Paul Robeson and the End of His “Movie” Career

Paul Robeson made his last fiction film appearance in Tales of Manhattan (directed by Julien Duvivier, 1942), which the black star ended up denouncing for its demeaning racial stereotypes. Robeson scholars have echoed this negative assessment while French critics have likewise dismissed the film as a minor effort in Duvivier’s oeuvre. This article reassesses and resituates the film historically, arguing that the black-cast sequence, when viewed intertextually, was much richer and more progressive than generally appreciated. In production before World War II and released almost ten months after Pearl Harbor, Tales of Manhattan was historically out of sync.Tales of Manhattan (Julien Duvivier, 1942) est le dernier film de fiction dans lequel Paul Robeson ait joué, un film que la star afro-américaine finira d’ailleurs par dénoncer pour ses stéréotypes raciaux dégradants. Les spécialistes de Robeson se sont fait l’écho de ces remarques négatives, tout comme les critiques français qui considèrent ce film comme une oeuvre mineure de Duvivier. Cet article se propose de réexaminer le film en le resituant dans son contexte historique et avance que la partie centrée autour de la communauté noire, dès lors qu’on l’appréhende de manière intertextuelle, s’avère beaucoup plus riche et plus progressiste qu’on le prétend généralement. Conçu avant la Seconde Guerre mondiale et projeté pour la première fois dix mois après Pearl Harbor, Tales of Manhattan apparaît comme un film historiquement « déphasé »

Social Roles / Political Responsibilities: Jean Renoir's Search for Artistic Integrity, 1928-1939

Throughout his life, Jean Renoir-the son of a renowned painter, a onetime potter, and filmmaker -was preoccupied with the role of the artist in society. What was the artist's place in, and his/her responsibilities to, the world (but particularly to France)? Under what conditions could an artist function and do meaningful work-not only meaningful for society but for him/herself? These were ethical, moral, and political questions with which Renoir wrestled, finding no easy answers, no simple verities. Rather he was often troubled by the relationship between artist and society which he understood as a dynamic one in need of constant reconsideration

El género de viaje en 1903-1904. Hacia una narrativa ficcional

Spanish translation of the article by Charles Musser "The Travel Genre in 1903-1904. Moving Towards Fictional Narrative".  In: Iris, vol. 2, n. 1, 1984.Keywords: translation, Charles Musser, The Travel Genre in 1903-1904,__________ Traducción del artículo de Charles Musser "The Travel Genre in 1903-1904. Moving Towards Fictional Narrative.” En: Iris, vol. 2, n. 1, 1984.Palabras clave: traducción, Charles Musser, El género de viaje en 1903-1904.__________ Resumo: tradução do artigo de Charles Musser "The Travel Genre in 1903-1904. Moving Towards Fictional Narrative".  In: Iris, vol. 2, n. 1, 1984.Palavras-chave: tradução, Charles Musser, The Travel Genre in 1903-1904,__________ Date of reception: 16th November 2016Date of acceptance: 9th December 2016Traducción del artículo de Charles Musser "The Travel Genre in 1903-1904. Moving Towards Fictional Narrative.” En: Iris, vol. 2, n. 1, 1984.Palabras clave: traducción, Charles Musser, El género de viaje en 1903-1904.__________ Abstract: Translation of the article by Charles Musser "The Travel Genre in 1903-1904. Moving Towards Fictional Narrative".  In: Iris, vol. 2, n. 1, 1984.Keywords: translation, Charles Musser, The Travel Genre in 1903-1904,__________ Resumo: tradução do artigo de Charles Musser "The Travel Genre in 1903-1904. Moving Towards Fictional Narrative".  In: Iris, vol. 2, n. 1, 1984.Palavras-chave: tradução, Charles Musser, The Travel Genre in 1903-1904,__________ Fecha de recepción: 16 de noviembre de 2016Fecha de aceptación: 9 de diciembre de 201

A Field Portable Hyperspectral Goniometer for Coastal Characterization

During an airborne multi-sensor remote sensing experiment at the Virginia Coast Reserve (VCR) Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) site in June 2011 (VCR '11), first measurements were taken with the new NRL Goniometer for Outdoor Portable Hyperspectral Earth Reflectance (GOPHER). GOPHER measures the angular distribution of hyperspectral reflectance. GOPHER was constructed for NRL by Spectra Vista Corporation (SVC) and the University of Lethbridge through a capital equipment purchase in 2010. The GOPHER spectrometer is an SVC HR -1024, which measures hyperspectral reflectance over the range from 350 -2500 nm, the visible, near infrared, and short-wave infrared. During measurements, the spectrometer travels along a zenith quarter -arc track that can rotate in azimuth, allowing for measurement of the bi-directional reflectance distribution function (BRDF) over the whole hemisphere. The zenith arc has a radius of approximately 2m, and the spectrometer scan pattern can be programmed on the fly during calibration and validation efforts. The spectrometer and zenith arc assembly can be raised and lowered along a mast to allow for measurement of uneven terrain or vegetation canopies of moderate height. Hydraulics on the chassis allow for leveling of the instrument in the field. At just over 400 lbs, GOPHER is a field portable instrument and can be transformed into a compact trailer assembly for movement over long distances in the field

