The essence of light

Babel ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 59 (2) ◽  
pp. 184-208 ◽  
Author(s):  
Renato Tomei

‘The Essence of Light in Translation’ takes the move from George Steiner’s <i>After Babel</i> and his observations on the word ‘Light’. Scope of the present contribution envisages to highlight the awareness of the dynamics of ‘otherness’ and diachronic variation by examining the one key-word (Light) as it is thematized and foregrounded in sacred texts across cultures, with a focus on English and varieties of English. The comparative approach here focuses on parallel texts and intertexts to propose a different ‘vision’ of a major theme, where conceptual and semantic variation accounts for the choice of one specific theme, i.e. spiritual illumination, revelation, and the resulting creation and ‘trans-creation’ of the same theme in translation.

2018 ◽  
Vol 35 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 189-223
Author(s):  
Petra Kieffer-Pülz

The present contribution suggests the common authorship of three P?li commentaries of the twelfth/thirteenth centuries CE, namely the Vinayavinicchaya??k? called Vinayas?ratthasand?pan? (less probably Vinayatthas?rasand?pan?), the Uttaravinicchaya??k? called L?natthappak?san?, and the Saccasa?khepa??k? called S?ratthas?lin?. The information collected from these three commentaries themselves and from P?li literary histories concerning these three texts leads to the second quarter of the thirteenth century CE as the period of their origination. The data from parallel texts explicitly stated to having been written by V?cissara Thera in the texts themselves render it possible to establish with a high degree of probability V?cissara Thera as their author.


1988 ◽  
Vol 113 (2) ◽  
pp. 274-305
Author(s):  
Jerome Roche

It is perhaps still true that research into sacred types of music in early seventeenth-century Italy lags behind that into madrigal, monody and opera; it is certainly the case that the textual aspects of sacred music, themselves closely bound up with liturgical questions, have not so far received the kind of study that has been taken for granted with regard to the literary texts of opera and of secular vocal music. This is hardly to be wondered at: unlike great madrigal poetry or the work of the best librettists, sacred texts do not include much that can be valued as art in its own right. Nevertheless, if we are to understand better the context of the motet – as distinct from the musical setting of liturgical entities such as Mass, Vespers or Compline – we need a clearer view of the types of text that were set, the way in which composers exercised their choice, and the way such taste was itself changing in relation to the development of musical styles. For the motet was the one form of sacred music in which an Italian composer of the early decades of the seventeenth century could combine a certain freedom of textual choice with an adventurousness of musical idiom.


2018 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
pp. 40-60
Author(s):  
Christopher Houtkamp ◽  
László Marácz

In this paper a normative position will be defended. We will argue that minimal territorial minority language rights formulated in terms of the personality principle referring to traditional minority languages granted in the framework of the European Union (EU) are a benchmark for non-territorial linguistic rights. Although territorial minority languages should be granted collective rights this is in large parts of Europe not the case. Especially in the Central and Eastern European Member States language rights granted to territorial languages are assigned on the basis of personal language rights. Our argumentation will be elaborated on the basis of a comparative approach discussing the status of a traditional territorial language in Romania, more in particular Hungarian spoken in the Szeklerland area with the one of migrant languages in the Netherlands, more in particular Turkish. In accordance with the language hierarchy implying that territorial languages have a higher status than non-territorial languages both in the EUs and Member States’ language regimes nonterritorial linguistic rights will be realized as personal rights in the first place. Hence, the use of non-territorial minority languages is conditioned much as the use of territorial minority languages in the national Member States. So, the best possible scenario for mobile minority languages is to be recognized as a personal right and receive full support from the states where they are spoken. It is true that learning the host language would make inclusion of migrant language speakers into the host society smoother and securing a better position on the labour market. This should however be done without striving for full assimilation of the speakers of migrant languages for this would violate the linguistic rights of migrants to speak and cultivate one’s own heritage language, violate the EUs linguistic diversity policy, and is against the advantages provided by linguistic capital in the sense of BOURDIEU (1991).


2009 ◽  
pp. 67-84
Author(s):  
Marco Solimene

- The present contribution examines the rootedness of a community of xoraxané romá in the city of Rome; rather than simply the continuity of presence in a specific territory, under consideration is the development and maintenance of social networks with the Roman population, specifically in the territories romá reside and/or work in. Further on, the paper describes how rootedness may be conjugated with some forms of mobility: on the one hand, the continuity in specific areas (of work and in some cases of residence), can be maintained through practices of urban circulation; on the other hand, especially when mobility turns on national and transnational scale, the presence - although mobile and changing - of romá who belong to the same social network, spread among different territories, enables singular domestic units to maintain, despite mobility, a continuity with several non-rom realities.


2021 ◽  
pp. 277-309
Author(s):  
David Dyzenhaus ◽  
Alma Diamond

This chapter evaluates the so called 'transitional constitution' of South Africa and the 'permanent constitution' of Colombia. Through a comparative approach, it contends that constitutions are better understood in terms of their resilience rather than either being transitional or permanent, and that a 'resilient constitution' is the one capable of springing back even after being subjected to extreme pressure, as long as leaders maintain their commitment to governing within the limits of the law. In this sense, the differences between the Colombian transitional justice and the South African case do not stem primarily from the 'permanence' of its Constitution, but rather from the difficulties and tensions inherent to any transitional justice process, because it derives from some of the very rights it is designed to promote. The chapter then details how the jurisprudence of the Colombian Constitutional Court on transitional matters can be understood as having moved from an understanding of the Constitution as permanent, to one of resilience that does not represent a new power grabbed by the Court. Rather than that, it signals an understanding of the role of the Court in maintaining a constitutional order even in the face of existential threats to it.


