Country Bumpkin Research Articles

Country Bumpkin or City Slicker? The Role of Place of Living and Place-Based Identity in Explaining Place-Based Resentment

In recent years, the rural-urban divide has not only made its way back into political science, but has also been given an entirely new angle by investigating place of living as its own social identity. However, research is still in its early stages and studies so far focus on linear explanations of place-based resentment. This paper studies place in the light of social identity theory and investigates how place of living and place-based identity interact in shaping place-based resentment. Original survey data on around 4000 respondents from Switzerland from 2022 with a novel measure of place-based identity and resentment is used. A distinction is made not only between rural and urban residents, but also between the suburbanites. Results show that rural residents hold the highest levels of identity and resentment, while suburban residents hold higher levels of resentment than urban ones do. Findings show that there is a moderating effect, whereby the rural-urban divide in resentment increases with place-based identity, while the suburban-urban gap diminishes with increasing place-based identity. These differences in place-based identity and resentment could explain the rural-urban divide in political attitudes and behavior.

Frying Pans, Limpets, Donkeys and Becs-jaunes: Thinking about Violence in Late Medieval Universities

ABSTRACT This essay examines the initiation ceremonies to which new recruits were often subjected in late medieval universities. These ceremonies theatricalised and ritualised violence, playing with metaphors and symbols and toying with the fine line between representation and reality. Why draw quite such attention to the notion that one was de-bestialising a new student (in the case of Heidelberg, Avignon, and others), re-clothing a country bumpkin (in the case of Siena, for example), or policing imagined violence by a hapless freshman (Pavia)? It was, I argue, because these ceremonies were engaging with the ways in which universities provided spaces to think about violence. The student perpetrators (both consciously and unconsciously) took aim at the hypocrisy of academic claims to represent a civilising space; they challenged the boundaries between physical violence and cruel words; and they parodied and drew attention to the hypocrisy of university regulations in institutions which in many ways continued to glorify violence. The parodic, subversive ruliness of the initiation ceremonies was a way to engage with ideas about violence.

Pragmatism's Evolution: Organism and Environment in American Philosophy

Pragmatism's Evolution: Organism and Environment in American Philosophy

From Court Fools to Stage Puppets: Country Bumpkins in the Skits on CCTV's Spring Festival Gala, 1983–2022

AbstractThe satiric skits (xiaopin) on the annual Spring Festival Gala on China Central Television (CCTV) are arguably the most popular performances in the most-watched show on the most-censored television channel in China in the reform era. Through witty satire of emerging social problems, these performances help the audience to relieve anxieties accumulated in a fast-changing society. In particular, country bumpkin characters play a crucial role in providing a platform for the populace and the state to meet, contest, negotiate and compromise. However, they suddenly disappeared after Xi Jinping took power in 2012, which, examined in the context of socialist comedy, signals a new stage of China's post-socialist condition.

The Branson Hillbilly: Commingling Power and Marginalization on the "Heartland" Stage

