important contributions to family breakdown, insecurity and women's access to—and need for—jobs. The idea of family responsibility was promulgated, but in practice family members have become less able to support each other.Nevertheless, one consequence of these changes has been a stronger position for women as women by the end of this Conservative era. Access to paid work makes women less dependent within families and improves their access to public politics. Social policies geared to the Beveridge‐type family had become increasingly threadbare and some changes—such as policies enabling lone mothers to do paid work—had been forced by the increasing mismatch between family realities and the Beveridge model. Many changes owed more to the women's movement than to Thatcherism, but Thatcherite policies played a (largely unintentional) part.

Macroeconomics in the Conservative Era

Macroeconomics in the Conservative Era

Dawn of the Conservative Era

Journal of Supreme Court HistoryVolume 22, Issue 1 p. 1-13 Dawn of the Conservative Era Paul Kens, Paul KensSearch for more papers by this author Paul Kens, Paul KensSearch for more papers by this author First published: 18 July 2011 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-5818.1997.tb00060.xCitations: 2Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat Citing Literature Volume22, Issue1July 1997Pages 1-13 RelatedInformation

MAKING SOIL AND WATER CONSERVATION SUSTAINABLE: FROM COERCION AND CONTROL TO PARTNERSHIPS AND PARTICIPATION

For close to a century, rural development policies and practice have taken the view that farmers are mismanagers of soil and water. This paper reviews the history of farmers being advised, paid and forced to adopt new soil and water conservation measures and practices. Many have done so, and environments and economies have benefited in the short term, but ill-conceived policies and badly designed programmes and projects have undermined these efforts in the name of conservation. Most efforts have been remarkably unsuccessful, often resulting in more erosion. They have undermined the credibility of conservation and wasted huge sums of money. For a new era of soil and water conservation, new initiatives are showing how to make conservation sustainable. Farmers are now considered the potential solution rather than the problem, and so the value of local knowledge and skills is being put at the core of new programmes. This involves a major focus on building farmers' capacity to innovate and develop technologies appropriate to their own conditions. Local organizations are strengthened through participatory processes, this participation being interactive and empowering. Recent evidence is indicating that these new interactions between professionals and farmers are producing considerable productive and sustainable benefits. For widespread impact, enabling policy frameworks are still needed to encourage the spread of more sustainable practices for agriculture. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Dawn of the Conservative Era

Dawn of the Conservative Era Paul Kens Introduction When I was working on this project, a friend who is neither a lawyer nor a historian, asked what I was doing. I told her I was working on a lecture entitled “The Dawn of the Conservative Era” and that it was about the conservative Court at the turn ofthe century. Her response came as a surprise. She thought I was going to talk about today’s Court as it approached the turn of the twenty-first century. I suppose my friend was not far off in the way she interpreted my description. But I am going to talk about another dawn of another con­ servative era. It was a time between 1890 and 1937, often called the laissez-faire era. And it produced a body of legal doctrine often referred to as laissez-faire constitutionalism. The term laissez-faire, of course refers to the economic theory. It was an economic theory predicated on the free market and the idea that prosperity could best be achieved in a system where individuals were left free to pursue their own self-interest. It placed its faith in Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations and the idea that the “invisible hand of the market” would ensure the economy would operate smoothly and efficiently. To proponents of laissez-faire theory this was more than a preferred policy. It was a matter of natural law and of natural rights. Of these natu­ ral rights, two stood out. First was the natural right of property. The other, called “the natural right of free exchange,” was the natural, self-evi­ dent, and inalienable right of all people to em­ ploy their own efforts for the gratification oftheir own wants, either directly or through exchange.1 Inspired by these beliefs, Adam Smith’s American successors, the laissez-faire econo­ mists, polished and advanced the principle that government should not interfere in economic matters.2 Edward Atkinson, an economist tied to the laissez-faire tradition, argued that: “Government’s efforts to solve economic prob­ lems, no matter how sincere, had the opposite effect. They upset the economic balance, de­ stroyed the incentive for labor, and sapped the spirit ofenterprise and productive energies ofthe nation.”3 Their ideas began to take hold of eco­ nomic thinking in the middle 1800s. They were reinforced by the growth ofthe philosophy of So­ cial Darwinism, and together they created a legacy that formed a theoretical basis for opposition to government regulation. Under laissez-faire theory, property and free 2 JOURNAL 1997, VOL. 1 exchange were natural rights. But were they pro­ tected by or incorporated into the Constitution? Certainly the Constitution includes protections for property. The Article I, section 10 guarantee that no state shall pass any law impairing the obligation of contract provides some protection both for prop­ erty and for free exchange. But that provision primarily protects the sanctity of existing con­ tracts, not an inalienable right to be free from gov­ ernment interference. The Constitution also guar­ antees, in the Fifth and FourteenthAmendments, that property shall not be taken without due process of law. Finally, the Fifth Amendment guarantees that property shall not be taken for public use without just compensation. All ofthese provisions give some protection to property. But they do not go so far as to prohibit regulation or make any sweeping limitation on government involvement in economic matters. Nevertheless, according to the traditional version ofconstitutional history,judges ofthe late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries did interpret the Con­ stitution in a way that provided sweeping limitations on government involvement in economic matters. This version ofhistory saw such Justices as Stephen J. Field, David J. Brewer, and Rufus W. Peckham laying the foundation for the conservative era. When faced with a tough question about the validity ofeco­ nomic regulation, it saw them turning to Adam Smith’s Wealth ofNations rather than the Constitu­ tion. In this version of history, the Four Horsemen, Justices George Sutherland, James C. McReynolds, Pierce Butler, and Willis Van Devanter, carried this work into the 1930s. Inspired by laissez-faire eco­ nomics, these men pursued a policy of emphasizing protection ofproperty. According to this traditional version...

