Iconography and Imagery between Rome and the Provinces

2021 ◽  
pp. 221-242
Author(s):  
Sarah Lepinski ◽  
Vanessa Rousseau
Keyword(s):  
Social Contexts ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Making Sense ◽  
Roman Provinces ◽  
Multiple Media

This chapter examines iconography and imagery in the Roman provinces with a particular focus on decorative media in domestic contexts in the eastern Roman provinces. Specifically, we investigate how decorative ensembles in second- and third-century ce Roman-era houses, and the interplay of imagery in multiple media, further inform our comprehension of how domestic visual vocabularies from distinct cultural and social contexts in the eastern provinces might express both local and Roman identity at Ephesus and Zeugma. The chapter begins with highlighting historiographic and methodological practices and structures inherent in the study of iconography in the Roman provinces and emphasizing issues at play within these structures, such as chronology, geography, cultural continuities, and relationships between center and periphery. We further outline some of the challenges of studying and interpreting domestic ensembles (as opposed to singular monuments), which, to a degree, parallels the broader challenges in making sense of Roman imagery and iconography, including problems in establishing linear progressions and the compartmentalization by media and specialization.

Law in the Roman Provinces

2020 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Regional Variation ◽  
First Century ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Top Down ◽  
The Third ◽  
Roman Provinces ◽  
Intrinsic Component

The study of the Roman empire has changed dramatically in the last century. Emphasis is now placed on understanding the experiences of subject populations, rather than focusing solely on the Roman imperial elites. Local experiences, and interactions between periphery and centre are an intrinsic component in our picture of the empire’s function over and against the earlier, top-down model. But where does law fit in to this new, decentralized picture of empire? This volume brings together internationally renowned scholars from legal and historical backgrounds to study the operation of law in each region of the empire from the first century BCE to the end of the third century CE. Regional variation and specificity is explored alongside the emergence of common themes and activities by historical agents. When brought together, a new understanding of law in the Roman empire emerges that balances the practicalities of regional variation with the ideological construct of law and empire.

Ancient Mystēria and Modern Mystery Cults

2005 ◽  
Vol 12 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 308-348
Author(s):  
Tennyson Jacob Wellman
Keyword(s):  
Social Contexts ◽  
The Other ◽  
Making Sense ◽  
Ritual Action ◽  
Diverse Field ◽  
Religious Cultures ◽  
Action Goals ◽  
Social Backgrounds

AbstractThe modern study of the ancient Hellenic and Hellenistic cults called mystēria has struggled over taxonomic issues related to typicality and modelling for several decades. By refocusing on the artificiality and rhetorical deployment of both the ancient word mystēria and the modern phrase mystery cults, it is possible to step back from issues of reification and focus on ancient social contexts for another view. Doing so allows one to note the numerous points of overlap (in ritual action, goals, symbols and narratives) between mystery cults and the broader cultural fields of ancient Hellenic communities. For instance, when one does not assume that mystery cults are the major origin for eschatological thinking in Greece, other (at times competing) vectors come into view and present a much more diverse field of data on the topic. Using Eleusis as an example, it is possible to see that many of the other allegedly typical features of mystery cults are at best problematic viewed against their social backgrounds and not placed in decontextualised juxtaposition with another mystery cult. This suggests that modern theories of culture-as-repertoire and of popular religious cultures are appropriate for making sense of ancient mystēria and thereby rectifying the scholarly construct of mystery cults.

The Imperialism of Categories: Concepts and Contexts in Communication for Social Change

2019 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
pp. 388-406
Author(s):  
Pradip Ninan Thomas
Keyword(s):  
Social Change ◽  
State Government ◽  
South India ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Indigenous Community ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Specific Context ◽  
Strong Case ◽  
Making Sense ◽  
Accumulation By Dispossession

Abstract This article is a critique of communication and social change (CSC) theory. It makes a case for re-centring context in theory and practice and for appropriate uses of categories and concepts to the making sense of of situations in the developing world. Based on fieldwork with an indigenous community in South India, the Irulas, the article explores their very specific context on the margins of globalising India and their experience with access to and use of laptops provided by the State government. It argues that David Harvey’s concept ‘Accumulation by Dispossession’ (ABD) ‘travels well’ and can be used to make sense of the contexts of the precariat and in particular, communities such as the Irulas. Based on conversations with theory in CSC it makes a strong case for the need for textured understandings of cultural and social contexts as the basis for CSC interventions.

scholarly journals Making Sense of Resilience

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (15) ◽  
pp. 8538
Author(s):  
Jose Carlos Cañizares ◽  
Samantha Marie Copeland ◽  
Neelke Doorn
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Science ◽  
Climate Adaptation ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Management Styles ◽  
Ecological Value ◽  
Social Ability ◽  
Making Sense ◽  
Adaptive Property ◽  
The Social ◽  
Philosophical Account

While resilience is a major concept in development, climate adaptation, and related domains, many doubts remain about how to interpret this term, its relationship with closely overlapping terms, or its normativity. One major view is that, while resilience originally was a descriptive concept denoting some adaptive property of ecosystems, subsequent applications to social contexts distorted its meaning and purpose by framing it as a transformative and normative quality. This article advances an alternative philosophical account based on the scrutiny of C.S. Holling’s original work on resilience. We show that resilience had a central role among Holling’s proposals for reforming environmental science and management, and that Holling framed resilience as an ecosystem’s capacity of absorbing change and exploiting it for adapting or evolving, but also as the social ability of maintaining and opportunistically exploiting that natural capacity. Resilience therefore appears as a transformative social-ecological property that is normative in three ways: as an intrinsic ecological value, as a virtue of organizations or management styles, and as a virtuous understanding of human–nature relations. This interpretation accounts for the practical relevance of resilience, clarifies the relations between resilience and related terms, and is a firm ground for further normative work on resilience.

