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Abstract
Information regarding the provenance of papyrological material that was acquired in the Egyptian antiquities market in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries is scarce and often unreliable. This article investigates the provenance of Hamburg’s Papyrus Bilinguis 1, famed for containing the apocryphal Acta Pauli. By researching archival files documenting the acquisition and the context of the find, the papyrus is shown to have been acquired in breach of the Egyptian antiquities law of 1912. The article reveals how Carl Schmidt (1868–1938), the collector who acquired the manuscript for the Hamburg library, by concealing information, tried to cover up his own criminal involvement in the smuggling of the manuscript. Through the investigation of a manuscript that was acquired by a public German institution in awareness of its illegality, the article hopes to contribute to current debates on the translocation of cultural heritage artefacts to Europe and the US in the age of European colonialism and imperialism.
Abstract
The article discusses the first attempts of Soviet culture to produce a hybrid genre of film opera in the mid-1930s. It traces the artistic background of Ukrainian sculptor and filmmaker Ivan Kavaleridze who was chosen to pioneer the new genre, as well as the complex national dynamic between Russian and non-Russian Soviet republics amidst the stabilization of Socialist Realist conventions and the launch of the anti-formalist campaign in the ussr. Finally, it addresses the issues of russification, exoticization and alienation of Ukrainian film culture of the time.
Abstract
This chapter explores the early works of Guillaume Dustan and looks at the city of Paris and the Marais neighborhood as loci of extremes. Following a short history of the Marais, I explore the notion of ghetto. The term has strong historical connotations of oppression, but Dustan calls the Marais “le ghetto,” which is a shorthand way of referring to both the Marais neighborhood and the Parisian gay community. The chapter then looks at what can be considered by some as extreme sex practices that Dustan and his partners engaged in: barebacking, use of sex toys and drug consumption at a time when HIV was still a deadly virus. The Lacanian principle of the death drive emerges as one of the guiding principles of Dustan’s search for pleasure.