Assam

2022 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
21St Century ◽  
Linguistic Diversity ◽  
Northeast India ◽  
Indian States ◽  
Early 21St Century ◽  
Great Mother ◽  
Northern India ◽  
Local Practices ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The Many

Assam constitutes the region of northeast India bounded by the modern nations of Bangladesh and Bhutan, as well as by the Indian states of Arunachal Pradesh, Bangla, Manipur, Meghalaya, and Nagaland. Known in ancient sources as Prāgjyotiṣpūra (the “city of eastern lights”) and as Kāmarūpa (the “form” or “place of desire”), Assam remains one of the least studied and poorly understood areas of South Asian Hinduism. The home to more than forty recognized tribal communities, Assam has tremendous religious, ethnic, and linguistic diversity, which has helped shape the unique forms of Hinduism that have flourished in the region. Moreover, Assam also has a long reputation as a realm of magic, witchcraft, and the supernatural; for example, even in the early 21st century, the town of Mayong in Morigaon district is infamous as the quintessential “land of black magic.” The historical roots of Hinduism in Assam date back to at least the Varman dynasty of the 4th to 7th centuries, when Vedic sacrifices such as the aśvamedha and other Brahmanical rites were widespread. However, most of the kings of Assam from the Varmans onward came from non-Hindu tribal backgrounds, and the form of Hinduism that developed in the region has long been a complex negotiation between Sanskritic traditions and indigenous practices from the many local communities of the region. During the Assamese Pāla dynasty of the 8th to 12th centuries, Śākta traditions became dominant, and major texts such as the Kālikā Purāṇa were composed, praising the great mother goddess Kāmākhyā (goddess of desire) and her retinue of yoginīs. A unique form of Hindu tantra probably also began to flourish at this time, and Assam has a long reputation as one of the oldest heartlands or perhaps even the original homeland of tantra in South Asia. The Ahom kings of the 13th to 19th centuries continued the patronage of powerful goddesses while also building temples to Śiva, Viṣṇu, and others. During the 16th century, Assam like much of northern India witnessed a powerful revival of Vaiṣṇava bhakti, led by the devotional reformer Śaṅkaradeva (b. 1449–d. 1568). Through Śaṅkaradeva’s influence, Vaiṣṇavism remains a dominant cultural and religious force in Assam to this day. However, even in the 21st century, Assamese Hinduism remains incredibly diverse, and one can still see a wide range of indigenous, folk, and local practices that range from magic and menstruation festivals to spirit possession and ecstatic dance performances.

The Institutional Turn

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeremy Rosen
Keyword(s):  
21St Century ◽  
Social Institution ◽  
Disciplinary Power ◽  
Literary Scholarship ◽  
Early 21St Century ◽  
Sociological Approach ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Neoliberal Ideology ◽  
Anglo American ◽  
The Many

Since around the turn of the millennium, Anglo-American literary scholarship has been marked by a remarkable shift in its attention to and its attitude toward institutions. Within this shift or “institutional turn,” two interrelated movements can be detected: 1) a departure from thinking about literature as a social institution, toward a sociological approach that examines the many and varied organizations and institutions in and through which literature and its value are produced, distributed, and consumed; and 2) a tendency to revise earlier critiques of institutions, which were often indebted to the work of Michel Foucault, and which emphasized their regulating and disciplinary power, in favor of a more balanced view of institutions as enabling as well as constraining, and in some cases, an outright advocacy for their value and the need to conserve them. Both of these movements stem from scholars’ recognition of the heterogeneity of actual institutions. Rather than understanding literature as something constituted by monolithic, homogenizing forces, early 21st-century literary scholars tend to emphasize the way it is generated and sustained by a wide range of practices occurring in an equally disparate set of institutional locations. Since the early 2000s, scholars have undertaken to analyze the workings of these institutions as the more immediate context in which literary production occurs and is disseminated—a middle range of actors and organizations situated between broader social and historical currents and literary texts. The more charitable attitude toward institutions also recognizes the crucial roles institutions play in the teaching and study of literature. Scholars have thus begun defending the work of institutions, in response to early 21st-century conditions of neoliberalism, under which governments have withdrawn state support for public institutions, including institutions of higher education. A neoliberal ideology that reduces all value to market value presents a threat to institutions that are not primarily dedicated to the generation of economic profit. Thus both of the movements toward institutional study are necessarily bound up with a tradition of scholars who have produced “institutional histories” of literature departments and of the discipline of literary studies. Under neoliberal conditions, such histories have gained urgency, giving rise to a renewed call to account for the value of literary study and of educational institutions in terms that do not reduce this value to service to the economy.

