The Sinitic Repertoire

2020 ◽  
pp. 244-268
Author(s):  
Andrew Chittick
Keyword(s):  
Political Geography ◽  
Fifth Century ◽  
Central Plains ◽  
Classical Philosophy ◽  
Political Legitimation ◽  
Yangzi Delta

Chapter 9, “The Sinitic Repertoire,” offers the second of three studies in various repertoires of political legitimation. Sinitic universalism, based on Sinitic classical philosophy and the model of the Han Empire, is well studied and understood. This chapter emphasizes the tensions within the Sinitic repertoire in the Jiankang regime: between military and suasive approaches to building a Sinitic universal empire; between frugal and ostentatious approaches; and between the traditional Central Plains–centered political geography and one that was transposed to the Yangzi delta, an effort that was undertaken in earnest beginning in the fifth century. Daoist approaches, both huahu (conversion of the barbarians) and millenarian, are also considered as a variant of Sinitic universalism. The concluding analysis argues that the adoption of Sinitic universalism posed numerous intractable difficulties for the imperial throne, especially following the rise of an assertive Central Plains–based regime in the late fifth century.

The Buddhist Repertoire, Part 1

2020 ◽  
pp. 269-294
Author(s):  
Andrew Chittick
Keyword(s):  
Fifth Century ◽  
Sixth Century ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Diplomatic Relations ◽  
The Third ◽  
Northern India ◽  
Political Legitimation

Chapter 10, “The Buddhist Repertoire, Part 1: The Era of Pluralist Patronage,” is the first half of the third study of various repertoires of political legitimation. This chapter focuses on the development of Buddhist institutions and historiography in the fifth century, a period of pluralist patronage under the banner of Sinitic universalism. The Buddhist repertoire in maritime diplomatic relations with South Seas regimes proved an important staging ground for the ruler’s performance as a cakravartin, or Buddhist universal ruler, as well as a conduit for Buddhist expertise. By the end of the fifth century, Jiankang elites had developed Buddhist legends and practices that asserted that the Jiankang regime’s legitimacy derived, not from the Han Empire, but from its direct inheritance of legitimacy from the cakravartin Asoka, who had ruled in northern India in the third century BCE. This set the stage for the striking developments of the sixth century.

scholarly journals On the Magnitude of the Gods in Materialist Theology and Greek Art

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-23
Author(s):  
Guy Hedreen
Keyword(s):  
Visual Perception ◽  
Religious Belief ◽  
Fifth Century ◽  
Visual Expression ◽  
Classical Philosophy ◽  
Greek Art ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Material Bodies

Abstract In this paper, I address one characteristic of Classical Greek votive reliefs that has troubled scholars: the size of the gods. The reliefs depict mortal worshippers approaching gods and goddesses who are, almost invariably, larger in stature than the mortals. Scholars have generally explained the difference in scale to be art historical, rather than theological, in significance. Either the larger scale is a visual expression of the hierarchical superiority of the gods or the images of the gods represent over-life-size statues. In addition, it is widely accepted that votive reliefs are products of unsophisticated religious belief, ignorant of the conceptualization of an imperceptible, non-corporeal deity in Classical philosophy. In this paper, I accept the artistic proposition of votive reliefs at face value: in this genre, the gods are living, visible, material bodies, most often anthropomorphic in form and always larger in magnitude than mortals. I identify one significant parallel for this interpretation within Greek and Roman thought, namely, the conception of gods within the materialist theology developed by the late Classical writer Epicurus and, in part at least, by the fifth-century BC writer Demokritos. In the writings of the Epicureans and, it appears, the atomists, as in the votive reliefs, gods are human in form, very beautiful, self-sufficient, larger than humans in size and known by mortals through visual perception.

The Jiankang Empire in Chinese and World History

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Chittick
Keyword(s):  
Political Culture ◽  
East Asia ◽  
Transition Period ◽  
Southeast Asian ◽  
Ethnic Identification ◽  
Central Plains ◽  
Ethnic Chinese ◽  
Political Legitimation ◽  
Yangzi Region ◽  
New Framework

This work offers a sweeping reassessment of the Jiankang Empire (third to sixth centuries CE), known as the Chinese “Southern Dynasties.” It shows how, although one of the medieval world’s largest empires, Jiankang has been rendered politically invisible by the standard narrative of Chinese nationalist history, and proposes a new framework and terminology for writing about medieval East Asia. The book pays particular attention to the problem of ethnic identification, rejecting the idea of “ethnic Chinese,” and delineating several other, more useful ethnographic categories, using case studies in agriculture/foodways and vernacular languages. The most important, the Wuren of the lower Yangzi region, were believed to be inherently different from the peoples of the Central Plains, and the rest of the book addresses the extent of their ethnogenesis in the medieval era. It assesses the political culture of the Jiankang Empire, emphasizing military strategy, institutional cultures, and political economy, showing how it differed from Central Plains–based empires, while having significant similarities to Southeast Asian regimes. It then explores how the Jiankang monarchs deployed three distinct repertoires of political legitimation (vernacular, Sinitic universalist, and Buddhist), arguing that the Sinitic repertoire was largely eclipsed in the sixth century, rendering the regime yet more similar to neighboring South Seas states. The conclusion points out how the research reorients our understanding of acculturation and ethnic identification in medieval East Asia, generates new insights into the Tang-Song transition period, and offers new avenues of comparison with Southeast Asian and medieval European history.

