MADANNA, AKKANNA AND THE BRAHMIN REVOLUTION: A STUDY OF MENTALITY, GROUP BEHAVIOUR AND PERSONALITY IN SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY INDIA

2002 ◽  
Vol 45 (2) ◽  
pp. 231-267 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gijs Kruijtzer
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Identity Formation ◽  
South Asians ◽  
Group Processes ◽  
Farming System ◽  
The Other ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
Early Modernity ◽  
Group Behaviour

AbstractThe article joins in the early modernity debate by investigating identity formation and the sense of public and private domains at the court of Golkonda. The rise of a class of Brahmin 'men of the pen' through the dynamics of the revenue farming system led to tensions among the Golkonda elite, resulting in a heightened sense of identity and the use and reuse of stereotypes of 'the other.' The article also shows how the Europeans, and especially the Dutch, were integral to Golkonda society and its group processes and that 'othering' by Dutch sources was context dependent to the same extent as othering by early modern South Asians. Cet article contribue au débat sur les early modernities en examinant la formation des identités et la prise de conscience de l'existence de domaines public et privé à la cour de Golconde. L'ascension d'une classe de scribes brahmanes, engendrée par le système des fermes foncières, entraîna des tensions au sein de l'élite de Golconde, résultant en un accroissement de la conscience identitaire et de l'utilisation et réutilisation de stéréotypes qualifiant l'Autre. Cet article montre également comment les Européens, et plus particulièrement les Hollandais, étaient partie prenante de la société golcondienne et de ses processus de groupe, et comment la création de l'image de l'Autre, tant dans les sources hollandaises que chez les Indiens, a été dépendante du contexte.

Bilingual Heaven: Was There a Distinct Persianate Islam in the Early Modern Ottoman Empire?

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 214-241
Author(s):  
Aslıhan Gürbüzel
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
The Other ◽  
Reform Movement ◽  
Sacred Text ◽  
Native Languages ◽  
Islamic Tradition ◽  
Legal Discourses ◽  
Other World

Abstract What is the language of heaven? Is Arabic the only language allowed in the eternal world of the virtuous, or will Muslims continue to speak their native languages in the other world? While learned scholars debated the language of heaven since the early days of Islam, the question gained renewed vigor in seventeenth century Istanbul against the background of a puritan reform movement which criticized the usage of Persian and the Persianate canon as sacred text. In response, Mevlevī authors argued for the discursive authority of the Persianate mystical canon in Islamic tradition (sunna). Focusing on this debate, this article argues that early modern Ottoman authors recognized non-legal discourses as integral and constitutive parts of the Islamic tradition. By adopting the imagery of bilingual heaven, they conceptualized Islamic tradition as a diverse discursive tradition. Alongside diversity, another important feature of Persianate Islam was a positive propensity towards innovations.

scholarly journals The Bishop’s Role in Two Non-Catholic States

2015 ◽  
Vol 95 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 245-255
Author(s):  
Tadhg Ó hAnnracháin
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
The State ◽  
The Other ◽  
Crucial Aspect ◽  
Religious Reform ◽  
Confessional Identity ◽  
The One ◽  
Catholic Reform

This paper contrasts the very different roles played by the Catholic hierarchy in Ireland, on the one hand, and Turkish-occupied Hungary, on the other, in the movement of early modern religious reform. It suggests that the decision of Propaganda Fide to adopt an episcopal model of organisation in Ireland after 1618, despite the obvious difficulties posed by the Protestant nature of the state, was a crucial aspect of the consolidation of a Catholic confessional identity within the island. The importance of the hierarchy in leadership terms was subsequently demonstrated in the short-lived period of de facto independence during the 1640s and after the repression of the Cromwellian period the episcopal model was successfully revived in the later seventeenth century. The paper also offers a parallel examination of the case of Turkish Hungary, where an effective episcopal model of reform could not be adopted, principally because of the jurisdictional jealousy of the Habsburg Kings of Hungary, who continued to claim rights of nomination to Turkish controlled dioceses but whose nominees were unable to reside in their sees. Consequently, the hierarchy of Turkish-occupied Hungary played little or no role in the movement of Catholic reform, prior to the Habsburg reconquest.

