Vibrant Center Research Articles

Art and Visual Culture on the French Riviera, 1956-1971: The Ecole de Nice

The École de Nice, which burgeoned as a modern art movement in the 1950s and 1960s, challenged the institutional hegemony of the largely abstractionist École de Paris at a time when the Riviera was growing into a major tourist destination and, in the wake of the iconic Picasso and Matisse, a vibrant centre for the visual arts. What emerged, essentially in Nice, in a period of post-war national cultural and societal change, was a burst of artistic innovation led by indigenous artists inspired by the geographic beauty of the Mediterranean and, inextricably, by the spirit of a new consumerist age. In her excellent study of what was, arguably, a southern artistic revolution, Rosemary O'Neill offers a detailed history of how the École de Nice evolved. In doing so she adopts a ‘case-study approach’ (p. 11), paying particular attention to the movement's seminal contributors, in monographic chapters that show the artistic diversity of these various figures to be richly illustrative of shared aesthetic ideals. Indeed, an overarching theme of the book is the solidarity of the artists' opposition to the formalist establishment art of the École de Paris. Espousing appropriative methods and theatrical modes of presentation that ran counter to the pervasive and nationally sanctioned art formel of the time, they opted for a predominantly conceptualist and locally inspired art actuel. After a historical background chapter that establishes the intersection of art, mass culture, and tourism as an early twentieth-century southern artistic trend, O'Neill goes on to examine the defining and broadly sequentially formed movements of the École de Nice: Nouveau Réalisme, Fluxus, and Supports/Surfaces. Here she really comes into her own, offering detailed analyses of group differences and commonalities via close studies of individuals. From this chronology, subtle ideological and artistic shifts are ascertained as the author points up the originality of the artists and the range of experimentation achieved. Consider, for example, Yves Klein's purist sea and sky-blue monochromes, Arman's haunting assemblages of used and discarded things, and Martial Raysse's frozen bathing-beauty mannequins (Chapter 1). In many cases the movement away from painting is extreme, as in Ben Vautier's ‘total art’ street happenings, George Brecht's word-game poems (Chapter 4), and Claude Gilli's collages of fragments of fairground machines (Chapter 5). Even with a return to painting in the late 1960s, a matter that split the school's allegiances and contributed to its demise in 1971, the artists concerned (notably Claude Viallat and Noël Dolla) remained conceptually motivated and committed to a social and geographic engagement with the land. To her credit, O'Neill draws on a vast range of primary sources, many not readily accessible to today's readers: contemporary newspaper and magazine articles, private correspondence, catalogues, archival materials, manifestos, and recorded interviews. In addition, the work is enhanced by the inclusion of interspersed black and white photographs and an inset of thirteen colour plates. While it is regrettable that the book's presentation is significantly marred by typographical errors and inaccuracies (abundant in the footnotes), the author has produced a comprehensive overview of an important, previously somewhat overlooked, period in French art history.

Stonecutters Bridge, Hong Kong: design competition

In late 1999 the Highways Department of the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region issued an open invitation to bridge designers to pre-qualify for a design competition for a road bridge across the entrance to the Kwai Chung container port. The bridge would have a span of at least 1000 m with a vertical clearance of at least 73·5 m over the full 900 m navigation channel. The purpose of the competition was to establish a reference scheme to be used as the basis for the detailed design for Stonecutters Bridge. The design competition aimed at securing a world-class design which would also be a fitting landmark and gateway for the port underlining and promoting the image of Hong Kong as a vibrant and important centre of international trade. The competition took place in early 2000 and this paper describes some of the background choosing this approach and the reasoning behind the selection of the prize-winning proposals.

