Monarchs and minnows vs. broadband and bungee jumping

English Today ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 31-37
Author(s):  
Charlotte Brewer
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
English Language ◽  
Oxford English Dictionary ◽  
Oxford Dictionary ◽  
Do So

‘Some of our predecessors in the science of lexicography thought it was part of their duty to improve the English language,’ wrote an editor of the first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) in 1934 (Craigie, 1934: 26). ‘We have got beyond that stage, and consider that if it is to be improved it is not our business to do so, but record it as it was and as it is.’ Such claims for unbiased and objective descriptivism in dictionary-making became standard over the course of the twentieth century and are regularly repeated in dictionaries today. In the words of the first edition of the New Oxford Dictionary of English, published in 1998 and reprinted in many other Oxford dictionaries, ‘A good dictionary reports the language as it is, not as the editors (or anyone else) would wish it to be’ (Pearsall, 1998: xv).

The Samarin Family and the Parish Question in the Russian Empire. 1860s–1910s

2019 ◽  
Vol 54 ◽  
pp. 235-246
Author(s):  
Alexey L. Beglov
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Russian Empire ◽  
Public Discussion ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Social ◽  
Church Life ◽  
The Russian Empire ◽  
In The Beginning ◽  
The Church ◽  
Do So

The article examines the contribution of the representatives of the Samarin family to the development of the Parish issue in the Russian Empire in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The issue of expanding the rights of the laity in the sphere of parish self-government was one of the most debated problems of Church life in that period. The public discussion was initiated by D.F. Samarin (1827-1901). He formulated the “social concept” of the parish and parish reform, based on Slavophile views on society and the Church. In the beginning of the twentieth century his eldest son F.D. Samarin who was a member of the Special Council on the development the Orthodox parish project in 1907, and as such developed the Slavophile concept of the parish. In 1915, A.D. Samarin, who took up the position of the Chief Procurator of the Most Holy Synod, tried to make his contribution to the cause of the parish reforms, but he failed to do so due to his resignation.

Reinventing Ramanand: Caste and History in Gangetic India

1996 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 549-571 ◽  
Author(s):  
William R. Pinch
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
English Language ◽  
Ninth Century ◽  
Religious History ◽  
North India ◽  
Colonial India ◽  
Indian History ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
Literature And Religion ◽  
History Of

According to Sir George Grierson, one of the pre-eminent Indologists of the early twentieth century, Ramanand led ‘one of the most momentous revolutions that have occurred in the religious history of North India.’Yet Ramanand, the fourteenth-century teacher of Banaras, has been conspicuous by his relative absence in the pages of English-language scholarship on recent Indian history, literature, and religion. The aims of this essay are to reflect on why this is so, and to urge historians to pay attention to Ramanand, more particularly to the reinvention of Ramanand by his early twentieth-century followers, because the contested traditions thereof bear on the vexed issue of caste and hierarchy in colonial India. The little that is known about Ramanand is doubly curious considering that Ramanandis, those who look to Ramanand for spiritual and community inspiration, are thought to comprise the largest and most important Vaishnava monastic order in north India. Ramanandis are to be found in temples and monasteries throughout and beyond the Hindi-speaking north, and they are largely responsible for the upsurge in Ram-centered devotion in the last two centuries. A fairly recent anthropological examination of Ayodhya, currently the most important Ramanand pilgrimage center in India, has revealed that Ramanandi sadhus, or monks, can be grouped under three basic headings: tyagi (ascetic), naga (fighting ascetic), and rasik (devotional aesthete).4 The increased popularity of the order in recent centuries is such that Ramanandis may today outnumber Dasnamis, the better-known Shaiva monks who look to the ninth-century teacher, Shankaracharya, for their organizational and philosophical moorings.

Guarding the Public Interest: England's Coroners and Organ Transplants, 1960–1975

2015 ◽  
Vol 54 (4) ◽  
pp. 926-946 ◽  
Author(s):  
Helen MacDonald
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Public Interest ◽  
Spare Part ◽  
Organ Transplants ◽  
Legal Requirement ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Law ◽  
Do So

AbstractFrom the mid-twentieth century, England's coroners were crucial to the supply of organs to transplant, as much of this material was gleaned from the bodies of people who had been involved in accidents. In such situations the law required that a coroner's consent first be obtained lest removing the organs destroy evidence about the cause of the person's death. Surgeons challenged the legal requirement that they seek consent before taking organs, arguing that doing so hampered their quick access to bodies. Some coroners willingly cooperated with surgeons while others refused to do so, coming into conflict with particular transplanters whom they considered untrustworthy. This article examines how the phenomenon of “spare part” surgery challenged long-held conceptions of the coroner's role.