The Branson HillbillyCommingling Power and Marginalization on the "Heartland" Stage Joanna Dee Das (bio) and Jay Buchanan (bio) In 1967, nineteen-year-old Gary Presley did not put on a tie-dye T-shirt to participate in the iconic "Summer of Love." He also did not throw a bottle to participate in the more than 150 rebellions against racism and police brutality erupting in American cities across the country. Instead, he donned his grandfather's oversized overalls, plopped a broken straw hat on his head, and blacked out several of his teeth with an eyebrow pencil to transform himself into Herkimer, a hillbilly, for his family's variety show three miles outside of Branson, Missouri. The Mabes, who had been running their own variety show out of a municipal building downtown, opened a theatre across the highway one year later, featuring Jim Mabe as hillbilly Droopy Drawers. The entertainment industry in this Ozark Mountain small town exploded in the decades thereafter. By the dawn of the twenty-first century, more than forty-five theatres were operating over one hundred shows, many with their own hillbilly characters, for more than nine million tourists a year.1 While New York, Los Angeles, and Las Vegas are more nationally recognized US entertainment centers, Branson holds its own as a popular destination to see live performance, particularly for residents of the South, Midwest, and Southwest regions of the United States. Dominated by variety shows, Branson's entertainment industry abides by a motto called "The Three F's": Faith, Family, and Flag, a triumvirate of values linked to the rise of what is called "movement conservatism" in US politics.2 Yet vague assertions of values will not attract audiences; a show needs a character to embody these principles. Enter the hillbilly. The hillbilly is a stock character, [End Page 88] blending the long-standing "wise fool" archetype (e.g., Feste from Shakespeare's Twelfth Night) with stereotypes about poor whites from the Southern mountain regions of the United States. In early-twentieth-century US American theatre, the hillbilly stock character had a specific name—Toby—a "red-wigged, freckled, clownishly garbed country bumpkin who was the foil of the evil, conniving urban characters that tried to take advantage of simple rural people."3 The archetype was so popular that for several decades an entire genre of rural itinerant performance, the Toby Show, was built around it. This type of touring tent show faded into obscurity in the early 1960s, precisely when Gary first appeared as Herkimer and the rapid expansion of leisure nationwide enabled Branson's success as a tourism destination.4 At Presleys' Country Jubilee in the early 2020s, septuagenarian Gary has stopped blacking out his teeth, but he still bounds onstage in overalls six nights a week, ten months of the year, to tell jokes and engage in physical comedy. When asked why the Jubilee remained popular with audiences after several decades, he stated, "When you go to Hawaii, you want to see the Hula Girl. When you go to Branson, you want to see the hillbilly."5 The persistent popularity of hillbilly performance in Branson from the 1960s to the 2020s warrants a reconsideration of how expressive culture functions to create and sustain power structures in the United States. Power comes not simply in the form of wealth or in control of government; power comes in the form of being seen as someone who has influence, recognition, and admiration. How these affective registers of feelings interact with more traditional levers of power to determine one's standing in society is a subject of major debate. Historically peripheral to the plantation economy of the antebellum South, economically disadvantaged, and culturally scorned in the centuries thereafter, the hillbilly figure nevertheless bears a primary indicator of power and centrality in the United States: whiteness. And while there are hillbilly women, the classic hillbilly archetype is a man, so it also bears the privileges of masculinity.6 The hillbilly's commingling of marginalization and privilege plays out both onstage and off in Branson. Tourism boosters express frustration about the city's negative reputation as cheesy and backward, yet the destination's differentiating characteristic in a...

‘A stairway that does its own climbing’: the department store escalator and the promises of modernity, 1900–1950

ABSTRACT This article explores the history of the department store escalator in the first half of the twentieth century in the United States. Department stores were crucial in adopting new technologies in the city. Many people first encountered ‘moving staircases’ in the aisles of the store. The installation of new escalators became an occasion for celebration, as stores emphasized their modernity and commitment to progress. Familiarity with riding on escalators could separate the urban sophisticate from the country bumpkin. Well into the 1940s, crowds greeted escalators with enthusiasm. For retailers, the technology offered new possibilities for store layouts and convenience for shoppers and employees. As the escalator became standard equipment in the modern store, the potential dangers posed to riders were downplayed.

