Fashioning the Self: Identity and Style in British Culture

Edited by Emily Priscott

'Fashioning the Self: Identity and Style in British Culture' offers an eclectic approach to contemporary fashion studies. Taking a broad definition of British culture, this collection of essays explores the significance of style to issues such as colonialism, race, gender and class, embracing topics as diverse as eighteenth-century portraiture, literary dress culture and Edwardian working-class glamour. Examining the emblematic power of garments themselves and the context in which they are styled, this work interrogates the ways that personal style can itself decontextualize garments to radically reframe their meanings. Using an intentionally eclectic range of subjects from an interdisciplinary perspective, this collection builds on the work of theorists such as Aileen Ribeiro, Vika Martina Plock, Cheryl Buckley and Hilary Fawcett, to examine the social significance of personal style, while also highlighting the diversity of British culture itself.

Perspective: Selected Essays on Space in Art and Design

Edited by Sarina Miller, Temple University

'Perspective: Selected Essays on Space in Art and Design' explores the ways in which visual and physical space have been designed and experienced in different cultures. This book amplifies the significance of space as a design element by examining its implications in various contexts through a global perspective of art and design.

Designed to Impress: Guido Mazenta’s Plans for the Entry of Gregoria Maximiliana of Austria into Milan (1597)

With an edition of Madrid MS 2908

Janis Bell et al.

Soon after celebrating the appointment of Federico Borromeo to Archbishop, the city of Milan began planning elaborate festivities to celebrate the betrothal of Prince Philip, future King of Spain, to the niece of the Holy Roman Emperor, Gregoria Maximiliana. She was scheduled to travel through Milan in 1597 on her journey to Spain. Guido Mazenta, a private citizen, planned for the erection of five triumphal arches in strategic locations throughout the city. This volume includes studies of the author and his previously unrecognized importance in turn-of-the-century Milan, presents an analysis and transcription of his illustrated manuscript for the program (Biblioteca Nacional Ms. 2908), and fully examines the scope and expenses of the festivities in honor of royal visitors in the second half of the sixteenth century. Although Gregoria died before the planned celebration, many of its features were transferred to the entry in 1598 of her sister, Margherita, who married Philip soon after he ascended to the throne as Philip III of Spain. This celebration left a permanent mark on the city of Milan through the construction of the Porta Romana. Scholars of early modern European art and history will find a richness of new archival documentation, particularly those interested in the history of book and art collecting and in economic history. The essays in this volume bring to light the important role of a private citizen whose reputation was later deliberately obscured to cover the ignominy that led to his exile from Milan. Janis Bell and Stefano Bruzzese discuss the author and his activities, Silvio Leydi discusses the many elaborate festivities conducted for royal visitors to the city of Milan during the Hapsburg reign and the expenses involved in hosting their courts, and Elisa Ruiz Garcia presents a detailed examination of the program and the sources used by the author.

Voicing Memories, Unearthing Identities: Studies in the Twenty-First-Century Literatures of Eastern and East-Central Europe

Edited by Aleksandra Konarzewska, University of Tübingen, Germany and Anna Nakai, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, Japan

In the region known as Eastern and East-Central Europe, the framework provided by memory studies became highly valuable for understanding the overload of interpretations and conflicting perspectives on events during the twentieth century. The trauma of two world wars, the development of collective consciousness according to national and ethnic categories, stories of the trampled lands and lives of people, and resistance to the rule of authoritarian and totalitarian terrors—these trajectories left complex layers of identities to unfold. The following volume addresses the issue of identity as a pivot in studies of memory and literature. In this context, it addresses the question of cultural negotiation as it took shape between memory and literature, history and literature, and memory and history, with the help of contemporary authors and their works. The authors take the literature of countries such as Estonia, Poland, Serbia, Ukraine, and Russia as the point of departure, and explain its significance in terms of geographical, theoretical, and thematic perspectives.

Thomas Jefferson’s 'Notes on the State of Virginia': A Prolegomena

M. Andrew Holowchak

Why did Jefferson write 'Notes on the State of Virginia'? There are today two common theses. The first, the Alphabet-Soup Thesis, maintains that the book is more or less a loose collection of notes in answer to the 22 queries given by French diplomat François Barbé-Marbois. Jefferson’s altering the arrangement of his answers to the questions is a matter of allowing for a smoother “narrative” for his answers, but other than that, one ought to be cautious not to read too much into his restructuring. The second, the Deconstructionist Thesis, is that meticulous deconstruction of the text reveals a latent thesis, which Jefferson, consciously or subconsciously, kept from his readers. Both views are problematic. The former cannot explain why Jefferson fell so deeply into the project, rearranged Marbois’ questions so that the book would flow smoothly from nature to culture, and continually revise his often-lengthy answers, even after the Stockdale edition in 1787. The latter suffers from the fact that Jefferson tended never to write elliptically. "Thomas Jefferson’s ‘Notes on the State of Virginia’: A Prolegomena" is an attempt to provide an alternative, “dialectical” reading to current interpretations of the book. The book, Holowchak asserts, is neither a simple omnium gatherum nor is its message accessible only through deconstruction. There is an obvious movement from nature (Gr., 'phusis') in the first seven queries to culture (Gr., 'nomos') in the remaining 16 queries, but that “movement” is not linear. Early naturalistic queries set up neatly Jefferson’s discussion of the cultural aspects of Virginia, and Jefferson’s explication of the cultural aspects of Virginia cannot be grasped without frequent returns to the naturalistic queries, hence its dialectic. Jefferson’s aim overall, sums Holowchak, is the appropriation of what nature had given for humans’ use—to perfect the social state by taming nature and putting it to use for human betterment.