Tag Archives: readings/research

Refugee Intellectuals

“Refugee Intellectuals: (1930-1940) During the 1930s, a galaxy of European intellectuals–authors, artists, scholars, scientists–fled European totalitarianism and found refuge, permanent or temporary, in the United States. Their contributions to the nation’s cultural life–and later to its war effort–were incalculable. The hundreds of refugee intellectuals included:

  • George Balanchine, Russian dancer and choreographer, to U.S. 1933
  • Hans Bethe, German physicist, to U.S. 1935.
  • Bertolt Brecht, German playwright and poet, in U.S. 1941-49
  • Marcel Breuer, Hungarian architect, to U.S. 1937
  • Rudolf Carnap, German philosopher, to U.S. 1936
  • Albert Einstein, German physicist, to U.S. 1933
  • Erik Erikson, German psychoanalyst, to U.S. 1933
  • Max Ernst, German painter, in U.S. 1939-49
  • Enrico Fermi, Italian physicist, to U.S. 1938
  • Erich Fromm, German psychoanalyst, to U.S. 1934
  • Walter Gropius, German architect, to U.S. 1937
  • George Grosz, German painter, to U.S. 1933
  • Paul Hindemith, German composer, in U.S. 1940-52
  • Hans Hofmann, German painter, to U.S. 1930
  • Karen Horney, German psychoanalyst, to U.S. 1932
  • Wolfgang Kohler, German psychologist, to U.S. 1934
  • Fritz Lang, German film director, to U.S. 1934
  • Thomas Mann, German author, in U.S. 1938-53
  • Herbert Marcuse, German political philosopher, to U.S. 1934
  • Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, German architect, to U.S. 1937
  • Lazlo Moholy-Nagy, Hungarian painter, to U.S. 1937
  • Hans Morgenthau, German political scientist, to U.S. 1937
  • Erwin Panovsky, German art historian, to U.S.
  • Erwin Piscator, German theatrical director, in U.S. 1939-1951
  • Arnold Schoenberg, Austrian composer, to U.S. 1931
  • Joseph Schumpeter, Austrian economist, to U.S. 1932
  • Isaac Bashevis Singer, Polish-Yiddish novelist, to U.S. 1935
  • Igor Stravinsky, Russian composer, to U.S. 1937
  • George Szell, Hungarian conductor, to U.S. 1937
  • Leo Szilard, Hungarian physicist, to U.S. 1938
  • Edward Teller, Hungarian physicist, to U.S. 1935
  • Paul Tillich, German theologian, to U.S. 1933
  • Arturo Toscanini, Italian conductor, to U.S. 1930
  • John Von Neumann, Hungarian mathematician, to U.S. 1930
  • Bruno Walter, German conductor, to U.S. 1938
  • Kurt Weill, German composer, to U.S. 1935
  • Max Wertheimer, German psychologist, to U.S. 1933
  • Eugene Wigner, Hungarian physicist, to U.S. 1930

Excerpted from: Rosenbaum, Robert A. The Penguin Encyclopedia of American History. New York: Penguin, 2003.

Common Errors in English Usage: Meantime/Meanwhile

Here is a worksheet on the use of meantime and meanwhile. As Paul Brians, the author of Common Errors in English Usage (to which he generously allows access at no charge at his Washington State University web page), from which this worksheet is adapted, observes, most people use these words interchangeably. Merriam-Webster appears to think so, identifying them as synonyms to each other in the electronic version of its Collegiate Encyclopedia (11th Edition). At the same time, Merriam-Webster designates both words, when separated by dashes (i.e. mean-time and mean-while) as nouns.

Yet, as Professor Brians also points out, some usage experts designated specific uses for each of these adverbs and nouns. It is that designation that drives this worksheet, which is a full page and features a reading of two longish sentences and five modified cloze exercises. This might be a useful exercise for opening a discussion about, well, English usage; that in turn might lead to a review of a usage manual to familiarize students with the, well, usefulness, of such a book.

If you find typos in this document, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

Concepts in Sociology: Ageism

“ageism: A term first employed by Dr. R.N. Butler, director of the American Institute for Aging in 1968. It refers to the negative stereotype of elderly individuals, which prejudicially describes them as senile, rigid in their attitudes and psychologically and socially dependent. Ageism has become important as a political issue with the greying of populations in Western societies. ‘New ageism’ refers to intergenerational conflicts where the elderly are condemned for being ‘takers’ and not ‘givers.’”

