Modern Spirit Research Articles

Modern spirit: the art of George Morrison

Modern spirit: the art of George Morrison

Tradição de Camões na poesia brasileira durante o Arcadismo ou a reinvenção do imaginário épico em O Uruguay de Basílio da Gama e n’O Caramuru de Santa Rita Durão

THE TRADITION OF CAMÕES IN BRAZILIAN POETRY DURING THE ARCADIC PERIOD OR THE EINVENTION OF THE EPIC IMAGINARY IN O URUGUAY BY BASÍLIO DA GAMA AND O CARAMURU BY SANTA RITA DURÃO
 In colonial Brazilian epic, exemplified in here by the poems O Uruguay (1769) by Basílio da Gama and Caramuru (1781) by José Santa Rita Durão the tradition of Os Lusíadas (1572) by Luís Vaz de Camões has been affirmed as strong literary influence, even though a new poetic attitude appears, one which exalts differences, narrating the heroic deeds of Brazil, consecrating the Brazilian soil and identifying its people, if not the construction of the paradigm of Brazilianism. In the scope of interest are the two poems which represent the ambiguity of the senses of construction and ideological expression, the Classicist and modern spirit, tradition and, before all, the break with the colonial ideology. The literary formation in Brazil seems to have been born out of the juxtaposition of the tradition of Os Lusíadas (1572) by Luís Vaz de Camões as one of the strongest factor in the process of formation of global Lusophone conscience and its gradual overcoming and substitution by national Brazilian models.

The real feminists in Indian English writing: Kamala Das and Imtiyaz Dharkar

Kamala Das belongs to the first generation of modern English poets who evolved a new poetics for themselves and made a new start both in theme and technique around the 1960s. The first phase of Indo-Anglican poetry ended in the 1950s. To the poets of this period the spirit of modernism was almost alien. Their main preoccupation was the spirit of nationalism and the war of independence, partition of country. It was only in the sixties that things began to take a new dimension where a new generation of young poets took control of the Indo-Anglican poetic realm. Kamala Das is one of the most powerful voices of this post-colonial era. In Kamala Das’s poetry we find the best expression of feminine sensibility, its suppression in a male dominated society. So her poetry is confessional and auto-biographical to a great extent, but at times she universalizes what is personal. The main themes of Dharker's poetry include home, freedom, journeys, communal conflict and gender politics. Purdah and other poems deal with the various aspects of a Muslim woman's life where she experiences injustice, oppression and violence engineered through the culture of purdah. This mixed heritage and itinerant lifestyle is at the heart of her writing: questioning, imagistic and richly textured poems that span geographical and cultural displacement, while also interrogating received ideas about home, freedom and faith. This research paper would unfold how both above mentioned poetesses rebel against the conventional restraints of society which are meant to exploit women in this man made world. “An Introduction” and “Stone Age” are two of Kamala Das’s poems where she is intensely conscious of herself as woman, and by writing about the self she challenges the accepted notions of the female and redraft general opinion of the feminine mystique.”Purdah” and “Living Space” are Imtiyaz Dharkar’s poems which show the passion of an undaunted rebel, not to retreat and not to fail. The intensity and eloquence of her life and poetic accomplishment have dumbfounded the male-chauvinists and have left her female counterparts in soaring spirits not only inside the Islamic social, cultural and religious setup but also outside it. That is why her life and poetry make a fascinating study in the crushing indictment of the suppressive prescriptions against the freedom, dignity and respectful living of women, especially in the Muslim society. Imtiaz confirms our convictions that socio-cultural and socio-religious restrictions on women have robbed them of all their potentialities, leaving them not only physically and mentally handicapped but also psychological wrecks age after age. The lived experiences of Imtiaz have been honestly expressed in her poetry with the courage of conviction. Key words: Feminist, sexuality, rebel, patriarchy, post-colonial study.

