scholarly journals Text and lineage in early Sikh history: issues in the study of the Adi Granth

2001 ◽  
Vol 64 (1) ◽  
pp. 34-58 ◽  
Author(s):  
JEEVAN SINGH DEOL
Keyword(s):  
Textual Studies ◽  
Textual Study ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
Over Time

This paper is concerned with the textual study of the Sikh scripture, the Adi Granth. Beginning with a survey of previous approaches to the text of the Adi Granth, it argues that the traditional framework that has previously governed such studies is unable to deal with the complexity of the extant manuscript traditions of the bānī (the corpus of compositions in the Granth). In the earliest period, a number of concurrent oral repertoires of the bānī were in existence; over time, the written Adi Granth evolved into a number of relatively standardized recensions. Future textual studies on the Adi Granth must also begin to take into account the ways in which the text was received and read in the pre-modern period. Finally, the field must take cognizance of the contexts within which texts were produced and read, particularly those arising from merchant literacy.

Anti-corruption in History

2017 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Financial Institutions ◽  
Global Media ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
The Past ◽  
Human Wellbeing ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
Legitimate Power ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Scant Attention ◽  
Over Time

Anticorruption in History is the first major collection of case studies on how past societies and polities, in and beyond Europe, defined legitimate power in terms of fighting corruption and designed specific mechanisms to pursue that agenda. It is a timely book: corruption is widely seen today as a major problem, undermining trust in government, financial institutions, economic efficiency, the principle of equality before the law and human wellbeing in general. Corruption, in short, is a major hurdle on the “path to Denmark”—a feted blueprint for stable and successful statebuilding. The resonance of this view explains why efforts to promote anticorruption policies have proliferated in recent years. But while the subjects of corruption and anticorruption have captured the attention of politicians, scholars, NGOs and the global media, scant attention has been paid to the link between corruption and the change of anticorruption policies over time and place. Such a historical approach could help explain major moments of change in the past as well as reasons for the success and failure of specific anticorruption policies and their relation to a country’s image (of itself or as construed from outside) as being more or less corrupt. It is precisely this scholarly lacuna that the present volume intends to begin to fill. A wide range of historical contexts are addressed, ranging from the ancient to the modern period, with specific insights for policy makers offered throughout.

Methodological Considerations on the Role of Experience in Comparative Theology

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emma O’Donnell
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Study ◽  
Religious Experience ◽  
Comparative Theology ◽  
Textual Studies ◽  
Close Attention ◽  
Openness To Change ◽  
Textual Study ◽  
Methodological Considerations ◽  
Attention To Detail

Emma O’Donnell explores the implications of the fact that comparative theology primarily based in textual studies has to date been the norm in comparative theology. While textual study tends to be central to most theological work and has provided strong foundations for comparative theology too, the operative intellectual virtues—close attention to detail, reflective and patient learning, openness to change—can also be taken outside the text, so to speak, in order to pave the way for a new methodology attuned to the richer and living contexts in which texts are composed, read, and lived. Accordingly, O’Donnell explores the possibility of comparative theological work grounded in the experiential elements of faith. A comparative study of religious experience, for instance, has the capacity to bring to light specific aspects of interreligious relationships such as will not be evident simply through textual study.

The Accidents of the Soul

2021 ◽  
pp. 55-82
Author(s):  
Benedict S. Robinson
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Medical Diagnostics ◽  
Medical Discourse ◽  
Human Actions ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
Diagnostic Medicine ◽  
Over Time

“The Accidents of the Soul” asks which disciplines were seen to provide a knowledge of the passions in the early modern period, and how that map of the disciplines changed over time. It opens by noting the relatively minor position the passions held in a received philosophical “science of the soul,” itself divided between physics and metaphysics. As “accidents of the soul”—that is, contingent qualitative alterations in the soul—the passions lay at the margins of philosophical knowledge: they were seen as subject to too much particularity and contingency to belong to what one author called “certaine science.” They belonged instead to the “low” sciences, the practical sciences, fields that study human actions and that therefore were seen to produce a merely probable knowledge of particulars: fields like rhetoric, politics, poetics, ethics. The passions also belonged to medicine insofar as diagnostic medicine was understood as an art: in medicine, “accidents” are symptoms and the phrase “accidents of the soul” belongs to medical discourse insofar as it takes account of the particularities of the passions as part of a regimen of health. The chapter situates the seventeenth-century treatises on the passions in relation to various kinds of discourse on the passions all seen as promoting forms of probable knowledge on the model of medical diagnostics: physiology and “characterology,” most notably. It ends with a reading of Shakespeare’s Othello as a text that probes the limits—and the dangers—of this probable knowledge of the passions.

