scholarly journals POLITICS AND PLAY IN THE LAVS PISONIS

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Max Leventhal

Abstract This article examines the first-century c.e.Laus Pisonis, an anonymous panegyric for a certain Piso that lays particular emphasis on his skill at lyre-playing, ball games and the board game, the ludus latrunculorum (155–210). Whereas this focus has often been a cause of consternation among critics, this article argues that play is a crucial element of the poem's poetic and political operations. The first section shows that the poem employs images of poetic maturity and of temporality in order to justify a light or ludic topic for an allegedly young poet. The second section identifies a hitherto unobserved telestich (M-O-R-A) in the passage describing the ludus latrunculorum and argues that this letter game defines a positive period of play within the poem. The third section further demonstrates that this letter game is aimed specifically at the patron Piso as he is represented within the poem. That is, the poet parallels Piso's potential to uncover the telestich in the text and his ability to uncover the poet's hidden talent. The concluding fourth section explores the wider impact of this reinterpretation of the Laus Pisonis for the literary history of the Early Principate. It proposes that the poem's playfulness should not be seen as reflecting the progressive disempowerment of the political elite. Rather, the poem is an early case of Roman political discourse encroaching on the value of the trivial and the boundaries of otium. The Laus Pisonis makes play political.

2014 ◽  
Vol 104 ◽  
pp. 1-27 ◽  
Author(s):  
Federico Santangelo

AbstractThis paper revisits the political history of the Roman Republic in the third decade of the first centuryb.c.Its central contention is that the dominant feature of the period was neither a reshuffle of alliances within the ‘Sullan’ senatorial nobility nor the swift demise of Sulla's legacy. Attention should be focused instead on some crucial policy issues which attracted debate and controversy in that period: the powers of the tribunes, the corn supply of Rome, the rôle of the Senate, the revival of the census, and the full inclusion of the Allies into the citizen body. The political strategy of M. Aemilius Lepidus (cos. 78b.c.) and its medium-term repercussions also deserve close scrutiny in this connection.


Author(s):  
John West

Literary history often positions Dryden as the precursor to the great Tory satirists of the eighteenth century, like Pope and Swift. Yet a surprising number of Whig writers expressed deep admiration for Dryden, despite their political and religious differences. They were particularly drawn to the enthusiastic dimensions of his writing. After a short reading of Dryden’s poem to his younger Whig contemporary William Congreve, this concluding chapter presents three case studies of Whig writers who used Dryden to develop their own ideas of enthusiastic literature. These three writers are Elizabeth Singer Rowe, John Dennis, and the Third Earl of Shaftesbury. These case studies are used to critique the political polarizations of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century literary history and to stress instead how literary friendship crossed political allegiances, and how writers of differing ideological positions competed to control mutually appealing ideas and vocabularies.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-31
Author(s):  
MIMI HADDON

Abstract This article uses Joan Baez's impersonations of Bob Dylan from the mid-1960s to the beginning of the twenty-first century as performances where multiple fields of complementary discourse converge. The article is organized in three parts. The first part addresses the musical details of Baez's acts of mimicry and their uncanny ability to summon Dylan's predecessors. The second considers mimicry in the context of identity, specifically race and asymmetrical power relations in the history of American popular music. The third and final section analyses her imitations in the context of gender and reproductive labour, focusing on the way various media have shaped her persona and her relationship to Dylan. The article engages critical theoretical work informed by psychoanalysis, post-colonial theory, and Marxist feminism.


Urban History ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 47 (4) ◽  
pp. 568-588
Author(s):  
Frederik Buylaert ◽  
Jelten Baguet ◽  
Janna Everaert

AbstractThis article provides a comparative analysis of four large towns in the Southern Low Countries between c. 1350 and c. 1550. Combining the data on Ghent, Bruges and Antwerp – each of which is discussed in greater detail in the articles in this special section – with recent research on Bruges, the authors argue against the historiographical trend in which the political history of late medieval towns is supposedly dominated by a trend towards oligarchy. Rather than a closure of the ruling class, the four towns show a high turnover in the social composition of the political elite, and a consistent trend towards aristocracy, in which an increasingly large number of aldermen enjoyed noble status. The intensity of these trends differed from town to town, and was tied to different institutional configurations as well as different economic and political developments in each of the four towns.


