Mikhail Bulgakov’s satirical novel The Master and Margarita offers a humorous and caustic depiction of 1930s Moscow. Woven around the premise of a visit by the devil to the fervently atheistic Soviet Union, it is directed against the repressive bureaucratic social order of the time. In chapter 12 of the book, the devil appears onstage at the Variety Theater and turns Moscow on its head. By appealing to their greed and desire for status, he turns the spectators into the spectacle. A close reading of the text confirms that the Theater is much more than a fictional setting for the chapter. Instead, it serves as a backdrop for a disturbing portrait of human frailty, a scathing criticism of Soviet bureaucracy and hypocrisy, and unmistakable references to real-life Moscow institutions and to the author’s personal experiences during the tumultuous 1930s. / text

Popular images of indigenous cultures, both past and present, have served to construct pernicious racial stereotypes of native peoples throughout the Americas. These stereotypes have led to the discrimination and marginalization of native peoples; however, they also have functioned to construct identities and cultural values of non-Indian people. Existing scholarship on the representation of native peoples of Latin America has focused on the ways that nineteenth-century elites in that region appropriated certain elements of indigenous cultures to construct a sense of national unity and historical continuity. However, this scholarship has overlooked the ways that images of the Maya produced social and cultural identities outside of Latin America, as the U.S. public avidly consumed a variety of images of the Maya and commercialized their material culture in the early twentieth century. Analyzing the question of identity construction through the appropriation of Mayan culture, this dissertation focuses on the U.S. construction and use of a particular racial discourse about native people. Public audiences consumed racial discourses in the context of a series of transnational cultural initiatives, including international expositions, popular film, and textile exhibits, which shaped public understandings of the Maya. I argue that despite growing public interest in Mayan culture and shifting understandings about the relationship between race and culture, these venues of visual display reinforced and reproduced older racial discourses of Indian degeneracy. I examine documentary evidence, such as travel brochures, newspapers, and archival materials to show that sites of visual display invented a new language of "indigeneity," which functioned to define not only native peoples, but also to shape U.S. public social identities. I conclude that the production of racial discourses of the Maya as culturally and racially inferior throughout the twentieth century defined contemporary understandings of U.S. identities and the role of indigenous history.

No description available.

This thesis studies the ways in which Swedish advertising agents tried to reshape advertising into a practise seen as working for the public benefit, and not just for economical profit of themselves and their clients. Earlier research on Swedish advertising has not paid enough attention to the advertising sectors ambitions to spread their views of advertising as a societal good during the 1930s. By investigating, among other things, the 4th Nordic Advertising Congress in 1937, which was held on the theme “Advertising serves society”, and the magazines Futurum and Reklam nyheterna, published by and for advertising agents in Sweden, this thesis shows that the Swedish advertising sector actively tried to represent advertising as an important factor in the improvement and modernization of Sweden. The arguments used to legitimize advertising as a question with relevance for the whole of society was intimately connected to ideals that are usually associated with the emergence of the Swedish welfare state, such as public health, social improvement, modernity and rationality. Earlier research tend to focus on the agency of the state in this period, but this study shows that also the private advertising sector of Sweden were embracing these ideals and playing a part in the processes creating these policies by advocating a society with more “propaganda” for things such as public health, better homes, and traffic safety.

No description available.

Gerald Heard (1889-1971) was an influential figure among the intelligentsia of the 1930s, once described by E.M. Forster as “one of the most penetrating minds in England.” However, he remains an ill-defined footnote, a marginal figure whose influence and reputation, although acknowledged, remains unexamined. This dissertation examines his life and work, and considers the role which Heard, as a generaliser and public intellectual, played in the intellectual landscape of the 1930s. Central to Heard’s philosophy was a belief that society was in need of a spiritual and psychological force which could allow isolated individuals to participate in community with one another. Heard’s solution to bring about this evolution of consciousness would prove to be partly psychological, partly mystical and partly down to the product of a particular way of living. The first chapter outlines Heard’s philosophy in detail. Subsequent chapters are structured so as to provide a loose biographical chronology, each focussing on a different phase of Heard’s career and examining the development of his thought. Running throughout the dissertation is a consideration of Heard’s role as a public intellectual. It was as a popular ‘generaliser’ of thought that Heard found his public, and the limited degree of success he found as a man of action could be seen to be a natural limitation of the role he had constructed for himself. Chapter II focuses on Heard’s time as personal secretary to Sir Horace Plunkett, father of the Irish Co-Operative Movement, and how the ideals of this movement can be seen to inform his developing ideas of human community. Chapter III looks at Heard’s role as a broadcaster with the B.B.C., where he became a noted populariser of science, firmly establishing himself as a public figure and cultural authority. It is arguably this increased public profile which provided Heard with a ‘public’ to whom he could address his ideas. Chapter IV, drawing on archival material from Dartington Hall, considers Heard’s role as a lecturer at Dartington School, and more importantly his first experiment to establish a small ‘group’ for meditation in an attempt to discover the mystical and psychological basis for a co-operative society. Chapter V examines his career as an outspoken pacifist, where he would advance his arguments for a radical reorganisation of society as a practical solution to the question of peace and further attempt to become a man of action.

