Laughter and Power at Henry II’s Court

Author(s):  
Peter J. A. Jones

Chapter 3 shows how laughter became both a strategy for survival and a means for covert communication in the tense political environment of Henry II’s court. Contemporary writers described how public laughter worked as a potent weapon for shaming courtly rivals. As anxieties about mockery reached a new peak, public derision regularly destroyed careers and reputations. Laughter also became valued as a means of subtle communication, and as a way of exposing the hidden codes and power relationships of court life. As this chapter argues, laughter became so highly valued at Henry’s court because it allowed courtiers to appeal to a reason and dialogue that was otherwise beyond the restrictions of explicit discourse. Evading the culture of rigid procedure that was defining the operation of Angevin government, Henry’s courtiers were able to translate laughter’s growing conceptual and imagined power into a hard-edged, socially coercive political practice.

2001 ◽  
Vol 14 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 289-312 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthias Schramm

The article argues that Frederick II of Hohenstaufen and his court played a unique role in the transfer and diffusion of Arabic science (with its Greek, Hebrew and Christian elements). Scientists at the court translated and elaborated upon it. Moreover, there existed a two-way traffic of scientific knowledge between Frederick and his court scholars, on the one hand, and several oriental courts and their scientists on the other hand. Thus the reader gains a view of Frederick's scientific activities from the Arab perspective, too.Frederick's contribution to the existing biological sciences of his time was his “Book of Falconry”, which was exceptional in the then contemporary approach and methods employed in those fields. Even in this treatise on falconry, Frederick drew upon the fund of knowledge of Arab practitioners. This chain of arguments concerning Arabic science is situated within the setup of Frederick's oriental political practice and sumptuous court life.


2009 ◽  
pp. 42-61
Author(s):  
A. Oleynik

Power involves a number of models of choice: maximizing, satisficing, coercion, and minimizing missed opportunities. The latter is explored in detail and linked to a particular type of power, domination by virtue of a constellation of interests. It is shown that domination by virtue of a constellation of interests calls for justification through references to a common good, i.e. a rent to be shared between Principal and Agent. Two sources of sub-optimal outcomes are compared: individual decision-making and interactions. Interactions organized in the form of power relationships lead to sub-optimal outcomes for at least one side, Agent. Some empirical evidence from Russia is provided for illustrative purposes.


Author(s):  
Marika Cifor ◽  
Jamie A. Lee

Neoliberalism, as economic doctrine, as political practice, and even as a "governing rationality" of contemporary life and work, has been encroaching on the library and information studies (LIS) field for decades. The shift towards a conscious grappling with social justice and human rights debates and concerns in archival studies scholarship and practice since the 1990s opens the possibility for addressing neoliberalism and its elusive presence. Despite its far-reaching influence, neoliberalism has yet to be substantively addressed in archival discourse. In this article, we propose a set of questions for archival practitioners and scholars to reflect on and consider through their own hands-on practices, research, and productions with records, records creators, and distinct archival communities in order to develop an ongoing archival critique. The goal of this critique is to move towards "an ethical practice of community, as an important mode of participation." This article marks a starting point for critically engaging the archival studies discipline along with the LIS field more broadly by interrogating the discursive and material evidences and implications of neoliberalism.


2019 ◽  
Vol 118 (3) ◽  
pp. 110-122
Author(s):  
Johnson Clement Madathil ◽  
Velmurugan P. S

Crude oil is known to have an impact on people’s life of both producers and consumers of crude oil countries. A producer country’s socio-political impact will be different from a consumer country’s socio-political impact. This paper aims to show that crude oil price has a socio-political impact on global countries through descriptive analysis. The study found that there were similarities in the movement of crude oil price and change in GDP of both India and United States and further Russia and Venezuela have had crude oil impact on their respective GDP’s, which has made them take policy reforms. The paper identifies changes in the policy framework due to influence of crude oil price and eventual changes in existing socio-political environment. Taking oil producing countries such as Russia and Venezuela as examples, this paper suggests that policy reforms are the key to having a stable socio-political environment. Russia shows us that having a flexible monetary policy can keep the budget dependence on crude oil reduced in the short term. On the other hand, for oil consuming countries, having a stable supply and moving to new energy sources is the key to tackle the influence of crude oil price on the socio-political environment of global countries.


Author(s):  
Umriniso Rahmatovna Turaeva

The history of the Turkestan Jadid movement and the study of Jadid literature show that it has not been easy to study this subject. The socio-political environment of the time led to the blind reduction of the history of continuous development of Uzbek literature, artificial reduction of the literary heritage of the past on the basis of dogmatic thinking, neglect of the study of works of art and literary figures. As a result, the creation of literary figures of a certain period, no matter how important, remained unexplored.


2017 ◽  
Vol 2 (44) ◽  
pp. 84-88
Author(s):  
Jana Pecníková ◽  
Anna Anna Slatinská ◽  
Genovaitė Kačiuškienė

The research paper focuses on the cultural and moral identity in Umberto Eco’s reflections. Attention is paid to the selected pieces. Umberto Eco is one of the most famous contemporary writers dealing with the issues of morality in Italian society. His works are devoted to the current perception of identity in the 21st century. The authors are interested in his view on values and identity in the selected chapters of his work. The aim of the paper is to analyse the identity issue in Umberto Eco’s works.The research objectives are based on recent doubts in cultural studies whether identity is fixed and firmly defined or acquired by a human being freely. Another question is the link between these two aspects. Although the origin of the word identity comes from Latin (idem – the same), nowadays it is more understood in its diversity as linguistic, cultural, national, moral identity, etc.


2016 ◽  
Vol 2016 (6) ◽  
pp. 5141-5150
Author(s):  
Tom Hickmann ◽  
Attorney Sharon Smith

2015 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Vinay Chauhan ◽  
Sushma Kaushal

Environmental scanning yields greater anticipatory management that provides important inputs for aquitision and use of information for planning and designing organization strategies. Apart from this, effective environmental scanning activities are likely to deal with threats and grasp the opportunities to finally link with enhancing organizational effectiveness. In fact this relationship matrix has led the researchers to conduct an environmental scanning through an examination of the existing status the components of the macro-environment vis-a-vis their relationship with the organizational effectiveness. There are a number of approaches, which describe the macro-environment, of which PEST analysis is regarded as the most common approach for considering the external business environment. Thus, the present study applies PEST analysis to scan the existing business environment. Jammu and Kashmir due to its peculiar political, geographical, economic, and socio-cultural features, had led its cost mountain economy become a distinctive identity. Despite the fact that the state has rich endowments, international relations with its neighbours vis-a-vis its impact on political environment also pose developmental challenges for the business units operating in the state. This has provided valid rationale for conducting the present. The environmental scanning is done through the perception of the select entrepreneurs operating MSMEs in the state of J & K. An impact analysis of environmental factors (PEST) on the organizational effectiveness is also done in the study. The findings of the study show that the political environment of the state that is not favourable for entrepreneural development whereas the rest of the other drivers of PEST i.e. economic environment, socio-cultural environment, and technological environment show a favourable response of the entrepreneurs. In terms of cause and effect relationship, it is found that the first two drivers of the PEST i.e. political and economic dimension impacts OE positively whereas the other two dimensions namely socio-cultural and technological impacts OE negatively but it is pertinent to mention that the impact is very less and is insigninificant. The study also suggests some of strategic options for developing and creating an enabling environment for successful entrepreneurial development to achieve integrated development of the state.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document