scholarly journals Envisioning the Orient: The New Muslim Cemetery in Malta

2016 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 221-251
Author(s):  
Conrad Thake
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Context ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Institutional Agents ◽  
Urban Centers ◽  
Architectural Representation ◽  
Flexible Form ◽  
Artistic Representation ◽  
British Colonial ◽  
The Mediterranean

This paper analyzes a project for a new Muslim cemetery in Malta that was realized in 1873–74. It investigates the process of commissioning and implementing the project through an intricate set of relationships between the colonial authorities in Malta, then a British island-colony in the Mediterranean, and the Ottoman, Tunisian, and Moroccan authorities. It considers the key roles played by the various institutional agents and protagonists involved in conceptualizing and executing the project, from the Ottoman sultan Abdülaziz I, acting through his political and cultural interlocutor, the Ottoman consul Naoum Duhany, to Emanuele Luigi Galizia, the Maltese architect who designed the cemetery, and the British colonial authorities who permitted its construction. This paper also explores issues relating to the forms of neo-Ottoman architectural representation during the late nineteenth century, as it was actively promoted within a Western European cultural context and, in this case, on the peripheral edge, far removed from the traditional cosmopolitan urban centers. The Ottoman patronage of an overtly exotic and Orientalist building complex, “exported” to a British colonial outpost in the Mediterranean, gives rise to a series of political and ideological issues. This case study serves to provide broader and revisionary insights into the current discourse on Orientalism, not as a closed and binary system but rather as an open-ended and flexible form of artistic representation.


ACTIE OP HET VELD

2017 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-50
Author(s):  
Jan Luitzen ◽  
Wim Zonneveld
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Educational Approach ◽  
Sports History ◽  
Visual Material ◽  
Teachers And Students ◽  
Visual Approach ◽  
Study Performance

ACTION ON THE PITCH A visual approach to nineteenth century football history in The Netherlands This article illustrates the ‘visual turn’ approach to sports history in an analysis of traditionally under-researched material from the late nineteenth century. Focusing on football (‘soccer’) action photography, we argue that interpreting this visual material contributes significantly to the exploration and interpretation of the broader social and cultural context within which sports were practised and the visual material was produced. Regarding the latter, the photographer’s challenge was to capture the movement inherent in the practice of sports generally and of football specifically. Our analysis explains the time at which these pictures first appear as a consequence of developing possibilities and skills in ongoing photographic experimentation. This is illustrated by a case study of a football action photograph from the archives of the Noorthey Institute for boys in Voorschoten, dating from 1895-1897. There, conducting sports was seen as a way of enhancing the students’ physical and mental strengths, including improved study performance. It took place in an atmosphere of camaraderie among teachers and students, the latter acting as supervisors and teammates at the same time. Beyond the texts, the photographs visualize what this educational approach entailed in actual practice.

Archaeological GIS for Land Use in South Etruria Urban Revolution in IX-VIII Centuries B.C.

2019 ◽  
pp. 287-303
Author(s):  
Giuliano Pelfer
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Mediterranean Area ◽  
Market Area ◽  
Market Demand ◽  
Urban Centers ◽  
Subsistence Economy ◽  
Factors Affecting ◽  
Ancient Agriculture ◽  
The Mediterranean

A GIS is developed for analysis of formation, growth, and collapse of past societies. The Urban Revolution in the Mediterranean area between 9th and 13th centuries B.C. pushed by development of Mediterranean market area is a good case study. The process leads to the growth of urban centers and of population. In Ancient Etruria the changes produced the abandonment of older sites and the origin of proto-urban centers on hill plateaus. The GIS is developed for explaining the factors affecting the urbanization process in Tarquinia. Settlement strategy was linked to available resources in the territory. The research focused on land use for ancient agriculture by reconstructing features of land use. The results show that the selection of plateau allowed a better resources management, required by population growth as well by the Mediterranean market demand. The changes explain the transition from a subsistence economy to a production of agrarian surplus in cereals. A new organization based on the private household property of agrarian plots could satisfy a better resource allocation.

The Wreck of the Barque North Carolina, Bermuda, 1880: An Underwater Crime Scene?

2005 ◽  
Vol 70 (1) ◽  
pp. 107-128 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard A. Gould
Keyword(s):  
North Carolina ◽  
Criminal Behavior ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Crime Scene ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Original Research ◽  
The North ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Critical Issues

Archaeological and historical research in 1999–2001 on the loss of the 3-masted, iron barque “North Carolina” produced a series of anomalies and coincidences suggesting that the ship was sunk intentionally. The wreck lies along the southwest edge of Bermuda’s reef system. At first it appeared to be that of a fairly typical sail-propelled, iron-hulled cargo ship of a general type built in the United Kingdom during the late nineteenth century. The original research design for the “North Carolina” project sought to test how representative this shipwreck was as an example of that shipbuilding tradition. Archaeological surveys as well as published and archival accounts of the ship's loss, however, revealed discrepancies that were explored further. The project evolved into the investigation of a possible 120-year-old crime scene. The “North Carolina” offers a case study of how scientifically grounded archaeology applied with due regard for critical issues of cultural context can reveal systemic as well as proximate factors that affect past human behavior—including possible criminal behavior.