Episcopal Tombs in Early Modern England

2004 ◽  
Vol 55 (4) ◽  
pp. 654-680 ◽  
Author(s):  
PETER SHERLOCK
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Church Of England ◽  
Early Modern England ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
The Status ◽  
The One ◽  
The Church

The Reformation simultaneously transformed the identity and role of bishops in the Church of England, and the function of monuments to the dead. This article considers the extent to which tombs of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century bishops represented a set of episcopal ideals distinct from those conveyed by the monuments of earlier bishops on the one hand and contemporary laity and clergy on the other. It argues that in death bishops were increasingly undifferentiated from other groups such as the gentry in the dress, posture, location and inscriptions of their monuments. As a result of the inherent tension between tradition and reform which surrounded both bishops and tombs, episcopal monuments were unsuccessful as a means of enhancing the status or preserving the memory and teachings of their subjects in the wake of the Reformation.

SECRECY AND AUTHORITY IN LATE SIXTEENTH- AND SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY LONDON

1997 ◽  
Vol 40 (4) ◽  
pp. 925-951 ◽  
Author(s):  
PAUL GRIFFITHS
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
City Government ◽  
Written Expression ◽  
Close Attention ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
The People ◽  
Private And Public ◽  
Flow Of Information ◽  
Concealed Information

Governors always seek to monitor the flow of information and guide its release. Secrecy and tactical publicity are valued aspects of government, boosting authority but also marking limits of participation by restricting access to official words and their written expression. Close attention is given to two ubiquitous institutions in early modern London, guilds and vestries (material illustrating city government is also introduced). A distinction is drawn between concealed information and policy communicated to the people. Attention is given thus to the regulation of meetings, chests and keys, and the selective discharge of information. Secrecy gave rise to vocabularies of ‘public’ and ‘private’. It was a code (a form of protection), but in languages of ‘private’ and ‘public’ as they were used in specific contexts studied here, it also depicted the use of space, the distribution of authority, and the limits of access and participation. The study of secrecy and partial publicity adds another dimension to our knowledge of the formation of opinion, perceptions of authority were partly formed by this enclosure of information, secrecy spawned speculation. It also provides a linguistic indication of the nature of government in institutions which mouthed fraternal tunes while remaining obsessed with formality and secrecy.

Theatrical torture versus dramatic cruelty: subjection through representation or praxis1

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frans-Willem Korsten
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
The Other ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Political Event ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Early Modern Era ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Modern Era ◽  
Peculiar Case

The distinction between the theatrical and the dramatic is pivotal for different modes of subjection in the early modern era. Institutionally speaking, society was organized ideologically, theatrically by the introjection of what was shown publicly to private, but equally collective, theatres of the mind. This could be described as a logic of torture. In contrast, and on the other hand, the dramatic application of punishment on ships, and the pain it involved, served what Robert Cover called a ‘balance of terror’, based on a logic of what Deleuze defined as ‘cruelty’. In order to clarify this distinction, and the implication it has for our ideas on gouvernmentalité, this chapter will propose a close reading of a painting by Lieve Verschuier that either depicts a peculiar case of keelhauling or, allegorically, the lynching of the brothers De Witt in 1672. Although the painting is clearly theatrical, formally speaking, it superimposes a dramatic logic on the traumatic political event of the lynching of the brothers De Witt. This will be considered in the chapter as one instance of a more general shift in the seventeenth century: a shift away from the theatrical logic of torture to the dramatic logic of cruelty.

scholarly journals Custom and the Social Organisation of Writing in Early Modern England

1999 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
pp. 257-269 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andy Wood
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Oral Tradition ◽  
Mirror Image ◽  
Customary Law ◽  
Poor People ◽  
Early Modernity ◽  
Local Identities ◽  
English Society ◽  
Mind Set