Eros en escena: Erotismo en el teatro del Siglo de Oro (review)

Fernandez Rodriguez, Esther. Eros en escena: Erotismo en el teatro del Siglo de Oro. Newark, DE: Juan de la Cuesta, 2009. 189 pp.Consistent with the approach that views comedias as play scripts (written to be performed rather than read), Esther Fernandez Rodriguez very broadly examines the sensuality of Madrid's public theaters. The author's purpose is to document that the corrales of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Spain were a vibrant center of eroticism to which various factors contributed, including the steamy atmosphere that existed in and around the playhouses, the sexually evocative undertones of many comedias, the frequently seductive nature of performances on stage, and the licentious lifestyle ascribed to theater people. The public playhouses of Madrid in the age of Lope and Calderon have been widely recognized as sites of popular mass entertainment, charitable businesses supporting the hospitals, and political instruments of lesser or greater degree. The conclusion supported in this study is that they were also the headwaters of provocative erotic sensations (177). The author aims to reclaim for the Spanish stage of the Golden Age a neglected but important part of its nature, thus returning to it an aspect of universality that has been lost (32).Chapter 1 outlines the varying definitions of eroticism and associated terms such as sensuality, seduction, sexuality, sex, love, and pornography (19-20). In the repressive Catholic society of Spain's Golden Age, censorship made difficult or impossible the direct and intentional expression of the sexually redolent. So these basic aspects of human existence were usually presented indirectly, through insinuation (verbal tone, gesture, body language), metaphors, and double meanings (28-30). The author approaches her topic with an awareness of the great differences between what was considered indecent 400 years ago and what is seen as such by the jaded public of our present day (176). The indirect cultural clues used by Golden Age dramatists do not awaken the same erotic sensations as they did in the original audiences (181), a fact that by itself justifies the explanations presented in this volume.Chapter 2 focuses on the sensually charged atmosphere within and immediately outside the public theaters in Madrid, as well as in the surrounding neighborhood. Despite the segregation of women in the cazuela, the interior spaces of the corrales- the various entrances and stairways, dressing rooms, hallways, and back stairs- lent themselves to clandestine social pleasures (41-42). Go-betweens of all types exercised their skills at the theaters- assisting in courtships, seductions, and assignations between lovers - and prostitutes sought clients there (44-45). Citing the many other possibilities for pleasurable indulgences offered in the theater district (e.g., taverns, gaming houses, brothels, the mentidero de los comediantes), the author concludes that the whole area was charged with a tantalizing ambience.Chapter 3 discusses the promotion of sensuality by the performers, who became sexual icons of the age through their acting on stage and their reputed amorous freedom off stage. The author discusses the lives and reputations of various prominent actresses to make plain that their presence in the corrales was a major enticement for audiences and that they, more than their male counterparts, were responsible for the financial success of acting companies, public theaters, and the hospitals that they supported.Chapters 4 and 5 present a representative sampling of specific comedias containing salacious scenes that lend to otherwise nonerotic plays an air of latent sensuality. …

