A Learner's Journey – Lars Dittmer

Schlagwort: culture

  • Studio 54: Admission policies as a form of individualism in New York seventies’ most famous disco and its display in film and literature

    term paper abstract, Winter Semester 2005/2006, Potsdam University by Lars Dittmer

    „…and for three years it was the most talked-about, written-about and shocked-about venue in the universe. Everyone wanted to go to Studio 54 (Jones/ Kantonen 1999: 246)”. “A lot of people thought that at the door was a better show than inside…people would try anything to get in (“Shane” in Studio 54)”. When Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager in the late April 1976 started their nightclub Studio 54, a legend came to life. On the floors of this unique party shangri-la, celebrities like Andy Warhol, Liza Minelli, Bianca and Mick Jagger, Brooke Shields and Truman Capote mingled with business people, politicians, soap opera starlets, drag queens and chosen few from the “grey people”, as nightlife guru Rubell called the normal people.

    Never before, a discothèque had caused such a public stir. Paparazzi jostled beyond the velvet ropes to illustrate their gossip columns with pictures of the socialites – it was the “first time ever that celebrity photos would appear on the front page of the tabloids for no other reasons than they were there (Jones/ Kantonen 1999: 249)”. But by far not everybody came to know the true promise of the club – door policy at Studio 54 was probably one of the toughest in the history of nightlife. Rubell himself was eager to make sure that of the many different groups that made up the audience of 54, none should dominate the other, a type of “social engineering he called “tossing the salad”” (Shapiro 2005: 201). He himself supported his doorman Marc Benecke selecting the people who could pass the velvet ropes, whilst scores of people shouted Rubell’s name begging him to be admitted into the club. On one hand, there were certain criteria, but on the other hand, there was enough leeway for arbitrariness, indeed, it was a highly undemocratic procedure that precisely reflected its place, its period and social circumstances.

    Disco in the ‚uncanny 1970s‘ not only served to escape reality but also epitomised an increasing drive towards individualism that replaced the ideas of participation and community of the sixties. The doors at 54 were instruments to form a new world with new social ladders and in their radicalism marked a peak in this development.

    Table of Contents

    1. General Introduction 3

    1.1 Introduction and problem identification
    1.2 Approach of this term paper

    2. The Seventies – need to escape? 5

    2.1 The faceless decade
    2.2 The economic downturn – stagflation and unemployment
    2.3 Repercussions of Vietnam

    3. Disco – feared and sneered at 9

    3.1 Countercultural phenomenon or foofaraw?
    3.2 Home of the Disenfranchised

    4. Studio 54 – Queen of Manhattan 12

    4.1 Steve Rubell, Ian Schrager and their dream
    4.2 Drug supply at 54

    5. Escaping the “grey people”: door policy at Studio 54 14

    5.1 The “right mix”
    5.2 Tossing the salad
    5.3 The inner-sanctum

    6. Conclusion 18

    7. Bibliography 20

    1. General Introduction

    1.1 Introduction and problem identification

    „…and for three years it was the most talked-about, written-about and shocked-about venue in the universe. Everyone wanted to go to Studio 54 (Jones/ Kantonen 1999: 246)”.

    “A lot of people thought that at the door was a better show than inside…people would try anything to get in (“Shane” in Studio 54)”.

    When Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager in the late April 1976 started their nightclub Studio 54, a legend came to life. On the floors of this unique party shangri-la, celebrities like Andy Warhol, Liza Minelli, Bianca and Mick Jagger, Brooke Shields and Truman Capote mingled with business people, politicians, soap opera starlets, drag queens and chosen few from the “grey people”, as nightlife guru Rubell called the normal people. Never before, a discothèque caused such a public stir. Paparazzi jostled beyond the velvet ropes to illustrate their gossip columns with pictures of the socialites – it was the “first time ever that celebrity photos would appear on the front page of the tabloids for no other reasons than they were there (Jones/ Kantonen 1999: 249)”.

    The place for this unprecedented spectacle was 254 West 54th street in Manhattan, New York. As to grandeur and pomp, Studio 54 easily dwarfed all other night clubs, the interior was lavish in every respect, the decor sometimes changed from weak to weak. Besides alcohol, drug abuse was rampant – be it cocaine or MDA, Rubell and his team left nothing to be desired for Studio 54’s fastidious clientele. Disc Jockey Richard Kaczor, “who by 1979 was earning $50,000 a year and thus was the world’s highest-paid DJ (Shapiro 2005: 204), was a luminary in his field. But the frenzy was not about technical details or size of the club, not even about the latest in music – it was about seeing and being seen on the highest level conceivable.