2014 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 213-238
Author(s):  
Zhenghui Li

As an emergent type of charitable organizations, nonpublic fundraising foundations (非公募基金会) are questioned on its legal entity – on whether nonpublic fundraising foundations qualify as a valid type of charitable organizations. In terms of its origin, nonpublic fundraising foundations emerged in China as a product of the mixture of history, reality and imported elements. Fundraising, a key word in the term, is not a right but a duty. The problem with nonpublic fundraising foundations is the overstress on the concept on the one hand and the ignorance of the institution on the other. The solution lies in setting up a sound and clear institution, so as to form an organic system of charitable organizations. The fact that nonpublic fundraising foundations are hardly supported in the existing theories of legal personality reflects the need to reform relevant aspects in the legal system.


2018 ◽  
Vol 71 (2) ◽  
pp. 142-160
Author(s):  
Jaime Gómez de Caso Zuriaga

Abstract The aim of the present contribution is twofold. On the one hand we shall discuss the background of some Islamic legends about places and wondrous objects – holy relics of the past – that had once been in the possession of the Gothic monarchy by inheritance, but were subsequently lost or looted out of al-Andalus by the Muslim leaders. On the other hand our study is concerned with the relationship between the content of the legends in question and the “loss of Spain” in a more general sense, i.e. not only the loss of these objects by the Christian Goths subsequent to their loss of power in Spain, but also their disappearance from Muslim ownership. Besides, the legends possess a moral core, which is interesting in its own right: the way in which they are viewed in the Muslim sources, the locations and objects they describe, and their relationship to the Gothic monarchy may provide the modern reader with an insight into the striking vision of the past held by the invading Muslim culture.


2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 271-313
Author(s):  
Diego Calvanese ◽  
Silvio Ghilardi ◽  
Alessandro Gianola ◽  
Marco Montali ◽  
Andrey Rivkin

AbstractIn recent times, satisfiability modulo theories (SMT) techniques gained increasing attention and obtained remarkable success in model-checking infinite-state systems. Still, we believe that whenever more expressivity is needed in order to specify the systems to be verified, more and more support is needed from mathematical logic and model theory. This is the case of the applications considered in this paper: we study verification over a general model of relational, data-aware processes, to assess (parameterized) safety properties irrespectively of the initial database (DB) instance. Toward this goal, we take inspiration from array-based systems and tackle safety algorithmically via backward reachability. To enable the adoption of this technique in our rich setting, we make use of the model-theoretic machinery of model completion, which surprisingly turns out to be an effective tool for verification of relational systems and represents the main original contribution of this paper. In this way, we pursue a twofold purpose. On the one hand, we isolate three notable classes for which backward reachability terminates, in turn witnessing decidability. Two of such classes relate our approach to conditions singled out in the literature, whereas the third one is genuinely novel. On the other hand, we are able to exploit SMT technology in implementations, building on the well-known MCMT (Model Checker Modulo Theories) model checker for array-based systems and extending it to make all our foundational results fully operational. All in all, the present contribution is deeply rooted in the long-standing tradition of the application of model theory in computer science. In particular, this paper applies these ideas in an original mathematical context and shows how these techniques can be used for the first time to empower algorithmic techniques for the verification of infinite-state systems based on arrays, so as to make such techniques applicable to the timely, challenging settings of data-aware processes.


2019 ◽  
Vol 49 (3) ◽  
pp. 335-361
Author(s):  
Brian Schroeder

Abstract This essay considers the relation between two fundamentally different notions of place—the Greek concept of χώρα and the Japanese concept of basho 場所—in an effort to address the question of a possible “other beginning” to philosophy by rethinking the relation between nature and the elemental. Taking up a cross-cultural comparative approach, ancient through contemporary Eastern and Western sources are considered. Central to this endeavor is reflection on the concept of the between through an engagement between, on the one hand, Plato, Martin Heidegger, Jacques Derrida, Edward Casey, and John Sallis, and on the other, Eihei Dōgen, Nishida Kitarō, and Watsuji Tetsurō.


1971 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 213-226
Author(s):  
Donald Evans
Keyword(s):  
Key Word ◽  
The Many ◽  

The relation between I and my bodily behaviour does not provide an apt analogy for the relation between God and I, or between God and any of the many particular ‘mores’ of particular observables. The relation between the one divine ‘more’ and the many particular ‘mores’ needs another kind of analogy if it is to be at all intelligible. Ramsey seems to be hinting at another kind of analogy, another kind of approach to the use of the word ‘God’ as a unifying key word, in his essay ‘Paradox in Religion’:‘The word “God” is a unique and ultimate keyword dominating the whole of a theistic language scheme, an “irreducible posit” to which the theist appeals as his end-point of explanation.’


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