Private Feelings Research Articles

David Antin's Pragmatist Technophobia

?? I *?* I ne philosophical tradition I most admire, David Antin III has recently remarked, is one that runs from Socrates I -JL J through Kierkegaard and Dewey and Wittgenstein {Con versation 58). These four philosophers are invoked in^ Conversation with David Antin, an email discussion between Antin and Charles Bernstein, in reference to the of Antin's style of poems, the semi-extem poraneous narrative speech acts that Antin has been giving in front of live audiences since the early 1970s. I'm struck by your description of the space of your talk poems as being, fundamentally, an interpersonal Bernstein says, space between people (57, my emphasis). Of the four figures cited above, it is John Dewey, preeminently a philosopher of space, who provides Antin with a basis for the interpersonal nature of his poetics of talk. Reading a Deweyan streak in Antin's work is a way both to rethink Antin's categorical affiliations, and to make pragmatist discourse legible in poetries beyond its traditional associations with high modernists.1 The link between David Antin and John Dewey becomes especially clear when considering Dewey s theory, in which art is the occasion for unmediated, face-to-face experiences that generate a complete interp?n?tra tion of self and the world of objects and events. Rather than being shut up within one's own private feelings and sensations during an event, a Kantian attitude he consistently undermines, Dewey proposes both the exten sion, slippage, and transmutation of such an autonomous model of subjectivity, as well as the erosion of boundary between subject and object as the prima facie nature of what he often calls simply experience, but really means aesthetic {Art 19). Because of this expansiveness and enlargement of the subject, is intensely contextual, communal, and intersubjective by nature. As Dewey often argues, all human experience is ultimately social

The Transformation of Jewish Identity and Community in Contemporary Denmark: Symbolic Ethnicity and the “Work of Culture”

tions of favorite hymns and encounters with crucifixes, experiences that often derive from exposure to rich religious traditions. For many, prayer is not simply a matter of private feeling but correlates with empathetic concern for others and charitable efforts to help the vulnerable. Most powerfully, the spiritual yearnings of countless of Wuthnow's interviewees have an undeniable authenticity. The music-infused liturgy at his church, insists one congregant, makes your guts palpate (p. 172). Another person draws on her memory of looking into the twilight sky as a child-the hugeness of some power that was a loving, creative power. I'd be pulled out of myself into and become a part of it (p. 80)-to spiritually weather the storms of adult life. Wuthnow's account of spiritual practice has broader implications for the sociology of art and of culture more grandly. There is a sense in which he does for religious art what David Halle did for the paintings people place on their dwelling walls. Both rescue aesthetic experience from its reduction to the competitive struggle for distinction, status display, and cultural capital. Wuthnow thereby reminds us of something primal that has been lost in too many analyses that herald culture as a resource or as discourse-the power in social life of genuine belief and passionate feeling. In hightlighting states of being that are key to the spiritual recovery of ordinary people, Wuthnow tacitly points the way to the intellectual recovery of sociologists, who might do well to honor the importance of these lived experiences of joy, terror, and awe.

Social and personal identity: understanding your self

Introduction Understanding YourSelf Emotional Needs and Desires Your Controlling Heart Desire, Influence and Control Inner Power and The Higher Self Relationships and Their Dilemmas Personal Worlds and Private Feelings The Self as Emergent Narrative

Older Men's Social Participation: The Importance of Masculinity Ideology

The central question was, independent of marital status and health, is the satisfaction that older men derive from their social networks linked to gender ideology? Based on the 135 older men within a larger study of community-based older adults, findings show that masculinity ideology is inversely related to the size of networks and the extent of men's social participation; however, endorsing the traditional masculinity ideology is directly associated with the satisfaction men derived from their social participation. Older men who believe in the traditional masculinity script felt satisfied in their relationships, whereas men who reject this ideology and reported a greater need to discuss private feelings had developed larger networks and increased their involvement in their networks during the year between the T1 and T2 interviews. Discussed in the context of covert and face-to-face intimacy pursuits, abiding by the cultural of hegemony masculinity seems to yield less interaction but greater satisfaction among older men.