Doin' It in Public : Feminism and Art at the Woman's Building

Doin' It in Public:Feminism and Art at the Woman's Building Jennie Klein (bio) Ben Maltz Gallery Otis College of Art and Design Los Angeles, CA October 1, 2011-February 26, 2012 In 2001 Public Offerings, curated by Paul Schimmel, opened at the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art (LA MOCA). Part history and part contemporary art survey, Public Offerings was comprised of the formative work (in some cases the Master of Fine Arts shows) of twenty-four artists who became art rock stars in 2001. These artists, among them Damien Hirst, Rikrit Tiravanija, and Sarah Lucas, became famous in an age when the art market was burgeoning while art schools became increasingly privatized. Art students in the 1990s eschewed the antimaterialism and intellectualism of the 1960s and '70s for opportunities in the commercial arena. Public Offerings included a lot of objects, many of them oversized and vaguely suggesting a critique of something— the art market, racism, the museum, the art school, or whatever. But the primary criterion for inclusion was art market success.1 Unlike most curators, who continued devising, into the mid-naughts, exhibitions of expensive objects around an increasingly worn-out premise of transgression, Schimmel was at least honest. Public Offerings was still depressing, especially considering that it opened ten years after the demise of the Woman's Building, one of the only institutions ever devoted to the education and nurturing of feminist artists. The Woman's Building was founded in 1973 (almost twenty years earlier) by Judy Chicago, Arlene Raven, and Sheila Levrant de Bretteville, all three Cal Arts refugees who sought to create a "space of one's own," to paraphrase Virginia Woolf, for young women to become feminists and artists. When it first opened in 1973, the Woman's Building, located downtown in the former Chouinard Art Building, was a vibrant center of women's culture. In addition to being the home for a degree program in feminist art making—the Feminist Studio Workshop, or FSW, which had morphed from the Feminist Art Program that Chicago had founded at Fresno State and Cal [End Page 129] Arts—the Woman's Building was home to the Associated Woman's Press, the Center for Feminist Art Historical Studies, Gallery 707, Grandview Gallery I and II, Los Angeles Feminist Theater, Sisterhood Bookstore, Womanspace Gallery, Women's Improvisational Theater, and Women's Graphics Center, which de Bretteville helped to organize. By 1991 the building had moved from its central location in downtown Los Angeles to the former Getty office building, located on the edge of Chinatown. The FSW had disbanded years earlier, although several of the students and teachers in the program continued to be involved with the building. The affiliated organizations housed in the building had shrunk to just two: the Woman's Graphics Center and the Woman's Slide Library. Plagued by financial problems beyond their control, the staff at the Woman's Building managed to host the tenth and final Vesta Awards ceremony just as the building finally closed. The slide library, as well as a wealth of material that did not make it to the Smithsonian, accompanied Sue Maberry, one of the last of the building administrators, to Otis College. Ten years after Public Offerings and twenty years after the Woman's Building closed its doors, it is fitting that an exhibition devoted to the art of the Woman's Building is being shown at the Ben Maltz Gallery at Otis College of Art and Design. If nothing else, Doin' It in Public: Feminism and Art at The Woman's Building (October 1, 2011-February 26, 2012) serves as a potent reminder that making a public offering in the art world didn't always involve buying shares or speculating as to the next big trend. Curated by Meg Linton and Maberry, Doin' It in Public is a comprehensive survey of the art and programs associated with the Woman's Building. For this special issue of Frontiers dedicated to the manifestations of the feminist art movement outside of New York or Los Angeles, a discussion of an exhibition devoted to the art of the Woman's Building, however laudable, might seem misplaced at best...

Closing gaps on the urban fringe of Australian capital cities: an investment worth making

This paper commences by demonstrating that Australia's capital cities follow a similar development profile; a large portion of all jobs are concentrated in the inner urban areas. As a result, the accessibility of jobs and services is poor in the outer urban areas. It then goes on to argue that by creating a more accessible and equitable distribution of jobs and services, significant productivity benefits would be conferred across Australian cities, primarily through agglomeration economies, human capital enhancements and transport-based savings. Speculative modelling is undertaken to estimate the likely scale of costs and benefits of partially closing the gaps between urban growth areas and their host metropolises. Interventions for improving the distribution and accessibility of jobs and services are discussed, including improved government service delivery on the urban fringe, promoting vibrant town centres and improving transport links across the metropolis.

Introduction

Introduction

THE FATE OF TEMPLES IN LATE ANTIQUE ANATOLIA

When Christianity rose to prominence during the 4th c. temples were no longer the vibrant centres of ritual activity they had once been. A precise chronology for the last phases of temples in Asia Minor cannot be established with the limited evidence we possess. Yet, the examples presented here do allow an approximate pattern to be laid down. Furthermore, they demonstrate that the fate of temples in Late Antiquity comprised more than just destruction or conversion to churches. That said, the preservation of the sacred landscape through in situ conversion of temples did play a crucial role in the Christianisation of late antique Asia Minor.

