Vote For Me Research Articles

Making the Aristophanic Audience

Making the Aristophanic Audience Niall W. Slater Aristophanic comedy is rich in address to its audience and comments on the audience's behavior. It must be said at once, however, that this is not dispassionate reporting: Aristophanes' purpose in commenting on his audience is nearly always to redirect its attention or to shape or reshape the behavior of that audience. A study of the full extent of Aristophanes' attempts to shape the response of his audience is beyond the scope of discussion here, where the focus is primarily on his strategies for controlling and directing the attention and response of his audience in general. Let me also make one methodological assumption explicit at this point. When the characters or chorus in Aristophanes remark on audience behavior, these comments must have some basis in reality in order either to be humorous or to influence that behavior: if things are not quite as Aristophanes describes them, they nonetheless must be close enough to reality for the audience to understand and react to them. The most basic problem of audience response in the theater is to make sure there is a response. Let me therefore begin simply with the problem of attention and attention span in the theater. There is still dispute as to whether the program of the City Dionysia was shortened during the war years from five to three comedies. I believe (against Wolfgang Luppe) that it was, which helps explain the comedy of a passage in Birds.1 In the play's parabasis, the chorus issues an invitation to the spectators to join their new bird city. If they join the city of birds, the audience is told, they will acquire wings, which will allow them to escape human limitations. In a superb parody of the common tragic choral theme of "I wish I were a bird and could fly away from here," the chorus enumerates the advantages of wings. One is, they would allow the spectators to fly away from the boring performances of tragedy! [End Page 351] . (Birds 785–89) There's nothing better or more pleasant than to grow wings. Now, if one of you spectators had wings, when he was hungry he could escape the tragic performances, fly off home, have lunch, and then when he was full, fly back here again to us. Another advantage would be to slip away for a quick sexual encounter: . (793–96) And if any of you happens to be carrying on an affair with a married woman, and he sees the lady's husband in the Boule's seats, he again could have flown away from you with his wings, then after screwing her flown from her place back here again. These jokes work best, I submit, if Birds comes on in the afternoon, for they suggest a certain waning of audience interest and distraction by hunger as the morning's tragic tetralogy marched on. The solution? Skip the boring tragedy bits, head home for lunch, but do come back for "us," that is, the comedy at the end of the day's program.2 Aristophanes is of course far too sensible to suggest directly that the spectators might be bored by the comedies on offer. He does allude to the problem of attention span in another way. Ecclesiazusae was probably produced in 393 B.C., well after the end of the war, when the [End Page 352] Dionysia certainly offered a full five comedies. At the end of the play, the chorus says it has a small request: . (1154–62) I want to make a small request of the judges: that the clever ones, remembering the clever stuff in this play, vote for me; those having a good laugh, vote for me because of the laughs; in fact, I want just about everybody to vote for me; and don't let the lot be any fault for us, that we drew the first position, but you must remember all these things. Don't transgress your oath, but always judge the choruses fairly, and don't imitate those low–class trollops, who always only remember their most recent customers. We shall come back to this passage when we consider...

Who Runs for Congress?

The United States has more elections than any other democracy. Voters not only fill positions that are typically appointive in other countries, such as judges, but they also select officials for many more layers of government, from the town or county to the federal level. Voters even select nominees for the ballot through primaries, instead of relying on party organizations to designate candidates. With the briefest intervals separating the close of one election cycle in November and the onset of another in February or March, Americans are never far from some candidate's plea: “Vote for me.”Among the thousands of candidates who compete for elected office each year, those who run for Congress occupy a special place. The Congress is the crossroads of local and national politics, where representatives of state and district interests forge a national consensus on a staggering array of issues. Given this task, it is logical that most members of the House of Representatives and Senate begin their political careers in local and state government. In the House, for example, more than fifty percent of the members use the state legislature as a stepping stone to Capitol Hill. The House, in turn, serves as a proving ground for many who aspire to the Senate or a governorship, while the Senate fosters the ambitions of numerous presidential candidates. Thus, the Congress provides a useful vantage point for examining the experiences and goals of the men and women who become candidates in the United States.

Vote For Me: Politics in America

Just what do you have to do to successfully run for public office in the United States? • In her first try at public office, a North Carolina musician and television personality with no prior political experience is steeling herself for the morning's round of “money calls” to potential contributors to her congressional congressional campaign, none of whom she's ever met. • On the streets of Honolulu, savvy candidates for governor on down, know that the best way to reach their voters is to put on a colorful lei, grab as big a sign as they can carry, and stake out the corner with the busiest rush hour traffic passing by, to “sign wave.” If they don't do it, they'll never get elected. • On the Crow Indian reservation in Montana—where one candidate for tribal leader describes local politics as cutthroat, “just like Mayor Daley's Chicago”—winning may be determined by which candidate throws the best venison feast or has the largest extended family of voters. And 80% of eligible voters will turn out on election day at the one polling place for 1700 square miles.