Cell saver efficacy for routine coronary artery bypass surgery.

A retrospective study was conducted to determine the effect of intraoperative Haemonetics Cell Saver (HCS) usage on postoperative homologous blood product requirements in CABG patients. From 1 January to 31 December 1993, 516 patients without renal disease or postoperative surgical or gastrointestinal haemorrhage had elective, first-time CABG surgery. The HCS was utilized in 435 of these patients (Group CS) and in 81 patients the HCS was excluded (Group NCS). Preoperative patient variables were similar in the group. We evaluated the HCS effect on blood product transfusion by comparing -x units of red blood cells (RBC), fresh frozen plasma (FFP) and platelets (PLTS) transfused per patient between groups CS and NCS. There were no differences in the -x units of RBC (1.9 +/- 2.7 CS vs. 1.8 +/- 1.5 NCS) or in the RBC transfusion rate (48% CS vs 50% NCS). There were also no significant differences between the groups in -x units of FFP (0.9 +/- 0.8 CS vs 0.4 +/- 0.9 NCS) or PLTS (0.7 +/- 3.1 CS vs 0.4 +/- 2.5 NCS), or in the percentage of patients receiving these products (12% CS vs 8% NCS). These data provide no evidence that the use of the HCS decreases the amount of homologous blood bank products required postoperatively in patients having routine first-time CABG surgery. The current era of aggressive blood conservation may have limited the role of the HCS in routine CABG surgery.

Empire and Social Reform: British Liberals and the “Civilizing Mission” in the Sugar Colonies, 1868–1874

In contrast to the spirit of laissez-faire, the Colonial Office under Gladstone's first government served as a large-scale social engineering agency concerned with the cautious restructuring of volatile societies in the sugar-producing colonies of the West Indies and the Indian Ocean. From the perspective of the Colonial Office civilizing the barbarian made him more governable. There is a revealing paradox in the fact that so much of what Victorian Liberals did in the name of civilizing benighted natives involved active government initiatives in imperial settings. Under the banner of “peace, retrenchment, and reform” nineteenth-century British Liberals advocated cost-cutting and laissez-faire at home and non-expansion abroad. Liberal leaders' public statements in this vein helped set the historiographical stereotype of supposed Gladstonian Liberal “little Englandism” versus a dramatic imperial policy shift toward “forward movement” in the Disraelian Conservative era. Scholarship over the last thirty years has refuted this older view and has stressed the continuity of British imperialism throughout the nineteenth century. However, a careful examination of the details of policy reveals that from 1868–74 the Liberals not only valued the Empire, but were willing to sacrifice their own theories of limited government in order to strengthen the British hold—even on their bankrupt sugar colonies in the Caribbean and Indian oceans. Initiatives in colonial religion, education, health, justice, and labor regulation demonstrate a surprising Liberal bent toward government activism in the non-white Empire. Moreover, the self-conscious and energetic manipulation of such a wide range of policy tools reveals a serious Liberal commitment to empire, which further belies the old notion that from 1868–74, “little Englandism” reached its high point.

The rise and fall of leftist radicalism in America

The Causes of National Decline The Nature of Leftist Radicalism The Red Decade: The Rise of the Soviet Myth The Red Decade: The Tortured Decline of the Soviet Myth The Red Scare: A New Decade, Different Values A Generation on Trial: The Hiss Case The Meaning of the McCarthy Era Leftist Radicalism Triumphant: The New Left The Reason Why: The Vietnam War Leftist Logic and the Iranian Revolution Leftist Radicalism in a Conservative Era Notes Selected Bibliography

Running for Freedom: Civil Rights and Black Politics in America Since 1941.