Philosophy of nature and culture and its role in shaping Humankind’s attitude to nature

We live in an era of crises. One of them, the ecological crisis, arose from the fact that the human race plunders nature, destroying, among other things, the Earth’s biodiversity. In my paper I will show that the situation is rooted in a specific worldview. Moreover, I will interrogate the question of how we can deal with the problem. Humankind’s attitude to themselves and to the world (including nature) is based on beliefs and values which make up an unquestioned prejudgment. Individuals absorb it in the process of socialization, as they assimilate the widely understood traditions of the social groups to which they belong. In the Western tradition in particular, our understanding of humanity’s situation in the world and its relation to nature, which we have had since modernity, found its clearest articulation in the views of René Descartes (1596–1650). I will begin by discussing the main characteristics of this position most pertinent to the main problem identified in the title. Then I will discuss the consequences of Cartesianism for the worldview of modern man such as the radical rationalism and anthropocentrism inherent in the European attitude. In this tradition humanity is identified with subjectivity and intellectual cognition. Reality outside of human subjectivity, that is, the whole animate and inanimate nature, is treated as the object of knowledge. Nature should be explored in the spirit of modernity’s maxim “We can do as much as we know” (F. Bacon 1561-1626); it can be used to our purposes, to satisfy our growing needs. This is being done without scruple, precisely because nature is denied being the subject. It has no right to claim moral protection. Today, in the era of globalization, this way of thinking, which originated in the West, has spread over the entire globe and led to the ongoing devastation of nature. We are dealing with an ecological disaster. In the next step I will interrogate how this situation can be changed and what may be the role of philosophy in this cultural shift. Every vision of the world is a construct (the Cartesian vision being a very good example). What philosophy can do is offer a certain vision of reality, in which humanity has a friendly (symbiotic) attitude to nature and does not treat it merely as a means to their ends. Such ecophilosophy could be based on the thesis that subjectivity is the property not just of all human beings, but of all other beings as well. Such an idea can be found in the work of the German scientist and philosopher Jacob von Uexküll (1864-1944), who granted the status of the subject to every living being. He laid foundations to the concept of nature as “a community of subjects” comprising man and the entire animate world, thus breaking away from the Cartesian framework. I am going to outline briefly his position. Finally, I will point out what needs to be done, if people are to change their attitude to nature. A good theory in and of itself will not suffice. It is necessary to instill ecological convictions and values in entire societies, so that these values would eventually come to seem obvious. We need to launch an extensive education campaign of both adults and—perhaps even more importantly—children. In other words, the comprehensive protection of nature can only be promoted through the nexus of ecophilosophy and education.

Sustaining Tradition with Inspiration from Modernity: Countering Elitism in Teaching Shakespearean Drama

The tradition of teaching English Literature in most universities round the world has evolved in such a way that a degree programme in English is not considered complete without a component of Shakespearean drama. Yet the poetics and the noetics of the Shakespeare plays written in a 16th Century dialect have become bitter delicacies for most students, as the comprehension and personalization of Shakespeare texts remain an unresolved challenge. The traditional mechanism of teaching Shakespeare texts involves reading the lines with a glossary, comparing the meanings with influential critical interpretations, reflecting on the implications either diachronically or synchronically, and writing unguided essays on topics related to classroom discussions. Most students fail in these activities as they find it difficult to internalize the meanings conveyed by word and action in relation to the historical settings depicted in the plays. Hardly a stage production of a Shakespeare play takes place in their environments to give them an idea about the actual form of it and therefore they are destined to remain totally segregated from Shakespeare. Unfortunately, this turns Shakespeare scholarship into an elitist pastime, and invites undue controversies from students who feel fenced off from the process. In attempting to develop solutions to the problems of teaching Shakespearean drama faced in this way, so much inspiration can be drawn from the numerous cinematic productions of Shakespeare plays. They present not only approximate models for pronouncing the lines but also lively simulations of the persons and situations concerned. Cultural commodities developed in a spirit of modernity prove effective only if they preserve the essence of tradition. There are numerous films on Shakespeare, very articulate in this sense. Therefore, using a series of exemplars developed on Shakespeare’s Othello, this article demonstrates how inspiration can be drawn from modernity in countering elitism in teaching Shakespeare.

Contributions of Archimedes on mechanics and design of mechanisms

Relevant contributions are ascribed to Archimedes as related to early developments in mechanics with application to mechanism design with a modern vision. Archimedes developed theoretical advances that were motivated by and applied to practical problems with an enthusiastic behaviour and with a modern spirit that can be summarized in his motto ‘Give me a place to stand and I will move the earth’. In this paper his contribution to mechanics is discussed as related to his results in designing and successfully operating mechanisms.

