unlike the benevolent orphan found in charlie chaplin's the kid or the sentimentalized figure of little orphan annie, the orphan in postwar eastern european cinema takes on a more politically fraught role, embodying the tensions of individuals struggling to recover from war and grappling with an unknown future under soviet rule. by exploring films produced in postwar hungary, the german democratic republic, czechoslovakia, romania, and poland, parvulescu traces the way in which cinema envisioned and debated the condition of the post-world war ii subject and the "new man" of soviet-style communism. in these films, the orphan becomes a cinematic trope that interrogates socialist visions of ideological institutionalization and re-education and stands as a silent critic of the system's shortcomings or as a resilient spirit who has resisted capture by the political apparatus of the new state.

propuestas para (re)construir una naci n explores how emilia pardo baz n (1851-1921) imagines and engenders the spanish nation in her theatrical production staged and/or published between 1898 and 1909. in the aftermath of spain's colonial losses, when spain's male authors, in a growing mood of collective introspection, directed their attention to the homeland, pardo baz n generated a series of theatrical proposals to revitalize the nation. in her plays, she manifests her ideas about spain's fin de si cle crisis, reflects on spain's place in the international arena (emphasizing the nation's civilizing mission), critiques the intoxicating power of the so-called golden legend (spain's glorious past), and sees the origin of the nation's hardship in the lack of education of its inhabitants and in the inequality between men and women.

pardo baz n's vision of spain is forward looking, and she imagines a future in which new social configurations will be possible. instead of locating her plays in an ancestral castile, she situates several of her works in her native galicia. for the author, spain's regional issues are inseparable from the country's national issues and these can all be traced back to the woman question. the playwright appeals to the spectators/readers' reason and emotions in order to let them think and feel that the problems the nation faces can all be attributed to the spanish men. for pardo baz n, spain's potential for national regeneration resides in the inner strength of women.

in cross-fire with the main male players in the literary field of her time, pardo baz n offers her critique of national decadence in plays that cleverly subvert a broad range of by then outdated theatrical conventions, and that introduce the public to new currents of theatrical innovation (ibsen, maeterlinck, d'annunzio).

propuestas offers a new perspective on the participation of female authors in the contentious debate about the spanish nation. pardo baz n's theater is an overlooked area in the author's extensive creative production, and propuestas challenges the so often repeated topic of the backwardness of the spanish stage and the alleged lack of innovation during the fin de si cle.

propuestas para (re)construir una naci n explora c mo emilia pardo baz n (1851-1921) imagina y engendra la naci n espa ola en su producci n teatral finisecular que vio la luz entre 1898 y 1909. a la zaga de la debacle de 1898, cuando la introspecci n colectiva dirige la mirada de los autores hacia la patria, pardo baz n genera una serie de propuestas teatrales para revitalizar la naci n. en sus obras, expone sus ideas sobre la crisis finisecular, reflexiona sobre el lugar de espa a en la arena internacional (enfatizando su misi n civilizadora), critica el poder embriagador de lo que llama la leyenda dorada (el glorioso pasado espa ol) y ve la causa de los males de la patria en la falta de educaci n de sus habitantes y en la desigualdad entre hombres y mujeres.

en vez de enfocarse en el ayer, pardo se imagina un futuro en el que nuevas configuraciones sociales sean posibles. en lugar de ubicar sus obras en una castilla ancestral, sit a varias de sus piezas teatrales en su galicia natal. para la autora los problemas regionales son inseparables de los nacionales y los problemas nacionales son inseparables de la cuesti n de la mujer. la dramaturga apela tanto al raciocinio como a las emociones de sus espectadores/lectores para hacerles pensar y sentir que son los hombres los que constituyen el problema nacional. para pardo baz n la clave de la regeneraci n de espa a se encuentra en la mujer.

en fuego cruzado con los jugadores m's importantes del campo de producci n cultural de su tiempo, pardo baz n ofrece su cr tica de la decadencia nacional en unas obras que reciclan una serie heterog nea de materiales por aquel entonces anticuados que la autora combina de manera inteligente con formas inesperadas que introducen al p blico a nuevas corrientes de innovaci n teatral (ibsen, maeterlinck, d'annunzio).

propuestas ofrece una nueva perspectiva de la participaci n de las autoras femeninas en el contencioso debate sobre la naci n espa ola. dentro de la extensa producci n creadora de la autora, su teatro es un terreno frecuentemente pasado por alto y propuestas desaf a el tan trillado t pico del retraso de la escena espa ola y la supuesta falta de innovaci n durante el fin de siglo.