Invisible Bodies

2018 ◽  
Vol 13 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 33-68
Author(s):  
Lan A. Li
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Chinese Medicine ◽  
History Of Medicine ◽  
Intellectual History ◽  
English Language ◽  
Social Hierarchies ◽  
Material Characteristics ◽  
The Social ◽  
Close Study ◽  
History Of

AbstractThis essay explores the ways in which Lu Gwei-djen (1904–91) served as a gatekeeper for interpreting medicine in China in the second half of the twentieth century. After retiring from science in 1956, Lu set out to write one of the first comprehensive English-language histories of medicine in China. Through a close study of Lu’s work notes and marginalia from later in her life, this essay examines how she carefully articulated the material characteristics of a “Chinese” medicine that gave rise to jingluo, or therapeutic paths often known as “meridians.” I argue that at the heart of this uneasy comparison was the difficult process of translating across multiple expressions of physiology. By placing Lu Gwei-djen at the center of a feminist intellectual history of medicine, this essay further shows how Lu’s translations were influenced by the social hierarchies in which she was embedded, including cultural, gender, and temporal dualities.

scholarly journals Vile Sovereigns in Bioethical Debate

2013 ◽  
Vol 33 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Melinda Hall
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Michel Foucault ◽  
Human Enhancement ◽  
Reproductive Technology ◽  
The Body ◽  
Worth Living ◽  
Lecture Series ◽  
The Disabled ◽  
Bioethical Debate ◽  
Do So

<p>In this paper, I critically assess transhumanist philosophy and its influence in bioethics by turning to resources in the work of Michel Foucault. I begin by outlining transhumanism and drawing out some of the primary goals of transhumanist philosophy. In order to do so, I focus on the work of Nick Bostrom and Julian Savulescu, two prominent contributors to this thinking. I then move to explicate Foucault&rsquo;s work, in the early iterations of the <em>Abnormal</em> lecture series, on the concept of vile sovereignty. Foucault used the concept of vile sovereignty to critique psychiatric witnesses that had been utilized in mid twentieth-century French courts of law. Turning back to transhumanism, I analyze transhumanist discourse on the basis of Foucault&rsquo;s vile sovereignty. Transhumanists promote human enhancement in a way that rejects the body&mdash;especially the disabled body&mdash;and pose the question of what lives are worth living, as well as attempt to answer it. I conclude that because of the undeserved influence and ableism of transhumanism, it is important for feminist philosophers, philosophers of disability, and other disability scholars, who collide at the nexus of bioethical debate (especially with regard to reproductive technology and the body), to work together to intervene upon transhumanist discourse.&nbsp; &nbsp;</p><p>Keywords: bioethics; enhancement; Foucault; transhumanism; ableism</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>

scholarly journals The Tragic Mulatta and Storytelling in Their Eyes Were Watching God

2019 ◽  
Vol 26 ◽  
pp. 71-88
Author(s):  
Ana Belén Pérez García
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Zora Neale Hurston ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Female Identity ◽  
Female Character ◽  
Black Race ◽  
Antebellum Literature ◽  
Literary Character ◽  
White Person ◽  
Do So

The figure of the tragic mulatta placed its origin in antebellum literature and was extensively used in the literature of the nineteenth and twentieth century. Much has been written about this literary character in a time when the problem of miscegenation was at its highest point, and when studies established that races were inherently different, meaning that the black race was inferior to the white one. Many authors have made use of this trope for different purposes, and Zora Neale Hurston was one of them. In her novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, Hurston creates Janie, a mulatta that a priori follows all the characteristics of this type of female character who, however, breaks away from most of them. She overcomes all stereotypes and prejudices, those imposed on her because of her condition of interracial offspring, and is able to take charge of her own life and challenge all these impositions feeling closer to her blackness and celebrating and empowering her female identity. In this vein, storytelling becomes the liberating force that helps her do so. It will become the tool that will enable her to ignore the need of passing as a white person and provide her with the opportunity to connect with her real identity and so feel free and happy, breaking with the tragic destiny of mulatta characters. Keywords: storytelling, tragic mulatta, blackness, Hurston.  

scholarly journals Colocaciones verbales inglesas. Tratamiento lexicográfico

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Isnés Lareo Martín
Keyword(s):  
English Language ◽  
Oxford English Dictionary ◽  
Light Verb

