THE SPACES OF MYTH IN KAZUO ISHIGURO’S THE REMAINS OF THE DAY: EXPLORING THE INTERSECTIONS OF MEMORY AND HISTORY

Ensemble ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 234-242
Author(s):  
Medha Bhadra Chowdhury ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Identity Politics ◽  
Cultural Beliefs ◽  
Traditional Values ◽  
Confined Space ◽  
Spatial Dimensions ◽  
Temporal Expressions ◽  
Spatio Temporal ◽  
Post War ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Historical Past

Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Remains of the Day (1989) reconstructs the experiences of an ageing butler, Stevens, trapped within the confined space of the house he has served in for many years. The contours of memory are drawn along the spatial dimensions of the house which serve as a space of contestation between traditional values and emergent cultural beliefs in the post-war period. Physical modifications on the architecture produce continuities and alterations within the subject, who inhabits the space. This paper seeks to explore the dynamics of remembering and forgetting which are determined by the sites of memory and which trace historical changes as well as shifts in identity politics in Ishiguro’s novel. The paper critically assesses the idea of space, its functional dimension and mythic commemoration in relation to a symbolic historical past. It examines the development of subjectivity through the expansion of memory embodied in material form and the complex relationship between history and myth-making, which complicates individual identity. This paper further proposes that these spatio-temporal expressions can be understood as not only confined to the individual but may be extended to the domain of public memory and contextualized in a post-war British cultural politics of grief.

Working-Class Fictions

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicola Wilson
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
Social Realism ◽  
Cultural Significance ◽  
Reading Public ◽  
Industrial Community ◽  
Working People ◽  
History Of ◽  
Post War ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Exciting Wave

This chapter explores why working-class fictions flourished in the period from the late 1950s through to the early 1970s and the distinctive contributions that they made to the post-war British and Irish novel. These writers of working-class fiction were celebrated for their bold, socially realistic, and often candid depictions of the lives and desires of ordinary working people. Their works were seen to herald a new and exciting wave of gritty social realism. The narrative focus on the individual signalled a shift in the history of working-class writing away from the plot staples of strikes and the industrial community, striking a chord with a post-war reading public keen to see ordinary lives represented in books in a complex and realistic manner. The cultural significance of such novels was enhanced as they were adapted in quick succession for a mass cinema audience by a group of radical film-makers.

Comedy, Class, and Nation

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip Tew
Keyword(s):  
Youth Culture ◽  
Public Life ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Traditional Values ◽  
Adequate Account ◽  
Cultural Narrative ◽  
Cultural Commodification ◽  
Comic Novel ◽  
Post War ◽  
Recurrent Motifs

This chapter studies the comic novel. If British and Irish culture in the post-war decades underwent some radical social and political upheavals, the novel registered and critiqued these transformations in part through the development of a particular comic mode. Comedy in British and Irish novels published from 1940 to 1973 often turned around the difficult intersection of class and nation. Alongside this overarching attention to class and nation, a number of other recurrent motifs can be traced in the comic novel of the period, such as the representation of cultural commodification, the decline of traditional values, and the emergence of new forms of youth culture. In the context of such widespread changes to the narratives that shaped public life, the comic novel expressed an ironic scepticism concerning the capacity of any cultural narrative to offer an adequate account of contemporary identities.

scholarly journals Holocene changes in African vegetation: tradeoff between climate and water availability

2014 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 681-686 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. Hély ◽  
A.-M. Lézine ◽  
APD contributors
Keyword(s):  
West Africa ◽  
Water Availability ◽  
Regional Scale ◽  
Plant Distribution ◽  
Climate Conditions ◽  
Tropical Plants ◽  
Plant Migration ◽  
Spatio Temporal ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Instrumental Records

Abstract. Although past climate change is well documented in West Africa through instrumental records, modeling activities, and paleo-data, little is known about regional-scale ecosystem vulnerability and long-term impacts of climate on plant distribution and biodiversity. Here we use paleohydrological and paleobotanical data to discuss the relation between available surface water, monsoon rainfall and vegetation distribution in West Africa during the Holocene. The individual patterns of plant migration or community shifts in latitude are explained by differences among tolerance limits of species to rainfall amount and seasonality. Using the probability density function methodology, we show here that the widespread development of lakes, wetlands and rivers at the time of the "Green Sahara" played an additional role in forming a network of topographically defined water availability, allowing for tropical plants to migrate north from 15 to 24° N (reached ca. 9 cal ka BP). The analysis of the spatio–temporal changes in biodiversity, through both pollen occurrence and richness, shows that the core of the tropical rainbelt associated with the Intertropical Convergence Zone was centered at 15–20° N during the early Holocene wet period, with comparatively drier/more seasonal climate conditions south of 15° N.

