Comedy and the Athenian Ideal

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Konstan
Keyword(s):  
American Democracy ◽  
Intended Audience ◽  
The World ◽  
Hollywood Movies ◽  
Hellenistic World ◽  
City State ◽  
The City ◽  
New Comedy ◽  
A Performance

New Comedy was a Panhellenic phenomenon. It may be that a performance in Athens was still the acme of a comic playwright’s career, but Athens was no longer the exclusive venue of the genre. Yet Athens, or an idealized version of Athens, remained the setting or backdrop for New Comedy, whatever its provenance or intended audience. New Comedy was thus an important vehicle for the dissemination of the Athenian polis model throughout the Hellenistic world, and it was a factor in what has been termed ‘the great convergence’. The role of New Comedy in projecting an idealized image of the city-state may be compared to that of Hollywood movies in conveying a similarly romanticized, but not altogether false, conception of American democracy to populations around the world.

scholarly journals Internet Control and Auto-regulation in Singapore

2002 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Terence Lee
Keyword(s):  
New Media ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Contested Space ◽  
Media Technologies ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
Internet Control ◽  
The World ◽  
City State ◽  
The City ◽  
Economic Development Strategies

This paper sets out to consider the use of new media technologies in the city-state of Singapore, widely acknowledged as one of the most technologically-advanced and networked societies in the world. Singapore is well-known as a politically censorious and highly-regulated society, which has been subjected to frequent and fierce insults and criticisms by those hailing from liberal democratic traditions. Indeed, much has been said about how the Singapore polity resonates with a climate of fear, which gives rise to the prevalent practice of self-censorship. This paper examines how certain groups in Singapore attempt to employ the Internet to find their voice and seek their desired social, cultural and political ends, and how the regulatory devices adopted by the highly pervasive People Action's Party (PAP) government respond to and set limits to these online ventures whilst concomitantly pursuing national technological cum economic development strategies. It concludes that the Internet in Singapore is a highly contested space where the art of governmentality, in the forms of information controls and 'automatic' modes of regulation, is tried, tested, and subsequently perfected.

scholarly journals Performing in Crisis Mode: the Munich National Theater, the Great Exhibition and the Cholera Epidemic in 1854

2020 ◽  
Vol 69 (4) ◽  
pp. 39-61
Author(s):  
Meike Wagner
Keyword(s):  
German Industry ◽  
Cholera Epidemic ◽  
Global Pandemic ◽  
National Theater ◽  
The World ◽  
Final Count ◽  
Risk Zones ◽  
The City ◽  
Great Exhibition

In 1854, the city of Munich had arranged for the “First General German Industrial Exhibition” to promote German industry to the world and invited a global audience to the event. At the same time, Franz Dingelstedt, director of the National Theater, organized a festival displaying the finest actors from Germany. Right after the opening of the festival, cholera started raging in the city and leaving 3,000 deaths in the final count. The author sketches out the role of the theatre in this crisis, when Dingelstedt was ordered by the king to keep the theatre open at any cost. This appears awkward, in regard to the current global pandemic crisis where theaters have been identified as risk zones for infection and consequently closed down. Why was the theatre at the time considered a safe and appropriate place even helping to counter the disease?

The local and global in North African popular music

Popular Music ◽  
1996 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 259-273 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tony Langlois
Keyword(s):  
Popular Music ◽  
Political Party ◽  
North African ◽  
Islamic Movement ◽  
Public Figures ◽  
The World ◽  
East And West ◽  
Victims Of Violence ◽  
The City

On 29 September 1994, Cheb Hasni, the most renowned Rai singer living in Algeria, was gunned down outside his family's house in Gambetta, a quarter of the city of Waharan (Oran). He was one of many public figures (and some 50,000 others) who have been killed since the main opposition political party, the FIS (Islamic Salvation Front) was prevented from assuming power by the annulment of elections that they would have won in 1991. Like the most notable of Algeria's victims of violence, which include journalists, lawyers, doctors, television presenters and top policemen, Hasni represented a version of Algerian identity that some people clearly could not tolerate. Responsibility for his assassination has not been claimed, but the manner of his death was identical to others carried out by the armed faction of the fundamentalist Islamic movement, the GIA (Armed Islamic Group). His death has possibly marked the demise of a genre of North African popular music known as Rai as it was produced in Algeria. Rai has been a particularly problematic idiom for Islamists and secularists alike. Both groups nurture distinct views of the place of Algeria, and Algerians in the world, and the role of Islam and liberal secularism in Algeria. Rai music constructs its own distinct trajectories linking local and global, ‘East’ and ‘West’, and, in this way, constitutes a distinct problem for Algerians, and indeed other North Africans today.