Senatorial and Equestrian Governors in the Third Century A.D.

1955 ◽  
Vol 45 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 47-57
Author(s):  
Hans Petersen
Keyword(s):  
Third Century ◽  
Administrative System ◽  
The Third ◽  
Roman Provinces ◽  
Utmost Care ◽  
Provincial Administration

In the second half of the third century a.d., a large number of Roman provinces which used to be governed by legati Augusti pro praetore of senatorial rank, came to be governed by praesides of equestrian rank. In this article the evidence for this change in provincial administration has been collected as fully as possible, and thereupon the question investigated whether the change was in any way the outcome of military considerations.The principles according to which such an investigation must be conducted, should be self-evident. The inscriptions of the latter half of the third century are considerably fewer in number than those of the earlier Empire, and the inscriptions concerning the provincial governors of this period make no exception. They should, therefore, be interpreted with the utmost care and caution. I have tried both to avoid forcing the evidence of inscriptions which have obviously been copied badly, and to avoid utilizing identifications of persons which are either improbable, or demonstrably mistaken: I believe that such evidence should not be used to support any pre-conceived views concerning supposed changes in the administrative system.

Making Sense of Dementia: Carers' Perceptions

1995 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 103-114 ◽  
Author(s):  
Janet Askham
Keyword(s):  
Social Contexts ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Self Presentation ◽  
London Borough ◽  
Making Sense ◽  
Care Givers ◽  
Lack Of Information ◽  
Service Staff ◽  
Market Town ◽  
Versus Complex

AbstractThis paper is about how the informal care givers of people recently diagnosed as suffering from dementia perceive and describe that condition. Data are drawn from semi-structured interviews with 106 such care givers (mainly adult children and spouses) carried out in a London Borough and a southern English market town. People's accounts of how they defined what was happening to their relative (his/her condition) could be divided into several categories; these are shown to be based on a number of different parameters: for example, normal versus abnormal; orderly versus unpredictable; simple versus complex; an illness versus not an illness. The reasons for the wide variety of understandings of dementia are examined; it is suggested that it may be due to general lack of information or poor communication with health service staff; to a need to choose a definition which accords with a particular kind of relationship with the dementia sufferer; to the kind of self-presentation favoured by the sufferer; or to the desire to achieve certain kinds of end within particular social contexts.

Seeking Common Cause between Cognitive Science and Ethnography: Alternative Logic in Cooperative Action

2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 1-30
Author(s):  
Thomas Widlok ◽  
Keith Stenning
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Science ◽  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Cultural Backgrounds ◽  
Cooperative Action ◽  
Making Sense ◽  
Modern Development ◽  
The Social ◽  
Cast Doubt ◽  
Modes Of Thought

Abstract Alternative logics have been invoked periodically to explain the systematically different modes of thought of the subjects of ethnography: one logic for ‘us’ and another for ‘them’. Recently anthropologists have cast doubt on the tenability of such an explanation of difference. In cognitive science, [Stenning and van Lambalgen, 2008] proposed that with the modern development of multiple logics, at least several logics are required for making sense of the cognitive processes of reasoning for different purposes and in different contexts. Alongside Classical logic (CL) — the logic of dispute), there is a need for a nonmonotonic logic (LP) which is a logic of cooperative communication. Here we propose that all people with various cultural backgrounds make use of multiple logics, and that difference should be captured as variation in the social contexts that call forth the different logics’ application. This contribution illustrates these ideas with reference to the ethnography of divination.

Linguistic Interactions: A Therapeutic Consideration for Adults With Aphasia

2008 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 93-98
Author(s):  
Lynn E. Fox
Keyword(s):  
Clinical Outcomes ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Interaction Models ◽  
Social Communities ◽  
Wernicke's Aphasia ◽  
Communication Challenges ◽  
Therapeutic Consideration ◽  
Patterns Of Interaction ◽  
Structural Language

Abstract Linguistic interaction models suggest that interrelationships arise between structural language components and between structural and pragmatic components when language is used in social contexts. The linguist, David Crystal (1986, 1987), has proposed that these relationships are central, not peripheral, to achieving desired clinical outcomes. For individuals with severe communication challenges, erratic or unpredictable relationships between structural and pragmatic components can result in atypical patterns of interaction between them and members of their social communities, which may create a perception of disablement. This paper presents a case study of a woman with fluent, Wernicke's aphasia that illustrates how attention to patterns of linguistic interaction may enhance AAC intervention for adults with aphasia.

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