British Audiences Research Articles

ИЗ РОССИИ В ВЕЛИКОБРИТАНИЮ И ОБРАТНО ЧЕРЕЗ ЛА-МАНШ: МУЗЫКАЛЬНЫЕ ОТКРЫТИЯ ПЕРИОДА ВТОРОЙ МИРОВОЙ ВОЙНЫ И «ОТТЕПЕЛИ» (по следам архивных находок и зарубежных публикаций)

Russian music enjoyed its popularity and appreciation among British audiences throughout the twentieth century. Musical life in London during the period of World War II was infused with a good number of concert programmes. The finest works of national composers of the tsarist Russia were performed along with musical works of the Soviet period regardless of their stylistic peculiarities as well as of the approved or disapproved states of their authors with the Soviet authorities. They laid a fine foundation for an active musical interchange between musicians of both countries formed at the turn of the Khrushchev Thaw period, when the ‘crème de la crème’ of Soviet performers stepped on British soil and British performers toured Russia in the early 1950s. It was down to personal contacts of enthusiastic musicians, rather than only those signed on a governmental level known as the Soviet-British Cultural Agreement of 1959, for example, that did maintain the initiatives and musical collaborations. The concert activities and correspondence of Vadim Borisovsky with his British colleagues, which started much earlier, is the best example in this regard. The discussion of these topics relies heavily on recent archival findings from Moscow and London.

The Granny and the Heist/La estanquera de Vallecas by José Luis Alonso de SantosStuart GreenLucy Meyer

MLR, .,   analysis of women’s roles is central to the argument, a theoretical framework for the study of gender in relation to socio-economic contexts could productively be drawn out further. e chapter on the cuestión social in Misericordia outlines the text’s representation of female characters who are reliant on begging and other forms of charity; however, further development of Galdós’s contradictory response to contemporary debates, including the ways in which bourgeois discourses about the indigent masses presented women as a particular threat, would be welcome here. Similarly, the study of lending and social advancement could usefully draw out existing academic paradigms about gender and the exchange economy through a crucial focus on the treatment of the female body. Minor caveats aside, this highly informative and well-researched book is a welcome addition to scholarship on how we read Galdós’s fiction in response to the rapidly changing society in which he lived, a time characterized—as Ridao Carlini asserts—by a perception of socio-economic uncertainty. Rich and Poor in Nineteenth-Century Spain enhances understanding of Galdós’s critical representation of the socio-economic developments that shaped both his novels and late nineteenth-century Spain. U  E K M e Granny and the Heist/La estanquera de Vallecas. By J L A  S. Translation and introduction by S G; teaching resources by S G and L M. (Aris and Phillips Hispanic Classics) Liverpool: Liverpool University Press. .  pp. £ (pbk £.). ISBN –––– (pbk ––––). is volume contains an Introduction; a bilingual, facing-page edition of La estanquera de Vallecas (e Granny and the Heist), a play written by José Luis Alonso de Santos in  and first staged in ; and a section on teaching resources for secondary and undergraduate university students. e Introduction, written by theatre scholar Stuart Green, contextualizes the play, outlines the themes of poverty and marginalization, class, rebellion, love, and friendship, and captures the linguistic playfulness, (sometimes slapstick) humour, and social message of the play. Green also tells us about the dramatist, José Luis Alonso de Santos, explaining how his experience of the experimental and socially aware independent theatre in s and s Spain (still under a dictatorship) informs this landmark play. A section on characters introduces the mostly loveable maverick Gran, the protagonist, her granddaughter Ángeles, and the two out-ofwork builders turned amateur thieves, Leandro and Tocho (clearly inspired by the picaresque tradition), who are set, firstly against each other and, later, against the representatives of the establishment (especially the police inspector Maldonado). Elements of the Spanish theatrical genre of the sainete are evident in the picture we are given of the working-class, marginalized community that they all belong to. A brief plot summary is very useful and captures the comedy of the robberyturned -hostage situation alongside the realization by all of those involved that  Reviews they, as members of this downtrodden community, have more in common than they thought. In very accessible language, Green gives the student the background needed to understand the play’s themes as well as to open it up to broader interpretation and application to the discussion of such themes in other social and political contexts. e play itself is a tragicomic caper with a social message that both captures a particular moment in Spain’s post-dictatorship history and transcends that moment to speak to human concerns of community, solidarity, and trust. It deserves to be more widely known in the English-speaking world. is translation, the first British English translation of the play (Phyllis Zatlin produced an American English one, Hostages in the Barrio, published by Estreno in ), is prepared, as Green explains, both for performance and for a British audience with different cultural references and slang from what was current among the original audience of the play. e translation choices made to deal with this, including the employment of a language inspired by British television comedies of the early s, work very well, allowing for a natural-sounding dialogue in translation without losing the humour and colloquial brilliance of the original (‘Will you shut up, you moron?’ (p. ); ‘for crying out loud, Gran!’ (p. ); ‘stop her, Leandro. e old bat’s aer...