a stunningly illustrated look at how blake's radical vision influenced artists of the beat generation and 1960s counterculture

in his own lifetime, william blake (1757-1827) was a relatively unknown nonconventional artist with a strong political bent. william blake and the age of aquarius is a beautifully illustrated look at how, some two hundred years after his birth, the antiestablishment values embodied in blake's art and poetry became a model for artists of the american counterculture.

this book provides new insights into the politics and protests of blake's own lifetime, and the generation of artists who revived and reimagined his work in the mid-1940s through 1970, or what might be called the "long sixties." contributors explore blake's outsider status in georgian england and how his individualistic vision spoke to members of the beat generation, hippies, radical poets and writers, and other voices of the counterculture. among the artists, musicians, and writers who looked to blake were such diverse figures as diane arbus, jay defeo, the doors, sam francis, allen ginsberg, jess, agnes martin, ad reinhardt, charles seliger, maurice sendak, robert smithson, clyfford still, and many others. this book also explores visual cultures around such galvanizing moments of the 1960s as woodstock and the summer of love.

william blake and the age of aquarius shows how blake's myths, visions, and radicalism found new life among american artists who valued individualism and creativity, explored expanded consciousness, and celebrated youth, peace, and the power of love in a turbulent age.

exhibition schedule:
mary and leigh block museum of art, northwestern university
september 23, 2017-march 11, 2018

free-roaming killer drones stalk the battlespace looking for organic targets. human combatants are programmed to feel no pain. highpower microwave beams detonate munitions, jam communications, and cook internal organs.

is this vision of future war possible, or even inevitable? in this timely new book, everett carl dolman examines the relationship between science and war. historically, science has played an important role in ending wars - think of the part played by tanks in breaching trench warfare in the first world war, or atom bombs in hastening the japanese surrender in the second world war - but to date this has only increased the danger and destructiveness of future conflicts. could science ever create the con-ditions of a permanent peace, either by making wars impossible to win, or so horrific that no one would ever fight? ultimately, dolman argues that science cannot, on its own, end war without also ending what it means to be human.

in his prose fiction, memoirs, poetry, and drama, thomas bernhard (1931-1989)-one of the twentieth century's most uniquely gifted writers-created a new and radical style, seemingly out of thin air. his books never "tell a story" in the received sense. instead, he rages on the page, he rants and spews vitriol about the moral failures of his homeland, austria, in the long amnesiac aftermath of the second world war.

yet this furious prose, seemingly shapeless but composed with unparalleled musicality, and taxing by conventional standards, has been powerfully echoed in many writers since bernhard's death in 1989. these explorers have found in bernhard's singular accomplishment new paths for the expression of life and truth.

thomas bernhard's afterlives examines the international mobilization of bernhard's style. writers in italian, german, spanish, hungarian, english, and french have succeeded in making bernhard's austrian vision an international vision. this book tells that story.

in the last half-century ludwig wittgenstein's relevance beyond analytic philosophy, to continental philosophy, to cultural studies, and to the arts has been widely acknowledged.

wittgenstein's tractatus logico-philosophicus was published in 1922 - the annus mirabilis of modernism - alongside joyce's ulysses, eliot's the waste land, mansfield's the garden party and woolf's jacob's room. bertolt brecht's first play to be produced, drums in the night, was first staged in 1922, as was jean cocteau's antigone, with settings by pablo picasso and music by arthur honegger. in different ways, all these modernist landmarks dealt with the crisis of representation and the demise of eternal metaphysical and ethical truths. wittgenstein's tractatus can be read as defining, expressing and reacting to this crisis. in his later philosophy, wittgenstein adopted a novel philosophical attitude, sensitive to the ordinary uses of language as well as to the unnoticed dogmas they may betray. if the gist of modernism is self-reflection and attention to the way form expresses content, then wittgenstein's later ideas - in their fragmented form as well as their "ear-opening" contents - deliver it most precisely.

understanding wittgenstein, understanding modernism shows wittgenstein's work, both early and late, to be closely linked to the modernist geist that prevailed during his lifetime. yet it would be wrong to argue that wittgenstein was a modernist tout court. for wittgenstein, as well as for modernist art, understanding is not gained by such straightforward statements. it needs time, hesitation, a variety of articulations, the refusal of tempting solutions, and perhaps even a sense of defeat. it is such a vision of the linkage between wittgenstein and modernism that guides the present volume.