Late Twentieth Century Research Articles

June Jordan’s Political Theory of Redesign

This essay examines June Jordan’s design writings to elaborate a political theory of redesign in her work. I show that Jordan’s redesign offers political principles for reimagining space at multiple scales and speaks to the question of how more livable, beautiful worlds may be wrought from the material contexts in which we presently live. Against the grain of the dismantling of public goods in the late twentieth century, Jordan re-envisioned public city spaces and housing with dignity and room for human flourishing. Her primary barometer for design was the fullest expression of human aliveness—she insisted that the built environment should “[cherish] as it amplifies the experience of being alive.” Jordan’s visionary pragmatism anticipates what Deva Woodly calls the “radical Black feminist pragmatism” of the twenty-first century’s Movement for Black Lives and speaks to contemporary abolitionist thought and struggles over the future of public goods.

Gender evaluation in American English, 1875–1989

ABSTRACT This study examines the evaluation of males and females in the Corpus of Historical American English within three registers – Fiction, Newspapers, and Non-fiction – spanning the late-nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The aim is to fill a gap there remains in our understanding of how males and females are evaluated in American English across different communicative settings (registers) and historical periods. For this purpose, the study explores gender-specific personality traits, societal importance, physical appearance, appeal, and capacity via linguistic features such as male and female terms, pronoun usage, and adjectives. The results reveal significant differences in the frequency and nature of gender evaluation: while men are consistently evaluated more frequently than women, there are nuanced variations in gender evaluation patterns over time and across communicative settings. The increase in female evaluation towards the late twentieth century seems to correlate with societal changes such as the women’s rights movement and shifting gender norms during this period. The analysis also underscores the significance of linguistic registers in shaping gender evaluation, with, for instance, Fiction displaying less pronounced gender differences compared to Newspapers and Non-fiction. Overall, the findings underscore the complex interplay between language, registers, and sociocultural changes in shaping gender evaluation.

The agency of object: the doppa as a narrator for a dynamic Uyghur identity

ABSTRACT This article explores the Uyghur doppa from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to understand Uyghur cultural life and identity. It links the doppa to Uyghur history and the evolving sense of ‘Uyghurness’, reflecting its cultural significance today, both in Xinjiang and through the diaspora. The limited scholarly work on the doppa, spanning 150 years, suggests a gender bias in documenting female-associated crafts. Ironically, at a time when the doppa holds increasing importance, especially with the creation of Doppa Day (5 May), this lack of resources opens up space for creative discourse on Uyghur identity. The study also reveals a tendency to adapt through cultural experiences while maintaining a deep connection to the homeland. Ultimately, this research demonstrates how a small cultural object can provide profound insights into community sensibilities and material culture.

Decolonizing Western Conducting: Gospel Music Conducting Practices in Twenty-First Century Southern Nigeria

At the initial stages when Western conducting was introduced to Nigeria, it was mainly used to direct European art music. This was the practice from the nineteenth century to the late twentieth century. However, in twenty-first century, Western conducting is utilized to direct gospel ensembles, especially in Southern Nigeria. Although some of the nuances used to conduct gospel music in the locale predate twenty-first century Nigeria, literature is scant on how gospel music is conducted; and how such practice decolonizes Western conducting in Southern Nigeria. In this paper, I purposively selected eighteen (18) gospel music conductors, utilized non-participant observation, interview; and the theories of decolonization and conducting dynamism to descriptively discuss gospel music conducting practices and how the conducting practices are decolonizing Western conducting in twenty-first-century Southern Nigeria. Findings indicate that gospel music conducting in the region rarely engages basic conducting beat patterns, lavishly utilizes audible counting and finger snapping, feet stamping, clapping; and dance/kinetics that are traceable to popular music traditions to remove the restraints of conducting classicism, and to elicit kinetics in tandem with gospel music performance tradition in Southern Nigeria. These decolonize Western conducting, produce a form of conducting that combines Western and popular music idioms; that is predominantly opposed to the restrains of classical conducting. These warrant canonization for conducting taxonomy and education in Nigeria and beyond.