Linking goniometer measurements to hyperspectral and multi-sensor imagery for retrieval of beach properties and coastal characterization

In June 2011, a multi-sensor airborne remote sensing campaign was flown at the Virginia Coast Reserve Long Term Ecological Research site with coordinated ground and water calibration and validation (cal/val) measurements. Remote sensing imagery acquired during the ten day exercise included hyperspectral imagery (CASI-1500), topographic LiDAR, and thermal infra-red imagery, all simultaneously from the same aircraft. Airborne synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data acquisition for a smaller subset of sites occurred in September 2011 (VCR\u2711). Focus areas for VCR\u2711 were properties of beaches and tidal flats and barrier island vegetation and, in the water column, shallow water bathymetry. On land, cal/val emphasized tidal flat and beach grain size distributions, density, moisture content, and other geotechnical properties such as shear and bearing strength (dynamic deflection modulus), which were related to hyperspectral BRDF measurements taken with the new NRL Goniometer for Outdoor Portable Hyperspectral Earth Reflectance (GOPHER). This builds on our earlier work at this site in 2007 related to beach properties and shallow water bathymetry. A priority for VCR\u2711 was to collect and model relationships between hyperspectral imagery, acquired from the aircraft at a variety of different phase angles, and geotechnical properties of beaches and tidal flats. One aspect of this effort was a demonstration that sand density differences are observable and consistent in reflectance spectra from GOPHER data, in CASI hyperspectral imagery, as well as in hyperspectral goniometer measurements conducted in our laboratory after VCR\u2711

The Psychological Science Accelerator: Advancing Psychology through a Distributed Collaborative Network

Concerns have been growing about the veracity of psychological research. Many findings in psychological science are based on studies with insufficient statistical power and nonrepresentative samples, or may otherwise be limited to specific, ungeneralizable settings or populations. Crowdsourced research, a type of large-scale collaboration in which one or more research projects are conducted across multiple lab sites, offers a pragmatic solution to these and other current methodological challenges. The Psychological Science Accelerator (PSA) is a distributed network of laboratories designed to enable and support crowdsourced research projects. These projects can focus on novel research questions, or attempt to replicate prior research, in large, diverse samples. The PSA’s mission is to accelerate the accumulation of reliable and generalizable evidence in psychological science. Here, we describe the background, structure, principles, procedures, benefits, and challenges of the PSA. In contrast to other crowdsourced research networks, the PSA is ongoing (as opposed to time-limited), efficient (in terms of re-using structures and principles for different projects), decentralized, diverse (in terms of participants and researchers), and inclusive (of proposals, contributions, and other relevant input from anyone inside or outside of the network). The PSA and other approaches to crowdsourced psychological science will advance our understanding of mental processes and behaviors by enabling rigorous research and systematically examining its generalizability

Late 1920s film theory and criticism as a test-case for Benjamin’s generalizations on the experiential effects of editing

This article investigates Walter Benjamin’s influential generalization that the effects of cinema are akin to the hyper-stimulating experience of modernity. More specifically, I focus on his oft-cited 1935/36 claim that all editing elicits shock-like disruption. First, I propose a more detailed articulation of the experience of modernity understood as hyper-stimulation and call for distinguishing between at least two of its subsets: the experience of speed and dynamism, on the one hand, and the experience of shock/disruption, on the other. Then I turn to classical film theory of the late 1920s to demonstrate the existence of contemporary views on editing alternative to Benjamin’s. For instance, whereas classical Soviet and Weimar theorists relate the experience of speed and dynamism to both Soviet and classical Hollywood style editing, they reserve the experience of shock/disruption for Soviet montage. In order to resolve the conceptual disagreement between these theorists, on the one hand, and Benjamin, on the other, I turn to late 1920s Weimar film criticism. I demonstrate that, contrary to Benjamin’s generalizations about the disruptive and shock-like nature of all editing, and in line with other theorists’ accounts, different editing practices were regularly distinguished by comparison to at least two distinct hyper-stimulation subsets: speed and dynamism, and shock-like disruption. In other words, contemporaries regularly distinguished between Soviet montage and classical Hollywood editing patterns on the basis of experiential effects alone. On the basis of contemporary reviews of city symphonies, I conclude with a proposal for distinguishing a third subset – confusion. This is an original manuscript / preprint of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Early Popular Visual Culture on 02 Aug 2016 available online: https://doi.org/10.1080/17460654.2016.1199322