Fire and Rain, The Tramp and The Trickster: romance and the family in the early films of Raj Kapoor

Ranbir Raj Kapoor (1924-1988) is one of the greatest figures of Hindi cinema. His career of over forty years brought him major fame in India and overseas as star, director and producer. Championed by Nehru, an international star long before talk of global Bollywood, Raj Kapoor and his films were loved across the USSR and the whole of Asia. RK’s early films are formative to his own long career and he revisits many of their themes in later years but they are also foundational to the Indian cinema itself. The melodrama, whose origins lie in nineteenth-century European fiction and theatre, follow a well-known path through nineteenth-century theatre into Indian cinema (Vasudevan 2010). RK’s films are remembered today for their spectacle of song and dance, his blend of romance, sexuality and spirituality, which created a language for the expression of emotion, set against a backdrop of modern, independent India and its contemporary social concerns. This article looks at the early work of RK in the decade from his directorial debut, Aag to his classic Shree 420, concentrating on the four films he produced and directed, co-starring one of the greatest stars of the 1950s, Nargis. These are Aag/Fire, Barsaat/Rain, Awaara/The Tramp and Shree 420/The Trickster. During this period the pair made 19 films together as they both worked with other directors and producers, separately and together, but these four films form a coherent group which defined RK as a film maker and changed Hindi film forever

Comparative Analysis Of Instructional Strategies To Improve Student Engagement In An Online Introductory Undergraduate French Course

In the past decades, online course enrollment has steadily increased in popularity. In 2020, the Covid-19 global pandemic suddenly shifted most teaching and learning into the virtual world. The entire education system tried to quickly learn how to cope in this environment. Given the clear benefits of online learning, such as flexibility and versatility, coupled with instructors being more capable because of the pandemic, it is projected that online learning will continue to remain a popular option for students. Knowing how to best engage students in an online environment is crucial to student success. Their engagement in the course positively correlates with academic success and satisfaction. This study assesses which instructional strategies are most engaging according to participants’ self-reported levels of engagement, as measured by motivation, enjoyment, and benefit to learning. This research assesses seven comparative sets of instructional strategies: three for writing online in the target language, three for speaking interpersonally in a breakout room, and one for peer presentational interaction. The participants were 19 undergraduate students in the second semester of introductory French at a liberal arts college in the Midwest. Results indicate that all strategies assessed in comparative sets were at least somewhat engaging, with all engagement averages between 3.2 and 4.4 on a 1 to 5 Likert scale. Although there were preferences for and against certain strategies, the positive results of this study result in a toolkit of instructional strategies that engage students in an online, synchronous course. This study culminates in an interactive website that explains the instructional prompts assessed and associated quantitative and qualitative results

Long-term impacts of disturbance on nitrogen-cycling bacteria in a New England salt marsh

Recent studies on the impacts of disturbance on microbial communities indicate communities show differential responses to disturbance, yet our understanding of how different microbial communities may respond to and recover from disturbance is still rudimentary. We investigated impacts of tidal restriction followed by tidal restoration on abundance and diversity of denitrifying bacteria, ammonia-oxidizing bacteria (AOB), and ammonia-oxidizing archaea (AOA) in New England salt marshes by analyzing nirS and bacterial and archaeal amoA genes, respectively. TRFLP analysis of nirS and betaproteobacterial amoA genes revealed significant differences between restored and undisturbed marshes, with the greatest differences detected in deeper sediments. Additionally, community patterns indicated a potential recovery trajectory for denitrifiers. Analysis of archaeal amoA genes, however, revealed no differences in community composition between restored and undisturbed marshes, but we detected significantly higher gene abundance in deeper sediment at restored sites. Abundances of nirS and betaproteobacterial amoA genes were also significantly greater in deeper sediments at restored sites. Porewater ammonium was significantly higher at depth in restored sediments compared to undisturbed sediments, suggesting a possible mechanism driving some of the community differences. Our results suggest that impacts of disturbance on denitrifying and ammonia-oxidizing communities remain nearly 30 years after restoration, potentially impacting nitrogen-cycling processes in the marsh. We also present data suggesting that sampling deeper in sediments may be critical for detecting disturbance effects in coastal sediments

Going beyond defining: Preschool educators\u27 use of knowledge in their pedagogical reasoning about vocabulary instruction

Previous research investigating both the knowledge of early childhood educators and the support for vocabulary development present in early childhood settings has indicated that both educator knowledge and enacted practice are less than optimal, which has grave implications for children\u27s early vocabulary learning and later reading achievement. Further, the nature of the relationship between educators\u27 knowledge and practice is unclear, making it difficult to discern the best path towards improved knowledge, practice, and children\u27s vocabulary outcomes. The purpose of the present study was to add to the existing literature by using stimulated recall interviews and a grounded approach to examine how 10 preschool educators used their knowledge to made decisions about their moment-to-moment instruction in support of children\u27s vocabulary development. Results indicate that educators were thinking in highly context-specific ways about their goals and strategies for supporting vocabulary learning, taking into account important knowledge of their instructional history with children and of the children themselves to inform their decision making in the moment. In addition, they reported thinking about research-based goals and strategies for supporting vocabulary learning that went beyond simply defining words for children. Implications for research and professional development are discussed