Composing History: National Identities and the English Masque Revival, 1860–1920 by Deborah Heckert

Reviewed by: Composing History: National Identities and the English Masque Revival, 1860–1920 by Deborah Heckert Christopher Little Composing History: National Identities and the English Masque Revival, 1860–1920. By Deborah Heckert. (Music in Britain, 1600–2000.) Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell, 2018. [ix, 238 p. ISBN 9781783272075 (hardcover), $99.] Illustrations, bibliography, index. Deborah Heckert's Composing History is a valuable contribution to scholarship on English music. As its subtitle indicates, it is an exploration of musical and cultural revival of the masque genre in Great Britain. It is also an interrogation of English nationalism at the turn of the twentieth century. Heckert structures her monograph so that the former becomes a series of case studies of the latter. She succeeds in balancing the two subjects, as well as the format of context and case study in each chapter, so that the monograph feels much longer and weightier than its slim two hundred pages. Heckert intertwines the topics of masque revival and English national identity through the concept of "invented tradition" (p. 4), drawing on the work of Eric Hobsbawm. She applies his idea of the reinvention of tradition for new social or cultural effect within each chapter, first to particular masques either revived or newly composed during the latter half of the nineteenth century and then to the broader revival of British music during the same period, known as the English Musical Renaissance. To untangle these topics for the purposes of review, Heckert's historiography of the masque explains which features were retained and which were reinvented for contemporary British audiences. The masque originated as an Elizabethan court entertainment, a musical and dramatic spectacle centered around dances performed by the professional company of "masquers," then joined by select members of the court in the final "revels." The story, often slight, consisted of historical or allegorical narratives designed to reify the monarchy and reinforce existing social hierarchy. Important characters arrived onstage in grand entrance processions or underwent spectacular transformation scenes. Dangerous progressive elements were put to flight by the restoration of tradition, history, or a goodness mythologically derived. The courtly masque did not survive the seventeenth century, and two hundred years or so separate its "golden age" from its revival. Rediscovery of the masque began in 1840 as a way to celebrate the marriage of Victoria, Queen of Great Britain, and Albert, Prince Consort of Victoria. Heckert notes that this was an opportunity to connect the masque's "impressive pedigree" to the present monarchy as well as to "recapture the masque as a nostalgic, nationalistic genre" (p. 43). Heckert dates the revival of the masque proper to another royal wedding, that of Albert, Prince of Wales, to Princess Alexandra of Denmark in 1863, celebrated by two newly composed—and rival—masques. As performance opportunities and public interest in the historical genre grew, its audience and purpose changed. It became a genre that spoke to the nation as a whole, straddling high and popular cultures through its inclusion in "rational recreation" (p. 140) aimed at uplifting the new—and newly restless—urban working class. By the end of the century, Heckert argues, the now-reinvented genre became a site where conflicting arguments about an increasingly uneasy English national identity could be played out. Economic and naval challenges from Germany, jingoism and military embarrassment in the Boer War, and social unrest, represented by the success of the Labour Party in the 1905 elections, all contributed [End Page 102] to a desire for a stable "English" identity. The status of the masque as a "historical genre" (p. 14) having "traditional associations with nationalism and patriotism" (p. 24) allowed its dramatic and musical representations of England's past to, as Heckert describes, "forcefully [communicate] messages about England's modern, industrial, and imperialistic present" (p. 13). The contemporaneous revival of national music known as the English Musical Renaissance also sought to address these issues. Heckert devotes much of her contextual discussions to a critique of this movement. Perhaps most fruitfully, she explodes the unity of purpose and organic growth attributed to it by later authors, such as Frank Howes and Michael Trend, by tracing how the goals of the Renaissance changed as members of its founding generation...

Margaret Oliphant and George MacDonald as Scottish Writers for a British Audience

Margaret Oliphant and George MacDonald as Scottish Writers for a British Audience

Patristics and Late Antiquity: Partners or Rivals?

Students of late antiquity or early Christian studies have long been accustomed to the existence of the parallel and much older and more traditional discipline of patristics, but students of patristics may be less familiar with the main developments that have characterized the other two in recent years. This paper, originating in a lecture directed at them, and with a British audience attended by many theologians, returns to the question of disciplinary borderlines and the ways in which late antique studies have distanced themselves from patristics. It also points to recent developments in late antique studies and the study of religion that argue for a more integrated approach.

