A Forgotten Victory: Courcelette, 15 September 1916

The 2nd Canadian Division, which landed in France on 15 September 1915, had established an uncertain operational record by the summer of 1916. As part of the Canadian Corps, the division had spent virtually all of its time in or near Belgium’s notorious Ypres Salient, where it was embroiled in a grim campaign of trench warfare. Notable successes in trench raiding were offset by costly setbacks, such as the division’s failure to hold a series of mine craters at St. Eloi in April 1916. This was followed in June by the withdrawal of one of its brigades in the face of heavy enemy attacks at Hooge, which were part of the Germans’ ultimately unsuccessful effort to hold captured Canadian positions around Mount Sorrel. Major-General Richard Turner, the commander of 2nd Canadian Division, was himself under a cloud. His earlier performance as a brigade commander in 1st Canadian Division during the 2nd Battle of Ypres in 1915 was questionable at best, and his division’s inability to make sense of the bewildering topography at St. Eloi in 1916 raised serious questions about his suitability for high command. Turner retained command of the division largely through his personal connections with the Canadian Minister of Militia and Defence, Sir Sam Hughes.1 Redemption for 2nd Canadian Division, and to some degree, for Turner himself, would finally come with the division’s successful storming of the French village of Courcelette on 15 September 1916. This operation, which was part of the larger Somme offensive, was 2nd Canadian Division’s first major victory of the First World War. Unfortunately, the glow of success would be obscured by heavy casualties and limited gains during the division’s frustrating second operational tour at the Somme in late September and early October. Nevertheless, the victory at Courcelette proved that the division could successfully organize and execute a major offensive operation. For Major-General Turner, the battle stood as a personal vindication, and, at least in his own mind, made up for past failures

The Kai Ba Lidai Shiji 开吧历代史记 an Autonomous History of the Chinese Community of Batavia/ Jakarta in the VOC Period

This essay critically examines the Kai Ba Lidai Shiji (Annals of Batavia), a Chinese history of Batavia which was written by an anonymous Chinese author around 1794 as part of the rather large corpus of Chinese archival sources about the history of the Chinese community of Batavia/Jakarta. A short introduction about earlier authors who have dealt with the text is followed by comments on the composition, structure and historical value of this unique urban history

The Media Trade in Virtual Design

As media attention has become a dominating force within the design economy, visibility became the combustible that fuels the current design industry. Designed objects were once real products, but are now often prototypes, props to be exhibited and photographed, whose role is to fill space in the media, raise the media profile of their creators and convey the name of brokers, sponsors and partners. As a result celebrated design objects are now rare pieces that are highly visible in the virtual media, while they are virtually absent from the conventional market. For industry, this trajectory of design makes them props to fill space in the media, raise the media profile of their creators and ‘brand’ the name of brokers, sponsors and partners. Today a designer has to be successful in the media in order to attract industry attention. This paper observes the way designers make virtue of their visibility in mediated contexts, thus redefining the industrial model of design practice. Simultaneously, the paper looks at the way the media makes use of its influence in a new virtual design context, producing informed speculations for the evolution of design activities. And in order to contextualize this evolution the paper follows a trajectory from the history of design to build a background to this foreground

When cultural modifications are taken into account: Ibsen's a doll's house on Iranian screen

How cross-cultural communications terminate in imperfect understanding can arguably be rendered by critical awareness about culturally differentiating conceptions in the interacting communities. This study aims to shed light on how an awakening message of a Western literary work can achieve a functional realization in an Eastern society via domestication of the cultural mnemonics. To this end, the present paper explored how Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House was introduced to Persian culture as a movie entitled Sara by Dariush Mehrjui mediated by apprehending the intended function of the original work and cultural capital of the target community. Meticulous comparative analysis of A Doll's House and Sara yielded that the given successful 'transmission' was materialized through two levels of macro contextual and micro cultural domestications. Generic and thematic transformations at the former level and various strata of cultural turns at the latter have conceivably lent verisimilitude to Sara and its proximity to the cultural schema of Iranian audience, through which Nora in Norway could be 'translated' to Sara in Iran to enlighten both audience. It is hoped the arguments of this research can offer some critical points for both proponents and opponents of the debates on cultural turn in generic translation. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2015.v6n5s2p21