Culture and the plasticity of perception

2020 ◽  
Vol 43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Lifshitz ◽  
T. M. Luhrmann
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Context ◽  
Sensory Experience ◽  
Cultural Learning ◽  
The World

Abstract Culture shapes our basic sensory experience of the world. This is particularly striking in the study of religion and psychosis, where we and others have shown that cultural context determines both the structure and content of hallucination-like events. The cultural shaping of hallucinations may provide a rich case-study for linking cultural learning with emerging prediction-based models of perception.

Geoeconomic Leverage of Natural Gas Resources in the Mediterranean

2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 141-155 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ahmed Mahdi
Keyword(s):  
Natural Gas ◽  
Economic Resources ◽  
Tel Aviv ◽  
Economic Influence ◽  
The Mediterranean ◽  
Influence Attempts ◽  
Gas Fields

This article examines the claim that Israel’s natural gas exports from its Mediterranean gas fields will give geopolitical leverage to Tel Aviv over the importing countries. Using the geoeconomic tradition of Klaus Knorr and others who wrote about applying leverage using economic resources to gain geopolitical advantage, it is argued that certain criteria have to be satisfied for economic influence attempts, and that Israel’s gas exports do not satisfy these criteria. They include the importer’s supply vulnerability, the supplier’s demand vulnerability, and the salience of energy as an issue between both countries. Israeli gas exports to Egypt are used as a case study.

The formation of the Egyptian Arabic dialect area

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Behnstedt ◽  
Manfred Woidich
Keyword(s):  
Mediterranean Coast ◽  
External Factors ◽  
Internal Factors ◽  
Dialect Contact ◽  
Historical Information ◽  
Egyptian Arabic ◽  
Transitional Area ◽  
The Mediterranean

This chapter deals with the sedentary dialects of Egypt, excluding the bedouin dialects of Sinai and the Libyan bedouin dialects on the Mediterranean coast. It attempts to combine historical information on the settlement of Arabic tribes in Egypt with accounts of present-day Egyptian dialects and those of the regions from which those tribes came, initially Yemen and the Levant, later Hejaz, and then the Maghreb. The diversity of the Egyptian Arabic dialect area is partly explained by external factors, namely different layers of arabization over centuries. It is also explained by internal factors, namely dialect contact, which implies phenomena such as hyperdialectisms. Egypt is seen as a dialect area in its own right, but one that shows phenomena of a transitional area between the Arab East and West. A case study of Alexandria deals with dialect death. The role of substrata is discussed, but is considered negligible.

The Power of Art to Cope With Trauma: Psychosocial Intervention After the Tsunami in Japan

2020 ◽  
pp. 002216782098214
Author(s):  
Tami Gavron
Keyword(s):  
Natural Disasters ◽  
Psychosocial Intervention ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Psychosocial Interventions ◽  
Kindergarten Teachers ◽  
Japanese Culture ◽  
Art Making ◽  
Cultural Expression ◽  
The Arts

This article describes the significance of an art-based psychosocial intervention with a group of 9 head kindergarten teachers in Japan after the 2011 tsunami, as co-constructed by Japanese therapists and an Israeli arts therapist. Six core themes emerged from the analysis of a group case study: (1) mutual playfulness and joy, (2) rejuvenation and regaining control, (3) containment of a multiplicity of feelings, (4) encouragement of verbal sharing, (5) mutual closeness and support, and (6) the need to support cultural expression. These findings suggest that art making can enable coping with the aftermath of natural disasters. The co-construction underscores the value of integrating the local Japanese culture when implementing Western arts therapy approaches. It is suggested that art-based psychosocial interventions can elicit and nurture coping and resilience in a specific cultural context and that the arts and creativity can serve as a powerful humanistic form of posttraumatic care.

What Is Hidden in the Small Box? Narratives of Late Antique Roman Palestine in Dialogue

AJS Review ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 45 (1) ◽  
pp. 76-94
Author(s):  
Reuven Kiperwasser
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Context ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Narrative Tradition ◽  
Judaic Studies ◽  
Roman Palestine ◽  
The Church ◽  
Shared Narrative

This study is a comparative reading of two distinct narrative traditions with remarkably similar features of plot and content. The first tradition is from the Palestinian midrash Kohelet Rabbah, datable to the fifth to sixth centuries. The second is from John Moschos's Spiritual Meadow (Pratum spirituale), which is very close to Kohelet Rabbah in time and place. Although quite similar, the two narratives differ in certain respects. Pioneers of modern Judaic studies such as Samuel Krauss and Louis Ginzberg had been interested in the question of the relationships between early Christian authors and the rabbis; however, the relationships between John Moschos and Palestinian rabbinic writings have never been systematically treated (aside from one enlightening study by Hillel Newman). Here, in this case study, I ask comparative questions: Did Kohelet Rabbah borrow the tradition from Christian lore; or was the church author impressed by the teachings of Kohelet Rabbah? Alternatively, perhaps, might both have learned the shared story from a common continuum of local narrative tradition? Beyond these questions about literary dependence, I seek to understand the shared narrative in its cultural context.

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