Anniversaries of the Great Victory: Traditions and Innovations in Celebration and the Dynamics of Public Consciousness

2021 ◽  
pp. 40-55
Author(s):  
Татьяна Николаевна Золотова
Keyword(s):  
Social Groups ◽  
Central Place ◽  
Traditional Values ◽  
Regional Features ◽  
Public Consciousness ◽  
Historical Heritage ◽  
Historical Past ◽  
Official Sources ◽  
Great Victory

В статье рассматриваются советские и постсоветские традиции празднования Дня Победы, анализируется его роль в современном социокультурном пространстве России. Источниками для работы послужили материалы по Омскому региону - результаты опросов и личных наблюдений автора, данные средств массовой информации и официальных источников. Делается вывод о центральном месте Дня Победы в современном праздничном календаре и его важной роли в объединении российской нации на основе мемориализации общего исторического прошлого. Автор объясняет значимость праздника для населения страны сохранением традиционных ценностей и смыслов, а региональные особенности празднования и процессов коммеморации - различными факторами исторического, экономического, политического, социокультурного порядка. Празднование 70-летнего и 75-летнего юбилеев Победы отразило позитивное изменение общественного сознания в постсоветской России, что проявилось в увеличении интереса к историческому наследию, усилении чувства благодарности ветеранам и гордости за их подвиг, осознании причастности каждого к историческим событиям славного прошлого страны. День Победы, выполняя главные функции праздника, поддерживает преемственность традиций, объединяет различные социальные группы, воспитывает уважение к историко-культурному наследию и патриотизм. This article examines the Soviet and post-Soviet tradition of Victory Day celebrations and analyzes their role in modern Russian socio-cultural space. It is based on materials from the Omsk Region, including the results of surveys, data from the mass media and official sources, as well as the author’s personal observations. The author describes the central place of Victory Day in the modern holiday calendar and its important role in uniting the Russian nation by memorializing a common historical past. The author considers the role of the holiday in preserving traditional values and meanings, and describes the regional features of the celebration and the processes of commemoration as shaped by various historical, economic, political, and socio-cultural factors. The celebration of the 70 th and 75 th post-Soviet anniversaries of the victory reflected a positive change in public consciousness that was manifested in greater interest in the historical heritage, an increased sense of gratitude toward veterans and pride in their accomplishment, and an awareness of everyone’s involvement in the historical events of the country’s glorious past. Victory Day, performing the main functions of a holiday, supports the continuity of tradition, unites various social groups, and promotes patriotism and respect for the historical and cultural heritage

Spatio-Temporal Gaussianization Flows for Extreme Event Detection

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miguel-Ángel Fernández-Torres ◽  
J. Emmanuel Johnson ◽  
María Piles ◽  
Gustau Camps-Valls
Keyword(s):  
Event Detection ◽  
Land Surface ◽  
Extreme Event ◽  
Learning Approaches ◽  
Proposed Model ◽  
Individual Contributions ◽  
Current Context ◽  
Spatio Temporal ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Anomaly Score

<p>Automatic anticipation and detection of extreme events constitute a major challenge in the current context of climate change. Machine learning approaches have excelled in detection of extremes and anomalies in Earth data cubes recently, but are typically both computationally costly and supervised, which hamper their wide adoption. We alternatively present here an unsupervised, efficient, generative approach for extreme event detection, whose performance is illustrated for drought detection in Europe during the severe Russian heat wave in 2010. The core architecture of the model is generic and could naturally be extended to the detection of other kinds of anomalies. First, it computes hierarchical appearance (spatial) and motion (temporal) representations of several informative Essential Climate Variables (ECVs), including soil moisture, land surface temperature, as well as features describing vegetation health. Then, these representations are combined using Gaussianization Flows that yield a spatio-temporal anomaly score. This allows the proposed model not only to detect droughts areas, but also to explain why they were produced, monitoring the individual contributions of each of the ECVs to the indicator at its output.</p>

scholarly journals The effects of different frequencies of rhythmic acoustic stimulation on gait kinematics and trunk sway in healthy elderly population