The avant-garde artistic approaches of Russian women writers of the Silver age

The article presents the avant-garde, and thus the work of Russian women writers, poets and publicists of the Silver Age, centred on new forms and bold, often provocative plots. The subject of characterisation is the creative attitudes of those authors who, in the period in question, in accordance with the spirit of the epoch, firstly, revealed their individuality to readers and, secondly, touched upon themes ‘forbidden’ up to that time. The author makes an attempt to present the work of those Russian women writers who, in connection with the multifaceted development of literature at the turn of the century, created works in a new style, centered around such issues as: love (in its various guises), gender attitudes and the involvement of women in various conflicts of the surrounding reality. The exploratory analysis of women’s writing of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries has shown that the new modern era, characterised by a diversity of schools and creative groupings, contributed to the expansion of the boundaries of the themes of women’s literature.

Let Them Have the Cities: Inflation, Collapse, and Retreat in the Postwar Survivalist West

Abstract Before our contemporary label of “prepper,” and preceding the widespread adoption of “survivalist” in the late 1970s, those who sought self-sufficiency and security in remote locales of the American continent were known as “retreaters.” Anticipating catastrophes—chiefly hyperinflation, nuclear war, and urban chaos—violent enough to rend the social fabric of an increasingly decadent United States, these retreaters fled the swelling cities for the imagined security of the rural West to ride out the impending apocalypse. This article argues that one of the most salient and overlooked prime movers of the survivalist movement was a pervasive economic anxiety, metastasizing with the rampant stagflation of the 1970s. Drawing, for the first time, on twenty-five years of survivalist books, pamphlets, and newsletters, this paper shows that the secular eschatology of survivalism demands study if historians are to attain a clearer picture of the intellectual heritage of radical right millenarian visions from the late twentieth century up to the present day.

Vedic astrological factors for human immunodeficiency virus transmission within male individuals with sexual orientation as homosexual

Background: For almost more than 70 years, the modern science had labeled homosexuality as a mental disorder and was part of DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) until the fifth edition was released in the year 2013 and homosexuality was removed from the mental disorder list. Despite of the removal of homosexuality along with all kind of sexual orientation from mental disorder, it is still being considered taboo in the society. From Sanatana Dharma perspective, homosexuality is very well mentioned in multiple scriptures. In Vedic Astrology as well, this homosexuality along with diseases due to sexual intercourse is being described. In this modern era, one of the most common disease due to sexual intercourse is HIV. Although, HIV is considered relatively new transmission due to its first scientific mention in the late twentieth century, the symptoms and overall nature of this disease is clearly described in Vedic Astrology. Finding: This research paper is an extension of the existing research paper in the field of Vedic Astrology especially in the field of Vedic Astrology focusing on HIV transmission. A total of 314 HIV positive samples was collected from 18 countries selected from Asia, Europe, North America, South America, Africa as well as Australia in order to have a coverage of all the continents. All these HIV positive people belong to LGBT community, to be very specific Gay (homosexuals) and have been identified as HIV transmission due to anal intercourse with another Gay partner. The Astrological Natal Chart were analyzed for all these 314 samples against the KIRAN sutra (5 thumb rules) to find the possibility of HIV based on the sutras i.e. rules. Out of 314 samples, 310 charts fit the criteria (KIRA sutra) mentioned in the KIRAN sutra for HIV transmission. 4 samples were not checked against the criteria (N) due to insufficient Nakshatra-Pada i.e. Constellation-Phase coverage along with the complex nature of the Nakshatra sutra i.e. N sutra of KIRAN sutra. The result indicates that the KIRAN sutra is very effective sutra even to identify the HIV transmission from male-to-male partner with an accuracy of 98.73% (310 cases out of 314 cases) using only 4 sutras i.e. KIRA. Conclusion: The research is an effort to raise awareness and to help males with homosexual orientation to identify whether they are highly prone to HIV or not using their Vedic Astrological Natal Chart so that they can take preventive action. A new yoga i.e. Samalaingika Yauna Sankramaṇa Yoga is being introduced in the field of Medical Astrology focusing on males with sexual orientation as homosexual, commonly known as Gay in LGBT community in order to support Gays living a HIV free life without judging their sexual orientation. Novelty/Originality of this article: This study introduces the application of the KIRAN sutra from Vedic Astrology as a predictive method for assessing HIV transmission risk in homosexual men, achieving an accuracy rate of 98.73%, along with the introduction of a new configuration, Samalaingika Yauna Sankramaṇa Yoga.

