Temporal and Narrative (Dis)junctures: Guillermo Núñez’s Aesthetics of Memory and the Museum of Memory and Human Rights (Santiago,Chile)

Focusing primarily on Guillermo Núñez’s work, this essay juxtaposes two almost-identical exhibits of his ‘exculturas’ (sic: xculptures/ex-cultures) – one at the Chilean-French Cultural Institute in 1975, which resulted in his detention and exile, the other in 2010 for the official inauguration of the Museum of Memory and Human Rights (MM) – to explore their relationships to memory production in Chile four decades after the military coup. In the first, Núñez offered a pointed critique of the repressive post-coup context through a series of caged and netted objects; the second reconstructed the first as a memory gesture, framed within the ultra-modern, state-sponsored MM, in its designated art space, at once included and physically separated from the historical narrative of the Museum. How do the politics, aesthetics and design of the MM work to complement, complicate, or contradict Núñez’s – and, perhaps, any – artistic proposal? What challenges might the aesthetic of memory in Núñez’s work pose to the Museum’s narrative frame? Examining Núñez’s ‘exculturas’ (and, briefly, Gonzalo Díaz’s reconstructed Lonquén) reveals several tensions – around politics of inclusion and exclusion, the state’s role in memorysites, and the relationships between human rights concerns and museological and artistic strategies – marking the social production of memory in Chile today.     

Princely longing for Europe: Constantine II Brâncoveanu's Mogoşoaia Palace (1702) and the creation of a European identity

Trapped among the Austrian, Russian and Ottoman empires, the reign of Constantin II Brancoveanu, Prince of Wallachia, was a constant balancing act between the West and the East. To further his political and cultural ambitions, Constantin initiated and supported an artistic movement, known today as the Brancovenesc style, of which his residence, the Mogosoaia Palace, stands as a prime example. The architecture and ornamentation of the palace makes use of elements from both Eastern – Byzantine and Ottoman – and Western – Renaissance and Baroque – European artistic traditions, merging them into an organic whole. The aim of this article is to explore the artistic strategies employed throughout the palace by arguing that they explicitly, as well as implicitly, construct an inclusive European identity. Starting from the premise that the palace acted as a place of cultural encounter between the East and West, the analysis will focus on how the decoration implies a space of transition through subjects such as metamorphosis and the double-headed eagle. Also, the importance given to spaces such as the entrance foyer and loggia suggests their role as critical spaces evoking the ambiguous concept of the parergon, which in turn challenges the emerging Enlightenment idea of the West as properEurope and the East as not quite Europe.     

Reform Spirit and Regional Theaters

The rise of local theaters during the latter half of the 19th century was due to a variety of intrinsic and extrinsic causes. The decline of Kunqu opera as a performing art tailored to the taste of the gentry society, artistic innovations in regional theaters – particularly that of Jingju opera – as well as a more commercialized economy all contributed to this development. Moreover, reformist impulses among many literati-playwrights at the turn of the 20th century provided momentum, leading to the formation of the reform movement in Chinese theater (xiqu). Although influence from Japan and the West played an important part in the process, Yu Zhi (1809–1874) can be regarded as a “forerunner,” who promoted regional theaters as a tool for social reform. Through an examination of him and his “benevolent plays” in the Shuji tang jinyue collection, this study sheds light on his effort to reform society through xiqu, as well as possible connections with the later xiqu reform movement.     

We are never alone: a conversation on bio art with Eduardo Kac

Brazilian-born artist Eduardo Kac’s (Rio de Janeiro, 1962) work has raised eyebrows especially for his ‘transgenic art’ projects, among others: Genesis, 1999; GFP Bunny, 2000; The Eight Day, 2001; Natural History of the Enigma, 2003/08. In all of these, Kac and his scientific collaborators realize genetic interventions into living organisms at the same time as they trigger audience reactions to these from playful kinds of interaction that is integrated into the works’ open and dynamic creative process. Yet whereas the ethical and political challenges Kac’s work poses have sparked lively debates within and beyond the realm of the arts – can and must art engage with the ‘creative’ potentials of biotechnology and genetics? Do these not in fact (as Vilém Flusser and others have suggested) hold the key to realizing the vanguardist dream of merging art and life? Or should the artist, from the vantage point of his own creative practice, not rather warn us against the ethical and political risks involved in genetic engineering? – much less attention has been paid to the way Kac’s art also continues and transforms a particular legacy of post-concretist, ambient and performance art in Latin America.

