MQUP

New book trailer for just released “Look Who's Watching: Surveillance, Treachery and Trust Online” by Fen Osler Hampson and Eric Jardine

The Cistercian Arts, From the 12th to the 21st Century Edited by Terryl N. Kinder and Roberto Cassanelli Translated by Joyce Myerson  Published by MQUP

An exquisitely illustrated study of the spiritual and cultural aspects of the Cistercian world.

The phenomenon of the Cistercian Order occupies a key place in the history of Western culture as it grew to dominate reformed European monasticism in the high middle ages. The transition from the Romanesque to Gothic styles occurred in the twelfth century when the order was expanding most dramatically. With sharp, clean lines, and minimal decor, its architecture was designed to reflect the simplicity and austerity required for this experiment in monastic life. An important reference work, The Cistercian Arts offers insights into a contemplative order that expanded from its modest origins in the Burgundian heartland to encompass six continents. 

The chapter room of Fontfroide.

The central nave of Noirlac looking towards the apse.

S. Maria di Falleri, interior of the abbey church.

Walkenried, the collatio wing with double nave, view towards the southeast.

Maulbronn, the refectory, view towards the north.

Obazine, grisaille window.

Bonlieu, window.

Heiligenkreuz, window.

The illness of Saint Bernard, Sankt Aspern, Cologne, circa 1525.

Detail of the wrought iron structure to which the dove of the Eucharist vessel is suspended in the abbey church of Valloires (Picardy).

WHEN BALLET BECAME FRENCH Modern Ballet and the Cultural Politics of France, 1909-1939

By ILYANA KARTHAS

For centuries before the 1789 revolution, ballet was a source of great cultural pride for France, but by the twentieth century the art form had deteriorated along with France's international standing. It was not until Serge Diaghilev's Ballets Russes found success in Paris during the first decade of the new century that France embraced the opportunity to restore ballet to its former glory and transform it into a hallmark of the nation. Ilyana Karthas explores the revitalization of ballet and its crucial significance to French culture during a period of momentous transnational cultural exchange and shifting attitudes towards gender and the body.  The first book to study the correlation between ballet and French nationalism, When Ballet Became French demonstrates how dance can transform a nation's cultural and political history.

From the 1947 Lido collection, dancers Colette Marchand and Serge Perrault in Plain-chant, choreographed by Serge Lifar for the Paris Opéra ballet in 1943 and inspired by the Jean Cocteau poem of the same name.

Le train bleu, 1924. Note the sportive costumes and non-balletic poses of the cast. Costumes by Coco Chanel.

This photograph of Olga Adabache illustrates the ways in which ballet dancers were represented as strong, athletic, and virtuosic in the 1930s and 1940s.

Yvette Chauviré, star of the French film La mort du cygne (Death of the Swan) (distributed under the English title Ballerina in 1937). This film still was chosen as the cover image of Life magazine’s 5 December 1938 issue. The film helped to make Chauviré an internationally recognized ballerina and enhanced the reputation of the Paris Opéra ballet.

(via McGill University: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIWWO9GFhW0)

Professor Roderick A. Macdonald was a transformative force at McGill, in Canadian society, and in the broader world. This video, filmed in 2008, captured his words of wisdom and his signature song “When I’m Gone” by Phil Ochs, as he saluted the graduating class that year.

The Unbounded Level of the Mind is a new collection of essays honouring the legal imagination of Rod Macdonald. 

Book trailer for Sheymes: A Family Album after the Holocaust, by Elizabeth Wajnberg.

Picking up a family’s broken pieces and restoring them in a narrative that seals the gaps with memory.