Islands, archipelagos and water: Insights from New Guinea

Abstract New Guinea is the world’s second largest island (land area: 785,753 km2), divided politically between the easternmost provinces of Indonesia and the sovereign state of Papua New Guinea. It affords a unique case study of how the alignment of statehood and territory is particularly nuanced by islandness, archipelagicity and the fluid indeterminacy of water. Based on a global review of relevant but niche ‘island studies’ literature, this paper argues that different protocols and practices treat islands, singly or collectively, in different ways, either pulling them closer or pushing them further away from the territorialisation regime that was catapulted by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea in the late twentieth century.

Early Iterations of Bisexual Activism in Toronto, Ontario: A Historical Examination of Bykes and the Ontario Bisexual Network

This article seeks to illuminate the activities of historical bisexual community groups in Toronto in the late twentieth century, a peak era of bisexual activism in Ontario. The city’s first bisexual women’s group, Bykes, was founded in 1983, and the first mixed gender group, the Ontario Bisexual Network, was established later in 1989. While the former was influenced by radical lesbian separatist politics in 1970s and 1980s Toronto, the latter demonstrated the need to amplify bisexual concerns across the gender spectrum, in addition to serving a growing membership within the burgeoning bisexual community in the city. In order to contextualize the significance of these bisexual community groups, the following research questions are addressed: what were the objectives of Toronto’s early bisexual community groups and how did activists accomplish them? How did bisexual people in these groups situate themselves in Toronto’s gay and lesbian landscape? What were the main tenets of bisexual community building in the city? Through analyses of oral history interviews and archival materials, we can observe that bisexual activists involved in Toronto’s first community groups participated in creating meeting spaces for each other and engaging in public advocacy that revolved primarily around visibility, education, and community care.

Islamic life and death in Australia, after 1890: The archaeology of cameleer burials

Among the best-preserved, prominent, and most diagnostic archaeological artefacts of the camel transport industry from the period after ∼1890 in Australia are the graves of Muslim cameleers that can be found across the continent, from a single grave at the most isolated site to cemeteries in capital cities. They tell a story—directly from the cameleers—that usually cannot be read from other evidence. These graves vary from the simplest tumuli in remote areas that conform with the strictest Islamic ideals to complex graves with a superstructure, headstone and a detailed epitaph. English may be used in epitaphs with or without Arabic or Dari, and less commonly we see Arabic or Dari with no English. This makes it clear that Muslim epitaphs were not solely addressing other Muslims. In many cases, the name, date and origin of the interred individual remains unknown, and this prevents more detailed interpretation. In other cases, graves with greater complexity may include passages from the Quran, and there are even some epitaphs that give great personal details of Muslim life in Australia. Such detail includes divisions between tribes and Islamic sects. Major deviations from correct Islamic grave orientation in two cemeteries cannot be convincingly explained, but these suggest another case of diversity in the tribal and sect affiliation of these individuals. Burials of these Muslims restored in the late twentieth century are no longer solely religious monuments but are also socially motivated in a more diverse and integrated Australia. There are several indicators by which the graves of Muslims can be identified, but they may also overlap with Christian graves in other elements of style. These indicators tie burial practices to Islam in Asia. Finally, orientation relative to the qiblah is not invariably diagnostic.

