scholarly journals The explorer as hero: ‘Le Fidèle Apatou’ in the French wilderness

2004 ◽  
Vol 78 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 197-227 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenneth M. Bilby

Reconstructs the life story and activities of the Aluku Maroon Captain Apatu in French Guiana. Author describes how Apatu aligned with and aided French explorer Jules Cerveaux in exploring the Amazon region in the late 1870s, and maintained contacts with other French colonial figures. Partly because his role and achievements in colonial expansion were valued by the French, Apatu became an important intermediary between the French and the Aluku Maroons. Author further outlines how Apatu due to these French contacts, and also a journey to Paris, adapted to and assimilated French culture, although he maintained his sense of Aluku identity. He sketches the context of the French-Aluku contacts through Apatu, discussing how Apatu's political position and ambitions sometimes met with distrust and tensions with fellow-Aluku. He further indicates that Aluku alliance with the French probably was intended as a protection against intrusions of the rivaling Ndyuka Maroons. Apatu maintained his important position and function as intermediary between French and other whites on the one hand, and the Aluku on the other up to his death in 1908. Author pays particular attention to how Apatu, and after him other Aluku, absorbed "Frenchness" while maintaining an Aluku identity. This, he argues, has remained relevant up to the present, in light of assimilation policies by the French in French Guiana, increasingly affecting the Aluku since the 1970s and threatening their Maroon culture.

Diacronia ◽  
2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francisc Gafton

Natural entities—plants and animals, on the one hand, society, language, and culture, on the other—emerge through an assiduous diachronic effort, respond to diachronically developed needs, exist and function diachronically. However, through the instruments at his disposal, man can only perceive and grasp the “fragment”, seizing it for a prolonged instant, which explains his objective tendency to segment the spatiotemporal reality according to his own proportions and abilities. Reality itself, however, cannot be subjected to the unnatural segregation of one of its own products and elements, and cannot be fully comprehended in any other way than how it exists: as a whole. At the end of the synchronic road, what offers comprehension and understanding of the ontologically-becoming whole is the path of the diachronic method.


2019 ◽  
Vol 52 (4) ◽  
pp. 673-688 ◽  
Author(s):  
PAUL MERCHANT

AbstractThis paper is concerned with the use of interviews with scientists by members of two disciplinary communities: oral historians and historians of science. It examines the disparity between the way in which historians of science approach autobiographies and biographies of scientists on the one hand, and the way in which they approach interviews with scientists on the other. It also examines the tension in the work of oral historians between a long-standing ambition to record forms of past experience and more recent concerns with narrative and personal ‘composure’. Drawing on extended life story interviews with scientists, recorded by National Life Stories at the British Library between 2011 and 2016, it points to two ways in which the communities might learn from each other. First, engagement with certain theoretical innovations in the discipline of oral history from the 1980s might encourage historians of science to extend their already well-developed critical analysis of written autobiography and biography to interviews with scientists. Second, the keen interest of historians of science in using interviews to reconstruct details of past events and experience might encourage oral historians to continue to value this use of oral history even after their theoretical turn.


2007 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 511-534 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dunstan Brown ◽  
Carole Tiberius ◽  
Greville G. Corbett

This paper analyses constraints on inflectional syncretism and inflectional allomorphy using frequency information. Syncretism arises where one form is associated with more than one function, whereas inflectional allomorphy occurs where there is more than one inflectional class, and a single function is associated with two or more forms. If high frequency is associated with more differentiation on both sides, we expect, on the one hand, that a frequent function will have a high number of forms and, on the other, that a frequent form will have a high number of functions. Our study focuses on Russian nominals, in particular nouns, which exhibit both syncretism and inflectional allomorphy. We find that there is a relationship between frequency and differentiation, but that it is not exceptionless, and that the exceptions can be understood in terms of the use of referrals as default rules.


Literator ◽  
2002 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-18 ◽  
Author(s):  
B. Spies

Lack of insight into Greek antiquity, more specifically the nature of classical tragedy and mythology, could be one reason for the negative reception of Benjamin Britten’s last opera Death in Venice. In the first place, this article considers Britten’s opera based on Thomas Mann’s novella as a manifestation of classical tragedy. Secondly, it is shown how mythological characters in Mann’s novella represent abstract ideas2 in Britten’s opera, thereby enhancing the dramatic impact of the opera considerably. On the one hand it is shown how the artist’s inner conflict manifests itself in a dialectic relationship between discipline and inspirat ion in Plato’s Phaedrus dialogue that forms the basis of Aschenbach’s monologue at the end of the opera. The conflict between Aschenbach’s rational consciousness and his irrational subconscious, on the other hand, is depicted by means of mythological figures, Apollo and Dionysus. Two focal points in the opera, namely the Games of Apollo at the end of Act 1 and the nightmare scene which forms the climax of the opera in Act 2, are used to illustrate the musical manifestation of this conflict.


Author(s):  
Coralynn V. Davis

This chapter explores how Maithil women see the relationship between experiences of prosperity and misery, on the one hand, and the capacity to tell stories, on the other. The persistence in advocating for a life story framed by experiences of sukha (prosperity, happiness) and especially dukha (hardship, sorrow) illustrates two important notions about the experience and narrativization of life that are prevalent among the Maithil women who shared their folktales and personal stories. First, life is marked in memory by its measure of and shifts between good and bad times in which the painful experiences are especially memorable and meaningful to one's sense of self. Second, in order to be a good storyteller, a woman must have experienced dukha in her life to a significant degree.