Flutters, Feelings, and Fancies: John Wesley's Sentimental Sermons and the Spirit of the Age

The entertainingly colorful old maid Tabitha Bramble, we learn midway through Tobias Smollett's The Expedition of Humphrey Clinker (1771), has been praying, preaching, and catechizing among the methodists. Her perhaps feigned manifestations and revelations spread, virus-like, to her maid, Winifred Jenkins, who has also her heart-hearings and of the spirit--physical anomalies that she attributes to the growth of Christ within her, to her regenerating spiritual self, less than to her habitual nervous flutter and vapours (266). For Smollett the inward motions so integral to Methodism are grounds for critique: that Winifred Jenkins could take her quasi-hysterical flutters as signs of divine favor, he asserts, signals a fundamental confusion of universal faith with private feeling, of eternal grace with fleeting sensation. Versions of this critique have haunted cultural history well beyond Smollett, in the form, for example, of the popular minister Edward Irving's 1828 assertion that Methodism privileges feelings and fancies over the objective, real sacraments and ordinances of the church (42). Irvhag's claim rests on the notion that private emotion cannot stand for or verify abstract theological truth, an assumption traceable through literary history as well in, for instance, the Romantic ultra-subjectivity of William Wordsworth's tranquil recollections or, conversely, the social determinism of George Eliot's Middlemarch. Both of these texts operate in a paradigm that sets the individual against culture and private experience at odds with the social stream. Post-Romantic critiques of Wesleyan Methodism suggest the inherent separateness of the universal and the particular, the social and the personal, and the eternal and the finite; they assume, in other words, that the body cannot logically serve as a proving ground for abstract truth. Even as Methodist flutters and vapors sow the seeds for such critiques, however, the ongoing presence of Wesleyan conversion tropes in literature may lead us to revise our understanding of the relationship between theology and physiology and to see the epistemological opposition of body to spirit and truth as something less than natural. In this essay I want to trace the relationship between the conversion narratives we see in literature and John Wesley's homiletics of conversion. This relationship, I will argue, informs the way we speak not only about how individual characters learn to live in the world (and in their bodies) but also about how literary periods come to see themselves as such. The frequent post-Wesley apparitions of Methodist conversion tropes suggest not just that we can understand literary selfhood in terms of conversion but also that such tropes provide a productive site on which culture as a whole can construct a self-image. This self-image takes the form of periodization--the movement, for example, from Sentimentalism to Romanticism to Realism. This, however, is an ironic movement: to the extent that Wesley was himself an eighteenth-century literary figure, shaped by sentimental literature and himself shaping later understandings of Sentimentalism, his conversion narratives carry sentimental baggage--especially the notion that the body can tell the truth or that, for instance, collective weeping over Clarissa's death suggests something significant about the way the world works. Insofar as it uses Methodist structures of conversion as a way to think of identity as a coherent, self-aware turn away from whatever period of artistic sin came before, post-1740s literature is thus built on a contradiction. Literary movements would see themselves as complete, self-enclosed, and redeemed from the past, yet Wesley's own literary influences inform and constitute the very terms in which we think of the process of conversion. A realist Wesleyan conversion is therefore also a nod to Realism's buried sentimental roots. We can see the lineaments of these roots most plainly, I will argue finally, in literature's ever-changing relationship to the body. …

The role of public exposure in moral and nonmoral shame and guilt.

Although scholarly traditions assume that shame results more from the public exposure of a transgression or incompetence than guilt does, this distinction has little empirical support. Four studies, using either undergraduate participants' responses to hypothetical scenarios, their remembered experiences, or the coding of literary passages, reexamined this issue. Supporting traditional claims, public exposure of both moral (transgressions) and nonmoral (incompetence) experiences was associated more with shame than with guilt. Shame was also more strongly linked with nonmoral experiences of inferiority, suggesting 2 core features of shame: its links with public exposure and with negative self-evaluation. The distinctive features of guilt included remorse, self-blame, and the private feelings associated with a troubled conscience.

