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1920s Berlin
The Golden Twenties was a particular vibrant period in the history of Berlin. After the Greater Berlin Act the city became the third largest municipality in the world and experienced its heyday as a major world city. It was known for its leadership roles in science, the humanities, art, music, film, architecture, higher education, government, diplomacy and industries. Culture The Weimar Republic era began in the midst of several major movements in the fine arts. German Expressionism had begun before World War I and continued to have a strong influence throughout the 1920s, although artists were increasingly likely to position themselves in opposition to expressionist tendencies as the decade went on. A sophisticated, innovative culture developed in and around Berlin, including highly developed architecture and design (Bauhaus, 1919–33), a variety of literature ( Döblin, ''Berlin Alexanderplatz'', 1929), film ( Lang, ''Metropolis'', 1927, Dietrich, ''Der blaue Engel'', 1930), ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Golden Twenties
The Golden Twenties ( also known as the Happy Twenties (german: Glückliche Zwanziger Jahre), was a five-year time period within the decade of the 1920s in Germany. The era began in 1924 after the end of the hyperinflation following on World War I and ended with the Wall Street Crash of 1929. The German term is often applied to the country's experience of healthy economic growth, expansion of liberal values in society and spurt in experimental and creative efforts in the field of art. Before this period, the Weimar Republic had experienced record-breaking levels of inflation of one trillion percent between January 1919 and November 1923. The inflation was so severe that printed currency was often used as domestic fuel, and everyday requirements such as food, soap and electricity cost a wheelbarrow full of banknotes. It was only after radical economic reform measures initiated by the Weimar Republic, such as introduction of a new currency, the ''Rentenmark'', tighter fiscal contro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Walter Benjamin
Walter Bendix Schönflies Benjamin (; ; 15 July 1892 – 26 September 1940) was a German Jewish philosopher, cultural critic and essayist. An eclectic thinker, combining elements of German idealism, Romanticism, Western Marxism, and Jewish mysticism, Benjamin made enduring and influential contributions to aesthetic theory, literary criticism, and historical materialism. He was associated with the Frankfurt School, and also maintained formative friendships with thinkers such as playwright Bertolt Brecht and Kabbalah scholar Gershom Scholem. He was also related to German political theorist and philosopher Hannah Arendt through her first marriage to Benjamin's cousin Günther Anders. Among Benjamin's best known works are the essays " The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" (1935), and "Theses on the Philosophy of History" (1940). His major work as a literary critic included essays on Baudelaire, Goethe, Kafka, Kraus, Leskov, Proust, Walser, and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
I Am A Camera
''I Am a Camera'' is a 1951 Broadway play by John Van Druten adapted from Christopher Isherwood's 1939 novel ''Goodbye to Berlin'', which is part of ''The Berlin Stories''. The title is a quotation taken from the novel's first page: "I am a camera with its shutter open, quite passive, recording, not thinking." The original production was staged by John Van Druten, with scenic and lighting design by Boris Aronson and costumes by Ellen Goldsborough. It opened at the Empire Theatre in New York City on November 28, 1951 and ran for 214 performances before closing on July 12, 1952. The production was a critically acclaimed success for both Julie Harris as the insouciant Sally Bowles, winning her the first of five Tony Awards of her career for Best Leading Actress in a play, and for Marian Winters, who won both the Theatre World Award and Tony Award for Featured Actress in a Play. The play also won for John Van Druten the New York Drama Critics' Circle for Best American Play (1952). I ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Berlin Stories
''The Berlin Stories'' is a 1945 anthology by Anglo-American writer Christopher Isherwood consisting of two novels: ''Mr Norris Changes Trains'' (1935) and ''Goodbye to Berlin'' (1939). The two novels are set in Jazz Age Berlin between 1930 and 1933 on the cusp of Adolf Hitler's ascent to power. Berlin is portrayed by Isherwood during this chaotic interwar period as a carnival of debauchery and despair inhabited by desperate people who are unaware of the national catastrophe that awaits them. The first novel in the anthology focuses upon the misadventures of Arthur Norris, a character based upon an unscrupulous businessman named Gerald Hamilton whom Isherwood met in the Weimar Republic. The second novel recounts the travails of various Berlin denizens whose lives are directly or indirectly affected by the Nazis' rise to power. Isherwood based the character of Sally Bowles on teenage cabaret singer Jean Ross, Isherwood's intimate friend during his sojourn in Berlin. The anth ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Christopher Isherwood
