The
Rationality of Inaccurate Science
Britain,
Cholera, and the Pursuit of Progress in 1883
By Emma
Grunberg
University
of Washington, Seattle
During the 1883
cholera epidemic in Egypt,
British colonial officials tried to prove that the epidemic had
originated in
Egypt — not from a British ship travelling through the Suez Canal.
Admitting
the latter would have meant quarantining the Canal, slowing British
trade and
diminishing profits. Why would the British, the dominant power in the
region,
attempt to ‘scientifically’ prove the local-origin theory against
mounting
evidence that suggested otherwise? I
argue that the British were concerned about protecting their image as a
modern,
civilized power — an image that required them to use the language of
science
and rationality even while approaching the question of cholera from
stazndpoint
of political and economic self interest. Through an analysis of the
reports and
correspondence of British officials during the epidemic, I show that,
although
Britain officials relied arguments that today seem outdated, they did
so in the
name of modernity — a specifically British notion of
modernity. This
little-studied episode of colonial history provides a window into the
relationship between British imperial aims and the progress of medical
science.
[Article]
Foreign Criticisms of the 1871
Paris Commune
The
Role of British and American Newspapers and Periodicals
By Patrick
C. Jamieson
Emory
University
In one of the
most important instances of French political history, local citizens in
March of 1871 rose up against their national government to form a
shortly lived local authority known as the Paris Commune or
La Commune de Paris. The events
surrounding the formation and establishment of this authority were at
the center of international news. Historians have recently
become interested in the integrity of the representations of Commune
participants by primary observers, journalists, and historians, due to
these sources’ reliance upon common stereotypes. This essay
uses as its lens British and American newspapers and periodicals from
the period in an attempt to understand these stereotypes. I attempt to
characterize a common set of themes that frame reports on the Commune,
and then group publications in relation to their philosophical
outlook and their journalistic methods. Through this
analysis we can see: 1) a consistent criticism of the French
'national character'; 2) a perpetuation of gender
stereotypes of French women generally and female Communardes in
particular; and 3) a virulent fear of the rise of Communism. [Article]
The Evolution of Dialogue in
Early Sound Film
How
the Motion Picture Industry Found Its Voice Without Losing Its Soul
By Gordon
C. Waite
University
of Washington, Seattle
By the 1930’s, the use of sound
technology in Hollywood films had become the
norm. But it was not a simple matter of adding voices to the moving
picture.
Filmmakers learned almost immediately that older forms of dialogue from
literature
and the theatre did not work in the medium of film. Audiences who had
been raised
on silent film, and who had become accustomed to a form of storytelling
based on
spectacle rather than verbal exposition, demanded new forms of dialogue
that did
not hinder the illusion of film, but which conveyed meaning with
concision and
style. This essay discusses how film dialogue evolved in the early
sound era, and
how censorship forced screenwriters to create even more sophisticated
modes
of dialogue that placated social reformers, while retaining the
undercurrents of
sensuality that were integral to classical Hollywood
narratives. [Article]
“As he wounded me with one hand,
so he healed me with the other”
The
Dual and Dueling Narrative Voices in The Sovereignty and Goodness of
God and
The Narrative of Robert
Adams
By Brandon
Weaver
University
of Washington, Seattle
While 17th and 18th
century captivity narratives depict captivity
in the content they describe,
several narratives exhibit a kind of narrative captivity as well. In
both Mary Rowlandson’s
The sovereignty and
goodness of God and Robert Adam’s The narrative of
Robert Adams
the captive’s ability to narrate their story is disrupted by the
interests of those sponsoring the
narrative - leading to dual and dueling voices throughout the text.
This
essay is an examination
of the relationship between these conflicting voices. I argue that in
both cases within the text,
the sponsor’s interests take precedent over the experience of the
captive, evidencing a complex
power relationship grounded on various social, political and economic
factors. Through
an analysis of the relationship between these conflicting voices, I
attempt to explicate the
underlying ideologies that that make such a conflict possible. Finally,
by comparing the shift
in these ideologies across the two texts, I argue there is a
corresponding shift in geo-economic
policy that demonstrates an increasingly imperialistic
disposition. [Article]
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