The Fenland Frontier in Anglo-Saxon England

Antiquity ◽  
1934 ◽  
Vol 8 (30) ◽  
pp. 185-199 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. C. Darby
Keyword(s):  
Political Geography ◽  
Great Part ◽  
Fifth Century ◽  
The Political ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
The South ◽  
Northern Germany ◽  
The North ◽  
Frontier Region

It would seem that the Anglo-Saxon invasion of a great part of eastern Britain in the fifth century radiated fan-wise from the gateway of the Wash and of the Fenland Gulf. If this is true, it is not surprising. The position of the continental base of the Anglo-Saxons made the area a natural entry into the Midland plain; and the invaders, with the Wash behind them, gazed upon no unfamiliar scene. The region into which they came may not have been so different from their former homeland on the flats of northern Germany, the homeland which Bede tells us they had so completely deserted. They penetrated by way of the Fenland rivers, up the Nene, the Welland, the Ouse, and the Witham, and this big spread was supplemented to the north and to the south by the smaller river entrances, the Bure, the Yare, the Waveney, the Humber and so on. The archaeological finds, as plotted by Mr Thurlow Leeds, are located along the courses of navigable streams and their tributaries, and are disposed concentrically around the Fenland. Dr Cyril Fox has moreover indicated affinities, during the earlier Saxon period, between the opposite shores of this marshy gulf. All had changed, however, when the tribes emerged into the light of history. The Fenland basin, characterized at an earlier epoch by a certain cultural unity, had now become a frontier region, separating peoples and exercising a repelling action revealed in the making of the Anglo-Saxon States. Kingdoms, finding their limits here, partitioned the marshy wastes between them, and the barrier of the Fens became a permanent feature in the political geography of the Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy.

The Buddhist Repertoire, Part 2

2020 ◽  
pp. 295-323
Author(s):  
Andrew Chittick
Keyword(s):  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Political Culture ◽  
Fifth Century ◽  
Sixth Century ◽  
Political Regimes ◽  
The Third ◽  
Vernacular Culture ◽  
Political Legitimation

Chapter 11, “The Buddhist Repertoire, Part 2: Jiankang as Theater State,” is the second half of the third study of various repertoires of political legitimation. This chapter argues that the Liang and Chen regimes in the sixth century built on the developments of the late fifth century and responded to the crisis of the Sinitic repertoire by making the Buddhist repertoire paramount instead. The chapter assesses the politics of bodhisattva ordination and the increasingly public rituals, such as Boundless Gatherings and relic worship, that turned Buddhist legend and ideology into well-established political performances. Jiankang in the sixth century can be understood as an example of a Buddhist “theater state,” a model scholars have used to understand political regimes in non-Sinitic parts of Southeast Asia. Especially when combined with elements of vernacular culture, the Buddhist repertoire proved a more successful fit for Jiankang’s political culture than the Sinitic repertoire had been.

#INCLUSION – THE IMPACT OF SOCIAL MEDIA COMMUNICATION ON THE LEGITIMACY OF ARMED FORCES

2019 ◽  
pp. 43-60
Author(s):  
EVA MOEHLECKE DE BASEGGIO ◽  
OLIVIA SCHNEIDER ◽  
TIBOR SZVIRCSEV TRESCH
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Political Communication ◽  
Structural Equation ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
Equation Model ◽  
Media Communication ◽  
The Public ◽  
Political Legitimation ◽  
Social Media Communication ◽  
The Impact

The Swiss Armed Forces (SAF), as part of a democratic system, depends on legitimacy. Democracy, legitimacy and the public are closely connected. In the public sphere the SAF need to be visible; it is where they are controlled and legitimated by the citizens, as part of a deliberative discussion in which political decisions are communicatively negotiated. Considering this, the meaning of political communication, including the SAF’s communication, becomes obvious as it forms the most important basis for political legitimation processes. Social media provide a new way for the SAF to communicate and interact directly with the population. The SAF’s social media communication potentially brings it closer to the people and engages them in a dialogue. The SAF can become more transparent and social media communication may increase its reputation and legitimacy. To measure the effects of social media communication, a survey of the Swiss internet population was conducted. Based on this data, a structural equation model was defined, the effects of which substantiate the assumption that the SAF benefits from being on social media in terms of broadening its reach and increasing legitimacy values.

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