World Visions in Swahili Literature

2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 129-144
Author(s):  
Xavier Garnier
Keyword(s):  
Local Level ◽  
Colonial Period ◽  
Epic Poetry ◽  
Art Of Living ◽  
Literary Forms ◽  
Crime Novel ◽  
The World ◽  
The Way

Abstract Probably because of its relationship with a coastal culture, Swahili literature seems very aware of its position in the world. Through a reading of Swahili poems and novels across a range of genres, this paper explores the ways in which Swahili writers have engaged in a dialogue with the whole world, from the colonial period to the contemporary era. The evolution of well-identified literary forms such as epic poetry, ethnographic novel or crime novel will also pave the way for identifying the specificities of a Swahili cosmopolitanism anxious to cultivate an art of living in the age of a kind of globalization whose effects are often harshly felt at the local level. Because it has long developed an awareness of the world, Swahili literature has often pioneered the invention of literary forms that are able to translate locally the movements of the world.

The Intimacy of Belonging: Literacy and the Experience of Sunjata in Mali

2011 ◽  
Vol 38 ◽  
pp. 103-122 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jan Jansen
Keyword(s):  
Religious Experience ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Field Research ◽  
Local People ◽  
Historical Imagination ◽  
Time And Space ◽  
Present Essay ◽  
Extensive Field ◽  
The World ◽  
The Way

Literacy is a personally acquired skill, and the way it is taught to a person changes how that person thinks. Thanks to David Henige historians of Africa are much more aware of how literacy influences memory and historical imagination, and particularly how literacy systems introduce linear concepts of time and space. This essay will deal with these two aspects in relation to Africa's most famous epic: Sunjata. This epic has gained a major literary status worldwide—text editions are taught as part of undergraduate courses at universities all over the world—but there has been little extensive field research into the epic. The present essay focuses on an even less studied aspect of Sunjata, namely how Sunjata is experienced by local people.Central to my argument is an idea put forward by Peter Geschiere, who links the upheaval of autochthony claims in Africa (and beyond) to issues of citizenship and processes of exclusion. He analyzes these as the product of feelings of “belonging.” Geschiere argues that issues of belonging should be studied at a local level if we are to understand how individuals experience autochthony. Analytically, Geschiere proposes shifting away from ”identity” by drawing from Birgit Meyer's work ideas on the aesthetics of religious experience and emotion; Meyer's ideas are useful to explain “how some (religious) images can convince, while other do not.”

Introduction

2006 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 131-135 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Kelly
Keyword(s):  
Colonial Period ◽  
French Law ◽  
Industrial Countries ◽  
The World ◽  
Colonial Experience ◽  
Western Values ◽  
French Colonial ◽  
Special Number ◽  
Current Concerns ◽  
The Way

The introduction to this special number of French Cultural Studiespresents the key themes in the articles it contains, focusing on writers, intellectuals and the colonial experience. It sets them in the context of a reappraisal of Empire in both France and Britain, expressed in the recent French law obliging schools to recognise the benefits of the French colonial enterprise, and in related developments in Britain. French writers and intellectuals of the colonial period were concerned with issues of the benefits of civilisation, the universal spread of republican humanism, and the practical and theoretical implications of inter-imperial rivalries, especially with Britain. When they criticised colonial practice, it was in the name of the same values of civilisation that underlay the ‘civilising mission’ of colonialism. In a modulated discourse, these issues continue to inform the way governments and intellectuals view the mission of leading industrial countries to bring the benefits of Western values to the rest of the world. An understanding of how earlier generations of French writers thought about the colonial experience may be relevant to a reflection on similar current concerns.

Professional Wrestling

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sharon Mazer
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
American Dream ◽  
Local Level ◽  
The United States ◽  
Professional Wrestling ◽  
Performance Practices ◽  
The Real ◽  
Current State ◽  
The World ◽  
The Way

