scholarly journals A Jar of Shaykhs’ Teeth: Medicine, Politics, and the Fragments of History in Kuwait

Author(s):  
Laura Frances Goffman

Abstract This article examines ʿAbd al-Ilah al-Qinaʿi's early 20th-century melding of local, imperial, and transoceanic health practices alongside his 21st-century reemergence as a protonational Kuwaiti doctor. In the early 20th century, geographically and ideologically expansive horizons of health care fostered the emergence of hybrid medical practices. Facilitated by his access to multiple medical spheres and his proximity to Kuwait's rulers, ʿAbd al-Ilah was uniquely positioned to meet the demands of health-seeking consumers. In the 21st century, Kuwaitis' search for a national history that naturalizes claims to citizenship has resulted in ʿAbd al-Ilah's new designation as Kuwait's first doctor. Both processes—the interplay between local cultures of health and emergent institutions and the imagining of medical history as a nativist teleology—demonstrate how health-seeking and history-writing efforts of a range of historical actors have placed medicine at the center of politics in Kuwait.

Author(s):  
Marharyta M. Karol

The article examines the stages of the formation of historiography devoted to the problems of confessional conversions in the second half of the 19th century on the territory of the Belarusian provinces. The historiographic trends that formed from the end of the 19th century to the beginning of the 21st century were identified and analysed. The authour studies the peculiarities of Belarusian and foreign historiography at the present stage, when a large number of works on religious issues has appeared, including confessional conversions. It is argued that in Soviet times, the issue of transitions from Catholicism to Orthodoxy was practically not touched upon. In their approaches and assessments, some researchers continue the traditions of pre-revolutionary historiography, but the majority of modern scientists strive to give an objective picture of religious processes on the Belarusian lands, to show them in the context of general state policy. The relevance of the article is due to the coverage of various points of view on the problem of confessional conversions. It is noted that pre-revolutionary researchers, first of all, sought to prove the voluntariness of conversions to Orthodoxy, but during this period, works were also created in which this thesis was questioned.


Author(s):  
John Breen

In January 2010, the Supreme Court delivered a historic verdict of unconstitutionality in a case involving Sorachibuto, a Shinto shrine in Sunagawa city, Hokkaido. All of the national newspapers featured the case on their front pages. As the case makes abundantly clear, issues of politics and religion, politics and Shinto, are alive and well in 21st century Japan. In this essay, I seek to shed light on the fraught relationship between politics and Shinto from three perspectives. I first analyze the Sorachibuto case, and explain what is at stake, and why it has attracted the attention it has. I then contextualize it, addressing the key state-Shinto legal disputes in the post war period: from the 1970s through to the first decade of the 21st century. Here my main focus falls on the state, and its efforts to cultivate Shinto. In the final section, I shift that focus to the Shinto establishment, and explore its efforts to reestablish with a succession of post LDP administrations the sort of intimacy, which Shinto enjoyed with the state in the early 20th century.


2018 ◽  
Vol 29 ◽  
pp. 297
Author(s):  
Israel Campos Méndez

Resumen: El interés que ha suscitado la figura del dios Mitra ha dejado como reflejo estudios que se remontan al periodo romano. Sin embargo, a partir del Renaci­miento el descubrimiento casual de piezas escul­tóricas de asunto mitraico, atrajo el interés de in­vestigadores que indagaron en sus escritos sobre la identidad de la divinidad que aparecía matando un toro. Durante los siglos XVI al XVIII, la temática solar y la identificación del Mitraísmo se convirtió en el contenido de estos estudios. A partir del s. XIX, empieza a tomar forma una investigación de carácter más científico sobre la cuestión mitraica, que encontrará su nacimiento formal con los tra­bajos de F. Cumont a principios del s. XX. Este si­glo pasado ha sido el que ha visto florecer el mayor y más profundo volumen de estudios desentrañan­do los misterios vinculados al dios Mitra, tanto en su vertiente de divinidad de los panteones védicos y avésticos, como en el ámbito del culto mistérico desarrollado en el marco del Imperio Romano. En los comienzos del siglo XXI, todavía permanecen abiertas algunas hipótesis iniciales, pero sí se cons­tata una vitalidad en los estudios para la compren­sión global del Mitraísmo.Palabras clave: Mitra, Mitraísmo, Avesta, Veda, Cumont.Abstract: One mark of the interest attached to the god Mithra is the line of studies dating back to the Ro­man period. It was, however, during the Renais­sance that the accidental discovery of sculptural pieces of a Mithraic subject attracted the interest of researchers, who sought to identify the bull-ki­lling divinity. Between the 16th and 18th centuries, this field of research re-oriented itself to the solar theme and the identification of Mithraism. In the 19th century, it took on a scientific nature, and the landmark the studies of F. Cumont saw the light of day in early 20th century. As the century progres­sed ambitious in-depth studies flourished, unra­velling the mysteries linked to the cult of the god Mithra, both in terms of the divinity of the Vedic and Avestan pantheons and of the sphere of the mystery cult established in the context of the Ro­man Empire. At the beginning of the 21st century, some initial hypotheses remain open, but the vi­tality of studies pursuing a global understanding of Mithraism remains unchallenged.Key words: Mithra, Mithraism, Avesta, Veda, Cumont.


