DOCSLIB.ORG

Artistic Virtuosity and Degeneration Theory in Fin De Siècle Fiction

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Artistic Virtuosity and Degeneration Theory in Fin De Siècle Fiction UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, IRVINE Angels and Degenerates: Artistic Virtuosity and Degeneration Theory in Fin de Siècle Fiction DISSERTATION submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in English by Rosanna Nunan Dissertation Committee: Associate Professor Hugh Roberts, Chair Associate Professor Ann Van Sant Associate Professor Laura O’Connor 2015 © 2015 Rosanna Nunan DEDICATION To Susan and Tom Nunan, in thanks for all of the wonderful opportunities they’ve given me. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS iv CURRICULUM VITAE v ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION vi INTRODUCTION 1 CHAPTER 1: Urban Depravity, Rural Unsophistication: Hereditary Taint in Hardy’s Tess of the D’Urbervilles 25 Degeneration, The City, and Social Purity 31 The Aristocracy and the City versus the Unsophisticated Country 47 Sensibility and the Degenerate: Tess as Artist 57 Conclusion 66 CHAPTER 2: The Innovations of Art and Science in H.G. Wells’s The Wonderful Visit 72 Classificatory Thought through the Lens of Degeneration Theory 75 Modern Art and Proper Scientific Inquiry 93 Conclusion: Modern Music and Morality in a Taxonomical World 108 CHAPTER 3: Rethinking Hysteria through Artistic Genius in Trilby and Human Personality and its Survival of Bodily Death 118 Victorian Reconsiderations of Hysteria and Degenerative Illness 122 Writing the Moral Hysteric 130 The Psychology of Hysteria and Musical Virtuosity 138 Conclusion 153 120Data Interpretation 135 CHAPTER 4: Artistic Suppression and the Woman of Genius: The Feminist Response to Francis Galton 158 Feminists and Degeneration Theory at the Fin de Siècle 160 Sarah Grand’s The Beth Book and the Genius Temperament 170 Destruction of Musical Genius in The Daughters of Danaus 184 Conclusion 205 BIBLIOGRAPHY 213 iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would first like to thank my dissertation chair, Professor Hugh Roberts, for sticking with this project from start to finish, despite a rather circuitous drafting process. His conscientiousness as an advisor and attention to detail are truly remarkable. This dissertation would never have come into being if not for his constant assistance. Many thanks also go to my dissertation committee members. Professor Ann Van Sant’s ongoing support since my first year of graduate school has been instrumental to my success and I will never forget all the help and advice she has given me over the years. Thank you sincerely to Professor Laura O’Connor for her willingness to join this committee somewhat late in the game and for her invaluable guidance and feedback this past year. My two most outstanding friends and colleagues, Anna Finn and Erin Sweeney, helped me in too many ways to number. I would like to thank them for reading chapter drafts, sharing lesson plans, attending conferences together, and showing me the true value of collaboration and mutual encouragement. I am indebted to the University of California, Irvine, for financial support to complete this dissertation, including a Regents’ Fellowship and a School of Humanities Summer Dissertation Fellowship. Thank you especially to my family for all of their help. Without them this project certainly would have been abandoned long ago. Finally, thanks to Andrew Spink. It is hard to believe that we did not meet until my fifth year in Irvine. It is hard to forget how dull life was before then. iv CURRICULUM VITAE Rosanna Nunan 2008 B.A. in English and music, University of Richmond 2009 M.A. in English, University of California, Irvine 2015 Ph.D. in English, University of California, Irvine FIELD OF STUDY Nineteenth Century British Literature v ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Angels and Degenerates: Artistic Virtuosity and Degeneration Theory in Fin de Siècle Fiction By Rosanna Nunan Doctor of Philosophy in English University of California, Irvine, 2015 Professor Hugh Roberts, Chair My aim in “Angels and Degenerates: Artistic Virtuosity and Degeneration Theory in Fin de Siècle Fiction” is to complicate the popular image of the fin de siècle as uniformly pessimistic by examining the continuities between a range of novelists, as well as other late nineteenth century writers from such disparate