2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Đinh Đức Tiến ◽  
Tô Quang Minh

The Thai people in Than Uyen are part of the Northwest Thai people. They also share the same cultural traits, especially the spiritual culture of this land. In the spiritual life of the Thai people in Than Uyen, the spiritual teachers always hold an important position and role. On the one hand, they are "spiritual guides", responsible for taking care of the cultural and spiritual life of the whole community. On the other hand, they are also members with a lot of contributions and closely attached to society. With the study of the difficulties and contributions of Thai spiritual teachers to the community, the article contributes more voices to the preservation of Thai folk knowledge.


Author(s):  
Mochamad Fauzie

Romanticism became a new cultural orientation in Europe in the 19th century. Through the exploration of tradition and history, romanticism gradually aroused nationalism, giving rise to a paradoxical situation: on the one hand, it fueled colonial expansion, on the other hand, aroused the spirit of resistance of colonized society. Raden Saleh was in Europe in this situation and became famous as a Romantic painter. This research departs from the assumption that Romanticism encouraged Raden Saleh to develop resistance to colonialism in painting. This study aims to prove the existence of signs of resistance to Colonialism in Raden Saleh's painting, entitled "Between Life and Death" (1848). This goal was achieved by analyzing the painting with CW Morris Semiotics, with the approach of Psychoanalysis Theory and Postcolonial Theory. Research shows that there are signs of resistance to Colonialism in the painting.


Author(s):  
ROBERT GHAZARYAN

Tegarama was one of the eastern lands of the Hittite Kingdom. In the geographic sense it is part of the Armenian Highland that is why its history is of special interest to us. Taking into account the fact that the Armenian people had considerable ethnic ties with the Upper Euphrates region, specialists have traditionally tended to identify “Home of Torgom” in the Trans Euphrates region together with the city Tegarama (Assyrian Til-Garimmu) mentioned from the 2nd millennium BC. “Home of Torgom” literally repeats Bet-Togarma mentioned in the Bible. The study of the history of the country of Tegarama is also important because in Armenian historiography, starting from Movses Khorenatsi, Armenian ancestor Hayk is called “Son of Torgom”, and the Armenian people - “People of Torgom”. Most of the researchers located Tegarama in the place of the present settlement Gyurun. By comparing the “Cappadocian”, Hittite and Assyrian sources, Tegarama can be located in the Upper Euphrates valley, on the right bank of the river, to the north of Kargamis, to the west of Isuwa, to the south of Upper Land and to the east of Kanes. The territory of Tegarama was not far from Nesa - one of the initial centers of the Hittites; and it was also one of the initial places of inhabitance of the Hittites. Tegarama also occupied a strategically important position. On the one hand it bordered on the country of Mitanni, on the other hand - on Isuwa. Thus, the country of Tegarama occupied a significant geographic position: on the one hand roads led from here to other western districts of the Armenian Highland, to Tsopk, and on the other hand - to Northern Syria and Northern Mesopotamia. It was also one of the spiritual centers of Hatti.


Author(s):  
Joseph Burger ◽  
Chen Hou ◽  
Charles Hall ◽  
James Brown

Here we review and extend the equal fitness paradigm (EFP) as an important step in developing and testing a synthetic theory of ecology and evolution based on energy and metabolism. The EFP states that all organisms are equally fit at steady state, because they allocate the same quantity of energy, ~22.4 kJ/g/generation to production of offspring. On the one hand, the EFP may seem tautological, because equal fitness is necessary for the origin and persistence of biodiversity. On the other hand, the EFP reflects universal laws of life: how biological metabolism – the uptake, transformation and allocation of energy – links ecological and evolutionary patterns and processes across levels of organization from: i) structure and function of individual organisms, ii) life history and dynamics of populations, iii) interactions and coevolution of species in ecosystems. The physics and biology of metabolism have facilitated the evolution of millions of species with idiosyncratic anatomy, physiology, behavior and ecology but also with many shared traits and tradeoffs that reflect the single origin and universal rules of life.


2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (s1) ◽  
pp. s213-s228 ◽  
Author(s):  
Per Krogh Hansen

AbstractThis article explores the nexus between narrative and metaphor by examining a specific and widespread metaphor in the discourse on cancer, namely “the war against cancer”, and paying attention to the function it has in the narratives we tell about cancer – personally as well as culturally and politically. Of special interest is how this dominant metaphor has a negative consequence in relation to the seriously and incurably ill, who are necessarily positioned as ‘losers’. The concepts of master and counter-narrative are applied to describe this and show how the war metaphor can be generatively turned against itself and function as the basis for counter-narratives of being ill. In the final part of the article, attention is paid to Danish author Maria Gerhardt’s autofictional novel Transfervindue. Fortællinger om de raskes fejl (2017) [Transfer Window: Narratives about the flaws of the healthy] as an example of a productive extension of the war metaphor. The general aim is to argue that the ‘war against cancer’ metaphor is complex and simultaneously plays a positive and negative role in health discourse. On the one hand, it structures the general effort for treatment of and research on cancer. On the other hand, it positions the incurable as losers. It is, however, argued that we cannot eradicate this metaphor from language, and that we should instead find examples of extensions of the metaphor where e. g. ‘protection’, ‘peace-keeping’ and ‘exile’ are active.


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