Temples and Traders in Palmyra

2020 ◽  
pp. 461-480
Author(s):  
Leonardo Gregoratti
Keyword(s):  
Mediterranean Area ◽  
Private Citizens ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Many ◽  
The City ◽  
Common Era ◽  
The Silk Road ◽  
Sources Of Capital

As is generally known, during the first three centuries of the Common Era, the Syrian city of Palmyra played a fundamental role in the trade between Asia and the Mediterranean area, to the point that it became the most important trade centre along the western section of the Silk Road. The different roles of merchants and businessmen involved in the Palmyrene caravan trade has been the subject of studies over a long period. What is still an elusive element is the role of capital in the Palmyrene trading system, that is to say the money used to organize the merchant expeditions and to buy the goods coming from the East. Besides, the very nature of the caravan trade implied long and dangerous journeys, which rendered the investment rather risky. On the other hand, a large profit was gained once the goods had reached Roman territory. In order to identify the possible sources of capital in Palmyrene society, that is to say the groups and the institutions able to provide the initial money necessary for the trade activity, this paper investigates the relations between merchant classes and sanctuaries. The many dedications made by traders and private citizens to the city sanctuaries, and the frequent presence of religious figures among the trading families’ members, seem to suggest that the numerous temples of Palmyra played a role in the commercial trade as holders of capital, which could be lent and employed in the activity of trade.

The future role of the psychiatrist in Europe – a UEMS perspective

2014 ◽  
Vol 11 (01) ◽  
pp. 35-42
Author(s):  
M. Hermans
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Mental Health Professionals ◽  
Health Professionals ◽  
General Interest ◽  
Future Role ◽  
Personal Opinion ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Many

SummaryThe author presents his personal opinion inviting to discussion on the possible future role of psychiatrists. His view is based upon the many contacts with psychiatrists all over Europe, academicians and everyday professionals, as well as the familiarity with the literature. The list of papers referred to is based upon (1) the general interest concerning the subject when representing ideas also worded elsewhere, (2) the accessibility to psychiatrists and mental health professionals in Germany, (3) being costless downloadable for non-subscribers and (4) for some geographic aspects (e.g. Belgium, Spain, Sweden) and the latest scientific issues, addressing some authors directly.

Marriage and Sexual Relations in the New Testament World

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
William Loader
Keyword(s):  
Roman Society ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
The Social ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Many ◽  
Marital Sex ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Common Understanding

After a brief overview of the social context and role of marriage and sexuality in Jewish and Greco-Roman cultures, the chapter traces the impact of the Genesis creation narratives, positively and negatively, on how marriage and sexuality were seen both in the present and in depictions of hope for the future. Discussion of pre-marital sex, incest, intermarriage, polygyny, divorce, adultery, and passions follows. It then turns to Jesus’ reported response to divorce, arguing that the prohibition sayings should be read as assuming that sexual intercourse both effects permanent union and severs previous unions, thus making divorce after adultery mandatory, the common understanding and legal requirement in both Jewish and Greco-Roman society of the time. It concludes by noting both the positive appreciation of sex and marriage, grounded in belief that they are God’s creation, and the many dire warnings against sexual wrongdoing, including adulterous attitudes and uncontrolled passions.

scholarly journals Built Heritage Attractions in Cultural Tourism: the case of Al - Mustansiriya Madrassa, Baghdad

2019 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-43
Author(s):  
Huda Adil Abdulhameed Al-Obaidi ◽  
Osamah AbdulMunem Al-Tameemi
Keyword(s):  
Investment Project ◽  
Cultural Tourism ◽  
Tourism Industry ◽  
Historical Building ◽  
Economic Resource ◽  
Built Heritage ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The City ◽  
Shed Light

This research deals with the subject of Built heritage attractions in Muslim historical building, for what it represents, as an element dealing with Cultural tourism, in the process of developing tourism industry of the city. The location of Mustansiriya Madrassa in Baghdad’s commercial district could make it a profitable investment project to revive a cultural, artistic and tourist centre that could make it a cultural Tourism haven. The problem emerges through, how the role of built heritage to attract tourists in order to give vitality and liveability to the cultural tourism destination such as Al - Mustansiriya Madrassa which is one of the most popular heritage destinations, a historic school building situated in the ancient Abbasid district of Rusafa in the very heart of Baghdad. Therefore, the research's aim is to shed light on the heritage attraction as a mean to clarify the meaning of Cultural Tourism and specifying its definition. This research explains how the built heritage plays an important role in tourism in general and in the cultural tourism in particular because they attract tourists and provides a sustainable economic resource through its inclusion of values that make it distinct from other sources of attraction.

scholarly journals INFLUENCE OF COGNITIVE DYSONANCE ON THE FORMATION OF THE LANGUAGE SYSTEM

