scholarly journals The Disciplines of Geography: Constructing Space in the Ancient World

2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Gina Konstantopoulos

AbstractThis article serves as introduction to a special double issue of the journal, comprised of seven articles that center on the theme of space and place in the ancient world. The essays examine the ways in which borders, frontiers, and the lands beyond them were created, defined, and maintained in the ancient world. They consider such themes within the context of the Old Assyrian period, the Hittite empire, and the Neo-Assyrian empire, as well as within the broader scope of Biblical texts and the Graeco-Roman world. As we only see evidence of a documented, physical, and thus fixed map in the later stages of Mesopotamian history, the ancient world primarily conceived of space through mental maps rather than physical ones. Thus, while the societies of the ancient Near East integrated knowledge gained by actual contact with distant lands into their world view, it was also informed by the literary conceptions of those same spaces. These mental maps were unsurprisingly prone to shifting over time, changing as the social conceptions of the world itself, its border and frontiers, the lands that lay beyond them and how those places might be defined, also changed. These papers question the intersection of concrete and fantastical, or real and imagined, that existed in both the ancient and pre-modern world, where distant locations become elaborately embroidered by fantastical constructions, despite the concrete connections of travel, trade, and even military enterprise.

2001 ◽  
pp. 13-17
Author(s):  
Serhii Viktorovych Svystunov

In the 21st century, the world became a sign of globalization: global conflicts, global disasters, global economy, global Internet, etc. The Polish researcher Casimir Zhigulsky defines globalization as a kind of process, that is, the target set of characteristic changes that develop over time and occur in the modern world. These changes in general are reduced to mutual rapprochement, reduction of distances, the rapid appearance of a large number of different connections, contacts, exchanges, and to increase the dependence of society in almost all spheres of his life from what is happening in other, often very remote regions of the world.


2021 ◽  
pp. 127-161
Author(s):  
Dennis Niemann

AbstractIn Chap. 10.1007/978-3-030-78885-8_5, Dennis Niemann analyzes international organizations (IOs) and their education ideas. Different ideological paradigms dominated the global education discourse at different periods. Fundamentally, they revolve around two poles of an economic utilitarian view on education and on an interpretation that emphasizes the social and cultural value of education. Both leitmotifs were influenced by general developments in world politics, and they were also reflected within IOs. Niemann analyzes how global education IOs, specifically the World Bank, the OECD, UNESCO, and the ILO, influenced the global discourse on education. First, he argues that within the IOs, the antipodal views on education became more complementary over time. Second, he demonstrates the pattern of interaction between the IOs has also changed from competition to cooperation.


2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 86-100
Author(s):  
Svetlana V. Riazanova

The point of the author’s research interest is mechanisms for the formation of a private religious community on the example of the Intersession brotherhood. A group of believers was emerged as part of the revival of the Orthodox life of the Kama region, but transformed into specific organization with features of popular religion, new religious movements and so-called “historical sects.” Author reconstructs the history of the community involving elements of the biographical method. The study is based on interviews and correspondence with former members of the community, close people of the residents of the commune, as well as analysis of the materials of the closed group on the social network, some audio of the groups’ seminars, photocopies of the working notebooks of the group and a series of photographs made by the believers. The investigation is based on the theoretical constructions of E. Goffman and the concept of total community. Intersession brotherhood appears as a community with the features of totality – territorial and communication closure of the residents, their employment in internal jobs, perception of the group as a family. Lack of privacy is combined with the presence of “mother-child” connection to the leader. The practice of naming for adults, the creation of new marriages, participation in gender-oriented councils create a special micro-environment with the unification of the world view. The system of privileges for advanced residents is supplemented by a developed system of fines. It makes possible to speak about special tools that lead to a change of values, a narrowing of the set of social roles and a reduction of critical thinking.


Author(s):  
Radcliffe G. Edmonds III

This introductory chapter provides a definition of magic. One of the most useful adjustments in the recent scholarship on magic has been the turn to considering magic as a dynamic social construct, instead of some particular reality. Magic is not a thing, but a way of talking. Thus, magic is a discourse pertaining to non-normative ritualized activity, in which the deviation from the norm is most often marked in terms of the perceived efficacy of the act, the familiarity of the performance within the cultural tradition, the ends for which the act is performed, or the social location of the performer. Such a discourse always has a history, since such a way of talking about things shifts over time as different people do the talking. When one speaks of “magic,” therefore, one should always explain: “magic for whom?” Any specific piece of evidence from the ancient Greco-Roman world provides an example of magic for that particular person, from one particular perspective. To speak of “magic in the ancient Greco-Roman world” is thus to refer to the whole range of things that various people in those cultures during those times could label as “magic.” The chapter then considers the act of drawing down the moon.