Local linear estimation for stochastic processes driven by $$\alpha $$ α -stable L $$\acute{\mathbf{e}}$$ e ´ vy motion

The \(\alpha \)-stable L\(\acute{\mathrm{e}}\)vy motion together with the Poisson process and Brownian motion are the most important examples of L\(\acute{\mathrm{e}}\)vy processes, which form the first class of stochastic processes being studied in the modern spirit. In this paper, the stochastic processes driven by \(\alpha \)-stable L\(\acute{\mathrm{e}}\)vy motion are considered, local linear estimator of the drift function for these processes is discussed. Under mild conditions, we derive consistency of the local linear estimator of the drift function. The performance of the proposed estimator is assessed by simulation study.

Transformationen: Über Himmlisches und Teuflisches in Goethes Faust by Johannes Anderegg (review)

Reviewed by: Transformationen: Über Himmlisches und Teuflisches in Goethes Faust by Johannes Anderegg Elisabeth Krimmer Johannes Anderegg, Transformationen: Über Himmlisches und Teuflisches in Goethes Faust. Bielefeld: Aisthesis, 2011. 290 pp. Johannes Anderegg’s informative and well-written study Transformationen: Über Himmlisches und Teuflisches in Goethe’s Faust investigates the representation of religion and evil in Goethe’s most famous drama while also paying great attention to matters of form. Anderegg emphasizes Faust’s anticlassical, anti-Aristotelian structure, which Goethe famously likened to a “Schwammfamilie.” The text mixes genres and is uninterested in psychological verisimilitude; different forms of reality coexist, and past, present, and future are intricately interwoven. As Anderegg points out, Faust is a text that foregrounds its own theatricality. Transformationen identifies several features that are commonly associated with postmodern art, including citationality and intertextuality. Faust enters a dialogue with numerous other texts ranging from Ovid, Dante, Milton, and Shakespeare to the Bible and various traditions of religious writing. In addition, Anderegg traces numerous links to the visual arts, including works by Hieronymus [End Page 268] Bosch and Albrecht Dürer, and demonstrates in great detail that several important scenes in Faust II are inspired by famous paintings. A good part of the book deals with the figure of Mephisto. Anderegg sees in Goethe’s devil a complex character composed of a multitude of different, often contradictory masks and roles, including comic and demonic aspects, harsh reality and make-belief, myth and modernity. Mephisto is the embodiment of sexual drive, but also a master of enlightened critique. Anderegg contrasts Mephisto’s role with that of Satan in the Book of Job, which Herder singled out as the epitome of poetry. In Job, Satan destroys the protagonist. In Goethe’s drama, he promotes his earthly well-being. Anderegg suggests that, although Mephisto fails on an individual level, that is, in his role as corruptor of souls, he triumphs on a grander scale as the spirit of modernity. Anderegg sees in this the reason why Goethe’s drama is a tragedy even though Faust is saved: the tragic nature of the text relates not to the fate of the protagonist but to the state of a world where might is right. After all, Faust owes his success, power, and wealth to the devil. Seen in this light, Faust is “eine Erfolgsgeschichte des Bösen” (133). Individuals thrive for the wrong reasons; however, history itself is not on a trajectory toward progress but rather unfolds as an arena of power and greed. It is well known that, although Goethe knew the Bible intimately—he owned copies of the Luther Bible, the Vulgata, and the Hebraica—his notion of Christianity was rather unorthodox. Thus, it is hardly surprising that, even though Faust contains numerous references to religious traditions and motifs, the concepts it presents can hardly be confined within Christian categories. Instead, Anderegg proposes that we should look to the fine arts to make sense of the ending of Faust II. He reminds us that Goethe took a great interest in Heinrich Meyer’s Geschichte der Kunst and suggests that Faust integrates various citations from religious artworks discussed in Meyer’s opus magnum in the form of scenic montages. For example, Faust’s death is inspired by the motif of the Grablegung Christi, portrayed by numerous artists ranging from Raphael and Titian to Dürer and Caravaggio. Similarly, the scene in which angels and devils fight over the soul of the departed borrows from several representations of the same motif in the visual arts. Here, Anderegg is particularly interested in how the text replicates the simultaneous representation of successive events that characterizes these paintings. Like these paintings, Goethe’s work is polyfocal and operates on various levels of reality (Anderegg uses the term “Multirealität”). Anderegg reads the final scenes of Faust II as an enactment of different beliefs about the afterlife inspired by visual representations such as Lasinio’s Il Giudizio universale e l’Inferno. In his interpretation of Faust’s ending, Anderegg again returns to the Book of Job. He points to a textual and visual tradition that does not focus exclusively on Job’s suffering but rather depicts Job as he...