Paris: capitale de la culture by Robert Viau

French readers. Finally, translations produced cultural transfers. In an intellectual world where French was the international language, the British had less need of translation than the French. When Louis XIV’s diplomats came to London to learn the English political system first-hand, they soon learned that they too needed translators. Pierre Des Maizeaux, the influential London-based Huguenot, was responsible for the translation of Anthony Collins’s controversial Philosophical Inquiry Concerning Human Liberty, a strong influence on French thought. Certain translators eliminated sections with which they disagreed, or interpreted them. An interesting example occurs where the translation of the word “commodities” in Hume implicitly signals the advent of modern capitalism. Although this volume is highly specialized, it can provide valuable information to all Enlightenment researchers. Because the space is limited to a short article, there are numerous references that will be unfamiliar to all but the most highly informed readers. Unfortunately, the articles cannot always discuss background material. This may discourage some researchers. As in the eighteenth century, the reader should be bilingual, since about half the essays are in French and half in English. The authors have all documented their work carefully with numerous archival sources which make it a valuable tool for further research. The material also sheds light on little-known aspects of Anglo-French relations, and introduces new personalities into the international landscape. Chestnut Hill College (PA) Mary Helen Kashuba VIAU, ROBERT. Paris: capitale de la culture. Québec: Muséologie In Situ, 2010. ISBN 9782 -9809019-3-5. Pp. 390. $29,95 Can. This book is based on the conviction that a tourist’s encounter with today’s Paris is enriched by acquaintance with encounters of those who came before. The project sprang from the author’s realization that undergraduate students who accompanied him to France exhibited the modern tendency to live solely in the present and to neglect the experiences of historical figures. Fortunately, some students wanted to know more, although others yawned and were content to move on. As a tagline under the subtitle says, this is a “guide pour touristes curieux,” for students and others who recognize the value of knowing how historical and literary figures experienced the monuments, museums, and neighborhoods which constitute today’s Paris. Viau believes that appreciation of contemporary culture cannot exclude knowledge of the past. He aims to give a sense of the long historical development of nine of Paris’s quartiers. This is achieved by compiling facts about an edifice’s use through the centuries and by relating episodes in the lives of wellknown figures who occupied the terrain where today’s tourist stands. He has assembled an impressive collection of information and literary allusions which add density and depth to our encounter with the major sites of the capital. The nine promenades may be approached in any order: the Île de la Cité, the Latin Quarter, the Marais, the Louvre/Champs-Élysées, the Right Bank, SaintGermain -des-Prés, the Faubourg Saint-Germain, Montmartre, and Montparnasse. The Marais demonstrates the importance of an awareness of history. The swamp outside the city was drained for cultivation by twelfth-century monks. It was subsequently annexed by the city and included inside its walls. Charles V established a residence there in 1358. With the creation of the Place des Vosges (former 384 FRENCH REVIEW 85.2 Place Royale) in 1612, the area took on new importance. Later, it was known for elegant hôtels nobiliaires and became the center of cultural life in the eighteenth century. After the Revolution, the area fell into neglect and decline until the 1960s, when restoration began. Today it is a vibrant center of residences, shops, and restaurants. Within the area, the church of Saint-Louis, dedicated in 1641, (today known as Saint-Paul-Saint-Louis following demolition of a neighboring church), was frequented by Madame de Sévigné; quotes from her letters add an immediacy to any visit. Marc-Antoine Charpentier composed the major part of his sacred music in this church between 1688 and 1698. The holy water fonts at the entry were a gift of Victor Hugo. In Les Misérables, the church is the site of the...

"A City of Picture Buyers": Art, Identity, and Aspiration in Los Angeles and Southern California, 1891-1914

In less than twenty-five years, Los Angeles and other southern California urban centers evolved from culturally sterile communities into vibrant art centers. That remarkable transformation resulted from a combination of social, economic, and political changes that drew residents to landscape paintings. They enjoyed widespread popularity because residents invested them with meanings that transcended art. They became icons of identity, bolstered visions of an unspoiled suburban Eden, and helped southern California's white middle-class to cope with the mounting stress of modern urban life.