School Reform and Parental Engagement Learning in the United Kingdom

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Janet Goodall
Keyword(s):  
United Kingdom ◽  
School Improvement ◽  
School Reform ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Parental Engagement ◽  
Reform Movements ◽  
Early 21St Century ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Per Se

Parental engagement in children and young people’s learning has been shown to be an important lever for school improvement and young people’s outcomes. However, parents are rarely involved in school reform movements. These reform movements are generally centered on the school rather than on improvement of learning per se. Shifting the focus away from the school and to learning as an overarching aim requires the inclusion of and partnership with parents. This is a new way of understanding school reform but has the best chance of supporting all students, including those not best served by the schooling systems in the early 21st century. The reforms here are chiefly concerned with U.K. schooling systems, but could be more widely applicable, and call on a wide range of evidence, from the United Kingdom and beyond.

Dangerous Pursuits: Mediumship, Mind, and Music by Stephen E. Braude

2020 ◽  
Vol 34 (4) ◽  
pp. 875-881
Author(s):  
Hoyt Edge
Keyword(s):  
21St Century ◽  
Early 21St Century ◽  
The Past ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Excellent Work

Stephen Braude is the most prolific of the late 20th and early 21st century philosophers writing about parapsychogy, and his work in the philosophical aspects of parapsychology has been the most influential in this field for the past several decades.  This book encompasses both philosophical issues in parapsychology, as well as studies in spontaneous and mediumistic investigations, and this collection spans the spectrum of his interests, including jazz. His title is an apt warning about the dangers to academics pursuing work in parapsychology; however, some suspicion towards those of us in the field can be mitigated if one produces excellent work in the field of one’s doctorate before tenure decisions, as Braude did. Dangerous Pursuits is composed of previously published articles or book chapters, but they are usually substantially rewritten in a way that makes these chapters accessible to a wide range of people, not only academics.  Although the book is not divided into sections, the chapters are nevertheless arranged skillfully to focus, after an opening chapter on the fear of psi, a topic that Braude returns to throughout the book, on physical mediumship, then more generally on mediumship, and finally on more theoretical topics, with a coda on jazz. 

The Many Lives of Nelson Mandela

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tom Lodge
Keyword(s):  
21St Century ◽  
Public Life ◽  
Political Prisoner ◽  
Early 21St Century ◽  
Royal Court ◽  
Nelson Mandela ◽  
The Many ◽  
The Early 21St Century

Biographical portrayals of Mandela have been strongly influenced by his own self-representations, beginning with his trial testimonies in 1962 and 1964. Authorized narratives about his life that were consolidated during the 1990s reflected Mandela’s political priorities at that time. In the unitary subject that these stories project—in the “unchanging man” whose story they told—their protagonist is a patrician-born aristocrat whose values and codes of behavior are shaped by his upbringing in the culture of a royal court. In important respects, though, this understanding of Mandela is at odds with earlier treatments of his life for which he had been a willing collaborator. Several of the biographical interpretations written in the early 21st-century draw upon archival evidence and prompt serious revisions of established or conventional understandings of Mandela’s life, particularly in terms of the validity of biographical investigations that emphasize consistency and order. Questions persist in the early 21st century as to whether Mandela’s experiences as a political prisoner and his role in constitutional negotiations will be subjected to such archive-based research, and whether the final stages of his public life will undergo an assessment.

Buddhist Chaplaincy

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Monica Sanford ◽  
Nathan Jishin Michon
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Spiritual Care ◽  
Mindfulness Meditation ◽  
Core Competencies ◽  
Basic Knowledge ◽  
Educational Training ◽  
Early 21St Century ◽  
Wide Range