2010 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Francis Dupuis-Déri

An examination of the speeches of modern Canada’s “founding fathers” reveals that they were openly antidemocratic. How did a regime founded on anti-democratic ideas come to be positively identified with democracy? Drawing on similar studies of the United States and France, this analysis of the history of the term democracy in Canada shows that the country’s association with democracy was not due to constitutional or institutional changes that might have justified re-labelling the country’s political regime. Rather, it was the result of discursive strategies employed by the political elite to strengthen its ability to mobilize the masses during the World Wars.


Author(s):  
Ghulam Sakhi Himat ◽  
Azizurahman Haqyaar

The martial and epic poem by Jahan Pahlavan Amir Krorr Suri is the most notable and magnificent historical poetic record that illustrates the history of Pashto poetry. It is a beautiful example of our literature in terms of vitality and style, true Pashto language, metre, and rhyme. This poem's features may be stated as follows: It is an antique manuscript that demonstrates the existence of Pashto literature about the year 130 H. (752 A.D.). It demonstrates that the language was developed to the point that superb martial poetry was produced in it throughout the first century of the Islamic period. It may be determined from this that it was not a novel language. It was certainly at least five centuries old when Amir Krore discovered it, and it had a rich literary history to achieve such acclaim.


2009 ◽  
Vol 68 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-100 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan K. Ocko ◽  
David Gilmartin

This paper uses the concept of the “rule of law” to compare Qing China and British India. Rather than using the rule of law instrumentally, the paper embeds it in the histories of state power and sovereignty in China and India. Three themes, all framed by the rule of law and the rule of man as oppositional yet paradoxically intertwined notions, organize the paper's comparisons: the role of a discourse of law in simultaneously legitimizing and constraining the political authority of the state; the role of law and legal procedures in shaping and defining society; and the role of law in defining an economic and social order based on contract, property, and rights. A fourth section considers the implications of these findings for the historical trajectories of China and India in the twentieth century. Taking law as an instrument of power and an imagined realm that nonetheless also transcended power and operated outside its ambit, the paper seeks to broaden the history of the “rule of law” beyond Euro-America.


2021 ◽  
pp. 510-526
Author(s):  
Alioune Sow

This chapter examines the singular relation between literature and politics as developed in the Sahel, and traces the specific literary configurations and cultural developments that derived from this relationship. In the wake of decolonization, and perhaps in contrast to other regions of the continent, the literary has dominated the cultural and political milieus of the Sahel, determined the political orientations of the newly emancipated territories at independence, and defined their cultural and social evolution. This relation to the literary has translated into the multiplication of solid literary networks, noticeable literary affinities and communities, and stimulated distinctive literary practices with the ambition of creating spaces in which literary dynamics and practices served social and political developments.


2021 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 106-125
Author(s):  
Anton Andreev ◽  
◽  
Daria Pravdiuk

The activities of the Third (Communist) International left a noticeable mark on the political history of Latin America. His ideological, organizational legacy remains a factor in shaping the theory and practice of contemporary leftist governments in the region. This article examines the impact of the legacy of the Comintern on international processes in Latin America, the development of integration projects, foreign policy projects of the left forces of the region. On the basis of archival documents, media materials, documents of parties and governments, the authors show which of the foreign policy guidelines of the Comintern are relevant for the region in the 21st century.


Author(s):  
James Loxton

This chapter examines the failure of the UCEDE in Argentina, and compares it to the success of the UDI in Chile. The first section discusses the long history of conservative party weakness in Argentina. The second section asks why no “Argentine UDI” emerged from the 1976–1983 military regime, arguing that its poor governing performance—including, notably, its defeat in the 1982 Falklands/Malvinas War—made the formation of such a party unviable. The third section examines the emergence of the UCEDE, emphasizing its much weaker starting position relative to the UDI. The fourth section discusses the fall of the UCEDE, which suffered a series of schisms and a sharp drop in electoral support after newly elected President Carlos Menem (1989–1999), a Peronist, began to implement much of its economic program. While the proximate cause of the UCEDE’s collapse was the Menem government, the chapter argues that the deeper cause was the party’s various built-in weaknesses.


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