“An introduction” and “Stone Age” – A Feminist approach to Kamala Das’ Poems.

Kamala Das belongs to the first generation of modern English poets who evolved a new poetics for themselves and made a new start both in theme and technique around 1960's. The first phase of Indo-Anglican poetry ended in 1950's. To the poets of this period the spirit of modernism was almost alien. Their main pre- occupation was the spirit of nationalism and the war of independence, partition of country. It was only in the sixtees that things began to take a new dimension where a new generation of young poets took control of the Indo-Anglican poetic realm. Kamala Das is one of the most powerful voices of this post-colonial era. In Kamala Das's poetry we find the best expression of feminine sensibility, its suppression in a male dominated society. So her poetry is confessional and auto-biographical to a great extent, but at times she universalizes what is personal. This research paper would unfold how she rebels against the conventional restraints of society which are meant to exploit women in this man made world. An Introduction and Stone Age are two of her best known poems where she is intensely conscious of herself as woman, and through writing about the self she challenges the accepted notions of the female and redraft general opinion of the feminine mystique.

MODERNIDADE E CIDADE SOB AS LENTES DE ÁLVARO DE CAMPOS

Modernity is marked by a series of socio-political developments that culminated in a new way for artists to understand the world. Moved by systems of representations of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, the world was changed by the shift in paradigm. Therefore, this work aimed to analyze the emergence of Lisbon under the gaze of Alvaro de Campos. To that end, Benjamin's thought is central to this discussion. From the analysis of the transition undergone by European society, particularly the city of Paris. Benjamin reflects the modern spirit impacted by the contingency and fluidity of the new era, shaped by other forms of socialization. Alvaro de Campos, by exposing the physiology of the city, discloses the impressions of the man marked by the mobility of extended and diffuse new world, triggering a fragmented view of the city that expands.

Individualno mentorstvo, most med posameznikom in izzivom učeče se družbe

Za slikovno predstavitev mentorja pogosto uporabljajo metaforično podobo mostu, kjer je mentor oseba, ki spodbuja drugo osebo, da vzpostavlja refleksijo o svojih izkušnjah, in deluje kot most, prek katerega se mentorirani povzpne k novim oblikam znanja in zmožnosti. Osnovni mentorski model je odnos nekoga, ki je bolj izkušen, z nekom, ki je manj izkušen, z namenom, da manj izkušenemu pomaga, da se kot delujoča oseba integrira v okolje (kulturo), ki je lahko profesionalno, lokalno, umetniško ali kultura, povezana s specifičnimi področji. V pričujočem prispevku obravnavamo v duhu časa pozne moderne in učeče se družbe tiste strategije individualnega mentoriranja, ki sovpadajo z zahtevami hitro spreminjajoče se družbene stvarnosti. Predstavljamo analizo podatkov iz polstrukturiranega anketnega vprašalnika, ki je dal pregled nad množičnostjo in oblikami izvajanja individualnega mentorstva na nacionalni ravni v okviru operacije Razvoj in izvajanje novorazvitih programov za usposabljanje strokovnih delavcev v okviru ministrstva za znanost, izobraževanje, kulturo in šport ter Evropskih socialnih skladov, znotraj nje programa Usposabljanje mentorjev za učenje v dvojicah in (e-)mentorstvo na Slovenski univerzi za tretje življenjsko obdobje. Na podlagi interpretacije podatkov opredeljujemo strategije individualnega mentorstva. V ospredje postavljamo tiste vidike, ki se na prvi pogled lahko zdijo tvegani (primer spodbujanja dihotomij), a prav zato poudarjajo pomen ustvarjalne živosti mentorskega odnosa in ga postavljajo bolj v svet umetnosti kot med obrtne veščine.

