scholarly journals Celebrating Heritage, Promoting Tourism, and Relocating Svāmī Vivekānanda: A Study of the Vivekananda Rock Memorial

Author(s):  
Gwilym Beckerlegge

AbstractSvāmī Vivekānanda’s (1863–1902) relationship with his guru Śrī Rāmakṛṣṇa (ca. 1836–1886), and his role in the creation of the Ramakrishna Math and Ramakrishna Mission in the final decade of the nineteenth century, has attracted far more scholarly attention than the meanings invested in Vivekānanda after his death by devotees and admirers beyond the Math and Mission and by the various organizations that have disseminated these meanings. To redress this imbalance, this article examines the message embodied in, and projected by, the Vivekananda Rock Memorial at Kanniyakumari. It explores the Memorial’s contribution to Kanniyakumari’s expanding role as a tourist destination and the problematic nature of the story that has provided the rationale for the Memorial’s location. It shows how evolving versions of this story have fed the different understandings of Vivekānanda’s mission now institutionalized respectively in the Ramakrishna Math and Ramakrishna Mission and the Vivekananda Kendra, which manages the Memorial. It argues that the creation of the Memorial has directed attention away from Kolkata (Calcutta), the scene of Vivekānanda’s interaction with his guru Rāmakṛṣṇa, and thus away from that seminal relationship. The Memorial presents, instead, Vivekānanda’s experience at Kanniyakumari as the defining moment in his evolving mission as a “spiritual nationalist.” The article concludes by noting implications of this shift for the critical understanding of Vivekānanda, emphasizing the importance of the Rock Memorial’s function as an increasingly popular portal to “Vivekānanda of Kanniyakumari.”

1994 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 188-208 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samuel B. Hoff

The general constitutional authority of the President to veto legislation passed by Congress has recently received renewed scholarly attention. However, few studies have focused on the pocket veto—the power to negate proposed laws sent for approval without the possibility of reconsideration—and its ramifications for presidential effectiveness. This research comprehensively investigates the creation, development, and employment of the pocket veto. First, this article will trace the history of this form of executive prerogative from colonial times through its establishment in the Constitution. Second, it will review the use of the pocket veto in the nineteenth century. Third, it will undertake a seminal empirical probe of influences on public-bill pocket-veto frequency from 1889 to 1989. Fourth, I will delineate congressional and court challenges to the use of this executive device. In the final section, I will assess the consequences of heightened consternation over pocket-veto use.


2020 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 616-635
Author(s):  
Kristof Loockx

This article examines the migration trajectories of seafarers who worked on Belgian merchant vessels departing from the port of Antwerp during the second half of the nineteenth century. Based on the Antwerp seamen’s registry, which recorded information on voyages of seafarers on Belgian merchant vessels departing from Belgium’s main commercial port, this article shows that Antwerp’s maritime recruitment area vastly expanded with the advent of steam. The proportion of low-skilled seafarers who originated from inland areas increased as a result of the creation of new departments aboard ship and the emergence of ocean liners. However, established migration fields remained important for the supply of skilled labour in deck departments, which indicates that there was also continuity. The findings suggest that each department had its own dynamics and therefore old and new patterns co-evolved during a period of transition.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
Scott Travanion Connors

Abstract This article explores the emergence of reformist sentiment and political culture in Madras in the mid-nineteenth century. Moreover, it contributes to, and expands upon, the growing body of literature on colonial petitioning through a case-study of a mass petition demanding education reform. Signed in 1839 by 70,000 subjects from across the Madras presidency, the petition demanded the creation of a university that would qualify western-educated Indians to gain employment in the high public offices of the East India Company. Through an analysis of the lifecycle of this education petition, from its creation to its reception and the subsequent adoption of its demands by the Company government at Fort St George, this article charts the process by which an emergent, politicized public engaged with, and critiqued, the colonial state. Finally, it examines the transformative effect that the practice of mass petitioning had on established modes of political activism and communication between an authoritarian colonial state and the society it governed.