Christopher William Bradshaw Isherwood (26 August 1904 – 4 January 1986) was an Anglo-American novelist, playwright, screenwriter, autobiographer, and diarist. His best-known works include '' Goodbye to Berlin'' (1939), a semi-autobiographical novel which inspired the musical '' Cabaret''; '' A Single Man'' (1964), adapted as a film by Tom Ford in 2009; and ''Christopher and His Kind'' (1976), a memoir which "carried him into the heart of the Gay Liberation movement". Biography Early life and work Isherwood was born in 1904 on his family's estate in Cheshire near Stockport in the north-west of England. He was the elder son of Francis Edward Bradshaw Isherwood (1869–1915), known as Frank, a professional soldier in the York and Lancaster Regiment, and Kathleen Bradshaw Isherwood, nee Machell Smith (1868–1960), the only daughter of a successful wine merchant. He was the grandson of John Henry Isherwood, squire of Marple Hall and Wyberslegh Hall, Cheshire, and he includ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stephen Spender
Sir Stephen Harold Spender (28 February 1909 – 16 July 1995) was an English poet, novelist and essayist whose work concentrated on themes of social injustice and the class struggle. He was appointed Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry by the United States Library of Congress in 1965. Early life Spender was born in Kensington, London, to journalist Harold Spender and Violet Hilda Schuster, a painter and poet, of German Jewish heritage. He went first to Hall School in Hampstead and then at 13 to Gresham's School, Holt and later Charlecote School in Worthing, but he was unhappy there. On the death of his mother, he was transferred to University College School (Hampstead), which he later described as "that gentlest of schools". Spender left for Nantes and Lausanne and then went up to University College, Oxford (much later, in 1973, he was made an honorary fellow). Spender said at various times throughout his life that he never passed any exam. Perhaps his closest f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
General Public
In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individual people, and the public (a.k.a. the general public) is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociological concept of the ''Öffentlichkeit'' or public sphere. The concept of a public has also been defined in political science, psychology, marketing, and advertising. In public relations and communication science, it is one of the more ambiguous concepts in the field. Although it has definitions in the theory of the field that have been formulated from the early 20th century onwards, and suffered more recent years from being blurred, as a result of conflation of the idea of a public with the notions of audience, market segment, community, constituency, and stakeholder. Etymology and definitions The name "public" originates with the Latin ''publicus'' (also '' poplicus''), from ''populus'', to the English word ' populace', and in general denotes some mass population ("the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Esoteric
Western esotericism, also known as esotericism, esoterism, and sometimes the Western mystery tradition, is a term scholars use to categorise a wide range of loosely related ideas and movements that developed within Western society. These ideas and currents are united since they are largely distinct both from orthodox Judeo-Christian religion and Enlightenment rationalism. Esotericism has pervaded various forms of Western philosophy, religion, pseudoscience, art, literature, and music—and continues to influence intellectual ideas and popular culture. The idea of grouping a wide range of Western traditions and philosophies together under the term ''esotericism'' developed in Europe during the late seventeenth century. Various academics have debated various definitions of Western esotericism. One view adopts a definition from certain esotericist schools of thought themselves, treating "esotericism" as a perennial hidden inner tradition. A second perspective sees esotericism a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Occult
The occult, in the broadest sense, is a category of esoteric supernatural beliefs and practices which generally fall outside the scope of religion and science, encompassing phenomena involving otherworldly agency, such as magic and mysticism and their varied spells. It can also refer to supernatural ideas like extra-sensory perception and parapsychology. The term ''occult sciences'' was used in 16th-century Europe to refer to astrology, alchemy, and natural magic. The term ''occultism'' emerged in 19th-century France, amongst figures such as Antoine Court de Gébelin. It came to be associated with various French esoteric groups connected to Éliphas Lévi and Papus, and in 1875 was introduced into the English language by the esotericist Helena Blavatsky. Throughout the 20th century, the term was used idiosyncratically by a range of different authors, but by the 21st century was commonly employed – including by academic scholars of esotericism – to refer to a ran ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Astrology
Astrology is a range of divinatory practices, recognized as pseudoscientific since the 18th century, that claim to discern information about human affairs and terrestrial events by studying the apparent positions of celestial objects. Different cultures have employed forms of astrology since at least the 2nd millennium BCE, these practices having originated in calendrical systems used to predict seasonal shifts and to interpret celestial cycles as signs of divine communications. Most, if not all, cultures have attached importance to what they observed in the sky, and some—such as the Hindus, Chinese, and the Maya—developed elaborate systems for predicting terrestrial events from celestial observations. Western astrology, one of the oldest astrological systems still in use, can trace its roots to 19th–17th century BCE Mesopotamia, from where it spread to Ancient Greece, Rome, the Islamic world, and eventually Central and Western Europe. Contemporary Western as ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
