Viewing Rome from the Roman Empires

2011 ◽  
Vol 17 (4-5) ◽  
pp. 495-511
Author(s):  
Emily Albu
Keyword(s):  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Visual Narrative ◽  
Ancient Rome ◽  
The West ◽  
The Past ◽  
Imperial Power ◽  
Roman Culture

AbstractTwelfth-century German and Byzantine emperors vied with each other—and with the popes in Rome—for imperial status, each of the three seeing himself as the legitimate heir of ancient Roman imperium. From the court at Constantinople, historians Anna Komnene and John Kinnamos leveled a venomous critique against the west, surveying Rome through the lens of religious disputes, Crusade, and the hated Latin presence in the East. The Byzantine narratives have left a gritty view of their contemporary Rome, a violent and cruel city of illicit popes and anti-popes, anarchy, and barbarism. The Peutinger map, by contrast, seems but an innocent relic of the past, a map of the inhabited world as known to the pagan Romans. Typically considered an ancient Roman artifact and product of Roman culture, the surviving map actually dates from the very end of the long twelfth century. Produced in Swabia, it continued the anti-papal assault as a fresh salvo in a long-lived Battle of the Maps between Church and secular imperium. This display map, like its lost prototype, advertised the supreme authority of Roman imperial power with claims much more venerable than those of the papacy. Its visual narrative implicitly contradicted the power of papal Rome by foregrounding ancient Rome as the centerpiece of an intricately connected oikoumene, a world that should be ruled by Rome’s German heirs. For Germans as for Byzantines, Rome still mattered. Even while assailing a resurgent imperial papacy, neither secular emperor nor their courts could ignore the power exercised by pagan Rome and papal Rome over twelfth-century imaginations.

The Contemporary Influences of Muhyiddin Ibn ‘Arabi in the West: The Beshara School and the Muhyiddin Ibn ‘Arabi Society

2007 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-68
Author(s):  
Isobel Jeffrey
Keyword(s):  
Twelfth Century ◽  
The West ◽  
Doctoral Thesis ◽  
The Past ◽  
Contextual Framework ◽  
Ibn Arabi ◽  
And Diffusion

In the past 150 years or so, there has been a notable expansion of influence and diffusion of Eastern religious ideas into a Western setting where they have been adopted and adapted to suit this new context. At the outset this happened principally with Hindu and Buddhist teachings but more recently there has been a subtle infusion of Islamic influence especially through Sufi belief and practices. A prime example of this has been through the teachings of the twelfth century Andalusian Muslim mystic, Muhyiddin Ibn ‘Arabi. How his teachings have been filtering into and adapted for a Western audience through a selected group of admirers has been the focus of my recent doctoral thesis. This article will commence with a discussion of the broad contextual framework that was required for the study, followed by a summary of the highlights of the research and its outcomes.

Managing rivers for conservation and ecotourism in the Kruger National Park

1995 ◽  
Vol 32 (5-6) ◽  
pp. 227-233 ◽  
Author(s):  
F. J. Venter ◽  
A. R. Deacon
Keyword(s):  
National Park ◽  
Good Condition ◽  
Kruger National Park ◽  
Rapid Expansion ◽  
Natural Environments ◽  
The West ◽  
The Past ◽  
Management Actions ◽  
Flow Through ◽  
Three Rivers

Six major rivers flow through the Kruger National Park (KNP). All these rivers originate outside and to the west of the KNP and are highly utilized. They are crucially important for the conservation of the unique natural environments of the KNP. The human population growth in the Lowveld during the past two decades brought with it the rapid expansion of irrigation farming, exotic afforestation and land grazed by domestic stock, as well as the establishment of large towns, mines, dams and industries. Along with these developments came overgrazing, erosion, over-utilization and pollution of rivers, as well as clearing of indigenous forests from large areas outside the borders of the KNP. Over-utilization of the rivers which ultimately flow through the KNP poses one of the most serious challenges to the KNP's management. This paper gives the background to the development in the catchments and highlights the problems which these have caused for the KNP. Management actions which have been taken as well as their results are discussed and solutions to certain problems proposed. Three rivers, namely the Letaba, Olifants and Sabie are respectively described as examples of an over-utilized river, a polluted river and a river which is still in a fairly good condition.

The Criminal Emperors of Ancient Rome and Wilde’s ‘true historical sense’

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shushma Malik
Keyword(s):  
Ancient Rome ◽  
Historical Criticism ◽  
The Past ◽  
Picture Of Dorian Gray ◽  
Dorian Gray ◽  
Definition Of

This chapter explores how Wilde uses ‘historic sense’ (the intuition of a learned historian and the antecedent of historical criticism) as a tool with which to analyse the past, particularly the criminal emperors of ancient Rome. In his essay ‘Pen, Pencil, and Poison’, Wilde claims that ‘true historical sense’ in relation to the past allows us to ignore the crimes of Nero and Tiberius, and instead to recognize and appreciate them as artists. His decadent reading of the past is undermined, however, when we compare this version of historically guided intuition with his definition of the phrase in other works. By examining ‘Pen, Pencil, and Poison’ alongside The Picture of Dorian Gray and ‘Epistola: In Carcere et Vinculis’, we can see how Wilde manipulates his readings of the criminal emperors of Rome in order to fit his own changing relationship with Decadence and the (im)morality of crime.

