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Topic Review
Pingu
Pingu is a Swiss-British stop-motion clay animated children's comedy television series created by Otmar Gutmann and produced from 1990 to 2000 for Swiss television, and from 2003 to 2006 for British television by The Pygos Group (formerly Trickfilmstudio and Pingu Filmstudio). It centres on a family of anthropomorphic penguins who live at the South Pole; the main character is the family's son and title character, Pingu. The series originally ran for four series (each series made up of multiple seasons) from 7 March 1990 to 9 April 2000 on SF DRS and was then renewed for two more series from 1 August 2003 to 3 March 2006 on BBC Two. Pingu won a BAFTA award. Pingu was a worldwide hit, due to its lack of real spoken language: nearly all dialogue is in an invented grammelot "penguin language" referred to as 'Penguinese', consisting of babbling, muttering, and his characteristic sporadic loud honking noise, which can be popularly recognized as "Noot noot!" or other variants, stated to be "Noo, Noo!" by the defunct Pingu website's trivia page, accompanied by turning his beak into a megaphone-like shape. Within the first 4 series, all the characters were performed by Italian voice actor Carlo Bonomi, using a language of noises that he had already developed and used for the earlier Osvaldo Cavandoli's La Linea. In series 5 and 6, the Pingu cast was jointly voiced by David Sant and Marcello Magni. A Japanese reboot of the series, titled Pingu in the City, began airing on NHK-E on 7 October 2017.
  • 4.6K
  • 12 Oct 2022
Topic Review
2012 Phenomenon
The 2012 phenomenon was a range of eschatological beliefs that cataclysmic or transformative events would occur around 21 December 2012. This date was regarded as the end-date of a 5,126-year-long cycle in the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar, and festivities took place on 21 December 2012 to commemorate the event in the countries that were part of the Maya civilization (Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador), with main events at Chichén Itzá in Mexico and Tikal in Guatemala. Various astronomical alignments and numerological formulae were proposed for this date. A New Age interpretation held that the date marked the start of a period during which Earth and its inhabitants would undergo a positive physical or spiritual transformation, and that 21 December 2012 would mark the beginning of a new era. Others suggested that the date marked the end of the world or a similar catastrophe. Scenarios suggested for the end of the world included the arrival of the next solar maximum, an interaction between Earth and the supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy, or Earth's collision with a mythical planet called Nibiru. Scholars from various disciplines quickly dismissed predictions of cataclysmic events as they arose. Mayan scholars stated that no classic Mayan accounts forecast impending doom, and the idea that the Long Count calendar ends in 2012 misrepresented Mayan history and culture. Astronomers rejected the various proposed doomsday scenarios as pseudoscience which is easily refuted by elementary astronomical observations.
  • 1.8K
  • 07 Nov 2022
Topic Review
22 Short Films About Springfield
Template:Infobox Simpsons episode "22 Short Films About Springfield" is the twenty-first episode of The Simpsons' seventh season. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on April 14, 1996. It was written by Richard Appel, David S. Cohen, Jonathan Collier, Jennifer Crittenden, Greg Daniels, Brent Forrester, Dan Greaney, Rachel Pulido, Steve Tompkins, Josh Weinstein, Bill Oakley, and Matt Groening, with the writing being supervised by Daniels. The episode was directed by Jim Reardon. Phil Hartman guest starred as Lionel Hutz and the hospital board chairman. The episode depicts brief incidents experienced by a wide array of Springfield residents in a series of interconnected stories that take place over a single day. The episode's concept originated from the end segment of the season four episode "The Front", and serves as a loose parody of Pulp Fiction, which gave the staff the idea of a possible spin-off from The Simpsons. The title is a reference to the film Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould. The episode received positive reviews from critics, and is noted for its popularity among fans.
  • 540
  • 16 Nov 2022
Topic Review
A Thousand Miles
"A Thousand Miles" (originally titled "Interlude") is the debut single written and recorded by American pop singer Vanessa Carlton. Produced by Curtis Schweitzer and Ron Fair, the song was released as the lead single for Carlton's album Be Not Nobody (2002). Her signature song, it became Carlton's breakthrough hit and one of the most popular songs of the year. To date, it remains Carlton's biggest hit in the United States, and her only single to reach the top ten of the Billboard Hot 100. The song had widespread success worldwide, reaching number one in Australia, where it was most successful, the top five in Ireland, and the top ten in the United Kingdom, France, Italy, and the Netherlands. The song has been covered by numerous artists, including Icarus the Owl, Victoria Justice, David Archuleta, and the Glee Cast. It has also been sampled by T.I., Cheryl Cole, and Cam’ron. It has also become a popular internet meme.
  • 402
  • 20 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Aarne–Thompson Classification Systems
The Aarne–Thompson classification systems are indices used to classify folktales: the Aarne–Thompson Motif-Index (catalogued by alphabetical letters followed by numerals), the Aarne–Thompson Tale Type Index (cataloged by AT or AaTh numbers), and the Aarne–Thompson–Uther classification system (developed in 2004 and cataloged by ATU numbers). They are named after their authors, Antti Aarne, Stith Thompson, and Hans-Jörg Uther. The indices are used in folkloristics to organize, classify, and analyze folklore narratives and are essential tools for folklorists, as Alan Dundes explained in 1997 about the first two indices, "the identification of folk narratives through motif and/or tale type numbers has become an international sine qua non among bona fide folklorists".