2022 ◽  
pp. 23-36

This chapter examines the challenges faced by digital informing technologies and civilization in the 21st century. The chapter begins by analyzing (1) the stages of development of strategic information technologies from the early 20th century up to the present as well as (2) the strategies adopted by informing science specializations (such as cognitive science, software engineering, etc.). Next, the chapter surveys major innovations in the history of strategic information technologies. This is followed by an analysis and evaluation of the concept of a laborless economy. The chapter concludes by positing a set of rules for workers in the digital economy that will ensure the wise development of civilization.


2007 ◽  
Vol 32 (4) ◽  
pp. 11-16 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carol Terry

With a detailed but not site-specific building program, the librarians at Rhode Island School of Design made the case for a new library three times the size of the existing facility. The site became specific with the donation of an early 20th-century grand banking hall. This paper addresses the role of the librarian in the design and construction process and includes an analysis of the way the new library meets the program objectives. In the early 1990’s after several early attempts to resolve the library’s space constraint at Rhode Island School of Design, the librarian was given a useful bit of advice: Stop trying to find the space. You must focus first on the program. What is it that you really need?


1987 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 29-34 ◽  
Author(s):  
William J. Dane

The inter-relationship between art librarians and artists/designers in the public library sector in America has been a reality since the early 20th century when libraries were organized into subject departments. This specialized clientele is eclectic and ranges from novices to the most accomplished artists and includes architects, art directors, illustrators, calligraphers, craftspeople and photographers in addition to painters, sculptors and graphic artists. Materials and services in public art libraries are highly diversified and the literature of other disciplines is also readily available. The increase in art exhibitions and special collections is noted in addition to a new focus on information for career opportunities, art law and the handicapped. Current developments set the stage for the continuing symbiotic relationship between public art librarians and artists/designers into the 21st century.


2019 ◽  
Vol 70 ◽  
pp. 09002
Author(s):  
Marina Bluvshtein ◽  
Filipp Filatov ◽  
Makoto Kajino ◽  
Antoine Jackson

The article examines the applicability of an Adlerian view of suicide as sabotaged social interest to clients in a contemporary multicultural context. The approach examined here also focuses on common human factors in suicide and common useful approaches to working with people and communities affected by suicide. AdlerТs theory of suicide as sabotaged social interest was conceived and developed in the early 20th century, during a time of global political crises, economic chaos, and social unsettledness. Sadly, this makes this theory particularly applicable to the first two decades of the 21st century as well.


2018 ◽  
Vol 50 (3) ◽  
pp. 493-511
Author(s):  
Hande Özkan

AbstractThis article analyzes Turkish forestry as a site of nation building. To understand the ways in which forestry shaped ideas of the state and citizenship, I explore the history and memories of the forestry enterprise, Zingal, from the early 20th century to the present. I argue that the conflicting narratives around Zingal in archives and memory are symptoms of the contradictions inherent to nationalist modernity. I also reveal the continuation of similar contradictions in the 21st century by showing how citizens’ discourse of resentment over deindustrialization can coexist with their objection to a potential nuclear industry.


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