Martineau, the Press and Jacksonian America

2020 ◽  
pp. 50-94
Author(s):  
Iain Crawford
Keyword(s):  
Print Culture ◽  
Critical Reception ◽  
Social Progress ◽  
American Democracy ◽  
Free Press ◽  
Regional Variations ◽  
The Press ◽  
The City ◽  
North And South

Chapter Two considers Martineau’s American visit, the ways in which the three books she wrote out of it depict the role of education and a free press in the formation of American democracy, and the critical reception they received on both sides of the Atlantic. By contrast with the dichotomous readings of a nation divided between North and South along the lines of slave-ownership that have been the norm in studies of her visit, this chapter argues that the American books offer a more nuanced analysis of a society whose regional variations are most fully understood in terms of the extent to which they either have developed or constrained the development of a free press and a print culture that facilitates the evolution and implementation of liberal ideals. It pays particular attention to Martineau’s representation of the western states and, above all, Cincinnati, which she portrays as an exemplar of economic and moral stadial progress and as a counter to Boston, for her the ‘city of cant’ and an unexpected bastion of resistance to liberal change. Finally, the chapter shows how Martineau returned home committed to finding ways in which her work could participate in and contribute to America’s continuing advance and, in particular, focused upon prospective roles for herself in supporting the interwoven causes of abolitionism and of women’s ability to become agents of social progress.

scholarly journals The Return of the Sacral King

2020 ◽  
Vol 25 ◽  
pp. 51-65
Author(s):  
Paul R. DeHart ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Political Order ◽  
The Political ◽  
Modern State ◽  
Ancient Rome ◽  
The World ◽  
Ancient Christianity ◽  
The City

In Pagans & Christians in the City, Steven D. Smith argues that in contrast to ancient Rome, ancient Christianity, following Judaism, located the sacred outside the world, desacralizing the cosmos and everything in it—including the political order. It thereby introduced a political dualism and potentially contending allegiances. Although Smith’s argument is right so far as it goes, it underplays the role of Christianity’s immanent dimension in subverting the Roman empire and the sacral pattern of antiquity. This division of authority not only undermined the Roman empire and antique sacral political order more generally—it also subverts the modern state, which, in the work of Hobbes and Rousseau, sought to remarry what Western Christianity divorced.

God, Woman, and Morality: The Democratic Family in the New Political Science of Alexis de Tocqueville

1995 ◽  
Vol 57 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-30
Author(s):  
William Mathie
Keyword(s):  
Political Science ◽  
Present Article ◽  
Alexis De Tocqueville ◽  
American Democracy ◽  
American Women ◽  
The Family ◽  
The World ◽  
Role Of Women ◽  
New Political Science

Tocqueville says that the superiority of American women is the chief cause of the power and prosperity of American democracy. That superiority is the result of an education that treats women as capable of freedom, but the use of that freedom is to maintain the bonds that restrict women to the household. The present article examines the role of the family and women in the new political science Tocqueville thought necessary for the defence of democratic liberty. It is argued that as the primary influence of democracy upon the family for Tocqueville has been to eliminate the authority of fathers who were the “arbiters of mores” and thereby the defenders of liberty in aristocracy, so democratic liberty depends for him above all upon the new role of women as the makers of mores. Through the agency of women, otherwise fragile religion constitutes an effective limit to the authority of the majority, but what makes it possible for religion to operate through women is their exclusion from the world of commerce, and what maintains this exclusion is the strict conjugal morality that women themselves defend in America. How far the role of women as guardians of democratic liberty might be justified is shown to depend for Tocqueville upon arguments for it that are other than those commonly accepted by American men.

scholarly journals АЛЬ-ФАРАБИ И МУЗЫКА (AL-FARABI AND MUSIC)

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aigul Kosanova
Keyword(s):  
Central Asia ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Human Behavior ◽  
Early Middle Ages ◽  
Scientific Center ◽  
Scientific Heritage ◽  
The People ◽  
The World ◽  
City State ◽  
The City