Improvisations on a Semicolonial Theme, or, How to Read a Celebration of Transnational Urban Community

2000 ◽  
Vol 59 (4) ◽  
pp. 889-926 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bryna Goodman
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
International Law ◽  
Urban Community ◽  
Colonial Modernity ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
Foreign Presence ◽  
Over Time

Semicolonialism, as jürgen osterhammel noted, is a label that has been generally applied to China “without much regard for its potential theoretical implications” (Osterhammel 1986, 296). The partial character of semicolonialism—as incomplete colonialism—poses the question of what difference it made that throughout the modern period China never in fact became a subject nation, but retained sovereignty over nearly all of its territory and was recognized as a sovereign nation by international law. The writings of twentieth-century Chinese nationalists and a recent profusion of theorizing about colonialism and “colonial modernity” in China, by emphasizing colonialism (Barlow 1997), have perhaps obscured rather than clarified the answer to this question. Moreover, semicolonialism in China, as a gradual accretion of phenomena associated with imperialism, varied substantially over time. Its significance for understanding nineteenth-century China, when the foreign presence within China was still quite limited, remains unclear. Several decades of research on imperialism in Shanghai have produced much debate, but no clear mapping of“where, when, howand to whateffectdidwhichextraneous forces impinge” on Chinese life (Osterhammel 1986, 295).

Health as a Social Agent in Ottoman Patronage and Authority

2007 ◽  
Vol 37 ◽  
pp. 147-175 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miri Shefer Mossensohn
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Medical System ◽  
Social Policies ◽  
Social Agent ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
Over Time

AbstractOttoman society and its medical system of the early modern period and the nineteenth-century demonstrate the marriage of medicine and power. I present the view from the imperial center and focus on the aims and wishes of the Ottoman elite and imperial authorities in İstanbul as they were embodied in state activities, such as formal decrees and policies meant to be implemented all over the empire. For the Ottoman elite, medicine was always a significant imperial tool, but it was neither the only tool of control, nor the most important one. The extent to which the Ottoman elite used medicine in its social policies changed over time. A comparison between the Ottoman use and distribution of health and food from the early modern period until the nineteenth century illustrates this point. It was especially during the nineteenth century that medicine was intentionally-and successfully-implemented as a mechanism of control in the Ottoman Empire.

scholarly journals Nobres e magistrados: uma discussão sobre o conceito de nobreza

2018 ◽  
pp. 159-169
Author(s):  
Nara Maria De Paula Tinoco
Keyword(s):  
Heterogeneous Group ◽  
The Other ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
Personal Interests ◽  
Over Time

Resumo: Neste trabalho, discutiremos a importância do conceito de nobreza para um grupo em particular: os magistrados. Diferente dos demais oficiais régios, devido à formação em Direito, eles se destacavam por exercerem e interpretarem as Leis, bem como por representarem a face mais visível dos Monarcas: a Justiça. Os magistrados formavam um grupo mais alargado e heterogêneo em suas obrigações e interesses pessoais: os letrados, que influenciaram todo o período moderno português. Ao longo do tempo, surgiu a indispensabilidade de situarmos o conceito de nobreza e suas subdivisões para construirmos o perfil, as carreiras, as hierarquias e as estratégias/estratagemas destes indivíduos e dos demais grupos constituintes da administração portuguesa e de suas conquistas.Abstract: In this work we will discuss the importance of the concept of nobility for a particular group, the magistrates. Unlike the other royal officials due to the formation in Law, they stood out from the other groups for exercising and interpreting the laws and for representing the most visible face of the Monarchs, Justice. The magistrates were participants of a larger and heterogeneous group in their obligations and personal interests, that is, of the literate ones and that they influenced all the Portuguese modern period. Over time, the indispensability of placing the concept of nobility and its subdivisions in order to construct the profile, the careers, the hierarchies and strategies / stratagems of these individuals and the other constituent groups of the Portuguese administration and its conquests arose.