Buddhist chaplaincy is a profession in which Buddhists with specialized training care for the spiritual needs of suffering individuals (careseekers), typically within non-religious settings such as hospitals, hospices, military, workplaces, or universities. Although the roots of spiritual care date back to the beginning of the Buddhist traditions, professionalized Buddhist chaplaincy is a very recent phenomenon. Despite some beginnings in the mid-20th century, most developments have occurred rapidly only within the 21st century. This contemporary movement is occurring in numerous places around the world, including North America, Europe, and Asia, covering a wide range of countries, cultures, and Buddhist traditions. The profession of chaplaincy was originally a Christian vocation but began expanding to serve the needs of multireligious careseekers and train caregivers of various religious backgrounds in the 20th century. Thus, while chaplaincy is now a profession open to all comers, including Buddhists, humanists, and atheists, many of the educational, training, and professional standards for certification or licensing are still normed against Christian expectations and legacy organizational structures, particularly in North America, Europe, and the British Commonwealth. In the countries where Buddhist chaplaincy is flourishing in the early 21st century, different groups are developing degree programs, training opportunities, and professional expectations that accord with their local regulatory bodies and other forms of existing chaplaincy certification. In Asian nations, Buddhists are stepping forward to build standards for providing spiritual care in the context of cultural institutions that are not typically religious (e.g., hospitals and schools). Diverse settings and differing requirements lead to distinctions between Buddhist chaplaincy in different countries. However, some of the core competencies for spiritual care are very consistent: compassion, listening, ritual proficiency, cultural understanding, and reflection. Buddhist and non-Buddhist chaplains alike agree to a fundamental skill set to care for people who are suffering in the various institutions where they work and volunteer. Distinctions between Buddhist and other forms of spiritual care are based on the care model employed, whether strictly co-religionist (i.e., Buddhists caring for Buddhists) or interfaith (i.e., Buddhists caring for all). In the latter case, professional chaplains (of any religion) are trained to provide spiritual care from the spiritual or religious worldview of the careseeker. As such, most Buddhist chaplains must possess basic knowledge and competency in many world religions. Nevertheless, Buddhist spiritual care may be distinct in its theory (Dharma based) and place more emphasis on mindfulness, meditation, and other contemplative techniques to benefit both careseekers and chaplains. Spiritual care that is “Dharma-based” means based on the teachings of the historical Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama, and/or the Buddhist traditions and teacher who followed after him. This includes a broad range of texts and teachings across the Buddhist world. As an emerging field, there is little literature on Buddhist chaplaincy, so it is currently somewhat difficult to say what theories and practices will come to dominate the profession.

Ecosystem Multifunctionality

Ecology ◽  
2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter K. Manning
Keyword(s):  
Ecosystem Services ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Spatial Scales ◽  
Multiple Functions ◽  
Early 21St Century ◽  
Highly Active ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Topic Interest ◽  
Range Of Functions ◽  
Ecosystem Multifunctionality

Ecosystem multifunctionality can be defined as the ability of an ecosystem to provide multiple functions and services. While this definition appears intuitively simple, ecosystem multifunctionality can be difficult to define and measure in practice. While multifunctionality measures allow the overall performance of an ecosystem to be reduced to simple metrics, the overall merit and relevance of simplifying the wide range of functions provided by an ecosystem in this way has been debated. To date, the majority of work that explicitly refers to ecosystem multifunctionality has been from the field of ecology known as biodiversity and ecosystem function research. This has shown that the effects of biodiversity on the functioning of ecosystems are stronger for multiple functions than for single functions due to the fact that different species control different functions. Most of this work has focused on the plot scale (less than 1 hectare), but an earlier emerging and still highly active body of literature refers to the creation and maintenance of multifunctional landscapes. This work, which is typically conducted within the disciplines of ecosystem services, agronomy, and land management, focuses on the delivery of multiple ecosystem services at larger spatial scales. Ecosystem multifunctionality is a relatively new concept, therefore, the literature presented here is primarily drawn from the most-influential papers within the field, along with early-21st-century papers that have broken new ground within the topic. Interest in multifunctionality has sharply increased in the early 21st century (particularly since 2007), in part due to an increase in large collaborative research projects that make its quantification possible. Ecosystem multifunctionality is a very active and rapidly advancing area in ecological research. It is therefore recommended that papers citing those presented here are also investigated.

Chöd: A Tibetan Buddhist Practice

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Harding
Keyword(s):  
21St Century ◽  
The Body ◽  
Second Phase ◽  
The Tibetan Plateau ◽  
Tibetan Buddhist ◽  
Early 21St Century ◽  
Buddhist Practice ◽  
Trace Back ◽  
The Many ◽  
Great Practice