Kac himself has referred to Brazilian artists Flávio de Carvalho, Hélio Oiticica and Lygia Clark as informing his interest in open, participative forms, which characterize both his transgenic and his earlier ‘tele-presence’ art projects. Other Latin American artists of the late twentieth and early twenty-first century have been producing intriguing engagements with living materials, multispecies habitats and organic remains, including such diverse names as Luis Fernando Benedit, Nicola Constantino, Nuno Ramos, or Teresa Margolles. In a conversation with Jens Andermann and Gabriel Giorgi at the University of Zurich’s Center of Latin American Studies on March 12, 2015, Kac addressed the way in which his work might be seen as continuing or challenging long-standing representations of the New World as a repository of ‘nature’, from colonial chronicles of discovery to contemporary discourses of biodiversity and conservation. To what extent is bio art – and the questions it raises about the Anthropocene as a threshold of radical biopolitical convergence between ‘history’ and ‘nature’ – necessarily ‘transcultural’ and planetary in its extension?     

Everyone Begins as Fish & Captivated – by that

Abstract

An invited address in 1964 constitutes the pre-history of fractals, and a justification is given here why its publication is now of interest because of its interdisciplinary nature. Fractal geometry has been successful as mathematics and has – through computer graphics – pioneered a new art. But until 1975, the author's work was generally considered as premature. In the original address of 1964, which here follows the historical introduction, the author states the mathematical basis for his philosophy of the Second Stage of Indeterminism in Science. The term fractals was not coined until 11 years after the original address of 1964.     

Abraham Lincoln and the Movies

Comparatively little work has been done on how Abraham Lincoln has been represented in American cinema. Yet movies have been a major – and during the first half of the twentieth century probably the major – influence on how his memory has been constructed in American popular culture. This article analyzes changing representations of Lincoln on screen, showing that differing cinematic constructions of the sixteenth president were shaped by a range of factors, including popular biographies and the biases of directors. They also echoed salient issues of the era in which they were produced and more general changes in American attitudes.     

“Did that play of mine …?”: James Connolly,Cathleen Ni Houlihan and staging revolution

Abstract

Despite the crucial position he occupies in Irish history as one of the leaders of the Easter Rising, and the political – and emotional – impact of his subsequent execution, while wounded, by the British Army on 12 May 1916, the writings of Edinburgh-born James Connolly have often been overlooked in both Irish and Scottish studies, and not just in accounts of the Rising but also in the wider context of cultural connections, including cultures of commemoration. In particular, Connolly’s surviving literary work, including Under Which Flag?, the drama staged on the eve of Easter 1916, as well as poems and songs, has had limited attention. This article reconsiders Under Which Flag? in comparison with Yeats and Gregory’s Cathleen ni Houlihan in order to demonstrate the central place the drama holds as a continuation – and complication – of Connolly’s political and journalistic writings. If Connolly is a neglected figure as a writer – as opposed to a political leader and martyr – then the play he left behind (once thought to have been lost, like another of his dramas, The Agitator’s Wife) affords us an opportunity to reassess his contribution to the struggle for independence as part of its literary wing.     

Anti-methodology par excellence: Richard Cobb (1917–96) and history-writing

Richard Cobb (1917–96) was a well-known historian of modern France whose numerous studies contributed to revising our interpretations of the revolutionary period and its impact on the people of both Paris and the provinces. Cobb was also a very knowledgeable, sharp, witty and deeply entertaining essayist and reviewer not just of all things French across a wide chronological spectrum, but of historical matters more generally. Controversial and unusual, his work proved to be unique among scholars – and, for this reason, open to criticism. One trait that defined such uniqueness was his unapologetic and fierce aversion to methodological discussion as well as theoretical reflection in historical research. And yet, as this article attempts to show, his oeuvre – including a variety of different material – unveils a range of insightful and important considerations on the métier d'historien and the practice of history-writing. By focusing on a series of compelling images Cobb delineated throughout his works, reviews and essays in order to depict the role of the historian and the way(s) of going about the business of approaching the past, the following pages intend to provide a novel sketch of the ideas of this anti-methodologist par excellence. In particular, attention will be given to his configuration of the identity of the practitioner as wanderer, detective and novelist. It is thus hoped that the light cast on his writings might prompt a new reading of Cobb's opinions as a source of possible historiographical inspiration for new generations of historians.     

Joseph Levenson and the possibility for a dialogic history

In contrast to the criticism that his work represents a Euro-centric view of China, we argue that Joseph Levenson’s understanding of China involves a third dimension – Judaism – at the level of his historical perspective and methodology. Built on in-depth analysis of Levenson’s work, in particular his Confucian China and Its Modern Fate, as well as his unfinished yet profound writings on Judaism and Jewish history, we find that his understanding of Jewish tradition plays a crucial role in his analysis of the history of modern China. We argue that what Levenson practiced was a historical methodology that we name “dialogic history.” We believe that dialogic history provides us a potential answer to the question of how we can understand another culture without being imperialists, essentialists, or Orientalists. Dialogic history is also history in action because when this kind of dialogue is conducted, a new space can be created in which history is no longer a one-sided monologue.     