The "Sucker List" and the Evolution of American Business Fraud

The "Sucker List" and the Evolution of American Business Fraud Edward J. Balleisen (bio) in the early 1950S, mickey mantle burst onto the american sporting scene as a power-hitting outfielder for the New York Yankees. After a bumpy first year in the majors in 1951, this young man from rural Oklahoma soon became a star, attracting close attention from fans, the press, and promoters of all kinds. As a 1957 article in the Saturday Evening Post recounted, Mantle proved especially willing to listen to the pitchmen who promised to multiply his new sources of income. Within a mere week of arriving in New York City, he had signed a contract with a predatory agent who generously promised to secure all manner of endorsement and business deals, modestly reserving a full 50 percent of Mantle's earnings. Over the next few years, the Yankee phenom periodically took flyers on a series of ill-advised investments, including $3500 ($1000 paid in cash, the rest through a promissory note) for shares in a fake Oklahoma insurance company, hawked by a notorious sharper "who had served three prison terms and had an 'FBI file an inch thick.'" Mantle's remarkable lack of financial acumen meant that he "led the sucker list." And yet, the Saturday Evening Post profile also noted that Mantle learned from his mistakes rather quickly. By 1957, he had employed a reputable agent who identified excellent endorsement opportunities, which dramatically increased his income (Povich 1957, 19–20). This vignette incorporates several key features of the broader history of deception and misrepresentation in American marketplaces. [End Page 699] In the young Mantle, one can see several stock figures: the country bumpkin, the callow youth, and the credulous celebrity, but also the savvy pupil who became "more wise" through instruction in the school of wily charades. In the brief depiction of those who eagerly sized up Mantle and took advantage of him, one gets a sense of the omnipresent American snake-oil salesmen who have found fertile ground in a society that has often celebrated entrepreneurial innovation and aggressive marketing. That same discussion hints at the steady growth of antifraud institutions that took aim at duplicitous economic actors, shared intelligence about them across government agencies and jurisdictions, and at least sometimes curtailed their capacity to operate. Taken as a whole, the Saturday Evening Post article contributed to a longstanding public discourse about all the lies lurking throughout American commerce, a dialogue that sought to caution consumers and investors but simultaneously offered pointers to those who would deceive. A SONG OF SAFETY My morning mail is a penance to me. Long, fat envelopes meet my eyes, Filled with advice that is proffered free, Telling of many a wondrous prize. Old hooks baited with new disguise, Bundles of bunkum, a daily grist, New revamping of same old lies—PLEASE take my name off the Sucker List! Hawkers from Maine to the western sea, Selling unsalable merchandise. Proffer me many a golden key—Me, who've been bitten in too many buys. Towers with no roof but the bright blue skies, You and my earnings good-by I've kissed! I have sought plums in poor fruitless pies—Please take MY name off the Sucker List! Booms in oil? (bring my snickersnee!) Rising industrials? Let 'em rise! All my visions of Araby Are gone where the last year's bird's nest lies. I'm a year older—I hope more wise! Dreams of Golconda? I can resist. Buy for a fall? Then watch things rise! Please take my name OFF the sucker list! ENVOI Prints and pamphlets, circulars free, That paper the nation so lavishly. Let me alone. You'll never be missed! PLEASE TAKE MY NAME OFF THE SUCKER LIST! —Anonymous, Logansport Pharos-Tribune, Jan. 13,1926 The Mantle profile also referenced, without comment, a specific tool of duplicitous marketing: the "sucker list." Rosters of easy marks, compiled by and circulated among the purveyors of consumer fraud and [End Page 700] get-rich-quick schemes, have been around for at least a century and a half, and have become a mainstay of commercial duplicity in the United States. The emergence and evolution of...

Rural Undergraduates at Elite Universities: Learning Experience and Identity

The decline in the proportion of rural students at major universities has caused widespread social concern. Special enrollment programs in recent years have increased the proportion somewhat. However, the situation at elite universities in China’s transition period is different than before. There are few studies addressing the learning experiences of rural students in the new period. This study uses qualitative methods to research 32 case studies of rural undergraduates at four elite universities in Shanghai. Based on Bourdieu’s concepts of capital, field, and habitus, this study finds a mismatch between the habitus of respondents and that of elite universities, which leads to an awkward initial school experience. In accordance with the operating logic of the academic field, they are able to achieve an increase in cultural capital by virtue of their own efforts. This complex class experience also has a far-reaching impact on identity through the individual’s response to their own emotions. This conflicted identity is expressed as feeling like either a “country bumpkin” in the big city or a “city person” from the country.

Nie tylko wizyta u Stalina. Ksiądz Stanisław Orlemanski i jego bracia

Not Simply a Visit With Stalin — Rev. Stanislaus Orlemanski and His Brothers For the past 71 years the life of Rev. Stanislaus Orlemanski has been described by a series of catchphrases, the summary of which reads — a Polish–American Communist who invited himself to Moscow, an overconfident country bumpkin who thought he could outsmart Stalin, a priest who departed without the permission of his diocesenal superior. Reverend Stanislaus was not the most radical of the three Orlemanski brothers, who were priests, rather it was Casimir, who was deeply engaged in the Pittsburgh union movement and is well known to students of the US Labor movement. Reverend Stanislaus was known to the Polish–American community — the leading conservative paper — Dziennik Związkowy , published his articles criticizing the description of Poles and Italians in the Catholic Encyclopedia. In the ensuing years, Orlemanski’s articles appeared in both Polish and English language press. The decision that Stanislaus Orlemanski was to travel to Moscow was made some six months prior to his departure, during the Moscow Conference of October 1943. This decision is multiplaned and relates not only to the 1944 US Presidential election, but also to a future Polish government as well as Stalin’s desire to impress both Anglicans and Roman Catholics with his openness to religion. Clearly FDR and his closest advisors saw the benefits of this proposal as did the Soviet government. Efforts to include clergy in the „Wasilewska” government also involved Fr. Walter Ciszek, SJ and Fr. Wilhelm Kubsz. Mid–January 1944 correspondence of Ambassador Harriman with Washington relates that the People’s Commissar of the USSR had proposed that Krzycki, Lange and Orlemanski all serve as members of a future Polish government. Stalin’s late January 1944 letter to Roosevelt requesting issuance of passports to Orlemanski and Lange served as a camouflage for FDR; while his response to Stalin attempts to distance himself from the project. A passport was issued, as were permits for travel from the US Western Defense Command and the Alaska Defense Command, as well as others valid for travel through Egypt, Iraq and Persia (Iran) confirming the deep involvement of the US and British Government in this project. Correspondence from the US National Catholic Welfare Conference to the Papal Nuncio in Washington sent prior to the departure of Orlemanski and contains specific references to his probable position in the future government. The well–publicized suspension of Reverend Orlemanski was simply pro forma and lasted but several days. Drafts of his apology are located in NCWC files. Finally, the invitation to participate in the 50th anniversary celebrations of a strongly anti–communist Cardinal of the Curia, confirm at the least, that the Vatican was aware that Orlemanski was not an agent. What is now left to discover is the text of the Stalin document transmitted for Orlemanski by Father Marie Leopold Braun A. A., from Moscow to the Vatican and the Roman Curia’s full analysis of this document. That must await the declassification of the Pope Pius XII records held by the Vatican. What is clear is that the Rev. Stanislaus Orlemanski, although a leftist, was not a radical anomaly but rather an intensely pro–Polish US citizen who saw the sole enemy as Germany and supported any organization that fought against the enemy.

