American Tradition Research Articles

Art and Indiscernibility: Arthur C. Danto and the Dynamics of Analytic Philosophy

Arthur C. Danto was one of the most influential and prolific philosophers of art of the second half of the twentieth century. More particularly, his encounter with the art of Andy Warhol in 1964 became a crucial moment that would catapult his lifelong attempt to spell out the theoretical conditions of contemporary art, and the implications those conditions held for art history and criticism. In this article, however, I show that Danto was in fact primed for his encounter with Warhol by the newly emerging identity of Anglo-American analytic philosophy at mid-century. Using unpublished archival material, I show that Danto's fundamental insights in his first two major essays in the philosophy of art, “The Artworld” (1964) and “Artworks and Real Things” (1973), were in place at least two years before his chance meeting with Warhol's artwork. In making this more modest historical claim, however, I argue that Danto was part of a broader generation of philosophers who were attempting to work through some of the fundamental problems raised by the naturalist tradition of American thought since the late nineteenth century, problems that became central to the emerging identity of analytic philosophy in its early stages. Among the most pressing of these problems was how values functioned in a naturalistic universe absent theological or metaphysical grounding. Drawing from this philosophical space, Danto's account of art deeply influenced the direction of Anglo-American philosophy of art during the second half of the twentieth century. In the process, he became one of the most significant theorists of contemporary art in the English-speaking world.

Amplification by Counterstory in the Quantitative Rhetoric of Ida B. Wells

ABSTRACT Ida B. Wells uses what critical race theorists call counterstory to expose contradictions in majoritarian assumptions about race in her statistical rhetoric. By using rhetorically forceful characteristics of the African American Verbal Tradition in counterstories about the victims of lynching, Wells leverages embodiment and emotion to amplify statistics of lynching. This essay examines the rhetorical properties of different versions of statistics of Black victims of lynchings from 1883 to 1891 that Wells used in the early 1890s to show how Wells’s approach to amplification in quantitative rhetoric honors and advocates for the people that can make up a statistic.

Dis/possession Afoot: American (Anthropological) Traditions of Anti‐Blackness and Coloniality

In this essay, we call on linguistic anthropology to combat specific modes of White Supremacy (anti‐Blackness, anti‐Indigeneity, and anti‐Nativeness) by recognizing them as intimately central to the formations and formulations of our (sub)field in the US (and broader) context. We speak to and from particular legacies of dispossession and repossession engendered by two mated and enduring structural processes, settler colonialism (Simpson 2014) and racial slavery (Hartman 2008; Sharpe 2016; Mignolo 2006), which continue to animate the ubiquity of owning via the making of (linguistic) anthropological knowledge (owning through knowing and collecting) and via the knowing, collecting, and wearing of Black and Native people that helps make up everyday life in America (e.g., mascots, blackface, pop cultural caricatures, Halloween costumes, language appropriation, slave souvenirs, dream catchers and on and on (Meek 2006; 2020; Smalls and Davis forthcoming; Smalls forthcoming). Finally, we draw on Black and Native theorists to offer practices of solidarities and abolition (Byrd 2019; Harris 2019; Latty et. al 2016; Leroy 2016; King 2019; Tuck et. al 2014; Morrill et al. 2016).

Key Features of the Performance of Chinese Musicians (Sample Case: Playing on the Saxophone)