    By far not everybody came to know the true promise of the club – door policy at Studio 54 was probably one of the toughest in the history of nightlife. Rubell himself was eager to make sure that of the many different groups that made up the audience of 54, none should dominate the other, a type of “social engineering he called “tossing the salad”” (Shapiro 2005: 201). He himself supported his doorman Marc Benecke selecting the people who could pass the velvet ropes, whilst scores of people shouted Rubell’s name begging him to be admitted into the club. On one hand, there were certain criteria, but on the other hand, there was enough leeway for arbitrariness, indeed, it was a highly undemocratic procedure that precisely reflected its place, its period and social circumstances.

    Scholars often describe the Seventies in the United States as a dreary, unsteady and uncanny period – a decade that has started with the trials and tribulations of Vietnam War, continued with the Watergate scandal and experienced the first post World War II economic downturn with skyrocketing unemployment rates, stagflation and a melting welfare state. Repercussions of these events were especially felt in New York City of these days, which Peter Shapiro reports, was felt by many to be a “cesspool of moral and spiritual degradation, a playground for drug dealers, pimps and corrupt cops (2005: x)”. Disco in this time not only served to escape reality but also epitomised an increasing drive towards individualism that replaced the ideas of participation and community of the sixties. The doors at 54 were instruments to form a new world with new social ladders and in their radicalism marked a peak in this development.

    1.2 Approach of this term paper

    This term paper wants to examine the new hierarchies that were established at Studio 54, especially at its front doors in the late Seventies and examines the cultural and historical context that determines this phenomenon. The paper evolves around two poles: Disco, which is treated herein as a trend towards escapism, hedonism and individualism with Studio 54 as its most extreme excrescence, and the United States, which in the Seventies delivered a setting with most attributes of a deteriorating industrialised country and New York as a city in which these attributes culminated. Disco herein is a term that labels a style of dance music as well as the movement with all its fashions and conventions. The distinction made between the two concepts will be clear from the respective context it is used in.

    In order to manifest the above-mentioned society internal drive towards individualism the second point of this paper deals with the Seventies as the decade that enabled the success-story of disco. The pictures this paper delivers about the decade are not pleasant but it has to be considered that history is a concept that in its broadness is impossible to capture. Personal remembrances of the decade might vary from person to person. This paper therefore delivers texts of scholarly assessments and commonly-acknowledged views of the Seventies as a decade, trying to explain what triggered the public desire to escape reality and the sense of hedonism and decadence that characterised disco.

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  • The communications system of the twins in Arundhati Roy’s „The God of small things“: How they apply the English language in a postcolonial Indian setting

    term paper abstract, summer semester 2005, grade 1,3, Potsdam University by Lars Dittmer

    Chacko told the twins that though they hated to admit it, they were all Anglophiles. They were a family of Anglophiles. (Roy 1996: 52) In establishing the two-egg twins Rahel and Esthapen (Estha) as main characters in her 1996 masterpiece “The God of Small Things”, Arundhati Roy has set up postcolonial prototypes in the area of conflict between British and Indian identity and culture.

    The body of the story focuses on the childhood of the twins, playing in the late 1960s; they are born to an upper middle class family in Kerala, South-Western India, and grow up fatherless. Their family to a large extent cultivates a British attitude – mainly due to grandfather Pappachi alias John Ipe, an Entomologist and former government official under the British colonial administration, his sister Baby Kochamma, and his son Chacko, who used to be an Oxford Rhodes Scholar. Until his death in the first part of the book, John Ipe drives a big Plymouth, he wears stiff English suits and it is inconceivable to him that any Englishman could misbehave; Chacko assumes the air of a British intellectual, he almost exclusively speaks English and often indulges in citing from English and American classics. The family has a high reputation in their home town Ayemenem, most members of the family profit from their Anglophile air in one way or other. The rest of the family more or less adapts to their way of life or finds a way to deal with the situation. The plot of the novel is balanced along cultural and social areas of friction within the Indian society, such as caste, class, religion, culture, clout, customs and traditions.

    source: Photograph: Corbis/Hulton-Deutsch Collection
    source: Photograph: Corbis/Hulton-Deutsch Collection

    It is one of the main tasks for the characters in the novel to find their place in this complex social structure. Though the twins are educated in English, their situation is particularly difficult and they receive some degree of alienation also from within the family. Of course, the twins mostly do not articulate these sorts of feelings and assessments explicitly; it has to be considered that they are children of the age of seven – but they are given a much more subtle means of communication by the author: language. Not the content of their sentences, but the way they apply the English language in various situations. It conveys a lot about how they assess their position and how they engage themselves in certain situations the novel fronts.

