The Art of Complicity in Martial and Statius

Author(s):  
Erik Gunderson

This book examines the relationship between politics and aesthetics in two poets from the reign of Domitian. It offers a comprehensive overview of the Epigrams of Martial and the Siluae of Statius. The praise of power that one finds is not something forced upon these poems. It is also not a mere appendage to these works. Instead, power and poetry as a pair are a fundamental dyad that can and should be traced throughout the two collections. The dyad is present even when the emperor himself is not the topic of discussion. In Martial the portrait of power is constantly shifting. Poetic play takes up the topic of political power and “plays around with it.” The initial relatively sportive attitude darkens over time. Late in the game the poems depict ecstasies of humiliation. After Domitian dies the project tries to get back to the old games, but it cannot. Statius’ Siluae merge the lies one tells to power with the lies of poetry more generally. Poetic mastery and political mastery cannot be dissociated. The glib, glitzy poetry of contemporary life articulates a radical modernism that is self-authorizing and so complicit with a power whose structure it mirrors. The criticism of such poetry is itself a problem. What does it mean to praise praise poetry? To celebrate celebrations? The book opens and closes with a meditation upon the dangers of complicit criticism and the seductions of a discourse of pure art in a world where the art is anything but pure.

2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 218-247 ◽  
Author(s):  
Davide Gnes ◽  
Floris Vermeulen

In the analysis of non-governmental organisations (NGOs), legitimacy and legitimation are useful concepts because they bring to light the processes through which organisational entities justify their right to exist and their actions within a particular normative context. Theories of legitimacy underscore the moral basis of organisational power as grounded in the relationship between organisations and different kinds of audiences. In this article, we look at how those concepts and theories relate to the study of NGOs. Those theories not only help us understand how organisations establish themselves, strengthen their position and survive over time despite very limited material resources of their own, but also how organisations may build political power. In our review of the literature on organisational legitimacy, we focus on three main aspects of legitimacy: the conceptualisation of the term in organisational sociology, political sociology and political science; the constraining role of institutionalised normative contexts and competing audiences in the legitimation processes; the agentic role of organisations within both institutional and strategic contexts.


2013 ◽  
Vol 34 (2) ◽  
pp. 82-89 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sophie von Stumm

Intelligence-as-knowledge in adulthood is influenced by individual differences in intelligence-as-process (i.e., fluid intelligence) and in personality traits that determine when, where, and how people invest their intelligence over time. Here, the relationship between two investment traits (i.e., Openness to Experience and Need for Cognition), intelligence-as-process and intelligence-as-knowledge, as assessed by a battery of crystallized intelligence tests and a new knowledge measure, was examined. The results showed that (1) both investment traits were positively associated with intelligence-as-knowledge; (2) this effect was stronger for Openness to Experience than for Need for Cognition; and (3) associations between investment and intelligence-as-knowledge reduced when adjusting for intelligence-as-process but remained mostly significant.


2020 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 135-141
Author(s):  
Kenneth D. Locke

Abstract. Person–job (or needs–supplies) discrepancy/fit theories posit that job satisfaction depends on work supplying what employees want and thus expect associations between having supervisory power and job satisfaction to be more positive in individuals who value power and in societies that endorse power values and power distance (e.g., respecting/obeying superiors). Using multilevel modeling on 30,683 European Social Survey respondents from 31 countries revealed that overseeing supervisees was positively associated with job satisfaction, and as hypothesized, this association was stronger among individuals with stronger power values and in nations with greater levels of power values or power distance. The results suggest that workplace power can have a meaningful impact on job satisfaction, especially over time in individuals or societies that esteem power.


Author(s):  
Melanie K. T. Takarangi ◽  
Deryn Strange

When people are told that their negative memories are worse than other people’s, do they later remember those events differently? We asked participants to recall a recent negative memory then, 24 h later, we gave some participants feedback about the emotional impact of their event – stating it was more or less negative compared to other people’s experiences. One week later, participants recalled the event again. We predicted that if feedback affected how participants remembered their negative experiences, their ratings of the memory’s characteristics should change over time. That is, when participants are told that their negative event is extremely negative, their memories should be more vivid, recollected strongly, and remembered from a personal perspective, compared to participants in the other conditions. Our results provide support for this hypothesis. We suggest that external feedback might be a potential mechanism in the relationship between negative memories and psychological well-being.


2013 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 11-22 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peggy Levitt ◽  
Deepak Lamba-Nieves

This article explores how the conceptualization, management, and measurement of time affect the migration-development nexus. We focus on how social remittances transform the meaning and worth of time, thereby changing how these ideas and practices are accepted and valued and recalibrating the relationship between migration and development. Our data reveal the need to pay closer attention to how migration’s impacts shift over time in response to its changing significance, rhythms, and horizons. How does migrants’ social influence affect and change the needs, values, and mind-frames of non-migrants? How do the ways in which social remittances are constructed, perceived, and accepted change over time for their senders and receivers?