Preface. 1. World War II and the Origins of the Freedom Struggle. 2. Ballots, Boycotts, and the Building of a National Agenda. 3. Surging Protest, Shifting Politics. 4. Reenfranchisement and Racial Consciousness. 5. The New Black Politicians: From Protest to Empowerment. 6. Progress and Poverty: Politics in a Conservative Era. 7. In Search of Legitimacy. 8. Hope and Despair: the 1990s. 9. Still Running for Freedom. Bibliographical Essay. Index

A microcosm of design control in post‐war Britain: A case study of office development in central Bristol 1940–90

The city centre of Bristol provides a microcosm of post‐war British experience with design control. Four eras of control are identified: the immediate post‐war redevelopment using the principles of segregation and open planning; the modernist era dominated by free‐flow road systems and tower blocks on pedestrian decks; the conservation era with its emphasis upon contextual design; and the contemporary era where the emphasis is switching from buildings to spaces in a climate where design control is under retreat. It is argued that since 1975 design control has become more participative, more skilled and more responsive to the locality, but that such an approach has only been defended from central government antipathy by the extended use of conservation designations. The lessons of Bristol's experience are that local authorities need to give priority to design quality and skills in their planning and estates functions, and to retain full control over design in sensitive areas. They need to harness public pa...

The Oral History of the Left in the United States: A Survey and Interpretation

The Left has been a controversial subject in United States history and seems certain to remain one. It has long been treated by mainstream scholars as of marginal relevance, or as a potentially conspiratorial fifth column allied to a totalitarian foreign power. More recently, however, its historical reputation has been noticeably rehabilitated. For scholars writing during most conservative era in recent American past, radicalism has come to occupy a special niche as historical location of an unfulfilled promise, home territory of idealists acting with wide and generally positive impact upon important social movements. Those two large contrasting historiographical views may disguise more than they reveal about problematic quality of experiences and consciousness of participants themselves. Surveying unparalleled vigor of youthful American capitalism, Karl Marx admitted that in United States the antitheses of bourgeois society appear only as moments., So it has often seemed, even to close observers of Left. Socialists, anarchists, Communists, and unaffiliated rebels pursuing a cooperative society have at times flourished in an enormous variety of milieus. Able to rally populations far larger than their own immediate circles, they have rarely been able to translate aroused energies into substantial, lasting institutional forms. During vanishing moments, whatever their span, visions of alternative ways of life and thought become real (if not necessarily precise) to millions. In aftermath, as ostracism and often legal repression suffuse political survivors with a sense of futility, prospect for meaningful change seems never to have existed at all until another generation rises up, scarcely conscious of its predecessors but full of marked similarities to them. Oral history would appear a natural approach to conceptual problems of such a subject. So much of day-to-day radical experience never reached print in

Politics in Contemporary Japan: Pluralist Scholarship in the Conservative Era— A Review Article

Bureaucrats have historically dominated many Asian polities, and Japan is no exception. Ever since the Meiji Restoration of 1868, public servants in national ministries have enjoyed special privileges and powers. They shaped Japan's emergence as an industrial state, they collaborated with militarists to govern during the wartime era, and they presided over Japan's postwar economic ascent. Only in recent decades has a bureaucratically dominant polity in Japan come under challenge. A more organized, affluent, and demanding populace has been one force encroaching on bureaucratic influence. The other has been a long-standing, increasingly experienced, and cautiously pragmatic contingent of Liberal Democratic party (LDP) leaders and legislators.

The End of the Conservative Era: Liberalism after Reagan

The End of the Conservative Era: Liberalism after Reagan

Service Trends in a Conservative Era: Social Workers Rediscover the Past

Service Trends in a Conservative Era: Social Workers Rediscover the Past

Service Trends in a Conservative Era: Guilt by Association?

Service Trends in a Conservative Era: Guilt by Association?

Ernest Thompson Seton (1860-1946)

decades immediately previous to World War I witnessed a marked shift in popular attitudes toward the Canadian North. ... His 1907 canoe trip to the northeast of Great Slave Lake sharply focuses the impact Seton had on how we view the northern wilderness. ... Yet Seton's influence on the new response to the North was far more deep-seated than this single trip. He was in the advance guard of a new era of wildlife conservation, having sensed that a way of life fundamental to all mankind was rapidly growing extinct in the face of modern technology and communications. Unlike many outdoorsmen of his time and certainly unlike those of past generations, Seton saw the wilderness as a place that needed to be preserved, rather than conquered. He published over 40 books on the natural world. He undertook extensive lecture tours. He began The League of the Woodcraft Indians, a youth organization that encouraged conservation and understanding of the natural world. When Robert Baden-Powell added a strong militaristic dimension to Seton's organization, the Boy Scouts came into being, and Seton, wholly dissatisfied, withdrew. ... in the philosophy he developed toward untamed nature, he blazed a path leading directly to the conservationist attitudes of today.