Іn this article, the author examines the scientific heritage of the great thinker and philosopher of the East, Abu Nasir al Farabi. The contribution of the word is analysed. Abu Nasr Muhammad Ibn Tarkhan Ibn Uzlag al-Farabi (870-950) was born in the city of Farab (Otrar) on the territory of the modern South Kazakhstan region. In the early middle ages, Otrar was called Farab. The city of Otrar was the second major cultural, commercial, political and scientific center, the center of the ancient culture of Kazakhstan and Central Asia. The most famous of his scientific works is" treatise on the views of good citizens "("views of good citizens"). "The scientist divides the city leaders into "benevolent and ignorant". At that time, there was a city-state. When will its inhabitants be happy? According to the scientist, this depends on the mayors of the cities. If the mayor is educated, fair, and clean-minded, all citizens will be happy. And if the mayor of the city is ignorant and lies, then the people of the city will be unhappy. Al-Farabi says that in order to achieve true happiness, a person must constantly seek. Human behavior should also be good," Zhakypbek Altayevich says in the documentary "Al - Farabi-philosopher of civilization". In addition, Al-Farabi's work "the great treatise on music" has been translated into many languages of the world.

scholarly journals Role of Taizé Music in Catholic Adoration and Protestant Ecumenical Community in Yogyakarta

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 28-35
Author(s):  
Hari Martopo
Keyword(s):  
Essential Role ◽  
Peace And Justice ◽  
The World ◽  
Working Together ◽  
The City

Taizé’s music comes from an ecumenical monastic order with an intense devotion to peace and justice through prayer and meditation. It was founded by Brother Roger Louis Schütz-Marsauche in 1940 in the French village of Taizé and later spread throughout the world. Now the Taizé community is also growing in Indonesia, especially in the city of Yogyakarta. The Taizé community introduced its model of worship consisting of prayer, music, and meditation. The Taizé community entered Indonesia through Ursuline nuns’ work, and some of them later chose Taizé music as their worship accompaniment. In Yogyakarta, Taizé music is being used formally in adoration worship, namely The Holy Hour Worship by the Congregational Scholastic Congregation of SCJ Yogyakarta. Simultaneously, an ecumenical community called DNTZ Yogyakarta sings Taizé music in ecumenical fellowship activities. These are voluntary activities which are performed at different places and open for public. These two models of Taizé music in Catholics and Protestants communities have become a unique phenomenon as both communities play an essential role in its development by helping each other and working together in harmony.

scholarly journals Geography and covid-19: reflections from the evolution of the pandemic in Uberlândia, Brazil

2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Josimar dos Reis de Souza ◽  
Tatiana Silva Souza ◽  
Beatriz Ribeiro Soares
Keyword(s):  
First Year ◽  
Theoretical Discussion ◽  
Health Crisis ◽  
Virus Identification ◽  
Rapid Spread ◽  
The World ◽  
Current Scenario ◽  
Using Data ◽  
The City

From the complex sanitary moment faced by Brazil, related to COVID-19, in particular due to the collapse of the health system that has occurred in medium-sized cities, this article aimed to analyze the evolution of the COVID-19 pandemic in Uberlândia, according to reflections from geographic science, in order to help to understand the facts that led to the current scenario of the disease in the city. To achieve the objective, we carried out a theoretical discussion about how Geography faces recent events, especially in relation to the role of the Globalization process, both in the dissemination of information about the emergence of COVID-19 and other events, as well as in the rapid spread of the virus around the world. Based on these reflections, we analyzed the evolution of the pandemic, using data provided by the Municipality of Uberlândia and the Ministry of Health, with a cut-off date of March 18, 2021, in order to understand the chronological path of the facts. The choice for this cut-off date for data clipping is justified by our intention to analyze the first year of virus identification in the municipality. The results showed the negative evolution of the pandemic in the city, mainly over the months of February and March 2021, with 100% of the ICU beds occupied, which demonstrates the complexity and the long way to go to overcome this health crisis.

scholarly journals The Role of Astronomy and Feng Shui in the Planning of Ming Beijing

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Norma Camilla Baratta ◽  
Giulio Magli
Keyword(s):  
Satellite Imagery ◽  
Yuan Dynasty ◽  
Feng Shui ◽  
Palaeomagnetic Data ◽  
The World ◽  
Political Message ◽  
Mandate Of Heaven ◽  
The Yuan Dynasty ◽  
The City

AbstractPresent day Beijing developed on the urban layout of the Ming capital, founded in 1420 over the former city of Dadu, the Yuan dynasty capital. The planning of Ming Beijing aimed at conveying a key political message, namely that the ruling dynasty was in charge of the Mandate of Heaven, so that Beijing was the true cosmic centre of the world. We explore here, using satellite imagery and palaeomagnetic data analysys, symbolic aspects of the planning of the city related to astronomical alignments and to the feng shui doctrine, both in its “form” and “compass” schools. In particular, we show that orientations of the axes of the “cosmic” temples and of the Forbidden City were most likely magnetic, while astronomy was used in topographical connections between the temples and in the plan of the Forbidden City in itself.

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