The Spirit Lord of Baishi Mountain: Feeding the Deities or Heeding the Yinyang

Early China ◽  
2001 ◽  
Vol 26 ◽  
pp. 159-231 ◽  
Author(s):  
K.E. Brashier
Keyword(s):  
Historical Context ◽  
The Other ◽  
Free Agent ◽  
Consistent Model ◽  
History Of ◽  
Pervasive System ◽  
The One ◽  
Five Phases ◽  
Eastern Han

Overseen by hungry gods on the one hand or structured by impersonal cyclic forces on the other, the Eastern Han cosmos eluded a single consistent model accepted by everyone. Yet these cosmological perspectives were not competing arguments held by different people; they were inconsistent genres of discourse found within the same people and sometimes even within the same texts. Late Eastern Han mountain inscriptions may ritually appease sacrifice-eating gods with their hymns of praise, but they simultaneously describe the cosmos as a single pervasive system of qi-vapors, yinyang, and the five phases. How could these two models coexist?Dated to 183 C.E., the “Stele to the Spirit Lord of Baishi Mountain” (baishi shenjun bei 白石神君碑) demonstrates how certain compromise positions existed between a universe overseen by external agencies and that consisting of resonating cycles. The inscription explains why this mountain deity merited sacrifice, describes the official process in which permission to sacrifice was secured, and identifies this hungry deity as one component within ritualized systems within spatial lineages and geographic bureaucracies and so he is not recognized as an entirely free agent. In addition, the inscription systematizes him by obligating him to participate in mechanical rituals of recompense and by reducing him to a ritualized Classicist stereotype, further diminishing his independence and individuality. The stele inscription s focus on ritual demonstrates how ritual lessens any perceived inconsistency between cosmic agencies and cosmic system.This article first surveys the Han history of mountain sacrifices and mountain stelae, thereby placing the Spirit Lord of Baishi Mountain into historical context. The translation of the inscription dedicated to him follows, which for the purpose of analysis I divide into eight sections that address themes such as rituals of recompense, the generation of rain, and the transformation of the god into a Classicist hero. The conclusion summarizes how human structures such as lineage and bureaucracy fill in the gaps between these inconsistent genres of discourse human structures that result in impersonal qi-vapors becoming more human and personalized mountain deities becoming more structured.

Transforming skin, changing caste: Technical education in leather production in India, 1900–1950

2018 ◽  
Vol 55 (3) ◽  
pp. 307-343 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shahana Bhattacharya
Keyword(s):  
Social Status ◽  
Technical Education ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
The Other ◽  
Leather Industry ◽  
History Of ◽  
Colonial Economy ◽  
The One ◽  
Traditional Industry ◽  
Pedagogical Methods

State-organised technical education focusing on leather production was introduced in India in the early 1900s. One of its key objectives was to change the entrenched notions about the leather industry—as a ‘traditional’ industry associated with low caste and social status. This article traces the history of this endeavour, locating it within a wider account of the history of technical education in leather production. While some common concerns affected the project in both Europe and India, there were important points of difference, as technical education in leather production in India had to negotiate factors such as the extreme stigma of hides and skins mandated by caste on the one hand, and on the other, their integration within the capitalist colonial economy and their concomitant high profitability. Decisions of who or what were to be taught, and by which pedagogical methods, were produced through these negotiations. The article explores this history through a study of two leading institutions that provided technical education in this field. It highlights how official initiatives of skilling and technical education were, in complex ways, closely mediated by, and in turn mediated their historical context, its social and economic structures, prevailing ideologies and notions of skill.

Willing Evil

2020 ◽  
Vol 94 (2) ◽  
pp. 305-322
Author(s):  
Henrik Lagerlund ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Martin Luther ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Human Freedom ◽  
The Other ◽  
Natural Context ◽  
History Of ◽  
William Ockham ◽  
The One ◽  
Do So

In this article, I present two virtually unknown sixteenth-century views of human freedom, that is, the views of Bartolomaeus de Usingen (1465–1532) and Jodocus Trutfetter (1460–1519) on the one hand and John Mair (1470–1550) on the other. Their views serve as a natural context and partial background to the more famous debate on human freedom between Martin Luther (1483–1556) and Erasmus of Rotterdam (1466–1536) from 1524–1526. Usingen and Trutfetter were Luther’s philosophy teachers in Erfurt. In a passage from Book III of John Mair’s commentary on Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics from 1530, he seems to defend a view of human freedom by which we can will evil for the sake of evil. Very few thinkers in the history of philosophy have defended such a view. The most famous medieval thinker to do so is William Ockham (1288–1347). To illustrate how radical this view is, I place him in the historical context of such thinkers as Plato, Augustine, Buridan, and Descartes.

scholarly journals Redemptive-Historical Approach: Suatu Pendekatan Hermeneutis Injili Yang Kristosentris