2007 ◽  
Vol 48 (2) ◽  
pp. 221-243 ◽  
Author(s):  
PAUL NUGENT

ABSTRACTThis article begins with a quotation from a local informant highlighting a perception in the Gambia/Casamance borderlands that there is a pattern linking the violence of the later nineteenth century with more recent troubles. It argues that there is some merit in this thesis, which is encapsulated in a concatenation of events: systematic raiding by Fodé Sylla led to the creation of a relatively depopulated colonial border zone which was later filled by Jola immigrants from Buluf to the southeast. In the perception of some, it is these immigrants who attracted the MFDC rebels. Mandinkas and Jolas of Fogny Jabankunda and Narang, and Karoninkas from the islands of Karone have therefore been largely unreceptive to appeals to Casamance nationalism. The article also argues that there are more twisted historical connections. Whereas in the later nineteenth century, the Jolas associated Islam with violent enslavement, they later converted en masse. Their attitude towards Fodé Sylla remained negative, whilst the Mauritanian marabout, Cheikh Mahfoudz, was credited with the introduction of a pacific form of Islam that valorized hard work and legitimated physical migration. This legacy has posed a further barrier to militant nationalism. Islam and violence remain linked, but the signs have been reversed.


2007 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 515-522
Author(s):  
Elena Rudan

This paper investigates whether it is possible to impact on the competitiveness of a destination through new dimensions of cultural tourism and by improving the existing forms of cultural tourism. The paper deals with the possibility of upgrading the development of cultural tourism through historical trails. The historical trails from Moscenicka Draga and Moscenice to Trebisce and Perun could supplement the creation of an image for this destination, which in itself has a strong seasonal character, as well as a strong orientation of tourists towards sea- and-sun motivated holidaymaking. According to the latest research, Trebisce was a place where the old Slavs used to make their offerings to Perun, the Slavic god of thunder. In other words, this is a sacred site of early Croatian mythology. The historical trails can help to differentiate, improve and enrich the tourism offering of Moscenicka Draga as a tourist destination. The initiator and coordinator of this project is the Chair of the Chakavian Council (an organization dedicated to the preservation of the local culture and the chakavian dialect) of the Municipality of Moscenicka Draga.


2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 199-222
Author(s):  
Hannah Bradshaw

This article examines the early representations of Prince Albert that either satirize or attempt to reconcile the hierarchical ambiguities and issue of threatened masculinity that resulted from unconventional male consortship and female rule. It concludes that the latter was achieved through the development of a suitable and legible iconography for a nineteenth-century male consort in adherence with British iconographic tradition and values. Drawing from methods in nineteenth-century art history as well as gender and performance studies and anthropology, it argues that images of the male body play a fundamental role in the construction and perpetuation of masculine ideology and subjectivity through the creation of the semblance of an innate and axiomatic masculine archetype. In doing so, this article problematizes and historicizes masculinity by illuminating the plurality of expressions of masculinity and rejecting the essentialist narrative of masculinity as something measurable or quantifiable, as well as ahistorical, atemporal, apolitical and heteronormative.


Elements ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Danielle Nista

For a slave living under the system of chattel slavery in the American South during the nineteenth century, avenues of self-expression were extremely limited. One of the few ways slaves could exert control over their own lives was through singing and dancing. These arts gave slaves a chance to relieve stress and establish a culture through the creation of musical instruments, songs, and dances. All of these contained hints at the true nature of slaves’ feelings towards the system that oppressed them, feelings that they had to frequently repress. However, despite slaves’ efforts to make this culture entirely their own, masters tried to find ways to use it to their advantage instead of to the slaves’ benefit. The resulting covert power struggle sometimes ended in favor of the masters, taking the form of regulations on slaves’ dances, requirement of the performance of songs and dances for the masters’ entertainment, and even abuse of slaves by using their own arts. Ultimately, however, slaves emerged victorious because of the hidden messages in their songs and dances. Though this method of coping could not erase all the masters did, it was at least one glimmer of hope.


2011 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 177-198
Author(s):  
SANA HAROON

AbstractThis paper is a reconsideration of the career of the north-Indian Sayyid Ahmed Shaheed (1786–1831). I argue that Sayyid Ahmed used a Sufi devotional premise to understand and explain principles of orthodoxy. He also applied a concept of innate spiritual knowledge to reformed practice, suggesting that ordinary people, without scholarly training, could determine and apply the principles of orthodox practice of Islam for themselves and for others. His movement modified traditional seminary-centred teaching and leadership through the creation of a popular and easily transferrable system of practice rooted in the community and imprinted with the obligation to spread reformist teachings.


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