This dissertation examines the powerful role that museums played in constructing national art-historical narratives during the 1930s. By concentrating on Three Centuries of American Art—the 1938 exhibition organized by the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) for viewing in Paris—I argue that the intertwining of art, political diplomacy, and canon formation uncovered by an analysis of the exhibition reveals American art’s unique role in supporting shared 1930s cultural ideologies. MoMA’s curators created the most comprehensive exhibition to date of the history of American art with works from 1590 through 1938, and with over five hundred architectural models, drawings, films, paintings, photographs, prints, sculptures, and vernacular artworks. With World War II on the horizon, these artworks took on new meaning as the embodiment of the United States. Adding complexity to notions of display, five chapters trace in chronological order how curators, politicians, journalists and art critics reimagined American art in the display, canonization, and reception of Three Centuries of American Art. Chapter 1 gives a synopsis of the exhibition, places it within the larger discourse of American art exhibitions in Paris, and documents how American and French relations developed during this pivotal time. Chapter 2 explores the different meanings ascribed to the artworks during loan negotiations and maps the works’ transportation to Paris. Chapter 3 elaborates on the notion of a unified American art in the 1930s by examining the histories of art created by each of MoMA’s departments. Chapter 4 offers the first substantive historiography of 1930s publications that examined American art across media to determine instances when MoMA curators echoed prior histories and when they deviated from them at a moment when scholars disputed the merit of such disciplinary histories. Chapter 5 grapples with the means by which audiences first learned about Three Centuries of American Art and unearths what American and international critics wrote about the exhibition. In sum, Three Centuries of American Art provides a model to understand how MoMA curators inserted their histories of American art into the emerging art historical discourse and how government agencies invested them with political meaning during the critical interwar period. / 2018-08-11T00:00:00Z

Student Number : 8546313 - PhD thesis - School of Arts - Faculty of Humanites / This thesis interrogates the extent to which the façades of, and decorative programmes in, selected South African public and commercial buildings erected during the decade 1930 – 40 may be understood as important indexes of the various ideological, social and historical concerns underpinning the construction of an imaginary of national belonging during this period. In the context of rapid urbanisation, burgeoning industrialisation, and rampant capitalism that characterise the period, issues of nationalism and political power are brought into sharp relief, with three political agendas competing for dominance: Afrikaner nationalism at one extreme and British imperialism at the other, with, from 1933 to the end of the decade, the insipid ‘South Africa First’ nationalism of the Smuts-Hertzog ‘fusion’ government occupying a highly contested space somewhere between the two. I argue in this thesis that the rhetoric of ‘unity in diversity’ that informs the fusion politics of the 1930s, and particularly its expression in the decorative programmes of public buildings provides for a more nuanced reading of the political and cultural landscape of 1930s South Africa than has been the case to date, where the focus has tended towards deconstructing the cultural nationalism of the 1930s in terms of the rise of Afrikaner nationalism. Moreover, it also serves as a compelling reference point against which to assess contemporary South African attempts to re-narrate notions of nationhood, and the extent to which difficult arguments around ethnicity, autochthony, and the construction of imaginary new ‘publics’ are articulated in post-apartheid public architecture. Chapter 1 is a review of the literature that informs this thesis; both as regards the art historical discourse on South African inter-World War art and architecture, as well as theoretical issues arising from writing on nationalism, national identity, and the role that art and architecture plays in evolving the nation code. In Chapters 2 and 3, I consider the ways in which the notions of identity arising from fusion politics are played out in the decorative programmes of two significant public buildings, South Africa House in London (1933) in Chapter 2 and the Pretoria City Hall (1935) in Chapter 3. I argue that both these buildings are classic examples of the manifestation in architectural terms of the hybrid identity being forged by the centrist ‘South Africa first’ ideologues, in so far as their decorative programmes express an uncomfortable alliance between the entrenched values of British imperialism and a burgeoning Afrikaner nationalism. In Chapter 4, I contrast the decorative programme of the headquarters of the new Afrikaner insurance companies SANTAM and SANLAM (1932) with that of the new corporate headquarters of the Commercial Union Assurance Company (1932), a British owned firm that had had a presence in Cape Town since 1863. The differences in effect of the decorative programmes of these two buildings serve to illuminate the extent of the ideological posturing of volkskapitalisme and its construction of a ‘modern African/Afrikaner’ identity within the imperialist heartland of Cape Town. These debates are brought into sharp relief by the third example discussed in this chapter, the Old Mutual building (1940), the decorative programme of which effectively conflates these concerns with modernity and nationalism in order to construct a hybrid ‘South Africanism’ that neatly elides Boer and Brit imaginings. In conclusion, I show in Chapter 5 how the post-apartheid South African situation presents an interesting case study in terms of constructing an imaginary of national belonging rooted in similar notions of ‘unity in diversity’. Examples here include important national architectural commissions like the legislature buildings for the newly constituted provinces of Mpumalanga (1999) and the Northern Cape (2003), as well as the new Constitutional Court in Johannesburg (2004). In this chapter, I interrogate these debates, and conclude by pointing to parallels with the case studies from the 1930s. The post-1994 examples in question have been widely celebrated as exemplary of a new and appropriate response to the challenges of public building in democratic South Africa. I suggest, however, that the lessons of the 1930s should serve as a reminder that the ostensible dichotomy between ‘good’ (civic) and ‘bad’ (ethnic) nationalism is perhaps not as natural and obvious as it may appear, and that both are equally problematic.

