4 research outputs found
Lord Chesterfield and the Licensing Act of 1737
No full textThe history of theatrical censorship in Britain is extensive and encompasses nearly 400 years of imperial, political, social, and cultural evolution. The shifting attitudes of authority toward artistic expression have shaped the development of theater, and at the center of this scholarship lies Robert Walpole. As Britain\u27s first Prime Minister, Walpole played a pivotal role in institutionalizing theatrical censorship, using his political influence to suppress satirical and oppositional works that directly criticized his government. Using the Licensing Act of 1737 to censor theater and curb the growing influence of political discourse in the theatrical arena, Walpole forced playwrights and theater managers to submit their works for approval before public performance. Philip D. Stanhope, the 4th Earl of Chesterfield, stood against the Act as the sole prominent Parliamentary opponent, denouncing it as a dangerous encroachment on civil liberties.
My research explores why Lord Chesterfield (Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield) was the only major opponent of the Licensing Act of 1737. Through analysis of primary sources such as pamphlets, newspapers, legislation, Chesterfield’s literary works, speeches, and periodical essays from the period, my research seeks to uncover the political, ideological, and personal motivations behind Chesterfield’s opposition. Secondary scholarship on the topic will also help bolster my argument, and by examining the works of individuals such as Vincent Liesenfeld, Leonard W. Connolly, P.J. Crean, and Julia Swindells, I aim to contextualize the reasons behind Chesterfield’s opposition to the Licensing Act of 1737 within the broader framework of eighteenth-century British politics and society
‘Tradition’ versus ‘modernity’: generational conflict in Vuta n'Kuvute, Kufa Kuzikana, Msimu wa Vipepeo and Tumaini
No full textThe paper focuses on generational conflicts as depicted in four Swahili novels namely: Vuta N’kuvute, Kufa Kuzikana, Msimu wa Vipepeo and Tumaini. Generational conflicts depicted in the novels are seen as a contest between tradition and modernity when viewed against the cultural changes that have taken place within the East African societies. Authors have dep-loyed narrative voice and focalization narrative techniques to communicate the implied au-thor’s ideological stance on the notions of tradition and modernity in respect to the conflicting issues captured in each novel.
Section two highlights some postulations about the concepts of ‘modernity’ and ‘tradition’. The third section discusses the concepts of generation and generational conflicts while the fourth focuses on narrative voice and focalization as the narrative strategies that reveal gene-rational conflicts portrayed in the four novels. The final section is the conclusion relating the ideological stance of the implied author in relation to the concepts of modernity and tradition
Representations of Voodoo : the history and influence of Haitian Vodou within the cultural productions of Britain and America since 1850
No full textThis thesis is the first major investigation into the representations of Vodou
within the cultural productions of Britain and America. It also opens up
opportunities for further research to be undertaken in the representations of
Vodou, Haiti and the culture and religions of other Caribbean countries.
This thesis explores the representations of 'Voodoo,' the widely accepted and
recognised term for the re-imagined religion, in Britain and America since 1850.
The history of the Caribbean and Haiti is examined before considering the
influence that the religion of Haitian Vodou has had on cultural production.
Through a historical perspective the thesis will consider the evolution of Vodou
during the horrors of slavery. The historiographic representations form the basis
of the productions and are explored to contextualise Vodou in the British and
American imagination. All genres of literature are examined, from the first
mention of Vodou in the eighteenth century through to the present day. This is
followed by an examination of the cultural reproductions of Vodou in film,
animation, theatre and television to explore the diversity of the representations.
The wider societal influences are considered throughout this work to
contextualise the productions of 'Voodoo'.
This thesis argues that the cultural reproductions of Vodou since 1850 have not
changed greatly, despite various efforts to redress the misrepresentations, they
remain rooted in colonialism. It will argue that many of the cultural productions
are reliant on previous representations. They do not in the majority introduce
authenticity, instead opting for the more sensational approach. Many of the
representations will be shown to be derogatory to the religion, culture and people
of Haiti and the diaspora. This is despite Vodou as a religion having survived,
gained strength and continuing to thrive in the twenty-first century
Body, time, and the others: African-American anthropology and the rewriting of ethnographic conventions in the ethnographies by Zora Neale Hurston and Katherine Dunham
No full textThis thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University.This research looks at the ethnographies Mules and Men (1935) and Tell My Horse: Voodoo and Life in Haiti and Jamaica (1938) by Zora Neale Hurston focusing on representations of Time and the anthropologist’s body. Hurston was an African-American anthropologist, folklorist, and novelist who conducted research particularly between the end of the 1920s and the mid-1930s. At first, her fieldwork and writings dealt with African-American communities in Florida and Hoodoo practice in Louisiana, but she consequently expanded her field of anthropological interests to Jamaica and Haiti, which she visited between 1936 and 1937. The temporal and bodily factors in Hurston’s works are taken into consideration as coordinates of differentiation between the ethnographer and the objects of her research. In her ethnographies, the representation of the anthropologist’s body is analysed as an attempt at reducing temporal distance in ethnographical writings paralleled by the performative experience of fieldwork exemplified by Hurston’s storytelling: body, voice, and the dialogic representation of fieldwork relationships do not guarantee a portrayal of the anthropological subject on more egalitarian terms, but cast light on the influence of the anthropologist both in the practice and writing of ethnography. These elements are analysed in reference to the visualistic tradition of American anthropology as ways of organising difference and ascribing the anthropological ‘Others’ to a temporal frame characterised by bodily and cultural features perceived as ‘primitive’ and, therefore, distant from modernity. Representations and definitions of ‘primitiveness’ and ‘modernity’ not only shaped both twentieth-century American anthropology and the modernist arts (Harlem Renaissance), but also were pivotal for the creation of a modern African-American identity in its relation to African history and other black people involved in the African diaspora. In the same years in which Hurston visited Jamaica and Haiti, another African-American woman anthropologist and dancer, Katherine Dunham, conducted fieldwork in the Caribbean and started to look at it as a source of inspiration for the emerging African-American dance as recorded in her ethnographical and autobiographical account Island Possessed (1969). Therefore, Hurston’s and Dunham’s representations of Haiti are examined as points of intersection for the different discourses which both widened and complicated their understanding of what being ‘African’ and ‘American’ could mean.Isambard Research Scholarship from Brunel University and grant from Allan & Nesta Ferguson Charitable Trust