    Table of Contents

    1. General Introduction

    1.1 Introduction and problem identification
    1.2 Approach of this term paper

    2. English and other languages in India

    2.1 General facts and figures
    2.2 Indians in blood, English in taste and intellect
    2.3 Enmeshment between religion and language
    2.4 English as social indicator

    3. Constellation in Roy: The God of Small Things

    3.1 Social position and arrangement of the family
    3.2 Anglophile Tradition

    4. The twins and their communications system

    4.1 Rahel and Estha – two egg misfits
    4.2 Their way of using English

    4.2.1 English as everyday language
    4.2.2 English as a means of joking
    4.2.3 language as a means of rebellion

    5. Conclusion

    6. Works Cited

    1. General introduction

    1.1 Introduction and problem identification

    Chacko told the twins that though they hated to admit it, they were all Anglophiles. They
    were a family of Anglophiles.

    (Roy 1997: 52)

    In establishing the two-egg twins Rahel and Esthapen (Estha) as main characters in her 1997 masterpiece “The God of Small Things”, Arundhati Roy has set up postcolonial prototypes in the area of conflict between British and Indian identity and culture. The body of the story focuses on the childhood of the twins, playing in the late 1960s; they are born to an upper middle class family in Kerala, South-Western India, and grow up fatherless. Other family members besides the two-egg twins include their mother Ammu, their Uncle Chacko, grandparents Mammachi and Pappachi, their grandaunt Baby Kochamma, their cousin Sophie and her mother Margaret, the divorced wife of Chacko – she is an English native and lives with her daughter in London.

    The family to a large extent cultivates a British attitude – mainly due to grandfather Pappachi alias John Ipe, an Entomologist and former government official under the British colonial administration, his sister Baby Kochamma, and his son Chacko, who used to be an Oxford Rhodes Scholar. Until his death in the first part of the book, John Ipe drives a big Plymouth, he wears stiff English suits and it is inconceivable to him that any Englishman could misbehave; Chacko assumes the air of a British intellectual, he almost exclusively speaks English and often indulges in citing from English and American classics. The family has a high reputation in their home town Ayemenem, most members of the family profit from their Anglophile air in one way or other. The rest of the family more or less adapts to their way of life or finds a way to deal with the situation.

    The plot of the novel is balanced along cultural and social areas of friction within the Indian society, such as caste, class, religion, culture, clout, customs and traditions. It is one of the main tasks for the characters in the novel to find their place in this complex social structure. Though the twins are educated in English, their situation is particularly difficult and they receive some degree of alienation also from within the family. Of course, the twins mostly do not articulate these sorts of feelings and assessments explicitly; it has to be considered that they are children of the age of seven – but they are given a much more subtle means of communication by the author: language. Not the content of their sentences, but the way they apply the English language in various situations. It conveys a lot about how they assess their position and how they engage themselves in certain situations the novel fronts.

    1.2 Approach of this term paper

    To give the usage of the English language, as it is done by Rahel and Estha, a meaning, it is necessary to set up a scheme that clarifies the social standing of the twins and their family – some historic facts and postcolonial aspects will be highlighted to promote this in point two and three. This is especially vital to make clear why the twins and their family speak English at all, and not only Malayalam, which is the original vernacular in the Kottayam district of Kerala. The scheme serves as a theoretical fundament and it is also designed to highlight one of the main problems involved in this topic; namely that the concept of “identity” in postcolonial societies is a complex field that needs a careful approach for “westerners” who have not dealt with this topic before. The theoretical scheme set up in point two will also support the finding that they way how Rahel and Estha use language involves some degree of systematisation. Indeed, often postcolonial statements circulating around “identity” are at play in this system – three functions of this “communications system” will be dealt with in part four. This term paper does not analyze major parts of the novel; it is neither a historical nor a linguistic work. Indeed, it deals with language, but it wants to establish language not in a linguistic sense but as a symbolic arrangement that serves functions in the plot of the book and in the fictional lives of the twins.

