Framing the Qin collapse: redaction and authorship of the Shiji 史記

2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Chun Fung Tong

Abstract This paper explores the relationship between the Shiji’s authors and their sources by examining how they constructed the historical narrative of the fall of the Qin Empire. While Sima Qian and his father Sima Tan have been traditionally credited as the authors of the Shiji, their authorial voice was recently challenged by scholars. In response to the revisionist view, this paper discerns that the Shiji maintains a consistent narrative of the Qin collapse, which is generated through rigorous source redactions whereby Sima Qian and/or Sima Tan were able to incorporate their ideological agenda and personal opinions in subtle ways that are almost invisible to the reader. With such anonymity, the historiographers succeeded in establishing the authority of their historical narratives. Rather than simply juxtaposing the narratives of their sources, the Simas indeed authored their “patterned past” of the Qin collapse. However, the past constructed in the Shiji comprises various independent narratives whose plausibility is contingent upon the respective epistemic quality of their evidence rather than a harmonious discourse.

1985 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 165-186 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Hudson

The past decade has seen the growth of a considerable literature on the link between government popularity, as reflected by the proportion of the public indicating their intention to vote for the government in opinion polls, and the state of the economy, as represented by certain key variables. The work began in the early 1970s with articles by Goodhart and Bhansali, Mueller, and Kramer. It continued through the decade; some of the more recent contributions can be found in a set of readings edited by Hibbs and Fassbender. However, despite the amount and quality of this work, problems remain. Principal amongst these, as Chrystal and Alt have pointed out, is the inability to estimate a relationship which exhibits any degree of stability either over time or between researchers. Nearly all the studies have been successful in finding a significant relationship for specific time periods, but when these are extended, or when the function is used to forecast outside the original estimation period, the relationship appears to break down.


1990 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 108-112 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barbara A. Pieper ◽  
Wendla Kushion ◽  
Susan Gaida

Twenty married couples with one partner diagnosed as having diabetes at age 40 or older within the past 5 years participated in this study. Participants completed the diabetes or family version of Beliefs About Diabetes (BAD) and the Dyadic Adjustment Scale (DAS). Results showed that perceived barriers to diet and to medication by the person with diabetes were associated with higher marital satisfaction and quality of marriage. In contrast, for the nondiabetic spouse, the perceived benefits of diet were negatively associated with the ability to work with the diabetic spouse. Additional research is needed to better understand the effect of diabetes on the marital relationship.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-44
Author(s):  
Stefan Petkov ◽  

This paper defends the view that narratives that bring understanding of the past need not be exhaustively analyzable as explanatory inferences, nor as causal narratives. Instead of treating historical narrative as explanations, I argue that understanding of history can be analyzed by the general epistemic criteria of understanding. I explore one such criterion, which is of chief importance for good historical narratives: potential inferential power. As a corollary, I dispute one of the distinctive features of narratives described by some philosophers: the non-aggregativity of narrative histories. Instead, I propose that historical narratives modestly aggregate and this aggregation depends on the success of the colligatory concepts they offer.


Author(s):  
Engelina Du Plessis ◽  
Melville Saayman ◽  
Annari Van der Merwe

Background: Tourism is an evolving and changing industry, and keeping up with these changes requires an understanding of the forces and changes that shape this industry’s outcomes. Tourism managers struggle daily to stay ahead in the competition to attract more tourists to destinations. Understanding the strengths and weaknesses of the past could shed light on the advantages of the future.Aim: The aim of this study was to do a temporal analysis of the competitiveness of South Africa as a tourism destination.Setting: This research investigated the competitive position of South Africa as a tourism destination just after the 1994 elections and compared those results to the results of a similar study in 2014.Methods: In this article, a frequency analysis revealed South Africa’s strengths and weaknesses, after which t-tests indicated the relationship between the strengths and weaknesses of the destination and the factors that contribute to South Africa’s competitiveness.Results: South Africa’s strengths include the quality of the food and experience, scenery, variety of accommodation climate and geographical features. It is clear that respondents identified different attributes that contributed to the strengths of the destination in comparison with 2002, where the strengths were wildlife, scenery, cultural diversity, climate, value for money, variety of attractions and specific icons.Conclusion: This research is valuable for South Africa because it informs tourism role players about what respondents perceive to be South Africa’s strengths. Role players can then form strategies that incorporate the strengths to create competitive advantage. This article also indicates the areas in which the country has grown in the past decade as well as indicating which weaknesses remain a problem.


Author(s):  
George Yu ◽  
Abdulmaged M. Traish

AbstractOver the past 60 years, androgen deprivation therapy has been the mainstay of treatment of metastatic prostate cancer. However, research findings suggest that androgen deprivation therapy inflicts serious adverse effects on overall health and reduces the quality of life. Among the adverse effects known to date are insulin resistance, diabetes, metabolic syndrome fatigue, erectile dysfunction, and cardiovascular disease. In this clinical perspective, we discuss the relationship between induced androgen deficiency and a host of pathologies in the course of treatment with androgen deprivation therapy for prostate cancer patients.