Social historians of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century England have tended to see literacy as a modernising force which eroded oral tradition and overrode local identities. Whereas the increasing literacy of the period has long appeared an important constituent element of Tudor and Stuart England's early modernity, custom has been represented as its mirror image. Attached to cumbersome local identities, borne from the continuing authority of speech, bred within a plebeian culture which was simultaneously pugnacious and conservative, customary law has been taken to define a traditional, backward-looking mind-set which stood at odds to the sharp forces of change cutting into the fabric of early modern English society. 1 Hence, social historians have sometimes perceived the growing elite hostility to custom as a part of a larger attack upon oral culture. In certain accounts, this elite antipathy is presented as a by-product of die standardising impulses of early capitalism. 2 Social historians have presented the increasing role of written documents in the defence of custom as the tainting of an authentic oral tradition, and as further evidence of the growing dom-nation of writing over speech. Crudely stated, orality, and hence custom, is seen as ‘of the people’; while writing was ‘of the elite’. In this respect as in others, social historians have therefore accepted all too readily John Aubrey's nostalgic recollections of late seventeenth century that Before printing, Old Wives tales were ingeniose and since Printing came in fashion, till a little before the Civil warres, the ordinary Sort of people were not taught to reade & now-a-dayes Books are common and most of the poor people understand letters: and the many good Bookes and the variety of Turnes of Affaires, have putt the old Fables out of dores: and the divine art of Printing and Gunpowder have frighted away Robin-good-fellowe and the Fayries.

Grain Prices and Subsistence Crises in England and France, 1590–1740

1979 ◽  
Vol 39 (4) ◽  
pp. 865-887 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew B. Appleby
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
The Other ◽  
Early Modern Europe ◽  
Modern Europe ◽  
Grain Prices

In early modern Europe the major concern of many people was getting enough food to stay alive. The “problem of subsistence” varied considerably, however, between one country—or one region—and another. England, for instance, was free of major subsistence crises during the later seventeenth century, when France was hard hit by repeated and deadly famines. In this essay I shall point out some of the differences between these two countries that might explain the success of one and the failure of the other to feed its people.

Hybridizing Scholastic Psychology with Chinese Medicine: A Seventeenth-Century Chinese Catholic's Conceptions of Xin (Mind and Heart)

2008 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 313-360 ◽  
Author(s):  
Qiong Zhang
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Chinese Medicine ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Contact Zone ◽  
Medical Doctor ◽  
The Other ◽  
Modern China ◽  
Theoretical Position ◽  
East West

AbstractThis paper explores the dynamics of cultural interactions between early modern China and Europe initiated by the Jesuits and other Catholic missionaries through a case study of Wang Honghan, a seventeenth-century Chinese Catholic who systematically sought to integrate European learning introduced by the missionaries with pre-modern Chinese medicine. Focusing on the ways in which Wang combined his Western and Chinese sources to develop and articulate his views on xin (mind and heart), this paper argues that Wang arrived at a peculiar hybrid between scholastic psychology and Chinese medicine, not so much through a course of haphazard misunderstanding as through his conscious and patterned use and abuse of his Western sources, which was motivated most possibly by a wish to define a theoretical position that most suited his social roles as a Catholic convert and a Chinese medical doctor. Thus, rather than seeing Wang as an epitome of "transmission failure," this paper offers it as a showcase for the tremendous dynamism and creativity occurring at this East-West "contact zone" as representatives of both cultures sought to appropriate and transform the symbolic and textual resources of the other side.

CREDIT, DEBT, AND HONOR IN CASTILE, 1600-1650

2003 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 8-27 ◽  
Author(s):  
Scott Taylor
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
The Other ◽  
Criminal Cases ◽  
Early Modern Spain ◽  
The Mediterranean ◽  
The One ◽  
Traditional Understanding ◽  
The Way

AbstractBased largely on the findings of anthropologists of the Mediterranean in the twentieth century, the traditional understanding of honor in early modern Spain has been defined as a concern for chastity, for women, and a willingness to protect women's sexual purity and avenge affronts, for men. Criminal cases from Castile in the period 1600-1650 demonstrate that creditworthiness was also an important component of honor, both for men and for women. In these cases, early modern Castilians became involved in violent disputes over credit, invoking honor and the rituals of the duel to justify their positions and attack their opponents. Understanding the connection between credit, debt, and honor leads us to update the anthropological models that pre-modern European historians employ, on the one hand, and to a new appreciation for the way seventeenth-century Castilians understood their public reputations and identity, on the other.

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