Social Roles / Political Responsibilities: Jean Renoir's Search for Artistic Integrity, 1928-1939
Throughout his life, Jean Renoir-the son of a renowned painter, a onetime potter, and filmmaker -was preoccupied with the role of the artist in society. What was the artist's place in, and his/her responsibilities to, the world (but particularly to France)? Under what conditions could an artist function and do meaningful work-not only meaningful for society but for him/herself? These were ethical, moral, and political questions with which Renoir wrestled, finding no easy answers, no simple verities. Rather he was often troubled by the relationship between artist and society which he understood as a dynamic one in need of constant reconsideration.
The Genesis and Effect of the Popular Front in France
Harr's study casts new light on the evolution and significance of the Soviet tactic of the popular front; thereby deepening our historical understanding and our political sophistication.
“To those who choose to follow in our footsteps”: making women/LGBT+ soldiers (in)visible through feminist “her-story” theater
Building on Judith Butler ’ s understanding of visibility as “ the object of continuous regulation and contestation, ” art/aesthetics studies in international relations, and feminist theater studies, we identify feminist “ her-story ” theater as a unique site where Western “ gender-/sexuality-inclusive ” soldiering is visibilized, contested, and subverted. Drawing on ethnographic observations of two award-winning dramas, interviews with artists and military hosts, and ﬁ ndings from a wider research project on contemporary British military culture, we reveal the key role of heteronormative and patriarchal cultural discourses in reproducing the ambivalent positionalities of women/LGBT+ soldiers. We argue that the very visibility of women/LGBT+ soldiers on the stage paradoxically operates to make the complexities of – and struggles against – masculinized heteronormative military cultures invisible. Furthermore, despite artists ’ attempts to dissociate empowerment through soldiering from the problematic context of modern con ﬂ icts, “ her-story ” theater ultimately entrenches gendered/racialized hierarchies that normalize Western military interventions. We conclude that only through sustained feminist re ﬂ ection on the contours of “ imagined ” futures of female/ LGBT+ soldiering can this persistently problematic (in)visibility be productively disrupted.