Resumen: La oferta lexicográfica ha cambiado substancialmente desde hace algunos años, pero todavía presenta algunas carencias en cuanto a la inclusión de información sobre combinatoria léxica. Algunos autores consideran que esta información forma parte del significado de un lexema y, en consecuencia, debería estar incluida en su descripción lexicográfica.Dado que compartimos esta opinión, hemos decidido examinar el contenido de algunos diccionarios monolingües, como el Oxford English Dictionary (1994), Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (1995) y Collins COBUILD English Language Dictionary (1993). El análisis se centrará en la búsqueda de colocaciones formadas con un verbo light como make, have, take y do, seguido de un sustantivo.Abstract: Though the lexicographic panorama has changed in the last few years, it still lacks some information about lexical combinations. Some authors are of the opinion that this information is part of the lexeme’’s meaning and, consequently, should be included in its lexicographic description.As we share this opinion, we have decided to examine some of the English dictionaries, such as the Oxford English Dictionary (1994), Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (1995) and Collins COBUILD English Language Dictionary (1993). The analysis will be focused on those collocations formed by a light verb, such as make, have, take or do, followed by a noun.

Beyond the Sonata Principle

2002 ◽  
Vol 55 (1) ◽  
pp. 91-154 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Hepokoski
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
English Language ◽  
Sonata Form ◽  
Comparative Analyses ◽  
Sonata Theory ◽  
Language Analysis ◽  
Underlying Principle ◽  
Late Twentieth ◽  
Classical Style ◽  
Late Twentieth Century

Abstract This essay provides a concept-history, a close examination, and a testing of the much invoked “sonata principle” (Edward T Cone, 1967-68), while also introducing a new, contrasting mode of analysis (“Sonata Theory”) for sonata-form compositions from the decades around 1800. Within these compositions it was a common expectation that (nontonic) secondary- and closing-material from the exposition would normally be restated in the tonic in the corresponding place in the recapitulation. In mid- and late-twentieth-century English-language analysis (in response to shifting analytical paradigms), this expectation came to be inflated into differing recastings of a much freer, more encompassing “sonata principle” that, at least initially, was proposed to be the “unifying [and] underlying …… principle for the Classical style.” Some of the attractions of this idea included its claims to midcentury academic sophistication, its protean flexibility, and its ability to provide quick solutions to otherwise “difficult” moments within highly regarded compositions. Anticipated by the caveats of other writers, this article calls attention to the principle's limitations and the ways in which it has been imprecisely laid out or misapplied in influential writing. In a few comparative analyses I also present aspects of a more hermeneutically productive mode of analytical questioning “beyond the sonata principle.”

To Become What One Is

boundary 2 ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 48 (1) ◽  
pp. 251-263
Author(s):  
Lindsay Waters
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Literary Theory ◽  
English Language ◽  
Paul De Man ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
De Man ◽  
Power Central

In the twentieth century, criticism flourished in the academy in the English language from the 1930s to the 1960s, but gradually a hyperprofessionalized discourse purporting to be criticism took its place. The problem was exacerbated because people misunderstand literary theory thinking it superior to criticism. Big mistake. Theory proper begins its life as criticism, criticism that has staying power. Central to criticism as Kant argued is judgment. Judgment is based on feeling provoked by the artwork in our encounters with artworks. This essay talks about the author’s encounter with Mary Gaitskill’s novel Veronica. The critical judgment puts the artwork into a milieu. This essay argues the case for the holism of critical judgments versus what the author calls Bitsiness as Usual, the fragmentation of our understanding of our encounters with artworks. The author subjects both Paul de Man and the New Historicists to severe attacks.

Thanatopography

Dismantlings ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 139-159
Author(s):  
Matt Tierney
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Global Network ◽  
Ethical Codes ◽  
The World ◽  
Mutual Obligation ◽  
Spatio Temporal ◽  
Communal Responsibility ◽  
Do So

This chapter describes thanatopography as the drawing of a map of death, not the writing of a death. When new technologies respatialize the world, thanatopography teaches that they do so not because they construct a communicative network but instead because they build and distribute sites of machinic killing. In discussing Norbert Wiener's insistence on seeing the planet as a world of Belsen and Hiroshima, thanatopography pares back the presumed connection between technology and humanity, exposing something quite frightening underneath the network. A vision of the world that presumes no common similarities among people and peoples is a vertiginous vision that must see shared connections among extant technologies, not only telecommunication and computation but also war, racism, and dehumanizing labor. Communal responsibility and mutual obligation survive amid such technologies as ethical codes that negotiate difference rather than attempting to transcend it. But they also require a reckoning with very real legacies of twentieth-century machines. In place of the smooth-functioning global network, thanatopography offers a spatio-temporal figuration of mass death.

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