Who Runs for Congress?

The United States has more elections than any other democracy. Voters not only fill positions that are typically appointive in other countries, such as judges, but they also select officials for many more layers of government, from the town or county to the federal level. Voters even select nominees for the ballot through primaries, instead of relying on party organizations to designate candidates. With the briefest intervals separating the close of one election cycle in November and the onset of another in February or March, Americans are never far from some candidate's plea: “Vote for me.”Among the thousands of candidates who compete for elected office each year, those who run for Congress occupy a special place. The Congress is the crossroads of local and national politics, where representatives of state and district interests forge a national consensus on a staggering array of issues. Given this task, it is logical that most members of the House of Representatives and Senate begin their political careers in local and state government. In the House, for example, more than fifty percent of the members use the state legislature as a stepping stone to Capitol Hill. The House, in turn, serves as a proving ground for many who aspire to the Senate or a governorship, while the Senate fosters the ambitions of numerous presidential candidates. Thus, the Congress provides a useful vantage point for examining the experiences and goals of the men and women who become candidates in the United States.

Vote For Me: Politics in America

Just what do you have to do to successfully run for public office in the United States?• In her first try at public office, a North Carolina musician and television personality with no prior political experience is steeling herself for the morning's round of “money calls” to potential contributors to her congressional congressional campaign, none of whom she's ever met.• On the streets of Honolulu, savvy candidates for governor on down, know that the best way to reach their voters is to put on a colorful lei, grab as big a sign as they can carry, and stake out the corner with the busiest rush hour traffic passing by, to “sign wave.” If they don't do it, they'll never get elected.• On the Crow Indian reservation in Montana—where one candidate for tribal leader describes local politics as cutthroat, “just like Mayor Daley's Chicago”—winning may be determined by which candidate throws the best venison feast or has the largest extended family of voters. And 80% of eligible voters will turn out on election day at the one polling place for 1700 square miles.

The "Akan" Problem

Previous articleNext article No AccessThe "Akan" ProblemD. Kiyaga-MulindwaD. Kiyaga-Mulindwa Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Current Anthropology Volume 21, Number 4Aug., 1980 Sponsored by the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/202499 Views: 40Total views on this site Citations: 8Citations are reported from Crossref Copyright 1980 The Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological ResearchPDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:Derek J. Watson Akyekyema Bour and Apreku Rock Shelters: Lithics, Pottery and Society at the Forest’s Edge During the Second Millennium cal. ad, Kwahu Plateau, Ghana, African Archaeological Review 35, no.11 (Mar 2018): 21–55.https://doi.org/10.1007/s10437-018-9288-0Daniel Béland, Rosina Foli, Michael Kpessa-Whyte Social policy as nation-building: identity formation, policy feedback, and social citizenship in Ghana, Canadian Journal of African Studies / Revue canadienne des études africaines 52, no.11 (Feb 2018): 19–36.https://doi.org/10.1080/00083968.2018.1425147Derek J. Watson , Azania: Archaeological Research in Africa 52, no.44 ( 2017): 437.https://doi.org/10.1080/0067270X.2017.1393925Nicolette D. Manglos-Weber Innovations in Trust: Patrimonial and Bureaucratic Authority in the Asante Empire of West Africa, (Apr 2015): 217–240.https://doi.org/10.1108/S0198-871920150000028009Kevin S Fridy Where Are Ghana's Swing Voters? A Look at the Voters Responsible for Alternating Power in One of Africa's Most Successful Democracies, Africa Review 4, no.22 (Dec 2012): 107–121.https://doi.org/10.1080/09744053.2012.782953GÉRARD L. CHOUIN, CHRISTOPHER R. DECORSE PRELUDE TO THE ATLANTIC TRADE: NEW PERSPECTIVES ON SOUTHERN GHANA'S PRE-ATLANTIC HISTORY (800–1500), The Journal of African History 51, no.22 (Nov 2010): 123–145.https://doi.org/10.1017/S0021853710000241Kevin S. Fridy, Victor Brobbey Win the match and vote for me: the politicisation of Ghana's Accra Hearts of Oak and Kumasi Asante Kotoko football clubs, The Journal of Modern African Studies 47, no.11 (Feb 2009): 19–39.https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022278X08003649D. Kiyaga-Mulindwa Social and Demographic Changes in the Birim Valley, southern Ghana, c . 1450– c . 1800, The Journal of African History 23, no.11 (Jan 2009): 63–82.https://doi.org/10.1017/S0021853700020247