fields as psychology and cultural criticism, as they critique degeneration theory. Some of these writers, like Thomas Hardy, H.G. Wells, and Sarah Grand, are typically read as promoting a degenerationist agenda, while others, like George Bernard Shaw and Mona Caird, are recognized today for their outspoken opposition to degeneration theory. In uniting these apparently contradictory perspectives, I demonstrate that skepticism of degeneration theory, awareness of its inconsistent logic, and discomfort with its implications is a more important feature of fin de siècle culture than has hitherto been acknowledged. The writers are further united by a common impulse to utilize the figure of the artistic genius to defy degeneration theory. Tess of the D’Urbervilles, The Wonderful Visit, Trilby, The Beth Book, and The Daughters of Danaus incorporate protagonists whom we can identify as either incipient or realized artistic geniuses through the telltale signs of genius that originated in late eighteenth and early nineteenth century Romanticism. Added to the familiar conception of vi Romantic genius in the late Victorian era is a newfound emphasis on the biological and hereditary dimensions of the genius’s innate creative wellspring. By concentrating on the conventionally constructive qualities of the genius figure, including visionary power, aesthetic perceptiveness, intuitive sympathy, and artistic virtuosity, the novelists produce a system of values that both degenerationists and antidegenerationists uphold in their writings. I argue that the novelists expose this shared value system and interrogate its inconsistent usage in scientific contexts, using the genius to reject widespread pathologization and destructive applications of evolutionary theory to the human population at the end of the nineteenth century. vii INTRODUCTION The subject of this dissertation, degeneration and the artist at the fin de siècle, developed out of my initial interest in representations of fallen women in late nineteenth century novels. As my research took shape, the project evolved in the direction of examining representations of degenerate genius rather than fallen women, although the basic contours of my approach to the subject remained the same, as did two of the characters, fallen women Tess and Trilby. The popularization of the theories of degeneration and eugenics, though not explicitly a feminist issue, is so intimately tied to what Angelique Richardson terms the “biologization of morality” and the related pathologization of sexual deviance that there is no way to study the implications of degeneration without taking into account its relationship to women’s rights and other sexual liberation efforts in the late Victorian era (Love and Eugenics 48). In Love and Eugenics, Richardson provides an account of the origins of the social purity movement and rational reproduction, which developed not only out of fears of the growing slum conditions in cities, but also out of a desire to police the activities of London prostitutes. Purity activists associated prostitution and other acts of sexual transgression with the spread of venereal diseases, especially syphilis, that were increasingly figured as physical markers of hereditary moral depravity. Moral depravity, perhaps the most conceptually elastic and physically indeterminate form of degeneration, could be stretched to accommodate all manner of unconventional sexual behavior, or any unconventional behavior, period, when perpetrated by women, homosexual men, or other oppressed groups whose identities were inextricable from their sex or sexuality (the working class population, when hypersexualized as uncontrollably fecund and reproductive, also fits within this category). 1 Considering degeneration’s value as an ideological instrument to police sexual liberation efforts and challenges to conventional morality, it came as no surprise to me that the novels that critique the false science behind degeneration also tend to incorporate characters whose social positions make them particularly vulnerable to the influence of degeneration theory. Thus, the novels I analyze in the forthcoming chapters exhibit commonalities pertaining to the concept of fallenness or questionable virtue, a theme that in turn links the protagonists to theories of hereditary moral depravity at the fin de siècle. Tess of the D’Urbervilles and Trilby explore the plight of the fallen woman in bourgeois society. H.G. Wells’s