Author(s):  
Douglas L. Kriner ◽  
Eric Schickler

Although congressional investigations have provided some of the most dramatic moments in American political history, they have often been dismissed as mere political theater. But these investigations are far more than grandstanding. This book shows that congressional investigations are a powerful tool for members of Congress to counter presidential aggrandizement. By shining a light on alleged executive wrongdoing, investigations can exert significant pressure on the president and materially affect policy outcomes. This book constructs the most comprehensive overview of congressional investigative oversight to date, analyzing nearly 13,000 days of hearings, spanning more than a century, from 1898 through 2014. The book examines the forces driving investigative power over time and across chambers, and identifies how hearings might influence the president’s strategic calculations through the erosion of the president’s public approval rating, and uncover the pathways through which investigations have shaped public policy. Put simply, by bringing significant political pressure to bear on the president, investigations often afford Congress a blunt, but effective check on presidential power—without the need to worry about veto threats or other hurdles such as Senate filibusters. In an era of intense partisan polarization and institutional dysfunction, the book delves into the dynamics of congressional investigations and how Congress leverages this tool to counterbalance presidential power.


2020 ◽  
Vol 38 (1) ◽  
pp. 44-66
Author(s):  
Christine Adams

The relationship of the French king and royal mistress, complementary but unequal, embodied the Gallic singularity; the royal mistress exercised a civilizing manner and the soft power of women on the king’s behalf. However, both her contemporaries and nineteenth- and early twentieth-century historians were uncomfortable with the mistress’s political power. Furthermore, paradoxical attitudes about French womanhood have led to analyses of her role that are often contradictory. Royal mistresses have simultaneously been celebrated for their civilizing effect in the realm of culture, chided for their frivolous expenditures on clothing and jewelry, and excoriated for their dangerous meddling in politics. Their increasing visibility in the political realm by the eighteenth century led many to blame Louis XV’s mistresses—along with Queen Marie-Antoinette, who exercised a similar influence over her husband, Louis XVI—for the degradation and eventual fall of the monarchy. This article reexamines the historiography of the royal mistress.


2014 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 165-182 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tertia Barnett ◽  
Maria Guagnin

This article examines the relationship between rock art and landscape use by pastoral groups and early settled communities in the central Sahara from around 6000 BC to 1000 AD. During this period the region experienced significant climatic and environmental fluctuations. Using new results from a systematic survey in the Wadi al-Ajal, south-west Libya, our research combines data from over 2000 engraved rock art panels with local archaeological and palaeoenvironmental evidence within a GIS model. Spatial analysis of these data indicates a correspondence between the frequency of rock art sites and human settlement over time. However, while changes in settlement location were guided primarily by the constraints on accessibility imposed by surface water, the distribution of rock art relates to the availability of pasture and patterns of movement through the landscape. Although the reasons for these movements undoubtedly altered over time, natural routes that connected the Wadi al-Ajal and areas to the south continued to be a focus for carvings over several thousand years.


1992 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 13-26 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. H. Hendershot ◽  
L. Mendes ◽  
H. Lalande ◽  
F. Courchesne ◽  
S. Savoie

In order to determine how water flowpath controls stream chemistry, we studied both soil and stream water during spring snowmelt, 1985. Soil solution concentrations of base cations were relatively constant over time indicating that cation exchange was controlling cation concentrations. Similarly SO4 adsorption-desorption or precipitation-dissolution reactions with the matrix were controlling its concentrations. On the other hand, NO3 appeared to be controlled by uptake by plants or microorganisms or by denitrification since their concentrations in the soil fell abruptly as snowmelt proceeded. Dissolved Al and pH varied vertically in the soil profile and their pattern in the stream indicated clearly the importance of water flowpath on stream chemistry. Although Al increased as pH decreased, the relationship does not appear to be controlled by gibbsite. The best fit of calculated dissolved inorganic Al was obtained using AlOHSO4 with a solubility less than that of pure crystalline jurbanite.


Author(s):  
Marko Geslani

The introduction reviews the historiographic problem of the relation between fire sacrifice (yajña) and image worship (pūjā), which have traditionally been seen as opposing ritual structures serving to undergird the distinction of “Vedic” and “Hindu.” Against such an icono- and theocentric approach, it proposes a history of the priesthood in relation to royal power, centering on the relationship between the royal chaplain (purohita) and astrologer (sāṃvatsara) as a crucial, unexplored development in early Indian religion. In order to capture these historical developments, it outlines a method for the comparative study of ritual forms over time.


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