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roberta Minino ◽  
Emahnuel Troisi Lopez ◽  
Pierpaolo Sorrentino ◽  
Rosaria Rucco ◽  
Anna Lardone ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Acoustic Stimulation ◽  
Elderly Subjects ◽  
Low Frequencies ◽  
Healthy Elderly ◽  
Gait Kinematics ◽  
Trunk Sway ◽  
Spatio Temporal ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Harmful Effects ◽  
Healthy Elderly Subjects

ABSTRACTThe use of rhythmic acoustic stimulation (RAS) in improving gait and balance in healthy elderly subjects has been widely investigated. However, methodologies and results are often controversial. In this study, we hypothesize that both the kinematic features of gait and stability, depend on the frequency at which RAS is administered. Our aim was to observe, through 3D Gait Analysis, the effect of different types of RAS (at a fixed frequency or based on the average cadence of each subject) on both gait spatio-temporal parameters and stability. The latter was estimated through an innovative measure, the trunk displacement index (TDI) that we have recently implemented. We observed that the low frequencies RAS led to a general slowdown of gait, which did not provide any clear benefit and produced harmful effects on stability when the frequency became too low compared to the individual natural frequency. On the contrary, the high frequencies of RAS showed a slight acceleration of gait, accompanied by better stability (as documented by a lower TDI value), regardless of the type of RAS. Finally, the RAS equal to the individual natural cadence also produced an increase in stability.

scholarly journals Acculturative status, age, and hypertension among African American women

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (5) ◽  
pp. 2083
Author(s):  
Fern J. Webb ◽  
Christina Jones ◽  
Ross Jones ◽  
Kristen Morga ◽  
Lori Bilello ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
African American Women ◽  
Cultural Beliefs ◽  
The United States ◽  
Population Based ◽  
Health Interventions ◽  
Traditional Values ◽  
American Women ◽  
Using Data ◽  
Research Assistants

Background: Understanding culture’s impact on hypertension (HTN) is important since its prevalence in African American women (AAW) in the United States is among the highest. It is therefore important to know if younger AAW have similar acculturation status as older AAW when developing culturally relevant interventions.  The objective of this study was to examine the association between acculturation status and age, determining whether acculturation status and age are significantly associated with hypertension among AAW.Methods: Acculturation status, age, and HTN were analyzed using data from the listening to our voices study (LOVS), a population-based observational study of 294 AAW conducted throughout Florida. LOVS was promoted via African American women research assistants trained to inform and recruit AAW living in Ft. Lauderdale, Jacksonville, Miami, and Tampa.Results: Findings demonstrate that AAW held traditional values regardless of age. Moreover, AAW of younger ages had higher average acculturation scores compared with older AAW indicating stronger agreement with traditional values, practices and beliefs. Acculturation subscale scores were not associated with HTN. AAW with HTN scored higher on the traditional food subscale compared to AAW without HTN.Conclusions: These findings indicate the significance of considering the beliefs, values, and practices of AAW when developing health interventions. Health interventions developed should be tailored toward AAW of varying ages to incorporate activities relevant to their cultural beliefs, values and practices.

scholarly journals Polityka władz państwowych wobec wyboru i działalności metropolity Makarego, zwierzchnika Polskiego Autokefalicznego Kościoła Prawosławnego

2015 ◽  
pp. 72-84
Author(s):  
Stefan Dudra
Keyword(s):  
Government Policy ◽  
The State ◽  
Russian Orthodox ◽  
Orthodox Church ◽  
Russian Orthodox Church ◽  
Close Cooperation ◽  
Post War ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Church ◽  
Selection Of