«Стальной скок» С. С. Прокофьева в Париже и Лондоне (1927 год)

The creative dialogue between Sergei Diaghilev and Sergei Prokofiev is one of the key issues on the agenda of modern musicology. Among the productions developed for Diaghilev’s ballet company, one work with a whimsical and somewhat clumsy name—The Steel Step (Le Pas d’Acier)—definitely stands out. The ballet took two years, from 1925 to 1927, to compose. It had a stunning success in Paris and London, where it remained in the repertoire up until Diaghilev’s death in 1929. The article aims to identify general tendencies in the opinions about The Steel Step voiced in print media after its premiere. The focus of the study is the critique of Prokofiev’s work in British and French press as well as in print media of Russian emigration. The analysis of data obtained from publications by French, Russian, and English authors was made with a due regard to the historical and cultural contexts relevant for the 1927 premieres of the ballet in Paris and London. Out of the plethora of critical reviews we chose 24 French articles, 9 articles by the authors of Russian emigration (including one interview with Diaghilev) and 47 English articles (including one more interview with Diaghilev). The three basic artistic components of the production (design by George Jakoulov, choreography by Leonide Massine and music by Sergei Prokofiev) shaped very different associations in French, English and Russian critical reviews. A special focus was given to the possible Bolshevistic footprint in all the components of the controversial performance. The study is the first attempt to analyse the diverse range of opinions about Prokofiev’s ballet. The study identified the characteristic features of the then international press and traced the stage life of the ballet during the 20th, 21st and 22nd Seasons of the Ballets Russes. We deem that the paradoxical success of The Steel Step in Great Britain was related not only to the political context of that time—the 1927 premiere of the ballet coincided with the diplomatic break between Great Britain and the USSR. It also had to do with the aesthetic preferences of the British audience, namely, with their interest in constructivism as a single style found in different kinds of art.

William Thorpe’s Other Books: “Second Generation” Wycliffism and the Glossed Gospels

William Thorpe’s Other Books“Second Generation” Wycliffism and the Glossed Gospels David Lavinsky A set of English commentaries on the four gospels, the Glossed Gospels were produced within the same late fourteenth-century academic milieu as the English Wycliffite Bible translations. The Glossed Gospels were linked to the translation project in a number of ways, but copies also circulated independently of any specific Wycliffite Bible recension. Self-consciously constructed biblical manuscripts in their own right, their layout and design reflected conventions inherited from late-eleventh and early-twelfth-century Latin precursors for citing authorities and clarifying the relationship between scripture and exposition. In this paper, I explore what made such features newly relevant in late medieval literary and intellectual contexts, and how material associated with the Glossed Gospels may have shaped a specific case of vernacular theology and argumentation—namely, the Testimony of William Thorpe (fl. 1381–1407).1 A Yorkshire preacher, Thorpe was arrested under the provision of a 1406 anti-Lollard statute after coming to the attention of authorities in Shrewsbury, who had accused him of promoting unorthodox religious opinions in a sermon at St. Chad’s church on April 17, 1407.2 Some months later, following Thorpe’s removal to Canterbury, he was examined by Archbishop Thomas Arundel at Saltwood Castle, in Kent.3 The Testimony, which survives in three manuscript copies dating to the early or mid-fifteenth century, is Thorpe’s record of his exchange with Arundel, and the only known source of information about his time in custody. Stylized as an autobiographical account but given over in substance to biblical exegesis, the narrative of the Testimony unfolds in the Archbishop’s private quarters, where he and select members of his retinue scrutinize Thorpe’s views according to a schedule of topics he had reportedly [End Page 189] discussed while preaching at St. Chad’s.4 At one point, Arundel reads from a “litil rolle” enumerating “þe errours and þe eresies” Thorpe was said to have sown in his sermon, and perhaps also in testimony before the abbot of Shrewsbury, who questioned Thorpe a day after his arrest (42.619–22).5 Thorpe’s responses to his examiner draw on familiar sources for biblical commentary and exposition, including those compiled in Wycliffite texts such as the Middle English version of the Rosarium Theologie, a late-fourteenth-century alphabetical set of distinctiones adapted from a much longer Latin original. Indeed, Thorpe’s apparent interest in material from the Rosarium is itself a notable feature of the Testimony.6 But while several arguments set out by Thorpe include information found in the Rosarium or its abridged versions, and comparatively fewer arguments can be traced directly to the Glossed Gospels, the latter corpus nonetheless figures significantly in the textual and intellectual setting of Thorpe’s work. The Testimony represents the experience of a reader whose literacy has been materially shaped by forms of indexing and reference such as those found in glossed books, perhaps specifically through Thorpe’s use of Wycliffite gospel commentaries. This conjunction illustrates how later stages of the Wycliffite movement, sometimes characterized exclusively in terms of “popular” religion, adapted the textual and material forms of academic biblical scholarship for fifteenth-century English audiences. It also highlights the continued significance of an “erudite” body of vernacular commentary in scripting public debate on belief and practice.7 A Glossed Biblical Text? The relationship between these two texts and their respective cultural registers is not an obvious one. Separated from one another in time as well as function, the Testimony and the Glossed Gospels represent divergent genealogies of Middle English religious writing, reinforced by Thorpe’s polemical critique of Latin pedagogy and the clerical prerogatives underpinning the production of books such as glossed biblical commentaries. Although only one of the three extant manuscript copies of the Testimony is in English (Oxford Bodleian Library MS Rawlinson C.208), Thorpe prioritizes the vernacular in remarks such as those enjoining the Archbishop to declare the [End Page 190] meaning of Latin sentences “opinli in Ynglische,” academic theology being “scole-mater,” he claims, “aboute whiche I neuer bisied me for to knowe in” (55.1018–19, 1030–31).8 Given various...

