Inscribing God’s Word

Author(s):  
Sheila S. Blair

Since the first century of Islam, Muslims have inscribed Qur’anic verses and phrases on buildings and other objects made for a wide range of purposes. This chapter addresses these inscriptions. An introductory section lays out the scope and limitations, the historiography of the subject, and some of the directions research has taken and might take. A second section surveys the ways that these Qur’anic texts have been used, showing both how Muslims considered the Revelation and how they cited it. A third section deals with layout, technique, and style, investigating how these formal features enhanced the message. Along the way, the chapter also points out directions in which such Qur’anic inscriptions might be profitably studied in these and other ways.

2021 ◽  
Vol 22 (5) ◽  
pp. 481-508
Author(s):  
Robert P. Carlyon ◽  
Tobias Goehring

AbstractCochlear implants (CIs) are the world’s most successful sensory prosthesis and have been the subject of intense research and development in recent decades. We critically review the progress in CI research, and its success in improving patient outcomes, from the turn of the century to the present day. The review focuses on the processing, stimulation, and audiological methods that have been used to try to improve speech perception by human CI listeners, and on fundamental new insights in the response of the auditory system to electrical stimulation. The introduction of directional microphones and of new noise reduction and pre-processing algorithms has produced robust and sometimes substantial improvements. Novel speech-processing algorithms, the use of current-focusing methods, and individualised (patient-by-patient) deactivation of subsets of electrodes have produced more modest improvements. We argue that incremental advances have and will continue to be made, that collectively these may substantially improve patient outcomes, but that the modest size of each individual advance will require greater attention to experimental design and power. We also briefly discuss the potential and limitations of promising technologies that are currently being developed in animal models, and suggest strategies for researchers to collectively maximise the potential of CIs to improve hearing in a wide range of listening situations.


Author(s):  
Charlotte Epstein

This book uses the body to peel back the layers of time and taken-for-granted-ness upon the two defining political forms of modernity, the state and the subject of rights. It traces, under the lens of the body, how the state and the subject mutually constituted each other all the way down, by going all the way back, to their original crafting in the seventeenth century. It considers multiple sites of theory and practice and two revolutions. The first, scientific, threw humanity out of the centre of the universe, and transformed the very meanings of matter, space, and the body; while the second, legal and political, re-established humans as the centre-point of a framework of rights. The book analyses the fundamental rights to security, liberty, and property, respectively, as the initial knots where the state-subject relation was first sealed. It develops three arguments, that the body served to naturalise security, to individualise liberty, and to privatise property. Covering a wide range of materials—from early modern anatomy lesson paintings, to the Anglo-Scottish legal struggles of naturalisation, to the emergence of discrete practices of religious toleration in Central Europe—it shows both how the body has operated as history’s great naturaliser, and how it can be mobilised instead as a critical tool that lays bare the deeply racialised and gendered constructions that made both the state and the subject of rights. The book returns to the origins of constructivist and constitutive theorising to reclaim their radical and critical potential.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan John Ainsworth

This book explores the work of a wide range of American photographers attracted to jazz during the period 1900–60. It includes discussions of jazz as a visual subject, its attraction to different types of photographers and offers analysis of why and how they approached the subject in the way they did. While some of these photographers are widely recognized for their work, many African American photojournalists, studio photographers, early twentieth-century émigrés, the Jewish exiles of the 1930s and vernacular snapshots are frequently overlooked. Drawing on ideas from contemporary photographic theory backed up by extensive archival research, this book allows the reader to explore and understand twentieth-century jazz photography in both an engaging and comprehensive fashion.