The New Islamic State

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Farhad Khosrokhavar
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
Islamic State ◽  
Imagined Community ◽  
The West ◽  
Patriarchal Family ◽  
The Past ◽  
The World ◽  
The Creation

The creation of the Islamic State in Iraq and Sham (ISIS) changed the nature of jihadism worldwide. For a few years (2014–2017) it exemplified the destructive capacity of jihadism and created a new utopia aimed at restoring the past greatness and glory of the former caliphate. It also attracted tens of thousands of young wannabe combatants of faith (mujahids, those who make jihad) toward Syria and Iraq from more than 100 countries. Its utopia was dual: not only re-creating the caliphate that would spread Islam all over the world but also creating a cohesive, imagined community (the neo-umma) that would restore patriarchal family and put an end to the crisis of modern society through an inflexible interpretation of shari‘a (Islamic laws and commandments). To achieve these goals, ISIS diversified its approach. It focused, in the West, on the rancor of the Muslim migrants’ sons and daughters, on exoticism, and on an imaginary dream world and, in the Middle East, on tribes and the Sunni/Shi‘a divide, particularly in the Iraqi and Syrian societies.

Anti-Catholicism in Germany, Britain, and the United States: A Review and Critique of Recent Scholarship

2001 ◽  
Vol 70 (1) ◽  
pp. 98-131 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marjule Anne Drury
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Change ◽  
The United States ◽  
Turn Of The Century ◽  
Religious Culture ◽  
The West ◽  
The Past ◽  
Recent Scholarship ◽  
Race Ethnicity ◽  
Irish Question ◽  
Political Economic

The past two decades have seen an efflorescence of works exploring cultural anti-Catholicism in a variety of national contexts. But so far, historians have engaged in little comparative analysis. This article is a first step, examining recent historical literature on modern British and American anti-Catholicism, in order to trace the similarities and distinctiveness of the turn-of-the-century German case. Historians are most likely to be acquainted with American nativism, the German Kulturkampf, continental anticlericalism, and the problems of Catholic Emancipation and the Irish Question in Britain. Many of the themes and functions of anti-Catholic discourse in the West transcended national and temporal boundaries. In each case, the conceptualization of a Catholic ‘other’ is a testament to the tenacity of confessionalism in an age formerly characterized as one of inexorable secularization. Contemporary observers often agreed that religious culture—like history, race, ethnicity, geography, and local custom—played a role in the self-evident distinctiveness of peoples and nations, in their political forms, economic performance, and intellectual and artistic contributions. We will see how confessionalism remained a lens through which intellectuals and ordinary citizens, whether attached or estranged from religious commitments, viewed political, economic, and cultural change.

The Problem of Energy

2014 ◽  
Vol 31 (5) ◽  
pp. 3-20 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Urry
Keyword(s):  
Social Theory ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Fossil Fuel ◽  
Energy Systems ◽  
Social Thought ◽  
Human Intervention ◽  
The West ◽  
The Past ◽  
And Control ◽  
Global Growth

Energy forms and their extensive scale are remarkably significant for the ways that societies are organized. This article shows the importance of how societies are ‘energized’ and especially the global growth of ‘fossil fuel societies’. Much social thought remains oblivious to the energy revolution realized over the past two to three centuries which set the ‘West’ onto a distinct trajectory. Energy is troubling for social thought because different energy systems with their ‘lock-ins’ are not subject to simple human intervention and control. Analyses are provided here of different fossil fuel societies, of coal and oil, with the latter enabling the liquid, mobilized 20th century. Consideration is paid to the possibilities of reducing fossil fuel dependence but it is shown how unlikely such a ‘powering down’ will be. The author demonstrates how energy is a massive problem for social theory and for 21st-century societies. Developing post-carbon theory and especially practice is far away but is especially urgent.

Soul of Classicality in Western Architectural Design

2014 ◽  
Vol 638-640 ◽  
pp. 2253-2256
Author(s):  
Cong Ru Liu ◽  
Ming Sen Lin ◽  
Qing Li
Keyword(s):  
Significant Role ◽  
Architectural Design ◽  
Ancient Greece ◽  
Architecture Design ◽  
Ancient Rome ◽  
The Past ◽  
Renaissance Period

The classicality of the western architecture establishes its foundation at the beginning of the ancient Greece, is flourished in the ancient Rome and revitalized in the renaissance period, extends to the classicism and the classical revival, and finally is overthrown by the postmodernism. By going through development and prosperity in the past thousands of years, the classical spirit has always played a greatly significant role in the field of western architecture design.

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