The Industry of Truing: Socialist Realism, Reality, Realization

Slavic Review ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 70 (4) ◽  
pp. 873-892 ◽  
Author(s):  
Petre Petrov
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Martin Heidegger ◽  
Reference Point ◽  
Socialist Realism ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
The State ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
State Of Affairs ◽  
Radical Shift

Most existing accounts of socialist realism rely, implicitly or explicitly, on a commonsense notion of truth as correspondence between representation and its object (the state of affairs being represented). In this view, socialist realism is commonly denounced as an epistemological fraud, while quasi-dialectical formulas such as "reality in its revolutionary development" are viewed condescendingly as the fraud's fanciful garnish. Such an approach fails to see in Stalinist culture a radical shift in the understanding of truth—a shift that has less to do with Marxist orthodoxy than it does with the intellectual reflexes of early twentieth-century modernity. In this article, Petre Petrov sets out to describe this shift and, in doing so, to propose a novel theoretical framework for understanding Stalinist socialist realism. The work of Martin Heidegger from the late 1920s through the 1930s serves as an all-important reference point in the discussion insofar as it articulates in philosophical idiom a turn from an epistemological to an ontological conception of truth.

scholarly journals Discrimination? Protestantism and Jewish Christians in the State of Israel

2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Gert J Van Klinken
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
The State ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
State Of Israel ◽  
Jewish Christians

During the nineteenth and early twentieth century, Jewish mission became an established branch of Protestant mission in general. As the Jewish converts to Protestantism remained fairly few in numbers, these converts were expected to engage in missionary efforts too, among their fellow Jews. One of the results of the ensuing polarization was the exclusion of baptized Jews from the citizenship of the State of Israel, where they were considered traitors by a majority of society. This article argues that programmes for Jewish-Christian dialogue in the State of Israel came under pressure to bar the Jewish Christians from taking part, and explores the question whether the ensuing policies can be ranked as examples of discrimination against this group.

The Discipline of Meter

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Meredith Martin
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
English Education ◽  
The State ◽  
Good Citizen ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
Private And Public ◽  
Educational Theorist ◽  
Public Cultures ◽  
Crucial Part ◽  
Mass Identification

This chapter looks closely at the rise of state-funded English education to uncover the disciplinary role that poetry played. It shows how the naturalization of English “meter” was a crucial part of the English literary curriculum. “Meter” is placed in quotation marks because the “meter” that emerges in the state-funded classroom has little to do with the prosody wars going on outside its walls. Educational theorist Matthew Arnold's cultural metrics, in which poetry by Shakespeare, for instance, will subtly and intimately transform a student into a good citizen, is replaced by a patriotic pedagogy wherein verses written in rousing rhythms are taught as a naturally felt English “beat.” It suggests that poet and educational theorist Henry Newbolt's figure of the “drum” performed a naturalized rhythm that brought England together as a collective. The collective mass identification with (and proliferation of) patriotic verses created an even sharper divide between the high and low, elite and mass, private and public cultures of poetry in the early twentieth century.

A. G. Dickens and the late medieval Church

2004 ◽  
Vol 77 (195) ◽  
pp. 98-110 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eamon Duffy
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
The State ◽  
Late Medieval ◽  
Archival Material ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
Medieval Church ◽  
Religious Formation

Abstract In this article A. G. Dickens's writings about late medieval religion are located in the context of early twentieth-century English historiography, in particular the controversies between Cardinal Aidan Gasquet and Dr. G. G. Coulton. The article argues that despite his desire for judicious objectivity, and despite also his innovatory use of hitherto neglected types of archival material, Dickens's essentially negative assessment of the state of the late medieval Church was shaped by his own early religious formation, and by a Protestant/whig outlook which he shared with Coulton. As a consequence, he understood some mainstream Tudor religious emphases and convictions as ‘medieval’, by which he meant backward-looking minority concerns.

scholarly journals The origins of marketing practice in Britain: from the ancient to the early twentieth century

2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 467-487 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard A. Hawkins
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Historical Development ◽  
Design Methodology ◽  
The State ◽  
Marketing Practice ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the development of marketing practice in Britain from the ancient to the early twentieth century. It builds upon the author’s chapter in the 2016 Routledge Companion to the History of Marketing. Design/methodology/approach This paper is based on a review of secondary history and archaeology literature supplemented by digitised historic newspaper and magazine advertising. The literature is frameworked using a modified version of Fullerton’s 1988 periodization which has been extended to include the medieval and Roman eras. Findings One of the significant findings of this paper is the key role the state has played in the development of marketing practice in Britain, the construction of pavements being a good example. Originality/value Apart from Nevett’s 1982 history of British advertising and the author’s Routledge Companion to the History of Marketing chapter, this is the first survey of the historical development of British marketing practice. It assembles and presents in a useful way important information. This paper will be of interest to marketing historians, especially students and researchers new to the subject.

James Scott, Seeing Like a State

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Loren King
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Technological Progress ◽  
Practical Knowledge ◽  
The State ◽  
Coercive Power ◽  
Critical Importance ◽  
Rational Planning ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
The World

States see the world in a particular way, simplifying their domains to better rule them. By the early twentieth century, these ordering imperatives coincided with progressive ideals grounded in hopes that scientific and technological progress could shape the world for good. That conceit—that we should use the formidable power of the state to forge grand rational schemes for human improvement—blinded planners to the critical importance of local, cumulative, practical knowledge. This is Scott’s core thesis in Seeing Like a State, which he supports with a rich (if selective) body of evidence. If we defend Scott’s book as political theory, then we might worry that he has simply rediscovered skeptical themes (specifically, worries about coercive power and rational planning) long-evident in counter-enlightenment, anarchist, libertarian, and postcolonial thought. These worries, while reasonable, should not obscure the great value of Scott’s book as grounded political theory: there are lessons here, both methodological and substantive, for political theory.

Venereal disease and the politics of prostitution in the Irish Free State

2003 ◽  
Vol 33 (131) ◽  
pp. 320-341 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip Howell
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Sex Work ◽  
Venereal Disease ◽  
The State ◽  
Free State ◽  
Revolutionary Era ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
History Of ◽  
Technical Sense ◽  
Specific Sense

This article is intended primarily as a contribution to work on the regulation of sexuality in modern Ireland, but, more generally, it attempts to situate the Irish experience within a wider problematic concerning the relations of state and society in the regulation of prostitution. The regulation of sexuality in early twentieth-century Ireland has been a focus of concern for feminist historians in particular, and recent work has clearly demonstrated the salience of questions of gender and sexuality for the politics of the Saorstát. This article is directed at these same concerns, elaborating on a series of proposals to regulate prostitution in the Free State in the mid-1920s. But when discussing prostitution or sex work, the word ‘regulation’ can be used in a quite specific sense, ‘regulationism’ referring to the argument that the state should control venereal disease by registering prostituted women, inspecting them for signs of communicable venereal disease, and incarcerating the contagious in order to protect the health of both nation and state. The history of ‘regulationist’ policies in Europe and beyond allows a point of comparison by which we may understand the specifics of Ireland’s situation in the post-revolutionary era. The history of regulationism, in this technical sense, is a particularly useful context, not least because such policies amply acknowledge ‘the enduring power of the state as the author and executor of regulation’. Particularly important, in ways that suggest a direct parallel to the Irish experience in the early twentieth century, is the coextensive experience of state formation and the regulation of sex work, the most notable example being that of modern Italy.

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