2019 ◽  
pp. 70-78
Author(s):  
T. Krech ◽  
I. Milyeva
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Dissonance ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
Communication Process ◽  
Psychological Reality ◽  
Language System ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Many

The language system is susceptible to the many changes that occur in society and the consciousness of its members. Language units can be motivated by taboos – a phenomenon that causes a person to abandon the use of some language units and replace them with others that are more suitable for this communicative situation. Such a replacement is due to mental rejection, emotional discomfort, in fact, cognitive dissonance, which is born as a result of various objective and subjective factors. The presence in the human mind of a fideistic attitude to the word is a psychological reality. Therefore, the use of replacement words as a result of a certain mental discomfort has become the subject of research not only for linguists, but also for scientists who deal with issues of culture, religion, ethnography, and especially psychology. Some sources that we used to write an article are not so much of a linguistic nature, but rather of a psycholinguistic one. At the same time, scientists note that consciously or unconsciously, but a person always feels a greater role of associative connections between a word and a named subject. The purpose of the article is to study language units motivated by ancient remnants, and to determine the role of euphemisms in the communication process. It is these “soft” expressions that make speech more pleasant, one that protects the psyche and aesthetic feelings of a person.

scholarly journals Housing and living conditions of working youth in the plants of Buryat-Mongolian ASSR during the Great Patriotic War

2020 ◽  
pp. 86-93
Author(s):  
Anastasiya Nikolaevna Soboleva
Keyword(s):  
Living Conditions ◽  
Industrial Plant ◽  
The Social ◽  
Critical Problems ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Republic ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Poor Nutrition ◽  
The City

The object of this research is the youth of Buryat-Mongolian ASSR as most active social group within the social structure of 1941 – 1945, which was the major source for replenishment of labor reserves. The subject of this research is the examination of core financial and social problems faced by the youth working at the defense industry plants of the republic. Special attention is given to analysis of the impact of wartime struggles and hardships upon household and food procurement. It is noted that shortage of housing, low salaries, insecure life, poor nutrition, deficit of clothing and footwear often led breach of employee discipline. The article explores the important vectors in the activity of Komsomol with regards to housing and living conditions, as well as various forms of financial and psychological incentives that promote adaptation of youth to working at the industrial plant. The scientific novelty consists in introduction into the scientific discourse of a number of previously unpublished source that were collected specifically for this research. As a result of the conducted research, it was established that working youth, who for the most part came from rural localities to the city, were put in quite difficult social and living conditions, experiencing critical problems in the process of adaptation; however, they accomplished significant labor achievements and made their contribution to the common Victory.

Citizens in the Smart City

2022 ◽  
pp. 126-143
Author(s):  
Zsuzsanna Tomor
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Research ◽  
Citizen Participation ◽  
Smart City ◽  
Smart Cities ◽  
European City ◽  
Citizen Empowerment ◽  
Depth Study ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The City

While the role of citizens in smart cities is hotly debated, there is a dearth of empirical research on the subject. This in-depth study of a European city, selected for its typical smart city ambitions, explores the roles that citizens actually play in smart city projects. The study examines twelve initiatives in the City of Utrecht (NL) using a framework that differentiates between types of citizen participation. The findings show that technology-enabled citizen participation in Utrecht is highly diverse and embraces all types of participation rather than simply taking the form of either “citizen empowerment” (as the advocates argue) or “citizen subjugation' (as the critics stress). The diversity found in the study highlights the need to conceptualize the role of the smart citizen at the micro (project) level rather than at the level of the city as a whole. The study shows that citizen participation in the smart city should not be understood as a technological utopia or dystopia but as an evolving, technologically mediated practice that is shaped by a variety of factors.

scholarly journals Urban Subalterns in the Arab Revolutions: Cairo and Damascus in Comparative Perspective

2013 ◽  
Vol 55 (4) ◽  
pp. 865-894 ◽  
Author(s):  
Salwa Ismail
Keyword(s):  
Urban Space ◽  
Spatial Location ◽  
Protest Movements ◽  
Political Force ◽  
The People ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Common ◽  
Everyday Interaction ◽  
Political Configuration

AbstractThis paper investigates the role of urban subalterns both as participatory agents in the Arab revolutions and as mediating forces against revolutionary action. It argues that during revolutionary periods the positioning of subalterns as a political force should be understood in relation to their socio-spatial location in the urban political configuration. Looking at the protest movements in Cairo and Damascus, the paper examines the differentiated locations of subaltern actors in each to demonstrate how their positioning in relation to state and government has shaped their engagement in the revolutions. In Cairo, the mobilization of subaltern forces was anchored in spatialized forms of everyday interaction between popular forces and agents of government. These interactions were formative of urban subjectivities that entered into the making of “the people” as the subject of the Revolution. In Damascus, the configuration of the urban space and the Syrian regime's modes of control made it difficult for subaltern forces to mobilize on the same scale as in Cairo or to form a unified opposition. The regime instrumentalized socio-spatial fragmentation among subalterns, in effect turning some segments, as buffers for the regime, against others. In analytical terms, the paper underscores the common conceptual ground between the categories of “urban popular forces” and “urban subalterns.” This ground covers their socio-spatial positionality, their bases of action, and the factors shaping their political subjectivities.