Hans Kohn: the idea of secularized nationalism

More than seventy years after its publication, Hans Kohn's 1944 The Idea of Nationalism is still regarded as a ground‐breaking contribution to the study of nationalism. This essay is aimed to highlight a significant theme in this work which has largely gone unnoticed, namely, the pivotal role of religion and secularism in Kohn's account of nationalism, and especially, in his persistent struggle for a ‘perfect’ nationalism. Kohn's conception – and personal experience – of the relationship of nationalism and religion will be examined through several stages of his turbulent life. First, as a young Zionist in Prague, when he parlayed Martin Buber's Zionist creed into an ethnic concept of nationalism. Then, in Kohn's journalistic writing in the 1920s and in his first theoretical works on nationalism in the years 1929–1942. Finally, Kohn's more mature and crystallized account of nationalism in his 1944 book will be revisited from the perspective of the nationalism–religion relationship.     

James Connolly on stage: history,imagination, and interpretations

James Connolly (1868–1916) has been an underrepresented figure in Irish history, despite the fact that he was one of the signatories of the Proclamation of the Irish Republic. The controversy surrounding Connolly centres mostly on his questionable role in this radical nationalist siege, even though he had been one of the most prolific Marxist theorists of his day. Interestingly, Connolly’s political ambivalence has yielded plenty of scope for the imagination of playwrights in envisaging his final few days before he was executed by the British government. Their theatrical conjectures – backed by archival research to varying degrees – allow audiences different alternatives for learning about, interpreting, assessing, or even celebrating, the legacy of this controversial Marxist. Most importantly, they are able to look beyond the selectiveness of historians in re-creating Connolly as a material figure. The three plays under discussion are Margaretta D’Arcy and John Arden’s The Non-stop Connolly Show (1975), Larry Kirwan’s Blood (1993), and Terry Eagleton’s The White, the Gold and the Gangrene (1993).     

Humiliating the Brazilian poor: The iconoclasm of former president Lula

Circulating in Brazil's social media today are many vicious attacks against presidential candidate Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, known simply as Lula. Widely and enthusiastically shared memes humiliate Lula by depicting him as a poor, uneducated drunkard who deserves to be in jail, thus criminalizing his class background and political biography. What do the memes and conversations reveal about the roots of this aggression against him? Brazil has been plagued by a large corruption scandal called ‘Operation Car Wash’, for which many hold Lula partly responsible. The attacks are also an attempt to discredit Lula as a presidential candidate, which has placed his candidacy in the balance. But the memes also suggest a deep and genuine fear of poverty and the poor, which is related to fragile consumer‐oriented class relations. The iconoclasm of Lula and the destruction of his dignity reflect this anguish. The memes serve to create a symbolic line between ‘us’ – the ‘middle class’, the ‘good people’ (pessoas do bem) – and ‘them’ – the poor, who are depicted as immoral drunkards who have no dignity.     

Why are artists getting poorer? About the reproduction of low income among artists

In the period 2006 to 2013, Norway has experienced a substantial increase in public subsidies to culture as well as a substantial increase in real income growth in general. This paper discusses different explanations for why Norwegian artists’ real artistic income has declined between 2006 and 2013, despite the positive economic development in Norway. We have based the study in particular on two comparable studies on the income and work situation of Norwegian artists in 2006 and 2013. We analyse and discuss why the artists’ real artistic income has declined during this period. We do not find a single, general, explanation for this, but the income decline does not primarily seem to be due to either an increasing number of artists or a decline in public scholarships to artists. Our two most striking findings are: (i) A substantial decline in most artists’ artistic working hours and a corresponding increase in artistically related and non-artistic working hours, and (ii) a tendency for artists to derive less of their income from the market, together with an apparent decrease in cultural consumption (spending) among Norwegians. These two factors – especially the latter – seem to be the major factors behind the decline in artistic income.     

“Man ist nicht umsonst Philologe gewesen …”. Zur Bildungskritik Friedrich Nietzsches

Up to now, Nietzsche's ideas on culture and education have been figured out mainly from his early writings. Accordingly, most authors ascribed to him a negative, at least reluctant attitude towards science and studies. On the contrary, in this paper it is argued that Nietzsche, from time to time, reconsidered and changed his thoughts and that he rather favoured science and studies. To be more specific, four periods may be distinguished. As a boy Nietzsche strived for a religious education. But while a pupil at Schulpforte he changed his mind and strongly pleaded for a secular, historically dominated erudition. Again during the seventies in Basle, he pointed out the dangers of a one-sided historism, but in his later years he returned to his high esteem of history. — Basically Nietzsche was interested in a hermeneutical theory combining artistic vision and scholarly work.     

