scholarly journals Handling a double-edged sword: Controlling rhetoric in early China

2014 ◽  
Vol 68 (4) ◽  
pp. 1021-1068
Author(s):  
Matthias L. Richter
Keyword(s):  
Political Thought ◽  
Political Power ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Early China ◽  
Political Practice ◽  
Potential Threat ◽  
Multiple Texts ◽  
General Terms ◽  
Present Essay ◽  
Technical Terms

Abstract The present essay discusses rhetorics as an instrument of both persuasion and deception. Early Chinese political thought shows a keen awareness of the deceptive potential immanent in rhetorical skills. Multiple texts warn against certain types of rhetorical behaviour that entail a potential threat to the ruler's control over political power. Yet, at the same time rhetorical skills were also a desirable qualification. While most texts from early China discuss rhetorical skills in general terms as an asset or a threat to the ruler's power, some texts reflect rhetorical skills in more detail, describing specific types of rhetorical behaviour. This essay introduces examples of such texts that were probably first composed as pragmatic texts for application in political practice, before they were integrated into larger compilations or literary texts for argumentative purposes. The essay also shows that these pragmatic texts used a set of technical terms, some of which were no longer recognized in the later transmission, which often led to changes in the texts.

The Anthropocene blues: Notes from Mississippi

2021 ◽  
pp. 205301962110015
Author(s):  
Jason Ludwig
Keyword(s):  
Economic Development ◽  
Environmental Change ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Black Studies ◽  
Political Practice ◽  
Power Structures ◽  
Ecological Degradation ◽  
Intellectual Traditions ◽  
Racial Injustice ◽  
Black Political Thought

This article argues for the importance of integrating histories of enslaved Africans and their descendants—including histories of resistance to racialized power structures—within narratives about the Anthropocene. It suggests that the Black Studies Scholar Clyde Wood’s concept of the “blues epistemology” offers conceptual tools for considering how Black political and intellectual traditions have strived to imagine and create a more livable world amid the entangled crises of racial injustice and ecological degradation. I argue that locating Black political thought within broader narratives of environmental change and economic development illuminates the racial dimensions of current global ecological crises and orients scholarship and political practice toward the spaces in which such thought is being animated today in response to the challenges of the Anthropocene.

scholarly journals Serbian radicalism 1881-1903: Political thought and practice

Balcanica ◽  
2007 ◽  
pp. 173-189 ◽  
Author(s):  
Milan Protic
Keyword(s):  
Political Thought ◽  
Political Ideology ◽  
Civil Liberties ◽  
The Other ◽  
Parliamentary Democracy ◽  
Political Practice ◽  
Basic Aspect ◽  
National Programme ◽  
Other Hand

Subject to transformation and change as any other political ideology Serbian Radicalism nevertheless revolved round some more or less permanent concepts, the most important being constitutionalism, parliamentary democracy, civil liberties and local self-government. Yet another basic aspect of the Radical Party's ideology, its national programme, may be seen as an external ingredient inasmuch as the national emancipation, liberation and unification of the Serbs were viewed as originating from internal freedom. It was only in the 1890s that their national programme became fully developed. Major features of the Party's political practice, on the other hand, were flexibility, pragmatism and cohesion.

Political Activism and Other Life Forms in Colonial Buganda

2018 ◽  
Vol 45 ◽  
pp. 373-395
Author(s):  
Jonathon L. Earle
Keyword(s):  
Social Movement ◽  
Political Power ◽  
Political Activism ◽  
Life Forms ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Colonial Power ◽  
Political Practice ◽  
Ethnographic Fieldwork ◽  
Trade Unionist ◽  
Concrete World

Abstract:This article uses recently unearthed private papers and ethnographic fieldwork to explore the intersection of political practice and environmental ideation in colonial Buganda. In the early to mid-1900s, colonial administrators sought to draw Ganda interlocutors into abstract conversations about a natural world that was devoid of political power. Through Witchcraft Ordinances, imperial administrators sought to distance spirits, rocks, trees, snakes, and other life forms from the concrete world of social movement and dissent. But in late colonial Uganda, the trade unionist Erieza Bwete and the influential spirit prophet Kibuuka Kigaanira navigated environmental spaces that were imbued with political significance. Uganda’s economic and national histories, informed by methodologies that privileged philosophical materialism, overlooked how interactions with multispecies animated anticolonial politics and larger debates about authority. To challenge these earlier assumptions, this article shows how colonial literati and a late colonial prophet interacted with a natural world that was deeply political to conceptualize independence and challenge colonial power.