Polskie, czyli jakie? Kino polskie w oczach odbiorcy brytyjskiego (na wybranych przykładach z lat 2008-2018)

The article aims to show how contemporary Polish cinema has been received in “Sight&Sound” magazine post 2004, after Poland joined the EU. The author attempts to answer the following questions: has the British audience changed their perception of Polish cinema? Have the traits associated with the Polish Film School – the horrible experience of war, love of freedom, Polish romanticism focused on the individual, the truth (of the social kind, and free from constraining patterns), distinctive form, allusiveness and attachment to national symbols – been transformed in any way, and whether this has been reflected in articles published in “Sight&Sound”.
 The conclusion seems clear: there is little difference in how British audiences perceive contemporary Polish cinema, as they still heavily associate it with the subject matter and the directors of the Polish Film School (Wajda, Kawalerowicz).

Bollywood in Britain: Cinema, Brand, Discursive Complex by Lucia Kr�mer (review)

Reviewed by: Bollywood in Britain: Cinema, Brand, Discursive Complex by Lucia Krämer Kinga Földváry Lucia Krämer, Bollywood in Britain: Cinema, Brand, Discursive Complex. New York & London. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2016. 296 pages, $130.00 hardback, $39.95 paperback $35.95 eBook. Public awareness of Bollywood, the world of popular Hindi cinema, has slowly but surely grown during the past few decades, and although this increase in recognition must clearly be seen as a global phenomenon, there are significant differences between the ways individual countries and social groups view this exciting universe. Lucia Krämer's thorough examination of the state of affairs in Britain is therefore not only an excellent addition to the already available academic writings on Bollywood, but it also offers a timely investigation into a previously unexplored aspect of this complex field. Even though Bollywood as a term has long become common currency both in popular and academic discourse, the author points out the considerable discrepancies among the diverse contemporary interpretations of the word. Interestingly, while the popular etymology of the term is well known ("Bombay + Hollywood"), the exact meaning of Bollywood is much less settled. It is sometimes used to encompass Indian cinema as a whole; at other times it is restricted to mainstream Hindi cinema produced in the Mumbai area. Some of these uses are neutral and non-judgmental, but the word is also frequently associated with a pejorative sense of spectacular lowbrow entertainment, lacking in artistic merit. Yet, as Krämer argues, the past decades have witnessed not only a broader global understanding of the heterogeneous nature of Indian cinema, but also considerable changes in Indian filmmaking as well, and this raised awareness begins to be reflected in the language of reviews, too. Since the volume is interested in the way Bollywood is perceived in Britain, it focuses on what Bollywood means for British audiences, and in what ways these meanings are created and disseminated in image and text, fiction and non-fiction, by amateur and professional reviewers and interpreters. Following its detailed discussion of the plethora of meanings associated with Bollywood, the volume goes on to look at the contemporary position of popular Indian cinema in Britain, relying on statistical evidence partly gathered by the author from a variety of target groups. As a result, the arguments presented are convincingly grounded in facts and figures, socio-demographic and industrial observations, rather than simply on hypothetical or metaphorical interpretations. Putting the Bollywood phenomenon in its socio-historical context, the author presents its changing themes and emphases on certain aspects of Indianness or the diasporic existence manifested in the cinema. Nonetheless, the film analyses that also form an inevitable part of the study, add similarly sound and thought-provoking aspects to the investigation. The book also sheds light on intertextual references between individual films, both Indian classics and contemporary diaspora narratives. One particularly praiseworthy feature is that these short summaries include not only the usual cinematographic details, but even more interestingly, translated excerpts from film lyrics and descriptions of their visual background ("song picturization") as well, which audiences often perceive as the most authentic, even compulsory Bollywood features. A detailed timeline illustrates how the 1990s brought about the first stage of Bollywood's visibility in Britain, followed by a Bollywood boom in the early 2000s, particularly the so-called "Indian Summer" in 2002, which gave way to a new, though more subtle and therefore less observable change in stylistic and structural elements of production and reception. Many of the films selected for in- depth analysis belong to the so-called diaspora films, thematising the concerns and anxieties inherent in diasporic existence, as seen from the viewpoints of both the mother country and the various groups of non-resident Indians. A central thematic element examined here is nostalgia, which the author also puts into theoretical perspective, before examining its textual and visual manifestations. Yet it is the second half of the volume where the endeavour moves into previously uncharted territory. Krämer undertakes more than just a handful of film analyses, and contextualises her argument by interpreting Bollywood as a brand, a label that points beyond individual works and [End Page 7] authors...

