Heteroglossic itineraries and silent spaces: the desert cartographies of Gertrude Bell and TE Lawrence

2018 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 589-601
Author(s):  
Emma Notfors

This article advocates for the central importance of examining cartography for the understanding of literary travel narratives, focussing on accounts of travel in the deserts of the Middle East written by Gertrude Bell and TE Lawrence, both explorers, archaeologists and authors who were implicated in British activities in the Middle East before, during and after the Arab Revolt, and who travelled through the region during the early 20th century. This article seeks to explore the connections between the authors’ textual depictions and the maps that they authored, using close readings of their travel narratives and their maps to arrive at a more profound understanding of how these processes of authorship resulted in the production and mediation of ‘Arabia’ as an imaginative geography. Drawing on archival research and a range of textual sources, the development of this literary geography is traced through the early research of TE Lawrence on crusader castles in Syria and Lebanon, Gertrude Bell’s descriptions of using maps in The Desert and the Sown, Lawrence’s account of collating a map of Sinai for the War Office and the relationship between local navigational knowledges with their cartographic activities.

2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 8-31
Author(s):  
Alexandre Yu. Bendin

The Russian governments three principal institutions to regulate the empires diverse religions from the 18th to the early 20th century are examined. Its author describes the evolution of these bodies, their features and purpose, as well as defining the concept of religious security by analyzing its specific historical content. The author also discusses the relationship between the institutions of the official Russian Church, religious tolerance for foreign confessions, and discrimination against the Old Believers through the prism of friend - alien - foe relations. This approach helps us understand the hierarchical nature of the relations and contradictions that existed between the institutions, whose activities regulated the religious life of the Russian Empires subjects until 1905. The article goes on to analyze the relationship between the official legal status of the Russian Church, imperial tolerance, and religious discrimination. It concludes that the formation of the three state-religious institutions that began in the 18th century ended during the reign of Emperor Nicholas I. That time saw the beginning of the gradual evolution of friend - alien - foe inter-institutional relations, which peaked under Emperor Nicholas in 1904-1906. The author also considers the changes in the governments policy towards the Russian schism of the 17th century, which ultimately removed the friend-or-foe opposition in the relations between the Russian state, the Russian Church and the schismatic Old Believers. In accordance with the modernized legislation on religious tolerance, lawful Old Believers and sectarians moved from the category of religious and political foes to that of aliens, to which foreign confessions traditionally belonged. Under the new legal and political conditions, intolerance and religious discrimination against the schism ceased to be an instrument of state policy.


2021 ◽  

Djalkiri are “footprints" – ancestral imprints on the landscape that provide the Yolŋu people of eastern Arnhem Land with their philosophical foundations. This book describes how Yolŋu artists and communities keep these foundations strong, and how they have worked with museums to develop a collaborative, community-led approach to the collection and display of their artwork. It includes contributions from Yolŋu elders and artists as well as Indigenous and non-Indigenous historians and curators. Together they explore how the relationship between communities and museums has changed over time. From the early 20th century, anthropologists and other collectors acquired artworks and objects and took photographs in Arnhem Land that became part of collections at the University of Sydney. Later generations of Yolŋu have sought out these materials and, with museum curators, proposed a new type of relationship, based on a deeper respect for Yolŋu intellectual frameworks and a commitment to their central role in curation. This book tells some of their stories.


2020 ◽  
Vol 65 (2) ◽  
pp. 277-296
Author(s):  
Noémi Karácsony

"French composer and pianist Maurice Delage wrote several significant works inspired by his personal contact with the Orient. His travels to India inspired Delage to use innovative sound effects in his compositions, as well as to require his performers to adapt their vocal or instrumental technique to obtain the sound desired by the composer. His representation of the Orient is not a mere evocation of the Other, as is the case with most orientalist works, rather it reflects the composer’s desire to endow Western music with the purity, strength, and vivid colors which he discovered and admired in Indian music. The present paper presents the historical and artistic background which inspired and influenced Delage, the relationship between France and India in the early 20th century and reveals the composer’s idealistic point of view regarding India, its culture, and its music. The analysis focuses on the mélodie cycle Quatre poèmes hindous, composed between 1912 and 1913, striving to reveal the Indian influences in the work of Delage and the way orientalism is represented in French music from the first decades of the 20th century. Keywords: orientalism, France, India, 20th century, Maurice Delage"


Religions ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 196
Author(s):  
Ihab Shabana