Power Games: the German Nationality Policy (Volkstumspolitik) in Czernowitz before and during the Barbarrosa campaign

Czernowitz, capital of Romania′s province of Bukovina, was a diplomatic, political, and ethnic battleground during World War II. Seeking to preserve its claim to the region against encroachments by the Soviets, Romania sought to suppress the region′s most powerful ethnic minority, the Ukrainians, pursuing a policy of expulsion aimed at creating a “Romanised” zone. At the same time, the German Sonderkommande 10b ensconced itself in the city, arresting the better part of the Jewish population and killing hundreds. The Romanian regime, which originally viewed Germany as an ally against Soviet designs, felt betrayed when the German force began to cooperate with the Ukrainian nationalist movement. In the end Romania prevailed because of Hitler`s decision not to establish an independent Ukraine that would include both Czernowitz and Bukovina. The Romanians herded 50,000 Czernowitz Jews into a ghetto; many of these were subsequently deported to Transnistria, but were not sent to death camps. But, after the war, the Jews never re-established themselves in the city, which had once been a vibrant center of Jewish culture.

Government Waste, Bandwagons, and a Need for Sharing

The governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia recently bet the governor of Kansas that Virginia Tech would beat Kansas in the Orange Bowl. The wager included the promise to send the Kansas governor a Virginia ham if Kansas won. On the same day that I heard that the Virginia governor was using pork to lure the Kansas governor into a wager, I also received a report from Congressman Rick Boucher informing his constituency that he had obtained federal grants, better termed pork, for the town of Pulaski. There are lots of empty buildings in Pulaski, primarily because the furniture industry has exited the area in favor of overseas operations. The pork that Congressman Boucher discussed was in the form of two grants in the total amount of $272,500 for ‘‘the planning of a nanotechnology business park in the town of Pulaski.’’ I live in Pulaski County, go to church in the town of Pulaski, and would love to see the empty buildings transformed into vibrant commercial centers... but a nanotechnology park? Congressman Boucher is jumping on the nanotechnology ‘‘bandwagon,’’ and because of his jump over a quarter million dollars will be used to provide ‘‘an analysis of the infrastructure in Pulaski, as well as a study of existing structures.’’ Virginia politicians are no different than the politicians from other areas, with pork being part of their daily diet. They gather pork, swap pork with other politicians, serve pork to the public, and even used government funds to notify their constituency that pork is on the way. The notice I received from the Congressman said, ‘‘This mailing was prepared, published, and mailed at taxpayers’ expense.’’ A constant pork diet is not healthy! Stuffing pork into depressed regions almost always results in failure, and as failure analysts we should call for a change. However, before we call for a change in other organizations we must be willing to experience change ourselves. Each year there are numerous conferences, seminars, and symposia that have the theme of failure analysis and prevention. Each year numerous presentations at these public forums will go unpublished, and each year many presentations will be repeated at several forums. We love to talk, argue, and demonstrate technical expertise but often find it difficult to do the work necessary to actually develop a paper and provide a finished, well-referenced technical report to our peers. Just as the politicians love to serve pork and jump on the latest technology bandwagon, failure analysts and many other scientists and engineers often serve ‘‘half baked’’ work by jumping on the public forum bandwagon. It is easy to make a presentation but hard to provide the supporting documentation that can transform a presentation into a document with lasting value. It is easy to modify a presentation and stand on another stage presenting essentially the same work a second or even a third time. However, it is hard to join with our peers, remake the presentation, and share a document that presents the fundamental scientific underpinning that transforms the presentation into a document that actually educates the reader. Politicians are well known for taking the easy road and serving pork sandwiches but floundering when real progress is necessary. I am concerned that the rest of the world is not much better. The town of Pulaski will munch on the nanotechnology sandwich and, most likely, realize that the sandwich would be better with some mustard, lettuce, and tomato, and ask for another government grant to provide the condiments. It is unlikely that a successful nanotechnology park will ever exist in Pulaski because virtually M. R. Louthan (&) Box 623, Radford, VA 24143, USA e-mail: macfran61louthan@yahoo.com