2018 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 147-161
Author(s):  
Fitri Yuliana
Keyword(s):  
Historical Context ◽  
The Other ◽  
Historical Approach ◽  
Literary Context ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Post Modernism ◽  
History Of ◽  
The One ◽  
Two Sides

Di satu sisi, penekanan modernisme pada rasionalitas dan historisitas telah menghasilkan kristologi yang kritis-objektif. Di sisi lain, pascamodernisme yang berepistemologi pluralis menghasilkan kristologi yang subjektif. Menanggapi dan menjembatani dua sisi persoalan ini, pendekatan hermeneutis redemptive-historical diajukan sebagai pendekatan alternatif injili. Pendekatan yang berpusat pada Kristus sebagai kulminasi sejarah penebusan (seperti yang disaksikan Alkitab) ini mengaitkan tiga horizon yaitu: textual, epochal, dan canonical untuk menginterpretasikan teks Kitab Suci secara holistik. Pendekatan ini menganalisis sintaksis, konteks sastra, konteks sejarah dan genre-nya (textual horizon), mengaitkannya dengan sejarah penebusan (epochal horizon), dan melihatnya dalam terang keutuhan kanon (canonical horizon). Penggabungan ketiga unsur tersebut menekankan dinamika pemenuhan janji Allah dalam kulminasi tersebut. Dengan demikian, pendekatan hermeneutis redemptive historical dapat mengarahkan orang Kristen pembacaan dan penafsiran Alkitab yang kristosentris. Kata-kata kunci: Pendekatan Redemptive-Historical, Epistemologi, Kristologi Modern Kristologi Pascamodern, Hermeneutika Injili Kristosentris On the one hand, the emphasis of modernism on rationality and historicity has produced a critical-objective Christology. On the other hand, post-modernism with a pluralist epistemology produces subjective Christology. Responding to, and bridging the two sides of this problem, the redemptive-historical hermeneutical approach is proposed as an alternative evangelical approach. The Christ-centered approach as the culmination of the history of redemption (as witnessed to in the Bible) links three horizons, namely: textual, epochal, and canonical to interpret the text of the Scriptures holistically. This approach analyzes syntax, literary context, historical context and its genre (textual horizon), links it to the history of redemption (epochal horizon), and sees it in the light of the canon (canonical horizon). The combination of these three elements emphasizes the dynamic fulfillment of God’s promises. Thus, the historical redemptive hermeneutical approach can lead Christians to read and interpret the Christocentric Bible. Keywords: Redemptive-Historical Approach, Epistemology, Modernist Christology, Post-modernist Christology, Christ-centered Evangelical Hermeneutics

The Return to Diversity in Eastern Europe

1993 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 87-100
Author(s):  
Jens Hohensee
Keyword(s):  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
Economic Factors ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
History Of ◽  
The One ◽  
New Research ◽  
Annus Mirabilis

The events of 1989, the annus mirabilis, have led to a great demand for new research and a re-thinking of the history of Eastern Europe. Those sources which were kept from us for years are now available, at least in part. As part of this process political scientists and historians of Eastern Europe are now concerned to fill in the gaps in our knowledge and provide the answers to urgent questions. A consequence of this situation has been a veritable flood of publications, of which eight have been chosen for review here. With two exceptions these studies have deepened our understanding of the issues involved. There are clear differences between the historians on the one hand and the political scientists on the other in terms of their starting-point and the questions they ask. Whereas the historians deal descriptively with the origins, trends and structures of the last centuries and place the revolutions of 1989/90 in their historical context, the political scientists proceed analytically and place greater emphasis on social, ethnic and economic factors. This dichotomy is demonstrated in the different problematics of the books under review.

Nouvelles perspectives sur la réception de la littérature castillane en français à la fin du Moyen Âge

2018 ◽  
Vol 134 (1) ◽  
pp. 32-61
Author(s):  
Olivier Delsaux
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
French Literature ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
The Other ◽  
History Of ◽  
New Perspective ◽  
The One ◽  
French Texts ◽  
Insight Into ◽  
Duke Of Burgundy

Abstract This paper aims to get a better insight into the material, literary and historical context surrounding two important, but neglected or unknown, evidences of the dissemination of Castillan literature in the French literature at the end of the Middle Ages. The French translations of Diego de Valera’s Crónica abreviada de España o Valeriana, on the one part, and of Pero López de Ayala’s Crónicas, on the other part, were both achieved between 1504–1506 for the last « Duke of Burgundy » Philip the Fair. Through the investigation of the surviving manuscripts, of the paratext and of the content of these two French texts, will be argued that Vasco de Lucena or Fernando de Lucena are two ideal candidates for their attribution. Moreover, the paper will offer a new perspective on a major evidence of the History of the Castillan language : the Epistola latina et hispanica.