Reformation, Resistance, and Reason of State (1517-1625)

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Mortimer
Keyword(s):  
Intellectual History ◽  
Natural Law ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Political Power ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Political Theories ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
Reason Of State ◽  
History Of ◽  
New Ideas

The period 1517–1625 was crucial for the development of political thought. During this time of expanding empires, religious upheaval, and social change, new ideas about the organization and purpose of human communities began to be debated. In particular, there was a concern to understand the political or civil community as bounded, limited in geographical terms and with its own particular structures, characteristics, and history. There was also a growing focus, in the wake of the Reformation, on civil or political authority as distinct from the church or religious authority. To explain these new ideas about political power, the concept of sovereignty began to be used, alongside a new language of reason of state. Yet political theories based upon religion still maintained significant traction, particularly claims for the divine right of kings. In the midst of these developments, the language of natural law became increasingly important as a means of legitimizing political power; natural law provided a rationale for earthly authority that was separate from Christianity and its use enabled new arguments for religious toleration. This book offers a new reading of early modern political thought, drawing on a wide range of sources from Europe and beyond. It makes connections between Christian Europe and the Muslim societies that lay to its south and east, showing the extent to which concerns about the legitimacy of political power were shared. It demonstrates that the history of political thought can both benefit from, and remain distinctive within, the wider field of intellectual history.

The Personnel of the Dublin Society of United Irishmen, 1791-4

1940 ◽  
Vol 2 (5) ◽  
pp. 12-53
Author(s):  
R. B. McDowell
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Political Power ◽  
Political Freedom ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Independent Voters ◽  
United Irishmen

One of the most noticeable features of Irish political life in the 'later eighteenth century, is, that though political power was :oncentrated in comparatively few hands, there was a very large leasure of political freedom. One could in fact sum up the system by saying that it was oligarchy tempered by discussion. As a result, voluntary and unofficial societies and clubs arose for the purpose of educating and influencing public opinion, and were the nuclei of much political thought and action. There [were Whig Clubs, Constitutional Clubs, Societies for the [Preservation of Liberty and Peace and Associations of Independent Voters. Thus there was nothing very strange in the Iformation, in November 1791, of a Dublin branch of the newly bounded Society of United Irishmen. But this group was to prove unique in at least one respect.

officials, Greek, accountability of

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pierre Fröhlich
Keyword(s):  
Political Thought ◽  
Archaic Period ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Hellenistic Period ◽  
Political Regimes ◽  
Legal Proceedings ◽  
Civic Institutions ◽  
Ordinary Citizens

From the end of the Archaic era to the end of the Hellenistic period, all officials of Greek cities were required to render their accounts (euthynai) through procedures, which varied according to political regimes and times. Most of the time a board of controlling officials examined the accounts. This examination would take place at the end of the officials’ terms of office, but sometimes a partial examination took place during the terms. The controlling magistrates could initiate prosecutions against officials. In democracies, ordinary citizens could also sue magistrates in court. The procedure for holding officials accountable is called euthynai (correction) in the ancient sources. Many literary texts and epigraphic sources show the importance of the practice, particularly during the Classical and the Hellenistic periods. It was one of the most important features of civic institutions. From the End of the Archaic Period onwards, the Greek cities took a series of measures to prevent abuses of power by officials: accountability was only one of these measures. In fact, in Greek political thought, tyrannical power is characterised as aneuthynos (e.g., Herodotus 3.80.3), which broadly means “not subject to legal proceedings” or “uncontrolled.” Officials had to render their accounts (mostly logon apodidonai or tas euthynas didonai in Greek), at the end of their time in office as well as while in office. In most poleis, a separate body of magistrates was tasked with examining these accounts. At these moments, a set of procedures (which varied from city to city) enabled ordinary citizens to bring charges against officials before the courts.

