scholarly journals A Note on Priestley in America

1952 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-59
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
New World ◽  
The Political ◽  
Mob Violence ◽  
The Public ◽  
Joseph Priestley ◽  
Public Disorder ◽  
The One ◽  
Political Persecution

BY a coincidence, superficially remarkable but really arising from the same or, at least, similar causes, the two great antagonists in eighteenth century chemistry, Joseph Priestley (1733-1804) and Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier (1743-1794), were each, in an age that prided itself on a culture and enlightenment considered to be nowhere so advanced as among the nations to which these two men of science severally belonged, the victims of a violent political persecution that drove the one into voluntary exile and cost the other his life. The coincidence is, indeed, extraordinarily close : for, when Lavoisier’s head rolled from the scaffold on 8 May 1794, Priestley was in mid-Atlantic on his way to America, fortunate to have escaped with his hfe. An account of the political trial, in which Lavoisier was condemned to death for alleged counter-revolutionary conspiracy, has already been given in this journal.1 Priestley, accompanied by his wife, arrived at Sandy Hook on 1 June and reached New York on 4 June 1794. The mob-violence and the public disorder of the Birmingham riots of 1791 were far behind ; but, after 1791, life had still been very uncomfortable for Priestley even in London, and even among his colleagues in the Royal Society ; and he looked forward to better days in the New World. His hopes were not completely realized and he found peace only in the last years of his life. Priestley loved his country and was torn with indecision at the idea of leaving it ; but life in England had become intolerable for Mrs Priestley and also for two of their sons, who had already gone to America ; and it was not fear, but pressing family anxieties of this kind, that eventually led him to decide on emigration as the only solution. There were a number of farewell presents and messages.

Mocking Parades and the Place of Pagan Statuary in Late Antique Alexandria

2020 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 270-288
Author(s):  
Jonathan Stutz
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
Urban Space ◽  
Religious Communities ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Mob Violence ◽  
Visual Contact ◽  
The Public ◽  
Sacred Objects ◽  
The One ◽  
The City

AbstractWith the present paper I would like to discuss a particular form of procession which we may term mocking parades, a collective ritual aimed at ridiculing cultic objects from competing religious communities. The cases presented here are contextualized within incidents of pagan/Christian violence in Alexandria between the 4th and 5th centuries, entailing in one case the destruction of the Serapeum and in another the pillaging of the Isis shrine at Menouthis on the outskirts of Alexandria. As the literary accounts on these events suggest, such collective forms of mockery played an important role in the context of mob violence in general and of violence against sacred objects in particular. However, while historiographical and hagiographical sources from the period suggest that pagan statues underwent systematic destruction and mutilation, we can infer from the archaeological evidence a vast range of uses and re-adaptation of pagan statuary in the urban space, assuming among other functions that of decorating public spaces. I would like to build on the thesis that the parading of sacred images played a prominent role in the discourse on the value of pagan statuary in the public space. On the one hand, the statues carried through the streets became themselves objects of mockery and violence, involving the population of the city in a collective ritual of exorcism. On the other hand, the images paraded in the mocking parades could also become a means through which the urban space could become subject to new interpretations. Entering in visual contact with the still visible vestiges of the pagan past, with the temples and the statuary of the city, the “image of the city” became affected itself by the images paraded through the streets, as though to remind the inhabitants that the still-visible elements of Alexandria’s pagan topography now stood as defeated witnesses to Christianity’s victory.

Robert Livingston (1654-1728): Businessman of Colonial New York

1956 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 18-45 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lawrence H. Leder ◽  
Vincent P. Carosso
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
New World ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Business Enterprise ◽  
Business Organization ◽  
Manufacturing Enterprises ◽  
Social Prestige ◽  
The Social ◽  
Business Functions

Robert Livingston's career provides the first opportunity to consider in detail the emergence of an early New York businessman. Trained in business in Rotterdam, he brought to the New World the experience, knowledge, and techniques of one of the most advanced commercial centers of his day. On the Albany frontier he applied the Old World's business methods to advantage and gradually emerged as a dominant figure in colonial New York. His records and business correspondence leave no doubt that Livingston belonged to that class of businessmen often referred to as sedentary or resident merchants, though he did not employ as many agents and partners as his later, more mature counterparts. Neither did he engage in as many ventures or perform as many functions as the Browns, Hancocks, and other late eighteenth-century merchants, nor did he create an impressive business organization at home or abroad as was customary among certain European contemporaries. Still, as a wholesaler and retailer, importer and exporter, shipowner and land speculator, Livingston was an early New York practitioner of diversified business functions and investments. His extensive land dealings, no doubt motivated in part by the social prestige attached to real estate, were undertaken primarily as a source of credit and revenue. Livingston Manor was operated as a business enterprise: some of it was cultivated on Livingston's behalf, parts were leased to tenants who provided for the Lord of the Manor not only rents but a steady market for the goods he obtained in overseas trading ventures, and other sections were devoted to various manufacturing enterprises. Livingston's political life was an integral and necessary part of his business ventures, which reflected at all points the total instability of most colonial institutions. From the details of Livingstons many-sided commercial life emerges a rare picture of an embryonic business society in which the means were sorely taxed to achieve the ends conceived by ambitious men.