Measuring rising heat and flood risk along the belt-and-road initiative

China’s global infrastructure financing flagship, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) encompasses countries hosting over 60% of the global population and one-third of worldwide GDP. It is based mainly on long-term loans that will mature decades into the future, and timely repayments are only possible if they remain commercially viable. But despite its vast global scope, little is known about the climate risks that could imperil the operations of BRI projects over the next few decades, and, consequently, threaten their long-term sustainability. We narrow this gap by estimating the impacts of future climate change on 217 BRI projects across 70 countries and 9 sectors in two dimensions. First, the effects of increased heat stress on human physical work capacity are calculated using the wet bulb globe temperature and an assessment of the workload for each selected BRI project. Second, the potential structural damages from more frequent flooding incidents are measured by return period (RP), where a shorter RP signals heightened risk. Both have direct impacts on human productivity and infrastructural integrity, which are essential to maintaining the operational viability and financial stability of BRI projects. We compared projected changes on both measures for the mid- and late-twentieth centuries (2041–2060 and 2081–2100) to the historical baseline (1981–2010). We found that BRI projects face escalating vulnerability to climatic risks on both counts. The results underscore a broad variance across different future carbon emission scenarios measured under the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (including SSP1-2.6, SSP2-4.5, SSP3-7.0, and SSP5-8.5). BRI’s aggregated climatic risks are substantially elevated under a high carbon emission scenario compared to a low emission scenario. By the end of the twentieth century, labor workability under SSP3-7.0 (31%) could potentially decrease three times more compared to SSP1-2.6 (10%). Under an intermediate-emission scenario (SSP2-4.5), floods with a historical return period of 10 years could have a return period of 5 years in the future. Significantly hampering the utilization and economic return generation potential of infrastructure projects. In addition, regional geography contributes to risk heterogeneity, with 100-year floods occurring every 15 years in South Asia and every 24 years in Sub-Saharan Africa. Such climate risk implications, potentially overlooked by development financiers, represent significant risks to the sustenance of the BRI, estimated to be worth $1 trillion.

Twyla Tharp’s Making Television Dance (1977) and the Technologized Dancing Body

This article looks at the technologized dancing body on television, particularly in videodance. It asks and begins to answer the question: What were emerging technologies of the late twentieth century able to do with, to, or for the dancing body that was not possible previously, and which built the foundation for the ways today’s digital technologies interface with the dancing body? In beginning to answer this question, the article closely examines Twyla Tharp's Making Television Dance (1977) and argues that Tharp's piece condenses and summarizes the experiments of videodance during the late twentieth century, highlighting its foundational shift from using technology to exclusively do things to the body or extract things from it, to instead using the body to interface with and demonstrate the capabilities of a new technology—​triggering the machine’s capabilities using the body’s cues. In other words, videodance reframes the body as a (technologized) tool. Ultimately, this article reveals that late 1960s and 1970s videodance was a transitional interstice between two more enduring forms of screendance: celluloid dance film and digital dance data.

Romania and the International Sanitary Conferences of the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries

This paper traces Romania’s participation in the International Sanitary Conferences of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Romania’s interest in international sanitary diplomacy was directly linked to the country’s geographical location and the role of the Danube in the spread of epidemics. The cholera outbreak that reached the Lower Danube in 1865 demonstrated that the river, which connected the Levant to Central Europe via steamship companies, was one of the main gateways through which epidemics spread to the continent. With their busy commercial links to other Black Sea ports, Sulina, Galați and Brăila were equally vulnerable to the importation of diseases that reached Ottoman or imperial Russian ports by land, i.e., via Persia or Central Asia. Such serious health concerns became even more important to the Romanian government after the Danube Delta and Dobrudja became part of independent Romania in 1878. The text follows the various interests that Romania had during these decades, defended by diplomats and doctors who worked together to protect public health from various epidemic, political or economic threats.

The Apple Cart & On the Rocks: Is Bernard Shaw a Supporter of Reformative Dictatorship?

ABSTRACT George Bernard Shaw’s political comedies, The Apple Cart and On the Rocks, explore loopholes of representative democracy and Shaw’s prospect for reformative dictatorship as an alternative. The Apple Cart reveals the political apathy of English people with all good social welfare in the late twentieth century, which naturally leads to the parliamentary politics controlled by powerful conglomerates. In On the Rocks, representative democracy fails to address extreme unemployment, and the reform plan of the prime minister, Sir Arthur, faces opposition from both the labor class and the conservative. Therefore, Shaw hints at the temporary necessity for reformative dictatorship within constitutional limits.

Becoming Lear: Shakespearean adaptation and the memory of performance

This article analyses the modalities in which a performance of Shakespeare's King Lear structures two late twentieth century plays, Thomas Bernhard's Minetti (1976) and Enzo Cormann's Storm Still (1997). It argues that the memory of a traumatic performance of Shakespeare's tragedy enables the protagonists of these plays – both ageing actors – to negotiate their relationship with painful memories and tell their story within what looks like a ‘surrogate’ performance of King Lear. The article also addresses the issue of the intertextual status of these dramatic works, arguing that they seem to announce more recent engagements with Shakespeare in stage performance.