    2. English and other languages in India

    2.1 General facts and figures

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  • At a Loss: The Postmodern Quests in Thomas Pynchon’s „The Crying of Lot 49“ and Jim Jarmusch’s „Broken Flowers“

    term paper abstract, summer semester 2006, Potsdam university by Lars Dittmer

    this paper is building up on postmodern patterns of fragmentation, loneliness and disorientation. The Quest is a central storytelling technique – in times where traditional ways of living and social constellations fade and the grand narratives have lost their guiding functions, people have to „mind-map“ their own routes through a fagmentary world. The paper establishes the quest form in the 1966 book by Pynchon and draws lines of tradition to Jarmusch’s 2005 Browken Flowers.

     

    Table of Contents

    1. General Introduction  3

    1.1 Overview: The two stories  3

    1.2 Approach of this term paper  5

    1.3 From modernism to postmodernism  7

    2. Social fragmentation as a postmodern determinant  8

    2.1 Oedipa Maas: “They are stripping away, my men”  8

    2.2 Don Johnston a.k.a. Don Juan  10

    2.3 Drugs and unreliability  11

    3. To slow for a globalizing/ globalized world?  2

    3.1 Miss Maas and Mass Media  12

    3.2 “I was in computers”   13

    3.3. The United States as a setting  14

    4. Me against the system: anxieties and paranoia  16

    4.1 mind-mapping against the machine  16

    4.2 The non-solution to nothing  18

    5. Conclusion: Internet and Postmodernity  19

    6. Bibliography  20

    1. General Introduction

    „Hey”, said Oedipa, “can I get somebody to do it for me?”

    “Me”, said Roseman, “some of it, sure. But aren’t you even interested?”

    In what?”

    “In what you might find out.” (Pynchon 1966: 12)

    “I prepared the strategy. Only you can solve the mystery” (Winston in Broken Flowers).

    1.2 Overview: the two stories

    There is hardly a novel that outlines a cultural epoch as precisely as the 1966 published book “The Crying of Lot 49” (COL 49) by Thomas Pynchon. On barely more than one hundred pages probably every concept that has ever attributed to the set of ideas we today refer to as “postmodern”, can be identified. The book, that many describe as one of the most important post World War II novels, is a challenge in every respect: Pynchon’s dense and intricate style of writing with its often loose and disconnected sequences leave many readers baffled – what on the first glance seems a humorous and easy read on the second requires profound knowledge of American and European history and sketches a sometimes bleak and dreary picture of human isolation and paranoia. Nevertheless connoisseurs describe “The Crying of Lot 49” as his most accessible book.

    Thomas Pynchon as a person remains as mysterious as his novels – the fact that he never appears in public and discusses his books, leaves literary theorists room for interpretation and speculation. This is reflected in literature about Pynchon – there is hardly a self-respecting scholar of 20th century American literature that has not elaborated on his work: “Pynchon’s novels have lured literary theorists and critics to such an extent that they have spawned an industry” (Coale 2005: 135). But also to other artists he is a constant source of inspiration – as we will see, not only to writers like Paul Auster, Don DeLillo or Susan Sontag, but also to movie artists. Filmmakers like David Lynch, Quentin Tarantino or last but not least Jim Jarmusch constantly process postmodern elements and sujets – what started as “independent cinema” has – thanks to blockbusters like “Kill Bill”, “Jackie Brown” or “Mulholland Drive” – gradually entered the mainstream and is now being received by major audiences.

    But though postmodern elements in these movies can be isolated and discussed – sure enough, literature has dealt with most of them – a direct comparison with “The Crying of Lot 49”, one of the archetyps of postmodernism, would be barely fruitful, as the latter’s appearance equals a mystery novel. However, the 2005 Jim Jarmusch production Broken Flowers, starring Bill Murray, is arranged following a “Pynchonesque” quest pattern and can be therefore directly placed in this context; there are obvious parallels as to structure, story and background setting between the two pieces.  To discuss the elements that qualify Broken Flowers as a movie in this tradition will be the task of this term paper.

    At first it is necessary to deliver short synopsises of the two stories – many of the elements will be dealt with in-depth in the course of this term paper. The protagonist in COL 49, Oedipa Maas, “a suburban housewife and English major from Cornell” (Cornis-Pope 2001: 104), receives a letter saying that her ex Pierce Inverarity died and that she “had been named executor, or she supposed executrix,” (Pynchon 1966: 5) of his estate. She accepts the challenge that takes her “from her suburbanite home in Kinneret-among the Pines to the Echo Courts Motel in San Narciso, the housing estate at Fangoso Lagoons, the aerospace company Yoyodyne, the Berkeley campus, and the Greek Way bar in San Francisco. (Cornis-Pope 2001: 105).

