The New Consul and the Eagles of Jupiter: Poetics and Propaganda in Claudian’s Preface to the Panegyric for Mallius Theodorus

Philologus ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 165 (2) ◽  
pp. 273-294
Author(s):  
Álvaro Sánchez-Ostiz
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Heritage ◽  
Significant Role ◽  
The Political ◽  
The West ◽  
Political Messages ◽  
Communicative Context

Abstract This article proposes an interpretation of Claudian’s preface to his Panegyric for Mallius Theodorus that places the poem in the communicative context of its recitation and in the literary frame of the panegyric. An analysis of the political messages in both poems, the panegyric and its brief ‘paratext’, reveals that the preface consistently uses the myth of the two eagles of Jupiter to indicate symbolically that the new consul is still upholding ‘genuine’ Hellenic culture in the West. This interpretation illustrates how Claudian’s poems for the new consul of 399 assume the Greek cultural heritage to be a part of the Roman identity and that they play a significant role in the poet’s agenda between 397–400, by progressively unveiling the anti-Byzantinism of the Western court.

Piracy in Asian Waters Part 2: Piracy, Sovereignty, and the Early Modern Asian State—An Introduction

2013 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-7
Author(s):  
Sebastian R. Prange ◽  
Robert J. Antony
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Significant Role ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Imagination ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
The West ◽  
Empire Building ◽  
The Social ◽  
Asian State ◽  
Political Dimensions

Abstract This is the second of a two-part special issue on piracy in Asian waters. Part 1 (vol. 16, no. 6) explored the social and economic dynamics of pan-Asian piracy, and here in Part 2, contributors delve into the political dimensions of piracy by focusing on its interrelationship with notions of sovereignty, the changing nature of states in early modern Asia, and the rise of global seaborne empires. The four articles here challenge the conventional wisdom that Asian waters were great voids in indigenous political imagination and that Asian polities never regulated maritime space before the arrival of the West. Piracy played a significant role in the intense economic rivalries and competing political claims over sovereignty, not just between Western imperial powers but also among indigenous polities. Maritime space, therefore, was actively contested by both European powers and by various Asian states. In this contestation the early modern Asian pirate served as both instrument and contender of nascent projects of empire-building and sovereignty.

scholarly journals REVIEW: Noted: Questions of great intricacy opened up to non-Arabic audience

2017 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 280
Author(s):  
Philip Leslie Cass
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Middle East ◽  
Arab World ◽  
The Political ◽  
The West ◽  
Arab Media ◽  
Political Messages

Media and Political Contestation in the Contemporary Arab World, edited by Lena Jayyusi and Anne Sofie Roald. Basingstoke/New York: Palgrave MacMillan 2016. 327 pages. ISBN 978-1-137-5252-2-2.MEDIA and Political Contestation in the Contemporary Arab World explores the extremely complicated reality of the Arab media and its place in the political and cultural debates that are rarely recognised or understood in the west. In the Middle East, media of all kinds, from clothes to pop songs, carry heavily loaded political messages that simply cannot be avoided and which can cause political explosions.

Fragmentation as a Challenge: Tribal and Sectrarian Identities in the Middle East

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 85-85
Author(s):  
Kleanthis Kyriakidis
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Cultural Heritage ◽  
Significant Role ◽  
Arabian Gulf ◽  
The State ◽  
Islamic Revolution ◽  
Direct Response ◽  
Tribal Identity ◽  
Gulf States ◽  
The Ideal

In the Arabian Gulf two identities can be really considered almost as important as the national one: the tribal and the sectarian ones. Someone should expect that the reinforcement of these identities is a direct response to inequality and processes of exclusion. Furthermore, parochial tribalism is expected to arise as the protector of cultural heritage, especially in a region where the ex-pats vastly outnumber the locals. Nonetheless, both statements are far from truth. In this paper we will analyze how in the Gulf, sectarian identity came to play a significant role only after the 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran and it keeps on surviving through mainly instigations and Iranian propaganda, provocations and support. It should be noted that Sunni identity has been allegedly subjugated in other Middle East States (mainly in Syria and Iraq) but in the Gulf the sectarian challenge stems from the Shia communities, openly supported by Tehran. Strangely enough, the tribal identity does not pose that much of a challenge, since tribes are more the friend than the enemy of all Gulf States. Actually, these countries could not have survived without the loyalty and commitment of the tribes not only to the Royal families but also to the idea of the State and the ideal of the Nation – and Gulf Nations do protect their cultural heritage. Keywords: Gulf, Globalization, Fragmentation, Sectarianism, Tribalism

The Nazarean Legacy

1998 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-24
Author(s):  
Ataullah Bogdan Kopanski
Keyword(s):  
East Africa ◽  
Significant Role ◽  
Pure Water ◽  
Capital City ◽  
Political Life ◽  
The Political ◽  
Independent State ◽  
Barren Land