work of fantasy, The Wonderful Visit, similarly portrays a fallen Angel of questionable sexual identity and his encounter with the bourgeois Philistines. The two novels that are the focus of my last chapter, Mona Caird’s The Daughters of Danaus and Sarah Grand’s The Beth Book, concentrate explicitly on New Women heroines, feminist characters who consciously transgress the parameters laid out for members of their sex in Victorian culture. What was curious to me about fin de siècle representations of fallen virtue or moral depravity was the deliberate equivalence novelists repeatedly make between moral depravity and the Romantic conception of artistic genius. As this pattern emerged, I realized that to reconstitute the fallen heroine or hero it was for some reason expedient to cast them in the familiar role of artistic genius, characterized by the traits of aesthetic sensibility, visionary power, virtuoso
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Jewish Encyclopedia
    Jewish Encyclopedia The History, Religion, Literature, And Customs Of The Jewish People From The Earliest Times To The Present Day Volume XII TALMUD – ZWEIFEL New York and London FUNK AND WAGNALLS COMPANY MDCCCCVI ZIONISM: Movement looking toward the segregation of the Jewish people upon a national basis and in a particular home of its own: specifically, the modern form of the movement that seeks for the Jews “a publicly and legally assured home in Palestine,” as initiated by Theodor Herzl in 1896, and since then dominating Jewish history. It seems that the designation, to distinguish the movement from the activity of the Chovevei Zion, was first used by Matthias Acher (Birnbaum) in his paper “Selbstemancipation,” 1886 (see “Ost und West,” 1902, p. 576: Ahad ha – ‘Am, “Al Parashat Derakim,” p. 93, Berlin, 1903). Biblical Basis The idea of a return of the Jews to Palestine has its roots in many passages of Holy Writ. It is an integral part of the doctrine that deals with the Messianic time, as is seen in the constantly recurring expression, “shub shebut” or heshib shebut,” used both of Israel and of Judah (Jer. xxx, 7,1; Ezek. Xxxix. 24; Lam. Ii. 14; Hos. Vi. 11; Joel iv. 1 et al.). The Dispersion was deemed merely temporal: ‘The days come … that … I will bring again the captivity of my people of Israel, and they shall build the waste cities and inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, and drink the wine thereof … and I will plant them upon their land, and they shall no more be pulled up out of their land” (Amos ix.
    [Show full text]
  • Ann Veronica a Modern Love Story by H
    ANN VERONICA A MODERN LOVE STORY BY H. G. WELLS CONTENTS CHAP. I. ANN VERONICA TALKS TO HER FATHER II. ANN VERONICA GATHERS POINTS OF VIEW III. THE MORNING OF THE CRISIS IV. THE CRISIS V. THE FLIGHT TO LONDON VI. EXPOSTULATIONS VII. IDEALS AND A REALITY VIII. BIOLOGY IX. DISCORDS X. THE SUFFRAGETTES XI. THOUGHTS IN PRISON XII. ANN VERONICA PUTS THINGS IN ORDER XIII. THE SAPPHIRE RING XIV. THE COLLAPSE OF THE PENITENT XV. THE LAST DAYS AT HOME XVI. IN THE MOUNTAINS XVII. IN PERSPECTIVE "The art of ignoring is one of the accomplishments of every well-bred girl, so carefully instilled that at last she can even ignore her own thoughts and her own knowledge." ANN VERONICA CHAPTER THE FIRST ANN VERONICA TALKS TO HER FATHER Part 1 One Wednesday afternoon in late September, Ann Veronica Stanley came down from London in a state of solemn excitement and quite resolved to have things out with her father that very evening. She had trembled on the verge of such a resolution before, but this time quite definitely she made it. A crisis had been reached, and she was almost glad it had been reached. She made up her mind in the train home that it should be a decisive crisis. It is for that reason that this novel begins with her there, and neither earlier nor later, for it is the history of this crisis and its consequences that this novel has to tell. She had a compartment to herself in the train from London to Morningside Park, and she sat with both her feet on the seat in an attitude that would certainly have distressed her mother to see, and horrified her grandmother beyond measure; she sat with her knees up to her chin and her hands clasped before them, and she was so lost in thought that she discovered with a start, from a lettered lamp, that she was at Morningside Park, and thought she was moving out of the station, whereas she was only moving in.
