This 1976 book provides both a historical survey and a critical analysis of the literature in French from West and Equatorial Africa. Professor Blair begins by discussing the social, educational and political influences which led to the formation of the Negritude movement and to a flowering of French-African creative writing. This historical approach is then complemented by a study of the different literary genres. She traces the evolution of the first manifestations of literary activity in French by African writers, the written folk-tale, fable and short story, from the oral tradition of the indigenous culture, and the eventual appearance of the novel with a legendary or historical theme. The origins of French-African drama are considered for the first time, and the work of the minor poets analysed. Finally, Professor Blair attempts a definition of the French-African novel, and studies examples from three major periods from the 1930s onwards.
Published on the occasion of the 2009 Venice Biennale, MADDESTMAXIMVS - PLANET & STARS SEQUENCE is a project book a and catalogue, documenting a new major body of work by Shaun Gladwell. The publication maps the project in its entirety. Commencing in 2007, MADDESTMAXIMVS has continued with a series of recorded performances and sculptures that investigate representations of landscape and the mythological figures that are projected into these spaces. The installation in the Australian Pavilion in Venice will consist of several projects that intersect each other through various locations and performances. Rather than picturing landscapes, Gladwell's project questions the very history and representation of these locations. Introduced with local references, the project offers international identification and relevance. Through performance, Gladwell re-imagines the Australian hinterland, negotiating the conventions of art history and traditional landscape painting. This meditative investigation articulates Gladwell's discursive approach to contemporary art and structures the project as a free, contemplative space. Roadkill kangaroos are found on the side of highways by a black leather clad motorcyclist and given a ritualistic burial, a figure surfs a vehicle as it moves through desert roads, a masked individual rapidly paints and subsequently erases images of the/a universe in open arid settings, and a group of figures spin against natural rock formations. With over one hundred colour plates and two in-depth texts - by Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev and Dr Blair French - MADDESTMAXIMVS - PLANET & STARS SEQUENCE is the first comprehensive publication of Shaun Gladwell's multi-dimensional practice.
Shaun Gladwell is one of Australia's most prominent new artists. His already celebrated video works focus upon figures engaged in performative actions that articulate relationships with their immediate environment, whether in Sydney, Tokyo or São Paulo. In Gladwell's practice video acts as an inherently concentrated mode of looking at, intervening in and shaping the world, critically engaging personal experience as well as speculating more widely upon art history and the dynamics of contemporary culture.This book is the first major publication on Shaun Gladwell's practice. It features documentation of almost thirty works in video produced over an eight-year period from 2000, an extended essay by Blair French (Executive Director, Artspace Visual Arts Centre), further contributions by Iain Borden (Professor of Architecture and Urban Culture, The Bartlett Institute, University College, London) and Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev (Chief Curator, Castello Di Rivoli, Turin and Artistic Director, 2008 Biennale of Sydney), along with an interview with the artist by independent curator and writer Ihor Holubizky. Shaun Gladwell was born in Sydney in 1972. He has undertaken numerous residencies and commissions and has exhibited extensively internationally including at the 2005 Yokohama Triennale, the 2006 Bienal de São Paulo, the 2006 Busan Biennale and in the 2007 Venice Biennale."--On folded back cover.
British kings and queens are famous today. But many heirs to the British throne never became the actual king or queen due to various quirks of fate. This is their story. The stories include the oldest son of William the Conqueror, who lost the chance to become king because he was off fighting in the First Crusade; the White Ship disaster of 1120, England’s medieval Titanic, in which the sole male heir to the throne, and many others, drowned; an intrepid woman who nearly became queen in her own right four centuries before a woman actually did so; two princes who should have become a second King Arthur; the romantic warrior known to history as the Black Prince; the Princes in the Tower, who were supposedly murdered by King Richard III; the ill-fated Mary, Queen of Scots, beheaded by Queen Elizabeth I after an utterly unfair trial; James, who was born the heir and then was overthrown while still a baby, and was later known as the Old Pretender; a beloved Nineteenth Century princess who tragically died in childbirth at the age of 21; and many more. Who suspected that the heirs who never reigned are every bit as interesting as those who did reign?
Since November 8, 1942, when American troops in Operation Torch first landed on the beaches of North Africa, almost a million Americans—military personnel and their dependents—have lived in Morocco. Their impact on the political and social evolution of Morocco has been significant, but historians and political scientists before this book had made little effort to chart its course or to assess its outcome. The naval base at Port Lyautey in Morocco was the first foreign base captured by American troops in World War II, and United States objectives in Morocco continued to be primarily military. In 1942, as the price for French support against the Axis, the United States pledged its support for the restoration of the prewar French colonial empire. In 1950, faced with the threat of Soviet aggression, the United States negotiated an agreement with France and built four United States Air Force bases in Morocco without consultation with or notification of the Moroccan government. In spite of its sterile diplomatic policy and both Communist and Moroccan nationalist demands for evacuation of United States military bases, the United States retained essential military facilities in Morocco for many years. Leon Blair concludes that American military personnel and their dependents favorably conditioned Moroccan public opinion. By their egalitarianism, humanitarianism, and evident interest, they reinforced the idealistic image of the United States that was held by the majority of Moroccans. These Americans were neither individually nor collectively conscious agents in a campaign to modify Moroccan public opinion; they were simply a Western window in the Arab world, through which two civilizations might view one another. In the long run, they made a greater contribution in peace than in war.
Fresh critical reading of Goethe's important novel, challenging orthodox scholarship. In this new reading of Goethe's most influential novel Blair's close attention to the text brings startling insights to light, often taking issue with received critical opinions. He shows, for example, that Goethe slyly introducedmaterial full of low-cultural, subversive vitality that mocks conservative, authoritarian power interested in conformity or propriety. The novel does not just find fault with developments of the late Enlightenment but rather seductively describes loci of resistance to them: the marketplace, the travelling theatre, the Hanswurst. Equally, the author argues that although 'high' aesthetics, morals, institutions and rationality are impugned, they are not completely discredited: the problem with such high principles is demonstrated as being their tendency to present themselves as the only valid voice.
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