‘MONS MANUFACTUS’: ROME'S MAN-MADE MOUNTAINS BETWEEN HISTORY AND NATURAL HISTORY (c. 1100–1700)

2017 ◽  
Vol 85 ◽  
pp. 171-204 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lucy Donkin
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
The City ◽  
Over Time ◽  
The Middle Ages

Rome's man-made mounds occupy a position between built antiquities and natural features. In the Middle Ages and early modern period, particular attention was paid to Monte Testaccio, the Mausoleum of Augustus, and the related ‘mons omnis terra’. Debate focused on the origins and composition of the mounds, thought to contain either earth brought to Rome as symbolic tribute, pottery used to hold monetary tribute, or pottery produced locally. Developing over time in different genres of writing on the city, these interpretations were also employed in works on historical, religious and geological themes. The importation of material, expressive of relations between Rome and the wider world in antiquity, was used to draw positive and negative comparisons with present-day rulers and the papacy, and to associate Rome with Babylon. The growth of the mounds and the presence of ceramics were invoked in discussions of the formation of mountains and montane fossils. If the mounds' ambiguities facilitated their incorporation into other debates, the terms in which they are discussed reflect ongoing engagement with literature on the city. The reception of these monuments thus offers a distinctive perspective on the significance of Rome to connections between spheres of knowledge in this period.

Assessing Violence in the Modern World

2018 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
pp. 66-77 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Bessel
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Violence ◽  
Considerable Degree ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Considerable Evidence ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
Violent Acts ◽  
Forms Of Violence ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Over Time ◽  
Violent Events

The argument put forward by Steven Pinker that violence has been in decline and that “we have been getting kinder and gentler” rests to a considerable degree upon data concerning violent events, in particular homicide and deaths on the battlefield. In discussing such data for the modern period, this article questions their reliability and, in particular, their comparability over time. Pinker’s argument may be stronger with respect to a growing public sensitivity toward many forms of violence, not least sexual violence, for which there is considerable evidence. However, the relationship between changing public sensibilities and changing levels of actual violent acts remains difficult to determine.

scholarly journals Publiczna i prywatna religijność królowej Marii Kazimiery

2021 ◽  
Vol 62 (1 (245)) ◽  
pp. 25-40
Author(s):  
Aleksandra Skrzypietz
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
God's Grace ◽  
Queen Mother ◽  
Private Religiosity ◽  
Over Time ◽  
King John

Public and Private Religiosity and Piety of the Queen Marie Casimire d’Arquien Sobieska In the early modern period, queens were obliged to participate in religious ceremonies and outwardly display their piety through charity. Marie Casimire de la Grange d’Arquien Sobieska met these duties when she was consort of the King John III Sobieski, and later, as a widow residing in Rome. Yet, her prayers were not limited to outward gestures of religiosity at official ceremonies. From her numerous letters, we can learn about her personal piety. In her letters written to Jakub, her eldest son, and his wife, the queen mother often refers to God’s Providence, and expresses her deep devotion and faith in God’s grace and protection. For Queen Marie Casimire, God was the source of comfort in difficult moments. While her outward religiosity is a reflection of the age in which she lived, the queen’s personal faith developed over time and appears to have been deep and sincere.

Germany, Nationhood, and the Holocaust, 1500–2000

2021 ◽  
Vol 51 (4) ◽  
pp. 609-621
Author(s):  
Alon Confino
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Sense Of Belonging ◽  
Research Agenda ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Cultural Symbols ◽  
Proper Understanding ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
Modern Sense ◽  
Over Time

A proper understanding of a nation’s identity over time requires tracing how a modern sense of belonging can derive from the symbolic reservoir of society and how cultural symbols can change their meaning in history. This research agenda becomes significantly more challenging when it involves a national group’s experience across hundreds of years from the early modern period to the present. Such is the task of Smith’s Germany: A Nation and Its Time in its attempt to tell the story of nation and nationalism in Germany from 1500 to 2000.

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