Theodor W. Adorno

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Colby Dickinson
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
History Of Thought ◽  
History Of ◽  
The One

In his somewhat controversial book Remnants of Auschwitz, Agamben makes brief reference to Theodor Adorno’s apparently contradictory remarks on perceptions of death post-Auschwitz, positions that Adorno had taken concerning Nazi genocidal actions that had seemed also to reflect something horribly errant in the history of thought itself. There was within such murderous acts, he had claimed, a particular degradation of death itself, a perpetration of our humanity bound in some way to affect our perception of reason itself. The contradictions regarding Auschwitz that Agamben senses to be latent within Adorno’s remarks involve the intuition ‘on the one hand, of having realized the unconditional triumph of death against life; on the other, of having degraded and debased death. Neither of these charges – perhaps like every charge, which is always a genuinely legal gesture – succeed in exhausting Auschwitz’s offense, in defining its case in point’ (RA 81). And this is the stance that Agamben wishes to hammer home quite emphatically vis-à-vis Adorno’s limitations, ones that, I would only add, seem to linger within Agamben’s own formulations in ways that he has still not come to reckon with entirely: ‘This oscillation’, he affirms, ‘betrays reason’s incapacity to identify the specific crime of Auschwitz with certainty’ (RA 81).

Policy analysis and complexity – a non-equilibrium approach for integrated water management

1995 ◽  
Vol 31 (8) ◽  
pp. 301-309 ◽  
Author(s):  
Govert D. Geldof
Keyword(s):  
Water Management ◽  
Control System ◽  
Planning Process ◽  
The Other ◽  
Integrated Water Management ◽  
Equilibrium Approach ◽  
History Of ◽  
The One ◽  
Groundwater Policy ◽  
Non Equilibrium

In integrated water management, the issues are often complex by nature, they are capable of subjective interpretation, are difficult to express in standards and exhibit many uncertainties. For such issues, an equilibrium approach is not appropriate. A non-equilibrium approach has to be applied. This implies that the processes to which the integrated issue pertains, are regarded as “alive”’. Instead of applying a control system as the model for tackling the issue, a network is used as the model. In this network, several “agents”’ are involved in the modification, revision and rearrangement of structures. It is therefore an on-going renewal process (perpetual novelty). In the planning process for the development of a groundwater policy for the municipality of Amsterdam, a non-equilibrium approach was adopted. In order to do justice to the integrated character of groundwater management, an approach was taken, containing the following features: (1) working from global to detailed, (2) taking account of the history of the system, (3) giving attention to communication, (4) building flexibility into the establishing of standards, and (5) combining reason and emotions. A middle course was sought, between static, rigid but reliable on the one hand; dynamic, flexible but vague on the other hand.

On the nature of chemistry

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 74 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric R. Scerri
Keyword(s):  
19Th Century ◽  
The Other ◽  
Recent History ◽  
History Of Chemistry ◽  
History Of ◽  
The One ◽  
Fundamental Unity ◽  
The 19Th Century

<span>The very nature of chemistry presents us with a tension. A tension between the exhilaration of diversity of substances and forms on the one hand and the safety of fundamental unity on the other. Even just the recent history of chemistry has been al1 about this tension, from the debates about Prout's hypothesis as to whether there is a primary matter in the 19th century to the more recent speculations as to whether computers will enable us to virtually dispense with experimental chemistry.</span>

Introduction

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anh Q. Tran
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
The Other ◽  
Pragmatic Approach ◽  
History Of ◽  
The One ◽  
Vietnamese Studies

The Introduction gives the background of the significance of translating and study of the text Errors of the Three Religions. The history of the development of Confucianism, Buddhism, and Daoism in Vietnam from their beginning until the eighteenth century is narrated. Particular attention is given to the different manners in which the Three Religions were taken up by nobles and literati, on the one hand, and commoners, on the other. The chapter also presents the pragmatic approach to religion taken by the Vietnamese, which was in part responsible for the receptivity of the Vietnamese to Christianity. The significance of the discovery of Errors and its impact on Vietnamese studies are also discussed.

Multicultural and Transnational Novels

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Meffan
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
The Other ◽  
Colonial History ◽  
History Of ◽  
Return Home ◽  
Access Rights ◽  
The One

This chapter discusses the history of multicultural and transnational novels in New Zealand. A novel set in New Zealand will have to deal with questions about cultural access rights on the one hand and cultural coverage on the other. The term ‘transnational novel’ gains its relevance from questions about cultural and national identity, questions that have particularly exercised nations formed from colonial history. The chapter considers novels that demonstrate and respond to perceived deficiencies in wider discourses of cultural and national identity by way of comparison between New Zealand and somewhere else. These include Amelia Batistich's Another Mountain, Another Song (1981), Albert Wendt's Sons for the Return Home (1973) and Black Rainbow (1992), James McNeish's Penelope's Island (1990), Stephanie Johnson's The Heart's Wild Surf (2003), and Lloyd Jones's Mister Pip (2006).

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