Measures of Ethnicity‐Related Stress: Psychometric Properties, Ethnic Group Differences, and Associations With Well‐Being1

This study introduces new measures of ethnicity‐related stress and a newly adapted measure of ethnic identity. Ethnicity‐related stressors assessed in this study were perceived discrimination, stereotype confirmation concern, and own‐group conformity pressure. Ethnic identity refers to the subjective sense of ethnic group membership and, following Luhtanen and Crocker (1992), was assessed as public regard, identity centrality, and private feelings. Data for 333 undergraduates from diverse ethnic groups indicated that the measures are psychometrically sound. Ethnic group differences for mean scores demonstrated the measures’ known‐groups validity. Cross‐sectional analyses indicated that ethnicity‐related stress and identity constructs captured by the instruments are related to measures of psychological and physical well‐being. The new measures may be useful in the investigation of psychological aspects of ethnicity and their adaptive consequences.

Private gain, social strain: do relationship factors shape responses to outperformance?

AbstractOutperforming others can be satisfying, in part because it allows us to make self‐enhancing social comparisons against those we have surpassed. However, competitive success can clash with relational goals, leading outperformers to experience discomfort when they believe that their superior status poses a threat to the outperformed person (Exline & Lobel, 1999). Two studies revealed that relationship factors play a critical role in responses to superior status. Relationship rifts and avoidance were common in conflictual or hostile relationships, whereas empathic concerns and appeasement predominated in closer, more satisfying relationships. Negative responses to superior status were largely independent of private feelings of pride and happiness. These data complement existing social comparison research by suggesting that outperformance, while privately satisfying, can cause problems when it poses an interpersonal threat. Furthermore, relationship factors appear to be important determinants of the specific emotional and behavioral responses of outperformers. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Sex, Civility, and the Self: Du Coudray, D'eon, and Eighteenth-Century Conceptions of Gendered, National, and Psychological Identity

Recent biographies by Gary Kates and Nina Rattner Gelbart of two eighteenth-century figures, a transgendered officer and diplomat--the Chevalier d'Eon--and a state-sponsored midwife named Mme du Coudray, offer unexpected insights into themes of gender, Enlightenment, and revolution when considered in tandem. Jeffrey S. Ravel notes that in context of last decade's emphasis on the role of gendered thought and behavior in onset of revolution, it is striking that these two life stories do not necessarily conform to our historiographical expectations. Although both du Coudray and d'Eon adopted unconventional positions in relation to Old Regime standards, their life stories were thoroughly fashioned by possibilities and limitations of existence in an absolutist polity. Lisa Forman Cody, however, argues that lives of d'Eon and du Coudray also display characteristics that foreshadow a more modern sense of self. Du Coudray's mission, Cody suggests, hints at future republican projects that harness maternity to cause of national regeneration, while d'Eon's legal troubles in England generate modern conceptions of bodies and selves as separate and self-possessed. Kates, in his contribution to forum, discusses how his encounter with d'Eon across two centuries changed his own ideas about gender. His research, and meetings with contemporary transgendered individuals, led him to rethink his gender assumptions and question feminism he had inherited from 1970s. Gelbart, in turn, found herself locked in a struggle with her subject to unveil private feelings and emotions that du Coudray had so carefully hidden in written record. In her essay, she openly reflects on biographical process in tale of king's midwife. Finally, Elizabeth Colwill takes note of the historiographical and methodological issues that biographical genre raises for historians. Both Kates and Gelbart, she suggests, were attracted to the hidden motivations of their 'secretive subjects,' leaving some reviewers uneasy with the accuracy of their work. Colwill, however, argues that fact vs. fiction may be a false construction, because the art of interpretation is not at odds with careful archival reconstruction.