2019 ◽  
pp. 63-85
Author(s):  
J.P.S. Uberoi

This chapter presents a discussion of international intellectual trends in the social sciences, theoretical and empirical studies in India, the question of independence of mind or home rule in intellectual institutions. Following the swarajist project outlined earlier of viewing Europe and its systems of knowledge and practices from an independent Indian point of view, this chapter is in effect a research outline for a new structural sociology in India. We are introduced to structuralism as it exists in the world, its scope and definition and as a methodology for the social sciences. This is followed by the approach to structuralism as scientific theory, method and as philosophical world view. Finally discusses are the principles of structural analysis, structuralism in language, literature and culture, in social structure, with regard to society and the individual, religion, philosophy, politics, sociology and social-anthropology.


Author(s):  
Steve Bruce

Although we can view sociology as a disinterested intellectual discipline that stands aside from the world it observes, sociology is itself a symptom of the very things it describes. ‘The modern world’ summarizes what sociology sees as distinctive about the social formations that concern it, considering modernity, social order, social mobility, and postmodernity. The key sociological proposition that much of our world is inadvertent and unintended is important, not just for understanding why things do not go as planned, but also for understanding why things are as they are. This has serious policy implications, because if we misunderstand the causes of what concerns us, we misdirect our efforts to change it.


2020 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
pp. 90-107
Author(s):  
Eric Smith

Abstract Paul had a clear understanding of how his calling and his work mapped onto geography. In contexts where he felt that others were encroaching on his territory, as in Galatians and 2 Corinthians, Paul could be very angry and defensive. Likewise, when Paul was writing to people in territories that he did not consider part of his purview, such as in Romans, he was deferential and submissive. In all three cases—in Galatians and 2 Corinthians when Paul was being defensive about his territory, and in Romans when he was being deferential—Paul used a particular word, κλίµα, to designate geography—a word he never used in any other context. This article puts this observation in conversation with ancient mapping, which relied on “process descriptions” of space and place rather than “state descriptions.” That is, ancient cartography privileged the process of movement or travel, and in contrast to most modern mapping, ancient maps didn’t usually make use of any external system of reference. One particular map, the Peutinger Map, helps illustrate this phenomenon. Understanding how ancient maps organized space, we can begin to understand Paul’s notions of territory and the way they determined which places he felt compelled to visit. By knowing something about Paul’s maps and geographies, we can make sense of his language in Romans 15, where territory played a pivotal role in his self-understanding as an apostle and in his trajectory across the Roman world, “from Jerusalem and as far around as Illyricum,” but also onward to Spain and to the end of the world.


PMLA ◽  
1973 ◽  
Vol 88 (2) ◽  
pp. 233-239 ◽  
Author(s):  
Max Dorsinville

Jack of Newbury's surface realism in characters, setting, and speech has led to an underestimation of its historical and literary value. A close reading reveals the consistent use of the Greco-Roman ethical-political conception of the state, epitomized in the figure of the ruler. Deloney shows his familiarity with this tradition, probably known to him through Erasmus and Sidney, in the three controlling motifs of his novel. First, the middle class of weavers, represented in Jack's household and dramatized in allegories and symbols, is portrayed as a self-sufficient state where peace and harmony reign. Second, this state is shown to be such because of the nature of its ruler, Jack, a benevolent, generous, wise man. Third, the middle-class way of life—hard work, thriftiness, material gains—serves as princely education; accordingly, Jack, from a menial position, goes on to become ruler of the state. Jack of Newbury, as a systematical reordering of an aristocratic tradition, represents the world view of the emergent middle class; and as such, a momentous shift in the social temper of the Renaissance and an important step in the evolution of the novel.


2020 ◽  
Vol 74 (4) ◽  
pp. 20-24
Author(s):  
А. Aldasheva ◽  
◽  
Ch. Ordabayev ◽  
А. Nabidullin ◽  
◽  
...  

There is no doubt that English is the most important communication tool in the modern world. Everyone uses it. From children to scientists and politicians. It is a language of business, education and communication between different nations of the world. This high usage and diversity of people using it undoubtedly led to its simplification and other changes in all aspects, including grammatical structures. Language is like a living organism. It does not remain unchanged; on the contrary, it shifts and develops over time. Modern English is very different from the language Brits used centuries ago. It is not even the same language it was ten years ago. In order to be a successful communicator you need to know and adjust to these changes. This article is dedicated to research about grammatical structures of Modern English of 21st century.


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