‘Let the People Sing’: J.B. Priestley and the Significance of Music

Abstract

In a writing life that spanned the 1910 to 1970s, J.B. Priestley engaged with a variety of subjects, across various literary forms, ranging from politics, popular culture and Englishness through to theories of time. However it has rarely been noted that he also wrote passionately and knowledgeably about music, with the latter playing an important role in key novels, plays and nonfiction. Priestley also promoted chamber festivals, wrote the libretto for an opera ‘The Olympians’, and even occasionally performed himself. Priestley’s writings on music fitted into his concerns about the rise of an Americanized mass order, and his mistrust of commericalized musical forms was shared by other critics of the time. However, Priestley’s work is more significant than a binary high/low low cultural validation of classical music/dismissal of more popular musical forms. He was often critical of jazz and ragtime, but more positive about popular music that was produced in, reflected, and empowered the individual and community. Priestley’s writings on music marked a genuine attempt at understanding the role of music in culture, and contributed to his democratic critique of the mass society.     

Beijing,a garden of violence

Abstract

This paper examines the history of Beijing in relation to gardens — imperial, princely, public and private — and the impetus of the ‘gardener’, in particular in the twentieth‐century. Engaging with the theme of ‘violence in the garden’ as articulated by such scholars as Zygmunt Bauman and Martin Jay, I reflect on Beijing as a ‘garden of violence’, both before the rise of the socialist state in 1949, and during the years leading up to the 2008 Olympics.     

From Sawney Beane to Sweeney Todd

ABSTRACT

This article traces the changes and continuities in fictional stories of serial murder in London from the late-seventeenth century to the mid-nineteenth century. In particular, it shows how changes in the primary audience for metropolitan popular culture necessitated dramatic shifts in the tale of serial killing and narratives of violence. Thus, by the nineteenth century, as the lower classes had become the main supporters of both traditional and new genres of entertainment in popular culture, their experience of and fears and anxieties about urban change became intertwined with myths about serial killing and reflected in a new character of the public nightmare, Sweeney Todd, the barber of Fleet Street, who set out to effectively depopulate the capital with his ghastly murder machine.     

Beyond the Rule of Thumb: The Materiality of Marital Violence in England c. 1700–1857

This article examines how marital violence was articulated in and around particular places, spaces, and objects, to reveal the tensions embedded in the physical structure of the household and its control. It also demonstrates that space and objects shaped marital violence both as an idea and an act and did ‘emotional work’ in the sense that they operated upon people’s emotions and behaviour. Finally, it argues that an imagined material culture of marital violence contributed to the construction and maintenance of class stereotypes.     

Stressors, anxiety, acculturation and adjustment among international and North American students

The acculturation process generally contributes greatly to stress and anxiety levels among international students. The objectives of the present study were: (1) to see whether international students experience more anxiety, irritability, and stress from being apart from family and friends, pressure from school, difficulties with language, work and finances than students with permanent US residency, and (2) to investigate the same stressors in groups within the international student population. Surveys were distributed to 246 students aged 17–51 at an ethnically diverse community college in Southern California, US. Analysis of variance was conducted to investigate group differences between students: permanent US residents vs. international students, and, permanent US residents vs. European and Asian students, respectively. No significant differences were found between international students and students with permanent US residency. However, when the international student population was sub-grouped by above cultural regions a different pattern emerged. Difficulties of not being able to work and of socially related problems were perceived as more severe for the European and the Asian groups, while finance problems were hard for all three groups. The variable of language difficulties was harder for Asian students, while that of stress of being apart from family was harder for students from Europe. Findings are not only congruent with prior research results on international students but also demonstrate that international students with culturally diverse needs should not be considered as one homogenous group. It is suggested that educational systems need to properly adapt in order to accommodate international students’ unique cultural needs.     

Muslims and others: anecdotes,fragments, and uncertainties of evidence

Abstract

Against the intensified communalization of civil society and the emergence of new modes of racism in contemporary India, this essay juxtaposes different histories of the Other through critical insights into the construction and demonization of the Indian Muslim. Working through anecdotes and fragments, bits and pieces of history, this disjunctive discourse on the Other attempts to trouble liberal assumptions of cultural identity by calling attention to the uncertainties of evidence by which ethnic identities are politicized in diverse ways. While critiquing the exclusionary mode of 'othering', the essay also calls attention to more internalized modes of disidentification and the double-edged benefits of political identity for the underprivileged and dispossessed, whose own assertions of the self invariably complicate official identitarian constructions. The enigmas of the self are perhaps most vivid in the brutal evidence of genocide, where the apparent 'dead certainty' of killing the Other has been interpreted as a means of making 'persons out of bodies' (Arjun Appadurai). Countering this position, the essay argues that ethnic violence is facilitated by the 'dead certainty' of (in)justice, reinforced by the 'banality of violence' legitimized through state-sponsored ethnic cleansing.     

International History,the Cultural Turn and the Diplomatic Twitch

To many cultural and social historians, international history (an updated version of diplomatic history) may seem old hat. This essay looks at how the field has developed under pressure from changes in the historical discipline and examines the impact of the ‘cultural turn’ through recent work on gender, memory and ‘otherness'. But the essay also raises questions about this new ‘culturalist’ international history, especially what to do with the now problematic concepts of agency and causality. And it ends by reaffirming the importance of the traditional agenda of international history – life-and-death governmental decisions for peace or war.     

Chinese and Western Bronze Ware and World Bronze Civilization

It is said that Simuwu Square Cauldron is the largest and heaviest bronze ware,but this is only applicable to the Bronze Age and only in China.The development o...     

从历史移民看豫、闽、台姓氏渊源

唐山过台湾，是指历史上由祖国大陆向台湾岛的移民活动。清代《台湾志略》记载：“台湾人称内地为唐山，内地人日唐人。”由此可见，“唐山”就是台湾人对祖国大陆的称呼。在台湾省，“唐山过台湾”是长期流传于民间的一句话，直到现在，很多台湾人仍把回大陆叫“回唐山”。