Professional wrestling is one of the most popular performance practices in the United States and around the world, drawing millions of spectators to live events and televised broadcasts. The displays of violence, simulated and actual, may be the obvious appeal, but that is just the beginning. Fans debate performance choices with as much energy as they argue about their favorite wrestlers. The ongoing scenarios and presentations of manly and not so-manly characters—from the flamboyantly feminine to the hypermasculine—simultaneously celebrate and critique, parody and affirm, the American dream and the masculine ideal. Sharon Mazer looks at the world of professional wrestling from a fan’s-eye-view high in the stands and from ringside in the wrestlers’ gym. She investigates how performances are constructed and sold to spectators, both on a local level and in the “big leagues” of the WWF/E. She shares a close-up view of a group of wrestlers as they work out, get their faces pushed to the mat as part of their initiation into the fraternity of the ring, and dream of stardom. In later chapters, Mazer explores professional wrestling’s carnivalesque presentation of masculinities ranging from the cute to the brute, as well as the way in which the performances of women wrestlers often enter into the realm of pornographic. Finally, she explores the question of the “real” and the “fake” as the fans themselves confront it. First published in 1998, this new edition of Professional Wrestling: Sport and Spectacle both preserves the original’s snapshot of the wrestling scene of the 1980s and 1990s and features an up-to-date perspective on the current state of play.

Local-level concertation: the scope for innovative regulation of non-standard forms of employment in Europe

2001 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 657-673
Author(s):  
Ida Regalia
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Local Institutions ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
Social Partners ◽  
Light Protection ◽  
Labour Regulation ◽  
The Way

The paper presents the main findings of research into the interest of the social partners and local institutions in seeking new ways to regulate the use of non-standard forms of employment. The research, based on case studies, revealed an unexpectedly broad scenario of concerted initiatives, highly heterogeneous and not always successful, at the local level and within companies. On the basis of the objectives pursued by such initiatives, it is possible to identify logics of intervention which differ in the extent to which they distance themselves from the model of protection traditionally associated with standard forms of employment. In the most innovative cases, alternative forms of protection are devised either by redefining the boundaries within which workers are entitled to stability and protection, or by releasing workers from the need to establish permanent relations with a firm in order to enjoy rights and security. Such solutions challenge established practices of labour regulation, but are perhaps also best suited to the way in which the world of work and production is changing, at least if the aim is to provide more extensive, inclusive ‘light’ protection for everyone, rather than ‘heavy’ protection for only a few.

Becoming Politicized

2017 ◽  
Vol 225 (4) ◽  
pp. 324-335 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dimitrios Barkas ◽  
Xenia Chryssochoou
Keyword(s):  
Collective Identity ◽  
Political Socialization ◽  
Greek Society ◽  
Economic Vulnerability ◽  
The World ◽  
The Future ◽  
Identity Model ◽  
Beliefs About The Future ◽  
Of Greece ◽  
The Way

Abstract. This research took place just after the end of the protests following the killing of a 16-year-old boy by a policeman in Greece in December 2008. Participants (N = 224) were 16-year-olds in different schools in Attiki. Informed by the Politicized Collective Identity Model ( Simon & Klandermans, 2001 ), a questionnaire measuring grievances, adversarial attributions, emotions, vulnerability, identifications with students and activists, and questions about justice and Greek society in the future, as well as about youngsters’ participation in different actions, was completed. Four profiles of the participants emerged from a cluster analysis using representations of the conflict, emotions, and identifications with activists and students. These profiles differed on beliefs about the future of Greece, participants’ economic vulnerability, and forms of participation. Importantly, the clusters corresponded to students from schools of different socioeconomic areas. The results indicate that the way young people interpret the events and the context, their levels of identification, and the way they represent society are important factors of their political socialization that impacts on their forms of participation. Political socialization seems to be related to youngsters’ position in society which probably constitutes an important anchoring point of their interpretation of the world.

Restrained Airs: The Diegetic Surface and Nondiegetic Depth of British Film Music

2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 429-443
Author(s):  
Paul Mazey
Keyword(s):  
Film Music ◽  
The World ◽  
British Cinema ◽  
Film Making ◽  
The Way

This article considers how pre-existing music has been employed in British cinema, paying particular attention to the diegetic/nondiegetic boundary and notions of restraint. It explores the significance of the distinction between diegetic music, which exists in the world of the narrative, and nondiegetic music, which does not. It analyses the use of pre-existing operatic music in two British films of the same era and genre: Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949) and The Importance of Being Earnest (1952), and demonstrates how seemingly subtle variations in the way music is used in these films produce markedly different effects. Specifically, it investigates the meaning of the music in its original context and finds that only when this bears a narrative relevance to the film does it cross from the diegetic to the nondiegetic plane. This reveals that whereas music restricted to the diegetic plane may express the outward projection of the characters' emotions, music also heard on the nondiegetic track may reveal a deeper truth about their feelings. In this way, the meaning of the music varies depending upon how it is used. While these two films may differ in whether or not their pre-existing music occupies a nondiegetic or diegetic position in relation to the narrative, both are characteristic of this era of British film-making in using music in an understated manner which expresses a sense of emotional restraint and which marks the films with a particularly British inflection.