Chöd (gcod), “severance” or “cutting,” is a Tibetan term referring to a cycle of Tibetan Buddhist practice and to the lineage initiated by the Tibetan woman Machik Lapdrön sometime in the 11th or 12th century. It is primarily based on the teachings of the perfection of wisdom (prajñāpāramitā) that represent the second phase of Buddhist texts that developed in India. In Tibet itself, Chöd was one of the many new sects that flourished in the second dissemination of Buddhism from India from 950 to 1350ce. Chöd has been classified as a branch of Zhijé (zhi byed) or “Pacification,” one of the eight great practice lineages that trace back to India, though no actual text on Chöd has been discovered in the early texts of Zhijé. Despite this quandary, its classification has afforded a kind of validation in being connected with the sources of Buddhism through the Indian master Dampa Sangyé. Nevertheless, there is no doubt that Machik Lapdrön herself is the sole progenitor for the teachings and the lineage. This woman from the area of Lap in central Tibet was known as Lapkyi Drönma, “the Light of Lap.” The respectful title of Machik, “One Mother,” was added later and is shared with several other important women of the time, often leading to confusion. Lapdrön showed remarkable abilities from an early age, and later gained mastery of speed reading. This led to a job as a chaplain in a patron’s house, where she met her future partner, providing her biographers with a fascinating narrative revealing the problematic status of female masters in Tibet. The recitation of prajñāpāramitā sūtras also led to her epiphany around the parts on māra, “devil,” “demon,” or (spiritual) “death.” This, along with her visions of the bodhisattva Tārā and the important connection with the Indian master Dampa Sangyé, were the inspiration for what became one of the most widespread practices in Tibet. The early Chöd teachings represent aspects derived from both sūtra and tantra sources. The focus is on the understanding of emptiness that severs fixation on the reification of the self and the resultant conduct based on compassion for others. The impediments that prevent such realization, called māras in Sanskrit, were a point of departure. As time went on, specific techniques and methods of practice (sādhana) accrued to this philosophy. While the main practice has remained the cultivation of insight and the enactment of separating the consciousness from the body, the post-meditation practice known as lü jin (lus byin) “giving the body” developed elaborate visualizations and ritual accouterments that came to dominate popular practice. Renowned as a charnel ground practice due to the visualized offering of one’s corpse as food for demons and other beings in situations that are intended to provoke fear, it is this that has become known far and wide as Chöd. The sources for this aspect are obscure and may well come from the surrounding culture of the Tibetan plateau, harking back to Bön and other pre-Buddhist practices. Some elements associated with shamanic practices are enacted in the Chöd rituals, despite its Buddhist soteriological assertions. With its beautiful melodies and lurid visualizations, Chöd quickly became popular in Tibet for exorcism, healing, and other practical usages. Its followers did not establish monasteries, as the lifestyle of roaming mendicants was emphasized, but Chöd was incorporated into most other schools in Tibet. Their liturgies are drawn from the works of Lapdrön’s descendants, or from visionary experiences, or found as treasure texts (terma). As of the early 21st century, Chöd has gained popularity worldwide, with many iterations in 21st-century practice.

scholarly journals Seeing Red and Feeling Blue: Social Commentary and Protest in the Work of Michael Reed

2021 ◽  
pp. 69-93
Author(s):  
Dorothee Pauli
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Art History ◽  
Social Commentary ◽  
Early 21St Century ◽  
International Networks ◽  
Economic Exploitation ◽  
Cultural Domination ◽  
The Many

Accounts of politically inspired art occupy the margins of New Zealand art history. The career of Michael Reed (born 1950, Christchurch) offers an opportunity to discuss how a New Zealand artist has responded to shifts in 20th and early 21st century global debates regarding social justice, economic exploitation, cultural domination and war. He works across a range of mainly print-based techniques but has also found international recognition for his technically innovative ‘medals of dishonor.’ Through his frequent involvement in collaborative projects, Reed has become part of national and international networks of artists who attempt to speak for the many victims of geo-political power struggles.

The Many Pasts of Detective Fiction

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 157-172
Author(s):  
Thomas Leitch
Keyword(s):  
Detective Fiction ◽  
Golden Age ◽  
Public History ◽  
Detective Novel ◽  
Sherlock Holmes ◽  
Detective Story ◽  
The Past ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Detective Novels ◽  
The Many

Building on Tzvetan Todorov's observation that the detective novel ‘contains not one but two stories: the story of the crime and the story of the investigation’, this essay argues that detective novels display a remarkably wide range of attitudes toward the several pasts they represent: the pasts of the crime, the community, the criminal, the detective, and public history. It traces a series of defining shifts in these attitudes through the evolution of five distinct subgenres of detective fiction: exploits of a Great Detective like Sherlock Holmes, Golden Age whodunits that pose as intellectual puzzles to be solved, hardboiled stories that invoke a distant past that the present both breaks with and echoes, police procedurals that unfold in an indefinitely extended present, and historical mysteries that nostalgically fetishize the past. It concludes with a brief consideration of genre readers’ own ambivalent phenomenological investment in the past, present, and future each detective story projects.

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