Rank, J(oseph) Arthur, Baron Rank (of Sutton Scotney) (b.
Dec. 22/23, 1888, Hull, Yorkshire, Eng.—d. March 29, 1972, Winches¬ ter, Hampshire) British motion-picture distributor and producer. His Brit¬ ish National Film Co. made its first commercial picture in 1935. That year he and Charles Woolf established General Film Distributors to distribute Universal Pictures films in Britain. By 1941 Rank controlled two of the three largest movie theatre chains in Britain. The J. Arthur Rank Organ¬ isation (incorporated 1946) dominated British film production in the late 1940s and ’50s. Rank served as chairman (1946-62) and president (1962- 72) of the Rank Organisation, which shifted from filmmaking to hotel ownership and other more profitable enterprises in the late 1960s.
Rank \'raqk\, Otto orig. Otto Rosenfeld (b. April 22, 1884, Vienna, Austria—d. Oct. 31, 1939, New York, N.Y., U.S.) Austrian psychologist. A protege of Sigmund Freud, Rank’s early books, including The Artist (1907) and The Myth of the Birth of the Hero (1909), extended psycho¬ analytic theory to explain the significance of myths. He edited the Inter¬ national Journal of Psychoanalysis (1912-24). The publication of The Trauma of Birth (1924), which was seen to undermine the principles of psychoanalysis by arguing that the basis of anxiety neurosis is psycho¬ logical trauma occurring during birth, led to his expulsion from the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society. Rank settled in New York City in 1936, and his later work focused on the will as the guiding force in personality devel¬ opment.
Ranke Vraq-koV Leopold von orig. Leopold Ranke (b. Dec. 21, 1795, Wiehe, Thuringia, Saxony—d. May 23, 1886, Berlin) German his-
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1590 I Rankin ► Raphael
torian. Ranke taught at the University of Berlin (1825-71). Inspired by the scientific method of historical study used by Barthold Georg Niebuhr, he championed objective writing based on philological and textual criti¬ cism of source materials. His scholarly technique and way of teaching (he was the first to establish a historical seminar) had great influence on Western historiography. His many works covering a wide variety of top¬ ics typically are subtle accounts of particular limited periods in European state and political history that, like his source materials, take compara¬ tively little notice of social and economic forces.
Rankin, Jeannette (b. June 11, 1880, near Missoula, Mont., U.S.—d. May 18, 1973, Carmel, Calif.) U.S. reformer, first woman member of the U.S. Congress (1917-19, 1941-43).
She was a social worker and an active member of the woman suf¬ frage movement. Elected to the U.S.
House of Representatives in 1916, she introduced the first bill to give women the vote. A pacifist, she voted against declaring war on Germany (1917). After losing her bid for a U.S. Senate seat (1918), she returned to social work. In 1940 she was again elected to the House, where she became the only legislator to vote against the declaration of war on Japan. Declining to seek reelection, she continued to lecture on social reform. In 1968, at age 87, she led 5,000 women, the “Jeannette Rankin Brigade,” in protest of the Vietnam War.
Rankine Vraq-ksnV William J(ohn) M(acquorn) (b. July 5, 1820, Edinburgh, Scot.—d. Dec. 24, 1872, Glasgow) Scottish engineer and physicist, one of the founders of thermodynamics. His classic Manual of the Steam Engine and Other Prime Movers (1859) was the first attempt at a systematic treatment of the theory of steam engines. He worked out a thermodynamic cycle of events (the Rankine cycle) that was used as a standard for the performance of steam-power installations in which a condensable vapour provides the working fluid.
Rankine cycle Ideal cyclical sequence of changes of pressure and tem¬ perature of a fluid, such as water, used in an engine, such as a steam engine. Described in 1859 by William Rankine, it is used as a standard for rating the performance of steam power plants. In the Rankine cycle, the work¬ ing substance of the engine undergoes four successive changes: (1) heat¬ ing at constant volume (as in a boiler), (2) evaporation and superheating (if any) at constant pressure, (3) isentropic expansion in the engine, and (4) condensation at constant pressure with return of the fluid to the boiler. See also Carnot cycle.
