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One Final Message: The Painted Programs of Alexandrian Tombs
No full textArt historical analysis of the Greco-Roman tombs in Alexandria suggests that the tomb owners’ synthesized iconographic elements belonging to Greek, Roman, and Egyptian artistic styles. Classical decorative motifs and figures reflect the tombs owners’ understanding and acceptance of Greco-Roman practices. Tomb owners incorporate Egyptian figures into the funerary spaces, yet the compositions lack the homogeneity and religious connotations present in previous Egyptian painted programs. The seeming defiance of representation indicates that the tomb owners were not interested in correctly rendering Egyptian ideology; rather, the tomb owners were interested in painting Egyptian figures for the sake of each figure’s supernatural and protective meaning. Synthesis of the Classical and Egyptian funerary elements demonstrate the tomb owners’ decorative predilections and desires to communicate one final message concerning beauty, political allegiance, and religious identity
Jane Donawerth, Conversational Rhetoric: The Rise and Fall of a Women's Tradition, 1600-1900
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George Lovell and Neil Richardson, Sustaining Preachers and Preaching: A Practical Guide
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The Antonian Zoo: Use of Animal and Human Traits in Medieval Sermons
No full textIn the mid 1220s Anthony of Padua, who had lectured on Sacred Scripture for a year at a Franciscan School that he had established in Bologna, was asked to write out his lectures. Instead he wrote a resource book for preachers. This contained material for all Sundays of the year and its major feast days, a more practical treatise for fledging preachers because it also contained pointers on how to preach. Among the resources are comparisons between characteristics of animals, plants, and minerals with human characteristics. This paper investigates what influenced Anthony, analyzes his probable resources, and lists all the creatures from his general animal “zoo” together with examples of his contrasting of animal and humans characteristics
Frank Salomon and Mercedes Niño-Murcia, 'The Lettered Mountain: A Peruvian Village's Way with Writing'
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Fictions of Mixed Origins: Iracema, Tay John, and Racial Hybridity in Brazil and Canada
Get PDFGiven the diasporic origins of the overwhelming majority of their populace, most countries in the Americas have had to indigenize themselves. Some of them have been content to simply “play Indian.” However, many others have attempted to achieve national legitimacy by fusing their Indigenous and non-Indigenous inhabitants, even if they subsequently do not always admit it. In this essay, I examine how two foundational inter-American novels, José de Alencar’s Iracema and Howard O’Hagan’s Tay John, convey the contrasting ways in which Brazil and Canada have used racial hybridity in their national imaginaries; the former by celebrating the union of the Indigenous and the European that culminates in the birth of the first Brazilian, and thus the Brazilian nation; the latter, which is set in the aftermath of the fall of Batoche and the end of the Métis national dream, by dramatizing the apparent impossibility of racial mixing in Canada. Tellingly, despite the fact one country has embraced what one might term an ideology of ethnoracial hybridity and the other has largely rejected it, both of them have been culturally and politically dominated by groups of European descent. No less important, Indigenous people seem to have become more prominent in the country that historically has been uncomfortable with ethnoracial hybridity, Canada, than with the one that ostensibly glories in it, Brazil
The Worth of the Humanities
Get PDFWhat is the worth of humanities teaching and research? This collaborative report, based on meetings at McGill and Vanderbilt Universities, argues that humanities researchers and teachers help make an historical, public, meaningful world. It outlines the character of the relationship between the humanities on one side and artistic and political work on the other. It suggests several challenges facing the humanities and provides a short list of recommendations
Mama/Reciprocal Energy: Reciprocity as an Agent of Identity Formation in the Works of Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons
No full textSince immigrating to the United States in the early 1990s, Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons has garnered praise as one of the most important artists to emerge from post-revolutionary Cuba. Campos-Pons’ oeuvre bears witness to issues central to the experience of diaspora populations. On view for the first time, the exhibit “Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons: MAMA/RECIPROCAL ENERGY” at the Vanderbilt Fine Arts Gallery (October 12 – December 8, 2011) presents new works by Campos-Pons that attest to the ability of fragmented and seemingly dislocated elements of the artists’ lived experiences to coalesce into a multifaceted identity. The dynamic quest for selfhood demonstrated by the works rejects absolutes; rather, it fosters an interconnected network where issues such as gender, exile, dislocation, race, religion, and cultural memory play out in a reciprocal manner. This paper first establishes Campos-Pons’ early conceptual basis as an artist. What follows is an extensive exploration of the exhibit argued through a thematic dynamic that highlights the relationship of themes among and between the works. Finally, it suggests that while Campos-Pons’ conceptual basis retains its earliest formative notions, the shifting narrative that emerges from the exhibit and corresponding stylistic changes confirm the inclusion of the artists’ entire lived experiences in her artistic search for identity