The Polyphony of Jewish Culture by Benjamin Harshav

MLR, I03.3, 2008 8I9 panorama of recent criticism devoted to italophone migrant writing (pp. 87-I IO). The central sections are organized intowide geographical areas towhich writers are assigned according to their origins. These include (Eastern) Europe, theMaghreb, black Africa, theHorn ofAfrica (singled out for its colonial connections to Italy), theNear Orient, Asia (with the inclusion ofRom writers), and Latin America. This subdivision, though at times necessarily arbitrary, constructs its own logic. Yet the following sections demonstrate how any selection of criteria is inevitably destined to appear too narrow for a type of artistic production which is,by definition, highly mobile and composite. So Pierangela Di Lucchio's portrait of francophone writing is largely dedicated to young beur writers, while Luisa Carrer's description of an increasingly 'internationalized' English literature (pp. 409-34) cannot avoid dealing with second-generation writers who, likeHari Kunzru, consider theirhybridity as a constitutive element of theirown Britishness (p. 429). It isperhaps in the finalsection of the book, devoted to cinema, theatre, and music, that the creolizing potential of migrant writing is most evident: here not just nationalities, points oforigin, languages, and traditions, but also genres and media can hardly be kept apart, as composite in dividuals form transnational and intercultural groups devoted to the production of highly original, innovative art forms capable of linking, for instance, the richness of Italian regional cultures with themultiple intersections ofMediterranean musical traditions and theoral roots ofAfrican storytelling.Their impermanence is a sign of the enduring marginality of such artistic production (amarginality often voiced in thePlanetario), but it may also be a cipher of its intense, uncontainable productivity. UNIVERSITY OF WARWICK LOREDANA POLEZZI The Polyphony of JewishCulture. By BENJAMINHARSHAV. Stanford, CA: Stanford UniversityPress. 2007. viii+288pp. $6o. ISBN 978-O-8047-55I2-2. Using 'polyphony' as itsunifying thematic thread, this book addresses the dynamic cultural systemswhich form thekaleidoscopic core of themodern Jewish experience. In this collection of articles, introductory essays, andmemoirs culled from a body of work spanning over fortyyears,we are given a richdiversity of access points (including history, literature,visual arts, poetics, and cultural criticism) towhat Benjamin Har shav calls the 'Modern JewishRevolution'. This refers to the fundamental changes in Jews and Jewish culture beginning in theRussian Empire of the late nineteenth century and its ramified after-effectson Jewish societies ever since. The book begins with a pair ofwhat are essentially thematic outlines. One isof the Modern JewishRevolution itself; theother details the significance ofmultilingualism to theculture thatparticipated in that revolution, both as an inherent featureof Jews' language use in this period and as a figurativeway of understanding their engage ment with European culture. In addition to brief overviews such as these we find more magisterial studies, such as 'American Poetry inYiddish and itsBackground'. Originally the introductory essay of thevolume American Yiddish Poetry: A Bilingual Anthology (Berkeley: University of California Press, I986), this lengthy exploration is still an essential text forunderstanding the poetics and world-views not only in one of themost fruitfulperiods and one of themost vibrant centres ofYiddish poetic production but also inYiddish poetry ingeneral. The broad palette of that essay-and of the introduction to a new edition ofHer man Kruk's diaries from theVilne ghetto, as well as of an exposition on the lifeand significance of theYiddish poet Avraham Sutzkever-is complemented bymore de licate tones. These include sensitive readings of several poems by theHebrew poets Natan Alterman and Abba Kovner, and the brief but pithy and densely informative 820 Reviews precis of thehistory ofHebrew versification. Apropos the latter subject, though the one apparent omission from this collection isHarshav's significant contribution to the fieldof poetics (having established, forexample, theDepartment of Poetics and Comparative Literature at Tel Aviv University, famous for the so-called 'Tel Aviv School of Poetics', as well as having founded the journal Poetics Today), there is a companion volume from Stanford University Press collecting exactly these works, entitled Explorations inPoetics (2007). Though the range of topics nimbly covered is enviably wide-I have mentioned only some of the highlights-beyond the obvious and important scholarly contri butions we are also given glimpses into the very real and often poignant human dimension of the issues and figures involved from someone who...