1077 and all that: Gregory VII in Reformation historical writing

AbstractFrom the late Middle Ages onwards, the reputation of Pope Gregory VII (r. 1073–85) was hotly debated. Lionized during the Catholic Reformation, the controversial pope was also the target of strident polemic from conciliarists, German humanists and then, most intensely, from Protestants. This essay focuses on the development of polemic against Gregory by Lutherans and English Protestants. Important contemporary sources against Gregory were unearthed by humanist and conciliarist scholars such as Johannes Aventinus and Ortwin Gratius and then published by Protestants such as Philipp Melanchthon and Kaspar Hedio. English writers with strong connections to the Lutherans such as Thomas Swinnerton and Robert Barnes presented the polemical history of Gregory's pontificate to English audiences. It was further extended by Matthias Flacius, John Bale and John Foxe. Yet while all Protestant accounts of Gregory agreed that he epitomized papal depravity, there were significant variations in emphasizing which qualities of his were truly Antichristian. For some writers it was his imposition of clerical celibacy, for others his excommunication and deposition of an emperor and for others it was his activities as a sorcerer. This essay concludes by discussing these variations and evaluating the reasons for their popularity. While Gianmarco Giuliani's essay in this collection describes how Gregory VII became a keystone in Catholic interpretations of the Church and the papacy, this essay attempts to show how he became a keystone of Protestant interpretations of ecclesiastical and papal history.

Effects of a Magazine’s Move to Online-only: Post-print Audience Attention and Readership Retention Revisited

ABSTRACT For financial reasons, newspapers and magazines are increasingly going online-only. By doing so, some have returned to profitability, but with what consequences for their audiences? To expand the scant evidence base, we conducted a case study of the UK’s New Musical Express (NME) magazine. By analyzing quantitative audience data from official industry sources, we estimate total time spent with the NME by its British audience fell dramatically post-print—by 72%. This fall mirrors that suffered by The Independent newspaper, which went online-only two years earlier. We also report that the NME’s official net weekly and monthly readership increased post-print, although these results are difficult to compare with The Independent’s because the two titles differed in their print publication frequencies. We conclude that the attention periodicals attract via their print editions is unlikely to immediately transfer to their online editions should they go online-only. Building a fuller theory of print platform cessation, however—one that also encompasses changes in readership/reach—requires more comparable data. This case study provides further evidence to suggest that though, for newspapers and magazines, a post-print existence may be less costly, it is also more constrained, with much of the attention they formerly enjoyed simply stripped away.

Seeing and being the visualised 'Other': humanitarian representations and hybridity in African diaspora identities

ABSTRACT This article examines how humanitarianism representations affect British Nigerian identities. It problematises the tendency within development literature to uncritically generalise British audiences of NGO representations as seemingly white. Studies further assume audiences interpret and are impacted by representations in largely undifferentiated ways. This assumption discounts the complexities and particularities of and within audiences and overlooks how humanitarian representations inform how (and why) audiences negotiate their racialised subjectivities. Applying Bhabha’s hybridity theory, this article reveals how Nigerian diaspora negotiate racialised identities vis-à-vis humanitarian representations in distinct and revelatory ways, including along the lines of social class. These Nigerian subject-makings are contingencies against problematic portrayals of Black African poverty and perceived racism mediated by whiteness. While focused on Nigerians, this work has implications for the racialised realities of UK-based Black Africans.

Mainstreaming African Diasporic Foodways When Academia Is Not Enough

AbstractMore than a decade after Britain's bicentennial commemoration of the 1807 Abolition Act to end the Transatlantic Slave Trade, Scotland still struggles to reconcile her colonial past. Unlike in North America, historical archaeology centered on the history and legacy of the transatlantic slave trade is still highly marginalized in British academia. Furthermore, Scotland's roles in slave‐based economies is only recently being considered a relevant area of historical studies. This paper emerges from my evolving perspective as a Black American scholar and resident in the United Kingdom, as I strive to create intellectual spaces in and outside of academia. Through civic engagement, I use my work on African diasporic foodways in the French Caribbean to link with a similar material basis of resistance in the British Caribbean and engage British audiences whose connections to Atlantic slavery are yet to be fully recognized.

Australian Women Working in British Broadcasting in the 1930s and 1940s

This article analyzes the connections between gender, labor, and mobility by tracing the transnational careers of two Australian women who began working at the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) in the 1930s and 1940s: Peggie Broadhead and Muriel Howlett. Both participated in the production of media content aimed at British diasporic audiences while at the same time negotiating their own Australian national identity and sense of belonging, within an imperial framework. A close study of institutional and private archives reveals that these professional responsibilities and tensions resulted in the formation of a new transnational identity of “Dominions broadcaster.” This article reveals the agency and adaptability of Australian women working in international broadcasting, and argues that through their labor and mobility they inscribed and made real the idea of imperial and Commonwealth networks.

