Sunday, June 7, 2026
Saturday, June 6, 2026
Via White Crane Institute \\\ THOMAS MANN
| ||||||||
| This Day in Gay History | ||||||||
June 06Born  1875 - THOMAS MANN, German writer, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1955); a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and 1929 Nobel Prize laureate, known for his series of highly symbolic and ironic epic novels and mid-length stories, noted for their insight into the psychology of the artist and intellectual. His analysis and critique of the European and German soul used modernized German and Biblical stories, as well as the ideas of Goethe, Nietzsche and Schopenhauer. Mann's diaries, unsealed in 1975, tell of his struggles with his sexuality, which found reflection in his works, most prominently through the obsession of the elderly Aschenbach for the 14-year-old Polish boy Tadzio in the novella Death in Venice (Der Tod in Venedig, 1912). Anthony Heilbut's biography Thomas Mann: Eros and Literature (1997) was widely acclaimed for uncovering the centrality of Mann's sexuality to his oeuvre. Gilbert Adair's work The Real Tadzio describes how, in the summer of 1911, Mann had been staying at the Grand Hôtel des Bains in Venice with his wife and brother when he became enraptured by the angelic figure of Władysław Moes, an 11-year-old Polish boy. Considered a classic of homoerotic passion (if unconsummated) Death in Venice has been made into a film and an opera. Blamed sarcastically by Mann’s old enemy, Alfred Kerr, to have ‘made pederasty acceptable to the cultivated middle classes’, it has been pivotal to introducing the discourse of same-sex desire to the common culture. Mann himself described his feelings for young violinist and painter Paul Ehrenberg as the "central experience of my heart." Despite the homoerotic overtones in his writing, Mann chose to marry and have children; two of his children, Klaus, also a writer, who committed suicide in 1949, and Erika, an actress and writer who died in 1969 and who was married to W.H. Auden for 34 years, were also Gay. His works also present other sexual themes, such as incest in The Blood of the Walsungs (Wälsungenblut) and The Holy Sinner (Der Erwählte).
| ||||||||
Via Daily Dharma: The Opportunity to Learn
|
|
|
Friday, June 5, 2026
Via Daily Dharma: The Origin of Discipline
|
|
|
Via White Crane Institute \\\ RUTH FULTON BENEDICT
| |||
| This Day in Gay History | |||
June 05Born | |||
1887 -
RUTH FULTON BENEDICT was an American anthropologist and folklorist born on this date (d: 1948).
She was born in New York City, attended Vassar College and graduated in 1909. After studying anthropology at the New School of Social Research under Elsie Clews Parsons, she entered graduate studies at Columbia University in 1921, where she studied under Franz Boas. She received her PhD and joined the faculty in 1923. Margaret Mead, with whom she shared a romantic relationship, and Marvin Opler, were among her students and colleagues.
Benedict was President of the American Anthropological Association and was also a prominent member of the American Folklore Society. She became the first woman to be recognized as a prominent leader of a learned profession. She can be viewed as a transitional figure in her field, redirecting both anthropology and folklore away from the limited confines of culture-trait diffusion studies and towards theories of performance as integral to the interpretation of culture. She studied the relationships between personality, art, language and culture, insisting that no trait existed in isolation or self-sufficiency, a theory which she championed in her 1934 book Patterns of Culture.
Margaret Mead and Ruth Benedict are considered the two most influential and famous anthropologists of their time. One of the reasons why Mead and Benedict got along well was the fact that they both shared a passion for their work and they each felt a sense of pride in the fact that they were successful working women during a time when this was uncommon. They were frequently known to critique each other's work; they entered into a companionship which began through their work, but during its early period, it also had an erotic character. Both Benedict and Mead wanted to dislodge stereotypes about women which were widely believed during their time and show people that working women could also be successful even though working society was seen as a man's world. In her memoir about her parents, With a Daughter's Eye, Margaret Mead's daughter implies that the relationship between Benedict and Mead was sexual.
Benjamin Breens recent history of the early days of psychedelic science, Tripping On Utopia, Margaret Mead, The Cold War and the Troubled Birth of Psychedelic Science, more than "implies" their intimacy, and delves deeply into the longterm relationship of the two women.
In 1946, Benedict received the Achievement Award from the American Association of University Women. After Benedict died of a heart attack in 1948, Mead kept the legacy of Benedict's work going by supervising projects that Benedict would have looked after, and editing and publishing notes from studies that Benedict had collected throughout her life.
The American Anthropology Association awards an annual prize named after Benedict. The 'Ruth Benedict Prize' has two categories, one for monographs by one writer and one for edited volumes. The prize recognizes 'excellence in a scholarly book written from an anthropological perspective about a lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender topic'.
A U.S. 46¢ Great Americans series postage stamp in her honor was issued on October 20, 1995. Benedict College in Stony Brook University has been named after her.
In 2005 Ruth Fulton Benedict was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame.
|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8
Gay Wisdom for Daily Living from White Crane Institute
"With the increasing commodification of gay news, views, and culture by powerful corporate interests, having a strong independent voice in our community is all the more important. White Crane is one of the last brave standouts in this bland new world... a triumph over the looming mediocrity of the mainstream Gay world." - Mark Thompson
Exploring Gay Wisdom & Culture since 1989!
www.whitecraneinstitute.org
|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)