Hearing Voices: Cuban Oral History

Hearing Voices: Cuban Oral History

Abraham Lincoln, the U.S. Civil War, and the International Press

Most studies of Abraham Lincoln and the press focus on how American newspapers covered the sixteenth president of the United States. In this study, the author looks at how the international press covered Lincoln. Closest in proximity was the Canadian press, which tended to side with the Union but at the same time was not totally unsympathetic with the Confederacy because it saw the South as a countervailing influence on the growing U.S. military apparatus. Indeed, once the war ended, the Hamilton Spectator began to worry that the Americans might be more tempted to invade their neighbor to the north because it now possessed the strongest army and navy in the world. The British journalist William Howard Russell likewise had a somewhat complex view of the war. The Times of London correspondent found Lincoln to be more sophisticated than the country bumpkin stereotype that played fairly well in the London press. Russell sided with the Union, but he was somewhat smitten with the South in a social sense, as he observed the Confederates really did like the monarchy and aristocracy of Great Britain. In other countries, the key issue of Lincoln's presidency was economics. The Indian press followed the international cotton trade and saw the Union blockade of the South as an opportunity to export more and more Indian cotton. Thus, Indian journals paid attention to the quality of the cotton crop, as well as British incentive programs to get Indian farmers to expand their production of the fiber. Thus, this study examines the various ways the international press saw Lincoln and the central issue of his administration, the internecine war. This study shows that international journalism was mainly concerned with the strategic implications of the war, while interest in Lincoln's personality and statesmanship were secondary.

The Last Great Senator: Robert C. Byrd’s Encounters with Eleven U.S. Presidents by David A. Corbin (review)