A Special Relationship: Winston Churchill and the American Constitution

This Article is the first detailed treatment of Winston Churchill's views on the United States Constitution. In his multi-volume A History of the English Speaking Peoples, Churchill discussed the drafting and ratification of the Constitution in detail. In a series of op-eds and magazine articles based in part on his trips to the United States, Churchill brought his acute political sense to bear on the operation of the Constitution during Jim Crow, Prohibition, and the New Deal. And in speeches to British and American audiences over many decades, Churchill frequently turned to the Constitution as both a model and a foil. From these rich sources, three relevant themes emerge for modern jurisprudence and constitutional design. First, Churchill emphasized the continuity between British tradition and the great eighteenth-century texts written here, most notably in his innovative claim that the Declaration of Independence was the supreme articulation of the common law. Second, he argued that judicial review was essential in the United States because of its diversity; an argument that challenges James Madison’s analysis of factions in Federalist #10. Third, Churchill thought that the failure of the Fifteenth and Eighteenth Amendments in his time resulted from a significant majority with good intentions enacting a substantial change that was too unequally spread throughout society. His hard-headed realism about how disparate impact in constitutional law can cripple its authority is a lesson that constitutional theory should heed.

Itineraries of Conflict in Arundhati Roy’sWalking with the Comrades

AbstractThis article studies the depiction of indigenous struggles against the grab of minerals, crude oil, and other natural resources by private and government corporations in works such as Arundhati Roy’s travel essay “Walking with the Comrades” (2010). Roy’s narrative of her journey across the dense forests of Bastar in east-central India re-articulates the significance of this contested environmental space from the perspective of the region’s indigenous minorities. Traveling with a troop of indigenous rebels hailing from the Gond, Halba, and Muria communities for more than two weeks, Roy describes their armed struggle to a global English audience. Exploring Roy’s role both as an itinerant narrator and a global cultural mediator, the author argues that descriptive accounts of travel through contested zones of extraction can foster a vocabulary of resistance that the author calls an itinerary of conflict. Drawing from Michel de Certeau’s conception of the tour as a descriptive approach to space, the author posits the itinerary of conflict as a spatial trope produced in Roy’s essay when the writer’s embodied travel narrative is inflected by indigenous journeys and spatial practices, such as marches across contested zones and ritual processions to sacred sites. Itineraries of conflict enact a semiotic and political resistance to resource grabs conducted by state agencies and powerful corporations, exemplified by the usurpation of tribal lands rich in iron ore, coal, and other minerals in Chhattisgarh state. Further, itineraries of conflict emphasize the embodied presence of indigenous communities and their activists in areas demarcated for the extraction of minerals, timber, and other resources in the face of continued armed conflict or toxic pollution. More broadly, the author suggests that narratives of conflict over the extraction of natural resources can be studied as the corpus of “resource conflict literature,” thus generating a global comparative framework for the study of contemporary indigenous struggles.

Fantasy Fictions from the Bengal Renaissance: Abanindranath Tagore, The Make-Believe Prince; Gaganendranath Tagore, Toddy-Cat the Bold by Sanjay Sircar

