This essay discusses gift-giving and gossiping in a canonical American novel (John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, 1939) by way of the two texts which sealed the fate of dominant literary ...scholarship after WWII: Marcel Mauss’s essay The Gift and Claude Lévi-Strauss’s Introduction to the Work of Marcel Mauss. Steinbeck’s use of informal discourse and Marcel Mauss’s descriptions of tacit compulsory reciprocation present the opportunity to dispute central assumptions in literary theory that pertain to literary meaning, interpretation, and referentiality. This essay argues that literary language is conventional precisely because its conventionality fulfills a social function; the conventional nature of literary language is in itself meaningful socially. This, in turn, suggests that the interpretation of literary texts remains dependent on a correct understanding of the material and symbolic economies they participate in.
According to a familiar narrative, Plato regarded literature as dangerous to the aims of philosophy, and he accordingly exiled the poets from his ideal republic (in fact, he proposed to censor them, ...allowing only those who would "imitate the speech of a decent person,"1 which from a modern point of view is perhaps even worse). ...philosophers' trouble with literature can be intellectually productive, provided that we hold ourselves fully open to the gaps and challenges it brings to light. According to Badhwar, a human being cannot be truly virtuous unless she is "autonomous and reality-oriented," i.e., "disposed to think for herself and seek truth or understanding about important aspects of her own life and human life in general, and disposed to act on her understanding when circumstances permit" (Badhwar, p. 23). ...he takes Steinbeck's novel to support the idea that a life of embodied investment in particular persons and places represents the key to genuine happiness.
In this document is a description of the process of researching and developing the costume designs for the University of Maryland, College Park production of Machinal. This thesis contains the entire ...design and re-design process, from initial concepts for the stage production, to design development of the digital production. Also included are research plates, fitting photos, crafts development photos, and final production screenshots. Machinal was written by Sophie Treadwell in 1928 and is a recontextualization of the actual 1925 court case of Ruth Snyder. Machinal was produced at the University of Maryland, College Park’s School of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies, February 20th and 28th, 2021, under the direction of Professor Brian MacDevitt. Costume Design by Madison Booth, Lighting Design by Jacob Hughes, Set Design by Rochele Mac, Media Design by Devin Kinch, Sound Design by Roc Lee, Choreography by Kendra Portier, and Dramaturgy by Lindsey Barr.
Singing Solidarity looks at songs and song culture in the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) from its inception to its decline near the start of WWI and examines how IWW songs engaged with, ...transformed, and directed workers’ feelings to “spur them to action” (Gould 47). Songs in the IWW repertoire created a sense of group identity and cohesion, supporting the IWW’s project of class consciousness and working-class solidarity. This solidarity, I argue, was felt rather than theorized. The felt solidarity of the IWW collective was intensified through the act of singing as a group, which was simultaneously an instantiation of as well as a catalyst or “spur” for solidarity. This dissertation argues that IWW songs were an integral part of providing IWW members with a sense of “what their feelings are and what they mean” and a way of “figuring out and understanding what they are feeling” (Gould 34). In this sense, IWW songs created and perpetuated what Deborah Gould, in Moving Politics, terms “emotional habitus,” or a group’s “inclinations toward certain feelings and way of emoting” (32). Group members may have a range of affects, or what are pre-conscious feelings that are not yet formed or articulated as specific emotions. An emotional habitus untangles those affects and provides group members with a collective framework for articulating their feelings. In having a common emotional framework, group members feel part of the group. Through “emotional pedagogy,” or emotional education, some feelings are given language and meaning in the habitus while others are not, which emphasizes particular ways of feeling (34). IWW songs helped to create and perpetuate an emotional habitus that responded to members’ feelings of weakness, fear, and discontent and enabled individual workers to recognize those feelings as collective feelings. The songs then provided a sense of how and what to feel, emphasizing feelings of collective power and anger, and mobilized those feelings against employers and the wage system.
Through an analysis of my Costume Design process for The Revolutionists, by Lauren Gunderson (2019), Eurydice by Sarah Ruhl (2020), Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck (2020), presented at The ...University of South Carolina, my goal is to explain the knowledge and experience I received as a student and Costume Designer. By observing my journey as a first-year graduate student to a third-year graduate student and bridal designer, I will analyze my work and achievements. This program taught me to be the designer I am today. This included designing 3 shows and creating a business plan for my own Design business. The Costume Design and Technology, Master of Fine Arts program taught me invaluable lessons that will aid my career.
The cover of the 1962 trade-paperback edition of John Steinbeck's 1950 work, "Burning bright," advertises the book as "Bold, shocking, unconventional--Steinbeck's famous novel on a daring theme," and ...almost these exact words could also describe Federico Garcia Lorca's 1934 play, "Yerma." Of course, I am not the first critic to find striking similarities between these two works that go far beyond their respective daring themes, their boldness, unconventionality, and shock value.
The careers and roles of stars like James Cagney, Humphrey Bogart, Bette Davis, and Olivia de Havilland—all the way to Clint Eastwood—pique the author’s curiosity far more than front-office ...machinations or stockholder reports. (None of the brothers graduated from high school, so they might be given some slack.) Although Jack Warner had sold the controlling interest in the studio to Seven Arts Productions in 1966, pocketing $32 million for himself, he wanted to have a hand in Bonnie and Clyde. Wisely, Thomson does not carry this argument far—not only because so few Warner Bros. movies update or revise the first biblical fratricide but also because other studios undoubtedly released films with brothers in confl ict. ...that was how Jewish advocates and organizations presented the justification for the war, if only to counter the accusations of Josef Goebbels that such bloodshed was exactly what international Jews instigated
The article discusses the popularity of John Steinbeck’s novel
(1952) in Slovenia, demonstrated by its presence in virtually every area of public life and the sheer number of Slovene editions. The ...study also shows that in past decades, when Slovenia was in the grip of communist rule, even this book by Steinbeck, which is characterized by its non-fidelity to the rules imposed by social realism, in contrast to those that largely conformed to the communist regime’s ideology, could not escape an ideological burden.
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