The Ritual of May Day in Western Europe
The Ritual of May Day in Western Europe

Author: Abby Peterson

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2016-05-20

Total Pages: 340

ISBN-13: 131701734X

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Eric Hobsbawm claimed that the international May Day, which dates back to a proclamation in 1889 by the Second International, 'is perhaps the most ambitious of labour rituals'. The first international May Day demonstrations in 1890 were widely celebrated across Europe and became the one day each year when organized labour could present its goals to the public, an eight-hour workday being the first concrete demand, shortly followed by those for improved working conditions, universal suffrage, peace among nations, and international solidarity. The May Day ritual celebration was the self-assertion and self-definition of the new labour class through class organization. Thus, it was trade unions and social democratic and socialist parties throughout Europe which took the initiative and have sustained May Day as a labour ritual to this day. Part I of this theoretically-informed volume explores how May Day demonstrations have evolved and taken different trajectories in different political contexts. Part II focuses on May Day rituals today. By comparing demonstration level data of over 2000 questionnaires from six countries, including Belgium, Italy, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK, the reader is able to gain a thorough understanding of how participants are bestowing meaning on May Day rituals. By concluding with reflections on the future of the May Day ritual in Western Europe, this ground-breaking book provides a detailed analysis of its evolution as a protest event.

May Day
May Day

Author: Gretchen Marquette

Publisher: Macmillan

Published: 2016-05-03

Total Pages: 95

ISBN-13: 1555977391

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You arrive at my altar with no idea what it means to worship--to adore. You haven't even learned it: ecstasy and suffering make the same face. --from "The Offering" May Day is both a distress call and a celebration of the arrival of spring. In this rich and unusually assured first collection, the poet Gretchen Marquette writes of the losses of a brother gone off to war in Afghanistan and Iraq, and a great love--losses that have left the world charged with absence and grief. But there is also the wonder of the natural world: the deer at the edge of the forest, the dog reliably coaxing the poet beyond herself and into the city park where by tradition every May Day is pageantry, a festival of surviving the long winter. "What does it mean to be in love?" one poem asks. "As it turns out, / the second best thing that can happen to you / is a broken heart." May Day introduces readers to a new poet of depth and power.

Incomplete, True, Authentic, and Wonderful History of May Day
Incomplete, True, Authentic, and Wonderful History of May Day

Author: Peter Linebaugh

Publisher: PM Press

Published: 2016-04-01

Total Pages: 193

ISBN-13: 1629632511

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“May Day is about affirmation, the love of life, and the start of spring, so it has to be about the beginning of the end of the capitalist system of exploitation, oppression, war, and overall misery, toil, and moil.” So writes celebrated historian Peter Linebaugh in an essential compendium of reflections on the reviled, glorious, and voltaic occasion of May 1st. It is a day that has made the rich and powerful cower in fear and caused Parliament to ban the Maypole—a magnificent and riotous day of rebirth, renewal, and refusal. These reflections on the Red and the Green—out of which arguably the only hope for the future lies—are populated by the likes of Native American anarcho-communist Lucy Parsons, the Dodge Revolutionary Union Movement, Karl Marx, José Martí, W.E.B. Du Bois, Rosa Luxemburg, SNCC, and countless others, both sentient and verdant. The book is a forceful reminder of the potentialities of the future, for the coming of a time when the powerful will fall, the commons restored, and a better world born anew.

May Day Festivals in America, 1830 to the Present
May Day Festivals in America, 1830 to the Present

Author: Allison Thompson

Publisher: McFarland

Published: 2009

Total Pages: 288

ISBN-13:

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Starting in the early 1830s, American girls and women began to hold Old English May Day festivals, complete with maypole dances, the crowning of a May Queen, and romantic plays and pageants. These festivals accelerated in popularity after 1900 at colleges and universities across the country. An important part of the traditional college experience for many women, the celebrations played a surprisingly influential role in the Progressive reform movement. This thorough history examines the creation and development of the traditional American May Day festival. It also provides an overview of May Day celebrations at 80 specific college and universities, eight of which continue to celebrate the festival annually.

From Communism to Anti-Communism
From Communism to Anti-Communism

Author: Collectif

Publisher: Graduate Institute Publications

Published: 2016-12-07

Total Pages: 160

ISBN-13: 2940503974

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Boris Souvarine moved from communism, in the first years of the Soviet régime, to anti-communism by the 1930s and throughout the rest of his long life. This book gives us a new and original perspective on the period that runs from the Russian Revolution to the 1950s and allows us to better understand that era. The documents come from the Boris Souvarine Collection consisting of his working notes, press clippings, and documentation concerning East-West relations collected by Souvarine.

Beltane
Beltane

Author: Llewellyn

Publisher: Llewellyn Worldwide

Published: 2015-03-08

Total Pages: 142

ISBN-13: 0738744093

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Light the fires of celebration with Beltane's invigorating energy Beltane—also known as May Day—is a time of fertility and growth. As the start of the summer season, Beltane is the perfect time to put plans into action. This guide to the history and modern celebrations of Beltane shows you how to perform rituals and work magic for protection, abundance, and more. Rituals Recipes Lore Spells Divination Crafts Correspondences nvocations Prayers Meditations Llewellyn's Sabbat Essentials explore the old and new ways of celebrating the seasonal rites that are the cornerstones of the witch's year.

Mayday
Mayday

Author: Olivia Dade

Publisher: Lyrical Press

Published: 2016-05-10

Total Pages: 312

ISBN-13: 1616509376

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Passion Between The Stacks Helen Murphy loves her supportive family, her close-knit circle of friends, and her part-time job at the library. What she doesn't love: the fact that she's a thirty-six-year-old near-virgin who lives in her parents' house. Eager to move out and reclaim her independence at long last, she's determined to get the library's new Community Outreach Coordinator position. Even if that means working side-by-side with the one man she desperately wants to avoid--Niceville's ambitious mayor Wes Ramirez, who happens to be her only previous lover, and the source of her greatest humiliation... Wes needs to make up for his disastrous one-night--actually, make that one-hour--stand with deliciously nerdy librarian Helen. As they plan the city's upcoming May Day celebrations together, he'll try to prove he can do better, in bed and out. It may take every bit of his creativity and determination, but their budding romance has already gone down in flames once . . . and he'll be damned if he'll let Helen go a second time.

The First Independence Day Celebration
The First Independence Day Celebration

Author: Kathy Allen

Publisher: Capstone

Published: 2010

Total Pages: 18

ISBN-13: 1404855424

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In the United States, the Fourth of July means picnics, parades, and fireworks. But it wasn't always so. The First Independence Day happened during a time of war. Here's the story.