Republican security theory revisited

2011 ◽  
Vol 37 (5) ◽  
pp. 2269-2292 ◽  
Author(s):  
JORG KUSTERMANS
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Political Practice ◽  
The Cold War

AbstractRepublicanism is getting increasing attention in International Relations. Engaging Daniel Deudney'sRepublican Security Theory, it is argued that republicanism should be interpreted in ideological terms, that it is a polysemous tradition of political thought, and that it matters because it is socially embodied in world political practice. Special attention is given to republicanism's relationship to the question of technology. A short case study of the Cold War illustrates the central claims of the argument.

scholarly journals ‘The Cake is (Not) a Lie:’ Intertextuality as a Form of Play in Digital Games

2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 90-106
Author(s):  
Diana Melnic ◽  
Vlad Melnic
Keyword(s):  
Digital Games ◽  
Critical Comment ◽  
Artistic Expression ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Traditional Media ◽  
Self Reflection ◽  
Present Essay ◽  
Literary Theories ◽  
Fertile Ground

Abstract Since Julia Kristeva’s first use of the term in the late 20th century, intertextuality has given rise to one of the literary theories most frequently applied in the interpretation of texts across different media, from literature to art and film. In what concerns the study of digital games, however, the concept has received little attention, in spite of the fact that the new medium offers a more than fertile ground for its investigation. The aim of the present essay, therefore, is to propose that digital games can be and, indeed, are intertextual in at least two ways. First, we argue, games deliberately refer to other games, which may or may not be a part of the same series. Secondly, they connect with texts from other media and specifically with literary texts. In both cases, the intertextual link can be a sign of tribute, a critical comment, or a means of self-reflection. Ultimately, however, these links are a form of aesthetic play that reveals new similarities between digital games and traditional media for artistic expression.

scholarly journals Of Slaveholders and Renegades: Semantic Uncertainties in Volodymyr Antonovych’s Conversion to Ukrainianness

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jens Herlth
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Historical Fiction ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Present Essay ◽  
Romantic Era ◽  
Landed Gentry

Of Slaveholders and Renegades: Semantic Uncertainties in Volodymyr Antonovych’s Conversion to UkrainiannessIn an article published in the St. Petersburg-based Ukrainian language journal Osnova (Foundation) in 1862, Włodzimierz Antonowicz, formally the descendant of a Polish family from the landed gentry in Ukraine, declared that from then on he would consider himself a Ukrainian. In the present essay, I analyze the polemics around what can be called Antonovych’s conversion from Polishness to Ukrainianness. Antonovych as well as his adversaries brought into play various concepts of nationality and national identity, switching quite freely between various frames of references (political thought of the Enlightenment and the Romantic era, contemporary historical fiction, and historiography). Panowie i renegaci: semantyczne niuanse konwersji Włodzimierza Antonowicza na ukraińskośćW artykule opublikowanym w 1862 roku w petersburskim ukraińskojęzycznym dzienniku „Osnova” Włodzimierz Antonowicz, formalnie potomek polskiej rodziny ziemiańskiej z Ukrainy, oświadczył, że od tego momentu będzie siebie uznawał za Ukraińca. Autor eseju analizuje polemikę wokół tego, co można nazwać konwersją Antonowicza od polskości do ukraińskości. Antonowicz, podobnie jak jego adwersarze, posługiwał się różnymi koncepcjami narodowości i tożsamości narodowej, dość swobodnie przechodząc do odmiennych odniesień w myśli politycznej (Oświecenia i epoki romantyzmu, współczesnej prozie historycznej i historiografii).

“Neque declinet in partem dextram vel sinistram”: duality of power in 12th century English political thought

2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 (12-3) ◽  
pp. 182-190
Author(s):  
Alexander Gladkov
Keyword(s):  
Political Thought ◽  
Political Power ◽  
John Of Salisbury ◽  
12Th Century

The article is devoted to examination of the basic opposition “prince/tyrant” in the context of the doctrine concerning the monarch’s supreme power which was defined on the pages of the treatise “Policraticus” by outstanding English intellectual, diplomat and polemist John of Salisbury in 1159. The thinker’s arguments on nature, functions and purposes of power are analysed, virtues that God-fearing monarch has and tyrant vices are considered. Studying John of Salisbury’s concepts of the prince’s and tyrant’s power, the article affords approaches to understanding scholastic’s doctrine of political power as whole which unites Hellenistic and Roman and Christian (patristic and scholastic) traditions.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document