    [Show full text]
  • American Jewish Yearbook
    JEWISH STATISTICS 277 JEWISH STATISTICS The statistics of Jews in the world rest largely upon estimates. In Russia, Austria-Hungary, Germany, and a few other countries, official figures are obtainable. In the main, however, the num- bers given are based upon estimates repeated and added to by one statistical authority after another. For the statistics given below various authorities have been consulted, among them the " Statesman's Year Book" for 1910, the English " Jewish Year Book " for 5670-71, " The Jewish Ency- clopedia," Jildische Statistik, and the Alliance Israelite Uni- verselle reports. THE UNITED STATES ESTIMATES As the census of the United States has, in accordance with the spirit of American institutions, taken no heed of the religious convictions of American citizens, whether native-born or natural- ized, all statements concerning the number of Jews living in this country are based upon estimates. The Jewish population was estimated— In 1818 by Mordecai M. Noah at 3,000 In 1824 by Solomon Etting at 6,000 In 1826 by Isaac C. Harby at 6,000 In 1840 by the American Almanac at 15,000 In 1848 by M. A. Berk at 50,000 In 1880 by Wm. B. Hackenburg at 230,257 In 1888 by Isaac Markens at 400,000 In 1897 by David Sulzberger at 937,800 In 1905 by "The Jewish Encyclopedia" at 1,508,435 In 1907 by " The American Jewish Year Book " at 1,777,185 In 1910 by " The American Je\rish Year Book" at 2,044,762 DISTRIBUTION The following table by States presents two sets of estimates.
    [Show full text]
  • Evolution in Cultural Anthropology
    UC Berkeley Anthropology Faculty Publications Title Evolution in Cultural Anthropology Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/5pk146vg Journal American Anthropologist, 48(2) Author Lowie, Robert H. Publication Date 1946-06-01 Peer reviewed eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California EVOLUTION IN CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY: A REPLY TO LESLIE WHITE By ROBERT H. LOWIE LESLIE White's last three articles in the A merican A nthropologist1 require a reply since in my opinion they obscure vital issues. Grave matters, he clamors, are at stake. Obscurantists are plotting to defame Lewis H. Morgan and to undermine the theory of evolution. Professor White should relax. There are no underground machinations. Evolution as a scientific doctrine-not as a farrago of immature metaphysical notions-is secure. Morgan's place in the history of anthropology will turn out to be what he deserves, for, as Dr. Johnson said, no man is ever written down except by himself. These articles by White raise important questions. As a victim of his polemical shafts I should like to clarify the issues involved. I premise that I am peculiarly fitted to enter sympathetically into my critic's frame of mind, for at one time I was as devoted to Ernst Haeckel as White is to Morgan. Haeckel had solved the riddles of the universe for me. ESTIMATES OF MORGAN Considering the fate of many scientific men at the hands of their critics, it does not appear that Morgan has fared so badly. Americans bestowed on him the highest honors during his lifetime, eminent European scholars held him in esteem.
    [Show full text]
  • Degeneration Theory in Naturalist Novels of Benito Pérez Galdós
    Degeneration Theory in Naturalist Novels of Benito Pérez Galdós A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA BY Michael Wenley Stannard IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Ofelia Ferrán, Advisor April 2011 © Michael Wenley Stannard 2011 i Acknowledgements I should like to record my sincere thanks to Ana Paula Fereira, the Department of Spanish and Portuguese and the University of Minnesota (Twin Cities) for having given me the opportunity to realize a dream of many years. My graduate career in Minnesota has been a life-changing experience, and I would not have missed it for anything. Financial support from the department to study at the Biblioteca Nacional in Madrid, to study Portuguese at the Universidade de Lisboa in Lisbon and to contribute to a conference at Universidad Complutense in Madrid helped significantly in rounding out my graduate student experience, as well as enabling me to collect essential material for this dissertation. I should like to thank my adviser, Ofelia Ferrán, for her help and guidance and to record my additional debt to Toni Dorca and Jaime Hanneken, who listened generously and counseled. To Toni Dorca I owe my introduction to Galdós‘s Naturalist novels which has formed the background of this dissertation. I have seen myself fundamentally as a galdosista at heart ever since. I should like to thank J.B. Shank for allowing me to prevail upon him to direct me in a course of reading that proved invaluable preparation for the study of biological and medical thought in eighteenth and nineteenth century France.