Excerpted from: Abercrombie, Nicholas, Stephen Hill, and Bryan S. Turner. Dictionary of Sociology. New York: Penguin, 2006.

Abstract-Creation

“Abstraction-Creation: A group of abstract artists gathered in Paris in the 1930s—some of them exiles from Nazi Germany—which attracted representatives of all currents of Abstract Art, from Constructivism to Suprematism. The group issued an annual periodical by the same name.”

Excerpted from: Diamond, David G. The Bulfinch Pocket Dictionary of Art Terms. Boston: Little Brown, 1992.

Word Origins: Banana

“banana: [L16th] Africa is the original home of the banana. The word traveled to English through Portuguese and Spanish from Mande, a language group of West Africa, arriving in the 16th century. In the 20th century slang expressions began to appear. American people began to go bananas with excitement, anger, or frustration in the 1950s. The top banana, ‘the most important person in an organization,’ derives from US theatrical slang. It referred to the comedian with top billing in a show, a use first recorded in 1953 from a US newspaper, which also mentions second and third bananas. People have been slipping on a banana skin since the beginning of the 20th century: the comic writer P.G. Wodehouse (1881-1975) referred in 1934 to “Treading upon Life’s banana skins.” The banana republic, a small state, especially in Central America, whose economy is almost entirely dependent on its fruit-exporting trade, was referred to as early as 1904.”

Excerpted from: Creswell, Julia. Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010.

Realism

“Realism: Fidelity to natural appearances without slavish attention to minute details (see Naturalism). As a movement, it goes back to Courbet and Manet in the 1850s and culminates in Impressionism.”

Excerpted from: Diamond, David G. The Bulfinch Pocket Dictionary of Art Terms. Boston: Little Brown, 1992.

Word Origins: Diamond

“diamond: [ME] The name of the gem derives from a medieval Latin alteration of Latin adamans ADAMANT. Adamant was a legendary rock or mineral of many supposed properties. One of these was hardness, which was a reason why people sometimes identified it with diamond. A diamond is forever was used as an advertising slogan for De Beers Consolidated Mines from the late 1940s onwards, and in 1956 Ian Fleming used Diamonds are Forever as the title of his latest James Bond thriller, but the idea was first expressed by the American writer Anita Loos, in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1925). ‘Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend‘ was a song written by Leo Robin and Jule Styne for the 1949 stage musical of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.”

Excerpted from: Creswell, Julia. Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010.

Cultural Literacy: Indulgence

When I taught or co-taught global studies, it was a topic that the curricula, unlike the often superficial passes through other important historical processes, focused on at relatively inordinate length, so this Cultural Literacy on the concept of an indulgence, at three sentences and three questions on a half-page document, was insufficient.

Still, it opens the door to discuss this weird medieval financial instrument–swapping earthly gains (often obtained through exploitative and violent means) for heavenly salvation. As the reading observes, indulgences were one of the things that infuriated Martin Luther and therefore began The Reformation. They also demonstrate, should anyone care to take a discussion in this direction, the apparently bottomless human capacity for self-delusion, corruption, and folly.

If you find typos in this document, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

Ready-Mades

“Ready-mades: Associated with Dada, especially with Marcel Duchamp, these are randomly selected and mass-produced found objects, often nonsensically combined and presented as art. For Duchamp, found objects implied the exercise of aesthetic taste, whereas ready-mades did not.”

Excerpted from: Diamond, David G. The Bulfinch Pocket Dictionary of Art Terms. Boston: Little Brown, 1992.

Red Guards

“Red Guards: Radical university and high-school students formed into paramilitary units of the Chinese Cultural Revolution. They responded in 1966 to Mao Zedong’s call to revitalize the revolutionary spirit of the Chinese Communist Party and went so far as to attempt purging the country of its pre-Communist culture. With a membership in the millions, they attacked and persecuted local party leaders, schoolteachers, and other intellectuals. By early 1967 they had overthrown party authorities in many localities. Internal strife ensued as units argued over which best represented Maoist thought. Their disruptions of industrial production and urban life led the government to redirect them to the countryside in 1968, where the movement gradually subsided.”

Excerpted from: Stevens, Mark A., Ed. Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Encyclopedia. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, 2000.