The article is devoted to the methods of teaching saxophone playing within the framework of two classical approaches to teaching, developed by two famous teachers: the French teacher and saxophonist Marcel Moulet and his American colleague Larry Teale. The purpose of the article is to identify the features of two classical approaches to teaching the saxophone within the French and American traditions from the point of view of the peculiarities of the perception of these two techniques by Chinese students. The objectives of the research are to reveal the basic principles of the pedagogical system of Marcel Moulet; identifying the features of the Larry Teale method; conducting comparative classes in two groups of Chinese students based on the criteria for mastering the performance skills of playing the saxophone. The research methodology is based on a systematic approach and includes the methods of the general scientific group (analysis, synthesis, induction, deduction), as well as a group of special methods: content analysis of scientific literature on the research topic; method of sociological survey and method of statistical analysis. To process the results of the empirical research, special software Neural Designer, a tool for advanced analytics, was used.The study revealed the preferences of Chinese saxophonists regarding two classical saxophone playing techniques. The survey was conducted among three groups of 25 people, two of them were involved in experimental classes and the third group was a control. The general sample consisted of 75 respondents.Based on the study, the author of the article came to the conclusion that Chinese performers are more committed to the French method of playing the saxophone, since the European musical tradition is easier for Chinese students to perceive in the context of the musical traditions and philosophy of China.

The Theatre of Historical Revision: An Analysis of the Native American Drama Tradition

We attempt to analyse the form and content of major Native American plays to discuss their relationship with the traditional English drama and its content. By looking at plays of key Native American playwrights, we show that the Native American tradition goes against the English tradition of drama in its form by challenging the unities of time and place and characterization. It also brings in elements of Native American tradition of storytelling such as the blend of the sacred and the profane, the use of humor, the attitude towards facticity, to the tradition of drama to carve out a unique space for itself through which it attempts to challenge the dominant narratives of history, Native American culture, and at the same time highlight the problems the Native American nations face currently.

Lessons from the Use of Ranked Choice Voting in American Presidential Primaries

Grounded in experience in 2020, both major political parties have reasons to expand use of ranked choice voting (RCV) in their 2024 presidential primaries. RCV may offer a ‘win-win’ solution benefiting both the parties and their voters. RCV would build on both the pre-1968 American tradition of parties determining a coalitional presidential nominee through multiple ballots at party conventions and the modern practice of allowing voters to effectively choose their nominees in primaries. Increasingly used by parties around the world in picking their leaders, RCV may allow voters to crowd-source a coalitional nominee. Most published research about RCV focuses on state and local elections. In contrast, this article analyzes the impact on voters, candidates, and parties from five state Democratic parties using RCV in party-run presidential nomination contests in 2020. First, it uses polls and results to examine how more widespread use of RCV might have affected the trajectory of contests for the 2016 Republican nomination. Second, it contrasts how more than three million voters in the 2020 Democratic presidential primaries backed withdrawn candidates with the low rate of such wasted votes for withdrawn candidates in the states with RCV ballots. Finally, it concludes with an examination of how RCV might best interact with the parties’ current rules and potential changes to those rules.

Reclaiming my name.

When my friends took me to my first rodeo, a little ways outside the small Midwestern college town where we were undergrads, I was interested to experience this American tradition. But I was distracted by a man with a gun strapped to his side staring at me, unblinking and unsubtle, as if I was a zoo animal. At first I wondered, a little foolishly, “Did I inadvertently wear my T-shirt inside out?” Then my best friend, Robert, an African-American military veteran, leaned in almost imperceptibly and whispered, “Stay close to me. I don't think they're used to foreign visitors here.”

“In the Best American Tradition of Freedom, We Defy You”: The Radical Partnership of Joseph Jordan, Edward Dawley, and Leonard Holt

AbstractThe history of the Civil Rights Movement has long centered on victories won in the Deep South between 1954 and 1965. As inspiring as this narrative may be, it overemphasizes the effectivene...

“It’s Hip to Unzip”

This article considers the histories of two countercultural, “back-to-the-land” communes located in Northern California: Siskiyou County’s Black Bear Ranch and Sonoma County’s Morning Star Ranch. Both communes were highly influenced by the concept of “open land,” a quintessentially 1960s vision of countercultural colonies that rejected private property, welcomed all newcomers—particularly individuals who were alienated by urban modernity—and allowed each to live as they chose, free of rent, compulsory structure, or governance. I examine the ways in which these communes related to and were shaped by their rural neighbors, as well as state authorities overseeing this region, revealing how the influences of each determined success or failure. Positive relations with neighbors enhanced commune viability, although maintaining such relationships often required that communards compromise their original founding principles, including their commitment to open-land ideals. At the same time, the presence of such enclaves in their midst prompted many rural residents to rethink received notions regarding communes and communards. The exchanges that followed force us to recontextualize the era’s back-to-the-land movement within broader American traditions of frontier settlement and reinvention.