Author(s):  
Denis Tikhomirov

The purpose of the article is to typologize terminological definitions of security, to find out the general, to identify the originality of their interpretations depending on the subject of legal regulation. The methodological basis of the study is the methods that made it possible to obtain valid conclusions, in particular, the method of comparison, through which it became possible to correlate different interpretations of the term "security"; method of hermeneutics, which allowed to elaborate texts of normative legal acts of Ukraine, method of typologization, which made it possible to create typologization groups of variants of understanding of the term "security". Scientific novelty. The article analyzes the understanding of the term "security" in various regulatory acts in force in Ukraine. Typological groups were understood to understand the term "security". Conclusions. The analysis of the legal material makes it possible to confirm that the issues of security are within the scope of both legislative regulation and various specialized by-laws. However, today there is no single conception on how to interpret security terminology. This is due both to the wide range of social relations that are the subject of legal regulation and to the relativity of the notion of security itself and the lack of coherence of views on its definition in legal acts and in the scientific literature. The multiplicity of definitions is explained by combinations of material and procedural understanding, static - dynamic, and conditioned by the peculiarities of a particular branch of legal regulation, limited ability to use methods of one or another branch, the inter-branch nature of some variations of security, etc. Separation, common and different in the definition of "security" can be used to further standardize, in fact, the regulatory legal understanding of security to more effectively implement the legal regulation of the security direction.


2020 ◽  
Vol 48 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 13-26
Author(s):  
Brandon W. Hawk

Literature written in England between about 500 and 1100 CE attests to a wide range of traditions, although it is clear that Christian sources were the most influential. Biblical apocrypha feature prominently across this corpus of literature, as early English authors clearly relied on a range of extra-biblical texts and traditions related to works under the umbrella of what have been called “Old Testament Pseudepigrapha” and “New Testament/Christian Apocrypha." While scholars of pseudepigrapha and apocrypha have long trained their eyes upon literature from the first few centuries of early Judaism and early Christianity, the medieval period has much to offer. This article presents a survey of significant developments and key threads in the history of scholarship on apocrypha in early medieval England. My purpose is not to offer a comprehensive bibliography, but to highlight major studies that have focused on the transmission of specific apocrypha, contributed to knowledge about medieval uses of apocrypha, and shaped the field from the nineteenth century up to the present. Bringing together major publications on the subject presents a striking picture of the state of the field as well as future directions.


2010 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 135-156 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dorothea E. Schulz

Starting with the controversial esoteric employment of audio recordings by followers of the charismatic Muslim preacher Sharif Haidara in Mali, the article explores the dynamics emerging at the interface of different technologies and techniques employed by those engaging the realm of the Divine. I focus attention on the “border zone” between, on the one hand, techniques for appropriating scriptures based on long-standing religious conventions, and, on the other, audio recording technologies, whose adoption not yet established authoritative and standardized forms of practice, thereby generating insecurities and becoming the subject of heated debate. I argue that “recyclage” aptly describes the dynamics of this “border zone” because it captures the ways conventional techniques of accessing the Divine are reassessed and reemployed, by integrating new materials and rituals. Historically, appropriations of the Qur’an for esoteric purposes have been widespread in Muslim West Africa. These esoteric appropriations are at the basis of the considerable continuities, overlaps and crossovers, between scripture-related esoteric practices on one side, and the treatment by Sharif Haidara’s followers of audio taped sermons as vessels of his spiritual power, on the other.


2012 ◽  
Vol 6 (1-3) ◽  
pp. 243-259 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yohan Yoo

This article demonstrates the need for the iconic status and function of Buddhist scripture to receive more attention by illuminating how lay Korean Buddhists try to appropriate the power of sutras. The oral and aural aspects of scripture, explained by Wilfred Cantwell Smith, provide only a limited understanding of the characteristics of scripture. It should be noted that, before modern times, most lay people, not only in Buddhist cultures but also in Christian and other traditions, neither had the chance to recite scriptures nor to listen to their recitations regularly. Several clear examples demonstrate contemporary Korean Buddhists’ acceptance of the iconic status of sutras and their attempt to appropriate the power and status of those sacred texts. In contemporary Korea, lay Buddhists try to claim the power of scriptures in their daily lives by repeating and possessing them. Twenty-first century lay believers who cannot read or recite in a traditional style have found new methods of repetition, such as internet programs for copying sacred texts and for playing recordings of their recitations. In addition, many Korean Buddhists consider the act of having sutras in one’s possession to be an effective way of accessing the sacred status and power of these texts. Hence, various ways of possessing them have been developed in a wide range of products, from fancy gilded sutras to sneakers embroidered with mantras.