A New Urban Planning Approach for the Regeneration of an Historical Area within Istanbul's Central Business District

This study is based on a research project for the urban regeneration of an old historical region in the central business district. This district, where the Golden Horn meets the Bosphorus, is known as Galata and is accepted as part of the world's cultural heritage. Although historically Galata has played a significant role in Istanbul due to its location, recently it has been deteriorating rapidly because of vandalism and lack of care. Through an objective assessment of the problems and constraints of this historic core using the Space Syntax methodology, this study has identified possible physical design solutions that could enhance functioning of the area and decrease its isolation from the surrounding areas. In creating these proposals, the fundamental aim is to turn what is currently an unpleasant, derelict area into a new active zone without losing its historical character; and to create a unified, vibrant town centre incorporating the historic core of Galata with the existing retail and the seafront area. It is believed that this study, with its use of a formal methodology and interpretation, will contribute to the latest trends of urban design and draw lessons for future policy and practice.

Bridging Feminist Art, Activism, and Theory: A Review of Three Contemporary Texts

Suzanne Lacy provides a framework for conceptualizing feminist activist art in a letter to Patricia Hills, editor of the anthology Modern Art in the USA: Issues and Controversies of the 20th Century. Lacy asks, How can we work as artists on a broader scale, to create change that will penetrate and affect the institutions, public spaces, and political processes that make up our public iHills 2001, 452)? This political goal has overwhelmingly driven feminist activism of the last century. Yet, as Lacy suggests, a wider horizon challenges feminist art practice. To date, feminist art-making has played only one role within an expansive field that necessarily includes feminist theory, cultural criticism, and art history. The numerous texts published on feminist art/theory within the last ten years suggest that any singular account of this dense nexus proves daunting. In an increasingly theory-driven moment, we are still sorting out the question: where and when do theory, art-making, and activism, meet? Or, one might ask where, and when, can they be separated? Although none of the three very different texts under consideration here provide direct answers to these questions, they illuminate distinct modes of engaging them. Two of the texts are anthologies: The Feminisim and Visual Culture Reader assembles 62 significant writings on feminism's convergence with visual culture in the Anglophone world in the latter twentieth century, while Modern Art in the USA: Issues and Controversies of the 20th Century is a more varied collection of essays by artists, curators, and critics reaching back one hundred years. As a counterpoint to these volumes, Insurgent Muse: Life and Art at the Woman's Building tells of one woman's experiences in a vibrant center of pioneer feminist activism that centered on art, the Woman's Building in Los Angeles. Part coming-of-age and part coming-out tale, writer Terry Wolverton's memoir, Insurgent Muse: Life and Art at the Woman's Building, provocatively chronicles her involvement with the Woman's Building. Founded

Anchors of the community: Community schools in Chicago

In partnership with Chicago's public and private sectors, Chicago Public Schools (CPS) has successfully implemented a citywide education reform effort, designed to transform Chicago's neighborhood schools into vibrant centers of the community. Mayor Richard M. Daley and Arne Duncan, CEO of CPS, launched the Community Schools Initiative in January 2002. What started as an idea that was developed by a local foundation has now grown into the largest-scale community school effort in the nation, with sixty-seven schools in operation and a plan to move to one hundred community schools by 2007. This initiative currently involves seventeen private funders, ten technical assistance providers, thirty-four community-based organizations that offer on-site services to children and families, and over three hundred additional community partnerships that provide one-day events such as health fairs and violence prevention workshops.

Fantasies of the street: Emigré photography in interwar Paris

A vibrant centre of cultural and artistic production, interwar Paris attracted many photographers from central Europe. Bringing with them inherited traditions and visual lexicons from their countries of origin, this heterogeneous group of photographers, which included Ilse Bing, André Kertész and Germaine Krull, put their acquired skills and habits to use in new contexts, drawing inspiration from each other, from their engagement with the vibrant culture of France, and most of all from a widespread fascination with Paris as photographic topos. Responding to nostalgia for images of a ‘popular Paris’ in the illustrated press, these photographers accomplished an alchemical transformation of Paris into a city in which past and present were poignantly reconciled. At the same time, many of their photographs, shot through with themes of exile and homelessness, reveal the fragility of the myth of a ‘popular Paris’, particularly after the advent of economic and social crises in the 1930s.