2017 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 102
Author(s):  
Mikael Strömberg

The article’s primary aim is to discuss the function of turning points and continuity within historiography. That a historical narrative, produced at a certain time and place, influence the way the historian shapes and develops the argument is problematized by an emphasis on the complex relationship between turning points and continuity as colligatory concepts within an argumentative framework. Aided by a number of examples from three historical narratives on operetta, the article stresses the importance of creating new narratives about the past. Two specific examples from the history of operetta, the birth of the genre and the role of music, are used to illustrate the need to revise not only the use of source material and the narrative strategy used, but also how the argument proposed by the historian gathers strength. The interpretation of turning points and continuity as colligatory concepts illustrate the need to revise earlier historical narratives when trying to counteract the repetitiveness of history.


2013 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 346-370
Author(s):  
Chiel van den Akker

Abstract The problem how to ascertain the truth about the past is as old as history itself. But until the work of Louis Mink, no clear distinction was made between questions concerning the truth of statements on the past and questions concerning the truth of historical narratives as a whole. A narrative, Mink argues, is not simply a conjunction of statements on the past. Therefore its truth cannot be a function of the truth of its individual statements. The problem of narrative truth is according to him thus: although each statement (or set of statements) asserting a relation between events is subject to confirmation and disconfirmation, the combination of interrelations as established by the historical narrative is not, even though such combination of interrelations represents a real combination in past reality and is claimed to be true. As if to further complicate the problem, Mink maintains that history shares its form with fiction. Three and a half decades after Mink formulated the problem of narrative truth, it has not been dealt with in a satisfying manner. Mink does not solve nor dissolve the problem he posed. That task is taken up in this essay. It will move us away from the vocabulary of literary theory towards a pragmatist account of narrative truth.


2008 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 46-62 ◽  
Author(s):  
Judith T. Shuval ◽  
Sky E. Gross

This article focuses on midwives who practice complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) in Israel. After qualifying as nurses in mainstream biomedical institutions, these midwives have, at some point in their careers, opted to study a variety of CAM skills and practice them in hospital delivery rooms in Israel. The authors explore the relationship of selected elements of feminist ideology to the epistemology of CAM midwives. Seven context-specific themes are viewed as central to their epistemological stance: rejection of the medicalization of birth; a strong belief in the “naturalness” of childbirth; rejection of the overuse of technology; empowerment of women; nostalgia and reverence for the past; centrality of intuition, feeling, and emotion; and active advocacy. In-depth, semistructured interviews were carried out during 2004 to 2005 with 13 midwives. These narratives provided empirical material for a qualitative analysis. Evidence is shown to demonstrate the unique feminist quality of the core beliefs of the CAM midwives.


Author(s):  
Filipe Silva de Oliveira ◽  
Edson José Wartha

ResumoHistória da Ciência e Ensino de Ciências são áreas do conhecimento com possibilidades de interface anunciadas e investigadas na atualidade, desse modo, produzindo conhecimento a comunidade de pesquisa interessada em encontrar caminhos didáticos para a sala de aula. Por meio de Narrativas Históricas (NHs), Estudo de Caso e sistematicamente Sequências Didáticas, essa interface tem sido desenvolvida. O estudo de textos históricos de divulgação científica auxilia a compreender a divulgação do conhecimento científico para o público comum no passado, acredita-se ser possível o uso desses textos na construção de materiais didáticos como Narrativas Históricas (NHs) e Estudo de Caso. Neste artigo discutimos características enunciadas em textos de divulgação científica escritos por um divulgador da ciência brasileiro, relacionando essas características na construção de Narrativas Históricas que venham a utilizar os textos desse divulgador. As características são conteúdo temático, composição do enunciado e estilo verbal. Essas características auxiliam na compreensão dos textos desse divulgador no processo de construção das Narrativas Históricas.Palavras-chave: Ensino de Ciências. História da Ciência. Divulgação Científica. Narrativa Histórica. AbstractHistory of Science and Science Teaching are areas of knowledge with possibilities of interface announced and investigated today, thus, producing knowledge to the research community interested in finding didactic paths for the classroom.  Through Historical Narratives (NHs) Case Study and systematically Instructional Sequences, this interface been developed. The study of historical texts of scientific popularization assist to understand the popularization scientific knowledge to the common public in the past, it is believed that the use of these is possible in the construction of instruction materials such as Historical Narratives (NHs) and Case Study. In this paper we discuss characteristics stated in scientific popularization texts written by a Brazilian science disseminator, relating these characteristics in the construction of Historical Narratives that come to use the texts of disseminator. Features are thematic content, statement composition and verbal style. These characteristics assist in the understand of the texts of this disseminator in the process of construction the Historical Narratives.Keywords: Science Teaching. History of Science. Scientific Popularization. Historical Narrative.


2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (6) ◽  
Author(s):  
Zbigniew Szmyt

This paper investigates the relationship between animism and public past in post-socialist Inner Asia. The analysis was based on three case studies highlighting key features of the relationship between local conceptions of personhood, non-human agency, and their role in structuring native visions of the past: (1) negotiations between families and the spirits  of their ancestors – victims of communist purges in Mongolia, (2) a powerful necro-persona that allows local communities to gain political subjectivity and undermine conventional post-Soviet historical narratives, and (3) the return of the undead lama Itigilov that caused Buddhist revival in Buryatia. Posthuman agents have been involved in mythopraxis,  through which native regimes of historicity are established.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document