Author(s):  
Dita Masyitah Sianipar And Sumarsih

This study deals with the way to improve students’ achievement in speaking particularly through Two Stay Two Stray Strategy. This study was conducted by using classroom action research. The subject of of the research was class X-AP SMK Swasta Harapan Danau Sijabut in Asahan Regency that consisted of 34 students. The research was conducted in two cycles consisted of three meetings in each cycle. The instruments of collecting data for quantitative data used Speaking Test and instrument for analysis of qualitative data used observation, interview and questionnaire sheet. Based on the speaking test score, students’ score kept improving in every test. In the test I the mean was 61,47, in the test II the mean was 67,41 and the test III the mean was 78,52. Based on observation sheet and questionnaire sheet, it was found that teaching learning process run well and lively. Students were active and interest in speaking. The using of Two Stay Two Stray Strategy is significantly improved students’ achievement in speaking.


2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 193-198
Author(s):  
Lyudmila S. Timofeeva ◽  
Albina R. Akhmetova ◽  
Liliya R. Galimzyanova ◽  
Roman R. Nizaev ◽  
Svetlana E. Nikitina

Abstract The article studies the existence experience of historical cities as centers of tourism development as in the case of Elabuga. The city of Elabuga is among the historical cities of Russia. The major role in the development of the city as a tourist center is played by the Elabuga State Historical-Architectural and Art Museum-Reserve. The object of the research in the article is Elabuga as a medium-size historical city. The subject of the research is the activity of the museum-reserve which contributes to the preservation and development of the historical look of Elabuga and increases its attractiveness to tourists. The tourism attractiveness of Elabuga is obtained primarily through the presence of the perfectly preserved historical center of the city with the blocks of integral buildings of the 19th century. The Elabuga State Historical-Architectural and Art Museum-Reserve, which emerged in 1989, is currently an object of historical and cultural heritage of federal importance. Museum-reserves with their significant territories and rich historical, cultural and natural heritage have unique resources for the implementation of large partnership projects. Such projects are not only aimed at attracting a wide range of tourists, but also stimulate interest in the reserve from the business elite, municipal and regional authorities. The most famous example is the Spasskaya Fair which revived in 2008 in Elabuga. It was held in the city since the second half of the 19th century, and was widely known throughout Russia. The process of the revival and successful development of the fair can be viewed as the creation of a special tourist event contributing to the formation of new and currently important tourism products.


2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 13-21
Author(s):  
Todd Backes ◽  
Charlene Takacs

There are a wide range of options for individuals to choose from in order to engage in aerobic exercise; from outdoor running to computer controlled and self-propelled treadmills. Recently, self-propelled treadmills have increased in popularity and provide an alternative to a motorized treadmill. Twenty subjects (10 men, 10 women) ranging in age from 19-23 with a mean of 20.4 ± 0.8 SD were participants in this study. The subjects visited the laboratory on three occasions. The purpose of the first visit was to familiarize the subject with the self-propelled treadmill (Woodway Curve 3.0). The second visit, subjects were instructed to run on the self-propelled treadmill for 3km at a self-determined pace. Speed data were collected directly from the self-propelled treadmill. The third visit used speed data collected during the self-propelled treadmill run to create an identically paced 3km run for the subjects to perform on a motorized treadmill (COSMED T150). During both the second and third visit, oxygen consumption (VO2) and respiratory exchange ratio (R) data were collected with COSMED’s Quark cardiopulmonary exercise testing (CPET) metabolic mixing chamber system. The VO2 mean value for the self-propelled treadmill (44.90 ± 1.65 SE ml/kg/min) was significantly greater than the motorized treadmill (34.38 ± 1.39 SE ml/kg/min). The mean R value for the self-propelled treadmill (0.91 ± 0.01 SE) was significantly greater than the motorized treadmill (0.86 ± 0.01 SE). Our study demonstrated that a 3km run on a self-propelled treadmill does elicit a greater physiological response than a 3km run at on a standard motorized treadmill. Self-propelled treadmills provide a mode of exercise that offers increased training loads and should be considered as an alternative to motorized treadmills.


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