A Storehouse of Life Diversity in The Mango Season

There are many types of religions and beliefs in India. There have been many works based on such variations. It is such an important novel based on Indian culture called The Mango Season written by AmulyaMalladi. The main focus of this novel is on the Brahmin system and the framework it exemplifies. The essence of this story is a girl who is born and raised according to the Brahmin faith and the events that take place around it. The story is written by taking the ideas of this theme as a writer and pointing out this character on many levels. Therefore, while reading this story, a variety of needs and suggestions may come out from the readers. The protagonist of the story is a girl named Priya who takes the story forward in many perspectives and ideas. AmulyaMalladi tells her to the readers about the changes that take place when she goes to the America for higher studies and stays away from Indian culture, as well as a tendency to adapt to the American tradition. As a girl growing in India and living in the United States, there have been a lot of changes showed up through this story.
 Indian writer Amulya Malladi’s novel The Mango Season (2003) is thereview over the format of a few days in Hyderabad in India. The story maintains Priya Rao, a twenty-seven-year-old Indian woman who returned back to her home place during the summertime in Mango Season but she has major problem and worries. Having life in America for the past seven years, Priya is worried to disclose her traditional Brahmin family the one secret she is hiding from them all the time: she is connected and getting married to an American man. Going through the whirlwind of ancient customs and rituals, deeply rooted prejudices, familiar caste systems, local culinary recipes, the full embodiment of Indian tradition, Priya must have the courage to tell the truth to her family. Mango Season is Malladi's second novel since the release of A Breath of Fresh Air in 2002, which explores themes of family, identity, nostalgia, marriage, national, cultural and culinary tradition. He was an IT professional who has lived in the United States for the past seven years and worked in Silicon Valley for the past three years.

Seacraft Names in Military Discourse

The article analyses the process of meaning formation of names of warships in the military discourse with the aim of identifying conceptual mechanisms which underlie the naming of seacraft. The research constitutes part of the study in the field of cognitive linguistics and fills in the gap in the studies of metaphoric potential and cultural specificities of secondary names applied to artifacts (as big as warships) in British and American tradition. The results show that of all 1200 seacraft names, 700 units are originally zoomorphic common nouns transformed into proper names of seacraft with which they “share” and sometimes even exchange some of their basic or latent semantic characteristics. It was revealed that underlying mechanisms of meaning formation in seacraft nicknames are cognitive mechanisms of conceptual metaphor, focusing and defocusing. To describe them the methods of frame analysis and cognitive metaphoric modelling are employed. Metaphor in the paper is both the object and the tool of research. To support the analysis, the information about specific features of named objects and creatures is elicited from dictionaries and language corpora.

“LUX AURUMQUE” BY ERIC WHITACRE IN TERMS OF COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF PERFORMANCE INTERPRETATION