Henry Ossawa Tanner: Modern Spirit Exhibition, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia

Henry Ossawa Tanner: <i>Modern Spirit</i> Exhibition, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia

Saving Wisdom: Theology in the Christian University by Brian W. Hughes

89 BOOK REVIEWS bOOk rEvIEw Saving Wisdom: Theology in the Christian University. By Brian W. Hughes. Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, 2011. Pages: xvi + 353. Paper: ISBN 978–1–60608–958–3. $41.00. Few individuals could have predicted the pervasive impact of George Marsden’s The Soul of the American University: From Protestant Establishment to Established Nonbelief (Oxford University Press,1994) on scholars and administrators in Christian higher education. While the rise of secularism in these institutions had been of concern since the late-nineteenth century, Marsden was able to paint a picture of the demise of religious identity that was initiated by committed people of faith who were swept up in the progressive spirit of modernity. The impact of this revelation was enough to make Protestants and Catholics alike rethink the religious identity of their colleges and universities with one result being a literature base concerning Christian higher education that is continuing to expand to this day. Despite the size and growing level of the sophistication of this literature base,the number of formal discussions concerning the role of theology in the university, in particular, is still relatively small. For example, a recent search only produced two volumes: David Ray Griffin and Joseph C. Hough (editors), Theology and the University:Essays in Honor of John B.Cobb, Jr. (SUNY Press,1991) and Darlene Bird and Simon G.Smith (editors.),Theology and Religious Studies in Higher Education: Global Perspectives (Continuum, 2009). As a result, Brian W. Hughes, an Associate Professor of Theology at the University of Saint Mary (Kansas), is to be commended for tackling this critical topic. If theology is the Queen of the Sciences and is thus necessary to a universal and integrated understanding of knowledge, any Christian college or university needs to think through how theology is more than just another academic discipline. However, Hughes’ book proves to be more of an encyclopedic review of how four important theologians—Friedrich Schleiermacher, John Henry Newman, Avery Cardinal Dulles, and Edward Farley—approached this topic than a thoughtful reflection on how these thinkers offer the Christian university a way forward. Part of this disappointment stems from Hughes’ unfulfilled desire to “valuably illuminate options and implications about the future of theology in the university for the twenty-first century” (12). Hughes claims that he wants to go about doing so by offering a “comparative and critical exposition” of the thought of Schleiermacher, Newman, Dulles, and Farley. However, little to no comparative or critical language makes its way into this book.What does emerge and what proves to be somewhat of a surprising contribution is the way Hughes deduces the underlying soteriology driving the work of these four theologians. As a result, Hughes concludes his book by asserting that “Understanding theology as a kind of saving wisdom does clarify latent presuppositions that operate within diverse theological styles and underlie various appeals to the audiences of church, academy, and society” (324). While an interesting and arguably important contribution, it remains unclear how Hughes Newman Journal V9 Issue 1_Newman Journal V9 Issue 1 2/1/12 10:13 AM Page 89 NEWMAN STUDIES JOURNAL 90 moved from his initial argument to this final conclusion. Perhaps part of the problem is that the bulk of his book is long on overview and short on analysis. For the most part, Hughes’ book, as previously mentioned, is an encyclopedic review of the work of these four theologians. For example, Hughes commits two chapters apiece to exploring the work of Schleiermacher,Newman,and Dulles and one chapter to the work of Farley. In the case of the chapters concerning Schleiermacher, Newman, and Dulles, the first chapter deals with more introductory matters with the second chapter then focusing on methodological commitments. For example, the first of two chapters on Newman draws heavily from The Idea of a University and An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent. Hughes seeks to“examine the conditions that legitimate theology as an academic discipline” according to Newman and then develop an understanding of Newman’s definition of theology (99). In the second chapter, Hughes explores Newman’s understanding of “(1) the nature of liberal knowledge as philosophical; (2) theology as servant...