    [Show full text]
  • Machen, Lovecraft, and Evolutionary Theory
    i DEADLY LIGHT: MACHEN, LOVECRAFT, AND EVOLUTIONARY THEORY Jessica George A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the award of Doctor of Philosophy School of English, Communication and Philosophy Cardiff University March 2014 ii Abstract This thesis explores the relationship between evolutionary theory and the weird tale in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Through readings of works by two of the writers most closely associated with the form, Arthur Machen (1863-1947) and H. P. Lovecraft (1890-1937), it argues that the weird tale engages consciously, even obsessively, with evolutionary theory and with its implications for the nature and status of the “human”. The introduction first explores the designation “weird tale”, arguing that it is perhaps less useful as a genre classification than as a moment in the reception of an idea, one in which the possible necessity of recalibrating our concept of the real is raised. In the aftermath of evolutionary theory, such a moment gave rise to anxieties around the nature and future of the “human” that took their life from its distant past. It goes on to discuss some of the studies which have considered these anxieties in relation to the Victorian novel and the late-nineteenth-century Gothic, and to argue that a similar full-length study of the weird work of Machen and Lovecraft is overdue. The first chapter considers the figure of the pre-human survival in Machen’s tales of lost races and pre-Christian religions, arguing that the figure of the fairy as pre-Celtic survival served as a focal point both for the anxieties surrounding humanity’s animal origins and for an unacknowledged attraction to the primitive Other.
    [Show full text]
  • 1 Introduction the Empire at the End of Decadence the Social, Scientific
    1 Introduction The Empire at the End of Decadence The social, scientific and industrial revolutions of the later nineteenth century brought with them a ferment of new artistic visions. An emphasis on scientific determinism and the depiction of reality led to the aesthetic movement known as Naturalism, which allowed the human condition to be presented in detached, objective terms, often with a minimum of moral judgment. This in turn was counterbalanced by more metaphorical modes of expression such as Symbolism, Decadence, and Aestheticism, which flourished in both literature and the visual arts, and tended to exalt subjective individual experience at the expense of straightforward depictions of nature and reality. Dismay at the fast pace of social and technological innovation led many adherents of these less realistic movements to reject faith in the new beginnings proclaimed by the voices of progress, and instead focus in an almost perverse way on the imagery of degeneration, artificiality, and ruin. By the 1890s, the provocative, anti-traditionalist attitudes of those writers and artists who had come to be called Decadents, combined with their often bizarre personal habits, had inspired the name for an age that was fascinated by the contemplation of both sumptuousness and demise: the fin de siècle. These artistic and social visions of degeneration and death derived from a variety of inspirations. The pessimistic philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860), who had envisioned human existence as a miserable round of unsatisfied needs and desires that might only be alleviated by the contemplation of works of art or the annihilation of the self, contributed much to fin-de-siècle consciousness.1 Another significant influence may be found in the numerous writers and artists whose works served to link the themes and imagery of Romanticism 2 with those of Symbolism and the fin-de-siècle evocations of Decadence, such as William Blake, Edgar Allen Poe, Eugène Delacroix, the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, Charles Baudelaire, and Gustave Flaubert.