A Hippopotamus Tooth from a Philistine Temple: Symbolic Artifact or Sacrificial Offering?

Investigations at Philistine Ekron (modem Tel Miqne) have uncovered a large and vibrant urban center that spanned some twenty hectares in the seventh century BCE, when Ekron was a Neo-Assyrian vassal city-state and enjoying great commercial success. Archaeological excavations have identified a range of activities routinely carried out in different areas of the city that testify to the diversity of daily life in Ekron. The structure that the excavators refer to as Temple Complex 650 was the center of religious life at Ekron. Measuring 57 by 43 meters, it is one of the largest Iron Age structures ever excavated in Israel (Gitin 2003a: 284), and required three seasons of excavations (1994-1996) to uncover fully. The pillared sanctuary in its western wing, the dedicatory inscriptions found on sherds of restorable pottery vessels in the side room of the sanctuary, and those of the Temple Auxiliary Building to its immediate south all suggest the building's sacred nature. The most convincing evidence for its cultic orientation is the Royal Dedicatory Inscription found in the cella, Room t, of the pillared sanctuary (Gitin et al. 1997). Among the artefacts discovered in the Ekron's Temple Complex was an hippopotamus tooth. Although thousands of animal bones and teeth were discovered in the temple, showing that the temple ritual required sacrificial slaughter, the hippopotamus was probably not among the species sacrified hier. The tooth is finely engraved and have certainly a symbolic value. The author attempts to determine what was the function of this artefact in the cult practice of the temple.

How Italian Was the Renaissance?

The traditional account of the Renaissance holds that intellectual and artistic influence moved overwhelmingly in one direction—from Italy to the rest of Europe, and especially toward the North. A remarkable exhibition in Bruges, however, has made the case that traffic did not go just one way, at least so far as innovation in painting was concerned, because the vibrant cultural center of the Low Countries had a powerful and significant impact on southern Europe. That this case is made through art is an indication of how important it is to bring different disciplines to bear on our understanding of the past.

Building Livable Communities

Historically, America’s cities have been vibrant centers of culture and business with residents living in or near the central city. The last fifty years have witnessed the outward movement to suburban and exurban areas, creating new and extensive infrastructure demands to sustain the sprawl. In many cases, central cities were left without a strong business community and with a crumbling and decaying housing stock and infrastructure. Individuals, businesses, local community groups, and government have come together in a number of areas in the country and successfully addressed the issues of business (dis)investment, decaying infrastructure and housing stock, historic preservation, and open space. The challenge now is for everyone to play the “smart growth” game–creating more livable communities, preserving historic areas, revitalizing central cities, and protecting farmlands across America. With the renewed federal commitment to livable growth, local communities will find additional resources available (financial, information, and otherwise) to assist in developing “smart growth” strategies.

Against the Spirit of the System: The French Impulse in Nineteenth-Century American Medicine

In this wide-ranging exploration of American medical culture, John Harley Warner offers the first in-depth study of a powerful intellectual and social influence: the radical empiricism of the Paris Clinical School. After the French Revolution, Paris emerged as the most vibrant center of Western medicine, bringing fundamental changes in understanding disease and attitudes toward the human body as an object of scientific knowledge. Between the 1810s and the 1860s, hundreds of Americans studied in Parisian hospitals and dissection rooms, and then applied their new knowledge to advance their careers at home and reform American medicine. By reconstructing their experiences and interpretations, by comparing American with English depictions of French medicine, and by showing how American memories of Paris shaped the later reception of German ideals of scientific medicine, Warner reveals that the French impulse was a key ingredient in creating the modern medicine American doctors and patients live with today. Impressed by the opportunity to learn through direct hands-on physical examination and dissection, many American students in Paris began to decry the elaborate theoretical schemes they held responsible for the degraded state of American medicine. These reformers launched an empiricist crusade against the spirit of system, which promised social, economic, and intellectual uplift for their profession. Using private diaries, family letters, and student notebooks, and exploring regionalism, gender, and class, Warner draws readers into the world of medical Americans while investigating tensions between the physician's identity as scientist and as healer.