Gender, Enlightenment, and Revolution in Two Eighteenth-Century Biographies

Recent biographies by Gary Kates and Nina Rattner Gelbart of two eighteenth-century figures, a transgendered officer and diplomat--the Chevalier d'Eon--and a state-sponsored midwife named Mme du Coudray, offer unexpected insights into themes of gender, Enlightenment, and revolution when considered in tandem. Jeffrey S. Ravel notes that in context of last decade's emphasis on the role of gendered thought and behavior in onset of revolution, it is striking that these two life stories do not necessarily conform to our historiographical expectations. Although both du Coudray and d'Eon adopted unconventional positions in relation to Old Regime standards, their life stories were thoroughly fashioned by possibilities and limitations of existence in an absolutist polity. Lisa Forman Cody, however, argues that lives of d'Eon and du Coudray also display characteristics that foreshadow a more modern sense of self. Du Coudray's mission, Cody suggests, hints at future republican projects that harness maternity to cause of national regeneration, while d'Eon's legal troubles in England generate modern conceptions of bodies and selves as separate and self-possessed. Kates, in his contribution to forum, discusses how his encounter with d'Eon across two centuries changed his own ideas about gender. His research, and meetings with contemporary transgendered individuals, led him to rethink his gender assumptions and question feminism he had inherited from 1970s. Gelbart, in turn, found herself locked in a struggle with her subject to unveil private feelings and emotions that du Coudray had so carefully hidden in written record. In her essay, she openly reflects on biographical process in tale of king's midwife. Finally, Elizabeth Colwill takes note of the historiographical and methodological issues that biographical genre raises for historians. Both Kates and Gelbart, she suggests, were attracted to the hidden motivations of their 'secretive subjects,' leaving some reviewers uneasy with the accuracy of their work. Colwill, however, argues that fact vs. fiction may be a false construction, because the art of interpretation is not at odds with careful archival reconstruction.

Subjectivity, Self-Representation, and the Revealing Twitches of Biography

Recent biographies by Gary Kates and Nina Rattner Gelbart of two eighteenth-century figures, a transgendered officer and diplomat--the Chevalier d'Eon--and a state-sponsored midwife named Mme du Coudray, offer unexpected insights into themes of gender, Enlightenment, and revolution when considered in tandem. Jeffrey S. Ravel notes that in context of last decade's emphasis on the role of gendered thought and behavior in onset of revolution, it is striking that these two life stories do not necessarily conform to our historiographical expectations. Although both du Coudray and d'Eon adopted unconventional positions in relation to Old Regime standards, their life stories were thoroughly fashioned by possibilities and limitations of existence in an absolutist polity. Lisa Forman Cody, however, argues that lives of d'Eon and du Coudray also display characteristics that foreshadow a more modern sense of self. Du Coudray's mission, Cody suggests, hints at future republican projects that harness maternity to cause of national regeneration, while d'Eon's legal troubles in England generate modern conceptions of bodies and selves as separate and self-possessed. Kates, in his contribution to forum, discusses how his encounter with d'Eon across two centuries changed his own ideas about gender. His research, and meetings with contemporary transgendered individuals, led him to rethink his gender assumptions and question feminism he had inherited from 1970s. Gelbart, in turn, found herself locked in a struggle with her subject to unveil private feelings and emotions that du Coudray had so carefully hidden in written record. In her essay, she openly reflects on biographical process in tale of king's midwife. Finally, Elizabeth Colwill takes note of the historiographical and methodological issues that biographical genre raises for historians. Both Kates and Gelbart, she suggests, were attracted to the hidden motivations of their 'secretive subjects,' leaving some reviewers uneasy with the accuracy of their work. Colwill, however, argues that fact vs. fiction may be a false construction, because the art of interpretation is not at odds with careful archival reconstruction.

What Is Claimed in a Kantian Judgment of Taste?