Reviewed by: The Last Great Senator: Robert C. Byrd’s Encounters with Eleven U.S. Presidents by David A. Corbin Ronald L. Lewis The Last Great Senator: Robert C. Byrd’s Encounters with Eleven U.S. Presidents. By David A. Corbin. (Washington, DC: Potomac Books, 2012, Pp. ix–xiv, 364.) For a politician as prominent as the late West Virginia senator Robert C. Byrd, few know much about the man himself or his political accomplishments, mostly because the senator was a modest and private man. As an employee of the US Senate for twenty-six years, the last fifteen as an aide to Senator Byrd, [End Page 91] David Corbin is in a unique position to assess Byrd’s US Senate career, and the author’s revelations of the senator’s behind-the-scenes negotiations and the philosophical principles behind his votes are major contributions by an accomplished historian. Robert Byrd’s ascent from poverty to power is an oft-told story. The loss of his parents at an early age, his rearing by poor but proud relatives who treated him as their own son, his election to the West Virginia House of Delegates and then to the state senate, and his successful congressional elections first to the US House and then to the US Senate is embraced as an affirmation of the American myth of the self-made man. That Byrd would be elected to the Senate for nine full terms and serve fifty-two years in that august body, making him the longest serving senator in history; that he would cast more roll-call votes than any other senator in history; and that he would hold the most Senate leadership positions in history could not have been foreseen even by the senator himself, and certainly not by his detractors among the Washington elite. For years they failed to take him seriously and denounced him variously as racist hillbilly, country bumpkin, hillbilly Uriah Heep, rustic boob, and the king of pork. Academically an undereducated (he never earned a bachelor’s degree, but he did earn a law degree after ten years of night school while serving in the Senate), poor son of a West Virginia coal miner, they simply dismissed him as unqualified for high office. However, his rapid rise to powerful positions such as Senate whip, majority leader, and chair of the appropriations committee, along with his major legislative successes, forced them to eat crow. It should be emphasized that Byrd’s power base was not within the political establishment of West Virginia, but rather among the ordinary citizens across the length and breadth of his home state. Throughout his life he maintained the same values acquired while growing up in southern West Virginia and firmly rooted in his fundamentalist-protestant religion, what Corbin calls his hillbilly morality. He was convinced that God had “ordained this nation, and that this nation has responsibilities to perform under God” (43). His ultrapatriotism was neither chauvinistic nor militaristic but rather grounded in the belief that it was America’s God-appointed mission to bring liberty and peace to the world. The belief that “God had guided the hand of the Founding Fathers in the formation of American law—that is, the Constitution—the same as he presented Moses with the law for mankind” was the cornerstone of Byrd’s political philosophy (44). Therefore, the Constitution was holy writ and a law must be treated with reverence; any changes must preserve the checks and balances at the heart of the Constitution which were explained in the Federalist Papers. Byrd’s strict construction of the Constitution could cut both ways and was most obvious in the positions he took on civil rights. When he voted against [End Page 92] the 1960 civil rights bill to end the poll tax, the southern bloc applauded, and integrationists were outraged. He had been a member of the KKK very briefly in his youth, and both progressives and conservatives jumped to the wrong conclusions regarding his political motivations. To Byrd, the bill was unconstitutional because the Constitution gave states the power to establish election laws. He favored abolishing the poll tax, but it had to be done...

A Country Bumpkin in Cosmopolitan Shanghai

A Country Bumpkin in Cosmopolitan Shanghai

Writing The Simpsons: A Case Study of Comic Theory

there has been much debate ov er the reasons for the enduring success of Fox Tele- vision's long-running animated, prime-time comedy series The Simpsons, now in its twenty- fourth season (1989-present). The program satirizes contemporary American life, allowing us to see ourselves in the mirror of the absurd. It explores topics of the day, poking fun at the sitting president, going green, and the latest fads. It parodies our culture, including movies, T V shows, and pop songs, offering us laughs at inside jokes along the way. It is written tightly, with every word and action setting up or delivering a joke or gag while moving the plot speedily from scene to scene, sometimes barely lingering long enough for viewers to get a joke (e.g., the sermon titles on the marquee in the cover shots of the church before cutting to the interior scenes). The list of reasons for its success goes on.This article argues that another reason for the lasting popularity of The Simpsons can be found in comic theory. In an era of technologi- cal change and audience fragmentation, the prolonged success of this series reveals that theories of comedy still operate effectively for writers. Specifically, this article demonstrates that the show's writers incorporate every element of comedy in one way or another in every episode. The result is that each episode contains at least some humor to fit everyone's comic style. Everyone can laugh at The Simp- sons, regardless of what that person normally finds to be funny.It is doubtful that the writers of The Simpsons actually keep a list of the many types of humor that make up comic theory (e.g., incongruity, superiority). Certainly they do not consult a laundry list of how to write jokes (e.g., run- ning gags, rule of thirds) when they hit writers' block. Rather, their years of creativity and expe- rience as comedy writers in general, and for The Simpsons in particular, have resulted in their understanding comedy at a tacit level. They know the world of the imaginary Springfield so well, their characters in such depth, and the culture they are satirizing so thoroughly that they almost automatically include all types of humor in their scripts week after week.To make the case that the writers of The Simpsons utilize the full gamut of comic theory in each episode, even if subconsciously, this article presents a case study of a single epi- sode, though the argument can be applied to any episode. The episode selected for this analysis is There's Something about Marrying (season 16, episode 10, originally broadcast 20 February 2005).1 episode is somewhat rep- resentative in upholding the tradition of satiriz- ing contemporary culture. It also contains many of the regular cast of characters. Additionally, it is noteworthy because it is the only episode that ever aired with a parental advisory, warn- ing viewers, This episode contains discussions of same sex The advisory does not air online, in syndication, or on the DVD series.Act 1 opens with young Bart Simpson and his friend Milhouse attempting a prank, only to realize that the town folk are wise to their mis- chief. They need fresh meat. A turnip truck drives by, and a man falls off, introducing him- self as Howell Huser, a happy-go-lucky country bumpkin who travels about. The boys prank him multiple times, and he leaves, shaming the town. Howell next appears on television. He does travel features, and in this segment he gives Springfield a bad review. Immediately, the town's tourism dries up. The mayor calls a town meeting to discuss the problem. It is decided to legalize same-sex marriage to bring tourist dollars back to town.Act 2 begins with Springfield's TV commer- cial for gay marriage. The cars roll in. The local pastor, Reverend Lovejoy, refuses to marry gay couples. Bart's father, Homer Simpson, real- izes an opportunity to cash in and becomes an instant minister via the Internet. He moves beyond gay weddings, marrying anyone to anything, and is featured on the TV show Smar- tline. …