scholarly journals (Im)possible Escape? H. G. Wells, Utopia and the World State

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 235-241
Author(s):  
Barbara Klonowska
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
Nation State ◽  
World State ◽  
Political Ideas ◽  
Utopian Studies ◽  
The World ◽  
The One ◽  
Recent Monograph

This article reviews the recent monograph by Maxim Shadurski, The Nationality of Utopia. H. G. Wells, England, and the World State (New York: Routledge, 2020) in the context of utopian studies on the one hand, and the political ideas of the nation state vs. world state on the other.

scholarly journals About Seraph’s arrow and St. Michael’s shield. A poem by priest Dominik Zabłocki OP for Countess Teresa Barbara Radziwill Pac on the occasion of her name day

2021 ◽  
pp. 52-64
Author(s):  
Regina Jakubėnas
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Political Life ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Rich ◽  
Grand Duchy Of Lithuania ◽  
Intensive Development ◽  
Grand Duchy ◽  
Male Lineage

In the second half of the eighteenth century a lot of occasional poems were published in Vilnius. Their authors were often representatives of various orders: the Piarists, the Jesuits, the Basilians, the Dominicans. Name day poems enjoyed great popularity, which was influenced by the intensive development of various forms of social life. Name day poems were part of “home muse” or family poetry. The authors often addressed their works to representatives of the political and official elite of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, who played an important role in the public and political life of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The poems were more often devoted to the representatives of the male lineage due to their social status and functions, although it happened that women, especially representatives of influential families in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, were also the recipients of these poems. The article discusses an occasional work by a priest Dominik Zabłocki, Dominican friar, devoted to Countess Teresa Barbara Pacowa of the Dukes of Radziwills – a lady of the Austrian Order of the Starry Cross. The poem describes her personal merits, the merits of her husband and family, referring to the rich symbolism of the coat of arms of the Pac, the Radziwill and the Zawisza families from which Teresa Pacowa’s mother was descended. This piece of work undoubtedly belongs to the group of texts that were addressed to a wider audience and performed a political and propaganda function.

scholarly journals IDENTITAS DIRI DALAM POLITIK MASYARAKAT VIRTUAL SEBUAH TINJAUAN TENTANG ANONIMITAS

2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 524
Author(s):  
Dwi Cahyo Prasetyo
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Virtual World ◽  
New World ◽  
Negative Impact ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
Self Identity ◽  
The Public ◽  
Technological Advances ◽  
Difference Of Opinion

This article aims to examine the interrelationships between politics that exist in<br />virtual society, and their relationship with self-identity reflected in current anonymity<br />on social media. This article uses qualitative research methods, through existing<br />observation and literature studies. Technological advances form a new world called<br />the virtual world. The concept of identity in virtual society is a difference of opinion<br />between destitopians, neofuturists and technicians. The presence of this virtual world<br />makes people free to become anonymous or people without identity. In the political<br />contestation of anonymity can give the public the freedom to argue, while on the other<br />hand anonymity can have a negative impact which can lead to conflict.<br />Keywords: Anonymity, Virtual Society, politics

Technological Illusions and Educational Resistances

2016 ◽  
pp. 428-443 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eduardo Villanueva-Mansilla
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Class ◽  
The Public ◽  
One Laptop Per Child ◽  
Counter Narrative ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
The One

OLPC, the One Laptop Per Child initiative, was accepted by just a few countries, including Peru. The largest acquisition of computers has produced a fairly low impact in education and is now being quietly phased-out. Peru's government decision to adopt the computers, back in 2007, was not contested or questioned by the political class, the media or even teachers, with just a rather small number of specialists arguing against it. This chapters discussed the political and argumentative processes that brought OLPC into the public sphere, through the use of a specific narrative, that of hackerism, i.e., the hacker attitude towards computers, and how social and political validation resulted in adoption. An assessment of the process of framing OLPC as a hacker product and the perils of such reasoning lead to discuss the need for a counter-narrative about the role of computers in society.

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