Sandro Penna and anti-Oedipal impegno

A number of Italianists have recently argued the need to reconsider the term impegno in the light of feminist and queer critiques. Such critiques do not simply highlight the way in which impegno has usually been construed as a masculine, heterosexual domain. They also note that its employment often presupposes a gendered, heteronormative account of politics itself. Complicating this sense of politics via a reading of recent work in queer theory which insists that desire and need are intertwined, this essay argues for a reconsideration of the work of Italian poet Sandro Penna – someone whose oeuvre has regularly been construed by literary critics as apolitical – as an example of impegno. Bringing together psychoanalysis, the work of Michel Foucault, and historical materialism, the essay argues that, in their historical context, Penna's poems staged a resistance to what Freud termed the genital organisation of the libido and are thus ‘anti-Oedipal’.     

John Banville’s “monstrous child”: freedom and inheritance in Shroud

ABSTRACT

John Banville has described his novel Shroud (2002) – a fictionalised re-imagining of the 1988 scandal of Paul de Man, whose war-time publications for a collaborationist journal were discovered after his death – as his “monstrous child” that only he could love. This essay turns to Derrida’s thoughts on monstrosity, and in particular his framing of the future-to-come as an unforeseeable reckoning between Nietzsche and Rousseau, whose approaches to human freedom and authenticity remain philosophically irreconcilable. Shroud engages with these two inheritances on a thematic level, bringing them into conversation through the characters of Vander and Cass. The interruption of intergenerational love and the prospect of a child between them, however, makes Derridean monstrosity – that more properly deconstructive trope that opens to the future by unearthing traumatic inheritances from the past – into a structuring principle, and the means by which we might best understand the novel itself as a “monstrous child”.     

Retrospective Speculative Philosophy: Looking for Traces of Zizek's Communist Collective in Emerging Christian Praxis

Abstract

In the closing chapter of Living in the End Times, Slavoj Zizek endeavours to "look for traces of the new communist collective in already existing social or even artistic movements." This article explores what Zizek might see if he were to turn his cultural-critical gaze towards emerging Christianity, which is presented as an artistic and social, as well as religious (or irreligious), "movement." His work is increasingly used by emerging church practitioner Peter Rollins to retrospectively explain his own thought and practice. This article examines some of the ways in which Zizek's atheological speculative philosophy and John D. Caputo's theology of the event are impacting contemporary Christian praxis.     

‘Fashioned from Nature’

Abstract

This paper examines the situation of the male draper in terms of his relationships to textiles and female customers between the 1870s and the outbreak of the First World War. Drawing on accounts of shop work produced by men employed as drapers and drapers’ assistants, the essay highlights the ridicule levelled against men who sold textiles, their work with fabrics and clothing, as well as the service they provided for an almost exclusively female clientele, being widely derided as unsuitable labour for a man. Analysing three first-hand accounts of the draper’s lot — H. G. Wells’s discussion of his years as a draper’s apprentice in his Experiment in Autobiography (1934); William Paine’s Shop Slavery and Emancipation (1912), based on the injustices experienced by drapers’ assistants; and the diary of a Bond Street draper, Charles Cavers, posthumously published as Hades! The Ladies! Being Extracts from the Diary of a Draper (1933) — the essay shows how social constructions of masculinity framed the draper’s work, particularly the handling of fabrics.     

“Twitter Bodhisattva”: Ai Weiwei’s Media Politics

Abstract

This article investigates artist and activist Ai Weiwei’s media politics. In 1997 Ai Weiwei imagined a modernist movement that would practise a “non-compromising vigilance on society and power” and since 2005 he has embraced blogging and micro-blogging to enact such intent. We argue that his “communication activism” is part of a broader artistic and political program that long predates his online presence. The study examines how the artist has experimented with blogging and micro-blogging to spread his message of “awakening” in defiance of censorship and surveillance. It shows how Ai Weiwei’s communication strategy combines an international celebrity status, criticism, irony and a round-the-clock interaction with his netizen audience and the media. It also critiques the effectiveness and coherence of this mode of activism from two perspectives – namely, Jean Baudrillard’s analysis of “private telematics” and Jodi Dean’s “blog theory” – and finally assesses its impact. The study aims to enhance our understanding of the web-based communication strategies of Chinese activists, shedding light on cultural production and consumption in Chinese cyberspace as a socio-political barometer.     

Bede,Irish computistica and Annus Mundi

Bede's decision to diverge from the mainstream chronological tradition, based on the Septuagint, in favour of the Vulgate for chronology has generally been explained by his concerns about contemporary apocalypticism. This essay will argue that Bede's choice of Annus Mundi was also greatly influenced by Irish computistica. These texts incorporate a chronological framework – influenced by Victorius of Aquitaine's Easter Table – that was implicitly and explicitly apocalyptic and provided a date for the Passion that Bede objected to. Bede was greatly indebted to Irish computistica but adopting the Vulgate Annus Mundi allowed him to assert his own views on chronology.