  • 2.1K
  • 05 Dec 2022
Topic Review
African American Studies
African American studies (alternately Black studies, or Africana studies, among other terms) is an interdisciplinary academic field that is primarily devoted to the study of the history, culture, and politics of black people from the United States . African American studies are a sub-field of African diaspora studies and Africana studies, the study of the people of African origin worldwide. The field has been defined in different ways, but taken broadly, it not only studies African slave descendants but also any community of the African diaspora linked to the Americas. The field includes scholars of African American (as well as Caribbean, African, and Afro-European) literature, history, politics, and religion as well as those from disciplines such as sociology, anthropology, cultural studies, psychology, education, and many other disciplines within the humanities and social sciences. And, increasingly, African American Studies departments are hiring and partnering with STEM scholars. Intensive academic efforts to reconstruct African American history began in the late 19th century (W. E. B. Du Bois, The Suppression of the African Slave-trade to the United States of America, 1896). Among the pioneers in the first half of the 20th century were Carter G. Woodson, Herbert Aptheker, Melville Herskovits, and Lorenzo Dow Turner. Programs and departments of African American Studies were first created in the 1960s and 1970s as a result of inter-ethnic student and faculty activism at many universities, sparked by a five-month strike for black studies at San Francisco State. In February 1968, San Francisco State hired sociologist Nathan Hare to coordinate the first black studies program and write a proposal for the first Department of Black Studies; the department was created in September 1968 and gained official status at the end of the five-months strike in the spring of 1969. The creation of programs and departments in black studies was a common demand of protests and sit-ins by minority students and their allies, who felt that their cultures and interests were underserved by the traditional academic structures. Black studies is a systematic way of studying black people in the world – such as their history, culture, sociology, policies, experience, issues and religion. It is a study of the black experience and the effect of society on them and their effect within society. This study aims to, among other things, help eradicate many racial stereotypes. Black studies implements history, family structure, social and economic pressures, stereotypes, and gender relationships.
  • 1.4K
  • 04 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Afrikaans Folklore
Learners of Afrikaans as an additional language could be enabled to respond to aesthetical, emotional, cultural and social values. Through the use of Afrikaans folklore teachers can focus on developing the learners' ability to behave with cultural and aesthetic sensitivity in different social contexts. Afrikaans examples of folklore are mentioned and discussed briefly to include stories with humour, magic, the transmission of social and cultural values and traditions, ecological meaning, idiomatic expressions, praise poems, ogre characters and stereotypes. By means of a well-known background and/or context of a text, learners of Afrikaans as an additional language can become aware of the aesthetic range of the target language; they can become acquainted with the depth and content of meaning implied in the text. If a text is understood, the reader becomes personally involved and this, in itself, can lead the reader to interact creatively with the text - from the mechanical aspect of the language system to the analytical aspect - where s/he can participate in the story. The learner can thus discover how the events unfold, s/he can share the characters' emotional experiences and communicate their personal responses. Herein lies the relevance of a good reading text (despite the origin) - because the reader inhabits the text and in the process the language becomes transparent.
  • 1.4K
  • 31 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Agenda 21 for Culture
Agenda 21 for culture (now also known as Culture 21) is a program for cultural governance developed in 2002–2004 and organized by United Cities and Local Governments. Part of the program's premise is to add culture as a fourth conceptual pillar of sustainable development in governance, the historical three pillars of which are environment, social inclusion, and economics.
  • 484
  • 30 Sep 2022
Topic Review
Anti-Graffiti Treatments on Natural Stone Materials
Graffiti vandalism represents an aesthetic and structural phenomenon of degradation both for buildings and cultural heritage: the most used sprays and markers can permeate the stone materials exposing them to degradation. Hence, great attention is being currently devoted to new non-invasive chemical approaches to face this urgent problem. This work is aimed at deeply examining the effects of some of the most sustainable chemical protective methods on the physical properties of natural building materials (e.g., tuff and limestone) by testing two commercial antigraffiti products.
  • 536
  • 21 Jan 2022
Topic Review
Anti-miscegenation Laws
Anti-miscegenation laws or miscegenation laws are laws that enforce racial segregation at the level of marriage and intimate relationships by criminalizing interracial marriage and sometimes also sex between members of different races. Anti-miscegenation laws were first introduced in North America from the late seventeenth century onwards by several of the Thirteen Colonies, and subsequently by many US states and US territories and remained in force in many US states until 1967. After the Second World War, an increasing number of states repealed their anti-miscegenation laws. In 1967, in landmark case Loving v. Virginia, the remaining anti-miscegenation laws were held to be unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court under Chief Justice Earl Warren. Similar laws were also enforced in Nazi Germany as part of the Nuremberg laws which were passed in 1935, and in South Africa as part of the system of Apartheid which was passed in 1948. In the United States, interracial marriage, cohabitation and sex have been termed "miscegenation" since the term was coined in 1863. Contemporary usage of the term is infrequent, except to refer to historical laws banning the practice.
  • 4.1K
  • 13 Oct 2022
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