Guildsmen, religious reform and the search for the common good: the role of the guilds in the early Reformation in Augsburg

1996 ◽  
Vol 39 (3) ◽  
pp. 577-597 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. J. Broadhead
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Common Good ◽  
Religious Reform ◽  
The Common Good ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Common ◽  
Urban Commons ◽  
Capital Intensive

ABSTRACTThis article examines the forces that shaped the responses of the urban commons to the Reformation in Augsburg. Developing work by Blickle and others, it considers the extent to which traditional communal ideals were reflected in measures to construct a system of ‘sacral corporatism’. An examination of the attitudes of guildsmen towards communal values and institutions shows variation in their views, even on such basic points as the identification and imposition of the ‘common good’. Case studies show how predominantly poor weavers were attracted to the call to enforce communal principles as a means of defending their status and incomes. To this end they welcomed evangelical teaching, for it provided scriptural and ethical endorsements of corporate action. In contrast, members of the butchers' guild, who were involved in a capital intensive occupation, resisted communal restraints on their freedom to trade and make profits. The butchers' opposition to the Reformation rested more on their rejection of ‘sacral corporatism’, as advocated by reformers in Augsburg, than on support for Catholicism. Augsburg shows the significance of communal values in the urban Reformation, but it demonstrates that these were neither static nor uniformly accepted. On the contrary they were themselves the subject of dispute.

Mediating Structures and Constitutional Liberty

Worldview ◽  
1978 ◽  
Vol 21 (9) ◽  
pp. 41-46
Author(s):  
William Bentley Ball
Keyword(s):  
Voluntary Association ◽  
American Enterprise Institute ◽  
American Constitution ◽  
Peter Berger ◽  
Ethnic Subgroups ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The City ◽  
Mediating Structures

There are those of us whose job seems always to be immediate problem-solving. We are like people frantically busy piling up rocks with the fleeting notion that perhaps they are building something. To Empower People: The Role of Mediating Structures in Public Policy by Peter Berger and Richard Neuhaus (American Enterprise Institute, 1977) offers a portrait in which resemblances can be seen between the haphazard rock pile and the city of good “mediating structures” there portrayed.Approaching the subject as a lawyer, the question at once comes to mind: Do we need mediating structures (family, church, voluntary association, neighborhood, racial and ethnic subgroups) in a society governed by the American Constitution? If the “mediating structures“ are thought to be necessary to protect the individual from the state, is that not precisely the function of the Constitution?

scholarly journals HOW STRICTLY DID THE ATHENIAN COURTS APPLY THE LAW? THE ROLE OF EPIEIKEIA

2013 ◽  
Vol 56 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-48 ◽  
Author(s):  
EDWARD HARRIS
Keyword(s):  
Common Law ◽  
General Rule ◽  
Nicomachean Ethics ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Law ◽  
Principles Of Justice ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The City ◽  
Positivist Approach

Abstract H. Meyer‐Laurin has claimed that the Athenian courts took a stricti iuris approach to the law and did not take extenuating circumstances into account. Other scholars (Mirhady, Todd) have claimed that the courts sometimes ignored the law and took extra‐legal considerations into account, which was called ‘fairness’ (epieikeia). The essay begins with a careful reading of Aristotle's analysis of ‘fairness’ (epieikeia) in the Nicomachean Ethics and the Rhetoric and draws on an important essay by J. Brunschwig. Fairness was not a doctrine that attempted to undermine the authority of the law or placed the law of the city in opposition to the unwritten laws or the common law of mankind. Nor did the application of fairness introduce non‐legal factors into adjudication. Rather, fairness dealt with the problem of treating exceptions to the general rule contained in a specific written law. The essay then shows how litigants used arguments based on fairness and how the courts sometimes took extenuating circumstances into account. When Athenian judges swore to decide according to the laws of Athens, they did not just consider the law under which the accuser had brought his case. They could also take into account general principles of justice implicit in the laws of Athens as a whole. In this way, they avoided a rigid positivist approach to law. Finally, the essay sheds some light on the relationship between Aristotle's Rhetoric and the arguments used in the Athenian courts.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document