1. The Question What, in Kant's view, is claimed in a judgment of taste? One answer comes easily enough: what is claimed is that something—some particular object of the judging person's experience—is beautiful. Perhaps such an answer is too easy. Perhaps, indeed, it is not even correct; for what of the judgment that something is not beautiful, or the judgment that something is ugly, or the judgment that one thing is more beautiful than another: would these not also count as judgments of taste for Kant? I wish to set the question aside for the present, and consider only the case of affirmative, favorable, non-comparative judgments of taste; for in these we shall find problems enough.1 Such judgments, according to Kant, are different in kind from the common run of judgments that we pass on the objects of our experience. These are, by and large, what he calls "logical" (meaning cognitive) judgments. We make them by conjoining concepts with intuitions. Judgments of taste, by contrast, he classifies as "aesthetic" (meaning, roughly, subjective and non-cognitive) judgments. These we make by conjoining, not a concept, but a feeling of pleasure with our intuition of an object. Given this much of Kant's view, one might conclude that the answer to our question is that nothing is claimed in a judgment of taste, for such a thing, on Kant's account, does not seem to be properly a judgment at all. Yet Kant denies that judgments of taste are mere expressions of personal or private feeling. To make such a judgment, [End Page 63] according to his account, is not merely to have a certain response to an object, but also to take one's response to be valid for all judging subjects. In this respect they do seem to have a title to the name of judgments. What is claimed in a judgment of taste, then, is what Kant terms the subjective universal validity of one's liking for an object. Borrowing a phrase from Paul Guyer, I will call this claim the claim of taste.2 To have a name for this claim, however, is not yet to have an understanding of its character and content. Several features of Kant's text make this difficult. For one, Kant uses a variety of terms to describe the status that, in a judgment of taste, one claims for one's response to an object. Besides "subjective universal validity" (or, on occasion, "universal subjective validity"), he speaks sometimes of "universal communicability," at other times of one or another kind of "necessity." It is not clear whether these terms are all meant to signify the same status or several different kinds of status. For another thing, the verbs that Kant uses to describe the way in which the person making a judgment of taste lays claim to universal agreement have been translated into English in two quite different ways. Sometimes he is made to say that we "require," "demand," or "exact" such agreement; at other times, that we "impute" or "attribute" it to others. The verbs of the first group suggest that the claim of taste is a claim to the agreement of others, or a claim about how one ought to respond to an object; the verbs of the second group suggest that it is a claim about how people do or would respond. A further source of difficulty is the fact that the "Critique of Aesthetic Judgment" seems to contain two distinct lines of argument in support of the legitimacy of judgments of taste. One argument, found in §§1-40,3 proceeds mainly in epistemological terms, while the other, found in §§41-60, proceeds in terms of the relation of taste to morality. The chief way in which commentators have sought to resolve these various complexities is to suppose that there are two distinct claims of taste, each of which is...

Memory and the transformation of social experience in modern Japan: rethinking the song `Home'

In modern society, memory is often constructed, and sometimes erased, in conformity with the political purposes of the nation-state. From this point of view many historians have analysed the construction of memory. However, cultural resources such as media and technologies support the concrete formation of memory; in other words, we can reconsider the problem of memory in the phase of social experience that is closely connected with the media, technologies and the flow of capital. It is this phase of social experience that makes possible the political projects of the nation-state. In this article, I consider the songs published in 1910 for musical education at primary school by the Ministry of Education. The song was considered to be an effective strategy for state education, because it is easier for children to learn and is internalized more directly and unconsciously through the medium of music, than literary texts such as novels, poetry, etc. In 1890, the Imperial Rescript on Education was promulgated as the fundamental principle of national education. Its main object was to build up the faithful subject of the Emperor system of Japan and musical education was also coordinated with this policy. In the society after the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-5 discipline relaxed among the people and social disaffection increased. The Ministry of Education songs were designed as a device to reinforce moral education. However, not all of people's memory was edited and manipulated by the government. In the song `Home' (1914), the scene took on a character of anonymity. How was this scene deeply impressed on the private feelings of individuals? At that time, due to changing social conditions, there appeared an abstract social space constructed from reproducible images and extended across national boundaries. The song `Home' mobilized the mass public not toward specific political goals, but to experience as actual that abstract social space.