The purpose of the article is to study the creative aspects of the performance interpretation of the choral work “Lux Aurumque” by the modern American composer E. Whitacre in the perspective of comparative analysis of performance versions. The research methodology includes classical musicological methods – analytical, interpretive and comparative methods. The concept of the article was created in the process of developing the ideas of I. Polusmyak and K. Timofeyeva. The scientific novelty is based on the fact of virtualization of choral singing that has not become the subject of a separate scientific study yet. The overriding task of the study is to clarify the specifics of the communicative conditions for the coexistence of national and cultural traditions of American and Ukrainian choral cultures. The influence of the semantics of the poetic source and the peculiarities of the composer’s choral writing are considered. The ways and possibilities of choral performance in the synthesis of traditional conditions and tendencies of cultural communication of modern society in the global network Internet are investigated. The specifics of the communicative conditions of coexistence of national and cultural traditions of American and Ukrainian choral culture are clarified. Comparative methods in this study include the analysis of several performance varieties – Virtual Choir 1.0., singing of the choir Eric Whitacre Singers under the direction of the author and the performance of the Student Choir of Kharkiv I. P. Kotlyarevsky National University of Arts. In the process of studying the cognitive possibilities of comparative analysis of performing interpretations of the selected composition, common and different features dui to various physical conditions and vocal-technological approaches were revealed. Conclusions. Consideration of the features of performance drama in the process of creation virtual and real choral work versions has revealed that the selected performance versions can be divided into two types: correspondence (the first two author’s options) and adaptation (Student Choir). This topic provides a perspective area for further research and will have an exceptional scientific result in case of cooperation of specialists in several spheres – musicology, sound design, acoustics and sociology.

“Somebody Bigger than You and I”: The African American Healing Traditions of Camp Minisink

Four hundred years after the first enslaved Africans landed on the shores of Jamestown, Virginia, it can be difficult to recognize the myriad ways in which the traditional healing processes of the Motherland are embedded in the day-to-day lives of African Americans. Much of what has sustained us through the insidiousness of systemic racism is sourced from the traditions of our ancestors: our faith; our creativity; our sense of community; our respect for elders; our food; and our connection to the natural environment. Employing a narrative form of inquiry, the authors dialogue and reflect on our histories at Camp Minisink, a premier African American camp servicing Black youth from New York City. We use our personal experiences as “Minisinkers” in the 1950s and 1960s, to unearth patterns of Africentric healing traditions embedded in our camp activities. The “MinisinkModel”, unbeknownst to the thousands of children who grew up through the various camp programs, provided a multitude of safety and protective factors informed by these healing practices. The foremothers and forefathers of Minisink instilled in us the belief in a higher power; unconditional love; service; and family that continue to sustain us in our adult lives. This model holds promise for present-day organizations that are struggling to identify meaningful ways of working with African American families, youth and children.

City on a Hill: Urban Idealism in America from the Puritans to the Present

City on a Hill: Urban Idealism in America from the Puritans to the Present

Designed to Save: Scenography and ideology in Hell House

Indebted to the American tradition of the Halloween haunted house, Hell House presents the Pentecostal Christian version of a horror narrative, depicting the terrors waiting in the afterlife for those who sin. Consisting of seven key scenes, which address homosexuality, drunk driving, abortion, teen suicide, the occult and representations of Hell and Heaven, Hell House uses its performance as an evangelical tool. The event draws on aspects of immersive and promenade theatre and thus intertwines scenography and ideology, where each aspect of design is geared towards a singular goal: saving its audience from eternal torment in Hell. This article will examine the importance of staging and set in Hell House performance, and their relationship to the aim of the event. Particular attention will be paid to what its dramaturgy is intended to do, as Hell Houses ultimately use a created environment to represent a spiritual reality, in which both Heaven and Hell should be considered very real. The article will use the Hell House Kit, a do-it-yourself manual created for staging the event, to examine the connection between ideology and design that underpins the Hell House event, and the tensions this creates for representations of truth and reality in performance.

The mapping behind the movement: On recovering the critical cartographies of the African American Freedom Struggle