After Pompey Magnus’s conquest of the Hellenistic East in 64 B.c., theRoman administrators of Asia Occidentalis divided the Arabian peninsulainto three realms: Arabia Petraea (Rocky Arabia), which stretchedfrom Greater Syria to the Gulf of Ayala (Aqaba), and whose capital inPetra (the Rock) was carved out by the Nabateans from sandstone on theslopes of Ain Musa; Arabia Deserta (desert Arabia) with Bostra (Busra)as the commercial capital in Hawran; and Arabia Felix (happy Arabia)or Yemen with the capital city of Mariaba (Ma’rib). Arabia Petraea,despite its wilderness, played a significant role in the political life of theempire.’ Because of the natural supply of pure water in the barren land,it was a midpoint on the ancient caravan route from Hadramaut to Egyptand Syria. A variety of goods-the myrrh and frankincense of theSabaean Arabia Felix, ivory, gold, and slaves of East Africa, spices,gems, and precious wood of India- were transported via Petra andGerasa (Jerash) to Damascus, Alexandria, and Rome. In Arabia Petraea,the Prophet Yusuf was cast into a well by his brothers from which he wasfound and brought to Egypt, where he was sold. Many readers of theBible believe that Ain Musa near Petra is the spring that the ProphetMusa caused to gush forth. In the time of the Prophet Sulayman, ArabiaPetraea was populated by the semitic tribes of Edom and Moab. Duringthe rule of the Babylonian Nabuchadnezzar who sacked Jerusalem in 587B.c. and deported Judean rebels to Babylon, the Edomites established akingdom of Sela in the land of Seir. But at the end of the sixth centuryB.c., the Nabateans forced them to migrate to Idumea. Under theNabatean rule, Petra was recognized as the ancient “duty-fire” city. TheNabatean desert kingdom survived as an independent state until the ...

Charlemagne’s Health in ‘Old Age’: Did It Affect Carolingian Military Strategy?

Mediaevistik ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 11-53
Author(s):  
Bernard S. Bachrach
Keyword(s):  
Old Age ◽  
The Political ◽  
Military Strategy ◽  
The West ◽  
Long Time

During the first thirty-three years of his reign as king of the Franks, i.e., prior to his coronation as emperor on Christmas day 800, Charlemagne, scholars generally agree, pursued a successful long-term offensive and expansionist strategy. This strategy was aimed at conquering large swaths of erstwhile imperial territory in the west and bringing under Carolingian rule a wide variety of peoples, who either themselves or their regional predecessors previously had not been subject to Frankish regnum.1 For a very long time, scholars took the position that Charlemagne continued to pursue this expansionist strategy throughout the imperial years, i.e., from his coronation on Christmas Day 800 until his final illness in later January 814. For example, Louis Halphen observed: “comme empereur, Charles poursuit, sans plus, l’oeuvre entamée avant l’an 800.”2 F. L. Ganshof, who also wrote several studies treating Charlemagne’s army, was in lock step with Halphen and observed: “As emperor, Charlemagne pursued the political and military course he had been following before 25 December 800.”3

‘There shall be no musical servitude’: Towards a Multitudinous Shostakovich in the West

2020 ◽  
Vol 145 (2) ◽  
pp. 495-505
Author(s):  
EIRINI DIAMANTOULI
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Communist Party ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
Musical Style ◽  
The West ◽  
Political Views ◽  
Political Interests ◽  
The One ◽  
The Cold War

Ideologically motivated attempts to elucidate Shostakovich’s political views and to determine whether and how they may be coded into his compositions have come to characterize the Western reception of the composer’s works since his death in 1975. Fuelled by the political oppositions of the cold war, Shostakovich’s posthumous reputation in the West has been largely shaped by two conflicting perspectives. These have positioned him on the one hand as a secret dissident, bent and broken under the unbearable strain of totalitarianism, made heroic through his veiled musical resistance to Communism; and on the other hand as a composer compromised by his capitulation to the regime – represented in an anachronistic musical style. Both perspectives surrender Shostakovich and his music to a crude oversimplification driven by vested political interests. Western listeners thus conditioned are primed to hear either the coded dissidence of a tragic victim of Communist brutality or the sinister submission of a ‘loyal son of the Communist Party’.1 For those prepared to accept Shostakovich as a ‘tragic victim’, the publication of his purported memoirs in 1979, ‘as related to and edited by’ the author Solomon Volkov, presents a tantalizing conclusion: bitterly yet discreetly scornful of the Stalinist regime, Shostakovich was indeed a secret dissident and this dissidence was made tangible in his music.

scholarly journals Ethos in Early Chinese Rhetoric: The Case of “Heaven”

Humanities ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 7
Author(s):  
Yong-Kang Wei
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Heritage ◽  
Chinese Society ◽  
Cultural Tradition ◽  
The West ◽  
Chinese Tradition ◽  
Rhetorical Tradition ◽  
Chinese Rhetoric ◽  
Human Desire ◽  
Collective Ethos ◽  
The Universe