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  • Development and Demise of Orkney Norn – a peace of Scandinavian Culture in Great Britain

    term paper abstract, winter semester 2004/2005, Potsdam university by Lars Dittmer

    the Nordic cross in Great Britain – the unofficial flag of the Orkney Islands arouses astonishment in the watcher and gives him an idea of how Orcadians feel – being a Scandinavian, and being British. The flag shows the red Norwegian cross on a yellow background, symbolizing the Scottish Royal flag (cf. Towrie 1996-2005: FAQ). Scandinavian culture and self-image still constitute a part of identity in parts of Scotland – especially in Shetland and Orkney, collectively named the Northern Islands. Here, this cultural background has over centuries found expression through a Scandinavian language, called Norn, Icelandic norœnna, the Norwegian language (Fenton 1997: 617).

    former flag of Orkey - Scandinavian and British at the same time

    This term paper is to document the historical and cultural circumstances in which a Scandinavian language could develop in Northern Scotland, its nature and prevalence during its era, and finally, its demise and the remains of Norn in today’s language in Orkney. The paper attaches importance to the fact that it is on the one hand power constellations and politics that produce linguistic changes such as the death of a language, but on the other hand also requires “the active participation of its former speakers” (Barrett 2003: 98). The paper almost exclusively focuses on the development on the Orkney Islands, taking into consideration that history as well as the language itself differs to some extent on the Shetland Islands.

    Development and Demise of Orkney Norn – a peace of
    Scandinavian Culture in Great Britain

    Table of Contents

    1. General Introduction

    1.1 Introduction: the Nordic cross in Great Britain
    1.2 General facts about Orkney

    2. History and Language

    2.1 Pre-Norse Orkney
    2.2 The Pictish-Norse transition
    2.3 The Vikings and their language
    2.4 Norn
    2.5 “Scottization” – the demise of Orkney Norn

    3. Language in Orkney today

    3.1 The remnants of Norn
    3.2 The Orcadian dialect
    3.3 discussion/ outlook

    4. Bibilography

    1. General Introduction

    1.1. Introduction: the Nordic cross in Great Britain

    The unofficial flag of the Orkney Islands arouses astonishment in the watcher and gives him an idea of how Orcadians feel – being a Scandinavian, and being British. The flag shows the red Norwegian cross on a yellow background, symbolizing the Scottish Royal flag (cf. Towrie 1996-2005: FAQ). Scandinavian culture and self- image still constitute a part of identity in parts of Scotland – especially in Shetland and Orkney, collectively named the Northern Islands. Here, this cultural background has over centuries found expression through a Scandinavian language, called Norn, Icelandic nor(?)nna, the Norwegian language (Fenton 1997: 617).

    This term paper is to document the historical and cultural circumstances in which a Scandinavian language could develop in Northern Scotland, its nature and prevalence during its era, and finally, its demise and the remains of Norn in today’s language in Orkney. The paper attaches importance to the fact that it is on the one hand power constellations and politics that produce linguistic changes such as the death of a language, but on the other hand also requires “the active participation of its former speakers” (Barrett 2003: 98). The paper almost exclusively focuses on the development on the Orkney Islands, taking into consideration that history as well as the language itself differs to some extent on the Shetland Islands.

    1.2 General facts about Orkney

    Orkney1 is an archipelago of about 70 islands lying ten kilometres off the north coast of Scotland in the North Sea. The 2001 census provided a total number of 19, 245 people inhabiting less than one third of the islands. The major part of the population lives in the two main towns Kirkwall, the administrative centre of Orkney, and Stromness, both being located on “Mainland”, the largest island of the archipelago. Of further importance are the islands Hoy and South Ronaldsay in the south of Scapa Flow, and some minor islands in the north such as Sanday or Westray. People are mainly employed in agriculture and tourism. Since the 1970s, North Sea oil contributes to the income of the Orcadians. Since the 1990s, however, flows from this industry have decreased (Leyden 2004: 11).

    2. History and language

    2.1 Pre-Norse Orkney

    Today, there is no exact knowledge about the question when first human life came to Orkney. Nevertheless, there is evidence that the islands have provided human habitat for at least five and a half thousand years (Ritchie 1990: 36). Preserved constructions from these days such as the Ring of Brodgar, a large stone circle, and Maes Howe, a chambered tomb on Mainland, show that people in the Neolithic era were skilful stone-builders (Ritchie 1990: 39). Identity and language of the Picts, a tribe that settled in mainland Scotland and the Northern Islands from around 300 BC to the Norse settlements, have remained subject to dispute until today.

    (…)

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