Responding to recent work in critical cartographic studies and Black Geographies, the purpose of this paper is to offer a conceptual framework and a set of evocative cartographic engagements that can inform geography as it recovers the seldom discussed history of counter-mapping within the African American Freedom Struggle. Black resistant cartographies stretch what constitutes a map, the political work performed by maps, and the practices, spaces, and political-affective dimensions of mapping. We offer an extended illustration of the conventional and unconventional mapping behind USA anti-lynching campaigns of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, highlighting the knowledge production practices of the NAACP and the Tuskegee Institute’s Monroe Work, and the embodied counter-mapping of journalist/activist Ida B. Wells. Recognizing that civil rights struggles are long, always unfolding, and relationally tied over time and space, we link this look from the past to contemporary, ongoing resistant cartographical practices as scholars/activists continue to challenge racialized violence and advance transitional justice, including the noted memory-work of the Equal Justice Initiative. An understanding of African American traditions of counter-mapping is about more than simply inserting the Black experience into our dominant ideas about cartography or even resistant mapping. Black geographies has much to teach cartography and geographers about what people of color engaged in antiracist struggles define as geographic knowledge and mapping practices on their own terms—hopefully provoking a broader and more inclusive definition of the discipline itself.

La fiesta, momento vital de la praxis intercultural en los jesuitas Ignacio Ellacuría y Francisco Taborda

The present article shows the contributions of two intellectual Jesuits, Ignacio Ellacuría and Francisco Taborda, who propose the feast or fraternal celebration as an example for a religious interculturality. The text goes from a philosophical proposal, which shows social coexistence as a fundamental, inevitable moment of the living being, to the praxis that makes a mere relationship an experience of recognition and liberation. The study shows the nexus between philosophy and theology, which in many occasions are one single thing in the conceptualization of Latin American traditions. But also, one and indistinguishable discipline, in the case of many Jesuits committed to Our American causes. In particular, we highlight his ideas about the party, a main category in the construction of identity, justice and hope; that, at the same time, are vital moments of reflection and intercultural practice.

Do Not Read the Latin: Latin as Satanic Signifier in Supernatural Horror Cinema

Abstract This article examines the tropological use of the Latin language to evoke the diabolical in supernatural horror cinema. When Latin is intoned in a suitably Gothic context, horror-savvy audiences have every reason to foresee the Devil and his minions arriving in short order, and are rarely disappointed. This article examines the genealogy of this trope, modelling the prolegomena to an intellectual history of cinematic Satanic Latin. The first part of the analysis traces the development of the trope through literature via the European and American Gothic traditions, the writings of the Decadents, and supernatural horror literature. The analysis then broadens to encompass Occultism, the occult, and ‘occulture’ more generally as important aspects of the discourse-community within which Satanic Latin functions. Finally, the scholarly concept of ‘re-enchantment’ from the history of religions is brought to bear on the semiotic role of Satanic Latin in its performative cinematic context.

Against Interpretation: Georgia O’Keeffe and ‘the Zen of Aestheticism’

Georgia O’Keeffe’s reputation as exemplary American innocent was part of the persona that circulated along with her work and with her photographic portraits, throughout her career. This essay argues that O’Keeffe's stylisation of her life and work was a response to early twentieth-century structures of interpretation, and argues that, through reference to Far Eastern metaphysics as they appeared in America in the universalized design principles of Arthur Wesley Dow and Ernest Fenollosa’s work in particular, as well as to American traditions of ‘plain speech’, O’Keeffe used a formalist, aestheticist version of a Far Eastern-inspired aesthetic to pre-empt and parry contemporary psychoanalytic readings of her work and person.

"Our System": Father Robert T. Kennedy, the American Legal Tradition, and the Development of Administrative Law in the Revision of the Code of Canon Law

As an American civil and canon lawyer, Father Robert Kennedy offered much to the study of canon law and the revision of the Code of Canon Law. As president of the Canon Law Society of America and chairman of the Society's Ad Hoc Committee on Due Process, Kennedy advocated subsidiarity and the development of means of legal recourse through committees of arbitration and administrative courts. With the Church's formation of a Code Commission to study the revision of the code, Kennedy's work as a consultor for the De processibus subcommittee allowed him to advance the cause for subjective rights, due process, and administrative procedures. Kennedy's studies in the United States and Rome provided him with unique insights that he was able to apply concretely to the revision of the code. These insights were influenced by his personal experience of the Universal Church and the American tradition.