Government policy towards the election and activity of Metropolitan Macarius (Oksijuk) In post-war Poland, the state authorities aimed at taking control of the religious life of the individual Churches and religious organizations. Surveillance efforts were made to maintain, among others, by appropriate selection of the superior of the Church and diocesan bishops. The election of Macarius (Oksijuk), Archbishop of the Russian Orthodox Church for the position of Metropolitan in July 1951 years should be understood in this context. The hierarch was also to give a guarantee of loyalty, implement his policy in line with the vision of communist authorities and ensure close cooperation with the Patriarchate of Moscow. Unrealized demands of the state authorities (emerging Russification trends, the lack of wider support in missionary activity among the Greek Catholics) contributed to undertake a process of dismissing Macarius from managing the Orthodox Church. Polityka władz państwowych wobec wyboru i działalności metropolity Makarego, zwierzchnika Polskiego Autokefalicznego Kościoła PrawosławnegoPowojenna polityka państwa wobec Polskiego Autokefalicznego Kościoła Prawosławnego zmierzała do ograniczenia jego roli tylko do zadań religijnych, jednocześnie przy objęciu pozostałej działalności całkowitą kontrolą. Nadzór starano się utrzymywać m.in. poprzez odpowiedni dobór zwierzchnika Kościoła. Jednym z elementów polityki był wybór na stanowisko metropolity w 1951 roku Makarego (Oksijuka), arcybiskupa Rosyjskiego Kościoła Prawosławnego. Po odsunięciu w 1948 roku od zarządzania Kościołem metropolity Dionizego władze wyznaniowe dążyły do obsadzenia tronu metropolitalnego przez hierarchę, który miałby realizować politykę kościelną zgodną z linią polityczną władz. Pomimo zrealizowania założonych celów metropolita Makary okazał się hierarchą, który nie spełnił oczekiwań władz (m.in. w zakresie polityki wobec grekokatolików), co wpłynęło na podjęcie decyzji o usunięciu go z zajmowanego stanowiska.

Values, Constraints, and Maneuvers

2021 ◽  
pp. 170-191
Author(s):  
Tehila Kalagy
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Flow Model ◽  
Traditional Values ◽  
Academic Institutions ◽  
Female Model ◽  
Model Based ◽  
Education Academic ◽  
The Individual ◽  
High Degree

For about a decade, ultra-Orthodox and Bedouin women have been applying to higher education academic institutions in Israel in order to study despite bans from their conservative communities. Academic studies instill learning and culture, create an encounter with knowledge for the individual and thus carry a high degree of threat to the rigid conservative enclave. This article examines how conservative societies cope with the wheels of change as the process of higher education for women expands. The case studies in this article are 60 educated women from Jewish ultra-Orthodox society and from Negev Bedouin groups in Israel. As shown by the findings, a theoretical flow model based on three parameters emerges: value-constraint-maneuver. In summary, it appears that this model reflects the development of a new conservative female model that combines traditional values with contemporary indicators.

scholarly journals History-based Explanatory Framework for Procreative Behaviour of Aboriginal People of Canada

2008 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 159
Author(s):  
Anatole Romaniuk
Keyword(s):  
Aboriginal People ◽  
Low Fertility ◽  
Aboriginal Peoples ◽  
Traditional Values ◽  
Explanatory Framework ◽  
Real Population ◽  
Theoretical Investigations ◽  
Spatio Temporal ◽  
The One ◽  
Challenging Question

The transition from traditional high to modern low fertility is in the forefront of empirical and theoretical investigations in contemporary aboriginal demography. The challenging question therein remains why its fertility has started to decline a century or so after the rest of Canada, and why it continues to trail the latter by a considerable lag. The objective of this paper is to present a history-based explanatory framework of the childbearing behaviour of Canadian aboriginal peoples, as it has evolved over time from the very first contact with Europeans to our day. Turning to existing theories for possible elucidation of these idiosyncrasies, we find that while accounting for certain aspects, they leave others unexplained. History provides a more satisfying explanation when we cast an eye not on the “abstract” population, “ideal-type” or what we today like to call “model”, but on real population, or family thereof, in its spatio-temporal context. The “between-two-cultures” paradigm presented here, based on ethnocentricity and dependency, could be seen as a an explanatory paradigm of competing forces on the Canadian aboriginals: on the one hand, those pushing toward modern norms of childbearing; and on the other, traditional values and structures, as shattered as they are, with their pro-natalist ideologies resisting normative changes.

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