Suchergebnisse

Cover -- Half Title -- Series Page -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Dedication -- Table of Contents -- List of figures -- Transliteration and names -- Glossary -- Distinctive usage list -- Preface -- Introduction: Encountering Tuvan curse -- Part I Curses and shamanic practice -- Chapter 1 In the midst of cursing battles: Curses, proximity and sociocosmic drama -- Chapter 2 The artisans of curses: Characteristics of shamanic practice in Tuva -- Chapter 3 Cursed person(hood) -- Part II Sound and turbulence -- Chapter 4 My drum is thunder: Cursing rituals, turbulence and the sound of drums -- Chapter 5 Voiced into being: The power of sound and shamanic voice in the cursing rituals -- Chapter 6 Beyond curses: In the midst of turbulent Kyzyl -- Index.

Instead of merely recapitulating the main chapter findings, the conclusion expands dynamically on the themes of curses and shamanism by focusing on wider sociocultural processes and shifts occurring in post-Soviet Kyzyl. In short, it highlights how the way people experience and describe post-Soviet life in Kyzyl is similar to the way people who have been cursed describe and experience this phenomenon, suggesting that day-to-day life in Kyzyl could be compared to living a curse. In fact, emphasising the role of turbulence, shock and uncertainty associated with cursing, the chapter concentrates on different representations of post-colonial conflicts, such as tensions between individual shamans and shamans from the societies, shifts in the religious and family landscapes, alcoholism, disease and technological development. More than this the chapter delineates how the shifts occurring in post-Soviet Kyzyl can be effectively analysed without reverting to the already exhausted ideas about cultural revivalism and ethnic rediscovery, dominant in the studies of the post-colonial sociocultural landscapes.

During the Russian Revolution and Civil War, amateur theater groups sprang up in cities across the country. Workers, peasants, students, soldiers, and sailors provided entertainment ranging from improvisations to gymnastics and from propaganda sketches to the plays of Chekhov. In Revolutionary Acts, Lynn Mally reconstructs the history of the amateur stage in Soviet Russia from 1917 to the height of the Stalinist purges. Her book illustrates in fascinating detail how Soviet culture was transformed during the new regime's first two decades in power. Of all the arts, theater had a special appeal for mass audiences in Russia, and with the coming of the revolution it took on an important role in the dissemination of the new socialist culture. Mally's analysis of amateur theater as a space where performers, their audiences, and the political authorities came into contact enables her to explore whether this culture emerged spontaneously "from below" or was imposed by the revolutionary elite. She shows that by the late 1920s, Soviet leaders had come to distrust the initiatives of the lower classes, and the amateur theaters fell increasingly under the guidance of artistic professionals. Within a few years, state agencies intervened to homogenize repertoire and performance style, and with the institutionalization of Socialist Realist principles, only those works in a unified Soviet canon were presented.

In October 1919 Petrograd, home of the Russian Revolution, was a devastated city. Severe food shortages had prompted the exodus of large parts of the population. To make a difficult situation even worse, the White Army general N. N. Iudenich began an assault on the city, bringing his armies almost to the suburbs. Yet this emergency did not stop a respected theater director from holding a lecture series on the history of art in an organization called the Proletkult, even though the audience changed constantly because of military mobilizations. At the same time, the Proletkult theater was preparing a performance for the second anniversary of the revolution, a play written by a Red Army soldier who had helped to storm the Winter Palace.

Abstract
In the summer of 1948, the American edition of Vogue magazine invented a fictional character named Mrs Exeter. Her purpose was to provide fashion advice to women aged 50 and beyond. Articles focusing on Mrs Exeter were a repeating feature in the magazine until 1962, giving unusual attention to the clothing needs of older women. The figure of Mrs Exeter had considerable influence, spreading to British Vogue, newspaper advertisements and the home sewing network. Using Vogue publications, contemporary newspapers and memoirs, this article traces how the United States' premier fashion magazine envisioned the well-off older woman. While the fictional Mrs Exeter was white and privileged, she nonetheless provided a way to address changes in all women's bodies as they age. This is something that contemporary discussions of fashion for older women often ignore.