Profilometry. Using Corneo-scleral topography for scleral lens fitting

The Eye ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 21 (128) ◽  
pp. 19-22
Author(s):  
Gregory DeNaeyer
Keyword(s):  
Ocular Surface ◽  
World Wide ◽  
Contact Lenses ◽  
The Past ◽  
The World ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Way

The world-wide use of scleral contact lenses has dramatically increased over the past 10 year and has changed the way that we manage patients with corneal irregularity. Successfully fitting them can be challenging especially for eyes that have significant asymmetries of the cornea or sclera. The future of scleral lens fitting is utilizing corneo-scleral topography to accurately measure the anterior ocular surface and then using software to design lenses that identically match the scleral surface and evenly vault the cornea. This process allows the practitioner to efficiently fit a customized scleral lens that successfully provides the patient with comfortable wear and improved vision.

Los criterios de textualidad en la hermenéutica de Paul Ricoeur. Un análisis crítico

2008 ◽  
Vol 14 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adrián Bertorello
Keyword(s):  
Structural Analysis ◽  
Reading Strategies ◽  
Paul Ricoeur ◽  
Material Base ◽  
The World ◽  
Paul Ricœur ◽  
Text Writing ◽  
The Way

RESUMENEl trabajo examina críticamente la afirmación central de la hermenéutica de Paul Ricoeur, a saber, que el soporte material de la escritura es el rasgo determinante para que una secuencia discursiva sea considerada como un texto. La escritura cancela las condiciones fácticas de la enunciación y crea, de este modo, un ámbito de sentido estable en el que se puede validar una concepción de la subjetividad que está implicada en las dos estrategias de lecturas (el análisis estructural y la apropiación), esto es, un sujeto pasivo que se constituye por la idealidad del significado. Asimismo, el trabajo intentará precisar una serie de ambigüedades en el uso que Ricoeur hace del «ser en el mundo» para sostener la referencialidad del discurso.PALABRAS CLAVETEXTO, ESCRITURA, REFERENCIA, SUBJETIVIDAD, MUNDOABSTRACTThis paper critically examines the main assertion of Paul Ricoeur´s hermeneutics, i.e., that the material base of writing is the determining feature to consider a discursive sequence as a text. Writing cancels the factual conditions of enunciation and creates, in this way, a background of stable meaning where it is possible to validate a conception of subjectivity implicated in the two reading strategies (the structural analysis and the appropriation), i.e., a passive subject constituted by the ideality of meaning. Likewise, this paper aims to clarify some ambiguities in the way Ricoeur uses the «beings in the world» to support the discourse referentiality.KEY WORDSTEXT, WRITING, REFERENCE, SUBJECTIVITY, WORLD

The Role of Music and Allied Arts in Public Writings on Cultural Diversity: “People of Sri Lanka”

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 93-100
Author(s):  
Gisa Jähnichen
Keyword(s):  
Sri Lanka ◽  
Cultural Diversity ◽  
South Asia ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Sri Lankan ◽  
Culturally Different ◽  
The World ◽  
Official Languages ◽  
The Way

The Sri Lankan Ministry of National Coexistence, Dialogue, and Official Languages published the work “People of Sri Lanka” in 2017. In this comprehensive publication, 21 invited Sri Lankan scholars introduced 19 different people’s groups to public readers in English, mainly targeted at a growing number of foreign visitors in need of understanding the cultural diversity Sri Lanka has to offer. This paper will observe the presentation of these different groups of people, the role music and allied arts play in this context. Considering the non-scholarly design of the publication, a discussion of the role of music and allied arts has to be supplemented through additional analyses based on sources mentioned by the 21 participating scholars and their fragmented application of available knowledge. In result, this paper might help improve the way facts about groups of people, the way of grouping people, and the way of presenting these groupings are displayed to the world beyond South Asia. This fieldwork and literature guided investigation should also lead to suggestions for ethical principles in teaching and presenting of culturally different music practices within Sri Lanka, thus adding an example for other case studies.

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