Apresentação dos elementos básicos da produção teatral ligeira no Brasil, requisito para a compreensão da história do teatro brasileiro no século XX, focando a encenação como produto que pode ser avaliado sob três prismas (estética, moralidade e diversão) enquanto valor de uso, mas que demanda a produção de valor de troca. Reconstituição histórica do teatro ligeiro, partindo de seu surgimento enquanto \"gênero alegre\" em meados do século XIX na cidade do Rio de Janeiro, passando por sua transformação em teatro ligeiro musicado na virada do século, consolidada com a adoção do procedimento das sessões. Apresentação do teatro ligeiro cômico, apontando seu surgimento com o Teatro Trianon, a partir de 1915, e enfocando seu desenvolvimento durante a década de 1920. Exposição cronológica do desenvolvimento do teatro ligeiro cômico no Rio de Janeiro durante a década de 1930, ano a ano, enfocando os principais acontecimentos. Relatório sobre o surgimento da peça social e a representação de Deus lhe Pague, de Joracy Camargo, por Procópio Ferreira. Relatório sobre a atuação da Companhia Dulcina-Odilon durante a década, apresentando seus grandes sucessos e a consolidação da imagem de empresa teatral de qualidade superior. Relatório sobre as atividades de Renato Vianna, enfocando suas iniciativas e as relações com a produção ligeira. Relatório sobre a atuação do Estado, que se torna sistemática a partir da metade da década e interfere no equilíbrio de forças no ambiente cultural brasileiro. Relatório sobre as atividades dos grupos amadores que passam a pressionar a produção ligeira e convertem-se em uma possibilidade alternativa de produção teatral. Relatório analisando cinco comédias históricas encenadas no final da década / Presentation of the basic elements of theatrical production in Brazil, requirement for understanding the history of Brazilian theater in the twentieth century, focusing on three prisms (aesthetics, morality and fun). Historical reconstruction of light theatre (\"teatro ligeiro\"), from its emergence in mid-nineteenth century in Rio de Janeiro, through its transformation in musical theater at the turn of the century, consolidated by adopting the procedure of the sessions. Presentation of light comedy (\"teatro ligeiro cômico\"), pointing its appearance with the Theatre Trianon, from 1915, and focusing on its development during the 1920s. Chronological development of light comedy (\"comédia ligeira\") in Rio de Janeiro during the 1930s, year by year, focusing on the main events: 1. Deus lhe Pague (Joracy Camargo) presentation; 2. Company Dulcina-Odilon performance; 3. Renato Vianna activities; 4. the State action; 5. Amateur Groups activities. Report examining five historical comedies staged at the end of the decade.

During the 1930s a large number of cultural artifacts presented rural Iowa to national audiences as an ideal place where the "real" America still flourished despite the harsh realities of the Great Depression. Artist Grant Wood's lush landscapes, novelist Phil Stong's trustworthy farmers, and cartoonist "Ding" Darling's pragmatic Iowans, are among the creations that comforted Americans from 1930-1936. These texts gained attention from audiences not only because they invoked peaceful pastoral imagery, but also because they frequently presented a monolithic patriarchal society without ethnic and racial diversity or social class distinctions. This presentation of Caucasian normativity was a tonic for many Americans who felt unnerved by the floundering economy and still recognized the deep divisions of the previous decade, which had resulted in race riots, immigration restrictions, and labor unrest. These splits were still present in the 1930s, even though that decade has come to be remembered primarily for the economic crisis and dust storms which spawned famous representations of Dust Bowl migrants. Those conditions were real, but the cultural importance of productive, honest (white) Iowa farmers during the first half of the Depression has, by comparison, been largely forgotten. In four chapters which respectively analyze journalism, art and literature, films, and political speeches from the period, I seek to rectify this historical oversight and offer a glimpse into how Americans, when faced with an ongoing crisis, may be encouraged to embrace a "simpler" way of life belonging to an imagined past.