Sexuality, dementia and residential care: managers report and response.

There is a growing literature on the subject of sexuality and an increased knowledge of sexuality and older people, but there is a dearth of information about sexuality and people with dementia, particularly those in residential care. The concern of this paper is with people with dementia; it also considers the impact of gender on their sexual expression. The expression of sexuality by people with dementia is an area which has been largely neglected by research, yet in practice appears to be of concern. The types and prevalence of sexual expression by people with dementia in residential care and staff's responses to such expression are examined. A postal questionnaire sent to managers of social work residential homes in one region in Scotland explored a number of different issues, including: the public versus private expression of sexuality by people with dementia, the public response versus the private feelings of managers to such expression, the influence of carer involvement on staff's responses, exploitation of one resident by another and sexual expression directed at staff by residents. Permeating all these was the issue of gender. The majority of homes were staffed predominantly by female managers and female care staff. Most residents were female yet the majority of incidents involving sexual expression, reported by managers, involved male residents directing their attention towards female staff or other residents. Female residents with dementia do express sexuality but numbers reported are considerably less with staff actions tending towards the protective. Some types of sexual expression appear to be of more concern than others, and some are reported to occur more frequently.

Emotion across cultures

The word ‘emotion ‘ has been used both for public expressions and for private feelings. The expressive force involves both intentionality (reference to something) and normativity conforming to conventions). We must assume that there is non‐reflective cognition. The other culture for us may even be our own at an earlier historical moment. To study the emotions of others we need both an analysis of emotion oriented language practices and a related classification of emotive displays. These show differing norms. But we must also study episodes of such displays and the stories people tell about them. Different cultures give diffèrent background priorities that appear in the ways emotions are displayed and construed.

Angels and absences: child deaths in the nineteenth century

What is the difference between public and private feeling, and how far can we deduce past feelings from the words that have been left us? Why do child deaths figure so often and so prominently in the literature of the nineteenth century, and how was the theme of the death of a child used to elicit such poignant responses in the readers of that era? In this fascinating new book, Laurence Lerner vividly contrasts the contempt with which twentieth-century criticism so often dismisses such works as mere sentimentality with the enthusiasm and tears of nineteenth-century contemporaries. Drawing examples from both real and literary deaths, Lerner delves into the writings of well-known authors such as Dickens, Coleridge, Shelley, Flaubert, Mann, Huxley, and Hesse, as well as lesser known writers like Felicia Hemans and Lydia Sigourney. In the process, he synthesizes fresh ideas about the thorny subjects of sentimentality, aesthetic judgment, and the function of religion in literature. Lerner's forthright and evocative prose style is enjoyable reading, and he excels in teasing out the moral implications and the psychosocial entanglements of his chosen narrative and lyrical texts. This is a book that will illuminate an important aspect of the history of private life. It should have wide application for those interested in the history, sociology, and literature of the nineteenth century.

Alexia: A Tale for Advanced Children, and: Re-telling the Tale: Poetry and Prose by Greek-Australian Women Writers (review)