Rosalía de Castro, Tertium Exclusum of the Spanish-Portuguese Relations

INTERNATIONAL literary commerce often needs images from authors that comprise the attributes culturally assigned to the different cultures involved in that exchange (Casanova, Moretti). In today's European literature, some authors still seem to incarnate the of their cultures of origin. According to this logic, Cervantes would act as a metonymy of Spanish literature; Flaubert would be the French one, Dostoievski the Russian one or Shakespeare the English one. Obviously, the cultural complexity of some literary spaces such as the peninsular one cannot be reduced to the work of just one author and one language (Cabo, Casas, Abuin and Tarrio). But from a symbolic point of view, one could say that, with Cervantes, Spanish literature went to a canonical state in the concert of the so-called universal literature. The goal of this note is to illustrate some dynamics that affect the reception that the writers from the European periphery get from more settled cultural formations. The starting hypothesis is that the metonymic role played by writers of stateless nations obeyed to very different mechanisms to the ones set out above for the more institutionalized literary fields. Far from creating an egalitarian exchange, the reception of stateless literary cultures by more state-oriented cultures would have the role of ratifying the peripheral character of imported rules and cultural repertoires. To try and give an example, I shall start with the images that the critical and historiographic Portuguese discourse generated from Galician author Rosalia de Castro (Santiago de Compostela, 1837-Padron, 1885). Initially, the Portuguese reception of the figure of Rosalia de Castro seems to support the canonical character typically attributed to the poet by Galician literary historiography (Vazquez Cuesta, Rodrigues Baptista). From the end of the nineteenth century, the author became in Portugal the metonymy of Galicia itself. Here, Teofilo Braga, in his book Parnazo Portuguez precedido de um Estudo da Poesia Moderna Portugueza--suas transformacoes e destinos (1877), chooses Rosalia de Castro to take the lead in his anthology of Galician lyrics Lyricos Gallegos (Braga, 253-254), where the works of other poets of the time such as Alberto Camino, Valentin Lamas Carvajal or Ruiz Aguilera (1) are also listed. However, it must be noted that, as opposed to the relatively small representation of those poets--he lists four compositions by Rosalia de Castro--Teofilo Braga devotes much more pages to Galician popular songs. This choice witnesses his understanding of Galician lyrics. His appreciation for the literature North from the Mino river lies precisely in the consideration of its mainly popular character, which would turn it into caste of virtual deposit of the Portuguese national essences. This way, according to the author, the knowledge of Galician poetry would only be a way of pristine knowledge or knowledge distilled from its own tradition. We can analyze in this light the following excerpt, where the modern spirit of Portuguese literature is understood as a foreign fashion as opposed to the national tradition guarded by Galicia: Pelo estudo da poesia gallega, e que se podem comprehender as formas do lyrismo portuguez; e a desmembracao desse territorio, que ethnicamente nos pertence e tem permanecido para nos extranho durante tantos seculos, e que prova a falta absoluta de plano na nossa vida politica. (Braga, XXXVIII). What Pilar Vazquez Cuesta calls irredentism (267) of Teofilo Braga regarding Galicia is outlined when he states effectivamente, a Galliza debe ser considerada como um mena de Portugal que ficou fora do progresso de nacionalidade (XXXVI). In the following decade, the lawyer, politician and journalist Inacio Francisco Silveira da Mota broadened the possibilities of the imaginary articulation of Galician culture. In her book Viagens na Galicia (1889) Rosalia de Castro is seen as an exceptional caste that follows no rules. …

ODAM and the Construction of a Modern Spirit

The ODAM as divulger of modern architecture in Porto comprehends from the scope of teaching, professional practice, to its internationalization, as attests the participation of its members in CIAM´s congresses from 1951. Its production, written manifestos, projects and builds, reveal its universal character through the deployment of Modern spirit, in the statement of a collective conscience of architectural practice, but also, affirms its local condition as its differentiator value. This retrospective and critical reading of the specific ODAM discourse as part of broader context that characterizes Modern Architecture (re)affirms its character simultaneously universal and singular.

Emerging Perspectives on Automobilities in Non-Urban Australia: A context for Cruising Country