    [Show full text]
  • Moreau's Materiality: Polymorphic Subjects, Degeneration, and Physicality Mary C
    Florida State University Libraries Electronic Theses, Treatises and Dissertations The Graduate School 2009 Moreau's Materiality: Polymorphic Subjects, Degeneration, and Physicality Mary C. Slavkin Follow this and additional works at the FSU Digital Library. For more information, please contact [email protected] FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF VISUAL ARTS, THEATRE AND DANCE MOREAU’S MATERIALITY: POLYMORPHIC SUBJECTS, DEGENERATION, AND PHYSICALITY By MARY C. SLAVKIN A Thesis submitted to the Department of Art History in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Masters of Arts Degree Awarded: Spring Semester, 2009 The Members of the Committee approve the Thesis of Mary Slavkin defended on March 30, 2009. ___________________________ Lauren Weingarden Professor Directing Thesis ___________________________ Richard Emmerson Committee Member ___________________________ Adam Jolles Committee Member Approved: _______________________________________________ Richard Emmerson, Chair, Department of Art History _______________________________________________ Sally McRorie, Dean, College of Visual Arts, Theatre and Dance The Graduate School has verified and approved the above named committee members. ii For David. Thanks for all the tea. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES..........................................................................................................v ABSTRACT.....................................................................................................................ix CHAPTER 1: Introduction...............................................................................................1
    [Show full text]
  • Modernism and Fascism in Norway by Dean N. Krouk A
    Catastrophes of Redemption: Modernism and Fascism in Norway By Dean N. Krouk A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Scandinavian in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in charge: Professor Mark Sandberg, Chair Professor Linda Rugg Professor Karin Sanders Professor Dorothy Hale Spring 2011 Abstract Catastrophes of Redemption: Modernism and Fascism in Norway by Dean N. Krouk Doctor of Philosophy in Scandinavian University of California, Berkeley Professor Mark Sandberg, Chair This study examines selections from the work of three modernist writers who also supported Norwegian fascism and the Nazi occupation of Norway: Knut Hamsun (1859- 1952), winner of the 1920 Nobel Prize; Rolf Jacobsen (1907-1994), Norway’s major modernist poet; and Åsmund Sveen (1910-1963), a fascinating but forgotten expressionist figure. In literary studies, the connection between fascism and modernism is often associated with writers such as Ezra Pound or Filippo Marinetti. I look to a new national context and some less familiar figures to think through this international issue. Employing critical models from both literary and historical scholarship in modernist and fascist studies, I examine the unique and troubling intersection of aesthetics and politics presented by each figure. After establishing a conceptual framework in the first chapter, “Unsettling Modernity,” I devote a separate chapter to each author. Analyzing both literary publications and lesser-known documents, I describe how Hamsun’s early modernist fiction carnivalizes literary realism and bourgeois liberalism; how Sveen’s mystical and queer erotic vitalism overlapped with aspects of fascist discourse; and how Jacobsen imagined fascism as way to overcome modernity’s culture of nihilism.
    [Show full text]
  • Degeneration, Protestantism, and Social Democracy the Case of Alcoholism and “Illiberal” Policies and Practices in Denmark 1900–43 Sevelsted, Anders
    Degeneration, Protestantism, and Social Democracy The Case of Alcoholism and “Illiberal” Policies and Practices in Denmark 1900–43 Sevelsted, Anders Document Version Accepted author manuscript Published in: Social Science History DOI: 10.1017/ssh.2018.35 Publication date: 2019 License CC BY-NC-ND Citation for published version (APA): Sevelsted, A. (2019). Degeneration, Protestantism, and Social Democracy: The Case of Alcoholism and “Illiberal” Policies and Practices in Denmark 1900–43. Social Science History, 43(1), 87-111. https://doi.org/10.1017/ssh.2018.35 Link to publication in CBS Research Portal General rights Copyright and moral rights for the publications made accessible in the public portal are retained by the authors and/or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us ([email protected]) providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Download date: 27. Sep. 2021 Degeneration, Protestantism, and Social Democracy: The Case of Alcoholism and “Illiberal” Policies and Practices in Denmark 1900–43 Anders Sevelsted Journal article (Accepted manuscript*) Please cite this article as: Sevelsted, A. (2019). Degeneration, Protestantism, and Social Democracy: The Case of Alcoholism and “Illiberal” Policies and Practices in Denmark 1900–43. Social Science History, 43(1), 87-111. DOI: 10.1017/ssh.2018.35 This article has been published in a revised form in Social Science History http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/ssh.2018.35 This version is published under a Creative Commons CC-BY-NC-ND.