Reviewed by: Fantasy Fictions from the Bengal Renaissance: Abanindranath Tagore, The Make-Believe Prince; Gaganendranath Tagore, Toddy-Cat the Bold by Sanjay Sircar Anurima Chanda (bio) Fantasy Fictions from the Bengal Renaissance: Abanindranath Tagore, The Make-Believe Prince; Gaganendranath Tagore, Toddy-Cat the Bold. Translated and annotated by Sanjay Sircar. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2018. The title of this book can be quite misleading. It might give one the impression that it is like any other book of translated literature, in which the translator, Sanjay Sircar, has carefully selected two priceless fantasy fictions from the Bengal Renaissance and has made them available (along with annotations) to a larger audience in English. In reality, nothing could be farther from the truth. This collection, preceded by a befitting foreword by Peter Hunt, is much more than just the translation and annotation of two much-loved tales (composed by Rabindranath Tagore's illustrious nephews, Abanindranath and Gaganendranath, respectively) from the land of Bengali into English. In addition to the exhaustive preface by Sitcar himself, both of the actual translations in the book come equipped with hundred-page-long introductions that touch upon a wide gamut of areas that fall within the purview of the tales and their translations. These [End Page 458] essays are further accompanied by notes gathered in abundance, appearing both with and after the text. The end result is a unique compendium that manages to bring together both theory and praxis, providing an extensive commentary on the theory of translation in the guise of narrating two innocent childhood tales. The front matter (specifically, the foreword and the preface) helps to set the tone of the book, stressing the text's timely contribution to the world of children's literature by foregrounding voices of the literary "other." However, owing to Sircar's expansive scholarship in the area, the book takes on a separate form of its own, eventually traversing a periphery much wider than its proclaimed intent. What was the period and location of these tales, and how did this influence their form? Can one understand this form vis-à-vis folktales at large? Where does the translator come into all this? By attempting to answer these questions, the book branches out into the larger discourses of folklore and translation studies, deftly exploiting the intersectional spaces as a project of this nature inevitably entails. At the very outset, Sircar tries to identify the category in which the tales could be situated. For this purpose, he unapologetically has recourse to the European system of classification, claiming its efficacy in the reading of South Asian work. The discussion also foregrounds how Lewis Carroll (especially his use of the dream convention) is central to both tales. Having drawn up this larger structure, Sircar tries to match it up against its native counterparts, setting up the ground for comparative analysis. Thereafter, the discussion moves on to isolating characters and symbols that appear in the tales and exploring their functionality within the larger scheme of things. While serving as an important guide to reading the texts, these detailed explanations also point out how the same tale has traveled and been localized to different contexts, leaving behind a history of shared kinship. Next, Sircar takes up the issue of translation. Given the extent to which these tales are steeped in their local host culture, translating them can be a tricky business. There is the fear of loosening the language in order to explain the context, thereby compromising the flavor of the original. There is also the fear of not loosening it enough and thereby compromising the intent of the original. In his attempt to remain faithful to the original as closely as possible while struggling to find a fine balance between word-to-word and sense-to-sense translation, Sircar mentions how he was forced to take certain liberties with the text in terms of word/sentence structures, chapter breaks, and punctuation. This he diligently documents within the text, elaborating upon the reasoning behind the usage of each comma and semicolon, thus placating any naysayers who might object to such modifications. The other obstacles were posed by the text's underlying subtext (using the format of "women...

The Art of Murder and Ars Rhetorica: De Quincey’s Essay as Mock-Encomium

The Art of Murder and Ars Rhetorica: De Quincey’s Essay as Mock-Encomium Roxanne Covelo (bio) Introduction: Blackwood’s, murder, and rhetoric One of the thornier problems of “on murder considered as one of the Fine Arts” is its liberal mixing of real and fictional violence. In the essay, which appeared in the February 1827 edition of Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, De Quincey mixes examples from the Bible and Antiquity with murders having taken place not long ago in modern Britain, cases that his readers would no doubt remember vividly and to which he refers by name.1In spite of the potential sting of its subject matter, however, “On Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts” was warmly received upon publication, and has remained one of De Quincey’s most popular essays ever since. This is perhaps for the very simple reason that it is genuinely funny. Even for contemporary readers, its comedy is something more than the proverbial sum of tragedy and time. And yet this essential feature of “On Murder”—its unlikely humor—is rarely explored in discussions of the essay. If it is mentioned at all, such acknowledgments often consist of no more than an offhand allusion to the “satirical” nature of the work, though just what is being satirized remains unclear. Most often, the word satirical is being used merely as a synonym for humorous, with only a handful of critics having undertaken seriously the task of approaching “On Murder” as satire and of identifying its object. These critics include John Whale,2Joel Black,3and Frederick Burwick,4 [End Page 309] who have each suggested that De Quincey may be critiquing the morbid voyeurism of British reading audiences, or that “On Murder” may constitute a satire of Kant’s aesthetic theory. However, for reasons that will become clear, this reading of “On Murder” as hidden attack is not wholly plausible, and the essay’s humor is better described as parodic rather than satiric in aim. The idea of his condemning readers’ fascination with violence, especially, is difficult to believe for anyone familiar with De Quincey’s personal interests and body of work; and, in any case, the sanctimony of an indictment of public morals would hardly have been de bon ton in the pages of Blackwood’s. Nor was the conceit of murder-connoisseurship particularly shocking or new. On the contrary, it was a common source of fun at the magazine, and the “Noctes Ambrosianæ” series, one of Blackwood’s more experimental endeavours, had already touched on the idea of murder-connoisseurship some years earlier. Robert Morrison cites the “Noctes” installment of April 1824, by John Wilson, as a possible source, given that Wilson speaks both of fires and of crime as possible aesthetic subjects, as De Quincey would likewise do in “On Murder.”5But there is also an earlier “Noctes” installment, from the May 1823 edition, in which contributor Gibson Lockhart makes light of the same subject.6The piece opens with one character explaining how he has come to town solely in order to watch a very promising hanging. “You like to see such things?” asks another; “[y]ou take pleasure in them?”7He replies that he does, and a third character chimes in that he has seen over a hundred different hangings, “besides plenty of shootings—and all manner of outlandish doings—guillotine—sword—axe.”8What follows is a lively critical discussion of good and bad public executions, and the merits of one form over another (“a beheading for my siller,” opines one speaker).9Clearly, the idea of violence as spectacle—and of the critics at Blackwood’s discussing that spectacle as they would any new book or performance on offer—was a running joke at the magazine, into which “On Murder” inserts itself merely as one more, fuller iteration. One parodic form in particular, that of the mock-encomium, allows us to account for the essay’s humor in a way that does not rely on a target of [End Page 310] attack. The mock-encomium was a literary exercise that borrowed the form of the ode in order to praise a...