Out of the Dust of Years: Archaeology in Palestine from the Ottomans to the Mandate

This article explores the legal regulation of archaeology under the Ottoman Empire and the role of archaeology in the governance of Palestine during the period of the British Mandate. The founding, fieldwork, and publications of significant Western archaeological and antiquarian organizations active in the region in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries are discussed in this context.

THE TURNING POINT OF THE FOREIGN POLICY OF THE REPUBLIC OF TURKIYE: TURNING EAST

In the late twentieth century, after the end of the Cold War, the world underwent a significant transformation, leading to a multipolar system. This shift was characterized by the rise of various regional powers seeking to play a prominent role in global politics. The Republic of Turkiye, in particular, has been actively seeking to assert its position in the contemporary international order. This article examines the complexities of Turkish foreign policy, analyzing its legal framework, current aspects, priorities, and strategic approaches. Additionally, it explores the shift in Turkish foreign policy towards Eastern regions, away from its historical dependence on the West and towards the concept of "Turkish World", particularly in relation to Turkic-speaking countries in Central Asia and the Caucasus. In addition, the paper provides theoretical insights into the impact of foreign policy and diplomacy on various stakeholders, as well as the potential of soft power tools in the pursuit of foreign policy goals.

Back to Bipolarity: How China's Rise Transformed the Balance of Power

Abstract China's rise, Russia's military resurgence, and India's economic growth have prompted debates about the end of unipolarity and the future balance of power. Such debates are a staple of international politics; indeed, in the late twentieth century, many observers warned that Japan and the Soviet Union would overtake the United States. Yet scholars and policymakers evince little agreement on how to define power or measure the distribution of power. This article introduces an inductive method for comparing national power. I empirically validate common metrics of national capabilities—economic and military—by assessing their ability to both predict known balances of power across historical systems (1820–1990) and distinguish between great powers and other countries. This method yields three important findings. First, large gaps in national capabilities between great powers and even superpowers have been common throughout history. Great powers need not achieve parity with the leading state to engage in a dangerous security competition. Second, this method shows that China on most dimensions is not only a great power but a superpower. Third, neither Russia nor India is a great power. The system is bipolar. These findings inform debates about the stability of international politics and the future of international order and suggest the likelihood of shifts in U.S. grand strategy and alliances.

Diverse Attitudes of French Pacifists and Socialists Towards the ‘Yellow Peril’ in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries

This essay examines the various ways in which pacificists and socialists in France responded to the ‘yellow peril’ from the beginning of the Sino-Japanese War (1894–1895) to the end of the Russo-Japanese War (1904–1905). I identify and examine four different attitudes they developed towards the ‘yellow peril’. On the one hand, some pacificists and socialists perceived it as a reality and used it as a means of exposing the problems of expansionism but differed on their views of what Asia would become for the West: whereas pacifists like Paul d’Estournelles de Constant invoked Asia as a potential existential threat, certain socialists welcomed ‘yellow’ workers as future comrades. On the other hand, there were people who viewed the ‘yellow peril’ as a myth or some sort of ideological smokescreen. Roughly speaking, they fell into two groups: socialists who treated it as a set of false ideas created to justify Tsarist imperialism, which practically led them to embrace Japanese imperialism, and revolutionary syndicalists who, opposing capitalist exploitation and expansionism in general, dismissed it as part of bourgeois ideology. Thus, I ultimately argue that the ‘yellow peril’ was less of an imperialist ideology consisting of negative racial stereotypes about East Asians than a versatile concept that was used against as well as for racial stereotyping and expansionism.

Why Us Too? Japanese Views of Immigration and Racial Exclusion in Australia

This article examines the Japanese-Australian debates over immigration and racial exclusion over the course of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. By examining the development of collective national identity in Japan and by drawing on archival materials in Japan and Australia, including official correspondence between the two countries and policy-related primary source materials such as internal government correspondence and parliamentary debates, it shows how the local discourse on national identity in both Japan and Australia was an important factor in what would be Japan’s heated response to the issue of Japanese exclusion under the auspices of White Australia.