Country Bumpkin and Cosmopolitan: Some Versions of Postcolonial Pastoral

The pastoral mode has historically been dismissed for what some scholars see as its aestheticization of the brutal realities of agricultural labor and rural life. This essay, however, complicates what critics have considered the inherently conservative ideology of the pastoral. I contend that contemporary Irish poets such as Seamus Heaney and John Montague mobilize the literary mode’s generic conventions to critique the processes of modernization at work in postwar Ireland that displaced their rural communities. In and , the pastoral opens up a language of socioeconomic critique unavailable in political discourse, dominated as it often was by proponents of modernization who derided the rural community as a bastion of backward nationalism or by conservative politicians who idealized it as a sanctuary of traditional values. These poets are acutely aware of the multiple ironies embedded within the pastoral, the discursive power of which can reveal the contradictions in politico-economic ideology and cultural expression in modern Ireland.

Yoruba Video Comedies: You Don’t Know Lagos

Yoruba Video Comedies: You Don’t Know Lagos Connor Ryan Femi Adebayo. Jelili. Parts 1 and 2. 2012. Nigeria. In Yoruba with English subtitles. Epsalum Productions. 272 mins. No price reported. Tope Daramola. Ipaja si Idumota ninu BRT (Impaja to Idumota on the BRT). Parts 1 and 2. 2012. Nigeria. In Yoruba with English subtitles. Gemini Films and Marketing. 209 mins. No price reported. Muyhdeen S. Ayinde. O o M’Eko (You Don’t Know Lagos). Parts 1 and 2. 2012. Nigeria. In Yoruba with English subtitles. Headmaster Films. 197 mins. No price reported. It is surprising how little writing one finds on comedy in African cinema. If we recall that African cinema has historically defined itself by its “seriousness” of political, cultural, or artistic intent, we might understand why, for that tradition, comedy is viewed as indulgent or undignified. But for Nollywood, comedy has been standard fare for some time. In fact, one of the highest grossing video films, Kingsley Ogoro’s Osuofia in London (2004), a farce about a bush hunter who travels to London, is considered a classic Nollywood blockbuster. The film is a variation on the perennial story of the village fool who travels to the city only to find himself comically bewildered by urban life. In the films under review here, London is replaced by Lagos—no less a global metropolis—but the humor is much the same. In Femi Adebayo’s Jelili, the town trickster is banished to Lagos, where ironically he finds himself the victim of big city tricksters. In Tope Daramola’s Ipaja si Idumota ninu BRT (Impaja to Idumota on the BRT), a pair of scoundrels are run out of town, and though one finds work as a ticket collector on the Lagos bus (Bus Rapid Transit), his antics remain unchanged. The protagonist of Muyideen Ayinde’s O o M’Eko (You Don’t Know Lagos) is not a trickster, but a naive [End Page 215] fool who is framed for murder and flees to Lagos where he falls in with a gang of Area boys. Each of these films turns on the scene of the protagonist’s arrival in Lagos, which opens onto all manner of slapstick humor. These scenes work to cast the country bumpkin as an illiterate, unable to decipher the city’s incoherent spaces, inscrutable social networks, and unspoken laws. The protagonist’s estrangement reflects the general alienation one never ceases to feel in a city like Lagos, where uncertainty has become a generalized condition of everyday life. The village fool is humorously tormented for not being “in the know,” and yet his clowning around defamiliarizes what the urban viewer already knows all too well. That is to say that comedies of this sort are as revealing as they are distracting. Of course, as a genre, comedy produces its levity by distracting viewers from the potential gravity of its subject matter. And yet it is perhaps precisely for this reason that comedies are able to probe the most controversial fault lines of Nigerian society. In the postcolonial African city, innumerable lifeways converge and diverge in the “incessant provisionality and innovation” that Abdou Maliq Simone says is characteristic of urban Africa (1998:76). Improvisation is necessary in all dimensions of daily life where no condition is permanent. In Lagos one provides for one’s own water, electricity, and security, a fact that led the geographer Matthew Gandy to quip that Lagos, a city characterized by political and economic instability, petro-capitalist development, and a severe contraction of the public sphere is a “self-service city” (2006:388). For those living in Lagos, this translates into a shared sense of personal vulnerability and apprehension about the uncertainty of what is to come. Onookome Okome calls Lagos “the anxious city,” noting that the metropolis “is anxious about its own status in the global tide of goods and services and other kinds of exchange, and its citizens are insecure and anxious of their place within it” (2004:71). This all makes Lagos a rich site within the popular Nigerian imagination. The comedies in question play on this popular vision of the city. Jelili opens in a small town that is quickly...