Schnitzler in Britain: Authorship, Translation and Finding a Place at the National Theatre

For over sixty years Das weite Land [The Vast Domain, 1911] remained largely unknown in Britain. It was only with the production of Tom Stoppard's English 'version' (Undiscovered Country, 1979) at the National Theatre that Schnitzler and this particular play were brought to the full attention of British audiences. Examination of the papers of Heinrich Schnitzler (in Vienna) and Tom Stoppard (in Texas) makes it possible to situate the production within a wider context of placing Schnitzler in Britain, while also illuminating Stoppard's process of adaptation. The material shows that what we see performed on stage is merely one iteration in a continuum of creative transfer back and forth between numerous individuals and texts.

Just One of the Boys: Female-to-Male Cross-Dressing on the American Variety Stage by Gilliam M. Rodger

Reviewed by: Just One of the Boys: Female-to-Male Cross-Dressing on the American Variety Stage by Gilliam M. Rodger Franklin J. Lasik Just One of the Boys: Female-to-Male Cross-Dressing on the American Variety Stage. By Gilliam M. Rodger. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2018. pp. 275. $28.00 paper. In Gillian M. Rodger's first book, Champagne Charlie and Pretty Jemima (2010), the author traced the development of variety entertainment from the mid-nineteenth century to the early twentieth century. Exploring the class dynamics of the form's evolution, Rodger centered her study on Annie Hindle and Ella Wesner, two male impersonators whose careers brought into focus the changing relationship between class and gender, with implications regarding sexuality on the American stage. Her latest book, Just One of the Boys, is an extension of this text, looking specifically at male impersonation in American variety. While Rodger again focuses on Hindle and Wesner, she introduces a number of other male impersonators, examining their performance styles, repertoires, and audience receptions to illustrate changes in variety as a whole. Rodger also expands her investigation [End Page 225] to include male impersonators from English music hall, many of whom would also come to the United States. Chapter 1, "Female Hamlets and Romeos," begins with an introduction to female cross-dressing on the nineteenth-century American stage. While noting that some women were performing male roles in legitimate drama, Rodger emphasizes the different attitudes audiences took toward cross-dressing in variety. Where cross-dressing on the legitimate stage was tolerated as a novelty justified by the actresses' skill, variety's perceived "low-class" status rendered it more flexible, as women were not constrained by propriety from performing cross-gendered comedy. Hindle and Wesner make their first appearance in the second chapter, which discusses the emergence of the first male impersonators in variety. Rodger, who focuses on these two women "because together they established the performance ideal for American male impersonation that lasted until the end of the nineteenth century" (32), goes into detail about both performers' early public and private lives. While the author's description of their performance styles is interesting, it is her exploration of their private lives that I found most fascinating, especially when she teases Hindle's multiple marriages to women. Both chapters 3 and 4 look at male impersonation in the 1870s by introducing the reader to two performers, using them to examine challenges male impersonators faced in variety. In chapter 3, Rodger focuses on the economic impact of the Panic of 1873 by presenting Augusta Lamareaux and Blanche Selwyn, who along with Hindle and Wesner found it difficult to sustain bookings in the wake of the financial crisis. Chapter 4 continues to explore the impact of the Long Depression, using male impersonators Maggie Weston and Minnie Hall to investigate the changing audience tastes. Rodger notes that while male impersonation helped Weston and Hall get their starts, they were able to sustain careers "by being flexible and by moving away from the specialization of Annie Hindle and Ella Wesner" (89). Wesner's debut London season in 1876 serves as Rodger's entrée into an overview of male impersonation in English music halls, which are the focus of chapter 5. Citing the more established tradition of women playing male roles in English theatre, Rodger speculates that this conditioned audiences and "may have been responsible for their more feminine performance style" (106). This enhanced Wesner's popularity, as English audiences found her more masculine performance to be both novel and exotic. Chapter 6 marks a significant shift in variety entertainment in the 1880s, as financial concerns and audience shifts drove a growing concern with "decency." [End Page 226] This shift led variety managers to adopt "industrial models of entertainment" (115), which would eventually lead to the subspecialization of variety into vaudeville, burlesque, and other forms. While chapter 6 describes this increasing specialization, chapter 7 focuses specifically on male impersonation, returning again to Hindle and Wesner. Although both women persisted in their chosen specialty, neither was especially successful during this period, as both struggled to adapt to the new landscape. As Rodger notes, "There had never been...