Since the early twentieth century, motor vehicles of all descriptions have been central characters in the settlement, governance and representation of Australia. They have been, and remain, objects of desire and exchange, characters in subsistence, ceremonial and market economies, sites of projective identification and spaces of distinctive social experience. Local and national spaces, time, histories and identities are reshaped in and through our car cultures. Represented in paintings, sculpture, films, literature, music, ceremony and other media, vehicles and the roads they travel communicate closely with the aesthetic spirits of modernity and its postmodern discontents. This issue of Humanities Research sets out to explore some of the key conjunctures of Australian nonurban automobility - intercultural exchange and communication, power and social transformation - from the vantage points of history, cultural studies, art history, anthropology, and visual art. The authors in this volume examine the ways in which car cultures in non-urban Australia produce social relationships between car owners, drivers, passengers, their families, and their observers through the mediating forms and forces of moving vehicles, petrol, bitumen, and the inevitable debris of car wreckages and ruins. In this respect, the analyses collected here provide fresh insights into what anthropologist Daniel Miller has called 'the humanity of the car'.1 The idea for this volume emerged as a coda to a symposium, a photography exhibition and a screening program - Cruising Country: Automobilities in nonurban Australia - held at the ANU Centre for Cross-Cultural Research in 2005 (26-28 May).2 The symposium canvassed car-focused histories, artworks, documentary film, ethnography, cultural analysis and personal storytelling offered by researchers, artists, filmmakers, and Aboriginal elders. As the producers of that event, we conceived the term 'cruising country' to conjure and capture the affective experiences of being automobile on a national map where 'country' is a multivalent post-colonial concept of enduring Aboriginal space and place; country is overwritten by tracks, roads, highways and the myriad 'cruising' journeys they have enabled, from the 'first contact' encounters of desert patrol officers to family trips, from rallies to 'grey nomad' adventures, artists' research routes and cinematic narratives (to name only a few that were featured at the 2005 event). Where once the analysis of car culture began in the driveways and petrol stations of cities and suburbs, the Cruising Country project has turned over the engine to confront another set of stories - those we call the 'non-urban'. Here, motor vehicles are seen making tracks across 'the frontier' of the post-colonial nation and carrying research across other romantic tropes of exploration that require ongoing critical attention in the analysis of post-colonial settler societies. The non-urban focus of our theme reframes notions of distance and 'remoteness', and repositions the desert, the bush and suburban fringes at the centre of narratives of Australian automobility. The exponential growth of Australian road construction in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries is intertwined with structural transformations of an economy balancing land-based primary industries (and the regional expansion that followed these developments) with domestic manufacturing and commodity importation and circulation of ever more goods beyond major metropolitan zones. Domestic and regional industrialisation of automotive manufacturing, the normalisation of car ownership, the fading of rail travel as mass experience and the development of a diversified market of road-based tourist travel have solidified automobility as contemporary Australian habitus. Given the ubiquity and normalisation of car travel as the primary everyday habit of mobility in postwar First-World countries, it is actually surprising that there has not been more humanities and social science research into the varieties of automobile experience in Australia, or elsewhere. …

The Cryptoclassicism of Goethe's Faust

Goethe's attitude to the classical past after 1803 is best described not as classicism but as cryptoclassicism. It is doubtful whether any period of his writing deserves to be called 'classical'. However, in the later part of his life, as his notes to Diderot's Le Neveu de Rameau show, he believed both that he had to live and write in his own time, accepting its defects, and that classical antiquity provided the standard by which modernity should be judged. Hence the ambiguous light in which he presents Faust in Faust. Part Two. Faust's final speech is an expression of the modern spirit, but is intended to contrast with other speeches in the play indicating the superiority of the classical harmony of humanity and nature.

Redesign of the Health Care Delivery System

THE GOVERNING DESIGN PRINCIPLE OF THE US HEALTH care system has been described as an “edifice complex” and a “field of dreams” complex—if the health system builds it, the patients will come. This clinician-centric approach to the design of delivery of health care is obsolete, contributing to health care of inferior quality and excessive cost. To meet the patient-centered needs of a modern health care system, the United States should consider adopting the Bauhaus design principle of “form follows function.” Form follows function was the guiding principle of the Bauhaus school of crafts and architecture, founded in Germany in 1919 by Walter Gropius. The structure of a chair or house was to follow logically from the intended function of that form. The Bauhaus movement emphasized rational and simplified design, reconciling craftsmanship and technology under a spirit of populism and modernism. These principles are applicable to the design of a modernist health system. Traditionally, approaches to health care delivery design view the extravagantly rococo structure of the existing health care system and propose additions or minor alterations to this dysfunctional structure. What if there was a different starting point—the intended function of the health system— and planners worked backward to determine the form most suitable to that function?

The Parataxis of "British Musical Modernism"

Here, then, is something of England… . We are still a nation of individualists, and I think that comes out in this book, in which I have given a portrait gallery of people not yet standardized by the mass production of thought and character. In this machine age, which is killing some of our character and some of our beauty every day, England is still beautiful where one slips away from the roar of traffic and the blight of industrialism; and in these quiet places where there are still English meadows not yet taped out by the jerry builder, and trees not yet marked for the ax, and old houses with old timbers, there are, as I have shown, men and women still living very deep in tradition. The two worlds live side by side, the old-world England hardly touched by the increasing rhythm of the speed mania which is called Progress, hardly affected by the trash of the mind, the jazzing up of life, the restlessness, the triviality, which goes by the name of the Modern Spirit; yet in this other world of bricks and mortar, of picture palaces, of factories and flats, and electric trams and chain stores, there is something still very traditional in the crowds that pass and in the individuals which make up the crowds. All this modernization is, I find, very superficial. I mean, it has not yet bitten into the soul of England or poisoned its brain.