Kokka (1889)

Kokka (1889) Okakura Kakuzō and Timothy Unverzagt Goddard (bio) Art is the flowering of a nation. Its form amalgamates and crystallizes those ideas that the people revere, admire, and cherish, and to which they aspire. Accordingly, by looking at the spirit and dignity of an artwork, one can judge the level of a culture; by the depth of its poetic resonance and taste, one can discern the refinement of a people. The arts of Japan have excelled since ancient times: the exquisite appearance of Buddhist statues, the high refinement of landscapes, the appeal of picture scrolls showing the lives of holy men, the poetic charm of flower and animal paintings—all of them cast a shadow behind art's lens. They illuminate era after era in the temples of Nara and Heian, making manifest the exquisiteness of ancient times. Extending down to the early modern era, they are like a hundred floral brocades in a forest of ink. Delicate plum blossoms and sumptuous peonies, together emanating their splendor, impart their fragrance and brilliance to one thousand years of history. Art is truly the legacy of successive reigns, virtuous sages, and great benevolence, as we evoke the spirit of our ancestors and gather together their flowering petals. We are charged with the truly urgent responsibility of preserving and developing these characteristics, which bequeath their brave radiance to posterity and to all four corners of the world. Now is a rare and glorious time, the enlightened reign of Meiji. In this era, we search for models everywhere, drawing on ancient and modern times, and seek knowledge broadly, from the East and West. We shall extol the exemplary achievements of the Meiji Restoration and encourage a demeanor of refinement and elegance. And we will forge a path for industry and the economy. It is my hope that this publication of Kokka will serve to express opinions concerning the promotion, preservation, supervision, and instruction of the arts; propose objectives for the preservation and development of painting, sculpture, architecture, and the various branches of the art industry;1 and display the flowering essence of this nation and its people. [End Page 176] In this world, just as in Buddhist practice, it is no easy matter to overcome the hindrances that lie before one's eyes, cross to the other shore, defeat the demons of the realm of desire, and gaze upon all phenomena in their suchness. When one cultivates a lotus with great care and is besieged by wind and rain, only a country bumpkin notices the whiff of its autumnal fragrance at a rustic bamboo fence. On the other hand, when one plants a willow without particular care, it grows to fill the heavens with cotton-like seeds, and in casting myriad threads, it attracts and moves human emotions. Is not the way of the arts similarly difficult? In my opinion, the enterprises that its future organization demands ought not be limited to one. We may well ask whether current methods of the administration of the arts sufficiently fulfill the responsibilities of effective management and ensure adherence to established practices and regulations. At present, the Imperial Household Ministry is responsible for the investigation of national treasures, the Ministry of Home Affairs oversees the preservation of shrines and temples, education in the arts falls under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Education, and the Ministry of Agriculture and Commerce manages art exhibitions.2 With various functions divided among ministries in this manner, we cannot yet ask for a governmental agency to assume responsibility for art in its entirety. Not only are we unable to follow the lead of countries such as France and Italy in establishing a ministry devoted exclusively to the arts, but it is also impossible to formulate a comprehensive strategy for the arts in the absence of an administrative entity that oversees these various projects. At the very least, if in the struggle between Japan and foreign countries we wish to meet on equal footing, then we must harness the artistic power of the entire nation and admonish the leadership, or else we will be unable to make the vanguard and the reserves obey their respective commands. We may well ask, has...