Reviewed by: Alexia: A Tale for Advanced Children, and Re-telling the Tale: Poetry and Prose by Greek-Australian Women Writers Helen Dendrinou Kolias Antigone Kefala, Alexia: A Tale for Advanced Children; Alej¼a: ena param′ui gia megŒla paidiŒ. A bilingual edition. Illustrated by Nikos Kypraios. Greek translation and bilingual introduction by Helen Nickas. Melbourne: Owl Publishing. 1995. Pp. 109. Helen Nickas and Konstandina Dounis, editors, Re-telling the Tale: Poetry and Prose by Greek-Australian Women Writers; Me dikŒ maq l¿gia: Ellhn¼deq syggrafe¼q thq Aystral¼aq. A bilingual edition. Bilingual introduction by Helen Nickas and Konstandina Dounis. Melbourne: Owl Publishing. 1994. Pp. xiii + 373. Alexia and Re-telling the Tale grow out of the experiences of Greek-Australian women primarily during the last fifty years since, as Helen Nickas points out in her introduction to Alexia, Greek migration to Australia is mostly a post-World War II phenomenon. Both books serve to expand the field of Greek immigration literature, which in the U.S. is most notably represented by the stories of Harry Mark Petrakis and Theano Papazoglou-Margari, some of the novels of Elia Kazan, and, more recently, by the prose of Helen Papanikolas and poetry of Nicholas Samaras. Nickas and Dounis explain in their introduction to Re-telling the Tale that their decision to provide bilingual texts was based on the use of both languages by the authors of these texts and on the potential of reaching audiences in both Australia and Greece. I suspect that an additional reason may have been their own inclination to give both languages equal status and value. [End Page 389] Alexia is much more than an immigration tale, even though it begins with the title character’s arrival in the “new world.” And, despite its subtitle, it is not only for “advanced children.” It is the story of a bright and observant young woman told by a sophisticated third-person narrator who employs the fairy tale format and such devices as irony, sarcasm, and a touch of humor to comment on language and people. In the course of this story, Alexia learns important lessons: that men belong to a superior club and women to an inferior one (62), that she must hide her private feelings and project a happy public image, that it is difficult to become friends with people “who talk with their lips only” (68), and why the “natives” appear so distant and unfriendly. Most importantly, she slowly comes to understand a great deal about language. The moral of the tale, Nickas writes in her introduction, “is that Alexia, the child, has a future, unlike her parents and older brother for whom . . . it is too late to learn new skills and adapt” (19). Although this is borne out in the text, which ends with Alexia’s enrollment in the university, Kefala’s writing indicates that the world is not so simple. If it were, every immigrant child would have a guaranteed future. For both Alexia and Kefala (who learned Romanian, French, and Greek before she learned English), language is not to be taken for granted, and finding one’s way through it requires constant effort. Nickas’s translation of this imaginative and thought-provoking “fairy tale” flows as easily and effortlessly as the original. Her introduction not only serves to put Alexia in context for a broad English-speaking and Greek-speaking audience but also makes some good points that I wish she had pursued further (to show, for example, how Kefala has turned “marginality” to advantage). Overall, this is a handsome and carefully prepared volume that is bound to please. Re-telling the Tale is the result of a conference on Greek women writers organized by Konstandina Dounis in Melbourne in May 1992 at which many Greek and Greek-Australian women were invited to read from their works. The editors indicate in their introduction that they were “astounded” by the stories the women told—stories that add up to what they term “a remarkable tale of migration and settlement” made all the more interesting by “its female voice and perspective.” Thus, even before the conference ended, they had decided to capture this “tale...

Songs of the Women Troubadours (review)