Ransom, John Crowe (b. April 30, 1888, Pulaski, Tenn., U.S.—d. July 4, 1974, Gambier, Ohio) U.S. poet and critic. Ransom attended and later taught at Vanderbilt University, where he became the leader of the Fugitives, a group of poets who shared a belief in the South and its agrar¬ ian traditions and published the influential journal The Fugitive (1922- 25); he was among those Fugitives called Agrarian who contributed to I’ll Take My Stand (1930). At Kenyon College, he founded and edited (1939— 59) the Kenyon Review. His literary studies include The New Criticism (1941), which gave its name to an important critical movement (see New Criticism), and he became recognized as a leading theorist of the post- World War I Southern literary renaissance. His Selected Poems (1945; rev. ed., 1969) won the National Book Award.
rap Musical style in which rhythmic and/or rhyming speech is chanted (“rapped”) to musical accompaniment. This backing music, which can include digital sampling (music and sounds extracted from other record¬ ings), is also called hip-hop, the name used to refer to a broader cultural movement that includes rap, deejaying (turntable manipulation), graffiti painting, and breakdancing. Rap, which originated in African American communities in New York City, came to national prominence with the Sugar Hill Gang’s “Rapper’s Delight” (1979). Rap’s early stars included Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, Run-D.M.C., LL Cool J, Public Enemy (who espoused a radical political message), and the Beastie Boys. The late 1980s saw the advent of “gangsta rap,” with lyrics that were often
misogynistic or that glamorized violence and drug dealing. More recent stars have included Sean “Puffy” Combs, Jay-Z, OutKast, and Eminem.
Rapa Nui See Easter Island
Rapallo \ra-'pa-l6. Treaty of (April 16, 1922) Treaty between Ger¬ many and the Soviet Union, signed at Rapallo, Italy. Negotiated by Ger¬ many’s Walther Rathenau and the Soviet Union’s Georgy V. Chicherin, it reestablished normal relations between the two nations. The nations agreed to cancel all financial claims against each other, and the treaty strengthened their economic and military ties. As the first agreement con¬ cluded by Germany as an independent agent since World War I, it angered the Western Allies.
rape Annual plant {Brassica napus) of the mustard family, native to Europe. This 1-ft-tall (30-cm) plant has a long, thin taproot; smooth, bluish-green, deeply scalloped leaves; and clusters of yellow flow¬ ers. Each round, elongated seedpod has a short beak and contains many seeds. The seeds yield an oil (rape- seed oil, or canola) that is the lowest in saturated fat of any edible oil, mak¬ ing it popular for use in cooking. It is also used as an ingredient in soap and margarine and as a lamp fuel.
rape Unlawful sexual activity, usu¬ ally sexual intercourse, carried out forcibly or under threat of injury and against the will of the victim.
Though traditionally limited to attacks on women by men, the defi¬ nition of rape has been broadened to cover same-sex attacks and attacks against those who, because of men¬ tal illness, intoxication, or other reasons, are incapable of valid consent. Statutory rape, or intercourse with a person younger than a certain age (generally from 12 to 18 years), has long been a serious crime in most jurisdictions. Rape is widely considered an expression of anger or aggres¬ sion and a pathological assertion of power by the rapist. The psychologi¬ cal responses of victims vary but usually include feelings of shame, humiliation, confusion, fear, and rage. Many rape victims fail to report the crime, deterred by the prospect of a distressing cross-examination in court and the difficulty of proving a crime for which there usually are no witnesses. In the late 20th century there was a notable increase in the use of rape as a weapon of war, and in the 1990s the tribunal investigating crimes stemming from genocide in Rwanda ruled that rape and sexual violence constituted a form of genocide. See also assault and battery.