Category Archives: Politics

June 15

Enrico Baj: Anarchist at Heart

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On the 15th of June 2003, Italian painter, sculptor, writer and anarchist Enrico Baj died in Vergiate, Italy. In his works he focused mainly on politically engaged themes such as the threat of nuclear war or the political situation in Italy under Berlusconi. Baj was one of the founders of the Nuclear Art Movement that […]

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June 01

Paco Peña: Flamenco and the Question of National Identity in Spain

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On the 1st of June 1942, the Spanish Flamenco composer and guitarist Paco Peña was born in Córdoba, Spain. Regarded as one of the world’s foremost traditional Flamenco players, Peña began his professional career very early in life. He learnt playing the guitar at the age of six, and by twelve he made his first professional appearances. […]

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May 09

Political Criticism in Harold Gray’s ‘Little Orphan Annie’

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On the 9th of May 1968, American cartoonist Harold Gray died in La Jolla, California. His death marked the end of a very prolific career, but the fame of his newspaper comic strip, Little Orphan Annie, outlived him for a very long time. The story of an innocent vagabond girl wandering through a world of […]

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April 20

Easter, 1916 by W. B. Yeats

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 Easter Quote Week Easter, 1916 is a poem by W. B. Yeats charting the poet’s torn emotions regarding the events of the Easter Rising staged in Ireland against British rule on Easter Monday, 24th of April 1916. The uprising was a failure, and most of the Irish republican leaders involved were executed for treason. The […]

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April 02

Shakespeare in Politics: Ustinov’s Romanoff and Juliet

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On the 2nd of April 1956, German-Russian born director Peter Ustinov’s screenplay Romanoff and Juliet premiered as a theatrical performance in Manchester, England. A Broadway production followed and a Hollywood film adaptation, all starring and directed by Ustinov himself. An impressive cultural figurehead worldwide, Ustinov holds multiple awards for this work, such as the Tony, […]

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April 01

Mechanisms of Totalitarianism in Kundera’s “The Joke”

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On the 1st of April 1929, the Czech Republic’s most recognized living writer, and author of the highly acclaimed novel, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera was born in Brno, then Czechoslovakia. His books were banned in his country by the Communist authorities until the Velvet Revolution of 1989. The author himself, once a […]

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March 30

Fortunato Depero’s Futurist Toy

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On the 30th of March 1892, Italian Futurist artist Fortunato Depero was born in Fondo, Trentino. In his youth, he was apprentice to a marble worker, which may explain his future interest in shape, form and design. On a 1913 trip to Florence, he discovered a copy of Giovanni Papini’s periodical Lacerba, which prophesized the […]

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