Though applicable in many Western historical-cultural settings, the Aristotelian model of ethos is not universal. As early Chinese rhetoric shows in the example of cheng-yan or “ethos of sincereness,” inspiring trust does not necessarily involve a process of character-based self-projection. In the Aristotelian model, the rhetor stands as a signifier of ethos, with an ideology of individualism privileged, whereas Chinese rhetoric assumes a collectivist model in which ethos belongs, not to an individual or a text, but rather to culture and cultural tradition. This essay will be concentrating on the concept of Heaven, central to the cultural and institutional systems of early Chinese society, in an attempt to explore collective ethos as a function of cultural heritage. Heaven, it shall be argued, plays a key role in the creation of Chinese ethos. This essay will also contrast the logocentrism of Western rhetorical tradition with the ethnocentrism of Chinese tradition. The significance of Heaven in its role as a defining attribute of Chinese ethos is reflective of a unique cultural heritage shaped by a collective human desire in seeking a consciousness of unity with the universe. Just as there are historical, cultural, and philosophical reasons behind logocentrism in the West, so the ethnocentric turn of Chinese rhetoric should be appreciated in light of a cultural tradition that carries its own historical complexities and philosophical intricacies.

Memorialising Europe

2008 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 6-33 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Jan Margry
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Heritage ◽  
Civil Religion ◽  
Political Agenda ◽  
The Political ◽  
European Identity ◽  
European Values ◽  
Identity Based ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Political Unification ◽  
European Form

In the economic and political unification process of Europe, the idea of the creation of a pan-European identity was put high on the political agenda. With the failure of this effort, the emphasis shifted to the apparently less fraught concept of 'shared cultural heritage'. This article analyses how the politically guided rediscovery of Europe's past has contributed to the creation of a 'Religion of Heritage', not only by raising up a political altar for cultural heritage, but also through the revitalisation, instrumentalisation and transformation of the Christian heritage, in order to try to memorialise and affirm a collective European identity based on its Christian past. In the context of this process, the network of European pilgrims' ways appears to have been an especially successful performative form of heritage creation, which has both dynamised Christian roots as a relevant trans-European form of civil religion that has taken shape, capitalising on the new religious and spiritual demands created by secularisation, and responded to the demand for shared - and Christian inspired - European values and meanings in times of uncertainty and crisis.

The Free Republican Party in the political cartoons of the 1930s

2015 ◽  
Vol 53 ◽  
pp. 93-136
Author(s):  
Gökçen Başaran İnce
Keyword(s):  
Thematic Analysis ◽  
Republican Party ◽  
Party System ◽  
Historical Memory ◽  
Political Cartoons ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Messages ◽  
People's Party ◽  
The Social ◽  
Kemal Ataturk

AbstractThe Free Republican Party (FRP; Serbest Cumhuriyet Fırkası), founded and dissolved in 1930, represented the second attempt to transition to a multi-party system in Turkey, following the formation of the Progressive Republican Party (Terakkiperver Cumhuriyet Fırkası) in 1924. In contrast to the oppositional establishment of the latter, the FRP seemed to be a state-originated project whose establishment was decided upon by the elites of the day, led by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. Its representation in contemporary cartoons is deemed important today given the political cartoon’s ability to simplify complex political messages into understandable symbols and metaphors and to address or reach those who may not be literate. Taking into account the social structure of society during this period, this aspect of the reach of cartoons becomes particularly important. Political cartoons’ ability to both support the text in a newspaper and penetrate historical memory through stereotypes is also significant in terms of the representation of personalities and events. This article will attempt to analyze the formation of the FRP and the depiction of its elites through newspaper cartoons. Three prominent and pro-Republican People’s Party (Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi) newspapers of this period—namely Cumhuriyet, Milliyet, and Vakit—will provide the material for the content and thematic analysis of the study.

The Diverse Roots of the ‘Secular’ in East Pakistan (1947–71) and the Crisis of ‘Secularism’ in Contemporary Bangladesh

2017 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 156-173 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mubashar Hasan
Keyword(s):  
Significant Role ◽  
Religion And Politics ◽  
The Political ◽  
Religious Nationalism ◽  
Political Forces ◽  
Multiple Meanings

This article traces the formation of the secular in Bangladesh during the period of 1947–71. Arguably, this is a period when the idea of a ‘secular Bengali nation’ as opposed to ‘Islamic Pakistani nationalism’ was coined in by the political forces to foster imagination of a Bengali root of East Pakistan. This article argues with multiple evidence that particular project of secular Bengali nationalism in the sense of strict separation of religion and politics as opposed to religious nationalism makes little sense in contemporary Bangladesh as major parties here are found to manipulate religious nationalism in a society where simplistic and unenlightened interpretation of religion plays a significant role. This article argues that the idea of secular nationalism had multiple meanings and roots during 1947–71 and by acknowledging diverse roots of secular nationalism, it is possible to make sense of contemporary Bangladesh that is by all secular indicators turned into an intolerant entity but at the same time it is equally important to note that Bangladesh's intolerance is devoid of enlightened application and teaching of Islam.

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