Vighnaharta Shree Siddhivinayak: Ganesh, Remover of Obstacles, Lord of Beginnings, in Mumbai

Ganesh is a popular deity all over India, invoked before all Hindu ceremonies as the Lord of Beginnings and Remover of Obstacles (Vighnaharta). His close association with Mumbai is well attested through the Ganapati Utsav, the Ganesh festival, not least because images of his immersion in the sea against a backdrop of skyscrapers have become a visual cliche about the paradox of the modern and the traditional in today's India. But while this form of Ganesh is a temporary visitor to the city, Ganesh as Siddhivinayak has become perhaps the most visible deity in the city with a large new temple built during the period when the name of the city, Bombay, was changed to the local version of the city's name, said to derive from the goddess Mumba Devi. The article looks at a devotional film about Siddhivinayak, produced in cooperation with the shrine, to see how Ganesh is understood today by the way the shrine tells the story of the deity and his devotees.</jats:p

Fire and Rain, The Tramp and The Trickster: romance and the family in the early films of Raj Kapoor

Ranbir Raj Kapoor (1924-1988) is one of the greatest figures of Hindi cinema. His career of over forty years brought him major fame in India and overseas as star, director and producer. Championed by Nehru, an international star long before talk of global Bollywood, Raj Kapoor and his films were loved across the USSR and the whole of Asia. RK’s early films are formative to his own long career and he revisits many of their themes in later years but they are also foundational to the Indian cinema itself. The melodrama, whose origins lie in nineteenth-century European fiction and theatre, follow a well-known path through nineteenth-century theatre into Indian cinema (Vasudevan 2010). RK’s films are remembered today for their spectacle of song and dance, his blend of romance, sexuality and spirituality, which created a language for the expression of emotion, set against a backdrop of modern, independent India and its contemporary social concerns. This article looks at the early work of RK in the decade from his directorial debut, Aag to his classic Shree 420, concentrating on the four films he produced and directed, co-starring one of the greatest stars of the 1950s, Nargis. These are Aag/Fire, Barsaat/Rain, Awaara/The Tramp and Shree 420/The Trickster.  During this period the pair made 19 films together as they both worked with other directors and producers, separately and together, but these four films form a coherent group which defined RK as a film maker and changed Hindi film forever

The Gujarati lyrics of Kavi Dayarambhai.

Kavi Dayarambhai or Dayaram (1777-1852), considered to be one of the three greatest poets of Gujarati, brought to an end not only the age of the great bhakta-poets, but also the age of Gujarati medieval literature. After Dayaram, a new age of Gujarati literature and language began, influenced by Western education and thinking. The three chapters of Part I of the thesis look at the ways of approaching North Indian devotional literature which have informed all subsequent readings of Dayaram in the hundred and fifty years since his death. Chapter 1 is concerned with the treatment by Indologists of the Krsnaite literature in Braj Bhasa, which forms a significant part of Dayaram's literary antecedents. Chapter 2 then considers studies of Dayaram by Gujarati scholars which tend to focus on him as a devotee of Krsna and a member of the Pustimarga. It also looks at literary criticism of his writings in the context of the Gujarati literary world. Chapter 3 discusses Dayaram's lyrics from an Indological perspective, concentrating on form and language. Part II puts forward a new approach to a study of Dayaram's lyrics. Chapter 4 argues that these texts deserve treatment as literary texts in their own right and suggests a reading informed by the thought of Mikhail Bakhtin (1895- 1975). Chapter 5 discusses Dayaram's lyrics in the light of Bakhtin's concept of the camivalesque, Chapter 6 looks at the functions of chronotopic features in the lyrics. Part III is a selection of Dayaram's lyrics. The Gujarati texts are given in Roman transliteration, followed by literal translations into English. A full bibliography of primary and secondary sources consulted is included. The thesis introduces a poet scarcely known to western scholars and makes a selection of his work available to those who do not know Gujarati. It examines a number of approaches which have conventionally been brought to bear on literature of this kind. It finds much which is valuable in them but highlights some of their limitations for a study of this poet; a new critical approach from literary theory, using the ideas of Bakhtin (in particular those of the carnivalesque and the chronotope) allows the thesis to re-examine the position of Dayaram in the history of Gujarati literature

Contestable adulthood: variability and disparity in markers for negotiating the transition to adulthood

Recent research has identified a discreet set of subjective markers that are seen as characterizing the transition to adulthood. The current study challenges this coherence by examining the disparity and variability in young people’s selection of such criteria. Four sentence-completion cues corresponding to four differentcontexts in which adult status might be contested were given to 156 British 16- to 17-year-olds. Their qualitative responses were analyzed to explore patterns whilst capturing some of their richness and diversity. An astonishing amount of variability emerged, both within and between cued contexts.The implications of this variability for how the transition to adulthood is experienced are explored. The argument is made that markers of the transition to adulthood are not merely reflective of the bio–psycho–social development of young people. Rather, adulthood here is seen as an essentially contested concept,located within the discursive interactional environment in which young people participate