REVIEW Songs ofthe Women Troubadours, edited and translated by Matilda Tomaryn Bruckner, Laurie Shepard, and Sarah White. Garland Library of Medieval Literature, Series A, Vol. 97. New York: Garland, 1995. Pp. 194 + lxxvii. $46.00. Favored in recent years by an ample stream ofconference papers and articles, the trobairitz (the women counterparts of the troubadours) are on center stage. They are also increasingly featured in general courses of medieval literature and women's studies. Yet a trobairitz anthology that is both reliable and compact has not existed until today. Schultz-Gora's 1888 edition tackled only about halfofthe trobairitz corpus and has long been outdated. Bogin's 1976 edition sold well, and drew attention to the trobairitz through its lively (ifoften naïve) literary commentary. But Bogin did not re-edit the works: her book merely reproduced Schultz-Gora's twenty-three texts along with often unreliable English translations. In 1991, Rieger at last brought out a comprehensive and authoritative anthology, which includes 46 texts, expertly edited and accompanied by accurate German translations, a vast scholarly apparatus, and splendidly thorough commentaries. That volume is a monumental achievement, a treasure of information for scholars—but it is very bulky (766 pages, 2 1/2 pounds). What most readers require is a middle path between the slender, rather amateurish paperback (Bogin) and the massively learned tome (Rieger). That need is now admirably met thanks to Bruckner, Shepard, and White: their anthology provides rigorously accurate texts and translations, plus a fine introduction, bibliography, and notes—an ensemble which helpfully guides newcomers and informs scholars. Thetrobairitzare indeed unique. Workscomposed by twenty ofthem have come down to us, along with several anonymous pieces: no other medieval European literature boasts a legacy oftexts created by as large a group of women literary artists. The corpus comprises close to four 61 REVIEW dozen pieces—including 26 verse debates (tensos, partimens, plus shorter dialogic exchanges), 11 cansos, 3 sirventes, 2 baladas, and specimens of other genres (dansa, cobla, coblas doblas, salut, planh, alba).1 All told, this corpus amounts to less than a fifth of the total troubadour production (2,542 poems). Songs ofthe Women Troubadours comprises 36 texts, each edited by Shepard from a single base manuscript. She corrects flaws of grammar and meter and always signals her emendations by means of italics.2 Notes at the back indicate important variant readings from other manuscripts, in addition to providing judicious literary and historical information.3 The selection of texts is broader than in Schultz-Gora and Bogin, but less extensive than in Rieger. The 11 cansos of the trobairitz are all present, but only 16 of the 26 verse dialogues are included.4 The collection begins with the cansos; then come the debates; the remaininggenres bringup the rear. Thecanso section opens with the songs ofthe Comtessa de Dia and Castelloza, the only trobairitz from whom we have more than one extant piece. The Comtessa's four are given in the same sequential order as in Bogin and Rieger. However, Castelloza's three songs, which appear as a fixed sequential cluster in all five of their manuscripts (AlKNd) as well as in Bogin and Rieger, are slightly re-shuffled (Songs 1 and 2 switch places). The translations by White, printed on facing pages, are lucid and flow well. Theirplain style is appealing, although it occasionally flattens the diction or weakens a startling turn of thought. For example, the translation of "Per ioi que d'amor m'avegna" (an anonymous song, possibly by Castelloza, PC 461,191) brilliantly renders the first two stanzas, but then falls short of the dramatic energy and paradoxical reasoning with which the singer keeps beseeching her fickle lover. Yet, on balance, these are very trustworthy and elegant translations of the trobairitz. 62 REVIEW The introduction by Bruckner is in three parts. The first discusses how the trobairitz interacted with the "troubadour poetic system." Bruckner lucidly sketches out the song conventions and love polemics that make up that system. She shows how it promotes artifice ("the paradox of private feelings publicly performed" [xxi]), while also sharpening the ingenuities ofpoets, each ofwhom "reinvents situations and arguments within a common scenario" (xxxii). The trobairitz, she concludes, "explore...

Angelina Grimke's Rhetoric of Exposure

Sentimentalism is a cluster of ostensibly private feelings which always attains public and conspicuous expression. Privacy functions in the rituals of sentimentalism only for the sake of titillation, as a convention to be violated. Involved as it is with the exhibition and commercialization of the self, sentimentalism cannot exist without an audience. It has no content but its own exposure, and it invests exposure with a kind of final significance.

Everything You Need To Know About Career Development You Already Know

Before we begin, we want you to dig deeply into your own career and focus on your feelings about it. No, no, not like that—we mean dig really deeply, beyond the superficial reasons and into those early dreams, hopes, and aspirations. That's right, look way down there, where all of those private feelings lie, feelings about what you wanted to do and what you've actually done with your life. These are feelings that you probably do not share with your closest friends or with your parents or with anyone for that matter. All that you need to know to understand a student or an advisee is embedded in those personal experiences you probably acknowledge only rarely.