1913: The Cradle of Modernism by Jean-Michel Rabaté

MLR, 104.4, 2009 1101 Leibniz, Jean Baptiste Rene Robinet, Bichat, and SirWilliam Lawrence, among others. In the second part Koelb approaches theways inwhich a dead past can affect the living present by examining Goethe's Die Leiden des jungen Werthers, Keats's Endymion (1817), Hugo's Notre-Dame de Paris (1831), and Gautiers Spirite (1865). In Part m of his analysis Koelb focuses on 'the interaction ofmatter and spirit as a process of incarnation inwhich bodies take on the character of texts and texts the characters of bodies' (p. 12). Kleist's Michael Kohlhaas (1810), Shelley's Frankenstein (1818), Robert Maturin's Melmoth the Wanderer (1820), and various tales by Poe are offered as evidence of the demonic underside of a resurrection of the fleshand a death thatbrings one into life' (p. 145). Koelb's engaging thesis argues for an original connection between theApostle Paul and 'theRomantic century, but itisat times tenuous and even overstated.With regard to an age of revolution, one also questions the veracity ofKoelb's claim that 'thepolitical history of the time [...] had primarily indirect effectson thematters re levant' tohis enquiry (p. xi). However, in a study that admits topresenting a 'sample' that is 'not meant tobe exhaustive but rather illustrative' (ibid.), his selective analysis suggests an interesting currentwithin Romantic thought, prose, and poetry. University of Warwick Brian Haman 1913' The Cradle ofModernism. By Jean-Michel Rabate. Oxford: Blackwell. 2007. viii+246 pp. ?50 (pbk ?19.99). ISBN 978-1-4051-5117-7 (pbk 978 1-4051-6192-3). 1913 takes itsplace in a series of studies thatdissect cultural modernism by taking one year for an analytic snapshot. One thinks, for example, of Thomas Harrison's 1910: The Emancipation ofDissonance, Michael North's Reading 1922: A Return to the Scene of the Modern, and Marc Manganaro's Culture, 1922. As Rabate notes, his own chosen annus mirahilis has had its fair share of attention, with books by Frederic Morton and Virginia Cowles, and the weighty three-volume collection of essays edited by Liliane Brion-Guerry {VAnnee 1913: lesformes esthetiques de Vceuvred'art a la veille de lapremiere guerre mondiale). But Rabate's principal model is inmany ways Marjorie Perloff's magisterial The FuturistMoment: Avant-Garde, Avant Guerre, and theLanguage ofRupture (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986), which takes the avant-garde preoccupation with techniques of'simultaneity as a spur to itsown presentation of themultiple currents converging in the vortex of avant-guerre European modernism. Like Perloff, Rabate wears his formidable scholarship lightly,and the pleasure to be gained from reading 1913 derives from the admirable fluencywith which different and sometimes unexpected strands of this protean cultural moment arewoven together. Of the many writers discussed here, it is perhaps Fernando Pessoa who best exemplifies in this pivotal year 'the difficult birth ofmodernism' (p. 204) as he looks for 'ways to combine his new-found ventriloquism with movements likeneo classicism, late Romanticism, Whitmanian lyricism, paganism, and modernism' 1102 Reviews (p. 155). In 1913 history ison the turn and itsactors are caught looking both back ward and forward, as thatmelange of tendencies indicates. Modernism emerges here as a volatile swirl of traditional and modern pieties in a world that finds itself'increasingly interconnected' (p. 11) but that also sees cosmopolitan values yielding increasingly to aggressive forms of nationalism. The year 1913 may mark 'the inception of ourmodern period of globalization' (p. 1), but it witnesses too the persistence ofRomantic fascinations, most damagingly in themystique ofwar and violence (as Rabate notes, artists such as Blaise Cendrars, Guillaume Apollinaire, and Henri Gaudier-Brzeska went towar because theywanted to?'All three could have easily avoided the draft, for reasons of nationality [...] or distance' (p. 208)). This 'emergentmodernism' made its own contribution to the belligerence of 1913, then?'the modern spirit appears as vivisective', Rabate accurately observes (p. 141)?and for that reason ithas undoubtedly brought us 'bad luck', as 1913 an nounces at the outset. Indeed, the curious fusion of the atavistic and thedefinitively new that underlies this early modernism and that is so distinctively announced in Igor Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring (premiered that year) fostered occultism and superstition at the very same time as itmystified the technologies of...