    [Show full text]
  • Jewish State and Jewish Land Program Written in Jerusalem by Yonatan Glaser, UAHC Shaliach, 2003
    December 2003 \ Kislev 5764 Jewish State and Jewish Land Program written in Jerusalem by Yonatan Glaser, UAHC Shaliach, 2003 Rationale We live in a time where taking an interest in Israel is not taken for granted and where supporting Israel, certainly in parts of our public life like on campus, may be done at a price. Even in the best of times, it is important to be conceptually clear why we Jews want our own country. What can and should it mean to us, how might it enrich and sustain us – those of us who live in it and those of us who do not? What might contributing to its well-being entail? If that is at the best of times, then this – one of the most difficult times in recent memory – is an excellent time to re- visit the basic ideas and issues connected to the existence of Israel as a Jewish state in the ancient Land of Israel. With this in mind, this program takes us on a ‘back to basics’ tour of Israel as a Jewish country in the Jewish Land. Objectives 1. To explore the idea of Jewish political independence. 2. To explore the meaning of Jewish historical connection to Eretz Yisrael 3. To learn about the Uganda Plan in order to recognize that issues connected to independence and living in Eretz Yisrael have been alive and relevant for at least the last 100 years. Time 1 hour and fifteen minutes Materials 1. Copies of the four options (Attachment #1) 2. White Board or poster Board.
    [Show full text]
  • Antinomian Remedies: Rehabilitative Futurism, Towards a Better Life , and Kenneth Burke's Modernist Equipment for Living
    Antinomian Remedies: Rehabilitative Futurism, Towards a Better Life , and Kenneth Burke's Modernist Equipment for Living Jesse Miller MFS Modern Fiction Studies, Volume 65, Number 1, Spring 2019, pp. 35-59 (Article) Published by Johns Hopkins University Press DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/mfs.2019.0002 For additional information about this article https://muse.jhu.edu/article/720553 Access provided at 1 Apr 2019 18:04 GMT from University at Buffalo Libraries Jesse Miller 35 Antinomian Remedies: Rehabilitative Futurism, f Towards a Better Life, and Kenneth Burke’s Modernist Equipment for Living Jesse Miller In her essay “Is Sex Disability? Queer Theory and the Disability Drive,” Anna Mollow discusses the modern cultural fantasy of a hygienic future in which all illness and disability have been eradi- cated. “Futurity,” she points out, “is habitually imagined in terms that fantasize the eradication of disability, a recovery of a crippled (or hobbled) economy, a cure for society’s ills, an end to suffering and disease” (288). She calls this fantasy—which is shaped by ide- ologies of health, ability, optimization, and fitness—“rehabilitative futurism.” Within the paradigm of rehabilitative futurism, the healthy subject is defined as an autonomous, productive, and rational deci- sion maker. By contrast, physical, mental, emotional, and behavioral disability figures as what troubles the domain of healthy citizenship, including dependency, unproductivity, and irrationality. Rehabilita- tive futurism thus ascribes a fundamental negativity to the disabled MFS Modern Fiction Studies, Volume 65, number 1, Spring 2019. Copyright © 2019 for the Purdue Research Foundation by Johns Hopkins University Press. All rights to reproduction in any form reserved.
    [Show full text]