British foreign policy in the Middle East has been well researched. However, there are still aspects of Britain’s approach towards the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) that have yet to be researched. One such aspect is Britain’s encounter with the rise of political Islam in MENA and the way(s) in which this phenomenon was deciphered. Even though political Islam dates back to the late 19th and early 20th century, our study focuses on the period between the turbulent years of the outburst of the Iranian Revolution in 1978–1979 and its widely-felt influence until 1990. Our methodological tools include Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) archival material that addresses the phenomenon of political Islam and its implications for British interests and international relations in general. We choose the concept of political Islam and its adherents that are widely acknowledged as political, comparatively to those of da’wa and Jihadi Islamism. We argue that British officials were widely influenced by the intellectual debates of the period under consideration and that they mainly adopted four analytical schemas which focused firstly on the rise of sectarian politics in MENA, secondly on the gradual accommodation of non-state actors and organizations in political analysis, thirdly on the worrisome prospect of an alliance between Islamist and communist forces, and lastly on the prevalence of the idea of Islamic solidarity and Islamic exceptionalism in exerting international politics. Our findings suggest that, at times, the FCO approaches the issue of political Islam with a reassuring mindset, focusing on its divisions and weaknesses, while at other times it analyzes it with a grave concern over stability and Britain’s critical interests.


This book seeks to re-evaluate the life and legacy of Gertrude Lowthian Bell (1868–1926), the renowned scholar, explorer, writer, archaeologist and British civil servant. In 12 chapters, written by a number of international scholars, Iraqi and British, it examines her role in shaping British policy in the Middle East in the first part of the 20th century, her views of the cultures and peoples of the region and her unusual status as a woman occupying a senior position in the British imperial administration. It focuses particularly on her involvement in Iraq and the part she played in the establishment of the Iraqi monarchy and the Iraqi state. In addition, it examines her interests in Iraq’s ancient past (she was instrumental in drawing up Iraq’s first Antiquities Law in 1922 and in the foundation of the Iraq Museum in 1923), and reflects on the various aspects of her legacy for modern Iraq.


2002 ◽  
Vol 712 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer J. Hooper ◽  
Lori Graham ◽  
Tim Foecke ◽  
Timothy P. Weihs

ABSTRACTThe discovery of the RMS Titanic has led to a number of scientific studies, one of which addresses the role that the structural materials played in the sinking of the ship. Chemical, microstructural, and mechanical analysis of the hull steel suggests that it was state-of-the-art for 1912 with adequate fracture toughness for the application. However, the quality of the wrought iron rivets may have been an important factor in the opening of the steel plates during flooding. Preliminary studies of Titanic wrought iron rivets revealed an orthotropic, inhomogeneous composite material composed of glassy iron silicate (slag) particles embedded in a ferrite matrix. To date, very little is understood about the properties of wrought iron from that period. Therefore, in order to assess the quality of the Titanic material, contemporary wrought iron was obtained from additional late 19th/early 20th century buildings, bridges, and ships for comparison. Image analysis completed on the Titanic wrought iron microstructure showed a high slag content that is very coarse and unevenly distributed. To investigate how microstructure impacts the mechanical properties, and hence the quality of late 19th/early 20th century wrought iron, a detailed analysis of the relationship between the microstructural features and the mechanical behavior was completed. Here we present the first step in that process: the use of the Generalized Method of Cells (GMC) to predict the mechanical response of composites with variable microstructural properties. The GMC tool is used to generate the effective inelastic behavior of the composite from the individual constituent properties.


Author(s):  
Francesca Pasciolla

To confront two major writers and, indeed, thinkers of the Iberian Peninsula in the early 20th century is a challenge to be embraced, albeit with some circumspection. In the process, the tense relationship between the discourses of literary creation and philosophical musing will be broached. The evidence of any mutual awareness of their respective writings in the case of Miguel de Unamuno and Fernando Pessoa is scant. Whilst there is no recognition in the former of the latter, the Portuguese author certainly knew enough of the writings of the prolific Spaniard to have published several texts wherein he rejected the thinking of his near-contemporary. Close examination, however, reveals that the relationship between the writings of the two is complex enough to bear further scrutiny.


Finisterra ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 33 (65) ◽  
Author(s):  
Lia Osorio Machado

This paper looks at the circulation of modern geographical ideas in Brazil. The focus is on the relationship between geographical source models and the target model of domestic modernization. Three corresponding "mechanisms" provided the translation from one to the other: gradualism, adaptation and essentialism.


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