In a Thicket (review)

IN A THICKET. Adapted by Nomura Mansai from the short story by Akutagawa Ryunosuke. English subtitles by Jonah Salz. M & O Plays. MO-301-2: NTSC. [yen]6,000 ($52.00). In 1994 the young kyogen actor Nomura Mansai set off to spend a year in England, hungry for new experience and keen to expand the boundaries of his talent. On his travels he was particularly impressed by Theatre de Complicite. The group founded in 1983 by Le Coq-trained artists Simon McBurney, Annabel Arden, and Marcello Magni, and which has gained international acclaim for productions such as The Street of Crocodiles and Memento, devised without scripts from workshops and renowned for their visually imaginative nature. Their powerful physicality and playful lightness must surely have reminded him of his own kyogen tradition at its best. Yet on his return to Japan Mansai was determined to direct a production that could rival what he had seen and, more importantly, prove kyogen's potential to bridge the past and the present, drawing on tradition to create something new and inspiring. He decided on Akutagawa Ryunosuke's 1922 short story of rape, robbery, and murder, In a Thicket (Yabu no naka). Better known outside Japan through Kurosawa Akira's movie adaptation Rashomon, the story consists of several conflicting testimonies concerning a violent incident in a dense thicket off the road between Kyoto and nearby Yamashina. Mansai recruited to this project his father, Nomura Mansaku, Mansaku's long-term disciple Ishida Yukio and--in a rare collaboration with kyogen's other family--Living National Treasure Shigeyama Sensaku and two of his sons, Sengoro and Senzaburo. Staged periodically throughout 1999 in two versions, one adapted to the no stage, the other to a modern theatre, In a Thicket met great acclaim, confirming Mansai as one of the brightest and most innovative of Japan's traditional actors. Both versions (one at the National No Theatre, Tokyo, the other at Theatre Cocoon, Tokyo) have now been issued in a DVD set, including commentary by Mansai, and with optional (and excellent) English subtitles (but no optional Japanese subtitles, unfortunately). The DVD set comprises two discs, the first containing the performance staged at the National No Theatre (81 minutes), the second the performance at Theatre Cocoon (80 minutes), with both plays conveniently indexed according to their nine episodes, making it very easy to find a particular section. Both discs also contain various bonus features. The first disc includes thirteen minutes of commentary on the play by Mansai, followed by nineteen minutes of interview at the theatre; while the second disc includes a further six minutes of interview. Within these extra features Mansai talks about the play itself, casting, direction, the structure of the piece, and thematic connections between the characters in Thicket and similar ones in kyogen plays. At first glance, this dark tale of violence, greed, and dishonesty may seem an unlikely fit for kyogen's sunny disposition, but Mansai perceived a strong thematic link that convinced him kyogen's traits could transfer the story vividly to the stage. Many kyogen feature a character that bends the truth to his own advantage, whether an idle servant escaping a burdensome job, a con man swindling a country bumpkin, or a bombastic mountain priest (yamabushi). Mansai observed the same self-serving tendency apparent in the characters of Akutagawa's story, as all attempt to present themselves in the best possible light while unwittingly casting a shadow of suspicion instead. The unreliable and self-aggrandizing nature of each person's testimony could also, Mansai realized, be entertainingly suggested through the colourful and exaggerated style of kyogen itself, as if the characters were protesting a bit too much. In his excellent commentary accompanying the DVD (not to be confused with subchannel commentaries so popular these days), Mansai explains, Playing it light-heartedly avoids a suspension of disbelief . …

Forester, bricoleur and country bumpkin: rethinking knowledge and habit in Aquinas's ethics

The ways that Thomism has historically thought about knowledge and habit in Thomas Aquinas's ethics have become increasingly destabilised. This article briefly documents this destabilisation before considering three images that have emerged in recent engagements with the ethics of Aquinas on moral knowledge and action. The three images are brought to bear on a discussion of what Aquinas may have meant by calling synderesis a ‘natural habit’. The first image is John Milbank's and Catherine Pickstock's image of God as country bumpkin and it follows Aquinas's own description of the way God knows particulars out of divine simplicity. They argue that human knowledge of particulars comes from participation in the mind of God. This is participation in eternal law from which natural law is derived and so natural law cannot constitute a separate, sufficient system of moral knowledge. With the second image, the bricoleur, Jeffrey Stout argues that system-building was far from the kind of work that Aquinas was about, despite appearances that have disguised how freely Aquinas himself made use of the moral resources at his disposal. The third image, the forester, is deployed by Charles Pinches intentionally to improve on some of the problems with Stout's image. The Christian moral agent develops habits of mind that both aid in right perception, and hence right knowledge, and depend on right perception for right action. A discussion of this apparent paradox reveals something of the complexity of theoretical knowledge and practical skills that are involved in moral reasoning for Aquinas.

In Memoriam Nathan H. Cook (1925–2005)

In Memoriam Nathan H. Cook (1925–2005)